HAM, Science, and (Yes) Creation

Proud family with certificates and the girls' new radios!

This week our family completed a 7-week course (and passed our tests!) for an Amateur Radio (HAM) license. It was a lot of work and study and I am so proud of Mary Ann and the girls—they scored amazing scores! Though encouraged to get my license for some time, I’ve held off as I have a radio from the fire department I can talk on during fire calls. But, we made the decision to do this based on experiences we had during the Chimney Fire last August when we were in here, the fire was coming, we had no electricity, and I wasn’t officially dispatched on the fire so I couldn’t use my radio. There were multiple times that I needed to go out and help a neighbor, or scout the fire, etc., and Mary Ann and I were not able to communicate with each other (there is no cell coverage where we live), nor contact people around us. In one instances I needed to go and find a friend who had broken down just before dark in a burned over area trying to find lost cows while at the same time, back toward our home, I could see billowing columns of smoke as the fire was breaking loose. It was very hard to not be able to call back and check on things.

As I studied for this HAM course I found myself in awe—not just of the God who made these unseen radio waves and their intricacy and amazing capability, but also of man’s mind that could discover them, and harness them, and make everything from long distance communication to microwaves and so much more. As I looked at how incredible man’s mind is I had the thought, “It is no wonder so many people who are familiar with the amazing scope of what science has done then buy hook, line, and sinker science’s theories about both origins and the age of the earth.”

The problem lies in the vast difference between science that is observable and able to be tested and built upon, and science that is a theory of something that isn’t observable and can’t be tested. The amazing science that harnesses these unseen waves traveling around us can be tested and harnessed. If a mistake is found, or a theory is found to not hold up, then one can go back to the point of break and formulate a new theory and build upon that, slowly advancing. This is important, because everything built past the point of error is built on an error.

An example of this might be a car engine. It begins with some basic theories. These are tested. Different theories are combined (mechanical, electrical, physical sciences, etc.). These are tested, refined, some rejected, some embraced and built upon. When something doesn’t work you stop and fix it. After years of this you end up with some really amazing and advanced engines.

But, something like the origin of the earth and man, is not observable, and it can’t be tested. We can look at the evidence around us—the observable things—and form theories about what happened. We can, when available, read source evidence from accounts of something (like the Bible). But we can’t go back and observe what happened, and so our ideas about it are theories, based for each of us on different things.

The danger is this: unlike observable science in which you can correct a mistake before you move forward and build everything else on that mistake, this type of science doesn’t allow it. If you are wrong about origins, the age of the earth, etc., then everything—your entire foundation of life, and truth, and understanding, and worldview— from that point forward is built on a falsehood and is wrong (or at best, on a shaky foundation). This is very dangerous, as how we make decisions, assess values and priorities, view the Bible and God and eternity, etc. all spring from these first theories, and everything that is extrapolate out from them.

Yes, man’s mind—and much of science—is amazing! But it is only good if it is built on the foundation of the One who created it, and who told us how He did it. We see also, all around us, the horror of man’s brilliance when it is not harnessed to a partnership of God. Yes, our mind is amazing. But is was created to be in relationship to, and partnership with, and submission under, the One who made it and us. The One who gave us the Bible to tell us how He did it.