You Can't Have Your Cake And Eat It Too

Cornelius Van Til once wrote, "Modern science holds not only to the idea of pure contingency or indeterminacy, but also to that of pure determinism."  In saying such, CVT is referring to the deep inconsistency of the unbeliever's position when attempting to formulate a coherent scientific argument for his atheistic case.

To rely heavily upon strict laws such as uniformity of nature, laws of gravity, and the speed of light, while making a case for the evolutionary view of chance, randomness, and openness is deeply contradictory, making such an argument completely incoherent and even absurd.

An example of this can be found in the common argument against the creation account found in Genesis.  I'd like to step back and say that the point of this example is NOT to defend a young-earth view, but to show how common arguments against it are logically inconsistent, thus proving to be no argument at all.  Until a consistent argument is put forward, the Genesis account remains not disproven.

Many unbelievers dismiss the biblical creation account by saying that we know that the earth is millions of years old.  The fact that there are galaxies and celestial bodies millions of light years away makes it empirically obvious that the universe that contains those bodies is at least millions of years old.

The formula is pretty simple: the light that radiates from those bodies travels at a constant speed; it takes millions of years for that light to reach our eyes (via regular sight or telescope, etc.); it follows then that those bodies, and the universe that contains them, are at least millions of years old.

Therefore, the Genesis account, they say, is incorrect.

But I see huge problems with this argument.  In my experience, many who dismiss the Genesis account because of this type of argument are deeply committed to an evolutionary theory of nature (one of "pure contingency or indeterminacy" and openness).  There was/is no creator, and thus everything happens and has happened by chance - a product of randomness.  Lifeless matter evolved over time to be what it is now.  And the evolutionary process continues.  Change is constant.

But why are the strict laws, upon which every single scientific argument is based, not subject to the evolutionary process?  Why is the speed of light somehow protected against evolutionary change?  I wonder if it is empirically possible to prove that the speed of light has remained a constant over millions of years, as well as under atmospheric conditions millions of light years away.  Further, why isn't the uniformity of nature called also into question by his evolutionism?

It seems to me that if evolution is embraced, then every so called constant is constantly subject to that change - even evolution itself!

These questions are frustrating to the unbelieving position.  If he remains committed to his worldview, the study of the historical universe becomes highly problematic; and what he "knew" must now be degraded from fact to mere unjustified, false belief.

Here we see CVT's observation in action - the unbeliever's deep commitment to unchangeable laws which form the basis for his argument that the universe is and has always been open, changeable, and random.  Unfortunately, it is impossible for an unbelieving position to have it's cake and eat it too.