The Creation, Dinosaurs, and Adam and Eve

ArmyMatt · Mar 16, 2011

I see. Well, how do you reconcile dinosaurs on the earth billions of years ago.... did they somehow coexist in the Garden with Adam and Eve? How?

because I don't believe the earth is billions of years old. if the Fall and the Flood were both universal supernatural changes to the universe, then it is very possible that techniques that we use to date the age of the earth or extinct species could be wrong, because we are using techniques designed for a fallen universe and applying them to our prefallen state.

so yes, Adam and Even lived with dinosaurs

Michael G · Mar 16, 2011

I am sorry, but this thread requires more mental gymnastics than Toll Houses do!

Dorothea · Mar 16, 2011

jckstraw72 said:
i think, unfortunately, that Fr. David is incorrect, and that animals did not die before the Fall. here is what many Fathers have to say about death before the Fall: the entire creation was created incorrupt « Old Believings Blog

the basic idea is that the earth was made for man and given to man, and thus its fate is tied to ours. Orthodoxy views the fall and salvation as a cosmic event, reaching far beyond man. also, the Wisdom of Solomon (chaps 1,2) tells us that God does not desire the death of anything, and St. Paul tells us that all of creation was subjected to vanity by the sin of man, and thus all of creation groans in anticipation of its redemption.

as for dinosaurs, i do not accept the assumptions that go into dating methods, and thus i have no reason to believe that dinosaurs lived billions or millions of years ago.

and if God intends for animals to die, then its ridiculous for us to be sad when our pets die --- why should we be sad that God's will has been done? we mourn over death because we innately know that it is an intruder and a corruption.

Well, again, Fr. David didn't say it was the teaching of the Church. He said in his own opinion he thought this. and since there wasn't dogma about this exactly, we are free to believe what we think on this.

Ok, but when do you think dinosaurs lived? In the Garden? on the Earth before the Garden because in Genesis, the animals and such are there before Adam and Eve.

Dorothea · Mar 17, 2011

ArmyMatt said:
because I don't believe the earth is billions of years old. if the Fall and the Flood were both universal supernatural changes to the universe, then it is very possible that techniques that we use to date the age of the earth or extinct species could be wrong, because we are using techniques designed for a fallen universe and applying them to our prefallen state.

so yes, Adam and Even lived with dinosaurs

How did they live with dinosaurs? When the dinosaurs died off on the earth...I guess that's my understanding of what happened to them....and the volcanos and whatever else killed them off, where were Adam and Eve during this catastrophe? Do you reconcile this with the actual Fall?

jckstraw72 · Mar 17, 2011

i believe dinosaurs were created when all the other animals were created, so they co-existed with man. whether or not they were actually inside the Garden i dont know, and when and how they went extinct, i don't know.

Michael G · Mar 17, 2011

jckstraw72 said:
i believe dinosaurs were created when all the other animals were created, so they co-existed with man. whether or not they were actually inside the Garden i dont know, and when and how they went extinct, i don't know.

No one has ever found human bones anywhere near where they have found dinosaur bones.

tapi · Mar 17, 2011

At the risk of turning this thread into a heated argument about cookies;

YouTube - Of Dinosaurs and Death.MP4

jckstraw72 · Mar 17, 2011

Michael the Iconographer said:
No one has ever found human bones anywhere near where they have found dinosaur bones.

well, i dont know if i accept that. i feel like i have read differently, but cant offer any specifics. i find that most of the assertions like this in favor of evolution are not so firm as they are stated to be.

but either way, there is much of our faith that science has not confirmed. science cant allow for a man to rise from the dead after 3 days. if you focus on the Resurrection as a scientific issue you will find yourself doing mental gymnastics as well. if you look at it as a spiritual reality and an act of God then its quite easy to accept.

Michael G · Mar 17, 2011

This thread has gone Ottoducks. Sorry, but speculation is not part of my faith.

jckstraw72 · Mar 17, 2011

Michael the Iconographer said:
This thread has gone Ottoducks. Sorry, but speculation is not part of my faith.

exactly. thats why i stick with the Fathers, rather than trying to forge my own synthesis of Patristics and modern scientific hypotheses.

Michael G · Mar 17, 2011

jckstraw72 said:
exactly. thats why i stick with the Fathers, rather than trying to forge my own synthesis of Patristics and modern scientific hypotheses.

Start naming specific fathers and works that I can read which clearly say that creation was new earth. And NO, Seraphim Rose is not a father of the Church.

jckstraw72 · Mar 17, 2011

well this thread is about animal death, and ive already posted a link for that.

but if you want things referring to the length of days and age of the earth look here Orthodoxy and Creationism « Old Believing’s Blog

jckstraw72 · Mar 17, 2011

also read this Byzantine Creation Era - OrthodoxWiki

tapi · Mar 17, 2011

Even the Holy Fathers were often scientists and wrote about world according to the best scientific knowledge available at the time. Why do people insist on maintaining models of reality formed hundeds, or even over a thousand years ago, when we have more accurate, more proven knowledge at hand?

Ignatius21 · Mar 17, 2011

tapi said:
Even the Holy Fathers were often scientists and wrote about world according to the best scientific knowledge available at the time. Why do people insist on maintaining models of reality formed hundeds, or even over thousand years ago, when we have more accurate, more proven knowledge at hand?

Our "more accurate" understandings, popularly understood, are still based on philosophical assumptions and presuppositions about what must have happened, or could not possibly have happened.

One such assumption is that all things have continued to happen in the same way, at the same rate, since the "beginning" of the universe--essentially that nothing outside the universe itself could have acted on it, to change it or control it. I've found that theistic models of evolution often either effectively treat God as though he's bound by (and therefore a part of) created natural realm, or else in a Kant-esque fashion, being on the other side of a wall separating "natural" from "supernatural" that he peeks over but never crosses.

If we can believe that God supersceded natural laws to do something as mysterious as joining uncreated divinity to created humanity, to raise a body from the dead and to walk on water, it seems odd that we can't believe he'd directly intervene to create or change or whatever.

I'm not saying that you personally hold to that...I'm saying that the "more accurate" models we use today are based on assumptions diametrically opposed to supernatural intervention in the created realm. If an element is decaying at a rate of X today, it must always have decayed at that rate. Right or wrong, that is no less an assumption about reality than any other assumption. It isn't proven by evidence, rather it's brought to the table and used to interpret evidence.

tapi · Mar 17, 2011

wturri78 said:
Our "more accurate" understandings, popularly understood, are still based on philosophical assumptions and presuppositions about what must have happened, or could not possibly have happened.

One such assumption is that all things have continued to happen in the same way, at the same rate, since the "beginning" of the universe--essentially that nothing outside the universe itself could have acted on it, to change it or control it. I've found that theistic models of evolution often either effectively treat God as though he's bound by (and therefore a part of) created natural realm, or else in a Kant-esque fashion, being on the other side of a wall separating "natural" from "supernatural" that he peeks over but never crosses.

If we can believe that God supersceded natural laws to do something as mysterious as joining uncreated divinity to created humanity, to raise a body from the dead and to walk on water, it seems odd that we can't believe he'd directly intervene to create or change or whatever.

I'm not saying that you personally hold to that...I'm saying that the "more accurate" models we use today are based on assumptions diametrically opposed to supernatural intervention in the created realm. If an element is decaying at a rate of X today, it must always have decayed at that rate. Right or wrong, that is no less an assumption about reality than any other assumption. It isn't proven by evidence, rather it's brought to the table and used to interpret evidence.

I definately agree with everything you said. The problem IMHO is that when either side of the argument is being represented as THE definitive, orthodox, only true christian understanding, it can drive away many people from the Church and christianity. Especially so for the non-scientific view.

When people are forced to accept models of reality based on assumptions made by faith, that are in direct contradiction with the concencus of the scientific community, more bad will come out of it than good.

jckstraw72 · Mar 17, 2011

Wturri- thank you! you are of course completely correct.

also, the Fathers did not comment on Paradise based on science -- what science would they have been pointing to to tell them that animals didnt die before the fall? obviously science had nothing at all to do with their commentaries on the pre-lapsarian world. the Fathers are also quite clear that the creative acts of God and the world before the Fall are beyond human reason and research, and that they can only be known about through Revelation - their commentaries come from their first-hand experiences with God which showed them Paradise. so the notion that their commentaries on Genesis are based on faulty science is, well, faulty.

jckstraw72 · Mar 17, 2011

tapi said:
When people are forced to accept models of reality based on assumptions made by faith, that are in direct contradiction with the concencus of the scientific community, more bad will come out of it than good.

we all do this though. for some reason its just not cool to do it when it comes to Genesis. i assume as Orthodox Christians we all believe in miracles and especially in the Resurrection of Christ and the coming resurrection of us all. obviously these things are quite outside the scientific consensus. in science death reigns supreme, but our faith tells us that Life reigns supreme.

Ignatius21 · Mar 17, 2011

tapi said:
I definately agree with everything you said. The problem IMHO is that when either side of the argument is being represented as THE definitive, orthodox, only true christian understanding, it can drive away many people from the Church and christianity. Especially so for the non-scientific view.

When people are forced to accept models of reality based on assumptions made by faith, that are in direct contradiction with the concencus of the scientific community, more bad will come out of it than good.

And I likewise agree with everything you said

But I think your last paragraph applies equally well to "the scientific community." They, as much as anyone, accept models of reality based on assumptions made by faith. And that faith, however we try to retrofit it into Christian frameworks, is formed on assumptions that are in fact inherently athiestic or at best deistic.

Those who first formulated the theory of evolution, as it has eventually come down to us, were looking for explanations that were free from the influence of a supernatural being. And it was in light of this framework that they interpreted all evidence, including the age of rocks and the links between fossils.

Ignatius21 · Mar 17, 2011

jckstraw72 said:
Wturri- thank you! you are of course completely correct.

As are you! Because you agree with me! And I agree with you!

Let's just call it a presupposition

The Creation, Dinosaurs, and Adam and Eve

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