Young Earth, Old Earth

Was reading Genesis 1 and found it really interesting how God created the universe; especially how God created light on the first day, and there was evening and morning. But the sun was not created until the fourth day.

Of course, this is key to understanding there is no necessity for the universe to be created in six 24-hour days. A day as defined the dictionary is the time between two sunsets or sunrises. However, since the light created on the first day was not the sun, we have to use a more general definition: e.g. the time period between two mornings. This is the definition used in the bible in Genesis 1:5b: And there was evening, and there was morning —the first day. This is perfectly consistent with how we use the word "day." For example, a day on Mars is 24 hours, 37 minutes and 35 seconds. Not 24 hours.

So the length of time between the first morning and the next in Genesis 1 can really be any period of time. It naturally follows that the length of time for the subsequent six days are the same.

This is important because Christians need to know that they are not obligated to believe the earth is 7000 years old. The bible simply does not say how old the universe is, nor how long creation took.

Freewill and Determinism

The problem of freewill and determinism has been bothering me for the longest time and probably many other philosophers as well. After all, even if one is not a Christian/theist, it is unthinkable that one would resign to having a lack of free will. But up till today, this ancient question has not made much headway. Neither determinism that we observe in the natural macro world nor indeterminism that occurs in the quantum world is able to explain any possibility for freewill. The best that philosophers are able to offer us with their understanding of how this world functions is pseudo freewill - one where we only seem to have freewill but do not.

So in this post I present a proposal. To me, it resolves this issue enough. And to those more critical, it at least sets the direction I think a Christian philosopher should be heading towards.

In order for someone to have freewill, it is essential that his choices are self-determined. Self-determined in the sense that it is not determined by any external circumstances, but rather determined by the person making by his own will. In other words, a person's will must determine his own will. It is circular. This, instinctively, seems like some sort of false reasoning, or poor definition. Circular arguments after all, are of a fallacious argumentative form. Determinists, for centuries have asserted that the self is but a by-product of his/her nature and nurture. No part of the self is self-determined.

But then I thought: what about God? Does God have free will? God is uncaused. Surely He could not have been determined by any preceding events. And yet we are not able to understand something that is not does not have a beginning. Everything in our experience on earth has a beginning and an end. But the laws of physics and philosophy demand that time does not have a beginning; that there must be an entity that has existed for all eternity. Atheists believe that the universe, in place of God, has existed forever. And though a universe that is non-conscious cannot be self-determined, our God can. So God can have freewill. And indeed our Christian doctrine demands that God absolutely must have freewill. For how can God who is love love without freewill.

And what if God had given us a eternal soul that is a part of himself. That when he breathed life into Adam, he was in fact imparting the miracle that is freewill to his creation - self-consciousness. If God has freewill, then He can give his creation freewill.

Of course I am begging the question: How does the soul choose? But if you ask that, it is no different from asking how God can choose. Which is the same as asking what determined the first cause. (notice the circularity that is unavoidable) And I do not think these are questions we can answer anytime soon.

I do not have any evidence that what I claim here is true. But I do not need proof. All I need is a logical possibility. God has already proven Himself to me. :)