The Problem With Evolution Part 2- Animals

[The Barbarian]

 

15 minutes ago, FreeGrace said:

When the NT speaks of "the beginning", it ALWAYS refers to the creation of humans, beginning with Adam.  The Bible was written FOR humans, not animals, angels, etc.  And the START of the human race begins with Adam.

Yes.  Exactly.

 

[FreeGrace]

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

FreeGrace said:

But since the Bible tells us that God creates by simply speaking things into existence, there is no "process" involved, as much as you'd like there to be.

I have nothing more to say to you on this subject.

As well you shouldn't.  You have no evidence to back your theory.

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

 You follow 19th century revisionists who sought to fit in with old earth geologists by distorting the Bible teaching.

This has been debunked thoroughly.  My views come straight from the literal Hebrew of Genb 1:2 which Jeremiah quoted from when he was describing and warning about the total destruction of the land.  And yet, you continue to cling to the bizarre idea that "tohu wabohu" can describe God's creation.  Unbelievable.

Your comment may be correct regarding others who hold to an old earth, but your continual putting me in that bag is a real error.  

1 hour ago, RV_Wizard said:

 God Himself said in Exodus 20:11 that He created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.  You don’t believe Him.  I do.  We will never agree.  God is right, you are wrong.  Case closed.

And I've thoroughly debunked your errors regarding Ex 20:11.  Moses did NOT use 'bara' as he did in Gen 1:1 and creation, but 'asah' which refers to making things out of existing materials.

But since that seems above your pay grade and understanding, we'll just have to agree that it is "mind closed" rather than "case closed".  

Your view that an old earth is somehow a threat to something that you can't even describe shows the whole problem.  God restored a ruined earth for man's use.  How simple is that?  And it doesn't change anything else in the Bible.

So your fears of such a threat are wasted on nothingness.

[RV_Wizard]

27 minutes ago, FreeGrace said:

.  My views come straight from the literal Hebrew of Genb 1:2

No, your OPINION comes from a very modern minority translation that you only call literal because you believe it.  NONE of the original translations agree, and only 15% of the modern translations support your claim.  The gospels say that latter day heresies will deceive many.  Only a very few here believe in Gap theory or in evolution.  Most know better.

[RV_Wizard]

42 minutes ago, FreeGrace said:

God restored a ruined earth for man's use.  

An earth with no light, no heat, no land and no life of any kind.  All these came AFTER verse two.  There was not only no life on earth, there was no earth on earth.  What you can’t explain is how everything was destroyed before anything was created.  Ruin/reconstruction is the DUMBEST heresy ever created.

[The Barbarian]

I don’t think that there’s any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we’ve tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren’t meant to say. I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. […] whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man’s relationship to God.

Billy Graham

For long centuries God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself. He gave it hands whose thumb could be applied to each of the fingers, and jaws and teeth and throat capable of articulation, and a brain sufficiently complex to execute all the material motions whereby rational thought is incarnated. The creature may have existed for ages in this state before it became man: it may even have been clever enough to make things which a modern archaeologist would accept as proof of its humanity. But it was only an animal because all its physical and psychical processes were directed to purely material and natural ends. Then, in the fullness of time, God caused to descend upon this organism, both on its psychology and physiology, a new kind of consciousness which could say “I” and “me,” which could look upon itself as an object, which knew God, which could make judgments of truth, beauty, and goodness, and which was so far above time that it could perceive time flowing past.

C.S. Lewis, author of Mere Christianity

We cannot say: creation or evolution, inasmuch as these two things respond to two different realities. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God […] does not in fact explain how human persons come to be but rather what they are. It explains their inmost origin and casts light on the project that they are. And, vice versa, the theory of evolution seeks to understand and describe biological developments. But in so doing it cannot explain where the ‘project’ of human persons comes from, nor their inner origin, nor their particular nature. To that extent we are faced here with two complementary—rather than mutually exclusive—realities.

Pope Benedict XVI

Another response more characteristic of the Orthodox approach, and accepted by many Roman Catholic and non-fundamentalist Protestants, may be characterized as theistic evolution. This view rejects evolutionary theories, which are formulated in exclusively materialistic perspectives primarily because they fail to acknowledge the non-material spiritual verities of existence. Theistic evolutionary development, seeing in it justification for the view that God uses such processes not only to bring into existence the material world, but to guide it in its material development. The world as described by objective scientific description is, after all, God’s world, and it must be understood as such so that one truth about the origins of the world is maintained.

Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology  

Faculty Statement on “Creation Science and Evolution Science”

Think about this for a moment. The undivided church gathered in a series of ecumenical councils (there were no separate denominations then). They knew Genesis, they knew Paul’s letter to the Romans. They knew the Gospels. And it may surprise many to know that they knew about evolution too. No, not the modern scientific theory. But they knew about the Greek philosophical schools that had developed a vision of life evolving. And they also knew about Jewish (mostly poetic) readings of the book of Genesis.

So they could have agreed to sacralize one of these views for all time as creed. And yet they didn’t. They were content to simply require all Christians to believe that God purposely created the universe. They left the how outside of what is required for salvation.

...

Here is an example of how staying with the creeds can help evangelism: I got a call from a family member, who said, “I am almost ready to be baptized and become a Christian. But, I can’t because I accept the theory of evolution as proven science. If you can show me that evolution is wrong, I can consider becoming a Christian.”

This was a critical moment. In my past I might have marshaled evidence that evolution is false, hoping to clinch that final argument that would bring him to faith in Christ. At another point in my life I might have argued that God did indeed use evolution to create the world.

But does our faith rest on arguments? Does it rest on scientific refutations? Does baptism require us to first develop a detailed theory of the mechanism of creation?  Nope. Just an affirmation of the creed. Period.

So thankfully I was able to say, “Yeah, a lot of Christians wrestle with that. Not a problem. You can be baptized and become a Christian and keep on wrestling with the rest of us Christians. We only require an affirmation that the world is not an accident, or purposeless, and that God the Father is the creator who decided the world would exist and made it happen. He is the source of life.”

Creation, Evolution and Pastors

By The Anglican Pastor

My emphasis on the last quote.    That pastor has it exactly right.   No matter how we see evolution, it doesn't matter to us as Christians.   It's just not a salvation issue.

 

Edited September 21, 2024 by The Barbarian

[FreeGrace]

42 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

FreeGrace said:

.  My views come straight from the literal Hebrew of Genb 1:2

No, your OPINION comes from a very modern minority translation that you only call literal because you believe it.

Seems you confuse facts for opinions.  Go tell Jeremiah what an idiot he was for using creation descriptions when warning of total destruction then.  

I really can't believe how anyone could fail to see the reality here.  Jeremiah was facing the total destruction of the land.  

So why would he quote from a verse that describes original creation, if it did?

42 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

 NONE of the original translations agree, and only 15% of the modern translations support your claim.

You STILL don't understand.  I'm not going by translations.  I'm going by the Hebrew, and have pointed out that Jeremiah quoted from Gen 1:2 when he was describing the total destruction of the land.  If Gen 1:2 was describing a process of original creation, then Jeremiah would have been a total idiot for quoting from that verse.

How come you continue to miss that glaring FACT?

42 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

 The gospels say that latter day heresies will deceive many.  Only a very few here believe in Gap theory or in evolution.  Most know better.

Right!  And one of the latter day errors is that the earth is only 6 days older than Adam, which gives a lot of fodder for the atheist scientists to make fun of such stupidity.

[FreeGrace]

37 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

An earth with no light, no heat, no land and no life of any kind.

We're already been through all this distraction.  The earth BECAME an uninhabitable wasteland.  So God restored what was damaged, lost, etc.

This isn't very difficult to grasp.

When the land is totally destroyed, of course there would be no life.  Duh.

37 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

 All these came AFTER verse two.

What comes after v.2 is the restoration over 6 days.

37 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

 There was not only no life on earth, there was no earth on earth.  What you can’t explain is how everything was destroyed before anything was created.

I've already explained all this, so no need to provide the facts again to a mind that has already been made up.

37 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

 Ruin/reconstruction is the DUMBEST heresy ever created.

What's really dumb is the claim that the earth is 6,000 years old.

[The Barbarian]

4 hours ago, FreeGrace said:

What's really dumb is the claim that the earth is 6,000 years old.

Yep.

 

[RV_Wizard]

8 hours ago, FreeGrace said:

We're already been through all this distraction.  The earth BECAME an uninhabitable wasteland.

Became from what?  There was no light, no heat, no life, and until verse 9, no land existed.  You have no answer for this.  All you have is a poor translation from people who obviously don't understand the language any better than you do.  You are not educable on this.

[FreeGrace]

11 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

FreeGrace said:

We're already been through all this distraction.  The earth BECAME an uninhabitable wasteland.

Became from what? 

Why do you keep asking questions that I have already answered.  And are obvious.

What God creates is GOOD.  Maybe you disagree.  But that's not my problem.  Gen 1:1 was a GOOD creation.  No defects at all.

But (LXX) the earth BECAME an uninhabitable wasteland (tohu wabohu).  That's why Jeremiah quoted from Gen 1:2 when he was warning about the coming total destruction of the land.

11 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

There was no light, no heat, no life, and until verse 9, no land existed. 

All of this describes the condition of the earth AFTER it BECAME an UNINHABITABLE WASTELAND.  Real simple.

11 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

You have no answer for this. 

I just did.  Again.  Over and over.  And you have no logical rebuttal.  All you do is reject these simple facts and make up fake news about what you need to try to refute the facts.

11 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

All you have is a poor translation from people who obviously don't understand the language any better than you do.  You are not educable on this.

lol.  The "poor translation" is "without form and void" in Gen 1:2.  If that describes God's process of original creation, then Jeremiah was a fool to quote from that verse when he was describing the coming total destruction of the land in Jer 4.

The problem is real simple.  You are in total denial of reality.

When the Bible says "he who has ears, let him hear", refers to people who are interested in truth, facts.  Which doesn't refer to you. 

I'm not the uneducable one here.