The question of age is tricky. If someone asks me when was I born, I know
how I would answer. But if they ask me how old am I?, then I am at a loss. I
suppose I am as old as the universe! How about that for apparent age?
Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: John W Burgeson <burgytwo@juno.com>
To: gmurphy@raex.com <gmurphy@raex.com>; asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
Date: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 1:35 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: RE: Comet Orbits
>George -- you wrote: "But according to the apparent age hypothesis,
>nature is
>supposed to suddenly become deceptive if we try to push it past that
>point.
>It's a pretty small step from that to the position that the one whose
>creation nature is, and who is supposed to have seen that creation to be
>good, is deceptive."
>
>It is not that I disagree with you about all this -- it is simply
>my point that Gosse, at least, proposes a solution to it which does not
>require him to posit a deceptive god. As a second point I observe that
>none
>of my YEC friends, I think primarily here of Duane Gish, posit a
>deceptive god.
>The concept, AFAIK, is entirely one of OECs as they observe that a
>deceptive god is
>certainly one possible YEC argument. Usually they say it is a necessary
>YEC argument, which I think is incorrect. Often they (we) discuss it as
>if
>our YEC friends endorse it, which is both incorrect and uncivil.
>
>Burgy
>
>On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 14:21:42 -0500 george murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
>writes:
>> John W Burgeson wrote:
>>
>> > Glenn wrote: "
>> > But then the question immediately arises--Is God capable of
>> decieving us
>> > about the plan of salvation? oooh--that is a bad question but the
>> > logical
>> > outcome of a deceptive God."
>> >
>> > That question ONLY arises if someone makes the claim of a
>> deceptive god.
>> >
>> > Nobody, AFAIK, makes that claim. At least not in the context of
>> > an origins hypothesis.
>> >
>> > Yes -- many OECs claim that YECs implicitly make the claim. But
>> that
>> > OEC claim must be on the basis of an inference and -- dare I say
>> it --
>> > muddy
>> > thinking. Maybe unimaginative thinking is a better term.
>>
>> Of course nobody says "I believe in a deceptive God." But
>> the
>> implications of the apparent age argument are pretty hard to
>> distinguish in
>> a practical way from such a view.
>> We know that we can rely on regularities of basic natural
>> processes
>> for inferring events for short intervals in the past. Bear tracks
>> in the
>> forest are evidence for a real bear. Radiocarbon abundances (with
>> attention
>> to possible variations in cosmic ray intensity &c) can be used to
>> date
>> pieces of wood for a few thousand years in the past. Tree rings
>> give
>> indications of real ages. In other words, nature is "truthful" up
>> to about
>> 6000 years ago. But according to the apparent age hypothesis,
>> nature is
>> supposed to suddenly become deceptive if we try to push it past that
>> point.
>> It's a pretty small step from that to the position that the one
>> whose
>> creation nature is, and who is supposed to have seen that creation
>> to be
>> good, is deceptive.
>> One response to that is, "But God has _told_ us in the Bible
>> how old
>> the earth is." That depends of course on a particular way of
>> reading
>> scripture, but let that pass for now. I think the force of that
>> argument
>> arises from the historical circumstance that for a long time in
>> Europe the
>> world was believed to be ~6000 years old on the basis of scripture,
>> so that
>> the evidence of an old earth from geology came as a challenge to an
>> accepted
>> view which was supposed to rest on divine authority.
>> But look at the matter from outside that context. Consider
>> a
>> Chinese geologist who has grown up apart from any knowledge of the
>> Christian
>> tradition, but who has also escaped any anti-Christian
>> indoctrination. He
>> is well-trained in the natural sciences and has investigated the
>> question of
>> the earth's age very thoroughly and honestly, with no anti-Christian
>> ax to
>> grind, and concludes that the earth was formed ~4.5 x 10^9 years
>> ago. Then
>> one day he encounters a Christian who tells him that he is a sinner,
>> and
>> that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God, God's agent of creation
>> of the
>> entire universe, and his savior from sin and death. Our geologist
>> is
>> existentially and intellectually convinced and about ready to commit
>> his
>> life to Christ. Then the Christian says, "Oh, there's just one
>> other
>> thing. The Bible teaches, and you have to believe, that God created
>> the
>> entire universe 6000 years ago."
>> Now of course it's very likely that this last point would
>> cause the
>> geologist to reject Christianity, thereby pointing out the relevance
>> of Mark
>> 9:42 to those who make a YEC position an essential component of the
>> faith.
>> But suppose by the grace of God that didn't happen. What could the
>> geologist conclude? If he tries to use the apparent age argument to
>> make
>> sense of things, he'll think something like this: "I investigated
>> God's
>> good world as honestly and thoroughly as I could and concluded that
>> it was
>> billions of years old. To begin with I had no preconceptions about
>> the
>> matter, and was willing to consider the possibility that the geology
>> texts
>> were wrong. I would have been quite content to find that the earth
>> was only
>> about 10^4 years old. But all the evidence points to an age of
>> several
>> billion years. And I believe that God is the creator of the world
>> and of
>> its laws.
>> Therefore _______________________________."
>> & I leave you to fill in the blank.
>>
>> Shalom,
>>
>> George
>>
>> George L. Murphy
>> "Theologia naturalis delenda est!"
>> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>>
>
>________________________________________________________________
>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 : Wed Jan 17 2001 - 09:12:35 EST