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Does It Matter How Long God Took to Create? — 24 Comments

1. Cindy:

   Your argument is scholastic. You deduce the proprieties of the universe from your concept of God. The method by which reality is deduced from metaphysical-theological premises is called natural philosophy or natural theology and has been discarded since the scientific revolution in seventeenth century. How does Present Truth go along with middle-age scholastics?

   On the other hand, if you were right, every educated person should be an agnostic. I will leave here alone the undeniable facts of geology. A much deeper problem is the physics of time. The general theory of relativity shows how nonsensical is to talk about the creative acts of God in terms of our time. Even Augustine, who knew nothing about relativity, realized that our perception of time should not be anthropomorphically projected on God.

   The fact is that we have painted ourselves in a theological corner that forbids logical thinking and free access to the facts of science. Looks like intellectual suicide to me.

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   • Eddie

     Your undeniable facts of geology tell us of the Great Unconformity

     Which shows us this:
     1. it represents a long span of time -- 250 to 1200 million years in the Grand Canyon;
     2. it is found nearly everywhere across the globe; and
     3. it divides rocks with familiar fossils from those with no fossils or only fossil bacteria.

     Described here at http://www.lpi.usra.edu/science/treiman/greatdesert/workshop/greatunconf/index.html

     Science shows us proof of a Biblical flood, a catastrophic worldwide event, yet modern scientists will claim an asteroid, or a moon, or just say they plain don't know, instead of recognizing the Bible speaks of literal events.

     Modern Science is as much a religion, as it requires an extreme amount of faith to take the word of mere men who can only postulate times past.

     Somehow, from our little planet in the mix of trillions of other stars, none of which we have actually visited, we know the secrets of the universe.

     That is your modern "truth", and in ten years from now, new men, who pride themselves on the most creative guesses, will postulate more "truth".

     We either serve an awesome God or none at all.

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   • I would like to ask Eddie one question and if he can truthfully answer it, then I should keep my peace.

     How did life begin?

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     • God created man according to Genesis and within the timeframe many believe was 6 thousand years ago

       Although science tells you us we have evolved over millions of years, they cannot explain how primitive humans could have gone from no written language to building Pyramids in roughly two thousand year timeframe. We have nothing, then all of the sudden there is a plethora of intelligence, spanning languages, culture, architecture.

       Evidence points to something sudden, which follows the biblical explanation.

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   • I am not sure just what "undeniable facts of geology" you refer to here, but I suspect you do not know geology firsthand. I am presently on a geology field trip in the southwest where I have done field geology for many years. Today I pointed out an unconformity at Bryce where 10 million radiometric years are supposed to be missing (the entire Oligocene), yet the contact is flat and conformable. Ten million years, for perspective, is enough time for half or more of all of North America to be eroded to sealevel at current rates of erosion. Yesterday we looked at another such contact. We have spent many years looking unsuccessfully for the time radiometric dates ascribe to the fossil record. I could cite many other examples. Please help me out with the "undeniable facts" you refer to.

     In the meantime read carefully the text in Romans 5:17-19, and tell me how you propose to believe in salvation through Jesus if there was no Garden with a perfect Adam. Even Richard Dawkins gets this. He says:
     “Oh, but of course, the story of Adam and Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn’t it? Symbolic? So, in order to impress himself, Jesus had himself tortured and executed, in vicarious punishment for a symbolic sin committed by a non-existent individual? As I said, barking mad, as well as viciously unpleasant.”1

     and elsewhere:
     “I think the evangelical Christians have really sort of got it right in a way, in seeing evolution as the enemy. Whereas the more, what shall we say, sophisticated theologians are quite happy to live with evolution, I think they’re deluded. I think the evangelicals have got it right, in that there really is a deep incompatibility between evolution and Christianity … ”2

     What you propose is that we abandon Christianity so that we can appear to be consonant with certain interpretations of physical data that are currently in vogue. No Garden, no salvation. It is relatively stratightforward. Any other scenario leaves God responsible for sin, and renders the sacrifice of Jesus irrelevant. I am not going to go there and I hope you will not either.

     1. Dawkins, R., The God Delusion, p. 253, emphasis in original, 2006.

     2. Howard Condor interviewing Richard Dawkins on Revelation TV, Feb 2011;

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2. Great article, Cindy! It is basic Adventism, of course, but we live in an age when the basics have to be continually repeated and re-argued because they are continually under assault, all too often by folks who claim to be Adventists.

   Of course your argument is not scholastic but biblical. You are using the truths and principles established in the rest of the Bible to interpret the Genesis narrative; this has always been the Seventh-day Adventist hermenuetic. Were it not for the fact that the Trinity is taught in the New Testament, we would have no idea how to interpret the plural pronoun used in Genesis: "Let US make man in OUR image." But since we know that God is in three Persons, we understand immediately what is meant by the plural pronoun. And what we know of God's character from the rest of Scripture confirms that we must not read Genesis metaphorically, and believe that life slowly evolved by pain, suffering and death over the course of a billion years. Reading Genesis literally, to mean that God created the world in a literal week, is the only way it can be harmonized with the truths brought to light in the balance of Scripture.

   Many would use the conclusions of science to re-interpret the Bible, but, by so urging, they show that they have more faith in man's reasoning than in God's revelation. The opposite should be true: The believer must trust in God's revelation, and interpret the data of nature according to the truths God has revealed in His word.

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3. I does matter how long God took to create.
   This is a deep topic with a lot of implications.
   It is easy to believe from scientific principals that the Biblical story of creation is possible. Lets start by evaluating a historical fact from a scientific perspective... am thinking of the atomic explosion at Hiroshima that performed a lot of destruction which was a reverse process of creation. The Hiroshima bomb had 60 kilograms (130 lb) of uranium-235 and only 1.38% of its material fissioning(energy that caused the initial destruction). In other words 0.828 Kg was turned into energy following the E=m*C(squared) formula. How much time did it take to covert the 0.828 Kg of mass into energy? Microseconds. Now, lets use our imagination and start reversing the process. Look at the Mass to Energy conversion formula mentioned above and transpose it. It is normal and natural to do that in math. m=E/C(squared). Guess what we have just discovered... given(to believe) that God has all the Energy at His disposal(look at all the reference in scriptures to the Power of God, fire, light etc.), it is natural to believe that a super intelligent being(even saying the word "super intelligent" is a form of mocking to God because there is no human language that can describe God's capabilities) like God can convert some amount of Energy into Mass to create this rock called planet Earth starting with the ball of H2O. So lets perform a calculation... M(mass of planet Earth as ball of water)=5.9722e+24 Kg. EQUALS E(energy in joules)=5.3675e+41 DIVIDED BY C(speed of light)=299,792,458 metres per second(Squared).

   The question that naturally follows next, that is not answered in this comment, is this: how long in time did the emissions of photons persist(the "light" spoken of as reported by Mosses in the narrative of creation story) during the conversion process from Energy into Matter that became the ball of water on the first day of the creation process for making our home? Remember, there is a flash of light(visible frequencies of photon emissions per period of time) that is generated by the explosion of an atomic bomb. In going from matter to energy Photons(light) are emitted from atomic particles like Electrons. Reversing the process by going from energy to matter, Photons(light) are absorbed by atomic particles... or may I say it as follows... Photons become particles? This last paragraph is meant for those of us who are more educated in the realm of quantum physics. They would be able to calculate for us the duration of time that the photons would be emitting when 5.3675e+41 joules of energy is transformed into 5.9722e+24 Kg of H2O. Could it be 12 hours? Just a thought.

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4. I don't write as a scientist, but as a Seventh-day Adventist Christian for whom the Scriptures are foundational in shaping my world view.

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5. I believe Eddie, who wrote the first comment on this article, missed the main point of the article.

   The article should cause anyone who considers abandoning a reading of Genesis as history in favor of a "symbolic" view that accommodates long ages think long and hard. As Cindy Tutsch points out, such a change in reading has serious consequences. It isn't just a minor detail.

   So why are so many Christians abandoning Genesis as history in favor of a "progressive creation" view? I believe it is because the long-age view of this planet is presented as fact, and they have not thought of the consequences of abandoning Genesis as a historical record.

   The sad thing is that, as Dr Chadwick pointed out, "the undeniable facts of geology" simply do not support the billions-of-years scenario. The "geologic column" which supposedly spans billions of years is a mental construct originally conceived in an age when scientists believed that all current natural processes had not changed over time -- that as things now are, they had always been. It was a construct to replace the biblical scenario of at least one monumental global catastrophe that drastically changed the face of this planet.

   Geologists have long since abandoned the theory of uniformity, under which the geologic column was conceived. Yet they still speak of the geologic column as fact, even though it exists nowhere in reality. Several commentators have pointed to the evidence of millions of years missing between layers supposedly laid down consecutively over millions of years.

   Eddie posited the general theory of relativity making a belief in the historicity of Genesis "nonsensical." On the contrary, I find that the theory makes it much easier to understand that God exists outside our space-time dimension -- that He is the Creator of time as well as space and all that's in it.

   The bottom line is that we have a choice regarding whom or what to accept as our highest authority -- the Bible or the theories of secular scientists. Both ask us to exercise faith. We choose in whom to place our faith.

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6. @ Eddie:

   We need to keep in mind that man's basic philosophical underpinnings change dramatically over the centuries. Unfortunately, we are not as aware as we should be that much of our thinking is colored by accepted assumptions. History teaches that today's lauded dogma will likely become tomorrow's heresy. The endurance of the respected Bible for more than a millennium, with it being many times more popular than any other book, may reflect its divine origin.

   Within the last century and a half science has restricted itself to simple materialistic interpretations as though there were no reality beyond. In other words, science has boxed itself into an atheistic mode of interpretation and does not allow interpretations beyond elementary mechanistic interpretations. During this time, science has redefined itself from an open search to find the truth about nature to the odd combination of a claim to finding truth about nature but not allowing for any of God's possible activities into its explanatory menu.

   The pioneers of modern science, such as Newton and Boyle, included God in their interpretations as they studied the laws that God had created. They did good science with God included in the picture. Naturalistic science should make no claims to fundamental truths, since it arbitrarily excludes God. This is a logically untenable premise, in case God exists.

   Current science textbooks and journals are strongly biased against God and the Bible because of the strong naturalistic limitation now imposed on scientific interpretations. As Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin candidly states "we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

   However, the facts of nature -- such as the incredible complexity of even the simplest living organism, or geological facts such as widespread layers and the "flat gaps" between them that substantiate the Genesis Flood -- indicate that there is strong scientific support for the biblical model of origins. One does not have to give up his scientific integrity in order to believe the Bible. There are scientific facts that are difficult to explain outside the biblical model of origins.

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7. Readers interested in more of the science that supports a biblical world are may want to visit the Earth History Research Center at Southwestern Adventist University. While some of the material is technical in nature, clicking through the links should uncover some interesting material for the lay person.

   As you will see, Dr Art Chadwick and Dr Ariel Roth, who posted above, are both scientists involved in the Earth History Research Center.

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8. I have been doing research in various laboratories for over 20 yrs. I do not pretend to know more than others or to contradict anyone, but what I can and will say is based on facts and observations. We can perform the same experiment using different methods and procedures which will definitely take different amount of times. When growing a bacterial colony we can use different mediums and nutrients which will make a colony grow faster, slower, appear either new or much older. The sediments from dying microorganisms and other products from colonies can also make it appear days or months old depending on how we adjust the growth of the colonies. We know the exact age of the medium and colonies because we know the start of the experiment. Because bacteria have such short lives if compared to organisms that live much longer it can parallel to thousands and millions of years.

   In the past, before and especially during the flood the content of the atmospheric (oxigen, ozone, trace gases, etc.), terrestrial and oceanic contents were obviously much more different than today which would have made for deposits and sediments to accumulate in periods that would equal millions of years in our current time. It is logical to assume so, because it was impossible for humans to live close to 1,000 yrs and grow to the sizes of many of the skeletons found with current atmospheric, terrestrial and oceanic contents. If the flood was a myth or non-global like some think, than people living close to 1,000 yrs and the many giant skeletons found are also myths, but they're not, we have documented history (the history writings on the Sumerian kings living close to 1,000 yrs and many giant human skeletons). Only a global catastrophe could have changed the atmospheric, terrestrial and oceanic contents in a way that could have caused a drastic change in human lifespan, size and extinction of 90% of once existing species. A global flood would make more sense than anything any creative scientist could come up with in terms of rapid washes, sediments, shells found on mountain tops and plateaus and the existence of current layers. Mount St. Helens is a great example of quick washes and layer sedimentation.

   The current advances in Bioinformatics which I'm fortunate to work with and experience also gives us a very good picture of how quickly we can do things in lab today that took years in the not so long ago past. We not only save money and resources but we save the life of thousands of specimen (mice, monkeys, etc. that must have been sacrificed in various experiments). If by some weird miracle those millions of years of life existence and animals dying and becoming extinct in order for us to finally evolve into humans is a reality, God would have a lot of explaining to do. First, it moves us to tears to know that eventually we must sacrifices some animals in lab in order to save the life of humans and we didn't even create those animals. How would God deal with such scenes of watching animals die and become extinct after He created them, love them dearly and saw that it was good? It was all just so we can arrive on the scene? We could very well tell God, "Hey God, you could have tried Bioinformatics and virtual labs; we did and guess what? it works. We save thousands of lab specimen daily; You could have saved billions over the years"! But we all know that is not the case.

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9. I must admit that I have very little to add here, but I agree that Eddie missed the point. (In fact, his comments almost convince me he was not sincere, and was rather trying to incite discussion.) I must admit I know very little of geology, but the opinions presented by the much more qualified gentlemen ahead of me seem reasonable enough for me to readily accept. However, I note that no one has completely responded to the second front of Eddie's argument:

   "A much deeper problem is the physics of time. The general theory of relativity shows how nonsensical is to talk about the creative acts of God in terms of our time. Even Augustine, who knew nothing about relativity, realized that our perception of time should not be anthropomorphically projected on God."

   I think there is quite a simple solution to this issue. One I believe is supported by not only the Bible, but also science and mathematics. I'm a bit of an amateur at this, but bear with me. The Bible says "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9)

   This scripture is familiar to the point of self-explanation. However, I believe there is a deeper truth to be found here. Eddie says that we are projecting our understanding of time onto God when we speak of the creation week as seven literal days. I disagree. I think that rather, during the seven day creation week, God projected his infinite perspective of time onto our understanding of it. Let me explain what I mean by this.

   We live and operate within the confines of three-dimensional space. From our three-dimensional perspective, we can "look down" so to speak on two-dimensional planes. We do this often for mathematical convenience. On the other hand we have a concept called four-dimensional space. It is a concept that is difficult to imagine because we cannot get outside it, like we can with two-dimensional planes, nor can we readily apply our intuitive understanding of space, as we can when studying three dimensions. The best we can do is to observe the projections four-dimensional objects like hypercubes make onto our three-dimensional perspective. Before I butcher the explanation too much, I'll let Carl Sagan help me out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0

   Now, having acquired new knowledge of the relations between multiple dimensions, let's revisit the idea of God being infinitely higher than us. I theorize that God is a multi-dimensional being. Not merely 3-dimensional as we are, or 4-dimensional as one could theorize angels to be, but infinite-dimensional, and as such, far beyond our comprehension. In this scenario, God's existence is bounded and defined by himself in an infinite-dimensional space. (By this I mean that God exists in himself in the same way that we exist in space. He does not require an environment. He is his own environment, and that is infinite-dimensional.) It now becomes somewhat easier to see how God can be omniscient, omnipotent, and especially omnipresent. An infinite-dimensional being would have no difficulty at all "looking down" or into or manipulating a 3-dimensional universe, especially one that he created.

   So now, what did I mean when I said that God projected his infinite perspective of time onto our understanding of it? Well, theorizing that God exists in, or rather that HE IS infinite-dimensional space, and considering the interpretation of space and time as a single continuum (spacetime), God must also have infinite-dimensional time, thus making time as we understand it, quite meaningless to him. And what does this mean for creation week? It means that while God was acting in "infinity time" to create our world, a three-dimensional being observing this creative process, let's say, Moses in vision, would only perceive the "shadow" of God's actions, only a piece of the infinite puzzle. While God acted outside of time in his "infinity time", within the confines of our universe, creation occurred in a finite time interval. More precisely, seven literal days.

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10. Thank you, Brett, for this thought-provoking comment and the link to Carl Sagan's explanation of the fourth dimension. I'm hoping that many of our readers will click through to that explanation to reinforce the concept of the otherness and transcendence of God. (Though that is not necessarily Sagan's conclusion, it should be ours.)

    I believe that many Christians have lost this sense of God's otherness and transcendence, and that prepares them to reject the possibility of creation by divine fiat and to accept, instead, an evolutionary explanation of origins.

    But even for them, the question that Tyler Cluthe posed remains: How did life originate?

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11. Eddie,
    I would like to share this link with you https://www.audioverse.org/english/sermons/recordings/29/pascals-wager.html
    It will take you to the first message of a two week series of messages presented by David Asscherick at Loma Linda University Medical School. In this series Pr. Asscherick presents scientific and biblical arguments about how the current evidence makes it easier to believe in God than in human theories. Don't let the fact that he is a minister discourage you. He is worth listening to.

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12. Thanks everybody for answering me and please accept my apologies for a tardy answer.

    From the very first I would like to enunciate three axioms.

    1. When an argument from authority comes against an expert in his or her realm of expertize, the expert has a very high probability of being right.
    2. A scientific theory is not a scientific rationalization of empirical observation, but a model that anticipates future observations and provides a measurable test for its own falsification.
    3. It is no the business of theology to rectify science but to interpret science in terms of faith.

    I will answer you in accordance to the axioms above. If you disagree with any of them I will be happy to go back to square one.

    When I say “the undeniable facts of geology” I mean simply facts. Radiometric measurements confirm one another with a negligible margin of error. Radiometric measurements confirm the relative stratigraphic ages of the geological strata. Ice cores. The succession of petrified trees in Yellowstone. Plate tectonics. The fact that if we fleshed out all the fossils on the planet we will not have enough carbon to support the biomass. And so on.

    All these can be brought into a short time frame with some scientific imagination. However, we would be able to rationalize even geocentricism in a similar fashion. I also agree that there are errors in radiometric dating, and that some geological features fit better into a YEC explanation. Science has never been and will never become absolute certainty. The real problem is that the scientifically accepted model has proven itself able to anticipate future observations and guide into new discoveries.

    I give you a brief example. There's a maverick Canadian geologist who enunciated the theory that the diamonds in Arkansas have been carried there by glaciers during the Ice Age. He followed north the traces of ancient glaciers up to a Kimberley in the Arctic. He is now a billionaire. If he were Adventist, would you dis fellowship him for thinking in terms of deep time? They search for oil reserves guided by a deep time model. Would you rather recommend flood geology? It would not work.

    There's a simple and measurable test to falsify deep time theory. Find a mammal in Cambrian. Get an elephant next to a dinosaur. Find a place on the planet where the geological succession is reversed without a torsion. Get a marsupial fossil in Eurasia. Get a placental fossil in Australia.

    How are you going to falsify YEC? If is not falsifiable than is not science.

    A few words about physics. My favorite argument for creation is the anthropic principle. The strong force, the weak force, the electromagnetic force and gravitation have to be exactly the value of 10^38/10^27/10^36/1 in order for us to exist. Now if the electromagnetic force is constant, so is the speed of light. If the speed of light is constant, the universe in 13.8 billion years old (at least). Secondly, if the weak and the electromagnetic force is constant, then radiometric dating is reliable. You cannot hold unto one and drop the other.

    Talking about the bomb of Hiroshima. How is it possible that science is true when it comes to calculating critical mass, but is false when it comes to the rate of decay that gives us the age of rocks. The two are the same in essence. Or we may rather talk of the H-bomb? It fuses Hydrogen isotopes into heavier elements. This also happens in stars. Astronomers watch how the elements in the periodic table are built in the stars by nuclear fusion – nucleosynthesis. It is a process that takes billion of years and explains why heavier elements are also the rarest, why there's so much carbon and oxygen and why the universe is about 98 percent hydrogen.

    A word about faith. The substance of faith is not scientific evidence. Faith has always been struggling with the facts of life. Job is a good example. He was considered a heretic by his friends because he didn't close his eyes at facts.

    On the other hand, it would be good to remind ourselves that the biblical cosmology was not a test of faith, at it was evidently the popular world-view in that time. It was not given as a revelation but as an accommodation. Making bronze-age cosmology an article of faith is something even catholics renounced after burning Giordano Bruno on stake and holding Galileo in house arrest. Why are we so eager to take their place?

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    • Eddie, the southernmost any glacier advanced during the Ice Age was the Kansas River Valley. So no diamonds in Arkansas could have been carried there by glaciers, and I'm puzzled by your anecdote.

      I'm also puzzled by your assertion that there are no fossil marsupials in Europe and Asia. There certainly are fossil marsupials in Europe and Asia.

      There--I've falsified deep time theory. 😉

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13. @ Neven:

    Science is not about speculation. Every single star in the universe is building elements by nuclear fusion. This is why the Sun radiates, and the process is a great example of fine tunning to. It turned Fred Hoyle who discovered it from atheist into theist. It is a process confirmed by astronomical observation. By the way, do you it takes a photon two hundred thousand years two get out of the sun.

    @ AR:
    Newton also held that those biblical statements in conflict with science should be considered relative truth, namely general perceptions of people in a given time. I do not believe that the issue here is to believe or not to believe. The issue is if theology should rectify science.

    It is nothing new in the fact that science is changing its theories. It is the nature of science to be temporary truth. The true question is if you know of any controversy in history when theology did not have ultimately to come to terms with science.

    @ Tyler:
    My objection is that we tie dogmatically creation to a rigid interpretation of time. Your question is outside this topic.

    @ Bred:

    Whether time has four or more dimensions is not the point here. Time, space, mass and movement are functions of each other. They are part of creation. You cannot limit God within time. That would be idolatry.

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    • Eddie, yes it is true that Christians dogmatically hold to a rigid time frame but it certainly is no more dogmatic than the many comments that I have seen from evolutionists.

      I choose to leave major comments on science to the scientists, however, I will say this: There will never be a time when we will have all the answers whether you are a evolutionary scientist or a creationist theologian.

      This whole time thing reminds me of what Art Chadwick mentioned in his comments about erosion rates. The fact is that at the present rate of erosion there shouldn't be any mountains as we know them. They should have disappeared long ago and any new mountains should be made of much newer sedimentary material.

      This also coincides with the mineral content of the oceans which should be much saltier than they are if they really are hundreds of millions of years old.

      In other words, while we may have time related problems evolution has their time problems as well and some of them such as the origin of life is a real dilemma to them which they simply have no answer for.

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    • 1st, a petty gripe, but you misspelled my name. 2nd, I never said time limits God, but the exact opposite. And the clear implication was that rather, God is unlimited, but we only perceive a small piece of that unlimitedness.

      Alternatively, if you like, it could be said that sometimes God limits himself in order to teach us something or to establish a particular principle, and that is a biblical principle that can be seen in the Levitical laws, the sanctuary, and the incarnation of Christ.

      Also, I may be reading you wrong, but are you saying God can't make light move faster than it currently moves, or work some other feat of power that would explain how we see the light of the stars today? Because that would be doing what you accuse me of. Limiting God. The speed of light is constant now. But we have no evidence whatsoever that it has always been so. And certainly it is the prerogative of an almighty God to alter such things as he chooses?

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14. Tyler:

    There are lot of opinionated people and big egos among scientists, but science is not about dogma. A scientist has o quote numbers and facts on his side of the argument. OTOH, nature is a message from God in the language of God. The Bible is the message of God in the language of man. This makes all the difference between religion and science.

    Chadwick's argument is circular and I am surprised that nobody noticed it. It begs the premises that there have been no other geological activity save erosion.

    However, lets look at the facts.

    Have you ever wondered why mountain chains in N America go north-south and not east-west? O why the Rocky are higher than the Appalachians? The answer is plate tectonics. The mountains raised perpendicularly to the plate movements. And the Appalachians is more eroded because is older. And yes, there are entirely eroded mountains in this world, like the Hercinic mountains in Europe, just as there are still raising mountains, like Himalaya.

    New basalt flows continually on the ocean floor while its ends are subduing under the American and East Asian plates.

    As you said, we should let science with the scientists. Let's stop rectifying science on the age of the earth and focus on the core message of the Bible. Tribal genealogies are not instrumental to measure the age of the universe. They are simply part of the culture.

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    • The Unita Mountains in NE Utah run east/west. I believe it is only one of two that do.

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15. Hello Eddie... thank you for your thought provoking comments.
    May the Editors allow me a little manipulation of the creative sequence of the Gen. 1:3,4. In my imagination written here I am reversing the sequence as reported in verses 3 and 4. We know that the process of converting energy into matter causes photons(light, the visible frequencies also) to move. So, with infinite energy at God’s disposal I find it plausible to think that God took “some” of that energy to create a predetermined quantity of mass that initially became the ball of H2O, mind you, planet-size ball.

    So… in the conversion process, the Holy Spirit is creating (on micro scale) the gluons, the quarks (I am skipping over a whole bunch of sub-atomic particles here), the neutrons, the protons the electrons to form the two atoms of H and the one atom of O that make up the one molecule of water. It took “zillions” of these molecules to form this watery planet. During that whole time of this very orderly process of conversion of energy to mass, light(photons) that Moses mentions, are emanating(moving). Once the process is completed because the predetermined quantity of mass(H2O) has been reached, the light(photons) cease emanating. Lack of emanation of photons is referred to by Moses as darkness. So, now that the ball of water has been created it is dark on its surface and the spirit of the Lord is hovering over it to start the next phase of the planet-creating process. Converting a section of water into firmament. That also requires alteration of the atomic structure of the H2O molecules that causes photons to be emitted whose visibility Moses calls light of the second day. When that process is completed by the Spirit(the construction crew on the micro scale) of the Lord, the firmament is completed and it becomes dark again because the photons cease being emitted. This darkness is the beginning of the third day.

    I am still wondering about what is the length of time, in hours, that the visible photons would be emanating in the process of converting the specific value of joules of energy to form the mass of water(at about room temperature) of planet Earth. Are there some nuclear physicists or quantum theorists amongst us that may come up with some calculated hints? Just curious, the child in me is not grown up yet.

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    • Hi Neven,

      Be careful how you use your imagination. Genesis 1 gives no allusion to the length of the time period during which the earth itself or water was created. Genesis 1:1 says in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Gen 1:2, the earth was formless and empty, there was darkness and water covered the earth, and God's spirit moved over the earth. So we know that the earth with water exists, but we have no reference to 'human time' as yet.

      Then Gen. 1:3 says light was created by God's spoken word, and the light was separated from the darkness, light was called day by God (even before the sun was created), and darkness called night. Then the evening and morning was the first day, this is the first reference to a complete day. How would a quantum physicist explain evening and morning in terms of light emanating when atomic particles move? Does the light dim? Do we see colours, as we do at sunrise and sunset?

      Day 2, we our atmosphere, and the waters are separated such that there's water on the ground and water in 'the air' above the ground, 'the sky'.

      Day 3, we get dry ground and seas as well as plants.

      Day 4, we get the sun, moon and stars.

      Day 5, we get water creatures and air creatures.

      Day 6, land creatures are made and so are we.

      So we see that, unlike the time during which plants and animals were created, the 'time' during which the earth was created and the time during which water was created is not bound on both ends by evening and morning, so we do not know if we can call it a day.

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