I think you’re saying there’s a difference between maturity and age. For example, a mature Adam has no umbilicus, because there’s no need for record of birth.
Thanks.
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If in 100 years a person could 3d print an actual biological tree with rings matching up to a pre-programmable climate history they input to the computer, the tree would be mature but young in age. It may have every appearance of aging like normal biological trees and could be indistinguishable from them. That is where the deception angle comes in. I just think in that argument, if God tells us a time zero up front, thousands of years before science, and makes a mature first couple and things that appear in the instant God makes them, the argument from deception no longer works.
Vinnie
This is from Wayne Grudem:
Many who hold to a young earth point out that the original creation must have had an “appearance of age” even from the first day. (Another term for this view is “mature creationism,” since it affirms that God created a mature creation.) The appearance of Adam and Eve as full-grown adults is an obvious example. They appeared as though they had lived for perhaps twenty or twenty-five years, growing up from infancy as human beings normally do, but in fact they were less than a day old. Similarly, they probably saw the stars the first night that they lived, but the light from most stars would take thousands or even millions of years to reach the earth. This suggests that God created the stars with light beams already in place. And full-grown trees would probably have had rings (Adam and Eve would not have had to wait years before God told them which trees of the garden they could eat from and which they could not, nor would they have had to wait weeks or months before edible plants grew large enough to provide them food). Following this line of reasoning, might we go further and suppose that many geological formations, when originally created, had a similar appearance to formations that would now take thousands or even millions of years to complete by present “slow” processes?
A common objection to this “appearance of age” view is that it “makes God an apparent deceiver,”74 something that is contrary to his nature. But is God a “deceiver” if he creates a mature man and woman in a day and then tells us explicitly that he did it? Or if he creates mature fish and animals and full-grown trees and tells us that he did it? Or if he allows Adam and Eve to see the stars, which he created in order that people might see them and give glory to him, on the first night that they lived? Rather than manifesting deception, it seems that these actions point to God’s infinite wisdom and power. This is particularly so if God explicitly tells us that he created everything in “six days.” According to this position, those who are deceived are those who refuse to hear God’s own explanation of how the creation came about.
The problem with this for Grudem is fossils though. He can explain light and other things for the most part but he can’t think of a good reason why God created fossils but to deceive. I think they just be viewed as extrapolating the logic of creation going forward back into the past.
While the creation of stars with light beams in place or trees that are mature would be for the purpose of enabling human beings to glorify God for the excellence of his creation, the depositing of fossils in the earth could only be for the purpose of misleading or deceiving human beings regarding the earlier history of the world. More problematic is that Adam, the plants, the animals, and the stars all would have appeared to have different ages (because they were created with mature functions in place), whereas modern geological research gives approximately the same age estimates from radiometric dating, astronomical estimates, rock formations, samples of moon rocks and meteorites, etc. Why would God create so many different indications of an earth that is 4.5 billion years old if this were not true? Would it not be better to conclude that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, and that God left many indications there to show us this fact rather than in any way imply that he deceived us? So it seems the only credible explanations for the fossil record that Christians can adopt are: (a) current dating methods are incorrect by colossal proportions because of flawed assumptions or because of changes brought about by the fall or the flood; or (b) current dating methods are approximately correct and the earth is many millions or even billions of years old.
But yes, bones of creatures that did not actually live are the most difficult part of the mature creation theory. Not insurmountable but difficult to explain. Is cancer or the “random” nature of evolution any easier? Light in transit Is not a problem.
You seem to be aiming at a scenario similar to that proposed by Gerald Schroeder (Gerald Schroeder - Wikipedia), a Jewish physicist. The theory of relativity tells us that time goes slower from the point of view of an observer traveling at closer to the speed of light. Thus, a bit over four and a half billion years have passed from the point of view of an observer on the earth, but that could be six days or six milliseconds or anything else less than 4.56 billion for an observer traveling at much higher speed.
The major advantage of such a model is that it is scientifically honest. Instead of slandering scientists and claiming that things look young, it accepts that looking at the earth gives an old age, while giving a way to also have a young age.
Problems include:
Detailed concordance. The sequence of things in Genesis 1 does not match the scientific evidence for the sequence of creation. The oldest thing that might fall into the category of things listed for each day is mostly in the right order, with Day 4 the remaining problem there, but putting everything mentioned for each day in Genesis before everything mentioned on the next day clashes with the available physical evidence at several points.
Why would Genesis 1 be from the point of view of an observer travelling near the speed of light?
Comparison of Genesis 1 to Genesis 2, Psalm 104, and other passages on creation shows that sequence and time varies considerably. Peculiarities in the grammar of Genesis 1 resemble those found in other ancient Near Eastern documents that use a seven-day period as exemplifying perfect completion, not as an actual calendar week. Overall, the picture of Genesis 1 functions as an extended merismus - contrasting parts of creation enumerated to emphasize that all are parts of God’s creation and have their proper assigned roles. There are no rival gods, chaos monsters, etc. that we should worry about or worship. Thus, the basic premise of this model that the days of Genesis 1 are a chronology is probably incorrect.
Of course, one could modify Schroeder’s model in various ways, including avoiding the baggage of incorrect ID claims picked up from others.
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Not in that description. It may be wrong, but not deceptive. What is deceptive are tree rings that bear witness to years that ever were, varves in lakes that attest to eruptions that never occurred. It is not those who believe those things that are in error who are deceptive, but it calls God himself a deceiver to those who count the rings, measure the decay, calculate the light years and accept them on face value.
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That, plus to me a major flaw is ignoring how we develop as individuals neurologically and through forming neurological pathways , as well as the social aspects. A breathing body does not a person make.
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I think Schroeder’s relativity days idea is kind of fun, the way it works out arithmetically, not that it is in fact biblically defensible –
To me it’s seems like a trying to prove a negative type of argument.
What verses do you think supports that God made the world appear old despite being young? Also…. How do you know Adam and Eve did not start off as kids? How do you know they were not babies that were raised by angels? Can you show me a verse that disproves angels did not raise up kid Adam and Eve?
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A maturity of a tree is determined by its size and function, not the number of rings. If we had the technololgy, we could 3d print a mature tree with NO RINGS. Rings aren’t needed for a tree to function as a mature tree. The only reason those rings are there is because of a HISTORY of growth. Maturity and history are two very different things.
Would God create a mature Adam with scars from a bear attack he never experienced? Would Adam have calcium deposits from a femur break that he never suffered? Mature adults now have scars and evidence of previous wounds, but is that required to function as a mature adult? NO!!!
Those arguing for a mature creation do so on the claim that the creation had to be mature in order to have the needed function. The problem is that the way in which we measure age and observe history has nothing to do with function. God could create a mature tree that bore fruit and provided shade without giving it rings. God could also create a mature tree without needing to correlate the 14C content with other trees and buried trees, the very pattern we use to reconstruct past climate.
It gets even worse for geology. What ratios of uranium and lead isotopes does a zircon need in order to function as a “mature” part of Earth’s geology? NONE. Nothing about the function of a zircon requires any specific ratio of uranium and lead. When zircons form they exclude Pb and include U, so a newly formed zircon does just fine without any Pb. So why do we so often see the ratios of isotopes we would expect from a real history of decay over millions of years when it isn’t needed for any function? U/Pb dating goes even deeper than that. There are actually two isotopes of U that decay into two different isotopes of Pb: 238U to 206Pb has a half life of 4.47 billion years and 235U to 207Pb has a half life of 710 million years. When we calculate the age of a zircon using both sets of isotopes with different half lives those ages match in the vast, vast majority of cases. Not only that, but the Earth would have to be created in such a way that the ratios of isotopes in rocks correlates with the types of species found in the rocks above and below them. Why would the Earth need this for any function? IT WOULDN’T!!!
God didn’t tell us. Humans did. Humans wrote Genesis. Christians also don’t believe that God dictated Genesis. God inspired Genesis. There is absolutely no reason why anyone should expect Genesis to be a literal historical narrative. @glipsnort said it better than I could:
Moreover, the map is not the territory. If an obviously mythical tale in religious book says the Earth is young but the universe itself says otherwise, it’s pretty obvious which one is right. When cartographers in the 1600’s created maps depicting California as an island this didn’t somehow make us throw out satellite images showing a peninsula.
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Worth mentioning: “Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot” by Phillip Gosse in 1857.
Omphalos is the Greek word for bellybutton, an allusion to the long standing controversy over the question of whether Adam had a bellybutton.
This was perhaps the best and first attempt at this whole “created with age” argument. Christians during that time had the same reaction we have now:
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Fair enough. I accept that correction.
I would think no to answer both or your two questions but and this is a huge BUT….
[1] As a science teacher I am aware of just how often intuition is wrong about reality. In my classroom students sometimes start catching on half way through the year and answer questions with the opposite of what they originally think on purpose because they have been wrong so many times in the past when we start a new unit…
[2] My intellectual pride declines with age. My ability to understand things becomes less and less important.
[3] As a Christian (which you are not), I believe in divine revelation. The Bible teaches truths that I don’t necessarily have to understand. I could never explain to you how miracles happened, how God can be three yet one, how Jesus could be God and man. Pretty much every Christian out there accepts a number of paradoxes (to put it nicely) on the basis of revelation in scripture.
So if the Bible taught a mature creation, we would be compelled to accept it even if we didn’t understand all of the details or parts of them made little sense. Some might even talk of a hermeneutic of trust. At the end of the day the bottom line is Christians believe they have communication from God and you do not. You will simply talk past one another on some issues.
I would say they argue creation is mature because the Biblical witness teaches that. They justify or apologize for mature creation on the basis of function. Good theologians understand that we can accept some Divine truths without understanding them.
And the response is God did not. God could have made one star system. God could have made one planet, God could have done a lot of things. At the end of the day we do our best to discover how creation works through science but we don’t get to tell God how He can and cannot create. You are not a Christian and are reversing that role. It may be that God made a mature creation for some unknown reason. Or maybe someone has a good one. For Christians with revelation from God, the reason doesn’t matter.
I mean people have complained the universe is so big, old, or has so many stars… but now we know the size and age of the universe are a function of its original parameters and appear just right. For all I know God designed things the way they are because He wanted us to discover the underlying fine tuning/design of the cosmos. Mission accomplished.
These could all be related to the underlying physics of the universe God created to show we were designed. I don’t need to actually have a plausible reason for why God created the way He did. If we actually have revelation from God telling us how He created we are in no place to reject it. The real question is do we actually have that revelation. But I have been arguing interpretation from a Christian perspective with other Christian. It’s not and never was the intention to convince you the Bible is God’s word.
First you are not a Christian. Many Christians believe God wrote the Bible. The exact method is open to interpretation.
Second, Tell that to the billions of Christians throughout history who took it as literal history and the probably tens or hundreds of millions of Christians alive today that still do so. They have a very rational reason to believe the Genesis narrative. They believe God wrote it. They also have genealogies in their sacred scripture reading individuals back to Adam and a Jesus who takes the Hebrew Scriptures seriously along with the rest of the NT. You are just critiquing a Christian view from the perspective of your own non Christian world. In other words, you offer straw man and caricature.
I made all those points myself in the past. I don’t take Genesis as literal but those that do take Genesis literally do so because they believe God wrote it. From the Christian perspective the Devil is real and could have possessed a snake to tempt the first humans. We could ask 100 questions including why God allowed it but I also wonder, why are those actually bad names for the first man and woman that spawned the rest of humanity? They seem good to me. Why can’t God manifest as angel and appear in the Garden to his creation? We believe he appeared as Jesus. So at the end of the day none of those objections are insuperable or even that difficult for Christians.
I don’t accept it as historical narrative, the account reads like fiction to me but this is not certain from a biblical perspective. The problem with conservatives is they won’t even admit this as a genuine option and per Steve’s statement, they should:
But the truth is anyone actually arguing for a mature creation clearly believes in a literal Genesis. I am evaluating their argument on their own terms. If Genesis is not literal the whole basis for their argument is gone. I am granting, for the sake of argument, that it is literal and analyzing the charge of deception from within. I find deception lacking because in that framework, God states up front how and when things are created. You can believe Him or not.
Maybe learn to steel man an argument and assess it on its own terms?
Vinnie
I feel sympathy for Philip Gosse. In theology classes everywhere, he generally is referenced to be set up to be promptly dismissed - derided in his own time, but derided after his time.
What is often lost is that he was a keenly observant, first rate naturalist, and that underlays his realization that maturity, history, and age cannot be teased apart, and that creatures were not just platonic idealizations running around. He argued that there is no single point of maturity to be found in nature, that maturity bears the mark of its development, and so it is a given that history is incorporated in creation. Gosse thought he was merely making this explicit and extending the principle.
no example can be selected from the vast vegetable kingdom, none from the vast animal kingdom, which did not at the instant of its creation present indubitable evidences of a previous history. This is not put forth as a hypothesis, but as a necessity; I do not say that it was probably so, but that it was certainly so; not that it may have been thus, but that it could not have been otherwise.
That did not go over well, inside or outside the church. In the response and wide rejection of his work as making God a liar however, Gosse’s valid implied critique of creation ex nihilo was sidelined.
The notion of maturity gets absurd. Do freshly created trees have rings? If not, are they composed of summer wood or spring wood? Is there a pith? Do they have the mechanical and structural properties of the interior dead wood needed to stand? What isotope ratios are there? Does the branching structure fit the typical annual patterns? Oh, and what soil do they grow in? By the time such questions are answered, it seems likely that apparent history is essential.
I suggest that Gosse was correct on this much, that it is conceptually and empirically impossible to distinguish “real age” from “created age”, not just in terms of overall appearance, but in any level of detail. Given that choice, I just go with real age.
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Yes. The universe could be 10 minutes old and we would never know it. We just ignore that and take reality and our memories at face value. But if we had what we believed was revelation from God telling us that he specifically created things with the appearance of age at a certain point in the past, would this not compel us to believe it? Given that choice, I would go with God. Of course that is a huge if.
you could as well look at the 6days of creation in a different way. Considering that the book was meant to be used to teach the illiterate s well as the intellectuals how to form a coherent world view it is funny to see how the intellectuals struggle with their own concepts
Only in terms of this one thread.
My problem is between YEC and the actual text of Genesis because YEC distorts and mangles the text by trying to force it to fit a worldview that is alien to the text.
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That’s an excellent distinction. Traditionally the church has tended to treat the Bible as infallible in what it affirms, not in what it merely mentions.
That’s also an excellent distinction. Even if you take them literally it should be kept in mind; the second story is then not about Creation itself but about a special project after Creation was up and running.
I call it dishonest because if photons were created in transit then they didn’t actually come from the star they appear to show us. It’s the same with rocks in bent layers; if they were created that way then it’s deceptive because they certainly appear to have started out straight but got folded.
But God told us no such thing.
I find my thoughts here returning to the scholars who on the basis of the Hebrew in Genesis concluded that the universe started out impossibly small and expanded rapidly, that it is unimaginably ancient, and that the earth itself is incomprehensibly ancient. I know that’s a really rare view but that it was put forth back well before Galileo should give us pause because it was not due to any belief in evolution or for that matter because of science at all.
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I just wanted to note personally I don’t see genesis 2 as a secondary special or after the fact creation story.
I think genesis 1 and 2 are both creation accounts of the world and life. But that one comes from one sect of ancient Jews and the other is from another sect of Jews. One sect referred to god as Yahweh and one as El. Later on an editor placed these two creation accounts side by side, just like they did with many other places like 1 Samuel 16 and 17.
Note that my comment was based on treating the accounts literally.
It always struck me that the weirdest part in those was when in the second chapter it says that David took Goliath’s head to Jerusalem – it still belonged to the Jebusites.
That’s the heart of the theological problem. God could have created the universe without inserting a false history. So why choose to insert a false history as required by the YEC position?
This is why so many Christians reject this position. The maturity argument doesn’t make this problem go away. The very fact that YEC’s are inventing arguments like maturity is evidence for the unavoidable conclusion that deception had to be involved if their conclusions are true. If God is willing to lie in the creation, what’s to stop God from lying in the Bible?
From my understanding, standard Christian theology states that the Bible was inspired by God and written by humans, not directly written by God or dictated by God. Is that not the case? Even Answers in Genesis seems to agree with me.
As am I. The argument for a mature creation does not solve the problems posed by the evidence we see in creation. Not even close. The problem of deception is still there which is why YEC’s are constantly jumping from one failed scientific explanation to the next in an attempt to make that problem go away. The opening post is just such an attempt.
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