Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and ID (Zondervan Counterpoints)

[Anti-Babylon]

What it does, however, is refute creation science as a science.

Why? All science is limited to the natural and outside supernatural - not just creation science.

Since this starlight communicates information that isn't, strictly speaking, accurate, we really can't pursue that line of apologetics any more.

How so? Secular science is just as limited in regards to the supernatural and they also have their unproveable hypotheses like the multiverse.

Unlike creationists, their hypotheses are created wholesale without other links to evidences like creation has.

Why should we creationists concede science to the secularists in lines of apologetics?

 

[jwright82]

I appreciate having my proposals reasonably challenged. I certainly want to own better ideas than ones I came up with on my own.

I'll echo what some others have said,
1) in analogy, the important thing is not the sum of the similarity comparisons between the original instance and the analogue, but the accuracy of the specific comparison. So, saying one [potential source] is a star, the other [potential source] is a grape, ergo... false analogy is another dismissive retort. "How exactly does the analogy fail?" is a critical question. A good analogy is valuable precisely when it renders an incommensurate concept accessible at a simpler level. A truly false analogy comes apart when the supposed comparison is exposed as illusory.

2) I don't know what I can say to make my point clearer. The particular wine Jesus made had no "past;" the particular visible phenomenon supernova lacks (on YE criteria) the space/time past assuming natural propagation.

3) to address Jacob's comments: we "experience" the biblical miracle along with the living participants. Calvin wrote that we don't need the RCC "miracles" still happening; we have the superior miracles of the NT as our own experience. Therefore, in the moment of 2K years ago, same objections to the starlight phenomenon may be transferred to the wine phenomenon. The wine appears much older than it is in real time, and there is no natural source grape for the wine. We may be observing now this light with eye or instrument; but we also observe the miracle of Jesus through the instrument of the written page.

4) Back to Jamey's comment: obviously, on a YE reading, creation in toto is miraculous. The discrete elements all form a vast system, with an array of subsystems, all which in complete state form a stable, interconnected whole. That God (on YE reading) took his time over 6 days to complete the work indicates to me that the interplay of forces is not left to function "normally" in a natural-law pattern until the whole is prepared (analogy: a car comes off the assembly line, under its own power, but not because the engine was inserted to the frame and instantly started in the first hour of build).

If, after such a long time from creation to now--however long that is--we are able to observe a phenomenon on a cosmic space/time scale virtually identical to Adam's observation; that simply compresses our relative remove from our first father. It is close to the experience we have generally of the biblical miracles, but in a different manner (not mediated entirely through the page). That divine creation would be a unique experience doesn't seem like much of an objection. I don't think of everything in creation as a miracle in the same way as "intervention" miracles; the natural order has been God's ordinary providence since the beginning.

But to rephrase my previous statement: regardless of whether God inserted a real star in the space time continuum, then blew it up and brought that information to the observation station called Earth, regardless of whether he let that information propagate at standard light speed or hasted the transmission; or if God simply provided the phenomenon of a star "burning out" within the history of observation, and left the star-source to the theoretical realm--calling the latter deceptive impugns not just the single idea that God must respect the laws of physics once he brought the universe into existence. It challenges every miracle of the Bible that violates those laws, and all other laws of nature.

Sure, if everything is a miracle, then nothing is a miracle. The word has lost its meaning. By the same token, if a single disregard of the laws of nature qualifies as deception, then all such disregard is deception. Every "miracle" that could have a natural cause must have that natural cause in real space/time, and God has to utilize his own ordinary regulative mechanisms for the universe, even if he "games" the system in a way we failed to see--like he was a magician using sleight of hand... which is also deceptive. The charge of deception fatally breaks down, if miracles are once admitted.

I don't think it's a good idea to play the "miracle" card, and cease looking for knowledge, or sources, or improvements on our theoretical understanding of the universe, etc. I don't favor the "real" star or the "as if" star. I think its vitally important that we admit divine miracles, whether God adjusts natural phenomena or simply intrudes against all natural laws, and he does it without man's permission or right to call him deceptive when he does.

I'm glad you appreciate the reasonable response and I have nothing but respect for you. But I still think the comparison is apples and oranges there not the same. If one were to have lets say carbon dated the wine they would know it was instantly created not old. So no comparison but Jacob is probably right in calling it a category mistake. I honestly don't get involved in date of the universe stuff because I have an opinion but I don't care to debate it.

 

[SeanPatrickCornell]

If one were to have lets say carbon dated the wine they would know it was instantly created not old.

How do you know that?

 

[RamistThomist]

How do you know that?

I'm not a scientist but I think it can tell how long the atoms were in existence or something. (My understanding of science is akin to Col. Jack O'Neill on Stargate when he tries to explain science).

 

[Eyedoc84]

I'm glad you appreciate the reasonable response and I have nothing but respect for you. But I still think the comparison is apples and oranges there not the same. If one were to have lets say carbon dated the wine they would know it was instantly created not old. So no comparison but Jacob is probably right in calling it a category mistake. I honestly don't get involved in date of the universe stuff because I have an opinion but I don't care to debate it.

Maybe. or maybe it would have "scientifically" tested as water. or maybe in every way similar to the finest vintage of the day.

 

[SeanPatrickCornell]

I'm not a scientist but I think it can tell how long the atoms were in existence or something. (My understanding of science is akin to Col. Jack O'Neill on Stargate when he tries to explain science).

All carbon dating does is measure the amount of Carbon-14 compared to the amount of Carbon-12 and Carbon-13.

We have no idea which mix of isotopes of Carbon our Lord Jesus chose to use in his excellent vintage.

 

[Taylor]

Are we talking about the science that says there are 72 genders, that men can get pregnant, and that the species that invented the Hubble Telescope evolved from swamp slime?

 

[jwright82]

Maybe. or maybe it would have "scientifically" tested as water. or maybe in every way similar to the finest vintage of the day.

Ok the point is if you could date it however it would date it then.

 

[RamistThomist]

Are we talking about the science that says there are 72 genders, that men can get pregnant, and that the species that invented the Hubble Telescope evolved from swamp slime?

I think we all know that isn't what we mean. That isn't science. That is sociology.

 

[Eyedoc84]

Ok the point is if you could date it however it would date it then.

My point was that I'm not sure you could.

And at any rate, you would have to make certain assumptions and bake them in to any method you used. If you didn't already know that the wine was only seconds old, you may have come up with some pretty oddball conclusions.

 

[Anti-Babylon]

If one were to have lets say carbon dated the wine they would know it was instantly created not old.

I am sorry and respectfully, I have to point out you are assuming here and claiming it as fact. There is no way you can know what the original ratio of the parent-to-daughter nuclides were instantiated in the miracle.

 

[Anti-Babylon]

(My understanding of science is akin to Col. Jack O'Neill on Stargate when he tries to explain science).

1) Funny. But head up, my friend. Sometimes I feel so dumb that my understanding of science is akin to Dr. McCoy on Star Trek when he frustratingly paraphrases Spock's intelligent analyses in protest.

2) I am still bothered by your claim that creationists are not practicing real science and should abandon the scientific "lines of apologetics".

The big bang model has its own starlight problem in the uniform temperature of the CMB and the inflationary hypotheses long embraced before it was solidly proven seems to be crumbling around them. (Incidentally, since OEC scientists joined in the full embrace of big bang inflation, they are coming up on a possible crisis alongside their cosmological kin).

I know I am just a guy here and no one of note, but if you could elucidate, I would appreciate it.

 

[iainduguid]

And I think I agreed with Lane in that it isn't deceptive. What it does, however, is refute creation science as a science. We assume the rationality and contingency of the created order in order to justify Christian approaches to science. Since this starlight communicates information that isn't, strictly speaking, accurate, we really can't pursue that line of apologetics any more.

I've argued something similar in my book "Thinking about Science , Faith and Origins: a (Very) Short Introduction": science is the wrong tool with which to approach what is fundamentally a historical question. Science only works correctly if the assumptions on which it is based prove valid. For example, Newton's laws don't work when applied to non-Newtonian fluids. So too both Creation Science and Secular science are the wrong tools to evaluate origins since we have no means of knowing for sure what laws were operating. It's not so much that the information is "inaccurate"; it is that we are always potentially operating with the wrong paradigms, which means that our results will inevitably be uncertain. There's no deception, however, since God never told us that science was meant for such purposes (it isn't), and he provided humanity with a clear revelation of what we need to know about origins. It's on us if we neglect the latter, and insist on misapplying the former.

Thinking About Science, Faith, and Origins: A (Very) Short Introduction - Kindle edition by Duguid, Iain. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Thinking About Science, Faith, and Origins: A (Very) Short Introduction - Kindle edition by Duguid, Iain. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Thinking About Science, Faith, and Origins...

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[Afterthought]

If creation science rebranded as forensic investigation/attempted historical reconstruction, and if they recognized the limitations of trying to explain miracles by present natural processes (i.e., such theories as Starlight and Time have an inherent problem with knowing whether it is true because trying to do the impossible of explaining a miracle by natural process) I see no issue. They truly are doing the same thing that evolutionists are doing (as I have seen some creation science people admit), but the guesses are more likely to be more accurate given that they are made with better assumptions. The apologetical value is more limited, but it provides a counter to evolutionary theory closer to its own terms.

 

[Phil D.]

It would seem all bets are off in terms of scientifically explaining the initial creation, since it was ex nihilo, which is categorically an unscientific concept. Or is that too simplistic?

 

[Anti-Babylon]

Science only works correctly if the assumptions on which it is based prove valid.

Science - done correctly - has part of its assumptions the null hypothesis meaning the negative holds until the alternative hypothesis is confirmed and provides testable and falsifiable data that can prove useful in further inquiry.

For example, Newton's laws don't work when applied to non-Newtonian fluids.

Nor in quantum mechanics, yet this is not a failure of science. No credible scientist would exclaim explanatory power over and against investigative processes of discovery.

So too both Creation Science and Secular science are the wrong tools to evaluate origins since we have no means of knowing for sure what laws were operating.

Why? You assume a lot - including the role of sole arbitrator of the limits of inquiry. Maybe you misworded this? You seem to be claiming that science cannot evaluate parameters of the origins and discover what laws break down / where they break down / investigate for more laws heretofore unknown.

It is one thing to say we cannot discern the formulaic processes of the miraculous (I agree whole heartedly), it is yet another thing entirely to abandon the pursuit of discovery altogether - to allow secular scientists to spin yarns around complex formulas and stand muted while young people are mesmerized into a Godless spell.

it is that we are always potentially operating with the wrong paradigms, which means that our results will inevitably be uncertain.

Uncertainty is a given in responsibly handled science. It is even factored into all equations to account for the possibility of being misguided or outright wrong.

There's no deception, however

100% agreed. God cannot lie.

he provided humanity with a clear revelation of what we need to know about origins.

Again 100% agreed. This inquiry was always a luxury of societies that were well-off. If civilization collapses and we are huddled in home churches underground, cosmological models and age of the universe fades into absolute nothingness next to survival and boldness in the face of persecution.

God bless

 

[Anti-Babylon]

It would seem all bets are off in terms of scientifically explaining the initial creation, since it was ex nihilo, which is categorically an unscientific concept. Or is that too simplistic?

Agree 100%. Not at all simplistic.

Secularists have their own version of "ex nihilo" and it involves quantum fluctuations in a vacuum borrowing against negative energy density and forming virtual particles that become real in waves of quantum probability. But they deny "ex nihilo" as they claim a vacuum does not count as "true nothing".

They justify this by equivocating magnetic fields appearing "out of nothing" in labs through the Casimir effect and ignoring their own flaws in logic or handwaving that they have to do in order to make the miraculous happen without a God.

All of this is claimed as absolute fact. Even secularists who question the big bang are ostracized to low-tier positions.

 

[Afterthought]

It would seem all bets are off in terms of scientifically explaining the initial creation, since it was ex nihilo, which is categorically an unscientific concept. Or is that too simplistic?

This is correct. However, there are unknowns as to where our current laws come into effect and where ex nihilo prevents scientific inquiry (because science must assume cause-effect, which means it must assume from nothing, nothing comes). And it is also uknown whether--having created the universe in process--what natural process might have happened if God created by the laws of ordinary providence. In the process of understanding the uknown, one may find out things relevant to the present.

 

[RamistThomist]

protest.

2) I am still bothered by your claim that creationists are not practicing real science and should abandon the scientific "lines of apologetics

I said forms of creation science, not creationists

 

[Anti-Babylon]

What it does, however, is refute creation science as a science.

^ This is what you said. If creationists - by definition - are doing creation science and you deem creation science has been "refuted" as a science, then how is this any different than saying creationists are not doing real science?

We assume the rationality and contingency of the created order in order to justify Christian approaches to science.

Barring miracles, yes. And always in conjunction with the priority of special revelation in the Scriptures.

Since this starlight communicates information that isn't, strictly speaking, accurate, we really can't pursue that line of apologetics any more.

You still haven't answered that strictly speaking "starlight communicating information" is a puzzle to be specifically accounted for within ALL cosmological models including the big bang. Why is the starlight problem presumed so especially troubling for creation science in your view than the starlight problem inherent in non-creation science?

 

[Northern Crofter]

I think we all know that isn't what we mean. That isn't science. That is sociology.

As someone else has commented, the study of the origins of the universe isn't science, it's history:

science is the wrong tool with which to approach what is fundamentally a historical question.

We would all need to define "science" before truly settling some of the issues above. In my view, pure science is the testing of a hypothesis that can be observed and replicated. Everything else (the study of history or "social sciences" for examples) is a matter of reasonable speculation and faith. But even "pure science" admittedly has a dose of faith (for example that certain "constants" in an experiment are truly constant)

 

[Anti-Babylon]

As someone else has commented, the study of the origins of the universe isn't science, it's history:

We would all need to define "science" before truly settling some of the issues above. In my view, pure science is the testing of a hypothesis that can be observed and replicated. Everything else (the study of history or "social sciences" for examples) is a matter of reasonable speculation and faith. But even "pure science" admittedly has a dose of faith (for example that certain "constants" in an experiment are truly constant)

I do not necessarily disagree with anything said here. I would merely add that the defining lines between what you draw as science and history are blurred when it comes to the origin of the universe and certain other intellectual pursuits of discovery.

The following is written towards the entire thread as a whole and all those watching it:

God's act of creation itself is a matter of Biblical history I do not deny (quite the opposite!).

The manner in which natural laws were suspended and its relation to current laws of physics and relations to potential laws of physics yet unknown (ie, is quantum gravity possible?) are open-ended and firmly a matter of science, not history. History holds the truth of events as recorded in trustworthy sources; science investigates the parameters of the events in subject to the laws of nature. Apply my last statement to the existence of ancient Mesopotamian societies and their religions and laws, not only in terms of the sources discovered but in terms of radiocarbon dating in conjunction with their confirmed claims as to dates, eclipses, etc.

Sometimes it feels like some believers do not merely protest the perceived mislabeling of the pathway of the origins of the universe as "SCIENCE" when it should be "HISTORY".

Sometimes it seems that some see the pursuits of these inquiries as tainted roads on a pilgrim's journey that skirt too closely to atheistic materialism and while true for some is not necessarily true for all.

I have found quantum physics and its debate between the "many-worlders" and the super-determinists to be an excellent opening to witness not only of a Creator but also His sovereignty!

 

[hammondjones]

A lot of Hamian Creation Science ends up being merely sanctified speculation. For example, they'll say, well, there isn't enough time (6000 years) for some of the erosion we see, so maybe there were super-hurricanes that lasted for hundreds of years. That isn't science. Scientific investigations should be repeatable, and scientific theories should be falsifiable / verifiable.

 

[Knight]

A lot of Hamian Creation Science ends up being merely sanctified speculation. For example, they'll say, well, there isn't enough time (6000 years) for some of the erosion we see, so maybe there were super-hurricanes that lasted for hundreds of years. That isn't science. Scientific investigations should be repeatable, and scientific theories should be falsifiable / verifiable.

No one today was alive to observe what happened 6000 years ago, and no one who conducted experiments 6000 years ago recorded what happened. We can't time travel to investigate what happened 6000 years ago.

Any inferences about what happened 6000 years ago, therefore, will be theory-laden. This is true of what scientific hypotheses YEC creationists posit, yes. It is also true of what any scientific hypotheses which may be posited.

Ironically, I end up agreeing with you that "sanctified speculation" is an apt phrase.

 

[Anti-Babylon]

For example, they'll say, well, there isn't enough time (6000 years) for some of the erosion we see, so maybe there were super-hurricanes that lasted for hundreds of years.

Not completely true of their claims here.

That isn't science. Scientific investigations should be repeatable, and scientific theories should be falsifiable / verifiable.

Yes it is science.

Hypotheses that do not rise up to the level of repeatable and falsifiable may not justifiably be considered a working theory. You are correct there, but it is unnecessary to denigrate the process of hypothesis-making itself due to preconceived ideas of what will or ever be possibly a working theory a priori - outside of direct Scriptural claims of course. God's limits on our knowledge are definite, true, and sure. Most creation scientists should not be misunderstood as speculative Faustian knights tilting at windmills and throwing elbows at history or theology or hermeneutics. If any are known to be so then they should definitely be called out on it.

[Edited for clarity]

 

[RamistThomist]

I'm pressed for time so I'll try to offer some summary remarks:

1) It is true that all science is theory-laden, but it is also true that the mind works by submitting itself to the internal rationality of a thing and the thing impresses its on rational structures on the mind. This is what Torrance called "kataphysic theology." Knowledge is circular, but not in the way many think. We submit our minds to a thing's rationality (that's the circular part) but the thing itself might shape our mind and we come to a conclusion we didn't expect.

2) Science is testable (as a general rule) and the experiments should be repeatable. This is somewhat problematic for both OEC and YEC.

 

[alexandermsmith]

And I think I agreed with Lane in that it isn't deceptive. What it does, however, is refute creation science as a science. We assume the rationality and contingency of the created order in order to justify Christian approaches to science. Since this starlight communicates information that isn't, strictly speaking, accurate, we really can't pursue that line of apologetics any more.

I suppose it depends on what Creation science is seeking to illustrate, and how they seek to do this. Obviously Creation science would presuppose God's involvement in the creating process, and the length of time we are told it took (if one is YEC) and thus allow for the fact that the Creation was created already formed, already in motion. Then it would investigate whether there is evidence for these accounts. That is how I have understood the attempts to harmonise Biblical history with geological evidence, for example for the worldwide flood. I cannot claim intimate knowledge of the field of Creation science but I would assume it deals with both physical evidence and theological presuppositions. Perhaps that is what you mean by needing to abandon an apologetical approach. But even making use of different scientific methods of dating rocks can produce, apparently, wildly different results. Surely all Christians start with the presupposition that all scientific inquiry must submit to Scripture and the truths- historical and theological- taught therein. Therefore no matter how often and consistently scientific experimentation may "disprove" a claim of Scripture, it is the science which is wrong. Personally I do not believe the millions, billions, of years scientists tell us has been the lifespan of the Earth is compatible with Scripture (nor, actually, with what is observable in the world but that's something else altogether). And yet we are told that the science has consistently proven this.

But, returning to the starlight question. Is it really true to say that the supernova we see is in some way not accurate because, according to the ordinary physical laws, there hasn't been enough time (under the YEC paradigm) for a star to explode and the result to be visible on Earth? In other words, the necessary star to create the supernova was never there. But the star is there: it's there in the supernova. There is no reason why the Creation had to be formed in what we would call infancy and expand out.

 

[RamistThomist]

But, returning to the starlight question. Is it really true to say that the supernova we see is in some way not accurate because, according to the ordinary physical laws, there hasn't been enough time (under the YEC paradigm) for a star to explode and the result to be visible on Earth?

Yes. Even Ken Ham acknowledges the problem. Most of the responses on this thread implicitly concede the problem by countering that God didn't actually deceive us.

 

[RamistThomist]

1) Funny. But head up, my friend. Sometimes I feel so dumb that my understanding of science is akin to Dr. McCoy on Star Trek when he frustratingly paraphrases Spock's intelligent analyses in protest.

 

[Afterthought]

But the star is there: it's there in the supernova. There is no reason why the Creation had to be formed in what we would call infancy and expand out.

Yes, this is true. The star--or whatever was the star--would still be there/would be present somewhere in the universe: neutron star, black hole, whatever material was ejected and/or whatever interactions the material would have had with surrounding bodies. I don't think I've seen this point brought up when people discuss the starlight problem.