Things might get a little confusing from here on out.  Lesson 9 was originally Part 1 of my discussion on Special Creation, which I plan to post on Wednesday morning.  However, in an attempt to better organize the flow of the material and keep each individual lesson under 10 minutes, I moved the short “appearance of age” discussion from the end of Lesson 7 and turned it into a lesson of its own, lasting 5 or 6 min.  The “appearance of age” doctrine is a popular Christian folk-science that deserves it’s own separate discussion.  I plan to put this after the two YEC-oriented lessons (7 and 8), and before any discussion of the life sciences.

I don’t actually have a video of the new Lesson 9, but I do have a rough draft of a script.  So no video today (sorry), but I would appreciate some feedback on the script for Lesson 9, so when I do shoot it, I’m done with it (providing I don’t mispronounce anything).

“The Appearance of Age”

Now what about this idea that universe and the earth are really young, but God just created them to look old. Many Christians think this is a clever way to reject the overwhelming evidence for an old earth and cosmos without having to refute it scientifically. This is known as the “appearance of age” doctrine and it basically allows the universe to appear old without actually having to be old. The reason I call it a doctrine and not a hypothesis is because there is no way to test it scientifically. Just think about it: If the entire universe was created overnight to look like it does right now, and all of our memories were implanted just before we woke up this morning, (1) we wouldn’t know the difference, and (2) we couldn’t disprove it.

Any evidence used to demonstrate that “yesterday” really happened would only be part of the “apparent” reality and not part of the “authentic” reality. But science doesn’t work like this. A useful scientific hypothesis makes testable predictions, and is always at risk of being disproved. If a scientific hypothesis is confirmed by observation, then it adds something non-trivial to our material knowledge of the cosmos. In contrast, these appearance-of-age doctrines are trivial doctrines that, even if true, add nothing to our systematic study of the created order.

In other words, if the entire universe was created with 13.7 billion years of cosmic history already built into it, then we couldn’t tell the difference between a young universe and an old one. And guess what we’re going to end up studying in the science classroom? We’re still going to have to sort through the known data, as it appears to us now, and draw conclusions according to what we find. And since an apparently-old universe would look no different than an authentically-old universe, this “appearance-of-age” doctrine is completely useless for adding anything to our material knowledge of the cosmos. It’s completely trivial. So, like the various speed-of-light decay hypotheses and flood geology, it too is unanimously rejected by the scientific community.  There is simply no pressing problem in science that requires an “appearance of age” theory to solve it.

But the appearance age doctrine is not just bad science, it is also bad theology. By supposedly solving the scientific problems, it inadvertently raises difficult theological problems that are far worse than the scientific ones. 

Consider the first recorded miracle of Jesus’ earthly ministry: the transformation of water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee.  The “new” wine created instantly by Jesus would have had all the same qualities as naturally-produced “old” wine. According to the biblical account, it was the best wine served at the wedding—meaning that it would have appeared to be very smooth and well aged. In fact, a chemical analysis of the new wine would probably reveal its apparent long history and not its authentic short history. Since nobody would accuse Jesus of intentionally misleading the guests at the wedding by giving His wine the false appearance of a naturally fermented beverage, it’s obvious that some fabrication of natural history must accompany a miracle. There is simply no way to avoid it.

But the level of deception required to fabricate an apparently old universe goes far beyond these necessary illusions. And unfortunately, Christians are much too quick to use this defense against any challenging fact of natural history when revealed by scientific investigation. The idea of necessary appearances is not a catch-all. In fact, abusing this argument can lead to serious unintended theological consequences.

What if, in addition to creating wine from water, Jesus also created empty wine skins and put them in the trash out back? What if He fabricated an authentic-looking bill of sale from a local winery and placed it in the house ledger? What if detailed memories of purchasing the wine were implanted into the minds of the servants? What if the salesman at the local winery also had a detailed memory of the same sale, as well as his own written record of the transaction? What then?

Materializing aged wine by fiat is perfectly understandable, but these other illusions go far beyond what is necessary to accomplish the miracle. Why would Christ miraculously turn water into wine only to fabricate a carefully-crafted cover story that leaves no glorious loose ends? At what point do the fabricated illusions completely distract from the glory of the miracle? With such an air-tight chain of ordinary providence from the grapes of the vineyard to the earthen jugs of the wedding, there would have been no good reason to believe Jesus performed a miracle apart from His taking credit for it—thus defeating the stated purpose of the miracle.

As science continues piecing together the story of natural history, Christians face a similar problem. Granted, there will always remain some pieces of the puzzle that don’t seem to fit; but at what point does the picture become so coherent and detailed that we can no longer simply dismiss the parts of it we don’t like as the necessary consequences of creation ex nihilo? At what point do we turn the Creator into a charlatan who deliberately fabricates a world at odds with His Word? Will the scientific community, who takes their scientific investigations very seriously, ever be drawn towards saving faith in such a God?

Let’s think carefully about this for a moment. Consider the Garden of Eden on the day God rested from His work. If we understand the narrative as a historical account, the universe would have been fully functional. Light from distant stars was already reaching Earth. Large trees with their many annual rings populated the Garden. Mountains and valleys appeared weathered by erosion. Adam and Eve presumably spoke a human language with rules and conventions already learned and rehearsed. Adam appeared to have some experience with horticulture and animal husbandry, and Eve appeared to have some domestic skills. Millions of different species each filled their ecological niches as if they had been doing so for ages.

It could be reasonably argued that all of this apparent natural history was simply the necessary consequence of creation ex nihilo. Since these fabrications are absolutely required for the young earth to properly function, it doesn’t necessarily make God a deceiver—so far so good.

But how much is too much?  What if Adam and Eve had detailed childhood memories of growing up, and could tell you everything about their biological parents? What if they could tell you exactly where and how they met? What if they could name their schoolteachers and all of their best friends? A few anomalies like this might reasonably be ignored, but as the fabricated illusions become more detailed and more coherent, they will eventually become problematic. As some point, we might be justified in asking why God seems to tell us ‘creation scenario A’ but then fashions the entire cosmos as if ‘creation scenario B’ were true.

By supposedly solving the scientific problem of an apparently old universe, we raise difficult theological questions that undermine the character of God. I’m not sure we gain anything by using these silly arguments. In fact, they probably do more harm than good. If given the choice, I’d rather leave the scientific questions unanswered than turn God into the creator of unnecessary illusions that serve no other purpose but to lead people away from biblical truth.

As we conclude our discussion of Young-Earth Creationism, we must ask ourselves this: what are the dangers of presenting ideas that are overwhelmingly rejected by practicing scientists to our children, in the context of science class, at a private Christian school? What happens when they eventually come to the realization that the things they were taught by their Christian parents and teachers are completely useless for doing science? What will happen when they realize they’ve been misled, in the name of Jesus, by those adults to whom their very salvation was entrusted? Will they simply reject these silly folk-science claims and continue on in the faith, or will they reject Christ altogether?

Like Glen Morton’s friend in the oil industry, are we setting our little ones up for a crisis of faith later in life by constructing our case for biblical authority on a foundation of sand, by using demonstrably false pseudo-scientific ideas? Are we forcing our covenant children to choose between useful science and the Bible? What do the scriptures say about causing the little ones to stumble?

One thing that should be clear from Church history is this: whenever the church invented a folk-science to compete with what it perceived to be theologically-incorrect secular science, the folk-science not only crumbled under the weight of evidence to the contrary, but it served as a stumbling block to the gospel and ultimately undermined biblical authority. As Christian parents, teachers and administrators, we need to take a step back and carefully consider what we’re doing here. There is simply too much at stake.

Next, we’ll step a little further outside of our comfort zones and look at how Christian folk-science has impacted the life sciences.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 6th, 2008 at 7:20 am and is filed under Christian Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.