From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Tue Apr 01 2003 - 07:31:14 EST
Gary Collins wrote:
>
> Hello List,
>
> Alan Hayward discusses the 'apparent age' theory briefly in
> 'Creation and Evolution - the Facts and the Fallacies.'
> He points out that instant (or nearly instant) creation would
> inevitably carry appearance of age. An instantly created oak
> tree might look as if it were hundreds of years old.
> Similarly, when Jesus turned the water into wine, it would have
> given the appearance of having matured over a long time.
> However, many of the appearances of age we see in the
> Creation would not seem to fall into the category of being
> _necessary_. It is as though Jesus, when he turned the water
> into wine, had also created some labels displaying a vintage
> year from a Galilean wine merchant. That would have been
> an act of deceit.
This might have been a plausible argument when Gosse wrote in the 19th century,
but it isn't today. If we can understand the development of the structures we observe
today, from basic particles through atoms, stars, galaxies, planets, & living things, in
terms of natural processes, then there is no need to have anything with "apparent age"
to start with. All we need is the basic fields and the laws they obey. I am NOT saying
that we yet have a complete understanding of that sort, but we have made enough progress
toward it that it's reasonable to have that hope. & what I'm talking about WOULDN'T be
_creatio ex nihilo_ in the theological sense because we do need the basic fields & laws
- but they don't have "apparent age."
> "By tying up the weak case for a young earth in the same package as the strong case for creation, recent-creationists are almost asking to be defeated."
> -- Alan Hayward, "Creation and Evolution: The Facts and Fallacies," p.81
The sad thing is that "recent-creationists" have already been defeated over &
over - as is shown by the fact that they finally have to fall back on the apparent age
arguments. They just don't realize that they've been defeated.
Shalom,
George
-- George L. Murphy gmurphy@raex.com http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Tue Apr 01 2003 - 07:32:50 EST