Good morning barbarian,
I hope that you enjoyed a day of blessing and reflection on the impact of God's Son to the world.
Thanks for your response and I'd like to address a few, although I'm not likely to cover each point, but...
Even YE Creationist Kurt Wise, who (for religious reasons) doesn't think dinosaurs gave rise to birds, admits that the transitional forms are "very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory."
https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j09_2/j09_2_216-222.pdf
You know, I read that article, although I admit it was read in a sort of skimming manner, but I didn't see what you are claiming that the article proves. The article opens up with the clear statement that the 'transitional forms' themselves are only claimed to be such, depending on the interpretation of the the individual. This is exactly what I've been saying. One who studies such things looks at the evidence and notices a sort of commonality between the artifact creature and some other creature that is perhaps living today and has one of those "Ah ha!" moments and makes the claim that such evidence 'must prove' that one descended from the other. Why does such a thing prove such a conclusion? This is exactly the point that I believe the article is making by saying that such 'transitional forms' are only understood as such depending on who is doing the interpreting. For the YEC, that data could also only prove that, yes, in the creating of all the creatures that God has made, there is some commonality, and sometimes that commonality can be very, very strong. But there is no real proof that such commonality wasn't designed in the two creatures from the beginning. That is the part that must be interpreted as such.
You then wrote:
Archaeopteryx, for example, has feathers, but it's got more dinosaur characteristics than avian ones.
Ok, and so the only possibility is that archaeopteryx is some transitional form. It can't be just a different 'kind' that God created in the beginning that no longer lives on the earth, although there are still a lot of similar creatures that do? That it was just a creature that had both dinosaur and bird DNA or other design characteristics? This is, I believe, exactly what Mr. Wise is pointing out in the opening of his article. Whether the claimed similarity is a 'transitional' form or a 'designed' form, that no longer exists, is up to the one doing the interpreting.
So, it seems to me, that Mr. Wise' argument is that 'transitional forms' is an interpretive value, but the cost of resources to really study such an issue is prohibitive. Add to that, knowledge of living organisms to even say with any certainty that a particular form is a 'transitional form' isn't available to us yet, and he surmises that it's a battle not worth fighting at this point.
You also responded:
No. Long before people knew about evolution, it was clear that there were certain kinds of organisms, and that they sorted out into a family tree. Many of the same characteristics used by Linnaeus in his tree, are still used today. But today, we also have genetic data, confirming his classifications very precisely.
I don't really have any disagreement with the understanding that creatures living upon the earth can be established into families of common characteristics. I don't, however, necessarily agree with the conclusion that is made from the existence of these common characteristics that such evidence proves common descent. God seems to have covered the earth with thousands upon thousands of various living organisms and creatures. Not having any evidence of what the earth was like on the day that God commanded all those living organisms and creatures to exist, we can't, with any surety, make any claim as to the descent of the living organism kingdom. Now, is there the possibility that God has allowed, within kinds, for creatures and organisms to adapt somewhat to their immediate surroundings over the 6,000 years that the earth has existed? I would say that such a thing may very well be possible. We don't know! I honestly don't see that there is any sure way that we can know such a thing with absolute certainty. We can only look at the evidence presented and make assumptions and derive theories that 'could' explain the events of the past. Some of those assumptions and theories are based on an evolutionary worldview as the basis for all things. Some of those assumptions and theories are based on a 'designed by a Creator' worldview. This last group is then broken down into those whose assumptions and theories are based on a creation event that is only 6,000 or so years ago and another group whose assumptions and theories are viewed through a worldview lens of a God who created many millions of years ago.
God's testimony seems to me to clearly point to a creation event that occurred some 6,000 years ago. So I look at the evidence that is offered with the first cause understanding worldview, that whatever the evidence that we see today, it must be explainable within that window of time. This is the 'interpretive' assumption that Mr. Wise is writing about in the opening of his treatise.
You also responded:
You'd have to ask a creationist to do that. I think He did it the way He says. But there are different ways to look at it, and the modern YE creationism, is just the most recent revision.
So clearly, even you agree that there is an 'interpretive' problem with how we each understand what the Scriptures say. I agree with that wholeheartedly, but I also know that there is a truth. So, while there may be 6 different ways to interpret the creation event, in reality they cannot coexist in truth. They are all merely our own interpretation of what we read in the Scriptures.
For me, I understand that the term 'day' defines a period of time in which the earth makes one full rotation upon its axis. It has nothing to do with the sun and the moon even existing. All the other heavenly bodies in the whole of the universe could disappear and so long as the earth continues to spin upon its axis, the time of a 'day' will pass upon the earth. So, in the beginning when God spoke the earth, ex nihilo, to exist in a vast and empty inky black universe, 'IF' it was spinning on its axis at the moment it appeared in that black inky expanse of the universe, then the time accounted as a 'day' would begin to pass. As soon as the earth spun its first full rotation, then day 1 had passed.
In its passing, the span of time also defined as an evening and a morning would also have passed. I believe that the very reason God caused to be written to us that each of the creation days encompassed an evening and a morning was for the express purpose of our understanding that those days weren't eons or ages. They were simply the length of days pretty much like we experience today. We don't call them evening and morning any longer. We call the two divisions of the time that it takes the earth to spin on its axis...a.m and p.m. Neither of which have any relation to the sun or moon rising. It becomes a.m. at what we call midnight. While we do associate a.m. with morning, the truth is that when that half of the division comes into existence each day, it's pitch black middle of the night! Similarly, evening and morning aren't definers of the sun rising or setting, but merely two equal divisions of time for the time that it takes the earth to accomplish one full rotation upon its axis.
So for me, God has given testimony that the six days were pretty regular days in the understanding I should have of their length of time. That we should understand that there were only six of them should find confirmation in the fact that God does include that tidbit of information in a couple of other places within His Scriptures.
Then we find that from that six day beginning, God's account of the generations of man. Counting out specifically the years of life that a group of men of the first generations lived. As we add those years of life that God established, starting with one man and his son, and then a son of that first son, and a son of that next son, and so on, we can determine with a fair degree of accuracy how much time passed upon the earth from those six days of the creation event, to the flood of Noah's day. Then we find that God causes to be written a similar genealogical chain from the man, Noah, through one of his sons and then that sons, son, and so forth, another accounting of years to the days of Abraham. As we read the account of Abraham and his sons, we also find an accounting of the years of their lives.
Now, could we be off a few hundred years in our reckoning. Possibly! Once we get past the sons of Abraham, the accounting of days and years becomes a little more difficult to discern and add up. But, it most assuredly isn't thousands or dozens of thousands or millions or billions of years.
Finally, for me and how I understand the Scriptures. This realm that God created for man to live in was designed for a specific purpose. In Genesis, we read how God created this realm of life. He seems to have created it for nothing more than to make a place where a creature that He calls 'man' can live. He gave that creature, man, this place to live and His desire was to love and enjoy a relationship with that specific and particular creature of all that He created in this realm. But, and this was no surprise to God, it didn't catch Him off guard, and we know this because the Scriptures tell us that Jesus was destined as the one to save man from his sin before the foundations of the world were set in place, man's sin separated him from that kind of relationship for which God created man. God couldn't have the loving and caring relationship that He created man for because God can't abide with sin. He can't abide with sin because sin is a destroyer.
But, God's purpose and design for this realm of His creating will prevail. It's just that not everyone will enjoy that purpose and design. Some will be anxious and tormented by their lusts and their continued refusal to establish God as the authority in their lives who really knows what is best for us to enjoy an eternal existence. Others who will accept and understand God's authority and realize that His love for them is only that they receive what is best for them, just as we would love any of our children, will enjoy an eternal life with God because He sent His Son to pay the price for their sin. Their sin will be blotted out because they came to know and understand and agree with God. They then willingly took on the mantel of Jesus' provision for their sin. Those people will hear the words of God, when He says, "Now the dwelling of God is with man. They will be His people and He will be their God.
So, brief synopsis of my understanding of the Scriptures: God created, and so far has allowed some 6,000 years for the 'magnum opus' of His creative work to wake up and come to the truth of 'why' they exist. He will one day bring it all to a close, as we live life today. He will then create a new heaven and a new earth where those who chose to live as God has asked us to live, by trusting in Jesus' death for the atonement for our sin and then turn to God as the authority and love of their lives, will enjoy an eternal life of peace, comfort and provision for absolutely everything that we 'need' to live satisfied lives under His protection and provision. In that day, there will be an impassable chasm that keeps those who refused God His rightful place in their lives and those who accepted God's rightful place in their lives. Just as there will also be that same chasm separating, in that same way, the angelic realm who love and honor God and those who chose to set out on their own way.
So suffice to say, my understanding of the Scriptures doesn't allow for the time of existence of this realm of God's creating for all that science would want me to believe is the truth of all things. Yet, I know that what we see in the evidence is really there. There are fossils that we have unearthed. There is a knowledge of DNA, but whether we have all the knowledge that we need to ascertain with certainty the claims that we make about what it is showing us, isn't yet mature in our understanding. There are strata of rock and sedimentary layers in the crust of the earth. But for me, all that evidence has to be explained to have come about, within the 6,000 or so years of this realm of God's creating, as He has explained to me it all came to exist 'ex nihilo'. For me, I believe that if I could go back 50,000 years, I'd be standing somehow in a black, inky emptiness. I could turn and look in every direction and there would be nothing around me. No stars. No planets or asteroids or comets. Just thick, black, inky emptiness.
Then, if I were to live for the next 44,000 years or so, I would one day be surrounded by an inexplicable light. I believe that the source of that light would probably be God stepping into this vast and never ending expanse of thick, black, inky emptiness and command that the earth exist. Hanging all alone in that thick, black, inky emptiness of space and spinning upon its axis. It would be covered with water and other than its being spherical and covered with water, it would be without the form that we recognize today, and it would be void of all that we see upon the earth today.
For me, the Scriptures are true in their most simple understanding. God created one day and God will bring it all to a close one day. In between those two days, God has laid out His plan of salvation to all men and in His patience is allowing 'some' to come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved from His wrath.
God bless, and may you enjoy a blessed new year,
In Christ, ted
