I really do think this argument is a nonsense, not because I can’t comprehend the logical, philosophical and scientific issues at stake, but because it is entirely unprovable.
If it is unprovable, then there must be a reason for proposing it, and the only reason I can see for proposing it is to make the scientific evidence “fit” a literal reading of Genesis by which it has been concluded that the world can only be 6 000 years old or so.
As a young man I came across a dear old man from one of the more conservative congregations I knew who said and meant it that he was a member of the “Flat Earth Society” despite the fact that he knew scientific evidence concluded otherwise about the shape of our planet. His reason was that his plain reading of the Bible led him to that conclusion - and he is right; the cosmology revealed in the Bibles is a flat-earth one.
On this score at least the Bible is WRONG. No amount of explaining the plain reading of the text will allow any one to align it with our modern world view. So, if this is the case in respect of the shape of the planet, why do we have to create all sorts of convoluted and unprovable arguments to try and make science marry in with the sequence of creation or the age of the earth.
Because one can fly up into space and so easily prove that the earth is a globe, the creationists — gotta luv em — have all these amazing papers that argue blue in the face that the bible doesn’t say the earth is flat. They’ll argue for YEC, but not floodgates in heaven or a flat earth.
Luke 22: 70-71 tells us that the chief priests and scribes asked Jesus, “Are you then the Son of God?” When Jesus answered, “You rightly say that I am,” they judged that as blasphemy. That is, they (the authorities) were operating under the presupposition that Jesus could not be the Son of God. So they got a whole bunch of people on board to go out and put on a demo calling for Jesus’ execution. And Pilate caved in.
In a similar way there are people who operate under the presupposition that ‘science’ ‘proves’ that the earth and the universe are very old. They accept the authority of those accepted (by the world) as authorities about the past and, like those authorities, do what they can to denigrate anyone who disagrees with them as an ignoramus. Thankfully no one is yet calling for executions.
They need to learn and understand that even if the world and the universe are both very old science cannot prove it and for two reasons. First and foremost, science - of the procedural, operational, nomothetic, or whatever you want to call it, type - can ‘prove’ nothing; it can only provide a probability that a particular result is true. Second, such sciences simply cannot, scientifically, investigate the past. Some people don’t like hearing/reading that but it’s true. If you don’t believe me try, personally, to measure the temperature at which water boiled yesterday.
In historical geology we have a hodge podge of experimental results that have been extrapolated backwards way, way, way beyond the point that the period of data collection would safely allow, and a theory (that has been unravelling for at least the last couple of decades) that the geological record always reflects slow, uniformitarian processes. In cosmology we have theoretical mathematical results that are completely dependent for their correctness on the correctness of their initial premises, which correctness is increasingly disputed, and by people with no evident Christian (fundie) bias. In historical biology we have a theory (first popularised by a man who refused to believe in a God who would allow friends and relatives of his to receive the eternal reward of their own choice) based on ontological materialism. The evidence for it is trivial to non-existent and the evidence against it continues to pile up. That’s why we hear nothing any more about ‘chemical evolution’ and why evolutionists now say (as they didn’t say when I was a girl) that the theory of evolution only refers to what happened after life had, somehow, originated from non-living matter.
It is from this quiveringly soft lump of anti-God, philosophically based ‘evidence’ that the whole idea of ‘apparent age’ comes. What I think is that we don’t know enough, scientifically, to even begin to know, scientifically, when and how the universe and everything in it was created. It’s a very good thing we have God’s own testimony of how it was done and, more or less, when. Otherwise any clever rhetorician with a grudge against God might lead all of us astray.
And to John Clapton who wrote:
So, if this is the case in respect of the shape of the planet,
The planet currently exists. Its shape can be determined scientifically. Its past cannot.
Isaiah 40:22
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
The verse describes the Earth from God’s vantage point as being a circle. Which is how it appears from the vantage point from outer space. From this I think the Bible indicates that the Earth is not flat but circular in shape.
This verse also gives weight to the idea that God spread out the heavens and didn’t just place the stellar bodies where they are. Very consistent with what we observe in the modern theory of an expanding universe.
Craig, weren’t the stars created on day 4? That makes the world older than the universe.
That’s what I said;
If the Earth was created before the Universe in which it now dwells existed,
I’m a Young Earther that believes the Earth is experiencing Global Warming to its own detriment. Though I don’t think it is the most pressing issue that faces us on Earth. I’m more concerned about the running out of resources, and it just so happens that many of the resources that we are running out of are the cause of Global warming, so I’m all for addressing the issue to prevent mass suffering.
Janice
Inherent in your post is an assumption that ¨fundie¨ Christianity (and by this you appear to mean YECS- I think Gordo would not agree with this definition) is somehow truer than other versions.
I also think you imply that a scientist who is also a Christian, who believed the evidence before her would be wrong in so doing because that would be believing ¨the world¨ over the Word.
But, if an astronomer, knowing the simple facts about the speed of light were to measure distances between us and another stars was to note that the star had been in existence for several million years, and that the light being measured was that old; then the scientist would be wrong. The reason appears to be that this somehow is because the Word says otherwise.
The first presupposition I think that requires a challenge is the one that a literal interpretation of Scripture is the only correct one.
The second is that if we have conflict between external evidence and Scripture- as interpreted literally- then only the literal interpretation of Scripture is acceptable.
As for the stuff about how you can´t really know for sure what went on before, and so on. I am afraid I think that largely guff. If this is the case then scientists and historians and archaeologists should all just give up and do it now. What is the point?
Or, could it be that a dead accurate knowledge is elusive, but a pretty accurate one can be obtained?
Science is not inherently ¨anti-God¨. Some scientists are indeed anti-God. Many are Christians. Many are agnostic. Many have other faiths.
If the evidence challenges a theological presupposition, then, if the evidence is strong, the presupposition needs to be addressed. We cannot adhere to untruth because our theology hasn´t met the challenge. God hasn´t failed us, our theology has. Time to fix it up.
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.
At the wedding at Cana Jesus turned water to wine, and it was the highest quality wine too. We all know the best quality wine isn’t made in an hour, not even the cheapest can be done in an hour. We have the banquet master’s opinion, and if we transported a wine scientist back in time they could tell us how old they thought the wine was. There’s no way they’d say it was only an hour or less old. So there’s an example, where due to apparent age, science could lead you to say that the gospels aren’t historical.
Does that make God a trickster? And in fact, if the wine had appeared and tasted any younger, how much less of a miracle would it be?!
In creation the scale is different but the principle is exactly the same. God makes something miraculously, which by man’s best judgement would be a lot older if we assume nothing miraculous happened.
I really do think this argument is a nonsense, not because I can’t comprehend the logical, philosophical and scientific issues at stake, but because it is entirely unprovable.
If it is unprovable, then there must be a reason for proposing it, and the only reason I can see for proposing it is to make the scientific evidence “fit” a literal reading of Genesis by which it has been concluded that the world can only be 6 000 years old or so.
As Christians we believe in a lot of things which are unprovable. It may well be that this fits a YEC view, but my friend Josh told me he didn’t think that traditional Creationism had much point at all any more. The reason to believe it is because it’s philosophically unavoidable, and because so far, there seems little theological reason not to.
His reason was that his plain reading of the Bible led him to that conclusion - and he is right; the cosmology revealed in the Bibles is a flat-earth one.
On this score at least the Bible is WRONG. No amount of explaining the plain reading of the text will allow any one to align it with our modern world view. So, if this is the case in respect of the shape of the planet, why do we have to create all sorts of convoluted and unprovable arguments to try and make science marry in with the sequence of creation or the age of the earth.
I don’t think any plain reading would lead someone to believe the earth must be flat… a literalistic reading perhaps, but not a plain reading following the grammatical-historical methods.
It is from this quiveringly soft lump of anti-God, philosophically based ‘evidence’ that the whole idea of ‘apparent age’ comes.
I don’t know all the history of apparent age proponents, but neither I nor Josh Klose are in any way soft or anti-God.
But, if an astronomer, knowing the simple facts about the speed of light were to measure distances between us and another stars was to note that the star had been in existence for several million years, and that the light being measured was that old; then the scientist would be wrong. The reason appears to be that this somehow is because the Word says otherwise.
Consider carefully what evidence an astronomer could actually gather: they could gather the direction, the frequency, the intensity and maybe a few other bits of data. That’s the science, or at least the science that fits into the scientific method. From that data they could make very good estimations of the distance, time for the light to travel, and composition of the star. If we assume that nothing miraculous has happened we’d have a very good idea of what the star was emitting several million years ago. The Bible says something different however, it says that God miraculously made stars. If we believe that, then we have no certainty about our models of the universe. It could be close to what God did, or nothing like it, that’s the nature (or unnature) of the miraculous.
As for the stuff about how you can´t really know for sure what went on before, and so on. I am afraid I think that largely guff. If this is the case then scientists and historians and archaeologists should all just give up and do it now. What is the point?
Or, could it be that a dead accurate knowledge is elusive, but a pretty accurate one can be obtained?
Because for the most part, God doesn’t act in miraculous ways. Investigating our world, including the past, is good. We just have to recognise that when the Bible records God acting miraculously that our means of observing that are limited.
Does that make God a trickster? And in fact, if the wine had appeared and tasted any younger, how much less of a miracle would it be?!
Hi Dannii, you make a good point. When God works supernaturally all the assumptions we make about age etc are thrown out. Time is just part of the natural world anyway.
I don’t think any plain reading would lead someone to believe the earth must be flat… a literalistic reading perhaps, but not a plain reading following the grammatical-historical methods.
I don’t think that the bible teaches the world is flat, anymore than I think that a person who says the sun rises each day believes the sun revolves around the earth.
The Bible says something different however, it says that God miraculously made stars. If we believe that, then we have no certainty about our models of the universe. It could be close to what God did, or nothing like it, that’s the nature (or unnature) of the miraculous.
It’s really hard to say how old something is by looking at it. Usually we make assumptions (like the light travels at a certain speed, whatever) to figure these things out. If any of our assumptions are wrong, then so are any conclusions made from these assumptions. And of course, as Janice pointed out, past events are untestable by the scientific method.
It’s really hard to say how old something is by looking at it. Usually we make assumptions (like the light travels at a certain speed, whatever) to figure these things out.
It may be hard for you and me, especially me. But I doubt it is super hard for astronomers. They are constantly collecting new information, and this is either correcting or upholding previous information. Saying it is hard is not the same as saying it is impossible.
If any of our assumptions are wrong, then so are any conclusions made from these assumptions.
True. But the implication here is, as always when posed from a YECS perspective, that we should therefore doubt in a big way the claims made by scientists who are unaligned to YECS. Well, I will assume that the evidence, which is very consistent and lies across so many fields of science, points to a universal consistency of evidence about a universe that is old. If any assumption ... indeed. The various alternatives proffered by YECS have not been able to melded together to describe a consistent nor even viable world/ universe. And it really is no good to say ¨it was a miracle¨. If you do then you are left with two really odd alternatives. A YECS hotch potch of proffered quasi hypotheses that are hopelessly incapable of being melded together or the scientific paradigm which, although it has some problems, is still capable of being brought together.
Meanwhile, we have the strange effect of having the one: YECS offering a crazy creation that runs on inconsistency and weird stuff that speaks, to me, of a God with a serious problem or the scientific one proffering a consistent universe indicating a God who is consistent and stable.
Thank you, Owen. Quasi-Christian science and its research gets the thumbs down from me.
I love science and the seemingly endless questions each discovery raises. Like “Has time and light always travelled at the speed it does now? Have dimensions (time, and space etc) remained static or have they changed/fluctuated over the course of history?”
So many questions and not one of them disproves God as the Creator and His rule over creation.
Rather, it upholds the biblical view that we are the creature, limited and finite in knowledge (amongst other things) striving to understand the Creator and His creation. This is a good thing. But at some point the Christian can be honest in a way the atheist cannot: we cannot know everything but can submit to the God who does.
At the wedding at Cana Jesus turned water to wine, and it was the highest quality wine too. We all know the best quality wine isn’t made in an hour, not even the cheapest can be done in an hour. We have the banquet master’s opinion, and if we transported a wine scientist back in time they could tell us how old they thought the wine was. There’s no way they’d say it was only an hour or less old. So there’s an example, where due to apparent age, science could lead you to say that the gospels aren’t historical.
Does that make God a trickster? And in fact, if the wine had appeared and tasted any younger, how much less of a miracle would it be?!
Hi Dannii,
That miracle might contradicts the ‘normal’ creation of wine, or it might not. It’s not what the passage is about, nor is the feeding of the 5000. We simply don’t know what scientists might or might not have found if they had investigated the wine, loaves, and fish. It’s an argument from silence. Is the fish fish? Do fish of that ‘size’ normally take years to mature? Does wheat bread normally take a season to grow, and harvest, and sift, and grind, and bake? Of course! That’s why the bible recognises these as aberrations from the norm, as miracles. These verses are about Jesus and who he was, and the evidence for them occurring is bound up not in the age of the product but in the eyewitnesses that saw it.
The difference with the creation narrative is that there were no eyewitnesses, and so we can only investigate this in hindsight with the tools we have today, modern science and theology.
Science appears to teach us extreme age, and there are now convincing linguistic, theological and historical reasons to believe Genesis 1 is a symbolic and ‘creative’ (pardon the pun) narrative that actually has nothing to do with the literal mechanics, and more to do with rebuking the pagan cultures of the time as the God-breathed scriptures corrected man’s rebellious ideas.
Also, the universe being created is not an everyday event that scientists can put under their microscopes and telescopes and test. The whole point of the wine and loaves and fishes miracles is that they broke the normal natural laws and so were recognised as such, and this leads us to Jesus as Lord. So ‘apparent age’ with the loaves and fishes may indeed be the evidence for Jesus. But because we appear to be reading Genesis 1 the wrong way, to many the ‘apparent age’ of the universe is evidence against Jesus… and makes God out to be a liar, or diabolically tricky.
Eyewitnesses to the miracles of bread and wine say it happened that way. Those who study the age of the universe appear to have every scientific reason to believe that the universe is 13 billion years old, and those who study Genesis, like John Dickson, appear to have every theological, historical and linguistic reason to accept that Genesis is actually talking about something else.
I can only conclude that ‘apparent age’ is trying to reconcile 2 things that should not be reconciled.
It may be hard for you and me, especially me. But I doubt it is super hard for astronomers. They are constantly collecting new information, and this is either correcting or upholding previous information. Saying it is hard is not the same as saying it is impossible.
Astronomers can with great accuracy measure the distance of a light source, and therefore the time it’s take for the light to reach us. I don’t think there’s any problem there.
The issue is to say definitively that there was a star at that place and time requires you to assume that only the natural has occured, and nothing supernatural. That’s a great assumption in general, without it we couldn’t get anything done in science at all. But if you believe the Bible describes God supernaturally creating the universe then you can no longer be definitive.
And it really is no good to say ¨it was a miracle¨.
Why? We’re not talking about some weird abnormality or mysterious medical healing. We’re talking about God creating the universe. In what way is that not miraculous?
Thank you, Owen. Quasi-Christian science and its research gets the thumbs down from me.
From me too. But do you think this is quasi-Christian science? I haven’t claimed this is scientific in any way.
That miracle might contradicts the ‘normal’ creation of wine, or it might not. It’s not what the passage is about, nor is the feeding of the 5000. We simply don’t know what scientists might or might not have found if they had investigated the wine, loaves, and fish. It’s an argument from silence. Is the fish fish? Do fish of that ‘size’ normally take years to mature? Does wheat bread normally take a season to grow, and harvest, and sift, and grind, and bake? Of course! That’s why the bible recognises these as aberrations from the norm, as miracles. These verses are about Jesus and who he was, and the evidence for them occurring is bound up not in the age of the product but in the eyewitnesses that saw it.
The difference with the creation narrative is that there were no eyewitnesses, and so we can only investigate this in hindsight with the tools we have today, modern science and theology.
I don’t think it’s an argument from silence cause we do know what scientists would observe: they’d observe the wine was the best in the house! It wasn’t unfermented grape juice. You’re exactly right it was a miracle. We can’t investigate the actions of God in creating the universe, but we do have a record of it, and I think that record says that God making the universe was miraculous.
Science appears to teach us extreme age, and there are now convincing linguistic, theological and historical reasons to believe Genesis 1 is a symbolic and ‘creative’ (pardon the pun) narrative that actually has nothing to do with the literal mechanics, and more to do with rebuking the pagan cultures of the time as the God-breathed scriptures corrected man’s rebellious ideas.
I know it rebukes other pagan origin myths. That even supports my point though, as in some of the myths the world is created in far less miraculous ways, often from pre-existing materials, whereas in Genesis God makes it from nothing by speaking a few words. Miraculously. Supernaturally.
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