Re: appearance of history

David Campbell (bivalve@mailserv0.isis.unc.edu)
Wed, 11 Feb 1998 15:21:26 -0400

>At 06:06 PM 2/10/98 -0400, David Campbell wrote:
>
>>I'd want to not see cooling. Crystallizing from a melt will produce
>>patterns in the size, chemistry, relationships to other rocks, etc. that
>>are not necessary for the instantaneous creation of granite. I'd expect
>>the sandstone not to have depositional sedimentary structures or fossils.
>
>That is certainly one hypothesis and an interesting one at that. What
>would such a granite look like? Would every feldspar be identical in
>appearance and the same size? Would the quartz be interstitial or as
>doubly terminated crystals? Would every book of mica have the same number
>of plates? How could we test for such a case? Would it be instantaneously
>crystallized (process) or would it be just created without ever having
>existed as a melt? Would the sandstone have no grain alignment? Would
>each grain, if the sandstone were an orthoquartzite, consist of a doubly
>terminated quartz crystal (of course, rounded quartz grains would be
>excluded)? I think these ideas put God in an impossible box. Again, we
>are not discussing what either of us think did happen, but what our
>concepts of the range of possibilities are.

It would not have to be regular for me, just so long as it's difficult to
explain by "natural" cooling, in the case of granite. I don't see a brief
existence as a melt as significantly different from instant creation, since
rapid cooling would not produce granite "naturally", either.

For orthoquartzite, round grains without traces of wear would not
necessarily suggest prior transport. Sedimentary structures imitating
those formed by depositing sand gradually would be a problem. Likewise, if
sandstones supposedly instantly created had several consistent indicators
of the parent rock and weathering regime, there would be a problem.

It's also a matter of consistency. God could create a particular rock type
to look like it formed slowly just because that pattern looks nice. It's
the consistency with which all of creation looks old, rather than God's
freedom to make any particular part of it appear as He wishes, that is the
problem for me. Proposing a young or old earth explanation for any
particular feature is almost irrelevant to the broad picture.

David C.