Pluto, Part 3 - Venus: The Bright and Morning Star of Creation

 

By Clint Bishard

Jesus Created Ministries

 

Last time I discussed the evidence for design in our sun-earth-moon system in my quest to determine whether or not Pluto should be considered a planet from a design argument.  Here, I believe you will see the evidence for design in the solar system gets even better as we turn to our closest neighbor planet, Venus. 

Venus was created with a slightly smaller size than the earth, and a thick atmosphere that reflects nearly all of the sunlight falling on it.  Additionally, God positioned Venus as the second planet away from the sun with an orbit just inside of the orbit of the earth.  These created features give Venus a unique quality in that during specific times of the earth/Venus orbits, Venus will appear on the horizon as the brightest star in the sky just before and during morning (and other times at dusk).  Thus, we see the reason Scripture refers to Venus as the “morning star” (2 Pet 1:19, Rev 2:28).  Additionally, the brilliance of this “morning star” creates a special picture of our Lord as it is the last title He gives for Himself.  In the last chapter of the Bible, Jesus states “I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star” (Rev 22:16).

An even more interesting creation design of Venus than its brilliance and position in the sky is its rotation.  Venus rotates on its axis backwards in comparison to the rotation of the sun and other planets (Uranus also being an exception as it is tilted on its axis about halfway).  This stands as a problem for the secular nebular hypothesis, which predicts that the sun and planets should condense with the same rotational direction out of the same nebula.  Furthermore, the real interesting feature is the speed at which Venus rotates backwards.  Venus rotates backwards at a rate (once every 243 earth days) such that every time the Earth and Venus line up, the same side of Venus is always facing the Earth!  I would think this strange “coincidence” would make the naturalistic evolutionists’ heads spin.

To understand this fully, you can get a piece of paper and draw a small sun in the middle.  Then draw a circle around the sun as large as you can on the paper and let this represent the orbit of the Earth.  Then draw another orbit for Venus about 70% as large as the one you drew for the Earth.  Draw a straight line out in one direction from the sun and let the intersection of this line with the orbits of Venus and earth represent the first time they are lined up with Venus directly between the sun and earth.  Then, imagine Venus going around the sun 2.6 times counterclockwise while at the same time the earth at a slower rate goes around the sun 1.6 times (also counterclockwise).  This new point would represent the first time from the start that Venus would once again be directly between the sun and the earth.  Significantly, Venus’s backwards (clockwise) rotation on its axis every 243 earth days causes the same side to point towards the earth as they line up.  In short, if a very large tower were built on the surface of Venus facing us, every time Venus came towards us the tower would be pointing towards us, and as Venus continued to pass by us and away from us the tower would slowly move such that it would continue to point towards the earth. This process repeats continually with Venus coming between the sun and earth 10 times every 16 years.  This phenomenal alignment by two planets with independent orbits intersecting at completely different locations in relation to the direction from the sun, and yet every time they intersect the same side of Venus points towards the earth defies the naturalist and points to a supernatural creation.

Evolutionary astronomers initially thought that there must be some kind of bulge on Venus that interacts with the earth to create this strange coincidence of alignment.  However, as we have continued to study Venus, we have discovered it to be almost perfectly spherical, even rounder than the earth.[1]

This backwards rotational movement of Venus was not understood until recently when our space probes were able to see through the dense atmosphere of Venus and study the surface of Venus.  So one might ask, “Why would God have made such an evidence of design that we could not see and understand until late in the 20^th century.”  Well, one could respond, “Just as with Queen Esther, God knew this day would come when mankind would be rejecting the supernatural creation account in Genesis, and so He programmed this evidence for design into the creation ‘for such a time as this’ (Esther 4:14)”.

Maybe there is also something deeper to Peter using a reference to the “morning star” rising in our hearts in reference to the Scriptures being divinely inspired – “¹⁹And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; ²⁰knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,   ²¹for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:19-21).

I hope you will join me next time as we continue to look at the fingerprints of God’s design in our quest to determine the planetary status of the objects in our solar system, including Pluto.

 

Go to part 4 of this series