I have appreciated the answers posted here. I am also amazed at the variation in them. That is, the answers can be plotted across a very wide spectrum from “Hardly any change at all” at one end to feelings of betrayal and possible abandonment of faith on the other…and, of course, multiple points in between.
I also appreciate that some folks have actually experienced this and can report a history. Of course, on this particular board we’d hear more of that from YEC’s who went to OEC than the other way around.
In any case, your participation has been helpful. Thanks.
Mike, my personal journey could be summarized as going from YEC to OEC, and so your 'thought expedient’ would be for me to imagine the impact on my daily life of now learning that YEC was true , not OEC. My early training–at my mother’s knee and in Catholic kindergarten via the Baltimore Catechism–was YEC tailored to the childish mind and based on a literal reading of Scripture. I had no reason to question the authority or the wisdom of any of my teachers. Even before reaching high school I learned that oftentimes Truth could not be expressed simply in black or white terms. And, as I was drawn into a career in science, I was told that an individual’s thought processes were valuable in their own right and it was OK to question some of the simpler truths I had been taught–to discover if a more mature mind could comprehend a richer meaning they might contain. Thus, by the time I reached college, I had ‘progressed’ to an OEC world view. But in no way did I feel ‘betrayed’ by those who taught me a simpler world view which was more appropriate for that time of my life.
So now, if by some inconceivable circumstance, I became convinced that YEC not OEC was indeed true, would I fee betrayed by those who urged me to think independently and pursue science as a career? Hardly!! It’s a career that has resulted in a happy life that I can believe (even if erroneously) has been productive and purposeful. If my nature/nurture combo had led me to maintain a YEC view throughout life, I might well have been just as happy–but, again, I would have no reason for feeling betrayed by my early teachers if I suddenly faced the fact that OEC was closer to the Truth.
Al Leo
In all honesty, it would alter a fair amount of background information I use to introduce certain topics, but wouldn’t change a great deal about most of my job. I love teaching Biology largely because I am amazed by God’s creation and want to share it with my students. If I were to learn otherwise, it would have very little impact on that amazement I try to share.
This is exactly what happened for me. As a science student, it changed everything.
I started in an insecure existence in science, but fully accepted by my family. Afterwards, I found a confident faith, and I found my voice, but it brought a sword to my family. I came to understand firsthand how those outside the gates are sometimes treated. I was exiled.
It could have a practical effect. It did for me.
In my journey, it was an opportunity to trust Jesus over my community. It has given me credibility with people outside the Church. They see that I was willing to question my beliefs and walk away from the way my family raised me. They listen more when I aks them to question their own upbringings and consider Jesus.
One of the best things about these questions is that it gives us as Christian opportunities to do the very hard thing of changing our most deeply held beliefs. This is exactly what we ask of others, and it helps to go through this ourselves.
None of this is to push you to change your mind @Mike_Gantt. My biggest concern is the danger of fixating on a side issue. I see your commitment to Scripture, and I respect that, and am not bothered by your YEC views. I think the BioLogos forum is a fine place to hash out these side issues.
However, in the Church too often this conversation becomes a litmus test for “who is taking the Bible seriously.” In your work elsewhere, I hope you can find ways to accommodate seekers and science students who think differently than you on this. Perhaps they may not even see Scripture correctly at first, but could you guide them to maturity within the context of their scientific understanding of the world?
One exercise I think is important starts from the assumption that another’s views will not change on this point. If you encountered someone like that, what type of theistic evolutionist would you want them to become like? How would you guide them to be the most faithful theistic evolutionist they could be? Certainly, God changes people, but not always on this. Identifying those models, and finding ways to serve those on the other side of the divide, especially if they are seekers or science students, is really important.
I would not live differently! Many decades ago - probably when our youngest youngest kids became adults and moved out - I quit worrying about things I can’t understand and can’t do anything about. The kids and grand kids can worry about such things.
For me it would have huge consequences for my daily life. Mostly because I would have to come up with a different career… Both my fields, astronomy and neuroscience, in their entirety support the old age of the earth and the evolutionary paradigm. All the successes of these fields testify to the validity of this paradigm. If that would somehow turn out to be bollocks, there would be no fields of research left to work in. Also, I would have to stop using GPS and the internet because these are based on the same “laws of physics”, which (in that hypothetical scenario) would have to be extremely untrustworthy.
I think a lot of people don’t realize that if the earth really was very young, a number of specific physical parameters and laws of the universe would be very different, and the universe would not look the way it does now. They think everything would look exactly as it does now. This isn’t the case.
Yes, good point. To expand on that, there is no known set of physical parameters that can fit the young-earth perspective. That’s why YECs like Danny Faulkner nowadays construct their cosmologies based on “miraculous transportation of light”. His “new” solution:
“(…) this possible new solution suggests unusually fast propagation of light on Day Four, probably by rapid expansion of space. This is an appeal to a miraculous event rather than a physical process to get distant starlight to the earth. It is not yet clear whether this suggestion could have testable predictions.” New Solution to the Light Travel Time Problem | Answers Research Journal
He appeals to a miracle because he knows that, otherwise, he would have to rewrite all of modern physics somehow…
To come back to the OP, the entire knowledge base of all of physics, geology, biology, et cetera would have to be reinvented somehow in the hypothetical scenario that the earth would actually be young. It would render most of known technology (which is based on physics one way or another) untrustworthy.
Also, it could mean that God just miraculously made it seem like these fields of science were getting things right, while they were dead wrong all along. That would lead us back to problems with deceitfulness and God’s character.
Well in order for this to be true, the science would have to prove this because God doesn’t lie. So, if scientists somehow stumbled on to the “truth” that the earth is really young (and if was verified through all the normal scientific methods) I’m assuming I would just go on about my business like normal - only now, I would argue that the earth is young instead of old.
I trust that God wouldn’t mislead us to believe a lie about his creation so I’m assuming that scientists would have just found a piece of evidence in nature that confirms the (young) age of the earth.
If it turned out that God indeed created Adam as a fully-functioning adult - that is, without having him go through conception, gestation, birth, and maturation to adulthood - would we say that all the knowledge we have of human anatomy and procreation would thereby be rendered useless or untrustworthy?
I know from personal experience what it means to “do the very hard thing of changing our most deeply held beliefs.” I did so not only when I began to follow Christ in earnest at age 28, but also years later when as a pastor with two seminary degrees at age 41 my study of the Bible convinced me that everyone is going to heaven. (If you want to know more go here for where you can get my book The Biblical Case for Everyone Going to Heaven.) I was a pastor and lost my church and friends and more.
I say this not to elicit sympathy or praise - I do not deserve, nor do I want, either. (Neither do I want to be railed at as a heretic; you can do that on my website, not here.) Rather, I say it as proof that when I come here telling you that I am willing to reject a long-held view that I thought was biblical for a more truly biblical one, there is reason to take me seriously on that point.
P.S. I take no money for my books; neither do I accept donations of any kind. The mention of the book therefore is in no way a commercial plug.
This response to @Swamidass is a complete non-sequitor.
How do you even get to that proposed conclusion? Because God miraculously makes rain, we can’t trust the laws of nature regarding the water cycle? How exactly does that follow?
I think Casper is in a different position in that his career is dependent on the observations of science being true as observed. In the medical field, little I see is directly dependent on an old earth, though newer technologies such as genetic and immunologic therapy have some close ties, as well as diagnostic technologies such as MRI depends on our knowledge of physics being true and predictable.
I think a good example of the other side of the coin would be to ask a member of AIG, such a Dr. Purdom or Ken Ham how they would live life differently if they were to accept an old earth. It would mean a career change, loss of financial stability, etc. as well as a big loss of face in the community, which sad to say we are all self centered enough to make that sort of shaming very traumatic.
@Mike_Gantt, as per comments from @jpm, perhaps a clearer way of rejecting his position would have been:
“Just because I reject the validity of applying Geological science and its related disciplines regarding age of the Earth, why can’t I fully accept the evidences of other sciences?”
I now assume that this is what you meant by what you wrote.
Correct me if I’m wrong. On the assumption that I’m in the right ballpark now, I would say that your expectation to be able to pick and choose which fields of science you want to rely upon fails on several points:
It’s obviously cherry-picking.
You have no system for being skeptical about Geology, but happily accepting of nuclear medicine?
@Mike_Gantt the difference is that @Casper_Hesp is an astrophysicist and we are talking about the age of the earth. It is impossible at this time to conceive of mathematically coherent physical laws at the scale of the universe if the universe is just 6,000 years ago. The distant starlight problem is widely acknowledged as unsolved in YEC cosmology (even by most YECs), but that is the center of @Casper_Hesp’s field of study. And there is a massive amount of things have happening here, including most recently in the news the detection of gravity waves. None of the field makes sense of the universe is just 6,000 years old,. He would have to through away all the physical laws he has learned that explain so much of what he sees in the world. It would change everything for him.
No. But if we say God created everyone that way, then yes. Your analogy is nothing like the situation facing us if the entire universe is only 6,000 years old.