Hi Everyone!!

I'm still new here and origins theology is a topic that I've never really looked into. Someone I know has brought it up with me personally but I'm completely in the dark on this matter because it simply hasn't mattered to me. I've been a Christian since I was a young child and all that's mattered is my daily walk with Jesus.

Although origins still isn't an issue for me at all, my curiosity has been invoked. I read the full spectrum of beliefs thread, but that doesn't tell me much about what's behind them. Is anyone willing to explain THEIR view to me and explain what theology and science is behind them?

I am NOT interested in hearing why anyone else is wrong. I just wanna know what makes you think that your view is correct both theologically and scientifically.

It would be great if people posting in this thread were just expressing their own views and not ripping into each other. I'm sure there are enough other threads for that.

I'll probably follow up with questions.

Thanks!!!

hi philis,

Good to have you here. Unfortunately the very definition of a miracle precludes any scientific understanding.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

Hi Philis, and welcome to the forums!

I acknowledge theistic evolution as the only tenable view of our origins. It is supported by most theologians both protestant and Catholic (including the Pope), and there are plenty of eary Christian fathers that recognized that Genesis was open to allegorical interpretations, including Justin Martyr, Origen, St. Augustine, and so on.

The modern understanding our our evolutionary origins in established science, supported by practically all scientists (millions of whom are Christians), in all relevant fields, including geology, anthropology, genetics, paleontology, physiology, biology, physiology, and many more. The fact of evolution is as well established as is the fact that the American Civil War happened, or that the earth goes around the sun. Some of the overwhelming evidence for evolution can be found here: 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent. To deny evolution only makes Christianity look bad.

There are many theistic evolution ways to see the core doctrines of Christianity, just as there are many creationist descriptions, depending on the person and denomination. However, these may at least be common, if not exclusive.

The Garden:

The Garden of Eden can be a metaphor for the natural world before humans became fully conscious/able to think. It need not have happened as a literal, single location “garden”, just as Ezekiel’s army of bones (37) is a metaphor that never happened as a literal army of zombies.

The Fall:
The fall of man can be what happened when man evolved enough mental capacity to make rational decisions, and decided to rebel against God. The consequence was alienation from God.

Adam:

Note that many theistic evolution supporters (including apparently the Pope) believe in a literal, real, single human Adam, the father of us all, who was the first transitional ape-human to cross the line to being human, who sinned and brought about original sin (not the first death). This fits with the above mention of the Fall, and is fully consistent with evolution.

The Flood:
The flood can be a metaphor describing God’s sovereignty over humans and the earth, and still shows those same messages either way. It need not have happened as a literal flood, just as Ezekiel’s army of bones is a metaphor that never happened as a literal army of zombies.


Jesus:
Jesus was a real human who was both God and Man. He often spoke in parables (metaphors) while on earth, just as he did when he, as part of the trinity, inspired Genesis. Because Genesis is the word of the same God who spoke parables while on earth as Jesus, it should come as no surprise that he starts off the Bible speaking the parables of the creation, fall and flood.

Atonement:

The Atonement of Jesus is the same in either a literalist or a modern Christian’s view. Jesus needed to atone for the sin of the fall, which was rebellion against God.

The geneologies in Genesis:

These can be figurative, like Ezekiel’s army of zombies. They pretty much have to be for a number of reasons – not just the massive evidence of an old earth, but also internal inconsistencies, like growing a handful of people from (coat) Joseph’s time to the ~2 million Jews at the Exodus in a short number of years.

Hopefully all that helps.

In His name-

Papias

Hi Philis, I'll also welcome you to the forums.

At the moment I'd say that my beliefs are Ancient Hebrew reconstructionism wrapped around a theistic evolutionary cosmology.

I think the question of origins theology really boils down to is God expressing a correct cosmology/creation tale through Genesis 1 or is he expressing correct theology? My answer to this would be that when we have correct theology, cosmology and creation tales become less necessary. My approach to this field of theology largely mirrors my attempt to understand scriptures as a whole and while I do believe that they can speak to us they are very much an artefact of their time and in order for us to adequately apply them to our life we must understand them from the perspective of the original audience, for to claim that we are the original audience denies cultural shift, and while fundamentalists might claim that cultural shift is just as silly an idea as evolution, cultural shift does have the same amount of evidence if not more than evolution. In fact we see it through modern history far more easily than evolution in recent years.

So then the idea of going back to how the original cultures understood these writings turns into a necessity.

Coming back to origins theology the idea is that Genesis 1 isn't talking about material origins but rather God setting everything in relation to us, creation is like a temple and God comes and dwells in it on the seventh day not to stop but to take up normal running of the cosmos, the bit I find most striking about this understanding of the text is the great undertones of Yahweh from the very beginning of the Bible stating that he intends to be emmanuel, we see the break down of this in chapter 3 but also the promise of it being set right, so within the first three chapters of Genesis the Gospel is expounded in such a way that a 21st century understanding of the text becomes in my opinion shallow and horribly wanting in the way of meaning.

Wow great responses. For theistic evolution so far I get that creation could just be symbolic of our relationship to creation and to God. My question is, couldn't Jesus just be a metaphor then?

The link to 29 evidences is a little overwhelming lol. What I read so far makes sense but I don't understand it all. I'll have to come back with some questions after more thought.

To the only creationist reply I got (I assume it's a creationist) I agree that there wouldn't be evidence for miracles like there would be for a natural event. However, is there evidence that species were made seperately?

And to both groups, what about evidence for how old the earth is?

Thanks guys.

Philis said:

Wow great responses. For theistic evolution so far I get that creation could just be symbolic of our relationship to creation and to God. My question is, couldn't Jesus just be a metaphor then?

Click to expand...

To address this, I'd say that when someone understands it from a hebrew perspective we're no longer talking about material origins but rather the imbuement of functions onto creation, if this is the case then there is no need for symbolism at all, and in fact most of the problems that Creationists come up with for TE are easily dismissed as over the top theological inquisition like "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin"

But another way of looking at TE and it's relation to the historicity of Jesus is what I'll call the inductive extension of Lewis' trilemma, which is that we can understand Jesus as one of three things, that is Lord, madman or liar, we rule out liar because he died for what he said, we rule out madman because it just doesn't fit, but then people like to extend this and go, oh well it wasn't him but a mythos that built up around him, well then what you're saying is that at some point in the development of early, early Christianity (we're talking about 40-70 AD) you have the concept of this Man Jesus Christ appearing and you fall into the same idea, either those who proclaimed the gospel were liars, madmen or that they knew that Jesus was the way the truth and the light, as such you look at the evidence and find all of them were matryed and all of them managed to call a considerable amount of people into their belief that Jesus is Lord. So then they had faith that Jesus was indeed Lord.

Philis said:

And to both groups, what about evidence for how old the earth is?

Click to expand...

I actually don't really think it's a concern, after all God saw no concern in fixing the Hebrew idea that the earth was only six thousand years old, so we have to come to a decision on whether God did create six thousand years ago, or whether it is of no importance.

I think evidence that it may be of no real importance comes in the form of how these ancient men understood their world, to them it wasn't an oblate spheroid circling the sun, but a flat disc with a canopy overhead where the sun resided. So then since for the most part Christians accept this as God not feeling that a right cosmology is necessary for a relationship with him, so too might we surmise that, if presented with evidence then neither is an age of the earth question relevant to our faith.

hi phillis,

As I understand the Scriptures, about 6,000 years old and the universe is the age of the earth minus 3 days. However, as for proof, I again point out that if the creation of all things was a miracle, then naturalistic 'proof' will not be available. For me, this is where I fall back on God's word that the righteous shall live by faith. That faith tells me that God has told me how all things were created, when all things were created, and despite literally mountains of man inspired evidence to the contrary - I'm going with God.

Here is a short list of some of the miracles God is claimed to have done:

Made a woman pregnant without ever introducing male human sperm within her womb.
Caused the sun to back up so that a shadow went backwards 10 steps on the steps of Ahaz.
Caused the sun to stand still in the sky for nearly a full day.
Parted a sea so that many, many thousands of people could walk safely through with a wall of water on both their right hand and their left, yet in surely the span of mere moments as the last one stepped to safety drowned an army pursuing with chariot and horseback.
Caused the death of every firstborn child and livestock in a single night.
Made it possible that three regular human men could stand and walk around in a fire over a thousand degrees hot and come out with not a hair on their head singed.
Caused a river, no less the Nile river, to run with blood and all the water in jars and cisterns to also turn to blood.

If you can provide any suitable naturalistic 'proof' for any of these events, I'd be interested in seeing it.

If not, then I would ask you to seriously consider that 'proof' of the creation will be just as elusive.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

Philis said:

Wow great responses. For theistic evolution so far I get that creation could just be symbolic of our relationship to creation and to God.

Click to expand...

Ah but that wouldn't help. With relationship comes Creation, whether you are heading towards God in the creation of "heavenly" bodies (rise, unity) or away from God in the creation of more "terrestrial" bodies (fall, multiplicity).

My question is, couldn't Jesus just be a metaphor then?

Click to expand...

There are many true events which can double as metaphor (see parables) but I think the argument is for non-existence since it has God in it, and not whether it is metaphorical.

Jesus certainly didn't refrain from metaphorical allusions as we can see them not only in his words (parables) but also in his actions (picking 12 disciples for the 12 tribes of Judah and renaming Simon to Peter to symbolize rock).

Also, if he came to absolve a past act then his life would appear as a pattern as he retraces and cancels out certain events. There are certain passages which allude to him laying down his life as a symbol and ensample of what man is to accomplish (John 13:15), so his birth, resurrection and in between would definitely have some strong metaphorical suggestions. (Luke 17:33).

The gospel writers could not and did not record everything, so if events were purposely selected or even summarized to more clearly convey a metaphorical message then it would not be too surprising.

There are also many historical writings you can look up and even the testimony of the writers as being witnesses to the event.

Philis said:

Is anyone willing to explain THEIR view to me and explain what theology and science is behind them?

Click to expand...

God is Creator. That's the first claim in the Nicene Creed. Well, if God really did create, then everything in Creation was put there by Him. Thus, God has two books. Scripture and Creation. Science reads the book of Creation. So, Creation tells us HOW God created. Scripture tells us Who created and Why. Genesis 1-3 are also refutations of the rival Babylonian and Egyptian religions of the time.

Now, you can find some of my position in the quotes in my signature. You can also add these two:

"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion.

"To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or in the book of God's works; divinity or philosophy [science]; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both." Bacon: Advancement of Learning

Philis said:

My question is, couldn't Jesus just be a metaphor then?

Click to expand...

No. Judeo-Christianity is a historical religion in that it depends on the intervention of God into human history. Paul stated it correctly: if Jesus did not resurrect then our faith in Christianity is in vain. We can still believe in a deity, but not be Christians.

However, is there evidence that species were made seperately?

Click to expand...

The evidence contradicts that each species was made separately.

And to both groups, what about evidence for how old the earth is?

Click to expand...

We need to talk about "evidence for". Karl Popper correctly pointed out that you can ALWAYS find "evidence for", if that is all you are looking for. What really counts is evidence against. By deductive logic, true statements cannot have false consequences. The statement "the earth is less than 4.5 billion years old" has false consequences. Many of them. So many that all scientists accepted an earth that was at least hundreds of millions of years old by 1831. I suggest the books The Genesis Flood by Davis Young and Genesis and Geology by Gillespie. Both go into the evidence found between 1790 and 1830 that falsified a young earth.

miamited said:

hi phillis,

As I understand the Scriptures, about 6,000 years old and the universe is the age of the earth minus 3 days. However, as for proof, I again point out that if the creation of all things was a miracle, then naturalistic 'proof' will not be available. For me, this is where I fall back on God's word that the righteous shall live by faith. That faith tells me that God has told me how all things were created, when all things were created, and despite literally mountains of man inspired evidence to the contrary - I'm going with God.

Click to expand...

Fair enough, but there still must be evidence of some sort of past. We have evidence that we interpret, why would it ALL seem to contradict that? (Maybe it doesn't and some examples will be posted). Wouldn't we still find some signs in nature that the earth is only 6k years old? Wouldn't we find signs looking at animals that showed they were created as seperate species? I find it hard to think that there is no evidence of this, and despite the fact that evolution didn't happen, there is plenty of evidence that we did evolve.

There's lots of posts by TEs here, I'm still digesting them.

Philis said:

I'm still new here and origins theology is a topic that I've never really looked into. Someone I know has brought it up with me personally but I'm completely in the dark on this matter because it simply hasn't mattered to me. I've been a Christian since I was a young child and all that's mattered is my daily walk with Jesus.

Click to expand...

Hi, Philis, and welcome to the forum.

I can't tell you how strongly I agree with your first paragraph. I won't go too much into theistic evolution (my position) as you have already had good responses to this. I will tell you that I found TE easy to accept because prior to coming across it, I had been reading Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. I don't know if you are familiar with this modern classic on basic Christianity. One of the concepts introduced in Mere Christianity is "true myth". Like most people I had only been introduced to "myth" as a synonym for ancient tales about pagan gods or outright falsehoods "10 myths about....." "True myth" was a novel concept, but I liked it. Lewis suggested that the similarities between the gospel accounts of Jesus' life and many mythological stories was that the latter were a-historical anticipations of what would, in Jesus, become historical.

Eventually, I specialized in literature myself and found out much more about the power of myth to convey deep and truthful meaning and found applying such insights to biblical stories (whether historical or not) deepened my understanding and appreciation of scripture. I don't attempt anymore to draw a sharp line between myth and history. All history is to some extent mythological especially when we invest it with meaning. And all of biblical history is invested with meaning. So to me, saying something is mythological doesn't necessarily mean it is not also historical, but that the history, if any, has been invested with deep theological meaning. And sometimes the meaning makes the question of historicity irrelevant.

Finally, at the risk of overloading you with reading suggestions, I would like to recommend Saving Darwin (How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution) by Karl Giberson. I've just finished it and it is quite short and easy to read. He tells of what he learned as he transitioned from a young-earth, literal Genesis approach to theistic evolution.

miamited said:

hi phillis,

As I understand the Scriptures, about 6,000 years old and the universe is the age of the earth minus 3 days. However, as for proof, I again point out that if the creation of all things was a miracle, then naturalistic 'proof' will not be available.

Click to expand...

That's not the case. The only way for there not to by natural consequences we can see today is for God to have covered it up. Let me give you just one example. If the universe is 6,000 years old, then we should see no stars farther than 6,000 light years from us. The light simply hasn't had time to get to us yet. In addition, stars should have become naked eye visible thruout history as their light first reached us.

For me, this is where I fall back on God's word that the righteous shall live by faith. That faith tells me that God has told me how all things were created, when all things were created, and despite literally mountains of man inspired evidence to the contrary - I'm going with God.

Click to expand...

But you are NOT going with God. You are denying that God is Creator. Instead, you are focussing only on your interpretation of one of God's books and ignoring the other. In ignoring one of God's books, you are ignoring God.

Here is a short list of some of the miracles God is claimed to have done:

Made a woman pregnant without ever introducing male human sperm within her womb.
Caused the sun to back up so that a shadow went backwards 10 steps on the steps of Ahaz.
Caused the sun to stand still in the sky for nearly a full day.
Parted a sea so that many, many thousands of people could walk safely through with a wall of water on both their right hand and their left, yet in surely the span of mere moments as the last one stepped to safety drowned an army pursuing with chariot and horseback.
Caused the death of every firstborn child and livestock in a single night.
Made it possible that three regular human men could stand and walk around in a fire over a thousand degrees hot and come out with not a hair on their head singed.
Caused a river, no less the Nile river, to run with blood and all the water in jars and cisterns to also turn to blood.

If you can provide any suitable naturalistic 'proof' for any of these events, I'd be interested in seeing it.

Click to expand...

Well, I can provide evidence that the sun did NOT stand still. When you start to think about it, tho, for the rest what evidence would have persisted to today? For instance, the Nile has been running with water ever since and any blood would have degraded. The firstborn died in one night and were buried. What's the evidence that would persist to today?

If not, then I would ask you to seriously consider that 'proof' of the creation will be just as elusive.

Click to expand...

Seriously considered and refuted. As another example, there should be radioisotopes with half lives of less than 50,000 years because they have not had time to decay. But we don't. The only naturally occuring isotopes left in the rocks have half-lives of 50 million years and more. Now, could God have created the earth without the short half-lived isotopes? Of course. But then we have a situation where God is having the earth only look old when it is not. And that's a lie.

hi phillis,

Well, provide me some answer for my questions regarding the other miracles of God.

As to your questions regarding evidences that the earth may only be 6,000 years old, there actually are quite a few.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

hi lucaspa,

You wrote: If the universe is 6,000 years old, then we should see no stars farther than 6,000 light years from us.

And that would be based on what. You see, the God I know, he can stop the sun in the sky. He can cause a woman who has never had male sperm introduced into her womb to become pregnant. You think He can't make light travel faster than it naturally does. Seems to me His regular works are outside of what we know as the 'natural' laws.

You also wrote: You are denying that God is Creator.

I'm afraid I'm far to dense to comprehend how you ever came to that conclusion. Perhaps you'd enlighten me. It would seem that you and I know a different God.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

miamited said:

Here is a short list of some of the miracles God is claimed to have done:

Made a woman pregnant without ever introducing male human sperm within her womb.
Caused the sun to back up so that a shadow went backwards 10 steps on the steps of Ahaz.
Caused the sun to stand still in the sky for nearly a full day.
Parted a sea so that many, many thousands of people could walk safely through with a wall of water on both their right hand and their left, yet in surely the span of mere moments as the last one stepped to safety drowned an army pursuing with chariot and horseback.
Caused the death of every firstborn child and livestock in a single night.
Made it possible that three regular human men could stand and walk around in a fire over a thousand degrees hot and come out with not a hair on their head singed.
Caused a river, no less the Nile river, to run with blood and all the water in jars and cisterns to also turn to blood.

If you can provide any suitable naturalistic 'proof' for any of these events, I'd be interested in seeing it.

If not, then I would ask you to seriously consider that 'proof' of the creation will be just as elusive.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry but this question doesn't make any sense. I'm asking for evidence about the origin of things we currently observe. Yes, the origin of things we currently observe includes past events, either miracles or natural, but we have related objects to look at to study what those past events could have been (ie the earth and different species). However, your questions pertain to past events of which we have nothing to observe.

If I don't have evidence for the sun standing still, how does that affect the origins issue?

As to your questions regarding evidences that the earth may only be 6,000 years old, there actually are quite a few.

Click to expand...

Well, that was my question in the first place. What are they?

Caused the death of every firstborn child and livestock in a single night.

Click to expand...

Your god is very mean and cruel.

I do not subscribe to uniformitarianism, which is the belief that things have always been as they are now. In other words, all the we can observe about the universe have been that way for as long as the universe has been here. That, I believe, is rejected by Scripture, particularly Romans 8:

Romans 8:20-23 (NKJV) "20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; 21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. 23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body."

All of creation is in a state of futility and corruption, and will be redeemed along with us. It wasn't always that way, but it was subjected to that state "against its will", so to speak. So the idea that we can look at the universe, or the planet Earth, make observations, and make deductions about the origins of the universe from those observations, to me, is a flawed concept, for there was a time when the universe was not subject to the conditions in which we now find it.

So, it's not that I don't trust people to describe their observations and make deductions based on them. I think that they do a fine job with what they have. It's just that I don't agree with the presupposition that if it's true now, it has always been true.

So I reject TE, OEC, Gap, etc. However, I disagree with much of YEC as well, at least as it's usually manifest, especially here at CF. I do not look to Scripture to be a science text book, and I don't look for evidence of a 6,000-year-old earth, as 6,000 years may or may not be the age of the earth. I don't agree with trying to prove any particular age of the earth.

In a nutshell, I believe that God created the universe from nothing; that He specially created man and breathed into him the breath of life; that Adam and Eve are historic persons and were the only 2 people alive at the time; that death, decay, and corruption entered the universe as a result of the sin of mankind; that the Scriptures do more to reveal Christ to us than any kind of science.