From: bivalve (bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com)
Date: Thu Sep 04 2003 - 16:52:28 EDT
Additional comments
>Science is fine for telling us the present. <
This probably overlooks the frequent problems of creation science in accurately telling us the present.
>However, it cannot validly extrapolate to the past and ignore God's Word.<
Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Postulating wildly different running of creation in the past ignores God's Word.
If science cannot extrapolate into the past, how do we know that people did not spontaneously rise from the dead 2000 years ago?
>God created the Universe for man. It says so in the Bible.<
Actually, He created the universe for Himself. The Bible holds that we have a special position of authority and accountability, but we are not the ultimate end.
> If He he did so, why waste 15 billion years when it is just as easy for Him to bring it into existence in 6 days<
I am not disappointed if my wife wastes time fixing a nice dinner instead of going to the McDonalds drive through.
If God wanted to use natural methods in creating, much of that time becomes necessary to produce the necessary elements for life through a couple of rounds of star formation, burning out, and exploding. Add a couple of billion years to gradually assemble an appropriate physical form out of these elements, and the time is all used up.
>That does not dispute what science sees in an "apparent" history.<
One could develop an internally consistent approach of this sort (apart from questions about the exegetical need and the theological merit). However, in practice this is quite rare. More often, apparent age is used as an excuse for the things lacking young-earth explanations in combination with claims of apparent youth.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
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