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CHAPTER 3
CREATION IS NOT A THING
News 277
Technical Journal of Creation, Vol. 17 (2), 2003
In That Magnificent Rock Ch. 7, Section E and in Divine Agenda Ch. 1, matters of creation and time, space and fundamental thrust have been considered. Today, we shall add a little in an area of some specialisation.
Surprising as it might seem,
in the domain of creation, we are to talk about creation, how it is not a matter of manufacture on the basis of assumed ingredients, disposition of existing establishments, roving in terms of a projected reality. Not at all; for it is the bringing into being what was not at all in being before. When it is a hat, to be sure the ribbon and the feather may have been there; but not the hat. Not at all! Amusing was the salesperson who, taking a ribbon in a swirl, 'created' a hat! Asking a large price, she was refused. Very well, madam, reportedly quoth she, and undoing the ribbon, presented it to the lady.
The Greek term used in Colossians 1:15 means created altogether, and of the universe, from nothing (but not of course from no one - we are not talking magic for any reason). The Hebrew term, as previously indicated, means just that also. The MEANS are never in view (cf. E. J. Young, Studies in Genesis 1, pp. 6-7. The POWER and the RESULT in terms of what had no existence before, this is intended. On this see Dayspring, in A Spiritual Potpourri and TMR, Appendix 1, and E.J. Young, in Creation, an entry of considerable importance, in The Classic Bible DIctionary, where the portent conveyed here in Genesis is indicated to mean, to bring into existence that which had no previous existence. The Hebrew term, he indicates, has a narrower meaning than in English, and as used in Genesis 1:1, it is in the format where GOD is the only one to whom its action is attributed, where never is the means indicated. It is the purest of creation in the most sublime of manners.
Enough, however, for us here, that it is a bringing to be of what had not been. When it is the heavens and the earth, the universe before man and in which he is, then its creation, as shown clearly in Know the Lord ... 24, constituting all the heavens and the earth, is absolute. Since it comprises all that is, even all of it, the object of creation being all that is created in terms of heaven and earth, then the thing created coming into existence where hitherto it had not been so, what preceded it was NOTHING in heaven or on earth, or the earth, in components or preliminaries. The entirety is the creation; hence before this, the entirety, all things, were not present.
Only present was
a) what is not the heaven and the earth and
b) God.
It could have been moulded: it is not so, it was created. It could have been processed; it is not so indicated; it was created. The heavens and the earth could have been in need of some touch-up. It is not so, they were created. Creation is the action, bringing to be what was not; all that is there is what is brought to be. All that preceded this excluded in terms of all that is. There was nothing, heaven or earth, nothing at all. Young paraphrases Genesis 1:1: The beginning was by a creative act. The first three letters of the two words are the same, binding them to each other, as the one event instituted all.
What then preceded the beginning, heaven and earth, this well-known locale of man ? What preceded its creation was of course its non-existence. Its existence, in the beginning, had a mode of production. It was creation. This is true at the outset, whatever efforts be made to avoid it. There was a creation of the heavens and the earth; it was at the beginning. The beginning is not the end or some other point; it is where it all starts. The thing in view is subjected by invention and the deposition of existence, to creation. Whatever else we may learn, we learn this in verse 1, through the association of this term 'create' with the universe. The mode of its executive arousal is not formation; it is creation; it is not complex and varied; it is single. God did it. He did it by creation.
As noted in Know the Lord 24, this is precisely what is taught in Isaiah and Colossians, yes one may add, and in Revelation 4, where we learn that all that is has come to be at His pleasure, by this it IS. BY YOUR WILL THEY EXIST AND WERE CREATED. YOU ALONE, says Isaiah 44:24, stretched out the heavens, YOU ALONE says Isaiah 45:12,18, are the Creator; it is YOU, it says, who created man. No other agency, power or being did this. He BOTH created and formed the earth.
Moreover, in addition to the simple fact of the creation being the mode of the entirety gaining existence, there is a further point which while it is apart from this basic fact, reinforces it utterly. In Genesis 1, Young notes, there is no possibility of the rendering, 'in the beginning of God's creating', since the so-called construct state, signifying such a format, preceding a finite verb, does not occur unless it is clearly indicated in the text, by context or by format, that this is so. The language has rules, and this is one of them, he indicates. There is no such situation here, so that the straightforward reading of the text without contrivance or complexity is indicated. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. This being so, there is no scope for any mutilation of this majestic utterance. You can have these or those conditions, existing here or there, but they are all irrelevant to creation, which as a llinguistic term, does not even mention the instrument, or means.
These conditions then are of necessity post-creation. In fact, Young indicates, the conditions in verse 2 related to verse 3, where the command is uttered: LET THERE BE ... There is in fact, no scope for even trying to make the initial statement a dependency, since the language to follow verse 1 does not proceed as it here does, when that is the intention (pp. 1-2).
This is of course not necessary to the point, since the first statement cannot be in the construct state, and is an absolute statement. CREATING is the mode; heaven and earth is the object. Since God is creating and conditions relating to instrumentalities are not to be mentioned with this term arb, then these conditions must refer to some other action. There is only one - that in verse 3, which Young signifies.
Interestingly, what the language does do, in verse 2, is both avoid the available sequence from the initial statement, with a combined 'and' and the verb, and provide another main verb. It simply proceeds with AND THE EARTH, making the earth the focus, not the sequence verbally. It is clear that the earth has been already brought into being by the mode of entire creation, and now we focus on it further. On the other hand, we do not do so via a procedure which would tie it as one of a number of processes. The creation is done; now the processes begin. It is only after this, that the sequential method, in verbal use, appears. This will appear shortly.
This procedure is natural, since what SEQUENCE is tied to creation! On the other hand, sequence can come after it is over, and the earth thus becomes the object in focus for this ensuing sequence, following the completed act of creation. It is then that the normal sequential series begins, with the AND PLUS VERB combination. The earth being without form and void, becomes the signal for the advent of this ensuing series: Young indicates, with examples given, that this is often done (op.cit. p.11). As he states, 'In a narrative in the past time, we often find the first verb in the perfect and each succeeding verb in the imperfect with waw consecutive."
The last phrase simply refers to the AND + VERB combination, so useful for simple narrative. Here then, in terms of such a pattern, there is the first verb in the perfect (and the earth WAS) without form and void, followed by "and God said", the phrasing just noted for narrative. Just, therefore, as in terms of the language, there cannot be a construct, "In the beginning of ..." in the verse 1, so what follows fits normal grammar. The commencement brings into being what is to be discussed, and notes who did it. What follows shows the results, and how, creation being done, the processes ensued. Of course, there are two further notations of creation, but these are of items in the scene, for the scenario, not of the scene itself. The platform is up and made.
It is felt proper via the text from the Lord, to impart knowledge concerning various FORMINGS, which followed (that verb does not exclude creation, but it is not to be forgotten that this Author has used that term already, concerning His action, and distinguishes the usage by the objects chosen). However, the term 'creation', already generic for the action of the Lord, is again used specifically for LIVING THINGS that move, and MAN, in the later text. These also have 'creation' as their mode of making, signified. They are parallel in some sense with the initial construction of the universe.
Of no small interest is the actual mode chosen grammatically. Let us rehearse and consider it a little further.
It is not a simple sequence of action following action, as if "and the earth was" had been in the sequence format noted above. On the contrary, it is a further simple statement, like that in verse 1: And the earth was ... very direct and very stable. It is classically simple and unconfusable. Following this focus, come the conditions of verse 2, of which this is one, leading on to the next finite verb, and God said ...
Thus there is a species of divorce from verse 1 in verse 2. It is a commencement with its own finite verb, supplemented by particle to come, leading on to the next finite verb. In other words, we are told: HERE IS THE THING, this earth, which is in the following condition, here is its formless character, here is darkness, and here is the work of the Spirit of God, who commanded light on and in this situation, this environment, this thing noted, this heaven this earth. The earth is its initial focus.
Thus the heading becomes the first action; but the first action, that of creation, is not merely sequentially linked in a synthetic sort of verbal situation, as if there is a close tie to the beginning. Rather, AFTER the beginning, there is the earth, and it is announced with a degree of separateness in terms of action. It is only after this focus is announced, with this semi-separation, that the close conformity of events follow, each after the other, where speed and majesty mix. Thus 1) CREATION IS DONE ON THE WHOLE THING, and then 2) EARTH IS THE FOCUS, and there is now a series close and intimate, the one to the other.
IN this series, there are two conspicuous sub-creation actions, that is, living, moving kind creation, and man, this object, relatively small, but exceedingly important, designated in parallel with verse 1, as acts of CREATION.
Man then occupies the focus, within the earth. This is the uniform notation in the scriptures, as above indicated, and shown in particular in TMR Appendix 1, and Dayspring. There is nothing else which can be inserted into the word of God, no other meaning which can cover its declarations, and no other message, except that which a person might seek to cram into His mouth. As to that, it is a foolish undertaking with another person on earth, and much more so with Him whose creation of heaven and earth, makes of man, an identity within that creation, answerable to Himself. In ANYONE, it would be misrepresentation to allege what is not said by the person concerned; with God it is also blasphemy.
There is then in Genesis 1 and 2, as we see in more detail in the above references, an intimate and exquisite clarity about what He is doing. Indeed, in Genesis 2, and in particular in 2:4, we see the NEXT FOCUS, man in his specifically created environment, and are to see the HISTORY, or PRODUCT from this: what FOLLOWS. SO the high power microscope comes on man's test situation, and the test is then revealed.
We have seen in Answers to Questions Ch. 8 (cf. the later Let God be God Ch. 12), the rendering of Gleason Archer for Genesis 1:14-16, and the most natural assumption is that just as the objects which were light sources, not mentioned when light was created, since 'light' was the focus, are FORMED for PURPOSES noted there, so in the preceding mornings and evenings, they were in some sort of operation, though in the obscured situation, not one fulfilling the purposes for which the 14-16 FORMING makes them then apt. It is much to be preferred to think of the means of morning and evening being operative, even if not in the fulfilment of the more specialised purposes of verses 14-16, as noted in the above reference, in terms of the normal usage.
Had there been some indication of creation in these verses 14-16, as distinct from FORMING and assignment of PURPOSE, then this might have conveyed a different message.
As it is, from the FIRST, there is day and night; there is NOTHING abstruse or strange about it. Light is made; days are made simultaneously, and night, and the term is not alien to the expectation of reasonable comprehension when the whole narrative is describing the formation of what we have from its commencement! Then means of using the light, involving the light bearers are specifies. The forming here expressly stated in the text is allied to forming of the stars; and the latter relate without even their own verb, to the sun and moon situation, where the purpose for the earth is the objective of the forming. Light has already been achieved: now there is the manipulation further, or formation, to enable these further purposes to be assigned.
As it is, then, there is no further reference here to creation, though there has been to the sequence associated with the earth and the sun. Thus the presence of the ingredients and day and night, yet requiring further forming for the coming purposes, as noted later, would be taken as almost certainly meant. To be sure, it is not impossible it is not to be so taken; but it is most natural, since these are the normal means of day and night, and the language in its entirety fits with such a situation, being purposely indicated when the purposes are noted, just as light is substantially indicated, when the purpose is light, and further notation is not given of its source until purposes revealed at that time (verses 14-16), make this apt.
Nothing unusual or odd, different or egregious is to be found; the days, the light, the night, the added purposes of light when specific formings are given, all proceed with the unimpeded motion of a giant liner coming quietly to its wharf.
Something egregious, cacophonic to the thrust, the development, breaching the steps, adding the immiscible ? yes, quite possible, but only in romance. This, however, in Genesis 1, is an explanation of origination, as barely sober as any scientific statement, as controlled, co-ordinated and sequential as any could wish. You can claim that a dance is really a sleep; but not wisely; that this is really not what it presents. Yes, but though black be white, you merely change the definitions of the terms. What it is, is consistent, coherent, development of action to a completion from a beginning; and the object in view is the universe.
NATURALISTIC
AND
CREATIONISTIC CONSIDERATIONS
IN MODELS
First, it needs to be made clear that a 'model' is not merely a device for expressing an hypothesis, although in certain forms of research, this is frequently the case. It merely indicates the form, formula and format of a thing, the species of construction, the vision of it, the perspective and associated elements in its domain, with a view to considering how they work.
If someone WHO KNOWS, indicates a model, however, it can just as readily be presented to SHOW how IN FACT it does work. It is not necessarily a purely hypothetical device. In our present context, it is NOT a hypothetical device, and this is being defined for the purposes of clarity. It is what God has to say, and the nature of such speech in distinction from our own, that is our current concern.
First, however, we shall look at models in the more usual sense, and in particular those of Humphreys and Hartnett, relative to aspects of the creation of the heaven and the earth. Our interest is only, or certainly mainly, in the perspectives basic to the situation, and the contrast of these with that when God speaks. Creation is one thing; maintenance as often noted in this site, is another; and it is always a matter of deep care, to avoid assumptions on maintenance, however earnestly one seeks to avoid this, in assigning some model for consideration re creation! It is, in one sense, almost an occupational hazard for such work!
Humphrey's work has been printed in the book, Starlight and Time, and in numerous articles.
In this case, it is fascinating to find what is now following the notable exploit of Russell Humphreys, expert in general relativity and such affairs, in constructing a model of the earth's formation, on various assumptions including an application of General Relativity, yielding a young earth, and a transference of light, so that the stars are rendered visible at the early phase of life on earth. Now John G. Hartnett, in an article in the Technical Journal of Creation (vol. 17 (2) ) has suggested certain modifications of the kind of model put, and pointed out various advantages to be gained*1. He is apt in considering the point that creation does not need to lean on current methods in the creation, but for all that, his procedure does deal, at times, if perhaps less than does Humphrey's, with certain laws and modes in the current universe, or which derive from, relate to or are involved in it.
Our present point is not to comment on these variations, and progressions, of much interest; but to consider the overarching reality of MODEL in the context of both presentations.
It appears that Hartnett's adjustment to Humphrey's model uses yet further means of extant dynamics*1A to explain, and as noted it does have a distinct advantage in that it does try consciously to differentiate creation from mere maintenance, as now. However he still seems disposed to present a model in which creation is already to no mean extent, under resultant law-wraps, natural constraints*1B in terms of current knowledge of what is.
It may be said that this is what science does; and if such a position were to be adopted
(although in fact scientific method goes far beyond this, for the contrast between what is and what is not, is not outside its practical domain, since the logical constraints with which it deals, as to method, and which it finds, so that it may and does investigate what is in the heavens and the earth, as far as it may, are still operative, and what may be inferred from a natural matter can still by abstraction be contrasted with what may not!),
then the creation would not be relative to science at all.
To be sure, it is only when the creation leaves certain features to remain after it is commenced, that science can be involved, except of course in the just and proper consideration of what we DO know of creation, in our own works of engineering, architecture, music, literature, analysis, imaginative reconstruction and the like. We know MUCH about this, since man has been doing just that for millenia, in vast projects, huge quantities, enormously variant situations, with amazing results.
We have an enormous data bank of biography and autobiography, as well, for each, some measure of immediate apprehension, for which of us does not to some extent WORK CREATION, as we live. While we pour ourselves into our creations, they contain no part of our beings; they encapsulate our imagination, concretise our thought, depict our dreams. The invisible (cf. It Bubbles... Ch. 9), dominates. The mind ruminates. The spirit of man operates. The consequences put into one realm, what was in another; it is not transliteration but export.
God's is absolute, since we are not God and He is; and our own construction by Him provides a derivation from His imagination, thought, power and unlimited Being, which provides us, not only with existence, but with meaning for thought, point in understanding, a basis for wisdom and the reason why man nearly always ASSUMES he knows the truth, even if he is disposed to deny it in a cocktail of self-contradiction which makes one wonder! (Cf. SMR Ch. 3, and the necessity, in Ch.1, the consequences more broadly, in Ch. 10.)
We are made by truth, for truth, and
when man denies any part of this fact, he is immersed in irresolvable
antinomies, which he richly deserves for denying the obvious in the first place
(precisely as in Romans 1:17ff., which traces the erratic process of liberated
will, on its downward path, very acutely, progressively and poignantly).
What then of the present realm of science, outside this just occupation with the phenomenon of creation in man ? How does it relate to maintenance of the system now extant by creation ?
When such things are left, the current, and when the one mode ceased and the other began, at the end of creation, when that day was done (Genesis 2:4), can only be known with any assurance, by revelation. WHAT biblical revelation has to say in this field now becomes, relative to these models, our interest.
Let us then consider models in which creation is present, in order to focus the nature of it, first in measure, and then absolutely, to see to what extent, if any, the time for starlight to transmit itself to earth relates specifically to the creation model as biblically presented, for the biblical agent, God Almighty.
HOUSES AND HEAVENS
If I should wish to create a house, the interaction of the parts, as in place, is by no means the topic. It might influence the way I should CHOOSE to create it, but it would not be the same thing at all. Their future operation in place, would not be identical with their being handed, handled, manipulated, put in place so that once in place with all the other pieces, they would operate in terms of the created thing called a house. Their in-place interaction is for the most part excluded from the manipulation of emplacement. Until created into a house, their mode of action and interaction is that of handled goods in transit, in motion in a way distinctly different from that which occurs once they are in place. Other powers operate; a mind is at work not merely in terms of a design program, but in IMPLEMENTING it.
Action is to CONSTITUTE, to INSTITUTE, and only then does the thing house, act as a house does.
The action for most of the time leading to that finished product, excludes mere normal interaction of parts, and it is only to the extent that elements of creation have rendered SOME of them to be in place with others, that this beginning is possible, while creation occurs. However, the ACTUAL total nature of the creation, and of the action which is to characterise it, electricity, rain-water, forces of attrition relevant to the totality of the structure as revealed when creation of it ceases, is excluded from action until the thing is in place. Continually the power of creation is acting in a way which transcends the action of the thing when it is created.
Then the 'interference' and intervention of creation as such, ceases. Until then, it is the very order of the day; and the creation is the difference, the divergence, the category which is outré, alternative to the house in operation.
If now I had more power - and God lacks none, and creators always per se transcend their materials, with more or less effect, depending on their power - then I could place on top the roof of this house, using a small cube, and redirecting this concentrate, not necessarily possessed of any obvious relationship to the thing to be produced from it, and using chemical, physical or molecular intrusion, at my wish, I could imaginaitvely form it, as I desire to see it formulated.
Even beyond its own laws of operation, I could then impose creative forces to impel the whole to my will. My power, knowledge, choice of materials, power to conceive, to institute materials for processive purposes ONLY, and so on, would be the only limit. Of course, we are already moving from mere increase in power and wisdom, to NO LIMITS. That is our intention, for this is what faces God, NO LIMITS, in His creation of the heavens and the earth. They are a model of His design, desire and construction. Nothing constrains, impels or limits His choice of mode.
When God stretched out the heavens, there is no hint of 'deception' if He does not start events to which the system is unable to respond systematically, until it is in place. Metres to 'measure events' are not active until they are constructed and so connected as to be able to respond according to their organised systems, to the system to which they are to respond.
Further, from the time the system is so created that it is systematised into internal self record, there is nothing systematically to RECORD. The measurer, the responder, it is not yet there to record. It is UNDER CONSTRUCTION. That is the nature of what is being created, for a purpose, when it is not yet created, but under construction.
Again, as the Creator moves all He wants to be where He wants it - normal, once again, in the creation of ANY system, dependent only on power and intelligence, neither of which does God lack, transcending us beyond measure in His works: what then ? It is this.
LIGHT is merely one of the things, and inter-actability of this and the system being forged, it is another*2.
Thus, light can be hastened, or simply placed in situ at will, in the Creation - there is no need to travel as if He were a mere part of the universe. As placed, it can but need not, bear record of what its supervening placement implies, as the eye of God causes consequences to mirror causes at each inceptive phase of which He may have a desire to bear record, as of an operative system. There is no NEED of a vast increase in the velocity of light, and hence of a slow down later to our present understanding of its velocity, since its placement is not by transit but deposition. It may well have been far faster, in this, that many are the indications that this may have been or was the case, conceivably indeed at some point within the creation episodes (cf. TMR Ch. 7, Section E, and as marked, and the references there given, including those here noted*3).
There is no constraint in terms of 'arrival' at end destination however.
If then light were of a greater velocity in this creation week, as 'stretched out' MAY signify, then we have neither the need for significant later slowing, no other artificial impediment, after the creation week, for two reasons. First, this would be WITHIN the creation week, so that there is no significant time for its arrival in the first place. Secondly, speed used in displacement and placement of light is an open question at the time of creation.
Creation and operation of a situation, are radically different concepts, and in creation, equally diverse realities. It is useless to talk of creation and to ignore its operation in 'explanation'. Nothing HAS to do anything, except what it is told; much as one places a cross-member in a car chassis, in a way which bears little relation to its displacement when, as part of a car, it has to keep certain relativities, such as nearness to the steering wheel. Functional elativities during an absolute act are largely irrelevant.
Moreover the scope of the universe in terms of OBJECTS in it, may have been far smaller, or there may have been an automatic incremental provision associated with such expansion as may have occurred. Light in day one may simply have been made co-extensive with whatever portion of the universe God desired it to inhabit; and this, by day 4, statedly involved the earth and stars, though not necessarily all of them. Again, gravity and Arp 'tiredness' and such matters known or unknown, moving the resultant image of light, doubtless have been at work. In general, the principle of decay of design over time, as implied in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, might be expected, whether great or small. This is why the now various expectations and understandings about light velocity decay, not necessarily after the completion of creation, are not at all surprising.
Thus a fully operational channel of communication, whether of the divine word to the divine work, or to agencies within the divine work, is the de novo creation presentation. Its powers are not limited to the horizontal level, any more than are ours, when we create and make new alignments and arrangements by actions outside the later disposed system; indeed, far less than is the case with ours, since in the Creation, there are no limits, and at the outset, NOTHING is given. In the onset, as day 4 implies, functions may arise through activation or various enablings.
Foolish is the concept that God is limited by the maintenance aspect of the creation while instituting it; or for that matter, that no RESULTS of the institution will manifest themselves, or that all MUST. Creation is like that. You can contrive to start a given system in a given respect and relationship any time it will serve the purpose of the nature of the created thing you have in mind, its functions and performance criteria.
 |
When God chooses to do in creation, that,
it is His
business. |
It is to make a hybrid model, illicit, confused and for many, confusing.
LIGHT will contain record whether at, before or during its emplacement, depending solely on the desire, power and the mind of the Creator of the system*4. That light must bear record of its nascent and deployment phases is an hypothesis, whatever the actual intention, at once both naturalistic in model, and extraordinary in expectation, for any creation. A fortiori is this so, with the Lord!
It would be rather like expecting a milli-ammeter to record currents, or even preserve a record of currents to which it responds, before it was rendered operational by the completion of its design by its maker, or the turning on of the power relative to its emplaced operation. On the other hand, it would not be impossible that it could be made functional in some things, before the entirety was complete. Creation is not predictable, except by the Creator, when He is God.
The day on which stars and sun were created (cf. Let God be God Ch. 8) is not directly revealed. For the reasons given above, however, it is hard to ignore the sun as deposited at day one. Presentations concerning this are dealt with in detail in the reference here given.
A FORMING of the sun is noted in 14-16, for associated purposes, and without change of the verb, the stars are appended to this. The term specifically, in contrast to the use of 'create' elsewhere, is form; and the divine purpose for the object which He here formed, is the topic, not the existence. After noting at this place, the formation of the sun for its express purpose, which had to include the rendering of it visible and operational, relative to the multiple purpose assignment here made, conjoint matters in view of its actual task, the reference to making the stars is not alien. It is thus able to share the one verb. If it is forming for the one, it is difficult indeed to imagine it is other for the other! It is a forming session, then, for what has been created in the initial deposition of the heaven and the earth, announced at the outset.
Presumably the stars addition has bearing on the use of light at night, and for the purposes stipulated; and they are added in their functional whole at this time. It is added in semantic sequence as a lesser, but relevant addition to the light bearing purposes already noted. Whenever God made the sun and the stars, and the moon, whether when He made light or later, relates to the initial declaration; He created ALL and ordered light into existence, as in verse 1. Later He forms sun and moon, the stars also, and the purposes assigned are correlative to these actions.
Whether, or in what form, they were created at the outset is not stated. ALL the heavens and earth were created at the outset. Light was then created; at that time, these light bearers may have also have been in existence; morning and evening relative to sun and moon suggest this; when certain purposes of sun and moon are later announced, then the stars which relate to such functions, are mentioned also.
The verb, it needs to be stressed, relative to star formation is NOT mentioned: it is a direct follow on from the case of the sun and the moon, so that the stars may well be able to conduct their contribution at the same time and for the same reason, with whatever additional formation may have seemed good. If it all happened in day 1, in gross and basic reality, then in the very interstices of utter creation comes the intrinsic reality of light, placed at will, at the velocity of will, in the state and stages of will, institutive and not per se countable in any processive mode or manner whatever.
In what form, then, in what precise designability, the stars, sun and moon existed before clearing skies enabled stated purposes of creation in this regard to be fulfilled, we are not told. Implication appears highly constrictive that they were already there for day four, and had been since morning and evening commenced their roll, in association with each other, as shown so clearly in 14-16; but it is not the purpose, apparently, of the Author to tell us the initial configurations, merely the conformity to normal fluctuations of light and darkness, following the creation of the heavens and the earth, which would of course signify the entire rondeau of space and the correlations that follow as to function. We are being told in our terms, and our terms have meaning. There are no disjunctions but those stated; to invent others is unwise.
Light may or may not have been confined to such light-bearers. There is nothing 'unclear' if someone provides these facts and not those. What then becomes clear, for a good speaker, is that the emphasis relates to what IS stated, and this is what needs research.
The CREATION at the outset, then, would normally be expected to include the most massive and characteristic elements of the heavens and earth; and while this is not decisive, it is highly stimulating to thought and remarkable to its existence, if this were not so!
To create at the outset the heavens and the earth minus heavens, in their total or even major population, would seem rather an intrusive way of interpreting the statement. The "and the earth" (in that order, in verse 2) which follows, tends likewise to indicate that we are dealing with an earth made (as announced in verse 1): with the expectation that in some major sense the heavens likewise would be made, in parallel usage: not in entire particularity, but in major characteristic. All of these things are concordant with the expectation that stars, moon and sun were there in some not fully functional, preliminary fashion from verse 1's creation, providing the alternation of evening and morning, so characteristic of this situation, without qualification of any kind.
LIGHT came, DAY came, with its normal changes: apparently, its normal means came with this, it is a natural thought, though with what degree of conformity to norm, is not certain, and then later, FUNCTION of light-bearers is stated, and a forming to this end. That is all. The development is natural in continuity - light, then morning and evening, then stipulated purposes for sun and moon, with their operation in this situation, with reference to the stars in this domain of purpose. It is not felt necessary, apparently, for us to know in what way the disposition of light bearers was made, whether all at once - admittedly, rather a strange hypothesis in view or morning and evening emphasis being pervasive throughout - or in readiness, with the light relative, and then in purposive specification, for the objective then stated.
What is notable, is this, that as soon as a purpose is noted, and a word uttered, it is DONE. If LIGHT is the purpose, it is done, whatever the implement, unknown but heavily implied. If RULE over day and night is the purpose, it is DONE, with whatever has been shown, and with whatever relationship to earlier (heavy but not inevitable) implication.
Very well: you cannot force speech or rightly complain if your purpose does not equate at some time, with that of the person who is making a revelation to you. There is however in this case, Genesis 1, a decidedly beautiful economy of word, combination of implication and exposition, even in the grammar, so that if you simply follow what you are told - always a good idea when God is relating to you - you find the focus, the emphasis, the sequence after the irruption of actuality, and the modes and movements in a fluent yet precise style, and are instructed in His power, domain, purposes, with exhibition of the intimacy between purpose and performance in His creation.
Thus the LIGHT OVER DARKNESS, comes in verse 1; and the PURPOSES OVER LIGHT in verses 14ff.. These things God chooses to do, these to fulfil, and in so doing, to report, to record, to reveal. It is actually fascinating to ponder these passages and possibilities within the record, always noting that what it declares is decreed and will happen; and perhaps this is precisely the divine desire for the readers, in terms of instructing them in care with humility, and majesty as well as its exposition in creation. In one sense, this invites us into being more perceptive and creative ourselves, while studying creation: and what more apt!
At the same time, such an approach rebukes the distortion of or addition to or subtraction from the text, so simple and clear that it requires a major effort to resist its thrust; and even this fails! ALL the word of God has but one message in these things, the certitude of His absolute creation, the sequences within it, the exceedingly importance of mobile life and of man, the orderly work of God, the immediate fulfilment of stipulated purpose, as and when decreed, and the extraordinary power which He used, so that our means or nature's current means are by NO means to be assumed operative while the divine hands themselves are moving things about, in their essence, in their design proclivities and in their performance criteria.
START WHERE YOU KNOW
It is now time to give space to the beginning conceptually, for better orientation.
Let us begin with what we now find and take to be the case. Minute by minute, second by second, milli-second by milli-second, nano-second by nano-second, the events of distant objects broadcast, through diverse media, their signals of situational change. In other words, we see what is happening by light issuing. To be sure, there will be degrees of interference and so on, but as in many systems, these have to be teased out, conceptualised hypothetically on the basis of findings, integrated systematically in other hypotheses, and brought into harmony, testability if possible, and subjected to the discipline of empirical findings, verifiable results.
When all this is done, certain conceptions are formed. This or that is happening at that distance. Conceptions of time, based on certain current findings, and hypotheses, are of various orders, some changing inordinately over time, to so many billions, and then so many less billions, or, so many thousands or more or less thousands of years since creation, as this or that realm is investigated, such as magnetism, ocean sediment, oceanic concentrations of various minerals and their rate of introduction annually, questions of the rate of cooling of the earth, deformation or reformation in moon rocks, supernova production and distribution, barriers and bands in the cosmic galaxy concentration and so on.
The only utterly certain thing about the knowledge of 'science' in this realm, is that it does not know.
As shown in Models and Marvels (Ch. 7 TMR), Section E, to this author there is to be found no way in which the so-called 'old' earth does not present insuperable logical problems; and no way in which the so-called 'young' earth presents any problems at all. Some indications show remarkable closeness to certain numbers of thousands of years, but the division between young and old is perfectly clear; and one, as it happens, finds no way of reconciling the 'old' with either biblical or scientific reality (as distinct from cultural occlusion).
However, this is not our present point, merely a pre-orientative introduction.
Very well: we imagine that we know that this or that is happening in Venus (and feel rather sure), or in some nearby star (and feel rather hopeful) or in some utterly distant seeming quasar or pulsar, galaxy or theoretically composed 'hole' of this kind of aggregative or disseminative power. We are watching the second by second unwinding of events, as in a race on TV.
There is no problem in principle here. Let us however now move backwards, down the centuries, and imagine with current facilities and functionalities for measurement, we are back one millenium; so the second by second declaration through light, coming to our planet, exposes to our hopeful eyes, that this or that is now happening in some distant star. This is a noetic experiment.
We move backwards with more speed now, towards the actual day of creation. There is always a limit in the finite, and our universe is finite, it being non-self-generative, aetiologically, and what generates it therefore being necessary (cf. SMR, Ch. 1, Causes). It cannot by finite means endure for infinite time, in energy or form. It takes something to be, and our resources are less than infinite; for the realm of the externally assessable must be grounded in causation, for the result to be specifiable within inherent constraints and limitations. Thus, dripping taps require their ground as well as their operation.
We come to the creation. It does not 'arise' from nothing, since by definition, the term means and implies that nothing whatever may be attributed to it, such as potential, a future, a past or the possibility of any of these. Indeed, anything which has so little as a mere possibility of existence in some mode, is by that very fact SOMETHING WITH A POSSIBILITY, so that even a child could see that it is not nothing after all. Verbal squalor does not hide this fact. It comes from the logically sufficient cause of all its limited and delimited ways, God, necessarily eternal, since if ever there were nothing in all, then always this would be still the case, which demonstrably is not so.
We come then to the beginning. What it took, for the commencement of this universe from NOT-NOTHING, is what it used. The power to make personality, liberty, roving thought, assessing minds, originative capacity in some members of creation, matter with its architecture, functionalities and laws, the universe with its investigable three major laws, conservation of matter and energy, degradation of specificity towards entropy and life to life communication of the same: this is required, if it is to be made. It is made. There it is. Creation has happened.
Now we return to our retrogressive thought. Here we are again, moving from the present, backwards in time towards this very creation of which we have just spoken. Right up to a line, if you like for imaginative conception, to a line which shows the END of the ACTION of the CREATION of the UNIVERSE, we continue to go, backwards from the present time. In our imaginary journey, we have covered, perhaps 6 or so millenia, conceivably biblically and physically, a little more. It would not appear very malleable; but let the point pass for the present, for we are arrived, by moving putatively backwards, at the END of the creation episode.
We have reached this, by going backwards in time, little by little. We have travelled back to the start.
We have gone back in this way, not following light to the first light, as this was sent long before, speeding on its way. We are drawing near, rather, to the first of terrestrial time - since we are here pursuing beginnings, and not the end. It is an ontological exercise.
As you pass then to the creation circle, it will contain as much of the universe as was created at the first, indeed in creation week. This will include of course not only the more obviously material entities, but the functional episodes which put the whole into operational format. Typing out a book is as much creation as imagining what one might say; and the entirety of such preliminary processing is other than simply having it available to read. It is the creation. Reading and existence in format for this function: this is the entirely and obviously specificable result.
Thus what is mere translation of the already made is not the issue, but the institution of what is needed for such action, in both structure and function. All that is not simple operation of what is already instituted but creation and installation of its means, is here in view. It is the creative sublimity of its engendering which is involved in this creation circle.
It therefore contains the initial, fully functional and formed universe, not initially as formed, but being formed; and all that is in this milieu, is in the circle, from first to last. Beyond the last of creation, we move by simple procedure on the instituted basis. That, it is outside the circle. Now it is action within CREATION AS SUCH.
Such is the movement to and outside again of the circle. Genesis 1 is setting up the circle.
In this sphere, there is no need for any part to wait upon another, since all is composed - made to be correlative. That is the mode of creations. You do not look, by comparison, for the way a water pump in a car engine, moves into place; for it is auto-functional, but not auto-derivative. Nor does it place itself, but it is placed, whether directly or by program, of whatever subtlety of design. It is conceived, construed, imparted, imposed and positioned where the design requires, commands, and implicitly construes. That is its creation.
Accordingly, there is no consistent expectation for light or energy to find a way, await a time in the creation week: it is MADE, and so constrained by creative power into being and decisive, design specified functionality. It is not in the field of its operation, until it is all ready. Only then do the continuity criteria, as distinct from the creation labours, that is those of institution, constitution and operation, as created, become relevant. To pass in terms of creation, beyond this, is very simply to beg the question, and to ignore the logical answer. We are in this discussing creation and its way; and not operation and its constraints.
What then do we find at this designated area of the circle of creation, to which we have moved back.
This arena we have now reached, this symbol of the circle, it is NOT an episode IN the creation which we know as such, since the creation was not there before the circle came to be: we are looking WITHIN it. Each such action is an episode in the action of God, by which the creation comes into existence as we have seen. Such is the model of the word of God, and so it was.
Such is the meaning of the circle, invented merely to represent it diagrammatically. In particular, the operation of stretching out the heavens is expressly and heavily linked to the creation in the Bible itself (Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:24ff.), the teaching of which relative to the findings of investigation, and the meaning of creation, is here being considered. Indeed, in the last verses noted, one finds the creative power of making and stretching out the heavens in one ensemble with the creative expression of speaking to man by similarly, simply supernatural means. This in Isaiah 44:26 there is found total in its sovereign sway over this world, as over any other divine work, instituting conditions and creating the objects of His desire.
"Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,
And He who formed you from the womb:
'I am the Lord, who makes all things,
Who stretches out the heavens all alone,
Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself;
Who frustrates the signs of the babblers,
And drives diviners mad;
Who turns wise men backward,
And makes their knowledge foolishness;
Who confirms the word of His servant,
And performs the counsel of His messengers;
Who says to Jerusalem, ‘You shall be inhabited,’
To the cities of Judah, ‘You shall be built,’
And I will raise up her waste places ...' "
All is sequentially purposive. He alone, the trinity (as in 48:16) moves to create the heavens and earth, what is in them, man, and the sequences for man, including in this case the citation (in the verses to follow) of the name of the King through whom He will restore Jerusalem. That is to look forward from the circle to the time in contemporary Israel, of Isaiah. There is the same utter confirmation of control, creation, inspiration and concatenation.
Let us now look back one moment, from the circle, towards the journey we have just imaginatively made: towards, in other words, the present time. We move away from all this, to that, the start, the circle.
From this point, the point by point exposure of diurnal, temporal happenings, within the now extant system proceeds, and now this light ... but wait one moment! This light, this component of what in our current point of investigation, is the END of creation. The COMMENCEMENT of the action of the same in its own system, it is to this which we have notionally advanced, by moving backwards in time. What then is to be found in our creation circle ? It is here that the events are sure to be released from the constraints which are in kind, and subjected continually and systematically to another set of constraints.
What are these constraints ? They are those of its creation and not those of its operation merely. Only outside the arena of creation occurring, is it entirely free of these.
Let us look inside the circle. Here God placed the light at will, in creation, and it was CAUSED to be in residence wherever He chose, as anyone might place anything in his entire power, ready for operation. It does not have to go anywhere of itself. Its initial emplacement is part of creation. This again is perfectly normal even in our own creation, to the extent we have the power: we place such and such an operational unit (simply, take a plank, before it BEGINS to hold something up, with a new function for the same plank) where we want it. Only then does it act in the way of the design.
Light then is simply placed where it is wanted, with whatever facilities and potentiations or arrests may be desired. It is not in the least difficult when you know your stuff, in a way man here does not because he cannot, because he has limits, though these themselves are of the utmost liberty and liberality. There is no need of a record of this, since light did not DO it, on this model, but was simply positioned. It did not operate as if the divine emplacement were part of its travel, for one very good reason. It was not part of its travel. It was put as light where it was to be.
If God wanted instantaneous presence of light conveying information, as a structural set-up, it is not even difficult. It is simply done. If He wants to speed up the light velocity or specifications for the same, as He moves and uses it, specifying and determining what will become inherent functions, it is as in creation, at His option. This is absolute creation and absolute option.
Material things are a mere mechano set as it were, something ready for His positioning. If the mechano bits do this and that under various forces, when placed, that is fine; but wholly diverse from the placing of them there in the first instance. Light need not, on such a model, be set as if to show it moved, when it WAS PLACED, for that would be contrary to the fact of the model. It has no such constraint. No 'slow down' is thrust into view, in such a case. It is not relevant to the model in the least degree. Imagined effects of such a happening would merely represent it, if they were falsely scored into the situation, as if obligato.
 |
On the other hand,
the speed of light from its inception would be |
Thus, it does not have to GET anywhere, this light. It is PUT where it is wanted to the DEGREE the designer desires. That is an EXPLICIT part of creation. Light is by a creative act MADE to subserve stated purposes in vv. 14-16. It is not merely continuing. It is conformed to stated purpose by stated means.
What then ? We predict nothing, except that prediction of what He WOULD do in the interstices of His created commands is pure assumption in the first place, and impure assumption in the second: that is, is mere assumption, and intrusive at that. When what He WOULD do becomes part of a naturalistic scenario or some hybrid, the intrusive becomes the ludicrous. Nothing in this hybrid genre deserves too serious attention. Specifying what the ingredients in an author's mind are doing as his hand is preparing his manuscript, and how he will deal in the institution, is going a little too far. It becomes a psychic trick, not a logical development, more a matter of intrusive farce than rational force.
Thus, as to light, it does not have to speed up or slow down for light to reach this earth from afar (if the theories about distance happen to be correct - and in historical perspective of the 'development' of astronomy, this is a most pertinent point!). There is no problem with a putative FAST light having to slow down and so leaving a gap or hiatus, so that ongoing light has to travel, slow coach that it then is, and leave no light on the situation, when the speed of transmission slowing down, leaves no testimony, until it lumbers along and finally reaches the earth on the slow road. The assumption of initially HAVING TO GET THERE is merely otiose. What residual light shows, at its speed, from its locale, it shows, that is all.
Of course, if on the way, as some
researchers indicate, light went thousands of times faster3A,
then it would not take so long to get where it is going. This too MAY have been
part of the creation process, just as one may PLACE a part in some sector, and
at the same time, hasten certain processes simultaneously to fit more aptly,
perhaps using a moving beam above, while you position what dangles from it, with
your hand. It
is better not to tell God how He did it, really.
The variabilities are almost without number. In one sense, this is because of man's limitations; and in another, because systematically, this is the expectation of any creation of profundity, and a fortiori, when the case is one from INFINITY with personal power. Some of the aspirations to knowledge in such a case, when they stretch out to the times of origins and the consequences of the modes of origins, become almost like a baby playing chess with his Uncle.
It is little short of amazing how many utterly unknown variables are assumed on the basis of the present, contrary to all indexes that can be simply and readily measured, all commonsense, while cosmogonies*4A are built on little more than nothing: not that nothing is known, but much is known either on the basis of jejune assumptions*5, even when such are not merely contrary to creation, but to common sense as well, as if the concept of antiquity allows the loosening of the wheels of intellect, and a sort of magical quality, even to the concept of nothing stretching forth its (non-existent) wings and flapping things into existence, by a motion it cannot have, since it is not there!
Has the race, or the secular section of it, entirely forgotten to use its mind, in the effort to avoid that of its God! Will rampaging rationalists, using reason as if it were a figment of the imagination, constantly effect its demise while irrationality controls their steps!
Let us however return to the light stretching initially to earth, and the questions of speed. All that is entirely beside the point WHEN IT COMES TO CREATION, which, incidentally is our topic. Light IS MADE TO BE, where it is wanted, as in any other design action by competent creators. WHEN it is there, it simply goes on transmitting. It is put where it is to be, with whatever intrinsic and extrinsic velocity desired, with the readiness to transmit what it is to transmit, what is happening, and it just does that. Interferential, derivative consequences will depend on the mode, style, method, purpose and power of the creation, as for any creation gifted with power. If the thing is partly intrinsic, 'ageing' may occur, as light's velocity relates by equation to other processes, which are assumed to be this or that, depending on the present, but the present is mere maintenance, given a godlike power as if it were ultimate, but in fact no more so than the words of this paragraph, relative to the writer of them. They flow, or are interrupted, inspected, rejected, considered, related, correlated at will. They have no normal constrains because there is a wholly diverse process of creation INSTITUTING them for what will LATER be their constitution.
The system contains the light of transmission which being sent on its way at whatever initial and post-creation speeds, arrives with the data appropriate to the situation for the ab initio, the original situation. This, it faithfully transmits, being emplaced, and then goes on transmitting, at all times giving merely what the thing is which is happening, in the way light does.
To be sure, WHEN IT WAS BEING PLACED, possibly but by no means necessarily, the speed of light may have increased to a great or minor degree; the thing is immaterial. That is wholly a divine decision on internal method in the art of creation. Many current indications (see TMR Ch. 7) are suggestive that light's velocity indeed is variable*6, even though this seems to cross this happy desire which so many seem to cherish that this or that part of 'nature', that is the creation (in parallel, like man's car) CANNOT VARY. It appears some may want to put the immutability of God into the mere characteristics of some creation of His, and recent developments suggest that in this area, as in others, this is approach is increasingly misplaced.
Actions and reactions are so numerous and so much countervails and is not until later discovered that mere assumptions that try to co-ordinate creation with maintenance become otiose. Whatever velocity changes occurred, how much and when, at what stages or phases, absolute and initial or procedural and primordial, these where assessed become indices to an open issue, and with what are creation criteria, these become a vast only partially known, and much guessed scenario. In fact, creators often do, and often do not, desire to share and show various ingredients of the creative process, depending on their purpose.
Of course, to the extent that the system is DESIGNED to have certain degrees of fixity and natural law, so it has them; and to the extent, as with our own designs, it is intended to show wear and tear over time, so it does; and so do our laws of science attest, as would rather be expected, indicate, as just noted and shown in some detail in TMR Ch. 1. So too does the Bible indicate a wearing out in this current creation as part of its nature, not least occasioned by judgment, in such places as Isaiah 51:6. It will go with a bang rather than a whimper, revelation shows (II Peter 3 is very specific here); but on the way, it wears. Let us however, these perspectives of our model in place, return to the creation itself, as coming to be.
A LITTLE FOOTBALL
For the aid of imagination, think of creation a a CIRCLE. There it is, a football if you prefer, a circle if you do not, but just a symbolic unit PUT somewhere in your mind as representing the thing which has just been created, the universe WHEN BEING CREATED.
Make it red if you wish, to see it more clearly. Now a foot or two from it, on some paper if you like, put a line, starting with a dot. The dot is now, our contemporary era, yes, this very present time. Make it a green dot, if you want, since we are indeed GOING places!
Now move BACKWARDS from your dot, towards the circle. As you do so, everything is regular. There is the distance between the dot and the circle (representing the time from creation till now) and you are moving nearer the circle, that is projecting the thought of going back in time geometrically. You proceed backwards. You are now very near the circle, one millimetre away in fact.
Now you are very near the END of the CREATION period, the circumference of this circle, when God created the heavens and the earth. Everything is regular (relative to the alternative of creation itself occurring, not necessarily as to this or that result, when things are new), and nearer and nearer you get to the circle. A certain excitement perhaps looms in your breast as you envisage the tremendous force, power, originality, of the institution, not merely of the power to act, but of the materials with such powers, the structures in which they subsist, the systems being developed which will interact. Awe anoints your countenance. You hold on to your seat in your time-mobile and wait for the dreadful ... impact, when you actually enter the circle.
UNTIL you do, all things, light included, are doing their stuff. Light, which we have in imagination now been watching as it delivers ever more ancient transmissions of events as they occur, has been doing what it does so well, transmitting news. Photons have been anointing our eyes with their normal precision and pathways. All has been uninterrupted. But the moment (if it were possible) we enter into the circle, it is all different.
No more is there the assignable regularity of things just as they now are. There will be degrees of definition which have been progressively put in place as the six day work has proceeded. On what we deem the most likely interpretation (Answers to Questions Ch. 8), light and light bearers have been at work from light's commencement, though not at all with their full functional facility. Mornings have not been declared by any wish to make what there is different, the notation dispersive of understanding rather than expressive of it, but for good reason. At all events, we are now back towards the first of the creation.
As we go back to day 1, we find a teeming work of change as implementations are adjusted and powers reinforced or more fully cast into being. It may be, for there is nothing against this, that light has already been planted and placed, the stars already in full existence, with the sun and moon, though not necessarily in their current form by any means, since many extensions and actuating phases may remain. You can oil a plank after you place it, and so on. It is still to the knowledgeable eye, a plank; but it is to be given new powers as it is placed, or upon placement.
However, it may be that at this point, all the emplacements of light and stars, sun and moon, photonic transmissions, have been accomplished. It may be that from the first, light has been associated with the light bearers, and the instant (perhaps) or certainly exceedingly fast deployment of it, the positioning of it for operation in the system, is complete. The most distant object is already in contact photonically or whatever other creation time implements were used, with the nearest (if you assume we are somewhere in this creation coming to be).
There is no need for light to COVER ANY GAP, get any place, except in the sense of CONTINUING with the work of transmitting what is now transpiring (on the assumption it was given this fully-fledged power from the first, and not just what was relevant to the initial need: remember, it is creation). Arrangements are made to exclude the delay for light to travel from the inception point to the point where we are, in whatever the speed was initially after creation, so that from the end of creation, time simply moves on. It is like joining two ends of a streamer, far apart, so that from that time there is simply a regular unspooling, observationally proceeding from whatever point is relevant for arrival to earth.
Light does not initially have to GET anywhere. It can be PLACED there. Where it can then go will depend on its velocity, the distance, any change in velocity and other criteria known, or unknown, invested in its character.
After all, the INTENTION of the light is to display, not to delay. It is to show what is, not to fail to do so. It is to illuminate the earth with starlight, with sunlight, with moonlight and to be operational for man, in so short a time as is declared (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 8, Dayspring). It is not to make a post-creation fiasco of a frustrated work to that end, appallingly delayed. This provision is PART of the creation, because it is part of its stated purpose for man. Thus the delay ground is simply removed, and light's continuity with the removal of this pause for processing unit, is subsumed as a need, as in any creation with a stated purpose, where power suffices. But how does light continue, after creation, to reach such distant destinations, when the speed seems so relatively slow ?
We however do not need to be seeing recent events in the distant stars, and the initial transmissions can continue to arrive, however slowly. Where they do not, we do not see.
We are seeing effects in the role of
light; not the causes in the events themselves.
We do not see what such light does
not reveal.
Man is so often addicted to
imagining ever new beginnings of an old creation scene, and for all the often
professed humility, everything in his purvey and knowledge:
as if it were
impossible to see the darkness gradually finding its mark
on a decaying universe, as in the hearts of billions who ignore the light of
truth, and the word of the living God.
The decisive drama approaches; and it DOES involve a NEW CREATION (II Corinthians 5:17ff.), but selectively. This stage is not the play; merely the furniture. It WILL involve a new heavens and earth (II Peter 3). Meanwhile, the stage creaks. Let us then compose ourselves a little, to a universe that is ageing, by design.
As the end approaches, the beginning recedes. We would not be, as before, seeing what was occurring, but what had been transmitted in its own speed, at some time, with the continuity which the change, once adjusted to, permitted. We would be seeing it from the distance which the slowing permitted. If light slowed when creation ceased, then we would see what this permitted, duly arriving in its day, from its advanced post; and on this hypothesis, from this see light on the situations so conveyed.
What then ? Can measurements surely show the speed of light at ancient times ? Not really, for all of this is built as so often, on assumptions, which really condition the entire realm; and even if changes in the medium used to measure the former state of the medium concerned, that is light, were apt for the task, they are not apt for the creation phase, nor for variations enacted in the formulations inherent in the case of light, within creation. God is able to have light change universally, in stages or degrees at choice, or to 'tire' in transit, as He, the manufacturer, has chosen.
Amazing speed attestation is one option for the Creator, if He desired this after its placement but during creation, and it served Him for it so to move in its initial, post-placement flush. Slow changes thereafter in terms of running down, are also possible. Numerous fascinating features, real or imagined, in space, gravity and time vary from hypothesis to hypothesis, though propounded with amazing certainty. Aspects of theories not relevant to predictions are found dispensable, other options years later are proposed and alternatives for funding the evidence from their schema, are evoked.
In view of all this, the authority of some authorities in this changing milieu is almost enough for Gilbert and Sullivan to have sought another time location. At present, the number of scenes, scenarios, options and theories is prodigious, but the time required is not.
Thus, the distinct possibility is this, that however 'old' it is, it is all part of the original creation, and as such, has its time tag, able to be a function of age from creation pervasively, not distance of travel. There is of course no necessity for any transmission of light at all, on one scenario, namely that the creation was not in any sense explosive, EXCEPT INTO BEING, when the characters, as in an opera when the curtain rises, were all THERE, as they were supposed to be. Movements thereafter are to be on this, or another base. How knowledgeable is knowledge to demand 'an answer' to questions not even posed in concrete terms at all! Nevertheless, in good grace, let us trace a little one of the scenarios. Light is placed within the scene revealed, whatever its initial extent. It may be hypothesised to be instantly conversant with the members to which it is committed as part of the stage directions...
What then ? Any delay in later reception need not be disruption after a time for the adjustment, and the dimming of distance does not remove the nearer scene. Myopic consequences would be expected to occur, unless other species of geometry, such as Slusher mentions (SMR p. 78) happened to be the actual. On more usual formulations, it is not inconceivable that large parts of the universe are disappearing from sight, as a form of post-design destruction, in the phase of light.
While we would be seeing what was despatched long ago, we would not necessarily be seeing its motion as at the speeds of that time, since the slowing, being part of the creation mode as divinely specified in TYPE, could become co-extensive with the universe at any given time. If so, then no light would move at any other rate. Distance travelled may not be critical but time of existence; travel may not be the criterion, but time since creation. We can only see what it is permitted that we see. What is visible now is what is, wherever it has been travelling. It could diminish with a decreasing velocity of light. Star-wise, there are no radical requirements.
Thus, there is no assurance that the initial power of fast light to exhibit much soon, to areas afar off, will not decrease as the instrument, light itself, grows old, or passes to phases of age diminution. Various counter forces may operate, as is natural in a system, which one aspect augments or debases another.
Perhaps the initial display of starlight to that observer on earth, Adam, was far more overwhelming than the present one. It is certainly to be expected to be so, as one watches many other phenomena in this world, such as moral decline for its appointed period, and the categorical church decline, seen in many cases, even to the point of having pastors practising sodomy by 'church' decision! The car is not new. As it gets more battered in many fields, it does not have the old duco. The stage and the actors, both, age. It is all part of creation; and the diverse modes have this in common.
PROCESS
IS NOT KING
BUT THE ONE
WHO IMPARTED
ITS POWER, PRECISION AND POINT
Process is not king, nor is continuity the criterion. Causeless coming is irrational; cause for going is however all too rational for many! Man the observer is also observed. Let us consider his milieu a little further.
The curse was one divine 'intrusion' and decay processes are another. Things proceed according to manufacture, and the will of the manufacturer, not merely according to sequence once observed; and though the latter give stability, yet decay and judgment give change. This, however, is only in one direction as to the nature of the equipment. Evolution had it right about the change; it was only the direction that was wrong. It was not relatively slow creation, but relatively slow destruction which was the processive part! It is not always, however, so slow. The testimony of the flood (cf. News1) is one such illustration.
The creation was as it has always appeared, the institution of what has only one direction. Designs are normally so, unless one intervene. Sometimes the change downward can be quite devastating, as when a heater at once fails to work, or gives only a fraction of its former power. How easily is assumption made that only from observable tendencies can actual events occur or have occurred! In one presentation, a 10,000 year frame for creation was being considered as a model, then the writer asked, But what of events 100,000 years in age ?
The answer is too simple: these being contrary to the model, cannot be used as an assumption for its investigation! If you are, in law, asking what would happen if your client were innocent, it is not germane to insist that this presentation must include his actions as guilty! However, we are here considering the generation of age in fact, as well as in observation, with means of observation; and the options available, from the word of God, within the word of God, and in terms of a chaste and realistic approach to the evidence and its evaluation.
Thus dynamics are not always tendencies, and departures are not always in nature, foreseen from signals! Nor are things changed good measuring sticks for the nature of their change! Let us not imagine grandiose things of human knowledge, just because it is good at watching what is happening at a given time, though alas the spoilage on this facility through misuse of imagination on models excluding the cause of the situation at the outset, is vast.
There are no guarantees from God about non-spoliage; but there is one about spoliage. There are not even any guarantees about what will be left, at any time, extant to be seen. Transformation can be universal in kind, at any time. We are nearing the end of the Age, and so approaching the latter phase of things (cf. SMR Ch. 8).
Light at a place is not a problem in creation. That, it is not an affair for science, because of the extreme variabilities of possibility and the limits of knowledge. One day it might even prove possible to show whether there was some gap before the stars were formed, and that light then was implanted in its distance orientation, at that time, rather than earlier; but the time is short in the diurnal sequence, involved! Moreover, to imagine such a possibility is to have exceedingly high expectation! However, the point is indifferent.
We do not know, and for one's own point of view, there is little that would prove less interesting. It is the way God did it, and what He has told me in Genesis 1 and 2, that is all I like to know about this action of CREATION, in which what-is was given its colours, its phenomenological disposition, its systematic enablings, its sequences, its basic steps, its creative impulses, relevant enactments at the level in view, its mutual adjustments and its final enduring characteristic.
I am not interested, if you will, in being a voyeur. God did it how He wished; there is no problem. Indeed, the divine dynamic enables light for ANY theoretical approach, to be present back to the first and if such be the case, to divulge vast distances! In trying to account for any ordered and legislated phenomenon, it is far simpler if you do not forget how it was made! Insuperable problems arise when you do forget, naturally. Facts must be faced, and results when they are not. It might be interesting to know in heaven, like many other things, but for now, it is enough. There is nothing even slightly similar to a problem. It is rather curious that there was ever thought to be one. It is a munificence of magnificence, and though the light of His countenance can be overpowering, when one takes the light as He gives it, in His word, it is peculiarly gentle.
The fact that we are created, not mirages of nothing, representations of chance as if law were the father of scatter*6A, or irrationality the begetter of logic, or the invented the power to invent, or the trilogy that is man, made into a unity which is responsible for thought, action and living, and that man is desecrating himself, his planet, the word of God, the worship of God, the will to perverse pleasures, the spirit to diverse quasi-deities of desire, the ideas to ideologies born of dirt, and borne without wings like the contents of saddle-bags, now worshipped in the dust after the day's ride is over: this is the drama on which light needs to be shed constantly, continually, evocatively and if need be, provocatively. This is the light which demonstrably never dims, from which is the revelation which outshines all hypothesis as light darkness. (Cf. Repent or Perish Chs. 2 and 7, TMR Ch. 5.)
This is the Source of creation, to which that creation, man returns, and this is the Sovereign over the scenario which is now moving to its completion, with the most studious fidelity to the pre-written text (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5), just as the crux and pivot of all, the Messiah, came with the most scholarly precision, at the date given likewise (as in Daniel 9:27ff. cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 4).
In this, Israel, used in the coming both of the written and the eternal, living word of God, Jesus Christ, to earth (cf. Romans 9:1ff.), continues to keep its appointed exhibit status; and the ways of that little nation, and in particular its return and the restoration to it of Jerusalem, are a blackboard pointer to the coming of Christ (cf. SMR Ch. 9, Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch. 2).
This light, it never dims, never errs; millenia cannot tire it nor the constantly arriving years condemn. It provides the written word which Christ referred to in terms of judgment (John 12:48-50), and Himself as the living and eternal Word of God (Matthew 5:17ff., 7:15ff., 21ff.), who will judge with His own word and that which pointed to Him beforehand, in view.
It does not dim, neither does it diminish, not to the jot or tittle, as Christ declared. It however will condemn freely when all is brought to the light unborn, the Lord, and judged according to its deeds. Did this man, this woman, actually have the daring to come to uncreated light, and assert: I BELONG HERE, after ignoring His specifications, delighting in bypassing His salvation, and making His Cross outré ?
You see the result so simply put in Matthew 22:1-13. What can you expect ? When the designer of form, law, matter, energy, created mind, spirit and social interaction, research prowess and imagination, liberty and life, meets with those who have used His creation for their own purposes, as if liberty were LORD and GOD, then there is a disjunction, not a conjunction, a rebellion, not a realisation, a theft, not a worship. What has rejected the light, abides in darkness, we learn, and indeed, in the end, is cast justly into what is its preferred milieu (John 3:19,36).
For more on such topics, see TMR Ch. 7, Section E, Divine Agenda Ch. 1, Dayspring, Calibrating Myths Ch. 1, and Spiritual Refreshings Chs. 13, 6, 16
One of the chief advantages appears, according to Hartnett, to be this: that his model has earth and general universe clocks with a similar time procession, following the creation of the light bearers, in his view, on day 4. Further, his conception, his model, does not "employ any general relativistic effects". He considers normal laws of physics 'suspended' during creation week; but as noted above, the concept of suspension, though at times conceivable, is not the ruling point to contemplate. Rather in the process of creation the thing not yet created in its operating format does not HAVE, or need not, or is not in any sense relevant to, its functional norm. That is brought into being at the termination of creation and the conception tends to be otiose before then, in whatever dimension, element, modes or modality the Maker may see fit.
It is then that such a feature gains existence: the normative role.
It is then that such 'laws', can have both ontological and practical performance import.
Some of this is of course (cf. Secular Myths ...), is more a mental dynamics and an imaginative spread than science, as in the case of the 'Big Bang', that derisory term of Hoyle for the concept of an explosive creation ex-creator, the dump that made it all when it blew up! After all, even a dump has SOME characteristics, some order, exists in an orderly world of scientific law and chemical coding; but that is way beyond the case in point. It has been set (rightly for that model) at nothing, as by Davies (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 29, TMR Ch. 7), from which by definition nothing CAN come but nothing, which, being nothing, does not come at all! If you have something, like laws and order and principles and inter-relationships and criteria and characteristics, then of course you merely stump-jump plough your way through begging the question, making what you have to explain one of your 'assumptions', or rather presumptions, that tired substitute for actual thought.
Explication requires reason not bypass. Even bypasses are things made in order to avoid an issue, or a collision, here with realistic thought; and they are made by purpose with imagination, just as this world was, by a competent non-nothing pre-existent Being who, not being nothing, and logically who alone, COULD have made something. What sort of a something was made is what science legitimately tries to find out, exceeding its mandate in ludicrous irrationalities about its not being made at all but having a deliciously magical kind of conceivability, but that only of course on the part of a philosophically illusory band within the scientific body, who forsake scientific method for what is in effect, their religion. They are not the only ones who do this, but they join the rest of that particular, pathetically deprived and challenged philosophical crew (cf. SMR pp. 140ff.).
When you come to the bypass, however, there is again, not nothing wrong with it. The matter of the universe does not have that pleasant little way of being rather evenly spread, as a testimony to some variety of nothing doing its job, in the way that nothing does: for it has instead large congregations of massive gravity and significance, adorning the cosmic garden, grouped not only in a highly irregular way, compared to mere evenness of distribution, but in a highly mathematical way as well, as is increasingly being attested and declared. Worse, the supernova situation is in the most radical contradiction of the assumption (see reference to TMR below).
Now Robert Newton (Creation, Vol. 24, No. 4, Sept.-Nov. 2003), a highly qualified astrophysical scientist, points out that the concept of Cosmic Microwave Background in the universe ( amazingly uniform, and conformably to an actual ADVENT at one time) has a light travel problem also. Thus, in the model which assumes this to be as constant as it finds it in all directions, as part of its philosophical approach, whereas time as also assumed on this model, is inadequate for the transfer and transmission of energy to reach all parts of the universe in order to achieve this result, when it is conceived and understood to be present: there is confusion. The presuppositions do not produce the observable result.
Put differently, Newton asks: "How can one side of the visible universe 'know' about the other side if there has not been enough time for the information to be exchanged" and the time gap is prodigious!
On this basis, you have what you can't have. That is a precisely predictable kind of result for the ephemeral works of ratiocination in repose: the result of unreason in the first place. The negative results, the anti-verifications, they ramify, they laugh, they perplex, in cohorts. They give tours for children to watch unreason at work. As to this case, it is merely illustrative. Limiting the bounds of creation to the forms of its maintenance is like that. It is necessary that calamity comes to the model!
For diverse perplexities of the anti-logical concoction called the 'Big Bang', see Models and Marvels, Ch. 7 in TMR, and esp. Sections E and F. Does an explosion of totally non-descript kind produce Law ? Does anti-law constitute the basis of law ? Does its rupture improve its legality ? Does its violent rupture improve it further ? Does the non-descript have describability ? If so, how does it come to have characteristics ? If not, how could you either talk about it or think about it!
If it DOES not have describability, this is impossible unless it has characteristics, for otherwise there is nothing to say. Even if you assume some highly mutant scenario, you still need WHAT is mutant, the SCENARIO in terms of which it is so mutant, and the concept of a fixity which gives the mutability describability. Thus there has to be something in order for it to be mutable, and there must be a structure sufficient for change to become one aspect of it. In short, there has to be an orderly something in order to proceed, a tableau situation. Remove that, and you have nothing. Have it, and you must either explain it or become confessedly irrational. Explain it and you then face the usual fact-finding mission: what is sufficient for the mind, body and spirit of man; and as to body, the material universe with its criteria, characteristics and characterisability on the part of mind, as likewise its misdescription by spirit, when as in man, there is a choice to become contrary!
As seen in SMR, when you actually pursue the realities, you end at God's door. It is only when you smuggle in His powers that you ever by illusory misconception get what is adequate for what we have. When you do not, but proceed rationally and not arbitrarily, it is not hard to see why an explosion of the indescribable is not a particularly intelligent effort at explaining the presence of the rationally investigable butt for rational minds, operating in a highly logical system which matches the field, as flame matches wood. Chance has no relevance whatever, for this is merely a word indicating the absence of purpose. It is not a comment on purpose which is in order in seeking the sufficient cause, but the careful explication of the powers needed to achieve the result. As to purpose, as with other personal beings, dealing with and in personal realms, creating or investing them, you have to find out by asking.
Sometimes they TELL you, because you think it good or even necessary that you should know. God deemed it wise to tell us His purpose, since the locale is a scene of demonstrable assault on Himself, in terms of lies which assault the truth, often intentionally, spirits which assail justice, often bent to that purpose, and other clashes with the creation as He has caused it to be composed. Having no donation to His being, since that requires merely the actual God, God has nothing to endure, no division to bear with, no opposition to embarrass. What He suffers to be, has point, has purpose, is used cf. SMR pp. 92ff., Job I, II, III and IV, with Pain, Suffering, Evil.
He says and it is done; He declares and it is so. Those who declare to the contrary merely attest that sheer magnificence of creation, which man is wholly incapacitated from following in his own donated creativeness: and that wonderful invention for man ? It is nothing less than liberty!
Liberty of thought, not a derivative of computation or program, is what enables people to distort in order to achieve aims which may vary with priorities and perceptions, perspectives and purposes. It also allows them to pursue with radiance realism the actualities that are there, and to find their source.
Even to take the negative abuse of this privilege of liberty: To escape the round of the required to that of the available is a divine creation which constitutes much of the wonder of man.
To seek to escape from the God who gave it to him constitutes a less worthy but still evidentially highly significant attestation to the sheer splendour and scope of God's invention of liberty.
As the defining drama, our history on this globe, the galaxy for which is now by some astrophysicists being seen as in the centre of the universe (Creation, Vol. 24, No. 4, Dr John Hartnett 'Exploding the 'Big Bang', p. 38, cf. Dr R.Humphreys, "Our galaxy is the centre of the universe,' Quantized' redshifts show" - TJ Vol. 16(2), 2002 cf. physicist, Dr Harold Slusher's view, SMR p. 78 ), comes to its terminus: time for the assessment of liberty-use and freedom-exercise becomes of course the more significant, then.
Assessment is not limited to man, concerning his own creations; the assessor of man will exhibit His response, His judgment in due time.
He often does so in the interim as we have also often seen (cf. Joy Comes in the Morning Ch. 3, *1), and the negative features of that judgment are seen categorically in Jesus Christ, who - in bearing the sin that the love of the Creator should be effective in those who receive Him, showed its character. The character of sin ? Yes, it was shown first in the inequitable character of His murder in human format, secondly in the horrid spectacle which His smashed flesh exhibited, a testimony to the severity of the judgment He freely and lovingly bore, thirdly in the subtle evasiveness of those who sought both to remove His inconvenient presence from their self-survival purposes, and finally in the mockery of those who were either the murderers themselves or those who consented to their guile and fraud.
THE WAYS OF CREATION
must ever be those, and not the ways of maintenance; and the ways of product, distinguished from those of production. If it were all sport, then it would be ANOTHER GAME, and one not too similar!
Thus it is good to consider the creative options, even from our human and limited perspective, as we trace out the realities of what you can tell about beginnings from endings, when CREATION is the thing in view!
John Hartnett is seeking to address the sidereal time slot question, and makes a brave answer. However although working towards eliminating unconsciously or at any rate unnecessarily intruding naturalistic premises, as it were, out of habit, he makes some assumptions in weeding out unacceptable approaches.
Thus he imagines that a blue shift MUST be assessable if at the first light travelled at an enormously greater speed. This is not the case for the simple reason that IN THE CREATIVE FASHIONING, THE IMPLEMENTS OF MAINTENANCE ARE NOT SOVEREIGN.
In other words, the natural system has a reason for its nature, that we might inhabit it; and the creation of the natural system has a reason for its creation, that the Creator wanted it. WHILE He is making it, just as when one is writing a book, there are phases and modes of deployment of resources, which are not appropriate for any mere maintenance of the condition of the book subsequent to publication. These are not left visible to the reader because the book was not written in order to give to him an insight as to the mode of its creation, but merely as to its CONTENT, for which, indeed, it WAS created, and with which, it is passed on to him, your creation!
You do not see where he has edited or adjusted, brought pages into his typewriter or files from his computer: indeed a whole host of things, depending on the complexity physically and intellectually, spiritually and cognitively, of what is being created. This may be not merely ‘suppressed’ but OF COURSE simply not expressed. The art of the creation is to give the result. You are not co-creating it with the reader! You are GIVING it to him.
It will not be ‘testable’ whether you did this or that, in general, because the finished creation is the point in view. To some extent at least, the more testable your mode of creation is, the less creative you have been.
Thus if light came at enormous speed to the earth, in that when God SAID, Let there be light!, He meant it, and lit things up in the domain in view, so that it was no longer dark, and light deployed became visibility and scenery VISIBLE (whether anyone by God was there is irrelevant of course, we are talking of the fashion of things not the function of people statedly not yet there), there is the facade and function of creation, not operation of what is made. Thus it is entirely possible (I was not there, but am simply discussing creation and its normal parameters, and conceiving things in this vast case before us, lest naturalistic premises defile the creation model, and so make a mutant and rather horrible hybrid), that God deployed a whole array of devastatingly brilliant creative methods.
At Answers to Questions Ch. 8, the view is shown that there is by no means any certainty that the biblical record means that the stars were not created until the fourth day. In fact, the term ‘evening and morning’ before that decidedly SUGGESTS (it does not prove) that the modes of morning and evening were effective, since the terms used are the terms with this meaning now to us. However, as shown in this same article, the USAGES of these things in terms of time measurement is decidedly left until the fourth day. Thus light, associated with, but not of course necessarily limited to illuminative objects such as we know, or even illuminative sources of this kind, but apparently associated at least with them in some way: WAS. God created it, declared it, summoned it: it was there!
COME! It comes.
IF (we are considering creation and the words and what does not necessarily follow but may have occurred), then, God made light in His own way: it is made BEFORE it is used in the stated dimensions relative to time, which whatever else occurred in this realm on day 4, DID occur at that time. The fact that the creation of light per se in this universe, and the USE of it for measurement are stated at two different days, means that we are specifically moved to realise that the latter format may indeed have been missing at the first: visible entities may certainly have been there, but the whole question of time measurement BY THEM is delayed.
Let us proceed back to the creation of light on day 1. If it were then rapid as is apt in a creation from an infinitely powerful Creator who wants the stuff around, then of course it MAY have moved with enormous speed. It would not be necessarily any facility or function within light as such (though it MAY have been), for it can simply be placed at will, just as we place a chassis ready for a car, using a crane, perhaps (to take the slower option). Afterwards, its manner and speed of motion will bear no or little relationship to the way in which it was put in place.
WHEN it has been put, or moved to place itself, as the case may have been, where it was wanted, then one creative option of course would have been to have it bear with it the data which would be with it if it were SENT from A to B. It may not have been so sent, but simply placed. If it were, however, it might bear these data. If it were not, it could still contain them to become uniform, depending on how much of the creative mode the Creator wanted to display, It need not. There are many options in creation which any one who often creates will KNOW!
Choosing between such options will depend on your resources, your imagination, and your purpose.
Let us suppose, for the purpose of analysis merely, that the light illuminated all things on the earth, or on that part, if it is related to the light sources we now have, all of the relevant section of it (which is the topical viewpoint), and then when the sun moved out of the way, light as now usual, stopped on the section of the earth illuminated, providing darkness. Then the TIME question would not be normalised, but the rotation one would be, although not necessarily at the same rate. Light can come or be placed at ANY rate, autonomously or dependently, as the purpose of creation and its rate determined in the liberty of the Lord.
IF the light were SENT to earth from a light source (one potent option, contextually), then it might have the identity of data from that source within it. The light from the stars is not necessarily present on day 4, but the context suggests it may have been.
IF that light were present, then it may have included the data from the sources from which it came. This would mean that from the time the stars HAD light (it is not necessarily co-extensive with their existence, but only with this as light sources), it would be transmitted, if we follow this option. All the equations where time is involved, would be operative at least from day 4, and some of them may have been before that, since creation is not limited by the option of the reader, but by that of the Creator.
This does not exclude later than that, time variation within the context of judgments; but it would tend to establish a norm.
If now the Creator wanted to slow processes down – or more aptly, stop the lightning (more than that ?) fast action of creation (normally different from mere continued existence, dependent on the power and purpose of the one creating), and get things into maintenance mode, then light from distant objects, if applied throughout, would cease to be available because of the slowness, unless that distance were decreased or less than it was to become when the various desired dimensions for the stated purposes were at length completed. It is, we remember, CREATION week.
If distance between luminaries had been effectually INCREASING (in terms of ‘stretched out’) from day 1 to day 4, for example, then the speed of light might have been mutated as required, in the normal fashion, to maintain what was wanted. That is, it may have kept pace with any expansion. That is the sort of thing one does in creations, and even though man cannot do THIS, it is a matter of power, there, not thought. It can be thought, as can our little creations, with considerable liberty; and given power, then done. This is one creative option, therefore.
If then the acceleration of light - which MAY have been occurring in a creative mode, which leaves no marks if one does not desire process to be the point, but rather focusses product, as so usual in our own creations - might stop, or light might even be given whatever speed is opted for the completed product in this regard, what then ? In such a case, the idea that light must SHOW the speed reduction, as if it were in PROCESS and not in CREATION, is completely extraneous. As to that, it is a question of purpose.
Hence blue shifts are not really relevant as some kind of post factum criterion, unless you are allowing naturalistic premises (unconsciously perhaps) to enter into the realm of ABSOLUTE creation. Everything is in its place, where and HOW it belongs.
This simply gives one example of the fact that the GENERAL THEORY of light must not mix processive components with creating components. In a creationist model, you work within CREATION AS THE NORM DURING IT!
The materialist model is logically invalid (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Celestial Harmony for the Terrestrial Host, Reason, Revelation and the Redeemer, SMR Ch. 5, SMR Chs. 1, 3, 8-9), but if you choose to use it, as reduction-itis tends to do, you keep to it. You work on the premises, principles, parameters and procedures involved, definable however irrational. If on the other hand, you are presenting creationism, that model, then there is a series of principles, procedures (obviously commanded by the creator to enable that Being to BE creator), non-parameters and premises involved, at His option. To seek to import materialist principles or premisses into a creationist model is like importing tar to feed to cows in a dairy.
It does not agree with what you are doing, is a waste of time, is irrelevant and close to an absent-mindedness verging on Altzheimer's. It does seem strange to teach English in a Chinese class, mathematics in a p