Sunday, July 02, 2006

Creation & providence

Daniel Morgan said:

“Were the species all created ex nihilo?”

1.Before proceeding any further, let’s clarify our terms:

i)”Creation may be either first and immediate (which is simply ex nihilo) or secondary and mediate (which is made indeed from some matter). The former is unfit and out of order, not set in order by any force of second causes to the production of the terminus,” Turretin, Institutes 1:432.

ii)”Had he [Einstein] reflected more on what physics can do, he would not have bogged down in the futile question about the understanding of the how of the creation of the universe. For if that how meant creation out of nothing, it could not be understood in terms of quantitative relations, the sole business of physics,” S. Jaki, God & the Cosmologists (Regnery 1989), 95.

2.Gen 1 doesn’t deal with the creation of “species,” but natural kinds.

3.Exegetically speaking, the ordinal numbered diurnal series probably implies that time began with the creation of the universe.

This, in turn, logically implies the nonexistence of preexisting matter, for preexisting matter would have the property of duration.

4.This interpretation is supported by Col 1:15, which clearly implies creation ex nihilo.

5.Day 1 involves the creation of ex nihilo of matter/energy.

It’s possible that the creation of the organic order (days 3,5-6) made use of raw inorganic materials. Cf. Gen 2:7.

Such inorganic materials were preexistent vis-à-vis the organic order. But they were not preexistence vis-à-vis creation proper.

6.Even if the creation of the organic order made use of raw inorganic materials, the organic order did not originate by ordinary natural processes.

According to Gen 1, organisms reproduce according to their kind. But the natural kinds did not originate by this process. Rather, the process was instantiated by divine fiat.

Exegetically speaking, it’s possible that each organic or inorganic artifact was created instantaneously, although the totality of natural kinds was phased in over six days, in a series of discrete fiats.

Or it’s possible that each artifact was instantiated over time, but at a highly accelerated rate, so as to be fully formed at the end of each day.

The account is not that specific.

6.In either case, you don’t have plants made from other plants or animals made from other animals.

At most, you’d have fauna and flora directly constituted from the raw inorganic materials, which originated on day 1.

“1) Are the physicists lying about the age of the earth?”

Secular dating schemes extrapolate the age of the earth on the basis of radiometric decay rates. There are a few fundamental of problems with this extrapolation:

i) Given a cyclical process, you might be able to extrapolate up-to-a-point on the basis of that process.

If, however, the cycle was instantiated ex nihilo, then you cannot infer the date of creation from the periodicity of the process since the cycle itself was not phased in over time by some linear process, but given in toto.

Any chronological extrapolation would afford a relative date, but not an absolute date.

For example, if the power goes off, and the electric clocks are reset, you can calculate the passage of time from that point onwards, but this doesn’t tell give you the status quo ante.

Likewise, when a jeweler replaces a batter on a watch, he will reset the time, but in so doing he zeros out the previous reading.

When the power goes off, all the clocks give the same time, and when the power comes back on, they all give the same time, but the time they give is relative time, not absolute time. And unless they are recalibrated to make allowance for the power outage, they will all give the wrong time.

Synchrony is no evidence of absolute chronology.

Same is true if we reset our wristwatch as we pass from one time zone to another.

ii) Let’s also remember that radiometric decay rates are not designed to tell the time. That is not their natural function.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with putting them to some extraneous use, but to assume that they must yield an accurate result irrespective of their physical purpose is philosophically naive and ironically androcentric.

iii) So the question remains: if the universe was instantiated both in toto and ex nihilo in six stages, what would it look like?

Given a temporal process, we may be able to calculate the rate of change, but if the cycle is not, itself, the result of a temporal process, then we cannot use the cycle to date the origin of the cycle. Rather, we can only use it as a proximate point of reference to date other things.

iv) Does this make a secular geologist or physicist a liar?

No, but it does make him terribly gauche, which, in some ways, is worse.

Better to be a competent liar than a well-meaning klutz.

“2) Are the biologists lying about the descent with modification of species from common ancestors?”

This is, of course, another leading question.

i) It assumes that all of the evidence lines up behind naturalistic evolution.

ii) It fails to distinguish between evidence for microevolution and evidence for macroevolution.

iii) It skates over the difference between the solid front they like to present for public consumption, and the internecine warfare which resumes as soon as they think the microphone is off. Cf.

A. Brown, The Darwin Wars (Simon & Schuster 2001).

R. Morris, The Evolutionists (Henry Holt & Co., 2001).

U. Segerstrale, Defenders of the Truth: The Sociology Debate (Oxford 2001).

iv) Since a secular biologist denies divine creation, he is precommitted to something like naturalistic evolution, apart from any hard evidence whatsoever.

v) A secular biologist will make no allowance for the possible affect of a global flood on the fossil record.

vi) Then there’s the last-ditch resort to methological naturalism to putty over the factual gaps in the case for evolution.

vii) Not to mention the blacklisting of scientific dissent.

10 comments:

  1. It's a nice write-up and all...but rather out of context. As such, it is probably hard for most people to see why I asked the question. Evanmay said:
    Creation ex nihilo is exactly that: it is creation from nothing to something. Thus, any questions concerning any observable "evidence" that speculates a supposed discrepancy between the world in which we live and a world created ex nihilo is simply nonsense.

    ...This is the part that naturalists seem to never be able to understand.


    To which, of course, I responded with the question. The reason I did so is because the animals we observe unquestionably derived from common ancestors...so how far back does it go? If it goes back to some original "kind" which was created ex nihilo, then his answer would be pertinent. If it goes back to some original LUCA [last universal common ancestor] which is, itself, a product of physics and chemistry [existing matter, not "poof"], then his comment is not pertinent at all to biology. I am not asking him for a defense, just making a point -- if the species are not the products of special creation from nothing, then his argument is only valid for astrophysics/cosmology-related issues.

    I also suppose you didn't read the part where I basically said I just wanted people to weigh in on whether or not they were YEC/OEC/theistic evolutionists [guided evolution]/deistic evolutionists [God = Big Bang, nothing else], without needing to give a defense, since I wasn't giving an offense.

    I pointed out that you made it clear where you stood, and no one else did. That is still the case.

    I just wanted to know. Is it that big a deal for Evanmay, Genembridges, Manata and Jason to just answer "young/old" and "special creation / guided evolution / natural evolution"? I have a feeling that Manata is a YEC from some comments he made, but I thought maybe a couple of them are OECs, and I just wanted to know. Simple.

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  2. Yes, I'm aware of the fact that your question was directed at my colleagues rather than me.

    But T-bloggers reserve the right to horn in on any discussion, just as commenters do.

    And since I'm the one who's made the most of creation ex nihilo, it's logical for me to get in my own 2¢ worth on that issue.

    And naturally we're going to defend our answers in anticipation of potential objections.

    For all I know, some of my colleages may be OECs. They're at liberty to respond or not as they see fit, based on their own time-management and other priorities.

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  3. Re: Daniel Morgan's comment: The reason I did so is because the animals we observe unquestionably derived from common ancestors...so how far back does it go? (emphasis added)

    Why is it unquestionable? Do mean that it's a matter of scientific fiat? Or that it has been proved in repeatable demonstration? Or that you merely affirm it and don't wish to discuss the presuppositions involved? Or has this been discussed and established to the satisfaction of all? (The sarcasm that tinges the edges of the last one is real, not imaginary.) The unquestionable hypothesis is dogma.

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  4. Daniel Morgan,

    I'll address two issues you've been raising in some of the threads here.

    You've asked what we think of creation and evolution. I haven't studied the issue of the age of the universe enough to have much confidence either way. I doubt that I'll ever be as opposed to old earth creationism as some young earth creationists are, since I don't think that an old universe is as problematic as some young earth creationists suggest, and I don't think that there are as many Biblical difficulties in the old earth position as is often suggested. There's still a lot that I haven't studied in much depth, though, and it probably will be a while before I take a confident position in support of an old or a young universe, if I ever will. I reject evolution on scientific grounds, and my perception is that the Biblical evidence is far more consistent with some form of creation than it is with evolution. I don't believe in common descent.

    In another thread, you made some claims about Greek influence on the Christian concept of Hell. It's difficult to tell just what you're arguing, however, since you repeatedly use qualifiers like "much" and "largely". If a concept is largely absent from the earlier Biblical documents, but does sometimes appear, then how would you know that its later widespread acceptance was a result of Greek influence? Are you claiming to have explicit evidence to the effect that the Jews borrowed from the Greeks, resulting in the Christian doctrine of Hell? Or is your argument more along the lines of speculating about one possible explanation among others?

    We know that even the older of the Old Testament documents refer to belief in an afterlife. The Pentateuch wouldn't condemn attempts to contact spirits of the dead if there was no belief in spirits of the dead. Some scholars would argue that Job is one of the oldest books of the Bible, and it has a concept of an afterlife. So do some of the Psalms. And Christian arguments for an early dating of Isaiah and Daniel, for example, would place some explicit references to resurrection and an afterlife hundreds of years prior to the second century B.C. (You made reference to how "The translation of sheol into hades, in the 2 BCE is largely to blame for the teaching of hell, which was adopted by Jesus et al.") There are passages in the Old Testament that refer to being with God forever or suggest eternal existence in some other way. And if such beliefs were held about the afterlife for the righteous, then why should we think that it would require Greek influence to produce a similar view of the afterlife for the unrighteous? Greek influence could have furthered the process in some manner, but it wouldn't be necessary for the origin of the concept or for every element of its furtherance. The ancient Jews living around the time of early Christianity held a variety of views of the afterlife, so it's not as if Greek influence brought about a universal change in Jewish belief. There was no one view universally held. The Christian view of Hell is consistent with Old Testament teaching, and it's found in some Old Testament passages. What is it about the Christian view of Hell that supposedly would suggest Greek influence (influence in the sense of originating a concept, not in the sense of popularizing it)?

    In the other thread I'm referring to, you wrote:

    "Why would God reveal only a nebulous concept of the afterlife to his own people, which would not be clarified for hundreds of years, and when it did get clarified, it came from the Gentiles?"

    What supposedly came from the Greeks? Concepts such as post-death existence and an afterlife of punishment for the unrighteous are too vague to identify as Greek concepts. If ancient Jews knew there would be an afterlife of enjoyment or an afterlife of punishment, and they were sometimes given other details, what else would they supposedly need to know? Knowing more would be desirable, and the New Testament does give us some additional information, but even in the New Testament a lot is left unsaid. Wanting more information and needing it aren't the same.

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  5. Jim Crigler,

    the animals we observe unquestionably derived from common ancestors...so how far back does it go? (emphasis added)

    Why is it unquestionable? Do mean that it's a matter of scientific fiat?

    Um, find me an organism, any organism, and I'll point to its direct ancestor (parent). My point is simple: we can do this for quite a few generations from the historical record of human beings for things like wolves --> dogs. How far can we go, before the question arises, "was the first common ancestor of any given two species created ex nihilo?"

    If no, then evanmay's comment is irrelevant when discussing evolution.

    Are you claiming to have explicit evidence to the effect that the Jews borrowed from the Greeks, resulting in the Christian doctrine of Hell?
    I am claiming that the history of the concept of an everlasting soul which is tormented in the underworld by gods/goddesses is certainly first a Greek notion.

    Of course, given your timeline of Biblical chronology [if you are a literalist and very conservative], perhaps you may think that the later Jewish writings, like Isaiah 66, preceded the Greek ones. Isaiah 66 used as an afterlife passage never made much sense to me, though, as the person was viewing the desolation of a battlefield and rotting corpses.

    I haven't found an apologist who talks much about hell from an extra-biblical standpoint, which is what I want. If you [or anyone] has a link, please pass it along.

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  6. The original question was about "the descent with modification of species from common ancestors," not direct ancestry a la parentage.

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  7. Daniel Morgan said:

    "I am claiming that the history of the concept of an everlasting soul which is tormented in the underworld by gods/goddesses is certainly first a Greek notion. Of course, given your timeline of Biblical chronology [if you are a literalist and very conservative], perhaps you may think that the later Jewish writings, like Isaiah 66, preceded the Greek ones."

    The Christian concept of Hell isn't "an everlasting soul which is tormented in the underworld by gods/goddesses". The Christian God is described as sinless and as taking no pleasure in the death of the unrighteous. He executes justice on the unrighteous, but everything is done in the framework of a loving and just God. The Christian concept of Hell also involves resurrection and other concepts that you aren't mentioning. The two concepts you seem to be emphasizing are the eternality of Hell and the inclusion of punishment by some higher being. But those concepts are too vague to prove the sort of dependence on Greek influence that you're suggesting.

    I've given you examples of Old Testament documents that refer to an afterlife, and it would be absurd to argue that all of them are late documents. None of the earliest sources to comment on the subject date the documents as late as you would need them to be dated. Did the ancient Jews repeatedly collectively not notice or collectively forget when these documents originated, then collectively assign the documents to the same wrong date? Modern theories that attempt to date some of these documents late are of a highly speculative nature, and they've been answered by conservative scholarship.

    As I explained in my last post, concepts such as punishment of the wicked in an afterlife and an eternal duration of that afterlife are too vague to require a Greek origin by themselves. If you don't have direct evidence of borrowing, then you have a weak case. How difficult would it be to think of the wicked being treated differently than the godly in an afterlife? It wouldn't be difficult. No borrowing from the Greeks would be needed. And why would borrowing from the Greeks be needed to reach the conclusion that the sovereign God of the universe would have some involvement in punishing the people in Hell? No borrowing would be needed. The concept is found in a variety of Old Testament books, and you've given us no reason to think that any or all of these documents are to be dated later than whatever unnamed Greek sources you have in mind. Similarly, if the Old Testament authors could refer to the righteous being with God forever, it wouldn't require any borrowing from the Greeks to conclude that the unrighteous exist eternally as well. The sort of parallel between an eternal Heaven and an eternal Hell that we see in Daniel 12:2 is something that could easily be arrived at by means of logical extension or could be arrived at by means of revelation, without borrowing from the Greeks. Greek influence surely helped popularize some concepts associated with Hell, and so have other cultures and movements. But popularizing isn't the same as originating.

    You wrote:

    "I haven't found an apologist who talks much about hell from an extra-biblical standpoint, which is what I want. If you [or anyone] has a link, please pass it along."

    I've read some material on the subject offline, but not many online sources quickly come to mind. Glenn Miller has a short piece on ancient Jewish views of Hell:

    http://www.christian-thinktank.com/jewhell.html

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  8. Jason,

    Thanks for the link. Did you notice two important aspects of Glenn's article?

    the data we do have DOES INDICATE an afterlife-doctrine in Judaism, esp. 1st century Jewry...

    The talmudic writings indicate that some of the main Rabbinical schools at the time of Jesus had the general belief that

    I don't have any disputes with the notion that the Jews adopted an extra-biblical concept of afterlife later on, and that it was influenced heavily by the platonic notions of soul and the concept of justice in the afterlife (rather than in this life).

    As I think I pointed out elsewhere, the Maccabean revolt reveals to us that the Jewish schools of thought before Jesus came on the scene had been pretty heavily tainted by the Greeks. Call it a parallel to modern liberal academically-influenced Xianity.

    Anyway, I'm going to try to do some more research on this, and get back to the topic with a post...one day...hopefully.

    Thanks again.

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  9. Daniel Morgan said:

    "I don't have any disputes with the notion that the Jews adopted an extra-biblical concept of afterlife later on, and that it was influenced heavily by the platonic notions of soul and the concept of justice in the afterlife (rather than in this life)."

    You say "I don't have any disputes", then you go on to describe a view that Glenn Miller doesn't suggest anywhere in his article. The person who wrote to Glenn Miller was focusing on the first century A.D. He asked, "Did the Jews in Jesus' time believe differently from the Jews today about the afterlife?" Nowhere does Miller make the claims that you make above.

    I've given you examples of a Jewish concept of an afterlife in the earlier Old Testament documents. It isn't limited to the later documents. Even if it had been, you still haven't documented that the sources in question were borrowing from the Greeks. It's just something you assert over and over again without evidence.

    If the older books of the Old Testament reflect a belief in an afterlife, then why should we think that the concept of "justice in the afterlife" came from the Greeks? What did those early Jews believe? That there was an afterlife of injustice?

    You wrote:

    "As I think I pointed out elsewhere, the Maccabean revolt reveals to us that the Jewish schools of thought before Jesus came on the scene had been pretty heavily tainted by the Greeks."

    How does the Maccabean revolt "reveal to us" what you claim it does? Books written long before the Maccabean era refer to spirits of the dead, going to be with God after death, God's character remaining consistent forever (which would be relevant to the afterlife), etc.

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