help on a theological point

[rmwilliamsll]

I've been reading AV1611VET and DAD's postings over on C&E for awhile now. One thing that they both say appears to be doctrine in some denomination or church circles. However i am unfamiliar with it and need help from those more familiar with the ideas.

Both of them make a big point that the Fall caused the Creation to be "unreadable" before it. They propose that the Fall changed physical constants etc so that any "extrapolation" back more than 6K years is simply impossible.

This really sounds like a special doctrine, perhaps something in 19thC dispensationalism. So does anyone know where this comes from, or who first proposed it? i'd appreciate references that outline the doctrine and the reasons for it.

tia.

Footnote on Romans 8:22 --- Defender's Study Bible:

* The reference to "the whole creation" indicates that the divine curse extends through the entire created cosmos, not just to the earth. Scientific observation has confirmed this. That is, the law of entropy operates throughout the cosmos. Since it was man's sin that brought God's curse on the ground - the very elements of the created earth, the "dust of the ground" out of which all things were made by God - it may be that his sin had universal repercussions. On the other hand, it may be that Satan's sin, which took place in the angels' domain in the heavens, brought on the curse there.

from: http://www.christianforums.com/showpost.php?p=29533091&postcount=92

he has two other quotes from the "defender's study Bible".
is anyone familiar with these footnotes that can help me track down these ideas?

notes:
it looks like the footnotes in the Defender's Study Bible are by Henry Morris of ICR (in)fame.
http://www.study-bibles.net/kjv/defenders_study_bible.html

now to track down the origins of his theology.

 

[Tinker Grey]

I am not familar with the Defender's Bible.

However, the Wiki article says John Inglis introduced these ideas to a bible study group in 1866.

 

[Willtor]

That does sound very Dispensational. But remember that people like Morris thought that the age of the world could be known through science; merely, that eventually the evidence would eventually bear it out to be 6000-10,000 years. It's interesting, though, as I've heard similar assertions in my personal experience. When I was an undergrad, attending a fairly Fundamentalist Church, a teacher told us that the universe started expanding when Christ died.

I wouldn't even know where to begin looking for the sources, however. The sites that I'm finding are terrible about citations.

 

[busterdog]

I've been reading AV1611VET and DAD's postings over on C&E for awhile now. One thing that they both say appears to be doctrine in some denomination or church circles. However i am unfamiliar with it and need help from those more familiar with the ideas.

Both of them make a big point that the Fall caused the Creation to be "unreadable" before it. They propose that the Fall changed physical constants etc so that any "extrapolation" back more than 6K years is simply impossible.

This really sounds like a special doctrine, perhaps something in 19thC dispensationalism. So does anyone know where this comes from, or who first proposed it? i'd appreciate references that outline the doctrine and the reasons for it.

tia.

from: http://www.christianforums.com/showpost.php?p=29533091&postcount=92

he has two other quotes from the "defender's study Bible".
is anyone familiar with these footnotes that can help me track down these ideas?

notes:
it looks like the footnotes in the Defender's Study Bible are by Henry Morris of ICR (in)fame.
http://www.study-bibles.net/kjv/defenders_study_bible.html

now to track down the origins of his theology.

One of the confusing parts of dispensationalism is that it kinda of suggests a sovereign plan for dispensations that are irrespective of what is going on on planet earth. However, on earth, history has particular problems for whom the divine answer would likely be tailor-made and particular.

Pre-fall earth needed no "dispensation" in that respect. If God was their in the garden in all his grandeur, what need for a "dispensation?"

I think the ideas of changing physical constants post-fall have been suggested by Chuck Missler, but I couldn't find an article. I know in this interview with Barry Setterfield, he raised that question, to which the response was maybe, maybe not. So there is a brief discussion of the technical end of this discussion in the following:

http://www.khouse.org/6640/BP078/

 

[billwald]

6 day creationist bottom line is that the pre flood world was a mystical/magical place and not a physical universe. The people who claim the so-called "anthropic principle" must also thus conclude.

 

[Deamiter]

Not entirely a "6 day creationist bottom line" as not all 6-day creationists agree with that.

I'll have to look up that John Inglis reference -- it's always interesting to see where these ideas came from.

 

[shernren]

I'm guessing that the ultimate source of all this is the tendency to blame everything ugly/bad/faith-threatening on evil, whether in the person of the Devil planting fossils in the ground, or the Fall making lots of physical changes. But in terms of the immediate idea of an entire physical overhaul, I'm not at all sure.

 

[plmarquette]

One of several explainations to explain why the bible seems to indicate we have been here 6-7000 years by bible record , yet by carbon dating we seem to have been here millions or billions of years ...

there is also the " gap " theory in Genesis 1 , that the earth , when God populated it , may have been around for awhile ... was dead and dark , before He placed all the life upon it ...

or the earth may have had a preadamic race , under lucifer's control , that fell when he fell : Isaiah 14 , Revelation 12 , where the demons came from

theories , are just a means to organize data , till a better explaination comes around ...

 

[philadiddle]

ask them to quote a verse that calls it "the fall" with a reference to the original hebrew/greek

 

[savedfromdistruction]

Hello rmwilliamsllRather then try and debate creation time frame I would invite you to my web site where i have videos on the six day creation. They answer most if not of all the questions with very reasonable evidence.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

a nice offer but.

videos and such are a fraction of the speed of reading, especially with scientific or technical material. It is a media ill suited for complex discussions and at best is suitable for entertainment and other such mindlessness.

we are here to discuss these issues, such as the age of the earth.

They answer most if not of all the questions with very reasonable evidence
present just one piece of this reasonable evidence and we can talk about it, i have no desire to get my computer setup to watch videos, when you can post a single piece of evidence for the age of the earth far easier than i can get an audio card in and recompile the kernel to use it and reboot.

i suspect that none of my questions about creation-evolution-design will ever be answered in a video presentation. i'll be fortunate and happy to get one at a time answered in books like SJG's "The Structure of Evolutionary theory".

 

[rmwilliamsll]

yet by carbon dating we seem to have been here millions or billions of years ...

NO, C14 can not be used past 50-60Kya.
please read something like:
Radiometric Dating
A Christian Perspective

Dr. Roger C. Wiens
at:
http://www.asa3.org/aSA/resources/Wiens.html

 

[billwald]

If the earth is even 60,000 years old then the young earthers are an entire magnitude off. This is unacceptable error.

 

[Contracelsus]

What I originally liked about the poster, Dad's, ideas was my misunderstanding of his point. I was under the impression he was dealing in extremes of Hume's Empiricism. That we can't know anything about the unobserved past. The extreme version of this is the "stage" concept in which we only exist in and "know" anything about the immediate present and things just march across the stage of our consciousness without connection to a past or future.

But Dad has repeatedly denied that this is important (he does not care about Hume or empiricism in this debate).

This brings me to the obvious questions for "different past" defenders:

1. Those who lived through the "fall" (Adam, Eve, and maybe Lilith and Steve?) did they know anything about the days pre-fall after the fall? Or did their minds get wiped?

2. How far back is the fall? If it is a wall beyond which we have unknowability, then shouldn't we see some evidence of this "wall"?

3. Does this "boundary" of knowability mean that looking through it we "perceive" a deep-time past? Does this boundary make the earth look older? Like looking at a trompe l'oeil painting? We only think we see a deep-time past but in reality the other side of the trompe l'oeil is just a couple inches of space and a couple years worth of time?

If it's #3 then don't we indeed end up with a "trickster God"? That doesn't seem acceptable by any stretch of theology. Unless you're a viking and fond of Loki.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

What I originally liked about the poster, Dad's, ideas was my misunderstanding of his point. I was under the impression he was dealing in extremes of Hume's Empiricism. That we can't know anything about the unobserved past. The extreme version of this is the "stage" concept in which we only exist in and "know" anything about the immediate present and things just march across the stage of our consciousness without connection to a past or future.

But Dad has repeatedly denied that this is important (he does not care about Hume or empiricism in this debate).

This brings me to the obvious questions for "different past" defenders:

1. Those who lived through the "fall" (Adam, Eve, and maybe Lilith and Steve?) did they know anything about the days pre-fall after the fall? Or did their minds get wiped?

2. How far back is the fall? If it is a wall beyond which we have unknowability, then shouldn't we see some evidence of this "wall"?

3. Does this "boundary" of knowability mean that looking through it we "perceive" a deep-time past? Does this boundary make the earth look older? Like looking at a trompe l'oeil painting? We only think we see a deep-time past but in reality the other side of the trompe l'oeil is just a couple inches of space and a couple years worth of time?

If it's #3 then don't we indeed end up with a "trickster God"? That doesn't seem acceptable by any stretch of theology. Unless you're a viking and fond of Loki.

some of the best questions on the topic we've seen here in awhile. i hope they get eyeball time and some discussion.

Does this "boundary" of knowability mean that looking through it we "perceive" a deep-time past?

see last thursdayism.

other side of the trompe l'oeil is just a couple inches of space and a couple years worth of time
everything boils down to your life scan, at most, even then you really ought not to trust your memories, they may have passed through the "forgetfulness barrier" of a creation 25 years ago.

hence the complaint that "creation with apparent age" is an answer to the brains in a vat question, descartes demon, and the Matrix. we are in God's great YECist Matrix, the only question is if it has really been 6k years. and it all ends up in radical solipicism because there can be no scientific intersubjectivity because this barrier can have occurred in my lifetime but not yours.....

and down the rabbit hole we all fall.

 

[gluadys]

hence the complaint that "creation with apparent age" is an answer to the brains in a vat question, descartes demon, and the Matrix. we are in God's great YECist Matrix, the only question is if it has really been 6k years. and it all ends up in radical solipicism because there can be no scientific intersubjectivity because this barrier can have occurred in my lifetime but not yours.....

and down the rabbit hole we all fall.

And that is why I keep insisting that accepting deep-time as reality is not only compatible with Christian thinking; it is required by the Christian doctrine of creation.

The scriptures are clear that God is a creator known in his creation. If his creation is nothing but a mind-game, if we are nothing more than snippets of a cosmic dream, -- an idea seriously entertained by some religions and philosophies -- there is no revelation of God in creation because creation itself is non-existent, deceptive.

Nor can we believe in a God of love, who gave his Son as a sacrifice for us. For if there is no real creation, there are no real creatures, such as us, to love, and certainly no basis for sacrifice on behalf of such dream-creatures or cosmic holographs which is all we can be without the reality of creation.

There is no doubt in my mind that YECism requires the wholesale rejection of the testimony of creation to its maker. Knowingly or not, YECists fundamentally reject the very meaning of creation even while claiming to defend it. We see this again and again when they reject evidence that depends on creation being real.

 

[Assyrian]

.....┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐

....... Originally Posted by gluadys

The scriptures are clear that God is a creator known in his creation. If his creation is nothing but a mind-game, if we are nothing more than snippets of a cosmic dream, -- an idea seriously entertained by some religions and philosophies -- there is no revelation of God in creation because creation itself is non-existent, deceptive.​

.....└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Limed for truth.

 

[Apollo Rhetor]

If the earth is even 60,000 years old then the young earthers are an entire magnitude off. This is unacceptable error.

If the earth is 60,000 years old then 'old earthers' are off by nearly a magnitude of 5.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Originally Posted by billwald
If the earth is even 60,000 years old then the young earthers are an entire magnitude off. This is unacceptable error.

correct, i think.

If the earth is 60,000 years old then 'old earthers' are off by nearly a magnitude of 5.

right.

but what does this really show?

 

[KerrMetric]

If the earth is 60,000 years old then 'old earthers' are off by nearly a magnitude of 5.

But no one claims 60,000 is an upper limit but misguided people do claim 6,000 is an upper limit. The point is, as I think you already know, is that if one things is demonstrably greater than 6,000 by a factor of 10 then, ergo, the 6,000 limit is nonsense to be discarded. All the C dating 60,000 limit does is put a lower limit - a limit 4,500,000,000 is perfectly in accord with. But as I said, you already knew this.