I'm sorry for coming across that way. I should have said that differently; indeed young earth creationists are more thoughtful than the general public in many areas. I was a YEC until a year ago, when I understood dating methods enough that I could not reconcile them with a young earth, and saw the YEC position get backed into the corner of presuppositionalism.
I believe in God's power as thoroughly as you, but the issue is not what he can do, but what he did. He has told us one thing he cannot do: lie; and to create each layer of rock with proportionately more daughter isotopes as it contains more primitive fossils and occurs deeper would be lying about the age of the earth.
Hi percivale,
Well, personally, I believe you are still misunderstanding and misusing the term 'to think'. You wrote: It is only those who specialize in areas of science that show the universe's age who would have to stop thinking about those areas to be YECs.
No, they would not have to stop thinking about those areas, what they have to stop thinking about, to reach their conclusions, is the power and glory of God. What they have to stop thinking about is what the word 'miracle' really means.
Let me give you a much more simple example to consider. In the writings of the exodus from Egypt we read:
...and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
Of course, the first question to be answered is whether one believes this to be an accurate account of the event or do they rather think that it is just something the men wrote down to impress upon future generations the power of some god that they were trying to teach them about? Did it really not happen like that but it sure makes for exciting copy?
If one agrees that, yes, I believe the account of the Scriptures is accurate, then we can move on to the next issue that arises between what science teaches us is possible based on years and years and decades and decades and centuries and centuries of reliable scientific knowledge of the basic properties of water that have always and ever held true on the earth, and how all of this understanding of the natural properties of water on the earth would then make our belief completely 'ignorant' to those who understand the basic properties of water.
We know from years and years and years of knowledge about water that there is absolutely, positively no way that water will 'stand' as a wall without some help to support it. It's just absolutely impossible based on the natural laws of water. There is not a scientist or engineer in all of the world who can make such a thing happen. Never has been throughout the ages of critical thinking of man. There are no examples one can google that show where someone has ever been able to make water stand even as a two foot high wall unaided. You can build a brick wall and make water stand behind it supported by the brick wall. You can lay out a sheet of glass or plastic and make water stand behind it as a wall, but you cannot take plain old water and cause it to stand all by itself as a wall.
And if we conjure an image of the breadth of the sea and the number of people who crossed from Egypt, it would have to have stood for at least several hours. We have an account of several thousand Hebrews and then the Egyptian soldiers who chased in after them, who surely must have been at some length behind them in order to have not caught up with them. Many of the soldiers were on chariots and the ground was dry and so if they had only been 50 feet behind them they would have quickly overtaken and stopped at least the last few hundred of the bunch. Further if they had made it to the Hebrews, then when God closed the water back up, the Hebrews would have drowned with the soldiers. The Scriptures seem fairly clear that none of the soldiers made it through but all of the Hebrews did.
Now, here's what one must understand in this more simple explanation of the power of God. When God performs a miracle, all of the natural properties and scientific proofs of what the physical elements of this earth can do or can tell us about what God does are absolutely useless. So yes, science can tell us that today light travels at a given speed, but it cannot, with any assurance tell us that when God first made the light by the miracle of His working with the light, that the light was in fact beholden to the principles and properties of what we now know about the speed at which light travels.
Yes, scientists can look at rocks and trees and geologic formations of the earth and tell us what those things are made up of and how we can today tell how old a rock is because of the natural property of some element that is contained within it, but it cannot tell us with any assurance other than, "Well, as far as we know this is how it has always been", that when God created the rocks they weren't immediately made with said properties already showing these same signs of aging.
To answer that, let's look at another example. God said that He created the first man Adam from the dust of the ground. Again, we must determine whether this account of Adam is a true and accurate account of how God created the first man or is it also some conveniently contrived story by ignorant man to explain the first man who really was some evolved life form. Did God actually make the first man out of the dust of the ground or was the first man really some descendant of some previously existing creature?
If we agree that, yes, God did make the first man with His own hands out of the dust of the ground as the Scriptures tell us, then let's look at how impossible that is if we assume that science has all the answers for us.
We know today and you will find it in every medical and scientific journal that the only reason that any given man or woman exists on the earth today is that two people had a good time, assuming of course that it wasn't rape. That at one time any man or woman living on the earth today was somewhere between 14 and 20 inches long and had little itty bitty hands and feet and most often only a downy covering of hair on its head. We know that that man or woman was fed by either bottle or breast for a few months and then went on to more solid food as its tiny fingers and toes and bones and organs grew and developed into a full size human being. We know this and there is absolutely not a single shred of scientific evidence that anyone can point to that would show some man or woman can just appear on the earth as a fully grown human being.
Yet the Scriptures account that Adam was made as a fully mature human being. Able to walk and talk and care for himself from day one of his existence upon the earth. Now, if God can create the first man with all the appearances that he has already been alive for some 18-25 years on the day that he was manufactured, why can't He make a rock with all appearances that it is much older than its manufacture date?
So, when a scientist shows me a rock and points to some element in that rock and says to me, "See here, this particle here, it has a half life of so many years or it takes so many years for it to appear as it does in this rock." My first question is, "Ok, can you show me that a rock that God created on day one would not have had those same elements or particles looking just like these? Just as with light, I believe that God can make light instantly spread from one end of the universe to the other, and that after He created it, the light to follow would travel as we know light to travel. That He can create rocks with all the particles and elements in them looking like they look to us today as far as these measurable elements, and yet that rock didn't exist yesterday. He did it with Adam, why can't He do it with a rock?
Now here is what I believe is the result of our believing the scientific over the godly. In the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ we are told of this number '666'. Many translations translate this passage as the number of 'a' man, but I firmly believe the correct translation is number of man. It speaks of a mark on the hand or forehead. When we place the wisdom of man over the wisdom of God, then we become 666 and we work (hand) and think (forehead) like the beast. We become the pawns of the beast. We believe the wisdom of man over the wisdom of God which makes us merely a part of the number of man. We work with our hands and think with our heads with the wisdom of man over the wisdom of God.
I believe in a God who has the power, glory, wisdom and knowledge to say, "Let the earth exist!", and instantly the earth appears in the vast expanse of a limitless 'space' of black, inky nothingness. That if a scientist with all of his poking and prodding tools had existed on the day after the earth was commanded to exist and then after the dry ground appeared, he could have picked up a rock from the surface of the earth and run all his tests and come up with exactly the same evidence that he finds today to explain that the earth is millions or billions of years old. That those first rocks, if we split them open, would have had the same polonium halos and various other elements and structures in them that we see today that cause man to believe that a rock is old.
Now, you have said that such a thing makes God a liar. No it doesn't! God has told you what He did and when He did it. Man is the liar because he is doing just exactly what Paul warned us of doing. Is God a liar because He made Adam as a fully formed man even though any scientist will tell you that his initial existence as such is utterly and completely impossible based on absolutely every shred of scientific knowledge that man has. Is God a liar because Adam stood 5 or 6 feet tall on the day that he was created even though all scientific testing of his body, based on the knowledge of the human body that we know today, and any scientist would sign affidavit after affidavit that the man Adam absolutely must be at least 20 years old or so? Does that make God a liar or man? Paul wrote to the believers in Colosse:
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.
Here Paul is warning us not to be taken in by hollow and deceptive knowledge (that's what philosophy is) that depends on either human tradition or the basic principles of this world. The basic principles of this world is just exactly what every scientist gives of his life's work to gain knowledge of.
But I do allow that each man must decide for himself what is the truth. The truth of God or the truth of man.
And, for your information and understanding, I have thought this through very, very carefully and diligently. So, keep your 'YECs are just people who don't think' derogatory remarks to yourself. YECs are just people who believe God over man.
God bless you.
In Christ, Ted
