A Concern for Applying the Bible to the Natural Sciences

[RV_Wizard]

9 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

I showed you about early Christians assuming a young Earth a long time ago.  You just forgot.   But don't conflate the idea of a relatively young Earth with the new doctrine of YE creationism.    Even those like Augustine, who thought the Earth was thousands of years old, were aware that the days of creation were not literal ones.   That is a very modern invention, by men.

I believe you have a reading problem.  When reading things, you only see the words you want to believe.  Do you remember reading these words?  In its first 16 centuries the church held to a young earth. Earth was several thousand years old, was created quickly in six 24-hour days, and was later submerged under a worldwide flood.  Augustine was an exception in his skepticism of the Biblical timeline, which is why he's your hero.  During the Reformation, Christians returned to their faith in the Bible as written.

Your claim that days of creation were never considered to be literal days until modern times is quite simple NOT TRUE.  The TERM Young Earth Creationist is a new contrivance to label and disparage those who refuse to swallow the notion of a 13.5 billion year old earth.  In fact, the only belief that is new and contrived by man is Old Earth Creationism.  That doesn't apply to you because you not only don't you believe in creation, you don't believe anyone should.  Your god is the creation.  The Creator can have what's left over.

 

9 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

God, his power and majesty are not an idol of the Gentiles.

You should have read the commentary I linked to because you don't have a CLUE what you're talking about.  Paul was referencing the idolatry of the Gentiles in their deference to created gods; not to the one true God.  The philosophy of Pythagoras, Plato, and others had led them to the conclusion that there IS a God and that communing with Him is central to the human conscience.  "Whence they had these discoveries: God hath shown it to them. Those common natural notions which they had of God were imprinted upon their hearts by the God of nature himself, who is the Father of lights. This sense of a Deity, and a regard to that Deity, are so connate with the human nature that some think we are to distinguish men from brutes by these rather than by reason."

They weren't worshipping God.  They were contriving their own gods.  

The inward cause of their idolatry, Rom. 1:21, 22. They are therefore without excuse, in that they did know God, and from what they knew might easily infer that it was their duty to worship him, and him only. Though some have greater light and means of knowledge than others, yet all have enough to leave them inexcusable. 

If you had actually read this commentary you wouldn't sound so out of touch with reality.  Idolatry WAS very much what Paul was teaching against to those who had figured out for themselves that there IS a central Creator.  God created man in His image.  We don't get to return the favor.  We are to honor and serve God as He is; as He commands us.  We were given the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth (BIBLE).  It is the inerrant word of God.  Where God's word clashes with the claims of science, science is wrong.  You have the opposite belief.

You use the same verses out of context we can find on a many other websites; mostly by atheists and unbelievers.  It's not hard to refute your arguments.  Most of them are hundreds of years old.

[The Barbarian]

39 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

I believe you have a reading problem.  When reading things, you only see the words you want to believe.  Do you remember reading these words?  In its first 16 centuries the church held to a young earth. Earth was several thousand years old, was created quickly in six 24-hour days

I'm just pointing out that the bolded part is false.   Origen, Augustine, and most other Christian leaders were well aware that the "yom" of the creation story were not literal days.    Augustine and his fellows thought the world was a few thousand years old, because that's all the history they had to read.   But Augustine cautioned people to be willing to look at new information that might later show some interpretations of scripture to be wrong.  

He was right about that.

I get that you'd like to believe your new doctrines are historical church tradition.   But it just isn't so.   Even many Biblical literalists admit this:

R. C. Sproul, who drafted the original Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy, once said, “When people ask me how old the earth is, I tell them I don’t know—because I don’t.”

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/biblical-reasons-to-doubt-the-creation-days-were-24-hour-periods/

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.

Rev. Billy Graham

Your claim that days of creation were considered to be literal days by all early church leaders is quite simply NOT TRUE.  

What kind of days these are is difficult or even impossible for us to imagine, to say nothing of describing them.

St. Augustine

God refutes Sola Scriptura:

Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

55 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

You should have read the commentary I linked to because you don't have a CLUE what you're talking about.

Paul's letter to the Romans.   God says that even absent the scriptures, creation itself is a reliable and authoritative source of knowledge about God, his majesty and power.   So the followers of Sola Scriptura are without excuse.

58 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

Idolatry WAS very much what Paul was teaching against to those who had figured out for themselves that there IS a central Creator.

And Sola Scriptura is such an idol.   It's contrary to the word of God, by His own statement.  God created man in His image.  We don't get to return the favor.  We are to honor and serve God as He is; as He commands us.    Accept His word as it is, and avoid any attempts like "Sola Scriptura" to modify it.

 

 

 

[The Barbarian]

11 hours ago, Michael37 said:

He also believed Christ would return in his lifetime.

So do many fundamentalists today.   There's nothing anti-God in believing so, just as there's nothing anti-God in YE or a literal six-day creation.   It's just not the message we have in the Bible.    But neither are such beliefs opposed to God.

That's not how one's salvation is determined.

 

[RV_Wizard]

2 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

I'm just pointing out that the bolded part is false.   Origen, Augustine, and most other Christian leaders were well aware that the "yom" of the creation story were not literal days.  

Please include in your post which day of the week it was posted so there is SOMETHING in your posts which would be verifiably accurate.

For most of its history, the church has believed that God created everything that exists ex nihilo (out of nothing). The church affirmed this doctrine based primarily on the opening verse of Scripture: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). God, who eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, purposed to and did create a universe distinct from himself.

Other passages add to the foundation of this belief. For example, the psalmist attributes creation to the word and breath of God: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. . . . For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Psalm 33:6, 9). According to a traditional understanding of this passage, God the Father spoke the universe into existence through the Word (God the Son) and by his Breath (God the Holy Spirit). Creation was a mighty act of the triune God.

Furthermore, Scripture itself denies that God used preexisting materials when he created: “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Hebrews 11:3). For example, God did not take two preexisting hydrogen (H) atoms and one oxygen (O) atom and fuse them into water (H2O). Rather, he created both hydrogen and oxygen atoms as well as the water. Divine creation was out of nothing!

In accordance with the rest of the creation account in Genesis 1, the church also has believed that God created every kind of thing that exists: light, water, air, soil, vegetation, the sun and the moon and the stars, sea creatures, winged birds, earth creatures, and, ultimately, human beings in the divine image.

Importantly, the church never countenanced the idea that all nonliving and living things came into existence and developed according to processes like natural selection, speciation, and random mutations. Indeed, the early church soundly denounced the “atomic” theory that everything that exists started out by the accidental collision of small elements (“atoms”) and then fortuitously developed by chance. Rather than embrace randomness, the church praised the Creator, as Origen did: “We Christians, however, who are devoted to the worship of the only God, who created these things, feel grateful for them to him who made them” (Against Celsus, 4.75).

It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the church, faced with many attacks against the authority and truthfulness of Scripture, began to waver on its doctrine of creation. With the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), a new and all-encompassing worldview arose that denied creation ex nihilo, divine design and development of the many kinds of nonliving and living things, and the special creation of human beings in the divine image. This evolutionary worldview now dominates most sectors of our contemporary Western society. Tragically, it presents one of the fiercest challenges to biblical and historical Christianity today.  source

There is a Satanic attack on the validity of the Scriptures.  We know which side you are on.  As for me and my house, will serve the Lord.

 

 

[The Barbarian]

I'm just pointing out that the bolded part is false.   Origen, Augustine, and most other Christian leaders were well aware that the "yom" of the creation story were not literal days.  

3 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

Please include in your post which day of the week it was posted so there is SOMETHING in your posts which would be verifiably accurate.

What kind of days these are is difficult or even impossible for us to imagine, to say nothing of describing them.

St. Augustine

I just showed you that.  Did you forget that quickly?

3 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

For most of its history, the church has believed that God created everything that exists ex nihilo (out of nothing).

On the other hand, as you learned (but apparently forgot) the church has never endorsed the notion that the "days" of the creation story are literal days.

Which is why YE creationism is a modern revision of God's word.  

I'm glad you admit that God created everything from nothing.   The problem is, you still refuse to accept the way He did it.

3 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

There is a Satanic attack on the validity of the Scriptures. 

It's not "Satanic"; at least YE creationism isn't.   That attack on the scriptures seem to be entirely well-intentioned, if in error.    Which is why you won't go to hell for being a YE creationist.   

Assuming you don't make an idol of it.   Be careful.

 

[RV_Wizard]

16 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

I'm just pointing out that the bolded part is false.   Origen, Augustine, and most other Christian leaders were well aware that the "yom" of the creation story were not literal days.

When used with a number OR with the evening in morning, the word "yom" means a single solar day without exception,  Moses used BOTH numbered days AND evening in morning. There is no doubt whatever that he intended us to understand as such.  The number 7 is used frequently throughout the Bible.  It is the number of completion.  There are seven days in a work week, seven years of plenty, seven years of famine, seven years of tribulation etc.  

It has also been pointed out to you that for the first 16 centuries and later during the reformation, the church did not dispute the written words of Genesis.  Though some, like Augustine, expressed a difficulty in understanding the nature of the days, NOTHING in the Genesis account is consistent with long ages or evolution.  Here is where you would insert the phrase out of context that God commanded the earth to bring forth... but once again you would ignore the fact that Genesis also says the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Evolution is contrary to all Biblical teaching.  You know this, which is why you take verses out of context and distort the teachings of the Scriptures.  Rather than swallow your poison alone, you bring your poisonous teachings here hoping to convince others to turn away from the plain teaching of the the Bible and conform to your disbelief.  Your repeated claims that belief in the Bible as written is a new interpretation is nothing short of an intentional falsehood.  You know the difference.  You may not be willing to admit it in the open, but you know the difference.

If the days were a million years long, evolution would still be a lie.  It denies the special creation of man and pretends a common ancestry with the animals over which man has dominion.  It denies the global flood in which God killed everything in which there was the breath of life except those on the ark.  It takes away the very reason that Christ came to earth and was crucified for the sins of man.  No God would do that for a bipedal ape.

Your teaching is false.  Your Biblical references are selectively taken out of context.  Your own quote from Romans talks about those who considered themselves enlightened and strayed from God.   "Thinking themselves wise, they became fools."  Pick up your Bible and read it; not just the select verses others have cherry picked for you.

Edited January 29, 2024 by RV_Wizard

[The Barbarian]

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

When used with a number OR with the evening in morning, the word "yom" means a single solar day without exception

No, that's another invention by later men to make the language fit their wishes.  

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

The number 7 is used frequently throughout the Bible.  It is the number of completion.

Which is why the story has seven "days" which as you learned, is a literary convention to describe creation.   Which Augustine and many other Christians understood.  

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

It has also been pointed out to you that for the first 16 centuries and later during the reformation, the church did not dispute the written words of Genesis. 

It never has.   Even today, only a minority of Christians have re-interpreted Genesis to be a literal history.

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

NOTHING in the Genesis account is consistent with long ages or evolution.

All of it is.  Only your new additions are inconsistent with these.    But they aren't God's word, are they?

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

Evolution is contrary to all Biblical teaching.

No, evolution is entirely consistent with it.   And I think you're beginning to realize it, as you get more and more shrill about it.   You have accepted the way modern man has twisted scripture to make it against evolution and geological time which are, after all, God's creation.

You have learned that evolution is observed happening in living populations all around us.   God's word cannot be opposed to His creation.   You're wasting your time trying to make it so.

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

It denies the global flood...

God never said the flood was global.  That's a modern invention. 

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

It takes away the very reason that Christ came to earth and was crucified for the sins of man.

If you really believe that, your new doctrines have become more important to you than the original sin of Adam and Eve.    Worse, they have become more important to you than Jesus' death and resurrection.    But I hope you know better.

2 hours ago, RV_Wizard said:

Your own quote from Romans talks about those who considered themselves enlightened and strayed from God. 

Nonsense; it says nothing about that.   It merely says that even those without the scriptures can see God's power and majesty in the world He has created and are without excuse.   This is how the gentiles were justified before God.

Romans 2:13 For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.  14 For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these having not the law are a law to themselves:  15 Who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts between themselves accusing, or also defending one another,

If you have to change scripture to make your point, isn't that a pretty good sign that you have it wrong?

Edited January 29, 2024 by The Barbarian

[RV_Wizard]

6 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

No, that's another invention by later men to make the language fit their wishes.

FALSE.  Repeatedly proven false.

First of all, Genesis 1 is clearly historical narrative.
Yom (day) used with a numeric adjective (Day 1, second day, etc.) always means an ordinary day everywhere else in Scripture.
“Evening and morning” (used for each of the six days of creation) together always mean an ordinary day everywhere else in Scripture.
“Evening” used in association with yom always mean an ordinary day everywhere else in Scripture.
“Morning” used in association with yom always mean an ordinary day everywhere else in Scripture.
In Genesis 1:5, yom occurs in context with the word “night.” Everywhere else in the Scripture it means an ordinary day.
Even the use of the word “light” in 1:5 determines the meaning as an ordinary day.
There are words in biblical Hebrew (such as olam or qedem) that are very suitable for communicating long periods of time, or indefinite time. Yet these words were not selected.  source

6 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

No, evolution is entirely consistent with it.

FALSE.

From an evolution friendly website:

The demands of evolution and creation cannot be reconciled with each other because they represent two fundamentally different, mutually hostile, and mutually exclusive systems. They do not represent various aspects of the same truth, but rather two mutually opposing systems. They differ and diverge from each other right from the presuppositional level so that any attempt at reconciling them is a vain exercise.  source

Anyone who claims to believe the Bible and evolution has a good understanding of neither.

6 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

God never said the flood was global.  That's a modern invention.

FALSE.  As you have been shown many, many times, you can't have a local flood covering mountains on low lying ground with easy run-off to the sea, you can't float to a mountain peak in Turkey from Mesopotamia in a local flood, you wouldn't need to have two of every animal in a local flood, you couldn't kill everything in which there was the breath of life in a local flood, and Jesus Christ, WHO WAS THERE, referenced it as a real event.

Let's face it.  When the Scriptures disagree with physical science, you disregard the Scriptures.

[The Barbarian]

No, that's another invention by later men to make the language fit their wishes.

25 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

FALSE.  Repeatedly proven false.

You'll need more than denial to change Christian doctrine.

25 minutes ago, RV_Wizard said:

First of all, Genesis 1 is clearly historical narrative.

Here, you've just assumed what you propose to prove.   Which is what we're used to seeing.   Get some facts and try to put together a cogent argument.   Then we'll talk.  Anyone who claims to believe the Bible and evolution are contradictory, has a good understanding of neither.

(recycled unsupported claims)

 Yeah, we've seen it all before.    Try to get a logical and pertinent argument, supported by facts.   Then come on back and we'll talk.   You're starting to repeat yourself, with claims already shot down.   Let's face it.  When the Scriptures disagree with your new doctrines, you disregard the Scriptures.

 

Edited January 29, 2024 by The Barbarian

[RV_Wizard]

12 hours ago, The Barbarian said:

False, unsupported claims.

The truth:

"The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." (Genesis 2:7) The idea that humans are 'created from dust' is repeated multiple times in Scripture, and many Christians see this verse as fairly literal, suggesting that Adam was created in a manner not unlike someone forming a statue from clay. (The likening of God to a potter is also Scriptural.)

The case gets even more explicit when we get to Eve. "The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man." (Genesis 2:21-22)

It needs to be noted, however, that humans are special.... For example, "God said, 'Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.' And it was so." God Spoke, and it happened; not in millions of years, but immediately. The image of God's Word having immediate and omnipotent power is found throughout Scripture....

"In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them." (Exodus 20:11) Scripture is clear that Creation happened in "six days". Genealogies and other texts make it clear that the Genesis narrative starts circa 4,000 BC. Scripture consistently refers to the Flood as a real, historical event... as do hundreds of other accounts from cultures all across the globe. Peter even goes so far as to call out those who deny the Flood. "They deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished." (2 Peter 3:5-6)  source  *

Man cannot be created by God and subsequently evolve from a primate.

The creation of grasses and trees bearing fruit was immediate on day three.

The creation of the sun, moon and stars was immediate on day four.

The creation of fish and birds was immediate on day five.

The creation of all the beasts of the field was immediate on day six.

The creation of man was a separate creation, also on day six.

No sane person can believe two things in contradiction.  Either creation is true or evolution is true.  Either biologists are wrong or the Bible is false.  There is NOTHING in biology that would would be different if creation was true.  There is NOTHING about our creation as detailed in the Bible that would be true if evolution was correct.  You can believe the word of God and be a biologist, but you CAN'T believe in evolution without disregarding the plain teaching of the bible.

You are either deluding yourself or attempting to delude others by denying this indisputable reality.  You are promoting a logical absurdity.  You might also notice that I cite multiple references, while you repeat the same discredited ones.

* Peter lived with Jesus for three years.  Augustine never met Him.