Nuclear engineer defends biblical creation
Jonathan Sarfati chats with Dr Jonathan Corrado
Dr Jonathan Corrado (B.S., M.S., M.S. (hons.), M.Div., Th.M., Ph.D.) has degrees in science, engineering, and theology. His highest is a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from Colorado State University and his Master of Theology is from Liberty University. He has extensive experience in systems engineering and nuclear science, including research, development, and management. Dr Corrado has authored both secular and creationist scientific papers, theological papers, and a book in his field and one on spiritual deception.
Dr Corrado currently works in both the defence and nuclear industries as a manager and engineer and is a senior officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.
He is married to Erin, who is a Christian singer-songwriter. They have four children.
Creation magazine regularly interviews highly qualified creationist scientists. This automatically disproves the common evolutionists’ ‘No True Scotsman’ fallacy, ‘No real scientist denies evolution from goo to you via the zoo’ (cf. pp. 52–53, this issue). So it’s often interesting to know how the scientist concerned both became a scientist and became a Christian.
Dr Corrado’s science beginnings
Dr C. says he has been interested since childhood:
Even in preschool, I said that when I grew up, I wanted to be a scientist, because they looked impressive in a white lab coat! At school, I enjoyed science classes because I enjoyed learning how things worked. I gained an appreciation from an early age of how integrated, complex, and well-designed the natural world is.
From his observations, he realized there must be an intelligent Creator. However, as Romans 1:18 ff. says, such general revelation is enough to deny atheists any excuses but is insufficient for salvation. For that, we need special revelation: “When I was saved, the identity of this intelligent designer was made clear.”
Becoming a Christian
Many Christians testify that a specific condition or situation convinced them of the truth of the Gospel. But Dr C. says his salvation “derived from a journey to answer contextual questions about life and quell misinformation.”
He is grateful he had Christian parents who laid the foundation for biblical and creation science evidence and prioritized church attendance. Jonathan was baptized at 12 years old but now thinks he didn’t really comprehend salvation, “so was not actually saved.”
Later, he tells us, “In college, I fell away from my Christian upbringing, focusing solely on academic and professional pursuits and my marriage.”
However, Dr C’s life changed drastically. He was recalled to active military service in the Middle East after he had married Erin and they already had two children. He explains:
I was exposed to a side of humanity no-one should have to see. However, a theme emerged that exposed a common, powerful enemy: Satan, giving credence to the spiritual world’s reality (Eph 6:12) and, thus, the reality of God. This experience caused me to dive deeply and gain an unfiltered understanding of what the Bible says.
Bible: true and self-consistent.
Dr C. elaborated:
The Bible discusses the beginning, the end, our purpose, and our destiny. I have discovered that the Bible is a unified whole, the product of engineered design by a perfect Creator. The Bible, down to the smallest letter and part of a letter (Matthew 5:18), is there for our learning, discovery, and amazement. Truly, our God is an awesome God!
He found that many Bible difficulties disappear “if one simply recognizes the unity and integrity of the 66 books, composed by 40 authors over thousands of years (Proverbs 25:2).”
This deep study brought me to Christ and an understanding of salvation and its implications. Since I’ve been saved, I can’t stop studying the Bible and discovering the complexity and integrity of this perfect book. God never gave up on me through my years of disobedience, and now, I will not give up on Him.
Scientific support for the Bible
As a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), one of his heroes is Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806–1873), a past VMI faculty member. Many plaques are dedicated to Maury as ‘Pathfinder of the Seas’, which arose from his devout Christianity and in reference to Psalm 8:8 (creation.com/maury). “As a naval officer who has sailed the seas, Psalm 8:8 is undoubtedly true and gives credibility to the Bible’s scientific claims.” He also listed many other arguments for God’s existence (cf. creation.com/arguments-for-god.)
Long ages vs the Bible?
The Bible teaches that the world is a little over 6,000 years old (creation.com/6000-years). This is often called a ‘young’ earth creation model, but it’s young only in relation to the dogma of billions of years. In reality, 6,000 years is very old (creation.com/earth-how-old).
Dr C. agrees with CMI that one doesn’t need to believe in a ‘young’ earth to be saved (see creation.com/can-christians-believe-evolution.) However, there are still huge problems with trying to mix long ages with Scripture.
Dr C. points out that long-age views don’t come from the biblical text, but must be imposed from outside. This includes the day-age theory, theistic evolution, progressive creationism, and gap theory. However, this affects how one interprets the early chapters of Genesis and spills over into the rest of Scripture. “If these obviously historical chapters are interpreted as symbolic and/or poetic, then the question becomes: when should Genesis (and really the Bible at large) no longer be interpreted this way? This becomes a subjective determination.”
Instead, he explains that the grammatical-historical method is the right way to understand Scripture. This method considers all figures of speech and literary forms in the text as the writer expressed it and how its original readers would have understood it.
When reading any work of literature, particularly the Bible, we must determine the author’s message, context, and intent, not our interpretation. God intended such exegesis, which is why He instructs us to handle the word of truth correctly (2 Tim 2:15). When the Lord Jesus quoted the Old Testament, He clearly held to a grammatical-historical interpretation [creation.com/nt].
For example, in Luke 4, when Satan tempted Jesus, He responded by quoting from the Old Testament. If God’s commands in Deut 8:3, 6:13, and 6:16 had not been literal, Jesus would not have used them, and they would not have had the power to stop Satan’s mouth, which they did. Additionally, the disciples followed Christ’s (Bible-based) directives.
The Bible, taken in the grammatical-historical sense, clearly indicates a young Earth. I also believe that unbiased scientific inquiry supports this claim.
Dr C. also pointed out a key problem with trying to mix long ages with the Bible:
God created everything ‘very good’ (Gen 1:31), and there was initially no death. Death does not occur until Genesis 3 when Adam sinned. But evolution requires the death of countless creatures for today’s living world to have arisen. And even non-evolutionary long-age views must have death before sin because fossils of both humans and animals are ‘dated’ long before Adam.
Evidence for a ‘young’ earth
Dr C. thinks the best scientific evidence for a ‘young’ earth is its decaying magnetic field:
Historical measurements indicate that Earth’s magnetic field experiences a loss of approximately 50% of its energy every 1,400 years. Even if past reversals of the field are disregarded, which would have further depleted its energy, the maximum age of the Earth’s magnetic field is about 20,000 years. Any older, the electrical current needed for such a strong field would have been large enough to melt the whole earth.
But a decaying field is consistent with God creating the earth about 6,000 years ago, with an electrical current that generates magnetism. And this current decays exponentially as per standard electrical theory (see creation.com/magfield).
Evolutionary geophysicists must claim that Earth has maintained a magnetic field for billions of years. However, they lack a comprehensive understanding of how this could happen.
To sustain such a current, an electrical generator—a dynamo—operating within the interior of the Earth would be necessary. But how could such a generator spontaneously form? Despite a century of investigation, conventional scientists continue to be unable to develop a functional dynamo theory.1
Quantum mechanics and Christianity
Some Christians mistakenly think quantum mechanics (QM) is problematic for Christianity. I disagree (see creation.com/qm), but wanted Dr C.’s take on the issue as a nuclear scientist.
In reply, he quoted one of the world’s leading experts, physicist (and atheist) Richard Feynman (1918–1988). Feynman shared the 1965 Nobel Prize for physics for his discoveries in quantum electrodynamics. But he admitted, “I think I can safely say that nobody really understands quantum mechanics,” and Dr C. agrees that this still holds. He says:
QM’s influence on one’s perception of God is primarily determined by personal motivations—and one’s worldview—rather than physics. The scientific method has proven to be a highly effective approach for uncovering the mechanisms by which God achieved specific aspects of His creative endeavours. Acquiring knowledge about the universe’s physical systems does not alter the undeniable existence of the designer and creator who established them. In my opinion, quantum physics, similar to other scientific fields, is entirely consistent with God’s biblical teachings.
However, he points out that atheists have abused QM for their own ends. E.g., Lawrence Krauss (b. 1954), a theoretical physicist and cosmologist, as well as a vociferous antitheist, wrote the book A Universe from Nothing (2012—see creation.com/krauss). Here and elsewhere, Krauss asserts that the universe could come into existence out of nothing (without God).
However, his ‘nothing’ was not really nothing—but something. In particular, it was the quantum vacuum with properties, including energies and quantum fields. Even if our universe had come out of a quantum vacuum, one would still have to explain where the quantum vacuum came from.
Advice for Christians wanting a scientific career?
Science was founded on a biblical worldview, and most of its founders were biblical creationists (creation.com/name-game). So there is excellent precedent for young Christians wanting to become scientists (or engineers or doctors). Dr C. says to such people:
If you have an interest in science or engineering, pursue it! The scientific community needs more Christians in its ranks to counter secular theories (e.g., naturalism and evolution) with biblical truth, uplift God as the intelligent Designer and brilliant Creator that He is, and inject unbiased science back into the evolution/creation debate. The biblical worldview is sound, accurate, reasonable, and grounded in truth, and we need more scientists to defend this position.
References and notes
- Humphreys, D. R., Planetary magnetic dynamo theories: a century of failure, Proc. ICC 7(1):9, 2013; digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/icc_proceedings. Return to text.
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