Sinai,
It sounds as if we are in agreement regarding the nature of science. Cool.
Your post did not ask for evidence of the age of the earth, you specifically asked me the following:
"Identify those scriptures that you think require you to deny the scientific evidence that the universe is billions of years old, and to state why you think that each scripture requires you to take that position."
My quoting of the passage from Romans honors that request sufficiently. The first 11 chapters of Genesis also require me to deny billions of years, for that matter, as well as Job's lesson regarding having expectations of God's need to explain His ways to man and many excerpts from the Psalms that touch on creation and the Flood. What exactly are you expecting? No one is going to pull out a verse written x,000 years ago that is going to state an age that depends on a perspective from the time of the reading of it.
The Bible was never intended to be a science textbook per se. It is not a scientific treatise designed to defend itself. Everything written in its pages assumes that the reader would not dare to question what preceded and what follows. Creationists such as myself specifically evaluate all theoretical assertions of those laboring in science in relation to their potential to do harm to the clear teachings of the Word. That's why we have no problem with natural selection, for example, besides the obvious fact that it also satisfies the requirement of direct observation. Natural selection does no violence to Scripture. The chronicling of God's interaction with the world and its inhabitants, the consumation of His plan of salvation in Messiah and the teachings of Messiah and those he left to establish the Church are what is written. In those words order and sequence, cause and effect are clear. If one begins to arbitrarily insert huge periods of time where no mention of such is made and asserting that events occured in a contradictory progression, it takes what begins as ordered Truth and distorts it to the point where it loses all meaning and logical sense. God's Word documents a specific order to Creation and places the fall of man and the entrance of sin into nature in precise cadence. Evolutionary theory changes that progression of events, placing death before sin, thus invalidating the cause and effect so carefully outlined and consequently, the solution - Christ. As a Christian I am bound to honor God's Word as it is written and am forbidden to tinker with it. Grave penalties are assigned to those who dare to do so - and yes, I shake in fear at the mere thought of those penalties. Anything that proceeds from the mind of man that contradicts or changes one single jot of the Word of God will immediately be rejected by me. The theme found in the Word is the same from start to finish: Choose God or choose man. I tell you now that the latter will never be an option for me. No matter how plausible something may look, if it does harm to the Word, I can rest assured that I am merely not perceiving it correctly, and so will discard it without a care.
Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, "THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, AND PREVAIL WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED."
You see, it has nothing to do with evidence put forth - it is a simple matter of deference to the Word, which by far surpasses anything that could possibly be conceived in the mind of man. That is why no words of persuasion will move me so much as a hairsbreadth on this issue, no matter how eloquently presented it may be.
It sounds as if we are in agreement regarding the nature of science. Cool.
Your post did not ask for evidence of the age of the earth, you specifically asked me the following:
"Identify those scriptures that you think require you to deny the scientific evidence that the universe is billions of years old, and to state why you think that each scripture requires you to take that position."
My quoting of the passage from Romans honors that request sufficiently. The first 11 chapters of Genesis also require me to deny billions of years, for that matter, as well as Job's lesson regarding having expectations of God's need to explain His ways to man and many excerpts from the Psalms that touch on creation and the Flood. What exactly are you expecting? No one is going to pull out a verse written x,000 years ago that is going to state an age that depends on a perspective from the time of the reading of it.
The Bible was never intended to be a science textbook per se. It is not a scientific treatise designed to defend itself. Everything written in its pages assumes that the reader would not dare to question what preceded and what follows. Creationists such as myself specifically evaluate all theoretical assertions of those laboring in science in relation to their potential to do harm to the clear teachings of the Word. That's why we have no problem with natural selection, for example, besides the obvious fact that it also satisfies the requirement of direct observation. Natural selection does no violence to Scripture. The chronicling of God's interaction with the world and its inhabitants, the consumation of His plan of salvation in Messiah and the teachings of Messiah and those he left to establish the Church are what is written. In those words order and sequence, cause and effect are clear. If one begins to arbitrarily insert huge periods of time where no mention of such is made and asserting that events occured in a contradictory progression, it takes what begins as ordered Truth and distorts it to the point where it loses all meaning and logical sense. God's Word documents a specific order to Creation and places the fall of man and the entrance of sin into nature in precise cadence. Evolutionary theory changes that progression of events, placing death before sin, thus invalidating the cause and effect so carefully outlined and consequently, the solution - Christ. As a Christian I am bound to honor God's Word as it is written and am forbidden to tinker with it. Grave penalties are assigned to those who dare to do so - and yes, I shake in fear at the mere thought of those penalties. Anything that proceeds from the mind of man that contradicts or changes one single jot of the Word of God will immediately be rejected by me. The theme found in the Word is the same from start to finish: Choose God or choose man. I tell you now that the latter will never be an option for me. No matter how plausible something may look, if it does harm to the Word, I can rest assured that I am merely not perceiving it correctly, and so will discard it without a care.
Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, "THAT YOU MAY BE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR WORDS, AND PREVAIL WHEN YOU ARE JUDGED."
You see, it has nothing to do with evidence put forth - it is a simple matter of deference to the Word, which by far surpasses anything that could possibly be conceived in the mind of man. That is why no words of persuasion will move me so much as a hairsbreadth on this issue, no matter how eloquently presented it may be.
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