At 4.2 light-years away, Alpha Centauri is the nearest star system to the earth other than the sun. According to astronomers, the furthest star visible to the unaided human eye is the variable star V762 Cas, an estimated 16,000 light-years away.

For those not versed in astronomical terms, a light-year is the distance light travels in one year. It is equivalent to roughly 5.88 trillion miles.

Tonight, if you can find Alpha Cantauri in the sky, the light you see left that star system over four years ago and traveled nearly 25 trillion miles. If you can spot V762 Cas, the light you see departed 14,000 years before the birth of Jesus Christ.

Or did it?

Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Adam was never an infant. Adam had no earthly parents to teach him to walk, feed himself, or communicate. Yet, the Bible shows he could do all those things from the moment he “became a living being.“

Recently I read an online article where the author (a self identified Christian) was discussing the difference between “believing the Bible” and “believing in the Bible”. He attempted to demonstrate the Bible, while not believable, was to be believed. The author used the story of Jonah to argue the Bible was not “believable” because science proves a man cannot survive in a fish for three days.

And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.

That struck a nerve with me. How many Christians today accept the Bible as written? How many of those that don’t use science to justify their disbelief?

I have read “Christian” theological authors maintain the following:

• The virgin birth could not have happened.
• The great flood could not have covered the entire earth.
• There was no way God could have parted the Red Sea.
• The earth is billions of years old.

All the arguments have been based on science. Let’s take a step back and ask: What is science?

Science, at its very best, attempts to explain the natural, created world. And science is as imperfect as we are. It cannot explain quantum entanglement, can’t cure the common cold or cancer, and can’t find dark matter even after searching for over a century.

God exists in a realm superior to (greater than) nature. Hence the term “supernatural”.

Let me ask a simple question: If God created Adam in a mature state, how do we know He did not create the earth and the heavens in a mature state?

Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

“He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,…”

The stars provided light on earth before Adam lived. On the first night Adam walked the earth, he could see the stars we call Alpha Centauri. Light could have only reached earth if God suspended the laws of physics for a day or God placed a stream of light 4.2 light-years long. But that would be only one star. God must have drawn streams of light from every single heavenly body in the universe toward earth so Adam could see the night sky filled with stars.

God willfully “aged” the universe.

Let me approach this from another perspective for a moment. How do we know we’ve had a past? How do we know we were alive before today? The answer: our memories. After a moment passes, it is the memory remains. Of course, there may be physical indicators as well, a scar, a wrinkle, or maybe a new car in the driveway.

With that concept in mind, let me pose yet another question: How old must science tell us the earth is for us to accept it as fact? What earth age is believable? Four billion years? Four thousand years? Or four seconds?

Before you scoff, please tell me: How would you be able to tell the difference?

God created all matter, energy, and space. God created time. God created Adams as an adult. God positioned light so Adams could see the stars.

The creator controls the created.

God could have created everything we know four seconds ago, “aged” to His liking. Each of us filled with knowledge and memories. Again I ask, how would you know if this was so? What tool do we possess to measure the supernatural?

If God can create an entire universe and placed a nearly infinite number of streams of light stretching trillions of miles just so a man could see the stars, is He not capable of creating the earth at any point in time?

It is only if we shrink God to fit our understanding that we start to doubt what we read in the Bible. It is only if we ignore His divinity that we argue that Johna could not have survived in the fish. God is the creator. He is capable of anything.

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless.” So then let no one boast in men. For all things belong to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things belong to you, and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God.

I am not a “science denier”. I studied physics in college. I have worked with technology for over three decades. But science is a tool invented by man to understand the natural world. Using science to “measure” the supernatural is like using a thermometer to find the distance from Chicago to Perth. Quite simply, the wrong tool.

To limit God to what is explained by science causes us to worship a very small god and it causes us to miss out on the vastness of His Glory.

I am not advocating for a four minute old earth. I am, however, advocating for us all to allow God to be God and to stop constraining Him with our limited understanding.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.