A New Testament argument against young earth creationism

The New Testament says, in multiple places, that the end of the world will come soon.

It’s been about two thousand years and the end of the world has not come.

If the world is only about 10,000 years old, then 2,000 years is about 20% of the age of the world. And that’s not soon. So, if the New Testament is right, the world must be rather more than 10,000 years old.

Indeed, we have this: the older we think the world to be, the easier it is to accept the New Testament teaching that the end of the world would come soon after apostolic times.

On standard scientific views, the 2000 years that we’ve had since the time of Jesus is about one percent of the time humans have been on earth, one two millionth of the age of the earth, and one seven millionth of the age of the universe. A blip.

A defense of the five minute hypothesis (given a certain false assumption)

Plausibly:

1. If the universe came into existence either for no cause at all or randomly, it is a priori more likely that it came into existence in a higher-entropy state rather than a lower-entropy one.
2. If the universe came into existence fully-formed five minutes ago ("five minute hypothesis"), it came into existence in a higher-entropy state than if it came into existence 13.8 billion years ago ("scientific orthodoxy").
3. So, if the universe came into existence either for no cause at all or randomly, the five minute hypothesis would be a priori more likely than scientific orthodoxy.
4. But there is no a posteriori evidence for scientific orthodoxy over the five minute hypothesis.
5. So, if we think the universe came into existence either for no cause at all or randomly, it is not rationally consistent for us to believe scientific orthodoxy over the five minute hypothesis.

I personally think premise (1) is dubious: I doubt there are meaningful probabilities for the universe to come into existence for no cause at all or randomly. But if there are no meaningful probabilities, then it is not a priori more likely that it come into existence as scientific orthodoxy claims, and the rest of the argument should continue to go through.

Of course, I think we should believe scientific orthodoxy over the five minute hypothesis, so we should reject the no-cause and randomness hypotheses in (1).

An amusing rhetorical way to present the argument is that if the universe came into existence for no cause at all or randomly, we shouldn't prefer scientific orthodoxy to certain young earth views.

A Thomistic creationism of sorts

Suppose that God made physical stuff (say, particles) be arranged just like in a butterfly, but he did not give (either directly or by some general policy) a butterfly form. Then we would have something that looks just like a butterfly. And to the extent that butterfly behavior is ultimately predictable just from physics, that bunch of physical stuff would behave like a butterfly. There wouldn't be a butterfly there. In fact, there wouldn't be one thing there: just a bunch of physical stuff.

Now, we are not yet in a position to know how much of the physical behavior of organisms—especially non-human ones—is predicted by the physics. Let us suppose, however, that it turns out that all the physical behavior of non-human animals is predicted by the physics. (Humans have free will, and that's a different business.)

Now let me tell a story. I don't think the story is actually true, though it seems basically[note 1] logically possible:

God created a physical world and had some chemical stuff come together in a way that "reproduced". And then evolution took over, and bundles of physical stuff that were better at survival and reproduction reproduced more, until we had bundles of physical stuff shaped like algae, trilobites, trees, dinosaurs, birds, horses and apes. But there never were any algae, trilobites, trees, dinosaurs, birds, horses or apes. Finally, not too long ago on a cosmic scale, there came to be two bundles of physical stuff that were physically rather like humans. By this point, there was no physical stuff shaped like trilobites or dinosaurs, but there was physical stuff shaped like algae, trees, birds, horses and apes. And God then said: "Let there be algae, trees, birds, horses, apes and many other organisms", and he created forms which informed the algaelike, treelike, birdlike, horselike and apelike bundles of physical stuff, and all sorts of other bundles. Thereupon, there were birds, horses and apes, though things didn't look any different. Finally God said: "Let there be humans", and he created forms which informed the human-like bundles of physical stuff. And there were humans.

This story is fully compatible with naturalistic evolution. Indeed, the only bar to the possibility of this story would be a vitalism on which physical stuff does not behave like living organisms. On this story, there literally never have been any dinosaurs. But there will have been bundles of physical stuff arranged dinosaurwise, and that's all many a biologist thinks a dinosaur is anyway.

But since bunches of physical stuff can't be conscious—they need soul, i.e., form, for that—then on this story there was no consciousness before human beings came on the scene. This is theologically attractive in that it enables us to hold that suffering came into the world through human sin. For we can continue the logically possible story thus:

When God created the forms of all the organisms, he miraculously arranged things so that no organism would suffer, miraculously making a harmonious state. And he put humans in charge of this delicately balanced system. Humans, however, quickly came to freely reject God's sovereignty in the system that he put them in charge of, and he reluctantly removed his miraculous protection from the system in deference to the authority he granted humans. And so humans and other animals came to suffer.

This story is also interesting in that it is yet another way to reconcile naturalistic evolution with the not dogmatically required but still somewhat attractive theological idea that all the organisms there are were directly created by God. For the story makes clear in a Thomistic setting how naturalistic evolution only explains how we got to have the physical stuff shaped and behaving like algae, trees, birds, horses and apes. God's creation is needed to make this stuff into actual algae, trees, birds, horses and apes: forms need to be put in. (Compare how in Genesis we are told that God made Adam from the "dust of the earth", i.e., physical stuff.)

The main reason I don't like this story has to be with my being an eternalist. I think past (and future) objects are real. And I think reality will be more wonderful if it really contains trilobites and dinosaurs, not just physical stuff arranged trilobitewise or dinosaurwise. So while the above story is basically logically possible, I don't think it's actually true, because it seems likely that a God whose goodness spreads itself out creatively would be likely to create forms for physical stuff arranged trilobitewise and dinosaurwise.

But there might, nonetheless, be aspects of the story that we can adopt. In the story, creation was safeguarded by God's taking bundles of physical stuff and giving them form. We can posit this in a more commonsensical evolutionary story. Maybe the gametes of two dinosaur parents involve some mutation that makes the offspring be particularly birdlike. Then God can simply prevent the offspring from being informed by a dinosaur form and then instead make the offspring be informed by a bird form. This is still direct creation of birds from previously existing physical matter. And while higher animals prior to the first human sin were conscious, we can suppose that God in his love miraculously prevented any instance of conscious suffering that wouldn't be on balance good for the animals, say by miraculously preventing pain qualia or in some other way. But this divine miraculous intervention perhaps ended (though perhaps not!) when Adam and Eve rejected God's rule over the earth they were put in charge of.

Extinction, creationism and presentism

An intuition a lot of people have is:

1. The extinction of a species is a very bad thing.

On the other hand, extinction is central to the evolutionary process. Some species go extinct, making room for others, and thereby producing a greater diachronic biodiversity. Diachronic biodiversity is a very good thing, and the production of this diversity (wholly or at least to a significant degree) by natural evolutionary processes is a very good thing. This suggests:

2. If species at least typically arise by evolutionary processes, (1) is false.

What can we say given (2)? Well, we could argue:

3. Species at least typically arise by evolutionary processes. (Scientifically known fact)
4. Therefore, the extinction of a species is not a very bad thing. (By 2 and 3)

I am inclined to go for this. To soften the counterintuitive consequence, we might note that what is particularly bad is extinctions where no new species are likely to evolve to fill the niche, and the kind of environmental degradation that we want to oppose not only leads to the extinction of species but stands in the way of the evolution of new species that fill the niche. Though that's an empirical question, and I don't know if it's so.

Another move is to argue:

5. Both (1) and (2) are true.
6. Therefore, species do not arise by evolutionary processes, even typically. (By 5)
7. If species do not arise by evolutionary processes, creationism is true. (Since creationism is the best alternative to evolution.)
8. So, creationism is true. (By 6 and 7)

A yet different move is to deny (2). My thinking behind (2) was based on the value of diachronic biodiversity. But perhaps diachronic biodiversity is only as valuable as I think it is if presentism is false. It is only if the past organisms in extinct species really exist, even if pastly so, that they contribute in a valuable way to biodiversity. So one might replace (2) by:

9. If species at least typically arise by evolutionary processes and presentism is false, (1) is false.

And then one might argue:

10. Claims (1) and (3) are true.
11. Therefore, presentism is true. (By 9 and 10)

So I think we have three main options:

• Deny that extinction is a very bad thing.
• Deny evolution and affirm creationism.
• Affirm presentism.

I should note that in (1), I am thinking of on-balance badness rather than just intrinsic badness.

Geological reductionism

One way for a naturalist to respond to arguments from, say, morality (such as this argument) is to either deny that our moral perceptions are veridical or to reduce the moral to the non-moral, say to a sentiment.

One should see moves that deny the veridicality of a large class of our perceptions (illusionism), or that reduce apparently objective truths to subjective ones, as epistemically costly. One way to see this is to consider parallel responses that a straw man young earth creationist might make to geological arguments:

1. Illusionism: Of course, the earth looks like it's billions of years old, but that appearance is non-veridical, being the result of Satan's work at deceiving us into thinking creationism is false.
2. Reduction: If t is more than 10000 years ago, to affirm that a geological state S of affairs occurred at t is just to affirm that right now it looks as if S occurred at t.

On the correct epistemology, moves such as these should be quite costly. (The above are only straw man versions of young earth creationist responses. In fact, apparently the Satan response is in disrepute among young earth creationists and I have never heard anybody make the reduction response.)

Evolution and scientific irrealism

Consider the following two statements:

1. We do not have good reason to believe evolutionary theory to be true.
2. Scientific irrealism holds.

Now claim (2) entails that science does not give us good reasons to believe propositions to be true. Moreover, the following claim is uncontroversial:

3. All the good reasons for believing evolutionary theory to be true are scientific in nature.

Thus, (2) together with the uncontroversial (3) entails (1).

But here is an oddity about discourse in our society: There is a lot more outrage against scholars who assert (1) than against scholars who assert (2).

Is there a justification for such a differential attitude?

An explanation for the differential attitude is that those who assert (1) frequently are motivated by religious considerations, while those who assert (2) are rarely motivated by religious considerations (unless they accept occasionalism, like many Muslims, or they are led to (2) by way of (1)). But unless one has a good argument for why it is inappropriate to accept or deny a scientific claim on religious grounds, this explanation of the differential attitude is no justification. Certainly it isn't be a necessary truth that it is inappropriate to affirm or deny scientific claims on religious grounds, unless necessarily God doesn't exist: for if God exists, then he in principle could reveal facts that are of purely scientific interest, or facts of religious interest that entail facts of scientific interest.

Maybe, though, the explanation is like this. If someone asserts (1) by itself, we assume that she doesn't hold (2) (just as someone who says that Elbonians are not human is assumed to think non-Elbonians are). But in fact the only good reason for holding (1) is (2). However, simply the fact that someone believes something for a bad reason surely doesn't justify the kind of outrage that is involved here. After all, one might believe (2) for very bad reasons indeed.

Personally, I deny (2). As for (1), my views are rather complex—I accept common descent and natural selection as a major force, I accept that Behe-Dembski style arguments fail to establish Intelligent Design, but I am also convinced that we do not know that every event in the evolutionary history of every animal was naturalistic.