Our Calm Sun: Crazy Coincidence or Deliberate Design? | The Institute for Creation Research

Our Calm Sun: Crazy Coincidence or Deliberate Design?
The unique nature of the sun is causing many experts to scratch their heads.

Extensive studies show that most sun-like stars demonstrate about five times the magnetic activity of our sun. Others reveal that the stars most similar to our sun vary in brightness about twelve times more than the sun in a given solar cycle.1,2

In other words, the sun in our solar system is much more stable than other similar stars.

Why does this matter? New York Times writer Adam Mann describes what would happen if the magnetic activity of the sun were intensified like we see in other stars:

Turn up the activity of these magnetic whorls, and you get more solar storms flinging deadly charged particles and radiation throughout our solar system. If enough of these punishing waves hit a rocky planet [such as Earth], that planet might end up microwaved into a dreary condition where nothing could live.3

An unstable, magnetically hyperactive parent star would be catastrophic for life on planets orbiting that star. Having such a comparably stable, “boring” parent star makes it possible for life to exist on Earth. Even those who hold to an evolutionary worldview admit that the sun has been “stable and steadfast” for a long time,4 making everything that we see today possible.

But the question remains: Why? Why is the sun so different from other stars that share similar “masses, temperatures…chemical compositions and rotation periods”?

Secular scientists can’t agree on the answer. However, many are intellectually honest enough to admit that something special is going on. As solar physicist Ricky Egeland (employed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research) said, “It may be no coincidence that we live around a very inactive star.”1

He’s absolutely right: it’s not a coincidence. There is obvious design in nature, but we only have two options regarding who, or what, is responsible for that design.

Secular scientists, rejecting Scripture’s guidance on how to understand creation, postulate that this apparent design is an illusion. However, biblical creationists correctly recognize that the amazing design is real, and that the even-more-amazing Designer is the God of the Bible.5

As ICR’s Dr. Randy Guliuzza has stated on multiple occasions, secular science and evolutionary theory do not remove the concept of intelligent agency from our universe. They simply transfer the credit from the Creator to the creation, saying that nature is, in fact, responsible for actions and operations that were (or are) actually performed by the living God.6

The fact that we live near an incredibly stable star is not a wonderful, mysterious accident of nature. It is the genius of a creative Being who designed the sun to be a blessing, as it “rules the day.”5

References
1. Algar, J. Our sun’s power is stable and steadfast, scientists find. Tech Times. Posted on techtimes.com August 29, 2014, accessed May 1,2020.
2. The solar cycle is an extremely tiny, almost imperceptible, variation in the sun’s brightness over an eleven year period. This periodic change in brightness is accompanied by a change in the number of sunspots on the sun’s surface.
3. Mann, A. There’s Something Special About the Sun: It’s a Bit Boring. New York Times. Posted on nytimes.com April 30, 2020, accessed May 5, 2020.
4. Secular scientists think the sun’s power output has been steady for at least a hundred thousand years. Although creation scientists dispute these vast ages, the fact remains that, by any reckoning, our sun is a very stable star.
5. Genesis 1:16. In fact, the apostle Paul indicates that a failure to give God credit for His creation, despite our opportunity to see and evaluate it as unambiguous proof of His creatorship, is to do so “without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20).
6. Guliuzza, R. J. 2011. Darwin’s Sacred Imposter: Natural Selection’s Idolatrous Trap. Acts & Facts. 40(11): 12-15. See also, regarding the problem of animistic mysticism parading as “science” falsely so-called, Guliuzza, R. 2010. Natural Selection Is Not ‘Nature’s Design Process'. Acts & Facts. 39(4):10-11; Guliuzza, R. 2011. Darwin’s Sacred Imposter: How Natural Selection Is Given Credit for Design in Nature. Acts & Facts. 40(7):12-15.

*Lauren Pennington is Volunteer Coordinator at the ICR Discovery Center for Science & Earth History.
The Latest
NEWS
Marine Mammals: Designed for Deep Diving
While you’re reading this, hold your breath. What is now happening is your blood is delivering the last of oxygenated blood cells to your tissues...

CREATION PODCAST
Humanity's Demise at the Hands of Genetic Entropy | The Creation...
Welcome to the fourth episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old earth...

NEWS
''Inside-Out'' Fossil is Amazingly Preserved
It is widely known that vast numbers of fossils—vertebrate and invertebrate—have been discovered incredibly well-preserved.1,2...

NEWS
The Resurrection and the Origin of Life
At Easter time we focus on the cardinal Christian doctrine of the Resurrection. Without the Resurrection, Christianity is a sham. The truth that Jesus...

NEWS
Is an Ancient Extinct Tree-Dweller Our Relative?
Human evolution has always been hazy with seemingly as many attempted explanations for how we evolved from animals as there are paleoanthropologists. Evolutionists...

NEWS
The Return of the Dire Wolf?
There’s been much recent excitement about the birth of three dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) puppies by a Dallas-based biotech company: Colossal Bioscience....

CREATION PODCAST
Cracks in the Layers: Lake Suigetsu and the Old Earth Illusion...
Welcome to the third episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old earth...

NEWS
Fish Fossil Vomit
A rather unsavory news story recently appeared regarding fossilized vomit. Although it’s hardly dinner table conversation, it nonetheless supports...

NEWS
Dino Footprints Down Under
Dinosaur trackways1 are once again making the news. Australia is the setting of a remarkable series of dinosaur tracks attributed to ornithischian...

NEWS
April 2025 ICR Wallpaper
"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things...