This article series will be very important for those interested in the distant starlight issue.  Secular astronomers claim that the light from the most distant galaxies has taken billions of years to reach Earth.  We can see these galaxies in our most powerful telescopes.  Many people conclude from this that the universe must be billions of years old, and therefore that the biblical description of creation is false.  But the notion that light takes billions of years to get from distant galaxies to Earth is predicated upon a particular modern convention of how we choose to define the timing of distant events. 

The Scopes trial of 1925 was a pivotal case for the teaching of evolution in public schools.  At that time the State of Tennessee did not permit the evolution of man from lower primates to be taught in state-funded schools according to the Butler Act.  Many other states had similar laws.  The ACLU sought to challenge the validity of this law by offering to defend anyone accused of violating it.  John Scopes agreed to be prosecuted.  From a legal perspective, the trial was about whether Scopes had violated the Butler Act.  But the defense attorney Clarence Darrow wanted to use this trial to discredit Christianity in general and creation in particular.  He secured the written testimony of eight experts on the science of evolution.  None of these were seen by the jury because the judge ruled that they were irrelevant to the legal issue of the trial.  We examined three of these expert testimonies in part 1 and found that their arguments have not aged well.  We here examine the testimonies of the remaining five experts.

July 10, 2025, marked the 100th anniversary of the start of the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial,” in which John Scopes was accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.  The trial was the inspiration for the heavily fictionized play (and subsequent movies) Inherit the Wind.  The Scopes trial was considered a victory for the teaching of evolution in public schools.   But what actually happened at this trial?  Was the scientific evidence really a powerful refutation of biblical creation?  Would it stand up to modern scrutiny?

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe.  It is the lightest element, consisting of one proton encircled by one electron.  About 91% of the atoms in the universe are hydrogen.  Helium is the next most abundant.  It is the second-lightest element, consisting of two protons and two neutrons in the nucleus, encircled by two electrons.  Helium constitutes just under 9% of the atoms in the universe.  All the remaining elements combined constitute less than 1%.  Astronomers refer to these heavier elements as metals.  In astronomy, a metal is any element with an atomic number higher than 2.  Note that this is different from the definition used by chemists.  In astronomy metals include elements like oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon.  Metals pose a serious challenge for advocates of the big bang and secular models of galaxy evolution.  But they are a feature and natural expectation of biblical creation.

We have been examining the claims of Liam, who denies the Trinity in general and who, in particular, denies that Jesus is God.  This ultimately is not an intellectual exercise but a spiritual one.  It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that a person can declare with conviction that Jesus is Yahweh – the Lord.  1 Corinthians 12:3b states, “And no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”  Furthermore, confessing Jesus as Lord is a requirement for salvation (Romans 10:9-13), for there is no Savior besides the one and only Yahweh (Isaiah 43:11).  Therefore, if Jesus is not Yahweh, then neither can He be your Savior. 

Our feedback this week comes from someone we’ll call “Liam.”  He rejects the Trinity and specifically rejects that Jesus is God and that the Holy Spirit is a Person of the triune God.  The interesting thing about Liam’s response is that most of his arguments were already refuted in the very articles he’s criticizing.  It always seems strange to me when a person responds to a refutation of their argument by simply repeating the argument.  For example, there is the fallacy of claiming that the Holy Spirit isn’t a Person of the Trinity because in many instances only the Father and Son are mentioned in a greeting.  That is the fallacy of the argument from silence as I demonstrated earlier.  But there were a couple of new arguments that will be addressed here and in the next article.