New Adventists and Old Creation
by Jack Hoehn
Since completing my series of blogs on Long Term Creationism for Adventists, I have been met by people who tell me they have enjoyed reading the blogs even though they don’t fully agree with me, and others who thank me for writing things they have thought for a long time.
I was particularly interested in an E-mail from Mr. John H. Evans, forwarded to me by Adventist Today. With John’s permission I’d like to share edited portions of our correspondence:
Dr. Hoehn,
I was delighted to receive your response to my email to the Atoday.com office.
I have been an Adventist for only about 10 months, but studied Adventist Basic Beliefs thoroughly before joining the Adventist Church. I am now a member of the Mosaic Christian Fellowship in Fairview, Texas, and am very pleased with its pastor, James Weingardner, and the friendly people in the church. Previously for many years I was a member of the Southern Baptist Church, but after finally realizing that the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment which the church adheres to is not acceptable, either from a rational or scriptural basis, I joined the Adventist Mosaic Fellowship… I left the Baptist Church and joined the Adventist church to a large extent because the Adventists do not believe in eternal punishment/torment for the unsaved…
From the very beginning though, I had reservations concerning the Adventists beliefs on Creation. I am retired now, and spent much of my career as a Research Economist for Exxon Mobil in their Earth Sciences R and D subsidiary. Also, my college work included many courses in the basic sciences including geology, biology, comparative anatomy, chemistry and physics. So I was really delighted to come across your articles in the Atoday.org website on creation, including the concept of theistic evolution and an old earth chronology. I am in complete agreement with your articles on these subjects, particularly your most recent article “Jack’s Last Words on Old Earth Creationism”.
I would particularly like to know your thoughts on an important aspect of this subject. And that is, what do you feel is the possibility of ever convincing Adventists, particularly the governing conferences, of your thoughts on evolution and an old age earth? Recent trends on the acceptance of the doctrine of soul annihilation gives me hope that conservative denominations might start leaning more in the direction of… an old earth and evolution. Could the Adventists be convinced that both a literal interpretation and a more scientific, theistic evolution explanation are acceptable?
I have just finished reading the scholarly Adventist book entitled “Creation, Catastrophe and Calvary” which strongly supports the conventional position of the Adventist Church. The main argument of this book is that evolution and an old age earth is in conflict with the Christian doctrine of atonement, including the concept that the living and dying of animals prior to Adam’s sin contradicts the doctrine of atonement. This interpretation seems very unreal, unlikely and contrived. It seems clear to me that the atonement applies only to the living and dying of humans, and not sub-humans.
At my advanced age, it might be optimistic that I could have much influence on Adventist theology, but I would be very interested in knowing your thoughts on this matter. It might not be feasible for you to put all your thoughts on this subject in writing, but anything you might have to say would be of interest to me. Would it be appropriate to include such an article on this subject on the Atoday.org website? God bless, John H. Evans
Later Mr. Evans wrote:
I have been reading some more of the Opinion section comments on the creation issue in the Adventist Today, including yours. I was amazed to find how spirited and lengthy the debate on a literal creation is in the magazine. It also is clear that you have spent a lot of time debating this issue in the magazine, and that you have a lot of opposition. I find it very interesting… Actually I don’t think the Baptist and other conservative denominations publish anything comparable. So the Adventist do encourage free discussion of these difficult debatable issues? Very encouraging.
So what would you say to our new Brother in Christ, willing to join an Adventist Church that tells the truth about hell and soul sleep?
How about having the Adventist church tell the truth about the age of the earth and the complexity of creation for the same reasons that convinced Mr. Evans to join Adventists, “on a Rational and Scriptural basis”?
I have suggested to John that he should submit a book review on Creation, Catastrophe, and Calvary.
Please welcome John Evans to our Adventist family, and suggest your answers to his questions below. He assures me he will be reading your comments.
John,
Welcome to the family! I am thankful that you have found a loving and supportive congregation where you feel comfortable continuing your spiritual growth.
As for your first question about convincing church leadership, that is one battle I long ago quit trying to fight. God has given me more important topics to study and ministry needs to fill my time so I really can't afford to get lost in fruitless debates of that nature. Hold to what you believe and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, both to teach you and to guide you into the gift-empowered ministry God wants you to have.
William Noel,
I appreciate your note to me some time ago pertaining to my comments on the death of animals not having a bearing on the literal translation of the creation story in Genesis. I also read your comments in the section entitled Anatomy of Heresy.
on this subject . I am certainly inclined to agree that it is unfortunate we spend so much time and effort trying to work our beliefts on various scriptural interpretations and doctrinal issues. But I don't see that we can avoid this. When I left my Baptist Church about a year ago, I could not possibly agree on their doctrine of eternal punishment. This is definitely not acceptable and makes God a sadistic psychopath.
Other issues are not so clear cut and not so severe a problem , and I have to decide if they are serious enough for me to continue in a given church. So far, I have not chosen to leave the Adventist Church on the basis of their belief in a literal interpretation of Genesis. But it seems important enough, I think, to give it some serious study.
Thank you, Jack, for publishing this most thoughtful email. Might I suggest, John, that you take a look at a book by William Dembski, entitled The End of Christianity. Dembski has been a leading figure in the development of I.D. theory over the years. In The End of Christianity, he suggests a way to reconcile orthodox Christian teachings regarding the origins of natural and moral evil with science. He is quite fascinating and persuasive in releasing us from the linear thinking that seems to plague fundamentalists on both sides of the issue. He has one of the most deeply moving chapters on the Cross that I have ever read.
You are most welcome here, John. We are all on a first name basis.
This is one of the most important issues facing the SDA church today: How to be truthful to scientific evidence while not denigrating the Bible story. These and similar questions rose with the enlightenment with Keppler, Copernicus, Galileo, and many others. The church answers are still the same: the Bible accounts take first precedence; it trumps any other sources of information and if there appears to be a contradiction, the Bible as interpreted is the final answer. Any more questions?
The church is losing its young and well-educated members, most who are Adventists largely through birth and the only cultural group they know. On an another thread, the question was asked: when the older members die, where will its young people be with such a doctrine of creation?
Perhaps we need to ask ourselves why it matters. Right or wrong, I can't see our salvation based on this knowledge. Nor can I be honest in claiming to know the mind of God on this point or what really happened. I was not here.
Great question John. It is an important question that our church is dealing with now, and will need to seriously deal with at some point.
There is a Scriptural and Theological answer to the question of death before the creation of Adam and Eve which attibutes the cause of sin. This follows somewhat Dembski.
The Creator’s ultimate goal would be to avoid human perfection via preprogramming. The Creator would give first priority to free choice, and yet direct mankind through moral enlightenment and in the end garner the good and reject the bad without gamming the system in His favor.[1]Leibniz’ Theodicy
Gottfried Leibniz, who coined the word theodicy, maintained that God, being omniscient, started out by considering all possible worlds. Then God compared them in all respects (pre-programmed vs self-programming) to figure out which was the best.
Leibniz’s argument asks us to think of how God could have done it better. The philosopher Voltaire took up the challenge and ridiculed Leibniz’s position in his Candide. He parodies Leibniz’s argument as Alexander Pope’s version in “Essay on Man,” writing, “whatever is, is right.” This is not at all what Leibniz means or what this article argues. Rather, God’s design of the world is best overall given that ‘freedom’ is in operation at some level. God chooses what is “best on the whole,”[2] given this fact.
Imagine, Leibniz says, a world without suffering. How would we understand the good? We need to understand suffering to experience joy. [3] Looking at a canvas very closely, what we see is unorganized and without beauty. If we could step back and view the canvas as a whole we would see the painting is purposeful and beautiful.[4]
What Follows
Foreknowing the complete array of outcomes from this “free system,” The Creator would pre-design creation for a world of cause and effect, where selfishness and free choice would exert selective pressures–lions would need teeth and gazelles would need speed. Things would die!
Another central assumption in this thought experiment is that God cannot do the logically impossible. God cannot create a married bachelor. God cannot create a mostly free and autonomous system where wrong choices will never be made.
If God would create a closed system with no free choice it would be like the garden without the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” peopled by totally ignorant beings, unable to relate as rational creatures.
Augustine in his apologetics manual The Enchiridion, writes, “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist.” [5]
The Creator made possible the above outcome by creating beings with free will and moral aptitude (conscience) thus “putting enmity between” evil and good in mankind–“Between thy seed and her seed.” Gen. 3:15
Man would be created to understand ethics and blessed with the gift of reason and a disgust of evil.
The Creator would arrive at true perfection by the ‘long route’–creating beings that were both free and good through a process of failure and learning and choice.[6]
This desire for freedom and goodness would be the compulsion that would drive the progress of human cultures.
The gravamen of Theodicy is that free will is the qualia that makes us real. To preserve this, the Creator could not coerce man’s moral development. Mankind must freely choose the good and reject evil and God could not directly intervene least free will be suspended.
As Blasé Pascal put it “[God] he so regulates the knowledge of himself that he has given indications of himself which are visible to those who seek him and not to those who do not seek him.
There is enough light for those to see who desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have contrary disposition.” [1]
The Creator would foreknow that free choice would allow wrong choices; sin would be a reality in this situation of freedom and thus The Creator designed nature to work under the conditions of natural selection or choices. As Gerald Schroeder writes:
“Without some degree of randomness, all events and all choices in the universe would be totally predetermined by unyielding laws of nature, the physics and chemistry of all reactions. We would be mere robots. Our every thought and action would be fixed by the immediately preceding chemistry of our bodies and the conditions of our environment. The future would be controlled by the past.”[2]
God made provisions for the dangers involved with freedom.
Provision One
The Creator, before he created, took responsibility for “all” the effects of freedom that ‘open creation’ would unleash in human society. God did this by punishing himself on the Cross, taking the responsibility for our sin. God did this from the beginning. “Foreordained before the foundation of the world, but manifested at the end of time for your sake." I Pet. 1:20
"The Lamb . . . was slain from the foundation of the world." Rev. 13:8
We see from these verses that The Creator, from his eternity, saw and re-acted to the sin situation before it actually ‘happened’ in the stream of earth-based time!
If this were not so then when mankind first sinned, mankind would have died “that very day.” Gen. 2:17.
Symbols of the Cross were placed on mankind before the event the symbols pointed to happened. “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” Gen. 3:21
The need for Calvary was “foreknown” and the benefits of the Cross proactively applied. “Who saved us according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ before the world began.” II Tim. 1:9
Provision Two
The reality of the death of Christ on Calvary was pro-actively applied to mankind in the garden, thousands of years before the event. In the same way, the effects of sin (death) were applied to nature before creation.
The Creator, before He created, would foreknow perfectly the negative outcomes due to free choice, and from the beginning He would design nature with the ability to adapt and maintain balance.
Nature was “made subject to vanity, not of its own [God’s] will . . .” Rom. 8:20 This is not referring to Adam but to God.
Death and predation–“Vanity” according to Paul, would be a reality until the “restoration of all things.” Acts 3:21
The Creator, in the final day, would free nature from this “bondage and corruption.” Paul again reminds us, “The creature was made subject to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him [God] who subjected the same in hope.” Rom. 8:20
“In Hope!” There is an inner sense in human hearts that something is wrong with this world. There is a sense not only of God, but a strong sense that God is good.
Our desire and hope for a ‘better world’ resonates with Scripture’s promises that “. . . the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Rom. 8:21
In the New Creation mankind and all of nature will experience freedom and Perfection[3]–goodness will be realized on earth as it is in heaven. [4]
Pastor Darrel, please polish and hone this beautiful theology into an article with these profound ideas to be submitted to and publised by our Adventist Today editor David Neuman. I have sent David an article on the Adventist classical theological support for a Great Controversy on earth before the fall of man. Your outline of general Christian thoughts on good and evil before the fall in Eden would be a wonderful complement to that article.
Sorry for the Germanization of David Newman's name. To a German all good things should be German?
Thank you so much, Darrel, for this profound and inspiring overview. I really appreciate it!
Elaine, I wonder if you have read the book, The Genesis of Science – How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. It invites you to take a second look at some of the myths propagated by secularists about how modern science was only made possible by breaking the power of religion.
In reality, the Catholic Church embraced heliocentrism relatively soon after technological improvements in telescopes enabled astronomers throughout Europe to verify Galileo's empirical observations. In case you forgot, Ptolemy was not a Catholic. The church has been no more resistant to most scientific advances than has the consensus of the scientific establishment.
What the church has vigorously resisted are so-called scientific theories that rely on naturalism – not science – to deny a transcendent creator God who breathed into His "likeness" the breath of life. In reality, the Church has been far less dogmatic than science over the past two hundred years. Science has embraced philosophical naturalism and hardened itself against God and the church, pitting science against religion and reason against faith. The church has bent over backwards to make accommodation and to demonstrate that science, rightly understood and applied, glorifies and affirms God.
You have an interesting and revealing way of framing the issue, Elaine – "How to be truthful to the scientific evidence without denigrating the Bible story." If you could be a bit more honest with the evidence of history, you might find that sometimes the "Just So" stories of science are used as a final answer to trump the truth and evidence revealed in other sources of information, such as God's Word.
While I haven't read that particular book, I have read many accounts from which I have formed my bit of knowledge.
Had scientists relied on the supernatural, i.e. God, to explain what they could not, we would still be back in the 15th century. They dared to study and explore "why" rather than "because the Bible says it's so."
Why do many use the Bible as a source of ALL knowledge? It was never intended as more than a collection of stories and history according to the Jews, and all other contemporary or later accounts are ignored if they do not agree with how they interpret the Bible.
Yes, I'm aware that Ptolemy and EVERYONE at that time was a Christian, there were no "pagans" recorded in our study of Western Civilization, the basis for our own civilization. But it was the Pope, who was the arbiter of Christianity, who sentenced Galileo for his discovery and theory. I have read the long letter Galielo wrote to the Duchess, explaining his theory and it challenged the story of Joshua's commanding the sun to stand still that the Pope was objecting.
To say that Christians initatied the Scientific Revolution says little about their devotion, only that there was no one at that time who dared to voice doubt, except in literary effort as Voltaire and later, Thomas Paine.
You mention that the church resisted theories that rely on naturalism–not science; yet Christianity relies on "supernatural" explanations, something that cannot be studied. Miracles cannot be replicated. If that is "hardening" against God, it is because many still refuse to accept science and prefer to accept supernaturalism that can only be defined as belief without evidence. And "belief without evidence" covers whatever anyone may claim: UFOs, demons fighting for one's soul; denial of fossils older than 10k years, and much more.
There a millions of sincere Christians who believe science; but cannot believe the way it has often been interpreted. For those who refuse to accept scientific findings, you are enjoying its findings every minute you breathe. It's not difficult to reject scientific discoveries that do not have a vital impact on one's life; but for those that really have little day-to-day relevance, denial is easy.
Most everyone accepts the discoveries of the human body that are occuring daily because they vitally affect our loved ones are us, personally. But rejecting the age of the earth, or of fossils, or whether there was sin before the earth was created, has little or no affect on our daily lives. It all depends on what affects us personally. For scientists who study the earth, it is their life.
There are numerous reasons why theistic evolution is diametrically opposed to Christianity itself never mind Adventism! Allow me to out line my reasons below
I am sincerly glad you joined the adventist Church John but to reject a literal six day creation is to eradicate our reason and purpose for being. We are seventh day adventists not seventh "extremely long age" adventists. this is my two cents
Kind regards
Tapiwa Mushaninga
P.s almost forgot the overwheming majority of adventists reject theistic evolution it is only a debate in small parts of western adventism for the rest of us our position is clear and fully supported by scripture.
Tapiwa, your concern that letting science help us understand the Bible might destroy what we know to be true in the Bible, is understandable. There is of course the equal concern of scientists that you might use the Bible to destroy science. You fear all miracles will be discounted, and they fear that you will destroy penicillin and the internal combustion engine, chemistry, physics, and mathematics!
You then set up a straw man of "consistency" and claim that if we let science tell us how old the earth is, then they can tell us that Jesus was not the son of God and did not do any miracles, and was not raised from the dead.
Thousands of Christian scientists have not had that problem. They find that the age of the earth is based on solid evidence, that asks them to interpret the length of creation days as 6 ages or stages or eras or orderly accomplishments, but here is the crucial part and I must emphasize it, THAT DOES NOT DENY THAT THERE WAS A CREATOR WHO DID IT. The Christian geologist, physicist, chemist, botanist, zoologist may use science to discover how God created, and when, but they do not follow the atheist into denying that God did it.
Likewise all Christians who study science, know that although they can not walk on water, it is possible for humans to walk on water. I've seen them myself do it barefooted behind a motor boat. I've seen them do it with pontoons for shoes. So to say that the Son of God, the ruler of Angels, the Creator of Heaven and Earth could not figure out how to walk on water with or without assistance from realities beyond our material world, or using technologies not yet known to us, while miraculous, is not a scientific impossibility. We can speculate on how he did it, and perhaps science might find some mechanisms, but science can not deny that he did it, but only quibble over how.
The resurrection either did or didn't happen. Science that can not explain or create life even of a bacteria yet, may express ignorance of how the resurrection happened. Science can not say it didn't happen, only that they don't know how. Christians have evidence that it did happen. It was conclusive to those of that time. It has been affirmed now for 20 centuries that it did happen by millions of believers. Science can not decide that question. Science knows life happens. They do not yet know how and certainly will never know why, unless they look into revelation. True scientists study realities, and true scientists will study the fact of the resurrection, not deny it for lack of an adequate explanation. In fact many scientists are brought to worship by this fact, along with many others, and is completely consistent with the world their science discovers and explains.
Atheists of course try to use quasi-scientific arguments to "prove" there is no god. It is sad that good solid Seventh-day Adventists like Tapiwa should fear that they can, and therefore throw out scientific evidence that will modify our understanding of truth in the Bible, while doing nothing at all to the basic truths themselves.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth is a truth not dependant on a date. Genesis has no date. Genesis is true if that Beginning was 6999 ya or 14.8 bya. And accepting the evidence it was long ago and more complex than we used to think, does nothing to miracles or essential truths like the Resurrection of our Creator from Joseph's tomb.
The Adventist church can use Science to help us understand the Bible, without endangering the truths of the Bible. The Adventist church must stop trying to use our previous and incomplete interpretation of the Bible to deny the clear and obvious truths of science. All truth is God's truth. Revelation must teach scientists why God has acted and for what purposes. Science must teach believers when and how God has acted, and it has compelling evidence that he has acted.
Intelligent Design is a maligned theory by atheists and a feared theory by Tapiwa, but slowly gaining increasing support each year by unbiased scientsts and thoughtful Adventists day by day.
Jack
Hope you are well. I believe you missed my point completely. I am not anti science as you are pointing me out to be. Basic misrepresentation albeit unwittingly. I believe you have stereotyped everyone who disagrees with to fit a particular mold as you have no doubt resposes to those people.
My issue with you was that you were applying science to the bible preferentially. You are basicallly cherry picking which biliefs should be corraborated by science and which should not and that is my issue with you. I do not fear that miracles will be discounted by science per se that is not my fear. My issue is with you pushing a self contradicting ideology upon adventism
I subscribe to intelligent design contrary to what you said the difference is that I do not subscribe to your version.
It seems there are many definitions of theistic evolution so allow me to give my working definition. If you believe that God took eons of ages to create based on some evolutionary scientif model, ( they are the only ones that faccilitate old earth) then to me you are a theistic evolutionist. You may disagree with other theistic evolutionists on the extent of God's intervention but for all intents and purposes you are the same and will have the same effect on adventism and christianity as a whole!
Tapiwa, I am so glad you believe in intelligent design, it is such an important way of explaining creation. I admit I cherry pick science, looking for sweet truth and avoiding the pits. I also cherry pick the Bible looking for core revelations and ignoring the cultural and temporal each prophet has. I accept Ellen White even though she was wrong on the age of the earth, she was right on Who created and why. Just not how. I accept Mose's retelling of Creation, even though he was wrong to think that there was a firmament that was firm! I sing the Mighty Power of God that made the mountains rise, even if I know He did it with plate tectonics or volcanos.
What a wonderful supporter of creationism you would be if you could just accept that humans are human, even when they are holy, and inspired. Thank you for continuing to try and improve my blogs.
Tapiwa, thank you. I understand where you are coming from, although can't agree with you. I did at one time however! Just a point of correction Tapiwa. Jack, Nathan or myself do not believe in TheisticEvolution, which is that life developed by a materistic process; God was not involved except at the end when he gave the last hominid a soul.
Yes Darrell, my earliest blog was I'm Not a "Darwinian Adventist" https://atoday.org/article/1144/opinion/hoehn-jack/2012/i-m-not-a-darwinian-adventist
Theistic Evolutionists will be quite as unhappy with Old Earth Creationists as are Young Earth Creationists. Although all three ideas can agree that there was a Creator, it is how and when we disagree on.
Is one's faith dependent on majority consensus?
The theory of evolution has a fundamental problem, claims that we are evolving from simple to complex by mutations and natural selection.
The reproducible reality is that mutations overwhelming are deleterious and lethal. No up but down!
Several populations geneticist (all evolutionist) admitted than each generation has hundreds of new mutations given by their parents and this is accumulative, one of them stated “the caveman was genetically superior to modern man”. Further more recently Michel Lynch, a hard-core evolutionist, in his acceptance speech as member of the American scientific Society stated that in 200 to 300 years the human race will have a serious morphological, physiological and neurobiological deteriorations. According to these experts we are going to a genetic meltdown. This really goes against evolution! This is genetic entropy.
I some body is seriously interest in this topic read a the book by Professor John Sanford "Genetic Entropy", or at least you can see this video you may enjoyed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHsu94HQrL0
Tapiwa: 'Jack has highlighted that we should allow Science and modern understanding to shape our hermeneutic with regards to Scripture. I have shown that even Jack does not even subscribe to his own premise! I asked him that did He believe Jesus walked on water in light of what we know about density, surface tension and gravity. He does not allow Gravitational laws to inform him whether Jesus ascended to heaven. Don't even get me started on the Incarnation and the Ressurection.'
I am glad Tapiwa raised this particular question, because it really fascinates me. How do we assess miracles in the Bible? The 19th Century German Theologians of the First Jesus Study, especially a man called Paulus, tried to adopt Enlightenment principles to all the miracles of the Bible. Thus, Jesus didn't really walk on water – it was just a hidden sandbar. Or Jesus didn't really die and rise from the dead – he was just in a deep coma that made Him look dead. Most modern Christians, even the most liberal, mock such ideas, so I think Tapiwa has a good point.
And yet on the other hand, how do we handle statements in the Bible that clearly contradict science? Despite the revisionist history of some, the Bible does indeed suggest the world is flat, or that the whole universe is in fact the world. And yet Jews and Christians were able to adapt their views of scripture when faced with overwhelming scientific evidence. If we go back to that generation of Christians at the time of Columbus, they didn't change their views about the globe based on new understandings of hermeneutics, but rather based on a scientific discovery. Thus, science can in fact be used as a source of divine knowledge – of natural law – as Adventists have long recognised in the promotion of our health message.
So how do we death with biblical miracles that are against science? To me, these miracles are not against science – they just involve a science beyond current human understandings. Christ's ascension might be against the laws of gravity, but to someone a hundred years ago, wouldn't a plane be the same? Quantum physics perhaps gives us our best glimpse into the biblical miracles. Resurrection is scientific possible, I believe, as science in fact recognises because of laws of quantum physics involving teleportation of particles (think Star Trek).
If we believe there are higher advanced beings in the universe (even atheists like Richard Dawkins and Steve Hawkings believe that, who even believe in time travel), why do we discount what the biblical writers saw and thought were miracles as having scientific basis. In heaven, we will no doubt find so-called miracles and magic are one and the same thing.
And before you all call me crazy, see this latest argument from the Guardian Newspaper, about how science now is closer to what we traditionally think of as 'supernatural' powers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/shortcuts/2013/jul/03/how-close-to-getting-superpowers
Science now recognises the possibility of:
Why then do we believe miracles of the Bible are impossible? They aren't – science today even tells us. All the Bible depicts is human beings, who don't know science, describing things beyond their comprehension. A person hopping into a plane and flying away would probably be written in much the same way as Elijah on his firey chariot.
Why should any rational and intelligent person try to conform science to the Bible or the Bible to science? If one cannot accept their religious beliefs from the Bible, why is that insufficient? But the insecurity about the Bible stories cause all sorts of scrambling to find an expert from somewhere to give validity to those biblical stories as facts. Is you faith so weak that you cannot accept them by faith? Is you religion truly based on faith, or do you need the big names of science to give support? Either it is faith, or fact, and they seldom agree.
Are you suggesting we adopt the NOMA approach? Dawkins rightly condemns it, as do YEC, as a total cop out.
Stephen
You have asserted on a number of threads that the bible teaches that the world is flat. The bible aslo shows the roundness of the Earth. And your point has been debunked a number of times and yet you still present it. I know you have said you are agnostic on this issue but it looks like you are already settled I do not see you also highlighting flaws with theistic evolution. If one is agnostic he must be an equal opportunuty sceptic. To posit that you have no position but continue to crush one side and support another is misleading. A double minded man………………
Kind Regards
Tapiwa Mushaninga
Tapiwa, the evidence suggests to me that the Bible writers thought the world was a flat desk. They saw it perhaps as a round disk, but a flat round disk. If I recall Fritz Guy's explanation of the Hebrew in Genesis 1, the firmament suggests a hard metalic dome, which kept out the waters they believed existed above. The ancients also believed there was water all below us. Other ancient sources, such as Babylonian texts, demonstrate this was the ancient thinking. God obviously knew the world was flat, but I don't believe He imparted that knowledge to His ancient prophets, or certainly not in an explicit way – otherwise Gallileo and Capernicus wouldn't have had such problems would they?
As for problems with evolution, I do see problems. The problems include:
However, I don't believe they are insurmountable problems. I do tend towards accepting evolution, but I am not 100% fixed.
In fact if you followed some of my recent comments on the topic, I believe in the possibility of evolution through billions of years AND creation in 144-literal hours. The possibility arrives because time passes at different rates on earth compared with space. Atomic clocks in satelittes show this. Thus, if God in heaven created the world in 144-literal hours, it wouldn't be 144-literal hours on earth – that's a scientific proveable fact.
John Evans is trying to respond, but having some technical difficulties. I'll try to coach him through the process as he is new to this also!
I always enjoy these discussions about the role of special revelation and general revelation and how they interact with each other. And I have learned a lot, and I will continue to publish on both sides of the issue.
I do have a question for those discussing on this website. Bethany Sollereder has written a three part series on theodicy published by Francis Collins website, Biologos. She writes that pain is good because without it we would not know how to protect ourselves, that the movement of plate tectonics which causes earthquakes and tsunamis is at the same time good because the movement of the plates prevents the earth from heating up too much so that we become like Venus, and she gives more examples.
Then she writes: “Also, this creation was always part of the journey toward new life. God’s promise of a new creation is not a contingency plan either! The new (or, rather, renewed) creation, as described at the end of Revelation, was always part of the plan. I don’t think that any theodicy can say “this world is good” without also pointing forward to the time when there will be no pain, no death, and no tears, under some new and unimaginable reconstruction of the universe.” ( http://biologos.org/blog/how-could-god-create-through-evolution-a-look-at-theodicy-part-2)
From what I have read all Christians believe things will be different in the new earth, that there will be no death, etc., and as the writes states “under some new and unimaginable reconstruction of the universe.” So there will be new laws from what we have now. Why could not those future laws been the original laws under which God created the universe? Then came the entrance of sin which meant a reworking of those laws. Then God restores the universe back to its original design. If this is the case then the laws we have now can be very misleading for us trying to determine what the universe was like before sin entered. And since Lucifer is the creator of sin he could also tinker with those laws to give false impressions of reality.
By the way, I have read Dembski’s book “The End of Christianity” and find his “solution” intriguing but he still did not explain why death was necessary at the beginning but will not be necessary in the new creation or why pain will be a thing of the past..
Conclusion: Instead of Current laws then Future laws is it possible for Past Laws, Current Laws, Future Laws (same as Past Laws) to be how we look at this subject?
We are limited to the laws we now live by. Any possible predictions into the future that might radically change those we now know is speculation and a game with no end that many love to play: "What If."
Thanks to all you who responded to the commnets of Dr. Hoehn and myself concerning an old earth and the possibility of changes in life forms and geologic structures over the history of the earth.
However, as best I can tell , no one addressed the issue which I consider of utmost importance in the discussion. And that is the basic belief of Adventists that the living and dying of animals prior to the creation of man negates and makes invalid the Christain doctrine of the atomement. This question takes the discussion away from the science vs. religion debate which is a very complex and controversial , and centers it one which is easier to find answers to . I really think it would be more productive to consider this question first. Hope to hear from you on this subject. John Evans
What if Adam was merely the fist prophet-king of mankind – our first represent to become homo divinus. Jesus was the Second Adam – our second representative.
What basis is found in the Bible for our thinking that leads to the decision that animals and plants may have died before the creation of man?
In the first and original creation story, Adam was the first of God's creation, everything followed that.
Did Adam exist without food for a week? If he ate, there was decay of fruit as well as the products of decay from his body.
OTOH, if the story in Genesis 1 is THE one to be considered, animals were created BEFORE Adam.
Which raises another question: which story should one adopt for creation?
John, I think the fact that God 'from the very beginning' had to create the world with all the provisions for death to be a logical method of creation due to that fact that God would foreknown the effects of free will even in nature; So the "dying of animals prior to the creation of man" does not negate or "invalid the Christain doctrine of the atomement," but as I read Paul, actually is evidence of the need for atonement.
The Creator, from his eternity, saw and re-acted to the sin by setting up the balances of nature to adapt to cycles of death and birth. This was the "vanity" in nature that Paul speaks of. Nature was “made subject to vanity, not of its own [God’s] will . . .” Rom. 8:20 God and not Adam. (Adam being a part of nature) The key to this is verse 20 where God "made" nature "subject to vanity," as a response to sin, but he did not need to wait for sin 'to happen' to make this provision.
As Christ was “Foreordained before the foundation of the world, ." I Pet. 1:20 And "was slain from the foundation of the world," Rev. 13:8 God also beforehand preadapted nature for the realities of free will and sin. But the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Rom. 8:21
Epicurus, Greek philosopher, wrote this in the third century B.C. It is still relevant today.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is He able, but not willing:
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whcnec cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Why why call him God?"
Those questions have never been answered. Is someone willing to tackle an answer?
I thought it was David Hume who was famous for saying this? I guess some ancient Greek beat him by a number of centuries.
Short answer it is the Great Controversy and God's giving of human will. God actually is limited, because He is all-loving.
Answer those questions? Not likely, Elaine. Fundamentlist Christians grab their Bibles, and run at such thoughts. It's much like the way they can't consider multiple 'gods' which, according to Genesis, is biblical.
Don't Fundamentalists use the Bible for the source of all truth and knowledge? Just as the Muslims use the Koran. All Fundamentalists are much more alike than different.
If they are asked a math question, the answer will be: in days or weeks? A day equals a week or a thousand years, depending on the choice of texts. It's all so simple.
Next question?
A deeper question that answers the above: Is God able to create rational beings with free will that never use that mind or freedom wrongly?
No I don't think He can, or God can't or won't do that.
Free and Rational are not necessarily the same thing.
The choice to reject God may be Free but it can hardly be called Rational unless God has hidden crucial knowledge from the Free person making that Irrational choice, in which case was it truly a Free choice?
The most Irrational thing Lucifer ever did was choosing to rebel against God – Free but highly Irrational.
Yes Stephen, I agree. God is not able 'to do' things that are logically impossible. This speaks to Elaine's question via Epicurius. God could not create free beings and then completely control them.
Well, now that we've got it settled how God operates, next question?
Phrases used by many to denounce, or encourage human behavior: "God hates…." & "God wants…"
Who do we think we are to make such comments in order to control ohters?
John,
"And that is the basic belief of Adventists that the living and dying of animals prior to the creation of man negates and makes invalid the Christain doctrine of the atomement." Animals certainly didn't die before the creation of man, since both animals and man were created on the sixth day. There is no evidence in Gen. 1 or 2 that there was any death within the < 24 hour gap between the creation of animals and man.
You might want to investigate the published He and Pb diffusion rates from Precambrian zircons which indicated that those rocks were really thousands of years old, not 1.5 billion years as evolutionists assumed. Also, the existence of Po-218 halos in Precambrian fluorite and biotite indicate that those rocks crystallized rapidly, not over millions of years. This fits the account of sacred history found in the biblical record.
Some evolutionists out there cite the apologetic website TalkOrigins as if that resolves the above issues, which it doesn't. For example, the TalkOrigins article raises the possibility that Po-218 halos are really Rn-222 halos, since the Rn-222 ring is indistinguishable from the Po-210 ring. But the artcile fails to mention that this is only true for biotite, not fluorite, since those rings are distinguishable in fluorite, and the Rn-222 ring is missing from the Po-218 halos in fluorite. And the article totally ignores the failure of Rn diffusion hypotheses to explain the lack of fossil alpha recoil tracks, a key piece of the published evidence found in standard, peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Bob,
Please do not confuse arguments about the length of time it took for these rocks to crystallize with the question of when they crystallized.
Gentry leapt from one argument to the other to his severe detriment.
I see that no one is willing to tackle my question of why many of us believe science is correct for the beginning of creation (evolution) but is not correct for the end of this world. It seems to me that to be consistent we mus either let science dictate how the world began and how it will end and that there will be no new earth different from ours today (because laws do not change) or re-evaluate the role of science in this discussion.
David,
Science cannot dictate how the world began. It is a backward speculation outside the realm of science. Studying the heavens about different stages of stellar progression may give an inference of how our sun will eventually burnt out. Even that is just a forward speculation.
I think, John, that there are a couple of ways to address your question that respect both science and sacred text: 1) Just as the doctrine of circumcision needed to be abandoned, it may be that we need to rethink aspects of the Christian doctrine of sin, as well as the notion that death in nature did not exist before the Fall, in light of scientific evidence – not just theory; 2) We may need to abandon our worship of Chronos and the concomitant tendency to absolutize cause-and-effect linear thinking. We may need to consider the possibility that Eden truly was a perfect garden, shielded from a long pre-existing order that may not have been quite so perfect. We may need to entertain difficult questions like why, if sin entered Eden, it was necessary or efficacious to drive humans out of the now defiled Garden into some other part of the created world. Is it possible, as Darrel pointed out, that just Christ's sacrifice worked backwards in time, to the foundations of the world, to demonstrate God's infinite love, so Adam's sin also worked backwards in time to demonstrate both the insidiousness of evil and its finite power?
I, and other commenters, like Darrel, prefer the second approach, which not only accepts, but embraces, the existence of dimensions of thought and action beyond our finite capacities. I referred you to William Dembski's book, The End of Christianity, because I think it offers a compelling, mind-expanding model for looking at this issue in a way that cannot be reduced to a simple answer on a blog comment. Darrel certainly attempted to give you a direct answer, but apparently you didn't hear it as I did, which leads me to believe you need to see it explicated in greater detail. I'd love to see you take a look at Dembski's work. You may not agree with his approach or answers. But it does very directly answer your question. In fact, that is its primary objective. And then I think you can better engage on the question of whether and why you still feel troubled by the issue.
Nate,
"… that death in nature did not exist before the Fall, in light of scientific evidence – not just theory; …."
What scientific evidence that goes beyond theory?
"… shielded from a long pre-existing order …."
What scientific evidence is there that there was life on earth that was dying for a long time before the Precambrian rocks were crystallized just thousands of years ago?
"Precambrian zircons which indicated that those rocks were really thousands of years old,"??? the reference I have for the zircons is Samuel Bowring, "Calibrating Rates of Early Cambrian Evolution," Science 261 (1993) 1293-98. The dating of zircons is also discussed in McMenamin's The Emergence of Animals. Besides ratio dating, the fact that the higher taxa are never (without exception) found in the Cambrian, (no humans), and there was death in the Cambrian.
To some this implies an 'evolution.' To us Creationists it is more logical to see in this discrete series and others as separate creation events. We have to remember that the Cambrian explosion shows the sudden appearance of nearly all the Phyla. All the major body plans of all animals appear with no pre-cambrian darwinian precurors. If this is not documentation of the creation event I do not know what will convince materialists.
We can not use an ecological zonation theory (the flood) to explain this. For as many Adventist Geologists have pointed out there is the problem of 'extreme sorting.' A Roth That is the Cambrian can not represent the flood water killing things because there is nothing related in the pre-Cambrian, there should be a few mammals, at least a few humans. This extreme sorting does not make logical sense. Much more logical to see creation events that were recorded.
Darrel,
The ICR rate project reproduced, with some slight corrections, the results of the earlier study, which earlier studies appear at http://www.halos.com/reports/index.htm. The implications are more clearly stated at http://www.halos.com/book/ctm-app-17-h.htm. So we have clear data regarding He and Pb retention rates in zircons that has been reproduced by different experimenters, and the rate project did so via a lab that did not already know the assumed evolutionary age.
"If this is not documentation of the creation event I do not know what will convince materialists." Lk. 16 says that if they don't believe Moses and the prophets, they won't even believe if someone comes back from the dead. So we may convince some, but we won't convince all, since it isn't really about visible facts and strength of argument. There are deeper spiritual issues involved. More importantly, Ex. 20:8-11 is crystal clear that everything was created in 6 days, and thus there never were multiple creation events ouotside of the original 6-day week.
"We can not use an ecological zonation theory (the flood) to explain this." Then propose something that doesn't ignore the experimental evidence that the Precambrian layer is but thousands of years old. Also, propose something that explains why there is a lack of substantial erosion between some layers, even though the contact point represents 12 million or > 100 million years of assumed evolutionary time. Such observations fit a flood model. Are you proposing multiple floods as well as multiple creations?
Thanks for the reference Bob; I will that up-sounds interesting
Stephen Furguson said, " I believe in the possibility of evolution through billions of years AND creation in 144-literal hours. The possibility arrives because time passes at different rates on earth compared with space. Atomic clocks in satelittes show this. Thus, if God in heaven created the world in 144-literal hours, it wouldn't be 144-literal hours on earth – that's a scientific proveable fact."
I think that this concept deserves consideration. Here are some links by the brilliant MIT scholar (PhD in physics) Gerald Schroeder, who is also fluent in Hebrew and who has given considerable study the Genesis account of creation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRl8vBRNc58
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=GjtHqxhwNgk&NR=1
Thank you for suggesting NR18vBRNc58 YouTube, a wonderful summary and condensation of Dr. Schroeder's very useful books.
I do not feel the need to make the age of the earth and the days of creation mathematically equivalant, but I do feel we need to be humble about our attempts to force the Creator to have created in our time, not in His time. I feel in our dogmatism on "6 days" and condemnation of scientists with 14.7 billion years for universe and 4.54 billion years for earth, needs to be appologized for to the scientists. We could also at the same time ask forgiveness of God for trying to make Him create in our image.
For me the bottom line is = God created in 6 of His Days followed by His Rest, we celebrate that in 6 of our days followed by the 7th day weekly Sabbath. God's CreationWeek happened Once, not 52 times a year. Our week is tamid, continual, recurrent, perpetual. They are alike by analogy, but they need not be alike by chronology. What a freeing, liberating, happy concordance of faith and science this idea permits.
All this while Genesis is quite clear; we can't improve on a "thus saith the Lord"however much some would desire. Six day creation is taught by Scripture no matter how many scientists are quoted.
"For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known [it], to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them." 2 Peter 2:21
But six days from whose perspective? Did it take 144-hour to make the world as time was experienced by the heavenly host in heaven, or from an earthly perspective? It is an important and overlooked perspective because time is not actually universal – Einstein's Theory of Relative shows it passes at different rates.
1 second experienced on earth might say be 1.1 second in orbit above the earth. Atomic clocks on satelites have demonstrated this and have to be calibrated for this, otherwise, our GPS and internet systems wouldn't work.
The Bible suggests it was 6 'heaven days' of creation; not six 'earth days.' We don't know how many earth days it was. In fact there was no real earth in the first few days, there was no sun to count the days until day 4 and there was no humans to count human time until day 6.
Excellent points, Stephen, and who was standing by taking notes?
John Evans, far from the living and dieing of animals denying the atonement, in the Garden of Eden itself God killed animals for their skins, most seeing those animal deaths as the first illustration of the atonement. As has been mentioned repeatedly the Lamb was slain, not from the fall of Adam, but from the foundation of the earth. (Revelation 8:13 does not say, "the Lamb slain from the fall of Adam").
Hebrews 10:1 says that the Old Covenant sacrifices "were repeated endlessly". "Day after Day" "again and again" Animals died to illustrate the wages of sin, and thenecessity of sacrifice. What law requires these lessons to only be taught to Adam and Eve after their fall? Why would the unfallen angels, the created intelligences of other worlds, not need to see the same lessons on earth before the fall of Adam and Eve? Animal death since Creation Day One could have taught all the lessons of the atonement, perfetly reproduced in the life and atoning death of Jesus Christ.
This is truly the Adventist view of the Great Controversy involving not only humanity, but the entire created Universe in the question of the justice and mercy of God. 14.8 Billion years before Adam and Eve had their chance, earth was the theatre of the universe. God the life giver, and Satan the murderer and destroyer were in conflict. Do you think God wanted them to wait to the last seconds of history before teaching this truth? Animal deaths taught it all, long before Adam and Eve were created.
Darrel,
I've been thinking about the "extreme sorting" issue you raised. One challenge is that if the average geologist were to find a mammal in the Cambrian, he would assume either that it was transported or that the host rock wasn't Cambrian, since, I assume, the average geologist is an evolutionist who thinks it's impossible for mammals to be in the Cambrian.
But the Cambrian or Precambrian have been reported to contain spores and/or pollen from vascular plants. Take a look at http://www.creationresearch.org/creation_matters/pdf/2010/CM15%2005%20low%20res.pdf as well as http://www.grisda.org/origins/08007.htm. Note that both articles cite others who published the same sort of finding, even though the latter concludes that Burdick was incorrect.
Now if others have published the same sort of finding, why all the resistance by evolutionists of considering the possibility that evolutionary assumptions about the geologic column are incorrect? This illustrates the challenge of accumulating evidence for anything other than "extreme sorting."
Jack,
"Foundation of the world" is a term that includes early world history, not just creation. To illustrate: "That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel …." (Lk 11:50-51). Thus, "foundation of the world" includes the death of Abel, and therefore "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" can be referring to events at the fall of Adam.
Good point to think about Bob. I agree that the blood of all the prophets shed "from the foundation of the world" includes all of human history. But I think it also includes pre-human history. I don't think the "foundation of the world" happened outside of Eden at Cain's altar with Abel's death. So I accept "from the foundation of the world" as meaning " from the beginning of time," when God created the universe 14.8 billion years ago or when he created light in the darkness on earth and called it "day" about 4.54 billion years ago.
Satan has been a liar and murderer on this earth from "the beginning" (John 8:44), not just from Adam's fall.
2 Timothy 1:9 says Grace was given "before the creation of time", not just after the fall.
So animals like lambs dieing "from the foundation of the earth" to me includes time from Creation Day 1 before the fall of Eve and Adam. Animals have been dieing since their creation.
Plants have been dieing since their creation.
Humans would also die since their creation even in their sinless state, except for the graceful provision of a Tree of Life. So death is part of this creation, from a preexisting Great Controversy between light and darkness, not just since Adam's fall.
Death would have been extinguished on an unfallen earth, as Eden expanded to reclaim the earth. Sadly our great parents choose to know evil from inside, instead of from outside, so humans know death by experience instead of by observation. And we all know the rest of that story. My mother went to rest in Jesus one month ago today.
Jack,
Your first paragraph contains the unproven assumption that the earth is 4.54 billion years old, an assumption already falsified by the repeated He and Pb retention experiments I earlier referred to. Your third paragraph speaks of animals dying from Creation Day 1, but animals such as lambs weren't created until Creation Day 6.
Below you spoke of being reticent to speculate about the new earth, and yet does not what you just wrote contain a lot of speculation? How would we know that animals not eating from the tree of life would die, just like people? I think it reasonable that the literal tree of life was a teaching illustration that our life is dependent on God, just like the river of life flowing forth from the throne off God in the new earth teaches that it is God's government that gives life. But to say that animals, like people, would die without the tree of life speculates beyond what is revealed.
Romans 5:12 says, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." In light of this verse, I do not see any way to have death occurring in the world before Adam's sin.
Deciding how to understand things that have happened is interpretation. And can be true or false, but at least it is dealing with true events. Guessing about the future is not interpretation it is speculation. Prophecy was not given to make us prophets. Jesus said, I have told you these things so that "When they come to pass" you may believe. Only fulfilled prophecy allows us to know, ah hah, so that's what the prophecy meant. The interpretation of Daniel's image is clear in retrospect. The 10 last plagues are awaiting interpretation.
I don't know how old the earth is. I just know it isn't 10,000 years old, so I use the consensus date, since I don't have a better one, so we can talk with other people in this world, about the important things like who Created and why, instead of getting hung up on the when with a difficult to defend minority position that most others even in conservative Adventism have no scientific support for. If you are right on Chronology that is fine with me and my faith, if you are wrong I am insisting that we don't tie our credibility as a church to your minority opinion.
How do you know that the earth isn't 10,000 years old? (I assume you meant 6,000.) And why do you think the minority position is hard to defend?
I think perhaps most of the people out there who discuss science vs. the Bible, and who conclude that the biblical account is factually unreliable, appeal to science, but have never really analyzed the data and published reports for themselves, systematically looking for the underlying assumptions and determining whether those assumptions have been verified. I think in reality most of these folks are just taking someone else's word for it rather than actually analyzing these questions scientifically, and that their appeal to science is therefore hollow.
Jack, have you read the peer-reviewed, published reports on (a) U/Pb ratios in Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene coalified wood, and (b) He and Pb retention rates in Precambrian granites? I would recommend reading those.
John,
When I've heard of evolutionary incompatibility with the atonement, it's had something to do with the necessity of the atonement. Scripture teaches that we are going downward, downward, and that we need a Savior outside of ourselves. Evolution teaches that we are going upward, upward on our own, even without a Savior.
One of the biggest obstacles to Adventism accepting evolution is the baptismal vow that says, "I believe that the Bible is God's inspired word, and that it constitutes the only rule of faith and practice for the Christian."
that would be so simple if we could come to a conclusion of how to interpret "inspired" and "the rule of faith and practice for the Christian." Does "inspired" always mean factual reality or is it spiritual reality. Do "rules and practice" constitute universal ethical behavior found in all religions or is it more specific?
Was Jesus inspired factually when He told the story of the richman and Lazarus? Or was there a greater spiritual truth involved? (this question can be asked of many biblical stories).
These are just questions we need to ask ourselves and not a necessarily a reflection of my belief system.
Ella,
1. The vow says that the Bible, irrespective of our view on inspiration, is the only rule of faith and practice for the Christian. So in this discussion, it's the "rule of faith and practice" part that's important. For someone to believe a theory that contradicts the Bible is a violation of that vow, since "only rule of faith" and "only rule of belief" mean the same thing.
2. Regarding the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, I think Luke was inspired to include every fact that He did. It makes it much easier to explain the parable. The rich man had eyes and a tongue, Abraham had a chest, and Lazarus had a finger. If disembodied spirits or souls have body parts like that, there would be no need of a resurrection. And the rich man's request that Lazarus touch a wet finger to his tongue, who in the world would ever ask for that, rather than for a fire hydrant? So even if there are greater spiritual truths being communicated, the whole parable with all its facts is inspired.
What if there were only actual facts and evidence to discuss rather than beliefs?
But then, how can beliefs even be disputed, they are all equally personal and equally true for the individual?
Elaine, you are creating a false dichotomy by suggesting that facts and evidence somehow exist and can be meaningfully apprehended separate and apart from beliefs. And no, beliefs are not all equally personal and equally true for the individual. What an impoverished world we would live in without meaning and purpose, which require facts evidence and beliefs!
Even Dawkings and Hawkings like to discuss the possibility re the existence of aliens. I doubt there is too much facts and evidence in there – seems to be a whole lot of speculative belief – even faith. Scientists often have faith in hypothesis, without facts or evidence, and then go out afterwards to find those facts or evidence.
That is what it means to be a human being – belief and faith are part of the human condition. I would have thought an overtly religious website is exactly the place where people should feel safe to discuss such beliefs?
I am not knocking faith. But faith that also needs literal evidence. Is faith necessary to claim the sun rises in the East? Is faith necessary to believe the story of God stopping the sun?
Faith is wonderful but when does it cease being faith and senseless–to jump off a high cliff and have faith that God will stop your fall?
Of course, scientists BEGIN with hypotheses. But they do not stop there. They spend hours, days, even years studying which may eventually prove to have been a good hypothesis or a false one. Does religion follow that path? Do you have examples of religious hypotheses being studied and analyzed resulting in either right or wrong?
I don't see any literal evidence for the beginning of the world on either side, other than it (the earth) exists (although some say it is all an illusion or we are living in a virtual reality). there is the possibility of symbolism/metaphor/allegory–whatever you want to call it in Genesis, but then you run into problems with the salvation story.
Elaine, are you saying that biblical scholars don't analyze, speculate, study all their lives and come to some sort of conclusions? Actually we all keep learning, even science.
i believe all "thinking human creatures", of all time, have analyzed, studied, spectulated, of Earth's
beginning, and of a certainty of it's reality. It's not the sole study of a few but for all to come to an
understanding of it's reality, and what, and why its significance has answers for each searcher.
It appears every generation, from time infinitum, has had a concept of a beginning and meaning of life that is outside of Earth, GOD or gods. Interesting that all world inhabitants have developed religions that have a supreme god, or "the way", in answer to life. And in this 21st century, it is still a majority in all lands, with different customs and names, even though the billions of living souls are now at their zenith. Must be something to it?? Intelligent Design, or chaos??
When anyone buys into a 'belief system,' objective thoughts & analysis cease. It's the way cults control their followers. A quote from a former LDS polygamist wife Joanne Hanks' book: 'It's not about the Sex…'
"The distance from 'wear this weird underwear at all times' to 'drink this Kool-Aid' is shorter that the distance from 'thou shalt not lie.'"
Newman: "I see that no one is willing to tackle my question of why many of us believe science is correct for the beginning of creation (evolution) but is not correct for the end of this world."
That is the crux of the matter David. In other words, if we can negotiate the literalness of Genesis, why not Jesus, Paul and the New Earth? I have been pressing Bro. Hoehn in several of these threads on what hermeneutical method he applies to the Jewish Scriptures. As far as I'm concerned, the arguments he has put forth do not hold water.
Andre, we have continually given the answer, lack of individuals to accept that all life forms are not of ID, of utter complexity, and not of happenstance accidental occurence. We have shouted it from roof tops but closed minds cannot hear.
Thank you Andre. I believe the reason no one has addressed my question is because it cannot be answered. Our presuppositions are in conflict and we do not want to admit it.
David and Andre, the demand that we apply our study of creation to eschatology, is an impossible task untill the Millenium. For the simple reason that Creation has happened, and can be studied and analized, whereas Eschatology has not yet happened, and is pure speculation. Creation is not speculation, it happened and there is evidence to study.
So please temporarily withdraw your request that I apply the application of science to the end events for the present, and I'll be happy to take it up again after the Second Coming during the Millenium with you all. Jack
Jack,
Creation is not speculation, but evolution is rife with speculation nonetheless. (To me, the idea that lower jaw bones in the reptile moved into the middle ear to make the hammer, anvil, and stirrups sounds like it probably qualifies.) So why the hesitancy to "speculate" when discussing the Bible's accounts of the new earth?
And one should address the reason for the extreme selectivity in the "evidence" that is supposedly analyzed and studied within evolution. For example, a big to do is made about dating based on isotope ratios, but then the published U/Pb ratios found in Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene coalified wood samples is ignored. So certainly evolution is not simply an objective analysis.
Regardless of your reticence to dabble in eschatology, I think you should be able to address Andre's question: "In other words, if we can negotiate the literalness of Genesis, why not Jesus, Paul and the New Earth?" If you reject the authoritativeness of Genesis' description and the 4th commandment ("for in six days"), why not reject other passages of Scripture? Do you believe the gospels are authoritative? Paul's writings? What part of the Bible do you believe is accurate and authoritative as written?
Bob, please stop painting me with a evolutionary tar brush. I am not an evolutionist. I don't think all life evolved by natural means. I am a Creationist. I do not question the literality of any part of scripture. I don't think the jaw bone of a reptile moved into your middle ear. I think the same intelligent designer designed both parts for their purposes using similar mechanics and design. I agree that God created the entire visible universe "In the Beginning," that science now confirms as their Big Bang. I agree that God then created the chaotic unformed earth, the temporary kingdom of the fallen Satan and his angels, in six Days where the darkness or chaos was met by Christ with light, law, love. Since those 6 Days were literally without a sun to mark them till the fourth Day, it appears to me that they were Heavenly Days, not solar days. Time for God and humans has a different scale as the Bible teaches. I agree that after the creation of Man, humans were given solar days to mark out week with its Sabbath in memorial of God's Creation Days. This does not make me a evolutionist, nor a non-literalist. To not accept your particular chronology and intepretation of creation does not make me a non-believer in the Bible. It makes me a fellow believer in the Bible who disagrees with your and Bishop Usher's and Ellen White's interpretation of Chronology.
Jack,
While the 6 days were literally without a sun, until day 4, they weren't without light to mark the beginning and ending of each evening and morning. To say otherwise is speculation. Besides, we do have Ellen White expressing in words the thought that to say that the days of creation were long ages is a most insidious form of infidelity. Since you imply below that you believe in thought inspiration, I take it that you must believe that thought to be true.
"To not accept your particular chronology and intepretation of creation does not make me a non-believer in the Bible." But if you really do believe that God created the world in 6 days (Ex. 20), each composed of an evening and morning (Gen. 1), then you do accept my "particular chronology."
"It makes me a fellow believer in the Bible who disagrees with your and Bishop Usher's and Ellen White's interpretation of Chronology." Seems that your position is hopelessly contradictory. At any rate, here's how I see it: You disagree with peer-reviewed, published, scientific, repeatable, experimental evidence that the Precambrian layers are but thousands of years old, in order to continue believing the chronological assertions of infidels and skeptics. So why are the chronological assertions of infidels and skeptics more accurate than the chronology found in the Bible and SoP? And if the excuse for your position is really based on science, why reject the science that refutes your chronology?
How long was this day before the sun was created? Was it the same length as a solar day? Was it the length of a lunar day? With out it being marked by the sun, we don't know how long the day was. Even when marked by the sun the lenght of day varies over the course of a year so we usually just us a mean solar day for our clocks.
I don't think anyone has proposed that the first 3 days of creation were really each the equivalent of 29.530588 days (the lenght of a lunar month) in length. Theistic evolutionists want to argue that the days of creation were long ages comprised of many, many days, each of which many days had an evening and a morning. But the creation account allows for only 6 evenings and 6 mornings during the whole creation week, and that account is therefore incompatible with the assertions of modern skeptics. Allowing for the original 3 days to be each a little longer or shorter doesn't really resolve anything.
I'm talking about the approximately 25 hours from moon set to moon set that gets used in navigation because it is linked to the tides. Not sunset to sunset on the moon. That is measuring a day by the moon instead of by the sun. This is an example of a day using a light source different than the sun.
How does such a consideration help?
It helps me realize that the author of the story did not understand physics and was not writing the story to be a scientific record of creation. It helps me to realize that trying to force it to be a scientific record of creation is actually a misinterpretation of the text. The ancients used the sun as their clock. Since the sun wasn't present for the first 3 day, they could not have used it to time the days. That means they were not "days" as a scientist would record a day, but rather days as a story teller would use "day".
Again, how does such a consideration really help? How does it make any difference whatsoever in the interpretation of the text?
Certainly no scientist would entirely discredit the observations of any and every person not trained in his particular specialty. Thus, a scientist would still give credence to the observation of an untrained person in regards to his description of the amount of time observed.
But, you assume that Moses did not understand physics. On what basis do you presume to know what scientific knowledge Moses did or did not learn in the universities of ancient Egypt? And, we must not forget that Moses is but recording the description of creation as given by an actual observer. And certainly you must agree that that actual observer understood the laws of physics, since He's the one who created them!
Many thanks to all of you who have participated in this discussion of the proper interpretation of the creation story in Genesis. It has been very interesting and informative for me.
I am preparing further comments on this subject, with particular emphasis on my conviction that the Doctrine of Atonement does not apply to non human animals. This subject has been discussed in length in the Sixth Chapter of the book written by Adventists scholars entitled Creation, Catastrophe and Calvary (2000 AD).
The position of the scholar who wrote this chapter(John Baldwin) is that the Doctrine of Atonement does apply to non human animals, and that his belief means that an old age earth and biologic evolution is in direct conflict with the creation scriptures in Genesis.
John,
I wish I had the book so I could see its reasoning. But Stephen Haskell's 1914 The Cross and Its Shadow brings out that idea from at least one of the Levitical ceremonies.
For example: "As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water" (Lev. 14:6). He saw the cedar, hyssop, and wool dipped in the blood as representing the ultimate restoration of the plant and animal kingdoms through Christ to their Eden perfection (http://dedication.www3.50megs.com/haskell_leper.html). So the idea isn't new.
S.N. Haskell was a powerful church leader who believed in verbal inspiration and inerrancy in the Bible and Ellen White. Since Ellen White did not believe in verbal inspiration and inerrancy this makes him on the wrong side of that issue. His interpretation of the meaning of the Leper Cleansing is a beautiful thought, and I think it may be quite true. Just don't use Elder Haskell to help settle questions of chronology in Ellen White's writings or in the Bible, as he was on the wrong side of that. (See https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1997/08/the-case-of-the-overlooked-postscript for details).
Jack,
The challenge today is that many who claim to hold to thought inspiration reject the thoughts clearly expressed by the words the inspired author used. It's like the Catholic priest who told me he didn't think God wrote the 10 Commandments with His finger on tables of stone, didn't think God created the world in 6 days, and didn't think God destroyed the world with a flood.
The thought behind the stories was true, though, he said, that God created everything and will punish sin. But that's not the concept Ellen White had when she spoke of thought inspiration. For her the thought behind the words "and the evening and the morning were the first day," was that the first day of creation consisted of an evening and a morning. It wasn't some sort of more general thought that ignored the obvious intended meaning of the words used.
I have not studied where Haskell stood on such, but I doubt that his view on inspiration affected what he believed about the affect of the atonement on the animals. As far as questions of chronology go, what specific chronological questions were Haskell and Willie discussing in their correspondence?
Willie White and Stephen N. Haskell were arguing over the use of Ellen White's inspired Great Controversy, to settle questions of historical events and dates. Elder Haskell felt that if God inspired Sister White to write, then the Holy Spirit would have given her inspired information about when and what happened. Sister White and her son denied that position, read the on line archives if you want information. But it is helpful on the question of when and how long the 6 Days of creation lasted. Clearly Ellen White interpreted the 6 Days in her own mind as 6 x 24 hour earth days. Inspiration does not seem to give dates and details that we can figure out without Inspiration, so I suspect the Spirit repeated to Ellen what He told to Moses. 6 Days. And left the interpretation of that up to Moses and Ellen, and now Bob and Jack!
Jack,
Have you read the actual letters between Willie and Haskell? At this point I haven't, but I would like to. "… so I suspect …." You said above you didn't want to speculate in answering David's question, and yet you are clearly speculating. Therefore, you should be able to answer David's question.
"But it is helpful on the question of when and how long the 6 Days of creation lasted." Apples and not even oranges. GC's comments on minor historical details does not compare at all to Ellen White's clear cut, explicit, definitive denunciation of the insidiously dangerous infidel theory that the 6 days of creation weren't 6 days.
Given the nature of her comments, the only viable position is that she was shown by God the insidiously dangerous nature of that infidel idea. But at any rate, the thought behind her words is that the idea that the 6 days weren't days is extremely dangerous. I take it from your comments that, unlike Willie White, you reject the idea of thought inspiration since you don't believe the thought behind her statement. Am I correct in concluding that you reject thought inspiration, unlike Willie White?
No, of course you are not correct. But I do reject infallability of thought, just as I reject infallability of words. No prophet claims infallability, only popes do that. SN Haskell was upset that the Holy Spirit didn't give Ellen White infallible dates. You are suggesting that she was given infallible thoughts. I suggest that the Holy Spirit inspires fallible prophets with a thought, they present that thought (God is the Creator) in a honest but fallible manner.
“God and heaven alone are infallible.”—The Review and Herald, July 26, 1892.
Infallibility does not belong to Ellen G. White. She never claimed it. Infallibility does not belong to any man—only to God. I agree that Ellen White thought Creation happened in 6 earth days. She was wrong. But that is a mere detail. God is the Creator who created in 6 of His Days all that is. It didn't happen by itself. It happened because He said, "Let the earth bring forth…" and it happened. Earth produced what He asked it to produce, in the time it took for obedience. Some cases millions of years. I can forgive Ellen White who lived in the dawn of science. I can not forgive our present inspired leaders for the same error. To make an error in the darkness of ignorance is a mistake. To make the same error in the light of increased knowledge is a sin.
Jack,
"She was wrong." Says who? On what basis? "But that is a mere detail." Are you sure you're trying to approach things scientifically? I don't see how you can be and still make such a statement after I referenced the quotes that I did. There is simply no logical way to characterize "that's a most insidious and dangerous form of infidelity" into "a mere detail."
"No, of course you are not correct. But I do reject infallability of thought, just as I reject infallability of words." vs. "You are suggesting that she was given infallible thoughts. I suggest that the Holy Spirit inspires fallible prophets with a thought, …."
Thus you appear to be saying that the Holy Spirit inspired Ellen White with the erroneous thought that the earth was created in 6 days, and that any belief to the contrary is a most dangerous form of infidelity. And I think the real reason you are doing so is because you don't like her strong condemnation of your pet views.
Jack,
You might find it interesting to search for and read old periodicals on the GC archives site that mention "verbal inspiration." Clearly in other faiths, a rejection of verbal inspiration was tied to a rejection of the Bible as an authority, based on the quotes given.
But Ellen White never tied her view on thought inspiration to such a rejection. A case in point is GC 582-583 where Ellen White laments the widespread rejection among professed Christians of "The great facts of creation as presented by the inspired writers, the fall of man, the atonement, and the perpetuity of the law of God," and the belittling by the same of those who "place implicit confidence in the Bible."
Therefore, it is fallacious to use Ellen White's concept of thought inspiration to support a rejection of "The great facts of creation as presented by the inspired writers," which to her included the idea that the 6 days of creation were long ages. If Willie White ever used thought inspiration as justification for unbelief in the Bible, then Haskell may not have been wrong in his concerns. But I highly doubt that Willie ever took the concept of thought inspiration to such an extreme.
Bob, I think Jack’s point was, does a prophet know everything? In other words, a prophet’s thought can be correct, for example, we and all life are by the design of a loving God who created the Heavens and the Earth, but the prophet might not be correct in all the details of explaining a truth. Sometimes a Prophet may make use of culturally accepted ideas or concepts to express a truth, but the culturally accepted illustration used may itself be wrong, yet the “thought” the Prophet was attempting to illustrate is still true and valid.
For example, Ellen White was trying to express that thought that mankind’s manipulation of nature and baseness sexually is defacing the humans to the level of animals. I think she is completely correct in this.
However she chose an unfortunate illustration. An understanding that was accepted in science in her time, but that now we know better. Today an illustration of her point would be the reality of Human Sex Trafficing; she went with the science of her time, and it was wrong.
Sex between men and animals: "But if there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere." —Spiritual Gifts, V. III, p. 64, 1864.
"Every species of animal which God had created, were preserved in the ark. The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood. Since the flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the endless varieties of species of animals and certain races of men." —Spiritual Gifts, V. III, p.75
Her thought about the evil of human beings and their sexual perversion is inspired, but not this illustration.
Jack, help me; am I mis-stating your thoughts here?
Thank you Darrel, please see my comments to Bob above, we are on the same page on this.
Darrel,
You wrongly state that Ellen White said that "Sex between men and animals" produced "confused species," but then you fail to cite any evidence to support such a notion. I have read every "amalgamation" statement I can get my hands on, and not once have I ever found any statement that mentions sex between men and animals. Why couldn't she be talking about GMO's, using terms available then instead of our more modern lingo?
I understand Jack's point: He rejects the thoughts Ellen White expressed regarding the severe danger of accepting the infidel idea that the days of creation weren't days. He rejects those thoughts by inconsistently using the idea of thought inspiration, like the Catholic priest I spoke with did, by proposing that some sort of more general thought was what was inspired, not the thought expressed by the words Ellen White used. And that certainly wasn't what she meant by thought inspiration.
Jack is making of none effect Ellen White's counsel on this specific point so that he can justify his promoting of what she called a most dangerous form of infidelity.
Hi Bob, GMO ? Well, sex between men and animals was the accepted understanding in the Adventist church at that time regarding these statements. For example, Uriah Smith wrote a book defending her on this. It was sold at camp meetings and advertized in the Review.
Uriah Smith, The Visions of Mrs. E. G. White, A Manifestation of Spiritual gifts According to the Scripture. In this book Smith quotes the American Anthropological Assoscation to verify that scientifically sub-species can be produced in this way.
She discribed this sin as the worse of the worse, and it was serious enough to require "the destruction" of the human race.
So I think I am right about this. But the point is, Ellen White's larger point was to illustrate the depravity of humans at the time. It true; they were; they are!
Darrel,
EGW's understanding of "amalgamation" has to take precedence over U.S.'s understanding: "Every noxious herb is of [Satan's] sowing, and by his ingenious methods of amalgamation he has corrupted the earth with tares" (2SM 288). Ingenious methods of sexual reproduction? I don't see how trying to pollinate the ovaries of one plant with the pollen of another can be called ingenious. The term here must refer to some sort of genetic manipulation via scientific methods whereby properties of different plants are mixed together. And that certainly sounds like today's GMO.
I know that Smith, unlike Nichol, believed the mixing to have crossed the human/animal barrier, but I cannot find the quote you are referring to. My copy of that work does not say, unless I've overlooking it, anything about how the amalgamation took place. I don't see under Objection 17 & 39 any reference to the AAA. Point me in the right direction.
The Visions of Mrs. E. G. White, A Manifestation of Spiritual gifts According to the Scripture,( 1868) pages 103-104:
Where is the AAA quote?
Any "one" of the concepts & thought inspirations presented maybe true, and also, they may all be false.
No one now on Earth (excepting Lucifarian spirits), know.
What we do know is we are existent, a living human reality, not an illushion. Mankind escaping the death of the spirit, will eventually be shown the exacting facts of Earth's & its inhabitants creation. Until then, go in peace of the Prince of Peace.
Jack,
"To make the same error in the light of increased knowledge is a sin." You state this in the context of your assertion that Ellen White was wrong when she warned us that the idea that the 6 days of creation weren't days is a most dangerous and insidious form of infidelity. Thus, you indicate that you have some sort of knowledge that unequivocally shows that God could not possibly have created what He created on a particular day within 24 hours.
Rather than debate whether the thoughts Ellen White expressed in the counsel in question were inspired or uninspired, it might be more profitable to zero in on the knowledge you are referring to. Have you discovered some sort of scientific data that can only be explained if the days are not days? For example, have you discovered some sort of data that unequivocally shows that God is unable to create every variety of animals in 24 hours?
The bedrock of the planet could have been made on Days 1 and 3. In that bedrock are Po-218 halos. Po-218 has a half-life of 3 minutes. Rn diffusion hypotheses have been falsified in various ways. These halos can only form in solid rock, and it must be cool enough or else the halos will be annealed (erased). Assuming a constant decay rate, one would have to start off with a mass of Po-218 more or less equal to the mass of the earth to end up with enough Po-218 at the end of 24 hours to make just one halo. Thus, the bedrock of the planet could not have taken more than a day to create.
I am not replying to influence Bob. I suspect Bob will not be influenced with anything that threatens his understanding of the authority of inspiration to mean what he thinks it means. But other readers need to know that the Po-218 halos of Robert Gentry as evidence for a recent age of the earth have been discounted not by non-believers, but by Seventh-day Adventists of the Geological Research Institute.
http://www.grisda.org/origins/15032.htm
Jack,
You need to understand some of the dynamics in discussions like that. Robert Brown's preference was to have an old earth and young life, while Gentry's preference was to have a young earth and young life. Brown's preference was to explain isotope ratios in the geologic column as the incorporation of old material into recent, flood-deposited sediments. Gentry's findings if true would require Brown to abandon his preferred theory. It's quite a common thing for differences of preferred theory to motivate articles like the one you've linked to.
It's been awhile since I read it, but as I recall, it has some serious lacks. A later one by Brown is much better, in my opinion. Note that this article says absolutely nothing about how an aqueous transport hypotheses can be viable in the absence of fossil alpha recoil tracks, which is a critical part of the experimental evidence. Without somehow addressing that experimental evidence, which was published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal 20 years before the GRI article, how can we really take such a proposed explanation seriously?
My gut feeling is that you are more comfortable with citing this article rather than discussing and analyzing what it actually says, and thereby determining whether the arguments it gives are really sound. Am I correct? If that is the case, you are not alone. But if it isn't the case, pick whatever you want in that GRI article that you think is convincing, and then let's discuss that. For the 1968 report in Science I referred to above, see http://www.halos.com/reports/science-1968-fossil-alpha-recoil.htm.
I will tell you, Jack, that I have much more recent correspondence with another person at GRI that felt that Gentry was right about Po-218 halos being evidence of rapid crystallization of fluorite, but differed regarding his views on biotite.
From the GRI article: "This is especially true when Gentry must invoke a nonuniform increased radioactive decay rate to account for the presence of U-238, Th-232 and Sm-146 halos, while leaving untouched the polonium decay rates!" I don't recall Gentry ever making such a claim in any of his papers or his book. And Brown gives no supporting citation. Not too good, huh?
The next paragraph proposes that since the halos-forming Po isotopes aren't artificially created Po isotopes but are instead only the naturally occurring daughters of U and Th, then God must not have created them during creation week. How bright is that one, where we decide what God should have or shouldn't have created? Meanwhile, where the rubber meets the road is ignored: A naturalistic origin of the Po-218 halos requires a diffusion or similar process, but the fossil alpha recoil tracks are missing.
Lastly, Jack, what about the challenge to synthesize granite in the laboratory? The article states: "Whether we can or cannot synthesize certain rocks or minerals in the laboratory seems to reflect mainly the sophistication of our laboratory procedures." But it fails to specify in what way our procedures today aren't sophisticated enough.
The fact of the matter is that we know today how large granite batholiths are, and evolutionists can calculate how long they took to cool over their assumed timeframe. We have devices that can reproduce incredible pressures and temperatures in the laboratory over an extended period, and they shoould be able to produce granite according to he evolutionists' calculations.
One complaint evolutionists have against creationists is that science requires that hypotheses be testable., and that they be tested. Well, those that believe granite formed from natural processes, if they want to be scientific about it, they should test that hypothesis in the laboratory. And … they have! Many times. But thus far they have always failed. … In some matters, evolutionists would like to be excused from having to test and prove their hypotheses, and granite synthesis is one of them.
Pick whatever you want and let's discuss it.
The part I would personally like to research more is whether secondary granite exists. Gentry asserts that what appears to be secondary rock could just be primordial granite that was reincorporated in higher layers during the flood. The GRI person I referred to above did not think this possible, if I recall correctly. I was given a location of a rock formation near a restaurant in California as an example, and toyed with traveling there to check it out, but I wasn't sure I was going to find the right place from the directions I was given. That's how I recall it. So I'd really like to investigate that more.
"The fact that polonium halos are found in secondary rocks." It appears to me that Gentry is correct in saying that such a conslusion depends on the interpretation of stratigraphic relationships according to uniformitarian principles. So that might be called circular reasoning. Certainly we can't use interpetations of stratigaphic relationships to discount hard, solid, experimental evidence.
James White "carefully" reviewed Smith's book prior to its publication, and then recommended it in glowing terms to the readers of the church's official magazine, the Review and Herald:
"The Bushmen of Africa" was the example of blending Species/Families in this book and in reference to this point the American Anthropologists were quoted. Thousands of copies of Smith's book were sold at camp meetings after its publication, and promoted fro sale at camp meetings for sale by Mr. and Mrs White.
The point remains that Smith never said how the amalgamation took place, unless I'm missing something. And while what you quoted above does seem to be the same as in my copy, I don't see a quote from the American Anthropologists.
Are you referring to the following as being the quote? "Naturalists affirm that the line of demarkation between the human and animal races is lost in confusion. It is impossible, as they affirm, to tell just where the human ends and the animal begins." Those seem to be Smith's words, not the AAA's words, and they don't mention any sexual crossing.
If today's evolutionists believe that Horizontal Gene Transfer has occurred across widely divergent species, such as amphibians, mammals, and repitiles, I don't see how anyone can discount the possibility of HGT from animals to humans or vice versa in ancient times. These are concepts that weren't known when Nichol wrote his book. And do note that Smith mentions four possible ethnicity candidates, not one, two of which appear to be from the New World, not Africa.
Bob are you saying "animal/human cross-breeding" without sex, but by Horizontal Gene Tranfer?
Never mind! We are way off topic. Sorry everyone. My bad!
There are fanciful posits on the board, once again, regarding a 'sub-human' species of mankind preceding the arrival of Adam and Eve, which to me, is solely based on an evolutionary understanding of man's arrival (or is it survival?). This, as far as I know has no biblical basis whatsoever, as the Bible makes absolutely no reference to a ‘sub-human’ species of ape-like creature, or whatever else, being the forerunner of our human ancestry. It would make a good Sci-Fi series though – but that's as far as it goes. The Bible teaches none of this: period. What it does teach is that God created man in his own image [Gen 1:27; Matt 19:4; Gen 5:1; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10]. Evolution, in terms of origins, hardly qualifies as a biblical revelation, as it stands in direct opposition to God forming man from the dust of the ground, breathing into his nostrils the breath of life and then man becoming a living soul [Gen 2:7].
The next immediate response to the 'sub-human' evolutionary (not biblical) belief that would raise not only eyebrows but would also necessitate us putting tremendous faith in the evolution-by-chance belief, is that of 'death before sin' which again goes against what is taught in scriptures [1Tim 2:13; 1Cor 15:21-22, 45; Gen 2:17; Rom 6:23; Rom 5:19; Luke 3:38; Rom 5:12, 14]. It is quite clear that death came only as a result of man's sin. Outside of this, death did not and cannot exist. It is sin that is the predecessor of death and it is man’s sin through disobedience that brought death, which was up until then, an unnatural condition denoting the absence of life and non-existence. Life can only be derived from the Life-Giver Himself: God. Therefore, the evolving 'sub-human' cycle of life and death expressed and implied in this blog, doesn't fit in with what the bible teaches. God created a perfect sinless world without death, chaos or decay and not the other way around.
I'm sure Adam's 'mom and dad' would be quite peeved to read of their 'sub-human' status which die-hard evolution believers would readily posit. The Bible doesn’t teach that, of course. After all what sin did Mr+Mrs Amoeba commit to deserve death before man sinned?
Off topic for sure, but the contradictory Genesis stories appear to have been excerpted from Sumerian, and other clay tablets. A study of those sources (including the Nephilim) sheds great light on why antedeluvian lifeforms might have been destroyed. They also hint at why the Genesis stories include the plural Elohim.
How do you know the Sumerian stories were corruptions of an earlier account, which earlier account the Genesis stories are an accurate record? And why do the Genesis accounts have to be considered "contradictory" rather than complimentary?
Good question Bob.
The Sumerian stories were found many centuries before the Genesis story was know or written.
How could it possibly be determined which of the stories are an accurate record? The two creation stories in the first two chapters of Genesis cannot be harmonizeed: In Gen. 1 Adam is created on the sixth day after the firmament, the heavenly lights, plants, and animals. In the account in Genesis 2 Adam was God's first creative act, and only when the animals were created and Adam was naming them, did he realize that while all the other animals were paired: male and female, that he was alone, then on the final act, God created Eve.
How could such a widely disparate account be merely complementary? If one reads the Bible with so little regard for the specifics, why is there such a turmoil when it is suggested that maybe
the 7th day could be any day of the week, or that the chapter 2 story never mentions God's resting on the 7th day, and yet the two are "complementary"? or that The Bible should not be read as a literal account but merely a general recollection by many writers?
In classic, rather beautiful Hebrew writing style, (I think some it called 'parallelism'), Genesis Chapter 2 elaborates on the account of Creation already given in Chapter 1 thereby fulfilling a complementary role. Such writing style often uses lines within verses, words, verses and even whole chapters, as in the case of Genesis one and two, in order to either contrast, complement, supplement, answer a question or perhaps emphasise something, among others, like in this instance, where the focus is shifted to God's dealing with mankind more specifically. An ordinary reading of both chapters will clearly see that chapter 2 complements the first by elaborating on it and isn't intended as a repetition of the first chapter, but rather, highlights where the first leaves off and moves the account to the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve come into focus. Those who insist that there is a contradiction will usually be looking for reasons pass off the literal 24/7 Creation Week, which the Bible teaches, as a questionable belief, in favour of their long age creationism belief where non-empirical evolution is the order of the day. Others who wish to also cast doubt on the word of God in order to justify their own unbelief will use Sumerian stories, among others, as so-called evidence in order to discredit the Bible.
Elaine,
"How could it possibly be determined which of the stories are an accurate record?"
If that be so, then an unbiased person would not say that the Genesis account must be derived from the Sumerian account, since we cannot tell for sure unless we believe the Bible. It's speculative at best.
Hoehn: "David and Andre, the demand that we apply our study of creation to eschatology, is an impossible task untill the Millenium. For the simple reason that Creation has happened, and can be studied and analized, whereas Eschatology has not yet happened, and is pure speculation. Creation is not speculation, it happened and there is evidence to study. So please temporarily withdraw your request that I apply the application of science to the end events for the present, and I'll be happy to take it up again after the Second Coming during the Millenium with you all. Jack."
Jack, why can't the study of creation also be an "impossible task" until the Millenium? [And where did you get the idea of a "millenium" anyway?] Creation has indeed happened but I have a sneaky suspicion that the uniformistic, atheistic presuppositions of modern science do not offer the best explanation for how it occurred. I don't see anything in your method of study that prevents one to speculate how science offers the best explanation on how ancient views on eschatology will be fulfilled. One such proposition put forth by an Adventist commenter on another blog is that resurrection will actually involve 3D body scan and 3D printing technology! Why can't the Millenium and the New Earth actually be the result of unprecedented technological advances which allow mankind to live forever through stem cell manipulation, body scans which remove cancerous cells and correct defective DNA and where a perfect society is created by mandatory drugs which eradicate immoral, violent and criminal tendencies in the brain?
The profound issue here is one of methodology in biblical interpretation. This has little to do with "which" interpretation of origins is the best but rather "how" you approach the whole gamut of theological concepts in the Jewish Christian tradition in a consistent, coherent manner. The argument for Old Creation which requires death before sin, ages of trial and error evolution etc. etc., makes a cogent approach to Scriptures all but impossible. I have to agree with Baldwin et al when they argue that "without Genesis, there's no Revelation."
Andre,
A basic belief of the Seventh Day Adventists is that a belief in an old age earth and biologic evolution is in direct conflict with the Christian Doctrine of Redemption. This doctrine sets forth the basic principle that Christ came into the world to give man the opportunity to be redeemed from the sin of Adam in the Garden of Eden. This doctrine says in essence that Adam was the first creature to sin against God and brought both physical and spiritual death to all humanity. However, if a myriad of non human animals lived and died before Adam, as modern geological and biological science contends, then these scientific findings destroy the doctrine of redemption.
In this brief writing , I will present the reasons Adventists maintain that the living and dying of animals prior to Adam conflicts with the redemption doctrine, along with my rebuttal to their contention. I am convinced that the doctrine of redemption does not apply to non human animals primarily because they do not have souls and there are no scriptures which decisively indicate that the doctrine of atonement does apply to them.
Much of the material I present in this writing is found in a Adventist book entitled “Creation, Catastrophe and Calvary “, published in 2000 AD. It consists of nine papers written by well respected and knowledgeable Adventist theologians. Chapter Six of this book authored by Dr. John Baldwin contains most of the material which pertains specifically to this issue. Dr. Baldwin is a professor of theology at the Adventist Andrews University Seminary in Michigan.
Along with Dr. Baldwin, Christian writers Joseph Fitzmyer and Norbert Lohfink are convinced that the doctrine of redemption applies to non human animals even though these animals do not have souls which cannot live for eternity. Two scriptures are referenced which are said to indicate that the redemption doctrine does apply to non human animals. However, it seems to me these scriptures do not clearly and strongly present evidence that the redemption doctrine does apply to them.
The first scripture reference is to Romans 5:12 which states “just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, and this death spread to all men “(NKJV) . These writers take this to mean that this statement from Paul should be taken in a universal, unqualified sense , including non human creatures.
The second scripture is Romans 8:20 which states that “ for creation was subjected to the futility not of its own will, but by the will of Him(God) who subjected it in hope.” (RSV). The biblical phrase “subject to futility” is interpreted to mean that “the creation came under , in the words of the Bible, slavery to corruption, implying disease and death.” It is concluded that this context must mean “all creation distinct from humanity” This, of course, is the interpretation of Adventist as well as some other Christian scholars and is subject to debate. To me, it seems rather abstract and not decisive. It does not consider the problem of animals not having souls and the verses appear to have little significance for an animal who has no hope for eternal life.
About a year ago, I left the Baptist church I had attended for a number of years and joined an Adventist church because the Baptist church, like most conservative Christian denominations, adhered to the doctrine of eternal punishment/torment. After studying this doctrine , I was firmly convinced it is not substantiated by scripture. In my study, I compiled a list of 67 scriptures that clearly indicated that the souls of unbelievers would perish, be destroyed or would die. The scriptural evidence was very strong and convincing. However, in Chapter Six of the Adventist creation book, only two verses are referenced to substantiate their beliefs and both of them to me seem rather abstract and subject to debate.
The findings of modern science present strong indications of an old earth and biologic evolution, and if one concludes that Bible scriptures do not present strong indications that the doctrine of atonement is affected by the death of animals through out all geologic history, then one can be assured that his theology and salvation are secure. So , this means that it does not matter whether one believes in an old age earth and biologic evolution or not. In Galileo’s time, the fact that the earth revolves around the sun became so indisputable that the Catholic Church was compelled to accept this fact and still basic Christian theology was not invalidated. I think it would be tragic if the Christian Church ever found itself again in this position.
We should also consider the point which Dr. John Hoehn made in a recent comment to this website. He said that animal death since creation could have taught all the lessons of atonement, perfectly reproduced in the life and atoning death of Jesus Christ.
As a general principle for addressing these issues I have discussed, I think it is advisable for us to take heed of a wise statement made in the Introduction chapter to the Creation, Catastrophe and Calvary book. “On all sides , we need to unhitch our egos and do some hard, maybe even painful work. And maybe the various sides should talk. Not debate–talk. It is just possible neither side being omniscient, that both sides could gain something from serious contact with competent practitioners on the other”
John,
"… as modern geological and biological science contends …." As skeptics within these science contend, not everyone within them. As but one example, biologist Jobe Martin was an evolutionist until a student challenged him. I don't recall the details, but his three-video series about a number of creatures that could not have evolved was the result. Thus, it is only skeptics, not Bible believers, within these sciences that make such a contention.
"… does not apply to non human animals primarily because they do not have souls …." I think I agree with you. But the Hebrew word for "soul" (nephesh) is first used in Gen. 1 to refer to sea creatures and then to the land animals, before Adam was created.
"The findings of modern science present strong indications of an old earth and biologic evolution, …." Again, it is the assertions and interpretations of skeptics, not of science itself.
John,
"So , this means that it does not matter whether one believes in an old age earth and biologic evolution or not." a) But it isn't only the doctrine of atonement that is affected by evolution, and b) even that doctrine is affected in more than one way by evolution. a) Other doctrines affected are the Sabbath, the inspiration of Scripture, and spiritual gifts. b) Evolution teaches that we are gradually improving on our own through blind chance, while Scripture teaches that we are degraded and fallen, and going down, and thus need a Savior, something outside of us.
"And maybe the various sides should talk. Not debate–talk." Can both sides agree to talk freely, acknowledging the presuppositions that may be at work beneath either theory?
John, if you had to pick one piece of evidence or several pieces of evidence that you felt were the strongest support for ancient life on earth, or biological evolution, what would you pick?
Bod,
Thanks for your comments. I'm always interested in the conviction of Adventists.
I don't have any thoughts on the strongest support of evolution for ancient life. That is because I don't think it matters, since I think that evolution does not affect the doctrine of redemption. If there are other doctrines it affects, I would be interested in your thoughts on this subject. I think that evolution theory only applies to the physical development of Man and not to his spiritual life. However, I certainly believe that Man needs a
Savior.
John,
I don't think we can just assume that evolution is true because it doesn't really matter. That's not approaching the subject scientifically, but then, perhaps science isn't the real reason for considering evolution after all.
a) The Sabbath: The reason for keeping the Sabbath in Ex. 20 is that God created the world in 6 days and rested the 7th. If evolution is true, then this reason is false. b) Inspiration of Scripture: The Bible teaches in multiple places that God spoke the world into existance, instantly, in 6 literal days, that no death existed before, that agriculture before the fall was not bothered by thorns and thistles, that agriculture preceded hunting, that antedulivians were skilled at using iron, that the entire world was destroyed by Noah's flood, that the earth is roughly 6000 years old, and that today's societies were established after the dispersion from the Tower of Babel that occurred in Peleg's day. Skeptics using an evolutionary-based time frame argue against each of these biblical facts, and thus attack the inspiration of Scripture. c) Spiritual gifts: Ellen White explicitly and pointedly stated that the idea that the days of creation weren't days is a most insidious and dangerous form of infidelity. Evolution declares such divinely given counsel to be utter hogwash, and thus undermines the biblical doctrine of spiritual gifts.
Evolutionists would apply evolution to man's mental development too, and I'm fairly certain they apply its principles to man's spiritual development too. You may not, but others do. And the logical conclusions of lines of thought should be considered, even if a proponent is adverse to accepting such conslusions. We need to understand the ramifications of the theory we are being asked to adopt.
Whilst it is clearly evident in scripture that death came by man's sin [Rom 5:12] and that Salvation in Christ Jesus is given only to mankind as a gift; this however, doesn't just end there. Christ's death on Calvary will not only reverse the curse of death that man's disobedience wrought, but will also allow, or make provision, for nature to be restored to its original Pre-Fall state. This is all made possible through the Blood of Christ. In fact everything centres around Christ who has paid the price for our sin, including its disastrous effects on nature.
The reference to souls in "non human animals primarily because they do not have souls" and "these animals do not have souls" has to take into account that both animal and human creatures are referred to in the Bible as nephesh? The non-human nephesh cannot sin but die as a result of The Fall of man through disobedience. The death of non human nephesh before man sinned isn't taught in the Bible. It is only after sin that death became the norm for non human nephesh. The so-called geological records of dead animals can be rightfully understood in terms of the catastrophic events such as in the account of the Flood which the Bible supports through Divine inspiration. Ellen White too, through inspiration, is in line with this Biblical basis for our belief.
In most cases, from what I have gathered, I have found that those who will usually deny or undermine The Flood will generally try and lean towards 1] death before sin and 2] opt for old earth Creationism but often with an evolutionary twist, primarily to fill the huge gaps that they perceive to be real. I take off my hat in admiration for them as it takes much greater faith then I have to believe in what they do. The Bible is so much easier for me.
I can certainly agree that our faith centers around Christ . I would really like to know more about your comments referring to nephesh. Would you send me the biblical scriptural references on it. I definitely don't think we have definitive scientific information on the Flood , so divine inspiration would be the only alternative at this point. A number of person have had divine inspirations down through Christian history and I feel we have to study each one and decide which ones we will accept.
Here are a few verses that use the same word nephesh for both man and animal.
Verses that refer to animals as nephesh:
Gen. 1:21, 24; 2:19; 9:10, 12. Lev. 11:46.
Gen. 1:20, 30.
Gen. 9:4. Deut. 12:23. Prov. 12:10.
Lev. 24:18.
Job 12:10.
Job 41:21.
Isa. 19:10.
Jer. 2:24.
Verses that use nephesh in reference to animals and man:
Gen. 9:15, 16.
Lev. 17:11, 14.
Num. 31:28.
John,
At the Grand Canyon and the surrounding area, the layers of the geologic column are noticeably flat with little or no erosion between layers. Some layers are missing. To the evolutionist, the contact point between two specific layers represents 12 million years, and between another two specific layers represents 100+ million years. 12 and 100+ million years with no significant rain, no wind, no erosion between layers? This is evidence that all the layers were laid down so quickly, there was no time for erosion between layers, and that is evidence of a universal flood.
I earlier referred to U/Pb ratios in Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene coalified wood. This ratios were about the same. There are large, widespread formations laid down by water action. What action did that? David Read's Dinosaurs details geologic evidence that the dinosaurs were deposited by the flood, including tracks in lower layers deposited without bones, bones in higher layers deposited without the plant life one would expect was needed to support the dinosaurs, dinosaurs deposited at sea, dinosaurs buried before decay processes and scavengers could disarticulate the bones, massive dinosaur herds buried, etc.
I would recommend that you get Read's book Dinosaurs. It provides an Adventist perspective.
For anyone interested, I am reading now the newest professional treatment regarding the Cambrian Explosion- "Darwin's Doubt" by Dr. Steve Meyer. Excellient Book. If one wants the latest information on the fossil evidence for a creation event, this would be the book.
Bob, i think we need to consider the very different distinctions between the OT commandments made to the Jews at Siani, and the New Covenant presented by Jesus, in the NT, for all peoples. Jesus was asked Mat.22:36-40, "which is the great commandant? Jesus replied, "Thou shalt love the Love thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandant, and the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self. On these two commandants hang all the law and the prophets.
While the eternalness of the perfect description of "GODS LOVE", ie: "do not", kill, steal, covet, lie", of the commandments, man would not, could not, did not have the power, to honor God's laws. In their weakness, the commandments condemned mankind, to death. From the foundation of the world, the GODHEAD, had formulated a contingency plan for His beloved creation.
Hebrews Chap.8, Jesus, the Christ, declared this contingency plan, "the New Covenant" Heb. 8: 6-10. Jesus would intervene between the commandments, the Law, and His creation, that condemned them to death, by taking the penalty, death, upon Himself, by shredding His life saving blood, required to satisfy the Law. He paid the price to ransom every single soul, who by faith acceped His free Gift, those of the annual tabernacle service of forgiveness, and those of Jesus, GOD, of the NEW COVENTNANT. Each of the old requirements of God's commandments and requirements given tothe Jews, were voided at the cross.
Earl,
I'm not sure I'm understand which point of mine you were referring to.
The two great commandments you refer to are actually quotations from Lev. 19:18 and Deut. 6:5. So the NT quotes of these commandments proves that not all laws given to the Jews were nailed to the cross. Similarly, Heb. 8's new covenant is a quotation from Jeremiah 31.
Since John saw the ark of the New Covenant in the temple in heaven, since Hebrews shows that the heavenly temple is the temple of the New Covenant, since the ark was but a box for the 10 Commandments, since the 10 Commandments were called the tables of the covenant, since therefore the ark of the covenant got its name from the tables of the covenant, Rev. 11:19 shows us that the 10 Commandments are very much a part of the New Covenant. What was voided at the cross was the penalty of sin, and what we receive from the cross is pardon and the blood of Jesus that can cleanse us of all unrighteousness (1 Jn. 1:9). The definition of sin (violation of the 2 or of the 10) has not changed.
"Everything that was simple he shrouded in mystery, and by artful perversion cast doubt upon the plainest statements of Jehovah" (GC 497).
Jack, would you not agree that the Bible and SoP statements about the length of creation week are some of the plainest statements? This has a direct baring on the great controversy and "angelic sin."
"But the assumption that the events of the first week required thousands upon thousands of years, strikes directly at the foundation of the fourth commandment. It represents the Creator as commanding men to observe the week of literal days in commemoration of vast, indefinite periods. This is unlike His method of dealing with His creatures. It makes indefinite and obscure that which He has made very plain. It is infidelity in its most insidious and hence most dangerous form …" (PP 111).
"Everything that was simple he shrouded in mystery, and by artful perversion cast doubt upon the plainest statements of Jehovah" (GC 497).
Jack, would you not agree that the Bible and SoP statements about the length of creation week are some of the plainest statements? This has a direct baring on the great controversy and "angelic sin."
"But the assumption that the events of the first week required thousands upon thousands of years, strikes directly at the foundation of the fourth commandment. It represents the Creator as commanding men to observe the week of literal days in commemoration of vast, indefinite periods. This is unlike His method of dealing with His creatures. It makes indefinite and obscure that which He has made very plain. It is infidelity in its most insidious and hence most dangerous form …" (PP 111).
"Everything that was simple he shrouded in mystery, and by artful perversion cast doubt upon the plainest statements of Jehovah" (GC 497).
Jack, would you not agree that the Bible and SoP statements about the length of creation week are some of the plainest statements? This has a direct baring on the great controversy and "angelic sin."
"But the assumption that the events of the first week required thousands upon thousands of years, strikes directly at the foundation of the fourth commandment. It represents the Creator as commanding men to observe the week of literal days in commemoration of vast, indefinite periods. This is unlike His method of dealing with His creatures. It makes indefinite and obscure that which He has made very plain. It is infidelity in its most insidious and hence most dangerous form …" (PP 111).
Dear Brother Evans,
I think you may be incorrectly restricting the meaning of "atonement" to "forgiveness of conscious sin". In this sense, it is obvious that animals, plants or any other element of creation are not eligible for such "atonement" since they do not commit sin consciously and cannot thus feel sorry for it, repent, ask for forgiveness and receive pardon. In your argument you call them "sub humans". Conversely, if they are outside the purview of "forgiveness", nothing prevents them from engaging in activities which we may be anachronistically deem "sinful" or "evil" prior to the existence of man. I believe this is the argument you are attempting to make.
This argument is weakened by taking a look at the Hebrew verb kappar used throughout the book of Leviticus in passages related to "atonement". This word does not really have the meaning of "forgiveness" a process which could be sait to entail repentance, confession and pardon so to speak. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament gives the meaning of kappar as "to make an atonement, make reconciliation, purge." Case in point: on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16) it is first and foremost the tabernacle which is "atoned" or "purged" because the sins of the people have polluted its rooms and utensils. Thus the altars, the veil, the curtains, the ark of the covenant, are all sprinkled with atoning = purging blood. None of these inanimate objects have "sinned" per se, but they have clearly been "defiled" by an external agency = the sins of the people. Unless such purging occurred, the sanctuary would remain defiled and Jehovah could eventually abandon his dwelling in the Most Holy (now Unholy) Place.
Thus, by surveying the meaning of "atonement" in key passages of the OT on which Paul and other NT writers build their case on atonement (cf. Hebrews 6, 9), we can see why it is not completely unreasonable to accept that the whole creation, even plants and animals, having fallen under the effects of sin, need to the "atoned, reconciled and purged" from said condition, even though this does not direct involve "forgiveness". Sin is indeed a force to be reckoned with!
This analysis clarifies Paul's concept of creation being subject to the effects of sin and waiting for its own redemption (Rom 8:22). His statements on Creation's defilement and need for "atonement" only make sense if we accept that they come as the result the sinful acts by an external agency, mankind, in the context of their creation by God as the rulers of Creation. That is why Genesis is crucial to Paul's theology of redemption.
Ultimately, if indeed Creation must remain outside the impact of blood atonement, we can expect that it will never (and justifiably so) be fully restored. But how do we fit this view into the New Earth scenario painted by the OT prophets where animal predation is eliminated?
To Andre Reis:
Your comments do appear to address the issue of animals needing some form of redemption.. If I underrstand you correctly, you are convinced that animals need to be redeemed because they they have been defiled by the sins of "people".
I must say that I have difficulty in considering animals as sinful and evil since I believe they have no souls and no sense of right and wrong. So if I am interpreting your comments correctly, you are crediting animals with human like characteristics which is difficult for me to envision. John Evans
Hi John
Your first statement is more or less on the mark, but I believe this is not "my idea" it is in the writings of Paul. Peter also states that the present condition of the world is being "reserved unto fire" which implies an "unnatural" reality (2 Peter 3:7).
The second conclusion you draw is more problematic. I don't think I said animals are "sinful" neither did Paul or any other biblical writer. I don't believe animals can be thus categorized. This does not mean that they are not suffering the effects of the curse of sin which resulted in evil in the world. We may perhaps create a distinction between being "sinful" and being "evil". For example, a devastating tornado which rips through a town and destroys property and kills people cannot be considered "sinful", but it was "evil" because it does not fit the description of a "good" creation. So in a sense we can say that there are "evil" elements in the wolrd which are not intrinsically "sinful", even though they are the result of the fall of mankind.
In order for creation to be fully restored to its pristine, "good" condition before sin, the "evil" conditions of the world created by mankind's sin will need to be eliminated. This includes predatory animals, extremes of weather and nature, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, etc. It is impossible to imagine a New Earth where predatory animals will threaten other animals and human beings and where nature will continue to wreak havoc. I believe these will be eliminated even as mankind is rescued permanently from the curse of sin.
Admittedly, these ideas may be open to debate perhaps because Adventists do not have a strong "theology of animals". But I think these conclusions take into consideration some aspects of theodicy as found in the Jewish Christian Scriptures.
The limited revelation of the Old Testament focused on the sin problem of one tribe. It largely ignores the greater controversy of the heavenly rebellion The consequences of Angelic sin are missed if you don't Accept the evidence from the earth. Satans fall and the earthly results of that fall are more clear in the New Testament and even better from Ellen White and Jack Lewis. Our day requires a larger conception of the atonement than hinted at in Jewish ceremonies
"Everything that was simple he shrouded in mystery, and by artful perversion cast doubt upon the plainest statements of Jehovah" (GC 497).
Jack, would you not agree that the Bible and SoP statements about the length of creation week are some of the plainest statements? This has a direct baring on the great controversy and "angelic sin."
"But the assumption that the events of the first week required thousands upon thousands of years, strikes directly at the foundation of the fourth commandment. It represents the Creator as commanding men to observe the week of literal days in commemoration of vast, indefinite periods. This is unlike His method of dealing with His creatures. It makes indefinite and obscure that which He has made very plain. It is infidelity in its most insidious and hence most dangerous form …" (PP 111).
(Not sure why this ended up above.)
If satan's rebellion and subsequent expulsion from heaven was the cause that brought death to ‘evolving’ subhuman creatures (souls –aka nephesh), then wouldn't that be an argument against God using evolutionary processes, which would require millions of years of life and death cycles in order to develop creation from lower forms of life to the eventual arrival of Adam and Eve? This position seems to credit satan for assisting God with evolution creation by causing death before the fall of man so that evolution can work. After all, how could God create lower life forms to evolve through millions of years of life and death if Satan was the reason for death, rather than God having used death as a creative tool of evolution which is implied by the ‘death before sin occurred when satan rebelled’ belief? If this view that death occurred before the Fall of man is true then where in the Bible is it evident? It’s rather confusing, I must say. The Book of Fossil isn’t in the Bible, last time I checked.
On the other hand it could also imply that there was no evolutionary process at all and therefore no death before sin came and marred man's perfect earthly paradise created by God at Creation, just like the Bible teaches.
“Commanding men to observe the week of literal days in commemoration of vast periods” ? Yes, God has done that before. One example is Ezekiel, asked to symbolically commemorate 390 years Israel’s sin by 40 days of observation.
It is interesting that in the Creation Week, the Sabbath day does not close as the other days. It is open ended. Some interpreters have seen this as symbolic that in the last period of creation history, God rests from creating. Thus we do not see new Families, Classes or even fully separate species being created in our time.
The seventh-day is as an ongoing period of rest from God’s creating and so ‘natural laws’ that God placed in effect run the show as it were. In John 5:16-18 Jesus defended His healing on the Sabbath by saying that God, His Father is always at work to this very day, and I too , am working” (verse 17) Jesus is saying that he is honoring the Sabbath just as his Father does. “To this very day” God has worked EVEN during this Sabbath Period of history ("up to this very day"). God has stopped creating during our time but not stopped working. Thus each day of the week may also commemorate the actually time periods of the actual creation “week.” 'Yom' in many texts the Hebrew Bible can mean periods of time. Gen. 2:4 for example.
Darrel,
"But the assumption that the events of the first week required thousands upon thousands of years, strikes directly at the foundation of the fourth commandment. It represents the Creator as commanding men to observe the week of literal days in commemoration of vast, indefinite periods. This is unlike His method of dealing with His creatures. It makes indefinite and obscure that which He has made very plain. It is infidelity in its most insidious and hence most dangerous form …" (PP 111).
Why call into question such a clear statement in the testimony of Jesus? Remember: "Everything that was simple he shrouded in mystery, and by artful perversion cast doubt upon the plainest statements of Jehovah" (GC 497).
Ezek. 4:6 explicitly says that the days symbolize years; Gen. 1's wording is intended to be taken literally since the days are composed of one evening and morning each, and no Hebrew scholar in any world-class university thinks the author of Gen. 1 meant anything other than days.
no need to study and pray then!
God pointedly told Balaam he could not curse Israel, and yet Balaam presumed to pray about it anyway, more than once. That was the wrong approach.
But there is definitely plenty of room for study and investigation when looking for support for what God has said.
Hoehn: "The limited revelation of the Old Testament focused on the sin problem of one tribe. It largely ignores the greater controversy of the heavenly rebellion The consequences of Angelic sin are missed if you don't Accept the evidence from the earth. Satans fall and the earthly results of that fall are more clear in the New Testament and even better from Ellen White and Jack Lewis. Our day requires a larger conception of the atonement than hinted at in Jewish ceremonies."
I'm not sure this was in response to my post but there are number of questionable assumptions in your comment Jack:
1. The concept of "limited revelation" of the OT, which is nowhere to be found in Scriptures;
2. Whatever God revealed to Israel as a primitive tribe is irrelevant to 21st century concerns;
3. The OT is an inadequate source of truth;
4. Although you discount the OT as "inept", you accept the implicit notion of the "fall" of Satan and angels found in it;
5. The superiority of our "race", i.e., our understanding of the world, illuminated by atheistic science forces us to review all of past knowledge of God and truth.
The problem with these assumptions, as I have repeatedly pointed out, is not only their logical fallaciousness but much more so that you comfortably apply them to part of the Bible while accepting other parts at face value. Until you deal with this profound incoherence, we'll keep going around in circles.
Bob, my understanding of the quotations you give of the Lord in the OT substantiate that the great commandant of LOVE God, LOVE neighbor, etc, have ever been, since Creation. That was not nailed to the cross. What was nailed to the cross were the condemnatory commandnants that demanded the death of the sinner, as well as some ordinances, one being the Sanctuary service, cleaning, blessing, killing sacrificial animals, carrying the blood into the Most Holy Place, annually. The meeting of antitype /Type,with the sacrifice of Jesus the Christ, "ONCE", for every sinner, from time immemorial, who accepted/accepts the Saviour's free gift of everlasting life. The ark of the covenant, with the Ten Commandnants, situated in the heavenly Sanctuary,does not nullify the "New Covenant" of the Lord, but as you state, the sacrifice of Jesus, in our place, paid the penalty for sin.
Earl,
I still don't understand what point of mine you are trying to address. Is it my point that evolution undermines the Sabbath?
Bob, i think that i understood you to suggest that mankind today were still in their sins because of the
condemnation of the Ten Commandments which sinful man could not keep, and the point i was making was that the New Covenant of Jesus sacrifice atonement for every sinner was available to all who accepted His gift. Thou shall love, etc, not thou shalt not. Am i digging a deeper hole? i hope not. i am open to how God brought us into existence, and to wheather the days of Creation were in God's eternal cosmic time, or Earth time of 24 hours per day. Would you comment on the length of the 7th day of Creation being 24 hours, or never ending?
Earl,
Since the 1st 6 days are all composed of an evening and a morning, and since Ex. 20:8-11 speaks of all 7 days as if they were simply days, I believe that the 7th day was 24 hours just like the rest. I know the JW's teach that each day of creation is 7000 years long, and that we are 6000 years into the 7000-year-long Sabbath, but I don't buty that one.
We are to rest on the 7th day because God did. We aren't to do any of our work on the 7th day, devoting that day to His work, which includes saving lives and saving souls. (Cf. Ex. 20:8-11 with Is. 58:13-14.) Thus the 7th day Sabbath has to be confined to a single day every 7 days. Otherwise, we would never get out own work done.
John,
"I must say that I have difficulty in considering animals as sinful and evil since I believe they have no souls and no sense of right and wrong. So if I am interpreting your comments correctly, you are crediting animals with human like characteristics which is difficult for me to envision."
Note Eccl. 3:19-21. The fact that the spirit of animals goes downward while the spirit of people goes upward tells me that there will be no resurrection of animals. When Baldwin or anyone else speaks of the effects of Calvary on the animal creation, I highly doubt that they mean salvation in the way that we mean salvation when talking about people.
Note also Gen. 6:12 "… for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." So animals can be spoken of as sinful or evil despite not having a sense of right and wrong. Consider also the Mosaic precept which condemned to death an animal that killed someone (Ex. 21:28).
But rather than Calvary changing the hearts of individual animals now (conversion), Calvary paves the way for Christ to assume possession of this world and recreate it, recreating the lions, wolves, and bears such that they eat vegetation peacefully with lambs, kids, and little children. So when speaking of the redemptive effects of Calvary, the effects are there for both people and animals, but the effects are not the same.
Bob,
Your description of how you have concluded that animals would all be recreated at the time of the return of Christ and the appearance of a new heaven and earth is a rather interesting approach to the subject of animal death and redeemption. At least I can see the logic and scriptural basis behind it. It does seem to me that the scriptural basis for the belief is somewaht abstract and the number of scriptures which could have a bearing on this subject seem to be scarce. But it deserves some more research on my part. So many of these theological issues and scriptures are not really very clear cut and differences of opinions are bound to arise.
John,
I think you have well illustrated your earlier point: "And maybe the various sides should talk. Not debate–talk."
Your first sentence makes me wonder if my next to last sentence about the receation of the animals was a new thought for you. Texts on that would include Is. 11:6-9; 65:17, 25.
There are a lot of issues that we might wish to be more clear cut. As one example, Stephen in Acts 7:5 certainly could have been more explicit when arguing that the dead will be raised when he said that God promised to give the land to Abraham but never gave him any before he died. Stephen stated the facts that lead to that conclusion, but never stated the conclusion. And Genesis doesn't even connect the dots as much as Stephen did. I once heard a Jewish scholar make the point that since literal snakes don't live as long as what Gen. 3:15 might otherwise require, Gen. 3:15 must be referring to a supernatural being, not a literal snake. There's logic and a Scriptural basis, to be sure, but it isn't so explicit that someone might not argue against a knowledge of Satan and a future resurrection in the times of Genesis if they felt so inclined.
So, where in the Bible does it teach that there was death before the Fall – or, in other words, death before sin? Even Ellen White makes no mention of this. If this worldview isn't taught in the Bible then it must surely come solely from a biased evolution believing position which absurdly intimates that God used evolution to create.
Didn't eating fruit require the death of plant cells? Isn't that death?
Did eating before sin require the death of the plant itself?
I'm not saying I agree with the following, but creationist lecturer Russ Hanson took the position here that there is a difference between plants and animals in that animals are said to be or have nephesh, whereas plants aren't. Nephesh is sometimes translated "life."
No. No.
We do not know what the biological state of plants and animals was before the fall. There was no death before sin – is what we know. The fruit of the Tree of Life brought life not death. The curse of sin brought death. Again I say, that nowhere in the Bible does it teach that death in any form occurred before Adam and Eve sinned. If I am wrong then show the Bible verses that teach 'death in any form before sin.' Long Age Creationism with an evolutionary twist is therefore not a Bible Doctrine and stands in opposition to a 'spake and it stood fast' Creation [Ps 33:9]. This is one good reason God inspired Mrs Ellen White to emphasize the 24/7 literal week Creation so that we should be taught to adhere to what the Bible teaches and not wander away with any wind of doctrine which we think is so-called progressive.
Darrel,
Do you have a specific quote from Augustine?
"Exegetically speaking 'Yom' or day can do service for the concept of a perios of time, …."
Not in Gen. 1, since each of the days of creation are composed of one evening and one morning, removing all alleged ambiguity.
And it has been said that there is not one single Hebrew scholar in any world class university anywhere in the world that does not believe that the author of Genesis meant 24-hour days when he wrote "day."
Gen says the world was good – not perfect. If the world was perfect, why did God ask mankind to 'subdue' the earth?
We have noted that Gen 2:1-3 ( the seventh-day ) has no 'evening and morning' refrain. Nearly 2,000 years ago, Augustine noted this, and indicated that the seven days of Gen 1-2a are epochs of time.
The reason why there is no 'evening and morning' refrain for the seventh-day, according to Augustine, is because the seventh-day epoch hasn't ended. God began resting and has continued ever since. Nature is now superintended by the digital genetic programs of Epigenetics.
We keep every seventh weekly '24 hour day' in commemoration of this seventh epoch of God’s finished Creation. We as believers are to cease from our works, and rest spiritually as God did in Creation, Hebrews Four.
When one examines closely John 5:16-18 we see possibly Jesus refer to this Sabbath Period in His defence of His Sabbath day habits. He defended His healing on the Sabbath by saying that His Father is always at work to this very day, and I too, am working” (verse 17)
Jesus is saying that he is honoring the Sabbath just as his Father does. The phrase is “To this very day” God has worked — EVEN during this Sabbath Period of history ("up to this very day"). God has stopped creating during our time but not stopped working.
Thus each day of the week may also commemorate the actually time periods of the actual creation “week.” Exegetically speaking 'Yom' or day can do service for the concept of a perios of time, especially in poetry. Gen. 2:4 for example.
Darrel,
Do you have a specific quote from Augustine?
"Exegetically speaking 'Yom' or day can do service for the concept of a perios of time, …."
Not in Gen. 1, since each of the days of creation are composed of one evening and one morning, removing all alleged ambiguity.
And it has been said that there is not one single Hebrew scholar in any world class university anywhere in the world that does not believe that the author of Genesis meant 24-hour days when he wrote "day."
The best example of Hebrew scholarship on this point is Nahmanides. He wrote 800 years ago, so does not have a bone to pick on this contemporary discussion. He affirmed that Yom can be used to refer to a period of time. And he applied that as a possibility in Gen 1. He went on to explain the Hebrew roots for ‘Evening and Morning’ which I find fascinating. In his Genesis Commentary on the Torah. Ed. C. Cavel. (Jerusalem: Rov Kook Institute 1958 (Hebrew), 1971 (English Translation) he shows the root meaning of Evening -(Erev) can be, “Disorder “ and the root meaning of Morning-(Boker) can be “Order.” For example, “And God said. Let there be light and there was light. . . . and thus there was disorder and there was order, day one.” And so on. As Evening comes, things get blurry, and as Morning comes, things come into view—the disordered becomes ordered. The only creation story of ancient times where the universe begins in a burst of light, by the way.
Darrel and (to a lesser degree Jack),
I was drifting through your thread and noticed this by Darrel.
"Theistic Evolution, [TE]which is that life developed by a materistic process; God was not involved except at the end when he gave the last hominid a soul."
Pardon me sticking my nose in here, but that is not the case. The idea that God only got involved at the end by giving a hominid a soul is a very narrow element of TE. TE and ID are continuations of the same stick! One approaches from the scientific end and the other from the natural end, but they blend in the middle and have far more in common than you admit.
TE sees "God" involved from beginning to end. It is the methods, descriptions, and justifications given that differ.
In normal circumstances I would challenge Jack to specify how his views are NOT TE. Just because one cloakes something in scientific jargon does not mean that the end conclusions are critically different. ID is pretty much just TE put in a new skin, given a (quasi) scientific justification, and passed off as (supposedly) palatable to the Christian Creationist.
I've said it before, and will say it again. If you are going to use science – use it honestly, without cherry picking and without prior agenda, and without religious bias or caveat. If the answer comes out in favour of God or creation, be glad. If not – be honest.
I see David N's question re laws… "It seems to me that to be consistent we must either let science dictate how the world began and how it will end and that there will be no new earth different from ours today (because laws do not change) or re-evaluate the role of science in this discussion."
mmm …Absolutely agree on the issue of being consistent. Let's.
Now re the suggested alternative solution about re-evaluating science. Counter question (rhetorical to avoid starting an argument on Jack's sacred site). What is there that is, scientifically demonstrable in this world, to even suggest any "other" set of laws, past present or future? Nothing I can find. (If there is, I am all ears). To suggest otherwise appears to me indicative of a hidden agenda to defend Biblical "claims" (creation) and "outcomes" (New earth), and would be the ultimate example of being inconsistent with reason and reality, let alone scientific observations of the same.
Please, Darrel, have a read of this simple observation about the issue of TE and ID. It may enlinghten you:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/05/20/does-theistic-evolution-differ-from-intelligent-design-2/
hi Chris, good to hear from you again. I will look at your reference at wordpress. Would you agree that evolution is a process of development that does not need God to superintend it, but progresses by natural laws working on natural trends upward without any divine help. Design without a designer! You would say YES! And I would say, adding God to a process without God does not make sense.
Would you agree? I am thinking you would say, YES!
I will check out your reference Chris.
Chris,
"What is there that is, scientifically demonstrable in this world, to even suggest any "other" set of laws, past present or future?"
Science can't demonstrate that the laws we see today have always been. Evolutionists make this assumption without proof … but admit that this doesn't hold true at the Big Bang.
That the laws we see today are not enough to create this world can be seen by the fact that every attempt at granite synthesis has failed, and that Po halos exist in Precambrian granites, since Rn diffusion hypotheses have been falsified.
Back again! Yes, well, you seemed to be very impressed with that article Chris. It does not answer my basic question, how can one logically say evolution was guilded by God, when evolution is by definition an "unguided natural process???????????" To say that somehow Intelligent Design Creationism is like theisticevolution is to add more confusion. "theistic evolutionist sees God as having guided evolution. Those views run all the way from the one-time miracle of inserting a soul into the human lineage, to repeated tinkering with DNA that produces new mutations and species."
"Repeated tinkering with DNA," not that I endorse this, but it is NOT an Unguided Process, if you say this and therefore not truely evolution. If a person believes in common descent and that God moved this process along with multiple interventions, then It can not be unguided. Is this really difficult to understand?
Darrel,
I answers the point I quoted you as saying. I did not set out to answer some other issue..ie guided process. It points out that either TE or ID depend on a "guided process". That is my precise point. Show me how the two are essentially different. They are not. Just that one uses science, one is philosophical. The idea that T is involved is the same. An E process is the same!
I posted the reply below before I saw this comment:)
Darrel,
"Would you agree that evolution is a process of development that does not need God to superintend it, but progresses by natural laws working on natural trends upward without any divine help. Design without a designer! You would say YES! And I would say, adding God to a process without God does not make sense."
Why do you use the term "divine" help? Are there no other "causes" or "helps" possible? Why did you substitute the word "God" in your last sentence for the word "design" in the second sentence? Why have you assumed "design" = "divine" and "design" = God? You have destroyed the whole logic of your argument by making the leaps from the one to the other and the next.
Would I say yes? The natural processes observable to man though nature and scientific study suggest evolution is a process progressing by quite natural means. If there is any help from "outside" of that system it appears to be working through or within such processes to the degree that such intervention is inseparable from the "natural". Therefore, to make the leaps in logic that you have from design to God are indefensible. And, as noted over and again, the Biblical proportions God is a light year leap into the illogical conclusion realm.
Bob, graninte? halos? Please, do some research on the scientific validity of those claims. They're bogus.
Re the uniformity of natural laws? Science can demonstrate they have been around long enough to give total credibility to the fact that this universe and life on our little planet have undergone an evolution like process. That alone is enough to call the tradtional creaion story into serious, if not fatal question.
In his famous articledropped his definition of "random," and explained that Darwinism offers "a secular view of life." Here are a couple of his salient points:
“Darwinism rejects all supernatural phenomena and causations. The theory of evolution by natural selection explains the adaptedness and diversity of the world solely materialistically. It no longer requires God as creator or designer. Darwin's theory of natural selection made any invocation of teleology unnecessary."
Ernst Mayr "Darwin's Influence on Modern Thought" in Scientific American (July 2000)
Darrel,
Please!!! What's your point? I was not saying anything about what Evolution was.
I was saying that at the end of the day Theistic Evolution and Intelligent Design were on essentially on the same stick, the same book, or even perhaps the same page, in that they BOTH believe in an outside source of input. My point was that for TE that point was not right at the END as you claimed. THAT is ALL I was saying, so spare my frustration, but what are you on about.
Am I right about TE not seeing the "intervention" right, or just, at the "end" or not? Face it, please don't jump topic to avoid a simple point!
Why start trying to nail me to the wall over whether I believe it was a totally natural process or a guided one? All I am saying is that BOTH TE and ID believe it WAS. They just differ on process and how they justify it.
I am sorry Chris, yes, I see what you are saying. "TE or ID depend on a "guided process"."
TE as you define it, yes I see. My point my friend is simply that TE as you have defined it is completely illogical. But maybe you right that many TE people define TE just as you say. I will concede that point, the more I think about it, you probably are correct. That Definition makes no sense to me, that all 🙂
The other thing in the article over there was the statement that Intelligent Design Advocates or the Discovery Institute would like to teach religion in the classroom. This is so so so wrong!
Teaching all the information of Science relating to Origins is not teaching religion.
The other thing in the article over there was the statement that Intelligent Design Advocates or the Discovery Institute would like to teach religion in the classroom. This is so so so wrong!
Teaching all the information of Science relating to Origins is not teaching religion.
Darrel,
With all respect, while there may be a few agnostic IDers around the vast majority of them use it re-affirm their religious convictions about God. That is fact. It is also fact that a large number of them see it as a vehicle to bring God back into science, and thus the classroom. That is a key difference between TE and ID. You'll struggle to find TE being imported into the classroom in the garb of science. You will find ID doing just that.
Because the "scinetific" claims of ID are tenous at best, and yet the claims by extension are permitted to introduce God, just as you did by leaping from "design" to "God", you cannot claim that it is not teaching "religion". It is because, as you have admitted before, the God presented by most IDers is of Biblical proportions, and where else does that come from but within religion. He is so, so correct?
This is where Jack is off track, he thinks that by cherry picking science, and presenting what is essentially TE in the ID skin, he can make it acceptable to Creaionists. It appears acceptable to the "religious" in this format. That is the agenda of the majority of ID.
If I had to say there was a "guidance" in evolution I would go for TE because it does not fall prey to the scientific cherry picking of ID.
Yes, and then I can say Evolutionists have an "agenda," does that invalidate their "science?" No!
If we really want to address the root issue we would have to return to examining the science of it.
Evolutoinists have an "agenda"? Enlighten me.
Question: Would teaching or infering that there is no God a religious statement ?
No more than teaching or infering there are no fairies would be a religious statement. It would simply be a statement about the way things appear to be as seen through scientific observation.
It would only be a religious statement to those who are looking for ways to justify their religious statements!
i thought so!
Darrel,
??? My point being that teaching or inferring that there is a God IS are religious statement. Teaching or inferring there is not, is not a religious statement in the same way. So, I somehow don't thingk we thought the same way on that one! One is a statement in about the absence of evidence, the other is a statement in the absence of evidence. You can work out which is which.
Chris,
"Bob, graninte? halos? Please, do some research on the scientific validity of those claims. They're bogus."
a) So you believe that we can assert without evidence that articles in peer-reveiewed scientific journals contain scientific data that's bogus. b) I've done a lot of research on these topics, for years, and have discussed them with many evolutionists. Not one has ever been able to refute them. c) That being so, I don't think you can either.
And by refute, I don't mean just provide a link to an article that contains misinformation. I'm talking about discussing the concepts in the published reports, and then pointing out the flaws in the data or conclusions, and relying on hypotheses that have not yet been falsified.
"Re the uniformity of natural laws? Science can demonstrate they have been around long enough to give total credibility to the fact that this universe and life on our little planet have undergone an evolution like process. That alone is enough to call the tradtional creaion story into serious, if not fatal question."
And how long can science demonstrate that today's natural laws have been around?
As Stephen Jay Gould once explained:
"Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution—paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce. No one understood this better than Darwin."
evolution is a religious theory because it is so unlikely and therefore requires faith to believe it. evolution is a religious theory because it is driven by atheism. evolution is a religious theory because it entails religious claims about God, as in Gould’s quote above.
Allow me to intrude on this fine discussion to observe that perhaps Chris prefers the oxymoronic "theistic evolution" because it is easier to relegate it to the realm of religion. Your observation, Chris, that the God of the Bible is light years away from a "designer" seems to me to underscore the reality that Design theory is very different from T.E., in that it does not purport to make any claims about the nature of the designer.
Does I.D. make the God of scripture or T.E. more plausible? Of course! But, in itself, it also makes highly evolved extra-terrestrial intelligence equally plausible. The claims of I.D. are far more modest than those of T.E. I.D. simply uses sophisticated scientific statistical analysis and interdisciplinary science to demonstrate that a) there is no naturalistic mechanism known by which code can be produced; and b) the natural world overflows with seemingly independent, self-sustaining, interwoven codes – not randomness – in virtually every direction one turns. Would you not agree, Chris, that to suppress, in higher education, a challenge to an intellectual truth claim (evolutionary biology), based on the insidious, nefarious purposes to which that challenge may be employed, would not only constitute egregious censorship, but would also disqualify most every discipline as a legitimate field of academic study?
Do you know who wrote the following: "Evolutionary naturalism provides an account of our capacities that undermines their reliability, and in doing so undermines itself."? It was the unrepentant atheist, Thomas Nagel, in Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost certainly False, published by Oxford University Press. The arguments for I.D. are not new. In fact, in 1869, Alfred Wallace, generally acknowledged as the co-discoverer and developer of the theory of natural selection, observed that man's mental and moral faculties went far beyond what was needed for survival, and therefore could not be explained by unguided natural selection. Wallace, not a Christian, insisted that his conclusion – that those faculties required the operation of a "Higher Intelligence" – was based on science, not faith. He wrote two books toward the end of his life, expounding on this topic: Man's Place in the Universe and The World of Life. "Everywhere, not here and there, but everywhere, and in the very smallest operation of nature to which human observation has penetrated, there is purpose and a continual guidance and control." So why, pray tell, are the concerns of modern evolutionary theory's co-founder, and the discoveries and logic that validate those concerns, suppressed as a legitimate field of intellectual inquiry by academicians who welcome all manner of dangerous, theoretical speculation, nonsense, and perversion into the university classroom in the name of diversity and openness?
Sir Arthur Balfour cogently observed, nearly 100 years ago, in Theism and Humanism, that "all creeds which refuse to see an intelligent purpose behind the unthinking powers of material nature are intrinsically incoherent. In the order of causation they base reason upon unreason. In the order of logic they involve conclusions which discredit their own premises."
So why did the New York Times, in its review of Mind and Cosmos, note that Nagel's fellow academics view him as having "dangerous sympathy for intelligent design?" Very simple. The same close-minded fundamentalism that demonized Galileo as dangerous marginalizes folks like Wallace and Nagel by calling them "dangerous." The priestly consensus of inbred atheistic science and soft science cannot tolerate the possibility that any thinking person could doubt Darwinism, any more than the inbred theistic science of Galileo's time could tolerate the possibility that any thinking person could doubt the Ptolemaic theory of the universe. Funny how those who challenge us to be open to dangerous ideas insist on acting as self-appointed gatekeepers for which dangerous ideas have intellectual merit.
Wow, thank you Nathan. What an insightful five parargraphs!
Ah, Nathan,
Funny how you and I can agree on some things, yet be so at odds on others!
You ask:
"Would you not agree, Chris, that to suppress, in higher education, a challenge to an intellectual truth claim (evolutionary biology), based on the insidious, nefarious purposes to which that challenge may be employed, would not only constitute egregious censorship, but would also disqualify most every discipline as a legitimate field of academic study?
NO, I would not agree. First, I do not agree with your "reason" why "suppression" is supposed to be taking place. I do not believe it is about how the challenge may be "employed". Rather, I think it is because the challenge is not science. It is piggybacking ON science with an imposed interpretation about "cause" (see below). Few are the people who begin with evolutionary biology and end up with ID. Many are those who begin with religion and embrace ID as a comfortable way of reducing the glaring inconsistencies between their theology and scientific observation.
Secondly, I don't agree for a good reason you have provided :
"a) there is no naturalistic mechanism known by which code can be produced; and b) the natural world overflows with seemingly independent, self-sustaining, interwoven codes – not randomness – in virtually every direction one turns."
So What?? I need not remind you that in times not long past there were no "naturalistic mechanism"s known for thunder storms, seasons, and diseases either. So, please, justify for me why the current alleged "absence" of known naturalistic mechanisms calls for the insertion of "super – natural" mechanisms? ID in this sense is a God of the gaps. You have just demonstrated so by inserting Him where data is currently absent.
Your point b) is nothing more than "incredulity". From a lawyer?! The cave man stood in awe of the thunder as his god roared across the skies. You stand in awe as you peer through the interwoven codes.
The third reason I do not agree is this. You are conflating "evolutionary biology" with "cause". Both ID and TE accept evolutionary biology in almost its entirety! It is the cause, source, origin, or purpose that they question. Not having an answer to these says little to nothing about the validity of the verifiable data speaking to the fact of evolutionary processes being present and in operation.
Re Wallace who "…observed that man's mental and moral faculties went far beyond what was needed for survival, and therefore could not be explained by unguided natural selection."
Brilliant!! Not. "far beyond what was needed for survival"? So how far back into the scope of living organisms does Wallace wish to take his observation? Did he quantify "survival"? Does a bacteria "survive"? Does a worm "survive"? Does a mouse "survive"?, and so on up the chain of life forms? Which one goes "beyond" "what is needed for survival"??
It is completely and utterly arbitrary for him to "decide" what element of what is "sufficient" for "survival" and what indeed "survival" is. The study of the human brain is now showing the opposite of his claim. We are incredibly wired for "survival". ,
You then ask: "So why, pray tell, are the concerns of modern evolutionary theory's co-founder, and the discoveries and logic that validate those concerns, suppressed as a legitimate field of intellectual inquiry …?
Simple… What discoveries? What logic? Well, in fact the discoveries of today give more and more reason to believe that what we are IS indeed what we have become though and for survival!
The main premise of his logic fails: The mouse is more than the worm, and on Wallaces logic therefore goes beyond what is needed for survival. The Ape's mental and moral faculties go far beyond that required for the worm, and is therefore "beyond what was needed for survival.." Logic? Please…
Chris I am shocked! You are obviously a smart guy. So I can only assume there is something else here with your reasoning. "there is no naturalistic mechanism known by which code can be produced; and b) the natural world overflows with seemingly independent, self-sustaining, interwoven codes – not randomness – in virtually every direction one turns."
You say: "So What?" ?????????????????????????????????????????????? Sooo, because we know that thunderstorms are not God messing with the clouds is the evidence that reams of digital code could have just happened to assemble with no intelligence ????????????????????????????????????????
Chris,
If you really are so certain that the points raised were so clearly scientifically bogus, I think you would have addressed those points by now. But discussing hypothetical and philosophical questions is much easier than coming to grips with the hard, concrete, experimental, published evidence.
Darrel,
I mean literally: So.. what? What about it? What does it mean? Just because there are or may be no known naturalisitic mechanisms does not mean there are NONE.
My point is also: Why in this case (reams of digital code) does it have to demonstrate outside intelligence? Sure, It may, but why does it HAVE to? If we cannot explain it, why invoke something else, even more complex, and that we can also can neither explain nor demonstrate?
I find it totally at odds with reason that intelligent people can invoke an outside intelligence of utterly inexplicable origin, source, identity, and presumably complexity, to "explain" the relatively lesser puzzle of "reams" of independent, self-sustaining code.
Because we currently cannot explain something, eg code, is NOT sufficient nor objective evidence of intervening intelligence itself without the "cause" we demanding.
In the case of the thunder storm, the cave man made the same assumption: Cannot explain it, assume super-natural!
Now,
I before I read Darrel's last blast, I was going to comment on another confusion in this issue of biological evolution TE and ID.
I'll put a couple of quotes from a guy to illustrate it. The issue is conflaction of the "fact" of biological evolution and "cause", or to be more precise in this case abiogenesis. By extension IDers and TEers take the "need" for cause in the question of abiogenesis and extend it as "need" for input in the process of "evolution".
This guy asks:
"Why can we not accept both evolution and Christianity? Is it not reasonable to conclude that God used evolution as His method of creating?" This view, termed theistic evolution, is held by many people, especially professors at Christian colleges who conclude that it is the solution to the creation-evolution controversy. "
He goes on with his response?
'My response asks, is evolution, defined by scientists as the development by natural means of all life from one or more forms originally produced by abiogenesis, true?"
Note the classic bait and switch. He conflates and confuses evolution with abiogenesis. They are not the same. Abiogenesis has to do with the starting up of life, the beginning. It does not address the process. Evolution is the process after life or beginning. Because evolution currently cannot, or is that does not, answer the question on abiogenesis, he assumes he has disproven evolution.
Nathan and Darrel, you guys are both falling into this same conflation and confusion. You are then combining it with incredulity and coming up with a recipe that whips up as evidence for God. ID to be precise.
Long live the thunderstorm!
Quotes from http://www.icr.org/article/2701/
"I do not agree with your "reason" why "suppression" is supposed to be taking place. I do not believe it is about how the challenge may be "employed". Rather, I think it is because the challenge is not science."
Chris, I have a little recent history lesson about what is "suppression" and what is "science."
Douglas Axe has done very rigorous genetic base pair substitution experiments to determine the statistical probability of mutation/selection hitting upon a new sequence in code to produce a new protein fold. This is a little technical but the deal is that the evolution of new creatures or new organs requires new protein folds. Proteins are designed by their molecular make up to fold into very specific shapes, that have specific uses.
Axe discovered, using the probabilistic resources provided by billions of years, that based on his experiments and data about the number of stable folded proteins that exist. Axe estimated that ratio to be about 1 to 10^77. “The probability of any given mutational trial generating (or ‘finding’) a specific functional protein among all the possible 150 residue amino-acid sequences is 1 chance in 10^77—that is, one chance in one hundred thousand, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion.”
Axe published the results of his research in the Journal of Molecular Biology 2004. In the same year Dr. Steve Meyer published another peer reviewed article on the origin of biological information in which he quoted Dr. Axe’s research. This was in the biology journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, published by the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
The article basically said what Nathan mentioned, no natural process has ever been observed to produce digital code, nor conceptually can it. Meyer mentioned what we have observed and know logically to be the source of true information and digital codes—Intelligent Design! He actually used those words. Some how there is this episimologically restrictive rule that Intelligence will not be seen. This very scholarly and well reasoned scientific paper created a firestorm of controversy.
Museum scientists and evolutionary biologists from around the country were furious with the journal and its editor, Richard Sternberg, for allowing the article to be peer-reviewed and then published. Museum officials took away Sternberg’s keys, kicked him out of his office. He was transferred to a superviser who was hostile. A congressional subcommittee investigated what had happened and ruled that the museum officials in an intentional disinformation campaign against Sternberg had attempted to make him resign. Major news stories about the controversy appeared in Science, Nature, The Scientist, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. No scientific arguments were offered relating to the article, just attempts at censorship.
"I do not agree with your "reason" why "suppression" is supposed to be taking place. I do not believe it is about how the challenge may be "employed". Rather, I think it is because the challenge is not science."
Chris, I have a little recent history lesson about what is "suppression" and what is "science."
Douglas Axe has done very rigorous genetic base pair substitution experiments to determine the statistical probability of mutation/selection hitting upon a new sequence in code to produce a new protein fold. This is a little technical but the deal is that the evolution of new creatures or new organs requires new protein folds. Proteins are designed by their molecular make up to fold into very specific shapes, that have specific uses.
Axe discovered, using the probabilistic resources provided by billions of years, that based on his experiments and data about the number of stable folded proteins that exist. Axe estimated that ratio to be about 1 to 10^77. “The probability of any given mutational trial generating (or ‘finding’) a specific functional protein among all the possible 150 residue amino-acid sequences is 1 chance in 10^77—that is, one chance in one hundred thousand, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion.”
Axe published the results of his research in the Journal of Molecular Biology 2004. In the same year Dr. Steve Meyer published another peer reviewed article on the origin of biological information in which he quoted Dr. Axe’s research. This was in the biology journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, published by the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
The article basically said what Nathan mentioned, no natural process has ever been observed to produce digital code, nor conceptually can it. Meyer mentioned what we have observed and know logically to be the source of true information and digital codes—Intelligent Design! He actually used those words. Some how there is this episimologically restrictive rule that Intelligence will not be seen. This very scholarly and well reasoned scientific paper created a firestorm of controversy.
Museum scientists and evolutionary biologists from around the country were furious with the journal and its editor, Richard Sternberg, for allowing the article to be peer-reviewed and then published. Museum officials took away Sternberg’s keys, kicked him out of his office. He was transferred to a superviser who was hostile. A congressional subcommittee investigated what had happened and ruled that the museum officials in an intentional disinformation campaign against Sternberg had attempted to make him resign. Major news stories about the controversy appeared in Science, Nature, The Scientist, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. No scientific arguments were offered relating to the article, just attempts at censorship.
What I failed to mention above is that Dr. Axe did not figure in to his statistical research the fact that there are protein machines whose job is to prevent mutations from getting in the way of protein formation and in the process of protein folding. These machines are called chaperone proteins and there are two kinds within the cell, one for translation and one for post-translation. These two different kinds of chaperones prevent misfolds.
Recent research (Molecular Cell, Volume 48, Issue 1, 63-74, 23 August 2012 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1097276512006454) on bacterial cells sheds light on the chaperones' function. One chaperone in particular, Trigger Factor, plays a key role in correcting misfolds that may occur early on in the translational process. Trigger Factor can slow down improper amino acid folding, and it can even unfold amino acid chains that have already folded up incorrectly. Here are some of the neat features of Trigger Factor:
Trigger Factor actually constrains protein folding more than the ribosome does. It also regulates the folding.
Trigger Factor's function is specific to the particular region of the amino acid chain. It does not just perform one function no matter what the composition of the amino acid chain. It changes based on the region of the chain it is working with.
Trigger Factor also changes its activity based on where the protein is in the translation process.
Trigger Factor's process can even unfold parts of the chain that were misfolded in the translation process and regulates when amino acid chains fold into proteins given its distance from the ribosome (the place where the amino acid chain is made). The closer the chain is to the ribosome, the less room it has to fold into a three-dimensional protein.
Trigger Factor is only called in once the amino acid chain is a certain length (around 100 amino acids long) and when the chain has certain features, such as hydrophobicity.
Trigger Factor keeps the protein from folding into its three-dimensional structure until the amino acid chain has all of the information it needs to fold properly
Given this system to prevent proteins from misfolding, it would seems to be even more beyond possibility of a mutation hitting upon a lucky new fold that natural selection would “see” and keep!
So this is not just “the origin of life” Chris, that evolution can not explain, this is about once first life is already established, no natural mechanism can push it along. The very machinery of cells are designed to prevent the very thing evolution needs to move it up-ward.
Sorry Darrel,
I'm not interested in the minutia and incredible you present to demonstrate an IDer. Sure, the complexity of things may suggest we not close the book on the question of outside input. BUT, you have totally failed to address my questions and points above as to why this complexity must prove or lead to Intelligent Design!
You note above how Axe suggested : "Meyer mentioned what we have observed and know logically to be the source of true information and digital codes—Intelligent Design! "
No wonder people get cross. "know logically"? "the source of true information"? Whatever,.. discussion is pointless. What a lot of … well, I won't say it…
Let me just add a point.
Darrel, you state: "Chris, I have a little recent history lesson about what is "suppression" and what is "science.""
How on earth do you reach the conclusion that Axe's conclusion that digital codes demonstrate an Intelligent Design/er is science?
Yes, that information is definately a little history lesson. I shows clearly the suppression of the NON scientific!
At the risk of repetition add nauseum, before you offer one more nauseating bit of data on the digital codes and complexity, Please, demonstrate why the presence of such things MUST lead to or point to a designer? The "logical" conclusion and evidence of "true information"! ?
Please, that is simple. No more avoiding the points I'm making by the repetitious verbiage that proves nothing if the conclusions drawn from it are neither merited nor justified.
TIME OUT!!!!! i do hope God has a sense of humor. Reminds me of two equal teams involved in a contest of 'Tug of War", or two dogs on opposite ends of one bone. i believe Chris's declaration, "So What", maybe the answer of both sides of this issue, that we all can live with. To bolster your argument with with your carefully selected "experts" is boring-g-g-g.They don't know for a certainty of the origins of life anymore than a Giant Sea Turtle, that is smart enough to live 2-3 times longer than we humans. Their is skullduggery on both sides as we know their bias seeks only what supports their pre-conceived belief system. "So what" has it to do with your future?
Chris,
Earlier you wrote: "Bob, graninte? halos? Please, do some research on the scientific validity of those claims. They're bogus." I responded, stating that I had been researching them for years, and inviting you to explain how they are refuted. I stated that I doubted you could, since no evolutionist I have talked with has been able to.
Since you have posted a number of times since then but have not presented anything that could remotely be considered a refutation, I think it fair to say that you misspoke. Would you agree? I(f not, then please provide some sort of basis for your earlier statement.
Chris,
You wrote to Darrel: "Yes, that information is definately a little history lesson. I shows clearly the suppression of the NON scientific!"
That smacks of bigotry. If the complexity of information in nature leads some scientists to conclude that there had to be a designer, since in the absence of intelligence no system has been observed to have information being added to it, to decalre such individuals non-scientists or thir papers non-scientific is bigotry.
That is, it's bigotry unless you also allow for the opposite to be true: If an evolutionist proposes conclusions that deny the existence of a designer, that too is non-scientific.
Bob,,
Spare me… just do one thing for me:
Show me how and why the presence of complexity must point to a Designer, and yet the existence of the Designer does not require a cause or Designer itself. If you can do that, then next show me why the designer is not an alien, or more intelligent life from another galaxy.
Consider: If the force of complexity is so absolute that one must find a "designer", one must carry it to its logical conclusion and apply it to the designer. No cop outs.
If you do this, I will happily retract my claim that the assertion is NON scientific, because you will obviously have come up with sound, objective scientific reasons why such a claim is scientic and defendable! 🙂
Bob,
As I recall I had a lenghty discussion with you a year or so ago on this very topic. I presented some detialed thoughts and links, if I recall right. Imho it was water on a ducks back, so I saw no point in round 2.
Science can't demonstrate that the laws we see today have always been. Evolutionists make this assumption without proof … but admit that this doesn't hold true at the Big Bang.
From above: "Science can't demonstrate that the laws we see today have always been. Evolutionists make this assumption without proof … but admit that this doesn't hold true at the Big Bang.
That the laws we see today are not enough to create this world can be seen by the fact that every attempt at granite synthesis has failed, and that Po halos exist in Precambrian granites, since Rn diffusion hypotheses have been falsified."
The claim, or suggestion that the laws that govern our universe "have always been" may not be "proveable", but the burden of proof that they have NOT been so is on the one making the counter claim. Go ahead! The big bang is no proof. It is a theory even furthur removed in time than abiogenesis or creation or whatever and its evidence becomes less clear and of less weight. I'm quite happy that 12 or 13 billion years offers sound statistics!
Bob, seriously. Are you going to suggest the laws that we see today are not enough to create this world based on granite and halos? Again, you are dismissing masses of evidence that our universe is still creating. Stars form, stars die, planets form, change, grow etc. It boggles my mind how you can possibly hang your creationist hat on a granite boulder and po halo!
My lack of response was not that I misspoke. It was that I did not consider your observations worthy of time. Sorry, but that is how it is. You and I had a long discussion on my flood blog, and I recall there also you bounced from one thing to another, a bit like Darrel does, and failed to grasp the depth of challenge behind too many points. That is not to criticise your intelligence, it may be mine, but it does suggest you and I are worlds away in our thinking, and I just get tired of going on. I've done that too much here with Darrel too…
Cheers
Bob,
To reduce your frustration a bit, here's a couple of links worthy of your unbiased consideration:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.html
http://ncse.com/rncse/30/5/origin-polonium-halos
Bob,
For a good smile you must read these two:
http://www.halos.com/faq-replies/icr-open-lt-2003-1-14.htm
http://www.halos.com/faq-replies/snelling-to-gentry-11-17-2002.htm
Of relevant but tangental interest:
http://www.earth.sinica.edu.tw/~epma/papers/2006/liaw%20et%20al%20%28tao%20171%29%202006.pdf
Chris you asked Bob, "Show me how and why the presence of complexity must point to a Designer, and yet the existence of the Designer does not require a cause or Designer itself."
Chris my friend, you are falling into the error of infinite regress, philosophically. Of course The Creator would be more complex than the explanandum—the phenomenon that needs to be explained—Life. The Creator by definition is Eternal. He is explanation of and in itself. “I am!” to quote Scripture.
Every philosophical or religious system must solve the problem of infinite regress by stopping at the eternal. Materialism posits eternal matter; Theism posits Eternal Mind.
The Creator is the END of the chain of explanatory logic; that is what we mean by 'The Creator.' Logically, one can not continue to posit explanation backwards forever—the regress in explanation must stop at some point and that would be when you hit a "No Beginning." God is the logical definition of the solution of the infinite regress–Aristotle’s “unmoved mover.”
So the “who created God” argument against God is philosophically weak!
Dawkin’s has said, “If life was designed it must have been designed by highly intelligent aliens who themselves must have developed by an evolutionary process.” Philosophically speaking the first assertion could be true, but his second statement only invites the problem of the infinite regress, and basically is a concession and a dodge.
Darrel,
You are missing a key point.
If one is going to begin a "regress" as you do by insisting that complexity must point to a designer.
Why is God the logical stopping point of any regress?
Why must the stopping point be at one of increased complexity, when a lesser complexity, which in itself demands less answer or cause would suffice!?
I am not falling into the error of infinite regress. The logic you guys subscribe to: that complexity demands cause, sets up a logically necessary regress. My argument would be that the simplest answer is the most likely correct: No regress needed. If a "God" can require no explanation or cause, then neither does our universe.
Please, the "problem" created by an infinite regress does not destroy the logic of the argument itself. What the "problem" of infinite regress does do is alert you to the error in reasoning that makes you think you must begin the regress in the first place.
That is my point: why must comlexity point to a designer? It may, but does not have to.
"Please, the "problem" created by an infinite regress does not destroy the logic of the argument itself. What the "problem" of infinite regress does do is alert you to the error in reasoning that makes you think you must begin the regress in the first place."
you so confused
Really? Just enjoy your day…
i submit that God is the ultimate All in All, that is the simplest answer and most likely correct.The ultimate or top authority never relinquishes control of their baby. In as much as the Earth is His Creation, He is not an alien. He is in control, albeit not the type of supervision you understand or approve of, but we are finite, He is eternal. Coding is the precise program in development of any system, be it mechanical, living body, algorithm, etc. ie: like DNA, it is exacting and absolute.
Perhaps this is why there is so much fussing and fuming by the evolutionary folk, because they know they will never be able to produce life, No replication.
Thank you Chris, as I re-read my post. I see I came off rude. Please forgive me; did'nt mean to!
Chris,
"The claim, or suggestion that the laws that govern our universe "have always been" may not be "proveable", but the burden of proof that they have NOT been so is on the one making the counter claim."
Entirely false, from a scientific standpoint. Science isn't supposed to operate that way, but it does all the time, I know. Evolutionists think they can neglect to test and verify their presuppositions all the time, but if a creationist dared be so negligent, they'd get clobbered over it. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim.
Chris,
"My lack of response was not that I misspoke. It was that I did not consider your observations worthy of time."
Then why should anyone take you seriously? Way above I gave two specific reasons why Baillieul's article is unreliable, and yet you cite it anyway, without explanation. And you cite that fallacious article despite my stating the following: "And by refute, I don't mean just provide a link to an article that contains misinformation. I'm talking about discussing the concepts in the published reports, and then pointing out the flaws in the data or conclusions, and relying on hypotheses that have not yet been falsified."
If you've had a year to ponder the topic and all you can do after that amount of time is cite articles that contain misinformation, and can't discuss the points within the articles themselves, then you have demonstrated what I suspected: You don't have a clue how to refute the Po halo evidence for creation.
My hunch is that you have simply taken Baillieul's word for it without analyzing what he is really saying. And that leads to the question: Why take Baillieul's word over Scripture or Ellen White? Why do you consider Baillieul so much more credible than the Bible? If I am correct that he was a unitarian universalist at the time he wrote that piece, he certainly has an agenda to show that the Bible's statements on Christ's divinity and damnation cannot be trusted.
Bob,
With due respect, I have spent decades of my life in mining, geology, and the like. I could spend hours/pages here with you debating every facet (pardon pun) of all the articles I linked, plus a ton more.
This is not my thread, and I did not plan to get stuck here on such matters. I do not see the need to do so further, but if you think my lack of ability to do so is the reason I don't, sorry, not so.
The reason I listed those links again is because I also used the word "unbiased". The problem I fear is precisely that you do not, in fact, probably cannot read such material without bias. Referring to EGW raises the alarm bells on that one.
Now, re Snelling and Gentry. Did it escape your notice again that even these two parties vehemently disagree on halos, the source and origin of granites etc? Why would you hang your hopes on Gentry's work when even other creationists have disproven it? Beats me.
Now, I've just seen you have replied while I'm writing this….I'll post this anyways and check your next…
Chris,
"The growth of large crystals of biotite (and fluorite) crystals could, perhaps, be in a matter of hours or less, and, therefore, the growth of superposed lattice layers would also surround nucleating polonium ions on the faces of the growing crystals." That's from Collins' article. Think through what he's saying here. He's proposing something that can certainly be tested. We therefore ought to be able to synthesize such large crystals in the laboratory in a matter of hours, or less. Has this been done? Or is Collins' idea simply an untested hypothesis which could in fact be totally wrong?
The stakes on this one are high: Collins is probably making this point because of the discussion he and I had some time before. No half halos have ever been found which show one side of the halo being markedly lighter or non-existent. Therefore, the crystals have to grow fast enough such that the edge of the crystal is beyond the outer edge of the Po-218 ring before any appreciable decay occurs. So crystal growth must be high. But if it is high, then we ought to be able to reproduce the process in the laboratory.
Jim Hamstra,
"Please do not confuse arguments about the length of time it took for these rocks to crystallize with the question of when they crystallized. Gentry leapt from one argument to the other to his severe detriment."
I don't think I did in the post you are commenting on. The Po halos point to rapid crystallization, and the Pb and He retention rates point to this crystallization occurring within the last thousands of years. That's two different lines of evidence pointing to two different conclusions.
If you have a specific quote which shows Gentry making the leap you refer to, I'd be interested in seeing it.
OK…whatever.
If this is so important to you, put up a blog with a carefull synthesis of the arguments for and against Gentry's work and I'll joing the disussion.
It certainly is not important to me; rather I find it like examining a leaf and trying to understand the entire forest, while at the same time ignoring the other vast data that can provide controls and checks for the conclusions reached via the leaf study. Or, perhaps better: studying a grain of sand and thinking one can understand the whole beach!
Cheers
Btw I will answer one question:
"Why take Baillieul's word over Scripture or Ellen White? Why do you consider Baillieul so much more credible than the Bible?"
Because our understanding of geology, and in particular petrology today is light years ahead of what it was in EG's day, let alone the Bible days.
Giving credibility and authority to EG and the B on such topics is akin to asking King Tut how to use a mobile phone!
Chris,
Egotism at work that would exalt human opinions above what God has said.
Putting that aside, note that you are acknowledging that you uncritically took Baillieul's word for it, without first checking to make sure that Bailleul's contentions were correct, despite Baillieul's total failure to explain the absence of fossil alpha recoil tracks, and despite his fallacious assertion that Rn-222 and Po-218 rings are indistinguishable when they are distinguishable in fluorite, two points I already posted way up there.
Uncritically taking Baillieul's word for it despite his glaring errors, when his assertions contradict the Bible and SoP, it's totally inexcusable, and it's unscientific besides.
Bob?!!!
Uncritically taking his word??? Absolutely not. I know enough about geology and petrology etc to evaluate his work relatively quickly.
Neither did I say every thing he said was correct! I just answered your question why I would consider him more credible that EG and B. That is not to say he is or is not correct in everything.
Please, let it go. I will wait for your blog. This is getting beyond a joke…
Chris,
"With due respect, I have spent decades of my life in mining, geology, and the like. I could spend hours/pages here with you debating every facet (pardon pun) of all the articles I linked, plus a ton more."
If that is really the case, then you would not be having such trouble pointing out at least one detail why the points raised were so clearly bogus. You're still avoiding giving some sort of concrete point.
"The reason I listed those links again is because I also used the word "unbiased"."
A unitarian universalist and a "devout" Methodist who are out to prove the Bible wrong are unbiased? Since when?
"Now, re Snelling and Gentry. Did it escape your notice again that even these two parties vehemently disagree on halos, the source and origin of granites etc?"
And in what ways do they disagree, and why? You're still avoiding specifics.
… the word "unbiased" was used to suggest the manner in which YOU read and research the matter. It was not a comment about their aproach!
It is very obvious to me now, this topic is your baby and you would love nothing more than to go on and on about it. Sorry, I've stated why I will not. Just accept it without unfairly and wrongly attacking my motives!$#$$ PLEASE!
One last thought, Chris. Collins' theory has one possible problem involving the ratio of isotopes in equilibrium. If crystal formation is speeded up as Collins suggests, which it has to be to prevent lopsided halos, then there must be an amount of Rn-222 gas present to support the amount of Po-218 needed as the crystal is growing. Since the half lives of these isotopes are 3.82 days and 3 minutes respectively, we need 1833 times as much Rn gas as Po-218, the ratio of their half lives.
Chris,
a) I created a thread at http://www.adventtalk.com/forums/index.php/topic,2605.0.html. I look forward to your doing there what you haven't done here. But I wonder if you really will. b) My apologies for misunderstanding your quoting of your earlier use of the word "unbiased."
"This is getting beyond a joke."
And thus you still fail to cite one single fact or bit of evidence to support your mere assertion that the scientific evidence for creation I presented is bogus. I think that qualifies.
"Just accept it without unfairly and wrongly attacking my motives!"
And when did I do that? When I referred to egotism? The exaltation of human opinions above the Bible is a matter of human pride, and we tend today to call human pride egotiism. Can you point to any skeptic or infidel out there that doesn't think more highly of his own opinions than the divinely inspired Word of God? I highly doubt it.
Bob,
Now you have got to be joking.
I have visited the thread you speak of and cannot believe what you have done. I suggested you put up a blog and by implication meant on AT. Where else would I have meant?
That site you have begun a thread on appears new; it appears to be a haunt for conservative SDA's.
For several reasons I will absolutely not be posting a word on that site:
1. You did not ask my permission to do as you have done. What Christina courtesy and respect does that show?
2. You have not written a blog with a carefull synthesis of pros and cons as I suggested. I said I would be happy to contribute along with others.
3. You have simply taken advantage of the net to try to blackmail me into doing what you want. I will not add my voice to a site at your choosing. And most definately not a conservative one.
So, my suggestion is that you go right on over there and remove your dirty work and go find a Christian conscience about how you are treating people.
If you cannot remove it, then copy and paste my original suggestion to you about a blog to that thread, explain what and why I suggested you write a blog here on AT, and offer your apologies within the thread, clearly obvious to all, for placing my name and the assertion on that site.
If you cannot do this, then please let me know, and I will be contacting the Mods here because this is way beyond right. You have abused the openness and spirit of dialogue shared here.
Thank you.
Chris,
I had no idea where you meant. You never said. I have never been authorized to start a blog here. Over its history, AdventTalk has been the haunt of non-Adventists and liberal Advetnists as well as conservative Adventists.
I would be happy to copy all the posts from here to there that refer to Gentry's work, and then you could proceed to answer my question. Again, I do not have the authority to start a blog here, but I can start threads there. Will this be acceptable?
Bob,
You also appear ot have broken rule one on that site:
"You agree not to post any material which is knowingly false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, adult material, or otherwise in violation of any International or United States Federal law."
Bold supplied to highlight for your convenience. FIX IT please.
Chris,
I am unaware that I have posted anything false, inaccurate, abusive, harassing, or invasive of a person's privacy, except for the few times when I misunderstood someone's words, as in when I misunderstood what you were referring to by "unbiased." Thus, I don't know what youo want me to fix. Besides, I have no way to edit any of my posts here.
Bob, Bob,,, please read what I say.
"You also appear to have broken the rule on that site:…"
Did I need to spell it out: By posting ON that site this:
"This thread will be a place where Chris Barrett can cite facts that he thinks refute the work of creation scientist Bob Gentry.
Gentry has published his findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals. I have discussed these findings with quite a few evolutionists, and have yet to find one that can refute them. Chris would like to give it a try."
That is false, inaccurate, abusive of my rights, harassing me, and an invasion of my privacy. Since when can you shoot off to another site to do that?
Now as to your comment above, I'll put bits in italics with my comment after:
"I had no idea where you meant." Where else? Why would it NOT be on AT?
"I have never been authorized to start a blog here." So what? Ask, or more simply, offer a guest blog. Not hard to do.
I would be happy to copy all the posts from here to there that refer to Gentry's work, …" I am sure you would! I told you, I am not commening on or joining that thread. I spend enough time here on AT. I have no intentions of being in other places. I do not have the time.
… Will this be acceptable?
NO. None of this willl be acceptable. You can go over there and delete the thread, or if you cannot delete OVER there, then paste my original suggestion about you putting up a blog, explain where it was obviously intended to be, and offer your apologies for the misunderstanding or whatever you want to call it.
Chris,
"That is false, inaccurate, abusive of my rights, harassing me, and an invasion of my privacy." How so? "Why would it NOT be on AT?" I already told you. I can't start blogs here. And your telling me that I could have asked doesn't change the simple fact that you never told me where I needed to provide a place for you to support your assertion, and thus it was only natural for me to conclude that I needed to do that at a place of my choosing, where I was authorized to do so.
"… and tell them I was going to do something I had never even hinted that I would do?" And that's the real problem, isn't it. You never intended to support your mere assertion after all, even though your proposal led me to think to the contrary. "… I really have no interest in wasting time on such a worthless topic …." Such a worthless topic, that unequivocally proves your position wrong, and that you can't cite one single fact or bit of evidence in refutation. "Does it even half occur to you this is Jack's blog?" Totally irrelevant, since you refuse to support your mere assertion at AdventTalk as well as here, and there you would definitely be on topic. "My comment to you was passing only and was intended to alert you to the possibility that some more research may be of value to YOU." You still said it was bogus, and you still refuse to support that mere assertion. "I do not have the time." Then don't trash the work of a scientist who published for decades in peer-reviewed scientific literature, using mere pontification. And it would be unethical to continue promoting ideas that are clearly refuted by that published work until you take the time to conduct "some more research," which at the very least should include reading the reports you're trying to refute.
As far as the thread I started over there, I already pasted the quote you suggested. And I think I will probably post more. I think people need to know just where some of the skeptics out there are coming from.
Oh dear, Bob, you know no limits do you.
Once again, you have twisted my words, read into things conclusions I never even implied, and twisted facts.
I note over there you have continued the twisting with this: "However, he informs me that he will not be supporting his assertion here. And he may not be returning to the blog comments thread there."
Well, why did I say I was leavig this thread? NOT because I could not or would not discuss halos, but because it was off topic, was not my thread, was really of little interest to me, and that the place I thought I could make a good contribution would be on a balanced blog, written by YOU on AT!
Your twisted words above insinuate that I am backing away from my offers and points. Absolutely not. I will give you the time of day and my input here on AT in the right context, but I will not be manipulated and bullied into doing your bidding on a site I neither support, wish to be on, nor am a member of.
I have nothing in common with conservative SDAism, and having come out of it myself. I am well qualified to assert that I was deluded.
I totally refuse, by my presence or comments to give any air to conservativism. Unfortunately I think I have unwittingly done so by entering dialogue with you.
Thus, from this point on, apart from a blog here on AT about halos (because I have promised to do so), I have nothing further to say to you.
Chris,
Still no facts or evidence.
Based on your last post, and what I have come to conclude in general when discussing creation science with evolutionists: It isn't about science at all. It isn't about data. It isn't about being published in a peer-reviewed journal. It's a philosophical choice, a worldview, a decision to reject the Word of God. Unless there is a willingness to reconsider that rejection, I doubt discussing science in any forum will really make much difference.
I'm conservative, but I post on AT (AToday). You aren't, but you refuse to post on AT (AdventTalk). I don't think you are being reasonable.
Chris, you might notice that in my comment a couple of days ago I carefully did not use the word science to describe the challenge to evolutionary theory. I used the phrase "challenge to an intellectual truth claim." The canon of evolutionary assumptions regarding natural selection and randomness, I think you will agree, is not scientifically provable. It consists of rational inferences that are drawn from empirical evidence and scientific data. Implicit in every course course on evolutionary biology is a belief in philosophical materialism. Why is that belief proper for the classroom, but alternative theories are not?
You argue that the doctrines of naturalism and randomness – which are not scientifically provable – should not even be challenged in higher education because the challenges try to prove a "designer," and are therefore not scientific. Query: If we called the "designer" "The Big Bang," would that be okay for the science classroom – as long as it doesn't have intelligence?
Science cannot be taught or understood without meaning. It always incorporates the inferences that can and should be drawn from its findings and discoveries. The edifice of evolutionary theory has been built with mathematics, statistics, and probability. Are assertions that the cosmos is several billion years old, and that life on earth has been around for hundreds of millions of years scientific? If so, why are the examinations of the data and computations of those who use science to challenge these assertions not a fit subject for academic inquiry? If not, why are such data included in the science curriculum, and when did they become unchallengeable sacred text?
I.D. does not accept evolutionary biology in almost its entirety, because neo-Darwinian biology still adheres to the doctrines of natural selection and randomness. As we increasing evidence of discontinuous, independent complex processes in living cells, organs and organisms is seen, I.D. goes well beyond mere origins to observe that "natural selection" and "randomness", as an explanation for diversity and change, are riddled with preposterous speculation and conjecture. Just as the macro-universe seems to be moving away from us and expanding, so the micro-universe seems to be slipping beyond our epistemological grasp in ways that taunt the simplistic understandings and theories of traditional Darwinian paradigms. Increasingly, the "God of the gaps" derision leveled against Christians by atheistic scientism appears to be returning as a "Darwin of the gaps." I.D. is very much evidence based. It doesn't have to prove a "designer" being in order to falsify the fundamental claims of neo-Darwinian theory. I will readily concede that falsification of neo-Darwinian claims does not prove that there was some kind of anthropomorphic creator/designer being. But one need not come up with an alternative truth theory in order to falsify an existing theory that denies the role of external intelligence in the processes and diversity that we see in the natural world. Galileo's theory of the cosmos didn't have to be credible in order for his refutation of the Ptolemaic theory to be definitive and resounding.
Nathan,
If you say so, and are convinced by your observations, good for you….
Unless I have to respond to Bob to sort out his pickle, I'm out of this thread.
Cheers
"But one need not come up with an alternative truth theory in order to falsify an existing theory . . . ." I think Nathan, that this point can't be over emphasized. This was what was being missed in Chris and my "infinite regress" discussion.
It occurs to me that the arguments of neo-Darwinists very closely mirror the arguments of creationists. Creationists posit discontinuity in the natural order so that time can be compressed to validate a literalistic interpretation of the Biblical creation and flood stories. But creationists have little scientific evidence of discontinuity that would validate their claims. And so they have two lines of defense: 1) Just wait, the science will validate us; 2) those who question us are anti-Christian and anti-Bible.
Neo-Darwinists, on the other hand, insist on continuity and linearity because that is where empirical observation has led them. Scientific evidence of creationist discontinuity hypotheses is not only weak to non-existent; such hypotheses have been unnecessary and useless to understanding the natural order.
But other than relational and morphological correlation, neo-Darwinism's hypothesized continuity, linearity, and spontaneous change, are totally inadequate to evolve the billions of independent, highly complex, self-replicating molecular and cellular actions and interactions by which living organisms are constituted and function. And so what do neo-Darwinists say? "Just because our models have a lot of gaps doesn't mean we won't be able to fill those gaps in the future." This is substantially the same thing that Biblical literalists say – "Just because science does not completely validate our claims doesn't mean they are not true. We may yet come up with the science to validate our theories." As Thomas Kuhn observed, this is always the redoubt of scientific theories as they begin to collapse under the weight of falsifying evidence. And, like creationists, neo-Darwinians seek to discredit and demonize those who challenge their faith by attacking their motives.
Nathan,
Almost 37 years ago, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published an article that documented U/Pb ratios from U halos from Triassic, Jurassic, and Eocene strata that were way too high to support the assumed evolutionary ages. The Triassic's assumed age was off by a factor of at least 760, according to the published report. Reasons why the addition of U and the removal of Pb weren't plausible explanations were given. It was also noted that if the assumed ages were correct, some well-developed U halos should have been observed, but all U halos were embryonic.
Does this scientific evidence sound weak or non-existent?
No it doesn't sound weak or non-existent at all, Bob. Nor does it sound like a smoking gun for a literalist view of creation and the flood. I readily admit that I am way out of the league of even a lay scientist when it comes to the scientific innards of YEC/YLC evidence and arguments. I proceed largely by logic and intuition. It's not that I am unaware of the scientific arguments, or can't follow them at a distance. It's just that I can easily be buffeted about with those who have greater intelligence and are better informed than I. And I am reluctant to become a cafeteria scientist, cherry-picking data that superficially seem to support my world view.
What I really try to do is look at whether the proponent of an evidentiary argument or data has an axe to grind. When they do, I tend to want validation from what I feel is a more objective source before incorporating that viewpoint into my frame of reference. It's okay that you are highly biased. It doesn't mean you or your sources are wrong about U halos. You've raised a good question. But remember good questions and challenges to an existing hypothesis don't prove an alternative hypothesis.
Nate,
I can relate to the feeling of being buffeted. When I've discussed some of the points in GRI's Evidence video with evolutionists, and other things too, at some point there's a comeback that uses terminology I'm unfamiliar with, or a hypothesis I'm not sure how to respond to. And that's why I like Gentry's material as much as I do, because I can hold my own against anyone. One of the articles Chris linked to was written by Lorence Collins, a retired professor. He's got much more academic qualifications than I do, and yet I could hold my own on this topic with Collins when we corresponded.
"But remember good questions and challenges to an existing hypothesis don't prove an alternative hypothesis."
True. The challenge is that we have already nailed down the laws by which certain phenomena occur. It's not like undiscovered laws are at work when we're talking about decay and diffusion rates. Using known physical laws, the only possible concluson based on the phenomena observed is that the dates for Triassic, Jurassic, and Eocene strata are way off.
Chris has suggested that I do a blog here. Darrel below wants more info on what I just cited. What are your thoughts as far as a blog here goes?
You probably ought to broach the idea of a decay/diffusion rate blog with the blog editor. It's pretty subspecialized science. So it would really be a matter of how well it can be packaged for general interest.
Perhaps there might be interest in a regular science blog. Origins and evolution involve so many different disciplines – math, astronomy, physics, biology, geology – that I often feel like the subject is being debated in different languages, with few really fluent in all of the languages necessary for a comprehensive understanding. On this website, I suspect there would be only a handful of readers who could even qualify as competent laypersons in any relevant discipline. But of course that never stops us from having opinions does it? lol
How do I reach the blog editor?
Personally, I would like to see a discussion on the halos here at AT. I have tried to track the details of the discussion. From what I can see Chris has some excellient points. And Bob has done much research as well. Bob says, "It was also noted that if the assumed ages were correct, some well-developed U halos should have been observed, but all U halos were embryonic." This is the type of thing I would like to know more about. For example, "The Triassic's assumed age was off by a factor of at least 760, according to the published report." If so, we still do not get to a 6000 year old earth; so such anomolies are non effectual for the actual point of a 6000 year old earth, no?
Darrel,
The U/Pb ratios ranged from 2230 to 27,300. The 760 figure was based on the 27,300 ratio. If I did it right, I got an "age" of 237,802 years for that ratio. But see footnote 15 at http://www.halos.com/reports/science-1976-coalified-wood.htm#15 about these ratios:
"The variation in the 238U/206Pb ratios may be attributed primarily to the "old" radiogenic Pb component and secondarily to 226Ra and 210Pb, which, in varying amounts, were also incorporated into the U-rich radiocenters. Evidence for this "old" radiogenic Pb was also found in larger, millimeter-size U-rich regions which also contained varying amounts of Na, Al, K, Ca, Ti, V, Fe, Y, Zr, Ba, and the rare earths. Such regions exhibit variable (but not very high) U/Pb ratios and very little common Pb."
I suppose you catch the significance of that info. When we're talking about ratios of 2230 and 27,300, we're talking about very little Pb present in the halo centers. If most of the Pb was really "old" lead and not due to decay of the U present in the halo centers, then that pushes the calculated age down even further. And that is if we assume a constant decay rate since deposition.
Some in AT believe that all scientist or educated people have to believe in evolution, if not that one is not a true scientist or educated individual.
The fundaments of evolution tell us that we evolve from simple to complex due to mutations and natural selection.
I have dedicated more that 30 years to academia and the rigor of first hand research in biological and health sciences. So I’ve learned the hard way to distinguish facts from speculations.
If the fundaments of evolutions were proven facts, I would not have a problem to accept them. However, the reproducible biological facts do not support the fundaments of evolution.