[Originally published as The Importance of Fossils]
Fossils are important because most of them are evidence of the single year-long cataclysmic event that took place on earth some 4,500 years ago: the Genesis Flood at the time of Noah.
These fossils have great value today because they are reminders of, and proof of, God’s judgment, power, and grace. This is the biblical worldview, and it is true. Fossils are not evidence of many events over hundreds of millions of years that have value today because of their great age and their proof of the macroevolution of life. This is the secular worldview, and it is untrue.
A corollary of this idea is that Christians should appreciate fossils more than anyone else because fossils:
- Verify the historical record in the Bible of a worldwide Flood.
- Are reminders of God’s perspective on and judgment of evil.
- Are confirmations of God’s actions of grace through the provision of Noah’s ark and the redemptive work of Jesus Christ for sinners on the cross.
Christians and others who accept secular, atheistic presuppositions about fossils and the rock record will likely misunderstand all of the following:
- Earth history
- Human history
- Geological formations
- The Genesis Flood
- The nature of God
- The nature of man
- Climate change
- Biblical creation science
- The future and eternity
- God’s revelations to man
- Numerous other aspects of reality
Above excerpted from Fossils: Description & Interpretation – Within a Biblical Worldview, by J.D. Mitchell © copyright 2017, CEC Publications.