If we are able to see galaxies that are known to be hundreds of millions of light years away from us, that means that the light traveling from those galaxies took hundreds of millions of years to get here. This is a thorn in the side of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), because they believe that the universe is only about 6,000 years old. They expend a lot of energy on trying to find an explanation around this simple fact of physics.
I just read an interesting article from their website in which they try to explain how we can see these galaxies in a 6,000 year old universe. This particular article suggests that God used a different value of the speed of light during the first four days of creation.
Let’s remember that this organization insists on using real science. They insist that their scientists are using the latest scientific information to come up with their theories, yet in this article they freely admit this is a philosophical argument:
“Creation critics may not like the suggestion that c in deep space was once much greater than it is now. But since none of us can actually measure c in deep space (either now or in the past), this is a philosophical objection, not a scientific one. Within a biblical worldview, it makes perfect sense that the Lord Jesus might have done something like this. After all, He indicated in His Word His intention to get light to Earth quickly (Genesis 1:14-19).”
They don’t seem to realize that their own “suggestion” (their word) that the speed of light has changed is not backed up by science, therefore they are also philosophizing! (By the way, Genesis 1:14-19 says absolutely nothing about getting light to earth quickly).
As with most of their writing and philosophizing, they must always equate belief in an ancient universe with godless evolutionary theory. They conclude the article with this:
“The skeptic can only use distant starlight as an argument against recent creation by making unproven (and likely unprovable) assumptions [here they are referring to the “assumption” that we actually know the speed of light]. He also has to ignore similar difficulties in the Big Bang model. So, despite superficial appearances, distant starlight is really a philosophical objection to recent creation, not a scientific one. Creation scientists haven’t yet nailed down all the details of the answer to this question, but by rejecting dubious evolutionary philosophical assumptions, they offer plausible solutions that agree with known physics.”
Here they equate a belief in a measurable, knowable value of the speed of light to “dubious evolutionary philosophical assumptions.” The reason they bring this up is because earlier in the article they discuss the idea that no one has actually accurately measured the speed of light. It’s so fast that they must use mirrors to reflect the light back and forth enough times to get an accurate measurement, because it’s impossible to situate two sufficiently calibrated clocks at a proper distance to measure the one way speed of light.
While this may be true, we have another good way to measure the one way speed of light. Electromagnetic signals travel at the speed of light through space. This includes the communications we routinely have with spacecraft like the Mars Rover. According to NASA, when Mars is closest to earth, it takes a little less than 4 minutes for signals to get to or from Mars. When Mars is farthest from Earth, it takes about 20 minutes. I did the calculations, and this is precisely consistent with the known speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second.
So, we have accurate ways to discern the real speed of light. To suggest that God randomly decided to change the speed of light during certain days of creation is 100% speculation, cannot be verified by any type of real science, and is only a grasp, once again, at justifying (needlessly) a 6,000 year old age of the universe.
These people at ICR are Christians, they believe in salvation by the blood of Jesus, and I will be discussing this stuff with them in heaven some day. I have no doubt about the authenticity of their faith. But they are needlessly demanding unscientific beliefs that are turning people away from the God of the Bible by insisting that science is not real. I want them to stop.
A recent Gallup poll showed that one of the top three reasons that young people are abandoning their faith in God is because the Church seems to denigrate real science. The ICR folks use this as evidence that a godless, evolutionary viewpoint of an ancient universe is driving them away, but the exact opposite is true. The universe is obviously very old. This has nothing to do with accepting biological evolution. I remain adamantly opposed to the theory of biological evolution (see my article “The Idiocy of a Naturalistic Worldview” at “http://dangerousheretics.com/2021/05/09/the-idiocy-of-a-naturalistic-worldview/ “), yet there is no other way to understand the universe except in the context of billions of years.
By continuing to demand that we “follow the science” while themselves utterly rejecting many solid scientific facts establishes them as irrelevant in an age where technology and science is better understood now than it has ever been. And there’s no good reason for them to continue this erroneous line of thought. Nowhere in the Bible does it mention my belief in the age of the rocks under my feet as a criteria for either salvation, my relationship with God, or my belief in the Bible as God’s inspired words. They need to abandon their anti-science rhetoric because it’s causing much damage to the witness of Jesus Christ in the earth.