Creation science denies God.

[shernren]

A bold, but true, assertion. First note (as always) my delimiter. I am referring to creation science - the scientific process of studying creation from a YEC viewpoint - and not creation scientists, whom I believe do indeed try very hard (if a little misguided, to those who disagree) to glorify God. What I am saying is that although their intention is to glorify God, ironically they do so by the very method which, according to them, denies God.

Now what is science? From googling "define:science" :

A branch of knowledge based on objectivity and involving observation and experimentation. from www.spaceforspecies.ca/glossary/s.htm

"Based on objectivity" is an irritating relic of modernism, but it can stay, esepcially since "observation and experimentation" imply objective observers and experimenters.

Studies that normally encompass courses based on a knowledge of facts, phenomena, laws, and proximate cause are designated Science (eg, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geography, Geology, Mathematics, Nutrition, and Physics). from www.athabascau.ca/html/services/advise/geninfo.htm

I especially like the reference to proximate cause. Important for discussion.

The body of related courses concerned with knowledge of the physical and biological world and with the processes of discovering and validating this knowledge. from nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/glossary/s.asp

I like the reference to not just discovering, but validating this knowledge. This will also be important.

Most of the other definitions run somewhere along the same train of thought (objective observation, proximate causes, validating knowledge).

One extra definition:

Proximate cause: In the law, a proximate cause is an event sufficiently related to a legally recognizable injury to be held the cause of that injury. There are two elements needed to determine proximate cause: the activity must produce a foreseeable risk, and the injury must be caused directly by the defendant's negligence. There may be more than one proximate cause of an injury or event. from Wikipedia

Although this applies more towards legal disputes, it is easily applicable to our discussion, and note that by definition God would never be a proximate cause studied / studiable by science. This will also be important.

Now, to the proof.

First, note that the definitions of science above mention God nowhere. This should immediately ring alarms for the creationist. Furthermore, nowhere in the Bible is objective and codified observation of nature mentioned, except by Solomon the Wise, and by Jesus who mocked the Pharisees for it ("You can read the signs of the weather, but not the spiritual signs of the time!"); in the first case it is neutrally mentioned whereas in the second case it is used as an ironic counterpart to their spiritual ignorance.

(Of course there are other nature mentionings in Scripture. But I believe it can be showed that most if not all of them are not objective observations, but subjective appreciations.)

This should be alarming. Creation science organizations are using a method nowhere prescribed, sanctioned or blessed in Scripture. For organizations that claim to adhere to the supermacy and sufficiency of Scripture, this is a serious accusation. (The fact that it isn't, to many creationists, shows a general superficiality of thought. I am also indicted under this as a former YEC.) Furthermore, as those organizations themselves point out, conventional science is frequently associated with atheistic, nihilistic proclamations - it is the exact same methodology they are using! Therefore the only defense is for creation science organizations to assert that their science is fundamentally different from normal science, that there is an easily established dichotomy between "Christian science" and "atheistic science". They will wheel out the great Christian scientists of old in support of them, conveniently ignoring the great Christian geologists who discovered that the earth was scientifically old, and talk about how conventional science is carried out by atheists for atheistic purposes while Christian science is carried out by Christians for Christian purposes.

But in Christian morality, good intentions do not redeem faulty methods. The only way their defense can stick is if their method is fundamentally different from the atheists'. Is it? Let us see.

Let us say that a scientist sets out to prove that radiometric dating methods are flawed. He forms a hypothesis:

"The amount of radiogenic helium left behind in quartz (? can't remember exactly) crystals, and the isochron method of dating quartz crystals, gives discordant dates."

Experiment experiment calculate calculate. He finds out that to his surprise, the isochron dating gives a date of 2 million years, while the helium dating gives a date of 4,000 years. He's right! He's absolutely right!

What's the catch here? The catch is that he doesn't need to be a Christian to find this result if his hypothesis is indeed correct. His hypothesis and experimental procedures, especially since this experiment does not involve life-forms, will not be changed whether he believes in Jehovah, Allah, or man.

And yet this is the exact same hypothesis that creation scientists claim they have proved. Well, even if they have proved it, they have proved it through unChristian methods. These methods are demonstrably unChristian because nonChristians can still use them effectively. In fact, if Christian science articles are indeed approved for publishing in journals, this proves the point exactly, for a journal-published result must be repeatable regardless of the researchers' beliefs.

To illustrate this succinctly: A good Christian scientist will not pray before an experiment. If he does not believe in the efficacy of prayer, then he will not pray. If he does believe in the efficacy of prayer, then prayer represents a variable. Unless the effects of prayer are specifically being studied, if prayer has efficacy then it will interfere in the causal relationship between the independent and the dependent variable. Thus the good Christian scientist will not pray. So how, just how, does Christian science glorify God - since carrying out Christian science requires Christian scientists to not pray!

To sum up:

1. a. From a literal, sufficient Bible approach, science is never mentioned positively in the Bible.
1. b. Furthermore, science is often used to declare atheistic propaganda.
2. a. Therefore, for Christian organizations to use science to prove creation scientific views is misguided. The end does not justify the means.
2. a'. Creation science organizations can refute 2.a. if they can show that their type of science is uniquely Christian in comparison to atheistic / non-Christian science.
2. a'. a'. However, they cannot do this, because by the very definition of science both their hypotheses and their experimental methodologies are identical to those of non-Christians.
2. b'. (not discussed, sorry - running out of time - have class to rush to) The only other way to refute 2.a is to admit and accept that although science is not mentioned in the Bible this is due to pre-scientific limitations of the direct recipients of God's written revelation, and therefore science is not inherently good or evil but inherently neutral. However, this means that the conclusions drawn from science are also inherently neutral, and that as a consequence evolutionary science does not, in fact, "push God out of the picture", any more than creation science does.
3. a. If creation science does not accept 2. b'. and focus on the merit instead of the philosohical and partial implications of evolutionary theory, then they have contradicted themselves in using means that are contrary to their guiding principles.

 

[shernren]

Hmm. My discussion veered. Nevertheless I will stand by my conclusion. I must also add some legal print:

Creation science denies God by the same logical principles that they use to state that evolutionary science denies God.

This was in direct response to:

TEs don't want God to be heard in the public arena of science.

 

[Crusadar]

Gee shernren it's a good thing it will be a cold winter in Minnesota cause there is plenty of strawman to burn!

 

[shernren]

Go on! Try and burn them!

Actually I sort of digressed from my normal, intended argument, which was:

Science only studies proximate causes.
God is an / the Ultimate cause.
Therefore science cannot study God.
Because science cannot study God, creation science says that normal science is atheistic.
But by that criterion, creation science is also atheistic, unless
it can study God as a proximate cause, in which case
it must be able to elucidate God's direct actions upon nature as physically explainable, repeatable phenomena.

This is a clear, logical chain of arguments which has probably been repeated ad nauseam on this forum, but hey, I haven't seen any convincing replies yet. So hey, come on and burn my strawmen if you can. It gets very cold in my computer lab. Silly administrators and their fetish with room refrigeration aka air-conditioning.

 

[Crusadar]

It is a strawman because you have already started with two wrong premises

1) that truth can be discovered apart from God when the claim made by science is that it is a measuring tool for truth.

2) That creationists are trying to study God through science, when it is in fact through God’s word that we are studying science.

Your strawman is that you are accusing creationists of trying to study God through science which I as a creationists already admit is not possible. After all can God’s infinite nature which is absolute truth really be determined by science, a finite and relative truth? The correct conclusion should follow that since science is not absolute, how can it be said that it has discovered God who is absolute - not that creation science denies God (which is nothing more than a baseless pontification) since creationists do believe in God - in fact everything that He says!.

Obviously you are presenting a false dichotomy between the study of God’s creation and the study of God. For creationists science is simply the study of God’s creation – to conclude that it is the study of God is a false conclusion. Science is merely the study of the things that God has made, there is no conclusion by any creationist I know of that science is the study of God – and if you are getting that impression you have been misled. If anything the study of God’s creation may lead one to understand and recognize that there is a God but not necessarily to an understanding and an acceptance of Him - that we get through His Word.

 

[shernren]

After all can God’s infinite nature which is absolute truth really be determined by science, a finite and relative truth? The correct conclusion should follow that since science is not absolute, how can it be said that it has discovered God who is absolute - not that creation science denies God (which is nothing more than a baseless pontification) since creationists do believe in God - in fact everything that He says!

"Since science is not absolute, how can it be said that it has discovered God who is absolute?" Note that this statement applies equally to "creation science" and to (ostensibly) "non-creation science". Therefore if one denies God by acknowledging that it cannot study God, so does the other. If evolution science denies God so does creation science by the same criteria. That is what I am stressing. Not that creation science denies God per se, but that by creationists' own standards creation science denies God. An attack on the validity of "atheistic science" by virtue of its (nonexistent) relationship with God is equivalent to the very same attack on creation science. Therefore it is a dangerous argument to use, like grabbing a snake by the tail and hoping that it bites the other person instead of you.

1) that truth can be discovered apart from God when the claim made by science is that it is a measuring tool for truth.

"Objects fall down." Or, more sophisticatedly, "Objects move under the force of gravity from positions of high potential to positions of low potential." Is this truth discoverable apart from God? Yes, since atheists are also capable of discovering it. Therefore if truth cannot be discovered apart from God, then we need to majorly redefine things so that nothing we say about the natural world is in fact "true".

Furthermore there is theological evidence (as I would see it) that there is truth to be found apart from God. In Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. I can say from this that we can in fact know about God, from what is clearly not God (for "what God created" cannot be equated to God). God expects humans to be able to find out truth about Him from His creation independently of Him, and therefore to turn to Him and glorify Him; thus He holds them responsible for not finding truth from nature and turning to Him (and not, instead, finding truth from nature through Him).

In any case, science does not claim to be a "measuring stick" of truth. Some scientists will notably claim that (for an example of science gone militant, Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark; next to that TEs are very, very docile), but not science in and of itself. You did not refer to the definitions I posted. For example, "A branch of knowledge based on objectivity and involving observation and experimentation" does not refer anywhere to being a "measuring tool of truth". It just claims to know whatever can be known through objectivity, observation and experimentation. Since religion is subjective (at present) and quite unhospitable to experimentation science does not claim to know anything about it. Or put it this way: science only measures the objective dimension of truth, and saying that science makes any statements about God is like saying I can use a triple-beam balance to measure the brightness of the sun.

2) That creationists are trying to study God through science, when it is in fact through God’s word that we are studying science.

Where did I say that creationists are trying to study God through science? It is precisely because they do not, and cannot, that creation science deserves the "denying God" label they put on atheist science.

Thanks for the strawmen. I'm enjoying the fire.

 

[Critias]

It seems I have not been able to help you [shernren] understand that all science has presuppositions and uses philosophy to express itself.

Creationary Theory or Creationism starts with the presupposition that God, the God of the Bible, is the Creator. The Evolutionary Theory does not. It starts with no creator.

Obviously, I have failed in helping you understand this point.

 

[shernren]

It seems I have not been able to help you [shernren] understand that all science has presuppositions and uses philosophy to express itself.

Creationary Theory or Creationism starts with the presupposition that God, the God of the Bible, is the Creator. The Evolutionary Theory does not. It starts with no creator.

Well, now I'll be. I've never heard anyone say anything closer to "all evolutionists are atheists".

The problem is: different philosophy should inspire different methodology. Because the "atheist" believes that all events have natural proximate causes, he believes that it is worthwhile trying to isolate them. On the other hand, because creationists believe (as they must!) that many of the events that they study have no explainable proximate cause, but only the stated (according to their worldview) ultimate cause that is God. If there is no proximate cause there is simply no science, because science studies only proximate causes. If there is a proximate cause God is "not needed", because if an event has a proximate cause then it can be explained without reference to God - but creation science cannot be science without studying proximate causes! Therefore creation science tacitly denies God or implies that He is "not needed".

The part of my post relevant to this was:

Let us say that a scientist sets out to prove that radiometric dating methods are flawed. He forms a hypothesis:

"The amount of radiogenic helium left behind in quartz (? can't remember exactly) crystals, and the isochron method of dating quartz crystals, gives discordant dates."

Experiment experiment calculate calculate. He finds out that to his surprise, the isochron dating gives a date of 2 million years, while the helium dating gives a date of 4,000 years. He's right! He's absolutely right!

What's the catch here? The catch is that he doesn't need to be a Christian to find this result if his hypothesis is indeed correct. His hypothesis and experimental procedures, especially since this experiment does not involve life-forms, will not be changed whether he believes in Jehovah, Allah, or man.

The very nature of science is that disinterested observers must be able to validate results. If creation science is valid, then disinterested observers must be able to reach the same experimental conclusions, or in effect that the atheist must get the same result the creation scientist does, without having to convert. But if the atheist can get the creation science results without holding to the creation science position then doesn't that mean that creation science's findings are explainable without God? This is how science works. People who disagree with a theory test its experimental consequences, find that the results agree with theory while still disbelieving it, and finally come to believe it because the results agree.

An atheist doesn't have to be a Christian to believe that the world was / is young. After all, if there really was solid evidence pointing to the youth of the earth then scientists would believe it. A young earth can still be, very much, an atheistic earth. If the earth is 6,000 years old, it doesn't say anything about God; it just says to the atheist that his science is very, very wrong and that new science is required.

I am aware that science is performed under the premise of methodological naturalism, i.e. that nothing supernatural interferes with the results. What I am showing / have shown is that creation science labors under the very same assumption. For creation science to assume that nothing supernatural interferes is tantamount to saying "Yes, God, we're trying to prove that You created the earth 6,000 years ago here - so can you please kindly go away and at all costs not interfere with our results?"

 

[Critias]

Well, now I'll be. I've never heard anyone say anything closer to "all evolutionists are atheists".

That may be how you choose to interpret what I said, but in my heart that was not my intent. We are talking about the Theory of Evolution, not people.

Each theory starts with presuppositions that are in place. Creationisms is God of the Bible is the Creator. Evolutionary Theory's is of no known creator.

It seems again, a separation between people and the Theories is an impossible task with you and other TEs here. Even after stating several times that I am not talking about specific people but about specific theories, it seems it is either unheard or unable to be grasped.

Your response, yet again, proves to me that the Theory of Evolution cannot be made separate from the people who push it to be accepted. I was trying to analyze the theory apart from the people involved as it is taught by the people who advocate it, but I am unable to communicate this clearly enough to you.

Oh, well, peace be with you.

 

[shernren]

That may be how you choose to interpret what I said, but in my heart that was not my intent. We are talking about the Theory of Evolution.

Thanks for the clarification, I was just afraid because it might be taken either way. I've been making the same distinctions between creation science and creation scientists.

Your response, yet again, proves to me that the Theory of Evolution cannot be made separate from the people who push it to be accepted.

My whole response, or just the part you quoted? Am wondering so I know how to respond.

I was trying to analyze the theory apart from the people involved as it is taught by the people who advocate it, but I am unable to communicate this clearly enough to you.

I think I'm also facing that here. Because this is, after all, the *Christians-only* origins forum we tend to forget that not all creationists are Christians, just the same as not all evolutionists are atheists.

In any case, fine, let's look at the theory of evolution by itself. Does it start with no-God? Not quite. Instead, it starts with the postulate of God's non-interference, or more generally the non-interference of any supernatural, unquantifiable causes. Is the idea of God's non-interference true? Maybe, maybe not. Evolutionists believe to different extents God's non-interference in origins while creationists don't at all. But both will disagree with the idea of God's non-interference in, say, the Resurrection.

All science starts with God's non-interference. Even creation science. That is my precise, complete point. Creationists criticise evolutionary science because it is a science in which God does not interfere. Fine: by the same criteria, creationist science is a science in which God does not interfere either. Creationist science assumes that God doesn't touch our experiments.

Creationist science assumes that, say, a great global flood can produce our geological features seen today, whether or not God caused the flood. This is provable because:

1. If the flood was antiscientific and completely miraculous in nature ("Poof! God vanished all the water away with His magic science-defying omnipotence!") then it cannot be studied by science. We cannot expect to replicate the same conditions today. We cannot, say, point to the eruption of Mt. St. Helens (sp?) and say that this shows that flood conditions could have produced modern geology, since the eruption was a completely natural process while the flood was a completely miraculous process that had nothing whatsoever to do with natural science. (Isn't that what creationists want? They want science to be able to explain nothing, so that only God will be able to explain anything.) or,

1'. The flood was completely scientific. It progressed along well known scientific principles. No rules of science were broken. Many creationist explanations go something along those lines. "Those misguided evolutionists used to believe in this and that. But now, due to new scientific evidence, we can prove them wrong!" Note that they claim that they can invoke scientific proof to disprove conventional theory. However, by their own arguments: if scientific proof is sufficient then God is not necessary. Therefore creation science renders God unnecessary.

Why this contradiction in terms? It is because creation science has put God on the level of a proximate, instead of ultimate, cause. It then postulates that what science can explain God cannot explain. If science explains how flowers were formed then we can't attribute it to God any more. If science explains how the universe was formed then we can't attribute it to God any more. If science explains how the wondrous biodiversity we see on earth came about then we can't attribute it to God any more. The problem is, just how darn large a hole do we have left for God? If you're going to let science dictate where God can't be responsible then there's little or no reason to be Christian any more. Since science can explain computers there's no reason to thank God for ChristianForums, and since science helps us grow our food Paul was mistaken when he said that it was God (and not science) that gives men harvest and plenty.

It's like a historian saying, "Abraham Lincoln wasn't killed by a gunshot. He was killed by John Wilkes Booth!" The second is true, but the second does not disprove the first.

I think I'll leave it to someone else who has been far more lucid than I appear to be.

In the context of our present day concerns regarding the nature and manifestation of divine creative action in the course of the Creation's formative history, it is especially noteworthy that Augustine does not here present us with an either/or choice between proximate natural causation and divine action. On the contrary, from Augustine's theistic perspective God's effective will is the necessary prerequisite for and ultimate source of the entire, economy of proximate natural causes.17 Scientific explanations in terms of proximate or 'creaturely' action may be quite useful, but the very existence and fecunditv of such creaturely phenomena can be explained only by appeal to a higher level of causation-the will of God. Thus we are called by Augustine not to make a choice between either natural action or divine action, but rather we are challenged to establish the habit of recognizing that all creaturely action-whether it be some familiar everyday phenomenon or some past process or event beyond our empirical reach-is made both possible and fruitful only by the continuing and effective action of God's will. In Augustine's words, 'pray, could there be, I say, any other cause of all these visible and changeable facts, except the invisible and unchangeable will of God' (111.3.8).

from http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Evolution/S&CB4-96VanTill.html

I don't think either of us are making headway here. I think I understand what you are saying - "If something can be explained by science, then there was no miracle involved in it and therefore God was not responsible." - is that what you are saying? And what do you think I am saying?

 

[Emz198914]

wow, u guys love to write huh

 

[mark kennedy]

MOD HAT ON

: Forum Rule 1 Rule No. 1 - No "Flaming"

1.1 You may discuss another individual's beliefs or religious organization but you will not harass, insult, belittle, threaten, defame or flame the individual (member or non-member) as this is considered personal (ad hominem) attacks in posts, PMs and any other communication within the site. This includes, but is not limited to:

1.2 You will not directly call another member or his or her religious organization a “cult”, “heretic”, “demonic” or “satanic” but you may discuss doctrines, teachings, practices or writings of other religious organizations as long as empirical evidence is provided.

1.3 You will only post negative statements about another individual’s belief or religious organization (including non-Christian religions) with objective evidence provided. Members are allowed to say “The doctrines X church is false because of Y scriptures and Z other relevant evidence”.

I'm not taking any action at this time but saying creationism denies God comes very close to a flame. Under the circumstances there was empirical proof offered so just a word to the wise should suffice.

MOD HAT ON

 

[shernren]

I have said "creation science", not creationism, and there is a difference. Creationism - YECism to be specific - says that God created young and fast, basically, and creation science is a subgroup of creationism saying that there is scientific proof for this. Now, it is possible to be a YEC saying "Let God be true and all scientists liars!" and shut out what the world's science is saying and that's fine by me - at least the problem (of lack of evidence) is acknowledged there. But then comes the creation science group saying "ooh this scientific fact that scientific fact shows that the world was created young" and they forget that once you open the jury to scientific facts, all the scientific facts of the world start flowing in and disrupting young earth creationism. That was how it was like for me.

Plus, of course, the fact that science is naturalistic by nature and therefore any science - creation or not - would effectively "deny God", by the criteria some members set here for evolutionary science.

I am aware that this was a sensitive way to put it and I hope I don't have to do so again. But sometimes things have to be told as they are. Besides, I've seen enough posts here saying that evolutionary science denies God - and without proof, or with proof that can be refuted!

 

[Phospho]

I have said "creation science", not creationism, and there is a difference. Creationism - YECism to be specific - says that God created young and fast, basically, and creation science is a subgroup of creationism saying that there is scientific proof for this. Now, it is possible to be a YEC saying "Let God be true and all scientists liars!" and shut out what the world's science is saying and that's fine by me - at least the problem (of lack of evidence) is acknowledged there. But then comes the creation science group saying "ooh this scientific fact that scientific fact shows that the world was created young" and they forget that once you open the jury to scientific facts, all the scientific facts of the world start flowing in and disrupting young earth creationism. That was how it was like for me.

Shernren...this is ONLY true when you accept the assumptions of TOE as fact, when they are NOT fact. When one removes those nasty assumptions that have not been able to be demonstrated true for over 150 years, what you come away with a false paradigm putting a slant on the real facts of nature...TOE in a nutshell.

Have a happy thanksgiving!

Blessings!

 

[shernren]

Shernren...this is ONLY true when you accept the assumptions of TOE as fact, when they are NOT fact. When one removes those nasty assumptions that have not been able to be demonstrated true for over 150 years, what you come away with a false paradigm putting a slant on the real facts of nature...TOE in a nutshell.

What nasty assumptions? Happy Thanksgiving to you too!

 

[Numenor]

Obviously, I have failed in helping you understand this point.

That is because you have failed to understand that Evolution does not preclude God.