I have a couple thoughts on this issue, as it is something to which I have given a fair amount of thought (unfortunately, with very little results):
1) Very few, if any of us, on the PB, have actually went through all of the science and mathematical equations pertaining to the sun and it's relation to the earth. That seems so patently obvious that it somewhat embarrasses me to write it. That being said, usually when any person advocates geocentrism, there is normally a decisive and swift "brush off" on the basis of "well, we all
know...."
I didn't even realize that until this past year or so. I had been taught all of my life that the earth revolved around the sun. I have viewed any and all advocates of geocentrism as painfully embarrassing anachronisms, artifacts of a bygone age that made my apologetic task the more difficult. Then it struck me that, in all of my hidebound
certainty that geocentrism was wrong, I myself had
never done any in-depth calculations, reading, etc., to lead me to that conclusion.
And in that sense, I can see how the charge of hypocrisy in how YEC's treat geocentrism at least enters the discussion. I simply think that a little epistemological humility in the area would be helpful for many of us.
2) As I currently understand it, this issue appears to boil down, not necessarily to an issue of authority, but rather, to an issue of hermeneutics. Really, it's the same issue that tends to perplex me when it comes to the New Testament: How do I responsibly handle an objective text, holding to the literal truth thereof, while yet recognizing that even inspired language doesn't necessarily take a "literalistic" meaning ("This is my body", "I am the door", "You are the salt of the earth", Herod is a fox, etc.).
Moreover, how do I do that in a consistent way, that it doesn't seem like
arbitrary sophistry to an unbeliever. How do I do that in such a way that I'm not breaking my own rules, always selecting the reading of the text that is most favorable to me?
3) For the geocentrists: It seems as if, by and large, the notion of phenomenological language is disregarded. That might not be fair. Perhaps you do accept phenomenological language, but simply think that the manifold references to the moving and course of the sun simply points to something more than that.
Regardless, to continue this "consistency", wouldn't one need to say that there are actual "windows" in the heavens, via which rain comes down to the earth? Does the earth have four corners? Does the earth have "ends"? Are there (or were there, prior to the flood), waters above the raqiya (if you reject the "clouds" interpretation). Are the stars in the firmament? That last one (the stars) has always been tricky to me. I don't know Hebrew (one semester in college that I have since forgotten), so the precise nature of the preposition involved eludes me. But if we reject phenomenological language, wouldn't we have to say that the stars were
in the firmament,
under the waters?
I have had these questions for awhile (not faith-shaking questions; just questions) and never wanted to post them, simply because I don't want to give those who disagree with YEC, or the inerrancy of Scripture, or unbelievers, any "fodder". But since it is being discussed, those are the questions that I have.
None of it really causes me to doubt the YEC-view, and that is coming form someone who at various points in their life (until the past couple years) has held to the gap theory, framework, day-age, etc. I don't in the least doubt the genealogies in Genesis, or that man co-existed with "terrible lizards."
However, I do have some serious questions about the consistency of my hermeneutic. I think that an objective, fair interpretation is possible, but I just don't see any way to make someone else, especially unbelievers, see that the choices are justified (say, for YEC, against "windows in the heavens").
And on that note, I think I've gone cross-eyed.