Apologetics: The Bible and Science, Part 17 (On How to Get a Date)

 

Science and ReligionThis is the last post on Genesis 1. From here, we move on to Eden, Cain, the Flood, and Babel — and the pace will pick up quite a bit.

However, I could not leave this topic without dealing with the dating controversy. You see, it all began with James Watt and Alfred Nobel.  Watt invented the steam engine and Nobel invented dynamite. And these two inventions led to the railroad and the need to build tracks through mountains and hills — which steam engines and dynamite allowed.

This was all in the 19th Century, which was also the age of canal building — also made possible by steam and dynamite.

As hills were flattened, tunnels drilled, and canals dug, engineers inevitably ran into fossils. Mining, especially coal mining, produced additional fossils. And so 19th Century geologists began to study fossils and the geologic layers.

Soon they realized that the same layers and fossils often appeared in other countries, and so they compared notes to come up with an early chart of ages dated relatively by depth and fossils.

They had no idea how old the fossils were and so assumed them to be a product of Noah’s Flood. But they soon noticed that the layers were not really flood deposits. Moreover, it was clear that a layer of sea creatures and limestone might have desert creatures and sandstone above it — meaning that the climate in that location had dramatically changed, often many times, in ways that did not fit the Flood theory at all.

In an effort to date the geological layers, and so the fossils, they measured the rate at which mountains, for example, were being eroded by wind, rain, and ice. It was often easy to estimate from an existing mountain’s topology what it would have looked life before being eroded. And the geologists came up with numbers in the millions of years.

Obviously, this means of dating is very crude, since the rate of erosion could change dramatically eon to eon. But it gave consistent numbers, that is, the lower levels were older than the higher levels.

Biologists began to study the fossils, and it became clear that life on earth had changed dramatically throughout its history. Dinosaur bones were found in old layers. Younger layers had only mammals and birds. And certain species changed over the years, often adding new features.

By the second half of the 19th Century, scientists were speculating on how all these different and very strange animal forms came to be. More and more fossils were being found, and family trees of related dinosaurs could be made out.

Moreover, it was noticed that most modern animals did not exist in the past. Some did, with very little change (but not no  change), but modern animals were a relatively recent addition to the planet. And they wondered how this happened.

Meanwhile, in astronomy, around 1860, astronomers noticed that some stars and nearly all nebulas (what they called galaxies) showed a redshift in the light, plainly caused by the speed at which they were leaving the earth. The idea of an expanding universe — implying a Big Bang — began to be considered.

Only after all this happened did Darwin theorize evolution by natural selection. It’s just a fact that the old earth and old universe were not theorized by scientists to justify evolution. Rather, evolution was theorized to explain the changes in plants and animals visible from the fossil record — and until geologists realized that the earth was tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions,  years old, evolution by natural selection was out of the question. There just wouldn’t have been enough time.

The assumption by 19th Century scientists that natural processes continued unchanged as a means of making a rough age calculation is called Uniformitarianism (sounds like a religion, but it’s a scientific hypothesis).

Catastrophism is the view that the earth has been subjected to a series of catastrophic events not predictable from Uniformitarianism — especially the Flood, per early 19th Century geologists.

Currently, scientists accept a bit of both.

1. The idea of dating mountains and such based on current rates of growth and erosion is largely rejected as too inexact. Dating is now done largely based on the decay rate of certain radioactive elements.

2. However, nearly all scientists agree that the laws of nature are the same throughout the universe and throughout time. Some have tried to get around the Big Bang (because it’s creationist) by arguing that the laws have changed over time, but astronomical observations of stars and other objects billions of light years away (and thus billions of years in the past) confirm this theory as true.

This idea goes back to Newton, who based his belief that the laws of nature do not change with time or space on his faith in God. If the Logos is unchanging, so are his laws —

(Heb 13:8 ESV) 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

3. Scientists have recently come to believe that there have been 5 major extinction events in the earth’s history, at least one of which was caused by a collision of an asteroid with the Earth — a catastrophe by any definition. The causes of the others aren’t known but were likely causes by some kind of catastrophe.

Young Earth Creationists like to criticize scientists as being unduly wed to Uniformitarianism and thus unwilling to consider the Flood as real, but the last two or three decades have shown the scientific community willing to consider and even accept theories based on one-time catastrophic events. They don’t accept the Flood because there is no science to support it as a global flood.

Now, in the 20th Century, with the discovery of quantum mechanics, geologists are able to date many rocks by the amount of various “daughter” elements resulting from nuclear decay of radioactive materials. And testing has forced a revision of the dating of geologic layers by 19th Century geologists — who weren’t right but came surprisingly close given the available means of measurement.

To rebut these dating methods, Young Earth Creationists suppose that radioactive decay rates were greatly accelerated during the Flood, causing the earth to look older that it is. There are at least three problems with this theory.

1. It goes against an understanding of nature based on faith in God.

2. We still see galaxies billions of light years away.

3. Physicists have shown that nuclear decay rates do not change due to pressure, heat, or any other environmental conditions. A few subatomic actions can change the rate by less than 1%. There are a few cases where decay can be accelerated much more, but these cases only apply to elements having certain atomic properties in very limited circumstances.

A number of experiments have found that decay rates of other modes of artificial and naturally occurring radioisotopes are, to a high degree of precision, unaffected by external conditions such as temperature, pressure, the chemical environment, and electric, magnetic, or gravitational fields.[18] Comparison of laboratory experiments over the last century, studies of the Oklo natural nuclear reactor (which exemplified the effects of thermal neutrons on nuclear decay), and astrophysical observations of the luminosity decays of distant supernovae (which occurred far away so the light has taken a great deal of time to reach us), for example, strongly indicate that decay rates have been constant (at least to within the limitations of small experimental errors) as a function of time as well.

The science of radioactivity is very well known and has been thoroughly tested. To get the result the Young Earth Creationists want, they must assume that God miraculously sped up nuclear decay by a factor of millions and somehow shielded life on the Ark from the resulting high radiation. God could do it, but there’s still the problem with galaxies being light years away.

Some Young Earth Creationist want to conclude that light traveled much more rapidly sometime in the past, making the galaxies really only 6,000 or so light years away, if not closer. Of course, faster light doesn’t fix the redshift problem, and that’s an awful lot of stars really close.

How come they look billions of years old? I mean, by now, light from 6,000 years ago should have caught up with the accelerated light. And astronomers now know the physics of stars, and stars that are very far away look billions of years younger than closer stars. How is that fact to be explained?

Notice that by the time the Young Earth Creationist get through with their theorizing, they’ve proposed a universe and earth that God created recently but modified by God to look old! This is, of course, well within God’s power, but not consistent with his character.

Which brings us to —

(2Pe 3:2-4 ESV) you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”

This is, of course, a warning to those who don’t believe in the Second Coming of Jesus. Peter says don’t assume that just because the world hasn’t changed that it won’t.

[Sarcasm font] Obviously, Peter had the uniformity of the rate of nuclear decay, as used in dating geologic layers, in mind. [/Sarcasm font]. No, Isaac Newton was more than 1500 years in the future. And not a single reader thought “Jesus will not return because the rate of decay of radioactive nuclei is constant with respect to time.”

Moreover, Peter is only speaking of continuity (or not) after “our fathers” died (v.4). Who are they?

Who are the persons Peter calls “our fathers”? … “Fathers” are much more likely to be OT fathers as in John 6:31, Acts 3:13, Romans 9:5, and Hebrews 1:1. This is the normal NT usage, and the other view requires a clumsy forger to have missed so obvious a blunder.

Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Edwin A. Blum. The NET Bible translators comment to the same effect —

The reference could be either to the OT patriarchs or first generation Christians. This latter meaning, however, is unattested in any other early Christian literature.

Therefore, Peter is only speaking of the time either after the close of the Old Testament — and perhaps after Father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In other words, whatever he meant, it does not apply to the Flood.

About Jay F Guin

My name is Jay Guin, and I’m a retired elder. I wrote The Holy Spirit and Revolutionary Grace about 18 years ago. I’ve spoken at the Pepperdine, Lipscomb, ACU, Harding, and Tulsa lectureships and at ElderLink. My wife’s name is Denise, and I have four sons, Chris, Jonathan, Tyler, and Philip. I have two grandchildren. And I practice law.
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12 Responses to Apologetics: The Bible and Science, Part 17 (On How to Get a Date)

  1. Ray Downen says:

    Jay guesses, “Notice that by the time the Young Earth Creationist get through with their theorizing, they’ve proposed a universe and earth that God created recently but modified by God to look old! This is, of course, well within God’s power, but not consistent with his character.”

    I’ve been enjoying recently videos prepared by a young-earth “scientist” in Florida. I find his theories much easier to swallow than those of old-earth guessers. I particularly appreciate that he defends Genesis, which I don’t hear Jay doing at all.

  2. Grizz says:

    While I do not reject out of hand the confusion among “scientists” between mutation and evolution, it remains obvious to me that biases are so rampant on both ends of the creation only and evolution only scale that this confusion is likely to continue well beyond the life spans of anyone living today. Both sides have something to offer, but as both sides also operate from entirely different world views, attempts by laymen like Jay and many others to bridge the glaringly obvious gaps through syncretistic approaches seem doomed to failure on any pervasive scale.

    One of the most glaring issues is the way that very nice, very scholarly, very genteel advocates of these syncretisms of science and theology soon lapse into generalisms about either side which invariably fall short of accurate descriptions of either side. Case in point: Jay writes,

    ” Young Earth Creationists like to criticize scientists as being unduly wed to
    Uniformitarianism and thus unwilling to consider the Flood as real, but the last
    two or three decades have shown the scientific community willing to consider
    and even accept theories based on one-time catastrophic events. They don’t
    accept the Flood because there is no science to support it as a global flood.”

    Must it always be a debate characterized by Young Earth Creationism versus Science? When someone on either side takes up a non-characteristic position, how does that affect the discussion? And these non-characteristic positions are held by the majority of interested participants, NOT the minority of participants that one would expect. Still, Jay insists that scientists “do not accept the Flood because there is no science to support it as a global flood.” This Jay knows from reading articles and studies. One picks and chooses those articles and studies in order to support both sides of the discussion. It is inevitable that one must do so, yet some still claim they have the truly objective view, unlike those on the other side.

    Maybe some day we will get past these over-generalizations intended to vilify, or at least undermine, opposing viewpoints and even non-characteristic viewpoints. This post and most of the others preceding it are ample enough evidence that we have not reached the point where we can leave those generalizations behind.

  3. John says:

    I am no scientist, not even an arm charm scientist. It is not part of my reading; mine is more in the stream of thought, religion and social.

    However, my observation of the two sides lets me see this difference. Most scientists hold to evolution without bias, accepting truth as they find it, changing their conclusions when they see they must. Whereas, creationists pretty much have the mindset that says “We seek the truth. We already know the truth; so that’s what we’re looking for”. With that kind of “reasoning” you can prove anything.

  4. R.J. says:

    What if the light from the stars and galaxies took a shortcut and arrived here much quicker than initially thought(Moon’s Theory)? There are some things(laws of nature) that scientists do not grasp yet. Perhaps this new discovery might enable instant intergalactic travel in the future(God willing).

  5. R.J. says:

    Has the fossilized coal mine hat been debunked? A worker dropped his hat and left it at a digging site. Years later, archaeologists uncovered the fossilized hat and were dumbfounded to discover that fossilization could occur in such short order! Either men were coal mining hundreds of thousands of years ago geared with modern hats. Or how we determine radio-active carbon dating is flawed.

  6. Jay Guin says:

    Carbon dating is not used for dinosaurs. Just things in last few thousand years.

  7. R.J. says:

    I’ve seen beautiful basements rot after overflowing with water(and thus age faster than they should). How could these people claim water doesn’t age anything(i.e. accelerate the decay of radioisotopes)?

    If a 7 year old boy looks 80(because of a disorder), does that mean God is lying? No it signifies he has an illness. The same can be said of the Earth.

    Ever since God cursed the ground in Genesis 3, this planet has been ageing prematurely. And rejuvenation is getting harder and harder to come by. This will continue until the sons of God are glorified and creation is released from its bondage to the curse on account of sin(as per Romans 8). Perfection will once again be attained when God will no doubt declare this Universe “very good”!

  8. Dan says:

    Do we as Christians need to prove anything? …….Except that man is sinful (Romans 3:19), God is good (Romans 12:12), and our own works will prove our faith in God (2 Cor 13:5).

    I don’t think Jay needs to prove anything. But he seems to be saying since so many believers have made a big deal out of saying we shouldn’t believe the efforts of others to find understanding through science because science contradicts the Bible; that maybe there is a different way to look at this. Could it be there is a way of looking at the science that does not contradict the Bible?. Maybe his ideas are not right but it seems a plausible way to explain things based on our current understanding. Yet many a young preacher (and some older ones) seem perfectly willing to damn those theories and people which disagree with their own philosophy. They would say that it somehow belittles the Bible or God. I would ask, “Is God smaller or larger if He has existed for 4 billion years in the current timeline or if He has existed 6000 years in the current timeline? Since God’s existence is outside of time itself what is the difference? But in my human way of thinking a 4 billion year old God is more amazing than a 6000 year old God.

    With all the fascinating physics, astronomy, and math involved do the folks who believe in the young earth have enough information to prove their belief to their own satisfaction? …… Because if they do, they just might be lost. “What nonsense! Why would they be lost?”, someone says. Because then they have relied on their own understanding and really don’t believe, do they? Indeed a conundrum! Once they have proved their faith is scientifically and beyond a statistical doubt true, is it possible to believe it? “For the just live by faith and not by sight”. “Blessed are they who have not seen but yet have believed”.

    Couldn’t God have chosen to give us absolutely incontrovertible evidence so that beyond a doubt we could positively know beyond all objection that He is real, that He took exactly xyz years or days to create all that is, and that Jesus is His son, and that he rewards those who seek Him? I believe He could have. THEN, why didn’t He? For some weird (to us/me) reason he has decided that we may access His Grace through ……….. (you are absolutely right!) ……… through faith! Is there something about faith that creates within us a quality that could not exist if all things were seen and proven beyond doubt? I don’t know. ….maybe…… just …… maybe……

    So the assured young earthers who would not fellowship any old earthers might be approaching this whole thing a scant. And the old earthers who think that no way is the Bible right, maybe should read Jay’s articles to see that they don’t have to reject the scripture to be scientific. and maybe God has got something planned that requires faith, and that plan is something bigger than either side can imagine.

  9. Jay Guin says:

    RJ,

    The fossilized hat is real enough but irrelevant. Geologists don’t argue for the earth to be old based on how long it takes for fossils to form. In fact, l read an article on fossils being formed quickly in high school. It’s just not controversial.

    However, there are different processes some being very slow and others that can be relatively rapid. So sometimes fossilization proves great age but not always.

  10. Price says:

    God sasy in Jeremiah33:25 that the order of heaven is based on “fixed patterns.” Yes, it would be entirely inconsistent for God to violate those patterns so that he could pretend to have kept them but actually didn’t. I think Jay has done a remarkable job at defending God rather than some outdated translation of Hebrew by 17th century “scholars” and monks. Well done Jay..

  11. Jay Guin says:

    Price, you crazy uniformitarian you.

    (Jer 33:25-26 ESV) 25 Thus says the LORD: If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the fixed order of heaven and earth, 26 then I will reject the offspring of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his offspring to rule over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and will have mercy on them.”

    (Jer 33:25 NET) Jeremiah 33:25 But I, the LORD, make the following promise: I have made a covenant governing the coming of day and night. I have established the fixed laws governing heaven and earth.

    Interesting. Unlike 2 Peter 3:4, this verse is actually speaking of God’s own laws that govern the earth and universe — and those laws are “fixed.” Sounds like Isaac Newton got it right when he concluded that the scriptures require uniform laws of nature.

    (Jer 31:35-36 ESV) 35 Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar– the LORD of hosts is his name: 36 “If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.”

  12. Jay Guin says:

    RJ asked,

    Perhaps this new discovery [Moon’s theory] might enable instant intergalactic travel in the future(God willing).

    This is not a discovery but a speculation that even creation ‘scientists” no longer argue.

    Some creationists promoted an idea by Parry Moon and Domina Spencer that light somehow takes a shortcut through “Riemannian Space,” taking no more than 15 years to reach Earth from the outer limits of the universe. However, this idea never really caught on and appears to no longer have adherents.[8]

    http://www.conservapedia.com/Starlight_problem#Moon-Spencer_theory

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