On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 17:34:23 +0000 "Peter Vibert" <wrcc@i-2000.com>
writes:
> Dear Burgy:
>
> You are the only one I know with a copy of Omphalos, so I wonder if
> I can ask you a favor. I am in the middle of a thematic sermon series
> on early Genesis, and in a couple of weeks will deal with YEC,
> including "apparent age." I have a few sentences about Omphalos from
Edmund
> Gosse's "Father and Son" (Edmund was the son) but would be helped by
> a little more. Could you give me a short summary (100 words or less)
> on the elder Gosse's argument, esp. why it does not involve God in
> deception? Maybe there's an apposite paragraph you can quote me?
>
> Any help appreciated,
> many thanks
>
> Peter Vibert
> Wading River Congregational Church
>
Hi Peter:
My copy (actually I have two, a photocopy of the original and a copy
of the recent reprint) is, unfortunately 300 miles west of here and I
shall
not see it again for at least a couple of months. But I will try.
First -- Edmund Gosse wrote FATHER AND SON many many years after the
events
of 1857 -- and in 1857 he was only 8 years old. I take his remarks about
the
events with a shaker (not a grain) of salt.
Two -- few people know of the other events of Gosse's life. including an
endorsement of
him by Huxley and the fact his wife died early in 1857 (late in 1856?) of
cancer after
a long illness. He also is credited (by some, at least) as the developer
of the first
salt water aquariums and wrote several books on natural history after the
tradition
of Audubon. FATHER AND SON is a useful source to get a flavor of who the
man
was -- not so useful about the events of 1857. IMHO of course. I found it
interesting reading when I
found a copy at Denver University's Penrose Library last summer.
Three -- Gosse was a good scientist. He did not theorize beyond his own
area of expertise.
My recollection of his remarks on geological problems was that he was
content to leave them
to those with expertise in the field.
Four -- Gosse spends many pages discussing how things would look (did
look, as far as
he was concerned) on the day they were created. His argument was, as far
as I can
remember without his book beside me, that life of all kinds exists in a
cycle -- seed to tree to seed,
chicken to egg to chicken, etc. etc. and God, in the creation of any new
life form "suddenly"
must necessarily create it at some point in that cycle. But whatever
point it is created, there
must necessarily exist (Gosse gives many examples of this) an appearance
of age.
One needs to do a Gedanken experiment to embrace this, and I think it is
kind of fun to do so --
from Gosse's book I suspect he did too. Look upon Adam 10 minutes after
the creation process
is complete. He is, perhaps, 18 years of age. Oops -- apparent age. In
his gut are the remains of
a meal he did not eat (for he had not yet been made) two hours ago. On
his belly a naval
of his non-birth 18 years previous from a non-existent mother. A tree
nearby has growth rings (without them
it could not stand) of years never experienced.
Now -- assume you are there (you are Eve). You observe all these things,
and many many others.
You saw down the tree to check the rings. Do any of 1000 other
"scientific" experiments you
wish on the flora and the fauna. All of these necessarily show "apparent
age." Yet -- creation just
happened a few minutes ago.
The point here, and I unfold it awkwardly, is that if one assumes God
created ex-nihilo,
there is no way (in our present universe at least) that this creation,
looked at 10 minutes after
it took place, would not exhibit "apparent age." Yet were we there
to observe, we would know better.
Since there is no way God can create the universe we know without an
apparent age look,
the deceptive god argument fails.
Note that since it is generally agreed that God can do essentially
anything, he
could have created Adam (and the other stuff) w/o apparent age. But it is
difficult
(Gosse argues) to understand how these living beings could function. The
tree
would fall over; Adam would have stomach distress (or be hungry beyond
belief) w/o
the remains of his previous meal -- etc.
Gosse does this a heck of a lot better than I do.
I've written a review of Gosse for an upcoming issue of PERSPECTIVES. It
really
is one book that needs to be read in the original by anyone, YEC or OEC,
that
is concerned with these issues.
Burgy
________________________________________________________________
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 16 2001 - 14:31:59 EST