Age of the Earth - Light Years

[athanatos]

So, how are we to understand the age of the earth? According to our measurements, there are thousands, millions, of stars over a million light-years away. By definition, that means that it has taken the light of those distant stars over a million years to reach us. YEC could say that the world was created as "aged", that the measurement of distance yields such results because it was created in such a way that the state of the universe appears this way.

Now, I don't mind the idea of the light created as en route per se; i.e. that the light did not take that duration to arrive, but rather that there exists a stream of photons between us and the star.

The only issue is that it throws all observation of those stars into skepticism, because the collection of photons emitted/refracted represent not just the existence of stars but also what they were like at the event of departure. This means that if the stream of photons was created as en route, then the light observed does not genuinely represent any actual event that took place.

Restated: whatever we observe doesn't depict a real past event in the way that the cloud patterns on Jupiter do.


We have various methods of measuring the distance of stars, each supposedly for different ranges of distance. Cosmic distance ladder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia So, are our measurements wrong? that the stars are much, much closer? Or what wrong assumptions are influencing this?

 

[Reformed Philosopher]

We believe that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). And we also believe that God created the universe (Genesis 1:1).

It seems like it would be somewhat misleading for God to manufacture evidence for believing events occurred and objects exist that didn't and don't. Is there a solution to this?

 

[JP Wallace]

I think the answer lies in a rapidly expanding universe immediately following creation.

Isaiah 42:5 5 Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, Who gives breath to the people on it, And spirit to those who walk on it:

 

[Reformed Philosopher]

Interesting... After exploring this hypothesis a little, it looks like it is a possibility. There is no evidence for it, but there is also none against it. A unique tack, to be sure.

I'll have to examine this further. Thank you for your input.

 

[JP Wallace]

Strangely enough a rapidly expanding universe is what one would expect if there was a 'Big Bang' isn't it? I'm not advocating an evolutionary model of the Big Bang, however surely a big bang is not disharmonious with creation ex nihilo?

The Apostle Peter 'describes' the end of the old creation in terms of massive energy release, or consumption - it is at least possible that the creation itself there may have been somewhat similar - where God took the energy he had created, the matter he had made, brought it all together and expanded it into what we observe today.

2 Peter 3:10-12 10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. 11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?

Why would he do it this way? To point to his own 'magnitude', complexity, infiniteness?

Having said that I still think there are elements of big bang type theories that are disharmonious with the creation order - created order is earth first then stars etc. I only mention this to show that an expansion of the heavens is a possible explanation of light speed etc. The expansion to explain light speed would need to have happened I assume after the creation of the stars themselves (and not on Day 1) which would not be in any sense related to the Big Bang as commonly understood.

 

[JP Wallace]

By the way I recommend 'Astronomy and the Bible' by Donald B. deYoung. in regard to this subject see especially p83ff.

Amazon.com: Astronomy and the Bible: Questions and Answers (9780884692676): Donald B. DeYoung: Books

 

[CalvinandHodges]

Hi:

Dr. Russell Humphries wrote a book on this matter entitled, Starlight and Time. It is well worth the read. He also has a DVD out on the subject as well. I think you may be able to pick it up on You Tube.

Blessings,

Rob

 

[Afterthought]

Dr. Russell Humphries wrote a book on this matter entitled, Starlight and Time. It is well worth the read.

Though to be fair, his theory is definitely "out there," scientifically speaking (though I speak as a mere undergraduate). It also seems strange to me to attempt to explain a period of miraculous events with what we observe under ordinary providence, though it's been a while since I've looked into that theory and so I may be remembering something incorrectly.

 

[MW]

It seems like it would be somewhat misleading for God to manufacture evidence for believing events occurred and objects exist that didn't and don't. Is there a solution to this?

God did not "manufacture evidence" for that purpose. Man observes what is done and arrives at conclusions. It would be presumptuous of man to suppose that his specific conclusions, being based on premises which exclude God in the first place, must have been something God intended. Once it is recognised that God did not intend for man to form these specific conclusions from the data there is no basis for alleging that it is "misleading."

In terms of "solution," it might be best to maintain that there is not one. Synthesis between science and theology creates all kinds of preternatural ideas.

 

[Afterthought]

^And perhaps that's the way to deal with all "appearances of history"? Similar to, perhaps even an expansion on, what was said by people in the "appearance of history" thread I made. These appearances of history are psychologically more difficult to deal with because they seem more "solid;" perhaps because we also have more difficulty imagining how the data could show otherwise?

---------- Post added at 08:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:05 PM ----------

In terms of "solution," it might be best to maintain that there is not one. Synthesis between science and theology creates all kinds of preternatural ideas.

But then aren't Christians forced to leave God out of their science too? Perhaps that isn't a bad thing? But anyway, wouldn't Christians want to take into account all of their knowledge, which includes theology, when doing science? (I think that's what Plantinga advocates) I realize that isn't what is usually considered science, but why not create our own Christian sort of science?

 

[MW]

But then aren't Christians forced to leave God out of their science too? Perhaps that isn't a bad thing? But anyway, wouldn't a Christian want to take into account all of his knowledge, which includes theology, when doing science? (I think that's what Plantinga advocates) I realize that isn't what is usually considered science, but why not create our own Christian sort of science?

It is not that we leave "God" out of science, but that we leave the consideration of the "supernatural" works of God out of our experimentation as we come to understand the world God has created which we call "natural." By so doing we set fairly strict limits to "science," and understand that we are dealing with a specific area of human knowledge. When "science" then attempts to make statements about God (theology), it is clearly over-stepping its self-imposed limitations.

 

[Afterthought]

It is not that we leave "God" out of science, but that we leave the consideration of the "supernatural" works of God out of our experimentation as we come to understand the world God has created which we call "natural." By so doing we set fairly strict limits to "science," and understand that we are dealing with a specific area of human knowledge. When "science" then attempt to make statements about God (theology) it is clearly over-stepping its self-imposed limitations.

Thank you! That does make sense. Since believers will be all too aware they are investigating God's ordinary providential rules of the world, that would certainly help against making conclusions contrary to what Scripture says. This way also certainly seems to give the proper weight to science and to theology.

I guess the only question then is what to do with events we see that seems to contradict Scripture (such as what was mentioned in this thread, and given an answer too). But if we're not letting science make any theological statements, then I guess we're quite free in the statements we make in science, such as noting that biological entities change over time, the similar relations among creatures in their genetics, there is the kind of chance in quantum mechanics that we cannot even in principle predict what will happen, that starlight shows how old a supernova is (or is that a theological claim because Scripture speaks to the age of Creation? Perhaps the statement about evolution we do see is also a theological statement?), the long time it would take for the erosion we see in rocks and waterfalls to form, the earth revolving around the sun, the sun creating the light we see on earth, the universe expanding from a small point--all the while acknowledging that this is what science tells us would be, if God's ordinary government of the world were in place the entire time (though of course, there's much human imagination and contsruction in science, so the "would be" is not used in the strongest sense).

 

[Marrow Man]

Barry Setterfield, an Australian astronomer, has noted that data shows the speed of light may in fact have decayed over time, at an exponential rate.

 

[MW]

Questions pertaining to "time" and "space" are a unique category. Some of the old philosophical problems relating to measurement demonstrate that human observation can only "describe" time and space in relation to other things in time and space. It cannot give any "explanation" of it. Hence all scientific claims to age are by default relative terms that are meaningless without an absolute. We should be more than happy to allow a scientist to hypothesise all the dates that are necessary for him to make his observations, but those dates are only relative to his science, and in no way explanatory of absolute reality. The wine drunk at the wedding at Cana would, relatively speaking, have taken some time to make, but the Maker, as the absolute determiner of all reality, was able to make it in a moment of time.

 

[Afterthought]

Fascinating! I guess I have one more quick question before I log off for now (though I may be back for more after thinking on that post): to play the antagonist, what if someone objected to your view that God certainly knew what people could and would draw from the data, and so it still is misleading for God to have created things that way? After all, God knew the good and necessary consequences people could and would draw from Scripture, and we usually say that God provided for that; why not for the universe?

 

[MW]

Fascinating! I guess I have one more quick question before I log off for now (though I may be back for more after thinking on that post): to play the antagonist, what if someone objected to your view that God certainly knew what people could and would draw from the data, and so it still is misleading for God to have created things that way? After all, God knew the good and necessary consequences people could and would draw from Scripture, and we usually say that God provided for that; why not for the universe?

Quite simply, these conclusions are neither "good" nor "necessary." They are not "good" because they suppose man is free to draw conclusions and hold God to account for them; and they are not "necessary" because we have already imposed strict limitations on science, which should in turn limit the field of conclusions it draws.

 

[Afterthought]

Quite simply, these conclusions are neither "good" nor "necessary." They are not "good" because they suppose man is free to draw conclusions and hold God to account for them; and they are not "necessary" because we have already imposed strict limitations on science, which should in turn limit the field of conclusions it draws.

Hmm. I'll have to think on it some more, but I think that also takes care of the follow up questions such as the same question asked but for probable conclusions rather than good and necessary ones, and the question of why God would make the universe such that it would look like to humans as they investigated Creation that He was not involved in it and/or still is not. Thanks again!

 

[Mushroom]

the question of why God would make the universe such that it would look like to humans

In the past the universe looked like a flat earth to humans. Was that deception on the part of God? He knew that they would think that as well.

 

[Reformed Philosopher]

God did not "manufacture evidence" for that purpose. Man observes what is done and arrives at conclusions. It would be presumptuous of man to suppose that his specific conclusions, being based on premises which exclude God in the first place, must have been something God intended. Once it is recognised that God did not intend for man to form these specific conclusions from the data there is no basis for alleging that it is "misleading."

In terms of "solution," it might be best to maintain that there is not one. Synthesis between science and theology creates all kinds of preternatural ideas.

But this throws all of our knowledge into question. You're saying that any ideas we have are just from us observing evidence and arriving at conclusions (which is true), but if God is not responsible, to an extent, for the evidence that he provides us, then we have no foundation for any knowledge. We could change this thread from the "age of the earth" to "history, at all." We certainly have evidence to believe that the universe was created more than 20 minutes ago (most importantly our memories), but God could have manufactured all of that evidence. And it seems like you're saying that even if God did create the universe 20 minutes ago and implanted our memories for our entire lives, he is not responsible for us being misled?

And neither the idea that the universe is billions of years old, nor the idea that the universe is less than 20 minutes old have premises that exclude God.

As Reformed, we believe that the natural world is part of God's revelation to us. So if the messages we get from the natural revelation conflict with the messages we get from the special revelation, we have an error somewhere. And although Calvinist theology is good, I think it is imperative that we recognize neither our theology nor our understanding of Scripture is unflawed. So we need to carefully re-examine all the evidence we get from both science and theology, and see where we could have messed up.

It's entirely possible that some of our science is wrong. There have been a number of theories posted here about the decay of the speed of light. And Brad makes the good point that human science has made major mistakes before. But if we look at the story of Galileo, he found a place where science and theology conflicted and, after the church fought his ideas for a long time, it turned out he was right.

It is certainly appropriate to place limits on science. I think a large part of the evolution controversy comes from a few scientists who overstepped their bounds and claimed that evolution rules out the action of God (philosophically, this is an unsupportable claim). But what we seem to be advocating here is that we limit science within its own sphere. We're no longer telling scientists, "That conclusion is unsupported by the evidence you have and, based on that, is not appropriate for you to make." Instead, we're telling them, "That conclusion, however well supported by evidence, can't be right because it doesn't match our understanding of Scripture."

---------- Post added at 12:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:40 PM ----------

God did not "manufacture evidence" for that purpose. Man observes what is done and arrives at conclusions. It would be presumptuous of man to suppose that his specific conclusions, being based on premises which exclude God in the first place, must have been something God intended. Once it is recognised that God did not intend for man to form these specific conclusions from the data there is no basis for alleging that it is "misleading."

In terms of "solution," it might be best to maintain that there is not one. Synthesis between science and theology creates all kinds of preternatural ideas.

But this throws all of our knowledge into question. You're saying that any ideas we have are just from us observing evidence and arriving at conclusions (which is true), but if God is not responsible, to an extent, for the evidence that he provides us, then we have no foundation for any knowledge. We could change this thread from the "age of the earth" to "history, at all." We certainly have evidence to believe that the universe was created more than 20 minutes ago (most importantly our memories), but God could have manufactured all of that evidence. And it seems like you're saying that even if God did create the universe 20 minutes ago and implanted our memories for our entire lives, he is not responsible for us being misled?

And neither the idea that the universe is billions of years old, nor the idea that the universe is less than 20 minutes old have premises that exclude God.

As Reformed, we believe that the natural world is part of God's revelation to us. So if the messages we get from the natural revelation conflict with the messages we get from the special revelation, we have an error somewhere. And although Calvinist theology is good, I think it is imperative that we recognize neither our theology nor our understanding of Scripture is unflawed. So we need to carefully re-examine all the evidence we get from both science and theology, and see where we could have messed up.

It's entirely possible that some of our science is wrong. There have been a number of theories posted here about the decay of the speed of light. And Brad makes the good point that human science has made major mistakes before. But if we look at the story of Galileo, he found a place where science and theology conflicted and, after the church fought his ideas for a long time, it turned out he was right.

It is certainly appropriate to place limits on science. I think a large part of the evolution controversy comes from a few scientists who overstepped their bounds and claimed that evolution rules out the action of God (philosophically, this is an unsupportable claim). But what we seem to be advocating here is that we limit science within its own sphere. We're no longer telling scientists, "That conclusion is unsupported by the evidence you have and, based on that, is not appropriate for you to make." Instead, we're telling them, "That conclusion, however well supported by evidence, can't be right because it doesn't match our understanding of Scripture."

 

[Afterthought]

As Reformed, we believe that the natural world is part of God's revelation to us.

I don't think that's what the Reformed actually believe. As far as I'm aware, the natural world itself is not God's revelation to us; natural revelation reveals God, not "facts" about the universe itself. What the facts about the universe reveal about God is what natural revelation is; or so that's what I currently understand (and am open to correction!). See these previous threads.
http://www.puritanboard.com/f60/what-natural-revelation-exactly-how-does-works-73379/ http://www.puritanboard.com/f60/what-natural-revelation-69067/?highlight=natural+revelation

But further, though I could be wrong, I'm fairly certain that while we're promised the Holy Spirit to illumine special revelation, we have no such promise for "facts" about the natural world (such as may be gathered by physics, chemistry, etc.), so I'm not sure it's right to put them on the same ground (not that I'm saying you're doing that! I can't tell from your post if you are. I just know from experience that those who speak about science correcting our understanding of Scripture--moving from the correct logical possibility to a questionable [due to the differences between special revelation and science] probability in the actual world--often do not take that into account.).

I wonder if you could modify your argument from natural revelation to "Why would these "facts" that we see in the universe seem to point to an explanation that does not require God in it (e.g., evolution, the universe coming about on its own, humans and animals being related when we compare genes)?" But that seems to reduce to "Why God would make the universe such that it would look like to humans as they investigated Creation that He was not involved in it and/or still is not?", which might (I'm still not certain it is) be sufficiently answered in that these "facts" are conclusions we suppose we can hold God accountable to and that these "facts" are made in the already limited field of science.


As for your other worry, I'll be interested in seeing a response to that too. I had a similar concern with Rev. Winzer's post on the relativity of time and space after I had thought about it some more, especially because of the reliability--to some extent--of the senses, memory, and so forth. While admittedly, it seems time and space must be relative to something, if we first fixed a base to measure from and still came up with an old age, it would seem there may still be a problem; after all, we do something similar with our memories in knowing how long ago a past event took place. I wonder if the key to answering it though may lie in the differences between science and other methods by which we gain knowledge (namely, our senses and memory, etc.), but I wonder if there is so big a difference (I recall Charles Peirce arguing that we all think and evaluate data like scientists even in our day to day lives!).

In the past the universe looked like a flat earth to humans. Was that deception on the part of God? He knew that they would think that as well.

A good point! That's one reason why after posting I edited my statement in order to qualify it to "why God would make the universe such that it would look like to humans as they investigated Creation that He was not involved in it and/or still is not."

 

[au5t1n]

A scientist might conclude from the distance to the stars and the speed of light that the starlight would have, under natural circumstances (i.e. the realm of science) taken X amount of time to get here (say, billions of years). As long as it is understood that scientific exercise cannot account for supernatural events (a limitation it must accept), then its natural conclusions need not conflict with the infallible revelation of Scripture that God created the earth in six days (cf. Exodus 20:11). I think this is the gist of what Rev. Winzer means by separating the domains of science and theology and allowing them to "conflict," bearing in mind the limitations of science.

 

[Afterthought]

A scientist might conclude from the distance to the stars and the speed of light that the starlight would have, under natural circumstances (i.e. the realm of science) taken X amount of time to get here (say, billions of years). As long as it is understood that scientific exercise cannot account for supernatural events (a limitation it must accept), then its natural conclusions need not conflict with the infallible revelation of Scripture that God created the earth in six days (cf. Exodus 20:11). I think this is the gist of what Rev. Winzer means by separating the domains of science and theology and allowing them to "conflict," bearing in mind the limitations of science.

That's how I understand him too, though I think there is a little more going on to allow for geocentrism in reality with heliocentrism in science: namely, that the conclusions we make from observation do not always line up with reality as Scripture outlines, in which case the epistemic question of the last few posts comes up. But I wonder if remembering this may answer the "why" objection from natural revelation I made in my last post; the answer being that in science we have already limited ourselves to natural explanations of facts, so why would we expect the facts to lead us to a supernatural explanation, and why would we then accuse God of misleading us when we've already limited ourselves to explaining the data in terms of natural causes?

The scientist might think it unfair that one cannot neutrally approach the data and conclude things about God or that something supernatural happened, but it also doesn't seem fair to expect such when "neutrally approaching the data" means "explaining in terms of natural causes." But if we then assume God exists or admit supernatural causes, then of course we will arrive at God from the natural data! And as for admitting supernatural causes in our explanation, it will lead to a "God of the gaps" type of argumentation, or we will never be able to tell if something was natural or supernatural (indeed, science may explain something supernatural in natural terms; for example, we always explain scientific laws in natural terms, even though the laws would not exist without God's sustaining them and so in that sense the laws have a supernatural source). Things do seem to get messy here when science and theology are mixed (though I suppose we could still run into the danger of "God of the gaps" thinking if we saw a miracle)... I wonder then how natural revelation can work if one cannot merely look at the facts and know God exists, though I suppose looking at facts scientifically is different from looking at the facts such that they reveal God? But that may be separate from the topic at hand.

At any rate, it certainly appears that the questions concerning star light and events related to it have been answered.

 

[Romans922]

Science means little in this question. God's Word is clear. 6 days of creation, ex nihilo.

GI Williamson said this on a blog recently:

" The best thing I’ve ever read on the creation issue is an article by Oswald T. Allis of Old Westminster. He rightly pointed out that the way to settle this issue is by using the analogy of Scripture. What he meant was that we need to compare Christ’s acts of creation performed during his earthly incarnate acts of creating the universe (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16). He created “old wine” and did so virtually instantaneously. Why, then, should we not believe that he created an universe that looks old to us, and an Adam that looked about 30 years old, recently (a few thousand years ago). I have yet to hear a convincing argument against this superb article by Dr. Allis. You can read it yourself by going to the the OPC web site with this: http://opc.org/OS/pdf/OSV4N4.pdf

 

[MW]

But this throws all of our knowledge into question. You're saying that any ideas we have are just from us observing evidence and arriving at conclusions (which is true), but if God is not responsible, to an extent, for the evidence that he provides us, then we have no foundation for any knowledge. We could change this thread from the "age of the earth" to "history, at all." We certainly have evidence to believe that the universe was created more than 20 minutes ago (most importantly our memories), but God could have manufactured all of that evidence. And it seems like you're saying that even if God did create the universe 20 minutes ago and implanted our memories for our entire lives, he is not responsible for us being misled?

Obviously God did not create the universe twenty minutes ago. One of the reasons why I would assert that empirical science must be given its proper domain is to put an end to just this kind of preternatural nonsense. Those who mingle the supernatural with the natural usually end up creating a sui generis that cannot be supported by revelation or observation. I think special revelation provides us with every reason to accredit every fact so long as it is understood within its epistemic limitation.

As Reformed, we believe that the natural world is part of God's revelation to us. So if the messages we get from the natural revelation conflict with the messages we get from the special revelation, we have an error somewhere.

Natural science deals with probabilities and is a constantly developing field. One must distinguish between the findings of natural science and God's revelation of Himself in nature.

 

[Reformed Philosopher]

Science means little in this question. God's Word is clear. 6 days of creation, ex nihilo.

I think what you mean to say is that your interpretation of Scripture is clear. The church authorities thought Scripture was clear on the geocentric universe as well, but while their interpretation was clear, it turned out that the Scriptures they were pointing to probably shouldn't have been used in that way. I think it would be hubris to claim you have a perfect understanding of God's Special Revelation.

I think special revelation provides us with every reason to accredit every fact so long as it is understood within its epistemic limitation.

So what is the epistemic limitation of scientific discovery? If science told us that the earth was 6,000 years old, would we be able to believe it? What if science told us that the earth was 10,000 years old? Would we be permitted to believe science if it told us that Goliath was 2.5 meters tall? 6 meters? What if it told us that Solomon was the son of one of David's servants?

My point is, we can't have a limitation that stops us from considering science if it tells us something that conflicts with our beliefs. I completely agree that there should be limits placed on science, but the limits should be things related to the capabilities of science (i.e. science cannot tell us that God doesn't make a brick fall, only that the brick falls as would be expected according to our understandings of gravity and causation). If we accept everything science tells us (how electricity works, why chemotherapy fights cancer, etc), but reject it when it tells us what we don't want to hear (that our interpretation of Scripture might be wrong), we just look like we're burying our heads in the sand.

One must distinguish between the findings of natural science and God's revelation of Himself in nature.

But couldn't every fact tell us something about God (if we were wise enough to understand)? I certainly think that the way God created the world would tell us something.

 

[Romans922]

I think what you mean to say is that your interpretation of Scripture is clear. The church authorities thought Scripture was clear on the geocentric universe as well, but while their interpretation was clear, it turned out that the Scriptures they were pointing to probably shouldn't have been used in that way. I think it would be hubris to claim you have a perfect understanding of God's Special Revelation.

Benjamin,

Please tell me what 6 days means? Does it mean 6 hours? Does it mean 6 years? Does it mean 6 million years? Or does it mean 6 literal days? How long is 'day' in Scripture?

We know that on the 4th day of 6 of creation, God created the stars. Do stars mean moons? Do stars mean asteroids? Do stars mean stars?

Now look at the age of the earth. We know very specifically how long it was from Adam to Jacob. Genesis 5 and 11 give us very specific genealogies with very specific dates. These aren't rounded off dates, these are years like 769, not 700, 650, 300. They are very precise dates. Given that they are very specific dates/genealogies, it is easy to conclude (do the math) that from creation of Adam to the birth of Jacob is 2168 years. Now, am I not correct that most biblical scholars agree on when Abraham was born and the dating all the way to Jesus?

So without any doubt, yes, it is clear. Have biblical scholars muddied the waters? Of course. When we go to Genesis 1, how can it be taken any way but literal? Someone has to do some great magic (illusion) to get the Hebrew reader to miss the very literal language and grammar that is found in the beginning of Genesis.

Now, what evidence is there contrary to this? In the example of the earth being flat, there was evidence against this. In reading Scripture, there was not any necessary reason to determine that the earth was flat. That view was forced onto the text. But in this case, the one forcing something on the text are those old age earthers who ignore the plain meaning of Scripture and even more specifically the Hebrew grammar.

 

[MW]

So what is the epistemic limitation of scientific discovery?

First, it is limited to natural phenomena. Secondly, it is bound to observable fact. Thirdly, is only ever descriptive, never explanatory. Fourthly, deals with probability. Fifthly, is always open to re-evaluation. With these limitations we can accept everything natural science teaches. The fact that it conflicts with the plain teaching of God's word does not require us to adopt a pseudo-science or to re-evaluate God's word in the light of it. Sarah's womb was dead and Sarah had a child in her old age. The two facts conflict with each other. Both are legitimately maintained in the belief that God calleth those things which be not as though they were.

 

[Afterthought]

There's probably an obvious answer to this that I'm overlooking (and the answer has probably already been given in some form), but if we separate theology from science, how are we justified in using such truths as original sin, creation in the image of God, etc. in explaining such behavior as sociology, psychology, or even some parts of biology (or in using such things in counseling situations)? If we do use our theological knowledge in these sciences, why not use them in others too; that is, if we use facts of special revelation in some sciences without any harm--and indeed would not ignore them except to our peril, why not use them in others?

Some philosophical/psychological theories would merely say that societies corrupt people or that people need to give in to acts of self-expression. Various psychological explanations are based on evolutionary findings, such as humans acting to reproduce in order to spread their genes among the race. And yet there are other findings of psychology that we use just fine. I think I may be conflating several issues together in asking this question, but I'm not entirely sure how to phrase those issues.

 

[MW]

The image of God in man and the fall into sin are "explanatory" of man's state. Sociology, psychology, etc., are but "descriptions" of what humans do. The problem here, as Jay Adams has pointed out, is that psychologists very often invade the domain of theology. They use "insight" to gain trust and exercise dominion over others. The fact is, without an ultimate explanation of the human condition, the psychologist has nothing "normative" with which to evaluate what humans do.

 

[Afterthought]

The image of God in man and the fall into sin are "explanatory" of man's state. Sociology, psychology, etc., are but "descriptions" of what humans do. The problem here, as Jay Adams has pointed out, is that psychologists very often invade the domain of theology. They use "insight" to gain trust and exercise dominion over others. The fact is, without an ultimate explanation of the human condition, the psychologist has nothing "normative" with which to evaluate what humans do.

Thank you! Science in general indeed tries to be "explanatory" of all sorts of things rather than a mere description; eventually, its "explanations" become facts after observations are made (example, the acceptance of molecular theory; or the big bang; or evolution). I guess that may be the key then: where science is being explanatory of things, and we have theology to correct it, we can accept the theological explanation as correct because it's just a matter of one explanation over another at that point, and theology has the ulitmate explanation of reality to begin with (along with it coming from God's Word, which we are obligated to believe). When science is being explanatory of things that we do not have theology to correct (e.g., when molecular theory first came around; or really any explanation of observables in terms of unobservables that theology and special revelation do not speak to), we should be all the more careful to note its limitations and to be careful in speaking of its latest findings as definitively reflective of reality. When science of any kind is merely describing things within its own limitations though, we can accept it with respect to those limitations.