Gap Theory

[GenemZ]

But, this means that God created Adam and Eve in a world that already knew evil and sin.

What are you talking about? How was that so? All sin and evil was to be found only in the fallen angels who were no longer having dominion over the earth. They were on the outside looking in. When Satan caused Adam to fall, Satan regained dominion over the earth by default. When the earth fell that is when thorns and thistles popped up. The earth fell because Adam fell.

This is why the gap theory doesn’t wash.

It shouldn't. If what you said were true.

But, what you said that makes no sense to say it.

If Satan had already rebelled against God before Adam and Eve and God hadn’t totally destroyed Satan as punishment, then God had no right to tell Adam and Eve that they must obey God.

Satan and his angels could not yet understand the implications as to why God judged them. More importantly, the elect angels were naive about what sin and evil as babes in the woods. They could not identify with it in any way. Evil was foreign to their thinking.

The angels had to be taught and shown by God what would have happened if Satan and his angels were allowed back into the kingdom. For the elect angels still loved their fallen brothers.

God knows what is in the heart. God judged Satan not by something he overtly did. But, God judged Satan by what he said in his heart. No one understood why Satan and his angels were so severely judged by God. But, God knew!

To resolve this angelic conflict of ignorance, God created man and allowed for the fall. Once man was fallen, God could show his angels what would happen if God allowed Satan and his angels back into the kingdom.

How? By showcasing the conflicts and evils that take place between righteous men and the unbelievers. Elect angels could then see what God saw in the fallen angels hearts, by having men acting upon sin and evil and producing all the suffering we find preeminent throughout the history of mankind.


Man was created and allowed to fall to become a classroom setting for all angels to learn why Satan and his angels could never be allowed to return. For, by man's example, they learned that righteousness and evil can not peacefully co-exist. That if righteousness is to have the happiness God designed it for? That evil must be destroyed.

As far as Adam and Eve would have know Satan had rebelled against God and God had let Satan get away with it, so God didn’t have any right to demand that Adam and Eve not follow Satan.

What are you talking about? Satan is not free.

What is going on right now is his appeal trial. God is allowing Satan to try and prove himself worthy of his claim against God. That is why in the original languages one of the terms for Satan is "accusing attorney."

What is being produced by Satan and his angels as evidence of their worthiness in the Supreme Court of Heaven, are shameful results where Satan is being exposed as being incompetent to back up his claim that he could replace God.

Satan and his angels are not free! They know they only have a limited amount of time given in order for Satan to make his appeal.

Matthew 8:29 (New International Version)
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"What do you want with us, Son of God?" they shouted. "Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?"


​

Satan and his angels are not free! They have been given a grace period to appeal the sentence of God. There has been set an appointed time when the sentence will be executed.


So far, Satan can not prove his claim good. Everything he comes up with to compete with the Word of God produces pain and suffering in men. Just look at godless Communism as being Satan's answer to free enterprise.




.

 

[flaja]

What are you talking about? How was that so? All sin and evil was to be found only in the fallen angels who were no longer having dominion over the earth.

If Satan had already rebelled against God when Adam and Eve were created, then evil already existed before Adam and Eve were created.

Furthermore, the world does belong to Satan (or at the very least Satan lays claim to it): Matthew 4:8-9 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

So if Satan had been removed from the earth before Adam and Eve were placed on the earth, God must have turned Satan loose and allowed him to return to the earth to spread his evil yet again. This makes God even worse than He had been in the first place. Either God was stupid enough to believe Satan had reformed himself and wouldn’t spread evil anymore, or God intentionally set Satan upon the earth to wreck havoc.

Satan and his angels could not yet understand the implications as to why God judged them. More importantly, the elect angels were naive about what sin and evil as babes in the woods. They could not identify with it in any way. Evil was foreign to their thinking.

Then this makes God a petty tyrant. His punishing Satan, when Satan didn’t understand the consequences of his actions, is akin to the government executing an insane person for murder.

What are you talking about? Satan is not free.

Then why does Satan get to go to and fro over the earth? I guess you’ve never read the Book of Job.

What is going on right now is his appeal trial. God is allowing Satan to try and prove himself worthy of his claim against God.

You evidently haven’t read the Book of Revelation either.

 

[GenemZ]

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If Satan had already rebelled against God when Adam and Eve were created, then evil already existed before Adam and Eve were created.

Furthermore, the world does belong to Satan (or at the very least Satan lays claim to it): Matthew 4:8-9 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

So if Satan had been removed from the earth before Adam and Eve were placed on the earth, God must have turned Satan loose and allowed him to return to the earth to spread his evil yet again. This makes God even worse than He had been in the first place. Either God was stupid enough to believe Satan had reformed himself and wouldn’t spread evil anymore, or God intentionally set Satan upon the earth to wreck havoc.



Then this makes God a petty tyrant. His punishing Satan, when Satan didn’t understand the consequences of his actions, is akin to the government executing an insane person for murder.



Then why does Satan get to go to and fro over the earth? I guess you’ve never read the Book of Job.



You evidently haven’t read the Book of Revelation either.

Sir, after reading all your points? I am not even going to bother.... It makes no sense in light of what I said.

Good Day....

 

[flaja]

Sir, after reading all your points? I am not even going to bother.... It makes no sense in light of what I said.

Good Day....

Then you must worship an unjust and malicious god.

 

[GenemZ]

Then you must worship an unjust and malicious god.

I do not worship an unjust and malicious God. You simply do not have the desire to properly grasp what I am saying. What I say keeps getting processed and distorted through your bias filter so that you would not have to face what is actually being said. For what I say I said, is not what I said.

So? Why bother??? My explanation and clarification of your misunderstanding will be put right through that same bias filter again.

 

[GenemZ]

Now to get back from the derailment, so others here can see what this thread was intended for...


Bible Scholars have seen what is now called the GAP theory long before Darwin was ever born.

Its only that the GAP theory was brought to the forefront after being taken out out from obscurity only because of what Darwin proposed.

Taken from:

http://www.custance.org/Library/WFANDV/chap1.html

Quote:

Akiba ben Joseph was an influential Jewish rabbi who was president of the School Bene Barek near Saffa.


He laid the basis for the Mishna. When Barcochebas rebelled against the Romans, Akiba joined him and was captured. He was executed in 135 A.D.

The ancient work known as The Book of Light or Sefer Hazzohar, some- times simply Zohar was traditionally
ascribed to one of Akiba's disciples, a certain Simeon ben Jochai. In this work, which thus
represents an opinion held towards the end of the first centuryand the early part of the second, there is a comment on Gen. 2.4-6 which, though difficult to follow, reads thus:


"These are the generations (ie., this is the history of....) of heaven and earth.... Now wherever there is written the word 'these' (Hebrew fonts) the previous words are put aside. And these are the generations of the destruction which is signified in verse 2 of chapter 1. The earth was Tohu and Bohu. These indeed are the worlds of which it is said that the blessed God created them and destroyed them, and, on that account, the earth was desolate and empty.".​

​

Now, no one made any connection with a fossil record when that was written. It was strictly deducted from exegesis of the Hebrew text,



Here is another example. Written long before the theory of Evolution was even thought of....

​

Quote:
Origen, for example, who lived from 186 to about 254 A.D., and to whom the original languages of the Bible were very familiar, has this to say in his great work, De Principiis, at Gen. 1.1:



"It is certain that the present firmament is not spoken of in this verse, nor the present dry land, but rather that heaven and earth from which this present heaven and earth that we now see afterwards borrowed their names."

And that he saw verse 2 as a description of a "casting down" of the original is borne out quite clearly by his subsequent observation that the condition resulted from a "disruption" which is best described, he suggests, by the Latin verb dejicere, ‘to throw down’.


In the course of time, attempts were made - not unnaturally - to fill in the details of the event which led up to the devastation described. Since all such effects were presumed to be moral judgments and since man had not yet been created, the angels were blamed.

​

Origen was living many centuries before Darwin was born! The reasonings for the GAP theory were already on paper!

The GAP theory exists today because its found in Scripture. Not because of Darwin's ideas. It just so happened that scholars before Darwin's day were not sure what to make of why the Hebrew said what it does.

Ironically, it was Darwin's challenge that caused this buried treasure to be dug up for the body of Christ to see. This time, with a relevance like never before. For, now (with the fossil evidence) it made sense why the Hebrew text is saying what it does!

Young Earthers who want only to prove their point have ignored the history of the GAP understanding, and try to claim it was only created to counter Darwin's ideas. Not true! Darwin was the cause for this old teaching to be re-discovered! It was re-discovered! Not quickly concocted at the time of Darwin to counter Darwin's claims!

Here's that link, again. There is much more to find. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

What I quoted is from a book. One that is free to be downloaded online. Written by a scientist.

http://www.custance.org/Library/WFANDV/chap1.html

​

 

[Gary51]

What do you guys think about the Gap Theory as a way of interpreting Genesis?

It's not a theory, there is a gap ... a big one

 

[flaja]

I do not worship an unjust and malicious God.

Let’s see: in your view your god created Satan and Satan turned evil. But instead of destroying Satan your god went on to create human beings knowing full well that Satan was evil. And then your god set Satan upon these human whereby he turned them evil as well, and then your god says that human beings are unworthy of him and therefore human beings must be destroyed. Sounds unjust and malicious to me.

 

[Biblewriter]

Not true. The twin nested hierarchy, ERV and GULO pseudogene distributions in primates, chromosome 2 fusion, and studies of genetic diversity bear out the fact of evolution. The fossil record may tell us a lot about how evolution occurred, but you are quite right to say that it cannot prove to us that evolution occurred. That evidence is living and breathing all around us right now.

I would have answered sooner, but I was away, and have to go away again.

These proofs of a connection (yes, I admit they are proofs of a connection) do not prove what you assume they prove.

If you assume that evolution is a fact, then such proof of a connection is proof of common ancestry. But if you assume intelligent design, they can just as legitimately be argued to prove that these designs came from the same intelligent designer.

 

[shernren]

I would have answered sooner, but I was away, and have to go away again.

These proofs of a connection (yes, I admit they are proofs of a connection) do not prove what you assume they prove.

If you assume that evolution is a fact, then such proof of a connection is proof of common ancestry. But if you assume intelligent design, they can just as legitimately be argued to prove that these designs came from the same intelligent designer.

Why would an intelligent designer disable a gene providing for Vitamin C production in all simians? There's a reason you never hear of animals getting scurvy: they can produce vitamin C from glucose.

In all primates, however, the gene that produces proteins that catalyze this process has been damaged. All in the same way. Was that the result of intelligent design? And even if you can somehow argue that it was, a few other animals such as guinea pigs also have that gene disabled - in a totally different way. Why would an intelligent designer not reuse his designs?

I can only conclude that you haven't actually studied the evidence I put forth.

 

[Biblewriter]

Also, it is not so much that the fossil record proves evolution as that evolution makes sense of the fossil record. If evolution were not true, a lot of features of the fossil record would probably be different.

This is a strength of a good theory---that it explains, in a coherent way, why what we observe is the way it is. No other theory explains so systematically the features of the fossil record.

No other theory could have predicted (as evolution did) the existence of fossils like Tiktaalik, Ambulocetus or Sinosauropteryx

Evolution requires thousands of intermediate stages between every one of the so-called geological epochs. It is inconceivable that if these stages ever existed, there would have been no record of their existence in the so-called fossil record. Their absence from this record is excused by claiming that very few individuals of any particular type ever get fossilized. But that fails to explain why we find so many examples of most of the types that have been found.

There is another theory that systematically explains the features of the fossil record, and that theory is almost as old as Darwinian evolution, but has been ignored by the scientific community as a whole, simply because they didn't like it. It was first explained to me as "the ridiculous theory of catastraphism."

This is the theory that there have been a series of creations on this earth that were each destroyed and replaced by different creations. The scientific community does not like this theory because it implies the existence of a creator, that is, of God, and that is heresy to a "scientist."

But assuming that a certain concept cannot be correct is not science. it is prejudice. And until the scientific community can get over its prejudice against the concept of a creator God, it will remain physically unable to rationally evaluate theories that imply His existence.

It is only prejudice that makes evolutionists think that their pet theory is such a good explanation of the facts. Serious holes in their reasoning have been repeatedly exposed, but these are systematically ignored.

The most serious hole in evolutionary theory is that most of the organs of most of the organisms are of such a nature that, in anything less that a fully functional state, they would be a liability rather than an asset. This means that essentially all organs would have to have appeared suddenly in a functional state. Otherwise, they would have been be rejected by natural selection.

Thus the theory of evolution absolutely requires that thousands of cross links of DNA code would have to have suddenly been recombined in a new, but useful, form. And this would have to have happened hundreds of times in the development each new species!

Thinking that these changes could have happened "by chance" is far more wistful than thinking they are the workings of a superior intelligence that intentionally designed these changes.

 

[flaja]

If you assume that evolution is a fact, then such proof of a connection is proof of common ancestry. But if you assume intelligent design, they can just as legitimately be argued to prove that these designs came from the same intelligent designer.

And you can test neither hypothesis by experimentation thus would be practicing religion if you accepted either one.

 

[flaja]

Why would an intelligent designer disable a gene providing for Vitamin C production in all simians? There's a reason you never hear of animals getting scurvy: they can produce vitamin C from glucose.

In all primates, however, the gene that produces proteins that catalyze this process has been damaged. All in the same way. Was that the result of intelligent design? And even if you can somehow argue that it was, a few other animals such as guinea pigs also have that gene disabled - in a totally different way. Why would an intelligent designer not reuse his designs?

I can only conclude that you haven't actually studied the evidence I put forth.

Do we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this gene is ever absolutely disabled? Could it ever be turned on or off depending on diet and other environmental factors?

Also, do we absolutely know that this gene would produce vitamin c in the organisms where it is turned off, or could it produce something else?

A vitamin c gene would be a very useful thing to have whenever its bearer is unable to get enough vitamin c in his diet (consider the Pilgrims who died of scurvy during their first winter in the New World because they didn’t have enough vitamin c in their starvation rations). So what possible reason would nature ever have for deactivating it? Why would nature give up something that is available, but unused, now when it may be needed sometime in the future?

 

[flaja]

There is another theory that systematically explains the features of the fossil record, and that theory is almost as old as Darwinian evolution, but has been ignored by the scientific community as a whole, simply because they didn't like it. It was first explained to me as "the ridiculous theory of catastraphism."

This is the theory that there have been a series of creations on this earth that were each destroyed and replaced by different creations.

A creator that would repeatedly create living organisms only to let them die is not a god worth worshipping. This is why I reject any and all forms of old earth creationism that requires death before sin.

There are other ways to explain the known fossil record so that God doesn’t become a bloodthirsty tyrant.

Fossil deposits may be an indicator of mobility rather than records of creation/evolution. The more mobile an organism is, the higher up in fossil strata it will be found because it can try to escape from any developing disaster.

Fossil deposits may also be records of ecosystems. Man and dinosaurs could have lived at the same time, but they wouldn’t be fossilized together anymore than man and African elephants would be.

I would also suggest that the rotating earth and the swirling waters from Noah’s Flood acting like a giant centrifuge that sorted organisms into fossil strata by density, although I don’t know if this would explain the actual strata since I don’t know anything about the relative densities of living organisms.

There is also the possibility that Noah’s Flood created a soup of dead organisms that were all mixed together, but then not every organism was fossilized.

 

[shernren]

Do we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this gene is ever absolutely disabled? Could it ever be turned on or off depending on diet and other environmental factors?

Also, do we absolutely know that this gene would produce vitamin c in the organisms where it is turned off, or could it produce something else?

Quite honestly, questions like these tell me that you haven't even checked the argument online (although to be fair I haven't given you much information to get started with). The gene in question codes for L-gulonolactone-oxidase, the final enzyme in the catalytic pathway that changes glucose to ascorbic acid. In primates, only 5 of the 12 exons that code for the gene are left. (In other words, it isn't going to get reactivated in a hurry.) In guinea pigs, it's broken, but in a completely different way. Broken genes don't get turned back on in a hurry, and given how extensively it's broken it can't do anything else. (Other than cause trouble for unprepared creationists.)

A vitamin c gene would be a very useful thing to have whenever its bearer is unable to get enough vitamin c in his diet (consider the Pilgrims who died of scurvy during their first winter in the New World because they didn’t have enough vitamin c in their starvation rations). So what possible reason would nature ever have for deactivating it? Why would nature give up something that is available, but unused, now when it may be needed sometime in the future?

In fact, people who are susceptible to scurvy have a second mutation which disables another protein in the ascorbic acid pathway; about 70% of the human population (IIRC) has it. But nature doesn't need a reason for mutations. Mutations happen. Populations either adapt to live with them or die. It's that simple.

What possible reason would a designer have for deactivating it?

A creator that would repeatedly create living organisms only to let them die is not a god worth worshipping. This is why I reject any and all forms of old earth creationism that requires death before sin.

You mean a bloodthirsty tyrant that would provide for creatures like these?

"Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions
when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?
(Job 38:39-40 NIV)

"Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom
and spread his wings toward the south?
Does the eagle soar at your command
and build his nest on high?
He dwells on a cliff and stays there at night;
a rocky crag is his stronghold.
From there he seeks out his food;
his eyes detect it from afar.
His young ones feast on blood,
and where the slain are, there is he."
(Job 39:26-30 NIV)

The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.
(Psalms 104:21 NIV)

What kind of a bloodthirsty tyrant would feed lions and eagles - oh wait, that's God in those verses! Argh! My faith!

 

[Mallon]

And you can test neither hypothesis by experimentation thus would be practicing religion if you accepted either one.

To be honest, we can, in fact, test evolutionary hypotheses. Cladograms like the one below are hypotheses in themselves and can be tested with every new fossil find.

Judging from the cladogram, we can predict that birds and lizards share more features in common than either does with salamanders. Should we one day find a fossil salamander that shares more features in common with birds than with reptiles, the hypothesis would be falsified. We can also use cladograms to predict when and where we would expect to find particular common ancestors. This is the approach scientists used to find Tiktaalik, the recent "fishapod". Thus, evolutionary theory is testable.

Fossil deposits may be an indicator of mobility rather than records of creation/evolution. The more mobile an organism is, the higher up in fossil strata it will be found because it can try to escape from any developing disaster.

But that doesn't explain why turtles are still alive today and Velociraptor is not.

Fossil deposits may also be records of ecosystems. Man and dinosaurs could have lived at the same time, but they wouldn’t be fossilized together anymore than man and African elephants would be.

Actually, fossil elephants and hominids are found together. Dinosaurs and hominids are not.

I would also suggest that the rotating earth and the swirling waters from Noah’s Flood acting like a giant centrifuge that sorted organisms into fossil strata by density, although I don’t know if this would explain the actual strata since I don’t know anything about the relative densities of living organisms.

So you're saying that dense body fossils should be found low in the strata, whereas light fossils should be found high in the strata. But this explanation falls short again. To use the example of turtles again, they have dense cortical bone to keep them below water. Dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and other archosaurs had very hollow bones (like birds), yet dinosaurs are no longer with us and turtles are. (If you haven't figure it out yet, turtles falsify every hydrological sorting hypothesis yet proposed).

There is also the possibility that Noah’s Flood created a soup of dead organisms that were all mixed together, but then not every organism was fossilized.

Sorry, but the fossil record doesn't show random mixing. It shows a very distinct pattern from invertebrates, to vertebrates, reptiles, mammals and birds, humans, etc. That's why Henry Morris was forced to come up with a hydrological sorting mechanism to begin with!

 

[Mallon]

And, hey, speaking of Velociraptor, did everyone here see this recent headline?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070920145402.htm

That's right! Velociraptor, everybody's favourite dinosaur (since Jurassic Park), had feathers!

 

[Assyrian]

A creator that would repeatedly create living organisms only to let them die is not a god worth worshipping. This is why I reject any and all forms of old earth creationism that requires death before sin.

Wow, oh wow! If God didn't create the world the way you think he should he is not worth worshipping? First you say if he didn't inspire scripture the way you think he should he is a liar, now if he did not create the world your way, you won't worship him?

This is where the YEC defence of the bible leads folks.

There are other ways to explain the known fossil record so that God doesn’t become a bloodthirsty tyrant.

1Kings 8:63 Solomon offered as peace offerings to the LORD 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of the LORD. I think you may have a problem here.

 

[flaja]

Quite honestly, questions like these tell me that you haven't even checked the argument online (although to be fair I haven't given you much information to get started with). The gene in question codes for L-gulonolactone-oxidase, the final enzyme in the catalytic pathway that changes glucose to ascorbic acid. In primates, only 5 of the 12 exons that code for the gene are left. (In other words, it isn't going to get reactivated in a hurry.) In guinea pigs, it's broken, but in a completely different way. Broken genes don't get turned back on in a hurry, and given how extensively it's broken it can't do anything else. (Other than cause trouble for unprepared creationists.)

First of all your tone is uncalled for; it shows a belligerence that is all too common among Darwinists.

Second, I am aware that even when species are supposedly very closely related, their genes and their proteins are not always (if ever) identical. Hemoglobin, for example, may not be interchangeable between species. I was just asking whether or not it is certainly known that the product of this inoperative gene is actually vitamin c because I do not know right off if vitamin c in one species is also vitamin c in another.

In fact, people who are susceptible to scurvy have a second mutation which disables another protein in the ascorbic acid pathway; about 70% of the human population (IIRC) has it. But nature doesn't need a reason for mutations. Mutations happen. Populations either adapt to live with them or die. It's that simple.

Can you document that susceptibility to scurvy is genetic? Isn’t everyone more or less susceptible to it with survivability being determined by other factors? When all else is equal, can a human be deprived of vitamin c and not end up with scurvy?

What possible reason would a designer have for deactivating it?

Some reason that has yet to be discovered. Now tell me why nature would ever deactivate it.

You mean a bloodthirsty tyrant that would provide for creatures like these?

The passages you refer to (assuming the NIV is an accurate translation for them) pertain to a world where sin already exists. The shedding of blood in a sinful world is justifiable as punishment for sin. It would not be appropriate in a world that is not yet sinful.

 

[gluadys]

Evolution requires thousands of intermediate stages between every one of the so-called geological epochs. It is inconceivable that if these stages ever existed, there would have been no record of their existence in the so-called fossil record.

This is the typical switch that creationists are forced into. They cannot explain what has been found so they harp on what hasn't been found yet.

How do you explain what has been found other than with the theory of evolution? Look, really look, at what we already have found. Not at the gaps. At the fossils that we currently know of. Can you give a better explanation of them than evolution?

There is another theory that systematically explains the features of the fossil record, and that theory is almost as old as Darwinian evolution, but has been ignored by the scientific community as a whole, simply because they didn't like it. It was first explained to me as "the ridiculous theory of catastraphism."

Catastrophes, even global catastrophes, do not pose a problem to the theory of evolution. They explain mass extinctions. What they do not explain is the order and relationships of fossil species between catastrophes or before and after a catastrophe. Dinosaurs, for example, existed primarily between the Permian-Triassic and the Cretaceous-Tertiary catastrophes. Neither catastrophe explains the diversification of dinosaurs into all the various species which emerged in the 225 million years of their existence. Nor does the latter catastrophe explain the dinosaur-bird connection which transcends it. And apart from dinosaurs, neither catastrophe explains the well-documented reptile-to-mammal transition.

But assuming that a certain concept cannot be correct is not science. it is prejudice. And until the scientific community can get over its prejudice against the concept of a creator God, it will remain physically unable to rationally evaluate theories that imply His existence.

I see no evidence that the scientific community has a prejudice against the concept of a creator God. I see that some scientists do, but I also see that some scientists are believers. I don't see the scientific community taking sides.

The most serious hole in evolutionary theory is that most of the organs of most of the organisms are of such a nature that, in anything less that a fully functional state, they would be a liability rather than an asset.

The more serious hole is in your bank of information. The theory you are presenting simply does not hold up to the evidence which often provides examples of simpler organ function, some of them still in use by species living today.

Thinking that these changes could have happened "by chance" is far more wistful than thinking they are the workings of a superior intelligence that intentionally designed these changes.

Thinking that evolution happens by chance indicates ignorance of how the process of evolution operates.