Children wonder and scientists theorize, but Scripture too speaks of the stars, and gives some interesting information that ancient people would have no way of knowing apart from revelation.
Scientists estimate there are over 10 million billion billion stars. Isn’t it interesting that long before telescopes were invented when people still thought they could actually number the stars, the Bible talked about the stars being too many to be counted! Even if you could count 20 numbers per second, it would take at least 100 million billion years to count the stars. Yet God knows how many there are and in fact calls them each by name (Ps. 146:4)
To the naked eye, stars appear simply as sparkling “diamonds in the sky,” except for minute differences in size and brightness. Scientists now recognize a wide range of differences. Through spectroscopic analysis of starlight, scientists believe they can tell how stars differ in surface temperature, chemical composition, magnetic field and other properties. What they are discovering is just what the Bible has said all long, that “one star differeth from another star in glory.” (1 Cor. 15:41)
Evolutionary science uses these differences to try to arrange the stars into stages of stellar evolution. However, just because one can arrange something in some sort of sequence according to physical characteristics, does not necessarily demonstrate evolution. Indeed, the evolutionary scenario for the development of stars is highly speculative – no one has ever observed it, and in fact there are many serious difficulties with it. By contrast, there is nothing in science which contradicts the clear testimony of Scripture: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth … For he spake, and it was done; he commanded and it stood fast” (Psalms 33: 6,9)
(Ref: Morris, H. M. 1984. The Biblical Basis of Modern Science) Originally published in the March/April 1992 of Think and Believe. Please call our office or email us at [email protected] for additional resources on these subjects.
