How did light reach the earth from the stars when God created the world?
Question:
I was wondering regarding the star that appeared at Jesus' birth, so I talked with a teacher about red shifting and the Doppler effect (that has many different flaws in it). Did God just make a new start or did the light just hit the earth after traveling for so long? My theory is that God made some start in the transition to let us see new stars constantly throughout history. I think God wants His wonders to be marvelous all throughout history. I have to research the Doppler effect more, but do you have more stuff on science as in what has proved science wrong or gives the age of the earth? Something with more detail or where information is from?
I had a conversation with a teacher last night. He is going through some majors hoops to get his point across. We got into it last night a little bit, but he was trying to say I wasn't opened-minded and he was. He couldn't use Scripture besides saying a thousand years is like a day and day is like a thousand years. Of course in context, all it's trying to say is that our lives pass by so quickly compared to how long God has been around that what seems long to us isn't to God. It is especially clear in Psalms 90 where Peter gets the quote from. But if you could you explain it in detail why it isn't saying a day is a thousand years to God but he's giving a representation. or something along those lines, I would appreciate it.
Answer:
The measurement of distance and time based on starlight is not something I can readily explain. I know a few people who have attempted to tackle the issue, but wading through the scientific jargon is rough. I suspect that it is because people aren't certain whether it can be explained scientifically or not.
The problem at the moment is that we have no way to verify many of our measurements. It is like creating a yardstick then looking at a distant mountain and saying "that mountain is 6724 sticks away." It could be, but until someone goes to the mountain and checks, we won't know if we are right or not. We are measuring distances, but without the benefit of going to the stars to check those distances, we can't be absolutely positive about the measurements.
Then there is another problem: we aren't absolutely certain that some fundamental assumptions, such as the speed of light, is fixed. It looks fairly fixed, but we haven't been measuring it all that long. From an article titled "Has the Speed of Light Decayed" by Gerald E. Aardsma in Impact: Vital Articles on Science and Creation, May 1988, "In a recently published technical report entitled,The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time, Trevor Norman and Barry Setterfield put forward their most recent evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the speed of light, c, has been decreasing in the past. This hypothesis has received much acclaim in some sectors of the creationist community since its initial introduction by Barry Setterfield a few years ago."
Of course, another difficulty is we don't know how the world looked when God created it. For instance, Adam and Eve were created as adults and not as newborn infants, so they appeared to be older than their physical age. But such would also need to be true for many of the systems in the world. Interdependencies exist so things would die out if everything was started from zero and then had to grow into fully functioning systems. This then extends to the fact that on the fifth day of creation, "Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also" (Genesis 1:16). Since the stars could be seen on the fifth day of creation even though they were far away, this implies that God also created the light in transit from the stars. This would make the universe appear to be older than it's actual age.
Some good resources on this would be:
Apologetics Press
Institute for Creation Research
As far as the star that appeared at Jesus' birth, you must remember that everything cannot be explained scientifically when miracles of God are in play. For instance, at one point the star appeared over the manger where Jesus laid. "When they heard the king, they departed; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was" (Matthew 2:9). If you think about it, stars don't move before someone, nor could you find a star that you could say stood directly over one particular place. Thus, we must conclude that it is not an ordinary star, so concerns about other physical properties, such as the arrival of light beams is not a great concern.
In regards to II Peter 3, Peter points out that scoffers would arise because Jesus had not yet returned. "Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come, walking after their own lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation."" (II Peter 3:3-4). One of Peter's reply to this assertion was, "But don't forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (II Peter 3:8). Notice the use of the word "as." This is a simile saying that the two time-frames, a day and a thousand years, are similar in nature to the Lord. This makes sense when we are talking about a being who lives eternally. Time doesn't hold the same meaning to Him as it does to humans who barely live a hundred years. The same point is made in Psalms 90:4, "For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night." We notice how fast time flies as we get older. Not only do we fill our days with more things, but our perspective regarding time shifts as we accumulate more years. The point remains the same. To the Eternal God, time was little meaning, so the fact that Jesus has not returned as fast as we might expect or want doesn't imply that it will never happen.
