[Alex Murphy]

Ping for later reading

[aruanan]

This is the question of how a loving, righteous and omnipotent God can allow evil and suffering in a world He created and sustains. Ham argues a loving God would not allow millions of years of animal violence and death for no reason; hence, animal death must be a result of God’s judgment on human sin and could not have been part of the initial creation.

The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ? Exodus 4:11

It looks like the Lord doesn't have any problem with this. The problem with Ham's argument (and every other totalist system from Calvin through Mao) is the assumption that all the truths about God and the world that are in the Bible (or even in the world at large) can be reduced to or explained within a single intellectual system of his own devising. Even in mathematics this isn't possible. When people do this for life and living they place things into relationships demanded by their system that aren't necessarily demanded in reality (of course, they claim their system to be reality). Depending upon the amount of political or moral force at their disposal, their systematically-induced exigencies cause naturally existing relationships to assume weird, bizarre forms (economically, one of these in the context of a dictated economy is the black market). Usually when those suffering under the system complain, their complaints are taken as evidence of just how much they truly need the system and how perverse they are to try to evade it.

Ham's reasoning is typified by a mailing I got several decades ago from the Institute for Creation Research about the virgin birth written by Henry Morris. It's a perfect example of where this type of reasoning leads. In it he claimed that since Jesus was perfect, he must have been perfect in all ways or he couldn't have died for sinful man. If he had to be perfect in all ways, he had to be perfect physically. Since sin was passed along through the father, he had no human father. But since Mary was human, she also shared the physical imperfections of humanity scarred by Adam's sin. Because of this, Mary could not have been the mother of Jesus's body. Therefore, Jesus's body was specially created within Mary's womb, sharing no heritage with humanity or descent from Adam other than a legal one of having been born to human parents. Morris asked (paraphrase), "Who can say that Jesus wasn't truly human? God created him. Can we argue with God?" Note that this is the standard way of dismissing objections to the system: identify the system with God and then claim that questioning it is questioning God.

The real name for the making of systems that will explain everything in a way acceptable to the one devising it and then treating the system as of divine origin is idolatry.

[Alex Murphy]

Was this written by the same "Greg Moore" that is (was?) the Seattle-area chapter President for a ministry called Reasons to Believe?

[aimhigh]

The this diatribe, the author has become what he accuses Ham of being. His reasoning has very poor logic - apples and oranges.

[Uri’el-2012]

Reasons to Believe is Hugh Ross.

He is one of the most rude and un-christian persons that I have ever encountered.
He is always correct and anyone who believes otherwise is ignorant.

Hugh Ross suffers from PRIDE!

Hugh Ross presents a very poor Christian Witness.

I prefer Gerald Schroeder on the origins of the universe.

b'shem Y'shua

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Ham’s claim “the god of an old earth is not the God of the Bible” is based on the question of theodicy***
A 21th century Marcionite?

I suppose he beleives in the "Demiurge".

[metmom]

Thanks for the very interesting article. I sure am grateful that my salvation is not based on my opinion on the age of the earth. I have problems with the young earth view more because of the method originally used to determine the age of the earth by Ussher, than anything. The Bible doesn't state the earth's age but deriving it from geneologies seems questionable, at best.

[Larry Lucido]

The idea that animal death is solely the result of the fall implies that God created carnivores and nevertheless intended for them to frequent salad bars.

Plus, it raises the prospect of a world with insects multiplying by the billions and billions and never, ever dying. Camping would be a bitch!