Thanks for that, Mike. Cheered me up today.
On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 2:09 PM, Nucacids <nucacids@wowway.com> wrote:
If the Universe is 14 billion years old, and humans evolved only about 300 million years ago, then Creation existed without humans for 13.7 billion years. For some, this is a problem for Christian faith: “it makes no sense to imagine that an all-powerful God would need to devise this vast universal Rube Goldberg contrivance for the sake of creating life, rather than just doing it in one fell swoop of His mighty hand.”
This argument is essentially subjective and it targets the omnipotence of God.
I see it as an attack on the omnipotence of God.
The idea is that a truly all-powerful God would not have to employ such an immensely long, drawn out, inefficient process since He had the power to bring Creation into existence in an instantaneous act. Why bother with 13.7 billion years of irrelevant history when what matters is the origin of humankind?
It depends on the goal. The scriptures say we don't know the mind of God nor His ways. If we take that at face value we cannot believe we really understand the purpose of everything, can we? Ergo I see the whole approach of the quoted crtici as faulty theological thinking. I myself have always said I reject this form of creationist thinking on theological grounds.
Now, I have already noted that even Genesis does not teach an instantaneous, all-at-once, creation. Certainly, God could have created all of reality in one fell swoop of His mighty hand. And He could have done so last Thursday. But that is not what happened. So we need to ask why it is that creation is so old
You and one billion old earth creationists have asked that question.
More important, are we asked by the critic to believe in a God who instant by instant causes the existence of every particle and pushes every particle around? So that particles dont really have independent existence? Sounds panentheistic to me. I just wonder if "reality in one fell swoop" goes along with this panentheistic notion. The giveaway is the kind of faith it takes to believe both rather than believing in energy/matter having ancient origins and following natural laws.
and why it is that creation existed as long as it did without humans.
I think we know that to get a (even one) planet (using physics) that sustains life actually takes that much stuff.
I am afraid I still reject Ken Miller's tie clip. I just don't see the aboriginal formation of extruded wire that got coiled into a spring by being blown in a hurricane. Its nuts to think that tie clip precursors exist by the trillions and thus have a high probability of being turned into tie clips by any passerby who happens to have a tie and a shirt. Its a matter of disbelieving in the natural origins of things which have low probability of existence. Skepticism is good.
But before getting to that directly, we should also pause to consider that this ancient Universe is consistent with the teachings about God.
More here: http://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/the-patient-creator/
Mike
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