Note: this topic is from 5/29/2006. Thanks truthfinder9.
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Posted on 05/29/2006 6:28:25 AM PDT by truthfinder9
I find it incongruous for you to use Early Church Fathers to support your interpretations since the debate between the Early Church Fathers was not whether the Earth was created over billions of years versus six days, but whether it was created in 6 days (as indicated in the plain reading of the text) or six nanoseconds (as suggested in the Apocrypha). Augustine's error was in attempting to compromise between scripture and apocrypha. OEC's on the other hand are attempting to find a compromise between natural science and scripture.
Historically the Church as well as the Jewish scholarly tradition have always argued for the 6 day creation. Clearly the debate up through Calvin and the Westminster Confession was always whether it took 6 days or 6 nanoseconds and only recently (the last 200 years) has any serious Christian scholar suggested that it took God 6 billion years to complete his work.
What I fail to see is why you believe in the antiquity of the earth yet claim you do not believe in evolution. If you are going to buy into the science which suggests that it would have been impossible for God to create the universe as suggested by the literal reading of Genesis, then why on earth don't you buy into the theistic evolutionary position that God used evolution as the process for making life on the earth? You are putting science on an equal footing with scripture anyway, so why not just accept what scientists say about evolution?
P-M, it is possible that OEC's believe that God did create instantaneously, but in between those "days" there were vast periods of time. They would believe in "ex nihilo" but they would not believe in gradual evolution over time.
In that case, the only difference between their view and the traditional one week view would be the amount of time between each day. We would have the days immediately succeeding one another. They might not.
I imagine that truthfinder9 can correct me if I'm wrong about OECs.
Then I must not be a YEC. And under that definition, I suspect that nobody on this thread is a YEC.
I don't necessarily subscribe to any Creation science. I do not put Creation Science on an equal footing with Scripture. Creation Science by and large is speculation, as is Natural Science. It is ludicrous and dishonest to suggest that ALL YEC's claim that they say that they do not put scripture and science on an equal footing merely because they want to claim infallibility of Creation science. That's baloney and you should know it.
I frankly don't care if there is a shred of physical evidence to support my position. My position is not based upon reconciling the apparent age of the earth with the scriptures. My position is based solely upon the scriptures. While it may be an interesting hobby to try to reconcile the scientific evidence with my position (and there are several theories which I have given some credence) I hold to the scriptural position because it is scriptural. God said he did it in 6 days. I believe it.
Well they are still stuck with the fact that the plants were all created before God turned on the sun. So if each intervening space was 1/2 billion years, that is a long time to keep the plants out of the sunlight. You theoretically keep a plant in darkness for a few literal days, but beyond that you start running into problems.
God created the plants and vegetation on the third day. The sun didn't come out till the forth. If you have a consistent day/age theory, then that position is ludicrous. Now if God said he created all the vegetation 1/2 billion years before he turned on the sunlight, then I would believe him. But if we try to reconcile science and scripture by using a day/age theory, then we will take a most inconsistent position. The only way to reconcile it would be to have the forth day occur before the third. But why do we need to reconclie scripture to anything? We should be reconciling our thinking about everything else to scripture.
I'm not trying to reconcile anything. I'm just pointing out a difference between OEC and Theistic Evolution.
As always, for me the issue is what's on the page. The page says one thing, and then we begin the interpretive task. OEC is an interpretation, and I'm sure they would have some form of answer regarding the plants and the sun.
I know that scripture aligns with Truth, and that true knowledge (science)aligns with truth. Also, Jesus is The Truth. We might not yet understand how it aligns, but I am assured that it does.
Your removed post characterized your correspondent personally, including attributing motives to him.
On post 113 I gave you and your correspondent a final warning to discuss the issues but not make it personal.
There are several methods available to get a poster's attention. And I do remove posts etc. after on-thread warnings.
We know it part, but when that which is perfect is come then we shall know even as we are known.
When I first read Hugh Ross' book, I thought it was a wonderful attempt to reconcile science and scripture. But he is dead wrong when he attempts to claim that there is a Dual Revelation available to us, equating scientific discoveries and conclusions with the scripture. While science has the capability of teaching us truths about Nature (as it exists right now), the only source of absolute truth is the word of God.
In a public and as yet unanswered open letter to Hugh Ross, Physicist Lambert Dolphin wrote the following:
The Danger of Reductionalism---There remains Great Mystery in Creation: God's dialogues with Job show that Job hasn't figured out how God created things, and can't! Job does has a good amount of knowledge about God derived from nature. He also has a personal relationship with God and some years' experience in matters of faith. Yet when God finally speaks to Job, the LORD's response shows that man is unable to probe the mysteries of creation to any depth! This is confirmed by Solomon who says: "He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man's mind, yet so that he (man) cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11) Isaiah records: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts". (Isaiah 55:7-9) The passage in Ecclesiastes seems to indicate that the mystery of time can not be unraveled by man because God has hidden it. This may mean that we can not establish once and for all whether or not the universe is old or young. I believe that as history moves forward science and the Bible must come into closer agreement, otherwise we are drawing incorrect conclusions from our observations of nature. However we must not insist that God did things in a certain way unless we are given that information in Scripture. This is the difference between naturalism and supernaturalism. A supernatural view of the universe is not the same as a magical or mythical view, however. "Theistic evolution comes in two varieties: the first says that God is the First Cause who built all the necessary things into the original very low entropy of the universe and allowed all the details to unfold naturally after t=0. The second view is that the universe runs mostly by natural processes, but that God intervenes occasionally to bring about exceedingly improbable events such as the origin of life and transitions between species (punctuated equilibrium, for example). Biblical creation takes neither of these views. You claim not to believe in theistic evolution, but you don't appear to me to depart too far from the premises of the second type of theistic evolution."
It does appear to me that the OEC's that have posted here belong to the second group of theistic evolutionists. They may believe that God intervened at various points in history to create macro-species, but that micro-speciation was the work of Nature. The problem that we have with that view is simply that the evolutionist will point to the gradual evolution of ape to human and point out all the similarities as evidence that man was not, in fact, a special creation, but was simply a walking talking ape.
If we accept that science is equal to scripture in giving us a revelation of God, then we are elevating science (which is the study of God's creation) to the level of scripture (which is the revelation of God).
"Since the fall, however, man has sought to act independently of his Creator. As one writer observes, 'Since the fall the human mind has been wholly pagan.' The pagan mind resists submitting results of its reason against Scripture as a check. It even desires to stand as a judge of Scripture. There are just two ways to approach issues. Either we view everything through the Bible, or we view the Bible through man's autonomous ideas." (Donald E. Chittick, The Controversy Roots of the Creation-Evolution Conflict, Multnomah Press, Portland, 1984-
All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that has been made.
In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.
And the light shined in the darkness; and the darkness did not understand it.
Thank you so very much for the link!
He most certaintly does not do this.
Excerpt from, A Matter of Days, p. 89:
The Bible teaches a dual, consistent revelation [He lists 26 passages, p. 255 plus an additional 187 passages on creation pp. 253-254]. Just as readers rightfully expect valid interpretation of Isaiah to be consistent with that of Mark, they can expect accurate interpretation of the facts of nature to be consistent with the message of Genesis and the rest of Scripture...
This consistency does not mean, however, that the record of nature is as complete and specific as the message of the Bible or even that it speaks on all important matters...the central truths of Christianity...[Trinity, etc]...cannot be gleaned from a study of nature...on these subjects...the Bible is our sole reliable source of information.
On other subjects, nature’s record provides out sole reliable source of information. The pyhiscal properties of quarks, the rotation rates of galaxies...
Truth, be definition, is information free of contradiction and error. One revelation of God’s truth cannot be held as inferior or superior to another. It can be different, just as the content of Ezra is distinct from that of Romans, but truth cannot be better or worse. Thus, when science appears to conflict with theology, we have no reason to reject either the facts of nature or the Bible’s words. Rather, we have reason to reexamine our interpretations, because the facts of nature and Scripture will always agree.
"They may believe that God intervened at various points in history to create macro-species, but that micro-speciation was the work of Nature."
Micro-speciation, or microevolution, is accepted by virtually all creationists, including YECs. If you equate it with theistic evolution, then you don't know what it is. Mircoevolution is change within a species, its ability to adapt. Such changes are caused be existing codes in the genetics. Such changes aren't necessarily permanent, nor do they ever compound to form entirely new life forms (macroeveolution). Microevolution can be seen in all life, including humans.
Dolphin's comments reveal he hasn't bothered to see what OEC's or Ross actually say or as ignored it. At least that's what I have to assume because the only other option is that he is being decietful. And one can't help to wonder that because reading any of Ross' works show Dolphin's comments are completely off the mark.
"I frankly don't care if there is a shred of physical evidence to support my position."
You basiclly just lost all credibility on this subject because that's like saying "I don't care if everyone says the sky is blue, I say it's green." And your statement is unbiblical, Christianity is the historic faith, rooted in reality, and the NT actually challenges people to test it.
Good luck in your world.
From Is The Truth Out There?:
The point being that God uses age, like other constraints, to reveal undeniable design.
Biomechanical scientist Neil Broom further explains the fallacy of evolutionists that old age = evolution:
Ironiclly many YECs have based their theory on the evolutionist's megatime fallacy.
That is exactly what Dolphin questioned Ross about. BTW if Dolphin is so wrong about what Hugh Ross wrote, why don't you tell him to post an answer to Dolphin's open letter. He's been waiting decades to hear from him.
Just as readers rightfully expect valid interpretation of Isaiah to be consistent with that of Mark, they can expect accurate interpretation of the facts of nature to be consistent with the message of Genesis and the rest of Scripture...
Not necessarily. The problem is that when God works, he works by miracles and those would be outside the laws of nature, but when nature acts, it acts in accordance with the laws of nature set up by God. So whatever happened before the completion of creation is simply undeterminable by the natural sciences. You may be able to explain what happened subsequent to the completion of creation (provided that God has not interfered with the laws of nature, but to extrapolate what happened during creation with what we know about nature is not possible. God did not use nature, he created it.
What Ross is trying to do is to look at nature and how things work now and assume that the creation was the work of God working under the laws of nature and then when he does that he must extrapolate that since the earth shows evidence of being billions of years old, that therefore it must be billions of years old and therefore scripture has been misinterpreted for 4000 years and that we must now look for a new interpretation that is consistent with what we know about nature.
It is naturalistic theology. In order to come to Ross' scriptural interpretation, you must first assume that what we know about nature is clearer than what God revealed through scripture. You can't do that. Whatever happened during creation was not natural. In that sense it is unmeasurable. Therefore if God says he did it in 6 days and the clear intent of the language is to convey that in fact he did it in 6 days, then the believer is duty bound to believe it or reject the scripture in favor of naturalism.
This is, IMO, where Ross jumps the shark. He is so convinced that the natural laws speak truth as much as the scriptures that he is willing to test the scriptures by what he knows about nature rather than test what he knows about nature against the scriptures.
That was Dolphin's concern and Ross has to this day, never responded to that concern. Perhaps, since you are so close to the Reasons people, you could have Hugh provide a written response to the concerns raised by Dolphin.
Dolphin's comments reveal he hasn't bothered to see what OEC's or Ross actually say or as ignored it. At least that's what I have to assume because the only other option is that he is being decietful. And one can't help to wonder that because reading any of Ross' works show Dolphin's comments are completely off the mark.
I would not ever deign to accuse Hugh Ross of being dishonest. Deceived, perhaps, but not dishonest. Wrong, yes, but not dishonest. I think your insinuation that Lambert Dolphin is dishonest is not worthy of comment. So I won't.
This is the historic, orthodox belief of Christianity. For Dolphin to question it is absurd which is why he has been waiting "decades."
"So whatever happened before the completion of creation is simply undeterminable by the natural sciences."
That is also absurd. If we can't explore nature and determine things, then how can anyone assert any creation position? It's similar to when I've heard Ken Ham assert we cannot know the past. Really? Then there can't be geology, archaeology and astronomy.
"What Ross is trying to do is to look at nature and how things work now and assume that the creation was the work of God working under the laws of nature and then when he does"
Another absurdity. Ross never, and I repeat never, claims God was "working" under the laws of nature. All of your comments about Ross are what YECs have claimed he thinks or writes, but reality is completely opposite. For example, Ross doesn't assert the universe must billions of years because of assumptions or theories, but because of empirical evidence. Thus, if YECism is the "literal" interpretation, the Bible is wrong.
The comments about Ross by YECs are bewildering to anyone who actually reads what he actually writes. The YECs' interjecting of things Ross never wrote or meant proves the shaky foundations of their theory.
" would not ever deign to accuse Hugh Ross of being dishonest."
And yet you and many other YECs continuously misrepresent what he says becasue he has so effectively answered YECism. If you're going to talk about Ross, instead of relying on the same recycled comments about him, many which date back "decades" like Dolphin, try reading is recent books. Or better yet, call him up on his radio program and ask him himself.
Note: this topic is from 5/29/2006. Thanks truthfinder9.
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So why in the heck did Noah need an ark?
If it was a local event, like the destruction of Sodom, then then could have just walked to higher ground.
Did all the world come to Joseph to buy food including the Eskimos?
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