Recently, during a Sunday School Class I came up with those three words to help define differences between the secular and the Christian world views as each one makes inferences about the world around us. The contrast between these two world views is stark when looked at through those words. These words not only show the differences, but they help explain how the Christian world view is true.

I am supposing books could be written fully detailing the substance involved with these three words. But for the purposes of this article, I merely want to explain how they can be used in an apologetic defending our faith and presenting the Gospel message to unbelievers. Each point is significant as it describes the foundational elements to both world views.

The first term, Interpretation, describes a condition that mankind has, which describes the way man perceives the world in which we all live and their limitations. The secular side has many adherents that have different names to describe their proclivity. Many times these names are nearly interchangeable. For example, the term atheist, which is essentially a religious term, can include other groups like secularism. Another major sub-group that can be included under the atheist heading are naturalists. They believe that the visible word, the world of our senses is all there is.

Many of the particular sciences and the academics who are engaged in their individual pursuits like, geology, astronomy, biology, etcetera, adhere to this atheistic camp. But not everyone who pursues degrees in these fields of study agrees with the conclusions of those atheists. Recently, believers are showing how the interpreting done by the majority is inadequate and that there are entirely different ways of looking at the facts being presented. This, by the way, essentially shows us that facts aren’t necessarily the truth. A good example of this is the geologic time table used by atheists.

Their view says that the world came into being billions of years ago and that life on earth is millions and millions of years old, beginning with some sort of single cell life form that came out of a primordial soup. Then, they move into the fossil and rock layers as evidence. However, this evidence has major flaws, but you won’t hear much about those from them. One huge flaw the secular geologists use is to date the age the fossils by the type of rocks they are found in. Then they then turn around and use those fossils to age the sedimentary rocks where they are found. This my friend is a circular argument and doesn’t prove anything.

Another prime example is found in biology. The coelacanth was known only as a fossil that had lived millions of years ago. However, a living example of it was caught in the ocean and today there are others currently swimming around in large aquariums. These fish have at minimum been recorded swimming in the ocean with humans wearing scuba gear. The atheistic biologists had to invent a new term for them, so they called them living fossils. They should have been more original then that because the term living fossil is a contradiction of terms.

Something very important to point out to these atheists is that there weren’t any human beings alive at this time to observe any of those historic creatures or the events of this distant past. On the other hand, Christians have a completely different take on these same facts that have been observed.

First and foremost, Christians believe God created everything, including time itself. That means that the God of this universe was there at that time. He has had the whole of creation written down for man to use as a guide book. We call this written record The Bible. The history contained therein should help man interpret the past events and remaining evidence we find today. The previous examples, that have been used, have a more accurate interpretation than the one’s given by secular geologists and biologists.

The geologic time table they employ has no consistency. There isn’t one complete example of its claims to a timeline found anywhere in the world. Partial conditions of this timeline are either out of order or missing entirely. Believers who study these phenomena have a perfectly good causal explanation. A great catastrophe, like Noah’s flood, would create this inconsistent layering of fossils and rock layers.

About that so called living fossil there are some observations one can say about it too. The most obvious point is that it is indeed living and it is certainly a fish. Yes, there is a fossil of this fish recorded in a sedimentary rock structure. This means that no evolutionary process has occurred between the fossil and the example of the living coelacanth seen today. It is sensible to conclude that vast amounts of time haven’t occurred to create that fossil and that that a great tumultuous flood created the layering of sediment where pressure created those rocks and the immediate fossilizing of the fossils found in them.

What these examples show us is that while men today didn’t observe those past events directly, the Creator God, who has been observing the events of everything he’s made has provided the inquisitive mind of man, who was made in His image by the way, a useful timeline to interpret past events and secularists would be wise to follow where the evidence actually leads.