Adventists Study the Geology of Nevada and Utah–Part 2
By Robert T. Johnston, July 1, 2016: When John McLarty invited me to join a small group of Adventists for a week-long geology field trip in Nevada and Utah, I needed no arm-twisting. The cost was reasonable, partly because we camped and prepared our own meals; the only question was whether I could clear my calendar.
Sunday, May 8, 2016, I found myself in the baggage claim area of Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport texting strangers as we sought to find each other. We had converged on Sin City to examine first-hand some of the regional geology. Some of us were retired, while others were active employees of public or denominational entities. Except for McLarty, for whom geology has been a lifelong interest, most of us had little geological experience but were eager to learn. We looked forward to a week of desert camping, hiking, geology education, fossil hunting, discussions about chronology and theology, and fellowship.
In the McCarran parking garage we met McLarty and Dr. Gerald Bryant, a geology professor at Dixie State University in St. George, Utah. As a sedimentologist and an expert on the Navajo Sandstone, he was the perfect guide to the geology of the area. We loaded our gear into the back of his 4×4 pickup and McLarty’s SUV and headed for Red Rock Canyon to meet the rest of our group, who had driven down from the Walla Walla area.
We stopped at the first outcrop of the Navajo Sandstone (known locally as the Aztec SS) in the park. It is approximately 190 million years old (ca 190 ma). (I will include the dates assigned by conventional geology. Young earth creationists disagree with the dates but agree that these dates accurately express the relative depositional positions of the formations; that is, older formations were created before younger formations.) Bryant asked us what we saw. His teaching style was to encourage us to “have a conversation with the rocks,” engaging our minds and senses as we studied ancient rocks or modern dunes and streambeds. As we began to notice and point out various features, Bryant explained their significance with respect to both geology and chronology. The evidence that these crossbedded structures were formed from wind-driven (eolian) dunes is compelling; underwater (sub-aqueous) sand structures have different dimensional ratios than eolian dunes. Also, larger particles don’t get carried by wind whereas they are incorporated into sub-aqueous sand structures.
H.E. Gregory’s initial description of the rock unit he named the “Navajo Sandstone” (for its extensive exposure across the Navajo Nation of Utah and Arizona) appealed to processes of deposition associated with desert dunes. This ran contrary to conventional wisdom at the turn of the 20th century, which held that all extensive deposits of uniform lithology must have been deposited in a marine environment. Gregory’s interpretation went uncontested, primarily because no bedforms of adequate size to produce the large-scale crossbedding characteristic of the Navajo had been observed in other environments. However, this barrier was broken when the side-scan sonar technology developed during WW II was applied to exploration of North America’s continental shelves. For the first time, it became apparent that powerful currents could sweep the ocean floor in deep water, redistributing the sand and forming large dunes. This discovery prompted various attempts to re-interpret the Navajo as a marine deposit, calling into question every criterion that had been advanced in support of an eolian depositional environment. The research programs engendered by this debate established eolian sedimentology as a vibrant sub-discipline, encompassing experimental approaches in large wind-tunnels, the exploration of modern Earth environments, the investigation of ancient deposits, and the interpretation of remote-sensing data from throughout the solar system. The marine hypothesis was ultimately rejected as a result of these studies. The topic has not been under active debate in the professional community since well before the start of the 21st century; however, creationist “flood geologists” continue to champion the undersea interpretation, rejecting the findings of the professional community during the 1970’s and 80’s. They argued—and continue to argue—that these imposing sedimentary structures resulted from Noah’s flood. (See, for example: Hoesch, W. 2008. Marketing the Navajo Sandstone. Acts & Facts. 37 (6): 14).
Figure 1. John McLarty (left) looks on while Gerald Bryant (right) describes an eroded Navajo Sandstone outcrop (Red Rock Canyon, NV).
Crossbeds are formed as wind-blown sand is swept up the windward side of an advancing dune and is deposited on the lee slope, or as sand build-up on the dune crest exceeds the angle of repose and a mini-avalanche occurs. These thin deposited layers (foresets) are tilted at approximately 28° from the paleo horizontal (compaction flattening reduced the angle from the 32° angle of repose for dry sand), and are clearly visible because of particle segregation by size and density that occurs in each layer in the deposition process. The visibility of these layers is enhanced by diagenetic iron coloration (that is coloration that occurred long after the dunes were emplaced). Small surface ripples in the leeward slope can also contribute to foresets.
With an estimated annual dune migration of about 1 m (based on correlations between weather cycles and sedimentation patterns), and the Navajo dunes covering an area of at least 265,000 km2, one begins to get a sense of the time scale for a single dune to migrate across the area, not including the time for formation of the sand in the first place by weathering of the Appalachians, followed by aqueous transport to the immediate source area north of the Navajo. After the wind had spread the sand southward, more time was required to bury the deposit beneath thousands of feet of additional sedimentary layers and cement the sand grains into rock (lithification), before the modern regime of uplift and erosion was able to form the canyons we see today. And, there are multiple layers of crossbeds, each representing another dune migrating through; the Navajo Sandstone is up to 700 m thick!
The geologic story is further complicated in Red Rock Canyon. There, the Navajo Sandstone is capped with thousands of feet of Paleozoic carbonates, generally formed from marine life, which were formed before the Navajo Sandstone but thrust over it by tectonic activity (the Keystone Thrust Fault, about 65 ma). The sandstone was already lithified by the time this overthrust occurred.
Figure 2. Crossbedded Navajo Sandstone (Snow Canyon, St. George, UT)
Figure 3. Close-up view of laminar structure of foresets in crossbedded Navajo Sandstone.
One prominent feature in the sandstone visible at our first stop in Red Rock Canyon was a chaotic structure where the regular sediment layers were grossly disturbed or even erased. This evidence of a “liquefaction event” was something we would see repeatedly on the trip. Analogous to what happened in San Francisco’s Marina District during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, oscillation of moist sand during an earthquake led to liquefaction, often with a fault visible nearby. Dune deposits later laid down over the remains of the liquefaction event were normal crossbedded structures, due to wind-blown sand. These structures are difficult to explain by a short chronology sub-aqueous process (such as Noah’s flood). Instead, they tell a story requiring long periods of time for the development of the accumulating layers of dunes.
We camped at Valley of Fire State Park, where we saw more crossbedded Navajo Sandstone, surrounded by towering peaks of carbonate rock. At the bottom of the canyon, deep erosion revealed the Shinarump Conglomerate (ca 230 ma) containing carbonate rocks and fossils, including petrified logs. At Atlatl Rock we viewed ancient (ca 4000 BP) Indian petroglyphs chiseled into an exposed cliff face. Above these were positive impressions remaining from small reptile tracks embedded in the Navajo Sandstone. It is difficult to interpret the massive sandstone structures—built by sedimentation of eroded Appalachian rock, embedded with reptile prints but not fossils of grasses and other post-Jurassic plants, discolored by iron migration and lithified by migration of cementitious minerals, partially eroded to create valleys amidst towering red cliffs, then carved by ancient man—by a short chronology.
Figure 4. Gerald Bryant discussing a petrified log in Shinarump Conglomerate (Valley of Fire State Park, NV).
Valley of Fire also provided our first of several looks at interdune deposits. The low-lying areas between dunes sometimes contained moisture or even pools of water, making them favored habitat for various forms of life. The moisture caused dust to be trapped there, so that the flat-lying interdune deposits have a different texture than the layers (foresets) of sand deposited on the leeward side of dunes to make crossbedded structures. At some locations, interdune deposits include non-sandstone rock types, limestones and dolostones formed by chemical processes in the highly evaporative, ancient ponds. Multiple Interdunes may sometimes be observed in cliff faces, one above another separated by crossbeds. This genetic association of rocks formed from transported particles with others constructed from ions transported in solution is difficult to reconcile with a short chronology and a single “Flood.” This difficulty is magnified by the presence of burrows, tracks, and other evidence of life within the interdune environment. In some locations, multiple such interdunes are found vertically stacked tens or hundreds of meters apart in the same cliff face, with several crossbeds in between, further challenging a flood geology interpretation.
After hiking through a canyon of sculpted sandstone, we found a layer of conglomerate (from the base of the lower member of the Willow Tank Formation, ca 100 ma) that contained a chunk of the Navajo Sandstone. This is difficult to explain without the sand being lithified by the time of the flood event(s) that produced the conglomerate and incorporated the sandstone therein. Some flood geologists argue that the sandstone sediments were created during Noah’s flood and not lithified until afterwards. I wondered, How could wet sand fracture in a brittle fashion to produce a block, and how could that wet, nonlithified block of sand hold its shape and layered structure through the force of a flood powerful enough to form conglomerate?
Figure 5. Navajo Sandstone rock embedded in Willow Tank Formation conglomerate formed by local flooding (Valley of Fire State Park, NV).
We camped two nights at Snow Canyon State Park near St. George, UT. There we found a series of lava flows on top of deeply eroded sandstone, with multiple volcanic vents visible above the canyon. Volcanic eruptions occurred at different stages during the incision of the landscape, producing topographic inversions, so that streambeds capped by lava flows now form the high ground of buttes and mesas. (That is, earlier lava flows followed a path to lower elevations like water does. When the lava solidified, it formed a protective cap over these streambeds, so that subsequent aqueous erosion produced new streambeds in what was once higher sandstone, and eventually the older lava was left as a cap protecting outcrops—what was once the lowest, now the highest. Newer lava flows followed the new, and lower, streambeds). Radiometric dating (the “clock” is reset in molten lava, allowing the lava solidification to be dated) reveals a few-million-year history of episodic volcanism, amid ongoing erosion of the sandstone. The poor state of preservation of the older flows, relative to the younger, corroborates the relative chronology of the volcanic events. This complex arrangement of features on top of eroded Jurassic Navajo Sandstone is difficult to explain by a short chronology that dates the sandstone to Noah’s flood.
Figure 6. Lava rocks tumbled onto eroded Navajo Sandstone (Snow Canyon State Park, St. George, UT).
In the St. George area, we visited several sites including an ancient streambed where the complex array of sedimentary structures has been preserved in a plan-view exposure (in contrast to the cross-sectional views we typically observed) very much like that of the modern washes we hiked in. The coarse deposits of the streambed were covered by thick layers of fine silt marking an abrupt and dramatic change in energy in the depositional environment (silt settles only from relatively quiet water). We visited a similar, plan-view exposure of a different layer in an extraordinary museum (Johnson Farm) built over the excavation of a dinosaur trackway. At this site, the interplay of various forms of life with ongoing sedimentation processes was recorded in even finer detail.
A volcanic ash layer was clearly visible in a roadcut through the slopes behind St. George. This is problematic for its residents because the ash has aged to become clay, which is slippery when wet, with the result that when developers cut into the base of the hillside, the mountain above began sliding down into the town! The ash layer is also problematic for flood geologists, for it is difficult to understand how volcanic ash could be distributed in a distinct band of a few inches thickness if the entire sediment column was formed under water during Noah’s flood.
Figure 7. Volcanic ash layer within fluvial deposits of the Kayenta Formation below the Navajo Sandstone (St. George, UT).
In the same roadcut the cross-section of a filled-in flood channel in the Kayenta Formation is preserved. The channel cut through the volcanic ash layer shown in Figure 7. The channel is filled with sand, surrounded by darker silt layers that Bryant attributed to deposition on a floodplain. The uniformity and regularity of the channel deposits argue in favor of deposition during a single flooding event, which scoured out the channel at highest energy flow, deposited the sand as energy waned, and deposited the silt in a final, low-energy phase. Bryant interpreted everything from the bottom of the channel to a little ledge within the siltstone to be the product of a single event, which came after the flood plain was subaerially exposed and received the ashfall. If all these deposition layers were formed by Noah’s flood, it is difficult to explain the stream cutting through the ash layer, filled in by sand particles in layers contoured to the streambed, and capped by horizontal sediment.
Figure 8. Filled-in flood channel in the Kayenta Formation preserved between horizontal deposition layers (St. George, UT). The ash layer shown in Figure 7 is visible to the center left of this photograph, with the flood stream having cut through it.
Evidence for catastrophic events, including earthquakes, floods and volcanic eruptions, are found throughout the region. We viewed the Hurricane Fault and the Virgin Anticline, evidence of tectonic activity and erosion on a massive scale. Despite the frequent charge by short chronologists that conventional geologists are slaves to Lyell’s “uniformitarianism”, “catastrophism” is widely accepted by modern geologists. However, the geological evidence is best explained by multiple catastrophes over eons, not a single global flood event.
On our hikes, and especially over dinner and around evening campfires, conversation frequently turned to the theological and ecclesiastical implications of what we were seeing. It is easy to point out the theological challenges posed by evolution and long chronologies, as fundamentalists are wont to do. It is also easy to point out scientific impossibilities in young earth creationism. It is difficult—and within Adventism, lonely—to seek answers that hold together theology and science. Bryant made the point that science is a community endeavor, and ultimately the facts rule. If one lets religion trump facts, that isn’t science. On the other hand, church is also a community endeavor, and when a majority insists on having its way, overriding people of conscience who disagree, damage is done to the community. Post-San Antonio, it is increasingly difficult to be a church-employed scientist, educator, pastor or theologian if one does not accept a “recent” creation in six literal days, even though the scientific evidence against “recent” is overwhelming and increasing.
Figure 9. Campfire theology.
From St. George we drove to the Kanab, UT area where we stayed at Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. Its extensive field of modern sand dunes derived from erosion of the Navajo Sandstone provided an opportunity to see how the wind shapes dunes to create crossbedded structures as well as secondary surface ripples, both of which are preserved in the Navajo Sandstone.
One of the highlights of the week was a 4-wheel drive trip to the Moccasin Mountain Tracksite. There we studied sandstone layers where there were extensive dinosaur tracks, sometimes one on top of another. Dinosaur claw imprints were also visible. The most heavily traveled layers appeared to be reactivation surfaces (layers that often represent a change in climate or other control factors that may cause a shift in the direction of dune growth). Surrounding layers seemed to be devoid of tracks. Bryant explained that these surfaces had the right moisture to preserve the tracks, and in any case, animals generally preferred to walk through the lowlands or near water, rather than climb over a dune. Prints went in both directions along the busiest tracks. It is difficult to interpret these tracks as those of dinosaurs crawling to the top of dunes to escape Noah’s flood; more likely, they were looking for a drink or a meal.
Figure 10. Dinosaur print in a trackbed (Moccasin Mountain Tracksite, UT).
Figure 11. Dr. Gerald Bryant explaining the attitude of the foresets relative to the ground surface (Moccasin Mountain Tracksite, UT).
Near Kanab we viewed a research site studied by one of Bryant’s students. A sandstone outcrop exhibited a fluidization event as well as several faults and related fractures. Crossbedded structures above the faults place the earthquake within a time interval. It is difficult to conceive of a short-chronology, underwater process that would produce a fault and related fractures, then cover them with crossbeds. (A rattlesnake on the hike back to the cars reminded us to carefully watch all elements of our environment!). We drove a little further and stopped along the roadside to view yet another fluidization event preserved in sandstone, clearly contrasting with the weathered crossbeds around it.
Figure 12. Weathered Navajo Sandstone showing the remains of a fluidization event (arrow) (near Kanab, UT).
Also near Kanab, Bryant showed us an outcrop of Shinarump Conglomerate (ca 230 ma) within which we could view a petrified logjam. This tangle of logs and rounded rocks was similar to logjams found in modern streams after floods or heavy torrents. This logjam was protruding from the edge of a cliff overlooking a large eroded valley. It occurred to me that it must have taken a long time to erode the valley. On the other hand, if it were eroded within a few days or weeks during Noah’s flood, then the exposed logjam should have decayed instead of been petrified.
We hiked through a portion of a beautiful slot canyon, Buckskin Gulch, where we saw towering Navajo Sandstone cliff walls eroded by water. Near their bases were weathered petroglyphs (bighorn sheep appeared to be a popular subject). In the narrow slot canyon we found a modern logjam, except that this one was suspended over our heads, caught between the narrow canyon walls during a flash flood. It seems clear that the tall canyon walls must have been lithified by the time they were formed or they would have collapsed. This argues against a flood geology interpretation of the sediment formation and erosion processes. On the other hand, if the canyon was formed by conventional river and flash flood action, it must have taken eons to erode. Consistent with that interpretation, the low-lying petroglyphs suggest that there has been little change in canyon depth in the past couple thousand years.
Figure 13. Hiking through a Navajo Sandstone slot canyon. (Buckskin Gulch, UT).
Figure 14. Bighorn sheep petroglyph at the base of a Navajo Sandstone slot canyon wall (Buckskin Gulch, UT).
After our final sandwich lunch near Buckskin Gulch, we loaded the coolers back in Bryant’s dusty pickup and headed for Zion National Park. Entering at the east entrance, we passed the famous Checkerboard Mesa with a new appreciation for the significance of its crossbedded structures. Stopping just before the tunnel, we hiked the Canyon Overlook Trail for a terrific view of Zion Canyon. The trail looked down on a slot canyon. Above the slot canyon towered at least 15 crossbeds stacked one above another. The scale of crossbedding in Zion was impressive, and the combination of crossbedded structures and deep slot canyon is difficult to explain by short chronology flood geology.
For a portion of the trail, we walked on an exposed interdune surface, about 6-8 inches thick. The interdune layer then turned up sharply, distorted by a tectonic event. Nearby was a dramatic fluidization feature, and z-shaped patterns in the foresets formed during collapse of a dune front across an interdune expanse. A truck-sized rock formation Bryant calls the “Rosetta Stone” provides distinct evidence of interactions between surface and sub-surface processes, helping geologists to bracket the event history of what we had seen and walked over. That one rock contained a fluidization feature, fault lines, a displaced and twisted interdune layer, and the deposits of a large dune that climbed over this wreckage.
Figure 15. Tilted interdune layer on the Canyon Overlook Trail (Zion National Park, UT).
Zion is famous for the arches in its canyon walls, formed by weathering. Water percolates through porous sandstone, but when it reaches a hard impermeable layer, sometimes an interdune deposit, it travels horizontally instead of downward. When it reaches a canyon wall, it “weeps”, creating a wet zone where one sees a line of moisture-loving green plants thriving in the desert environment. As water continues to flow over long time periods, it leaches minerals that cemented the sand into stone. Eventually the sandstone crumbles and a section of canyon wall collapses. Other weathering processes also contribute to the erosion, including thermal expansion and freeze/thaw cycles. An arch is left behind. In addition to the time required to transport the sand, form crossbeds, lithify, then erode the canyon, we are left to contemplate the time required to dissolve cement with seeping water, in some cases enough to create overhangs wide enough to cover several cars.
Figure 16. An arch viewed from Canyon Overlook Trail (Zion National Park, UT).
On Sabbath, we enjoyed a “day off” from geology, though only from the formal education. Geology continued to surround us in the form of towering peaks, canyons, and the Virgin River bed. We bid Bryant goodbye; he had important duties to fulfill at the St. George SDA Church that day. The rest of our group broke up into smaller groups based on interests. Six of us rose early to hike to the top of Observation Point and look over the canyon from that lofty perspective. McLarty and another of our group managed to carry on deep theological conversations for the two hours it took to reach the top. I contented myself photographing the profusion of wildflowers and fabulous views. While McLarty napped at the top, several of us descended and explored Hidden Canyon. Later McLarty reported that he had found a profusion of marine fossils on the plateau behind Observation Point. Atop Zion’s 700 m Navajo Sandstone lies the Temple Cap Formation and atop that, the Carmel Formation (ca 170 ma). Carmel is limestone containing numerous marine fossils. Whereas at Red Rock Canyon tectonic activity thrust older carbonate rock atop the younger Navajo Sandstone, the Carmel limestone is younger than the Navajo Sandstone and was deposited in place. It is difficult to explain the presence of marine fossils in the Carmel but not in the Navajo if all this sediment was deposited by Noah’s flood.
Figure 17. John McLarty admiring 2000 feet of stacked Navajo Sandstone crossbeds viewed from Observation Point (Zion National Park, UT).
A few of us capped our day by climbing to Angel’s Landing. The last mile of the hike is not for the faint-hearted. Sheer 1500 foot drop-offs on either side give fantastic views of the canyon but require that you hold onto a chain in several sections to avoid falling off. We met a local who told us that he had witnessed a woman plummet from the trail; her scream still haunts him. She had apparently let go of the chain to let another hiker pass, but then lost her balance.
Figure 18. Looking down 1500 feet of crossbedded sandstone from the Angel’s Landing trail (Zion National Park, UT).
Figure 19. Kevin Lilly waiting his turn at one of the chains on the Angel’s Landing Trail (Zion National Park, UT).
Oddly, I was reminded of Ellen White’s vision of traveling along a narrow trail with a rock wall on one side and a precipice on the other. When the trail became too narrow, small cords were let down from the top of the wall which she and her fellow travelers grasped to keep their balance. Eventually the trail ended and they had to cling to the cords to cross a chasm and reach Paradise. They wondered if the cords would hold. White wrote (LS 190-93):
Again, in whispered anguish, the words were breathed, “What holds the cord?” For a moment we hesitated to venture. Then we exclaimed: “Our only hope is to trust wholly to the cord. It has been our dependence all the difficult way. It will not fail us now.” Still we were hesitating and distressed. The words were then spoken: “God holds the cord. We need not fear.” These words were repeated by those behind us, accompanied with: “He will not fail us now. He has brought us thus far in safety.”
White’s vision, of course, referred to the early Adventist experience after Christ didn’t return in 1844, causing many to doubt whether God had been leading their movement. White sought to reassure them that even though they had been rejected by their churches, who mocked them for the apparent failure of Miller’s (and Snow’s) prophetic scheme, God was indeed guiding them.
Although White strongly criticized “infidel geologists” who “claim that the world is very much older than the Bible record makes it” (3SG 91), I nevertheless find her vision a fitting metaphor for where I find myself as an Adventist today—though my path seems more like Angel’s Landing Trail, with a precipice on both sides! On the one side lies the precipice of atheism or agnosticism, denying any significance to God in my life in the face of natural evidence for which Adventism has provided me no adequate theological framework. On the other side lies the precipice of fundamentalism, denying the significance of Nature as interpreted by an overwhelming majority of scientists and instead insisting that a particular interpretation of the Bible is the highest authority.
I am 57 years old and still don’t have adequate answers. One week did not a geology expert make! Bryant repeatedly stressed the complexity of the history entrained in the rocks. While I tried to converse with the rocks as Bryant taught us, my rock language skills are still extremely limited. Neither has years of thought resolved the theological questions, despite hours of Bible study and prayer. In both science and theology, I have more questions than answers. What I am trying to do is cling to the cord of Truth, trusting that there is a loving God, and that He rewards those who seek truth wherever it may be found, no matter how difficult it may be to integrate that truth into our lives, religion and culture.
I am not trying to denigrate young earth or young life creationists, though I strongly disagree with their views and am angered by their (sometimes dishonest) efforts to purge the Church and its institutions of those holding to an old chronology for Earth and life upon it. I believe I am following the truth as best I understand it; they believe that, too. Our different life experiences, assumptions, personalities, etc., have led us to different positions. Many of us have, in fact, held opposing views ourselves at an earlier time in our lives. My personal belief is that we can better understand the Bible when we allow Nature to inform our interpretation of the Bible. Not everyone shares that belief.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church today seems to be offering a binary choice: atheism or fundamentalism. Leading voices say that if you don’t believe in a recent seven-day creation, you can’t be a Seventh-day Adventist. But there is a path between these extremes, as hard to find and narrow as it seems at times. Perhaps irrationally, I and many other Adventists are trying to stay on that path. The Adventist Church would better serve its members—especially the graduates of its colleges and universities—if it quit trying to push people off the path over one of the precipices, but instead constructed a chain for travelers to grasp, devoting resources to encouraging and strengthening those striving to maintain faith while holding conventional scientific views.
Perhaps the greatest joy of this field trip was the opportunity to spend a week with other Adventists who share this path. Those who are employed by the denomination face special challenges; I think they were even more blessed by this trip than I was. The experience of sharing our stories, questions and tentative answers was richly rewarding. I treasure the new friendships formed.
As we loaded the trucks Sunday morning for the drive back to Sin City and flights home, I asked my guide if I had to go, or if I could stay in Zion. He said, “You must return and write what you have seen and share it with others.” Stepping out of the airport in Houston, raindrops and oppressive humidity assured me I was home, and it wasn’t Paradise. But I hope to return soon—maybe even next year. (Contact John McLarty if you are interested in participating in a future geology field trip: johntmclarty@gmail.com).
Acknowledgements: The author wishes to thank John McLarty and Gerald Bryant not only for a terrific trip and learning experience, but also for reviewing this report and offering several helpful suggestions and clarifications. Any errors are my own.
What an inspiring testimony, Robert!
Reading it I was often confronted with the urge to take up camping again just to join the trek next year. Seriously.
I especially am drawn by your attraction to finding that campground where a full spectrum of Seventh-day Adventists are sharing a campfire and exploring how Natural Revelation and Special Revelation can be seen as sharing a common origin in one and the same God.
Just because some evidence dosent jive dosent mean that iheir was a worldwide flood. Something to ponder where did all our fossil fuels come from ? That”s a lot of organic matter to bury. Maybe just maybe a worldwide flood? Your deductions are like taking the Bible and establishing Biblical Truth by taking one book or verse and establishing doctorine.
I smile at the conclusions of these ‘investigators.’ Just because things look confused will one disregard the biblical evidence? The thing is, we are not to judge the Bible by the evidences, we are to judge the evidences by the Bible! And if there seems to be a conundrum then we settle for the Bible and continue our research till we find the answers that demonstrate the the Bible’s position. Do not the atheists do just that with their beliefs? They look for the evidences that support their ideas, and if they cannot find any they just ‘invent’ answers out of thin air! Just as they did with ‘soft tissue’ dinosaur finds! If my parents got lost in a particular woods I would never assume they did not get lost in the woods simply because I cannot find them. Just think of the buried forests and the erroneous interpretations of non biblical scientists! Evidences never argue against the truth of the Bible, only man does because of his own ideas! Ours is to maintain the truth and share it with others regardless of their beliefs. Thinking is free but not necessarily correct. Only God is Judge, no one or nothing else.
Excellent points, Pastor.
A 1975 study by scientists Freeman and Visher (Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, 45:3:651-668) provides some important insights as to the origin of the Navajo Sandstone. The investigators pointed out that underwater sand dunes are known to accumulate on portions of the sea floor swept by strong currents–for example, beneath the North Sea. Superficially they look a lot like desert (windblown) sand dunes, but careful analysis of their grain size distribution reveals major differences. It turns out that disaggregated sands from the Navajo Sandstone match very well with modern submarine dunes, and very poorly with desert dunes. If the Navajo Sandstone formed underwater, as the data seem to indicate, then one must imagine water depths on the order of 300 feet and current velocities of 4 feet per second across large portions of North America!
Marketing the Navajo Sandstone
by William A. Hoesch, M.S.
Freeman and Visher also observed a bedform called “current lineation,” which so far has been found only in marine dunes. Furthermore, folds in the Navajo Sandstone indicate that thicknesses in excess of several hundred feet were in a water-wet and unconsolidated state at the same time. This too suggests rapid underwater burial.
No amount of marketing or repetition can change the fact that the Navajo Sandstone bears the marks of having been deposited in underwater, Flood-like conditions. We weren’t there to see it deposited and there remains much mystery, but the Genesis Flood continues to provide a credible framework for interpreting its origin.
Marketing the Navajo Sandstone
by William A. Hoesch, M.S.
Peter, “Marketing the Navajo Sandstone” is an example of what I mean by dishonest creationists. I would hope that if you consider the actual field evidence we examined, you will understand that MtNS is based on outdated research. Science has moved on in the past 50 years, but MtNS and other such creationist documents continue to argue as if it is still current. That is an example of dishonestly using selective arguments/data to make one’s case in support of a predetermined conclusion, rather than considering the full range of current evidence.
(I’m headed for a remote Newfoundland location this evening so will not be able to respond further).
OK, Peter, they might have been formed underwater. OK. But 4,000 years ago? Never, ever. These sandstones are twisted, broken, filed with volcano rivers, that then were exposed by later erosions.
The lower wet sands on top of layers of sand long ago turned to rock, have dinosaur footprints, long after your “flood formed sandstones” were formed, not every possibly a the same time. And then layers of volcanic ash between different sandstone layers. The entire picture is of an old world, not a young one.
You are free to argue the evidences, but you can not deny the whole picture from the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the top of St George, Utah of many different forces, many floods, many earthquakes, many volcanos, and a lot of time–that of course does not deny the Noah was in a flood. But that flood, in recorded time a few thousand years ago can never explain the whole. Never, ever. The Bible surely tells the story of a flood, but not the one and only flood explaining it all. Never, ever. So lets get out our Bibles and sit by the campfire and rework our interpretations of the Bible to fit the facts of a created earth, with a long chronology. Old earth creationism is the home safe from atheism on one side and dogmatic blindness on the other. Intelligent design, unchained by Usher’s disproved speculations is the best friend a thinking Christian ever had.
Jack, Each time I go through the chronology of Genesis, my calculations are ~the same as Ussher’s. Who and how were Usshers calculations disproved?
Assuming that assembling the OT genealogy from reading the characters names has many difficulties. This is easily demonstrated when reading the two very different genealogies for Jesus in two Gospels.
The OT names can never be ascertained for accuracy. How could they be checked? Who wrote the genealogies found in Gen. 5 and when was Genesis written? All this was oral history for thousands of years before writing.
The genealogical list resembles the Sumerian kin lists of the antediluvian period: 10 names are given: both lists conclude with the hero of the flood story; and in each text a new era begins from the Flood.
These stories of human origins are not historical; i.e. they do not record events which can be validated by contemporary evidence. Rather they record truth in a way more akin to poetry and provide the background winch the Hebrews created as the setting for their conceptions of man and of the history of God’s relationship to him. Using the Bible as an accurate recording was never why it was written; but to record the history of the Jewish people and their concept as “God’s Chosen.”
This is not unlike even the origin of the United States with God’s approval and blessing on our establishment.
Corrections: “were formed, not every possible AT the same time.”
“that of course does not deny THAT Noah was in a flood.”
Jack
Robert,
“Analogous to what happened in San Francisco’s Marina District during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, oscillation of moist sand during an earthquake led to liquefaction, often with a fault visible nearby. Dune deposits later laid down over the remains of the liquefaction event were normal crossbedded structures, due to wind-blown sand.”
Could you please explain this more? If the sand dunes were deposited by wind, I assume that means the environment was desert-like. Then where would the water be that would be needed for liquefication? And if the sand really was moist, how was the environment really desert-like?
“The low-lying areas between dunes sometimes contained moisture or even pools of water, making them favored habitat for various forms of life. The moisture caused dust to be trapped there, so that the flat-lying interdune deposits have a different texture than the layers (foresets) of sand deposited on the leeward side of dunes to make crossbedded structures. At some locations, interdune deposits include non-sandstone rock types, limestones and dolostones formed by chemical processes in the highly evaporative, ancient ponds.”
Again, was the environment really desert-like if there was that much moisture? And what sort of chemical processes would produce limestone out of mere dust?
Seems like a lot of speculation using an approach we are explicitly told not to use.
Pickle,
Regarding the questions you raise about moisture and desert environments, I suggest you look at modern examples. Deserts can be affected by seasonal moisture, for example. One of my favorite parks is Big Bend National Park. It is a desert, yet subject to seasonal rains and flash-flooding. It has dunes in the wettest part of the park, near the Rio Grande River. The sand under the dunes is wet. I went to school at Andrews University. Nearby Warren Dunes or Grand Mere park had massive sand dunes, yet the environment was not desert and was moist. The dunes could be covered with snow, rained upon, etc., yet in the summer would dry at least on the surface and drift. I’m not suggesting that these were the precise environments at formation of the dunes comprising Navajo sandstone, but it illustrates that seasonal moisture is not incompatible with dunes and dune migration. For further particulars, I suggest consulting an expert like Gerald Bryant (one week did not make me an expert). You may be interested in this paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259094016_An_example_of_liquefaction-induced_interdune_sedimentation_from_the_early_Jurassic_Navajo_Sandstone_USA
Finally, I encourage you not to pick at the evidence, but consider the totality of evidence. Do you have an explanation for all of it? For multiple interlayer dune surfaces stacked vertically? How could that be due to Noah’s flood? How could Navajo sandstone be in conglomerate?
Robert,
I don’t think your response adequately addresses the issues I was trying to raise. You describe Big Bend National Park as only having “dunes in the wettest part of the park, near the Rio Grande River,” while the Navajo is described as if there were dunes over very large regions. They don’t sound comparable.
Regarding Warren Dunes, I have been there, and I recall that the dunes further from the lake are covered by plants. The Navajo would be comparable if between the crossbedding there were fossil plants.
So has anyone identified any current environment comparable to what at least some evolutionists propose created the Navajo? A desert, without many plants, with lots of water, including pools between dunes, spread out over a very large area? If not, I think evolutionists themselves are having trouble coming up with an adequate model for its creation.
“Finally, I encourage you not to pick at the evidence, but consider the totality of evidence.”
And I encourage you to stop toying around with skepticism, and to consider the totality of the evidence as well.
“Do you have an explanation for all of it? For multiple interlayer dune surfaces stacked vertically? How could that be due to Noah’s flood? How could Navajo sandstone be in conglomerate?”
Which is somewhat what I am asking you as well. At part 1 I also asked what type of cement is found in the Navajo, but didn’t see a response yet. Do you know?
“I am not trying to denigrate young earth or young life creationists, though I strongly disagree with their views and am angered by their (sometimes dishonest) efforts to purge the Church and its institutions of those holding to an old chronology for Earth and life upon it.”
So you think that Seventh-day Adventist institutions should employ teachers who reject the Bible as being the only rule of faith and practice? To the point of getting angry over the matter? How so?
If you really feel that strongly over the issue, then ask the church to abandon that baptismal vow about the Bible.
In actuality, for a professor who does not take the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice, to teach in an Adventist institution as if he were a Seventh-day Adventist, I think that would be dishonest.
Ah, is this “the one and only” Mr. Pickle” returning? The Mr. Pickle who was so hard on the 3ABN founder?
I would not call complaining about the cover up of child molestation allegations being “so hard” on Danny Shelton.
Truly the devil finds work for idle hands and minds. I am watching how he leads Christian scoffers to try to negate God’s Word. For longer time period says God could not create in six days; therefore Hevis not God. Then no six day week? no Sabbath. EExactly who are these people? Seventh-day Adventists or Jesuits or atheists? Something to think about…..and the naive amongst us just get sucked in, admiring science falsely so called. A really devilish piece of work.
I was taught as a child that Nature is God’s second book. In carefully reading that book I have come to the conclusion that the earth is much older than 6,000 years. I don’t believe God plays tricks on us. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us how long ago creation happened, or how long were the first 3 days of creation. Our earth didn’t start orbiting the sun until the fourth day.
Floydpete,
Gen. 5 and 11 give us the time from creation to Abraham. Then we have 430 years from Abraham to the Exodus. Then we have 480 years from the Exodus to when Solomon started building the temple. It isn’t that difficult to come up with an approximate date for that event.
Thus, the Bible does tell us how long ago creation happened.
Sure, Nature is God’s book too, but we are also told that it can only be rightly interpreted in the light of sacred history.
Hi Peter,
They promised that next time we not need to camp by opting for the ‘plush’ option. So what might the ground rules for you to feel comfortable joining the study group next time? You are a thinking kind of Seventh-day Adventist. You read on the topic, so you seem not afraid to have a conversation with the rocks.
Hi Ron,
So what might be the kind of ground rules that would let you feel free to take the tour next time? There can never be too much scripture and you a keenly engaged with scripture. You would be not only welcomed personally but your deep engagement with scripture would be especially welcomed.
Hi Pickle,
You are invited too, of course. There are scholars who to maintain their employment have to sign annually that they believe in biblical inerrancy and in verbal inspiration of scripture and who have written extensively that not only does the earth not have four corners and the sun does not circle the earth, but that the earth and life on the earth has a very old history,and all without violating a single syllable of scripture. Just as you’ll hear conversations with or at least about the rocks, you will be invited to contribute to conversations with and about scripture. Specifically, assuming Special Revelation and Natural Revelation are the revelation of the one same and only God, does God not expect that we conform the inferences of Special Revelation to the realities of Natural Revelation?
Bill,
“There are scholars who to maintain their employment have to sign annually that they believe in biblical inerrancy and in verbal inspiration of scripture ….”
What employer is that? Certainly not any Seventh-day Adventist institution.
“… and who have written extensively that not only does the earth not have four corners and the sun does not circle the earth, but that the earth and life on the earth has a very old history,and all without violating a single syllable of scripture.”
Presumably, the first half of your sentence was falsely referring to Adventist scholars teaching in Adventist institutions. Thus, it would be quite natural to take the last half of the sentence as also playing loose with the facts. “… without violating a single syllable ….” Absurd!
“Specifically, assuming Special Revelation and Natural Revelation are the revelation of the one same and only God, does God not expect that we conform the inferences of Special Revelation to the realities of Natural Revelation?”
God flat out told us to interpret nature in light of Scripture, not vice versa, and flat out told us that we couldn’t not correctly interpret nature if we didn’t. End of story.
Pickle,
I understood Bill to be referring to other Christian universities where I know his statement to be literally factual. I think your response lacks an adequate understanding.
Hi again, Pickle
My apology not not making clear that I was speaking of other Christians, not Seventh-day Adventists. Monte picked up on that.
We Seventh-day Adventists do not subscribe to the bible as either verbally inspired or inerrant, and yet those who believe in the inerrancy of the very words of scripture as well as those words as words are inspired have not be fired for articulating why they believe that life and geology as commonly explained does not violate scripture.
Like you, I believe that interpreting nature in light of scripture violates neither nature or scripture. After all, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork. What is the challenge for some is interpreting scripture in light of nature. Does it seem to you, too, that there is one God, and one inspiration, and two expressions of inspiration–humanity as in scripture and all other nature?
Seems the two complement if we are willing to let them.
That, it seems, is the message of the First Angel of the Three Angels’ Message as well.
I’m thinking we could spend more than one campfire exploring the implications of Natural revelation and Special revelation. I’m sure I would learn a lot. And like it.
To Bill, and others who have an interest in Natural and Special Revelation.
“Seems the two complement, if we are willing to let them.”
Seems to me that it is quite correct to point out that is it what the observer is ‘willing to let’ that determines the result of this kind of approach. Results which, as Larry will add, are just the opinion of the observer.
I would like to ask, how does one truly read the ‘book of nature?’ I like getting out in the great outdoors. I can light a campfire in the rain. I enjoy walking for days or a week in the woods with only a pack on my back. But in reading the book of nature, I see it is a drama where survival, sex and death are the major themes. ‘Beauty’ is everywhere. But what is beauty? A flower is beautiful. It is also a plant’s sex organs, designed to attract critters which will help it survive. The ‘firmament shows his handiwork’ (and pray tell, just what is this firmament in modern terms, dividing the waters above and below?) But even if one takes the starry night sky at face value, when one examines its truly macro proportions, one sees evolution and death of whole worlds/stars/planets. Our own star is slowly/rapidly burning itself into oblivion, and will take its solar system with it. Entropy is everywhere. The book of nature can be a dismal ‘read.’
And ‘special revelation’ is fraught with its own set of difficulties.
Personally, I think the mystical approach is best. Know God directly.
Bill,
I imagine I know what you mean when you say: “We Seventh-day Adventists do not subscribe to the bible as either verbally inspired or inerrant…”
And I know what we say in FB#1: …The Holy Scriptures are the supreme, authoritative, and the infallible revelation of His will. They are the standard of character, the test of experience, the definitive revealer of doctrines, and the trustworthy record of God’s acts in history. “…the trustworthy record of God’s acts in history” is the important clause here.
I know what Robert Johnston is writing about the scriptural account of Noah’s flood here in his essay. Robert is ready to ‘throw out’ the scripture as a ‘trustworthy record of God’s acts in history’.
Angry “Bob” sees dark forces in Adventistism trying to purge itself of old-earth chronologists. All we reactionaries are trying to do is keep his crew from re-writing FB#1.
If we are going to sit around the campfire and talk about revelation – It’s going to be an argument – and its not going to be easy to convince me the rocks are speaking clearly about the past. I think some people have very active imaginations. They imagine they know more than they do. Imagine that!
Bill Abbott,
You did not directly engage with the evidence discussed in the article. If you don’t have an explanation consistent with the totality of evidence, then why not consider whether your scriptural hermeneutic is correct? Or are you content to assume a particular interpretation and take it to the grave with you regardless of any and all natural evidence to the contrary? There are many biblical scholars who maintain that the Bible does not teach the age of the earth. Why can’t we have a respectful discussion within the church about this?
Robert Johnston,
Let us assume the bible is incorrect about the creation and the flood. The scripture now must be interpreted without the authority of accuracy. The scripture now says things that are factually not true. Being no longer factual: the truth of scripture becomes allegorical truth.
The interpreter becomes the authority. He or she must decide what is allegorically true in scripture. Factually speaking, the bible is now a dead letter. Interminably long campfire discussions about what is true now ensue – the arbiter of truth is dead. How will agree anything is true with no authority higher than our own heads?
You are right, I did not directly engage your evidence. Modern Science is like that. It just skips over the stuff it can’t explain. Either that or it makes the evidence fit. You are not observing the past. You can’t go there. You are looking at rocks and you are making all sorts of assumptions and you think you are observing the past, but its just an opinion. I found it all interesting.
Let me demonstrate Modern Science: Last year’s observations of Pluto show evidence of internal heat, a huge craterless plain and ice (H2O). Lots and lots of water, ice mountains, ice volcanoes. I expect you to skip over all this evidence that contraindicates an old universe. Surprise me and engage the totality of this evidence. Our shall we just do consensus science? Virtually all the Scientists ‘know’ the universe is very old.
William A: ‘ Being no longer factual: the truth of scripture becomes allegorical truth.
The interpreter becomes the authority. He or she must decide what is allegorically true in scripture.’
I think you are 100% correct, William.
Since this is an article which relates to questions of literal vs mythical/allegorical understandings of scripture, esp Genesis, scientific vs religious ‘truth,’ etc, then I think I am not too far off topic.
WA says that if scripture is not factual (do we also assume he includes literal/historical in that idea?), then it must be allegorical? And does that equation work in reverse? Eg, if scripture says something is allegorical, does that mean that the original, once-presumed to be ‘historical’ event is not in fact historical/factual?
And how do we decide? Well, what if an inspired author says its allegorical? does that prove WA’s point? In Galatians, Paul is arguing against the Judaisers. (btw, in 4.21 he refers to torah as the law/nomos, not limiting it to the Decalogue). He takes the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar and says: Gal.4.24 ‘…. which things are an allegory….’ Does that mean the story didn’t happen? Is it simply a parable telling us a deeper truth? And if so, how much else in Genesis is ‘allegory?’
Serge,
You are talking past the argument. We have now become the authority about what is true. Scripture no longer has any authority unless we say it does. We individually must decide whether or not Paul is blowing water and wind or whether he is speaking the truth about something. If the scripture cannot be trusted to be factually true then we ourselves must decide what, if any, parts of it are true. We must judge the Word of God.
The scripture can no longer interpret itself because the false parts will always potentially corrupt the true parts.
Genesis is full of allegorical truth, and all those allegorical truths evaporate with the factual truths and you are left with merely interesting stories you can personally deconstruct to your particular tastes and sensibilities, allegorically or otherwise… We each become Little Judges ruling over the meaning of the bible.
I don’t think that is what Paul was doing. Like Jesus Christ, He believed the law and the prophets, the scripture, was true. End of Story.
Fascinating, William. In your analysis, which you state in terms suggesting that you do not abide by it, you have stated the most profound truth of the ages. ‘We have the mind of Christ.’ So why can we not judge all things, discern all things? 1Cor 2, look at it carefully. Here are some highlights.
vv 4,5 Not man’s wisdom/science.
v 7 We speak the wisdom/Sophia of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom (musterion, the inner/cryptic meaning)
v 9 Eye does not see, ear does not hear………… not subject to the physical senses, ergo, not measurable by science
v 10 God HAS revealed them unto us by His Spirit……… individually
v 15 He that is Spiritual judges/discerns all things …….. exactly what you said of us now, in the NT era.
v 16 We have the mind of Christ!
Paul, like Christ, has left Torah behind. The old has passed away, all is new. End of one story. Beginning of another.
This is why I see it as totally pointless to spend time and energy arguing about the literality of Genesis, is it ‘scientific,’ is it history, is it allegory etc etc. Trying to ‘prove’ the earth was created in April, 4004 BC is a game played by ‘the natural man,’ who has not grown up into the fullness of Christ. One who does not have ‘the mind of Christ.’ One who cannot discern all things. And please forgive me for sounding arrogant. I merely wish to affirm what Paul says in 1Cor 2 is the gift of God to the mature believer.
Serge,
If you have the ‘mind of Christ’ which Paul speaks of in 1 Cor 2, Then you, like Paul, have: “determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” Why have so many become determined evangelists of an old universe and old earth? Why are they so certain natural revelation is superior to God’s revelation?
Jesus Christ, in whom all things are made new, though whom the old state of things has passed away, believed the scriptures. How can we imitate Him, how can we have His mind in us, if we deny the scripture He believed in?
My friends on this thread don’t want to deny the scriptures but they have painted themselves into a corner. You cannot serve two masters. You will cling to one and despise the other. If scriptural authority is subordinated to the hearer’s judgment, then the hearer becomes the Word of God. The hearer is crowned a scientist and discovers truth and extracts it from falsehood.
Natural Revelation subordinates God’s Revelation and enthrones itself as the arbiter of truth. The earth is very old because the rocks have spoken to us and told us it is so.
I find the position of those who want more room to interpret the Biblical 6 days of creation as strange. Why are they so “hot and heavy” on this one topic just because some current science may seem to not support 6 literal days of creation? There are many issues in the Bible that is science do not support. Just one example is the virgin birth. I don’t see the same people getting “hot and heavy” over that issue but these folks seems to love to pick on the subject of creation.
Lets be clear …. the Bible and the SoP is perfectly clear on this topic. Its 6 literal days of 24 hours. I can (and I am sure many others can also) quote you what SoP has to say. So it comes down to this: either you believe what the Bible and SoP says or you don’t. I think its very unfair for folks to blame “Wilson and Goldstein” when all these leaders are doing is supporting the Bible truth.
To be a SDA, we subscribe to a set of believes when we were baptized … its called the “Baptismal Vow”. I agreed to the vows when I was baptized as did many, I am sure, who are now opposing the 6 days creation position. Further, we as a church have made our position clear with the 28 FBs. To be a SDA in good and regular standing, we all try to follow our vows and support the 28FBs but no one is forced to do so. If one truly believe that one or more of the FBs are wrong, there are formal ways to bring on changes or else stop “belly aching”.
Blessings in full
” There are many issues in the Bible that is science do not support. Just one example is the virgin birth.”
But the virgin birth has not caused so many discussions; nor is there a “Virgin Birth Research Institute” funded to prove this is fact. That’s because it has always been accepted by faith as all religious beliefs should be. Faith needs no indisputable scientific evidence; otherwise it wouldn’t be faith.
Elaine,
There may be nothing to discuss. But I assure you many, many Christian believers quietly modify their ‘faith’ to exclude the virgin birth. For the same reason, they don’t like the evidence.
And there is evidence Elaine, oh yes there is, lots of evidence for the Virgin birth.
“Lot of evidence for the Virgin Birth”? Surely Mr. Abbot jests. If he is not, it would be appreciated if he could provide just one solid piece of reasonably objective historical evidence concerning the fact that a Virgin Birth occurred. I can’t think of a better example of a traditional Christian doctrine that completely lacks any kind of historical support. (Let’s not even think about any kind of scientific support.) If one wishes to believe in it, it’s totally an individual’s right to believe in something that is accepted totally on the basis of tradition. No problem. Many traditional religious beliefs are like that.
Well Erv,
What type of evidence do you allow in your court? I take it you are the judge. You will decide the rules of evidence. What constitutes evidence?
I hope you will not find my question unworthy of an answer.
Erv,
You argue that there is no reasonable historical evidence for the “virgin birth” of Jesus. However, for me, the historical fact that all of the disciples of Jesus actually believed in the stories they told about him have been sealed by their own blood. Sane people, who are naturally as timid as the disciples obviously were, do not offer up their lives in defense of a story they knew to be false. For me, that’s pretty good historical evidence that the stories about Jesus, to include His virgin birth and His resurrection from the dead, were true.
Monte and Bill,
Though I did not understand what denomination owned the institutions Bill was referring to, the following is still absurd:
“… but that the earth and life on the earth has a very old history,and all without violating a single syllable of scripture.”
Such is an impossibility. One cannot argue that life on earth has a very old history, such as what evolutionists claim, without violating a single syllable of Scripture.
Thanks Serge,
I like your suggestion to seek to know God directly … mystically. The argument can be made that this is the sum total of everything we can know about God. Didn’t Paul offer that our spiritual knowledge, practices, and prophecies are all temporal, while Faith endures … oh, and he notes that Faith is ‘measured’ to us each by God directly. Nice.
Hi William A,
I’m disappointed that you can’t imagine a campfire collaboration. Your seem unthreatening, which can pretty much carry a whole campfire for the evening, I’d say.
I’m comfortable with the Bible as a ‘trustworthy record of God’s acts in history.’ What Paul explains to Timothy is that scripture is inspired to be useful for spiritual purposes. God’s spiritual acts in history are surely trustworthy and the more so as we use them as spiritual insights, as intended, Paul notes.
There is a saying, the truth is in the story, not in the facts. It’s why Jesus taught in parables. The story of the road to Jericho may never have happened, but it didn’t need to in order to be memorable and meaningful. Same with Jesus’ parable of Abraham and Lazarus.
Hello Chris,
I was 21 years old 50 years ago next spring when a religion teachers ask a Friday night after vesper’s discussion group, ‘What if it were true that there is nothing you can do to merit salvation?’ I nearly vomited. That is what confronting the reality of why you believe something sometimes does.
Bill,
I can imagine the campfire talk, but it will ring-fenced by sovereign solitude of little minds. Our talk can’t be about what God has said and done. There will be nothing for us to agree on or disagree on. We will just go on and on and on deconstructing our own religious realities. No appeal to authority. Truth will be personalized.
We won’t be one, even as Jesus and the father are one, we will be merely faces in firelight, talking heads whose words have no consequence because not one of us can never utter anything more substantial than a personal opinion. The stories you tell will be true for you I am sure.
Hi Bill,
I am not sure I got your point so my response maybe off the mark but as we grow as a Christian, we often have to reevaluate our understanding of God’s will for us. That is what my experience is with my God but hopefully each time, we get to know God’s will better. Our loving Father is EXTREMELY kind and compassionate to us for which I am very grateful. BTW, I am also well into my 8th decade of life and I have so much more to learn still and I am fast rung out of time 🙂
I am very saddened tho. will all those who find it hard to believe that life was created in 6 literal days. It must be very unsettling for them.
Regards.
Hello, Elaine,
The Virgin Birth has always been accepted by faith as all religious beliefs should be. Exactly!
Hi, William A,
Lots of evidence for the virgin birth … Indeed, BBC and the NYT and the Daily Mail all report male headship (kinda) under threat as women are about to be able ‘to fall pregnant on their own schedule—without men getting in the way?’ Faith endures, remember.
Pickle friend,
Playing grandpa to a five year old is amazing. I may not be telling you anything new. But it is new to me. What is amazing is that her vocabulary is filling up so rapidly. I’ve asked her and she confirms that no one is giving her five new words a day to learn. Nor can she read a dictionary just yet. She and I surely share words, but we cannot possible share the meanings of those words. I’m not five, and she is not 70 something.
Now I totally agree with you that your understanding of the words in scripture totally prevents you from seeing the possibility that the author had another intent with the same words. The good news is that inspiration is not one sided. The comforter is with us and we are inspired as we read no less than when the writer wrote.
Perhaps it helps to realize that the first 10 chapters of Genesis is the author establishing monotheism, while the last 40 charters of Genesis are about that God personally establishing through Abraham the nation of Israel. See my parable note just above.
Bill,
We are not as inspired as the Bible writers.
“… that the author had another intent with the same words.”
Are you suggesting that when Gen. 5:3 says that Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born, that Moses really meant that Adam was some other age, or didn’t ever really exist? If that’s what you are suggesting, then could not “God is love” mean “God is hate,” or that there really is no God at all?
I suggest you read the parts in Exodus describing the instructions about and construction of the sanctuary. Over and over again it says, “as the Lord commanded Moses.” He wanted us to know that he carried out God’s instructions to the “T.” That just doesn’t jive with the idea that the very same author didn’t mean what he wrote in Gen. 5 and 11, or was making things up rather than recording what God inspired.
Recall also that the only part of the Bible that God wrote Himself was the 10 Commandments, and that the giving of those commandments was the only time that God spoke in the hearing of an entire nation at one time. And in those commandments He endorsed the creation account found in Gen. 1. Thus, establishing monotheism or not, Gen. 1-10 still say what they say.
To limit the purpose of Gen. 1-10 to just establishing monotheism goes too far. Gen. 3 also establishes the need to wear clothes, and the promise of a future Savior. Gen. 4 illustrates what the enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman is like, and how far…
That the Navajo Sandstone was formed by the action of wind is the “old” interpretation based on insufficient research. Further research has established that a number of features of the sandstone are not consonant with wind-deposited dunes but more consonant with underwater formation of dunes.
It pains me to see committed Christians relegating the biblical account that requires a short chronology to the status of “myth” on the basis of the current scientific paradigm when a little more study would confirm that actual science does not contradict the biblical record. (Keep in mind that most short-chronology scientists do not claim that the creation of this planet occurred a mere 6,000 years ago, but that *life* on this planet was created thousands rather than millions or billions of years ago.) For more on this, including the new evidence that the Navajo Sandstone was more likely deposited by water than by wind, see a summary at http://www.educatetruth.com/featured/massive-deserts-dunes-during-a-worldwide-flood/#Navajo-Sand-Dunes
The Navajo and Coconino Sandstone layers are similar in many respects. And, while both are currently viewed to be eolian in origin, by most geologists at least, there seems to be quite a number of features of both of these sedimentary layers that favor an underwater origin… to include the numerous trackways within both of these sandstone deposits. Those features cited in this particular article as being essentially diagnostic of desert sand dunes simply aren’t conclusive, at least not to me, upon closer examination.
Overall, these sandstone layers are just one piece in a much larger puzzle that I’ve been working on for many years. And, for me, the more pieces I consider and add to the puzzle, the more clearly the emerging picture favors the world-wide nature of the Noachian-Flood and literal creation week. The philosophy of neo-Darwinian naturalism simply isn’t tenable any more on so many levels…
http://www.educatetruth.com/featured/massive-deserts-dunes-during-a-worldwide-flood/
When Robert Johnston asked me: “You did not directly engage with the evidence discussed in the article. If you don’t have an explanation consistent with the totality of evidence, then why not consider whether your scriptural hermeneutic is correct? Or are you content to assume a particular interpretation and take it to the grave with you regardless of any and all natural evidence to the contrary? “
Why didn’t I say,”I’m waiting for Sean Pitman?”
Metaphorically walking with you through the literature seems more up-to-date than sitting around the campfire listening to Professor Gerald Bryant retelling what the rocks told him. Maybe he needs a sabbatical to do some catching up.
Interesting that the “recent” science cited is from the 1970s. As noted in the article itself, since then, geologists have returned to the aeolian interpretation. Why? Because they are ardent evolutionists and therefore couldn’t stand the aqueous interpretation? No. Because of continued study and evidence. Rather than denigrating Gerald Bryant, I’d suggest that an honest approach would be to investigate the reasons for most geologists having rejected the 1970s view.
I encourage Sean Pittman, William Abbott, Inge, Pickle and others to participate in a future trip like the one I enjoyed. They can directly engage with the evidence and with Gerald Bryant, an expert on sedimentology and familiar with the literature–both pre-1970s, 1970s, and post-1970s! In fact, if they went, I’d be tempted to go again, since the discussion would be even richer. One of the benefits of such an experience is also the opportunity to put a human face on the names with which we engage online, often in ways not characteristic of how we’d treat one another in person.
While the popular view of most geologists has indeed flip flopped on the origin of the Navajo Sandstone before, during, and after the 1970s (which should in itself cause a little pause), the fundamental problems with an eolian origin remain the same and have since expanded with more recent studies and laboratory examinations (2015).
The popular arguments posted here, and I assume presented by Gerald Bryant during your trip, simply aren’t diagnostic of eolian origin since they can all be seen in underwater sand wave formations as well. Yet, there are several key features of the Navajo and Coconino Sandstones that are very difficult to explain as a desert dune environment – to include the lack of sand sorting and very crisp uphill only trackways to name just a couple. Rather, given the totality of the weight of empirical evidence currently in hand, the underwater transport (all the way from the Appalachian Mountains) and formation of these sandstone layers (Navajo and Coconino in particular) seems to me to be most consistent with the data.
Now, I’m sure that Gerald Bryant is a prince of a man. I’m sure we’d get along great. However, being a nice or even a godly man doesn’t mean that Gerald is right on this one. Again, being agreeable and cordial (i.e., having Christian attitude) doesn’t mean that one has to actually agree with Gerald. The evidence speaks for itself for those who care to look at it from different perspectives…
Robert,
Would Gerald Bryant be open to the idea that what God has said trumps what humans theorize?
It’s a key question with an answer found in Gen. 3. Eve basically put her conclusions derived from using the scientific method about a plain, definite, direct Thus saith the Lord, and it resulted in the mess we find ourselves in today.
Ah. I think I found a possible answer elsewhere. I found a place where it appears he wrote:
“In the eyes of conventional scientists, like me, the attachment of a Flood-based interpretation of the geologic record to our doctrinal statement represents the imposition of a pseudo-scientific position on our educational institutions.”
Sounds like he’s into extremism to me. So which Adventist beliefs does he believe in? Sounds like the Bible being the final authority in matters of faith and practice are out. And sounds like the perpetuity of spiritual gifts, including the gift of prophecy, is out. Does he believe in the resurrection, the investigative judgment beginning in 1844, the second coming, hell fire, and the virgin birth?
What an interesting experience it would be to be around a campfire, listening to Dr. Pitman, a pathologist, telling Professor Bryant, a sedimentary geologist, how wrong he is in his understanding of an example of sedimentary geology. We would also be able to experience the interesting dialogue between Dr. Pitman who would be telling someone who spend their professional career in geochronology about the scientific evidence that the rocks containing fossils are only thousands of years old and that there was a recent, world-wide flood. Now that itself would be worth the cost of the whole trip.
I’m sorry Erv, but blind appeals to authority simply aren’t helpful when it comes to their explanatory power. It would be much more useful to me if you would actually present some empirical observation dealing with the topic at hand that is diagnostic of an eolian sand formation vs. an underwater sand formation.
After all, if you’re just going by one’s past record alone, you’ve presented a number of arguments from an authority on various topics, especially dealing with amino acid racemization dating as I recall, that simply aren’t true based on more current information – data of which you were unaware even though it was in fact available at the time of your lecture. And, I’m still waiting on your paper dealing with high radiocarbon levels in dinosaur soft tissues and the like.
In short, while it is nice to have many letters behind one’s name and many years as a professional studying in a given field, this doesn’t trump the actual empirical evidence. The hypothesis being presented needs to hold up under the examination of additional data – and the more data from a greater diversity of fields of investigation that can be applied to a particular question, the better.
The fragile house of Bible cards our brave-short-term-creationists worship at is remarkable. They are certain they know what “God said” and even more remarkable “what Jesus thinks”, based entirely on their reading of an English translation of books written by guys like Moses and David and Jonah. We all agree they were inspired to write about God, but our prophetess has clarified for me, if I couldn’t figure it out by myself, that “GOD has NOT put Himself in words, in logic, in rhetoric, on trial in the Bible.”
They repeatedly suggest that if you let science help explain the Bible you loose it all. They seem to think that “the big bang” theory is an evolutionist idea. In fact “the big bang” was greatly opposed by evolution, since in fact it is scientific support for the Bible story, that matter was created “in the beginning” and that it has NOT existed forever.
They repeatedly shout out the alarm that if you don’t accept an impossible age for the earth or an impossible single Noachian global flood (their interpretation of Moses explanation), then the virgin birth becomes unbelievable. Perhaps Dr. Taylor considers the virgin birth a scientific impossibility, but there are many scientific ways Mary could have become pregnant and had Jesus without having sex with Joseph. Faith says the science was God the DNA manipulator using mechanisms we can understand.
The sky does not fall on belief, if you accept that Genesis tells me what God did, but not…
“The sky does not fall on belief, if you accept that Genesis tells me what God did, but not necessarily WHEN or HOW.”
The problem, Jack, is that Genesis is very specific on the literal nature of the creation week for life on this particular planet. Even secular scholars of Hebrew recognize the reality that the author of the Genesis account really did believe in the literal historical nature of the 7-day creation week and was trying to present this as a literal narrative to his readers.
While the exact timing of this literal week is not directly spelled out in the Bible, the literal nature of the 7-day week, by itself, rules out the neo-Darwinian story of origins. Beyond this, the literal creation week is much more consistent with the God described in the Bible – a God who is actually concerned and pained to see the suffering on this planet, to include the suffering of animals as seemingly insignificant as sparrows. This is not the god of Darwinian evolution where creation of life and its diversity is based on a brutal process of competition for survival. Such a process is, by definition, evil. And, anyone, God or otherwise, who would deliberately use such a process to create and then call it “good” would be extremely evil in my book… certainly not at all like the God described in the Bible.
No wonder that Jesus Himself referred to Genesis in literal terms. Not doing so puts God in a very bad light…
Having great respect for Dr. Hoehn, I truly would appreciate his expansion of his statement that “there are many scientific ways Mary could have become pregnant and had Jesus without having sex with Joseph.” My understanding is any “scientific ways” must be totally naturalistic. In light of this, figuring out the next sentence is a problem: “Faith says the science was God the DNA manipulator using mechanisms we can understand” — especially the “Faith says the science was God” part. How can you bring in actions of God and call it science? I must be missing something here.
With respect, sir, for your opinions. You will find that I have never accepted that limiting science to naturalism is either necessary or helpful. The presupposition that science by definition must exclude intelligence and information outside of chemistry, I find artificial and inadequate to explain the real world that has many supra-material realities.
I am saying if you accept as the Bible says that Jesus was formed by an supra-material intelligence, then there are many scientific mechanisms to accomplish it. I myself could do it, using scientific techniques we all know. So it is only “scientifically impossible” in an artificial world view that excludes the possibility of an intelligent designer.
I am not a materialistic evolutionist because the evidence I see suggests that the complexity and diversity of life that we have does not happen by purely naturalistic mechanisms, without the input of intelligence into the system. I suspect you call ID by definition not science because it sees scientific evidence for what you are not willing to consider.
I encourage you to rethink the limits you are placing on your science, if you find it possible to believe in realities like beauty, music, courage, kindness, and love. Science that does not exclude the supernatural as a possibility can be a great boon to inquiring minds seeking to understand all reality, not just the chemical bits of it.
With all due respect to Dr. Hoehn, it appears that he personally does not wish to limit science to those areas of physical reality which can be approached entirely from a naturalistic perspective. No one of which I am aware would object to him deciding to do that for his own personal purposes. However, I assume that Dr. Hoehn knows that this is an expansion of the conventional definition of science beyond that which is generally accepted in the contemporary scientific community. Again, Dr. Hoehn is intellectually honest and says and understands exactly what he is doing.
I just have to ask, did anyone on this field trip think to ask about the features of the Navajo Sandstone that seem to be unique to underwater formation?
For example, what about the “current lineations” that are found within the Navajo? As far as I’m aware, such features are only produced by flowing water, not on desert dunes.
What about the new evidence (2015) of numerous large parabolic recumbent folds within the Coconino and other sandstone formations thought to be eolian? – which also seem to require underwater conditions?
What about the fact that the trackways within these “eolian” dunes universally go in an uphill-only direction (not to mention the very fine detail of the prints that suggest very wet if not underwater conditions)? How is that at all similar to any desert dune environment we have today?
What about the presence of pelletal glauconite within the Navajo sandstone? Usually associated with underwater formation?
What about the very evenly and smoothly planed off nature of the underlying Hermit Shale (beneath the Coconino) and other similarly planed off sedimentary layers beneath huge sandstone layers thought to be eolian in nature? How does such extensive and even planing of sediment occur without some form of sheet-flooding erosion?
And, there are many more questions along these lines if anyone wants to actually discuss the actual evidence:
http://www.educatetruth…
“It just skips over the stuff it can’t explain. Either that or it makes the evidence fit.” Sounds pretty much like the modus operandi of both sides of this debate.
Ed,
To expand on why Modern Science skips over the stuff it can’t explain:
Our modern notions about Science are very similar to the ancients and their ideas about magic. Its about power. Science works better than magic, but it is deployed to the same ends. Someone said “Knowledge is Power” and that is why the scientist covets knowledge, because its fungible.
Modern Science has to skip over so, so much because it is a certain truism, ‘the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.’
Magic is illegitimate, not because it doesn’t work, but because it works without regard to the will of God. The only thing that can make magic legitimate is ‘truth.’ That is why Science must be the oracle of truth. If it is true, it is legitimate righteousness.
When science says, ‘we do not know’ the implied is always” ‘yet’.
The other side says: “We know this is true because God has revealed it to us” “We ‘know’ truth contrary to revelation is not truth at all.”
William, I think most scientists are actually more humble than you seem to give them credit. Partly this is because they know best how little they ‘know.’ Its not a matter of ‘skipping over’ the hard bits. The studies simply are not yet done. The second reason for humility is the scientific process itself. It is nothing more than a determination of probabilities. No claims to certitude. All good scientific study tests a hypothesis, and the results and conclusions are based on the probability of an outcome. On that basis, there is no ‘truth’ in science. There is only a balance of probabilities. And science sets the bar extremely high.
If its absolute truth and magical thinking you are looking for, you will have to talk to religious folk. There are still many aspects of Life which science has no tools to measure. Between observable reality and the realm of spirit there is a great gulf, fixed.
Serge,
I wasn’t talking about pride and humility, I was talking about ends. The modern scientist is basically an alchemist in possession of the philosopher’s stone. Science is not so much the pursuit of truth as it is the pursuit of power. The scientist isn’t necessarily proud or dishonest, he can even be a believer, but he is pursuing something more than probabilities through the scientific method, he is pursuing knowledge for powers sake. And that Serge is what magic was and is.
The true religion has no part in magic. God’s miracles are more like anti-magic.
These ideas about the related nature of magic and science are explicitly developed by CS Lewis in The Abolition of Man and these same ideas implicitly permeate his and JRR Tolken’s fiction.
I just noticed that Dr. Pitman stated that “[S]cholars of Hebrew recognize the reality that the author of the Genesis account really did believe in the literal historical nature of the 7-day creation week and was trying to present this as a literal narrative to his readers.” I have been told by Hebrew scholars that this is very true. It seems very reasonable that whoever wrote and/or did the final edit of the Genesis creation narratives were almost certainly thinking in terms of actual, literal days in describing how the Hebrew God created the world and life upon it. Of course, we now know that they made a factual mistake. The ancient Hebrews also believed that the earth was flat and the sun went around the earth. We now know that they had their facts wrong.
May I suggest that a reasonable response to this observation would be “so what?” The individual(s) who were responsible for the final form of these stories had little if any interest in questions we raise dealing with whether the use of “days” was literal or symbolic. They were addressing much more important issues. They were making theological statements including that the God of the Hebrews was a universal god and totally responsible for everything that was good in the world..
Dr. Taylor…….. regarding the literality of the Genesis account. Might I suggest that it is only partly true. And it is missing a fuller awareness of the nature of the construction of Hebrew sacred literature. Solomon said it thus: Pr 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
This ‘concealing’ process, or ‘hiding in plain sight’ (to use a modern phrase) is found in the Hebrew concept of ‘Pardes,’ (literally means ‘orchard,’) The word in Hebrew forms the basis for four concepts, based on four words:
Peshat (פְּשָׁט) — “surface” (“straight”) or the literal (direct) meaning.[1]
Remez (רֶמֶז) — “hints” or the deep (allegoric: hidden or symbolic) meaning beyond just the literal sense.
Derash (דְּרַשׁ) — from Hebrew darash: “inquire” (“seek”) — the comparative (midrashic) meaning,
Sod (סוֹד) (pronounced with a long O as in ‘sore’) — “secret” (“mystery”) or the esoteric/mystical meaning, as given through inspiration or revelation.
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardes_(Jewish_exegesis)#Derash_.28Midrash.29 )
The ancient Hebrew mind did not see the world with our modern cosmology. True. They had an entirely different purpose. And literalists just don’t/can’t ‘get it.’
Jesus explains: Lu 8:10 Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not…
Somewhat related to this topic is the meaning of the term “world” in reference to a worldwide flood:
Lu 2:1 ¶ In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.
Ac 11:28 One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine over all the world; and this took place during the reign of Claudius.
Ac 17:6 When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also,
Ac 19:27 And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.”
Ac 24:5 We have, in fact, found this man a pestilent fellow, an agitator among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
Did Caesar tax China, or the famine during the time of Claudius reach Japan?
It’s doubtful that all the world worshipped Diana, although this text could be explained as mere hyperbole. World news today is quite different than Biblical times.
Hansen,
The text: I expect better exegesis from you:
And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. 11In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights… …And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.
A global event of sufficient magnitude to create the Coconino Sandstones.
William, I’ve been all over the Coconino forest, hung my feet over the edge of the Mogollon rim. There are fossilized seashells scattered around the ground in some places, at an elevation of over 6000 ft. So the water extended 22 feet above Mount Everest? Lot of water. I’m not exegeting anything, just pointing out that literary devices are used in Scripture; also that Scripture itself must define its own terms. I find it hard to believe that Han Rulers paid taxes to Caesar or worshipped Diana of the Ephesians.
When the Lutherans were dividing, theologians were asked if they believed Jesus walked on water. One clever fellow said that he would have to be certain that the Greek preposition actually meant “upon” rather than”beside” before he could answer. A slippery response in some respects but adroit.
I generally hold very “conservative”views of the Creation and Flood narratives, as well as OT chronology but extreme positions based on misunderstandings of the text disturb me. I’ve mentioned before the pastor who said that a certain term in Daniel proved a prophecy extended to 1844; unfortunately, Scripture itself defined the word in question to sometimes refer to durations as short as 6 months.
I doubt geology is the answer to proving or disproving Creation but responsible interpretation of Scripture is vital.
Incidentally, I have a secular matter I’d like to discuss with you. Do you have a Facebook page, etc?
Hansen,
Willybamboo@gmail.com
Whatever words are being translated as ‘world’ in an obviously limited sense in the texts you quoted and the words translated in the flood that obviously infer universality to the event make the translations accurate. The universal flood (not the whole universe – but all the dry ground and all living creatures) is what needs to be translated. The improbability of Mt. Everest being covered has non bearing on the translation
William, The improbability of Mt. Everest being covered has no bearing on the translation? If you say Mt. Everest being covered is improbable while the text says:
7:19 “The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.
20 The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered.
8:5 The water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month,
the tops of the mountains became visible,” it sounds as if there is a disconnect between reason and revelation.
On a round earth, how could that much water even stay on the earth?
7:19 says “the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.” Does “everywhere under the heavens” always mean just that? That’s a fair question and it needs to be answered with certainty.
“All the world” almost certainly doesn’t actually mean that. Why would “everywhere under the heavens” require a literal understanding? For the entire world to be covered so that the highest mountains were submerged 22 feet, isn’t that more incredible than the resurrection?
Hansen,
The flood story is about the whole planet. The taxation of the whole world is about the taxable world. Maybe the Himalayas weren’t as tall. The tectonic plates could have done a lot of fancy dancing when the fountains of the deep were broken up.
The text says what it says and it means what it means. Improbable diluvian metrics don’t enter into the translation, except to translate them faithfully.
The sun moving backwards is beyond my understanding, I’ll call it improbable. But the improbable without knowledge of the odds is just guessing. I guess I’ll believe the Word of God if guessing is the only option.
William, I agree that the taxable world is what Luke is talking about, not China, Japan, or Cambodia; nevertheless, that is an interpretation. If it could be shown that the Roman kingdom extended into those places, I would expect they would have been taxed.
I don’t know how extensive civilization was at the time of the flood. Chinese history actually began around the time of the flood. It’s possible that the inhabited world was relatively small in those days and that its expansion began after the flood. Do you know the condition of the earth outside of Eden prior to the flood? If you can recommend a book/website that details the history of the inhabited world before the flood, I’d like to read it.
If Scripture intends to say that the entire planet was covered by 22 feet of water, I can accept that; however, it’s fair to ask for some “proof” that Scripture intends to convey that message.
Erv,
“It seems very reasonable that whoever wrote and/or did the final edit of the Genesis creation narratives were almost certainly thinking in terms of actual, literal days in describing how the Hebrew God created the world and life upon it. Of course, we now know that they made a factual mistake. The ancient Hebrews also believed that the earth was flat and the sun went around the earth. We now know that they had their facts wrong.”
First, where does the Bible say that the ancient Hebrews actually believed the earth was flat and the sun went around the earth? Remember, this is the people who long ago were using a figure of 29.5 days 793/1080 hrs for an average lunar month.
Second, on what basis are you saying that we “know” that God didn’t create the world in 6 days? Wouldn’t “believe” be a better word, since it is a matter of faith on your part? You weren’t there, and you don’t even know anyone who was there who can testify that it took longer than 6 days.
Third, because of all the Po radiohalos in Precambrian biotite and fluorite crystals, we can certainly say, on the basis of known physical laws, that we know that those rocks crystallized rapidly. Otherwise, the Po would have decayed before the crystal formed. Even Lorence Collins’ theory of granite recrystallization doesn’t alleviate this problem. While this scientific evidence falls short of saying that creation took 6 days, it certainly doesn’t contradict the historical account.
Erv,
I like your point.
It seems possible, even elemental that Genesis is about establishing monotheism in a world of anthropomorphic deities, and then directly linking this God historically to the so recently liberated and now still wilderness-camping slaves.
Establishing monotheism is assertive and brief, 10 chapters at most, while linking the tribal nomads to this God is a profoundly detailed undertaking of the final 40 chapters of Genesis.
These slaves sense no mystery about the world they share with all the peoples they have known. It is as simple to understand as the sand under their feet. Rather the mystery is who their God will be among the deities embraced by the tribes of their world.
Genesis is not about picking a deity, though, it is about having been picked by the one God, superior to all other gods. And not recently. The recent slaves are the descendants of a man from far away, their progenitor promised by this God to be given this land, and in him this land is their land.
God has come to them and us generationally is the truth of Genesis.
And now the promise of Genesis is repeated to us, by Jesus, God’s son and our brother.
That this is real, by faith we are left to believe.
The truth is in the story, not in the facts.
Like the parables of Jesus.
Bill,
I have read that story. It is about the God Most High choosing Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. This God Most High made a covenant with Abraham. Promises made and kept by God. The land, the great nations, the kings. David and Jesus Christ.
How are we hold onto the truth of the story if we believe the facts of the story are not true?
Mr. Abbott asks an interesting question: “How are we hold onto the truth of the story if we believe the facts of the story are not true?” Do we not appreciate the truthfulness of of the stories that Shakespeare told about human nature using some invented “facts.” It is only in the modern Western world that “facts” are considered the most important element in communicating “truths: about the human condition. “Facts” as we define then in the Western tradition are important in science, not in theology which talks about values and what “ought” to happen in human relationships. That the biblical narratives contain a number of obvious factual errors about a number of topics is irrelevant to what most of the biblical writers were attempting to do. If you want to begin to understand the nature of God, the best place to start is the Book of Job.
And start with the strength, conviction and Love of Job. And be able to handle HIS blessings in trust and HIS Truth. And not think that you are privileged to the best or even better than others; unless you really think you are better than others. And to look at others without privilege and have compassion for their strength and plight and works; in many cases greater than us privileged. And to remember the greatest reward is yet to come.
This “theory of destined failure” is such an easy way out. Don’t do right, praise everyone doing wrong, blame everyone else and get paid to collect facts about how bad things are. Great approach; but lacking Love.
Erv,
The story is about God choosing. If in fact, God does not choose, then what is the point of the story?
I regret that I fail to understand. There are many stories in Genesis about many topics. Which story is being referenced by Mr. Abbott’s question?.
Erv,
The story is about God choosing. Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, (Israel), Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Ruth, Saul, David, Solomon, Mary, Jesus.
Is there another story? Not really.
William, I’ve been meaning to ask you this question for a while, because you return to this theme a lot. Not that I have any issue with that. I’m just curious. Have you read Prof Shlomo Sand’s book, The Invention of the Jewish People? Moderately recent release in English. Apparently on kindle now too. It also has relevance here since Sand is a historian, whose currency is facts, I think you will be interested in his work, as you also are keen on the facts of history. What do you make of his version of the facts, as he reports them?
Serge,
I have ordered the kindle version of Sand’s book. I tried to get an audible version too but it isn’t available. (I can get to it immediately if its audible).
The historian’s currency is probably not exactly facts. Historians must interpret facts if they are going to be purposeful. A good interpretation captures what Bugs is talking about, “They didn’t think like us. Science as we know it didn’t exist then. Metaphor, myth and allegory was the only they had to speak of the unknown realities of the earth and heavens (universe). There wasn’t a division in their thinking between facts and myth”.
I’m not sure I agree with Bug’s interpretation, but this is what you must do, you must try to understand, ‘they didn’t think like us’ or perhaps more the more profound inverse, ‘we do not think like them’.
No history is more than facts. It’s ideas from the past.
Mr. Abbott has a valid point. Whoever assembled, wrote and/or did the final edit particularly the first five books of the Hebrew bible after the return of the Jews from captivity was very interested in the idea of the covenants or agreements between the Hebrew God and the Hebrew/Jews. He (almost certainly a he) and/or they (almost certainly males) had a particular point of view to highlight.
I know that people committed to the literal creation story aren’t about to change their outlook no matter the facts. Among other things, the puzzling thing to me is their view that the mindset of the ancient writers are identical to ours today. They didn’t think like us. Science as we know it didn’t exist then. Metaphor, myth and allegory was the only they had to speak of the unknown realities of the earth and heavens (universe). There wasn’t a division in their thinking between facts and myth. Stories, transformation of gods into people and people into gods was a fluid mental exercise. The magic of creation stories, activity of the gods, had no mental partitions for discernment of facts and myth, as there is today.
My question to literal creationists is why do you find all other ancient stories to be non-factual myth while Genesis isn’t? Historical archives are loaded with Egyptian, Japanese, Mesopotamian, Roman, Celtic, Greek, Mayan, Norse, and Zoroastrian stories. And there are traceable, prehistory roots as virtually a common basis for countless stories preserved by them and all ancient cultures.
It appears to me for literal creationist there is a psychological satisfaction shared by ghost, holy grail, and Bigfoot searchers. That explains the value of the dubious crumbs eagerly grasped as evidence for maintenance of their quest. It is an ironic way of thinking blindly borrowed from the ancients back when science wasn’t known.
Bugs,
The dilemma is this: If the stories aren’t true they are at some level false. Untrue stories no longer have authority. They are untrustworthy.
For Jesus Christ the stories were true; that is obvious from the gospel accounts. If I follow you Bugs, I must now believe that Jesus Christ was not the only begotten of the Father. I must now disbelieve Him when He says, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.”
I must relate to the scriptures as though I am wiser than Jesus Christ. God is no longer revealing anything, man is discovering truth with his own reason.
I might derive psychological satisfaction from thinking I was the ultimate source of law, knowledge and wisdom, but my experience tells me I am incompetent. I use reason to apprehend what is revealed. I can reveal nothing about myself or about the world except my ignorance and incompetence.
I am trying to have the mind of Christ in me. If that is, ironic way of thinking blindly borrowed from the ancients back when science wasn’t known. I will gladly share in your reproach.
William, my note above applies to Christ and his time as well. Christ used metaphor, myth, allegory, in addition to hyperbole, with which to communicate with his audiences. Ne never told them, “this is true, or this is for illustration only!” His listeners had no concern, no ability to parse statements as you do. A division of meaning, literal or non-literal language, wasn’t a concept in his time. Stories couldn’t be “true or untrue.” That is a relatively modern development. That just means to transform his words to concrete affirmations of reality isn’t valid. It also means to “know the mind of Christ” has nothing to do with his adoption and repetition of his contemporary assumptions, mythical understandings and expressions.
In his time there was no way to analyze the Genesis account. Alternative concepts weren’t available nor could they even be imagined. There were no Einstein’s, cosmologists, geologists, no microscopes, telescopes. There is evidence common people parroted the current concepts while also accepting their mystical nature, comfortable knowing they didn’t speak concretely about reality. Cosmology was the philosophers realm. Speculation, opinion, expanded allegories, were all outcomes of their musings.
Placing a modern template over ancient cultures is the exercise of a total misunderstanding of them as sources. “The mind of Christ” doesn’t include specifics about reality. William, stop making him a false scientist!
William, you say “The dilemma is this: If the stories aren’t true they are at some level false.” You clearly don’t understand that is a bogus dichotomy. Myth, metaphor, allegory aren’t innately “false” expressions. Did Jesus, using these devices as parables lie? Did he use them to deceitfully fool his listeners with falsehood? Of course not. He communicated fluently in the common understandings of his time.
Stories, in our understanding, can be true or false depending on the criteria. Not in his time. The writers of the four Gospels (written at least forty years after his death), by their lack of discussion of the veracity of his expression tools, had no problem with the stories of his life and statements. It was an age where myth, metaphor, and allegory were a common part of group think. There was a plethora of gods, farfetched stories (by our judgment), that fluidly traveled through human experience and discourse. The emperors became “gods.” Gods and men transformed from one to the other as can be viewed in writings and conversations from that time. Jews and Christians lived and participated in that milieu.
Do you think the following Christ statements were literally true? “You must be born again.” “Drink my blood and eat my flesh; in this there is life.” “You must hate your father and mother. I didn’t come to calm conflict; I came to bring a sword.” These are metaphor, right?
Bugs, Most people would not dismiss my straightforward statement: If the stories aren’t true they are at some level false, as a bogus dichotomy. It’s common sense. If the ancients joined us in conversation they wouldn’t say, “We believe in the transcendent truths of myth and metaphor” They would just believe and obey. Abraham sacrificing Isaac, Jesus at the Mt. of Olives, this ain’t metaphor – this is faith.
“You must be born again.” “Drink my blood and eat my flesh; in this there is life.” “You must hate your father and mother. I didn’t come to calm conflict; I came to bring a sword.”
I believe His words are the truest words ever spoken. I want to believe them has He intended me to believe them. As He said, “You see and believe, blessed is he who believes without seeing”.
What do you think Jesus meant when He said: “Drink my blood and eat my flesh; in this there is life.” Do you believe He was literally the Atoning Sacrifice? He did.
William, at your next feast where you literally drink Christ’s blood and eat his flesh, please take photos, send them to me, so I can post them on my photo website. I’ll need to know your source for the body parts, too. Did you get babyfied and reborn from your mom? Perhaps you hate your mother and father as Christ commanded? I know you dismiss these perfect statements as metaphor, not factually true.
Bugs,
Jesus of Nazareth was literally the sacrifice. All the killing and eating of the literal temple sacrifice was metaphor for what Jesus did in reality on the cross. The communion is metaphor. The literal reality is Jesus Christ – God sees Him and is satisfied – this is the will of God, that God Himself is crucified, dead and buried and He takes up His life and rises on the third day. I believe that literally.
You are wrong Bugs, I don’t dismiss metaphor, I believe it. I
Erv. Your argument that the ancient Hebrews believed in a “flat Earth” is a false myth. According to Randall Younker (Andrews University), “The idea that the ancient Hebrews believed the heaven(s) was a solid vault appears to emerged for the first time only during the early 19th century when introduced as part of the flat earth concept introduced by Washington Irving and Antoine-Jean Letronne. Scholars who supported this idea argued that the flat earth/vaulted heaven was held throughout the early Christian and Medieval periods, and indeed, was an idea that goes back into antiquity and was held by both ancient Mesopotamians and Hebrews. However, more recent research has shown that the idea of a flat earth was not held by either the early Christian church nor Medieval scholars. Indeed, the overwhelming evidence is that they believed in a spherical earth surrounded by celestial spheres… One of the great ironies in recreating a Hebrew cosmology is that scholars have tended to treat figurative usages as literal (e.g. Psalms and Job), while treating literal passages such as in Genesis as figurative.”
This isn’t to say that Genesis author understood cosmology like we do today. However, taken as a visual description of literal events from an Earth-bound perspective, one doesn’t have to know about cosmology to appreciate the literal nature of the Divine vision of origins. After all, it’s very hard, even for a child, to mistake “evenings and mornings.”
So, did God…
We would expect that Dr. Younker of Andrews University would contest the view that the ancient Hebrews held to the view that the earth was essentially flat. He is an excellent field archaeologist trained at a leading American university in one the best archaeology/anthropology graduate programs in the United States and had a distinguished Near Eastern scholar as his dissertation supervisor. That is not at issue. By his own admission, he has adopted the views endorsed by the Adventist Theological Society, being the current editor of one of their publications. He has every right to be an apologist for traditional Adventism on the subject of Young LIfe Creationism. His views on the topic that was cited should be seriously considered. However, I believe that he would agree that his views on the topics which have been quoted represent a minority position among contemporary scholars of ancient Hebrew language and culture.
It’s kinda of beside the point I was trying to make (i.e., the actual cosmology of the ancient Hebrews really doesn’t affect the literal nature of the Genesis account as given), but as far as the ancient Hebrew view of the Earth, it seems to me that it would be hard for anyone to conclusively argue one way or another without at least some degree of bias. Given this caveat, it is of some interest to note that the Hebrew word “Chuwg / Khug” suggests a rounded or spherical structure – according to Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament. And, this Hebrew word is used in Biblical passages that describe the structure of the Earth (Job 22:4, Proverbs 8:27, and Isaiah 40:22).
http://api.ning.com/files/bt5BWlmh0GYlenStKOh8re6CrCtsjx-SvSS6FJ3jdYobb4lbzoBgA5*jgSMR15vV3OSpcsZk-8W0-*V1fFj74gjlGwG8QnZK/chug2.jpg
I guess I did miss Dr. Pitman’s point. Let me make sure I understand: Would Dr. Pitman please confirm that he is suggesting that the cosmological views of ancient Hebrews did not affect how Hebrew writers wrote their account in Genesis of how their God created the world, all life, and humans? If they were not Hebrew ideas, whose ideas were they?
Hansen,
You argue that there wouldn’t have been enough water to cover Mt. Everest in the Flood. After all, there is currently only enough water on the planet, if it were entirely smooth, to cover the surface to just over 8,000 feet. There is, of course, the fairly recent discovery of three times the volumes of water of all the oceans combined beneath the Earth’s mantle. However, what you don’t seem to consider is that there were no great mountain chains before the Flood – or continents or continental plates or great oceans. There were only four great rivers and some shallow seas before the Flood. That is why it never rained before the Flood. Rather, the Earth was watered by due – not rain. There was therefore no active mountain building or ragged rocky mountains. The highest spots on the pre-Flood Earth would be a fraction of the height of the current mountains – easily covered by an event that broke up the Earth’s crust into continental plates in a “single day” and caused rapid continental drift, massive earthquakes all around the planet. Such an event would indeed result in massive worldwide flooding of truly Noachian proportions…
Sean, I merely stated that the terms in Scripture don’t always mean what we today think they mean. I offered some passages from the NT to make this point, using the expression “all the world” to illustrate.
I then said that we also need to be sure that “everywhere under the heavens” means exactly that.
“Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish.
Maybe this verse limits everywhere under the heavens “to places where “flesh in which is the breath of life” can be found. If civilization was still confined to the areas “around” Eden, there would hardly be a reason to destroy what is now China, since there were no people there. The purpose of the flood was to destroy humanity.
You say there were no great mountain chains before the flood. Scripture says the waters of the flood were high enough to cover all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens (7:19). Sound to me like there were high mountains before the flood which required covering
Deut 2:25 uses the exact expression “everywhere under the heavens” but limits it to those who hear of Israel. Did China fear Israel. Had they ever heard of them in those days?” Everywhere under heaven” in Genesis is probably [note the lack of dogmatism] confined to places where people were. That was the flood’s purpose, to destroy people.
Sorry about the wacky quotation marks. My point is this: The purpose of the flood was to destroy that which drew breath; therefore, it wouldn’t require the destruction of places where no human/animal life existed. The varying “under heaven” expressions would then be limited to those places where life existed, just as “all the world” in the NT was limited to places subject to Rome.
It seems obvious that mountains existed prior to the flood:
19 The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered.
20 The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered.
“However, what you don’t seem to consider is that there were no great mountain chains before the Flood – or continents or continental plates or great oceans.”
Hansen,
It seems like you’re suggesting that all animal life was concentrated in one small location next to the Ark? and that it why a local flood could destroy it all? I’m sorry, that makes no sense to me. There is abundant fossil evidence that living things existed all around the entire planet.
Also, just because there were “mountains” before the Flood doesn’t mean that they are like the mountains that exist today. Mrs. White describes them as looking very different than the rocky jutting mountains that exist today. They were covered with soil and vegetation and were symmetrical. They weren’t the rocky exposed mountain chains that we have today. Also, given that there were no continental plates, no huge oceans, and no rain before the Flood, there clearly was no mountain building mechanisms, or volcanic activity, or earthquakes like we have today. It was a very different world.
Even the geologic evidence suggests that the Paleozoic was a much “flatter” world that what exist today – with a much lower relief worldwide. The massive mountain chains that exist today simply didn’t not exist before the Flood.
Sean, You represent “Educate Truth”, yet you have misrepresented my remarks twice already. The obviously partisan spirit that drives you is unfortunate. I didn’t say there wasn’t enough water to cover the entire earth to a depth of 22 feet, nor did I say that the entire population of the earth was concentrated in a “small” area around Eden.
You don’t know how extensive the expanse from Eden was, the range to which people had migrated between the Fall and the Flood. Post flood, people migrated as a group to the land of Shinar and after Babel they were scattered over the face of the earth.
Scripture says the flood covered the high mountains. It also says the purpose of the flood was to destroy life. You also don’t know the condition of the entire earth outside of Eden, the height of the mountains or the extent of migration over the earth. EGW speaks of lofty mountains, stating that the ark came to rest in mountains preserved by God’s power (PP, p 105). She refers to the “highest peaks” (p 100), loftiest mountains (p 100). The earth was “diversified with mountains, hills, and plains, interspersed with noble rivers and lovely lakes;” (p44). The mountains were of a different character, no doubt.
This fiction you are spinning doesn’t fit Scripture or Ellen White. EGW must be shaped to fit Scripture, not vice versa. You can’t read into Scripture what you think EGW said. Her writings conform to Scripture.
Sean, The people prior to the flood may have been concentrated in a relatively small area around Eden or the ark. Was Noah an itinerant evangelist? Did he travel to China or Tibet to tell people about the flood? It’s entirely possible that the population of the earth was more or less concentrated in an area around Eden. In that case, the destruction of the living under heaven would have required a “local” flood, not a worldwide one.
Patriarch and Prophets says that the temperature of the earth changed markedly after the Fall [not the flood] and that the Garden of Eden remained in its place until the time of the Flood. Adam and his sons worshipped at the gates of Eden so they obviously didn’t move far.
I suspect that my arguments are not very good; I haven’t given that much thought to the subject. Your arguments also evince poor preparation and a lack of familiarity with a topic on which you are supposed to be an expert.
I doubt that Erv and his fellow travellers are interested in bringing us “safely home at the end of the day.” Young people in a faith forming stage of their lives may be profoundly damaged by his point of view but I don’t see that you are much better in certain respects. I find your arguments ill conceived and superficial, hardly what i would expect from an “expert” on the topic
Now, I understand that this is an attempt by many to undermine a literal view of the Genesis account – despite the fact that the author of this account clearly intended it to be taken as describing a literal historical event shown to him by God (probably from an Earth-bound perspective). The core problem with the arguments presented, by Erv and others, is that one does not have to be a modern scientists or understand all knowledge to be a good witness in reasonably describing a real historical event in the language that one understands from one’s own limited perspective. It is very difficult for anyone, even a small ancient Hebrew child, to misinterpret something as basic and easy to understand and describe as “evenings and mornings”. In other words, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to notice that it got light, then it got dark, then it got light again, etc. It also wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to understand God if God had said, “By the way, it took me a bit longer than one week to make everything on Earth . . .”
So, did God lie to His prophets? – and to us? – and to Jesus Himself who taught the literal nature of the Genesis account? – only to reveal the truth to us through an atheist like Darwin? Really? How can any Christian rationally accept such a view of God and how God speaks to us?
“Now, I understand that this is an attempt by many to undermine a literal view of the Genesis account – despite the fact that the author of this account clearly intended it to be taken as describing a literal historical event shown to him by God (probably from an Earth-bound perspective).”
On what basis do you think you know the intent of a writer of millenniums ago, when allegory was the only way to talk about the cosmos? Tell me the intentions of Shakespeare, please.
Bugs, I’ll let the likes of Professor Tracey Sedinger (UNC) explain the intentions of William Shakespeare:
Sedinger analyzes the various issues of Hamlet through Jacques Derrida’s book, Specters of Marx, in the context of historicist critiques of “presentism”. As he believes that ‘‘It argues that historicity cannot be relegated to a finished past, and that ethics is the primary reason for embracing the historicity of both past and present.’’(Sedinger, 2007)
Prof. Sedinger and his fellow deconstructionists are such sophisticated thinkers I have no idea what they are talking about. It turns out it doesn’t matter either because the intentions of “William Shakespeare” are beside the point and functionally meaningless. The only relevant concern is how Sedinger deconstructs meaning from the texts. Truth is subjective, you know.
Bug’s you must tell us the intentions of Shakespeare. If you don’t hold the key… we must all self-destruct it, or something like that, for ourselves.
Dr Pitman: “In other words, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to notice that it got light, then it got dark, then it got light again, etc. ” However, it does take someone peculiarly clever to explain how it can ‘get light… then dark…’ for three full ‘days’ BEFORE there were any objects, ie, the sun, which creates the precondition for giving us light and dark! The literal account of Gen 1 describes a ball of water-covered rock? hanging alone in the entirety of space. It is not until Day 4 that the remaining objects in the universe appear, and create the conditions which give us a literal day and night 24 hour day. If Light was created on Day 1, where is that Light now? We only get the benefit of the ‘lights’ which were created on Day 4. I’m hoping, Sean, you are that one who can explain it. And while doing so, can you pay some attention to the firmament. What has happened to the ‘waters above?’ I’ve never been able to get my literalist head around it.
One final comment re Darwin. He was not an atheist. He witheld publication of his work ‘Origin of SPecies’ (note, species, not Life) partly due to his own religious convictions.
Serge,
That old Malthusian Darwin was not an atheist, eh? Withheld his Origins of the Species from publication because of religious conviction, eh?
Eh, eh, eh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Charles_Darwin
You must tell us what he was then Serge.
Serge,
You argue that even though it would be easy to recognize “evenings and mornings”, it was not clear where the light was coming from for the first 3 days of the creation week…
Consider that the Bible itself (and Mrs. White as well) argues for the pre-existence of the universe, particularly in the Book of Job, prior to the creation week involving our own little planet. Therefore, I propose to you that the Divine vision of creation detailed in Genesis was given to the author from an Earth-bound perspective. From this perspective, the light would have been visible before the details of the Sun, moon, and stars would have become visible from that particular perspective.
As far as Darwin’s view of God, it might be better to call him an agnostic rather than an atheist, but I believe this is only because of his original views of God. He gradually lost more and more faith in God throughout his life as he went through the personal loss of his own children and saw extensive suffering in the animal world as well – to the point where he could no longer recognize the hand of a loving God. He certainly wasn’t a Christian pointing out, “I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.”
This is getting quite bizarre, Sean. It is one of the reasons that a literalist interpretation of Gen 1 is simply impossible to sustain. You agree that the sun was not created until Day 4. Therefore the day/night phenomenon is impossible until then. Stars were also created Day 4. From our earth perspective, a lot of those stars are other galaxies. And yet you say that the universe pre-existed. So what was created on Day 4? Solar system? our galaxy, but no others, since they pre-existed?
A consistent, logical, literal interpretation of Gen 1 is impossible. And you haven’t even begun to discuss the firmament.
For a more nuanced view, William, try ‘Darwin’s Religious Odyssey.’
by William E. Phipps
Trinity Press International, 2002
Phipps relies on Darwin’s own journals and correspondence to depict his “circuitous journey of faith.”
“Anti-evolutionary writers tend to depict Charles Darwin as a godless infidel who was bent on disproving biblical events and supplanting religion with a new god-science. But in Darwin’s Religious Odyssey, philosophy professor William Phipps takes great pains to demonstrate that Darwin’s religious worldview, well, evolved; he began as an orthodox Anglican priest-in-training and wound up as a self-tortured but not irreligious skeptic. The book’s greatest strength is its reliance on Darwin’s own journals and correspondence to depict his “circuitous journey of faith.” One 1860s letter shows the naturalist’s dilemma: ‘With respect to the theological view of the question: this is always painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world…. On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force.'”
– http://biologos.org/resources/book/darwins-religious-odyssey#sthash.1RBgby
Well Serge,
That quote is the most limp-wristed endorsement of Theism I ever did read.
If Darwin is not an atheist, he certainly is an agnostic: “In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.” 1879 letter to John Fordyce
I should hope a man would be repulsed by the notion that all we observe is nothing more than brute force in action. Darwin should be very discontented, indeed.
William, I think you msut have misread what Darwin actually said in that quote of 1860’s. I took it to mean that he was not content to see the world, and man in particular, as the result of brute forces. Hence his inner conflict, and his non-atheism. The most he would accept of himself is agnosticism. An honest man, I would suggest. And as Erv reminds us, a contented one.
Mr Abbott: Sorry about that. Darwin died a very contented individual. His distinguished accomplishments earned him a honored final resting place in Westminster Abbey in London.
Erv,
Do you really have no problem with the brutal Darwinian mechanism of “survival of the fittest”? You’re really “content” with that concept coming from a “loving God”? Really?
Darwin himself would not go that far. The brutality of the natural world, as it exists today, is one of the main reasons why he rejected the Bible as having a Divine origin – and the Christian God altogether. If he was agnostic, it wasn’t in regard to the Christian or biblical view of God – a view that Darwin decidedly rejected. Yet, somehow, you seem to think that the Darwinian view is still compatible with the God of the Bible? with Christianity? How so?
May I say that Dr. Pitman sometimes asks interesting and serious questions. For example: “[H]ow do you reconcile a very bad situation that exists in this world with the existence of a loving God that planned it all? – something that Darwin never could do? How do you recognize the existence of a God of love while arguing that this same God deliberately created this mess? – a Christian God love, a God of love described by the Bible that Darwin most definitely rejected? How do you put these two views together?”
IMHO, that kind of question needs more space that can be accommodated in a comment. Please stay tuned for an extended response in a future commentary posting.
However, for now, lets just say that the substance of what, in my view, is the beginning of a reasonable response to this question depends to a large degree on the nature of God that one envisions.
Obtaining reasonable data for that purpose from the ancient Hebrew Scriptures is a major challenge. While, it is somewhat more straightforward when using the information provided in the Christian gospels. Paul’s views about this again complicates matters.
When we look to how the activities of God are recorded in the writings of other major non-Judeo/Christian faith traditions, it gets again more difficult.
Thus the need for a larger frame to consider the question.
Of course God is absolutely responsible for things AS THEY NOW EXIST! He created it all, KNOWING exactly how things would turn out. Then He ‘repented’ of His apparent mistake, and drowned everything that moved, except for Noah and company. Then He had the Israelites commit selective genocides against populations that dared to live in the lands of their birth, but which the Chosen Ones wanted. etc etc.
It is not until NT times that a deeper understanding arose, but even there, as Erv says, there are issues.
Darwin rejected the facile, self-serving picture which the Israelites paint of their OT God. He just didn’t have a ready answer as to how to portray a better/more accurate one.
Genesis 6:
5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them
וַיִּנָּ֣חֶם nâcham repented – HE was sorry, for us, that HE ever made us. HE did not make a mistake, we made many. Place blame and accountability where it belongs; then take the responsibility of our own actions. Stop trying to blame everyone else; especially HIM.
Erv and Serge,
Darwin fully realized his doctrine of ‘survival of the fittest’ is a paean to brute force ruling man and nature. If he wasn’t discontented by that, he should have been.
We are fortunate that Darwin did not view the world as Mr. Abbott apparently does. Darwin would not have been able to make his great contributions to science if he had. And, yes, Darwin appears to have ended his journey on this planet as an agnostic, not an atheist.
Erv,
You wrote that, “We are fortunate that Darwin did not view the world as Mr. Abbott apparently does.”
Yet, very clearly Darwin did in fact view the natural world as full of pain, suffering, and evil. Even Darwin could not see the work of a loving omnipotent deity in all the pain and suffering in this world – but you can? Again, how do you reconcile a very bad situation that exists in this world with the existence of a loving God that planned it all? – something that Darwin never could do? How do you recognize the existence of a God of love while arguing that this same God deliberately created this mess? – a Christian God love, a God of love described by the Bible that Darwin most definitely rejected? How do you put these two views together?
Your comments, if personal opinions, sound very agnostic. Is that your position?
I confess to being agnostic because of the difficulties of theodicy which you list. Is this your final answer?
“His views may have changed, but for at least the second half of his life, he was—for all practical purposes—an atheist. Anyone doubting that must read the detailed accounts of his life in Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin and Janet Browne’s two-volume, Charles Darwin. Darwin did refer to himself as an “agnostic” rather than an “atheist.” However, his preference for the term “agnostic” seems to have been dictated primarily by his worries about offending people unnecessarily.”
http://www.discovery.org/a/9501
___________
And, from William Provine:
“Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.”
William Provine, “Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life” 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address
I see. Darwin himself said he was an agnostic, but someone long after he is no longer around to deny or confirm now says he just said that so not to offend people. He really, in his heart of hearts, was an atheist. I’m glad that we get this straight. We can’t trust Darwin himself to admit what he really believed. The biographical information that he supplied can’t be trusted and we know better. Hmm. Very strange.
We know what sort of God Darwin didn’t believe in. He was an ‘atheist’ when it came to the Judaeo/Christian God. In his own words..
And Muslims call Christians atheists because they reject Allah?
Allah, is the Judeo/Christian God.
May I suggest that Mr. Abbott has hit on the truth: the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic God is the same God. Glad we got that settled and we are all on the same page on that point.
We still have the problem is knowing “what sort of God Darwin didn’t believe in.” Mr. Abbott says that Darwin was an atheist because Darwin didn’t believe in the same kind of God that Mr. Abbott seems to be believe in. Perhaps Mr. Abbott will enlighten us as to how he knows what kind of God Darwin believed in.
Yes, Christians know that, but Muslims categorize Christians as “infidels.”
Elaine: Is that not because of the Trinity doctrine of historic Christianity since the Council of Nicaea which considered Jesus as Divine? Do not Muslims consider that to be a demonstration that Christians are not monotheists and thus the infidel label? I suspect that you have researched the reason for the infidel label.
The Divinity of Christ which Christians confess is not accepted by Muslims as they revere Christ as a prophet, probably the greatest. Because His divinity was not based on the NT but disputed for several hundred years before adoption, it was not immediately adopted by all Christians, particularly the Greek Orthodox even though the Nicene Council had many more eastern than western bishops in attendance.
Karen Armstrong is one of the best religious historian on this subject.
Erv,
You would have to ask dear Charley himself. Darwin was much more forthcoming about the God he rejected than the one he didn’t know if he believed in.
Functionally he was an agnostic. He dismissed ‘god’ as unknowable. No gnosis. He did not believe Jesus Christ was divine. He did not believe he saw god in nature or in scripture.
His theory was utterly free of god. It was just brute force in action. He recoiled, but never revisited, from the conclusion that all life is merely a struggle for the survival of the fittest
Its curious, William, that your avatar is that of a great ape. Are you a closet evolutionist?
My serious point concerns your apparent denial of the ‘survival of the fittest’ concept. Are you actually denying that, since the Fall at least, that the biological world has run according to some other theory? If so, what is it? If you can out-think Charley on this one, maybe you could be buried in Westminster Abbey too. Perhaps you might care to explain the origin of canine teeth? Camels, perhaps, Polar bears maybe? Any creature that has had to adapt to the extremes of earth’s post fall environment? This is none other than SOTF in obvious action. The modern emergence of ‘super bugs’ (no, not Larry exclusively) is an eg of SOTF at the microscopic level. Genetics is what allows, indeed, requires it. Who made genes, pray tell?
Yes, SOTF is just the way it is now. And the OT Creator must have allowed if not planned it that way. If only Darwin had read GC.
Correction of error……….. ‘Are you actually denying that, since the Fall……etc’ should read, ‘Are you actually claiming that, since the Fall……’ (in the unlikely case you hadn’t figured it already).
Goodness. I didn’t know that you are on a first name basis with Darwin. Your characterization of the implications of Darwin’s views seem to be generally accurate. I really don’t see the problem. Darwin was writing as a scientist. Science, then and now, recognizes no special non-natural forces to explain any natural phenomenon. Sorry about that.
Erv,
“Science, then and now, recognizes no special non-natural forces to explain any natural phenomenon.”
This is a false statement. “Science” based on atheistic religious presuppositions, certainly, but not all science.
Mr. Pickle against misunderstands. Contemporary mainline science is not atheistic. It simply does not have an opinion on the existence or non-existence of God. That topic is left to theology or philosophy. Science employs methodological naturalism. I realize that all of this is difficult for Mr. Pickle to appreciate. We all need to help him.
Erv – I think you somewhat underestimate the hegemonic claims of contemporary science, though I’m not sure how “mainline” qualifies “science” in your thinking.
Methodological naturalism is practical atheism. Insofar as one claims that there is no knowable reality beyond the natural cosmos, and that mind is the product of natural processes, one is making an atheistic claim.
As Stephen Meyer points out in “Darwin’s Doubt,” there are many definitions of science. While experimental and investigational science stays more within the confines of empiricism, contemporary science is heavily invested in the inferences that can and should be drawn from methodological naturalism. And the reality is that those inferences emphatically reject God or intelligent design.
If you say that methodological naturalism is the exclusive path to understanding and explaining all known reality, isn’t it fair to say you are an atheist?
Erv wtote “Mr. Pickle against misunderstands” Erv, you must have been in a hurry to show Mr Pickle his error of his reason, but the spelling is “again”.
Erv wrote “Contemporary mainline science is not atheistic. It simply does not have an opinion on the existence or non-existence of God. That topic is left to theology or philosophy. Science employs methodological naturalism”
Well yes, that’s true. You will never see a scientific paper saying “this empirical data proves there is no God”. but lets look at this from a different angle.
So science cannot prove whether God exists or not, therefore by logic it leaves room for the possibility of God. Now this God, who may or may not exist, does he have the power to create in 6 literal days? If He does, then surely before looking at evidence evolution and creation models should be considered. However, since science refuses to consider the creation model, at best they leave room for a God who is limited by his own laws of nature (in that case we are all gods), at worst it state there is no God.
Erv wrote: “I realize that all of this is difficult for Mr. Pickle to appreciate. We all need to help him.” O, please Erv, you charity here is so overwhelming. Or should I say, your effort to patronise Mr Pickle is here for all to see. O, but I forget, when one possess a PhD one graduates from the company of the foolish to the elite company of the wise (such as Richard Dawkins)
Erv, er… Prof. Taylor,
Darwin’s wife called him Charley. I shouldn’t pretend to be familiar.
Darwin was a scientist when he observed and measured. Darwin was a pretty good scientist. He was a philosopher when he speculated adaptation through competition for food and habitat was the origin of all species.
Darwin did not admit to being a philosopher, and he continues to get a pass on it. But his ideas about the origin of the species are nothing more than inferences he chooses to draw from his observations. It isn’t science.
Serge’s question about about the functionality of dog teeth: Adaptation may be responsible for the teeth being the way they are, but it could also be by design. The you have a lot of epistemological baggage to move before you can answer the question, and you always get the answer you want, because your epistemology determines how you will answer.
Darwin assembled a mechanistic ontological paradigm that defines existence. We are the way we are because we have adapted, not because we were designed.
Darwin is a godless thinker. He says it made him uncomfortable to be godless. But godless he was. His existence owed nothing to a creator.
I’m defining science as does contemporary mainline science. By “mainline” is meant science as represented in the United States by the National Academies of Sciences and in England by the Royal Society.
I do not recall ever reading in Darwin’s own works where he describes himself as a “godless thinker.” Perhaps, if Mr. Abbott or other individual would provide a citation, I would be happy to be corrected. Since he was making his suggestions about how species evolve within a scientific paradigm, he made his suggestions without evoking any supernatural agency.
If future scientific research comes up with some way of scientifically explaining how species evolve that explains the data better than the basics of the updated forms of Darwin’s (actually Darwin/Wallace’s) views do and does not include any of Darwin’s concepts, it will be adopted in place of Darwinian mechanisms.
Bu the way, I’m working on a paper with the working title of “The Existence of the Supernatural: An Unnecessary Assumption” which will be vetted first in a upcoming Sabbath School class and then posted as a commentary on the AT site. I’m sure that there will be a few individuals who will wish to provide rebuttals to the arguments contained in that paper. I’m also sure that some of these rebuttals will make very cogent and helpful comments, while others . . . .
Erv suggests that if a better scientific explanation than updated Darwinian theories for how species evolve comes along, it will be adopted in place of Darwinian explanations. I can scarcely imagine a more unscientific statement.
An unproven, falsified hypothesis doesn’t remain scientific or true simply because scientists can’t find, or don’t believe there, is a explanatory hypothesis with better supporting scientific data. Geocentrism was falsified well before a better explanatory mechanism was discovered and developed to take its place. This is Kuhn 101, Erv, and I’m surprised you don’t understand it. Surely you can differentiate the theoretical explanations and hypotheses arising out of scientific experimentation and investigation from the the underlying hard data that is subject to independent confirmation by other researchers and statisticians. The latter is science. The former belongs to the realm of philosophy.
The general assertion that species evolve is a theory that has not been scientifically proven. When you have to presuppose your theory from the options afforded by methodological naturalism in order to scientifically explain it, what kind of science is that? Just because a theory seems to be the best that methodological naturalism can come up with doesn’t make it scientific, does it?
Your defense of methodological naturalism, Erv, quickly morphs into scientific imperialism, which is quite indistinguishable from atheism.
How is possible to combine science with the supernatural? Science describes a method for determining and understanding, even explaining what is observed. Think of the discovery of genes and the ability to remove faulty ones. Supernatural beliefs observed similarity of parents and children but had no scientific understanding. In fact, not until Mendel discovered the importance of both parents genes, it was believed by both Bible writers and until his finding, that the father “planted” the embryo in a woman’s womb and she imparted nothing more than a warm womb in which it grew. This, of course, explains the importance of patriarchal inheritance.
Are there some who still accept supernatural explanations of parentage or scientific? Do you fathers still accept that your mother and wife contributed nothing to you and your children? Do you still believe that God causes
earthquakes and floods, or that natural weather patterns are the reason? Why?
Elaine,
Science doesn’t explain what is observed except as measurements.
Any explanation beyond the metric is epistemologically not science.
May I suggest that Mr. Abbott may wish to get out more often and do some additional reading. And, as usual, Elaine has already read widely and understands these issues.
Prof. Taylor,
I wrote: ‘Science doesn’t explain what is observed except as measurements.
Any explanation beyond the metric is epistemologically not science.’
You replied I need to get out more and do some additional reading. Well yes, so do you.
How about responding to what I wrote now. Is it false?
Nope, the insinuation is that GOD does not understand science.
Come on. Don’t pick on the scientists, don’t pick on the theologians, don’t pick on Doctrine…; like there are sides in this sandbox? Are we picking players or postulates?
Have we tried running Doctrine through the current theologians (admitted I am biased toward Doctrine). Have we tried running science through theologians or Doctrine. Are there other classifications that need to be include (just trying to run this through scientific method with what our senses can even currenlty perceive).
How about running Darwinism though unintelligent design (ours)? Is the outcome even survival of the fittest or societal impact? We force extinction, introduce where non existent, domesticate, splice, harness and manipulate. Maybe because HE gave us dominion? Has that impact not existed through civilization (but definitely more prevalent now). PS: don’t rely on Darwin for psychology other than a good laugh.
How about running selective traits and inheritance? Why is the fresh water Hydra capable of complete self regenerating (they can live forever yet we can kill them off in masses)? Star fish can regrow legs, but little else? Was such mutation (even if it was a mutation) retro up the chain or progressive down? Many such questions exist within insertion. Many traits are mutually combinate or exclusive; why.
Do we even know enough to ask the right questions or propose answers?
“Do we even know enough to ask the right questions or propose answers?” Bingo! Well stated. That may be, in large part, what the Book of Job is about. Perhaps a gloss on this helpful statement might be something like: “Do we provide answers before we know enough to be able to ask the right questions?
But from Job do we not realize that HE is the answer to all questions; in postulate?
We do have to be careful in such circular redundancy. Should we ever leave unanswered questions for the sake of unquestioned understanding? Does this not corrupt the foundation of anything we build upon? Does not easily lead to skewing the cause and effect; the problem and the results (the chicken and egg syndrome)?
I would contend that maybe the time is ripe for unbiased re-engineering of the foundations of many of the involved disciplines in this issue? Much like the non-Euclidean approach for mathematics or non-string for physics or the genetic retrofit into related disciplines? Keep the simple truths, do not worry about the point of discover in history and progress the foundations from there?
I again admit I am beyond bias towards HIM and HE has been part of us (as much as we will allow HIM) for much longer than the disciplines involved here. Maybe we should make it a little harder to remove HIM in our lack of understanding? Or maybe we should allow HIM at least equal privilege, before removal?
Natural things and spiritual -who separates those two…
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
Elizabeth Barret Browning, from Aurora Leigh
Love those lines! Let me ask Erv and Elaine.
Are you guys epistemological naturalists?
I am just trying to understand where you are coming from more accurately
“Natural things and spiritual -who separates those two…”
Umm… Jesus? Paul?
But not James and Ellen WHite. They are/were ‘religious materialists,’ ie, everything which IS, is made of some kind of matter. God the Father, His ‘begotten’ Son (hence James WHite’s Arianism) and even the Holy SPirit was said to be made of some indefinable substance. Again I reference Thomas McElwaine’s ‘EGW: A Phenomenon of Religious Materialism’ for the evidence. James and Ellen took this unorthodox view in order to resist what they understood as ‘spiritualism.’ Does anyone have a theory as to why Ellen didn’t promote Trinitarianism until after James had died?
But in the process, they have produced a church of religious materialists, from which it is only a short step to epistemological naturalism. How many SDAs clearly define God as immaterial Spirit? ‘That which can be seen is ephemeral, that which is not seen is eternal.’
So Erv, for your article you are working on “The Existence of the Supernatural: An Unnecessary Assumption”
you should read “Is Atheism Irrational?” By GARY GUTTING – NY Times – February 9, 2014
Excerpt: Theism, with its vision of an orderly universe superintended by a God who created rational-minded creatures in his own image, “is vastly more hospitable to science than naturalism,” with its random process of natural selection, he (Plantinga) writes. “Indeed, it is theism, not naturalism, that deserves to be called ‘the scientific worldview.’”
Excerpt: GG: So your claim is that if materialism is true, evolution doesn’t lead to most of our beliefs being true.
Plantinga: Right. In fact, given materialism and evolution, it follows that our belief-producing faculties are not reliable.
Here’s why. If a belief is as likely to be false as to be true, we’d have to say the probability that any particular belief is true is about 50 percent. Now suppose we had a total of 100 independent beliefs (of course, we have many more). Remember that the probability that all of a group of beliefs are true is the multiplication of all their individual probabilities. Even if we set a fairly low bar for reliability — say, that at least two-thirds (67 percent) of our beliefs are true — our overall reliability, given materialism and evolution, is exceedingly low: something like .0004. So if you accept both materialism and evolution, you have good reason to believe that your belief-producing faculties are not reliable.
But to believe that is to fall into a total skepticism, which leaves you with no reason to accept any of your beliefs (including your beliefs in materialism and evolution!). The only sensible course is to give up the claim leading to this conclusion: that both materialism and evolution are true. Maybe you can hold one or the other, but not both. So if you’re an atheist simply because you accept materialism, maintaining your atheism means you have to give up your belief that evolution is true. Another way to put it: The belief that both materialism and evolution are true is self-refuting. It shoots itself in the foot. Therefore it can’t rationally be held.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytim…..&_r=0
Quite so, Darrell. And the ‘rational’ case for / against ‘free’ will is even stronger. If materialism (eg, a la James White that ALL that exists is made of matter) is true, then free will cannot exist. Materialism only permits direct causality, from one natural/material phenomenon to another, including the choices we make. As Einstein reminds: ‘Free will is an illusion, albeit a persistent one.’ Thus, if materialism/naturalism be true, even our beliefs are caused, not freely chosen. Conclusion, ‘they can’t be right, and I can’t be wrong.’
It is only the existence of the immaterial which is not subject to the cause/effect of materialism which permits free will. ‘And that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God.’
Serge,
That is interesting. The doctrine of predestination is biblical, as is the doctrine of free will. Man has a material body with a non-material spiritual dimension.
I’m convinced the resolution of the tension between those two doctrines will never be resolved before the Parousia. But free agency is spiritual not material. We have no control over who we are, only over what we might become.
Erv,
“Science, then and now, recognizes no special non-natural forces to explain any natural phenomenon.”
“This is a false statement. “Science” based on atheistic religious presuppositions, certainly, but not all science.”
“Mr. Pickle against misunderstands. Contemporary mainline science is not atheistic. It simply does not have an opinion on the existence or non-existence of God. That topic is left to theology or philosophy.”
1. Perhaps I misspoke. Even scientists who are working from atheistic, deistic, or pantheistic religious presuppositions incorporate forces and processes into their theories that have never been observed. But the atheistic scientist will resist the conclusion that this is what he is doing.
2. The record of the earliest probable use of the scientific method in Gen. 3 acknowledged the existence of God, and made no attempt to differentiate between natural and non-natural forces: The serpent ate the fruit and had become like a man in that it could talk. Therefore, if Eve ate the fruit, she could become like God.
3. “Contemporary mainline science.” Maybe by using these words you were backtracking from your original statement, which contained no such qualifiers. Certainly it has never been true that no scientist “then” or now has ever included miracles as part of their explanations of natural phenomena. There have been lots of Bible-believing scientists who believed in a 6-day creation and Noah’s flood.
“How many SDAs clearly define God as immaterial Spirit? ” This is a good question Serge!
I hope not many!
Darrel,
What did Jesus mean when he said, “God is a Spirit and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth”
I believe that Jesus means that God is Spirit. None material.
And that we must worship Him with the non material (emotional) parts of
our being—Joy, gratitude and adoration, and NOT just the “physical” motions
or ritual of worship that believers often did.
Sadly Darrell, I think if you reread GC you will find the standard SDA view of God as an angry old Ancient of Days type of man who sits in His most holy place and His Son, in His material body, stands before Him pleading for the forgiveness of the names which come up in the IJ. Heaven knows how the Holy Spirit is defined. Doesn’t get much of a look-in in SDA theology. How this view stands up to Trinitarian scrutiny is beyond me. Ellen was not given to metaphoric language, so that will not account for her portrayals of the Divine nature.
Serge, you so right about the issue of free will. The self-referential absurdity of naturalism is evident when one thinks through its full implication. If it is true, it is most likely false!
John Lennox, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, writes, “the mind that does science … is the end product of a mindless unguided process. Now, if you knew your computer was the product of a mindless unguided process, you wouldn’t trust it. So, to me atheism undermines the rationality I need to do science.”
This is where we get Darwin’s famous “horrid doubt” passages, where he questions whether the human mind can be trustworthy if it is a product of evolution: “With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.”
This is the well-known liar’s paradox: “This statement is a lie.” If the statement is true, then (as it says) it is not true, but a lie.
Another example comes from Francis Crick. In The Astonishing Hypothesis, he writes, “Our highly developed brains, after all, were not evolved under the pressure of discovering scientific truths but only to enable us to be clever enough to survive.” But that means Crick’s own theory is not a “scientific truth.” Applied to itself, the theory commits suicide.
Of course, the sheer pressure to survive is likely to produce some correct ideas. A zebra that thinks lions are friendly will not live long. But false ideas may be useful for survival. Evolutionists admit as much: Eric Baum says, “Sometimes you are more likely to survive and propagate if you believe a falsehood than if you believe the truth.” Steven Pinker writes, “Our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not.” The upshot is that survival is no guarantee of truth. If survival is the only standard, we can never know which ideas are true and which are adaptive but false.
Paul’s version of the liar’s paradox: Titus 1.12 ‘As one of their own has written… The Cretians are all liars…’
To look at the adaptive value of truth from another angle: Egoism/self-interest is adaptive, ie, tends to physical survival. However, Christian truth calls for ego death. Rom 5. ‘If we die a death like His…’ Or as Jesus said, ‘take up your cross…’ This is the death of the ‘old man,’ man’s ancient reptile-brained survival-of-the-self ‘old man.’ The wages of sin is death, and this is the old man that must die. Only then can the gift of life take its place. Is our old man ego the thing to be saved, or is that the thing we are being saved from, through its death? With Christ, we must lay down the life we give to that ego-survival mindset.
In material terms, this truth of truths is maladaptive. It is not designed for the survival of the old egoic self. Is this why a realisation of this truth is called ‘enlightenment?’ Only an idea which is of this maladaptive (not of this world) nature can enter into consciousness and break the egoic survivalist cycle.
Such a counter-intuitive idea one cannot imagine to originate in a survivalist mindset, ie, in a material only mind. Humanity thus finds its true self in the immaterial, in the spiritual. Its time to radically amend the SDA view of human nature.
I seems to me that if the human quest is to survive only as evolved material creatures, it will ironically be a suicidal quest, because it requires denial of our essential spiritual qualities which are epistemologically beyond the reach of science and naturalism.
I really don’t see how moral judgments are possible without a fundamental belief in human freedom. Toward the conclusion of his fascinating book, “Human Accomplishment,” Charles Murray recalls a philosophy class he took in college where the topic of discussion for several weeks had been human freedom. In contrast to contemporary higher education, the students had learned what various great philosophers thought about freedom without those ideas being filtered through the professor’s biases and prejudices. So one of the students raised his hand. “Professor, we know what the Hreek philosophers thought about freedom; we know what the Schilastics had to say about the subject; we’ve read Renaissance and enlightenment philosophers; you’ve acquainted us with the empiricists; we’ve seen how evolutionary thinking and quantum mechanics have influenced the debate. But tell us – what do you believe about human freedom?”
The professor reflected a moment and then smiled. “Well, I’m not sure. But when I look around me and see everyone going about their lives, and making choices, as if they are free, I figure I should probably believe in it.”
Ok here is a serious question:
How should I as a Christian look at evidence for beginnings? Should I:
a) consider the 2 models of creation and evolution equally and then look at the evidence to see which model it supports, or has a higher weighing towards
or
b) prior to looking at the evidence I should make a judgement that because creation has no place in science (because it is a religious belief and all beliefs are based on faith and because it is based on faith and not evidence it thus must be wrong) only evolution is possible and therefore all evidence must me made to fit the evolution theory
And please no spin, please.
Serge,
I would suggest you reread GC’s portrayal of the Ancient of Days while asking the question of how that portrayal illustrates Ex. 34:5-7. We see the same character of God revealed throughout the New testament as well.
Regarding your comments on religious materialists, you state that James White was an Arian because he believed that Jesus was the begotten Son of God. This is a common misconception. If it were true, then Pope John Paul II was an Arian, because he believed that the Son was begotten too. It’s a standard part of Roman Catholic Trinitarianism, and has been for centuries.
Ellen White wrote that (a) the dead know not anything, (b) the spirit that returns to God at death is the character, (c) the moral character consists of the thoughts and feelings, and (d) God does not have to use the same atoms and molecules that made up me when He resurrects me. Are these four points fully compatible with the idea that she was a religious materialist?
Erv wtote “Mr. Pickle against misunderstands” Erv, you must have been in a hurry to show Mr Pickle his error of his reason, but the spelling is “again”.
Erv wrote “Contemporary mainline science is not atheistic. It simply does not have an opinion on the existence or non-existence of God. That topic is left to theology or philosophy. Science employs methodological naturalism”
Well yes, that’s true. You will never see a scientific paper saying “this empirical data proves there is no God”. but lets look at this from a different angle.
So science cannot prove whether God exists or not, therefore by logic it leaves room for the possibility of God. Now this God, who may or may not exist, does he have the power to create in 6 literal days? If He does, then surely before looking at evidence evolution and creation models should be considered. However, since science refuses to consider the creation model, at best they leave room for a God who is limited by his own laws of nature (in that case we are all gods), at worst it state there is no God.
Erv wrote: “I realize that all of this is difficult for Mr. Pickle to appreciate. We all need to help him.” O, please Erv, you charity here is so overwhelming. Or should I say, your effort to patronise Mr Pickle is here for all to see. O, but I forget, when one possess a PhD one graduates from the company of the foolish to the elite company of the wise (such as Richard Dawkins)
I thank Mr. Cieslar for correcting the typo. I tend to write these comments rather quickly sometimes late at night. I also appreciate that he appreciates my charity. I would be honored to be thought to be on the level of Professor Dawkins, except that I disagree with him concerning his dismissal of theism in favor of atheism. In doing this, he is stepping outside his role as a scientist, and offering his personal philosophical views.
Erv, you’ve totally ignored my main argument. Does that men you agree with it?
Erv,
“… except that I disagree with him concerning his dismissal of theism in favor of atheism.”
Could you elaborate on the God you do believe in?
You likely remember when I asked you what stories in the Bible you believe actually happened as written. As I recall, you said the ethical sayings of Jesus collected in the Sermon on the Mount certainly were authoritative for all time. The word collected prompted me to ask whether you believe Jesus actually preached that sermon on that mountain, or whether He never really did but various sayings at different places were put together by His followers long after. You didn’t want to answer that question, and never did name any other Bible story you believed actually happened as written.
Above you indicate that you are a theist. In what ways does your theism differ from practical atheism (in distinction from theoretical atheism)?