I'm seeing a theme here lately where the YECs are pointing out that we don't see evidence of other miracles in the bible, so why do the TEs have the double standard of demanding evidence for the creation miracle?
It seems like a legitimate question, so I'll clarify what we are asking for. (Officially I'm only speaking for myself, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the other TEs will agree with what I'm saying.)
Since water turning to wine is a common example, I'll start with that. If Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine then we would have no evidence of it. That's right, I'm admitting we would have not scientific evidence that Jesus performed that miracle, because miracles by definition defy the laws that govern our scientific models.
We also wouldn't have evidence to contradict it either, and the history that evidence gives us should still corroborate that a miracle took place. In other words, we would NOT have evidence of events taking place such as:
-after they ran out of wine a servant was seen going to the wine store. A receipt was found with two bottles stashed away that are from just before He performed the miracle. Etc.
We aren't looking for evidence of the miracle itself, we are looking for evidence of the events that took place surrounding the miracle, which would help justify the claim that a miracle did or did not take place.
Scholars use this kind of evidence all the time for the resurrection. We don't have Jesus in the flesh to study and use as evidence, nor do we have specific evidence of the moment when He came back from the dead, but we use evidence of the surrounding situations, context, etc to help build a case that He did in fact rise from the dead.
The same kind of reasoning could be applied to creation. I think that we all agree that there would be no evidence of the act of creation itself. That was a miracle and therefore could not be studied scientifically.
However, we can still study the evidence of the history of the earth. We can study what has happened here on earth, which are natural events that are subject to scientific inquiry. What does the evidence of the history of the world say? As we study history through archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, geography, stratigraphy, phylogenetics, biogeography, etc etc do we find that the there is only history for 6,000 years? Or do we find that the history of the earth extends back billions of years? This is something that we can use evidence to determine.
And just to clarify I'm not talking about apparent age. We would agree that if Adam was made fully formed he would have looked like he had been alive for some years, even when he was only a few minutes old. However, he would not have had any history. He wouldn't have had scars from past injuries, or memories of being raised on a farm. Likewise, even if the earth was made with apparent age embedded in it, its the "history" of the earth that we are looking at. If a rock is made with the apparent age of 2 billion years, then maybe it was just created fully formed. But then why does it have history embedded in it like fossils and burrowing chambers?
I hope that helps clear up the TE view on why we ask for evidence of creation and what we are asking for. Feel free to ask questions.
It seems like a legitimate question, so I'll clarify what we are asking for. (Officially I'm only speaking for myself, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the other TEs will agree with what I'm saying.)
Since water turning to wine is a common example, I'll start with that. If Jesus performed the miracle of turning water into wine then we would have no evidence of it. That's right, I'm admitting we would have not scientific evidence that Jesus performed that miracle, because miracles by definition defy the laws that govern our scientific models.
We also wouldn't have evidence to contradict it either, and the history that evidence gives us should still corroborate that a miracle took place. In other words, we would NOT have evidence of events taking place such as:
-after they ran out of wine a servant was seen going to the wine store. A receipt was found with two bottles stashed away that are from just before He performed the miracle. Etc.
We aren't looking for evidence of the miracle itself, we are looking for evidence of the events that took place surrounding the miracle, which would help justify the claim that a miracle did or did not take place.
Scholars use this kind of evidence all the time for the resurrection. We don't have Jesus in the flesh to study and use as evidence, nor do we have specific evidence of the moment when He came back from the dead, but we use evidence of the surrounding situations, context, etc to help build a case that He did in fact rise from the dead.
The same kind of reasoning could be applied to creation. I think that we all agree that there would be no evidence of the act of creation itself. That was a miracle and therefore could not be studied scientifically.
However, we can still study the evidence of the history of the earth. We can study what has happened here on earth, which are natural events that are subject to scientific inquiry. What does the evidence of the history of the world say? As we study history through archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, geography, stratigraphy, phylogenetics, biogeography, etc etc do we find that the there is only history for 6,000 years? Or do we find that the history of the earth extends back billions of years? This is something that we can use evidence to determine.
And just to clarify I'm not talking about apparent age. We would agree that if Adam was made fully formed he would have looked like he had been alive for some years, even when he was only a few minutes old. However, he would not have had any history. He wouldn't have had scars from past injuries, or memories of being raised on a farm. Likewise, even if the earth was made with apparent age embedded in it, its the "history" of the earth that we are looking at. If a rock is made with the apparent age of 2 billion years, then maybe it was just created fully formed. But then why does it have history embedded in it like fossils and burrowing chambers?
I hope that helps clear up the TE view on why we ask for evidence of creation and what we are asking for. Feel free to ask questions.
