Any young earth creationists out there?

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By the mode of creation, St Thomas means the ‘time’ of the creation narrative for various Fathers had various interpretations of how the ‘days’ of the Genesis narrative should be interpreted, for example, 24 hour days, simultaneous days (Augustine), or day-age periods. By the order of creation, St Thomas means the sequence of the creation, appearance, or beginning of the various creatures described in the six days work. Here again the Fathers had various interpretations but which essentially boils down to two interpretive traditions, namely, one represented by St Augustine which was the minority view, and the other essentially from St Ambrose and St Basil which was the majority view in which this later essentially followed literally the order found in the Genesis 1 narrative.

Besides the agreement of the Fathers that the universe began by creation, they were also in agreement that God himself created all the various creatures described in the seven day narrative, the heavens and the earth and the seas, the plants and trees according to their various kinds, the sun, moon, and stars, the various kinds of the marine and land animals and birds, and finally mankind after which on the seventh day God rests from all the work he had done in creation, completing it in its beginnings or first institution. God’s direct and supernatural creative activity involving all the creatures described in the works of the six days pertains to the substance of the creation narrative as it were.

The accidentals or non-essentials of the creation narrative are the mode and order of it. Or, the time factor and the order or sequence of the creation of the various creatures described in the six days. Naturally, some of the creatures or creations would come before others or possibly simultaneously (Augustine) such as the heavens before the sun, moon, and stars; the earth before plants; the seas before the marine animals, etc.
 
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Following upon what I said in the last two posts and incorporating those modern science discoveries that are the more reasonable or which appear more certain and which are not in conflict with the substance or essentials of the Genesis 1-2 creation accounts, we can propose the following:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). This verse can be interpreted in a number of ways. First, since the hebrew Old Testament language didn’t have a word for ‘universe’, biblical scholars as well as some of the fathers of the Church say that ‘heavens and the earth’ is a merism, meaning totality or a merism meaning ‘universe.’ Indeed, we find in various texts of Scripture where the sacred writer uses only the phrase such as ’ the maker [God] of heaven and earth’ by which is meant the universe. In the Apostles Creed, we recite ‘I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth,’ by which we understand the entire universe including the angels and everything in it.

Secondly, at one and the same time, Genesis 1:1 can be understood as the entire universe as well as the visible corporeal heavens and the planet earth. Gen. 1:2 appears to take literally this later interpretation as well as the creation of the waters or oceans covering the earth.

Thirdly, Augustine understands by ‘heaven’ the formless angelic nature and by earth and waters (v.2) formless matter, the prime matter of the scholastic theologians, the basic material or substrate out of which God creates and forms all the corporeal creatures or beings in the six days work.

For our present purposes and incorporating modern scientific discoveries into progressive creationism, it appears that the heavens are filled with some very old stars and galaxies. Accordingly, God created the substance of the heavens whatever it is made out of (aether or a extremely fine kind of matter almost spiritual?, some astronomers today call it a fabric of some sort ), and created the galaxies, stars, planets and the elements those are made out of, the elements we are famaliar with. The substance of the heavens cannot produce the elements the stars and planets are made out of which is why Genesis 1 devotes a day (day 4) to their creation and production by God.

The substance of the heavens (what we call today ‘space’) was created instantaneously by God and probably at the same time, many of the stars and galaxies, at least the older ones. Since the production of the two great lights and the stars from day 4 in Genesis was a day’s work, for example, morning, midday, afternoon or evening, and if we are to believe the present science, it appears God didn’t create all the galaxies and stars simultaneously but some in the morning, some at midday, and some towards the evening as it were over billions of years.
 
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You do have a penchant for finding the most tedious, drearily presented lectures, don’t you?

Contested Bones is an attempt to show that the hominid fossil records supports Creationism, mostly by explaining that paleoarchaeological models of the 1960s and 1970s have been modified in the light of more modern discoveries. Well, what a surprise. That’s how science works. The first half of this unutterably boring presentation is devoted to to informing the audience (of about a dozen) that the famous picture showing a progression of largely imaginary hominids from chimpanzee to modern man is not factually accurate. It is not explained that the image was never intended to be an illustration of a direct line of descent, information that was very clearly given in the book in which the image first appeared, both in the captions to each figure and in the time line of their occurrence above the marching procession.

Our lecturer goes on to criticise the fact that so many bones are attributed to human ancestry and so few to chimpanzee ancestry, and quotes Bernard Wood (author of Evolution, the Human Odyssey) saying “Critics of the bushy family tree have charged that paleoanthropologists have been overzealous in identifying new species from their finds” in support of their idea that there really have only been two species of hominid, one definitely an ape, and one definitely “man”. They imply that discoverers of bones have dishonestly hid the truth in the hope of becoming famous as the discoverer of something completely new. This is appalling dishonesty on the part of Sanford and Rupe, who know very well that chimpanzee bones are unlikely to fossilise because of their jungle habitat, but worse, that Bernard Wood explains in detail that he is not one of the critics he mentions, but actually agrees that our fossil human discoveries do indeed represent a number of different hominin species.

And so on. Staggeringly, this hour and a half is devoted to a single chapter of Contested Bones. There are similar 'hour-and-a-half’s on the other eleven chapters! I bet Buffalo hasn’t watched them!

Yuk.
 
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As far as whether the heavens are expanding or not, this is a non-essential as it were to the creation of the heavens. Maybe God created expanding heavens, I don’t know, it’s not like he couldn’t. Presently, the notion of the expanding heavens is conjectural, there’s scientific data for and against the notion. Whether the heavens are expanding or static doesn’t really concern us here. Their are also philosophical implications with an expanding universe.

What I find kind of funny are the models, graphs, or images one finds on the internet concerning the proposed shape of the heavens. Here we have man on earth like a drop in the ocean compared to the cosmos, with mathematical models of the heavens or space doing acrobatic contortions, corkscrews, in and out of dimensions, and what have you. Whether these mathematical models have anything to do with the reality of the heavens is a whole different question. Maybe the heavens are quite acrobatic, who knows. At any rate, the mathematical models and such are a testament to that wonderful gift of intellect God created human beings with in his own image and likeness. Whatever the case of the shape of the heavens, it is non-essential to our present purposes here. Personally, I’m very skeptical of these mathematical models.

The present understanding of science is that our solar system is about 4.5 billion years old, about a third of the age of the Milky Way Galaxy. Assuming some accuracy here, God created out of nothing or gathered some pre-existent material floating around in the Milky Way Galaxy or both and formed our entire solar system with it instantaneously, the sun, moon, planets, earth and seas; and placed our entire solar system where it now orbits in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Following this, God created and formed out of the earth and waters (with the various elements found in the earth and waters and simply created any missing ones needed) the various kinds and species of plants and trees, marine animals and birds, land animals, and finally mankind. The fossil record gives us some idea when God did this as we find in it the abrupt appearance and stasis of the various kinds of animals and plants. Following the creation of man, God rests from his creation and institution of the world and the beginnings of the variety of creatures. No new creatures or natures are created by God after the creation of man/woman. He now sustains and governs the world by his providence. Of course, he was also doing the same thing with all the creatures he created from the beginning.

The reason why the various creatures created and formed by God in a step-wise fashion as it were which we find in the Genesis 1 narrative is because the first creations, for example, the earth and seas are not able of themselves to produce and form plants or animals in their various kinds. And the various kinds of plants and animals are created according to their various kinds on different days to indicate that they don’t or cannot morph into each other as evolution would have it. However, this does not exclude microevolution or variation within particular species or kinds.
 
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Richca said:
The present understanding of science is that our solar system is about 4.5 billion years old. Assuming some accuracy here, God created out of nothing or gathered some pre-existent material floating around in the Milky Way Galaxy and formed our entire solar system with it instantaneously, the sun, moon, planets, earth and oceans; and placed our entire solar system where it now orbits in the Milky Way Galaxy.
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I find it curious that you are prepared to accept one bit of science but not another, even when they are closely related. If it were supposed by Science that the Solar System formed instantaneously, there would be no reason to suppose that it was 4.5 billion years old, as the two ideas are closely related. It must be remembered that Science is a largely coherent and comprehensive model of the universe, and that accepting or rejecting selected little bits to fit in with the bible is logically untenable.
 
Hugh_Farey said:
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Richca:
The present understanding of science is that our solar system is about 4.5 billion years old. Assuming some accuracy here, God created out of nothing or gathered some pre-existent material floating around in the Milky Way Galaxy and formed our entire solar system with it instantaneously, the sun, moon, planets, earth and oceans; and placed our entire solar system where it now orbits in the Milky Way Galaxy.
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I find it curious that you are prepared to accept one bit of science but not another, even when they are closely related. If it were supposed by Science that the Solar System formed instantaneously, there would be no reason to suppose that it was 4.5 billion years old, as the two ideas are closely related. It must be remembered that Science is a largely coherent and comprehensive model of the universe, and that accepting or rejecting selected little bits to fit in with the bible is logically untenable.
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Science doesn’t suppose our solar system was formed instantaneously in fact they have no idea how it formed except from conjectural theories of scientism. I’m not concerning myself with the conjectural theories of science or scientism. I’m following what Scripture says and Scripture says that God created the two great lights as well as the earth and seas and all the stars which would include the planets in the solar system. Accordingly, I’m saying God created and formed the entire solar system instantaneously. This has nothing to do with science except for the assumption that the solar system is 4.5 billion years old or so which can reasonably and logically fit into the Genesis narrative if you have been following the recent posts here today I’ve been making. Whether it fits in with science’s own theories is not my concern nor am I even attempting to fit it in with those theories which it obviously doesn’t since those theories assume millions or billions of years and I’m saying instantaneously. The natural sciences, in fact all human sciences are as the handmaids of Sacred Theology which is the highest science. Accordingly, since Holy Scripture and true science can never be in conflict with each other since God is the author of both Sacred Scripture and the created world, we can take or gather from the handmaids of Sacred Theology whatever we find is not in contradiction to the catholic faith, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

As far as the assumed 4.5 billion year age of our solar system, I’m not saying that this presumed age is actually true or true science, it may be fairly accurate and if it is, fine. I’m just showing that this presumed age is not in conflict with the essentials of progressive creationism. Essentially, it doesn’t matter whether our solar system is 10,000 years old or 10 billion years old. What I do believe is that our solar system didn’t form itself or from natural processes, rather it was created and formed by God himself who created and formed as well the entire Milky Way Galaxy and all the other billions of galaxies and all their stars, planets, and other astronomical objects.
 
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Ah. I misunderstood. Now I understand.
Although I still don’t agree, of course.
 
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And if God didn’t do it instantaneously (creation of our solar system) but in some sort of step-wise fashion such as adding planets or comets to it after some time, the earth after the sun, I still say it was God who did it, not natural processes. Accordingly, whether God created the whole solar system instantaneously or over millions of years, it was his business and up to him according to his will and wisdom. Time is not a factor to Him as He exists and acts outside of time in eternity. The point is that He did it, not natural processes is what I’m saying. Possibly, a minority of some comets, meteors, asteroids and such like more minor and smaller objects of our solar system may have been captured into our system by natural processes working under Divine Providence. Although, even these smaller astronomical objects were probably created by God and not natural processess. Maybe some tiny ones somehow form naturally from exploding stars. But, I’m very skeptical of how much forming by natural processes can be done if any of whatever objects in outer space from scattered material floating around.
 
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Dark Matter was introduced a while back in an attempt to explain the “missing” matter in our current field of view. But the deepest Hubble space image still shows faint galaxies in the background. The fact is scientists don’t know how big the universe is. And they aren’t sure about planet formation either.

www.sciencedaily.com

'Monster' planet discovery challenges formation theory

A giant planet, which should not exist according to planet formation theory, has been discovered around a distant star.
www.sciencedaily.com
 
Yes; it’s getting quite complicated hopping about, but never mind.
Do you think that the finch was one of the couple of dozen primary ‘kinds’ as mentioned in the Book of Jubilees?
 
Dan123 said:
Show one exists and they will. They’re also not letting any of the other gods humanity has believed in into the theory also,
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When I was studying environmental science at uni years ago, we copped a lecture of the “theory” of Gaia - ie, paganism being taught in the name of science. There was not the slightest murmur of complaint. If, however, a lecture on Genesis creation were presented, heads would have rolled.
 
Glark said:
When I was studying environmental science at uni years ago, we copped a lecture of the “theory” of Gaia - ie, paganism being taught in the name of science. There was not the slightest murmur of complaint. If, however, a lecture on Genesis creation were presented, heads would have rolled.
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So I was vaguely familiar with this but I tried to do some reading to determine what might have been taught. The Theory of Gaia relates to the interaction of the non-living and living elements of the environment. The name Gaia is of course a pagan goddess but it’s just the name.

Was the class actually teaching paganism or was it just teaching a theory with that name?

Are astronomy classes teaching paganism when they use planet names like Jupiter? Or the name Easter likely being derived from an old pagan goddess?
 
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