Is Mature Creation Deceptive?

If the universe is young, how can we see light from galaxies billions of lights away? A simple solution is that of mature creation:God created the stars and galaxies full-blown, along with their light.

A common objection is that, if light was created in transit, then the starlight that Adam observed did not actually originate from the stars where the light seemingly came from. Is this not deceptive?
Moreover, the details of starlight seemingly relate specific historical events. For example, a supernova, observed to occur in 1987, appeared to be 170,000 light-years away, suggesting that it exploded 170,000 years ago. If this event never really happened--if the light was created en route--was this not just an elaborate fiction, a hoax created by God? 

Functional Maturity versus False History

Even many creationists consider such alleged deception a fatal flaw to fully-fledged mature creation. Thus, for example, Jonathan Sarfati argues that God created Adam, trees, and stars fully formed, but with only a functional maturity. According to Sarfati, deception arises only if such creation included the appearance of a false history that was totally unnecessary for functional maturity. He therefore concludes that Adam had no navel, that the original trees had no growth rings, and that starlight was not created in transit.

Sarfati's preferred solutions (see also the Creation Ministries International  Creation Answers Book, Chapter 5), involving relativistic time dilation, are the physical cosmologies of Russell Humphreys (2008) and John Hartnett (2007). 

But both of these are highly problematic. Humphreys has the earth near the center of a spherical universe surrounded by a very massive, but invisible, shell (the “waters above the heavens”). The rapid expansion of this shell causes a moving zone of “timelessness”, so that in just a few earth days billions of years elapse at distant galaxies. Humphreys (2013) granted that his model was speculative, and still "far from complete". Since 2008 his model been developed no further.

Hartnett’s model uses a dubious extension of general relativity—the 5-dimensional cosmology of Moshe Carmeli. Here, too, the Earth is taken to be near the center of a spherical universe that expanded rapidly during the creation week, thereby causing the desired slowing of the earth’s clock. Hartnett (2015b) himself concedes:

“The cosmology still has several unsolved problems.  Unfortunately no general 5 dimensional cosmology exists. Carmeli never found such a theory. To date I have not found the required space-time-velocity theory, with an extra time-like dimension, that fits the Creation period, though I am continuing to search.”

Indeed, Hartnett (2015a) seems to have abandoned his model in favour of that of Jason Lisle’s (2010) Anisotropic Synchrony Convention (ASC). In Lisle's ASC an event is considered to have occurred when it is observed, so that light is considered to travel infinitely fast towards the observer, and with speed c/2 away from the observer (i.e., only the average speed of light to and from the observer is c). The light from distant galaxies is thus considered to travel instantaneously to the earth. Interestingly, Sarfati (2012) rejects ASC on the grounds that it is purely kinematic, lacks a physical foundation, and is very ad hoc.

The models of Lisle, Humphreys and Hartnett all require at least the Sun, local stars, and our local Galaxy to be created mature. This, however, entails that light is created in transit at the surfaces of the Sun and stars, and within the local Galaxy. But this raises again the issue of deception, since such light will inevitably exhibit “false histories”. For example, light at the Solar surface would appear to have originated from the Solar core thousands of years previously. Similarly, a galaxy created as a unit would consist not just of stars and gas, but also of gravitational fields and light radiation that seemingly originated from stars. Moreover, it is claimed that our Galaxy bears the scars of past collisions with other galaxies. Since such scars are not needed for functional maturity, they raise further questions about "false history".

In short, it is difficult for creationist models to avoid the appearance of “false history.”

Is “False History” Deceptive?

P.G. Nelson (Another Look at Mature Creation) argues that it is plausible for God to create the universe not just mature, so that it appears old, but coherently mature, so that various age estimates give consistent results. Such an approach has no problem with light created in transit, with created trees having rings, or with Adam having a navel (See my post On Mature Creation).

Since various theological arguments can be made about how God could or should create, we should be wary about placing undue constraints upon the Creator. After all, one wonders how God could possibly create an object without it having some appearance of past history. In His creation God has deceived no one, for He has told us of His creative acts. Rather, people have deceived themselves by rejecting God’s revealed Word, by ignorance of God's methods, by assuming uniformity, and by assuming that mature creation is false.

Moreover, the assertion that "God never lies" (Titus 1:2) refers to God keeping His covenant promises to believers. Regarding those who doubt God’s Word, “God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth…” (2 Thes. 2:11). (See my post Would God Deceive Us?)

A Rapidly Matured Creation

A further consideration is that God did not create the entire universe instantaneously, ex nihilo, in mature form. Rather, everything (except the initial light, and possibly the firmament) seems to be formed from the initial “waters” (Gen.1:2), in a number of stages spread over 6 days.

Also, the work of each day was not instantaneous, but a rapid, miraculous process. For example, “the earth brought forth vegetation” (Gen.1:12), “and out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree…” (Gen.2:9). The universe attained its finished, mature form only at the end of Day 6.

It is noteworthy that Biblical miracles generally don’t involve creating something from nothing. Rather, they usually involve transformation (e.g., water into wine) or multiplication (e.g., the widow’s oil). 

A particularly pertinent miracle is Jonah’s shade tree, “which came into being in a night” (Jonah 4). Everything else continued normally, but God miraculously accelerated the plant’s growth so that a year’s growth took just a few hours. Does this not seem similar to the earth sprouting trees on Day 3?

Might not the same apply for Day 4, where normal providence held for the earth while God worked miraculously to form the Sun, stars, and galaxies? All celestial processes-- gravity, light, nuclear reactions, etc.--may have been highly accelerated, so that watching the creation of the stellar sky on Day 4 might be like watching a video in fast motion. What normally takes billions of years happens on Day 4 in just a few hours. This includes not just the formation of celestial objects, but also the transmission of their light to the earth.

If all the energy received on earth from space—including Sun, Moon, stars, etc.---over 14 billion years were compressed into only one day, would this not destroy the vegetation created on Day 3? Note that, to solve the light travel problem, the acceleration rate need not be uniform throughout space. It could, for example, be directly proportional to distance, so that light from any star, no matter how distant, would only take one day to get to Earth. That would alleviate concerns about excessive energy flux.

Also, creation generally requires special miraculous activity in addition to merely accelerated processes. For example, Jonah’s vine needed to start from a special seed, and, since there was no Sun, its accelerated growth must have had a special power source. Likewise, normal physical laws do not necessarily apply regarding the formation of celestial objects on Day 4.

In this scenario the history we see in starlight is thus real--depicting actual historical events--but reflecting accelerated processes no longer operating after Day 4. Hence, interpreting these events in terms of current physical laws will yield erroneous conclusions about the past.

This proposal seems similar to that of Danny Faulkner (2013), except that he seems to attribute the miraculous transmission of light to the rapid stretching of space, rather than to light itself moving very quickly. 
(Note added: see also my more recent post Rapidly Matured Creation.)

Conclusions

To sum up, the creation of the universe, being a miraculous work of God, will inevitably give the appearance of false history to one who tries to interpret the past purely in terms of current processes. The notion that the entire universe was a rapidly-matured creation has the advantage of not relying on any speculative physics (Hartnett, Humphreys), or ad hoc conventions (Lisle). Since these creationist models already involve at least some degree of mature creation, this approach provides a simpler explanation. 

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