Handing the enemy a weapon

[vossler]

Except that really, that seems to be how He has worked throughout the record of the Bible. Think about it. From your perspective God waited 4,000 years from the advent of sin to the Cross and Resurrection. And because He waited He had to "overlook the former sins" as Romans describes. Why did God wait?

So are you saying because He allowed for time and circumstances to play out after His creation was in place that it only goes to show He did likewise forming His creation?

God wanted to work through humanity, didn't He? For if you think about it, Jesus' death and resurrection would have been valid whether it happened in 33 AD or in the Garden of Eden five seconds after Adam had chomped the wrong fruit. Instead, God waits a few thousand years and (according to you) wipes out the whole planet and starts again with eight people. God waits another thousand years, finds out that "His people" are really the most rebellious and idolatrous of the lot, and sends them into exile for another few centuries. Then and only then is He content to send His Son, when a few thousand years of sin and death and destruction have made a pretty background for His sacrifice. And after that He makes us wait another two millenia at least for His return.

First of all, what I believe isn’t according to me but the Bible. Secondly, according to your line of thinking, God needed or took billions of years to put everything in place in order to watch the main story play out in a few thousand years. The picture you’re painting is an an even more strange and difficult scenario to understand. Why create over such a long period time, only to have it all play out in such a short period?

What does that sound like to you? Cut through all the pious talk and it essentially shows a God limited by the contingencies of human history, and not just limited but choosing to be limited by the contingencies of human history, and - dare I say it? - enjoying the challenge of being limited by the contingencies of human history. Why else would God wait four millenia to send salvation and another two to finish the world up? You can call it God's will - but that makes it look an awful lot like God's will is to redeem the world not merely from outside it but through it as well, subverting the world as much as He is overcoming it. In other words, as if He actually wants the contingencies and the hard questions to be there, and as if He knows that they don't take one ounce away from His glory.

Exactly, I have no issues with what you’ve said here. The differences, as they are, come solely from our perspectives on how we see God and His sovereignty.

Jesus' first coming seems constrained enough by circumstances and time, so much that God had to use a census of the whole Roman Kingdom to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem instead of, say, warping them there as He did with Philip. If God would let the very coming of His Incarnation be constrained by circumstances and time, why would He not let the very creation of the world - which was, after all, to be something real in and of itself - be constrained by circumstances and time? Would God be afraid to let the universe undergo something He Himself underwent?

Once His creation was put into place God was naturally limited by the circumstances and time within those borders, just as He intended. Yet before that He had no constraints or limitations which explains His creation by fiat, at least that’s my best guess based on the evidence He left us in His Word.

I remember that thread, but the basic question still remains: Is it possible to create a scientific methodology that includes the divine and the supernatural?

I don’t see why it needs to exclude Him. He created everything and therefore for those who believe that it is only natural that they acknowledge that.

Let me paint a picture and see what you think. Pretend there is this incredibly loving, smart, wealthy and powerful man who purchased a large tract of land and personally built a company from scratch using solely his own materials and ingenuity. He then opened up this vast tract of land to people who in order to become employees had to vow to follow the owner’s principles and philosophy. One of the many benefits of becoming an employee is having free and unlimited access to the owner’s vast resources. As an employee you are asked to discover your own gifts or talents and then use them however to make the company better. In addition the owner also willingly offers his advice and assistance to each and every employee who comes to him and asks. On top of all that, the company also provides for the employees physical and emotional well-being, as well as promoting the same for their families.

So with that basic picture as my basic backdrop, if you were an employee for this company and discovered a new process of making widgets 50% cheaper than anyone else would you think it important in some way to publicly give a amount of credit to your employer and his role in the discovery? That’s exactly what George Washington Carver did and almost everyone who posted in that thread argued that it wasn’t necessary. Writing this today still saddens my heart to know this.

So this has nothing to do with creating a scientific methodology, it has everything to do with acknowledging and glorifying Him who gave us the ability and wherewithal to discover it.

I don't think so, and creation science itself bears witness to that. It is certainly possible to create a philosophy of science that is distinctly Christian, that recognizes a holy and personal God undergirding all things and drawing all things towards Himself, in whom and through whom and by whom all things are made. But this philosophy never spills over into the lab. I cannot see God under my microscope, no matter how much I praise and love God for what I do see. Indeed, that is precisely why science works and why it is so successful. If a Buddhist mechanic and a Muslim mechanic gave me two wildly different prescriptions for a dead car battery I would start to get very suspicious of the whole car thing. When our mechanics employ naturalistic methodology, we think them trustworthy; when our scientists employ naturalistic methodology, should we call them heretics?

I don’t recall asking for or stating that a Christian philosophy would somehow change what one sees under the microscope. What I do remember stating was that George Washington Carver incorporated God into everything he did. He asked God to guide and direct him in his experiments and then acknowledged Him when he was successful. I just happen to think that’s an excellent approach to anything we do, not just science, unfortunately many here didn't.

The real problem with creation science is that it is trying to fight at a methodological level a fight that really happens at a philosophical level. According to creation science, a science that is able to prove facts X, Y, and Z is somehow more holy or godly or biblical than a science that proves the opposite. But why should that be so? All science at a methodological level, even the ones funded by Christian dollars and cents, "excludes" God anyway.

Well I also believe that all science is equal, the differences that continually come up almost always stem from our presuppositions going into our studies of the different sciences. This is too hard for most evolutionists to grasp because they’ve bought the lie hook line and sinker. They can’t fathom it being wrong because there is so much evidence to back up the claims. The thing is, if someone were honest with themselves they would admit that most of the conclusions are actually pretty soft and not really very convincing. Sure the evidence that those conclusions are based on is firm, but it’s extremely limited and not certainly not complete. One can’t use very limited evidence to speculate with and then call it a hard fact. I have no problem with evolution (speciation) if we just didn’t claim it to be fact and left it as it truly is, speculation and conjecture.
That’s the beauty of God’s Word, it establishes the universals and from that we are to discover the particulars which are based on the established universals. Sadly, we like to take the discovery of the particulars and use them to establish the universals.

If meteorology has no bearing on the storehouses of snow and hail,

and electrostatics has no bearing on God hurling lightning,
and gravity has no bearing on the earth orbiting the sun,

then evolution has no bearing on Genesis 1 either. It's only fair.

So you’re saying the study of meteorology, electrostatics and gravity have an effect on and are pertinent to the Word of God in the same manner that evolution has. If this is so then I would have to begin losing respect for you.

And what if all the historical evidence we did have did indeed point to the fact that your ancestors indeed did y instead of x? Would you not then, to honor your ancestors, figure out why they did y, and figure out why you had always been told that they did x?

I didn’t tell you how I knew they did y, in addition to word of mouth I also have a written history. Given that it’s a mighty BIG if you’ve got there and the evidence would have to be overwhelming. That’s a pretty tall order and highly unlikely.

I know that the fruit of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; I'm not sure who added "uniformity in interpreting the Bible" to the list. And the passage in Ephesians urges us to unite over one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father above all - but not over the Bible?

How can anyone be united if we all interpret God’s Word differently? It would be utterly impossible and opens the door to all sorts of cults. 2 Timothy 3:16 - 17 states:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.​

If we are not to be unified in how we interpret it how can we teach, correct and train people in righteousness?

I understand your effort to find unity. But believe me, you should never lose sight of everything that has already been accomplished. Do you recite the Nicene Creed in church? I wish I did. And if you knew how much ink (and blood!) has been spilled and how many words have been said to reach the consensus of the creeds of the early church, you would realize that so much of your work has already been done for you. People have been allegorically interpreting Genesis since the start of Christianity; it has never affected the unity of the church, certainly not unless one looks for trouble deliberately.

So are you implying that these many creeds that so many have struggled over to produce have as a basis to them an allegorical interpretation of Genesis? Say it isn't so!

I appreciate historicity too; as I've said, I used to teach a course on Luke and Acts to secondary-school students in church back home, where I liked to talk about details here and there that showed how much a historian Luke really was. But at the same time, nobody was ever converted by a history textbook, were they? Historicity may be cool, but it's hardly vital; people are converted not just because Jesus is real but because He is relevant. I don't know why you should think that "personalizing" the Scriptures is equal to "discounting" or "minimizing" it.

Personalizing the Scriptures allows me to develop my own truth claims about what they say and that in turn minimizes them.

I'd pose this question to YECs who fear that we damage our understanding of the Bible: have you actually ever seen it happen? Have you ever seen a TE here go from evolution and an old earth to fudge anything else in the Bible - and have you ever called them on it? When has a TE here, for example, stated that homosexual acts are not wrong in God's sight? Or that there is no such thing as sin? Or that there are no objective moral standards for right and wrong? Quite frankly, I find a figurative interpretation of the Bible a hundred times more challenging and thought-provoking for the development of my faith than a literal interpretation.

Well here are some statements made by TEs and I’ll let you be the judge:

One TE says:

We accept Paul's letters because the side that wins the war writes the history books.

Another answers:

That's about right.

Though I think Paul is often misunderstood... He was basically writing to specific churches with specific problems, trying to bring some order to things.

Another post:

Think of the Bible as allegory and metaphor, suitable for people 2000 years ago, but not really suitable today.

These are but two immediate examples that I can cite, but there are many just like these I’ve come across in the past.

 

[vossler]

Funny, but then again, you never really addressed my assertions. Pretty much, why you think that just because you can't see why God would do something a certain way that it makes it so?

I didn't address your assertions because we have little to no common ground from which to see each other.

 

[Assyrian]

So are you saying because He allowed for time and circumstances to play out after His creation was in place that it only goes to show He did likewise forming His creation?

It speaks to the character of the witness m'lud. So does Jesus describing his father as a gardener. They like growing things, however long it takes. And God has a lot of time and patience.

If meteorology has no bearing on the storehouses of snow and hail,
and electrostatics has no bearing on God hurling lightning,
and gravity has no bearing on the earth orbiting the sun,
then evolution has no bearing on Genesis 1 either. It's only fair.

So you’re saying the study of meteorology, electrostatics and gravity have an effect on and are pertinent to the Word of God in the same manner that evolution has. If this is so then I would have to begin losing respect for you.

Then you haven't thought it through, because the problems you have with evolution are the same problems you should have with meteorology, electrostatics and gravitation if your exegesis was consistent. Or if you area able to understand, as clearly you do, that meteorology, electrostatics and gravitation do not contradict the word of God, or leave God on the sidelines, then neither does evolution.

 

[pastorkevin73]

We all believe that the world today is governed by natural laws set in place by God. We wouldn't expect something in the science lab to be influenced by divine intervention. In fact, everything that happens in nature today is explainable with natural explanations. This is because God set things up to give us some space so that we could be free to choose God. Even though science explains so many things, we still believe God is an active God in the world today. Nature itself is set up to act out God's will. For example, if a farmer prays for rain and it rains, the his prayer was answered, even though there is a natural explanation for the rain, it is still God's work.

Now imagine if the farmer said that the rain had supernatural origins, that science couldn't possible explain it. Now the farmer believes in God because of this supernatural rain and he knows of God's existence because of it. He tells his friends because he wants them to believe in God too. The friend looks into it and finds out that meteorology can explain exactly why it rains and says "See, there is no God."

That is what it means to hand the enemy a weapon. To insist that science won't be able to explain a phenomenon, and then when science eventually can explain it (as it always does), ppl like Richard Dawkins will go "See, I can explain it through natural processes, there is no God."

This is essentially what YECs are doing. They insist that there is an unbridgeable gap in the fossil record, an irreducibly complex protein, or an unevolvable feature in an organism. Then, when science explains it, the atheists can say "See, there is a natural explanation, there is no God."

It is quite damaging to Christianity to continually hand the enemy reasons not to believe. I would like to suggest that we try to use God's gift of the scientific method to glorify Him, not to shove him out of the picture as the demands of creationism do. God used the natural method of evolution in the past just the same as He uses other natural methods to work now. There is no conflict between science and God, so stop giving the atheist weapons with your psuedo science.

Two things; first one correction. God would have answered the farmer either way. The rain was a yes answer. God could have answered with a no.
Second, one needs to be careful when saying that one particuar Christian group is damaging to Christianity. This could be said about every Christian group. The thing to remember is that all Christians are former sinners saved by grace. We are still human and all humans make mistakes. The thing all Christians need to do is continue to submit ourselves to God so that we don't do what you are suggesting all creationists do.

 

[Servant222]

We all believe that the world today is governed by natural laws set in place by God. We wouldn't expect something in the science lab to be influenced by divine intervention. In fact, everything that happens in nature today is explainable with natural explanations. This is because God set things up to give us some space so that we could be free to choose God. Even though science explains so many things, we still believe God is an active God in the world today. Nature itself is set up to act out God's will. For example, if a farmer prays for rain and it rains, the his prayer was answered, even though there is a natural explanation for the rain, it is still God's work.

Now imagine if the farmer said that the rain had supernatural origins, that science couldn't possible explain it. Now the farmer believes in God because of this supernatural rain and he knows of God's existence because of it. He tells his friends because he wants them to believe in God too. The friend looks into it and finds out that meteorology can explain exactly why it rains and says "See, there is no God."

That is what it means to hand the enemy a weapon. To insist that science won't be able to explain a phenomenon, and then when science eventually can explain it (as it always does), ppl like Richard Dawkins will go "See, I can explain it through natural processes, there is no God."

This is essentially what YECs are doing. They insist that there is an unbridgeable gap in the fossil record, an irreducibly complex protein, or an unevolvable feature in an organism. Then, when science explains it, the atheists can say "See, there is a natural explanation, there is no God."

It is quite damaging to Christianity to continually hand the enemy reasons not to believe. I would like to suggest that we try to use God's gift of the scientific method to glorify Him, not to shove him out of the picture as the demands of creationism do. God used the natural method of evolution in the past just the same as He uses other natural methods to work now. There is no conflict between science and God, so stop giving the atheist weapons with your psuedo science.

Great post! It is always nice to have someone take the time to provide comment on a topic like this that allows us to gain knowledge that allows us to better uphold and defend our faith.

Thanks again.

 

[Servant222]

Time and time again, I find myself saddened when Christians shoot themselves in the foot time and time again- often with a machine gun yet!

I think we need to spend more time here on Christian Forums teaching our fellow Christians to be respectful and cautious in their debating style so that we uphold each other and our wonderful faith.

 

[theFijian]

while Creationists see evolution as removing God from Creation. It makes it hard for dialog to occur due to this different.

Yes, it's as stupid as saying the hammer and saw made the chair rather than the carpenter.

 

[theFijian]

The original claim stated that scientific creationism attempted to shove God out of the picture is what that response was in reference to.

I dont think this is what Creationism is doing either, it's far more insidious than that. It seeks to belittle the Creation, it seeks to minimise the wonder and complexity and ingenuity inherent in the Creation, and in turn, it does all these things to the Creator.

 

[kulenok]

true, many christians tend to do so.

 

[shernren]

So are you saying because He allowed for time and circumstances to play out after His creation was in place that it only goes to show He did likewise forming His creation?
First of all, what I believe isn’t according to me but the Bible. Secondly, according to your line of thinking, God needed or took billions of years to put everything in place in order to watch the main story play out in a few thousand years. The picture you’re painting is an an even more strange and difficult scenario to understand. Why create over such a long period time, only to have it all play out in such a short period?Exactly, I have no issues with what you’ve said here. The differences, as they are, come solely from our perspectives on how we see God and His sovereignty.
Once His creation was put into place God was naturally limited by the circumstances and time within those borders, just as He intended. Yet before that He had no constraints or limitations which explains His creation by fiat, at least that’s my best guess based on the evidence He left us in His Word.

Is God in a hurry now? I think a God who has all the time in the world - who made all the time in the world - is perfectly entitled to spend it any which way He wants, isn't He? One might as well ask why God bothered to create at all. He certainly could have gotten by without a universe, and a universe with a planetful of squabbling sinners pretending He doesn't exist at that. When you consider that God bothered to create at all, knowing full well from before the beginning how the end would turn out, don't you think His taking a billion years instead of a few seconds really fades into insignificance? Is God less powerful, or less majestic, or less holy, or less God, if He gives the universe 13 billion years to play around with being itself before He finally calls man into being? God is not any less God for tolerating 6 millenia of sin, either:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
(Romans 5:6-8 ESV)

(emphasis added) Who are we to claim that 13 billion years into history is any less "the right time" for man to emerge than 6 days after the start?

I don’t see why it needs to exclude Him. He created everything and therefore for those who believe that it is only natural that they acknowledge that.
<snip>
So this has nothing to do with creating a scientific methodology, it has everything to do with acknowledging and glorifying Him who gave us the ability and wherewithal to discover it.

I don’t recall asking for or stating that a Christian philosophy would somehow change what one sees under the microscope. What I do remember stating was that George Washington Carver incorporated God into everything he did. He asked God to guide and direct him in his experiments and then acknowledged Him when he was successful. I just happen to think that’s an excellent approach to anything we do, not just science, unfortunately many here didn't.

But I'm sure Carver would have known the limits of his methodology. If he were to step aside from the microscope, and let Richard Dawkins take a peek, he would not have expected Richard Dawkins to see anything different for being an atheist or an evolutionist. Neither should we. Can you see God in a microscope? Can you find heaven if you point a telescope at the right spot in the sky, or open hell if you drill deep enough into the earth?

Because that is essentially what the creation scientists are trying to ask us to do. They are essentially saying that to see one thing under the microscope would prove that God existed, and to see another thing under the microscope would prove that He didn't. That is where they want to place God: under the microscope, not above creation. For assume to the contrary that they recognized that God's proper place was to uphold creation, and that they weren't going to prove His existence with human genetics. Would they not then realize that any theory that explains the universe can explain it only because God allows it to? Runaway subduction has (or tries very hard to have) no miracles, but if it explains geology, it will have explained it because God allowed it, miracles or no miracles. Evolution has no miracles either, but if it explains biodiversity, it will have explained it because God allowed it, miracles or no miracles. If the creation scientists knew the proper place of God, they would praise God as much for evolution if it were true, as they try to praise God for runaway subduction assuming it is true. Any and every scientific theory that successfully explains the world would be something to praise God for.

For was Carver's science possible because God was in him or because God is upholding the universe? No matter how good it is to praise God for science, it does not follow as a logical necessity. God sends rain on those who praise Him for it, on those who curse Him for it, and on those who don't believe He exists: He does not let man's capricious reactions to Him determine how He upholds the creation, as if He was our puppet. After all, when Jesus Himself walked the earth, and Peter acknowledged Him as Lord and Savior, Jesus replied that Peter knew this only because heaven itself had let him. If God's very own Son cannot be recognized without divine knowledge, should we be surprised that God's fingerprints all over nature are far harder to discern, and that they cannot be detected under the microscope alone?

(About my common use of the idea of "under the microscope". I repeat my question: was Carver able to achieve what he achieved because God lived in him, or because God upholds the universe? Our science is creditable to God only in the sense that God makes any science possible at all. God makes science possible for us Christians, and we thank Him for it. God makes science possible for non-believers at all, and they spit at Him if they will even look in His face at all. As much as our science is possible because of God, it is not made possible simply because of our belief in God, as if God would make the universe play nicer with those who trust Him. As proper as it is to thank God for science, it is improper to thank our belief in God for our science - until you show that the belief is indeed creditable, and that bacteria really do react differently to Christian microscopes.)

Well I also believe that all science is equal, the differences that continually come up almost always stem from our presuppositions going into our studies of the different sciences. This is too hard for most evolutionists to grasp because they’ve bought the lie hook line and sinker. They can’t fathom it being wrong because there is so much evidence to back up the claims. The thing is, if someone were honest with themselves they would admit that most of the conclusions are actually pretty soft and not really very convincing. Sure the evidence that those conclusions are based on is firm, but it’s extremely limited and not certainly not complete. One can’t use very limited evidence to speculate with and then call it a hard fact. I have no problem with evolution (speciation) if we just didn’t claim it to be fact and left it as it truly is, speculation and conjecture.

(emphasis added) Yes, claims which are supported by lots of evidence are normally not wrong, wouldn't you agree? Why should we accept a claim which has lots of evidence against it, or reject a claim which has lots of evidence for it?

Are you saying that most evolutionists have not critically assessed the evidence? I would agree - but then again, you probably don't know how scientists first proved that the earth goes around the sun (I certainly didn't before studying the geocentrists), but that doesn't make heliocentrism wrong. Public ignorance does not constitute scientific error. And what does your theory make of all those who, like me, had to tear ourselves away from YECism before accepting evolution? Accepting evolution was something I resisted for a time before the evidence overwhelmed me. A lie is always accepted in spite of the evidence, not because of the evidence - and if I accepted YECism in spite of the evidence, and evolution because of the evidence, what does that tell you about which is false and which is true?

That’s the beauty of God’s Word, it establishes the universals and from that we are to discover the particulars which are based on the established universals. Sadly, we like to take the discovery of the particulars and use them to establish the universals.

Isn't the universal truth of Genesis 1 that God created? And the particular truth that He did it in six days? Is it not then the creationists who have tried so hard to prove the particulars for fear of losing the universals?

So you’re saying the study of meteorology, electrostatics and gravity have an effect on and are pertinent to the Word of God in the same manner that evolution has. If this is so then I would have to begin losing respect for you.

Well, lose respect for me then - as long as you lose respect in proportion for the creationists who would claim that Behemoth and Leviathan, later on in the same passage in the book of Job, prove that humans walked with dinosaurs. The last I checked Job was part of the same Bible as Genesis (and in fact, according to conservative thinking, would have been written about as early, given its reference to Uz). Why shouldn't Job modulate meteorology for me the same way Genesis modulates evolution for you?

Isn't it simply because someone who doesn't believe in the hydrological cycle is a plain idiot, but someone who doesn't believe in evolution is just fashionably weird?

I didn’t tell you how I knew they did y, in addition to word of mouth I also have a written history. Given that it’s a mighty BIG if you’ve got there and the evidence would have to be overwhelming. That’s a pretty tall order and highly unlikely.

Genesis is not straight history to us, and there is overwhelming evidence for evolution.

How can anyone be united if we all interpret God’s Word differently? It would be utterly impossible and opens the door to all sorts of cults. 2 Timothy 3:16 - 17 states:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.​

If we are not to be unified in how we interpret it how can we teach, correct and train people in righteousness?
So are you implying that these many creeds that so many have struggled over to produce have as a basis to them an allegorical interpretation of Genesis? Say it isn't so!

I am saying that the creeds have never dictated one interpretation of Genesis over another. And quite frankly, I feel like your statements betray a lack of understanding of the width and breadth of Christian doctrine that has been produced by the Church over the ages. How can anyone be united if we interpret the Bible differently? By the grace of God, that's how! And Cardinal Bellarmine would have considered you more heretical for believing heliocentrism than you consider us heretical for accepting evolution. How are we to be unified then?

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call-- one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. ... And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
​

(Ephesians 4:1-6, 11-14 ESV)

Creationism is a human doctrine; evolutionism is a human doctrine; that God created the world is something no TE has ever disagreed with you about. And if there is a way to unity, it is not by saying it would exist if everybody who disagreed with you finally started to use their brains and read their Bibles, as some (on both camps) have been in the habit of doing. There is a far greater divide between Catholic doctrine and Protestant doctrine than between the YEC and TE's theologies.

Personalizing the Scriptures allows me to develop my own truth claims about what they say and that in turn minimizes them.

Have you ever tried what you condemn? Or do you believe what you just said because some authoritative people who've never tried it themselves say so too?

Well here are some statements made by TEs and I’ll let you be the judge:

One TE says:

We accept Paul's letters because the side that wins the war writes the history books.

Ditto the Nicene Creed. Does that make it any less Christian?

Another answers:

That's about right.

Though I think Paul is often misunderstood... He was basically writing to specific churches with specific problems, trying to bring some order to things.

Is that not how Fundamentalists themselves read the epistles? Or do women still wear veils in your church?

Another post:

Think of the Bible as allegory and metaphor, suitable for people 2000 years ago, but not really suitable today.

In what context? The Bible is indeed quite unsuitable to teach us how the world works today, no matter how much it reveals of who God is and who we are in Him.

 

[Servant222]

I dont think this is what Creationism is doing either, it's far more insidious than that. It seeks to belittle the Creation, it seeks to minimise the wonder and complexity and ingenuity inherent in the Creation, and in turn, it does all these things to the Creator.

This may be true but all posters should take this verse to heart ........

Romans 15:

5May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, 6so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We may have differences of opinion, but those differences should never tempt us to break the bonds of Christian unity.

 

[gluadys]

For was Carver's science possible because God was in him or because God is upholding the universe?

I repeat my question: was Carver able to achieve what he achieved because God lived in him, or because God upholds the universe? Our science is creditable to God only in the sense that God makes any science possible at all.

I continue to be amazed at your ability to bring out the crux of the issues so clearly.

I'd give you reps, but apparently, I have to share some more with other folks before coming back to you again.

 

[vossler]

Is God in a hurry now? I think a God who has all the time in the world - who made all the time in the world - is perfectly entitled to spend it any which way He wants, isn't He?

God isn’t constrained or limited by time but He is true to His Word. I’ve never believed time was some sort of limiting factor for Him, He does as He pleases and in the case of creation He told us how long He took before He was pleased. No, this is about what He said and whether we will take His Word on it. No matter how you try to paint it, His Word is clear and unambiguous. It is only when we introduce man derived concepts like evolution that the picture becomes muddied. Once we do that we’re saying He, through His Word, painted a picture that is completely against reality(science) and that we no longer can trust Him to be upfront with us. When that happens we should automatically call into question our hypothesis or findings, instead we seem to trust ourselves and our abilities over what God has said. We would rather call into question His simple and easy to understand Word than our own dearly held theories. Why should God deceive us with such simplicity?

Do you see the fact that He didn’t spell out all the particulars as a challenge for us to investigate the past to the point where we can come up with our own conclusion, even if that conclusion changes the universal truth of His Word?

When you consider that God bothered to create at all, knowing full well from before the beginning how the end would turn out, don't you think His taking a billion years instead of a few seconds really fades into insignificance? Is God less powerful, or less majestic, or less holy, or less God, if He gives the universe 13 billion years to play around with being itself before He finally calls man into being?

Like I said, time is an issue only because God told us how much time he took. His telling us wasn’t to inform us of His limitations, but to serve as a model for us to live by. Instead evolutionists pollute and corrupt His model by introducing their own ideas which are clearly against God’s own clearly stated universal truth. Evolution makes God a deceiver and ultimately a liar. I could care less if He wanted to take 13 billion years, the fact of the matter is though He told us it took 6 days and you are asking me to discount what He clearly and without question said in order to believe something man says. I could never do my Lord such a disservice, nor should any Christian. I’ve done more that enough terrible things to Him, knowing the truth I couldn’t imagine doing that too. So this has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not I consider God to be less holy or majestic but whether I could dismiss His written Word for something more easily digestible. By doing so it allows me to put God on the sidelines so that I can see Him more as an uninvolved caretaker who, when I need Him, comes to my rescue.

Who are we to claim that 13 billion years into history is any less "the right time" for man to emerge than 6 days after the start?

I agree this should have nothing to do with what man claims but with what God claims. I make no claims of my own but to trust and have faith in the ones He clearly stated. He told us it took 6 days and I trust Him that it did, I don’t say to myself, hmmm that just doesn’t sound plausible based on all this supposed evidence I’ve come across that says otherwise. So the real question then is who are we to claim anything contrary to that?

But I'm sure Carver would have known the limits of his methodology. If he were to step aside from the microscope, and let Richard Dawkins take a peek, he would not have expected Richard Dawkins to see anything different for being an atheist or an evolutionist. Neither should we. Can you see God in a microscope? Can you find heaven if you point a telescope at the right spot in the sky, or open hell if you drill deep enough into the earth?

How about some more pertinent questions, like, can God direct you to look at the specific pertinent things under the microscope if you ask Him? Then, can God give you the wisdom to interpret and understand what you see and then do something meaningful with it? Then when He does exactly that, do you acknowledge Him and His role? Richard Dawkins will probably not be guided by God to do any such thing and he certainly won’t acknowledge Him either way, but you and I should have an entirely different viewpoint.

Because that is essentially what the creation scientists are trying to ask us to do. They are essentially saying that to see one thing under the microscope would prove that God existed, and to see another thing under the microscope would prove that He didn't. That is where they want to place God: under the microscope, not above creation.

Those are mighty big claims for you to make, I myself couldn’t begin to know what creation scientists are trying to ask of us other than what they actually have said. All I really do know of them is that they try to uphold God’s Word. That in and of itself puts them above other scientists and therefore makes them far more credible. Still that isn’t enough, because we all know that it takes more than just mere words to substantiate something. The proof is always in the details or ones actions and creation scientist are still human, fallible and prone to mistakes or errors in judgment. What should distinguish them is, over time, the number of mistakes should diminish while the number of successes should increase.

For assume to the contrary that they recognized that God's proper place was to uphold creation, and that they weren't going to prove His existence with human genetics. Would they not then realize that any theory that explains the universe can explain it only because God allows it to?

God allows all sorts of erroneous information to be passed on. Our job is to test it against the standard of His Word, if it holds up to that then we might have the beginnings of something useful. Evolution doesn’t do that while at the same time isn’t even true science but relies on conjecture and speculation to substantiate its claims. This then makes it easily dismissed.

For was Carver's science possible because God was in him or because God is upholding the universe? No matter how good it is to praise God for science, it does not follow as a logical necessity. God sends rain on those who praise Him for it, on those who curse Him for it, and on those who don't believe He exists: He does not let man's capricious reactions to Him determine how He upholds the creation, as if He was our puppet. After all, when Jesus Himself walked the earth, and Peter acknowledged Him as Lord and Savior, Jesus replied that Peter knew this only because heaven itself had let him. If God's very own Son cannot be recognized without divine knowledge, should we be surprised that God's fingerprints all over nature are far harder to discern, and that they cannot be detected under the microscope alone?

I’m confused, are you making the claim that God’s children have no special favor with Him? If so, there are many, many Scriptures that will counter that assertion.

(About my common use of the idea of "under the microscope". I repeat my question: was Carver able to achieve what he achieved because God lived in him, or because God upholds the universe?

Both, whereas someone like Dawkins cannot say that God lives in him, He only upholds the universe he lives in. The same holds true for all the great men of God from Paul through Billy Graham, the answer would be the same.

Our life is creditable to God only in the sense that God makes any life possible at all. God makes life possible for us Christians, and we thank Him for it. God makes life possible for non-believers at all, and they spit at Him if they will even look in His face at all. As much as our life is possible because of God, it is not made possible simply because of our belief in God, as if God would make the universe play nicer with those who trust Him. As proper as it is to thank God for life, it is improper to thank our belief in God for our life - until you show that the belief is indeed creditable…

I took your quote and every time where you mentioned science I substituted life just to show you could plug in all sorts of different words here and they too would be applicable. Try athletic ability, musical prowess and even patience to name a few. Do we, as Christians, thank God for our life, science, athletic abilities, etc. or do we minimize Him but taking credit for it ourselves? As Christians this shouldn’t be too difficult to see and understand, yet clearly we don’t otherwise we would respond accordingly. Science happens to be an area where it is clearly more apparent that we don’t acknowledge God and whenever possible actually minimize Him.

Yes, claims which are supported by lots of evidence are normally not wrong, wouldn't you agree? Why should we accept a claim which has lots of evidence against it, or reject a claim which has lots of evidence for it?

I’m sorry I should have put quotations around the word evidence. My point here is that much is presented as evidence when in fact it is nothing but conjecture and speculation. It is when the line between hard evidence and conjecture and speculation gets so clouded that one can’t distinguish between the two that trouble occurs. That’s exactly where evolution exists.

Are you saying that most evolutionists have not critically assessed the evidence? I would agree - but then again, you probably don't know how scientists first proved that the earth goes around the sun (I certainly didn't before studying the geocentrists), but that doesn't make heliocentrism wrong. Public ignorance does not constitute scientific error.

Exactly because if they did they’d realize just how little evidence there really is, they’d jump off that bandwagon real quick.

And what does your theory make of all those who, like me, had to tear ourselves away from YECism before accepting evolution? Accepting evolution was something I resisted for a time before the evidence overwhelmed me. A lie is always accepted in spite of the evidence, not because of the evidence - and if I accepted YECism in spite of the evidence, and evolution because of the evidence, what does that tell you about which is false and which is true?

First of all I don’t have a theory, all I have is God’s Word. I make no claims as to how old the earth is, others have and they are biblically plausible so I agree until another theory is presented that is biblically more plausible. Ultimately I won’t know until I go home. As for you tearing yourself away from the truth, I don’t really know what to make of it. I have some theories, but I suspect they wouldn’t be well received.

Isn't the universal truth of Genesis 1 that God created? And the particular truth that He did it in six days? Is it not then the creationists who have tried so hard to prove the particulars for fear of losing the universals?

No, the universal truth isn’t just that He created but that He created in six days. It is from that foundation we’re called to find the particulars. Sure there have been some creationists who have tried too hard to prove the universals by manipulating the particulars. They, like many of us, feel the need to have all the answers in order to be credible in this world. The thing is God never requires that of us, so why do we impose it on ourselves?

Well, lose respect for me then…

I am saying that the creeds have never dictated one interpretation of Genesis over another. And quite frankly, I feel like your statements betray a lack of understanding of the width and breadth of Christian doctrine that has been produced by the Church over the ages. How can anyone be united if we interpret the Bible differently? By the grace of God, that's how! And Cardinal Bellarmine would have considered you more heretical for believing heliocentrism than you consider us heretical for accepting evolution. How are we to be unified then?

We don’t just interpret the Bible differently, if only it were that simple. No, we see the origin of the Bible differently, God’s role in producing it, our role in reading it, basically we see it from two completely different perspectives; hence our two completely different worldviews.

There is a far greater divide between Catholic doctrine and Protestant doctrine than between the YEC and TE's theologies.

I believe this is true, but will add that the TE theology is far more divisive than you suspect.

Have you ever tried what you condemn? Or do you believe what you just said because some authoritative people who've never tried it themselves say so too?

I’ve tried to develop my own, the difference is that when shown that to be so I repented and moved on, TEs for the most past don’t do so.

Ditto the Nicene Creed. Does that make it any less Christian?

Is that not how Fundamentalists themselves read the epistles? Or do women still wear veils in your church?

In what context? The Bible is indeed quite unsuitable to teach us how the world works today, no matter how much it reveals of who God is and who we are in Him.

I’ve seen your assessment and it has further clarified the TE position. Nothing further needs to be said other than thank you. I think this is the true crux of the problem between evolutionists and creationists. Evolutionists are willing to determine what parts of the Bible are suitable while creationists believe all of it is suitable.

Please don’t quote me a specific verse(s) and ask me to tell you their suitability because if you don’t believe they are suitable trust me there’s nothing I can say that will change or alter that fact.

 

[laptoppop]

And what does your theory make of all those who, like me, had to tear ourselves away from YECism before accepting evolution? Accepting evolution was something I resisted for a time before the evidence overwhelmed me. A lie is always accepted in spite of the evidence, not because of the evidence - and if I accepted YECism in spite of the evidence, and evolution because of the evidence, what does that tell you about which is false and which is true?

One point. This is actually irrelevant to the truth of the matter. I can quote many people who have gone the other way - being convinced against their will by the evidence that YEC is true. The fact that people change their viewpoint is not evidence.

 

[Assyrian]

God isn&#8217;t constrained or limited by time but He is true to His Word. I&#8217;ve never believed time was some sort of limiting factor for Him, He does as He pleases and in the case of creation He told us how long He took before He was pleased. No, this is about what He said and whether we will take His Word on it. No matter how you try to paint it, His Word is clear and unambiguous. It is only when we introduce man derived concepts like evolution that the picture becomes muddied. Once we do that we&#8217;re saying He, through His Word, painted a picture that is completely against reality(science) and that we no longer can trust Him to be upfront with us. When that happens we should automatically call into question our hypothesis or findings, instead we seem to trust ourselves and our abilities over what God has said. We would rather call into question His simple and easy to understand Word than our own dearly held theories. Why should God deceive us with such simplicity?

Do you see the fact that He didn&#8217;t spell out all the particulars as a challenge for us to investigate the past to the point where we can come up with our own conclusion, even if that conclusion changes the universal truth of His Word?
Like I said, time is an issue only because God told us how much time he took. His telling us wasn&#8217;t to inform us of His limitations, but to serve as a model for us to live by. Instead evolutionists pollute and corrupt His model by introducing their own ideas which are clearly against God&#8217;s own clearly stated universal truth. Evolution makes God a deceiver and ultimately a liar. I could care less if He wanted to take 13 billion years, the fact of the matter is though He told us it took 6 days and you are asking me to discount what He clearly and without question said in order to believe something man says. I could never do my Lord such a disservice, nor should any Christian. I&#8217;ve done more that enough terrible things to Him, knowing the truth I couldn&#8217;t imagine doing that too. So this has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not I consider God to be less holy or majestic but whether I could dismiss His written Word for something more easily digestible. By doing so it allows me to put God on the sidelines so that I can see Him more as an uninvolved caretaker who, when I need Him, comes to my rescue.
I agree this should have nothing to do with what man claims but with what God claims. I make no claims of my own but to trust and have faith in the ones He clearly stated. He told us it took 6 days and I trust Him that it did, I don&#8217;t say to myself, hmmm that just doesn&#8217;t sound plausible based on all this supposed evidence I&#8217;ve come across that says otherwise. So the real question then is who are we to claim anything contrary to that?

You seem to be running out of arguments Vossler because you just are repeating the same claim over and over again, ignoring the fact that the God who speaks to us often speaks in parables and metaphor.

It is also very inconsistent coming from someone who rejects the literal meaning of geocentrist and flat earth passages because of your adherence to 'man derived concepts' like spherical earth and heliocentrism. What does it matter whether you think Genesis is doctrinally important and the geocentrist passages aren't. You seem to think the issue is this is about what He said and we will take His Word on it and His Word is clear and unambiguous. Then be consistent about it and accept geocentrism because that is what the plain and simple meaning of his word says, or admit there are problems with literal interpretation when it contradicts science.

 

[vossler]

You seem to be running out of arguments Vossler because you just are repeating the same claim over and over again, ignoring the fact that the God who speaks to us often speaks in parables and metaphor.

I'm glad that you are catching the recurring theme throughout all my posts, God's Word is supreme, therefore no other arguments are necessary.

 

[Assyrian]

Calling God's word supreme, and ignoring what it says about geocentrism... Isn't that a bit like calling Jesus lord lord?

More seriously I am confused about you calling God''s word supreme but refusing to let it say anything to you about the rich variety of metaphor and parable God uses to speak to us. At least when it comes to Genesis and Exodus 20.

 

[shernren]

God isn’t constrained or limited by time but He is true to His Word. I’ve never believed time was some sort of limiting factor for Him, He does as He pleases and in the case of creation He told us how long He took before He was pleased. No, this is about what He said and whether we will take His Word on it. No matter how you try to paint it, His Word is clear and unambiguous. It is only when we introduce man derived concepts like evolution that the picture becomes muddied. Once we do that we’re saying He, through His Word, painted a picture that is completely against reality(science) and that we no longer can trust Him to be upfront with us. When that happens we should automatically call into question our hypothesis or findings, instead we seem to trust ourselves and our abilities over what God has said. We would rather call into question His simple and easy to understand Word than our own dearly held theories. Why should God deceive us with such simplicity?

With regard to this argument, I think in the first place that it is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth-whenever its true meaning is understood. But I believe nobody will deny that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from what its bare words signify. Hence in expounding the Bible if one were always to confine oneself to the unadorned grammatical meaning, one might fall into error. Not only contradictions and propositions far from true might thus be made to appear in the Bible, but even grave heresies and follies. Thus it would be necessary to assign to God feet, hands ans eyes, as well as corporeal and human affections, such as anger, repentance, hatred, and sometimes even the forgetting of` things past and ignorance of those to come. These propositions uttered by the Holy Ghost were set down in that manner by the sacred scribes in order to accommodate them to the capacities of the common people, who are rude and unlearned. For the sake of those who deserve to be separated from the herd, it is necessary that wise expositors should produce the true senses of such passages, together with the special reasons for which they were set down in these words. This doctrine is so widespread and so definite with all theologians that it would be superfluous to adduce evidence for it.

Hence I think that I may reasonably conclude that whenever the Bible has occasion to speak of any physical conclusion (especially those which are very abstruse and hard to understand), the rule has been observed of avoiding confusion in the minds of the common people which would render them contumacious toward the higher mysteries. Now the Bible, merely to condescend to popular capacity, has not hesitated to obscure some very important pronouncements, attributing to God himself some qualities extremely remote from (and even contrary to) His essence. Who, then, would positively declare that this principle has been set aside, and the Bible has confined itself rigorously to the bare and restricted sense of its words, when speaking but casually of the earth, of water, of the sun, or of any other created thing? Especially in view of the fact that these things in no way concern the primary purpose of the sacred writings, which is the service of God and the salvation of souls - matters infinitely beyond the comprehension of the common people.

- Galileo Galilei, 1615.

That is why.

(The context of this quotation, i.e. geocentrism, will always loom large in any discussion about scientific implications on Scriptural interpretations. But the Galileo quote above stands on its own. Your discomfort with geocentrism, I feel, reflects the fact that creationism simply can't deal with the numerous parallels involved, and quite frankly I think creationists deserve every bit of that discomfort, and that geocentrists have gotten quite a bad rap in being compared to creationists. But I respect that discomfort, for now at least. If you don't want to talk about geocentrism, we won't.)

Do you see the fact that He didn’t spell out all the particulars as a challenge for us to investigate the past to the point where we can come up with our own conclusion, even if that conclusion changes the universal truth of His Word?

We evolutionists think that the universal truth of the Bible simply cannot be changed by science. It's as simple as that. That is why Galileo said "I should judge that the authority of the Bible was designed to persuade men of those articles and propositions which, surpassing all human reasoning could not be made credible by science, or by any other means than through the very mouth of the Holy Spirit." We maintain the necessary distance between the Bible and its interpretation to realize that while interpretations like ours, come and go, the universal truth of the Bible remains unchanged.

But for you your interpretation is the universal truth. What happens then? Aren't you the one who thinks that scientific conclusions can change the universal truth of the Bible? Is the Bible that shaky, then? Would evolution's truth prove the Bible false? Would Christianity be pointless if we descended from apes? Suddenly you have tried to connect scientific conclusions: if evolution true / human descent from apes true to spiritual conclusions: then Bible false / Christianity pointless. And there you, like all the other creationists, have tried to find God under the microscope. What then? Should the creationists of yesteryears who could not prove that man was uniquely created be somehow less sure of the faith than you? And should the geocentrists of 500 years ago - and today! - be considered wrong for how they interpret Scripture? What about all those who disagree doctrinally? We still agree with you on many doctrinal matters; on what basis would you engage then with the Roman Catholics, or the Eastern Orthodox, or indeed the Ethiopian Orthodox who even have more books in their Bible than yours?

So this has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not I consider God to be less holy or majestic but whether I could dismiss His written Word for something more easily digestible. By doing so it allows me to put God on the sidelines so that I can see Him more as an uninvolved caretaker who, when I need Him, comes to my rescue.

That's cute. Have you ever met a single TE who actually "puts God on the sidelines"? Or then think of Him as someone who "when I need Him, comes to my rescue"? Quite frankly, the creationist emphasis on the godlessness of science does more for that than TEism, which after all involves a deep and intimate consideration of what the relation between God and science is.

Those are mighty big claims for you to make, I myself couldn’t begin to know what creation scientists are trying to ask of us other than what they actually have said. All I really do know of them is that they try to uphold God’s Word. That in and of itself puts them above other scientists and therefore makes them far more credible. Still that isn’t enough, because we all know that it takes more than just mere words to substantiate something.

Well, read what you yourself said:

Do you see the fact that He didn’t spell out all the particulars as a challenge for us to investigate the past to the point where we can come up with our own conclusion, even if that conclusion changes the universal truth of His Word?

That is nothing less than a grand categorical imperative for all science to agree with your interpretation of Scripture or be kicked out of your mind.

I don't know if you remember this discussion we had some time back, but it was about a thread on which I compared some of your responses to beastt's responses and found that they weren't all that dissimilar. You said that atheists pretend to assume literalistic interpretations of the Bible just because they could use those literalistic interpretations to destroy the Bible's credibility. Well, if literalistic interpretations of the Bible can be used to destroy the Bible's credibility, how do you know that the creation scientists aren't doing just that - no matter how opposite their motives may be?

God allows all sorts of erroneous information to be passed on. Our job is to test it against the standard of His Word, if it holds up to that then we might have the beginnings of something useful. Evolution doesn’t do that while at the same time isn’t even true science but relies on conjecture and speculation to substantiate its claims. This then makes it easily dismissed.

When has God ever revealed to you that He lets Creation deceive humanity on His behalf?

I took your quote and every time where you mentioned science I substituted life just to show you could plug in all sorts of different words here and they too would be applicable. Try athletic ability, musical prowess and even patience to name a few. Do we, as Christians, thank God for our life, science, athletic abilities, etc. or do we minimize Him but taking credit for it ourselves? As Christians this shouldn’t be too difficult to see and understand, yet clearly we don’t otherwise we would respond accordingly. Science happens to be an area where it is clearly more apparent that we don’t acknowledge God and whenever possible actually minimize Him.

And of course many non-Christians have athletic ability, musical prowess, and even patience. We can thank God that some of us have these things. We can thank God that some of them have these things. But I speak of not crediting our faith in God unnecessarily for these things. And quite frankly I think mine is the more reverent position; to thank God as a giver is to recognize His supreme justice in sending rain on both the wicked and the righteous, whereas to thank ourselves as the ones who have faith in God to some extent exalts ourselves and smacks of manipulating the Creator (though it often isn't).

As for the rest of your response, I'm (not? ) surprised to see you re-tread the same old tired ground. Evolutionists must be believing what they believe because they don't know the evidence for evolution and because they don't read their Bibles. I think that's pretty rich for someone who claims - no, prides himself - on not needing evidence to convince himself of his position. You have conceded before that you don't disbelieve evolution on scientific evidence. Well, why should you then be qualified in any way to judge whether or not the scientific evidence supports evolution? You cannot claim to be both ignorant and informed at once.

And as for the argument about Scripture, I honestly cannot recall one occurrence when a TE has ever been forced to admit that their position contradicts Scripture. In fact, I distinctly recall the many discussions we had with MK where he would pile commentary upon dictionary to make the Bible say something, whereas we would just take the text itself and show that it said no such thing! Look at the thread on Psalm 104 right now, and look how much more comfortably the TEs are looking at the plain words of Scripture and showing that an interpretation that puts it together with Genesis 1 is much better than an interpretation that puts it together with Genesis 7.

But which of these is really your problem? That evolution is unscientific, or that it is un-Scriptural? I submit that evolution could not possibly be the second, and has been shown quite conclusively not to be the first.

 

[Servant222]

What a wonderful comment, shernren.

Thank you.

 

[crawfish]

I'm glad that you are catching the recurring theme throughout all my posts, God's Word is supreme, therefore no other arguments are necessary.

Silly us for thinking God was supreme and His word his message to humanity.