Is belief in the creation story a salvation issue?

[mark kennedy]

Thank you SkyWriting for trying to get this thread back on topic. Please remember that in this thread we are discussing whether believing the salvation stories contained in Genesis is a salvation issue. We are not discussing the creation itself.

Some of you are doing a good job of staying on topic, even if your post is somewhat off topic you tie it back to the question at hand. Thank you if you are doing that. If you are not doing that please stay on topic. Is it or is it not a salvation issue? Why or why not? Provide supporting scripture if possible.

Creation is essential Christian theism, the simplest definition for what a Christian must believe is found in the Nicene Creed. It starts with a confession of God as Creator, Christ being the incarnate Son of God, then a confession that Christ is Creator. To worship Christ as Savior and Lord is to worship him as Creator.

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. (Nicene Creed)
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If you don't believe that then as far as most Christian are concerned down through the ages, and on these boards as a matter of fact, your not a Christian. There are not a lot of prerequisites to believing the Gospel but there are two that I am sure of. One is you must believe certain basic things about God represented in a general but specific terms. You must also believe that you are in fact a sinner. Then you are ready to receive the Gospel.

The Nicene Creed continues:

Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man;
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Salvation is a pretty easy doctrine to get down. You hear the gospel, believe, you are born again and filled with the Holy Spirit who is a guarantee of the salvation in Christ.

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. (Romans 10:14-17)
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For years I have watched theistic evolutionists dance around the gospel. So much discussion of what you don't have to believe and nothing about what you must believe. What you will find, if you ever seriously study it, is that creation is inextricably linked to the incarnation, resurrection, regeneration and the promise of the age to come at the soon return of Christ. You guys never seem interested in talking about that, this suggests to me there is a problem.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[mark kennedy]

Why? Non-YEC Christians generally believe that the scriptures are authoritative.​

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I believe the age of the earth is irrelevant and you completely ignored the content of what he said. The authority of Scripture is linked to any Christian profession. Your question is rhetorical and I suspect, circular.

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The Garden story is a myth--even if it is 100% accurate literal history--because that is the literary form in which it is couched. On the foundation of divine inspiration.

First of all there is no mythical literary form in the Old Testament. It is presented like the vast majority of the Pentateuch as historical narrative period. It's written in a kind of poetic prose with a meter and tempo that is hard to appreciate since we are not familiar with the oral tradition embodied there. The Scriptures were taught through out Hebrew and Christian history, Bibles didn't become available until the printing press. Until then what the Scriptures actually contained had to be filtered through ecclesiastical agency.

Some how you have managed to dodge every substantive point. Guess you must be determined.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[Speedwell]

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For years I have watched theistic evolutionists dance around the gospel. So much discussion of what you don't have to believe and nothing about what you must believe. What you will find, if you ever seriously study it, is that creation is inextricably linked to the incarnation, resurrection, regeneration and the promise of the age to come at the soon return of Christ. You guys never seem interested in talking about that, this suggests to me there is a problem.

Grace and peace,
Mark

I think you are exaggerating. This particular theistic evolutionist swears to the Nicene Creed with a clear conscience at least once a week.

 

[mark kennedy]

Not a problem Speedwell. You have always come back on topic.

That was why I started this thread. I have had a few on CF tell me that I would go to hell if I didn't not believe in a literal creation story. God created the Earth in six days. Adam was the first man. Eve was the first woman. Period, end of discussion. Sorry, I don't buy that.

Creation is inextricably linked to salvation, there can be no question about that. What you actually believe as a Christian matters very much. The age of the earth and the cosmos is a diversion, the creation of life is essential Christian theism. I believe strongly at the heart of salvation is a theological concept called justification by grace through faith. So what you believe matters and what you want to reject speaks volumes about what you don't believe.

I think it's telling that hearing the gospel from theistic evolutionists is so rare, they prefer to undermine confidence in the clear meaning of Scripture. The salvation issue isn't the age of the earth but whether or not you believe the gospel message inextricably linked to the testimony of creation. You pretend that link doesn't exist to your own peril. Divorcing creation from salvation is impossible, the promise of the gospel is the same miracle. I really don't think that point was ever lost on theistic evolutionists, just ignored.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[mark kennedy]

I think you are exaggerating. This particular theistic evolutionist swears to the Nicene Creed with a clear conscience at least once a week.

Then you realize that creation is essential to Christian profession. God must literally be the Creator of all things, Christ is Creator and that the message of salvation comes directly from the incarnate Word of God. You must be a creationist in order to be a Christian, that much is clear from the Nicene Creed.

I think I have heard the gospel from one theistic evolutionist and he had no clue about the evidential side of creationism. The rest of the time its just one ad hominem after another going after creationists for what they believe, twisting the Scriptures around their own private interpretation, torturing the clear meaning of the text beyond all recognition. Exaggerating? I haven't told the half of it.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[Speedwell]

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I believe the age of the earth is irrelevant and you completely ignored the content of what he said. The authority of Scripture is linked to any Christian profession. Your question is rhetorical and I suspect, circular.

No, the source you quoted was very clear: What's at issue, he said, is the authority of scripture. But this is a Christian forum so the authority of scripture is not being questioned.

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First of all there is no mythical literary form in the Old Testament. It is presented like the vast majority of the Pentateuch as historical narrative period. It's written in a kind of poetic prose with a meter and tempo that is hard to appreciate since we are not familiar with the oral tradition embodied there. The Scriptures were taught through out Hebrew and Christian history, Bibles didn't become available until the printing press. Until then what the Scriptures actually contained had to be filtered through ecclesiastical agency.

Yeah, right. But I hope you understand why that kind of nonsense makes us suspicious.

Some how you have managed to dodge every substantive point. Guess you must be determined.

So bring them up again, maybe I missed something

 

[Speedwell]

Then you realize that creation is essential to Christian profession. God must literally be the Creator of all things, Christ is Creator and that the message of salvation comes directly from the incarnate Word of God. You must be a creationist in order to be a Christian, that much is clear from the Nicene Creed.

Everybody here believes that God is the creator of all things. What's your point?

I think I have heard the gospel from one theistic evolutionist and he had no clue about the evidential side of creationism. The rest of the time its just one ad hominem after another going after creationists for what they believe, twisting the Scriptures around their own private interpretation, torturing the clear meaning of the text beyond all recognition. Exaggerating? I haven't told the half of it.

Nobody goes after Creationists for what they believe. There is freedom of religion in this country and people can believe what they like. People go after Creationists for trying to make Creationism public policy. If it wasn't for that Creationists would be left alone.

 

[mark kennedy]

No, the source you quoted was very clear: What's at issue, he said, is the authority of scripture. But this is a Christian forum so the authority of scripture is not being questioned.

The name of the thread asks the question of whether the creation 'story' is a salvation issue. So the question is whether or not the Genesis account being actual history has any link to salvation. I think it obviously does and what is more if the heart of the emphasis is what you don't believe about the clear testimony of Scripture there is a very basic problem.

Yeah, right. But I hope you understand why that kind of nonsense makes us suspicious.

So you have no clue as to the content of the Pentateuch. The accounts of Abraham, Isaac Jacob, the account of the exodus from Egypt, the covenant confirmed as Sinai and reconfirmed before crossing Jordon. You just dismiss the historical content as suspicious nonsense.

So bring them up again, maybe I missed something

Creation is inextricably linked to the incarnation, resurrection, new birth and the creation of the new heavens and new earth promised in the gospel. You guys love to ramble endlessly with these pedantic fallacious personal remarks but never address the real issue of salvation. The Gospel is redemptive history, if you don't want to acknowledge that we are talking real and literal history you have a very serious problem.

Everybody here believes that God is the creator of all things. What's your point?

That gets us past Genesis 1:1, then what happened. I mean if you take the first verse literally what happened to the rest of the chapter. What happens to the rest of the Bible as a matter of fact.

Nobody goes after Creationists for what they believe. There is freedom of religion in this country and people can believe what they like. People go after Creationists for trying to make Creationism public policy. If it wasn't for that Creationists would be left alone.

Creationists are not an angry mob invading schools and demanding to be heard. Every now and then a court case emerges where they try to introduce an alternative to Darwinism and it's rejected by the Supreme Court because of it's religious nature, it's called the establishment clause. We are not talking about some court case because the last one was the Dover case and it definitively determined that intelligent design was out because the designer has to be God.

This is left over from the culture wars, gay rights and abortion being the other two issues involved. The church never went after those issues, they were inundated by them and had no choice but to make a stand. Time and time again I have seen theistic evolutionists beret creationists feverishly and relentlessly.

If theistic evolution were more of a positive presentation of what you believe then an unmitigated attack on essential Christian theism I wouldn't have a problem with it. It never is, it's never an exposition of the Scriptures and only in the rarest of instances is Christian profession actually discussed. Always what you don't believe and that is that God actually created anything in Genesis 1 after the initial creation of the heavens and the earth. As a matter of fact, most theistic evolutionists think the Big Bang was a natural event not requiring God. I believe in the Big Bang, God spoke and BANG, there it was.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Archivist]

Then you realize that creation is essential to Christian profession. God must literally be the Creator of all things, Christ is Creator and that the message of salvation comes directly from the incarnate Word of God. You must be a creationist in order to be a Christian, that much is clear from the Nicene Creed.

The Nicene Creed begins with these words: "We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made." Exactly how does theistic evolution take away from believing in God as creator. He remains "maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen."

Again, exactly how is not beliving in a literal six-day creation a salvation issue? Proof please.

I think I have heard the gospel from one theistic evolutionist and he had no clue about the evidential side of creationism. The rest of the time its just one ad hominem after another going after creationists for what they believe, twisting the Scriptures around their own private interpretation, torturing the clear meaning of the text beyond all recognition. Exaggerating? I haven't told the half of it.

And are we not hearing a "private interpretation" here from you?

 

[Archivist]

Everybody here believes that God is the creator of all things. What's your point? Nobody goes after Creationists for what they believe. There is freedom of religion in this country and people can believe what they like. People go after Creationists for trying to make Creationism public policy. If it wasn't for that Creationists would be left alone.

I have never told anyone that they will not be saved because they believe in a literal six-day creation. But some (not all) who believe in the literal Genesis account have told me that I cannot be saved because I do not believe in a literal six-day creation.

 

[mark kennedy]

The Nicene Creed begins with these words: "We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made." Exactly how does theistic evolution take away from believing in God as creator. He remains "maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen."

All things, that includes life in general and man in particular.

Again, exactly how is not beliving in a literal six-day creation a salvation issue? Proof please.

That is a circular question, whatever the answer your going to ask it again and again. I did offer proof in the form of a detailed exposition and you ignored it entirely. Try post 283

You didn't ask about whether or not the days being literal was a salvation issue, you asked if the 'story' was a salvation issue and clearly it is. The clear testimony of Genesis is that God created life in general and man in particular. If we are to reject the clear testimony of Scripture whats to stop us from dismissing the historicity of Scripture at will and at random.

And are we not hearing a "private interpretation" here from you?

If you spoke Spanish and I spoke English and we didn't speak on another's languages we would need an interpreter to understand the meaning of what one another say.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. (2 Peter 1:20)
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He says, 'knowing this first', indicating foundational importance. What I am doing is trying to get an exposition of the text and you want to interpret it without any reference to either the gospel of the Genesis 'story'. That can't be anything but a private interpretation because it effectively abandons the text entirely.

I have never told anyone that they will not be saved because they believe in a literal six-day creation. But some (not all) who believe in the literal Genesis account have told me that I cannot be saved because I do not believe in a literal six-day creation.

I've been doing this for years and I have never heard any such thing. You ask about the 'story' and equivocate that with a literal day in Genesis which is what the text actually says. Then you make it into this strawman argument about taking the meaning of day to be day being the same thing as calling a figurative interpretation anathema. I get it now, it's a straw man argument.

I've locked horns with creationists over the age universe and the earth being irrelevant to the doctrine of creation. They tell me I'm compromised, no one has ever suggested I was lost.

The whole premise is a fallacy, I can't believe I fell for it again.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[Archivist]

All things, that includes life in general and man in particular.

Then we are in agreemen

That is a circular question, whatever the answer your going to ask it again and again. I did offer proof in the form of a detailed exposition and you ignored it entirely. Try post 283

I read it. Excuse me, but there are over 300 posts in this thread. I don't remember the details of each one. Nothing in that post refutes anything that I am saying.

You didn't ask about whether or not the days being literal was a salvation issue, you asked if the 'story' was a salvation issue and clearly it is. The clear testimony of Genesis is that God created life in general and man in particular. If we are to reject the clear testimony of Scripture whats to stop us from dismissing the historicity of Scripture at will and at random.

But thestic evolution isn't rejecting that God created life in general and man in particular.

If you spoke Spanish and I spoke English and we didn't speak on another's languages we would need an interpreter to understand the meaning of what one another say.

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. (2 Peter 1:20)
​

He says, 'knowing this first', indicating foundational importance. What I am doing is trying to get an exposition of the text and you want to interpret it without any reference to either the gospel of the Genesis 'story'. That can't be anything but a private interpretation because it effectively abandons the text entirely.

Nonsense. It accepts the text as a allegory.

 

[Speedwell]

So you have no clue as to the content of the Pentateuch. The accounts of Abraham, Isaac Jacob, the account of the exodus from Egypt, the covenant confirmed as Sinai and reconfirmed before crossing Jordon. You just dismiss the historical content as suspicious nonsense.

No, it's your literary analysis that's suspicious. In any case, we are talking specifically about the Garden story, not the entire Pentateuch--a complex collection of texts which requires a variety of hermenuetical approaches.

Creation is inextricably linked to the incarnation, resurrection, new birth and the creation of the new heavens and new earth promised in the gospel. You guys love to ramble endlessly with these pedantic fallacious personal remarks but never address the real issue of salvation. The Gospel is redemptive history, if you don't want to acknowledge that we are talking real and literal history you have a very serious problem.

The Gospel is predicated on our status of sinners in need of redemption. We know this by the authority of Scripture and through our own experience. What's the problem?

That gets us past Genesis 1:1, then what happened. I mean if you take the first verse literally what happened to the rest of the chapter. What happens to the rest of the Bible as a matter of fact.

Ah, the old "slippery slope." Answer me this: If I happened to have a copy of Tom Sawyer bound into a single volume with Mark Twain's autobiography, would I be justified in concluding that because Tom Sawyer was fiction, the autobiography had to be fiction as well?

Creationists are not an angry mob invading schools and demanding to be heard. Every now and then a court case emerges where they try to introduce an alternative to Darwinism and it's rejected by the Supreme Court because of it's religious nature, it's called the establishment clause. We are not talking about some court case because the last one was the Dover case and it definitively determined that intelligent design was out because the designer has to be God.

The Dover case was decided on the basis that ID wasn't science and had no place in science classes. Read the transcript.

This is left over from the culture wars, gay rights and abortion being the other two issues involved. The church never went after those issues, they were inundated by them and had no choice but to make a stand. Time and time again I have seen theistic evolutionists beret creationists feverishly and relentlessly.

Oh, quit whining. For my sins, I had to live in the Bible Belt for several years and can tell all kinds of horror stories. Get over it.

As a matter of fact, most theistic evolutionists think the Big Bang was a natural event not requiring God. I believe in the Big Bang, God spoke and BANG, there it was.

That's not a "matter of fact," it's a bald-faced lie.

 

[Archivist]

The Dover case was decided on the basis that ID wasn't science and had no place in science classes. Read the transcript.

I lived in Cumberland County, within a few miles of Dover when the case was going on. The science teachers in the district refused to teach ID as science. Wonder why?

 

[mark kennedy]

No, it's your literary analysis that's suspicious. In any case, we are talking specifically about the Garden story, not the entire Pentateuch--a complex collection of texts which requires a variety of hermenuetical approaches.

The garden is inextricably linked to the underlying narrative. This is a major doctrinal and hermeneutics issues that transcend both the doctrine of creation and original sin to say nothing of the panorama of redemptive history. As usual we can't get there because your heading for the inevitable Ad homidem fallacy.

The Gospel is predicated on our status of sinners in need of redemption. We know this by the authority of Scripture and through our own experience. What's the problem?

Paul links Adam to original sin just as Moses did. That's been the historical premise for us all being sinners. The authority of Scripture doesn't hang on some nebulous ambiguity, it rooted and grounded to an historical context. Dismising historicity is to deny the authority of Scripture to definitively indict the whole of humanity.

Ah, the old "slippery slope." Answer me this: If I happened to have a copy of Tom Sawyer bound into a single volume with Mark Twain's autobiography, would I be justified in concluding that because Tom Sawyer was fiction, the autobiography had to be fiction as well?

Mark Twain doesn't insert his personal anecdotes into Tom Sawyer or Tom Sawyer into his autobiography. That's a. absurd analogy.

The Dover case was decided on the basis that ID wasn't science and had no place in science classes. Read the transcript.

I did read it and the judge said that the court had no opinion about whether or not ID was true. The question before the court was whether or not the designer was God and since that's the only logical answer it was out. The audacity of theistic to misrepresent facts about Scripture is dwarfed only by there twisting of facts like this. Or did you even read it?

Oh, quit whining. For my sins, I had to live in the Bible Belt for several years and can tell all kinds of horror stories. Get over it.

And there are the biting personal remarks that poison every thread. The inevitable ad hominem personal attract. That has always been enough to tell me you have nothing left.

That's not a "matter of fact," it's a bald-faced lie.

I've been posting to this forum opened. With nearly ten thousand posts do you really think the subject never came up? I banged away with theistic evolutionists for weeks one time trying to convince them the Big Bang is what happened in Gen 1. Not one of them relented, not one has my entire time on here. Not even you, instead of simply saying the Big Bang was an act of God you decide to flame me in blatant violation of the rules.

You got nothing but nerve.

 

[Speedwell]

And there are the biting personal remarks that poison every thread. The inevitable ad hominem personal attract. That has always been enough to tell me you have nothing left.

Some of it was pretty funny. I went in to town one day and found that there was a fistfight going on in the middle of the main street with a big circle of people watching. These two guys were pounding away at each other, a real fight with blood and torn clothes. I asked the bystanders what it was about, and they said it was about whether the sanctified body had real blood in it or not. I don't know who won.

Some of it was real sad, too. It was considered good sport there to set dogs on Jehova's Witness canvassers and some were severely injured. The sheriff would do nothing about it--he was a Fundy, himself.

 

[mark kennedy]

I lived in Cumberland County, within a few miles of Dover when the case was going on. The science teachers in the district refused to teach ID as science. Wonder why?

I've never advocated teaching Creationism in the public schools but when Darwin attended Cambridge Intelligent Design was required reading. It was called Natural Theology and Darwin said he enjoyed it.

I don't advocate my religion being maligned and ridiculed in schools which is exactly what would happen. Darwinism has never been anything but on long argument against miracles and creation being the cause of anything ever.

I'm glad they didn't teach it, the schools including most seminaries are incompetent to teach it anyway.

 

[mark kennedy]

Some of it was pretty funny. I went in to town one day and found that there was a fistfight going on in the middle of the main street with a big circle of people watching. These two guys were pounding away at each other, a real fight with blood and torn clothes. I asked the bystanders what it was about, and they said it was about whether the sanctified body had real blood in it or not. I don't know who won.

A story goes around that a large church split right down the middle over whether or not Adam had a belly button. Actually I've lived in Georgia, Virginia, and South Carolina and I was struck by how little average Christians don't know about the Bible.

Some of it was real sad, too. It was considered good sport there to set dogs on Jehova's Witness canvassers and some were severely injured. The sheriff would do nothing about it--he was a Fundy, himself.

Now you can be charged with a hate crime for refusing to bake a wedding cake based on religious and moral objections. There is another reason this issue and the issue of the larger culture war has me concerned. These kind of issues have a tendency to linger and the pendulum can swing hard the other way. Error, Aristotle famously postulated, is found in the extremes. Virtue he said was the mean or balance.

The church swings from super spiritual to hyper intellectual it seems every two hundred years. The latest starting in the eighteen hundreds was Weslyan Revivalism. The tell hundred years be for that it was Calvinism wrestling political and ecclesiastical power from Rome. This is going to change and Christianity has a much longer and stronger academic backbone then Darwinians appreciate.

 

[Speedwell]

I've never advocated teaching Creationism in the public schools but when Darwin attended Cambridge Intelligent Design was required reading. It was called Natural Theology and Darwin said he enjoyed it.

I probably would have enjoyed it, too. But the ID we are talking about wasn't invented yet. Now ID (the ID of the Dover trial} refers to a specific proposal by Michael Behe and William Dembski promoted by a fascist front organization called the Discovery Institute.

 

[mark kennedy]

I probably would have enjoyed it, too. But the ID we are talking about wasn't invented yet. Now ID (the ID of the Dover trial} refers to a specific proposal by Michael Behe and William Dembski promoted by a fascist front organization called the Discovery Institute.

What you are calling ID is just another name for Natural Theology, Paley's watch maker analogy of the stone and the watch is identical to Behe's irreducible complexity.

Calling them. a Nazi front is inflammatory slander and betrays a gross ignorance of the specifics. I've never seen anyone recover from the onset of ad hominem fallacies, you finally crashed and burned. The Discovery Institute has a small office in Seatle with a small staff. A couple of years ago they quietly acquired a small liberal arts college. While you make these baseless infamatory remarks they make progress.