Do you believe in a literal 7 day creation?

California Tim,

Agreed. The Genesis account is not poetry. It's mythology.

California Tim said:

Do you test the physical evidence by Biblical standards, or do you test Biblical standards by physical evidence?​

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Wow! That is a deep question. I will really need to think about that one. I don't think the problem is the evidence, but rather the interpretations drawn from the evidence. Do these interpretations get tested by Biblical standards or are Biblical standards tested by these interpretations. I fear that in much of the YEC/TE debate that the latter is very much the case.

Too much of science is interpretive, that is then subsequently presented as fact, rather than as theory still under testing.

We can all see the strata in rocks, we can readily observe the signal delay in radio transmissions from the Moon or Mars, or rocket probes. There is no argument that these things exist. The problem then comes when we interpret these things to conclude other things.

For example; when you measure the current speed of radio transmissions (similar or same as light) from near objects (eg. our Solar system), and see that it matches with the time delay of signals, what does this prove. Well it proves that yes that is the speed over that distance, in this region, at this time. This is mathematical and factual.

However, when you then say that therefore distant stars are this far away, or the universe is this old because of the time necessary to travel that huge distance, you have made some huge assumptions. You have assumed that the speed is constant over long periods of time, that it is unaffected by varying matter present within the universe, and the gravity effect of a multitude of bodies, and no doubt a whole lot more assumptions to get to the conclusion that you have solid evidence of an old Earth.

Now if ALL of your assumptions are correct, then your conclusion could be valid....BUT. It only takes one assumption to be wrong for the conclusion to be wrong. This is why science requires so much 'faith' (I know scientists hate that word), because in the evolutionary sciences there always seems to be the need to accept these many assumptions in order to participate in the scientific discussion or community.

So would we really want to judge Biblical standards by this faith based interpretive science. I think not.

Personally, I came to conclude that Genesis must be non-literal long before I had concluded that the earth was old or that evolution was correct, based purely on the text itself, along with a knowledge of the history, literature and culture of the times.

And, so did many Christians from the earliest days, having nothing at all to do with any influence by science or its theories. It is a bit of a cop-out to discount a differing interpretation as simply letting "worldly" influences override true interpretation. This is simply begging the question.

But, even still, there is definitely room for letting the evidence of God's Creation (one form of God's communication to us) inform our perspective on the evidence of God's Scripture (another form of communication to us). THis is what the Church had to do with geocentrism. It read the Scripture to literally mean that the earth was stationary and that the sun and stars revolved around it. This was not just a literal interpretation issue, but had (to their mind) significant theological importance. Regardless, the evidence from God's Creation was simply contrary to their interpretation of Scripture.

So, in the end, the the Church had to abandon its traditional reading, as well as the associated theology, and revise it in light of the new evidence being presented by science.

This is where we are today with an old earth and evolution. Most of the Church has, to the extent that they read Genesis 1 and 2 literally (and not all did, of course), reconsidered that viewpoint. But some are still holding out. Much as there are still geocentrists around today who insist that the earth IS fixed and the sun and stars DO revolve around it. Literally. They chastise all the other Creationists who have so blithely compromised with the heliocentrists.

The Bible says it, they believe, and that settles it.

Sound familiar?

I really think Tim is on the right track in this debate. As a Christian Bible believing faith community, what Scriptural references, what teachings of major doctrines lead you to believe that Genesis 1-2 is mythologicol, allegorical, poetic, or otherwise?

What language construction, information, confirming Scriptures are missing that prevent you from believing it to be literal, historical and accurate?

How much of outside reference works, Christian and non-Christian do you rely upon for your position?

I think the answers to these questions would be very enlightening.

GodAtWorkToday said:

I really think Tim is on the right track in this debate. As a Christian Bible believing faith community, what Scriptural references, what teachings of major doctrines lead you to believe that Genesis 1-2 is mythologicol, allegorical, poetic, or otherwise?

What language construction, information, confirming Scriptures are missing that prevent you from believing it to be literal, historical and accurate?

How much of outside reference works, Christian and non-Christian do you rely upon for your position?

I think the answers to these questions would be very enlightening.

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Read through the threads on this forum and you will have all those questions answered. It gets tiring having to rehash the same points over and over.

In short, what I can say is that when I read Genesis 1 and 2 it reads nothing at all like literal history. Not in the least, no more than Psalms. So, I have no reason at all to start with a presumption of literalness no more than I would start with such a presumption for Psalms. It reads exactly like a symbolic, allegorical presentation, so why would I NOT accept it that way? The important theological truths are just as profound and true under a non-literal reading, so there is no issue there. The fact that it happens to also agree with the evidence from God's Creation itself is just a further clincher for me, and not a primary motivation for the interpretation.

The literary styles of the first few chapters (up through Babel) vary, but as a group they vary even more than the next section, the stories of the Patriarchs, which in turn vary from the histories, which in turn, etc, etc.

Why would we insist on a similar interpretation for texts which vary so widely in style and presentation?

But again, a perusal of the various threads should let you understand more where so many Christians are coming from. You do realize that most Christians DON'T read Genesis 1 and 2 literally, yes? This is not some fringe liberal element of the Body of Christ.

Vance said:

THis is what the Church had to do with geocentrism. It read the Scripture to literally mean that the earth was stationary and that the sun and stars revolved around it. This was not just a literal interpretation issue, but had (to their mind) significant theological importance. Regardless, the evidence from God's Creation was simply contrary to their interpretation of Scripture.

So, in the end, the the Church had to abandon its traditional reading, as well as the associated theology, and revise it in light of the new evidence being presented by science.

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I see the similarities that you mentioned but I think there are some significant differences between that debate and this one.

For one, the other night I was going to say that there was no Biblical evidence for a 'geo', and there was for a 'helio' however, from the searches I did I found NO Scripture verse that was really descriptive of either system. Therefore this was an interpretation based upon current belief and teaching, and not upon Scriptural foundation. It was therefore ripe for being wrong.

Many of the verses that might have tried to use are not at all foundational to doctrine, although I guess there would have been attempts to use Genesis 1, but it neither confirms nor denies either system.

On the contrary, the current discussion is all about the creative process as described in the narrative of Genesis 1-2.

So we have the day-agers trying to make them very long days, we have the gappers saying it was 7 but happened ions ago, and the allegorical mythicists who say its just a poetic story all to try and agree with the interpretive scientists who have YET to come close to proving their theories.

And for that final group, you open yourself to a huge theological can of worms, like;
When did sin enter the world;
By what process;
Who was at fault;
If its only a mythological Adam, why did we need a REAL Jesus?
Why was the earth cursed, because of a myth? Every child-bearing mother would have a right to be angry at God.
And I'm sure this list could go on.

Vance said:

Read through the threads on this forum and you will have all those questions answered. It gets tiring having to rehash the same points over and over.
...
But again, a perusal of the various threads should let you understand more where so many Christians are coming from. You do realize that most Christians DON'T read Genesis 1 and 2 literally, yes? This is not some fringe liberal element of the Body of Christ.

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I will over time get into the other threads and I'm sure read various arguments, but I was more interested in it from a personal point of view. What things for YOU, lead you to that point. (Which you have answered).

Might I say though that your physical evidence of God's creation point is weakened by the fact that it is not evidence that you have but rather evolutionary scientists interpretation of that evidence as you confirmation. Rather risky I would think.

I don't know that I would agree with your last statement, unless you have statistics to prove that. For the most part I see most TE's coming from denominations that are very liberal, often very acadaemic in their approach to the Scripture, who usually have doctrines that sideline a whole chunk of the Bible, and very often have dwindling populations worldwide of adherants.

In contrast, and yes I know it is a generalisation, but most YEC's come from faith based denominations, that uphold the authority of Bible, the power of the Gospel, and the continuing work of the Holy Spirit. These denominations in general have growing populations worldwide, and are accounting for an ever increasing percentage of the Christian body worldwide (not just in the US).

GodAtWorkToday said:

ennumerated by Didaskomenos
And for that final group, you open yourself to a huge theological can of worms, like;
1) When did sin enter the world;
2) By what process;
3) Who was at fault;
4) If its only a mythological Adam, why did we need a REAL Jesus?
5) Why was the earth cursed, because of a myth? Every child-bearing mother would have a right to be angry at God.
And I'm sure this list could go on.

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1) & 2) Sin is an emergent problem, based upon selfishness. God-conscious people who commit one act of selfishness bring sin into their world.
3) "The soul that sins, it must die." Adam and Eve are everyman and everywoman. Obviously, however, there must have been one God-conscious primitive who first rebelled against Him. I just don't feel comfortable with the federal headship model.
4) Think about it for a second. Jesus died for every one of us who sins. Adam is a type of every person who historically sins, and because we sin we need a historical Redeemer.
5) Two points: the earth may well have been cursed because of the first sin (as I've said, there must have been one), but on the other hand, the state of the world may well be a natural one. The world falls short of the ideal, and so the myth explains this by calling it cursed. I'm unsure which I believe.

We could do this all day long.

For one, the other night I was going to say that there was no Biblical evidence for a 'geo', and there was for a 'helio' however, from the searches I did I found NO Scripture verse that was really descriptive of either system. Therefore this was an interpretation based upon current belief and teaching, and not upon Scriptural foundation. It was therefore ripe for being wrong.

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the reason you dont see the persuasiveness of the geocentric Biblical arguments is that you dont have the world and life view built on them but rather are deeply involved in its opposite heliocentricism.

the solution is to either read the modern geos linked to above or read the original material from the debates at the time.

my current research interest is in the slavery debate in the 1820-1860 in the southern Presbyterian church. i have read 100's of sermons, about 80% proslavery. people deeply believed things were Biblical that most of us find abhorrent today, but that doesnt mean they twisted or misused Scripture to get there. what appears to happen, is the same reason you just dont see the geocentricism of the Bible.----competing world views commitment has overridden the plain literal meaning of Scripture for you(on geo) and for them(anti-slavery).

The beginnings of Genesis are written for a very simple minded individual. A six year old could understand it. This is partly the reasoning behind me abandoning the six day creation story as being literal history. I have children's books that I read my kids, and the similarity in simplicity between Genesis 1 and 2 and these books for children, are astounding. Genesis 1 and 2 is not meant to tell us history. Its meant to tell a story, which is true.

God at work:

My first point would be that I would agree that the Bible does not necessarily describe a geocentric solar system. I think the geocentrists, being the entire Church in the past, and the modern ones are just mis-interpreting Scripture. The point is that they DO think that the Scripture points directly to a geocentric solar system, and believe this as strongly as you believe the Scripture points directly to a special creation and a young earth. From my perspective, both are misinterpretations. Check out this link to get a better idea where the geocentrists are coming from:

http://www.christianforums.com/t1102004-what-geocentrists-say-.html

As for the scientific evidence, it is a bit of a cop-out to write off 150 years of scientific investigation and a theory that is supported and confirmed by multiple disciplines despite incredible efforts to show that is can not be correct, with just a wave of the “just interpretation” hand. I would challenge you to read up on evolution from a source other than Creationist sources for the reasons stated in my signature line. Here is a great place to start. It provides answers to the basic YEC questions, as well as links to more detailed answers. You may not agree with the answers, but at least you will know what they are and we can "cut to the chase":

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html

And the choice really is between two different forms of human interpretation: one of God’s Word, and one of God’s Creation. Both can be fallible and there is no reason why one would be more fallible than the other. Among the 99.5% of scientists in the relevant fields who accept evolution and reject YEC’ism (yes, this is an actual statistic) is the vast majority of Christian scientists as well. AiG has spent a great deal of time trying to provide a list of “scientists” who agree with the YEC position, or even just disbelieve the theory of evolution, and the best they have come up with is a pitiful handful (maybe 50 or so), most of which are not scientists in the relevant fields and which make up a tiny fraction of 1% of the entire scientific community. The Biblical interpretation is also performed by humans, and so just as subject to fallibility (see geocentrism above).


http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Evolution/index.html - a group of Christian scientists who have written essays on a variety of relevant issues


As for the liberalness of those who believe in theistic evolution, I attend an Assembly of God Church, where I teach Sunday School. My cousin is the youth pastor. My father was an Assembly of God minister for 25 years until he retired. I am an ultra-conservative on almost every moral and social issue, and a religious conservative overall. I am a Bible-believing, Spirit-filled, Spirit-led Christian. Ask Herev (a pastor) and others here about their level of liberalism as well. Again, an easy cop-out to write of theistic evolution as a “liberals only” club.

As for the status of the acceptance of evolution within the Church Body, check out this thread:

http://www.christianforums.com/t1140641-christian-and-jewish-denomination-accepting-or-not-opposing-evolution.html

As for the theological "can of worms", this is not the case at all. Again, wander through the discussions and you will see that this is not a problem for us at all. You many not agree with the positions, but you will see that we still hold to the same basic theological truths as you do, despite a different interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2. To the YEC, this seems to be an impossibility, but we are here as living, breathing proof that you do not need to read Genesis 1 and 2 literally to have complete and entire Faith in all the essential theological points.

And I would urge you to read the quote by C.S. Lewis posted in the "Lewis Update" thread.

GodAtWorkToday said:

For example; when you measure the current speed of radio transmissions (similar or same as light) from near objects (eg. our Solar system), and see that it matches with the time delay of signals, what does this prove. Well it proves that yes that is the speed over that distance, in this region, at this time. This is mathematical and factual.

However, when you then say that therefore distant stars are this far away, or the universe is this old because of the time necessary to travel that huge distance, you have made some huge assumptions. You have assumed that the speed is constant over long periods of time, that it is unaffected by varying matter present within the universe, and the gravity effect of a multitude of bodies, and no doubt a whole lot more assumptions to get to the conclusion that you have solid evidence of an old Earth.

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Emphasis added.

Kerry, my highest level of study in physics was high school. And that was 45 years ago! So you can imagine how far behind I would be in a high school physics class today. And how hopelessly lost I would be in a college-level course.

But after reading this last paragraph, I wonder if you ever took even elementary school physics in reference to the speed of light. Did you never read of the Michelson-Morley experiments near the beginning of the 20th century? Did you never hear of how scientists used to think that light travelled on waves of ether?

Scientists do not assume that the speed of light is constant in the vacuum of space. That was the farthest idea from their minds. It is not an intuitive idea. And it was quite radical when Einstein suggested it. The Michelson-Morley experiment assumed that the speed of light would not be constant on a planet moving through the ether. The relative speed of light would vary, depending on whether the earth was moving toward or away from a light source. And they set up their experiment to measure the difference in the speed of light under these different conditions.

Do you know what they found? They found no difference.

Even so, scientists did not fall all over themselves when Einstein proposed the constancy of the speed of light. They waited until one of the key points of Einstein's theory could be tested. It was only when a predicted sighting required by Einstein's theory proved accurate that scientists considered it had been validated.

And, btw, that prediction of Einstein's was a prediction about how gravity does affect light (not by slowing it down, but by bending it around massive objects).

All of this, as I say, was spelled out in my high-school physics text long ago. So, I wonder how you missed learning it?

I find creationists are all too eager to identify basic scientific principles as assumptions instead of looking into why they are considered basic scientific principles. When you start checking them out, more often than not, you will find they are not assumptions. They are conclusions based on earlier scientific research. In many cases, the original assumption was the reverse (i.e. that the speed of light is not constant) and the current thesis had to pass muster by proving its validity before scientists accepted it.

So, please, don't assume too quickly that scientists are making invalid or unsupported assumptions. Check out the supposed assumption first. You are likely to find it is really a conclusion from observed evidence.

GodAtWorkToday said:

And for that final group, you open yourself to a huge theological can of worms, like;
When did sin enter the world;

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We know sin is in the world. Surely that is much more important than knowing when it entered.

By what process;

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Who cares? The fact that sin is in the world now is the problem we have to deal with.

Who was at fault;

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Me. And each one of us who has sinned. Anyone who sins brings sin into the world.

If its only a mythological Adam, why did we need a REAL Jesus?

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I need a real Jesus because I have sinned. I need a real Jesus whether or not Adam was real. Because whether or not Adam's sin was real, mine is.

Why was the earth cursed, because of a myth? Every child-bearing mother would have a right to be angry at God.

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No. Sin is not a myth. The account of how sin came to be can be a myth. But sin itself is real. And sin is the reason for the curse.

The problem with most Creationist scientific proposals is that they are believed primarily because they fit the Creationist model, not at all because they are the best supported by the evidence or sound scientific principles. If a scientific conclusion does not fit the model, it must be wrong, no matter how well-supported. If a scientific conclusion fits the Creationist model, they will assume it to be true until convinced otherwise, no matter how little-supported it is.

This is not an approach likely to lead to the truth about God's Creation.

GodAtWorkToday said:

For example; when you measure the current speed of radio transmissions (similar or same as light) from near objects (eg. our Solar system), and see that it matches with the time delay of signals, what does this prove. Well it proves that yes that is the speed over that distance, in this region, at this time. This is mathematical and factual.

However, when you then say that therefore distant stars are this far away, or the universe is this old because of the time necessary to travel that huge distance, you have made some huge assumptions. You have assumed that the speed is constant over long periods of time, that it is unaffected by varying matter present within the universe, and the gravity effect of a multitude of bodies, and no doubt a whole lot more assumptions to get to the conclusion that you have solid evidence of an old Earth.

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As gluadys already pointed out, the speed of light (and radio waves) has been known and observed to be the constant c (3x10^8 m/s) in a vacuum.

The speed does decrease when the EM radiation is passing through matter. So if you believe that space is largely not a vacuum, then you may have a point that scientists estimates of distance may be off by a small error. If you can show evidence that space is largely not a vacuum, scientists would be more than happy to adjust their calculations accordingly.

Another problem is that Creationists take small, known anomolies and exagerate them into "theory-busting" proportions. Radio-carbon dating is one example. It has a known error factor which, if not dealt with properly, can result in ages off by a certain degree. Not only are these not significant, but in almost every case, the real age is OLDER, not younger. And, most scientists know how to do it right, in any case. But the creationist organizations have grabbed onto this as a reason for tossing out this dating method altogether. Again, not a good method for arriving at the truth.

Do you believe in a literal 7 day creation?

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I used to believe in a literal seven-day creation, but not anymore, because there are some bible passages that say God's way of measuring things--time or metric--is not the same as man's way of measuring things. Therefore, when God says "day" it does not necessarily mean 24 hours:

[bible]2 Peter 3:8[/bible]
[bible]Revelation 21:17[/bible]

@Vance . I too did High School physics and it was a long time ago. It was also not my best subject at school, even though Maths was. I recall most of what we did in Physics was learn equations, and discussions about wave theory of light, and particle theory, and relativity, and mass and acceleration, etc. So I certainly admit to being no expert in this area at all.

However, I have never been able to get over this hurdle.
Let's say a star is 10 light years away. It takes the light 10 years to travel to us. So if the star goes super nova, we don't even know about it until 10 years later. OK fine.

But, how do we know the star is 10 light years away? Because the light took 10 years to get to us? How do we know that? I know this is displaying my ignorance, but its never been shown to me by what objective evidence these huge distances, and huge time lags are measured and can be known to be accurate.

I understand that time, speed and distance are all related, but even if we accept speed (of light) as a constant (which I question, over long periods), it seems to me that both time and distance are unknowns. If you make any assumption about one of those unknowns, you then by relationship, impose that assumption upon the other unknown.

Depite the plethora of television documentaries that bold extol evolution as "fact", and not as a theory that is highly respected, I have yet to see one that really gets across the message about how these measurements are valid, are verifiable, are reliable, and are objective, without reliance upon assumptions that have themselves not been fully proven. I think in this area the Evolutionists have done a poor marketing job, for their theories.

@gluadys - I don't question that we all have committed personal sins and are therefore in need of a personal and real Saviour. I therefore am so glad that God has provided that atonement in Jesus.

But you are avoiding the questions. Why does man have a sin nature? Where did that propensity come from? Why do we live under the Adamic curse if it was only mythology? What about the blessings and curses of Deut 29. Are these mythology as well? IF so why do we still suffer them, or enjoy them, as the case may be?

Also I don't disagree that theological truths can be presented and taught through allegorical methods. We see this in Psalms, Proverbs, the Parables of Jesus. So it is a valid method and one that is effective and one that is used repeatedly throughout the Bible.

However, when allegory is used, it is clearly shown to be so. It is not disguised as something else. With Genesis however, we have Adam. Now to say that he is allegorical and not real, is to call Luke errant, it is to call Moses errant as both of these Biblical writers state geneologies going back to Adam. They declare Adam a real person, not a person of mythology.

So if Adam is real, then the early chapters of Genesis, need to be read as historical narrative, about a real person. When read in this light, the theological doctrines of the Bible, remain in harmony. However, when you make Adam allegorical, then it creates problems. Why are we cursed because of a fictional story? Do we have a sin nature because of a fictional story given by God to Moses when he recorded Genesis? Was Luke not inspired by the Holy Spirit when he wrote the geneology in Luke? If Adam was fictional, at what point in the geneology did the people become real? Was Seth allegorical? What about Methuselah? or Noah? or Ham? or Abraham? When did they stop being allegorical? Or was it just Adam? If so, then who was Seth's father?
Can you see how an allegorical reading of Gen 1-3, just leads to confusion, and undermines whole sections of the Bible. I know the God I believe, is not the author of confusion. Personally I will stick with a historical, literal reading of Genesis and enjoy the harmony of biblical doctrine without confusion.

I still will say that I lean toward YEC but I don't think excessive dogmatism should be applied here in the sense that the detail isn't great.
So if I see evidence that outweighs what I understand then I would probably change.

Anyhow I wanted to restate the aspect of the speed of light in response to a couple responses here.

As I understand it, the speed of light has decreased since the start of our ability to measure the speed. So, we may be able to say that at a moment in time, the speed of light has the same value throughout the universe. So the speed is a constant in an equation (e.g. an equation determining whether a particle in decay will hit the earth surface in the decay time).

But until science can determine the basis for the value of the speed of light, the number is simply used because it works in the current situation.

The speed of light may have been decreasing exponentially over 1000s of years to become the current value. This messes up many "scientific" time scales.

Scientific knowledge isn't as solid as we can first imagine.
But I do think that when Chrisitians get over confident in narrow understanding of scripture, science and philosophy expose this error and draws the Christians back to reality. And in the opposite direction, Christian teaching forces science to operate morally. Also, the creationists add the skepticism to science.
My guess is that the macro-evolution will be dropped in the future as being as absurd as the flat earth concept.
And I think that the Big Bang model will probably be upheld and will find conformity to the literal 6 day creation model.

Mike, I agree with what you are saying generally, we should accept scientific theories only to the extent they are well-supported. But this is not to say that we hold all scientific theories and concepts equally suspect, and in fact we don't. I never hear YEC's doubting any of the other 99% of the conclusions reached by scientists and I have seen them swallow whole some doozies presented by Creation science proponents. So, some we all just accept blindly and keep on rolling, many with much less support than evolution and an old earth.

So, to the extent that a scientific proposal IS well-supported, we should accept it. No more, no less. This, of course, involves an investigation of the evidence with as objective an approach as possible, with a willingness for either our Biblical interpretation or our scientific perspective to be revised.

As for the speed of light issue, here is a thorough discussion of the matter. This is NOT an area that I know too much about, however, so this is purely for your broader perspective. Maybe Gluadys can discuss it in more detail.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/c-decay.html