7/30/2019 A Case of Divine Deceit

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A Case of Divine Deceit? - Center for Faith and Science International

by Matthew

August 01, 2011

Could God make an earth that only lookedold?

In one sense, of course He could. God, being omnipotent, can do anything. The question is,

would He? To be more specific, would He create a universe that appearedbillions of years old

using our current dating methods, but was really less than 10,000 years old?

Many Christians have said No, and this is probably the most common theological objection to

young-earth creationism (as opposed to scientific objections, or hermeneutical objections that

claim that YEC reads the Biblical text incorrectly). Is this objection fatal to the claim of a youngearth appearing old?

There are two reasons we might think God wouldnt create a universe with apparent age. The

first is that it could be considered deceitful for Him to do so, and therefore against Gods moral

character. The second is that no good purpose would be served by doing so. In this post Ill

discuss the first objection, and well consider the second in a sequel soon.

This first objection is best set up as follows:

1. Divine deceit is impossible. [Assumed]

2. If God made the world with merely apparent age, then God behaved deceitfully. [Keypremise]

3. Therefore, God could not have made the world with merely apparent age. [Follows from 1

and 2]

The controversial premise is 2. The philosophically tricky thing about it is figuring out whatwould count as divine deceit. If God knows that we will believe false things, is that enough? No.

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7/30/2019 A Case of Divine Deceit

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A Case of Divine Deceit? - Center for Faith and Science International

by Matthew

August 01, 2011

For one thing, wed need to believe these false things because we used our faculties well; if we

are negligent and get things wrong, then presumably God isnt responsible. But could God

make us such that we came to false conclusions by using our sensing and reasoning faculties

correctly? Would that count as deception?

My first instinct is to think that there must be some kind of deceit involved in God creating an

apparently old earth. But when I think about it further, I have difficulty telling exactly where the

problem is supposed to be. After all, Newtonian mechanics enjoyed a great deal of evidential

support and was believed by the brightest minds for generations, yet clearly God is not guilty ofdeceit for making the world appear Newtonian. But it is plausible to think that the scientists who

believed Newtons theory were using their intellectual faculties correctly. Therefore, rationally

believing something false on the basis of God-given scientific evidence doesnt imply divine

deceit. This doesnt show that premise 2 is false, but it undercuts the most prominent reason I

know of for holding it.

Maybe there is some more specific reason that making an apparently old earth would count as

divine deceitit would be helpful to consider the specific reasons scientists believe the earth isoldbut without that, YEC doesnt seem to be decisively refuted by the mere fact that it entails

that our best science is incorrect. Grace and peace.

Tags: age of the world, apparent age

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