Big Bang Mythology: Deceiving and Being Deceived
Dr. James J. S. Johnson
Some Get a “Bang” Out of Fables
The Bible, to read, some are able,
Yet prefer to read a false fable;
Though God’s Word says “6 days,”
A “Big Bang” gets their praise,
Their doctrine, therefore, is unstable.*
Earlier today a false teacher in Chennai (India), via email, arrogantly offered to teach — on behalf of a Biblical graduate school in Texas (!) — the so-called “Big Bang” cosmogony (a popular fake-science myth invented by a Bible-rejecting Roman Catholic priest named Georges Lemaître).
In other words, the fake-science charlatan wanted to academically promote anti-Genesis mythology, as an instructor representing a Biblical college! What brazen audacity!
That evolutionist academic was not only a deceiver, he was himself deceived.
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving [planôntes – present active participle], and being deceived [planômenoi – present passive participle]. (2nd Timothy 3:13)
Should we be surprised when false teachers are themselves also deceived?
No, if we read Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, — because those who deviate from truth-telling are themselves callous and careless about recognizing what is really true (versus what is untrue). Part of that ugly reality is linked to how God judicially punishes false teachers, nowadays, for their sinful deceits. (Notice that this is a form of punishment that occurs on Earth; this punishment’s imposition does not wait for the hereafter.)
Rejecting Gods’ truth comes at a price – and part of that price is, tragically, a “reprobate mind” (as Paul teaches in Romans 1:28).
God provides evidentiary proof of His creatorship to mankind. Some may think that they, like Pontius Pilate, are putting the Lord on trial as they decide what to do with His creation evidences, but they are the ones on trial—He is testing them.
When skeptics choke on the idea of acknowledging how creation proves God’s workmanship, He gives them over to a “debased mind” (Romans 1:28). There is a logical connection between disapproving God’s creatorship and being abandoned to a corrupted mind. That connection is rooted in a New Testament Greek verb, dokeô, because two words in Romans 1:28 derive from it:
And even as they did not like to retain [ouk edokimasan, literally “did not approve”] God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased [adokimon, literally “unapproving”] mind.
The common root verb, dokeô, means “to approve,” i.e., to accept the proof of. It denotes the following two-step process: (1) considering the available evidence; and (2) accepting the truth of whatever the reliable evidence shows. In English, we have the related words “prove,” “proof,” “probate,” “probative,” “approve,” and “approbate.” Like the Greek, these terms point to mankind’s mental ability to reasonably recognize and weigh evidence, using analytical logic for arriving at sound evaluations. But this ability is corruptible and is damaged whenever the clear proof of God’s creatorship is irrationally disregarded.
Biblically speaking, a “reprobate mind” (“debased mind” in NKJV) is a mind that can’t discern what is right, true, or good—it is morally corrupt and deprived of good judgment.
The tragic and terrible reality is that being given over to a debased mind is not a punishment that follows death; it is a consequence in the here-and-now.
So truth is exchanged for a lie, and good is exchanged for evil. In this “mental leprosy,” people lose the ability to recognize correct information even to the point of self-destruction.
[Quoting from JJSJ, “The Truth Test”, ACTS & FACTS, 43(1):22 (January AD2014), posted at www.icr.org/article/7866 .]
Deception comes at us from almost all directions, sometimes leaping at us, sometimes slinking around like a snake or a creeping scorpion, sometimes parading in like a self-appointed “expert” — so we must promptly recognize all such deceptions as the distractions that they are. [See JJSJ, “Staying on Track, Despite Deceptive Distractions”, ACTS & FACTS, 41(5):9-11 (May AD2012), posted at www.icr.org/article/6757 .]
*The above-quoted original limerick first appeared in James J. S. Johnson, “The Religion-and-Science Connection Between Pseudônumos and Pseudomarturia: How Special Revelation Describes the Limitations of General Revelation”, presented at the Southwest Regional Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, at The Criswell College, Dallas, Texas, March 27th, AD2009.
Photo credit above: Rosetta Galaxy (Pinterest)
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