Last week ago I wrote about my ignoble descent into the minefield of the age of the universe. Today I’m going to share my thoughts on the catalyst of that conversation – namely the book “The Science of God” by Gerald L. Schroeder.
Gerald Schroeder is a MIT Ph.D. nuclear physics and earth/planetary sciences author who works as a researcher at various institutes and universities in Israel. As an Orthodox Jew, Schroeder has sought to reconcile the young earth creationism Biblical view with old earth scientific model. Published in 1997, “The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom” was his second book dedicated to this goal (he has since published two others books in the same vein).
The cool part about the book was Schroeder’s use of physics and relativity to explain the time discrepancy between the six literal days of Genesis and the billions of years promoted by the scientific community.
Allow me to summarize Schroeder’s view by first stating his premises:
- Time itself is not absolute or uniform as it can be slowed or speed up by gravity and/or velocity
- As shown by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
- The first six days of Creation are NOT counted in biblical history
- I.E. All dates and time lines start with the age of Adam who was created on day six, effectively leaving out all prior days.
- Genesis Chapter One shows a viewpoint progression from the extremely large (“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”) to the small (creation of plants, animals, humanity, etc).
Based upon these three premises, Schroeder makes the following detection (my words, not his):
Genesis chapter one tells the creation account from the viewpoint of God rather then the viewpoint of humanity.
To elaborate, the six literal days are what God would have seen from a universe wide perspective while on earth (a small outpost among a huge universe) billions of years would have past. Remember the relativity of time?
As the creation story progressed, the viewpoint of time slowly shifts from viewing the entire universe to an earth centric viewpoint focused on God’s capital creation, humanity.
While this physic orientated view of creation does not answer all the questions surrounding Genesis One, it does pose a very interesting “solution” to the age of the universe (“solution” is in quotes as I’m not sure if we need a solution – See last weeks post).
On the flip side, there were some parts of Schroeder’s book that I found very disconcerting.
Drawing heavily from the Jewish Kabbalah mystic Nachmanides, Schroeder proposes that there were humanoid animals on earth prior to Adam and Eve. The main difference between these humanoid animals (i.e. Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal) was the lack of a soul, which God gave solely to Adam and Eve – thereby creating Homo sapiens.
Personally, I have a very hard time with this proposal as I don’t see it in the biblical record or in science. To me, Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal men are simply humans like us – not a different ‘animal’.
Another disconcerting factor within the book is Schroeder promotion of theistic evolution (i.e. God used evolution to create life). While this view is not explicit, it does color his perspective on creationism as a whole.
Note, however, that Schroeder does a fabulous job at showing that pure evolution is mathematically impossible. There is simply no way that life could have evolved with out a guiding hand.
Furthermore, the fossil record does not show a gradual evolution of life. Instead it shows dramatic explosions of fully created life forms with fully functional eye balls, limbs, etc.
In conclusion, I think Schroeder’s book “The Science of God” is worth the read due to his discussion of time relativity and his handling of the fossil record. Just keep in mind that some of his reasoning and viewpoints are influence by medieval Jewish mysticism that may or may not be fully compatible with Christianity.