Hi, David (Brown).
You asked me, "...why continue your emphasis on the scientific end?"
I must ask you, "Why not?" and "Why do you fear the truth?"
It seems like by asking the question you asked your approach is that <<imputed dialogue>> "I will believe whatever it is I think the Bible says, regardless of the evidence." If this is your epistemological approach, then I must tell you straight out that it is critically flawed. Indeed, I already know that you yourself do not really believe this at least with regard to how you, as a member of the Church Of Christ, teach that other people should consider their own beliefs to be subject to the evidence. Imagine a Hindu who believes that the Baghavad Gita is sacred scripture, who proclaims that no matter what the evidence is, he knows that the Gita is from divinity and so anything that is thought to be evidence must be "reinterpreted" or dismissed on the basis of what he believes his sacred scripture teaches.
This is the subjectivism I have referred to earlier. If the evidence is to be disregarded and dismissed on the basis of your current human beliefs, then we might as well not be having this discussion at all.
The evidence is paramount, because it is only by the evidence that we can objectively determine anything about the real world apart from our fallible human prejudices and biases and the only way by which you can check to see whether or not your ideas are correct or incorrect.
Further, you must consider the distinct possibility that the evidence about the real world might actually contradict what the Bible teaches. What this would mean, if it were true, is that the doctrine of biblical inerrancy — at least in the strong sense of inerrancy which is adhered to by the "evangelical Christian" community — is wrong.
I'm not advocating this here in the context of this particular discussion. I'm simply pointing out to you that it would be entirely hypocritical for you to dismiss that possibility out of hand.
Then there is the possibility that the evidence about the real world contradicts what you believe the Bible teaches, but that your belief about what the Bible teaches is wrong.
Let's ponder these two "possibilities" in the context of the historical controversy regarding geocentrism. There were those who believed, because of some very straightforward statements made in the Bible, that the Bible teaches that the earth is fixed and cannot be moved and that it is the sun that moves around the earth. The empirical evidence on the matter, however, was rather "equivocal" for a very long time. Then something very critical happened that completely changed the landscape with regard to the empirical evidence.
The telescope.
With what we think of as a simple technological advance, people then gained the ability to acquire far more empirical evidence relevant to the matter than at any and all time previous to that. Granted, as a purely practical matter, once the telescope was invented, and then turned to the sky, it took some time for empirical information to be gathered, to be analyzed, and to be communicated to and understood by a significantly large number of people. But once this happened, it became clear that the "universe" (at that time, just the solar system) was not geocentric at all, but was heliocentric. The earth does indeed revolve around the sun, and not vice versa. Galileo was right, not because he had anything to say about it in terms of religious or biblical authority, but because the empirical evidence about the real world gathered from the real world itself showed unequivocally and extensively that the earth, and all of the planets, revolved about the sun. It took a few more decades for the actual path of motion (elliptical) to be worked out. It took a few more decades after that for this to be understood in terms of a single force of gravity (thank you, Isaac Newton) emanating from each "body" of matter based on its amount of mass, a force which the various bodies of the solar system then exerted on each with the largest body, by far, thus being the center of mass of the system.
There were four paths taken during this "mess" over geocentrism being discredited: (1) Some, of course, closed their eyes to the evidence (whether intentionally or simply implicitly by nature of their biases), and continued to espouse biblical geocentrism and biblical inerrancy to their dying day. (2) Some pondered the evidence (as they should), realized its seriousness, accepted the truth about the real world, and modified their biblical hermeneutics in a manner consistent with continuing to espouse the (strong) doctrine of biblical inerrancy. (3) Some accepted the truth about the real world, and modified their doctrine of biblical inerrancy so that "inerrancy" applied to the "spirical truths" taught in the Bible while the Bible was not considered to be inerrant in every little specific thing that it said (the "weak" doctrine of biblical inerrancy). (4) Some accepted the truth about the real world, but they did not modify their biblical hermeneutics at all, nor did they modify their doctrine of biblical inerrancy. This last group (incidentally, a relatively small one compared to the others) instead rejected their belief that the Bible is Word of God.
Now, with regard to the antiquity of the universe and the earth, the issue today is much the same, and the paths that people have taken on this are the same four paths that I have mentioned. For example, Glen Young is a good example of someone who has taken, and embraced, the first path I mention above. The evidence is to be dismissed. We believe what it is we believe, and we shall dismiss any evidence to the contrary. This position is full of flaws, not the least of which is the fact that it is self-contradictory. I have already discussed some of its particular flaws during this discussion on this topic over the last few weeks.
The second path is represented, to varying degrees, by such people as Davis A. Young, Glenn Morton, Howard J. Van Till, Hill Roberts, and Tom Couchman.
The third path is represented, typically but not exclusively, by Catholic writers, who follow the "weak" concept of biblical inerrancy.
The fourth path is represented by anyone who believes that the Bible is not God's Word, on the basis of believing that it teaches ideas that are empirically false or philosophically incoherent. (This includes, of course, skeptics, but it also includes people who follow other religions.)
I emphasize the "scientific" end (the empirical end) because it should be emphasized. The real world is what it is, and the only way for us to check out our beliefs about the real world is to go to the real world itself and examine it.
It is perfectly fine for you to claim, based on the teachings of a book (or based on what you believe it teaches), that if we go and examine the real world then what we will find out about the real world will match what the book says (or what you believe it says) because you trust the book. (This, by the way, is just one way of stating the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.) But you cannot then turn around and claim, <<imputed dialogue>> "Oh, but we should not examine the real world" (Glen Young's approach), nor can you say, "Oh, yes, I realize that the real world shows us things that contradict this, but what the real world shows us is not really real" (apparent age concept). Both of these approaches are hypocritical to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy.
So please do not try to minimize the "scientific end." We have been through this part of the discussion before. Clearly, what we learn about the real world itself is highly relevant, since it is aspects of the real world itself that are under consideration. We aren't talking about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We are talking about objective features of the real world itself. I will emphasize these objective features as is appropriate because, David, that is indeed exactly what we are talking about. If we were discussing whether or not the sun revolved around the earth, then I would be digging into details regarding what we have learned empirically about the real world. I would also discuss biblical hermeneutics considerations, as appropriate, but I would certainly also include all appropriate discussion regarding empirical aspects of the real world itself.
I am quite aware of the fact that many YECs attempts to create this "grand divide" between the two (as we have seen Glen Young, among others, do right here in this discussion, and perhaps he will pursue that route even more if and when he again joins the discussion), but for those who espouse the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, as you do, then, in fact, there is no such "grand divide," and they must be taken together when the topic under consideration has to do with aspects of the real world. That is simply the nature of the discussion due to the nature of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy that you advocate.
I must also point out there are many YECs themselves who emphasize the scientific end with respect to their promotion of "scientific" creationism (and there have been examples of YECs taking the "scientific" creationism approach right here in this discussion in this forum, such as when we were discussing interstellar and intergalactic distances, the discredited lightspeed decay model, and the discredited moon dust claims). Thus, it is very relevant and appropriate to discuss these details regarding the incorrectness of the YEC ideas in these areas.
I conclude my comments in this particular post by mentioning to you that even though I happen to be a skeptic, at the same time I find a lot of credence to a particular approach to the hermeneutics relevant to Genesis 1, and you will find that my approach is quite similar to that espoused by many evangelical Christians. I will not try to mislead you into thinking that I espouse the position I do because I think you should believe that the Bible is God's Word and that due to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy you should believe this. I don't think that. I have simply found that, interestingly enough, what I think is the correct interpretation of Genesis (in outline, if not in all the particulars) — for which I will provide the evidence — happens to be a position that many "evangelical Christians" also take because it is consistent with their doctrine of biblical inerrancy. I also differ with them on some particulars of the general position (most notably, with regard to Adam), but we will see these things as I dig into the details of biblical hermeneutics.
Finally, please consider the statements of Davis A. Young that I quote, and close with, below. (Davis A. Young, is an evangelical Christian who was a young earth creationist but who realized when he studied geology — currently he teaches geology at Calvin College, a Christian Reformed Church affiliated school in Grand Rapids, Michigan — that the idea of a young earth could not be true. Incidentally, Davis' father is Edward J. Young, the well-known conservative Old Testament scholar.)
Regards,
Todd S. Greene
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He who speaks the truth gives honest evidence....
— Proverbs 12:17
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We are dealing with God's world and with God-created facts.... We must handle the data reverently and worshipfully, yet we should not be afraid of where the facts may lead. God made those facts, and they fit into His comprehensive plan for the world. God has brought the world into its current state of existence, and thus the facts of geology and all other facts owe their existence to His sovereign counsel. When a geologist finds a rock composed of 30% quartz, 40% alkali feldspar, 20% plagioclase, and 10% biotite, the rock is that way because God willed it to be so, not because the geologist made it up or because of fate or ultimate chance. The fact about that rock's composition is every bit as much a fact as any fact that can be found in the Bible. It is as true as any fact in the Bible. It is just as much a fact as the fact that Christ died for our sins. To be sure, it is a much less important fact. One's life will not be significantly different for either being aware of it or not being aware of it, but it is nonetheless still just as much a fact. It is a very different kind of fact from the facts we find in the Bible. The facts of the Bible are expressed verbally; those in nature are not. The facts of the Bible primarily tell us what we are to believe concerning God and what duty He requires of us. The facts of the Bible are ethically normative for our lives; the facts of nature are not. The Bible generally tells us what we ought to do; nature generally does not. Thus in the Bible and in nature we are dealing with different kind of revelation of God, with different kinds of facts, but we are dealing in both cases with facts divine origination....
...if we want to know what God wants us to do we listen to His words in the Bible, but in the study of nature the redeemed Christian also learns to appreciate the character of God as Psalm 19 and Romans 1 make plain. Creation reveals God's character and expresses His nature, although not in the same direct way that the Bible does.
The facts of the Bible and the facts of nature, therefore, do not disagree but form one comprehensive, unified expression of the character and will of our Creator and Redeemer. Nature and Scripture form a unity, for God is one. Although man, because of his sinful nature, reveals himself in inconsistent and contradictory ways, God cannot do so. But the fact that God's words and works are a perfect unity does not by any means indicate that we can always see how they agree or fit together....
Nature is also from God, and nature would lead us to believe that the Earth is extremely old. Scientific investigation of the world God gave us is an exciting enterprise that God would have us engage in. We do not need the flight-from- reality science of [young earth] creationism. We need a more vigorous approach to both nature and Scripture. May I plead with my brethren in Christ who are involved in the young- Earth movement to abandon misleading the public. I urge them study geology more thoroughly. Geology cannot be learned from a few elementary textbooks. There is far more to it than that. I also urge creationists to be less dogmatic about Scriptural texts over which there has been substantial diversity of interpretation within the historic Christian church. If they would be of service to Christ's kingdom, they should do some honest-to-goodness scientific thinking that takes facts seriously, facts that were created by the God they wish to defend and serve.
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["Christianity and the Age of the Earth," in Is God a Creationist?, pp. 87, 88, 93]
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•••• David Brown, 11/19/00 3:35 PM ••••
Subject: RE: YECs' Apparent Age Concept
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•••• Todd Greene, 11/18/00 3:58 PM ••••
I understand this. And I also understand the importance of pointing out that apparent age advocates (AAAs) such as yourself are injecting their own fallible human speculations into this discussion. This is such an important consideration, because of the fact that so many YECs try to portray (wrongly) that anyone who rejects the apparent age concept is rejecting the Word of God. This is absolutely not the case. Glen Young (whom, due to his circumstances, I shall delay my response to his post until a more appropriate time), Terence Sheridan, and Wayne Goforth have demonstrated examples of just this kind of rhetoric. All three of them have tried to portray this as being a problem over giving more precendence to "human wisdom" than to the "Word of God." Since they have so strongly tried to couch the discussion in these terms (and since I am aware of the fact that this kind of false rhetoric is quite common in the YEC community), I must be careful to point out the fallacy in that rhetoric. And so I do.
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This sounds great Todd. So why continue your emphasis on the scientific end? Why not just show us where the bible allows for consistency with what you feel that science overwhelmingly supports. If you can do that then you will convince me. At this point, however, I cannot agree with your contention that the bible indicates that the earth is billions (or whatever) of years old. Show me where I am misinterpreting scripture.
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What reason do you have for believing that it was a "cataclysmic event"? (Nice word, that, by the way.) Why do you say this "seems reasonable"? With regard to the "biblical data" it is anything but reasonable. In fact, in the context of Genesis 1 it is actually not reasonable at all. So let's just keep in mind that, again, we are talking about your purely human speculation. I am not criticizing that you present your human speculations on this. I simply want to make sure that no one tries to present their purely human speculations as something other than what they are.
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You do not have to worry about that with me — I have clearly labeled what I believe to be my speculations. Perhaps God's speaking the universe into existence was silent and without any explosions ... it cannot be proven either way. However, if God created the light rays that recorded things near this event that we see explosions in them, then perhaps that is what we are seeing. Who knows? There have to be assumptions in any scientific theory, and the same is true of the way that you a looking at the data. You are assuming uniformity ... the assumption that kills all evolutionary theories. If God intervened and did things almost instantaneously, then the uniformity assumption is just wrong. Essentially the bible states that. Since God DID intervene (even after the creation in the flood — another cataclysmic event) it is unscriptural to assume uniformity on anything prior to the flood. I believe that the rainbow is the symbol of God's promise that things have been and will continue to be fairly uniform after the flood.
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First of all, again, when you state "made them visible to man" you are imposing your fallible human interpretation on the text. That phrase "made them visible to man" is not in Genesis 1, nor anywhere else in the Bible. And due to exegetical concerns, yes, I dispute your entire sentence.
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Gen 1:14-16
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[14] Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;
[15] and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.
[16] And God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; {He made} the stars also.
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The immediate impression that I get from this is that Adam could see the stars; thus they were made within the first six days and could be seen — at least some of them. Are there any stars less than six light-days from the earth?
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Are you denying that Adam was created full-grown? Do you dispute that he had to have food in his stomach and intestines if he was from that point forward to behave without the miraculous?
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I am pointing out to you (as I have been doing all along) that you are injecting your fallible human assumptions into the "biblical data" and then assuming that your human assumptions are God's Word itself. The text does not state that Adam was created fully grown. I assure you that I have read the text dozens (perhaps hundreds) of times, and this statement is simply not present in the text. You have taken a "sparse" story, and added (human) detail that is not there.
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Gen 1:26-28
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[26] Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
[27] And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
[28] And God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
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This was all in one day. Are you saying that God created Adam as a baby? Please hang with me. Your arguments here just do not hold up. I can buy what you are saying with regard to the stars, but you do not seem to be employing the "normal man's thinking" about what the bible is simply saying. It is not that hard, and what the most normal people get out of it should be given some credibility for a starting point. The burden of proof is on God making it difficult and using trickyness so only a scholar can understand it. God expects us ALL to be able to read it and understand it.
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Don't forget about the fact that in light of the data that we possess today, your scenario is neither plausible nor an "explanation." When you make claims about "this is an equally plausible interpretation of the data," you have indeed made a positive claim for which you have a burden of proof. I have simply pointed out that you have not met that burden.
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My question to you is what is the scientific reason that under the assumptions that I presented (e.g., that God created the light rays at the same time as the stars so that they would be visible) — what is the scientific reason that this is not a plausible explanation. You only state that I have no scientific proof. I agree. But in so doing you prove totally incapable of providing anything that would scientifically discredit this scenario. So this scenario is as good as any other. If not, tell me why not. Don't just tell me that I cannot prove it. I do not have to prove it. All I need is a scenario that is reasonable that corresponds to the known data that you have presented to prove that there is no contradiction with the biblical record.
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I agree with you. I have not accused you of being dishonest. I have simply stated, quite truthfully, that you adhere to YEC, and that in your adherence to YEC you refuse to accept the data.
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The argumentation of placing someone into a group and accusing them of group-think works well with many. However, I know that I am not in that group, so such accusations just discredit you. I am reasoning from my own knowledge of the bible. I have studied this topic for over 35 years and have an advanced degree in engineering, so am not someone who just has to follow the crowd. This type of argumentation has no part in any scientific review — can you imagine writing a paper defending a position for peer-review publication and making such a statement. You should at least use the same courtesy on your fellow Christians that you use on your scientific colleagues of the world.
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I have been discussing various details of the data that you reject. Just as an example, the data shows that the light has actually travelled from SN1987A to the earth (because we observe that it travelled through layers of dust, which caused a "light echo," between the star and the earth). Yet you deny that this light actually travelled through the dust and was refracted to form these observed halos (similar in principle to the lunar halos that you sometimes observe when there are ice crystals high in the atmosphere through which you observe a full moon). I have said nothing absurd. I am simply stating what you are doing. I have not imputed dishonesty to you.
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What you imputed was group-think. But let's go on. I have not disagreed that the light passed through layers of dust and that all of this existed. What I stated was that out all of this mess (when "darkness was upon the face of the deep"), God well could have created the light rays themselves in place. If so, they would carry much of this information regarding the environment of their source. I have no problem with any of the data that you are presenting. I only ask you to tell me why my interpretation of it has to be wrong. All you have done in that regard is to say I cannot prove it. True, I cannot. But you have to do better than that, for if there is a plausible explanation that is in accord with young-earth theory, then it well could be that the earth is young.
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You'll certainly have to explain your response in more detail, David. Your comments make no sense. The data shows that the explosion took place approximately 168,000 years ago, and the light from the explosion event reached the earth in 1987. The "light echo" (the halos) from the dust layers were observed a short time later (due to travelling a longer, deflected path). Several months later, the light "reflected" from the primary gas ring reached the earth (which is what allowed for such a precise "reverse parallax" measurement of the distance to SN1987A).
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I see that this is your attempt at an explanation, but I do not see that if God created the light rays in place on day four, then how could you state for certainty that anything happened 168,000 years ago? You cannot.
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Again, David, (and I have stated this a number of times) I must tell you that the discussion here is not regarding whether or not a miracle (the creation of the universe) occurred. The discussion is regarding when this took place. YECs — yourself included — claim that this took place no more than, say, 10,000 years ago, with many (most?) claiming 6,000 years ago. All of the empirical data directly contradicts this, because the data shows, with the example of SN1987A, that — whenever the universe came into existence — the universe has been around for at least 168,000 years. (Of course, with other examples, we would see history much more ancient than even this.) I grant that I have not dug into discussion of the biblical data yet. However, I also point out that AAAs have been illegitimately portraying their own fallible human speculations as being the Word of God even though their speculations are not in fact stated anywhere in the biblical text.
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OK — if you can show that the bible indicates that the universe is old, then by all means do it and solve all of our problems for us. No one will have any problem accepting the evidence that you present if it does not contradict the bible. Please move on to the good stuff. We are wasting time with these trivialities.
Thanks — dave
Dave Brown
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