Strategies for survival (with one’s faith intact) include caution. Do not attract unfavourable attention with aggressive questioning of the teacher/professor. It is OK to ask clarifying questions in a low-key manner, however. This strategy may have the good effect of discovering some useful qualifying information about the topic at hand.

The operative approach is critical thinking. How do scientists know what they are declaring as fact? The kinds of questions that could be asked include 1) what were their actual observations? 2) what assumptions were made before the observations could be interpreted? And 3) are there other scientists who interpret the data differently?

Some people may use a “God of the Gaps” argument to try to discourage your faith position. These people suggest that secular science continues to explain more and more aspects of origins in terms of matter and process. The possible areas for us to see God’s work, they say, get smaller and smaller.  The gaps between secular explanations get smaller and smaller, they say and we can expect that this process will continue until there is no room for any appeal to the work of God.

This “God of the Gaps” argument is fallacious however. The secular explanations (like evolution) do not stand up to critical review. You can tell your friends that it is “all gap”! God did it all. These people are assuming that you will agree with them that their explanations for origins are valid, which they are not.

Finding help from an informed and sympathetic source (book or website or whatever) cannot hurt. So being aware of good sources of information is a very good idea.

Related Resources

• Thousands not Billions (Book) Donald B. DeYoung. 200 pages. Non-technical discussion.
• Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels (Book) chapter 6 Jim Mason. “Radiometric Dating” pp. 192-213 in Robert Carter (ed).  The chapter is quite technical but it has good illustrations.
• Pocket Guide to a Young Earth (Booklet) Answers in Genesis scientists.
• Pocket Guide the Global Flood (Booklet) Answers in Genesis Scientists.
• Icons of Evolution (DVD, 60 min) from Coldwater Media  includes introduction to Darwin’s finches, fruit fly genetics, fossils, molecular machines and human origins (very well illustrated).
• Rock Strata, Fossils and the Flood (DVD, 47 min) Sedimentary rocks from all over the world are discussed under the theme of flood geology.