Genesis -- Young vs. Old Earth

[Guest]

The following [bolding mine] is taken from Systematic Theology by Augustus Strong:

1. Definition of Miracle.
A. Preliminary Definition. --- A miracle is an event palpable to the senses, produced for a religious purpose by the immediate agency of God; an event therefore which, though not contravening any law of nature, the laws of nature, if fully known, would not without this agency of God be competent to explain.

This definition corrects several erroneous conceptions of miracle: ---
(a) A miracle is not a suspension or violation of natural law; since natural law is in operation at the time of the miracle just as much as before.
(b) A miracle is not a sudden product of natural agencies --- a product merely forseen, by him who appears to work it; it is the effect of a will outside of nature.
(c) A miracle is not an event without a cause; since it has for its cause a direct volition of God.
(d) A miracle is not an irrational or capricious act of God; but an act of wisdom, performed in accordance with the immutable laws of his being, so that in the same circumstances the same course would be again pursued.
(e) A miracle is not contrary to experience; since it is not contrary to experience for a new cause to be followed by a new effect.
(f) A miracle is not a matter of internal experience, like regeneration or illumination; but an event palpable to the senses, which may serve as an objective proof to all that the worker of it is divinely commissioned as a religlious teacher.

B. Alternative and Preferable Definition. --- A miracle is an even in nature, so extraordinary in itself as so coinciding with the prophecy or command of a religious teacher or leader, as fullly to warrant the conviction, on the part of those who witness it, that God has wrought it with the design of certifying that this teacher or leader has been commissioned by him.

This definition has certain marked advantages as compared with the preliminary definition above: ---
(a)It recognizes the immanence of God and his immediate agency in nature, instead of assuming an antithesis between the laws of nature and the will of God.
(b) It regards miracles as simply and extraordinary act of that same God who is already present in all natural operations and who in them is revealling his general plan.
(c) It holds that natural law, as the method of God's regular activity, in no way precludes unique exertions of his power when these will best secure his purpose in creation.
(d)It leaves it possible that all miracles may have their natural explanations and may hereafter be traced to natural causes, while both miracles and their natural causes may be only names for the one and self-same wil of God.
(e) It reconciles the claims of both science and religion: of science, by permitting any possible or probable physical antededents of the miracle; of religion, by maintaing that these antededents together with the miracle
itself are to be interpreted as signs of God's special commission to him under whose teaching or leadership the miracle is wrought.

2. Possibility of miracle

(a) Lower forces and laws in nature are frequently counteracted and trancended by the higher (as mechanical forces and laws by chemical, and chemical by vital), while yet the lower forces and laws are not suspended or annihilated, but are merged into the higher, and made to assist in accomplishing purposes to which they are altogether unequal when left to themselves.

(b) The human will acts upo its physical organism, and so upon nature, and produces results which nature left to herself never could accomplish, whle yet no law of nature is suspended or violtated. Gravitation still 0perates upon the axe, even while man holds it a the surface of the water --- for the axe still has weight.

(c) In all free causation, there is an acting without means. Man acts upon external nature through his physical organism, but, in moving his physical organism, he acts directly upon mattre. In other words, the human will use means, only because it has the power of acting initially without means.

(d) What the human will, considered as a supernatural force, and what the chemical and vital forces of nature itself, are demonstrably able to accomplish cannot be regarded as beyond the power of God, so long as God dwells in and controls the universe. If man's will can act directly upon matter in his own physical organism, God's will can work immediately upon the system which he has created and which he sustains. In other words, if there be a God, and if he be a personal being,, miracles are possible......

[Guest]

Thanks for the definition Paidion. I still find it difficult to believe it doesn't defy the law of nature, but I guess maybe the hang up is what is the law of nature? I mean when Jesus was tempted he was asked to turn the stone into bread. As far as I know all scientist in the world would say that is impossible, but it just maybe a limitation of our knowledge on how things work in this world. Who knows? Thanks again for the definition...that was helpful.

[Guest]

I continue to be amazed at how Steve consistently applies hermaneutic to his biblical interpretation without undue positional interest -- dispassionate or detached aren't the right words.

Pardon me for posting a response to the very first post on this thread, but I am new to the forum and had to start somewhere. I think the term that you are looking for is "objective". There is not a lot of objective writing on theological differences taking place today. Most are from one perspective or another and show their favorite interpretation in the best light possible. Straw man arguments and genetic falacies are plentifull.

I have studied apologetics for two decades, with a special interest in Creation and Eschatology views, and have been a fan of Steve's book for years. While I have books covering a dozen or more interpretations of creation, I have yet to find one that objectively looks at all of the different views. I have given a lecture series on this topic though from what I hope is an objective standpoint. I gave the pros and cons of the young earth as well as the old earth interpretation from both science as well as the Bible and cover the history of the different interpretations. The entire lecture is about seven hours long and is available for download at http://www.palmpage.com/genesis. Don't worry, it is broken up into topical segments. The lecture was geared towards homeschool parents at my church and was given a couple of years ago. Since the audience stayed afterward and were pressing me for my personal opinion and couldn't tell from the lecture itself, I think I successfully kept the lecture as objective.
D.

[Guest]

Since it has not exactly been orthodox Christian belief until recently, a look at young-earth roots is interesting.... I can't remember where this came from, so I can't give attribution, but it's not my own....

Ultimately, a lot of it probably came from "The Creationists" by Ronald Numbers. It is a book that covers the history of the creationist movement and where the ideas came from.
D.

[Guest]

What is OEC theories on the creation layout? How do they explain the light on day 1 through 3 and how do they explain how plants survived and reproduced without the Sun or insects?

The OEC camp believes that the sun, as part of the heavens, was created "in the beginning". A careful study of the phrasing used on day 4 is not that the sun was "made" on day 4, but that it was "made to govern" on day 4. A purpose was assigned to it. I use this anology in my lecture series that I mentioned earlier. When I "make" my son clean his room, I am not creating him. If the sun did not exist until day 4, you are left with an interpretation that has something that produced light like the sun "in the beginning", produced heat like the sun "in the beginning", and provided day/night cycles like the sun starting "in the beginning", but was not the sun. This thing that looked like a sun and quacked, err...I mean acted, like a sun was then replaced with something identical to it on day 4. As far as insects go, I assume that you refer to pollenation. Here in Atlanta, we have five seasons. Just before Spring, we have Pollen Season. Everything turns mustard color from the pollen. The wind carries it everywhere. Could wind have pollenated prior to day 4? Could insects be created on day 3 and not be included in the "creeping" things created later?

Doesn't the verse in Revelations sort of explain the process of light when it is emitted from God? However, in Revelation he is not going to seperate the light because there will be no night

If God was the literal light prior to day 4, was he also the heat required to keep water in a liquid form and plant life from freezing? If He was the literal light, did He turn Himself off on day 4? If He is omnipresent, how do we explain darkness?
D.

[Guest]

The OEC camp believes that the sun, as part of the heavens, was created "in the beginning". A careful study of the phrasing used on day 4 is not that the sun was "made" on day 4, but that it was "made to govern" on day 4. A purpose was assigned to it. I use this anology in my lecture series that I mentioned earlier. When I "make" my son clean his room, I am not creating him. If the sun did not exist until day 4, you are left with an interpretation that has something that produced light like the sun "in the beginning", produced heat like the sun "in the beginning", and provided day/night cycles like the sun starting "in the beginning", but was not the sun. This thing that looked like a sun and quacked, err...I mean acted, like a sun was then replaced with something identical to it on day 4. As far as insects go, I assume that you refer to pollenation. Here in Atlanta, we have five seasons. Just before Spring, we have Pollen Season. Everything turns mustard color from the pollen. The wind carries it everywhere. Could wind have pollenated prior to day 4? Could insects be created on day 3 and not be included in the "creeping" things created later?

Interesting observation, but when I read about the 4th day I don't get that the Sun already existed:

14Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;

15and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.

16God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.

17God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,

18and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.


In verse 14 it read let there be lights...Why create a secondary light if the Sun already existed? Also, verse 16 first states the two great lights were made and then were instructed to govern...that is if you read it plainly for what it says. Please explain more on how you came to your conclusion.

It is true that wind could spread the pollen by some plants, but not all. Take the trumpet vine or trumpet creeper for instance. This plant relies solely on the hummingbird to cross pollinate. The pollen is located deep within the flower and needs the hummingbirds beak in order to spread the pollen from one flower to the next.

If God was the literal light prior to day 4, was he also the heat required to keep water in a liquid form and plant life from freezing? If He was the literal light, did He turn Himself off on day 4? If He is omnipresent, how do we explain darkness?
D.

Although Genesis doesn't plainly spell it out for us we can still use scripture to help with a possible explanation. Again I refer you to Revelations. Do you think plant life will exist in the next life? If so, than God's light must be able to sustain all life as we know it.

As far as the darkness go..it existed before light. Darkness is just the absence of light. That is why God created Light on day one and seperated it from the darkness.

Thanks for the response. I like this discussion it definitely helps me see the viewpoint of OEC.

[Guest]

Interesting observation, but when I read about the 4th day I don't get that the Sun already existed:

14Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;

15and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.

16God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.

17God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,

18and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.


In verse 14 it read let there be lights...Why create a secondary light if the Sun already existed?

Your question about "why create a secondary light if one existed" is a good one. Why "create" a sun on day 4 when something was already there that acted like one? And was it a "creation" on day 4? What is the verb there? The phrase "let there be" is quite clear in the KJV. It is less so in the Hebrew. Try reading it in a different translation. The OEC camp believes that the more accurate translation is "let the lights be for..." When a particular groups interpretation is tied heavily to one particular translation, it deserves closer scrutiny.

Also, verse 16 first states the two great lights were made and then were instructed to govern...that is if you read it plainly for what it says. Please explain more on how you came to your conclusion.

Not my conclusion. I'm explaining the position, not taking one. Take the first two chapters of Genesis and chart it out with what was said each day, the active verbs used, and the object being discussed. What you will find is that God "created" and He "made". Two different verbs with two different meanings. He "made" light by seperating it from darkness. He "made" dry land by seperating it from the water. He "made" man, animals, birds, and so forth by forming them out of the dirt. He "made" the trees in the garden by having the ground "produce" it and by planting them and causing them to grow. When you look at it that way, you see a major creation event "in the beginning" and the rest of the "week" is seperating already created stuff or making new stuff out of already created stuff.

It is true that wind could spread the pollen by some plants, but not all. Take the trumpet vine or trumpet creeper for instance. This plant relies solely on the hummingbird to cross pollinate.

I'm not totally convinced one way or another on where insects fall in the order of creation.

Although Genesis doesn't plainly spell it out for us we can still use scripture to help with a possible explanation. Again I refer you to Revelations. Do you think plant life will exist in the next life? If so, than God's light must be able to sustain all life as we know it.

I see lots of references to stars in Revelation. The sun is a star. We won't need the light from the sun, but does that mean that the sun will no longer exist? I'm not sure.

Thanks for the response. I like this discussion it definitely helps me see the viewpoint of OEC.

Not to toot my own horn too much, but I cover a lot of this in the lecture I did. And, if you would rather read than listen, you might find Don Stoner's online ebook, "A New Look At An Old Earth" to be of some benefit.
D.

[Guest]

Your question about "why create a secondary light if one existed" is a good one. Why "create" a sun on day 4 when something was already there that acted like one? And was it a "creation" on day 4? What is the verb there? The phrase "let there be" is quite clear in the KJV. It is less so in the Hebrew. Try reading it in a different translation. The OEC camp believes that the more accurate translation is "let the lights be for..." When a particular groups interpretation is tied heavily to one particular translation, it deserves closer scrutiny.

Interesting. Is the phrase "Let there be lights", both used in Genesis 1:3 and Genesis 1:14, translated the same or different?

Not my conclusion. I'm explaining the position, not taking one. Take the first two chapters of Genesis and chart it out with what was said each day, the active verbs used, and the object being discussed. What you will find is that God "created" and He "made". Two different verbs with two different meanings. He "made" light by seperating it from darkness. He "made" dry land by seperating it from the water. He "made" man, animals, birds, and so forth by forming them out of the dirt. He "made" the trees in the garden by having the ground "produce" it and by planting them and causing them to grow. When you look at it that way, you see a major creation event "in the beginning" and the rest of the "week" is seperating already created stuff or making new stuff out of already created stuff.

When I read from the NASB version the phrase "Let there be" or "Let the" is when something is shown as being created. Which I guess brings me back to the point of a second light being created at least in the context of the same verbage being used.

I'm not totally convinced one way or another on where insects fall in the order of creation.

However, in the example that I used I was referring to a bird used for cross pollination. Birds weren't created until the 5th day. My thoughts on the insects is that it falls on the 6th day. Referring to the "creeping things", but I can see how someone may refer that to other crawling animals. Also, there is no reference to life other than plant life before the end of day 3.

I see lots of references to stars in Revelation. The sun is a star. We won't need the light from the sun, but does that mean that the sun will no longer exist? I'm not sure.

Here is the reference I was referring to in Revelation:

Revelation 21:22-26

22I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

23And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.

24The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.

25In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed;

26and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it;

It appears that verse 23 is definitely stating there will be no Sun needed and since there will be no night I don't see the purpose of having other stars since you wouldn't be able to see them anyway. Please let me know if you have a different translation that you go by for these verses.

Not to toot my own horn too much, but I cover a lot of this in the lecture I did. And, if you would rather read than listen, you might find Don Stoner's online ebook, "A New Look At An Old Earth" to be of some benefit.
D.

Thanks. When I find some time I will try to listen to your lectures. Take care.

[Guest]

I believe that the phrase "Let there be" is something inferred from the text, and not in the original Hebrew. From what I have read, and I have to depend on others since I can't read Hebrew, it is analogous to a director in a film calling out "Lights, Camera, Action!". He is implying that there is "to be" lights, but it is inferred.

John Sailhamer, a Hebrew scholar, has proposed an interesting approach to Genesis 1 and 2 that some have called "Historical Creationism. I've have Sailhamer's book on the subject, Genesis Unbound. It is a very interesting harmonization of the text with science. It is out of print and quite pricey now, but you can read more about his approach at http://hometown.aol.com/arkvow/creationism.htm and http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/ ... nesis.html. It holds that the young-earth creationists are, to large degree, being influenced by an incorrect worldview of the Greeks as indicated in the Septuagent and later in the KJV, while old-earth creationists are being overly influenced by a worldview based on science and are reactionary towards the young-earth interpretation. Both views, according to Sailhamer, are reading too much into the text. His approach, based on his careful exegesis of the underlying Hebrew and taking Moses' perspective into account, shows that there might be an entirely different approach to this text that is neither young nor old earth, but somewhere in between. If you are not familiar with the approach, you might find his book very interesting reading. According to Sailhammer, ""when Genesis 1 and 2 are understood as...Moses intended them to be understood, nearly all the difficulties that perplex modern readers instantly vanish". I'm not totally convinced of it, but really like the interpretation. It answers a lot of my questions. Even if you read the pages and disagree, it make for good opposition research. Always be prepared to give a defense.....
D.

[Guest]

here's a thought provoking article regarding the problem of starlight and YEC
_________________

Star Light & the Age of the Universe

Gregory Koukl

The question is, how do you know the stars are really there? You don't see the light of anything that existed. You're seeing an image created in transit of an event that never took place.


A young-universe creationist is in a very difficult spot. If he holds that God created the light in transit, he also has to hold that we have no way of knowing that anything further than 10,000 light years away actually exists. We can't see it. We're not seeing it; we're seeing an image that God created in transit. The light from it won't reach us for a billion years.
You see, the argument from young-earthers regarding star light is that God not only created the galaxies in deep space, but He also created all the light between that star and earth. This is why we can see them now even though the universe is young.

My question is, how do you know the stars are really there? You don't see the light of anything that existed. You're seeing an image created in transit of an event-- watch this-- that never took place.

If all we're seeing is an image that God created in transit, then the only way we're going to see the actual thing that exists is if we wait around another billion years for the light of the actual star to reach us. Who of us believes the Lord will tarry that long? Not a billion years. Which means we'll never see it, will we? We'll never see what God actually created, not the thing itself.

Doesn't that throw into question the existence of anything in outer space at all? Because, in fact, since we'll never see the thing itself-- and what we see is not the thing, but an image God created in transit-- well then, why would God ever need to create the thing in the first place? The image would be fully adequate for God's purpose. The only thing God would have to create is the light image, because we'd never see the thing itself anyway. But doesn't the Scripture seem to indicate that what we see are the very things that God created?

You see, this "God created light in transit" view is kind of misleading, because we think of it like the steady glow of a light bulb. There's a light bulb way out there in space and just a steady glow in between. God could put that glow from me to it and I could see the glow.

But the images we actually see in outer space-- that, according to young earthers, were allegedly created in transit by God-- are images of turbulent events, not just a steady glow.

Let me give you an illustration. Astronomers looking through their telescopes see a super nova explosion a billion light years away. (Super nova is when a star explodes and sends its material spewing out into space.) What exist now, at this moment, are the random bits of the old star which, allegedly, is the condition God actually created six to ten thousand years ago.

What this means is that the star the astronomers saw explode never existed. The super nova never happened. This seems to suggest that God created the illusion of the universe and not the universe itself, because that which allegedly exists, we will never see. That which allegedly exists, we'll never see, and that which we actually see never existed.

If that's the case, then I think it's fair to ask ourselves what else we think exists, but doesn't? How much more of the world is just an illusion created by God? How do we know what is real and what is not?

At this point, you can't fall back on the Bible, for two reasons. First, the Bible seems to say that God created actual heavenly bodies, not just images to aid us in some way. Yet in this view, that is not the case. Second, even the words on the pages of my Bible reach my mind through light images. Why should I trust that what I see looking down when I'm reading is real when I can't trust what I see gazing up at the night sky?

Doesn't this begin to create a skepticism about the existence of real things? A skepticism that could collapse into solipsism, the theory that the self is the only thing that can be known: I'm the only one that exists, and my perceptions.

This view, then, undermines all observational disciplines, including science and history. Because we don't know if we're seeing the thing itself or merely a fabricated image, an illusion of something that doesn't exist.

Let me say it again. What's really there, we never see. What we do see was never there. There were no super nova explosions billions of years ago. Those things never happened. The only thing we see are images of explosions that never took place.

This would mean that virtually everything I see in the heavens-- anything outside our solar system-- isn't real. It's simply a light image of events that never took place, an illusion.

Why make stars so far away that we can't see them? Why make events appear to our eyes that never happened? There's a simple word for it. It's called deception. That's what God would be guilty of if that's really the way it happened.

As an old-earther, I'm going to say that evidence for an ancient universe is in the heavens because scientific testing shows us that these stars are far away and their light takes a long time to reach us. Therefore, if we're seeing light from those stars, and they're a billion light years away, then those stars must have existed for at least a billion years.

The counter from a young-earther is, No, wait, you don't understand. God actually created the light in transit. If God created everything in six days, then He had to create the star, too, because it does say He created the heavens and the earth. I'm thinking this is what they're going to hold.

So, He created the star and the earth and the light in between, which sounds fine if you're thinking of the star like a light bulb that is giving off a steady glow. But what we have in the galaxies are not just simply light bulbs giving off a steady glow, and you have this undifferentiated stream of glow flowing through the universe that God creates. Rather, what we have are light images of specific events in the universe, like super nova explosions, for example. So, if we see a super nova explosion that appears to be a billion light years away, this suggests, from my view, that it actually happened a billion years ago.

But a young-earther is going to have to say, No, that image is just something God created in transit. He just created it. It didn't really happen because there was no "billion years ago." Instead, the only thing that God actually created are all these little bits and pieces floating around in the universe that look like they were the result of that explosion that never happened.

You call that deception? That's my point. God doesn't do that, I suspect.

There's one other point to that, too. If this is the case, actually-- if the earth is only six to ten thousand years old-- then nothing outside of our solar system...

What a young-earther is going to have to say is that the tar never exploded because it's just a light image that was created in transit. It looks like it exploded a billion years ago, but there was nothing here a billion years ago. What we actually have here now are just bits and pieces floating around. And what we see that looks like a billion years ago is not the super nova that exploded and gave us the bits and pieces we have now, but instead is simply an image that God made in between.

My point is simply that we have observational evidence that seems to indicate an ancient universe. And the solution-- the way young-earthers would get around that-- creates an absolutely unacceptable situation in which we'd have to admit that all galactic phenomenon are simply images and illusions created by God. And we have no way of knowing whether things actually exist out there today that somehow correspond with those phenomenon, because we can't see those things yet. It will be a billion years before we actually see those things.

I think that this view leads to an absolutely untenable situation and encourages incredible skepticism. Because if that's the case, and what I see are simply images created in transit, then I have no confidence that there's anything beyond those images. Because, actually, God didn't need anything more than the images. He doesn't need the thing itself, because we won't see the thing itself for a billion years.