Was God cooling his heels?

Richard Carrier on the Argument From the Scale of the Universe

By John W. Loftus at 1/12/2013

For what it's worth, at least I'm not the only one who thinks Jeff Lowder's arguments don't work against my particular case. Here's Carrier from page 290 of my anthology, The End of Christianity:

    We cannot predict from “a very powerful self-existent being created life by design” that he would do this by creating trillions of galaxies and billions of light years of empty intergalactic space and then sit around and twiddle his thumbs for ten billion years before finally deciding to create life in just one tiny place. That’s not even expected at all, much less with 100 percent certainty.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2013/01/richard-carrier-on-argument-from-scale.html

For now I’ll content myself with few brief observations. At a later date I may also comment on Everitt’s argument, which Carrier footnotes.

i) There are, of course, scientifically competent Christians who reject Carrier’s timescales.

ii) Assuming we grant his timescales, if God is timeless, then God didn’t wait for 10 billion years to create life. A timeless God doesn’t wait for anything. Even if there’s a 10 billion year interval between the origin of the universe and the origin of life, that’s not an interval in the experience or being of a timeless God. Carrier is confusing what happens in or to the universe with what happens to God. But although God makes everything happen (directly or indirectly), nothing ever happens to God.

Carrier can, of course, try to attack divine timelessness. My immediate point is simply that his objection takes for granted a questionable, unstated premise.

iii) Likewise, on the B theory of time, everything came into being all at once. One can, of course, debate the scientific, philosophical, and theological merits of the B theory. My immediate point is simply that Carrier’s objection takes for granted a questionable, unstated premise.

iv) Why does Carrier assume life only exists on one planet? That’s certainly not an atheistic axiom. And that’s not a Christian axiom. Christian theology doesn’t preclude the existence of biological organisms on other planets. Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. That’s an open question in theology.

v) To say God “finally decided” to create life 10 billion years later…is ambiguous. That could be taken in either of two different ways:

a) God decided to create life 10 billion years later.

b) God decided 10 billion years later to create life.

Does Carrier mean God originally planned to create life 10 billion years later, or that God didn’t decide to create life until 10 billion years into the process? Is it a delayed decision, or a delayed effect of a prior decision? Was God undecided about when or whether to create life? Or did God decided to create life all along, only save that development for a later stage in the creative process?

Probably, Carried just liked the sound of what he wrote, and didn’t bother to clarify in his own mind what he was even thinking.