Did God Create Fossils?

[James Wilson]

And when institutional authority is set on the faulty foundation of the inerrancy of its own writings, then apologetics perpetually stunts growth and makes a laughing stock of religion.

After my ungodly younger years, I saw a single miracle in answer to my agnostic prayer ("God, if You exist, prove it to me!"). From there I fell into Higher Criticism (tearing the Bible apart and memorizing locations of contradictory verses). In spite of the answered prayer, I searched for answers in many different religions than Christianity.

While still a nonChristian, but still searching, I attended 2 churches on the Island of Guam, where I was stationed in the U.S. Navy. At the time a revival was spreading throughout Guam (natives and military alike) with many miracles happening on a daily basis. My background in Higher Criticism had claimed that any miracles reported in the Bible were cases of superstition, misreporting, crowd hypnosis or intentional rewriting of Scripture.

However, the abundance of healing miracles, happening to people I knew, people who were often western educated, and my friends, caused me to wear myself out trying to explain them all away. Then I read the words of Christ, "The miracles that I have done, you shall do also, and greater than these."

Going to 2 churches at the time (one comfortable with Higher Criticism), I noticed that these miracles only happened with people who accepted the whole Bible. Since Christ declared Christians should be miracle workers, I discarded my Higher Criticism and accepted God's Word. However, I asked that He explain the contradictory verses to me. He did over a period of time, and I saw that most of the time, these verses were explaining a higher truth that a simple reading missed.

Then I found further reasons to believe in inerrant Scripture. Jesus said, "Heaven and Earth will pass away, but My Word will never perish." That's quite a claim since His Word has been transmitted down to us through many hands of clumsy or devious scribes who, unlike OT scribes, had no rules for preventing copy errors. But, that's the wonder of His power: He is able to use such frail and undependable servants as us humans and still keep His fantastic promises.

Another verse I enjoy on this subject is Isaiah 48:3, 5: "I have declared the former things from the beginning: They went forth from My mouth and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.... Even from the beginning I have declared it to you; before it came to pass I proclaimed it to you, lest you should say, 'My idol has done them, and my carved image and my molded image have commanded them'."

This reveals one trait that the Bible has above all other books of faith: Throughout history, God has given prophecies of what is to come and then He made those things happen. This validated that He was God, and that man could not claim that his own idols had brought these things to pass. This network of prophecies -- given and fulfilled -- bind the Bible together into a powerful net of faith and declaration of God's power.

This is a mighty statement that He has made, but He is powerful enough to fulfill it.

You may wonder about the erroneous versions of the Bible (for example, Thomas Jefferson, the hero of America, produced the Jefferson Bible removing all verses that occurred after the Resurrection, which he didn't believe in). When the footnotes in your Bible say, "Older [or more reliable] verses don't include this verse [or translate this verse like so]", remember this:
This collection of older manuscripts (4 or 5, as I recall) can't even agree on the Lord's prayer. One of them leaves out the section of the Bible that deals with the woman caught in adultery, but left room for it to be written later, should the copyist change his mind! This implies that the verse on this woman already existed, rather than being a later addition, and that he had trouble deciding whether he should tinker with the Bible or not!

One thing I've noticed: that the 'tinkered with' versions have a smaller following than the real stuff. The Majority Text, which the Textus Receptus (Greek language Bible) and King James are consistent with, is also the most read and widely spread. If Jesus's words about "My word shall never perish" are true, then how did His Word in the 5 manuscripts -- which can't even agree on the Lord's prayer -- disappear from the time of the early church fathers until work began on the 'better version' run by Westcott and Hort to replace the King James?

By the way, if all original manuscripts of the New Testament were destroyed today, all verses except two in the text of the Majority Text could be reconstructed by extensive quotes within the sermons of the early church fathers writing within a century of Christ's death!

 

[James Wilson]

Sorry, this empty or non-reply was posted when my computer glitched

 

[James Wilson]

Riberra posted "Humphreys' Fourteen Evidences for a Young World Gets Ripped
In this post, I am going to go through Answers in Genesis' "Evidences for a Young World" and dispel each and every one of them. I rely heavily on Talk Origins, but plenty of the links on more interesting topics are from other websites, so check em out!"

You misunderstand the power of assumptions.

Let's suppose you were around when Einstein posted his paper on relativity, in which he assumed that Newton's rules on the equation for mass were to simplistic... and you responded, "Newton's equation shows that mass equals force divided by acceleration!"

The only way to test two different theories with different assumptions is to determine which theory best fits the available facts. You can't assume the assumptions of your pet theory are real and that the conclusions of that theory are true. You can only appeal to non-assumption facts.

You misunderstand how long this will take. When the geologists debated with the Alvarez father-son team over whether the Yucatan meteorite destroyed the age of the dinosaurs, that debate took 10 years! Not a reply in a blog. Another lesson we learn from this 10-year argument is that just because an opponent challenges an accepted theory, that doesn't mean the opponent is wrong. But this is another problem evolutionists have when viewing an argument between an evolutionist and a creationist: the creationist is automatically assumed to be wrong.

This kind of pre-judging is not of value in science. Around the turn of the 20th Century, plate tectonics came up and was dismissed. Later it was reviewed again and accepted. Just because the prevalent theory is challenged by only one scientist doesn't mean the scientist is wrong... but this takes time to decide.

You use strawmen and then defeat the strawmen. For example, for argument number four, 'Not enough mud on the sea floor', you responded, "Apparently Mr. Humphreys is unaware that Erosion and Plate Tectonics can remove mud. Research your claims next time buddy!" Dr. Humphreys is an astrophysicist who spent his career working for a government lab. He's issued many technical papers and experienced a lot of vitriol from the evolutionists. Do you really think he would forget such obvious issues as erosion and plate tectonics and give evolutionists such as easy win? Perhaps you forgot that these effects occur in very limited areas on the seabed?

I don't have more time to go over all of your specific errors, but realize you have some systemic issues -- like ignoring assumptions, creating strawmen, and declaring the winner of an argument too quickly -- that result in a weak presentation.

 

[James Wilson]

Let's suppose you were around when Einstein posted his paper on relativity, in which he assumed that Newton's rules on the equation for mass were to simplistic... and you responded, "Newton's equation shows that mass equals force divided by acceleration!"

[Reposting of earlier post that had a typo]
Earlier I gave a rather weak argument involving a proponent of Newton debating with a young Einstein.

A better argument about ignoring foundation assumptions is the following:
Science has assumed that no argument of science can appeal to God or any higher being. It's okay to make assumptions, but the assumer must be cognizant of how those assumptions affect his results. And remember this, the longer an assumption is used and passed on, the more likely it's existence is forgotten or it is assumed to be fact.

For instance, how many times have you seen this headline?: "Scientists Prove God Does Not Exist". As far as the existence of God is concerned, scientists live in a fantasy world of their own making. They are the blind leading the blind.

A Russian astronaut went into orbit and exclaimed, "I looked for God out here and didn't find Him. Therefor He must not exist."

If you want to find God, reach out to Him. Scripture promises that "whoever seeks Me will find Me". As an agnostic, I prayed to a God I didn't believe in, "God, if You exist, prove it to me!" And He did.

"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'." (Psalms 14:1). God said, "I will prove men foolish in their wisdom." He will hide Himself from the fool who thinks he knows all there is to know.

 

[Riberra]

Riberra posted "Humphreys' Fourteen Evidences for a Young World Gets Ripped
In this post, I am going to go through Answers in Genesis' "Evidences for a Young World" and dispel each and every one of them. I rely heavily on Talk Origins, but plenty of the links on more interesting topics are from other websites, so check em out!"

You misunderstand the power of assumptions.

I am not the author of the rebuttal ....the "I" is not me .I have provided the link to the author page.
http://aigbusted.blogspot.ca/2007/09/humphreys-fourteen-evidences-for-young.html

What do you think of the rebuttal about Humphreys' claims for:

2. Too few supernova remnants:
Rebuttal
Our universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years old, and stars formed at an indefinite time after that. Most stars have a lifespan of about 10 billion years, and many are so far away (millions of light years) that we would not see their supernova until long after it happened. Lastly, supernova remnants have been observed (about 167,000 light years away), which contradicts the idea of a young universe.

Or about:
3. Comets disintegrate too quickly:
Rebuttal
It is true that comets have a lifespan of about 10,000 years; it is also true that the Kuiper belt contains them, thus it is not a problem for them to be less than 10,000 years old.

A detailed response is also available here on Tim Thompson's page:
http://www.tim-thompson.com/resp9.html


Now if you are interested in the scientific rebuttal to about all the claims made by Young Earth Creationism saying that science is wrong everytime and that their so called "arguments" cannot be challenged, see the list in the link below.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

For example here is one of the favorite argument made by YEC against science:

Scientific findings are always changing.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA250.html

Note:
My position in our debate is that God have created the Universe and the Earth eons ago.

 

[Colter]

After my ungodly younger years, I saw a single miracle in answer to my agnostic prayer ("God, if You exist, prove it to me!"). From there I fell into Higher Criticism (tearing the Bible apart and memorizing locations of contradictory verses). In spite of the answered prayer, I searched for answers in many different religions than Christianity.

While still a nonChristian, but still searching, I attended 2 churches on the Island of Guam, where I was stationed in the U.S. Navy. At the time a revival was spreading throughout Guam (natives and military alike) with many miracles happening on a daily basis. My background in Higher Criticism had claimed that any miracles reported in the Bible were cases of superstition, misreporting, crowd hypnosis or intentional rewriting of Scripture.

However, the abundance of healing miracles, happening to people I knew, people who were often western educated, and my friends, caused me to wear myself out trying to explain them all away. Then I read the words of Christ, "The miracles that I have done, you shall do also, and greater than these."

Going to 2 churches at the time (one comfortable with Higher Criticism), I noticed that these miracles only happened with people who accepted the whole Bible. Since Christ declared Christians should be miracle workers, I discarded my Higher Criticism and accepted God's Word. However, I asked that He explain the contradictory verses to me. He did over a period of time, and I saw that most of the time, these verses were explaining a higher truth that a simple reading missed.

Then I found further reasons to believe in inerrant Scripture. Jesus said, "Heaven and Earth will pass away, but My Word will never perish." That's quite a claim since His Word has been transmitted down to us through many hands of clumsy or devious scribes who, unlike OT scribes, had no rules for preventing copy errors. But, that's the wonder of His power: He is able to use such frail and undependable servants as us humans and still keep His fantastic promises.

Another verse I enjoy on this subject is Isaiah 48:3, 5: "I have declared the former things from the beginning: They went forth from My mouth and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.... Even from the beginning I have declared it to you; before it came to pass I proclaimed it to you, lest you should say, 'My idol has done them, and my carved image and my molded image have commanded them'."

This reveals one trait that the Bible has above all other books of faith: Throughout history, God has given prophecies of what is to come and then He made those things happen. This validated that He was God, and that man could not claim that his own idols had brought these things to pass. This network of prophecies -- given and fulfilled -- bind the Bible together into a powerful net of faith and declaration of God's power.

This is a mighty statement that He has made, but He is powerful enough to fulfill it.

You may wonder about the erroneous versions of the Bible (for example, Thomas Jefferson, the hero of America, produced the Jefferson Bible removing all verses that occurred after the Resurrection, which he didn't believe in). When the footnotes in your Bible say, "Older [or more reliable] verses don't include this verse [or translate this verse like so]", remember this:
This collection of older manuscripts (4 or 5, as I recall) can't even agree on the Lord's prayer. One of them leaves out the section of the Bible that deals with the woman caught in adultery, but left room for it to be written later, should the copyist change his mind! This implies that the verse on this woman already existed, rather than being a later addition, and that he had trouble deciding whether he should tinker with the Bible or not!

One thing I've noticed: that the 'tinkered with' versions have a smaller following than the real stuff. The Majority Text, which the Textus Receptus (Greek language Bible) and King James are consistent with, is also the most read and widely spread. If Jesus's words about "My word shall never perish" are true, then how did His Word in the 5 manuscripts -- which can't even agree on the Lord's prayer -- disappear from the time of the early church fathers until work began on the 'better version' run by Westcott and Hort to replace the King James?

By the way, if all original manuscripts of the New Testament were destroyed today, all verses except two in the text of the Majority Text could be reconstructed by extensive quotes within the sermons of the early church fathers writing within a century of Christ's death!

It would have helped if we never made a fetish out of the current cannon to begin with. The Bible doesn't claim to be inerrant, church authority does.

"In olden times the fetish word of authority was a fear-inspiring doctrine, the most terrible of all tyrants which enslave men. A doctrinal fetish will lead mortal man to betray himself into the clutches of bigotry, fanaticism, superstition, intolerance, and the most atrocious of barbarous cruelties. Modern respect for wisdom and truth is but the recent escape from the fetish-making tendency up to the higher levels of thinking and reasoning. Concerning the accumulated fetish writings which various religionists hold as sacred books, it is not only believed that what is in the book is true, but also that every truth is contained in the book. If one of these sacred books happens to speak of the earth as being flat, then, for long generations, otherwise sane men and women will refuse to accept positive evidence that the planet is round." UB 1955

 

[James Wilson]

Riberra disagreed with Humphreys's creationist item 2. Too few supernova remnants, as follows:
Riberra's rebuttal -- Our universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years old, and stars formed at an indefinite time after that. Most stars have a lifespan of about 10 billion years, and many are so far away (millions of light years) that we would not see their supernova until long after it happened. Lastly, supernova remnants have been observed (about 167,000 light years away), which contradicts the idea of a young universe.

Dr. Halton Arp calculated the size of the universe using red-shifted light from some stars. He had one equation with two unknowns (which can never be solved). So he assumed that all these stars were fleeing from Earth at the speed of light. Scientists acclaimed his resulting calculation of the size of the universe! Until he retracted his solution because he had assumed the answer. Then he was fired! [THIS IS ONE OF THE PROBLEMS I HAVE WITH EVOLUTIONISTS; HOW THEY ELIMINATE DISSENT WITHIN THE RANKS]

I e-mailed Dr. Arp before he died and he pointed out the paired stars shown on his website where one had red-shifted light and the other did not! It would be impossible for a star traveling near light speed to be paired with a star traveling more reasonable speeds. This observation invalidates all of your "13.7 billion years old universe", "10 billion year lifespan for stars" and "10,000 year lifespan for comets".

This illustrates the problem that assumptions play in all these enormous numbers that evolutionists throw around as though they were facts!!!!!!!

I realize that Riberra is a Christian, but he's using evolutionist arguments.

 

[James Wilson]

It would have helped if we never made a fetish out of the current cannon to begin with. The Bible doesn't claim to be inerrant, church authority does.

"In olden times the fetish word of authority was a fear-inspiring doctrine, the most terrible of all tyrants which enslave men. A doctrinal fetish will lead mortal man to betray himself into the clutches of bigotry, fanaticism, superstition, intolerance, and the most atrocious of barbarous cruelties. Modern respect for wisdom and truth is but the recent escape from the fetish-making tendency up to the higher levels of thinking and reasoning. Concerning the accumulated fetish writings which various religionists hold as sacred books, it is not only believed that what is in the book is true, but also that every truth is contained in the book. If one of these sacred books happens to speak of the earth as being flat, then, for long generations, otherwise sane men and women will refuse to accept positive evidence that the planet is round." UB 1955

The Bible doesn't use the word "Trinity" either, but clearly shows that Father/Son/Holy Spirit make up the Godhead. Peter does claim that Paul's writings were Scripture.

I tried to show that not only does the Bible claim to be the most God-guided book on earth (certainly more divinely guided than Urantia Book), but God has proved to me that believers in inerrancy have more miracles in their lives. I don't know why you are trying so hard to move away from an inerrant Bible and clinging so strongly to this Urantia Book.

 

[Riberra]

I e-mailed Dr. Arp before he died and he pointed out the paired stars shown on his website where one had red-shifted light and the other did not! It would be impossible for a star traveling near light speed to be paired with a star traveling more reasonable speeds. This observation invalidates all of your "13.7 billion years old universe", "10 billion year lifespan for stars" and "10,000 year lifespan for comets".

This illustrates the problem that assumptions play in all these enormous numbers that evolutionists throw around as though they were facts!!!!!!!

I realize that Riberra is a Christian, but he's using evolutionist arguments.

Arp pointed out the paired stars shown on his website where one had red-shifted light and the other did not!

Can you provide a link about that claim made by Alton Arp on his website ? I would like to see the location of these two stars.That would be interesting to know how far away from the Earth these two -paired- stars are.Do you know if these two stars are located in our Galaxy ?

 

[Hoghead1]

He's right, James. What's Scripture and what isn't and how its to be understood were all determined by the church. At no point does Scripture state what is or is not canon, at no point does Scripture claim it is all inerrant, at no point does Scripture claim that it is all divinely inspired, at no point dos Scripture describe a process of inspiration, at no point does Scripture describe itself as the Word of God, a title it attributes only to Christ. All those matters were settled by the church fathers. That's important to bear in mind, because nobody comes to Scripture, with a blank mind. Everyone views Scripture through a lens. For many, this lens is that provided by traditional church teachings. For many, the Bible has to be inerrant. The way the Bible says events happened is exactly the way they did happen. No question about it. Problem is, that's about the worst way to come to serious biblical scholarship. If we are gong to engage in scholarly study of the Bible, we need to come to it , with an open mind. We need to view Scripture through the lens provided by a healthy skepticism for tradition. The inerrancy of Scripture is simply a human-made theory as to how God and the Bible may be related. Lake any human-made theory, it needs tested out. Maybe it is true, maybe not. Let's see. Many are unwilling to do that. That's why I want into modern biblical studies. I wanted to be free of tradition, check things out. For me, the situation is complex. Scripture may well be inerrant in some passages, errant in others. It all depends on the specific passages and their content. I am also aware that there are about 100 major contradictions in Scripture. Divinely inspired as it may be, Scripture is still the product of a certain culture and then subject to the limitations placed on it by that culture.

 

[Hoghead1]

Also, James, you are correct about the Trinity. The Bible implies a kind of trinity, but that's it. The Bible is not a book of metaphysics, tells us very little about how God is built. Almost all the language an concepts of Trinitarian doctrines come from extra-biblical sources, especially Hellenic philosophy.

 

[miamited]

He's right, James. What's Scripture and what isn't and how its to be understood were all determined by the church. At no point does Scripture state what is or is not canon, at no point does Scripture claim it is all inerrant, at no point does Scripture claim that it is all divinely inspired, at no point dos Scripture describe a process of inspiration, at no point does Scripture describe itself as the Word of God, a title it attributes only to Christ. All those matters were settled by the church fathers. That's important to bear in mind, because nobody comes to Scripture, with a blank mind. Everyone views Scripture through a lens. For many, this lens is that provided by traditional church teachings. For many, the Bible has to be inerrant. The way the Bible says events happened is exactly the way they did happen. No question about it. Problem is, that's about the worst way to come to serious biblical scholarship. If we are gong to engage in scholarly study of the Bible, we need to come to it , with an open mind. We need to view Scripture through the lens provided by a healthy skepticism for tradition. The inerrancy of Scripture is simply a human-made theory as to how God and the Bible may be related. Lake any human-made theory, it needs tested out. Maybe it is true, maybe not. Let's see. Many are unwilling to do that. That's why I want into modern biblical studies. I wanted to be free of tradition, check things out. For me, the situation is complex. Scripture may well be inerrant in some passages, errant in others. It all depends on the specific passages and their content. I am also aware that there are about 100 major contradictions in Scripture. Divinely inspired as it may be, Scripture is still the product of a certain culture and then subject to the limitations placed on it by that culture.

Good morning hoghead,

I agree with much of what you've written about being mindful of what is tradition vs. what the Scriptures actually tell us. However, I don't appreciate the Scriptures in the same way that you do. First, I firmly believe that when Jesus told us that God's word is truth, he was referring to the Scriptures. He was referring to the written record, that at that point had come to us through God's people, the Jews. I've also studied the Scriptures at length and prayed over them and generally always sought through prayer, wisdom and knowledge through the Holy Spirit. I just throw that in to try and explain that I'm not some surface reader who has glanced through a few pieces of Scripture or been led by the nose and gained my knowledge from extrabiblical sources that one often gains from reading what others say about the things of the Scriptures.

I find that God is working on completing a plan. A perfect plan to reveal Himself to man. A plan that is wholly devoted to God's achieving a specific goal. That goal is explained to us in the Revelation of Jesus. There is coming a day when God is going to close out this existence as we know it today. He is going to judge all mankind and He will then separate the wheat from the chaff; the goats from the sheep; the good seed from the weeds. Jesus and the Scriptures use a number of comparisons to explain to us how this final division is going to be. It is an integral part of God's plan that man has the truth in order that he might make an informed decision.

In that effort, the Scriptures seem to clearly describe that God called a man by the name of Abram. He was pretty much just a regular guy in his day. We have no real information that would lead us to believe that before God's calling of Abram that he was particularly faithful or the holder of some great faith and reliance upon God. God chose him! God revealed Himself to Abraham in a very real and very special way for the purpose of beginning through Him to raise up a nation of people who would do God's bidding upon the earth. God made several covenants with Abram and changed his name to Abraham. He then used His people to bring to existence the Scriptures. Paul confirms this!

He asks a question: What value is there in being a Jew? He then answers that question with one singular example. He says much in every way. But the only example he gives is that their chief advantage was that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. So, I think it important for men to understand that everything we know about God comes to us through the work of God through the hands of His people - the Jews.

But, understanding this plan as I see it unfolding in the Scriptures, I am deeply and firmly convicted that the Scriptures, even as we hold them together today in what we call the bible have all been orchestrated and planned and purposed by God through the work of His Holy Spirit and they are perfect and they are the very words that Jesus was referring to when Jesus said, "Thy word is truth."

So, I'm not particularly in agreement when I hear people say that the bible is just a bunch of writings cobbled together by man. I firmly believe that God has not left us, even today, with a true and accurate testimony of who He is and all that He has done in this realm that He created some 6,000 years ago and how it's all going to be drawn to an end so that God accomplishes the initial purpose for why He stepped into this realm and commanded the light to appear. That one day God is going to separate the wheat from the tares and the wheat he will store in his storehouse where he will be their God and they will be His people. God will also, at this time, cleanse the angelic realm which He also created.

So, I'm of a mind that the Scriptures are inerrant; that they are not the work of men in 'what' they tell us and reveal to us about God and His purposes and plan. That there are not any real contradictions in the Scriptures. The places that we think there to be a contradiction are explained in two ways. First, we may not understand what we're being told. Second, we are holding the account of an event that may be told by two different writers to a microscopic and fine edged sword (this especially applies where numbers and counts may have some differences of the same account). Finally, that there may be a very, very few places where over the centuries a copyist error may have been made or misread by those who have handed the translations that we hold today to us. But the Scriptures - the words written down by the hands of men through the guidance of the Holy Spirit - are without error.

As far as these very, very few places where some error may now be in the books we call the bible today, every one of them that has been brought to my attention are of fairly worthless value and I'm not about to generalize that because I have found an error of some unimportant piece of Scripture, then the whole of the work is suspect. A lot of the old covenant is an historical account of God's dealing with His people, Israel and how they reacted and behaved under God's instruction and guidance. It is something that we need to be aware of, but it is not something that I hold, for the most part, to the same scrutiny of perfection in what they tell us. The fact that there may have been 50 or 500 men to attack Ai is not particularly important to the purpose of the Scriptures.

That's my understanding. That's the lens that I use.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[James Wilson]

Arp pointed out the paired stars shown on his website where one had red-shifted light and the other did not!

Can you provide a link about that claim made by Alton Arp on his website ? I would like to see the location of these two stars.That would be interesting to know how far away from the Earth these two -paired- stars are.Do you know if these two stars are located in our Galaxy ?

http://www.haltonarp.com/articles

 

[James Wilson]

He's right, James. What's Scripture and what isn't and how its to be understood were all determined by the church. At no point does Scripture state what is or is not canon, at no point does Scripture claim it is all inerrant, at no point does Scripture claim that it is all divinely inspired, at no point dos Scripture describe a process of inspiration, at no point does Scripture describe itself as the Word of God, a title it attributes only to Christ. All those matters were settled by the church fathers. That's important to bear in mind, because nobody comes to Scripture, with a blank mind. Everyone views Scripture through a lens. For many, this lens is that provided by traditional church teachings. For many, the Bible has to be inerrant. The way the Bible says events happened is exactly the way they did happen. No question about it. Problem is, that's about the worst way to come to serious biblical scholarship. If we are gong to engage in scholarly study of the Bible, we need to come to it , with an open mind. We need to view Scripture through the lens provided by a healthy skepticism for tradition. The inerrancy of Scripture is simply a human-made theory as to how God and the Bible may be related. Lake any human-made theory, it needs tested out. Maybe it is true, maybe not. Let's see. Many are unwilling to do that. That's why I want into modern biblical studies. I wanted to be free of tradition, check things out. For me, the situation is complex. Scripture may well be inerrant in some passages, errant in others. It all depends on the specific passages and their content. I am also aware that there are about 100 major contradictions in Scripture. Divinely inspired as it may be, Scripture is still the product of a certain culture and then subject to the limitations placed on it by that culture.

You have given a restatement of some of the premises of Higher Criticism that have been around for about a century.

One of Billy Graham's best friends discovered Higher Criticism shortly after they graduated from seminary. He tried to convince Billy about the truths of Higher Criticism.

At that time, Billy knew little of the weaknesses of Higher Criticism, but he had a very effective defense: "All I know is that when I preach the Word of God, the Holy Spirit moves!"

Today, everyone knows Billy Graham. Few remember the man to tried to talk Billy out of becoming the man he became.

As I testified earlier, I joined the Navy and went to Guam after having taken a college-level course in Higher Criticism. And I believed it completely. But what I saw there -- both the revival and the miracles of healing -- convinced me there was no error in the Bible's representation of miracles (a key claim of Higher Criticism is that the miracles of the Bible never happened).

I can understand your enthusiasm for mixing man's wisdom with Scripture, but it leaves you without guidance in a dangerous supernatural world (that is, demons and deception everywhere) and without the power of God. Jesus said, "You shall do the things that I have done and greater than these."

Do you want the paltry comfort of man's wisdom or the power of God? You choose.

 

[James Wilson]

Good morning hoghead,

I agree with much of what you've written about being mindful of what is tradition vs. what the Scriptures actually tell us. However, I don't appreciate the Scriptures in the same way that you do. First, I firmly believe that when Jesus told us that God's word is truth, he was referring to the Scriptures. He was referring to the written record, that at that point had come to us through God's people, the Jews. I've also studied the Scriptures at length and prayed over them and generally always sought through prayer, wisdom and knowledge through the Holy Spirit. I just throw that in to try and explain that I'm not some surface reader who has glanced through a few pieces of Scripture or been led by the nose and gained my knowledge from extrabiblical sources that one often gains from reading what others say about the things of the Scriptures.

I find that God is working on completing a plan. A perfect plan to reveal Himself to man. A plan that is wholly devoted to God's achieving a specific goal. That goal is explained to us in the Revelation of Jesus. There is coming a day when God is going to close out this existence as we know it today. He is going to judge all mankind and He will then separate the wheat from the chaff; the goats from the sheep; the good seed from the weeds. Jesus and the Scriptures use a number of comparisons to explain to us how this final division is going to be. It is an integral part of God's plan that man has the truth in order that he might make an informed decision.

In that effort, the Scriptures seem to clearly describe that God called a man by the name of Abram. He was pretty much just a regular guy in his day. We have no real information that would lead us to believe that before God's calling of Abram that he was particularly faithful or the holder of some great faith and reliance upon God. God chose him! God revealed Himself to Abraham in a very real and very special way for the purpose of beginning through Him to raise up a nation of people who would do God's bidding upon the earth. God made several covenants with Abram and changed his name to Abraham. He then used His people to bring to existence the Scriptures. Paul confirms this!

He asks a question: What value is there in being a Jew? He then answers that question with one singular example. He says much in every way. But the only example he gives is that their chief advantage was that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. So, I think it important for men to understand that everything we know about God comes to us through the work of God through the hands of His people - the Jews.

But, understanding this plan as I see it unfolding in the Scriptures, I am deeply and firmly convicted that the Scriptures, even as we hold them together today in what we call the bible have all been orchestrated and planned and purposed by God through the work of His Holy Spirit and they are perfect and they are the very words that Jesus was referring to when Jesus said, "Thy word is truth."

So, I'm not particularly in agreement when I hear people say that the bible is just a bunch of writings cobbled together by man. I firmly believe that God has not left us, even today, with a true and accurate testimony of who He is and all that He has done in this realm that He created some 6,000 years ago and how it's all going to be drawn to an end so that God accomplishes the initial purpose for why He stepped into this realm and commanded the light to appear. That one day God is going to separate the wheat from the tares and the wheat he will store in his storehouse where he will be their God and they will be His people. God will also, at this time, cleanse the angelic realm which He also created.

So, I'm of a mind that the Scriptures are inerrant; that they are not the work of men in 'what' they tell us and reveal to us about God and His purposes and plan. That there are not any real contradictions in the Scriptures. The places that we think there to be a contradiction are explained in two ways. First, we may not understand what we're being told. Second, we are holding the account of an event that may be told by two different writers to a microscopic and fine edged sword (this especially applies where numbers and counts may have some differences of the same account). Finally, that there may be a very, very few places where over the centuries a copyist error may have been made or misread by those who have handed the translations that we hold today to us. But the Scriptures - the words written down by the hands of men through the guidance of the Holy Spirit - are without error.

As far as these very, very few places where some error may now be in the books we call the bible today, every one of them that has been brought to my attention are of fairly worthless value and I'm not about to generalize that because I have found an error of some unimportant piece of Scripture, then the whole of the work is suspect. A lot of the old covenant is an historical account of God's dealing with His people, Israel and how they reacted and behaved under God's instruction and guidance. It is something that we need to be aware of, but it is not something that I hold, for the most part, to the same scrutiny of perfection in what they tell us. The fact that there may have been 50 or 500 men to attack Ai is not particularly important to the purpose of the Scriptures.

That's my understanding. That's the lens that I use.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

Good words, Ted.

I'd like to add to this subject:

Galatians 3:16 made an important statement about Jesus based upon one word written on a scroll of Old Testament scripture: "seed". Paul said it didn't say "seeds" but "seed". So, important doctrine came from a scroll trustworthy enough to distinguish between plural and singular.

Jesus quoted extensively from the Old Testament, particularly Deuteronomy. He trusted the words written on a scroll also.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 states the Words of God: "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart; you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up." If God wasn't going to help man preserve these words to all generations, He wouldn't have commanded His people to do something impossible to do.

Revelation 22:18-19 warns, "For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." Some Christians think these words apply to the whole New Testament. I believe they can only cover Revelation.

Lastly, if we can't trust the Word of God (the Bible), how can we be sure if we're saved? What verses of salvation are correctly stated and what not? And how to we detect falsehood -- whether demonic or human-based -- in the churches around us?

BTW, I'm not a proponent of my-denomination-only. In my church we pray for all the churches in our city, regardless of denomination. I do believe there are variations in the power of God present in the different churches and that a few churches do not know the way of salvation, for example, the Mormon Church. But I do know that God is speaking in the Mormon Church and offering the gift of salvation to those who are willing to ignore the standard teaching of that church. A Mormon friend of mine handed me a treatise written by a Mormon in the hierarchy that clearly stated the way of salvation. May God bless that Mormon to help him spread the words of salvation through his brothers and sisters.

 

[Colter]

The Bible doesn't use the word "Trinity" either, but clearly shows that Father/Son/Holy Spirit make up the Godhead. Peter does claim that Paul's writings were Scripture.

I tried to show that not only does the Bible claim to be the most God-guided book on earth (certainly more divinely guided than Urantia Book), but God has proved to me that believers in inerrancy have more miracles in their lives. I don't know why you are trying so hard to move away from an inerrant Bible and clinging so strongly to this Urantia Book.

I had a miracle in my life and I've always known the Bible says ridiculous things that aren't true. I'm not sure why you think the people capable of killing the Son of God were incapable of imperfection. I don't know why you think the men of the church are perfect?????

Anyway, for me I see God as being "inerrant", but the writings about God come through the mind of man and are conditioned by the age in which they were created.

 

[Riberra]

http://www.haltonarp.com/articles

I went on the link you posted and there is nothing about two paired quasars where one had red-shifted light and the other did not!.In fact every quasars that Arp have studied are red shifted.Do you know that every quasars studied by Arp are located at a distance of many billions light years away from the Earth.

The article you refer is probably the one below:Talking about assumption... you must know that Arp have never presented a method by which Quasars or Galaxies may produce an intrinsic redshift.... rather than the conventional velocity redshifts explanation !

Arp claims:
Faint Quasars Give Conclusive Evidence for Non-Velocity Redshifts
http://www.haltonarp.com/articles/faint_quasars_give_conclusive_evidence_for_non_velocity_redshifts


It seem that you need to refresh your notions about why galaxies are moving away in an expanding Universe...
You can begin with the article below...
http://www.universetoday.com/122768/how-are-galaxies-moving-away-faster-than-light/

 

[James Wilson]

I went on the link you posted and there is nothing about two paired quasars where one had red-shifted light and the other did not!.In fact every quasars that Arp have studied are red shifted.Do you know that every quasars studied by Arp are located at a distance of many billions light years away from the Earth.

The article you refer is probably the one below:Talking about assumption... you must know that Arp have never presented a method by which Quasars or Galaxies may produce an intrinsic redshift.... rather than the conventional velocity redshifts explanation !

Arp claims:
Faint Quasars Give Conclusive Evidence for Non-Velocity Redshifts
http://www.haltonarp.com/articles/faint_quasars_give_conclusive_evidence_for_non_velocity_redshifts


It seem that you need to refresh your notions about why galaxies are moving away in an expanding Universe...
You can begin with the article below...
http://www.universetoday.com/122768/how-are-galaxies-moving-away-faster-than-light/

I'm not an astrophysicist, but I believe this paragraph deals with the issue you're looking for in http://www.haltonarp.com/articles/faint_quasars_give_conclusive_evidence_for_non_velocity_redshifts:
"But if we compute once more the probability of the author’s redshifts falling this close to a given galaxy, alignment, similarity of redshifts etc. one gets 3.5 chances in 10 million of being accidental! This is hardly "a posteriori" since my Catalogue of Discordant Redshifts (Apeiron 2003) lists many similar pairs with even less probability of being chance. Then in the same Messenger issue on p.36 there is a GRB/Supernova of z = .691 connected to a host galaxy of z = .472. They hasten to inform us that the latter is a "foreground galaxy" but as the picture below shows, there is a continuous luminous connection between the two (Masetti et al. 2003, A&A 405, 465..)"

How do you know that the quasars are "many billions of light years away from the Earth", since Arp was showing many examples of non-velocity redshifts?

 

[James Wilson]

I had a miracle in my life and I've always known the Bible says ridiculous things that aren't true. I'm not sure why you think the people capable of killing the Son of God were incapable of imperfection. I don't know why you think the men of the church are perfect?????

Anyway, for me I see God as being "inerrant", but the writings about God come through the mind of man and are conditioned by the age in which they were created.

What did I say that implies the men of the church are perfect? Or that the people capable of killing the Son of God were perfect?

 

[Riberra]

I'm not an astrophysicist, but I believe this paragraph deals with the issue you're looking for in http://www.haltonarp.com/articles/faint_quasars_give_conclusive_evidence_for_non_velocity_redshifts:
"But if we compute once more the probability of the author’s redshifts falling this close to a given galaxy, alignment, similarity of redshifts etc. one gets 3.5 chances in 10 million of being accidental! This is hardly "a posteriori" since my Catalogue of Discordant Redshifts (Apeiron 2003) lists many similar pairs with even less probability of being chance. Then in the same Messenger issue on p.36 there is a GRB/Supernova of z = .691 connected to a host galaxy of z = .472. They hasten to inform us that the latter is a "foreground galaxy" but as the picture below shows, there is a continuous luminous connection between the two (Masetti et al. 2003, A&A 405, 465..)"

How do you know that the quasars are "many billions of light years away from the Earth", since Arp was showing many examples of non-velocity redshifts?

Do you know that z= .691 and z = .472 are about two measured redshift ....Your point was that Arp have found two "paired" quasars where one quasar showed a redshift and the other no redshift at all...That is not what the article is saying:
Other examples of measured redshift in Arp article you have linked.
http://www.haltonarp.com/articles/faint_quasars_give_conclusive_evidence_for_non_velocity_redshifts

In the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey, 243 redshifts of objects fainter than 25.5 mag. were observed. Remarkably, two of them turned out to be very high redshift at z = 4.800 and z = 4.882. Even more remarkably these two fell only 3 and 1.5 arcsec on either side of an emisssion line galaxy of z = .733. (The ESO Messenger No. 118, p.49 and Vanzella et al. astro-ph/0406591.) The picture shown below is probably sufficient to convince most people that this is another pair of ejected, intrinsic redshift quasars.

You don't seem to know what quasars are:
http://www.kidsastronomy.com/quasar.htm