Summary Statement

This discussion has wandered through a wide variety of perspectives and approaches and issues, and that's fairly natural because it's a big topic that connects to a large number of issues. I thought there might be some value in clarifying where I think we're up to at this point and a possible direction for an on-going conversation. Of course this is not in any way limiting on others or on the direction of the discussion, but I hope it's useful.

Exegesis

Those who know, and who I respect as having the necessary knowledge and skills, including Ed Dickerson and David Koot, are pretty clear and convinced that the Biblical account can really only be read and understood one way - as describing a literal 6 days, each 24 hours, for the creation week. I'm happy to accept their word on that (but if Ed, for example, wants to post the kind of detailed exegesis he does so well on this point that would still be a great contribution).

That leaves us in a more awkward position than if it were possible to read the Bible account as being consistent with a longer period of creation, because it places the scientific and the biblical evidence in direct contradiction - accepting one requires us to reject the other. Or does it? (see below)

Either way, I don't see a lot of point in continuing the discussion about Biblical understanding/interpretation/exegesis, since the conclusion is already clearly laid out.

Science

Some have asserted that interpreting the scientific evidence is entirely a matter of basic assumptions, and that all of the evidence can be equally well accounted for with a recent 6 day creation as with other basic assumptions. Others have taken a different approach, and said that if the evidence seems to suggest a longer age or different mechanisms, so much the worse for the evidence - the Bible is the standard.

I think there's still an interesting discussion to be had here in which those who do think that the scientific evidence is important, and do think that it is interpretable in ways consistent with a recent creation, discuss that evidence in a scientific way, albeit one that includes the existence of miraculous events.

I want to find a synthesis that respects the Bible and still does not require me to falsify or ignore the things I see in the world around me. I do consider that God is revealed in his Creation as well as in the Bible. I haven't yet been convinced that it is possible to be serious about science (understood as the study of the natural world) and accept a literal 6 day creation that happened relatively recently... and what you seem to be telling me is that I may have to choose between science and my faith... or understand science in a very different way.

Once again, Herr Professor, I would be very interested to knkow, and I think it might be very pertinent to an answer, to know your axioms and assumptions in regard to this issue. What are they?

Which issue would that be? The scriptural one or the scientific? If the scientific, then:

1. Miracles occur

2. Miracles are not able to be studied by science, although their residue might be

3. None of us were around for the creation of the earth or any significant portion of its history, therefore we are reliant on the accounts of other for part of it and on evidence from nature for other parts

4. Evidence from nature requires some assumptions to be made

5. There are ways of 'triangulating' different sets of evidence against one another that help to improve accuracy and check assumptions

6. Scientific evidence must be taken seriously by anyone who wishes to make claims in the realm of natural law. (Please note that by 'scientific evidence' I do *not* mean the conclusions of scientists, I mean the data and the methods)

I think that's about as well as I can do in providing a comprehensive set of basic assumptions in relation to science and how we deal with evidence.

Thank-you, Bravus. That is very helpful information. So then, analyzing these items, the 'residue' of miracles might be observable. We are reliant on accounts of creation and evidence from nature. Evidence from nature requires some assumptions to be made. Triangulating different sets of evidence against one another is an accuracy check. "Evidence" includes the data and the methods of observation and interpretation.

Permit me to follow up, then. The source of the conflict between recent creationism as described in Gen. 1, and DArwinian evolutionary theory? Does it not consist in the following?

1. The DNA tree;
2. The geological column;
3. Radiometric dating.

How may the DNA tree be synthesized with Gen. 1? Conversely, why couldn't it be? Why would it not be consistent with the idea of a Creator designing different organisms on a common platform?

As for the geological column:

Firstly, in order to intelligently evaluate this issue, please be so kind as to summarize the assumptions underlying the concept of the geological column.

As for radiometric dating, please do the same. Once we can take a look at the assumptions, then we can evaluate any possible synthesis with Gen. 1.

Thanks.

How about we put the DNA issue aside, since as you've noted, at the level of expertise at which we could discuss it, it wouldn't provide a discriminating test: every similarity can be explained by either scheme.

I'm willing to spend some time looking at the geological column, although I'll be learning the stuff from scratch, and Bevin I think knows more about it than me.

You've been promising to bring the case against radiometric dating and long ages for a couple of weeks now, so why don't you go ahead and do that.

This Wikipedia article provides a pretty decent introduction to the topic. (Yes, I know what Wikipedia is and isn't, but one of the things it often is is a useful place to start.)

Reading that carefully seems to suggest that in a way it reduces to the radiometric dating problem, since that is what is now used most definitively to date the geological layers. There is a level of triangulation provided by fossils at the various levels.

Am I correct in understanding that the flood is most usually advanced as the creationist explanation for all of the features of the geological column?