Question for Theistic Evolutionists

heritage36 · Feb 3, 2011

I just said that every one of the occurrences out of that 2301 in the OT where it refers to a morning or evening is found to be referring to a literal day of 24 hours, that is how it is relevant, like I said before. And try to keep up, thefijian, with all you guys throwing their evolutionary beliefs at me I don't have time to present arguments twice. The day statement was what I said after you asked for something to show this specific section of Scripture should not be taken literally. Maybe you guys can answer a question for me, how did life come to be on this planet then? I mean, I presume you guys all are saying God used evolution to create, but how did he start it? Doesn't evolution basically say that life came of nothing? There is some good science, that is for sure, just like the "big bang". I love that one, basically says nothing became something, and something became everything. Gotta love that from a scientific perspective.

Marc15 · Feb 3, 2011

I think we should all read Genesis literally. All the New Testament writers took it literally.

And the 6 days were 24 hour days.

"For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." Exodus 20:11

heritage36 · Feb 3, 2011

Oh my goodness, another young earth creationist? And here I thought this site was totally overrun by evolutionists! Nice, welcome marc15!

crawfish · Feb 3, 2011

Marc15 said:
I think we should all read Genesis literally. All the New Testament writers took it literally.

And the 6 days were 24 hour days.

"For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." Exodus 20:11

OK, I'll bite.

Genesis 2:18-19 said:
And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

So, this literally means that God formed man and then formed the beasts of the field. Of course, this conflicts with Genesis 1, which says that man was formed last.

How can I take both of these literally? It seems like I have to choose one to be literal and the other not.

Mallon · Feb 3, 2011

heritage36 said:
Would you guys really not agree, some things in revelation need to be taken literally and some do not? I mean, do you think that verse is talking about three different individuals in the serpent, the devil and satan? I mean, come on people!

But if I can't take Revelation literally, then I can't believe the rest of the Bible!

Are you starting to understand what a foolish non-sequitur this is? The Bible is a collection of books of different genres. Our interpretation of one book should not hold for all books. It does not follow.

heritage36 · Feb 3, 2011

Sorry Mallon, no I do not think it is foolish at all. The fact is the Bible is not an easy read to understand, it is a book that people spend years if not decades trying to grasp everything in and die still wondering about certain areas. That is a challenge for many reasons, one of those being that some parts are literal, and some are figurative. Not being able to take sections all literally has nothing to do with believing the rest of the Bible if you understand this basic Bible studying premise.

Mallon · Feb 3, 2011

heritage36 said:
Sorry Mallon, no I do not think it is foolish at all. The fact is the Bible is not an easy read to understand, it is a book that people spend years if not decades trying to grasp everything in and die still wondering about certain areas. That is a challenge for many reasons, one of those being that some parts are literal, and some are figurative. Not being able to take sections all literally has nothing to do with believing the rest of the Bible if you understand this basic Bible studying premise.

Well, we've come full circle, then, because what you just said flies in the face of your first post here:

heritage36 said:
The Bible is the facts we have to work with, not science always. Science is obviously the interpretations of people aka scientists. The simple fact is that Genesis has to be taken totally literally, or you have to deny other areas of Scripture. I heard a good quote recently...

"You tell people to look in the gospels and you said "this is what God said", but then you tell people to look in Genesis and you say "this is what God said, but it doesn't mean it.""

heritage36 · Feb 3, 2011

Nice addition to your last comment, but that still doesn't change that the Bible is unlike any other book and doesn't really reflect how lesser books are written.

heritage36 · Feb 3, 2011

I just said that was a quote I heard recently that I thought was funny, that doesn't really make anything come "full circle".

crawfish · Feb 3, 2011

heritage36 said:
Sorry Mallon, no I do not think it is foolish at all. The fact is the Bible is not an easy read to understand, it is a book that people spend years if not decades trying to grasp everything in and die still wondering about certain areas. That is a challenge for many reasons, one of those being that some parts are literal, and some are figurative. Not being able to take sections all literally has nothing to do with believing the rest of the Bible if you understand this basic Bible studying premise.

The question remains, why is Genesis 1-3 immune from such complexity, and why should we assume we already grasp it as a literal account?

Mallon · Feb 3, 2011

heritage36 said:
I just said that was a quote I heard recently that I thought was funny, that doesn't really make anything come "full circle".

You've completely contradicted yourself, heritage. Just admit it.

Assyrian · Feb 3, 2011

heritage36 said:
I just said that every one of the occurrences out of that 2301 in the OT where it refers to a morning or evening is found to be referring to a literal day of 24 hours, that is how it is relevant, like I said before.

If it is only the times that yom is used with evening and morning that are relevant, then the total number of occurrences simply isn't relevant. The problem here is you get a lot of smoke and mirrors in Creationist websites, who will quote the fact that yom is mentioned 2301 times, as if it was really significant, but never actually make a significant point about it. But the whole argument is without basis. You cannot claim a passage has to be literal because it contains word combinations that are used literally elsewhere. Was Jesus limited in his parables to word combinations that were used metaphorically by someone else? If so how could anyone ever tell the first metaphor or parable? The minute they try to use a word combination that had been used literally by other people, their metaphor suddenly has to be literal. That is simply not the way language works. The fact is, while yom is most often used literally, it is also used figuratively, so are the words evening and morning. There is simply no reason they cannot be used figuratively together.

And try to keep up, thefijian, with all you guys throwing their evolutionary beliefs at me I don't have time to present arguments twice. The day statement was what I said after you asked for something to show this specific section of Scripture should not be taken literally.

And the figurative uses of the word day right in Genesis 2 is a pretty good indication you cannot simply assume day is being used literally in chapter 1.

Maybe you guys can answer a question for me, how did life come to be on this planet then? I mean, I presume you guys all are saying God used evolution to create, but how did he start it? Doesn't evolution basically say that life came of nothing? There is some good science, that is for sure, just like the "big bang". I love that one, basically says nothing became something, and something became everything. Gotta love that from a scientific perspective.

With the origin of life, you are not talking evolution any more but abiogenesis, which doesn't say life can from nothing, but from chemical reactions in preexisting matter. The thing is, the theory of evolution is based firmly on the evidence for evolution itself, that life has evolved from single celled organisms, not on much more speculative questions about how life began in the first place. The same with the Big Bang. It says nothing about where the singularity might have come from, just that the evidence says the universe expanded from there. Other versions, like the 'big bounce' talk about what might have been there before the singularity.

Assyrian · Feb 3, 2011

Marc15 said:
I think we should all read Genesis literally. All the New Testament writers took it literally.

And the 6 days were 24 hour days.

"For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." Exodus 20:11

The NT writers don't actually say the six days were 24 hour days, do they?

You need to be careful not to take your literal approach to Genesis, and assume the NT writers did the same thing. Are they taking Genesis literally, or are you just interpreting what they said literally. Paul used word like 'figure', 'mystery', and 'allegory' to describe some of his interpretations of Genesis

heritage36 · Feb 3, 2011

Have you studied out the occurrences of yom to find out if there are other occurrences or not? I could give you some examples. These are not isolated instances in the creation account.

I appreciate your trying to clarify my question about evolution and the big bang that seemingly everyone else has avoided, but as you seem to agree, we are no closer to a explanation for how human life or the galaxy began, and obviously if evolution is a viable alternative to creation, then we would have to know that, would we not?

Assyrian · Feb 3, 2011

heritage36 said:
Have you studied out the occurrences of yom to find out if there are other occurrences or not? I could give you some examples. These are not isolated instances in the creation account.

You certainly get non literal day, evening and morning being used within a couple of verse in Psalm 90. You also get Jesus using day and morning together in the parable of the labourers in the vineyard. The question is whether other uses of these word combinations are relevant, which is the point I was making.

I appreciate your trying to clarify my question about evolution and the big bang that seemingly everyone else has avoided, but as you seem to agree, we are no closer to a explanation for how human life or the galaxy began, and obviously if evolution is a viable alternative to creation, then we would have to know that, would we not?

No not really. Take your CSIs again. You find a man dead with a hole through his chest and a bloody bullet lodged in the wall behind him. You do not need to find out where the bullet was manufactured to know he was shot. We don't need to know how exactly life originated to know it evolved from singled celled common ancestors.

Papias · Feb 3, 2011

heritage wrote:

Your area of genesis you quoted about the heel is after the creation account, and to be clear, I did say that there are figures used in many areas, just not the creation account. Though you think it is odd that I admit there are figures used in many areas, you have to agree, there are other areas of whole chapters that are totally literal too.

OK, so you are saying that Chapter 3 of genesis uses figurative language, but that chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis have to, dogmatically, without a doubt, be read completely literally? Oh, and that the other parts of the Bible have a mix of figurative and literal language, but that Genesis 1 and 2 have to, dogmatically, and without a doubt be treated differently than you read the rest of the whole Bible?

Why? Why do you arbitarily single out two chapters to be treated differently? In all cases, should we not use both the text and learnings from God's other revelation, the real world, to interpret each section?

Your comment about the heel isn't really relevant to the topic at hand. Yes, I know there are figures used that you may not find literally used anywhere else, but there are also words only used literally, so I don't see the point of that.

I don't see the point in trying to find words that are only used literally. Do you really think that God's mind is cordoned off so there are words that God can only use literally? Hey, I found one! "Tarsus". The only times "Tarsus" is used, it is used literally! That must be one of the words in God's powerless zone! I guess I don't see the point of that.

Why does science have to prove this true or not anyways, and why not Gods word which we know to be true? I mean, even the basis of the scientific method is not really truly observed in evolutionary thought, that being OBSERVATION. Faith involves believing things we cannot by normal human terms explain, because God is far beyond us and our abilities. Evolution is just a foolish attempt to show we can explain something extraordinary done by God.

I mean, diseases are obviously caused by evil spirits, not germs.
Why does science have to prove this true or not anyways, and why not Gods word which we know to be true? I mean, even the basis of the scientific method is not really truly observed in evolutionary thought, that being OBSERVATION. Faith involves believing things we cannot by normal human terms explain, because God is far beyond us and our abilities. This germ idea is just a foolish attempt to show we can explain something extraordinary done by evil spirits as directed by God.

The point is that your paragraph says nothing other than that you are sciencephobic. That's a recipie for an obsolete and irrelevant Christianity. Anyone familiar with science (especially forensic science) knows that the scientific method, including observation, works quite well on past events, because what is being observed are the results of the various hypotheses, not and replicate the past event is not needed.

Papias

Marshall Janzen · Feb 3, 2011

heritage36 said:
I know many of you want to believe that the word day can be millions of years somehow, but that word, the hebrew word "yom" is used 2301 times in the OT and we aren't really confused by any of the other times like this, and any one of those 2301 times you look at when used along with parts of a 24 hour day like morning and evening, is always speaking of a 24 hour day, look into it yourself.

First, as a disclaimer, I think the days of Genesis 1 are as literal within the account as the bowls of Revelation 16 are literal within that account. The bowls really mean bowls and not huge cisterns; the days really mean days and not long ages. However, I think the entire account of Genesis 1 (as well as Revelation 16) is using a framework of seven items (days or bowls) to reveal something that no human had seen. We miss the point if we try to determine scientifically how God's creative activity all took place within a week, or how God's wrath could be a liquid that pours out of bowls.

That aside, the supposed rule about yom always being a 24-hour day when surrounded by "morning" or "evening" is also false, for many of the reasons that have already been mentioned. Grammar doesn't work like that. We don't have one set of word combinations that can be used symbolically, and another that can only be literal. Further, it's incorrect, just based on Scripture itself:

1 Samuel 17:16: I'll start with a weak example I don't expect you to accept. This verse uses the expression "40 days" together with "morning" and "evening". Most see the 40 days as being symbolic of a time of testing (since the phrase is frequently used that way in Scripture), regardless of whether it was exactly 40 days. But, it can certainly be read literally too, so let's move on.
Psalm 59:16 and Psalm 73:14: Both use "day" and "morning" together, yet are using the terms figuratively. The first psalmist's distress was not limited to a 24-hour period, and the second psalm, especially if it is read Messianically, describes very real suffering in a figurative, hyperbolic time frame.
Isaiah 17:11: The "day of sickliness and incurable pain" (NASB) refers to an event not limited to a literal day, notwithstanding the use of "morning" earlier in the verse. In fact, the verse is symbolic on two levels: first, it describes the seasons of planting, growing and blossoming symbolically compressed into a single morning, and second, the plant itself is symbolic of the city of Damascus.

Finally, please consider Jeremiah 6:1-5. This passage uses day, evening and night, and within its poetry, the words are meant literally. But, the whole speech is poetic. Jeremiah is painting a future scene evocatively. He isn't literally commanding an attack at noon, and he isn't literally speaking so slowly that the whole day passes before he says the next line, "Woe to us, for the day declines." If you can see how the words "day", "evening" and "night" are meant literally within that oracle, and yet at the same time, that the point of that oracle isn't to reveal exact days or times of day, then you'll be well on your way to seeing how many TEs understand Genesis 1.

Willtor · Feb 3, 2011

heritage36 said:
Sorry Mallon, no I do not think it is foolish at all. The fact is the Bible is not an easy read to understand, it is a book that people spend years if not decades trying to grasp everything in and die still wondering about certain areas. That is a challenge for many reasons, one of those being that some parts are literal, and some are figurative. Not being able to take sections all literally has nothing to do with believing the rest of the Bible if you understand this basic Bible studying premise.

Indeed. I think you should reread Genesis for its figurative value and see whether you still think it was intended literally.

theFijian · Feb 4, 2011

heritage36 said:
And try to keep up, thefijian, with all you guys throwing their evolutionary beliefs at me I don't have time to present arguments twice. The day statement was what I said after you asked for something to show this specific section of Scripture should not be taken literally.

I'll not take offence at the condescension but you certainly have not answered my question, how do we know what parts of Revelation to take literally and what parts not to? (Seriously, wherever the word 'day' is used we know to take the passage literally? Laughable.)

GoodNewsJim · Mar 12, 2011

Evolution and Creationism can both exist.
This article is in a book that God himself approves of: FatherSpiritSon.com

I take the creation story literally. My theory is that a day for God can be any length of time. I found out that I'm not the only one with this theory.

Before publishing my book I prayed to God a prayer to make sure I didn't overstep my bounds in theoretical meta things, and prayed,"God I hope everything is cool." Immediately my coauthor IMs me,"Everything is cool." So I know my book is approved by God. This article is in that book.

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