Sunday, April 11, 2010

Where the ends meet

Ever since Gosse unveiled his theory of prochronic time, young-earth creationists have appeal to variants of that theory to account for the “appearance of age” in a “mature creation.” And they cite Adam and Eve as paradigm-cases to illustrate their point.

One apologetic limitation to that appeal is that Darwinian theists don’t believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans, so they don’t regard that paradigm-case as, in fact, paradigmatic. As a consequence, they retrofit the traditional Christian doctrine of special creation to accommodate macroevolution and universal common descent.

But because so much of the debate has centered on the creation account, the protological emphasis overlooks its eschatological counterpart.

Take the doctrine of the general resurrection–or the resurrection of the just. Although the Bible doesn’t give a lot of detail, we can draw reasonable inferences from the resurrection of Christ, Paul’s exposition in 1 Cor 15, and some other passages of Scripture.

Taking that into account, if, say, a Christian dies at 90, as a bedridden invalid, clinically blind and hard of hearing, he’s not going to be resurrected as a 90-year-old invalid with sensory impairment. Rather, glorification will age him down to an optimal age, and he will remain that age forever.

So there’s a sense in which each saints will have two different ages: his chronological age, and his physiological age. On the new earth, Abraham will be 4,000 years older than Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in terms of their respective chronological ages. Yet their physiological age will be the same–say, around 25 years old.

And a physician couldn’t tell, by examining them, what their “real” age was.

Of course, this raises the same “ethical” questions as prochronic time. If we reject “mature creation” on the grounds that this would implicate God in a web of deception, then, by the same token, we must reject the resurrection of the body, with its youthful, ageless immortality.

It is, of course, quite possible for the Darwinian theist to make the same adjustments to his eschatology as he already made to his protology. In that event, it’s not clear what, if anything, he has to fall back on. As a rule, many or most of those who subscribe to theistic evolution also subscribe to physicalism. They reject a dualistic anthropology, in which survival is grounded in the immortal soul. So what, in their view, is the future of humanity?

2 comments:

  1. "If we reject “mature creation” on the grounds that this would implicate God in a web of deception..."

    I've always found this argument to be highly unconvincing since a) it assumes Scientific Realism and b) it assumes that the purpose for God creating stars (or whatever) was to use them as clocks so that scientists in the 21st century could tell the age of the universe (which is clearly NOT their purpose as given in Scripture).

    Take the turning of the Nile into blood by Moses. Right before Moses put his staff into the water, did someone throw 10,000 people into a shredder and pour their blood into the Nile?

    If not, did God lie? Of course not! The miracle was never meant to be taken that way.

    It simply amazes me how many smart people use such a dumb argument!

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  2. A theist evolutionist could make an appeal that immortality cannot be inherent to the human condition because it is contingent, given by God. We are not immortal because our souls are necessarily immortal by nature but because God sustains us.

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