The Starlight Problem

(Author’s note: I have made a small amendment to this article after an unpleasant discussion with a reader. Although I still disagree with the individual, I do see where this person is coming from and believe that a change is necessary)

A short while ago, I was going through a large box that had many books in them. I was looking for some to give away to local bookstores. I came across one book that I purchased in my youth.

It was titled Starlight and Time. It was by a physicist named Russell Humphreys. The book was an attempt by a “creation-scientist” to reconcile very distant starlight with the young Earth theology of the Bible. Before I bought and read this book, the explanation that I personally believed was that the speed of light was much faster in the past. This was put forth in the 1980s by a creationist named Barry Setterfield. After I started reading Humphreys’ book, I became discouraged and I felt like I was back at the drawing board.

I believe that distant starlight cannot be reconciled with the Bible. This is because my studying of the Bible has led me to conclude that young-Earth creation theology is the best understanding of the Bible. Distant starlight is a fatal problem for the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. How is it that light, coming from stars that are millions of light years away, reached the Earth in such a short period of time? Now, I am not ignorant of various Christian attempts to reconcile the two. I have been reading Christian apologetics literature for years, especially creationist literature.

But as I reflect back on this problem, I have come to realize something. The problem that starlight poses for biblical inerrancy was first noticed, IIRC, in the 1800s. Since then, creationists have come up with a number of explanations.

When I was a teenager, I started reading books by young-Earth creationist author Henry Morris and he seemed to buy into a version of the “mature creation hypothesis.” This is the hypothesis that God created the universe in an “adult” stage of existence. Thus, if radioactive decay indicated an Earth that was 4.5 billion years old, that is just how old an “adult” age for the Earth was.

I commend Humphreys for spotting the flaws in this idea but his own idea is just as ridiculous as any that I have seen. I am not a physicist, so I can’t debunk any “scientific” arguments for this hypothesis. But I reject it because it paints a very unfair picture of God. If Humphreys is right, why did God wait so long to reveal it? If the problem of distant starlight was first noticed and argued for in the 1800s, then why did God wait until the 1990s to reveal the solution?

The problem is the same with Barry Setterfield’s hypothesis. If the speed of light has been slowing down, why didn’t any creationist discover this in the 1800s when the problem was first noticed? Henry Morris started writing books on Christian apologetics back in the 1940s starting with That You Might Believe. His first Christian book with a Christian publisher was in 1951. I have to ask: if Humphreys's idea in Starlight and Time is correct, then why didn’t Morris become a physicist instead of a hydraulic engineer? Why didn’t Morris use Einstein’s general theory of relativity to solve the starlight problem?

In fact, we can ask: why didn’t any creationist in Darwin’s time propose special and general relativity and use it to solve the starlight problem?

But why does this matter?

The reason why is very simple: because it’s not fair. Why is it not fair?

The reason is that if Humphreys is right, then what this means is that no one had any reason to believe that the Bible and science could be reconciled. How were any creationists (before Humphreys discovered the correct solution) supposed to defend their faith?

If some nonbeliever was honestly investigating the scientific accuracy of the Bible and concluded that it was a flawed book, especially because there was no possible way that starlight could travel such a large distance in such a short amount of time, then that nonbeliever is justified in rejecting the inerrancy of the Bible.

If this nonbeliever rejects the Christian faith because of the errancy of the Bible, then that is God’s fault, not the person who rejected the faith. As I see it, it’s not fair for God to fault people for rejecting the faith when it’s God’s responsibility to give all people all of the facts that they will ever need in order to make an informed judgment about whether or not the Bible is the inspired revelation that Christians believe it to be.

Let me support my point with an analogy. Suppose that a man is wrongly arrested by the police for murder. This man is indicted and brought to trial. Suppose, further that the judge doesn’t like the defendant, and even though the defense attorney amasses evidence of the defendant’s innocence, the judge rules the evidence inadmissible on flimsy grounds. So the trial proceeds and the jury finds the man guilty of murder. The defendant is then sent to prison for a number of years. But then it leaks out many years later that there was some evidence that the judge suppressed that would have proven beyond all doubt that the defendant was innocent.

In this hypothetical, how fair is that judge? Well, not at all. If the judge withheld evidence that would have proven to the jury that the defendant is, indeed, innocent, then the jury can’t be blamed for finding him guilty. In the case of distant starlight, God is like the judge who withheld evidence and didn’t allow it to “leak out” until years later. If any skeptic carefully examined the Bible and found it to be scientifically flawed because Genesis couldn’t be reconciled with distant starlight, then God can’t blame that skeptic for rejecting the Christian faith.

Suppose that such a skeptic died in the 1960s and never lived to see Humphreys propose the correct solution to the starlight problem. How would it be fair to condemn that skeptic? Why did God wait until later to reveal the solution? Hell, why didn’t the risen Jesus appear to this skeptic, confirm to this person that He is risen and very real, and then inform him about the solution to the starlight problem?

I read, recently, that another Christian with an advanced degree, this time in astrophysics, named Jason Lisle, proposed yet another solution. I laughed when I read this. When are these creationists finally going to get everything right? When are they finally going to get their story straight? First the “mature creation hypothesis” fails. Then Barry Setterfield’s idea goes down in flames. Then Russell Humphreys proposes his solution. Then Jason Lisle came out with a solution called “anisotropic synchrony convention.” What? Do you mean Russell Humphreys is wrong? Geez.

Why didn’t Humphreys come out with this “anisotropic synchrony convention”? Why didn’t Setterfield or Morris come out with this idea? Why didn’t God inform Morris about this new idea back in the 1940s? So when is Lisle’s idea going to crash and burn? And then what will be the next solution to solve the starlight problem?

Maybe, just maybe, it’s the case that biblical inerrancy is nonsense. Maybe that’s because the Bible is a flawed book and isn’t inspired by any god. Maybe it’s just a human book and the miracle stories didn’t happen.

This is one of many reasons I reject biblical inspiration and infallibility. This is just one of several reasons I reject the Christian faith as a divine revelation of any kind.