Steady State Cosmos, Steady State Laws, or Neither?

I'm a creationist because I believe we were created by God. What does that look like? Like Genesis. But if we want to expand on that? There are many in the creationism camp who think the world and its environment were formed 'mature'; as is. (Or rather 'as was'). In other words while there is an appearance, to modern Western man, of an evolving earth and cosmos, no such very slow maturation, from tiny initial seed beginnings, actually occurred. That is an illusion. The Big Bang is an illusion, an incorrect inference.

What if science does indeed have this badly wrong? What if we have dialled incorrect assumptions into our big picture thinking, thinking based on the scientific method? That method has limitations, and is a method with inherently and arbitrarily restricted scope. I just discussed some of the often-overlooked limitations in my last post.

Here I want to look more at the 'looking back deep into time'. Or 'back extrapolation'.

Science looking at recent time is a powerful method, giving clear results. But 'deep time'? Why might we get things wrong with that?

Reductionism always assumes this one present and constant reality, one framed by the same laws and equations. One framed by other observed constraints, such as the arrow of time. On planet Earth, by biological decay and death. By reproduction and birth. But what if a supernatural agent has shifted the very framework of reality at different times or places? What if our steady-state assumptions are not warranted? What if the current backdrop as investigated by us, from within it, is a 'temporary' arrangement? What if we have a) assumed it's permanent without justification, and b) as a result, have fooled ourselves into thinking we have successfully back-extrapolated to beginnings and obtained the 'big picture'?

I've already, last post, pointed out that by assuming science is always naturalistic, we limit science as a method. It has a restrictive mode of operation. Mechanisms beyond our familiarity are screened out before they get a chance for consideration. A corollary of this is that science can never be considered a technique with universal efficacy, universal powers of explanation. 

Further than that, with science, we are always doing this exercise in back-extrapolation. In doing this, we are assuming our basic governing laws and equations, as well as being discoverable, have remained constant throughout. Perhaps laws have pertained in the past that we don't and maybe can't 'get'.

When we question what God has said in Genesis, we may be insisting on this steady state back extrapolation in our worldview. What if laws and time have changed fundamentally? What if reality cohered in the past, to physical law, but in a very different way? There I go, I'm already using terms like 'past'. We verbalise, and we conceptualise, starting from the familiar. Sure, that can and has got us a long way. Too many thought experiments without physical reality checks, whether retrospective or predictive/verified, and we can easily deceive ourselves about long-range science. We need to acknowledge we always reason with what we've got. That's the real essence of naturalism. Without revelation from a truthful higher source, we would have no option.

Heisenberg said that 'we investigate reality as it presents to our modes of investigation' and not 'reality itself'. We have no choice there. There's actually a further qualification. In science, we investigate reality as it is now, and assume the underlying, bottom-rung 'fabric' always was the way it is. If there is a theory of everything, what if it has changed, or even morphed, since the times recorded in early Genesis?

Instead or questioning the Word of God, we need to humbly acknowledge our limitations. We need to admit that we of necessity bring unproven assumptions to the table when we attempt to reason our way into the past.

It's unlikely we could understand, or even relay, an adequate report of, the process of creation. Likewise a sudden, God-ordained transition in the framework of our existence, in the past, might be undetectable to us. It may leave no trace, or traces which we misinterpret when view through our own paradigms. All we can do is investigate the existence we find ourselves in, using tools available from within. Using our minds, methods and instruments, which materialist-reductionists take to have been derived, evolved, produced from within.

The Bible discusses the end, as well as the start, of this physical age, in several places. The end, apparently, is also beyond anything but allegorical description.

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

(2Peter 3:8-10)

What if we live in a cosmos with a tentative, transitory, stability? A cosmos with the illusion of great age, when subjected to certain modes of investigation? A cosmos which was fundamentally different before, even in the time of the first man and woman? Not only in the framing physics but also in terms of the characteristics of biological life? Were there biological species not succumbing to death? Not reproducing by the present sexual means? Were we once like that? Having a fixed maturity rather than requiring a process of maturation?  What if we have deluded ourselves about our origins, because we want to delude ourselves? Because we are too proud to face our limitations and assumptions about life?

And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

(Revelation 6:14)

Is our problem not that the Bible is a dated, or incorrect, book? Rather that we have deluded ourselves about our present existence by effectively worshipping it as final reality? and deluded ourselves by worshipping ourselves, by filing to acknowledge our limitations and necessary assumptions? 

The Bible is the written Word of God. It will prove true. Our job is to meekly receive it. There are mysteries currently hidden from us, and from our most effective and earnest investigative techniques. The techniques have some real power, don't get me wrong. I'm a scientist and an engineer. But don't worship them. Don't carry them outside of reasonable and proven remit.