I know what "ex nihilo" means! But thanks anyhow!
I cannot assume that everyone reading these posts knows that terminology.
Can I assume "everything" is metaphorical. Otherwise everything is a pretty tall order!
True that, reading "everything" would take a world full of men devoting a lifetime to the exercise. I've only read somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 books on the subject from various vantage points in the past 10 years or so, so I guess that I may be behind the curve of "everything." I concede the point in your favor...
Merit to advance what argument: that evolution is true? If you believe in evolution then say so. You may have already confessed as I have not read all the posts on this thread.
You somehow derive from my posts that I support evolution? That would be rather weird, for I do not, save that there is plenty of evidence to support "micro-evolution" that remains within the bounds of any given "type" (biblical language) or "species" to use a more scientific term. Even the good folks at ICR at the Creation Museum hold that point, and I align somewhat with their stance on most things evolutionary related save one -- their dating scheme for the age of the earth. I find no actual dates in the Scriptures, so any scheme for dating the earth is (in my mind) akin to trying to name the date for the return of Christ. I am YEC, but see a slightly longer age than 6500 years based on some rather solid evidence, even biblical.
No, GOD created everything that we see by fiat, ex nihilo, as expressly offered to humanity via the "specific revelation" in Genesis and other places.
But, that does not eliminate the evidences that we can observe from the "general revelation" that is God's creation. These observations from general revelation cannot trump what God specifically revealed, but as has been said before, the specific revelation of God, while perfect, truthful, and innerant, is not the entire revelation. God continually asks us in that specific revelation to "look and see" the glory of God. That is what we do when we observe His creation.
You are fond of Morris but have you read the Trilogy? We can disagree as to whether the book is dated.
I have read other of Morris' works. I expect that he has much the same thing to say in Trilogy. I have it on my reading list. It is dated to a publish date of 1996, and therefore it is dated, even if his arguments remain sound. Science advances with new discoveries almost every day, some of which overturn theories argued by Morris in the year or so leading up to his publication date of 1996. For crying out loud, the Internet was still a fantasy for most people in 1996... Things have changed due to the technology that computers bring to the field of science. They are able to see more, deeper, finer, with more clarity -- and by the way, every new evidence that Science brings gives God more glory, for He is the sole Creator and already knew that all of what humans are now just discovering exists, for He made it so.
If Morris brought some earth-shattering evidence to bear on the nature of Science, it sure did not make much of a splash in the greater theological or scientific world. And, again, I am not against Morris per se, other than the fact that he tends to re-hash arguments that are not always factually based or up to date with the current state of affairs which helps to fuel the fires of those opposed to him.
Is science [physics and astrophysics] making progress or running around in circles, you know like a dog chasing its tail!
Both... For every progress they make, they also postulate another error (in a lot of cases) based on their a priori presupposition that all they see as evidence NEEDS to be naturalistic and not pointed at a Creator God.
So just what is the current debate? There is really nothing to debate. Evolution is the invention of godless minds which in the final analysis is simply to deny accountability.
What you just offered is a "head in the sand" attitude that does not get God's Church a seat at the debate table. I reject the principles that you outline -- NOT because I am a believer in evolution, far from it, but rather because it is precisely the position that Science has painted us, and we must respond with the exercise of the minds that God has given us as well as with the revelation that God has given us instead of sitting back and saying that there is nothing at all to debate.
Recently, Anthony Flew (now deceased), one of the foremost spokesmen for atheists, and the man who invented the current philosophical arguments used against God's revelation and people -- the first new arguments since Hume -- turned to deism based on the scientific evidence that he saw regarding the anthropic principles. Other scientists are doing likewise and I have a book at home of 500 prominent and formerly secular naturalistic scientists of every stripe who now look to a Creator God to solve the riddles of creation that they observe as scientists. That is the sort of argument that Christians can and ought to make -- one that gives evidence for a different presupposition (or at least a neutral presupposition) that gives at least a chance for evidence of an Intelligent Design Creator to be seen.
The current debate centers around two main fronts -- the anthropic principles and the "machinery/information-based" inferences that scientists are now grappling with. They have already (for the most part) decided that the universe did indeed have a beginning, now they argue as to how that might have happened without violating their a priori presuppositions against a First Cause Creator. They postulate alternative universes (multi-verse) and alternative dimensions in this universe, with random quantum effects popping into existence matter or energy from out of nothing, but in so doing, they admit that there really was not "nothing" but something, and so their argument becomes circular. Shifting tghe advent of our universe to some alternate universe only succeeds in removing any hope of falsification, and so is nothing more than metaphysical belief by faith, not actual science. In the realm if microbiology, we now know, virtually for certain, that life did not arise on earth by chance. There is no mechanism that exists that can explain how non-organic materials (nor how they came to exist) became organic, assembled, and gained the ability to reproduce. This is where some of the largest "science of the gaps" occurs and I am remided of a cartoon that I saw that illustrates it well. A scientist has a blackboard filled with equations of an utterly advanced nature, then another blackboard next to it, and yet another after that again filled with equations. On the center board it just says, "And evolution happened." That, at the end of the day, is about the gist of things...
And of course there is always the Second Law, of Thermodynamics that is!
Of course... The dance danced around this law by Science would be funny if it were not so, well, disasterous.
