‘But the New Testament does not make a big deal out of the Age of the Earth …’

CMI ^ | March 26, 2009 | Peter Milford

[GodGunsGuts]

‘But the New Testament does not make a big deal out of the Age of the Earth…’

by Peter Milford

...

The issue of the age of the earth parallels circumcision. In my experience, the first response from Christians who do not accept the age of the earth that the Scriptures indicate, is to say something like “The New Testament does not make a big deal out of the age of the earth” or “It is not the purpose of the Bible to give the age of the earth”. Their point is that (1) the issue of the age of the earth is a non-essential, and (2) therefore not something we should argue about. They believe we are free to hold whatever view our conscience permits. They are right in the first part. In and of itself, the age of the earth is not a central focus of Scripture. But the distortions a long-age view brings to the gospel message make them wrong on the second part...

[P-Marlowe]

Strengthen your faith. God would be pleased.

My faith in God or my faith in Evolution?

[Buck W.]

Your Christian faith.

[OneWingedShark]

>You refused to answer my question. Let me repeat it. It is a simple yes/no question:
>
>If I might ask, have you allegorized the creation story sufficiently in your mind that you believe (based on the evidence of dry bones), that man was not a special creation of God, but that he descended from lower forms of life and ultimately from some simian non-human ancestor?

I do not believe that Man is an unspecial creation. I do not believe that Man came from anything but God. I never said that I did, nor did I ever say anything that could be taken otherwise.

>>Zacheeus asked Jesus “How can a man be born again? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time?” This was a perfectly valid question to a very literal taking of Jesus’s own words.
>>But is that what Jesus was talking about?
>
>No.

*sigh* - And you still refuse to see that ‘day’ might be used in the figurative sense (”back in my day”)? Again, I ask, if time is not uniform, and might change its ‘speed’, as we see from relativity... if the original Hebrew word describing God’s creating the Heavens is to stretch... then considering that the edges must travel at a faster pace then the center and therefore have different time ‘speeds’ {time dilation} then how can the literal-reading time-descriptive word “day” describe that reality adequately? (”I don’t know.” IS a valid answer, and the most honest one to questions like “When is Jesus coming back?”)

>>Answer this: How can there be a meaningful conversation when you have already condemned me?
>
>You called me a fool. I called you nothing.

Then stop acting/being one, for Christ’s sake! (And your actions have worse than called me ‘anything’, you have treated me like a simpleton, one lacking understanding and reason, whilst refusing to [use] reason yourself.) You are perpetuating a shame to Christ. Hell, if I wasn’t a Christian, I’d be seriously offended by your failure to dialog, by your failure to address my questions, and by your manner of taking what I say as something completely different than what I did say... and before you take THAT as a “sign of weak faith” let me say my faith is NOT dependent on you, but on the living Son of God, Jesus Christ.

[Sans-Culotte]

Whether you believe Earth is five thousand years, a few million years, round, flat as a pancake, center of the universe, or backwater corner, honestly doesn’t make a difference to salvation in the belief in Jesus Christ.

Actually, it does. "Salvation in the belief of Jesus" is based on the fall of man and man's redemption through Christ. If the Creation was some sort of "theistic evolution", then it renders the story of Adam and Eve and the serpent and the Fall as just that-a story. If man evolved (theistically), then it destroys the story that God created two people who sinned and therefore brought death and damnation on the rest of humanity.

[GodGunsGuts]

==Using it as a science text devalues the Scripture.

The Bible is the inspired word of God, and is therefore above science. God says he created the Universe and everything in it in Six Days. God says that He created Mankind, male and female, on Day 6. Jesus Christ, God the Son, confirms this in the New Testament.

PS If you asked me, giving fallible science priority over infallible scripture is a devaluation of scripture by definition.

[GodGunsGuts]

Very well said!

[OneWingedShark]

>If you asked me, giving fallible science priority over infallible scripture is a devaluation of scripture by definition.

Then what do you think of the like of Blase Pascal (Pascal’s Wager) who used science and reason to buttress his faith and help convince others about it?

[GodGunsGuts]

==Then what do you think of the like of Blase Pascal (Pascal’s Wager) who used science and reason to buttress his faith and help convince others about it?

Perhaps the following will help answer you question:

All the above confuses the ministerial v magisterial approach to science. Scientism is an example of the magisterial use of science, where it stands over Scripture like a magistrate and judges it. Such ‘science’ is bound to be flawed, because science by its very nature is tentative, and starts with axioms invented by fallible humans and not revealed by the infallible God. Science should never be elevated to the same level as logic, because valid logical deductions from true premises always lead to true conclusions, while scientific theories come and go. This characteristic of science especially applies to origin science (the study of one-off origins in the past), and some apply this even to operational science (the science of repeatable observations in the present²), although it’s not our main point of debate.

The ministerial use of science occurs when science submits to Scripture. This means that all things necessary for our faith and life are either expressly set down in Scripture or may be deduced by good and necessary consequence from Scripture. Many Scriptural passages show that Christians are not supposed to check in their brains at the church door, but to use their God-given minds in subjection to God’s Word.³

The following section from Refuting Compromise should explain further why we like RATE, and why it is diametrically opposed to scientism.

Ministerial and magisterial uses of science contrasted

The ministerial use elaborates on the clear teachings of the Bible, and may help us decide on equally plausible alternatives consistent with the language. Note that this approach to Scripture does not deny the authority of Scripture, but recognizes that while Scripture is ‘true truth’ it is not exhaustive truth. In contrast, the magisterial use overrules the clear teaching of the Bible to come up with a meaning inconsistent with sound hermeneutics. Instead of the Reformation principle of Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), this is Scriptura sub scientia (Scripture below science). The following examples can aid our understanding of the differences between the magisterial and ministerial use of science in the interpretation of the Bible:

• Scripture teaches that a year-long global flood (with various stages) occurred about 1,600 years after creation. Creationist geologists, such as CMI’s Dr Tas Walker, have worked on building a scientific model, based on the types of rock formations predicted in every stage.⁴ A magisterial use of science is to claim that uniformitarian science disproves a global Flood, so that Genesis must be reinterpreted to mean a local Flood, or even dismissed as unhistorical.
• The whole tenor of Scripture is that the individual is a human being right from the beginning of biological life; there is nothing to indicate that there is any secondary event of ‘ensoulment’ after the beginning of biological life. In particular, the Psalmist teaches that life begins at conception (Psalm 51:5), i.e., he explicitly states that it was ‘me’ that existed from conception, not some blob of cells that later became ‘me’. Science elaborates on this by showing that the union of sperm and egg (fertilization or conception) is the scientifically irrefutable beginning of the individual’s life, so can be equated with the Biblical term.
• The Bible teaches (ten times in Genesis 1) that living organisms reproduce after their kind, and that man was created supernaturally from non-living matter, not from a pre-existing living creature (Genesis 2:7). Since kinds are defined by reproduction, creationists have used hybridization studies to elaborate on the boundaries of the original created kind to elucidate the Biblical teaching. For example, the wholphin, a hybrid of a killer whale and a dolphin, shows that they were descendants of the same created kind, despite man’s classification of them into different genera. In fact, since the wholphin is fertile, it means that its parents were really members of the same ‘biological species’ by definition. And since the Bible does not specify that the ‘kind’ must equal any modern definition of ‘species’, science can help demonstrate that [Hugh] Ross’s equation of these two terms is false.

A magisterial use of reason is that of theistic evolutionists who claim that all living organisms, including man, have evolved from a simple cell. So if they regard Genesis as remotely historical at all, it must be ‘reinterpreted’ to be compatible with the idea that one kind has changed into another kind, quite contrary to the plain language of the biblical text.

[P-Marlowe]

I do not believe that Man is an unspecial creation. I do not believe that Man came from anything but God. I never said that I did, nor did I ever say anything that could be taken otherwise.

But you did not answer the question. Let me repeat the question (It is a "Yes/No" Question:

If I might ask, have you allegorized the creation story sufficiently in your mind that you believe (based on the evidence of dry bones), that man was not a special creation of God, but that he descended from lower forms of life and ultimately from some simian non-human ancestor?

Yes or No.

You are perpetuating a shame to Christ.

By believing his words?

Hell, if I wasn’t a Christian, I’d be seriously offended by your failure to dialog, by your failure to address my questions, and by your manner of taking what I say as something completely different than what I did say.

It appears to me that you ARE seriously offended. BTW I don't believe I have failed to answer any of your questions. You may correct me if I am wrong. Further, I don't see where you have answered mine.

and before you take THAT as a “sign of weak faith” let me say my faith is NOT dependent on you, but on the living Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Did I accuse you of having a "weak faith"? I don't believe so. You have accused me of many things on this thread; of not having faith, of being a fool, of perpetuating a shame upon Christ. All I am doing is expressing my belief in his words. I honestly don't understand your visceral reaction.

If I say God created the Heavens and the Earth and all that is within them in 6 days am I perpetuating a Shame upon Christ. Weren't those the same words that were inscribed by God on the Ten Commandments? Was God perpetuating a shame upon Christ by inscribing them?

[P-Marlowe]

Your Christian faith.

How are my beliefs incompatible with Christian Faith?

Is Christianity at odds with the words inscribed by the hand of God on the Ten Commandments? Does Christian faith necessarily require a belief in an "Old" (By our understanding) Earth or a belief that man is descended from lower forms of life?

I hadn't heard that before.

[xzins]

Weren't those the same words that were inscribed by God on the Ten Commandments?

Yes, they were. And I don't think they are shameful. They describe reality and real events. I don't pretend to know all about the reconciliation of creation and the doubts of those who are theistic evolutionists, but I do know that I believe the biblical record to be true.

I doubt the theistic evolutionary take on it, because it requires a radical reinterpretation of God Himself. The way I see it, theistic evolution necessitates that God be viewed more as a cosmic tinkerer than an Omnipotent Sovereign.

I don't think the biblical record supports the view of God as cosmic tinkerer.

[Buck W.]

For some, Christian faith requires absolute belief in the literal truth of the bible. That absolute belief inhibits a strengthening of the faith that is necessary in order to use the faculties that God gave man to ascertain the method of creation (for instance).

[allmendream]

2 Peter 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

How many Biblical passages introduce themselves by saying ‘pay particular attention to this fact’?

And yes, sunrise and sunset a first day; as well as sunrise and sunset day two; just MIGHT be poetic language, seeings as how the actual SUN had not yet been created.

[editor-surveyor]

CONTEXT !!!!

Peter was not speaking about creation; he was speaking about the coming “Day of the Lord.”

Stop twisting the Bible against God.

[editor-surveyor]

"Their point is that (1) the issue of the age of the earth is a non-essential, and (2) therefore not something we should argue about.

Which proves that they have no idea what the Bible is even about!

Ages and times are of great importance, and that is why so much of the Bible deals with them.

[allmendream]

Yes, the context was about God’s patience. People wonder “when will the last days come” and Peter explains that God is not on the same time scale as us.

And what is the LITERAL interpretation of “sunrise” and “sunset” on the “days” before the Sun was created?

[editor-surveyor]

"I think there is enough ambiguity as to what happens before and during the first day of creation to allow for a old earth even with a very literal reading of Genesis."

Then why does the entire Bible speak to only two ages:
The age before the judgement, and the age after the judgement?

[P-Marlowe]

That absolute belief inhibits a strengthening of the faith that is necessary in order to use the faculties that God gave man to ascertain the method of creation (for instance).

Fascinating.

Since you have apparently abandoned any reliance upon the literal truth of scripture as a basis for your understanding of creation and with that abandonment it has apparently allowed you to freely "use the faculties that God gave man to ascertain the method of creation", perhaps you can explain to all of us the "method of Creation" that God used.

Try to keep it under 500,000 words and try not to be too technical. Most of us fundamentalists are not as educated as you.

[editor-surveyor]

"this whole debate is in the end meaningless and destructive."

If you believe that, then why do you not leave this thread? - What you are doing here on this thread is truly destructive, and prevents obedient believers from studying the meat of God's word, rather than forever remaining in fetal contraction, sipping only the "sincere milk."

[Ping-Pong]

Then why does the entire Bible speak to only two ages: The age before the judgement, and the age after the judgement?

The Bible speaks of three ages, a previous age, this present age and the one to come. One of the places is...

Corinthians 12:2 I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.