I have been reading a book called "Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth R. Miller. The author states that he is a Christian as well as a scientist and the book is basically a description of the way he personally reconciles his Christian faith with evolution. I do not know what flavor of Christianity Dr. Miller favors, but his book offers excellent documentation for the claims I have made on this blog that evolution is a very solid and useful scientific theory and that young earth creation scientists either must be scientifically incompetent or must purposely distort scientific findings to fit their preconceived notions. I recommend the book, but it does not discuss what I regard to be an important part of the whole issue; if we do not interpret Genesis 1 and 2 as a scientific account of creation, how do we interpret it? I hope to post my take on this question soon.
In the meantime Dr. Miller points out that there are many dating methods and that they give consistent and very old ages for early forms of life and for the age of the earth. He reminded me that the evidence has become so overwhelming that even some young earth creationists have abandoned their "scientific" objections to the age of the earth and of fossils and have adopted the idea that God created earth and fossils with the "appearance of age". I agree that God could have done this if He had wanted. However, I cannot conceive how this proposal can fit into any credible Bible based theology. If the Bible tells us anything about God it is that He never lies or tempts. Yet creating the earth and fossils with an "appearance of age" would mean that He had done both of these things. God would have known that we would eventually be able to decipher the evidence he planted and that it would lead us to an untrue conclusion and that it would tempt some to reject Him and adopt a materialist philosophy. This is inconceivable. It directly violates biblical unambiguous biblical statements that God cannot lie or tempt and that He desires that no one should reject Him for materialism.
I am planning one more post on this topic, and then I would like to move on to other issues for a while. Hopefully my next post will follow quicker than this one.
In the meantime Dr. Miller points out that there are many dating methods and that they give consistent and very old ages for early forms of life and for the age of the earth. He reminded me that the evidence has become so overwhelming that even some young earth creationists have abandoned their "scientific" objections to the age of the earth and of fossils and have adopted the idea that God created earth and fossils with the "appearance of age". I agree that God could have done this if He had wanted. However, I cannot conceive how this proposal can fit into any credible Bible based theology. If the Bible tells us anything about God it is that He never lies or tempts. Yet creating the earth and fossils with an "appearance of age" would mean that He had done both of these things. God would have known that we would eventually be able to decipher the evidence he planted and that it would lead us to an untrue conclusion and that it would tempt some to reject Him and adopt a materialist philosophy. This is inconceivable. It directly violates biblical unambiguous biblical statements that God cannot lie or tempt and that He desires that no one should reject Him for materialism.
I am planning one more post on this topic, and then I would like to move on to other issues for a while. Hopefully my next post will follow quicker than this one.
posted by Stephen Pruett at 9:07 PM
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