In the free world, Science has been a bastion of reliability in the mind of the public, with its claim of objectivity based on proof alone. The acceptance of God by early scientists has been dismissed as ignorance of modern discoveries and any scientist who doesn’t accept evolution to explain the natural world is considered at best, a pseudo-scientist in the academic community and in the worst case, a Cretan. Yet modern discoveries depend on interpretation. That is why all scientific publications have a section named, ‘Conclusions’. So is there any tangible proof of a Creator that can’t be misinterpreted or put another way, is proof optional to one’s beliefs?
Take America’s first landing on the moon. The lunar module had a ten-foot tall tripod attached to it because scientists believed the solar system was millions of years old. At the constant rate of cosmic dust deposition on the earth, they calculated there would be ten feet of dust on the moon because there is no atmosphere there to disrupt it. But they discovered only a fraction of an inch of dust, which corresponded to about eight thousand years, in agreement with a young age of the earth and moon. Scientists ignored the discrepancy, reasoning that the rate of dust deposition must not be constant. In other words, proof was optional to their belief.
What about evolution? Christians point to irreducible complexity, the existence of many species who require numerous concurrent metabolic and environmental processes to be alive. They couldn’t develop in the sequential evolutionary model and some evolutionists have recognized this, proposing alternative models which lack proof. But that’s alright with them because proof is optional to one’s beliefs. Before expressing righteous indignation toward non-believers and the claims of science in general, this is also true for many Christians.
Many Christians don’t realize that Creation is a witness of a Creator and not, for the most part, validation of Jesus and his gospel message. They use the Bible to validate Jesus, even though it is correctly labeled as supernatural revelation from God. That is, knowledge that doesn’t come from the natural world. So is there any tangible proof from Creation alone that lends credibility to Jesus’ message for the world? Fortunately for believers, there is.
Surveyed Christians suggest the Incarnation of Jesus, fulfilled prophecy about Jesus, the Virgin Birth of Jesus, and the Resurrection of Jesus as answers to this question. But all of these events are known to us primarily from the Bible and therefore, whether they truly happened is questioned. These evidences would be unacceptable to the non-believing world because they don’t think the Bible comes from the Creator.
What is needed is a natural event which can’t be denied that points to Jesus. Events like a worldwide flood, discovering Noah’s Ark or finding chariots in the Red Sea would validate the Old Testament but not the message of Jesus. For a natural event that validates the message of Jesus, we must look to the stars.
In Genesis 1:16, the Bible says that God made the stars and a couple verses earlier, it says these lights in the expanse of the sky were to be for signs, for seasons, and for days and years. We understand how they mark seasons, days, and years, but what are the signs? The Jews have maintained since the Book of Job was written that the stars form constellations or symbolic pictures that tell the story of God’s Messiah. These signs have been written down as early as 1000 B.C. in Babylonian tablets and could point to Jesus but their original meaning has been obscured by various cultures into zodiacs, circular charts delineating astronomical regions of visible space on either side of the Sun’s path. Each zodiac represents approximately thirty degrees of the earth’s circumference with twelve signs constituting a complete 360 degree circle around our biosphere. Zodiacs have further perverted the message in the stars by their use as prognosticators of one’s life potential based on the position of the stars on one’s birth date. Conceptually, this idea, called astrology, is ridiculous because many people are born at the same date and time in the world, yet their lives are drastically different. Still, proof is optional when it comes to one’s beliefs.
So if we don’t know for sure what the signs in the stars represent, can stars offer any other tangible proof of Jesus and his message? Let’s see.
In the 17th century, Johannes Kepler, a defender of Christianity, formulated equations that could predict past and future motion of heavenly bodies and they are still in use today. Using his equations and clues from the Bible, it has been possible to identify celestial events that correspond to the conception and birth of Jesus, the visit of the Magi, and the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. In September of 3 BC, Jupiter, known as the king planet, appeared in the sky in retrograde motion around the star called Regulus, known as the king star. This marked the day of Jesus’s conception. Nine months later, Jupiter and Venus formed a conjunction that to the naked eye would have been the brightest star anyone had ever seen. This occurred in June of 2 BC, the date of Jesus’s birth. In December of that same year, the Magi followed Jupiter south where the planet appeared to stop because of retrograde motion over Bethlehem, the place where Jesus was born. And finally, on April 3 of 33 AD, a blood moon eclipse occurred to mark the death of Jesus.
What are the odds that all four of these celestial events would fit the chronology of the life of Jesus when each of them is rare? But even more important than validating the Bible is the understanding that the Creator had to pre-program the motion of the stars and planets to match the incarnation of Jesus from the beginning of time, when the heavens were formed. This is tangible, irrefutable proof of the Creation pointing to Jesus and his message. These are natural events confirmed by science which can’t be denied and they corroborate the person and message of Jesus. Unless, of course, proof is optional to your belief.
