Yes. And, following Gosse's argument in OMPHALOS, the question is this --
could He have done it any other way? Gosse argues (as I recall) that He
could not. Gosse was a YEC, of course, but his argument does not seem to
require a YEC approach -- it could also be applied to various OEC
theories.
The argument goes something as follows. Assume I am a mad scientist.
(Some people always thought I was anyway).
Today I decide to create a new being. Assume, for the time being, that
there are no eagles on earth and I decide to create one.
If I do a poor job, such as building a plastic model. nobody will think
it real. So I do a better job. A "perfect" job (where "perfect" means
"thorough") in fact. Now look at my eagle. An hour ago it was inanimate
chemicals in my laboratory. Now it is an eagle as-we-know-them-to-be in
reality.
I assert I just created it.
You (the reasonable skeptic) want to test my assertion, and I graciously
allow you to take the eagle (I can always create another one) and test
it.
Every test you can think of is consistent with the prevailing scientific
paradigm of evolutionary descent. It has to be, else my assumption
(above) that I did a "perfect" job of building is negated!
So -- if we assert that God created, and did (necessarily) a perfect
(again, meaning "thorough") job of creation, then the result can not be
distinguished from evolutionary descent. Or can it?
Burgy (again -- the above need not be limited to YEC)