By Narayan Mitra

GEOLOGIST and Creation Ministries International lecturer Dr. Emil Silvestru spent a productive weekend, September 11 – 12, in Kamloops.

Hosted jointly by First Baptist Church and Inter-faith Chaplaincy of Thompson Rivers University (TRU), an adept Silvestru kept his audience spellbound, spitting out current scientific discoveries and displaying a solid grasp of his subjects.

Topics included ‘Rocks Around the Clock’ and its corollary ‘Rocks Aren’t Clocks.’ From the faithful, ‘Scoffers: Wilfully Forgetting Creation’ drew overwhelming applause.

Foundational geologic features and what they indicate about the age of the earth do not create a conflict between science and faith, Silvestru asserted, but rather show their coherence.

The Romanian-born former atheist and evolutionist affirmed not only his faith in divine creation but also in the literal six-day Genesis record of creation.

In this, his creation creed matches that of the late Henry Morris, Ken Ham and Jonathan Sarfati, among others.

Kamloops has seen the start of a militant atheist group out to make its mark in the media and at TRU and some other centres of higher learning.

Recalling his own background, Silvestru stated that atheism is a state of mind leading to no purpose.

“One is forced to build a purpose for innumerable years. Meanwhile, one misses his call upon life. In that respect, my conversion to Christianity took away the burden from me. Whatever I do now, I do in the will of God.

Silvestru suggested that his own background helps him connect to atheists. “Once I can cross the bridge with them, they are willing to listen to the gospel. The bad things I have done, even those can be used in the kingdom of God.”

A world authority on the geology of caves, Silvestru has published 41 scientific papers, written one book and co-authored two more.

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He was the head scientist at the world’s first speleological institute, dealing with the study of caves. Earlier, he earned his doctorate in geology at the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, Romania, where he worked as an associate professor in karst sedimentology.

A conversion experience from atheism to Christian faith led Silvestru to decide that the “millions of years” interpretation, so common in geology, was not compatible with the book of Genesis.

“Once I became a Christian, I knew I had to attune my scientific knowledge with the scriptures. But, although philosophically I accepted a literal Genesis at my conversion, at first I was unable to match it with my technical side.”

Initially, many things sounded non-scientific. However, he was convinced there was no way the Bible was erroneous because it was inspired by God the creator, whose intelligence and power are infinite.

Discussions with other creationist geologists and study of creationist books helped him accept two essential things:

• Given exceptional conditions (such as the Genesis flood), geological processes that take an extremely long time today can be unimaginably accelerated.

• The Genesis flood was global, not regional.

Then it dawned on him that everything he had been taught in geology began with assumptions – if it was so initially, then this is why it is so now.

But, what if it wasn’t ‘so’ in the beginning? What if ‘in the beginning God created . . . ?’

Freeing his mind from the dogmatic aspects of his education, he came to believe he could accept the Bible’s explanation without violating reason and his scientific training.

As for evangelizing atheists, Silvestru would have Christians do it incrementally.

“Sometimes Christians go wholeheartedly to evangelize and hit them the wrong way. They have been in darkness so long, it can blind them when they come out.”

More about Silvestru and CMI is available at creation.com

October 2010