The Genesis Enigma ~ Combined Thread

[cleminson]

I have written a paper on a version of Theistic Evolution and would greatly value a critical analysis of my work. As I belong to a Fundamentalist Church that believes in Creationism. I need to have help from outside. I include the introduction of this work and if anybody wishes to read the rest, then I will add it to this Forum.

The Genesis Enigma​

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By

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Robert A.J. Cleminson

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Introduction


Most of the readers of this paper will have very fixed ideas of their own on the subject of the creation of life on this Earth and its supporting doctrines and theories. Some beliefs will be rigidly held, having become central to the readers lives, while others will be flexible expanding and contracting as science expounds new theories. Though most of the secular world accepts that not all scientists agree on each and every point as to how life started and then developed on our planet, it still puzzles many why several religions steadfastly and sometimes aggressively reject modern scientific theories, continuing to promote their own ancient religious creeds.
Some Governments are concerned about this and are trying to find ways of teaching evolutionary theory in schools without offending the parents and children belonging to these various religions but more importantly, without compromising their own evolutionary curricula. This marriage of what appears to be opposite ideologies is proving to be extremely difficult and it is this conundrum that is one of the reasons that have inspired me to write this paper. That is, in searching for a way to align the Christian, Jewish and Islamic “Creation dogmas” to the possibility that some form of evolutionary progression could have taken place. The nub of the challenge in doing this is that traditional Creationism is fundamentally important to all three of the monotheistic doctrines.
To unravel this enigma, I have had to break away from all the normal lines of reasoning and think outside the box. I have had to try to study the Book of Genesis, without any preconceived ideas; however this was extremely difficult, as I had been taught traditional doctrine from these Scriptures both in school and later in Church. My question was, “Is it possible to believe in the total historical accuracy of the Genesis Creation account, as these religions do and yet also see that those same scriptures could have allowed for an evolutionary process to have taken place?”
While trying to find an answer to this dilemma from my own Christian perspective, it became increasingly clear to me that for a person to believe in Jesus Christ and understand why He died on the Cross, it is essential for him to also understand why Christians need to believe in the literal account of Adam and Eve’s existence. Attempting to deny the Biblical account of Adam’s existence raises huge doctrinal problems for Christians. The Scriptures supporting this observation are best read in Romans 5:17-19 where it says, ”For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous”. There are many others and in fact the whole tenet of the New Testament is about Christ’s redemption of mankind from the spiritual death caused by Adam’s sin. Those Scriptures undeniably and unavoidably, tie Adam and Jesus together within the Christian credo. Yet to many, the simple acceptance of Adam and Eve’s existence, as portrayed in the traditional Creation story, is totally bewildering, unimportant and irrelevant.
Amongst the three monotheistic religions there are a number of interpretations of the Biblical creation account. There are the “Traditionalists” who believe that God created the Universe and all life over six, twenty-four hour days, about five thousand eight hundred years ago. They would reject out of hand any idea that evolution could have taken place.
The “Day-age” creationists interpret each creation “day” as being a long period of time, possibly even longer than a million of years for each “day”. They also notice a similarity between the Biblical Creation account and the theories behind the evolutionary sciences.
“Progressive Creationists” accept most of modern scientific theories regarding the creation of the Universe, seeing the Big Bang as part of God’s creative process, yet they have a problem with most evolutionary theories. They believe that God created life in sequence, as displayed in the fossil records, saying that each species was created as a separate genus. Also that each genus was not only individually created but multiplied and existed as a separate species for its allotted time, maybe millions of years before it went into extinction. Therefore the various different fossilized species found today are not related to one another.
“Theistic Evolutionists” contend that there is no conflict between science and the Biblical book of Genesis. They claim that God used evolution as his creative process but disagree as to whether God intervened in each stage of the development of each genus or whether He started with the first seed of life and then left it to develop through a modification rather than mutative evolutionary process. This “modification evolution” continued until, as an on going process, until life arrived at where it is now. They also believe God created man who was lifted above the rest of creation when he received his soul. This theory is popular amongst many mainline Churches today, including the Roman Catholic Church.
In support of Theistic Evolution, it was reported in April 2007 from Paris that Pope Benedict elaborated his views on evolution for the first time as Pontiff, saying that science has narrowed the way that life’s origins are understood and Christians should take a broader approach to the question.
All of these concepts are expounded by people within the three monotheistic faiths, yet most of these people, except for the “Creation traditionalists”, also have considerable doubts about the long-established interpretation of Adam’s existence and therefore the concept of “first sin”. As we have seen this disbelief in Adam and his “first sin” leads Christians into a real doctrinal problem. To overcome this dilemma, it seems that they have two choices; one is to “fudge” the concept of “first sin”, ignoring its doctrinal ramifications. The other is to somehow persuade themselves that Adam was a real person, who actually lived, committed the first sin against God and immediately died spiritually. They also need to believe that because of his wrongdoing, all of his children and their subsequent generations, lived under that same spiritual death, until finally, many generations later, his offspring were able to receive redemption, through grace given to us by Jesus Christ. Thus, as that single trespass against God led to condemnation for all subsequent men, so a single act of righteousness led to the opportunity of justification and life for all men.
If Christians cannot accept this, then their Christ had no reason to die on a Cross and their version of Christianity becomes a “religion of attempted emulation”, rather than one of worship. Not believing that Jesus was part of the Godhead, they suppose that He was only a good man, whose honesty, humility, good works, charity and sacrifice should be imitated by us. However, because of this, they are described in the Bible as “most to be pitied”, for by choosing to believe that Christ is only a role model, they find themselves fated by the following verses from 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied”.
So it would seem that it is impossible for Christians to believe that any form of evolution could have taken place, because, according to the evolutionary theories, if Adam was created nearly five thousand eight hundred years ago, as Creationist scholars aver (as of 2008), and if evolution also occurred, he would have been one person, probably somewhere in the fertile crescent, amongst many thousands of men and women of different races, living their lives, spread out over each of the Continents. Epi-paleolithic campsites have been found in the Nile Valley showing that that there were Sebilian communities living, hunting and fishing there between sixteen thousand and nine thousand years ago. Hence it would seem to be grossly unfair for God to punish everyone alive both then and in the future, for Adam’s isolated transgression.
It therefore appears that if one is to believe in the creative process of evolution, it is impossible to believe that Adam was the first man, thus it becomes impossible to accept that all the Scriptures are accurate, especially some of the Genesis Scriptures. If on the other hand people do believe that all the Scriptures are literally accurate, then the theory of evolution becomes a complete anathema because it challenges Adam’s very existence. It is for this reason that certain Churches uphold the traditional Creation account of the Genesis Scriptures, as the only valid way that the Earth could have been created.
People therefore have three choices as to how they regard the Creation Scriptures. The first two are obvious but the third choice is what this paper is written about.
The first choice is to simply accept the Creationist view of how our world came into existence, without ever concerning oneself as to whether evolution actually took place and many Christians claim to be able to do so.
The second choice is to simply reject the Biblical account of Creation and accept the many alternative religions versions or the evolutionary theories as being the most logical alternative. I include in this group some of the Christian evolutionists, who try to get around the “Adam and Eve” quandary, but find themselves, assigning the Creation Scriptures to the allegorical. Some go even further and doubt the veracity of those early Genesis verses but in doing so, they are in danger of having to disagree with many other parts of the Bible.
This paper deals with the third choice, which is for those people like myself, who have tried very hard, to believe in the traditional Creationist views but find themselves troubled by the seemingly irrefutable facts surrounding certain evolutionary theories.
Some of us have tried to find scripturally accurate ways of aligning the Biblical account of creation with these evolutionary theories but in attempting to do so have created our own Genesis Enigma. The study I have done while producing this paper, has solved the problem as far as I am concerned and I hope that it will also solve the quandary for the readers too; laying an acceptable foundation for them to acknowledge the possibility that some form of evolution could have been God’s creative process, as laid out in the first few chapters of Genesis.
This manuscript finds a way of aligning my recognition of the likelihood that some sort of Creative evolution could have taken place, with my acceptance of the accuracy of all the Creation Scriptures. It recognizes that both viewpoints should not be contrary but could in fact be the same “creative happening” viewed from two different positions.
However, before I can weld the two different concepts together, I need to challenge Creationists to answer a difficult question. What if they are right and the first three chapters of Genesis are literally the true account of how mankind came into being, not poetic or allegorical literature, but that our time-honored understanding of what those Scriptures are actually telling us, is based on historical dogmatic tradition, based on Judaic traditions, rather than on what is in reality written in those verses regarding the Gentiles?
During its history, the Church has certainly made other dogmatic mistakes in erstwhile areas of perceived doctrinal importance, like its insistence in the not too distant past that the Earth was flat and that it was also the center of the Universe. In those days these “facts” were not just light topics of interest but fundamentally important doctrines, as important to them as Creationism is to Christians today. We now understand the Scriptures in a different way from our forefathers, who used them to support their innocent misunderstanding of the Universe and our place in it. So, could an alternative understanding of Genesis 1:26, Genesis 2:4 and Genesis 5:1, lead us to different but Biblically accurate interpretation of Creation; that would allow for a God centered and powered creative evolution to have taken place? Will future Christians look back at today’s traditional Creationists in the same way that we look back at our flat Earth and geocentric believing forefathers?
Though I realize that my conclusions offer a wildly alternative perspective on Biblical Creation, I have decided to present them to you for your acceptance, criticism or rejection, because I am not the sort of person to put aside a thought for fear of man’s wrath.

 

[cleminson]

Thank you all for your comments and I had better explain why I wrote this paper. I am convinced as an ex creationist that it is vital to believe in the former existence of Adam, so that Christ’s death has purpose in saving us from the death that Adam and therefore we immediately inherited with his first sin. This paper claims that the first few books of Genesis are literal but that our traditional understanding of those scriptures is based on historic ignorance. In the same way that our forefathers innocently were certain that the Earth was flat and the center of the Universe. This did not affect their salvation as Creationism does not affect salvation for the good Christians of today. This paper is not targeted at them but rather at secularists who are not Christians and will not become Christians if they are forced to adopt Creationist credo on creation.

 

[cleminson]

Here is the next instalment of the Genesis Enigma. Chapter One
I believe that God created all life; however, twenty years ago there was still conflict in my mind regarding “creationist science” versus “evolutionary science”. This disquiet with the traditional Christian teachings on Creation led to certain questions formulating in my mind. What if the traditional way that I had been taught the Christian version of Creation was not accurate? If my Biblical education on how the Earth and life was created was mistaken, then where would my beliefs stand? From this premise I asked myself the single most important question, what would happen to my faith if I accepted that some form of evolution actually did take place? I quickly realized that if a Creative evolution was a reality, then it was seemingly impossible or highly improbable, that Adam and Eve could have been the first humans alive on Earth. Therefore, were Adam and Eve just part of a greater worldwide population or even worse, was there a possibility that they did not live at all? My biggest fear was that they did not exist. For if their existence was just a myth made up by a primitive people trying to understand where mankind came from and if we did not all descend from Adam, thus inheriting his rebellious sin nature, then there was no need for Christ to have died on the Cross to save us from sin and yet His Crucifixion is at the hub of all Christian belief.
I believed that the answer to this question must lie somewhere in the Scriptures but the assertion from well meaning Christians, “Don’t be led astray by this kind of thinking. Only believe in the scientifically proven, traditional and Biblically correct Christian teaching on Creation”, was just not good enough. I wondered if one of Galileo’s students had ever been told, “Don’t be led astray by Galileo’s teaching, ignore his theory that the Earth orbits the Sun and believe in the scientifically proven, traditional and Biblically correct Christian teaching that the Sun orbits the Earth and that the Earth is the center of the Universe”! Something was off beam and I concluded that it was the Churches rejection of the evolutionary sciences, yet in my heart I also believed that the Bible could not be wrong. I wondered if Scripture could actually support this “blasphemous” science, without us being aware of it, even though all of the historical Church teaching went against it? As I sought for the answer, I was comforted when I noticed that the leap in my new thinking was potentially no bigger than the jump that the Church had finally made when they accepted the principles of a “globe shaped Earth”, as well as Copernicus and Galileo’s heliocentric theory as being valid works of science and not anti-scriptural blasphemies.
At first I was troubled with what I was gleaning in Genesis, because I found that I was uncovering too many uncomfortable questions. This caused me to stop studying that part of the Bible and move on to more conventional and “safer” areas. However, I found that I could not put aside the doubts about the age of the Earth and found myself returning time and time again to those difficult scriptures, to confront the battle raging between my heart and mind about the Church’s teaching on creation. “There is nothing new under Heaven or Earth, why has this not been part of Church credo in the past”? Or “The Church has thrived for over two thousand years and this has never come up before?” or “Why bring out this theory at a time when the Church is under attack from anti-Creationist teachings?” I hope to answer these questions and show that a “hundreds of millions of year’s creation” could never be an attack on the Word of God. Any genuine discovery that man can make will be confirmed by or at least not conflict with scriptures.
Which leads me onto how I came into my theory. In 1986 I stumbled upon a verse in Genesis that I had read many times before but which suddenly leapt from the page and stopped me in my tracks; it just did not seem to make sense. This verse was Genesis 2:4-7, “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the day that Jehovah God made the earth and the heavens. And every shrub of the field was not yet on the earth, and every plant of the field had not yet sprung up, for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground. But there went up from the earth a mist and watered all the face of the ground. And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”. These verses seemed to state that a man was created by God before He created vegetation and they appeared at first to contradict Genesis 1:26, where mankind was created by God as the last act of creation, on the sixth “day”, after He had created the vegetation. How could Adam have been created before the plants, when according to Genesis 1:11-13 the plants were created on the third “day”? “And God said, Let the earth bring forth tender sprouts (the herb seeding seed and the fruit tree producing fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself) upon the earth; and it was so. And the earth brought forth tender sprouts, the herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree producing fruit after its kind, whose seed was in itself. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.”
God created plants on the third “day”, but according to Genesis 2:4-7 He seems to have created Adam in the same time period that he created the Heavens and the Earth and certainly before He created the plants and animals. Therefore according to this Scripture, it seemed to me that Adam was created at the beginning of the third period of creation? Yet in Genesis1: 27-31 scripture tells us that man was created on the sixth “day. These people seem to have been created after there was already vegetation and animals on the Earth and the command given to them by God to fill the Earth was different to the command that God gave to Adam to tend the Garden. Why did there appear to be a conflict in these Scriptures? Was it poetic license as some Christians teachers suggested or was there a real difference between Adam who had been formed when God, in Genesis 2:7 “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”, and the humans created on the sixth “day”, where we read in Genesis 1:27, “And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him”? Is there a difference between the “living soul” in the Adamic lineage formed in Genesis 2:7 and the human beings (He created them male and female) described as “man” in the human lineage, created in Genesis 1:27? After all, we are told in Genesis 3:20 that Adam “called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living”. Does this mean that she was the mother of all living creatures including the animals, for they are surely living? Certainly not! But, if she was not the mother of all living creatures, what does “living” mean. Does it mean that she was the mother of all mankind only and that the other living animals were not really alive? Or does the fact that the Bible calls her the mother of all living, mean that was she the mother of a “spiritually living”, separate people, who had the “breath of God” in them and had “spiritual life”, who could walk and talk to Him, have companionship with Him and therefore differed from all the other life forms, including the rest of mankind, who themselves differed from the animals in that they had souls?
In 1 Corinthians 15:45 we are told, “So also it is written, the first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit”. The life that Christ gives mentioned in this scripture, is given to people that are already “alive” but is different from the life that we receive at conception. It is this second “life” that is the same as the spiritual life that Adam had before the fall.
Adam and his offspring were so different from the rest of mankind that God only had dealings with these “chosen people”, right through the Bible from Genesis to the New Testament, from Adam until after Jesus’ death on the Cross. Why if God’s chosen people were the whole of creation, do we only get a profile of the Israelites and those who impacted upon them? Was it because He wanted His people, His “chosen race”, to be the vehicle whereby the rest of mankind should be brought to Him? The Jews still believe today that they are that vehicle and what is more, Jesus also believed it in His time on Earth. He believed that the Jews were God’s chosen people but also that He, Jesus, was that vehicle, whose sole purpose for being on the Earth, was to become the final sacrifice that God would make to give back to the Jews and finally the Gentiles, the opportunity of Eternal Life, which was lost when Adam rebelled against God in the Garden. Christians believe that Jesus required them, (previously the non-living) to become “new creatures”, and to become “new” they need to go through the process of coming into this “life”, through a process described by Jesus as “new birth” and in being “born again”. Once they have accepted Jesus as their redeemer, they become part of the “spiritual living” and therefore “children of God”. In John 3:3-9 we are told, “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Jesus clearly says here that there are two types of people, those who are born only of the flesh and those who go on to be born of the Spirit; He even says that “normal” mankind did not know Him until He made them into a new type of human, a son of God. In John 1:10-13 we read, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
My question was, if Jesus talked about two species of mankind, with the “born of God version” being a child of God, then could there have been two types of human beings from the start; the sons of God and the rest of mankind, those who came from the Adamic line and those who came from mankind?
The search for an answer was the beginning of a very exciting journey through the Scriptures, asking, could the Genesis scriptures be actually telling us that Adam, forefather of the chosen people, was created as a part spiritual being in the third period of creation and the rest of mankind created at the end of the sixth period of creation? From this study came the conclusion that the original “chosen people” could have been created a completely separated race of human beings, different from the rest of mankind because they had come from a root that had once had “God’s Breath” as part of their makeup and had the ability to have fellowship with God.
Sadly over time most of these people rebelled against God and over generations lost relationship with Him, until finally it was only Abraham that was told by God to leave his own tribe, kindred and home and move to a Promised Land. Yet to assure as much purity in the spiritual line, Jacob was still told to return to Abraham’s homeland to get a wife from that original people.
Though today the Jewish people do not think of themselves as coming from a different lineage to the rest of humankind, the fundamentalists amongst them still regard themselves as the only “chosen race”. Jesus supported this premise and in his teachings He only preached to His people, the Jews. The rest of mankind could only be grafted onto the olive tree, at the time of their spiritual rebirth becoming new creatures as in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “So that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new!” but this was only made available to us Gentiles after He returned to Heaven, as we can read in Romans 11:17, “And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches.” Meaning that as certain parts of the Jewish nation had turned their backs on God and had therefore been severed from the original sons of God lineage, so those Gentiles that had been grafted on to the tree in place of the lost, should not boast to the branches that had always been there. Which is what we do when we assume that we also came from that original Adamic lineage.
It was wrong for the early Christians to believe that the “sons of God” did not exist amongst the Jewish people, because Paul tells the Roman Christians that they had been grafted onto an already living tree. Elijah thought that times were so bad that he was the only person in Israel that still followed God but God said that even though it looked bad, there were still seven thousand people left in Israel that still worshiped Him, as seen in 1Kings 19:14-18.
The whole of the Old Testament and the Gospels, are about the “children of God” and how they gradually turned away from Him forming new tribes. Like the Samaritans, who had fallen away from their relationships with God. Christ then came to save His people, the remnant of the original tribes, now called the Jews, from going further away from God. We Gentiles have adopted this part of the Bible as our own Scripture and as such we assume that it is written for all of mankind; it was not! It was inspired by Him, but written for and by a people descended from a remnant of the original Adamic tribe, and the Laws and principles only become relevant to us Gentiles when we become Christians and therefore “new sons of God”. It was Paul who stood against the rest of the Disciples to proclaim that salvation was also for the Gentiles and then he took the message of Salvation them.

 

[cleminson]

Dear Gluadys. Thank you very much for you support in criticizing this paper. I do not believe that Christ’s main purpose for dying on the Cross was to save us only from sin but to rectify the death that Adam bought about through his rebellion against God. I believe that sin is something that only God’s people can commit, against God. This will come out further on in the Paper.

 

[gluadys]

Here is the next instalment of the Genesis Enigma.

As I mentioned on the other thread, although you state that your target audience is secularists who are not Christian, my impression is that these posts work much better as an appeal to creationists to reconsider how they interpret scripture.

In particular, an appeal to secularists --especially those knowledgeable about evolution--would require a better understanding of evolution.

Your solution to the creation-evolution conundrum is ingenious. But it works from the creationist perspective. From the viewpoint of evolution, there are still some insoluble problems.

Here are some examples:

Or [/FONT]does the fact that the Bible calls her the mother of all living, mean that was she the mother of a “spiritually living”, separate people, who had the “breath of God” in them and had “spiritual life”, who could walk and talk to Him, have companionship with Him and therefore differed from all the other life forms, including the rest of mankind, who themselves differed from the animals in that they had souls?

From this study came the conclusion that the original “chosen people” could have been created a completely separated race of human beings, different from the rest of mankind because they had come from a root that had once had “God’s Breath” as part of their makeup and had the ability to have fellowship with God. [/FONT]

The notion that there were two or more separate creations of humans is an old idea that was quite common in the 19th century. At one time it was considered an explanation for the different human races.

One thing you need to consider is whether you are tying a spiritual difference to a biological difference. From an evolutionary perspective this cannot be done.

You mention that we become new creatures in Christ, and so we do. But that does not change our biology. We still have the same flesh, the same DNA as before we were saved.

It is also true biologically, that we all have one human ancestry, so that as far as our physical bodies are concerned there could be only one creation of humanity, irrespective of our spiritual relation with our creator.

Yet to assure as much purity in the genetic line, Jacob was still told to return to Abraham’s homeland to get a wife from that original people.

The notion of genetic purity comes from a conception of heredity prior to the discovery of genes and the role of DNA as the carrier of heritable information. It simply doesn't work in terms of current knowledge about genetics.

So, if your intention is really to appeal to secularists, you yourself need to develop not only a different approach to theology, but also a sufficiently adequate understanding of genetics and evolutionary biology so that your theology is compatible with current scientific knowledge. Secularists, at least those who do understand science, will not be open to any theological approach that is not consistent with science.

That is also a bottom-line for many TEs. We believe that God's own creation is the best witness about itself, and that the witness of creation never contradicts the witness of scripture. So when we have confidence that we have understood the witness of creation correctly, we infer that any apparent contradiction is attributable to a misunderstanding of the witness of scripture.

 

[cleminson]

Once again gluadys, thanks for your reply. My paper attempts to prove that Adam was first created part spiritual and part physical and was put into a part spiritual and “part matter” place called Eden, from which he was cast when he died spiritually and physically from that plain. The life that he lost is what Jesus died to return to us on the Cross, so that we might assend into Heaven when the time comes. I agree with all that I have read about Theistic Evolution, except that I maintain that a literal belief in Adam is possible and essential for my belief. I once was a Creationist and though I no longer believe that God created our Universe in 6 twenty four hour days, I do not wish to find errors in Scripture, so I have spent the last 22 years trying to find a way of tying some sort of creative evolution into my own credo, without rejecting the Scriptures as anything other than literally accurate. This I have done to my satisfaction. I have laid this document before two professors of theology from a large Pentecostal and Creationist college in the USA, neither thought is was blasphemous, both found it intriguing but both could not openly support it for fear of loosing their positions. I hope that once you have read it all that you will under stand where I am coming from. Rob

 

[cleminson]

As I mentioned on the other thread, although you state that your target audience is secularists who are not Christian, my impression is that these posts work much better as an appeal to creationists to reconsider how they interpret scripture.
I do not believe that Creationists are going to Hell because they believe in somethig different to me and science. Being in a Creationist Church I know how difficult it is to persuade them about even the possibiolity of evolution.

In particular, an appeal to secularists --especially those knowledgeable about evolution--would require a better understanding of evolution. I believe that my under standing of God's Creation has allowed secularists to accept Christ because there is nothing that they can say is fact that God did not create. Whatever theory they have, my Christianity allows as a possibility. They can either accept the Gospel or not, evolution does not stand in their way.

Your solution to the creation-evolution conundrum is ingenious. But it works from the creationist perspective. From the viewpoint of evolution, there are still some insoluble problems.

Here are some examples:


Quote:
Or [/font]does the fact that the Bible calls her the mother of all living, mean that was she the mother of a “spiritually living”, separate people, who had the “breath of God” in them and had “spiritual life”, who could walk and talk to Him, have companionship with Him and therefore differed from all the other life forms, including the rest of mankind, who themselves differed from the animals in that they had souls?

From this study came the conclusion that the original “chosen people” could have been created a completely separated race of human beings, different from the rest of mankind because they had come from a root that had once had “God’s Breath” as part of their makeup and had the ability to have fellowship with God. [/font]
The notion that there were two or more separate creations of humans is an old idea that was quite common in the 19th century. At one time it was considered an explanation for the different human races.

One thing you need to consider is whether you are tying a spiritual difference to a biological difference. From an evolutionary perspective this cannot be done. I am certainly not looking at biological differences, I believe that Adam took on the physical form of an already present mankind living on this Earth. A mankind that God already concidered "man", however I do not believe that the rest of mankind knew God and did not start calling out to the real God until the time of Seth's son..

You mention that we become new creatures in Christ, and so we do. But that does not change our biology. We still have the same flesh, the same DNA as before we were saved. No our biology stays the same.

It is also true biologically, that we all have one human ancestry, so that as far as our physical bodies are concerned there could be only one creation of humanity, irrespective of our spiritual relation with our creator.


Quote:
Yet to assure as much purity in the genetic line, Jacob was still told to return to Abraham’s homeland to get a wife from that original people.
The notion of genetic purity comes from a conception of heredity prior to the discovery of genes and the role of DNA as the carrier of heritable information. It simply doesn't work in terms of current knowledge about genetics. I do not suggest that genetically there are any differences between the races but I believe that as there was not a savior the only way of attempting to "keep the faith" was to marry within the family of believers.

So, if your intention is really to appeal to secularists, you yourself need to develop not only a different approach to theology, but also a sufficiently adequate understanding of genetics and evolutionary biology so that your theology is compatible with current scientific knowledge. Secularists, at least those who do understand science, will not be open to any theological approach that is not consistent with science. I do not believe that I need to understand evolution any better than I do already because all the different theories regarding evolution are acceptable to my faith. I believe that science can only unlock what God has already created. Scientists can either decide to accknowledge Him or not for what they theorise over or discover.

That is also a bottom-line for many TEs. We believe that God's own creation is the best witness about itself, and that the witness of creation never contradicts the witness of scripture. Amen. So when we have confidence that we have understood the witness of creation correctly, we infer that any apparent contradiction is attributable to a misunderstanding of the witness of scripture. Amen, and what I attempt to do in my paper is to apply a correct understanding to those scriptures.

 

[gluadys]

I agree with all that I have read about Theistic Evolution, except that I maintain that a literal belief in Adam is possible and essential for my belief.

You will not get a quarrel on that point. A number of TEs do hold to a literal belief in Adam.

As I do not believe that Creationists are going to Hell because they believe in somethig different to me and science. Being in a Creationist Church I know how difficult it is to persuade them about even the possibiolity of evolution.
[/COLOR]

Yes, it is difficult.

I believe that my under standing of God's Creation has allowed secularists to accept Christ because there is nothing that they can say is fact that God did not create. Whatever theory they have, my Christianity allows as a possibility. They can either accept the Gospel or not, evolution does not stand in their way.

Yes, that is what we work for. Evolution is not a salvation issue. Whether we accept it or not has little to do (or ought to have little to do) with whether we believe the gospel.

I am certainly not looking at biological differences, I believe that Adam took on the physical form of an already present mankind living on this Earth. A mankind that God already concidered "man", however I do not believe that the rest of mankind knew God and did not start calling out to the real God until the time of Seth's son..

Good. You may want to revise your wording though, for at times you suggest that the two types are different "species" and that would not be biologically acceptable language.

I do not suggest that genetically there are any differences between the races but I believe that as there was not a savior the only way of attempting to "keep the faith" was to marry within the family of believers.

Ok. So then it is a matter of spiritual purity. (A cultural matter rather than a biological matter) In that case, you should be clear on that and not use the term "genetic" purity.

I do not believe that I need to understand evolution any better than I do already because all the different theories regarding evolution are acceptable to my faith.

It depends on how knowledgeable they are about science. The fact that you speak of "the different theories" in the plural would alert a knowledgeable person that you have some blind spots when it comes to science. There is only one theory of biological evolution, not several.

I believe that science can only unlock what God has already created. Scientists can either decide to accknowledge Him or not for what they theorise over or discover.

There have been several publications recently about a theistic approach to evolution. Have you read the works of Kenneth Miller and Francis Collins?

For a more strictly literal interpretation (especially on the age of the earth), Glenn Morton is an interesting source.

And there are several books that have been written specifically on the question of evolution and original sin. If you go to Amazon or any other on-line book-seller and use the key words "evolution original sin" in their search engine you will quickly get a list.

All the other names are easily reached with an on-line search as well.

 

[cleminson]

Thanks for the imput so far. Here comes the third part.

What about the other great gentile civilizations of the world? None of them look upon Adam as their forefather. The Hindus belief probably started in the Indus Valley in India andgoes back at least 5,000 years, more or less to the time that Adam died. Surely for a religion this old, if Adam had been their root, it would have appeared in their beliefs.
Buddhism, which is about two and a half thousand years old, has no belief in Adam and they also do not believe that God created everything in seven days.
These accounts of various creations differ all over the world and are mankind’s attempt to understand where they came from. As ancient as these various versions are, none, other than the Babylonian account, have any resemblance to the Genesis creation narrative. The way that the Jews and some of the people in the Middle East were originally created is different from how most of western mankind was originally created and yet we are all human beings. The Genesis account of Adam’s formation tells the historical narrative of some of the peoples in the Middle East first ancestor. It is unique to the Jews and some of the Islamic people, telling of their heritage. The story of Adam and Eve only becomes applicable to the rest of mankind as they recognize God’s calling and respond to the sacrifice that Jesus made first to give his people new life, then to the people in the rest of the World.
I do recognize that Adam and Eve were the original forefathers of the Jews, I also recognize that Adam fell from the spiritual place that was and is the Garden of Eden and at that moment he became a man. But the Adamic clan, though very special, was one of many tribes of humans alive on Earth. So much so that when Cain had to leave his home and enter into his banishment, he was frightened that some other tribe would kill him and so God put some sort of mark on to him that stopped his murder. The difference was that the Adamic line would give the rest of God’s created humanity a Savior, who would offer redemption to the whole of mankind, not only the Jews. Many of us Gentiles have taken the “Adamic” creation account on the third creation period as being our own, whereas our forefathers were created on the sixth period of Creation. This might seem controversial but we will delve deeper into this as we go into this paper.
We now need to address one of the main points of this manuscript; the great debates that have raged between religion and science over the years, with the ones about the Earth and its place in time and space being the most discordant.
The Genesis Scriptures are taught to most young people in many parts of the World today in their traditional form and are in turn, loved by many of those children as one explanation of how our World came into being. Many of these children are taught and accept the story as being a true account of our beginnings, however as most of them get exposed to the evolutionary theories at school and discuss them with their teachers and peers, doubts enter their minds, with the result that many grow up to regard the Biblical Creation story as little more than a quaint legend. I sometimes wonder if many of those older teenagers who appear to support the traditional Creation narrative, have their own secret misgivings. They would find it difficult to voice their uncertainties because most religious organizations expect their people to adhere to a strict acceptance of conventional Creationist doctrine. Deviation from this “truth” is regarded as “error”, which can result in attempted “re-education” or even “rejection”. I have these suspicions, because as a young man, I had the same reservations and as a result, foundations for further doubt were laid in my mind about the accuracy of the rest of the Bible.
I can state categorically that since I have completed this paper, these doubts have gone. I have found a resolution to those uncertainties, which is not only scripturally accurate but also reasonable and I am now persuaded that the evolutionary sciences are not opposed to a different but possibly more accurate understanding of the Biblical Creation account.
This paper also declares that we should not be unhappy that scientists are delving into all the various aspects of God’s Universe, endeavouring to understand some of the physical attributes of His Creation. Remember how Pope John Paul II defined what a theory is, “A theory is a metascientific elaboration, its validity depends on whether or not it can be verified, it is constantly tested against the facts; wherever it can no longer explain the latter, it shows its limitations and unsuitability. It must then be rethought”.
These scientists will make mistakes in their theories but with so many individuals working on the various challenges, some will ultimately unravel the quandaries and in doing so, “discover” new aspects to His natural laws. Importantly, once one of these breakthroughs occurs, those scientists strive to find applications for it, which are of help to mankind.
During the Reformation, Galileo made a profoundly Christian statement in his great work the “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems”, when he stated, “I conclude from this that our understanding, as well in the manner as in the number of things understood, is infinitely surpassed by the Divine; yet I do not thereby abase it so much as to consider it absolutely worthless. No, when I consider what marvelous things and how many of them men have understood, inquired into, and contrived, I recognize and understand only too clearly that the human mind is a work of God’s, and one of the most excellent.” As we know today, even though this conclusion was correct, some of Galileo’s other conclusions were incorrect; one of which was that he believed the Sun to be the center of the Universe. Yet despite what the Church thought at that time, he still made an enormous contribution to mankind and science.
I hope this manuscript touches those people that have sadly built a barrier inside their hearts against the Biblical Creation account. They would believe that they have made a logical choice to accept as true the evolutionary theories, which seemed to be a more likely option than Creationism.
I most certainly do not aim to bring confusion to those Christians who are secure in their own beliefs on Creation, nor cause division in the Church and upset people by offering Christians yet another alternative to the traditional Creation account. Christianity has survived for two thousand years believing in a six-day creation. It also survived for sixteen hundred years believing that the Earth was flat and seventeen hundred years, at least, believing that the Earth was the center of the Universe. It did not destroy the Church when they finally accepted the reality.
I therefore do not believe that conviction or lack of conviction in a six-day creation is going to destroy the Church either, as long as the Church continues to believe in the principles behind Adam’s death. Christians will either cling on to Creationism wholeheartedly or if they have grown up within the Church, they will simply “fudge” their beliefs rather than give up on the Church altogether. However for new converts, it can be perceived as a real violation of their intelligence to be expected to reject secular evolutionist ideas and accept traditional Creationist doctrines. Therefore, if belief in a six-day Creation is crucial before people can become Christians, then the Church is guilty of turning many away from Christianity, for outdated inaccurate doctrines. If Scripture can be shown not to disagree with evolution, should not the Church rather accept the possibility that God used evolution in some form or other as His creative process, thus making it easier for non-believers to accept the Gospel? Or has belief in Creationism become a badge of salvation?
Believing that the Book of Genesis is factual, is a critical part of the Christian credo and the struggle that I had believing it, led to me read Genesis repeatedly, until suddenly Genesis 2:4-7 struck me as being slightly odd. It was that moment over twenty years ago, when the literal reality of those verses set in motion the epic study of the Scriptures that finally led to this paper. Through it all, I was wondering if the Bible would corroborate my theory, that some form of evolutionary process could have been God’s method of Creation. I am now totally convinced that it is very possible that this was how God chose to create our Universe over many billennium and if I am honest, as I searched scripture to find proof for my theory, I knew that I would find it; I had known from the very outset that the answer was there.My interpretations might not be popular to most but they have led me to a different and very contented understanding of the way that mankind came into being and more importantly, my beliefs are not threatened by my thought processes any more.
Leading on from this, I do not regard this paper as a revelation but rather a slow methodical process of scriptural elucidation that I went through over many years; line upon line of research, leading to precept upon precept, some being confirmed by Scripture and some going up “blind alleys”. This paper might be accused of being an interpretation that expresses my own ideas of Scripture, rather than the actual meaning of the text (eisegetical). I would respond to this charge that, though this paper is certainly different in its understanding of the Genesis Scriptures, I have not veered one iota from the actual meaning of the texts.
If the reader feels however that veering from the traditional interpretations that the Church has put on Scripture is always the wrong thing to do, I would remind them that, if this was the case, then Christianity; Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant, becomes foolish, because we would still be believing or trying to believe in the ridiculous doctrine that the world is flat and that all the Planets and Stars orbit this Earth, like our Christian forefathers did.
Remember it was not too long ago that our forefathers vehemently railed against all doubters, that “the accepted meaning of Scriptures” proved that the Earth was flat and that it was the center of the Universe; further more many also believed that the Heart was in fact the “center of thought” and the brain was just one of the organs that cooled the blood. In those not too distant days, these beliefs were fundamental to both Science and the Churches doctrine, with the real truth being anti-scriptural, lurid blasphemy and too shocking to contemplate.
Most Christian today, including myself, would think that an Earth centric Universe was ridiculous, even though there are no scriptures that deny this theory and appear to be sixty-seven that support it. Yet we turn our backs on the “simple minded” interpretation of these Scriptures and stretch our “righteous and intelligent” indignation to assign both Christian Tychonian theories and Christian evolutionist theories to perdition, even though there are at least thirty Scriptures that support the theory that God could have used evolution as His creative method and only tradition and poetic license that supports traditional Creationism.
Dare we consider ourselves to be better Christians than our forefathers or are we just more educationally enlightened? Remember that if any of our present great Creationist preachers, were taken back to Galileo’s time to stand in front of the leaders of either the Catholic or early Protestant Churches, he would have been scorned, called a blasphemer, they would have certainly doubted his salvation and he would have been told to renounce the theory that the Earth orbited our Sun. If he had continued in his “error”, telling people that he knew that the Earth really was not flat, that it was a globe and that it orbited the Sun, he would have probably been excluded by both the Catholic and Protestant Churches and his ability to communicate with the public would have been removed. If he had used Scriptures as we understand them today, to promote his theory, he would have been told that he was “twisting” the Word of God, veering from all scientific and Church tradition and he would have been scornfully treated for his beliefs. Is this not the same way that derision is contemptuously handed out to those Christians today, that dare to believe that Scripture allows for the possibility that evolution could have perhaps been used by God as His method for building the various life forms that we know today.
We should not be afraid to break with Christian traditions, if those traditions are no longer aligned with God’s Word or actions; after all, if those early Christians did not question the Churches firm belief that the Earth was flat and that the Sun and Stars circled the Earth, where would we Christians be today, with anatomy, astronomy, mapping and navigation?
Having said all this, I believe that it is right for the Church to be very wary of any new ideas, especially when they appear to go against all current teachings. I therefore present this theory, in the knowledge that it must be contested, but in the expectation that it is robust enough to challenge and then change thinking. I hope that this hypothesis will release Christians to see that it is possible that some form of evolution was the Creative process that was instigated by God, releasing them from the needless time and expense spent warring against the evolutionary theories, so that we can take all our scriptures forward with pride into the next millennium and onwards.

 

[shernren]

I hope you don't mind me making a few comments about some interesting parts of your series. For the record, right now I lean towards the existence of an actual, literal, historical Adam and Eve as a "simplifying assumption" (an idea that would be familiar to people familiar with science!) : assuming that they exist makes a lot of exegesis easier, but it is not impossible to proceed without them.

I wondered if one of Galileo’s students had ever been told, “Don’t be led astray by Galileo’s teaching, ignore his theory that the Earth orbits the Sun and believe in the scientifically proven, traditional and Biblically correct Christian teaching that the Sun orbits the Earth and that the Earth is the center of the Universe”!

As someone who has done a little historical research into this I can tell you that this thinking was not prevalent in the academies, but it was in the church. Personal enemies of Galileo did indeed preach against him and his geocentric ideas from the pulpit. (They were his personal adversaries for other reasons, of course, so this isn't simply a case of "evil fundamentalists run science down!" as some assume.) Bear in mind also that some of Galileo's arguments for heliocentrism actually did not work, so that the religious authorities of his time actually had some merit (then) in saying that heliocentrism wasn't really a scientifically superior system. In particular, people expected that since the stars were very close, if the Earth was moving relative to them, one should detect significant parallax movement: and this was not observed, simply because the stars are in reality a lot farther away than they thought, and thus the parallax was too little for them to observe.

Was it poetic license as some Christians teachers suggested or was there a real difference between Adam who had been formed when God, in Genesis 2:7 “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”, and the humans created on the sixth “day”, where we read in Genesis 1:27, “And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him”? Is there a difference between the “living soul” in the Adamic lineage formed in Genesis 2:7 and the human beings (He created them male and female) described as “man” in the human lineage, created in Genesis 1:27?

As far as I know you are not the first person to have suggested this. However, it will help if you become conversant with the Hebrew vocabulary used in the first two chapters of Genesis. In particular, the words translated "living soul" in the KJV are more accurately translated "living being" or "living creature" in most modern versions, and with good reason - they are the same words used in many parts in Genesis 1, e.g. vv. 21 and 24, to describe animals. Indeed, as far as I know, most proponents of a "two creations of man" view would see Genesis 1 as the creation of man's spiritual component, made male and female in God's image and given dominion over all creation, while Genesis 2 would be the creation of man's biological component which shows kinship with the animals and expresses the biological urge of sexual frustration.

But do keep it up!

 

[cleminson]

Dear Shernren
I hope you don't mind me making a few comments about some interesting parts of your series. For the record, right now I lean towards the existence of an actual, literal, historical Adam and Eve as a "simplifying assumption" (an idea that would be familiar to people familiar with science!) : assuming that they exist makes a lot of exegesis easier, but it is not impossible to proceed without them.
As you know I have written this paper to justify to myself the possibility that Adam was a real person, who witnessed the world being created but after sinning against God, died and arrived on this Earth after mankind had been created by God.
As someone who has done a little historical research into this I can tell you that this thinking was not prevalent in the academies, but it was in the church. Personal enemies of Galileo did indeed preach against him and his geocentric ideas from the pulpit. (They were his personal adversaries for other reasons, of course, so this isn't simply a case of "evil fundamentalists run science down!" as some assume.) Bear in mind also that some of Galileo's arguments for heliocentrism actually did not work, so that the religious authorities of his time actually had some merit (then) in saying that heliocentrism wasn't really a scientifically superior system. In particular, people expected that since the stars were very close, if the Earth was moving relative to them, one should detect significant parallax movement: and this was not observed, simply because the stars are in reality a lot farther away than they thought, and thus the parallax was too little for them to observe.
I cover this later in my paper
As far as I know you are not the first person to have suggested this. However, it will help if you become conversant with the Hebrew vocabulary used in the first two chapters of Genesis. In particular, the words translated "living soul" in the KJV are more accurately translated "living being" or "living creature" in most modern versions, and with good reason - they are the same words used in many parts in Genesis 1, e.g. vv. 21 and 24, to describe animals. Indeed, as far as I know, most proponents of a "two creations of man" view would see Genesis 1 as the creation of man's spiritual component, made male and female in God's image and given dominion over all creation, while Genesis 2 would be the creation of man's biological component which shows kinship with the animals and expresses the biological urge of sexual frustration.
I have searched for 22 years for any literature supporting the separate creation of Adam, but as of now have not been able to do it. If you know of any works supporting this theory, I would be very grateful for a lead. Remember I believe that Adam was created in the third creation period but mankind probably evolved, becoming man when he received a soul from God.

But do keep it up!
Thank you, I only wish that I could give you more than 150,000 characters at a time.

 

[gluadys]

Just a suggestion, cleminson.

You might like to edit your post above to include 'quote' tags so that your words are distinguised from shernren's words.

It is quite simple.

As you know when you open a reply box the first thing you see is the word QUOTE inside square brackets [] and at the end you see /QUOTE also inside square brackets.

You can put your whole response after the closing tag (the backslash in front of the word means "close").

Or if you want to break up shernren's post and respond to one section at a time simply insert a close quote tag at the end of the first section you wish to respond to.

Then, type in your response, insert a quote tag at the beginning of the next section you wish to respond to and another close quote tag before you begin your second response, and so on to the end.

Use the preview window to see if you have done it correctly.

 

[cleminson]

Once again, thank you for your help. As I am sure you have noticed, I am not very good at using this technology the moment. A bit of good news - one of our MPs is going to look at the draft, to look at Theistic Evolution in education.

 

[cleminson]

Chapter Two​

​

The Great Debates




Over the years I have come across several ways that people interpret, what to many are, the Bible’s enigmatic Genesis Creation Scriptures and generally the various credos and theories fall into four main groups.
The first group consists largely of people who believe that God created the Earth and all life, somewhere between four and seven thousand years ago. But vitally, that Creation took place over a six-day period and that each day was a traditional twenty-four hour length of time.
The second group consists of people who believe that God created the Earth over a much longer time period and that the Hebrew word “Yom”, sometimes translated as “day” in the various Bible translations, should have been translated as “periods of time” (in the creation story), not twenty-four hours in length but much longer eras of time. They would further state that each of these incorrectly translated “days” were in fact, tens of thousand, possibly millions and even perhaps billions of years in length.
These first two groups of believers would have doctrines that insist that today’s human, animal and plant life did not evolve but are now the genetically identical offspring of the various species that God created originally, in the beginning and on the relevant “day”.
The third group includes the supporters of Intelligent Design (ID), which is criticized by evolutionists as being a version of the first two groups differing only in that it avoids any mention of the “Biblical God”. Interestingly, ID adherents agree with both of the first two groups, in that they also believe individual species cannot have arisen from random chance and natural selection, because of their complex structures.
They therefore believe that each species alive on earth today, must be the result of deliberate design by some sort of super intelligence. Supporters of ID are free to accredit this “super design function” to the God of the Bible, to any other god, to spacemen or to any other form of higher intelligence. The supporters argue that ID represents a legitimate scientific alternative to evolution and should therefore be taught in schools.
However, in December 2005, a US court decision to ban the teaching of “intelligent design” in schools, was hailed by anti-creationism campaigners. In this ruling, the Judge rejected claims by former members of a school board (Dover, USA), that the theory of intelligent design was based around scientific rather than religious belief. He said, “Our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.”
This sad and expensive court case is one of many that have taken place over the years and is the result of ideological and scientific clashes between two sets of people, who believe passionately in opposite sides of an argument.
According to a recent Harris pole, only 22% of adults in the USA believe that humans evolved from earlier species, and though it is improbable that this would be reflected in a worldwide survey, it is this worldwide group that makes up my fourth and final group who include, the “aware evolutionists” and the evolutionary scientists and the theistic evolutionists. People in this group have their own understandings of how first life appeared on this Planet but most agree on the basics of evolution. Amongst this group there is a certain amount of disagreement as to the “how” and to a degree, “when” it all happened but most of this group, other than the Theistic Evolutionists, would believe that the traditional Genesis creation account portrays a primitive peoples understanding of how our Earth came into existence. At best a quaint story, blatantly not to be taken as a factual account of what really took place.
The Creation dispute has been raging for over a century and a half, in Churches, homes, classrooms and courtrooms. A time of court case upon court case, thrust and counter thrust, discovery and rebuttal. In this time, more and more people have aligned themselves with the secular perceptive in this fray. Although if polls are considered accurate, then the anti-evolution work that Christians are carrying out in the United States is having a significant effect on the way that Americans are thinking. A telephone poll taken by Harris in June 2005 from a sample of one thousand Americans, submitted that 54% of Americans do not believe that humans evolved, which is up 8% from the survey taken in March 1994, when it was 46% and also as already stated, 22% of adults in the USA believe that humans evolved from earlier species. What the Harris pole clearly shows us is that there is considerable confusion in many people’s minds about the facts of the Creation account in the Bible. Looking at the results I suspect that there are many thousands of people who do not wish to believe that they “evolved from apes” but at the same time do not believe in Adam and Eve.
I hope that this paper will help clarify the uncertainty, as it describes an alternative option, a fifth possibility and one that incorporates both Scripture and evolution as the theistic evolutionists believe but goes further by stating that Adam was initially created a spiritual person and was not made of matter as we are, only becoming physical after his dismissal from Eden.
This paper is based on a limited but sympathetic understanding of the evolutionary science as well as an in-depth and caring search of the Genesis Scriptures and has taken over two decades to formulate. It has led me to conclude that a different nevertheless Biblically supportive theory of the Genesis Scriptures that controversially expounds the possibility that a “God centered creative evolution”, could have taken place. This hypothesis is based on the supposition that our historical understanding of these Scriptures could be as mistaken, as it was for Christians in the 14th and 16th century, when they misunderstood the Scriptures regarding the shape of the Earth (flat Earth) and the Earth being the center of the Universe. A different interpretation of the Scriptures could in fact support an alternative understanding of the Creation account. After all, any manufacturing or creative process takes time, so why should God not have enjoyed using evolution as His creative process, taking many billennium, rather than six days to build this wonderful Earth that we live on? Many will answer, “NO, that could not have happened, the Bible says it happened in six days”; but does it?
Some Creationists are taking great notice and comfort from the arguments that ferment between the various evolutionist factions and their differing theories, about the creation of life on our Earth and the formation of the Universe. However, I would say to the Creationists that in every field of science there are always groups of scientists vying to prove that their theory is the correct one, this usually continues until eventually one is proved to be correct or a consensus is arrived at. So looking to justify Creationism because of an “argumentative science” is not a valid cause.
The first great debate about our Earth was between traditionalists and new thinkers, on the subject of whether the Earth was a globe. This was an issue in the 3rd and 4th centuries because, in support of the flat Earth theory, an early Church theologian named Lucius Lactantius (A.D. 260—330) who had probably converted to Christianity from paganism at the time of Emperor Constantine, asked in his work “Divine Institutes”, “How is it with those who imagine that there are antipodes opposite to our footsteps? Do they say anything to the purpose? Or is there any one so senseless as to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? Or that the things, which with us are in a recumbent position, with them, hang in an inverted direction? That the crops and trees grow downwards? That the rains, and snow, and hail fall upwards to the earth? And does any one wonder that hanging gardens (he alludes to the hanging Gardens of Babylon) are mentioned among the Seven Wonders of the World, when philosophers make hanging fields, and seas, and cities, and mountains? The origin of this error (an orb shaped Earth) must also be set forth by us. For they are always deceived in the same manner.” So there must have been people suggesting a globe shaped Earth for him to make this erroneous argument.
His doctrine stated that all humans were of one origin, all descended from Adam and Eve and all were capable of redemption by Christ, who was the Second Adam. The Bible did not say that the antipodeans existed, but the accepted theory at that time stated that if they did exist, then they would be impossible to get to because the sea was to too wide to sail over and that the equatorial regions were too hot to pass through. Logic further stated that because there could not therefore be a genetic connection to a people living there with Adam and Eve, it was impossible for anyone to live there.
Later in the seventh and eighth centuries when people debated a round Earth again, brilliant people in the Church declared that it must be flat. It could not be round because how could people living on the antipodean side of the Earth see the second coming of Christ. In the 6th century an Irish priest named Virgil, (or Ferghal in Ireland) had become Abbot-Bishop of Salzburg. He had a disagreement with a priest called Boniface (later St. Boniface) regarding the validity of a particular baptism he undertook, when the Latin used to perform this baptism on a converted pagan was not quite right. Fergal won this confrontation in the Pope’s presence, but this laid a foundation of mistrust in Boniface towards Virgil. In his earlier years in Ireland, Fergal had been recognized for his knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. His knowledge in a world where little was known about our physical Earth, far outstripped his contemporaries. He was sure that the Earth was round and that it was very possible that people lived on the far side of it. This theory of his was common knowledge in Salzburg, but in 748 Boniface, saw his chance to get his own back and miss quoted Virgil on one of his “round Earth” theories. Accusing him before Pope Zachary of vague and false teachings about men living on the far side of the world who were not of a race that was descended from Adam and that Christ could therefore not redeem them. Virgil was cleared and amazingly, Pope Zachary (who was Pope from 721 – 752), concluded that it might be possible that the Earth was indeed an orb but pronounced that if the Earth was round, it was not possible for people to live on the opposite side of the Earth to Jerusalem, because if they did, they would miss the second coming of Jesus Christ.
In the beginning of the fifteenth century, a senior Spanish theologian named Tostatus, one of the great “brains” of his time, pronounced as “unsafe” that the world was an orb. Born in Madrigal, Castile, about 1400. He entered the University of Salamanca, where he studied philosophy, theology civil law, canon law, Greek and Hebrew, as well as the other subjects in the curriculum of the university. He had a brilliant mind and an unusually retentive memory, to the point that his contemporaries called him “the wonder of the world”. He paraphrased St. Augustine by stating “The apostles were commanded to go into all the world, to preach the gospel to all mankind”. In his logic based on the traditional acceptance of Scripture, he stated that because the apostles did not go to a place on the far side of the Earth to preach, the antipodes (place at opposite side of the world) could not exist. So at that time it can be seen that incorrectly understanding Scriptures followed logical intelligent customs based on the Ptolemaic traditions and was not just the domain of the foolish.

 

[gluadys]

A bit of good news - one of our MPs is going to look at the draft, to look at Theistic Evolution in education.

An MP? Not an American term. Where do you live. (As you can see from the flag beside my name, I am from Canada, so I recognize the term MP.)

 

[cleminson]

Hi again Gluadys, I live in Essex, England, and yes an MP is the same as in Canada. I need to get an abridged draft to him in 10 days.

 

[cleminson]

Sorry Tinker Grey. Will do in future. I am learning, slowly.

 

[cleminson]

Cont. from Genesis Enigma 4.

The second great debate was about whether the Earth was the center of the Universe and whether the Sun, stars and planets orbit the Earth. As early as the ninth or eighth century BC the ancient Indian “scientist” Yainavalka recognized that the Earth was spherical. He further believed that the Sun was “the center of the spheres”. He stated “The sun strings these worlds – the earth, the planets, the atmosphere – to himself on a thread.” He also understood that the Sun was much larger than the Earth and that the relative distances of the Sun and the Moon from the Earth was 108 times the diameters of these orbs, which is unbelievable close to our modern measurements 110.6 for the Moon and 107.6 for the Sun.


In the west, during the sixth century BC, it is thought, though not proven, that Pythagoras and Philolaus could have suggested the Earth and planets rotated around a central fire, the Sun. Three centuries later however, Aristarchus of Samos, a Greek astronomer and mathematician was met with the first antagonism between tradition and science, when he claimed that the Sun and not the Earth was at the center of the Universe. Archimedes’ brought a charge of error against him through his work “The Sand-Reckoner” and similar criticisms were made by learned men of that time.


This “heavy weight” reaction brought six hundred years of virtual silence in the west on this issue, until in the fifth century AD, the heliocentric theory re-emerged with Martianus Capella’s thoughts in his Eighth Book where he describes a model of heliocentric astronomy in which the Earth, Venus and Mercury orbit the sun.

The theory seems to disappear again in the west until in the fifteenth century, when once again it re-emerged in the writings of Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa (1401–1464). De Cusa’s astronomical views are scattered throughout his many idealistic expositions. They broke away from traditional thoughts of that era and so were not founded on any form of accepted science for that or this time. They were based on the symbolism of numbers, combinations of letters, and other such theories, rather than optical observations of the Universe. He thought that the earth was a star like all other stars and as such was not the center of the universe.


After de Cusa, it seemed to go quiet for a time but reappeared a few decades later in the sixteenth century with Copernicus’ work. I am sure that had Copernicus (1473-1543) been aware of de Cusa’s declarations, he would have included a reference to it in the theories in his own work because he did mention the older findings of Martianus Capella, in his first volume of his work, the “De revolutioibus orbium coelestium”, unless he felt that de Cusa’s work was too fanciful. Following on from Copernicus, came Galileo’s theory and the final scientific proof with his observations through the telescope. Though even with this irrevocable truth, the Church still managed to claim that it was a falsehood, because the Bible said otherwise, or so they thought.


Theological reasoning’s, backed by the erroneous application of Biblical texts and all the traditional Church and scientific concepts, demanded that the Earth was the center of the Universe. The Church was firmly attached to the Ptolemaic view of the Universe, so much so that the system was considered by both science and the Church to be invulnerable to attack and any attempt to question or assault it was considered a great blasphemy.


We can now look at our reaction to these great scientific theories and are uncomfortable that our forefathers should have had such a narrow view of our Universe. However, comparing the Flat Earthist’s and the Geocentrist’s of the past, to the Creationist’s of today, we can see that all three of the proponent groups show anger at what they have considered to be mistaken science and theology. All three generations of Christians have desired to help purveyors of the opposite and “false theories” to return to the “religious and scientific truths”.


The Third Great Debate regards the age of the Earth and the veracity of Adam and Eve’s existence. This dispute has raged since 1859 when Darwin first published his theory on the origin of man and continues to bluster on today as much as it did then. This is because the three great monotheistic religions need to defend their traditional beliefs on one of the foundations of all three faiths, the Creation story.


As I have said the traditional Creationist view is fundamental to all three of the main monotheistic religions but it is also essential to two, because unlike the Moslems; Christianity and Judaism believe that mankind inherited their sinful natures from one man – Adam.

Judaism believes that because of Adam’s sin, the whole of mankind lives in an imperfect state and is attributed with evil inclinations that compete with good intensions; these intensions are responsible for the battle inside people and are ultimately responsible for many of mankind’s problems. They believe that we live in an unredeemed world and it is their responsibility to redeem mankind and prepare the right conditions on Earth for the Messiah to come. Judaism’s view on the Messiah differs from the Christian perspective because the Jewish Messiah does not remove personal sins, as the Christian Messiah does.


Islam believes that people cannot be held accountable for someone else’s mistake. The Koran states: “That no burdened person (with sins) shall bear the burden (sins) of another”. They maintain that Adam was a Great prophet and agree that Adam sinned but repented and only had to spend his life on Earth and then return to Paradise. They differ from the Christian view because they do not agree that his offspring inherited Adam’s sin, thus negating the need of a savior.


Christians believe that Jesus Christ died to save mankind from sin, which came into the world when Adam first sinned in the Garden of Eden. Thus, if the evolutionary theories were true, then Adam could not have existed as the first man and there was therefore no need for Jesus to die for mankind’s sins. Therefore, Christians would have to agree with Peter Martyr (1206 – 1252) who said that if this was true then “all the promises of Christ fall into nothing, and all the life of our religion would be lost.” Of course it is not true but I invite all three monotheistic religions rethink their understanding of Creation and the Fall.


Each of the three Main monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam believe that they alone have the true way into God. All three believe that the most important spiritual tribal difference that exists between humans today is that between their own religion and the non-believers, i.e. Christians and non-Christians, Jews and non-Jews, Moslems and non-Moslems.


From the Christian perspective, they believe that their Credo is based on those who by faith believe that sin came into the world by one man – Adam and that salvation by grace was made available to them by the willing sacrifice, death and resurrection of God’s only Son; Jesus Christ. Non-Christians are those people who do not to believe this. Two types of people, Christian believers and unbelievers; that is all. Importantly however, the unbelievers are loved by God and have a chance to accept His Grace while they live and in doing so inherit a place in God’s Kingdom and become sons of God.


Some people would say that the positions that the three monotheistic religions take are arrogant, unjust and simplistic views. They would say that it is not fair, and surely one does not have to believe in Adam to be a believer. However, it is vital for Moslems, Jews and Christians to believe in the scriptures and I repeat that it is doubly vital that Christians should believe in Adam and the concept of first sin, to make their belief in Jesus Christ the Savior valid.


The possible truth that the world was not created in six days and that dinosaurs did walk the Earth many millions of years ago, does not disprove Adam’s existence or his fall. Neither does it negate the fundamental truth and need of Christ’s sacrifice to give mankind a way back into a relationship with God.

As we have just seen, most Christians today passionately hold on to their belief in Adam and the six-day creationist ideology, in the same way that 15th century Christians held on to their beliefs in a geocentric Universe, even though science seems to indicate a completely different scenario. However, we should be very slow to criticize their stance because until they are assured that there could be a different scriptural interpretation that does not violate their beliefs, they will throw all of their might and resource to fight the new theory. Even then the acceptance of the new ideas will happen gradually, because belief is a very complex issue that can vary in structure and intensity from person to person; very often depending on Church leadership and their attitude to the theory.


Most would correctly state that it is a compromising falsehood to say that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are an allegory not to be taken literally. Some would state that if you are going to believe in the Bible, you cannot start discarding bits of it because they do not suit your life style or beliefs. They would go on to say that external “theories” that attempt to repudiate their own interpretation of scriptures are wrong because their traditional and historically accepted understanding of the Bible is correct and therefore infallible.

Most Christians would maintain that all Christians should believe in Adam and Eve and the six-day creation because it is so inextricably woven into their lives and traditionally way of thinking. They have built up massive barriers against evolution to protect their doctrines. Many Christians genuinely believe that the theories of evolution, an ancient Earth or any other theory that questions Creationism; violates scriptures, is wrong and does not explain the formation of the Earth, solar system and Universe, as it is today.

They believe that though evolution is presented as scientific “fact,” there are too many holes in the theories and therefore no sincere scientist should accept evolution and violate known scientific principles. They argue that the “Big Bang” theory is unproved and impossible, as the source of the original mass and energy required for the explosion, has not been adequately explained.


There have been times however, when the Church has rejected so called secular discoveries and history has shown that the Church, by staunchly holding on to what it has always believed to be the truth, has made mistakes. We need to address an area were the Church could be making another mistake, an area where its interpretation of Scripture could be wrong. Not “God angering” wrong but wrong all the same and in an area that is causing a huge waste of time, energy and Church funds.


For many years as I had wondered whom it was that Cain married? Who were the people in the Land of Nod? Who were the “sons of God”? I found that some of the Churches existing teachings on biblical creation and from that, the personalities that sprung up from the relationship between God and man, needed a great deal of “faith” to accept.

A tremendous battle took place in my mind as I wondered whom these characters were and if they were somehow tied into the fact that I was sure that the world had taken hundreds of millions of years to create. Yet, all the Bible teaching that I regarded as good and sound went contrary to this view. So for years I fought against my intellect and tried to accept the current teachings of the Church on these issues. But, how could the teaching of the Church be so far from what was so obviously the truth about creation? Where did the Bible fit into a “hundreds of millions of year’s creation”, as opposed to a six-day creation? Some of my secular friends argued that, “If the Bible was so wrong on this subject, where else was it wrong?”


I knew that somewhere in the scriptures the truth must have surely been staring us in the face. Where was that truth? God would not hide it. The truth about creation must be obvious, but where in scripture was the answer? Was the answer to be found in a particular translation of the Bible? Were any of the translations faithful to the original Hebrew and Greek and if they were not, would a correct interpretation give us the answer?

I found that all the main Christian and Jewish translations of the Bible are very similar in their renditions of Genesis and the location of the solution to creation is found in all of them. The Bibles might differ in style but the truth remains the same.

 

[cleminson]

Continued from Genesis Enigma 5.

The different versions of the Bible are basic style and translation judgments made by humans. If a person’s or group’s interpretation is correct, it will illuminate the meaning of the text; if it is inaccurate, then it will only act as a platform for the translator’s bias and their personal interpretation of the text. In the various translations of the Bible that I have studied, the early chapters of the book of Genesis are translated in a similar fashion with style and language being the only difference.

One of the reasons that we have so many different translations of the Bible is that each new translator or Board of Translators feels that there is a better way of translating the Scriptures. This usually happens when people are concerned that what we have is not accurate enough or the belief that the language is too archaic or someone looks for an alternative translation to support a particular doctrine.

The problem that we have with all the translations of the Bible is that they were translated with the best of intensions and much prayer, but when an area of translation does not seem to make sense, it is first put into the context of the scriptures surrounding it and then translated with the preconceptions of the people doing the translating. If then it still does not make sense, it is translated accordingly to the perceptions of the translators.

The final judgment as to the personal preference of a particular version of the Bible tends to come down to which Church we attend and/or which version the preacher uses in his sermons. However, most of us live in a free society and have other versions in our homes that are called on to provide enlightenment in our Bible studies.
There are many explanations given for the rise of so many translations of the Christian Bible but I would like to look at what I consider to be the two main reasons.

Firstly, some translators question the originality of certain parts of the King James Version. In 1881 two British scholars published a Greek New Testament that was based on the most ancient of the manuscripts then available. This text made several departures from the Byzantine Greek text, which was used by the King James translators. It was shorter because the older manuscripts did not contain certain passages like the longer version of Mark’s gospel in the King James Version of the Bible (KJV).

Secondly, some translators have thought it better to translate the Bible into an “every day” language type. Since 1895 many pieces of manuscript have been discovered on archaeological sites, which have given insight into some of the words translated by the KJV scholars. The single most important discovery was that of the Egyptian papyri in 1895 by Adolf Deissmann. He concluded that the New Testament in Greek was written in a common form of Greek, the every day language of the day and not in an educated Greek that only the most learned could understand. Since then, some translators have tried to translate the New Testament into every day language.

Though these early Greek manuscripts missed out some precious scripture, they also gave us a new understanding of certain words that the KJV translators struggled to interpret. For example, in the KJV of John 3:16, the Greek word translated “only begotten” really means “one and only” or “unique”. Many people today prefer other translations to the KJV because they are written in easily understandable English; others believe the majesty of the KJV gives it the upper hand. The irony about this difference in style is that when, after seven years of hard work, the KJV was first published in 1611, some churchmen complained that it was too easily understood! So though today it may seem difficult to read to some, we must remember that when it was translated, it was into the every day language of the time.

The modern translations seem to have cut out many of the most precious lines of Scripture. Those end Mark’s Gospel at the 8th verse of chapter 16; leaving out the mention of the angel stirring the waters at the pool of Bethesda, that is mentioned in John 5:4; and sadly they remove the great forgiveness account, of the woman caught in adultery in John 8. There are many other omissions and textual changes in comparison to the KJV. For example, in I Timothy 3:16, the KJV says, “God was manifest in the flesh,” in comparison most modern translations read, “He was manifest in the flesh”. A bigger difference comes in Revelation 22:19 where the KJV mentions the “book of life” while most modern versions translate it as the “tree of life.” Altogether, there are hundreds of textual changes between the King James and modern translations.

Most of the differences in the modern translations do not have an effect on our doctrine regarding the deity of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth and sin coming into the world by one man and salvation by grace made available to us by the death of one man Jesus Christ. Different Church leaders will swear by one translation or another and there is a certain amount of playful banter that goes on between preachers who mock one another about which version is the best.

By reading these various translations of the scriptures with a different perception, I am totally comfortable with my understanding of Genesis and its portrayal of a Theistic Evolutionary Creation, rather than the view held by creationists. I read the Bibles account of Gods creation with the knowledge of the evolutionary theories, and see how they favorably compare, but more importantly, my understanding of whom Jesus Christ was has not altered.

If we are happy with the translation of the Scriptures and we are still not happy with the answers we are finding, then we need to ask ourselves if our acceptance of what we take to be the literal meaning of Scripture is always the correct interpretation. Are there scriptures in the Bible that if read afresh could stop this eternal bickering between evolutionists and Christians regarding creation? Could the great stumbling block to many minds be removed and acceptances of the Bibles truth become a possibility even to the anti-creationists?

If Christians truly wish to be fundamentalists, then we need to remove traditional blinkers and read the first few chapters of the Book of Genesis again to see if there are ways that science and our understanding of Creation can meet. God is not hiding the truth; in Genesis the actual truth about creation must be staring us in the face and I hope that this manuscript illuminates those possible scriptures and sets you on the way of your own Bible study on this matter. I have had to think “outside the box” but I hope that the Church starts to see that there might just be an alternative but acceptable Christian answer to the creation conundrum.

We will ask the question as to whether Adam was formed on the third day and whether the rest of mankind was created on the sixth day? We know that as far as Christians are concerned there are two types of people now – Christians and non-Christians. Were there two types of people then – Adam’s offspring who were the sons of God and the rest of mankind? If this is scripturally true, then what does it mean for Christians and the rest of humanity?

As I read the Old Testament, I am aware that God regarded the children of Israel, as a “separated people” and the scriptures portray both an historic and narrow view of only those chosen people. Scripture was written originally, under Divine guidance, by and for these people within the Adamic and finally children of Israel lineage. Scripture occasionally gives us tantalizing views of other races and peoples but only when they came across or impacted on His people. It could be argued that Noah’s lineage were all of the Adamic line and therefore all part of God’s people. This would include all the people living in the “fertile crescent” at the time of Abraham. Genetically most of them were, but it seems that God was only concerned with the lineage that had a relationship with Him. It was from this lineage that Abraham and ultimately Jesus were to come. God was very concerned about the spiritual purity of his people, not wanting them to mix with other tribes. Why was He only concerned with one tribal nation, when he had created all of mankind?

To be continued in The Genesis Enigma 7

 

[cleminson]

Continued from Genesis Enigma 6.

Chapter Three

The Great Battles​

​

The battle between Christianity and Science, Art, Philosophy, History, Law, Medicine and now even Mathematics has been raging since the early days of the Reformation, as Christians have justifiably fought against what they perceived to be attacks against God’s Word. Various learned men have written hundreds of millions of words to support their own theories and damning the opposition’s opinions. The various Bibles have become a book of proof to some, an object of scorn to others but still remains the principal tool for the three main monotheistic religions to verify or refute countless theories.

From the scientific perspective even amongst Darwinists there are various factions including “Group Selectionists” who believe that individually unfavorable characteristics within man, including aging, can evolve if they have a benefit to a sufficiently large group and their disadvantage is sufficiently small to an individual. Another group is made up of those who believe in “The Selfish Gene Theory” who suggest that some individually unfavorable behavior (but not aging) can be explained genetically. A third group believe that the “Evolvability Theory” is the answer and propose that organisms must be able to evolve, separately and this must be separate from the ability to survive, which they claim would allow for aging and some behavior patterns to occur.

As of January 2008, evolution does not yet attempt to claim that it knows the origin of life but claims that it understands the process that finally led to the formation of man, after life was formed. Darwin never attempted to explain how the first primitive organism appeared, he was happy that the origin of life was a separate subject from the origin of species. Even today there is no scientific consensus regarding the originof life in our Universe and Darwin as a deist, was certainly content with the idea that it was possible that a God created the original life form.

Discussing the origin of life, the great astrophysicist Professor Sir Fred Hoyle, who took a stance against Darwinism, said in a dramatic phrase, “In a popular lecture I once unflatteringly described the thinking of these scientists (Darwinist’s) as a “junkyard mentality”. Since this reference became widely and not quite accurately quoted (often by Christians) I will repeat it here. A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe.”

He intended this statement to counter what he believed was the Darwinist’s concept of the spontaneous appearance, in a single step, of a complex life form complete with thousands of enzymes and multi-cellular formations, capable of manufacturing, using and managing structures made out of hundreds of thousands of different types of protein molecules. However, most Darwinists agree with Sir Fred Hoyle that a single-step random selection of complex molecular structures cannot be the mechanism that ultimately generated the complex forms of life that we have today. They argue that it is possible that one or more “single cells” were formed and as there was no competition, they could have split, possibly “melted” together with different looking cells to form a more complex structure and then after many of these cells had formed, Darwin’s theory of “Natural Selection” would have taken place, until these “joined cells” evolved into the complex life structures that we now have on Earth.

Sir Fred passed away in 2001 and in his final years he wrote a phrase, seemingly accepting the possibility of a primordial soup, saying, “Suppose that on the early Earth two or three very primitive enzymes (did) appear and come together in a primordial soup of amino acids formed at random, an occurrence perhaps not beyond the bounds of possibility…. etc.”, sadly however, the row continues between his colleagues and disciples and the evolutionary Darwinists.

The international Human Genome Project (HGP) has completed a preliminary sequencing of the entire human genome genetic code. Results seem to show thatthe Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, that the Earth was capable of sustaining simple life about 3.8 billion years ago, that all life evolved from one or a few single cell organisms which lived about 3.5 billion years ago, that all humans and some monkeys share an ancestor which lived about 7 million years ago, and that finally, all humans are descended from a person who lived approximately 270,000 years ago. These scientists would possibly also agree that the origin of the first primordial organism is impossible to understand, therefore the biological equivalent of the “big bang theory” and as a result,more in the realm of philosophy and religion than in the scientific arena. Thus there emerges the possibility of a creative God in some of their thinking.

Up to now there has been little room for a God centered creation in all of these scientific theories and though a God centered creation cannot be proved as scientific fact, the Bible relates God’s creation of the whole.

Most Creationists would not have too much of a problem with the idea that Greyhounds could have been developed by selective breeding from much slower and wolf like dogs, over several thousand years because we have seen new breeds emerge within a few generations. Yet they have huge problems with the thought that all life on Earth could have developed in a similar way over billions of years from perhaps a God created single cell organism in a primordial liquid and that by theeffects of a very slow God driven natural selection through cell mutation, could cause a process of beneficial metamorphosis that has brought life on Earth to where it is today.

The conflict between Creationists and Evolutionists is not the only one that Christians face, as believers are challenged by the philosophical sciences regarding the existence of God and His qualities, the unity of the Godhead, His personality, the nature of His eternity and infinity, as well as the freedom of the human will and its place with the laws of nature.

In the sciences of Language and History, areas of conflict with Christians have included the historical unity of the races within mankind and the roots of Genetics and language. Debates on the subjects such as the history of the Patriarchs, the Israelites, and their Messianic belief, the history of Christ and His Church and the authenticity of the various Books of the Bible, have gone on within the Church and are of very little interest to most of those outside the Church.

In the science of ethics and its byproduct The Law, heated debate has taken place over the issues concerning the origin of human right and service, the authority of governments, the marriage contract and divorce; the rights of parents and children, the rights to own personal property, to have freedom of religion but also whether we should tolerate of other religions and the separation of religion and state.

These are ongoing issues and are argued from different positions by people from within and without the Church.
Though the understanding and acceptance of spiritual subjects are outside the remit of the medical and biological sciences, some of the scientists in this area of study have all the same tried to throw doubt onto the existence of the human soul, thus attacking its spirituality and immortality. They have deliberated on how human and animal personalities differ, the physiological similarity of the varying races that make up humankind, the justification of abortion, contraception and the unnatural termination of human life.

The exact sciences of mathematics and experimental sciences, have also got involved in the fray, though these sciences have no relevance whatever with faith. Except for possibly the mathematics in Mitochondrion Eve, which is a hot topic for those whom are interested and will be discussed later in this manuscript. These so called exact sciences are also trying to throw doubts on the mathematical probability of the celestial wonders like the star of Bethlehem and the stars falling from heaven before the Last Judgment. All these wonders fall into the miraculous realm, so trying to judge and disprove them by using the laws of science and nature is pure folly.

Finally, in the natural sciences, especially natural philosophy, the great war rages over the creation of the world and of man, the materialistic doctrines, eternity of matter, the necessity of natural laws, impossibility of miracles, Darwinian origin of man, the Flood, its existence and geographical extent.

To all of these groups that do not believe in the present interpretation of the Genesis creation Scriptures, I would say that The Bible is very accurate in the way it presents creation as long as it is understood in the way that I have expounded in this manuscript.

The compatibility between the modern scientific theories and the ancient scriptural texts is the theme of this work, not the issue about belief in God. As a personal warning to those who may try to “invalidate” Christianity with clever words, the great Albert Einstein, a Jew and a Deist said in an interview, ”Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrase-mongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a “bon mot”... No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life”.

Though the Church has not always proven infallible with its doctrinal stances against science, for instance when many parts of the Church prior to the 19th century incorrectly supported the old geocentric theory. In the 20th century they did however realize their mistake and finally accept the “new” science and by doing so came out of their confusion into a stronger and more confident position.

These areas of conflict with science will be addressed more fully later, but in the 17th century, the Roman Catholic and early Protestant Churches had the inviolate belief that the Earth was the center of the Universe (the geocentric theory). It was important to them because they believed that as the Earth was created first, and the Planets added later, the Earth was therefore the single most important planet. Both arms of the Church in that time defended their positions with erroneous scriptural gusto, which was based on the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic theories. These theories had become the Churches traditional foundations for the way they wanted to understand the Bible and they were therefore forced by non-Christian traditions, into attacking the Christian scientists that dared to suggest that the Earth was in orbit around the Sun. This heliocentric science was an anti-scriptural impossibility to the Church at that time and those who promoted the so-called “blasphemy” were considered heretics. For some Churches, the acceptance that the Earth was not the center of the Universe, took a further three hundred years to become accepted, but now gladly, most Christians can look at the fact that the Earth is not the center of the Universe without having their faith shaken.

Evolutionists might acknowledge this change of view by the Church as proof of the Churches fallibility in all things and argue that if Creationists wish to think that the world was created in six days, four and a half thousand years ago, why bother to address their stupidity? Especially as it is not the first time that the Church has got it wrong. I would advise any evolutionist who thinks along these lines, that most Creationists are not stupid; they take their seemingly nonsensical stance against evolution, because they are defending their religion and their Holy Scriptures against a perceived attack that is aimed at the very foundations of their beliefs. There is no other option for the Creationists but to preserve their traditions, for it seems to them that if the present understanding of the Biblical account of the Creation story is not true then the whole of Scripture appears to become vulnerable, powerless and just another religious theory to be accepted or rejected.

Creationist Christians are therefore forced to make a choice to either reject their Creationist religious doctrine, thus neutering their religion or to defend their historical beliefs and interpretations of the Scriptures and reject evolution. They are for this reason forced to regard the theory of evolution as a direct attack on the traditional understanding of the Creation story, consequently an attack on the Bible, therefore anti-God and evil.