Bill Payne writes: "As I see it, either God created from nothing, or else
the universe is eternal (a thought which comes from the late apologist,
Walter Martin). An if the universe is eternal, then the phrase "In the
beginning..."
loses all meaning. How can a Christian possibly avoid a belief, at some
level, in "unreal history?" Is it not just a matter of where we choose
to place the boundary between unreal and real history?"
I agree with the first part: either God created from nothing (as Christians
concluded from their experience of the resurrection, endorsing the later
Jewish view of creatio ex nihilo, which Jews formulated following their
experience of the Exodus and their belief in God's moral supremacy), or the
universe is eternal. And I agree that God created from nothing.
HOWEVER, the traditional YEC response is to say that, therefore, the
universe was created with apparent age. Such a point almost *had* to be
maintained, prior to the late 20th century, for until then there was no
evidence I am aware of, within science itself (as opposed to the biblical
tradition) for a finite age for the universe (as vs the solar system or the
earth). However, now for the first time in the history of science we
actually have evidence within science for the "creation" of the universe,
though it was a very long time ago and thus YECs don't like it. The fact is
that, now, we can see a consonance (as Ernan McMullin likes to call it)
between revelation and science on this very point, a consonance never before
possible. But you have to accept the general validity of BB theory to get
there.
Ted Davis
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