Instantaneous Starlight - Genesis 1

Faith & Science Conversation
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The implication from the translation of Genesis 1 from the Hebrew refers to both the creation of the stars in the dome and the greater or lesser lights, which we can plausibly conclude are the Sun and the Moon (and the other stars). That light from the stars came on instantly, primarily because the dome of the sky was thought, at the time, to have a relatively close finite boundary.

This assertion is harder to make today, because scholars point out that we are pretty sure the Earth isn’t flat (which it also states in Genesis), and that the dome (if it exists at all) isn’t close enough to the Earth that, theoretically, you could bump into it if you travelled too far outward.

So, if we consider that the stars, the Sun, and the Moon are still out there, and a long distance away. Can we still put things in a biblical framework? Well, God being God, even if the farthest star is 12 billion light years away, He could have made it (at least at Creation) appear instantaneously.

The “problem” occurs when we look at the speed of light now, which can be reasonably and accurately calculated at 186, 282 miles per second, and add that the farthest star is 12 billion light years away. If the speed of starlight went from instantaneous to the known speed now, and if Earth were only 6000 years old, there would be patches of darkness in the sky where the distance to the star was more than 6000 light years away.

A condition we do not observe in the night sky.

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With knowledge We have today, the written Bibles can be concluded to be written somewhat by Man. To me this is fine, for this makes some Souls to not Believe, They need to see to Believe. We don’t have to see to Believe, this what gives Us Faith.

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It’s unclear. God’s omnipotence (all-powerful nature) means He can do anything that is consistent with His rational, moral, and unchanging character. The question is whether it is in his nature to create light ‘in flight’ so as for distant objects to appear instantaneously. We lack sufficient information about his nature to be certain his character allows it, so I suppose it remains within the realm of possibility, as far as we can know. But it’s also possible He couldn’t. Philosophical singularities are odd things. :zany_face:

I suspect the only way to resolve the question is if there are other, auxillary traits we’d also attribute to God like “Won’t make things look ancient when they’re new”, or “Will act through the basic physics He enabled at the start of this universe”. And that’s often suggested as a outcome of the idea that ‘God doesn’t deceive’.

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That said, to me, the notion of instantaneous creation of light in flight feels like a variant of Last Tuesdayism, or the notion we’re just brains in a VR simulation.

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I don’t think the word nature applies to God, for God Said “I Am who I Am” nature is a man made word like science like tries to explain.

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First, those stars are seen to be involved in processes that unfold over millions of years. Not only has their light traveled from cosmic distances, but that light shows dynamic galaxies merging and gravitationally interacting, gas being stripped into trails following for millions of light years. The speed of light is well determined, but even if it were instantaneous, those observations would tell us deep time is a reality.

Further, the light you see is not exactly as was emitted. It has been processed over its long journey to earth, red shifted and absorbed at specific wavelengths from interstellar gas, and polarized traveling through magnetic fields. Following a straight path on the geodesic of curved space-time, it is lensed by massive objects into arcs or magnified. We observe not just the source, but marks of light’s travel. Photons have a history between emission and observation.

A third consideration is that the speed of light is more generally the speed of information. As well as light beyond the visible spectrum, there are also neutrinos and gravitational waves which have traveled over billions of years from events in the far past.

Fourth, if instantaneous light travel is proposed for the stars in Adam’s night sky, at what point does the transition to the physics we presently experience happen? As soon as light is no longer instantaneous, the distant stars will disappear from view, which obviously has not happened. Once instantaneous, you are stuck with instantaneous indefinitely.

That light, gravitational waves, and neutrinos, have taken billions of years to transit the distance to earth is plain and simple. There is no solution needed for distant starlight, because there is no problem to begin with. Deep time, no problem.

One of the core planks of Christian theology proper is that God is not capricious. By some definition of omnipotence, yes, God could be Loki, a trickster deity; but such a trick as detailed and intricate as is seen to be an old universe, while demanding that it be believed to be actually young, is inconsistent with God’s faithfulness.

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Light (along with it’s speed) came to exist on day 4. The way it came to exist was that it’s light was to be seen on earth. That was part of the deal of them existing at all. Light speed has nothing to do with how long star light took to reach us.