Yep, there are smart guys on either side of the debate Frank. I just don’t like being called a heretic when as a TE I still believe:-
* That God spoke and the universe was made
* That God owns the world
* That He made mankind and put us in ‘the garden’ (special place where ‘God walked’ whatever that actually looked like)
* That there we had the potential to be immortal, but we sinned
* That this sin cast us out of ‘the garden’ and sees us exposed to the natural elements and raw forces of the world today, including our own genetic heritage, good and bad, and our own mortality.

As others have said (John Dickson etc) I’m just not sure that the passage was intended to be read as a literal history. So YECS and TE’s both have varied leadership operating from varied levels of biblical faithfulness — I just don’t like being called a “heretic” or “liberal” because I read the god-breathed scriptures in a slightly different way.

(EG: With a tone like that, Michael Bull could easily join up with these guys).

Dear Danii,

perhaps one of the most important characters in understanding the possibility of a young earth (to me at least) is Slarty Bartfast.

Learned readers will recall that Slarty is a character in Douglas Adams’ brilliant Hitch-hikers guide to the Galaxy who was involved in the building of the giant super-computer designed to give the answer to the great question of the meaning of life, the universe and everything. (Actually it was designed to give the question, given that the answer had already been determined to be 42.) The giant super-computer was known to its residents as the Earth.

Slarty was very proud of his work in helping to construct the earth, particularly, he said, of the Fiords in Norway. The trick was to make them look like they had been carved out by glaciers millions of years ago when, in fact, they were much younger.

I don’t think that Douglas Adams was a young-earth creationist, but the point is that if Slarty and friends can build an earth with apparent age, then God can certainly do so.

On the other hand my scientific training makes me aware of the vast array of scientific data which suggests the age of the universe and of the earth is at least hundreds of millions of years old. How do you explain mountains, deep river valleys and fiords, let alone dinosaurs and other fossils?

I think it is important that we don’t insist on more than the Bible insists on and consequently I believe we have to remain agnostic about the age of the earth. I think that a proper reading of Genesis 1-2 sees the poetic emphasis on who created and the meaning and purpose of creation rather than the mechanics. Could the earth be 6,000 years old? Yes. Could the earth be hundreds of millions of years old? Yes. I don’t think the scriptures force us to have to decide.

This does become quite important in evangelism. A few years ago I had some interesting discussions with a Canadian Biology Professor who was on sabatical study leave in Wollongong. In God’s providence the ECU was studying Genesis! He came along and was challenged to re-think his understanding of God’s Word. If being Christian meant that you have to believe in a young earth, then he felt he could not believe that. On the other hand he was challenged to consider whether his God was powerful enough to create an earth with apparent age.  In the end I think he did accept that - although he thought that God would be deceptive if he did. Finding Christians who were not anti-science fundamentalists made a big difference in him being able to come to faith.

I think that in teaching the Bible we must not go beyond what the Bible clearly asserts, and in the case of the age of the earth I think we ought to remain agnostic.

Aha ha ha ha! “My name..... is of no consequence.”
“Go on, what’s your name.”
“Some find it amusing”.
“I promise not to laugh.”

Oh, good memories, and good argument as well.

Wouldn’t that just be horrid… having to rely on God alone to know what God has done.

Yes!
Because we don’t really understand the Bible as well as we think we do. Aren’t we always hearing in sermons how a certain expression or parable has meaning in the context of the times? Don’t we find that such knowledge makes sense?
Here’s a simple thing.
“Jesus is Lord”
Without even a modicum of history this is a meaningless statement to those living in a non-aristocratic democracy. It says nothing other than he has a title and the capacity to sit in Britain’s Upper House.

Try and divorce the bible from external supports, info etc and you have a lot of meaningless stuff that has little to no resonance.

Going back to the topic of apparent age....
How do you think it would affect a scientific study of the fragments left over after the 5000 ate from 5 loaves and 2 fish?

But if we apply that to the whole universe, with what appear to be infant galaxies on the edge of our vision at about 14-20 billion light years away…

Not only are these galaxies billions of light years away but they are notably younger — less mature in shape according to the Astronomers I read on it ages ago.

And they are red-shifting out of vision… the whole universe is starting to expand faster than the light will allow us to track!

Woah… my brain is full again…

Anyway, if God made all this 6000 years ago then God is the ultimate ‘Coyote, the god of tricks’.

This topic goes back to a previous thread where I mentioned the relevance of the theory of relativity to this discussion.

I’ll just do a brief recap;
According to Big Bang Theory the Universe expanded in four dimensions.  The fourth being time.  Now this is current theory and not established fact, however according to The Big Bang theorists time progresses more slowly in a high gravity environment and more quickly in a low gravity environment.

If the Earth was created before the Universe in which it now dwells existed, and then as in Genesis 1 the rest of the Universe was spread out from the perspective of the Earth on Day four.  As the Universe spreads, it becomes less dense and experiences less gravitational effects, so the outer edges of the Universe experience time more quickly than the areas closer to the centre.  If this is the case then it is possible that galaxies other than our own Milky Way may have experienced millions of years while we only experience thousands.

This is a complicated argument, because it is a complicated topic.  However what I’m trying to demonstrate is that just because us humans struggle to understand the theory of relativity in relation to an expanding universe, does not mean God used trickery to create the universe.  We just don’t understand it well yet.

Most here know I’m for a young Earth, but I’m also for an old Universe, and I think this is consistent both with scripture and science.  However I’m sure the theory of relativity will develop over time and change our understanding.  While the Bible remains unchanged and for ever true.

Sola Scripture - don’t let outside influences shape your doctrines, let scripture shape the way you interpert outside influences.

Thax <><

Craig, weren’t the stars created on day 4? That makes the world older than the universe.

I think that in teaching the Bible we must not go beyond what the Bible clearly asserts, and in the case of the age of the earth I think we ought to remain agnostic.

I think the grammar of Genesis strongly indicates an age, but we can never be certain about grammar.
I do think the Bible clearly asserts that the death of nephesh animals did not occur before a few thousand years ago, which is at odds with the evolutionary timeline which says they were dieing up to around 500 million years ago.

Try and divorce the bible from external supports, info etc and you have a lot of meaningless stuff that has little to no resonance.

I’m not proposing this at all. Only that if and when we can produce translations of a suitable quality, we can rely on them alone to tell us all we need to know about God.

Frank brings up another excellent example. Is God a trickster if he makes bread and fish that looks older than it is? I don’t think he is, because he tells us when he made it. So if God made a universe that possibly looks older than it is, and he tells us when he made it, I don’t think he’s being a trickster then either.

But if we apply that to the whole universe, with what appear to be infant galaxies on the edge of our vision at about 14-20 billion light years away…

Not only are these galaxies billions of light years away but they are notably younger — less mature in shape according to the Astronomers I read on it ages ago.

And they are red-shifting out of vision… the whole universe is starting to expand faster than the light will allow us to track!

Woah… my brain is full again…

Anyway, if God made all this 6000 years ago then God is the ultimate ‘Coyote, the god of tricks’.

How does any of this make God the god of tricks?
How is creating galaxies 14 billion light years away with streams of light showing a consistent image of what they would have looked like in the past, and possibly redshifted, incompatible with God making lights in the sky to light the ground and keep track of time?

Craig brings up another good possibility, gravitational time dilation. There could even be a mix of an apparent history of stellar development followed by real stellar development.

This god would be ‘tricky’ because it certainly LOOKS to all the scientists as if science is disproving a literal historical reading of Genesis.

Day old bread doesn’t challenge the reading of Genesis. A 12 to 14 billion year old universe does.

Quoth Danii

I’m not proposing this at all. Only that if and when we can produce translations of a suitable quality, we can rely on them alone to tell us all we need to know about God.

Whether or not you are proposing this isn´t the issue. I am addressing this:

Wouldn’t that just be horrid… having to rely on God alone to know what God has done.

which you wrote as a response to this:

Then it is a load of tosh innit? We are left to no evidence but the Bible. Then we are left to fight out or sort through the myriad theological positions.

From this I conclude that the position posed (er, thatś a dodgy phrase) was that there is an underpinning assumption that the Bible can be accurately understood by itself. I suspect though, that a ¨translation of suitable quality¨ would be near impossible without reference to history and archaeology. Unless ¨suitable quality¨ doesn´t mean ¨accurate¨ but theologically aligned.

I think that if we try to understand the Bible only from itself then we would be at a loss. Much of what we know about the original languages was derived from non-Biblical sources.
I think also that we must explore assertions that the Bible offers scientifically accurate statements should, must be explored also by external sources. I do not, for example, believe that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds.

Anyway. The discussion was about the proposed ¨apparent age¨ idea. Sorry about the tangent. I just think that the idea that any theological proposal about external reality, that is verifiable should be testable. The idea that we shouldn´t is, to me, a challenge to reason and speaks of a lack of faith in any such theological position. If you rule out the possibility of challenge then you rule out the use of reason. That leaves blind obedience to the proponents of such ideas. They can claim it is obedience to God, but that is a dangerous path and one that should be challenged at every turn!

This god would be ‘tricky’ because it certainly LOOKS to all the scientists as if science is disproving a literal historical reading of Genesis.

Day old bread doesn’t challenge the reading of Genesis. A 12 to 14 billion year old universe does.

Well, then do you think that God is a trickster because he made bread and fish and wine that scientists, if they had access to it, would say disproves a literal historical reading of the gospels?

I think that if we try to understand the Bible only from itself then we would be at a loss. Much of what we know about the original languages was derived from non-Biblical sources.
I think also that we must explore assertions that the Bible offers scientifically accurate statements should, must be explored also by external sources. I do not, for example, believe that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds.

Anyway. The discussion was about the proposed ¨apparent age¨ idea. Sorry about the tangent. I just think that the idea that any theological proposal about external reality, that is verifiable should be testable. The idea that we shouldn´t is, to me, a challenge to reason and speaks of a lack of faith in any such theological position. If you rule out the possibility of challenge then you rule out the use of reason. That leaves blind obedience to the proponents of such ideas. They can claim it is obedience to God, but that is a dangerous path and one that should be challenged at every turn!

Okay fair point there Owen. We do need to explore the scientific statements made by the Bible. However science, by definition, doesn’t work in miraculous situations. I think it’s quite obvious to say that Genesis 1 describes a miraculous situation. What science can legitimately say about Genesis 1 must be limited. For example, all dating methods assume that the natural physical processes continue to operate the way they always have. If God were creating an entire universe, then surely we could question whether there was even a single natural process that operated consistently through the creation?
Philosophically, I don’t think there is a problem with Omphalos. It’s icky, but it’s a possibility.
So theologically then. People challenge the theory by saying it would make God deceptive. As I think that one of the purposes of Genesis is to explain how and when God made the universe, I don’t think he was being deceptive in any way. There could however be other theological challenges, so please do make them (and continue to argue that it really does make God deceptive if there are other Bible passages that do so.)

Well, then do you think that God is a trickster because he made bread and fish and wine that scientists, if they had access to it, would say disproves a literal historical reading of the gospels?

? Sorry, not sure how your hypothesis of scientists proving Jesus created bread and fish on the spot disproves anything Dannii.

Hmm I just read what I wrote and got confused myself.

If scientists had access to the bread, fish and wine that Jesus miraculously made, they would say it was older than it was. This could lead them to say they’ve disproved the gospels historicity. Does this make God a trickster?

If scientists had access to the bread, fish and wine that Jesus miraculously made, they would say it was older than it was.

Why? There’s nothing to suggest anything about how old the bread was… nothing that I read in the text anyway. Sorry, you’re arguing from silence here.

That’s VASTLY different to the YEC / TE time-scales and problems.

As for relativity somehow allowing for a younger universe… I wonder why so many astronomers and cosmologists missed that one? ;-)