Hi TMK,
Neither I (nor Greg Koukl) is suggesting that God could not have created the light from these far distant stars and galaxies already visible on the earth when He created the earth.The question, rather is WOULD He have done this; is it in His character to this.. is it not deceptive to do this.
I am not questioning God's omnipotence; I am questioning whether He would do something to intentionally deceive us.
First of all, I will point out that the days of Creation were very different than the "seventh day" when God rested (ceased) from His work. Thus, it can be argued that those laws of nature weren't established until God rested from His work in creating this universe.
I don't think that anyone should assume that it would be "deceptive" for God because He is not confined to the laws of science. He is the Author, the Designer, the Artist and the Engineer (so to speak). Yet, He was not (and still is not) confined to the laws of physics that He designed.
After all, He already "broke" the laws of physics by speaking this physical world into existence from NOTHING during the days of creation. This is a direct conflict with the Laws of Conservation of Mass and Conservation of Energy. There is nothing new except what God created.
Moreover, God continues to "break" the laws of physics (and nature) when He answers our prayers in miraculous ways. Thus, a true act that God (established in his infinite wisdom) cannot be described as deception because even defines what is right and wrong.
God doesn't operate on the same plane of understanding that we do. He isn't confined to "obey" laws....and this was especially true while He was in the process of creating the universe. I have always thought that the term "theology" was odd because mankind cannot fully understand the mind, thoughts or motives of God. Job learned this firsthand. There can be a real distraction in trying to "guess" God's thoughts, ways or motives -- especially when they are outside the realm of our ability to understand.
Using the super nova example again: If the universe is only 10,000 years old, and we see a super nova that APPEARS to be a million light years away, this SHOULD mean that a star exploded a million years ago. But it couldn't have been a million years ago because the universe is only 10,000 years old. So was there ever really a star there? Or did God create an already exploded star? (appearance of age). The whole issue of "appearance of age" has nothing to do with God's ABILITY to create something with an appearance of age. But it has all to do with His character and whether He would actually do this.
The issue that I have is with what you are saying about this. Yes, this is a clear yet simplified version of how we view stars and their relation with the age of the universe. When we see this supernova that we determine to be a million light years from Earth, a simple explanation is that we are looking at the past -- at the light that traveled from that supernova a million years ago and took that million years to reach our eyes on the Earth. Since we have measured the speed of light (at roughly 186,000 miles/second), we can determine the distance (1 light year = ~5.9 million miles).
Yet, this simplified view doesn't take into account a few things.
On a physical level, it doesn't take into account the path that the light takes from Point A (the supernova) and Point B (Earth). There are measured bends in the plane of space time (including bends caused by gravity itself) and scientists have long pondered the existence of what they call probable "shortcuts" in space time (light traveling through anything from blackholes, whiteholes, wormholes to mere warps in space time).
Moreover, physicists have long wondered about the speed of light and whether it can be surpassed. Einstein studied this but postulated that nothing with significant mass could accelerate and reach the speed of light. The resulting mass of that object would devastate the universe via a gravitational pull. However, he (and other physicists) still postulated what would happen IF something could accelerate to -- or surpass -- the speed of light. This is where theories of time travel come into play in regard to breaking the standards of space time.
In the discussion of this topic, it is relevant because we are talking about LIGHT. Light has no significant mass. Thus, many scientists have stated that the only thing that they can accelerate past the speed of light would be light itself. What would happen if light sped past the upper "speed limit" determined by relativity. This is when perception of light via "relativity of simultaneity" enters the debate but on a grand scale. So, even via the laws of physics, there is so much that we don't know especially in terms of how God "played by the rules" of physics during creation if he was so constrained.
The idea that I brought up was in regard to the nature of light and the unlimited opportunities of God.
Scientists have difficulty in explaining just what "light" is. We know how it behaves. We make guesses about what it is. Yet, since we can't contain, observe or photograph light (unless we actually approached its speed and observed the individual particles around us), we are left with an incomplete science.
In your supernova anecdote, I am simply stating that God could have easily "sped up" those particles during creation -- easily exceeding the current postulated upper speed limit -- before that "seventh day" when He rested from Creation. He could have sped them so much that He broke the plane of space time and our observations then become nothing more than a "perspective" that is relative from our time and place in space time. Thus, the light that we see from a million light years away (5.9 quadrillion miles) might not have taken a million years to arrive. We wouldn't be looking at the light from a million years ago, but from the time of Creation that God initially exceeded any "speed limits" that light was confined to from the seventh day of creation onward. In other words, we could currently observe light from thousands of years ago that actually traveled a million light years through space time.
We can't ignore the fact that God is not confined to those laws of physics. This is especially true of the time in which he was creating the physical universe. It is not a deception for God to act via His omnipotence and unlimited ways.
Yes, God can do what He wants. But scientists use the rules HE set up when making their measurements of the universe, etc. Don't you think God knew when He created the universe that someday we would be exploring and trying to figure it out?
This is certainly a good point. God knows the end from the beginning. God is Spirit. He is Eternal...and already sits in the timelessness that He has allowed some men to glimpse. After all, John saw things that were to happen far in the future.
Yet, why would God allow for scientists to assume things that neglect the spiritual creation of the physical universe? I asked this question to the physics professor that I mentioned previously. He also thought that it was a good question. He pondered whether it could be that men would simply look for an answer apart from God. After all, the Word says that those who come to God must "believe that he is" (Hebrews 11:6).
So, there are "distractions" in this world via pleasure, sickness, happiness, pain, joy, hurt, wealth, poverty, ignorance and, yes, knowledge or science. After all, knowledge can "puff up" if we don't seek it in an effort to seek and please Him. Sometimes, we choose to believe what we cannot see even when it goes against our physical observations or own earthly understanding.
Creating Adam and Eve as adults or creating adult fruit bearing plants in the garden is totally different than creating them with "the appearance of age." Like I said initially, aging implies a process. Humans, as they age, show some signs of wear and tear. Trees have growth rings. I don't think that God put signs of wear and tear into Adam and Eve's bodies and I don't believe the trees had growth rings. If He did, that would have been deceptive and out of God's character. It is not that he was unable to do this from a POWER standpoint (of course He could have) but rather that he was unable to do this from a CHARACTER standpoint.
To touch on the trees: How do you know? How do you know that those trees didn't have "growth rings?" What if God sped up the growth of those trees -- including the yearly growth rings -- when He created them? Did He just make them appear...or did He speed the rate of growth at Creation. How do you know that God didn't speed up creation rates when He created it? The same question can be asked light that He might have designed to reach Earth the moment that He created it.
This would not pose a problem with His character.
And, like I have said here on some other thread on this issue, accepting an ancient, billions of years old universe does NOTHING to help macroevolution. There STILL is not nearly enough time. I believe that is why many Christians are fearful about accepting the possibility that the universe really is really old-- because they fear this will then "allow" for macro-evolution. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I agree. However, my rationale in regard to these things has nothing to do with perceived notions about macro-evolution. Evolutionary biologists, on the other hand, do disagree. They feel that the ancient age of the Earth theorized by physicists gives adequate time for the evolution of species. They can't, however, explain how they embrace evolution on a cellular level but fail to determine why plants with complex cellular structures didn't "evolve" on a macro-scale similar to animals. But, of course, that is another discussion altogether.
