Question: If God could have created the world as explained in the Scriptures, why would he use the Big Bang? Wouldn't that mean that God was trying to hide the way He created things? It could seem that this wouldn't make sense, especially since this way of Creation is much more likely to give impression that the Earth is accidental than the literal Creation?
Answer: In my view, things are exactly the opposite of the way that you portray them. If God created everything
fully formed, as described in Genesis, then, based on what we know about planets and stars, they would have the appearance of having been formed over millions of years, but the Bible would be telling us that they were formed in an instant. In other words, the reality that God has created would be telling us one thing and the Bible would be telling us another. That is, in fact, the Protestant position, as I explain in chapter 7 of
The Realist Guide. Their idea of God is that He
wanted to deceive our minds by creating a world in an instant that appears to have developed over long periods of time. Why would He do this? In order to convince us that the reason that He has given us is useless! I would argue that this is not the God that we worship as Catholics and not really a God that anyone would want to worship.
As for your last question above, no, a divinely-commenced Big Bang, far from making the development of the Earth seem accidental, rather makes it seem extremely carefully choreographed. Look up "fine-tuning of the universe" and you will see what I am talking about. Or read chapter 9 of my book.
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'If God created everything fully formed, as described in Genesis, then, based on what we know about planets and stars, they would have the appearance of having been formed over millions of years, but the Bible would be telling us that they were formed in an instant.'Have you ever read such NONSENSE in all your life? 'What we know about the planets and stars,' Fr Robinson says, have the appearances of billion-year-old cosmic bodies. What then do we know about the planets and stars that give the appearance of billions of years old things, NOTHING. Oh, sorry, I know something:
Consider this for what its worth: When it became clear that men could be sent to the moon, scientists said that the moon is 4.6 billion years old, so, because of meteors and falling cosmic dust at today’s calculated rate of bombardment, with no atmosphere to burn them/it, no rain or water to cement or scatter them/it, no wind to pack them/it, there could be up to 50 to 180 feet of dust in places on its surface, making it difficult to land. Two probes, Ranger and Surveyor, constructed with long legs for the deep dust, were sent to investigate. Indeed, Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, stated to his brother that his greatest fear was the lunar dust awaiting him. As it turned out they found only an inch of powder evenly distributed on the moon’s surface, 6,000 years of it if current calculations of dust falling on the moon are accurate and correct.Then again maybe Fr Robinson bases his 'what we know about planets and stars' is that they have to be old in appearance if they evolved from a Big Bang 13.5 billion years ago. It seems Catholicism is to REJECT the dogma that 'all that exists outside of God, was, in its whole substance, produced out of nothing by God.' (de fide), in its LITERAL SENSE (like Genesis) and should be read like 'all that evolved into its whole substance, was produced by God out of nothing.' This is MODERNIST CREATION PERSONIFIED as demonstrated by Pope Francis.
‘Vatican City, 27 October 2014 (VIS) – This morning the Holy Father attended the plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences held in the Casina Pio IV, during which he inaugurated a bust of Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, whom he described as “a great Pope. Great for the strength and penetration of his intelligence, great for his important contribution to theology, great for his love of the Church and of human beings, great for his virtue and religiosity”. He recalled that Benedict XVI was the first to invite a president of this Academy to participate in the Synod on new evangelisation, “aware of the importance of science in modern culture”. Pope Francis chose not to focus on the complex issue of the evolution of nature, the theme the Academy will consider during this session, emphasising however that “God and Christ walk with us and are also present in nature”. “When we read in Genesis the account of Creation,” Pope Francis said, “we risk imagining God as a magus, with a magic wand able to make everything. But it is not so. He created beings and allowed them to develop according to the internal laws that He gave to each one, so that they were able to develop and to arrive and their fullness of being. He gave autonomy to the beings of the Universe at the same time at which he assured them of his continuous presence, giving being to every reality. And so creation continued for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until it became which we know today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a conjurer, but the Creator who gives being to all things. The beginning of the world is not the work of chaos that owes its origin to another, but derives directly from a supreme Origin that creates out of love. The Big Bang, which nowadays is posited as the origin of the world, does not contradict the divine act of creating, but rather requires it. The evolution of nature does not contrast with the notion of Creation, as evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve.”’ --- Vatican Info Office.
‘God is not a magician, waving a magic wand creating things,’ says Pope Francis. Indeed He is not, for magicians are full of tricks and illusions. God does not need a magic wand; He simply created things immediately, complete according to its kind. Nevertheless, the comparison suggests that God did not, could not, create things complete and in working order. But Genesis tells us that is exactly what God did, one creation after another in a certain order, each depending on the former, over six days in which no development was at all necessary. Such demeaning is the consequence of the Galilean reformation, bringing everything preternatural down to the level of mere scientific theories.
Galileo de-sanctified where we live.
Darwin de-sanctified where we came from.
Explaining consciousness will de-sdajnctify what we are.
(Adam Carley, quoted in ‘love and Curiosity.’)