The Pillars of Creation

The Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula. 

In a blog post dated 2 May and entitled "New Born Stars Form in the Pillars of Creation" fundamentalist theme park manger, Ken Ham, writes the following 

According to God’s Word, stars didn’t form slowly and gradually from “protostars” in nurseries. They were formed at God’s command when “he made the stars also” (Genesis 1:16) According to God’s Word, stars didn’t form slowly and gradually from “protostars” in nurseries. They were formed at God’s command when “he made the stars also” (Genesis 1:16). And he names them all: God determines the number of the stars and he gives to all of them their names (Psalm 174:4). So what do we make of this claim that we can see “baby stars” in the Pillars of Creation?

Here Ham is responding to the observations and conclusions drawn by astronomers regarding the apparent protostars found in the "Pillars of Creation"  dust clouds. Of course, stellar evolution doesn't fit into the time scale of Ham's declared 6000 year old cosmos! In the above quote Ham appears to be following the common Biblical literalist notion that God merely had to "speak the stars into existence" like a magician and to hell with all the problems of creative integrity that "mature creation" brings. 

My standard criticism of this kind of interpretation of scripture, a criticism I have expressed elsewhere in more detail, is that:

a) It neglects to ask questions about the meaning of the word "command": High level commands breakdown into the myriad of low level operations needed in order that the command to be carried out. But since none other than God is doing the creation here those smaller commands must be executed by God himself. Ergo Genesis 1:16 is merely a one-liner summary of a huge Divine creative act involving a very large number sub-creative events. The words "make", "create", "work" etc are recursive concepts. Naturally, one can't expect this highly complex creative activity to be described in a very literal way in a short passage of scripture! In short Ham hasn't a clue as to how star formation actually happened and it is clear that he is massively superimposing his own meanings onto the brief text. He then uses this as a pretext for spiritually bullying those that don't take on board his simplistic line of thought.

c) Ham assumes he knows what he means by chronological time (as opposed to kairos time) and how it is measured: For Ham "a second is a second is a second". But  since chronological time as we know it is measured using standards internal to creation this means that the question about how time is measured during Genesis 1 when creation was still a work in progress is problematic. Moreover let's remember that Ham's website hosted Jason Lisle's "solution" to the star light problem and Lisle did some "funny things" with the measurement and definition of Time; it rather put Ken's simplistic concept of time in perspective. Perhaps that's why Ken wasn't that keen on Lisle's work and Lisle left AiG. 

A pillock pillar of creationism

Of course Ken doesn't ask or attempt to address those kinds of difficult question; after all he's really in the business of sales talk and not science talk. Salesmen can sometimes threaten customers with dire consequences if they don't buy their products and that's what Ken does: He opts for spiritual intimidation in order to ease through an acceptance of the divine authority of his opinions: It's his way or the wrong way. I'm not the only one who sees Ham as the epitome of authoritarian and unreasonable fundamentalism.

But to be fair to Ken I can nevertheless put one good word in for him: He seems to have kept himself clean from all the fanatically weird ideas about Covid-19 that do the rounds among America's well armed militias (and religious cowboys), ideas which undermine the lock-down. Ken seems to have accepted the need for lock down. As he's running a business for all the family, a business he fervently believes in, it's clearly hard times for AiG. That's one thing where I can feel a certain amount of sympathy for him.

ADDENDUM 14/05/20

It's worth comparing Ham's almost childish interpretation of creation which he pushes through with a brute-spirituality with NT Wright's view expressed on the video below However, I'm not going to add comment to this video:

NT Wright: If Creation is Through Christ, Evolution is What You Would Expect - Resources - BioLogos