None of those passages contain warnings about using science to make conclusions about the age of the earth, as far as I can tell.
Honestly, I don’t see any such warnings. Could you show me Biblical texts that are framed as warnings about investigating the age of the earth? So far, what I am getting are Mike’s inferences drawn from Mike’s hermeneutical method. These are based on the worldview glasses that Mike is wearing as he applies his hermeneutics and makes his inferences.
I would agree with him. Science does not consider supernatural (God-like) causes. This is very well established. It is often referred to as Methodological Naturalism, but has roots in theology.
Joshua, I would encourage you to read my post again. Slowly. I said that the ORIGIN of the universe was a supernatural event and therefore cannot be studied by the scientific method. But the moment it began to exist, the matter-energy world became subject to study through methodological naturalism. Why? Because it became subject to what we commonly dub “the laws of physics.”
Mike appears to be saying that anything with a supernatural origin becomes forever immune to study (such as determining its age.) I’m still trying to determine that that is his position–but many of us strongly reacted to it because we were so surprised by that.
Perhaps what I thought was a careful and extended explanation on my part was unclear. But I would encourage you to read it again but more slowly. If you TRULY believe that something with a supernatural origin becomes forever immune to scientific study, you couldn’t be a scientist—because we all believe that God supernaturally created the entire universe. Yet the universe is subject to the scientific method.
Of course, if we are misunderstanding Mike’s position, perhaps you could help him clarify it. But the fact that the universe has a supernatural origin does not render it beyond scientific study. We can observe all sorts of things in the created world and determine their age, what processes have modified them, and even determine what they will become (as in chemical reactions.) Notice what I said about Jesus’ resurrection body. It was the result of a supernatural event—yet Jesus could ask Thomas to inspect it and determine that it was the Jesus he knew. He could see and feel the nail-prints on his hands. Jesus didn’t say to Thomas “You can’t reach any conclusions from what you are observing because a supernatural event took place.”
@Swamidass, I’m not aware of ANYBODY in this thread who has stated otherwise. If you read the posts again, I think you will realize that. (If I have left out a word or written something confusing, please let me know.) But even in what you quoted of my post, these were my words:
“God’s supernatural action to create the universe is certainly beyond the scientific method. But from the moment the matter-energy universe began to exist, the laws of physics applied and generated an enormous volume of evidence, second by second, which the methodological naturalism of science can investigate.”
And that’s why it is perfectly valid for scientists to measure the age of the universe. Mike told us that it is not valid. I doubt that you agree with that.
As you have been told repeatedly, this is not about science claiming to know what results a supernatural creation would leave behind, but science making demonstrably verifiable claims about what natural processes leave behind.
Or better yet, scientific hypotheses repeatedly making demonstrably verifiable predictions about the mountains of evidence produced by natural processes before the evidence is viewed by human beings.
What you refer to as “The John Walton View” is a view which is included in my view. What you call “The 1 Corinthians 9:20-22 View” is simply an observation made by Joshua with which many of us agree, including myself. These are not all different views of Genesis 1.
There’s nothing in any of those verses which says that the witness of the natural creation is untrustworthy, or which warns us that God deliberately created the earth with a fake impression of age and a false history. You are simply assuming your view is correct and then rejecting other views on that basis.
I and others have been through these passages with you many times. Most importantly, it has been demonstrated to you repeatedly that you do not treat these passages the way they are treated elsewhere in Scripture, and you import interpretations from outside Scripture. I have shown you a considerable amount of evidence demonstrating that some of your foundation assumptions about the text are wrong. A lot of that evidence is here. The irony is that this demonstrates that your views are not actually based on what the text is saying, because you are not aware of what the text is saying.
I wrote:
[@gbrooks9] “None of the writings of these groups [listed by you: ICR, AiG, CMI, etc.] have explained how 100% of the giant Brachiosaurs all drowned before giraffes, bears or humans drowned. You are carrying water for these groups with imaginary buckets.”
You answered:
[@Mike_Gantt] “I’m not carrying water for them. I’m just acknowledging that they exist, and that they might be right - however small you deem the probability.”
Mike, I know you a smart fellow. I don’t believe you think those groups have plausibly explained how giant reptiles, and even giant swimming reptiles, can all drown in a flood and be covered up in sediment - - long before relatively tiny humans, giraffes, bears, ant-eaters (and so forth) succumbed to the rushing flood waters…
You actually think “they might be right”? - - about what?
Perfect. BioLogos is the place where a Christian can most likely preserve his or her faith … while not being forced to say that the same cosmic forces (those which make Gravity and Light genuinely real) mysteriously cease to exist when it comes to the Earth’s geology, the creation of thousands of meters of sedimentary rock, and 100,000 years of annual weather patterns locked up in arctic ice cores.
Science can’t address if creation was supernatural but it can certainly address the evidence to determine when creation happened. The question is not what results would a supernatural creation leave behind but simply what are the results of creation that we see.
You have no opinion of what the results of a supernatural creation should be?
How would a “supernatural creation” leave behind a different universe than one that did not have a supernatural creation? Either way, the laws of physics would operate as we observe them today. Right?
I just don’t understand how the methodological naturalism of the scientific method would operate any differently based on how a universe got its start. (Yet, it appears that some people assume a major difference between them.)
I would assume so as well. You are making my point for me: that methodological naturalism would be intentionally blind to whatever supernatural processes may have preceded the operation of natural processes.
Nor do I. And for this reason, I do not understand those who say from the standpoint of science, “If the earth had been created in six days by supernatural processes instead of over 4.543B years by natural processes, we would see the evidence of it.”
Even if you correct me and say, “No, what we’re saying is that we do see evidence that the earth was created over 4.543B years by natural processes and therefore we know by this that the earth could not have been created supernaturally in six days.” My response to that would be “On what basis can you claim to know that the two are mutually exclusive?” Methodological naturalism - by design - cannot tell you. The most common answer I receive is a theological one: “Because otherwise God would be deceitful.” But I think this has been demonstrated to be a questionable conclusion (see Things are not as they seem).
[quote=“Mike_Gantt, post:543, topic:36256”]
And for this reason, I do not understand those who say from the standpoint of science, “If the earth had been created in six days by supernatural processes instead of over 4.543B years by natural processes, we would see the evidence of it.”[/quote]
I hope I can explain why I would also say what you quote above.
Perhaps the word ‘deceitful’ is not necessary. Deceitful or not, a dichotomy is still created which can’t be papered over. Science didn’t pull the idea of an old earth out of a hat. It was developed gradually using methodology which has yielded a great amount of other verifiable information about reality over generations. Disregarding that portion of it calls the entire edifice into question–yet that edifice demonstrably describes reality more and more completely all of the time.
I believe that I understand your position. Would you agree that such a dichotomy is at least a problem which can not be totally resolved through your view of scripture?
I would agree that the dichotomy is an issue that must be addressed - and I came to BioLogos for the express purpose of addressing it. I have not yet resolved it. In my current state of thinking, the issue seems to turn on “appearance.” That is, is it possible for the earth to appear old (I’m using age of the earth as a simplified proxy for evolution and other attendant issues) without being old and without God being deceitful. In other words, could there be a good (valid) reason for God to have made things this way. This sends my mind immediately to this: Can there have been a good reason for God to make the earth appear immobile to our naked eyes when it is actually moving very fast according to scientific measurements? Beyond this, my thinking is incomplete.
Do you really think that if I go to their websites and ask this question they are going to say, “You know, we never thought of that!”? On the contrary, they’re going to have an answer that they speak with as much conviction and confidence as you display. And being scientifically limited, I am not going to be able to discern and compare the quality of their answers to yours. I learned a long time ago the truth of “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” and “The first to tell his story seems right until another comes along.”
To you, groups like AiG, ICR, and CMI are scientific “kooks,” but to them you are “disregarding God’s word.” Obviously, I’m finding it hard to easily decide whose epithet for the other is more appropriate.
The way I would put it is that they are different, but they are not mutually exclusive.
I think this is obvious on its face. However, I will also give an example. John Walton seems to adhere to biblical inerrancy. Your view, by contrast, seems to be informed by at least some commentators who adhere to some form of the documentary hypothesis (e.g. JEPD). Those who sign up for the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy are usually not Wellhausen fans.
You are arguing with a straw man. My point about those passages is that they are all cases of Moses telling us that creation took place in six days. One of the benefits of your view is that removes the problem by declaring Gen 1-2 to be a vision and Ex 20:11 and Ex 31:17 to be allusions to it - and none of the passages to be the words of Moses but rather someone in the 6th century BC. The downside of adopting your view is that I have to give up Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch which it seems clearly to me that Jesus held. I know that you dispute this, but Mosaic authorship has been and continues to be a contentious issue for many people. For you to act as if that war is over and I should lay down my arms is unwarranted.
If that were the case, I would not have come to BioLogos as I did.
Actually, the irony is that you are the one who is importing extratextual material into the text. For while Ex 20 is presented as a seemless recitation, you read its 11th verse as an insertion that came from another writer almost a millennium later and without anything in the text of Ex 20 to identify it as such. This does not ipso facto mean you are wrong, but it does ipso facto mean you are getting your information from some source other than Ex 20.
I would put it this way, “I think you could agree with various aspects of all four of them in a logically coherent fashion.” (A reason I say this is shown here in the comment about inerrancy and JEPD.) Can you accept this refinement to your sentence?
Nor do I. What I do see is a historical timeline for creation implied by those passages when combined with the genealogies - a timeline which would date the universe in the thousands of years. Thus when scientifcally-generated history (SGH) comes along with a conflicting timeline of billions of years, a choice is forced.
If I could in good conscience lay aside my worldview glasses and put on John Walton’s (yours) instead, I could indeed see past the conflict between the biblical timeline and SGH. But make no mistake: we’re both wearing glasses.
I don’t recall anyone saying, “I hold to the gap theory” or “My view is the day-age view” per se. In other words, few of the traditional biblical accommodations to science were proposed as solutions - though some were mentioned in passing or alluded to. Such views include:
Gap (as made prominent by the Scofield Reference Bible)
Day-Gap
Day Age
Revelation Day
Literary Framework (Henri Blocher)
Hebrew Creation Myth (Miller and Soden)
I don’t know quite what to make of the fact that none of these seems to have distinct constiuency at BioLogos promoting it, but I can’t help making the observation.