Rapidly Matured Creation

If the universe is young, how can we see light from galaxies billions of lights away? A simple solution is that of Rapidly Matured Creation. This was discussed, in passing, in my previous posts Is Mature Creation Deceptive? and Cosmology at Creationist Convention. For convenience, that material is summarized here in a separate post.

1. Mature Creation

This solution is a generalized version of Mature Creation, which was popular among creationists a few decades ago. According to the Mature Creation model, God created the full-blown stellar heaven (including stars, galaxies, and their light in transit) instantaneously on Day 4. [See my post  Mature Creation].

The Mature Creation model is observationally beyond disproof. It draws upon no speculative physics nor unusual conditions. At least not beyond Day 4. It merely requires a miraculous creation on Day 4.

One 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. 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, is this not just an elaborate fiction, a hoax created by God? 

The charge that Mature Creation makes God deceptive is refuted in my post Is Mature Creation Deceptive? 

2. Creation Involving Miraculous Process

The alleged deception of Mature Creation can be avoided simply by dropping the assumption that God made the entire stellar heaven instantaneously. After all, the Bible tells us only:

"And God made the two great lights...and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good." (Gen.1:16-18)

That God saw that "it was good" suggests the stars were functioning as planned, their light reaching the Earth, before the end of Day 4. This leaves room for the possibility that the making of the stars may have involved some (very rapid)process.

Indeed, there are indications of process for at least some of the work on the other days. For example, on Day 3, “the earth brought forth vegetation” (Gen.1:12), on Day 6,  “let the earth bring forth living creatures" (Gen.1:24). In Genesis 2 Adam, trees, beasts, and birds are all formed "out of the ground" by God. These all  suggest the employment of process, albeit rapid and miraculous.

A particularly pertinent miracle is Jonah’s shade tree, “which came into being in a night” (Jonah 4). It seems that everything else around Jonah continued normally, but God miraculously accelerated the plant’s growth so that a year’s growth took place in 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.

The notion that God used miraculous process in producing a mature creation is hardly original. It must have occurred to many people. It was very briefly discussed in my book "God and Cosmos" (2001, p.199), where I attributed this idea to Dr. Edgar Andrews (in O.R. Barclay (ed.), "Creation and Evolution: When Christians Disagree, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1985, p.65). More recently, a somewhat similar proposal has been promoted by Dr. 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.

3. Energy Concerns

One might well ask: if all the energy received on earth from space (including Sun, Moon, stars, etc.) over billions of years, were compressed into only one day, would this huge amount of energy not destroy the earthly vegetation created on Day 3? 

This energy problem could be solved if processes were accelerated at a rate directly proportional to distance from the Earth, so that light from any star, no matter how distant, would only take one day to get to the Earth. That would alleviate concerns about excessive energy flux. However, this would allow little time for process in the formation of stars and galaxies, which would then have to be created virtually instantaneously in mature form.

A better, more general, approach is to note that creation generally requires further miraculous activity beyond merely accelerating normal processes. For example, the accelerated growth of Jonah’s vine seems to have required a miraculous power source, since there was no solar energy during the night. 

Likewise, normal physical laws may well have been modified or superseded during the miraculous formation of celestial objects on Day 4.

4. Rapid Geology?

Could rapid process be usefully applied to  a mature creation of the earth? The separation of water and earth on Day 3 might well have involved rapid geological processes, perhaps even accelerated radio-active decay.

However, fossil-bearing rocks seem more problematic. Some proponents of mature creation (e.g., P.G. Nelson Another Look at Mature Creation) propose that God created the earth with fossils in it. To postulate that such fossils were formed by a rapid process involving animals created, dying, and fossilizing, all in Day 3, seems rather implausible, particularly since no animals were created before Day 5. Although one might suggest that such fossils were formed, via rapid process, from non-living material, this does not seem very helpful.

Conclusions

In sum, with a Rapidly Matured Creation the celestial light we see may actually have come from stars and galaxies. Supernova explosions may have actually occurred, galaxies may show scars of actual collisions, etc.

However, since these astronomical phenomena are largely due to accelerated, miraculous processes operative on Day 4, interpreting these events in terms of current physical laws may yield erroneous conclusions about the past.

This proposal draws only upon the miraculous nature of the creation events of Day 4. It does not rely on speculative physics, extraordinary initial configurations, or ad hoc conventions, particularly not after Day 4.

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