Re: Apparent Age: Rethinking Creatio ex Nihilo

Consider: your fried Richard Roe comes to you with a proposal that you
invest in New Creation bonds, headed by John Jones. New Creation has been
paying excellent returns, Roe says. You find it true. But you look into
it further. Roe seems to be honest, convinced that he's onto a good
thing, and wants you to share his good fortune. However, you look into
things further. New Creation is only two years old. As you investigate
further, you find that Jones was indicted for fraud in another state and,
as part of a plea deal, served only three years of what could have been a
much longer sentence. He's still on probation for that conviction. Will
you invest of, concluding that Roe has been suckered, report the offer to
the DA?

Josh, you tell me that God's truth is that the universe is 6000 years
old. God has told you so and it's the truth. But almost everybody that
looks into the evidence sees a universe 13 Gy old, a solar system 5 Gy
old, galaxies whose light has been on the way for millions and billions
of years, sorted deposits on earth giving a history of development for
living things. The folks who join you in saying the earth is young now
say that the data from radioisotope dating looks old, but a couple
miracles 6000 and 4300 years ago make it look that way. But George Murphy
has proved that the scheme they cite to carry away the incredible amounts
of heat produced by cramming Gy in radiation into a day and a year
respectively won't work. Do you accept "God's truth" or declare it a lie?
Looks to me as though you want God to be as crooked as Jones but truthful
at the same time.
Dave

On Mon, 22 May 2006 12:43:59 -0400 "Josh Klose" <mrbond@hlfallout.net>
writes:
> Believe me, I have asked myself what kind of evidence you would
> expect! This
> is exactly the line of argument I deal with in the essay. Check it
> out if
> you're interested: http://www.hlfallout.net/~josh/apparent_age.pdf
>
> I'll try to answer briefly here, but there's a fuller explanation in
> the
> essay (see especially pp.8-13). The analysis you've posed is
> certainly
> intuitive, but I think it fails on closer inspection. I think there
> are
> really two issues here.
>
> First, the concept of "showing past events". Here, the distinction
> is often
> drawn between "age" and "maturity" (or in your words "evidence of
> history"
> and "just fully formed things") -- in that only "age" is said to
> show
> specific past events. But the distinction is a false one. In terms
> of
> implying a causal physical history, the two are indistinguishable.
> The very
> presence of teeth is no less evidence of "past events" than are
> cavities.
> Teeth do not simply appear without a specific physical formation any
> more
> than cavities. Any physiologist can tell you that teeth require a
> meticulously specific process of formation.
>
> Second, the question of essential vs. non-essential apparent age.
> Indeed,
> God could have created a functioning universe without non-essential
> apparent
> age (e.g. without belly buttons, radioisotope decay, fossils etc).
> How can
> we tell whether non-essential apparent age should be expected?
> Usually, this
> question is resolved by appealing to "maximal honesty". If every
> implication
> of apparent age is deceptive, then for God to be maximally honest he
> would
> have included only the bare minimum of deception in creation (i.e.
> only
> essential apparent age). My argument is that the entire notion of
> apparent
> age as deceit is mistaken. Apparent age is not deceptive at all if
> one
> counts the possibility of miraculous creation. For if we have reason
> to
> believe that creation has just occurred, it doesn't matter what the
> specific
> content of the apparent age is -- no combination more strongly
> implies the
> reality of the implied past than any other. If God miraculously
> created a
> bike, would it be more deceptive if it had a little rust than if it
> were
> polished? It makes no difference -- neither suggests the reality of
> the
> implied history if one counts the possibility of creation.
>
> "When Adam saw the world at the moment of creation, he did not think
> it
> suggested the physical reality of its implied past. The biologist
> may
> mistakenly infer the past of the first hawkmoth, but only in
> ignorance of
> the possibility of creation. For Adam, the moth's apparent age did
> not in
> the least suggest the reality of the hawkmoth pupa, for '[t]he law
> of
> creation supersedes the law of nature'." (see p.10 for the fuller
> argument
> there)
>
> On this basis, I argue that the deception criterion must be
> abandoned. In
> its place is a presumption of general causal consistency -- for this
> is the
> only precedent we have in observed history. Under this presumption,
> creation
> with essential apparent age implies a causal past which would have
> produced
> non-essential age. As creation is the product of this apparent
> causal chain,
> it would have possessed such non-essential features as well.
>
> If this sounds incomplete, that's because it is! See the essay for
> details
> and the rest of the argument.
>
> -Josh
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]
> On
> Behalf Of Paul Greaves
> Sent: Monday, 22 May 2006 3:12 AM
> To: Josh Klose; asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: Apparent Age: Rethinking Creatio ex Nihilo
>
> Hi,
> I think you have to ask yourself what kind of apparent age evidence
> you
> would expect. An illustration might be in order...
>
> Let's take the newly created Adam as an example. I would expect a
> fully
> formed recently created full grown man to have a certain "appearance
> of
> age". But I would not expect to find evidence of a broken arm that
> had
> healed. Nor would I expect to find a missing appendix, with a
> nicely healed
>
> incision to match. What about cavities in teeth? That would be odd
> also...
>
> you get the idea. One might refer to these kinds of things as
> "evidence of
> history". Likewise, if the trees in the garden were created
> instantly out
> of nothing, they too would have a certain "appearance of age". But
> they
> should not show evidence of past events that would be unrelated to
> their
> basic nature or function. For example, I would not expect evidence
> of past
> fire scars along with healed over growth. Or, for example, a broken
> crown
> with re-grown leader at the top.
>
> It is very important to point out that this kind of "evidence of
> history" is
>
> exactly what is seen in the world and universe... evidences of past
> events,
> not just fully formed things. So no, what is actually seen is not
> "the
> reasonable expectation of creation ex nihilo of the YEC order".
> Such stuff
> would indeed be deceptive if the past events didn't actually
> happen.
> -Paul Greaves
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Josh Klose" <mrbond@hlfallout.net>
>
> >
> > I merely ask "if one extrapolates the YEC Genesis reading on its
> own
> > terms,
> > what should be expected?" My conclusion: complete apparent age is
> neither
> > a
> > compromise nor a deception; it is the reasonable expectation of
> creatio ex
> > nihilo of the YEC order.
> >
> > I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts/feedback if you have some
> time.
> >
> > -Josh
>
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Mon May 22 15:52:52 2006