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I think it all comes down to Genesis 2 and 3. If Adam and Eve are not historical figures then our redemptive history is based on myth or legend.Before you read the rest of this OP, please watch this short video in which Dr. Kenneth Miller, author of standard high school and college text books on evolution, provides a simple but compelling example of just how convincing the evidence for human evolution from lower primates really is. btw, Miller is a devout Catholic who believes in Intelligent Design!
youtube keeneth miller chimpanzees humans genes - Bing video
Many Fundamentalist Christians embrace a Domino theory of Scripture and its teaching about Creation, a view that in effect teaches that we must either literally believe in a creation process in 6 24-hour days or throw out the entire Bible, including our precious life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ and our Christian hope. Over the decades since Darwin, millions of dedicated bright young Christians confronted with this ghastly challenge have responded by saying I must be true to my self and my sense of integrity, follow the evidence, and try to sustain my faith with some loose ends and inconsistencies that I strive to resolve. But then when they are pressed to confront the Domino theory of Scripture, they feel forced to solve this dilemma by renouncing their faith. Many fundamentalists would rather fell right in their own eyes than encourage honest seekers to pursue whatever faith quest it takes to sustain a life-changing saving relationship with the Lord.
Seldom do seekers bring an OT Wisdom perspective to this debate. So here are 5 interpretive principles for your consideration that have the potential to justify a faith-sustaining theistic evolutionary, old earth position:
(1) The accidental forces of natural selection and genetic mutation that fuel evolution evoke the poetic image of divine play. an endless series of dry runs and dead ends in Mother Nature's operation of evolutionary forces. Proverbs 9 portrays Lady Wisdom in an analogous way to Mother Nature and uses the image of divine play to depict Her role in creation:
"I [Lady Wisdom] was beside the master craftsman, delighting him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere on his earth (8:30-31--NJB),"
(2) The lack of sustained purpose that characterizes play provides a role for chance in the creation process and implies that God does not micro-manage the operation of the laws of Nature in our universe. OT wisdom literature combines the poetic image of divine play with the role of chance in outcomes: "All are victims of time and chance (Ecclesiastes 9:11)."
(3) Notice in the Genesis creation narrative that God does not just speak vegetation and sea and animal life into being. Instead, God says:
"And God said: Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures (Genesis 1:19)."
"And God said: Let the earth bring forth vegetation...(Genesis 1:11)."
"And God said: Let the earth bring forth living creatures of ever kind (1:25)."
The expressions "Let the waters bring forth" and "Let the earth bring forth" play off the Ancient Near Eastern concept of the creative power of Mother Earth. Significantly, Genesis does not inform us as to how the earth or the sea brought forth life in its various forms. Thus, the poetic language might mask the hidden truth of God's use of evolutionary processes in the creation and expansion of new life.
(5) Notice too how a poetic understanding of the universe's origin seems quite compatible with Big Bang scientific theory. In the ancient near east, there was no concept of the endless vacuum of outer space. Instead, they envisaged what we call outer space as "waters" separated from the earth-forming waters by a "dome" or "firmament." Notice then how God conveys an origin model that is compatible with Big Bang theory through the false ancient Israelite cosmology:
"The wind of God moved over the face of the waters [= the vacuum of outer space] , and God said: "Let there be light," and there was light (Genesis 1:2)."
"Wind" conveys force spreading and expanding through space (= "the waters), resulting in light, a nice image of the eruption of the Big Bang from a pinpoint of unimaginable energy.
Many Fundamentalist Christians embrace a Domino theory of Scripture and its teaching about Creation, a view that in effect teaches that we must either literally believe in a creation process in 6 24-hour days or throw out the entire Bible, including our precious life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ and our Christian hope.
Over the decades since Darwin, millions of dedicated bright young Christians confronted with this ghastly challenge have responded by saying I must be true to my self and my sense of integrity, follow the evidence, and try to sustain my faith with some loose ends and inconsistencies that I strive to resolve. But then when they are pressed to confront the Domino theory of Scripture, they feel forced to solve this dilemma by renouncing their faith.
Many fundamentalists would rather fell right in their own eyes than encourage honest seekers to pursue whatever faith quest it takes to sustain a life-changing saving relationship with the Lord.
(1) The accidental forces of natural selection and genetic mutation that fuel evolution evoke the poetic image of divine play. an endless series of dry runs and dead ends in Mother Nature's operation of evolutionary forces. Proverbs 9 portrays Lady Wisdom in an analogous way to Mother Nature and uses the image of divine play to depict Her role in creation:
"I [Lady Wisdom] was beside the master craftsman, delighting him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere on his earth (8:30-31--NJB),"
(2) The lack of sustained purpose that characterizes play provides a role for chance in the creation process and implies that God does not micro-manage the operation of the laws of Nature in our universe. OT wisdom literature combines the poetic image of divine play with the role of chance in outcomes: "All are victims of time and chance (Ecclesiastes 9:11)."
Don't worry Oscarr I just thought you were being a good debate moderator.Oh, by the way. I have not defected to the camp of the evolutionists by any means!!
Good point. It's not poetic language like used in the wisdom books (e.g. Job and Psalms).The Bible DOES say that man was formed of the dust of the earth, not one of the beasts of the field... as is suggested by ToE. BTW, who says Genesis is poetic?
I took what I believe was a half-way point between the two sides. I brought up some challenging questions to get people thinking out of the box.Don't worry Oscarr I just thought you were being a good debate moderator.
And thank you for that! That's how we as fellow Christians should approach discussions. Be inquisitive.I took what I believe was a half-way point between the two sides. I brought up some challenging questions to get people thinking out of the box.
Before you read the rest of this OP, please watch this short video in which Dr. Kenneth Miller, author of standard high school and college text books on evolution, provides a simple but compelling example of just how convincing the evidence for human evolution from lower primates really is. btw, Miller is a devout Catholic who believes in Intelligent Design!
youtube keeneth miller chimpanzees humans genes - Bing video
Many Fundamentalist Christians embrace a Domino theory of Scripture and its teaching about Creation, a view that in effect teaches that we must either literally believe in a creation process in 6 24-hour days or throw out the entire Bible, including our precious life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ and our Christian hope. Over the decades since Darwin, millions of dedicated bright young Christians confronted with this ghastly challenge have responded by saying I must be true to my self and my sense of integrity, follow the evidence, and try to sustain my faith with some loose ends and inconsistencies that I strive to resolve. But then when they are pressed to confront the Domino theory of Scripture, they feel forced to solve this dilemma by renouncing their faith. Many fundamentalists would rather fell right in their own eyes than encourage honest seekers to pursue whatever faith quest it takes to sustain a life-changing saving relationship with the Lord.
Seldom do seekers bring an OT Wisdom perspective to this debate. So here are 5 interpretive principles for your consideration that have the potential to justify a faith-sustaining theistic evolutionary, old earth position:
(1) The accidental forces of natural selection and genetic mutation that fuel evolution evoke the poetic image of divine play. an endless series of dry runs and dead ends in Mother Nature's operation of evolutionary forces. Proverbs 9 portrays Lady Wisdom in an analogous way to Mother Nature and uses the image of divine play to depict Her role in creation:
"I [Lady Wisdom] was beside the master craftsman, delighting him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere on his earth (8:30-31--NJB),"
(2) The lack of sustained purpose that characterizes play provides a role for chance in the creation process and implies that God does not micro-manage the operation of the laws of Nature in our universe. OT wisdom literature combines the poetic image of divine play with the role of chance in outcomes: "All are victims of time and chance (Ecclesiastes 9:11)."
(3) Notice in the Genesis creation narrative that God does not just speak vegetation and sea and animal life into being. Instead, God says:
"And God said: Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures (Genesis 1:19)."
"And God said: Let the earth bring forth vegetation...(Genesis 1:11)."
"And God said: Let the earth bring forth living creatures of ever kind (1:25)."
The expressions "Let the waters bring forth" and "Let the earth bring forth" play off the Ancient Near Eastern concept of the creative power of Mother Earth. Significantly, Genesis does not inform us as to how the earth or the sea brought forth life in its various forms. Thus, the poetic language might mask the hidden truth of God's use of evolutionary processes in the creation and expansion of new life.
(5) Notice too how a poetic understanding of the universe's origin seems quite compatible with Big Bang scientific theory. In the ancient near east, there was no concept of the endless vacuum of outer space. Instead, they envisaged what we call outer space as "waters" separated from the earth-forming waters by a "dome" or "firmament." Notice then how God conveys an origin model that is compatible with Big Bang theory through the false ancient Israelite cosmology:
"The wind of God moved over the face of the waters [= the vacuum of outer space] , and God said: "Let there be light," and there was light (Genesis 1:2)."
"Wind" conveys force spreading and expanding through space (= "the waters), resulting in light, a nice image of the eruption of the Big Bang from a pinpoint of unimaginable energy.
Before you read the rest of this OP, please watch this short video in which Dr. Kenneth Miller, author of standard high school and college text books on evolution, provides a simple but compelling example of just how convincing the evidence for human evolution from lower primates really is. btw, Miller is a devout Catholic who believes in Intelligent Design!
youtube keeneth miller chimpanzees humans genes - Bing video
Many Fundamentalist Christians embrace a Domino theory of Scripture and its teaching about Creation, a view that in effect teaches that we must either literally believe in a creation process in 6 24-hour days or throw out the entire Bible, including our precious life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ and our Christian hope. Over the decades since Darwin, millions of dedicated bright young Christians confronted with this ghastly challenge have responded by saying I must be true to my self and my sense of integrity, follow the evidence, and try to sustain my faith with some loose ends and inconsistencies that I strive to resolve. But then when they are pressed to confront the Domino theory of Scripture, they feel forced to solve this dilemma by renouncing their faith. Many fundamentalists would rather fell right in their own eyes than encourage honest seekers to pursue whatever faith quest it takes to sustain a life-changing saving relationship with the Lord.
Seldom do seekers bring an OT Wisdom perspective to this debate. So here are 5 interpretive principles for your consideration that have the potential to justify a faith-sustaining theistic evolutionary, old earth position:
(1) The accidental forces of natural selection and genetic mutation that fuel evolution evoke the poetic image of divine play. an endless series of dry runs and dead ends in Mother Nature's operation of evolutionary forces. Proverbs 9 portrays Lady Wisdom in an analogous way to Mother Nature and uses the image of divine play to depict Her role in creation:
"I [Lady Wisdom] was beside the master craftsman, delighting him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere on his earth (8:30-31--NJB),"
(2) The lack of sustained purpose that characterizes play provides a role for chance in the creation process and implies that God does not micro-manage the operation of the laws of Nature in our universe. OT wisdom literature combines the poetic image of divine play with the role of chance in outcomes: "All are victims of time and chance (Ecclesiastes 9:11)."
(3) Notice in the Genesis creation narrative that God does not just speak vegetation and sea and animal life into being. Instead, God says:
"And God said: Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures (Genesis 1:19)."
"And God said: Let the earth bring forth vegetation...(Genesis 1:11)."
"And God said: Let the earth bring forth living creatures of ever kind (1:25)."
The expressions "Let the waters bring forth" and "Let the earth bring forth" play off the Ancient Near Eastern concept of the creative power of Mother Earth. Significantly, Genesis does not inform us as to how the earth or the sea brought forth life in its various forms. Thus, the poetic language might mask the hidden truth of God's use of evolutionary processes in the creation and expansion of new life.
(5) Notice too how a poetic understanding of the universe's origin seems quite compatible with Big Bang scientific theory. In the ancient near east, there was no concept of the endless vacuum of outer space. Instead, they envisaged what we call outer space as "waters" separated from the earth-forming waters by a "dome" or "firmament." Notice then how God conveys an origin model that is compatible with Big Bang theory through the false ancient Israelite cosmology:
"The wind of God moved over the face of the waters [= the vacuum of outer space] , and God said: "Let there be light," and there was light (Genesis 1:2)."
"Wind" conveys force spreading and expanding through space (= "the waters), resulting in light, a nice image of the eruption of the Big Bang from a pinpoint of unimaginable energy.
Whether Moses was aware or not is quite irrelevant. 2 Tim 3:16-17 clearly declares that ALL SCRIPTURE is inspired by God. All means all - not some. Do you agree? Yes or No? If no, which scriptures in your opinion are not inspired by God??What I said was that Moses was not aware of the time of compiling the Genesis account that he was being inspired by God. The only direct evidence of God dictating word for word are the tablets on which the finger of God wrote the Ten Commandments. In fact they were more than dictations. God wrote them Himself. The only other words that were dictations word for word in the Old Testament were the prophecies that Moses and the Prophets received, and which were prefixed: "Thus says the Lord."
I refer to you since you are the one I'm debating. The Bible is not silent on the role of women in ministry. Paul prolifically wrote on it however your claim is based on the fact that no other writers touched the subject. That is an argument of silence which is weak for the very reason you cited. You used the silence of other writers to claim that the Bible opposes Paul's view when it does no such thing. Again, all Scripture is inspired by God. Do you disagree that Paul's letters were inspired by God?If the Bible is silent about something it means that God neither approves or disapproves of it. Paul acknowledges that the Old Testament was inspired, but then he is looking at them with the 20 20 vision of hindsight.
By the way, do you usually use "you" messages when you debate with people. Sounds like you are being my judge. Probably unintentional - just your style of debating.
So then Moses was quite literate and educated which appears to contradict your earlier claim?We don't know what cosmology Egyptian children were taught. The knowledge that the Egyptians had were destroyed by religious zealots who believed that all knowledge coming out of pagan cultures was evil. That was the motive behind the destruction of the Great Alexandria Library. The Egyptians were the most technologically advanced culture in the world at the time of Moses, and the destruction of the Library put technology back over 1000 years.
I have said all I need to say about Moses and the Creation account. Now, if you are certain that the Bible prohibits women from having any ministry in the Church, you will have to say that Philip's daughters who prophesied did that from a wrong spirit because it contradicts the scripture, and that every woman who had a ministry in the church through the ages were in error, and that every woman leader, evangelist, and minister are not of God because their ministries contradict the Scripture. Am I right?Whether Moses was aware or not is quite irrelevant. 2 Tim 3:16-17 clearly declares that ALL SCRIPTURE is inspired by God. All means all - not some. Do you agree? Yes or No? If no, which scriptures in your opinion are not inspired by God??
I refer to you since you are the one I'm debating. The Bible is not silent on the role of women in ministry. Paul prolifically wrote on it however your claim is based on the fact that no other writers touched the subject. That is an argument of silence which is weak for the very reason you cited. You used the silence of other writers to claim that the Bible opposes Paul's view when it does no such thing. Again, all Scripture is inspired by God. Do you disagree that Paul's letters were inspired by God?
So then Moses was quite literate and educated which appears to contradict your earlier claim?
Science cannot explain miraculous events, right? Unless science has an explanation for how Jesus was born of a virgin, how Jesus stilled the storm and the waters, raised the dead, gave sight to the blind, healed the sick, was raised from death Himself, etc... All real events science cannot explain and transcends to the deeper truth upon which all of creation rests. The creation week was all miraculous. Point here is just to show that there are causes outside of the physical universe that affect reality, affect matter, created life (and overcame death) that cannot be possible if one only considers naturalistic causes.Good post. Read Genesis for the reasons it was written, the teachings included in the text about God, mankind, purpose and relationship etc and it makes sense. Try to frame it as a scientific account of creation and it makes no sense at all.
12 hours in a day also mean there are 12 hours in a night. The world began in the evening, "the evening and the morning were the first day," God didn't create the world in 6 days, but in six evenings and mornings. That can only mean six days as we say today. It there wasn't an evening and a morning is wasn't a day.You are comparing apples with oranges. The "days" of creation are written that way to help readers to understand that God created the world in a specific time-frame with each component in its ordered sequence, and that world with its living plants and beings did not evolve by chance. This does not prove that those "days" were 24 hour days. But because it said that God rested on the seventh "day" (and are we still in the seventh "day" where the Lord is resting from further creation? Probably), the seventh 24 hour day is reserved our day of rest. But your quote says that a day is only 12 hours! So there is another definition of "day". So if I go by your quote, then God created the world and everything in it in six 12 hour days!! Really?
Unfortunately, you resort to a red herring fallacy as no where did I write that women have no role in ministry. Your claim is that there is no difference in the roles of men and women in the church and women can occupy and do the same functions as men. I clearly pointed out to you that "all in Christ" refers to our common position in Christ - not to different functions/roles within the body of Christ - which you failed to respond to. Furthermore, nothing in the scriptures prohibits women from prophesying so I see nothing wrong with Philip's daughters prophesying. Every man and women has a ministry or function in the body of Christ. However the scriptures state that in terms of leadership and teaching, men are to occupy those positions. Women can teach but only to other women and/or children. Otherwise women are perfectly capable of witnessing, evangelizing, prophesying and ministering in word and deed the gospel of Jesus Christ. The only thing they cannot do is hold formal positions of authority in the church.I have said all I need to say about Moses and the Creation account. Now, if you are certain that the Bible prohibits women from having any ministry in the Church, you will have to say that Philip's daughters who prophesied did that from a wrong spirit because it contradicts the scripture, and that every woman who had a ministry in the church through the ages were in error, and that every woman leader, evangelist, and minister are not of God because their ministries contradict the Scripture. Am I right?
Then how to you account for the thousands upon thousands of souls won to Christ by the ministries of women through history? Were all those conversions false?
So you are actually saying that women pastors, priests and ministers are not of God but are in disobedience to His Word?Unfortunately, you resort to a red herring fallacy as no where did I write that women have no role in ministry. Your claim is that there is no difference in the roles of men and women in the church and women can occupy and do the same functions as men. I clearly pointed out to you that "all in Christ" refers to our common position in Christ - not to different functions/roles within the body of Christ - which you failed to respond to. Furthermore, nothing in the scriptures prohibits women from prophesying so I see nothing wrong with Philip's daughters prophesying. Every man and women has a ministry or function in the body of Christ. However the scriptures state that in terms of leadership and teaching, men are to occupy those positions. Women can teach but only to other women and/or children. Otherwise women are perfectly capable of witnessing, evangelizing, prophesying and ministering in word and deed the gospel of Jesus Christ. The only thing they cannot do is hold formal positions of authority in the church.
If you disagree, or don't like it, maybe you ought to take it up with God.
Just wanting to clarify.12 hours in a day also mean there are 12 hours in a night. The world began in the evening, "the evening and the morning were the first day," God didn't create the world in 6 days, but in six evenings and mornings. That can only mean six days as we say today. It there wasn't an evening and a morning is wasn't a day.
So you are actually saying that women pastors, priests and ministers are not of God but are in disobedience to His Word?
Actually atheists are moving away from Big Bang as that theory requires an unmoved Mover. I think the Catholic Thomists and ID have thoroughly humiliated atheists on this manner.Are you not worried about the fact that the strongest advocates of Big Bang, abiogenesis and evolution are atheists who use this as a tool to bash Christians faith in scripture. Whose agenda do these theories really serve?
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