Is William Lane Craig open to the possibility of evolutionary creationism?

What instability? Instability in what? What causes that? What is responsible for the timing of the ‘instability’?

“What instability?”

Instability in the nucleus due to the unequal number of protons and neutrons.

“Instability in what?”

Instability in the nucleus.

“What causes that?”

That’s like saying “what causes instability when two magnets are too close to each other in their positive sides”. The repulsive forces are too strong for the system to be held together. That’s what causes it. The strength of repulsion in the forces.

“What is responsible for the timing of the instability?”

What’s responsible is how long the attractive forces can hold it together before it tends to give out under the pressure of the repulsive forces.

In other words you don’t know. That’s because it’s acausal.

While ultimately, you’re too brick-minded to be able to make progress with, it seems that this conversation has benefited me because 1) I’ve done sufficient research to find several papers which describe the causal structure of quantum mechanics 2) I’ve further done the research and found descriptions behind the causal background of radioactive decay. I had neither before this. Ultimately, a good use of my time.

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Wrong. As in your projection of pseudoscience.

Do you have a more compelling argument? ‘Projection’, as in extrapolation? :grin:

God’s loving providence is, but you find it irrational. Your loss.

(Is it irrational to understand that the Potter can work with clay or that the Refiner can use fire to advantage, the Creator intervene in his creation? Hardly.)

God’s providence (as in ‘evolutionary providentialism’) can be ‘ordinary’* without any particularly unexpected or notable occurrences can still be life changing. From my reading the other night:

In Lydia’s conversion there are many points of interest. It was brought about by providential circumstances. She was a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, but just at the right time for hearing Paul we find her at Philippi; providence, which is the handmaid of grace, led her to the right spot.

It’s largely about timing and placing. I’m sure Lydia was thankful.

 


*Unlike the several accounts of God’s providence I (and one by Glenn Morton) have related elsewhere in this forum, perhaps [mis]leading to the impression that all instances of Father’s interventions must include something surprising.

I certainly don’t want to have your kind of wooden rationality. Is it rational to believe a man rose from the dead? No problem if the Creator can intervene in his creation, though.

No reply needed.

Nope, I’m not.

Why do you think this is pseudoscience? Are you aware that many highly credentialed and influential physicists are pursuing these areas of research?

So the Earth is rock, which means there couldn’t be any rocks before the Earth formed. Is that correct?

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Why do you think this is pseudoscience? Are you aware that many highly credentialed and influential physicists are pursuing these areas of research?

I said what you’re saying is pseudoscience. Not the field of quantum mechanics. The difference between pseudoscience and science is that one is a bad imitation of the other.

So the Earth is rock, which means there couldn’t be any rocks before the Earth formed. Is that correct?

The incoherence of this analogy is hard to overstate. Space isn’t analogous to matter, something you can just chop up to make more of or made of specific stuff in a specific way that can be “replicated” elsewhere. Space is that elsewhere. The only way for this nonsense to find sense is by baselessly supposing a multiverse, but then you need to explain where the multiverse came from. Why did the multiverse begin to exist? Eventually, you run into a dead end, where the misrepresentation of quantum mechanics ceases. In quantum mechanics, singularities don’t magically pop out of non existence. Small quantities of energy and matter rapidly fluctuate, back and forth. There is no explanation for an origin of the universe in that. That is what you call “pseudoscience”.

I don’t see why this would be the case. You can determine proximal causes without needing to know ultimate origins. I don’t have to explain the ultimate origin of the universe in order to explain how clouds form. I see no reason why there couldn’t be a spacetime that existed prior to our universe, and in fact there are many theories out there that put forward that very idea, such as black holes budding out into new universes:

The same problems would also exist for WLC and God based explanations. Where did God come from? Why did God begin to exist?

You must not have done well in junior high/middle school English Lit. :grin: By definition, God is self-existent. (That is also why one of his names in the OT is “I AM”, and for Jesus’ bad grammar “…before Abraham was born, I AM!”)

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I don’t have to explain the ultimate origin of the universe

Actually, you do, because the problem just regurgitates. All you’ve done is push back the problem one step backwards. It seems you don’t understand the nature of the problem.

All you linked to was a media article. That doesn’t mean anything. Where’s the paper behind that media article? Where is the citation of other physicist evaluations of that paper? Not to be too rude, but I don’t find it convincing if you just cite garbage off the internet and expect me to take it at face value.

Good on @Dale for pointing out your pretty elementary error on the “where did God come from?” The fact that you repeated an argument that bad suggests you’re a novice.

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Then, by definition, the spacetime that produced our universe is self existent. Problem solved.

So to explain how a cloud forms I have to explain the ultimate origin of the universe? Really?

Would such a paper be convincing to you?

Then, by definition, the spacetime that produced our universe is self existent. Problem solved.

Except there was a beginning to space and time. Neither existed ‘before’ the singularity. You’ve heard of big bang cosmology? :grin:

It has always seemed to me that there are two distinct bases for postulating God. One is the subjective experience of an otherness within. The other arises from reflecting on how the universe seems to be moving toward greater states of complexity and freedom. Christianity isn’t the only religion which assumes the two great mysteries must have the same source. I can’t rule it out but neither do I see any reason to make that assumption.