One of the hallmarks of genuine scientific theories is their capacity to explain puzzling features of the physical world. In the case of so-called "creation science," this explanatory power can sometimes be little short of breath-taking. In his 1972 book The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth, Henry Morris, the president of the Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, applied the never-defined principles of "creation science" to explain why Mars and the Moon are cratered. To do so, however, he had to include a biblical explanation of the stars also.

Since Morris teaches that the universe is only a few thousand years old, there is the embarrassing fact that many stars are millions or indeed billions of light-years distant. If the stars themselves are only a few thousand years old, their light should not yet have reached us, and so most of the stars of the universe would be invisible if creationism were true. But Morris can explain:

This problem seems formidable at first, but is easily resolved when the implications of God's creative acts are understood. The very purpose of creation centered in man. Even the angels themselves were created to be "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation." (Hebrews 1:14). Man was not some kind of afterthought on God's part at all, but was absolutely central in all of His plans.

The sun, moon, and stars were formed specifically to "be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years," and "to give light upon the earth" (Genesis 1:14, 15). In order to accomplish these purposes, they would obviously have to be visible on earth. But this requirement is a very little thing to a Creator! Why is it less difficult to create a star than to create the emanations from that star? In fact, had not God created "light" on Day One prior to His construction of "lights" on Day Four. It is even possible that the "light" bathing the earth on the first three days [before the sun was created] was created in space as en route from the innumerable "light bearers" which were yet to be constituted on the fourth day.

In other words, the light we see coming from a star a hundred million light years away has not been traveling for a hundred million years. God created the light close to the Earth; the light never came from a star at all It just looks that way! God, it would seem, has created a world of deceitful, appearances. Curiously, Morris seems unaware of this embarrassing implication of his explanation, and he overlooks a further difficult point: if god created the stars to be indicators of times and seasons to the prescientific inhabitants of the Earth, isn't it odd that it is precisely the stars for which he had to create false rays of light which are invisible to the naked eye -- and thus could not be used "for signs and seasons"?

As president of ICR, Morris presides over an institution which, we have already noted, is empowered by the state of California to grant master's degrees in "astro/geophysics." Thus it is of more than a little interest to see what Dr. Morris can tell us about the stars and planets:

We still do not know the full answer to the problem of the total purpose of all the stars. Especially is this true of the innumerable stars that can only be seen through telescopes.... The stars that are visible to the naked eye are, of course, valuable for navigation as well as beauty, but these only constitute an infinitesimal fraction of the total numbers of stars. What, then, was the purpose God has in creating all the others? ...

Since in Scripture stars are frequently associated with angels, it may be that the stars are in some way involved in the ministries of the angels.... This possible association of angels with the stars, incidentally, is the only suggestion that Scripture makes concerning intelligent life on other worlds ...

Give that man a master's degree in astrophysics!

Morris then discusses the astronomical results of sin and gives a brief account of the revolt of Satan and his angels and of their warfare with Michael and his angels.

Using some sort of creationist principle -- perhaps something like "the cosine of the star is proportional to the angle of the angel" -- Morris opines that:

The physical stars, which are somehow associated with the spiritual host of heaven, may thus be also involved in this heavenly warfare. The "stars" associated with the solar system, such as the planets and asteroids (and it should be remembered that the term "star" in Biblical usage applies to any heavenly body other than the sun and moon) would be particularly likely to be involved, in view of the heavy concentration of angels, both good and evil, around the planet Earth.

Just how Dr. Morris was able to measure the concentration of angels in the vicinity of the planet Earth is not revealed. But we continue:

There are a number of Biblical references indicating that in some way the stars may actually participate in human battles Numbers 24:17; Judges 5:20; Revelation 6:13; 8:10; etc.).... In any case, the possibility is at least open that the fractures and scars on the moon and Mars, the shattered remnants of an erstwhile planet that became the asteroids, the peculiar rings of Saturn, the meteorite swarms, and other such features that somehow seem alien to a "very good" universe as God must have created it may have been acquired later. Perhaps they reflect some kind of heavenly catastrophe associated either with Satan's primeval rebellion or his continuing battle against Michael and his angels....

The long fascination of men of nations with pagan astrology can only be understood if it is recognized that there is some substratum of truth in the otherwise strange notion that objects billions of miles away could have any influence on earthly events. Certainly the physical stars as such can have no effect on the earth, but the evil spirits connected with them are not so limited.

Perhaps the ICR can add a master's degree in demonic astrology to its list of unnatural science degrees granted! But we have not exhausted the explanatory power of creation science. Morris can explain UFOs as well:

... the well-documented association of certain "U.F.O." sightings with occultic influences and tendencies suggests that the "rulers of the darkness of this world" (Ephesians 6:12) are increasingly imaginative in their battles for the minds of men.

Like Billy Graham, Morris seems to think that UFOs are actually angels -- evil angels.