Creation???

[nChrist]

Your analogy is good. You are saying exactly what I am trying to point out.

As to the abiogenesis part, although evolutionists would strongly disagree with you, I do not deny that God created the first plants or seeds but he rather he let the earth bring forth them and multiply the amount until they covered the earth. However, after the creation part is complete, God allows the earth to do the work. Based on science, we know that this must take a long period of time. Add to that fact, that Adam had to give names to all the creatures (possibly millions), the creation account seems to indicate to me that yom means a long period of time. In this sense I would consider my current view that of an old earth creationist.

Remove the consideration of man's so-called science from God's Creation and you will get closer to the truth. God could care less what evolutionists think, and God is not limited in any way. The Holy Bible is the ONLY account of Creation. Don't add to or subtract from the Holy Bible and you'll have the truth, regardless of whether you understand it or not. What you or any other human thinks is not material unless it agrees with the Holy Bible. God could have breathed the entire creation into existence in a second, but that's not what the Holy Bible says. In terms of time, God used language that we can understand quite easily, and I'm sure that He did so for a reason. God has a reason for everything He says or does. There is no irony that the time frame discussed is a week - including the 7th day for rest. Man heard about this 7th day again. God set a pattern that would be repeated. A morning and an evening combined would be called a day.

[other one]

but the sun and moon were not created until the fourth day...... and it was to separate the day from the night.... so where did the evening and morning come from up till that time.... i find it kind of hard to take something so literally when the description is so generalized.

[Guest shiloh357]

These arguments are doing neither of us any good. We just do not have enough evidence, on either side, to convince the other. You and I read Scripture and view science in two completely different ways. Both of the ways are subjective, whether we want to admit it or not.

Wrong, BFA. YOU are taking the subjective approach. I am using objective tools such as exegesis/hermeneutics to lead out the meaning intended by the author. YOU approached with an agenda. Don't confuse my objective approach with you simply trying defend an article you posted that was based on sloppy Hebrew and a lack of in God's word.

I believe that God commanded the earth to produce vegetation and it did so, in it's natural cycle (based on the root deshe which means to germinate or grow until green) while you believe that it was accelerated by God.

God is not bound by what natural science says is possible. Creation was a supernatural event.

I would also contend that even if I concede that you are right about the common name (i.e. Adam was not worried about specifics - genus and species), despite your lack of evidence, the list is still in the millions, especially when you consider that many of the creatures that existed in the past are now extinct.

You were not there and do not know how many types of animals were orginally created.

As to the thousand generation issue, I would take that literally.

No, you are taking it at face value. You are assuming that "a thousand generations" means exactly 1000 physical generations of people and that is not how it is intended to mean. If you traveled from New York to LA and said, "It took me forever to get there," you would not expect people to take that comment at face value. You simply meant that it took you longer than you expected to take to get to L. A.

I do believe that God's word has been proclaimed for at least that long. As to whose meaning is the literal, correct version, I guess we will have to wait until Yeshua comes again in glory. Until then, I don't believe that I can do anything to convince you of what I see as the truth.

See, the problem is that you appraoching it with an agenda. You are interpreting "a thousand generations" to mean what you want to mean so that it fits with your notion that yom refers to a long period time. You are essentially reading into the Bible what you are prepared to believe. Forget proper literary analysis; forget the author's intention. You are more interested in fitting square pegs in roudn holes.

[ByFaithAlone]

Shiloh:

I am not approaching this with an agenda. I am merely seeking the Truth. Call that an agenda if you want, that is my only goal. As to the subjectivity part, by definition both of us are being subjective. Subjectivity is always found in the interpretation of words which is what we are trying to do here. No human is objective. I readily admit to this. Why can't you do the same?

I believe that God commanded the earth to produce vegetation and it did so, in it's natural cycle (based on the root deshe which means to germinate or grow until green) while you believe that it was accelerated by God.

God is not bound by what natural science says is possible. Creation was a supernatural event.

You never really attack the root argument here... just saying... I agree that God is not bound by the laws of science. In fact, he created them, but the earth is bound by those laws. And if it is actually the earth that is multiplying/allowing the plants to germinate, as stated in Genesis, then we know that the laws of science constrain that to several years, correct?

I would also contend that even if I concede that you are right about the common name (i.e. Adam was not worried about specifics - genus and species), despite your lack of evidence, the list is still in the millions, especially when you consider that many of the creatures that existed in the past are now extinct.

You were not there and do not know how many types of animals were orginally created.

Correct. I was not there. But, surprisingly enough, neither were you, unless I'm mistaken. Based on the fossil records we have found and the science beyond our world, I can only conclude that there were hundreds of millions of species and at least millions or tens of millions of generic family names (as you seem to think that Adam named them after common family names, based on your evidence lack of evidence). It seems improbable and unlikely that Adam named all of this species in a day. Even going 10 times faster than the current fastest speaker in the world, he would not get done in 24 hours. Not to mention that the guy had massive rib surgery and got his wife. Kind of a busy day in my opinion...

[LuftWaffle]

but the sun and moon were not created until the fourth day...... and it was to separate the day from the night.... so where did the evening and morning come from up till that time.... i find it kind of hard to take something so literally when the description is so generalized.

Hi other one,

Actually all you would need to have evenings and morning is a rotating planet and a light source (which existed on day one already). This light source doesn't necessarily have to be the sun. In fact, the Bible seems to suggest that the sun is only a temporary light source and that in God's coming kingdom He Himself will supply its light.

Rev 21:23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

So lack of a sun for the first three days really isn't a convincing justification to treat the text as figurative.

[Shiloh62]

The reason I believe the literal 6 day creation is because God specifies "the evening & the morning were". Maybe I need to do a study on what is meant by "evening & morning", but that is how I see it at this time.

I would like to say though that the word 'day' is used to represent different time frames. When God told Adam he would die 'in the day' he disobeyed, Adam's death was not complete til his body died many years after. Using the 1000 yrs=day( 2 Peter 3:8) time frame, Adam died in the day he disobeyed. I still see something here.

That evening and morning phrase each time got me stumped too. Not sure what it means.

[ByFaithAlone]

Hi ByFaithAlone,

That Jesus is referring to the beginning of mankind's creation is something that's not actually in the text. According to the text, Jesus is referring to the "beginning of the creation". Jesus does not qualify it as the beginning of mankind's creation and there is no indication from the text that such is the case. It's therefore not really a valid exegetical view.

Hi LuftWaffle,

Just to let you know I love your name. True, Jesus does not qualify it at the beginning of creation. However, we know that he could not be talking about the very first day (beginning) of the Creation. That would be inconsistent from what we know from Genesis. Therefore, we must assume that he is (at the very least ) talking about some time during the 6th yom. Under this logic, Jesus does not contradict Genesis or me.

I would like to pose a counter question. Our God is not one of deceit. He does not lie to us. He is holy. Why then, would he create a world and universe that appears older than it actually is? Is your perception of God one of a deceitful being or a loving one who would not lie to his children?

With regard to your question, forgive the copy and paste, but this parable puts the issue far better than I ever could:

Sorry, I like parables but the logic arguments are just easier to map out and deal with.

The argument goes as follows:

1. If the universe is young but appears old, then God deceived us

2. The universe appears old

3. Therefore God deceived us or the universe is old

4. God will not deceive

5. Therefore the universe is old.

Agreed except let's only deal with the earth, not the universe, unless you really want to delve into cosmology... Thanks for laying it out in premise form. It saves me the trouble and keeps things organized.

Premise 1.

The premise doesn't take into account intent. It assumes that whenever appearances do not match our knowledge, then God is intentionally deceitful.

Actually, I believe this premise does take into account intent. We assume God is omniscient. That means that he would know that scientists would eventually come up with this theory and have reasonable scientific evidence that the earth is very old. This would mean that God intentionally created earth (that appears like the old candle in the parable) with full knowledge that some scientists (like that little girl in the parable) would determine it was an old earth. That would be premeditation and intent.

So there's actually a hidden assumption following premise 1 which must state, "Whenever appearances are incorrect, then God deceives us". I'll call this premise (1b).

Incorrect. Whenever appearances are deliberately used to hide the Truth, then God deceives us. As miracles are truth, therefore not used for deception, then your miracle argument falls.

Premise 2.

You may accuse me of having lesser intelligence here, but I really don't think the earth appears old. The age of the earth isn't directly observable, but is instead based on calculations which assume certain things.

Take the startlight travel time problem, for instance: Big bang cosmology has it's own starlight travel time problems, that are dealt with by assuming deviation from the norms, which seems to be problematic only when YECs do that. Likewise according to most scientists the initial expansion of the universe happened faster than the speed of light, which according to standard physics is impossible.

In terms of other dating methods such radio-active decay, dendrochronology etc. there are also assumptions in place.

Now if we're using fallible methods to calculate the age of the universe, it cannot be God's fault if we arrive at the wrong answer. We simply didn't take all the relevant factors into account.

Let's avoid the whole Big Bang and starlight issues for now. They would be great in another thread but that's cosmology and we should be dealing with the age of the earth not the age of the universe which are what those theories are designed to answer.

What assumptions are in place in radioactive decay, etc. besides that, in radioactive decay, we look at the amount of the radioactive material in current objects (whose age we know) and use that as a benchmark to approximate the age of other objects. If you say that God deliberately created objects with less radioactive material then they are supposed to have, that would also be a form of deception, correct?

Premise 3.

This premise is a false dilemma because of premise 1/1b)

Glad I dealt with 1 and 1b then...

Premise 4.

I agree with this statement, but would like to state that if the universe is old, then God claiming that He made the universe in six days would be deceitful anyway, based on the reasoning behind the argument. Taking God's word as meaning figurative days, commits hermeneutic fallacies. I won't get into this in detail now, but the plain reading of the Bible suggests that creation took six days.

Excellent. You agree with Premise 4. P.S. I would love to hear about those fallacies... PM them please!

Conclusion 5

Logically follows.

[Bold Believer]

Hello All:

Another interesting topic coming right up.... Creation.... how long did it take?

According to Richard Deem:

"The age of the earth and the universe is no longer disputed among most scientists. Science tells us the earth is ~4.5 x 109 years old. The universe is ~14 x 109 years old. There have been several Christian scientists who have attempted to propose theories and find "scientific" evidence that the earth is only 6,000 years old. All "evidence" for a recent creation of the earth is flawed in some way"

I would agree with Deem that most evidence regarding a 6000 year old earth is flawed in one way or another. Stellar evolution clearly shows that the universe must be older then many YEC like to believe.

Yom is the Hebrew word commonly translated as day. However, it can mean three different things (12 hours, 24 hours or an incredibly long period of time). Which do you believe is the correct use? Why?

I will bring up my evidence later to support the last definition but right now I need to eat lunch. Hopefully I'll have some interesting replies when I get back...

The evidence unfortunately is damaged by the action of the flood upon the earth. All that water pressed things together and pushed other things out of the positions they were originally in. So it is not odd to think of the planet as being 6000 years old. The damage caused by the flood is making things appear to be older than they really are. When you couple that with the fact that people don't want to believe the Scriptures, we get all of these outlandish and ridiculous ideas like the earth is billions of years old.

[Guest shiloh357]

I am not approaching this with an agenda. I am merely seeking the Truth. Call that an agenda if you want, that is my only goal. As to the subjectivity part, by definition both of us are being subjective. Subjectivity is always found in the interpretation of words which is what we are trying to do here. No human is objective. I readily admit to this. Why can't you do the same?

Because all of that is pure nonsense. "Intrepretation" is objective. Interpretation involives examining context, the intent of the author, word usage/definition. The rules of literary analysis (hermeneutics) that I am employing are entirely objective. "Objective" means that we don't rely on emotion, or personal prejudice. I used actual textual evidence from the Hebraic grammatical structure that shows your position cannot be supported. Linguistics is objective evidence. The Hebrew says you're wrong. Linguistically, your postion is dead in the water. The Hebrew evidence is irrefutable. Furthermore, I demonstrated through Scripture, which is again, objective evidence that every time the Bible references the days of creation outside of Genesis, they also employ yom in the plain, ordinary sense, namely that of a "day" as we understand it. Even the Bible says you are wrong.

Since it is your assertion that the word yom must refer to long periods of time in the creation account, the onus is on you to show from within the text itself that the author demands yom to be understood as a long period of time. You cannot supply those textual indicators. Absent those indicators, the default understanding of yom must be in the plain sense.

My evidence is not subjective. You evidently have a problem with understanding the difference between subjective and objective. I suggest you invest in a dicitionary.

You never really attack the root argument here... just saying... I agree that God is not bound by the laws of science. In fact, he created them, but the earth is bound by those laws. And if it is actually the earth that is multiplying/allowing the plants to germinate, as stated in Genesis, then we know that the laws of science constrain that to several years, correct?

God created the vegitation without the benefit of the process of photosynthesis. If He didn't need that, then there is no reason to believe that God could not have supernaturally sprouted all the vegitation needed and caused it to come to full maturity in a very rapid manner. You keep trying put God in a box. God created the laws of nature and as the Creator He alos has the power to intervene and suspend those laws any time He chooses.c The plain ordinary sense of Genesis 1 is that God caused the vegitation to sprout to maturity in a single day.

Correct. I was not there. But, surprisingly enough, neither were you, unless I'm mistaken.

But I didn't have to be in order to accept what the Bible says is true, because I trust in the integrity of the Creator who WAS there to accurately record His first-hand account of what happened.

Based on the fossil records we have found and the science beyond our world, I can only conclude that there were hundreds of millions of species and at least millions or tens of millions of generic family names (as you seem to think that Adam named them after common family names, based on your evidence lack of evidence).

The fossil record does not tell us how many species of animals were present at creation to assume that all these fossils must be of animals that were in existence at creation is pure conjecture. It is unlikely that every species of dog we see today existed at that time, same with horses, cattle, cats, and other creatures. You are trying to force something on to the text that is not there. Adam simply named the creatures that were brought to him and the plain sense of the text is that He named them by families or "kind" and not with the much more intricate and precise names that we have today.

Also keep in mind that only three classifications are listed: Beasts of the field, fowls of the air, and cattle. He did not name the fish, or any other marine animals/organisms, He did not name the insects, spiders or

You need to remember that the millions of classifed species include marine life, fish and so on. In fact, they make up the majority, so you need to subtract creaturs like sponges, worms, snails, oysters, clams, insects, and so on from the list of classified species. When you narrow down the list to these proto-species, the first animals created which only include the above three catagories, the number of animals Adam named wold be very, very small, perhaps only a few thousand in all. If there were 5,000 proto species in would only take a few hours to name them all if he were going at a reasonable pace.

[LuftWaffle]

Hi ByFaithAlone,

Just to let you know I love your name.

Thanks

True, Jesus does not qualify it at the beginning of creation. However, we know that he could not be talking about the very first day (beginning) of the Creation. That would be inconsistent from what we know from Genesis. Therefore, we must assume that he is (at the very least ) talking about some time during the 6th yom. Under this logic, Jesus does not contradict Genesis or me.

In my initial question I placed (noun) in brackets, because I anticipated this line of reasoning.

The word creation can be used in two senses. According to google it means:

1. The action or process of bringing something into existence: "job creation".

2. A thing made or invented, esp. something showing artistic talent.

We both agree that definition 1 is incorrect and that Jesus isn't speaking of the process of creation, because during that process, man was made on the sixth day (independent of whether these are 24 hour days or not).

Clearly then, Jesus is using creation in the second sense; The thing made.

Evolution has a problem here, because the process of creation is an ongoing thing. Creation started with the Big Bang and evolution continues to this day. So from an evolutionary point of view, there is no way to make sense of Jesus' statement other than inserting words in His mouth. Saying that Jesus is talking specifically about the creation of mankind, is simply not in the text. Your worldview forces you to add something to Jesus' statement which isn't there.

Conversely the YEC view matches perfectly with Jesus' statement given the second sense of the word "creation". Creation, as in the created thing, was completed +- 6000 years ago and since then, man was around as male and female.

Now, you can certainly read things into the text, and if you can live with that, then it's up to you, but given a plain reading of Genesis, the connection with the sabbath week, and a plain exegetical reading of Jesus' statement in Mark, the most reasonable view is the literal one.

Agreed except let's only deal with the earth, not the universe, unless you really want to delve into cosmology... Thanks for laying it out in premise form. It saves me the trouble and keeps things organized.

Cool

Actually, I believe this premise does take into account intent. We assume God is omniscient. That means that he would know that scientists would eventually come up with this theory and have reasonable scientific evidence that the earth is very old. This would mean that God intentionally created earth (that appears like the old candle in the parable) with full knowledge that some scientists (like that little girl in the parable) would determine it was an old earth. That would be premeditation and intent.

No, if God is culpable for belief in evolution, because He is omnipotent, then He is also culpable for Islam, higher textual criticism, atheism, etc. etc.

If man, in rebellion to God, seeks to explain things through natural means, this is not God's doing. Is God responsible for Richard Dawkins not believing in Him? Surely God foreknew that Dawkins would write "The God Delusion". Why did God make it appear to Dawkins as though He didn't exist?

Here's an even better example.

1. If God is omniscient then God foreknew that many Christians throughout the ages would take Genesis literally.

2. God is omniscient.

.: God foreknew that many Christians throughout the ages would take Genesis literally.

Do you see the problem?

Incorrect. Whenever appearances are deliberately used to hide the Truth, then God deceives us. As miracles are truth, therefore not used for deception, then your miracle argument falls.

You're adding the word "deliberately used to hide the truth" which begs the question. I do not believe that God is hiding the truth, but instead that mankind in their arrogance is hiding from the truth.

But the the point is, when appearances do not match reality, it does not necessarily imply deceit. Think of a mirage. A mirage looks like water, but it isn't, it's just layers of warm air reflecting light and shimmering like water. Here is a case of an appearance not matching reality. So who is deceiving who in this case? Is God, who created the laws of physics, playing games with poor, thirsty desert wanderers, creating things that appear like water, but aren't?

The burden of proof is on you to show that every single instance of perception not matching reality involves deceit, because that is precisely what the deceitful God argument assumes in premise 1b. You have not proven that.

What assumptions are in place in radioactive decay, etc. besides that, in radioactive decay, we look at the amount of the radioactive material in current objects (whose age we know) and use that as a benchmark to approximate the age of other objects. If you say that God deliberately created objects with less radioactive material then they are supposed to have, that would also be a form of deception, correct?

I am not saying that God deliberately created objects with less radioactive material then they are supposed to have, but suppose He did, where did God say, "In order to calculate the age of things, you can use radioactive decay". People decided to use radio-active decay to determines ages, which comes with the assumption that radio-active decay is capable of giving us the age of the earth. Did God ever command this? No.

Suppose I decide to date the earth using, colours? Redder things are older, bluer things are younger. Suppose using this dating system I come up with an age of the earth of a trillion years. Is God deceiving me into making the earth appear 1 trillion years old, or am I using a method that has severe limitations?

The parable of the candle, illustrated this well. Manual never told Lucy to conduct some silly experiment to calculate the time he was gone. Likewise God never instructed mankind to date the earth using radio-active dating.

Glad I dealt with 1 and 1b then...

Humility is a virtue, friend.

P.S. I would love to hear about those fallacies... PM them please!

The word "day" when used in conjuction with a cardinal or ordinal number greater than one, always means a literal 24 day.

So if I say, "the day of the horse and cart are long gone". This clearly refers to an era.

But whenever there's a number connected to the word day, this always refers to a literal day. So if I say, "2 days ago" or "James was voted out on the 6th day of Survivor Seychelles" the word 'day' means a literal 24 hour day. The creation account connects these cardinal as well as ordinal numbers to the word day. Not only that, but the reference of evening and morning should compel those who have no external bias coming to the text.

To pick and choose words' definitions using a concordance independent of- or instead of using context, is called "unwarranted expansion of a semantic field" also called the fallacy of lexicography.

To recap:

You have not proven premise 1b, upon which premise 1 relies.

You have not dealt with premise 2 at all. The universe does not appear to have any age. It has the appearance of vastness, the appearance of motion, but it does not appear to be any age. The age of the universe is interpreted using certain assumptions. Likewise the earth does not appear to be any age. It has the appearance of roundness, but not an obvious appearance of age. Again the age is interpreted using certain assumptions.

To speak of appearances of age in these things is the same as speaking of the appearance of age in the colour yellow, or how old the number 7 looks.

You cannot tell the age of a universe directly by looking at it, so premise two is false. Premise should actually read, "According to our assumptions, calculations and interpretations, the universe seems to be old."

For the conclusion that God would be deceitful and the universe being old to follow, all premises must be true.

Edited July 29, 2011 by LuftWaffle