In a post entitled “Deep
time- the god of our age” and dated 9th November Lisle tells us:
However, by their actions, Deep Time disciples do
indeed imbue him with personal characteristics and powers that only a conscious
being can possess…..Consider (1) Deep Time has characteristics and powers that
belong to God alone. In fact, the
parallels are truly amazing! For
example, Deep Time has the power of creation.
According to His followers, he has made stars, planets, and
galaxies. He has made canyons, and
mountains. Deep Time separated the
continents and oceans. He has made all
living creatures through his servant – Evolution. Indeed, Deep Time took the elements of this
world, and from that dust he made man.
These are all powers and actions that are rightly reserved for God alone
(Nehemiah 9:6, Psalm 33:6, Job 38:4, Psalm 104:5-8, Genesis 1:9-10, Genesis
1:20-25, Genesis 2:7).
Lisle, of course,
doesn’t believe in deep time but he nevertheless holds in his head the folk caricature
that portrays the physical processes of deep time as truly creative powers
rendering a Creator God redundant. Lisle is probably a fundamentalist by
inheritance; that is, he was born and bred into a fundamentalism where he was
taught to think of those physical processes as an imaginary pretender to God’s unique
position as Creator. In Lisle’s fundamentalist mind the description of radical
changes in the pattern of matter (such as gas to galaxies or elements to organisms)
using physical algorithms is to render God redundant and to thereby threaten
faith. In fact as he says above these are powers
only a conscious being can possess. For Lisle it is an either/or choice
between God and physical processes.
But there is no
rational basis for Lisle’s distorted caricature of physical processes as a god pretender.
So-called deep time is neither very deep nor capable of answering the profound
questions about ultimate origins. A few billion years is completely swamped by the
colossal dimensions of the combinatorial space in which we find living
structures located. To locate those configurations or locate the rare physical
regime capable of generating them (if such has a mathematical existence) is a task of extreme
computational complexity, a task well beyond the resources of pure chance and our deep time. “Deep time” leaves those questions of ultimate
origin untouched. A back handed acknowledgement of this fact is the popular
recourse to those multiverse scenarios that attempt (vainly I believe) to take
the stress away from having to posit a cosmos that must be endowed with very
peculiar and special conditions for it to work. “Deep Time” is certainly no god
and cannot even be caricatured as such: Deep time is in fact a mere host that
has been impressed with some very unique patterns of behaviour; that these
patterns have been smeared out over a relatively short space of time is
remarkable. But the fearful Lisle is not going to see it in these
intellectually neutral terms; for a marginalized/persecuted YEC like Lisle the claimed
output of deep time looks so suspiciously god-like that for him the question of
creation is very much framed, as it is for Barry Arrington, by a dichotomy - in
this case the specific dichotomy is being expressed as “God did it vs. deep time did
it”. *
Another of Lisle’s naiveties is the common YEC
misconception that separates out “historical science” (such as evolution) from
“operational science” (such as physics):
Although Deep Time has nothing to do with
science, often the science and the stories are interleaved such that it can be
difficult to tell where one begins and the other ends!
YEC’s are unable to deny the success of the hard
sciences like physics and chemistry, sciences which deal with present tense continuous
processes. But natural history, of course, is anathema to YECs and so they
attempt to drive a wedge between history and physics. But as Lisle admits above
it can be difficult to tell where one
begins and the other ends! There
are good reasons for those difficulties of distinction, because all science is at once both highly
historical and yet highly contemporaneous: The present tense continuous
processes of physics are justified by a history of documented evidences,
evidences that are in fact signals from the past. Moreover, new evidence never emanates
from circumstances that exactly reproduce the past and so the interpretation of
new evidence depends very much on a knowledge of history. Ergo, physics is
grounded in history. And historical science is grounded in the present: Events
long past leave a present tense continuous trace of evidence that can be used
as test material. In both physics and history the logic of the general epistemic problem is the same: Viz. that of endeavouring to infer the form of an otherwise inaccessible structure from a set of data samples. Fundamentalist attempts to undermine “historical science”
ultimately subverts both science and history and rides rough-shod over the assumption of a rational readable world.
Lisle’s thought life is impeded by a set of flawed stock
arguments and concepts repeated endlessly in YEC circles. These he can’t
or won’t think round; to question or review those stock arguments and concepts
will smack of compromise and spiritual failure. In fact the chief polemical weapon
in the fundamentalist’s armory is less reason than it is a deep resource of spiritual
invective that is ready to use to impugn the consciences of Christians who
question the YEC tradition. The following quotes speak for themselves:
Disciples of Deep
Time worship him with reverence and awe.
They may deny this with their words, but their actions indicate that
they do cherish this god above all others.
This makes sense: if indeed Deep Time does have the powers and abilities
that his disciples attribute to him, then he should be worshiped…..Since Deep
Time is so contrary in nature and actions to the God of Scripture, it is
disappointing that many Christians attempt to honor and serve both of them……. It’s
not that modern Christians want to give up the True God. Rather, they simply want to add another god,
one who is contrary in nature and actions to the Living God…... Remember reading of
Baal? Baal was the Canaanite god of
weather and thunder. The Israelites
often fell into Baal worship, in violation of the First Commandment. Elijah pointed out their absurd inconsistency
in 1 Kings 18:21, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the LORD
is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.”
It was illogical for the Israelites to attempt to serve two contrary
gods (and immoral). Are we any different
today when we try to add other gods to Christianity? No man can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). …..Those Christians who want to believe in
Deep Time along with the biblical God are being dreadfully inconsistent. They may claim that they serve the Lord alone,
but by their actions they reveal that Deep Time is their primary god, and the
Lord is secondary.
According to Lisle Christian scientists like John
Polkinghorne, Chris Isham, Ken Miller, Denis Alexander, Simon Conway Morris, John
Lennox, and Francis Collins, (not to mention many Uncommon Descent
contributors) are worshipers of a strange god who is contrary in nature to the
living God. Lisle is accusing them of violating the first commandment and
therefore of being little better than idolaters and worshippers of Baal; in
fact Lisle implies that deep time is their primary god! Given that God is
probably the most important thing in the life of these scientists we begin to
appreciate how deeply a YEC is prepared to insult the faith of other Christians.
But to be fair to Lisle we need to put this sort of invective
in context. Lisle is very much part of a minority, a minority he perceives as persecuted
and having to fight discouragement:
Textbooks that
fail to acknowledge the supreme lordship of Deep Time are not likely to be used,
or even published. Those who wish to
work as professors must swear allegiance to Deep Time and His servant Evolution
if they want to be hired……It can be discouraging to see so many Christians
attempting to serve the pagan god Deep Time.
It often feels like the Christians who truly stand on God’s Word are so
very few. But we should remember that
Elijah was discouraged as well. In a
time when he was afraid for his life, and thinking that he was the last
faithful believer he cried out to God (1 Kings 19:14). But the Lord responded, “Yet I will leave
7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that
has not kissed him.” (1 Kings 19:18).
Think of this the next time you are discouraged about the rampant
compromise within the Church. How many
more Christians has the Lord kept for Himself who have not bowed the knee to
Deep Time?
Lisle does try hard to be logical and scientific, and
his personality type favours a rational faith. But he is limited by the
strictures of the inscribed-in-stone 6000 year time frame of fundamentalist Christianity,
a stricture impelled with the kind of threatening spiritual language that we
have seen above. Lisle is stuck with the legacies of his past; a born and bred YEC
he is now trapped. Status and loyalty binds Lisle to his flock of admiring
followers who look to him as a champion against the encroaching philosophy of
profane science. Therefore Lisle is unable turn his back on them without a
great betrayal apparently taking place. It is probably too late for Lisle to
change; his boats were burnt long ago. Thus Lisle finds himself very much
locked in to a reactionary and anachronistic cultural minority not unlike the Amish.
But for the Amish a self-imposed separation insulates them from the grief and
aggravation that comes through intercultural contact. But this is not an option
for YECs who are committed to doing all they can to convert Christians to their
6000 year time scale, But if they are making such little headway with Christians
what hope do they have with secularists? No wonder Lisle is discouraged!
Fundamentalists like Lisle are apt to regard those who are
not with them as being against them and in their spiritual conceit they see
those who are against them as necessarily also against God. Not surprisingly then for the marginalized
fundamentalist evil appears to lurk round every corner and they view the world
beyond their cultural boundaries as totally depraved. Consequently, a profound distrust colours and pervades their
perception of their social surroundings and this makes them susceptible to the paranoia and false
dichotomies of conspiracy theory. (Also see here) For fundamentalists the creation
question is also cast into the mold of a false dichotomy: Either one accepts the YEC view of God as a magician who speaks
creation into existence or one is in danger of entering the eternal fire for believing nonsense about creation somehow being able to
create itself!
Addendum 01/12/12: Fundie 'Elder Statesman' Breaks Rank!
An indication of the isolation of YECs comes from a video posted on PZ Myers' blog (A very useful source on the state of American fundamentalism). In this video we find Pat Robertson, an "Elder Statesman" of American right wing Christianity, disowning Young Earth Creationism. This is what Robertson says:
If you fight revealed science, you’re going to lose your children! And I believe in telling them the way it was.
As far as I'm aware Robertson is influential so this looks to be good news. But then given the number of pathetic "prophetic" gaffs he's known for this could be a mixed blessing.
Footnote:
* In his post Lisle attempts to press home his argument against
deep time with a moral argument about the dispassionate cruelty of physical processes.
This is essentially a question bound up with problem of evil and suffering, an issue I’m
certainly not touching here except to say that it is as much a problem post-Adam
as it is pre-Adam.
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