Adelaide Chapter

A Creationist view of Cosmology

February 8, 2013

In both the Kalam Cosmological Argument and the Fine tuning Argument, Craig refers to the Big Bang (BB) Theory. Creationist organisations, such as Creation Ministries International (CMI), do not accept the BB theory and believe in a young earth instead of one that is 4.5 billion years old. On 25th October 2012, Steve White provided a presentation on the creationists view. His Power Point slides can be seen from the following link: Cosmology of the Bible

Here is Steve’s summary:

1       A Creationist view of Cosmology

The Bible cosmology records a young 6000 year old universe that was accepted by both Jewish teaching and Christendom until only about 200 years ago. Even today Jewish mainstream newspapers such as the Jerusalem Post record the current year since creation as 5774 (Christians typically add 243 years to this Rabbinical chronology of Seder Olam Rabbah compiled by Rabbi Yose ben Halafta who died 160 AD, to correct the age of Terah when Abram was born and the accepted duration of the Persian empire).

The following Biblical references were quoted as evidence that the early chapters of Genesis are consistent with later scripture:

  1. The fourth of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 8) sanctifies the Sabbath on the basis of six literal days of creation of earth and heaven followed by a day of rest.  The seven day week is still observed around the world today despite various attempts to change it.
  2. Luke the careful historian lists the genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:23-37) back only 66 generation to Adam the son of God i.e. creation.
  3. Peter (2 Peter 3:5) circa 60 AD speaks of the heavens and the earth being created out of water and then destroyed by water in direct support of the account given in the early chapters of Genesis both of creation and then Noah’s catastrophic flood, the latter which provides an alternate explanation for the fossil record and sedimentary rock layers often used as evidence of an old earth.

Christian scientists only started to defend the Biblical young universe record in the last few decades.

The explanation of apparent starlight events billions of years old was addressed by Dr Russell Humphries in his book Starlight and Time :  Solving the Puzzle of Distant Starlight in a Young Universe, 1994.  His model proposes the universe beginning from a Black Hole containing all matter in the universe in the form of water, with the Earth close by, deep in its gravitational well.  On Day 4 of Creation the Black Hole flipped into a White Hole, allowed by the General Theory of Relativity, and the Universe then expanded in the 24 hour period. Whilst Earth continued to experience only 24 hours because of proximity to the gravity of the White Hole, the expanding Universe experienced billions of years of events and red-light shift.  Since Day 4, both our Solar System and the rest of the Universe run have existed for 6000 years and we continue to observe starlight events that occurred over the billions of years compressed into Earth’s Day 4.

Dr John Hartnett of University of Western Australia has modified Dr Humphries model by restricting the White Hole expansion of water to just beyond our Solar System.  This overcomes problems of timing of events in nearby galaxies and blue shift expected if the water spread to the edge of the Universe. Work is still proceeding to refine the model, in conjunction with equations from the General Theory of Relativity derived by Dr Moshe Carmeli, a secular Israeli theoretical physicist.

Other naturalistic models for the formation of the Universe continue to have significant problems:

  1. No robust explanation of the formation star nuclear fusion from a gas cloud has been given, as gravity cannot overcome gas pressure to achieve compression required for fusion.
  2. Halton Arp’s documentation of the disparity in red-shift between galaxies and quasars that are obviously in proximity as gas is observed flowing from the former to the latter.  The degree of red-shift has been the standard of establishing the distance to far galaxies but if it fails to explain quasars at the same distance, so something is wrong.

2       RF Response

There were a number at the meeting that disagree with or are not convinced by the creationist view.

In general, Craig avoids the divisive issue of evolutionary theory in his arguments. There is enough good evidence out there without getting entangled in these issues.  However, Young Earth Creationism (YEC) is a big and divisive issue among Christians and there will inevitably be more discussion and debate on this subject at Reasonable Faith Adelaide. At least we should try to be better informed on the issues.

Kevin Rogers