John W Burgeson wrote:
> George wrote:
>
> " I'd like to call your attention to a point I made about this some
> time ago. While this argument may have been valid in the 19th century, I
> think that the development of modern cosmology completely undoes it. Big
> bang cosmology and its extensions show the possibility of a development
> of
> all material structures in terms of natural processes, and thus would
> have no
> need of any structures with "apparent age".
> This does NOT mean that science could describe _creatio ex
> nihilo_ in
> the theological sense, for it must begin with "something" - quantum
> fields,
> strings, or whatever, & the mathematical patterns to which they conform.
> But
> it does mean that there need be no objects which appear to be older than
> they
> actually are. The ages inferred by scientific means for remnants of the
> big
> bang, galaxies, stars, atoms &c are their real ages. Kingsley may have
> overreached the science of his time, but subsequent developments seem to
> have
> vindicated this theological assertion of his: "We knew of old that God
> was
> so wise that He could make all things; but behold, He is so much wiser
> than
> that, that He can make all things make themselves.""
>
> Yes, I know you have made that point before. It is, however, tangential
> to
> the point I was making.
>
> The operative word in Kingsley's quote (which was new to me -- thank you
> for it)
> is the word "can." The place Kingsley goes wrong in it, IMHO, is in the
> phrase "is
> so much wiser." That is, of course, a gratituous comment by the creature
> (Kingsley)
> on the creator, using the ceature's human-derived standards to decide
> which
> kind of god is the wiser.
I guess maybe I'm not clear on the point you were making. A few
weeks ago there was an extensive discussion here on the claim that "apparent
age" requires a "deceptive God." You challenged that claim with Gosse's
argument that divine creation must produce structures with apparent age.
The point I've tried to make is that that isn't true. We know at
least a possible creative scenario - i.e., creation through thoroughgoing
cosmic & biological evolution - which has no such structures.
Moreover, we have a good deal of evidence - & such evidence was already
emerging in the time of Gosse & Kingsley - which suggests that such evolution
actually has taken place.
Now of course it is still possible that God did create the whole
thing with apparent age and apparent evidence of evolution. But it is clear
that God didn't _have_ to do that. & if God did indeed create a universe
with not only apparent age but apparent evidence for evolution, it seems to
me very hard to avoid the claim that God is "deceptive."
Maybe such deception is part of the divine wisdom, but it is still
deceptive. Perhaps it has the nature of a test, a bit like problems we
sometimes make up for students with superfluous information to test their
ability to get to the hard of a situation. We are trying to mislead them
with a higher end in view, but we are still trying to mislead them.
Shalom,
George
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 12 2001 - 14:40:37 EST