Why don't christians trust the biblical timeline?

[Calminian]

...Yes, I saw your post. I'm not haggling this evidence or that. Other people are more interested in that anyway.

I understand but you missed the point of the post. It's wasn't about evidence, but rather about your analogy.

Here's the question: Why would God create trees with rings that showed evidence of differing seasons that had never happened?

And now you're back to evidences. I thought you didn't want to haggle them over them.

Tree rings exist in the present. They don't say anything about the past, apart from whatever presuppositions you approach them with. I think Ted has made a strong case on that subject, so I'll let you haggle with him over that.

But what I'd like you to consider is that the written testimony of the Holy Spirit about history is also evidence—in fact it's infallible evidence. Ancient written documents are very valuable in determining what happened in the past, and we just so happen to have one that was written by God! What does it say about trees? What does it say about the past? That's where my investigations start.

In fact, the Bible is the perfect framework from which we can filter all other evidences.

 

[gluadys]

Hi SE,

Yes, by all natural and known scientific and medical evidence that we have, the only reason a person has a belly button is because that is where the fetus received its food from the host. However, if God, in his great wisdom wanted Adam to look just like every other person that would follow after him, He could very easily have crafted a belly button into Adam's abdomen.

Yes, God could have done that, but why would he? Now you give an explanation: God may have wanted Adam to look like all subsequent humans in this respect. But what for? If God wanted to make the point that Adam was not born of woman, how better than not to give him a belly button?

Again,whatever God's preferences in belly buttons, this would not apply to Adam with a scar over his eyebrow from his bike accident when he was a kid. In such a case we could not say God wanted him to look like other humans. So, either Adam had a real past in which he acquired the scar or the past event in which he acquired it is fictitious.

This is exactly my point. Some want to say that the causes of things that occurred centuries ago before any recorded evidence can only be explained by the natural of the here and now that we know. My position is that, no, the things that God does cannot be explained by such limited parameters.

In making your point, you have missed mine. I actually agree with you that we cannot limit ourselves to a natural explanation of these things. But when we look to a beyond natural explanation, what do we have other than God's miraculous action? So the question that poses itself then is this.

In regard to the numerable datable events of earth and galactic history--do our observations point to real events of the past (natural explanation) or are we observing things God created only 6,000 or so years ago that point to a fictitious past? (supernatural explanation)

What I want to know is what the second explanation tells us about God, or what we think about God.

God works outside of the laws of natural causes. He makes water to stand as a sentinel towering dozens of feet tall by no other support than just He said so. He makes a virgin to be pregnant with a fetus by no other means than just He says so. He makes stars to appear in the heavens in a day only by His say so. He makes the earth to appear alone and desolate in what may well have been a mere moment only by His say so. He makes the sun to stand still in the sky or to even go backwards in its course across the sky merely by His say so. He causes plagues to touch upon a whole city of people and yet someone standing 10 feet away in Goshen has not a single plague to touch him. He causes a death angel to pass through an entire city and only if someone has set the blood of a lamb on his doorposts are the firstborn in that family not affected only by His say so. He causes fire to fall from heaven and burn up completely an altar that has been doused repeatedly with water only by His say so. He could certainly have formed Adam with a belly button, if that was his design, only by His say so. No umbilical cord needed to cause the scar of a belly button. God can do that and there is no evidence that He either did or didn't, so we can only guess.

We know that God works outside natural causes. The question at hand is "Does God also work inside natural causes?"

 

[miamited]

Yes, God could have done that, but why would he? Now you give an explanation: God may have wanted Adam to look like all subsequent humans in this respect. But what for? If God wanted to make the point that Adam was not born of woman, how better than not to give him a belly button?

Hi glaudys,

Well, first of all God had already told us that He created Adam from the dust of the ground. As far as Adam being able to prove to his immediate progeny that he was formed as such, just the fact that he would have no history to tell his children about his own childhood would have sufficed for his immediate family. Beyond his immediate family, everyone else would have been just like you and me. Adam is dead the body has disintegrated and the fact that he did or didn't have a belly button wouldn't have been provable within a few months of Adam's death. The skin is the first thing to disappear on a corpse. So, I doubt that God saw this issue of Adam having or not having a belly button as being some lasting proof for future generations. I therefore, don't expect that God, being wiser than you or I, would have considered that if He made Adam without a belly button that it would be some lasting proof for future generations.

However, as I have said, whether or not he did have one is purely speculative. He may not have, based on the natural causes of belly buttons, or He may have, based on God's design for Adam.

Again,whatever God's preferences in belly buttons, this would not apply to Adam with a scar over his eyebrow from his bike accident when he was a kid. In such a case we could not say God wanted him to look like other humans. So, either Adam had a real past in which he acquired the scar or the past event in which he acquired it is fictitious.

Again, let me also say, as I've said before, this issue of some scar over the eyebrow is something that you need to discuss with SE. You keep bringing that up as some argument against my position and I've never ever said that I believe there was ever a scar over Adam's eyebrow. You are, however, absolutely correct, IF God had put a scar over Adam's eyebrow it would not have been to make him like his children. I agree with you. Now, go tell SE that I agree with you on that point.

In making your point, you have missed mine. I actually agree with you that we cannot limit ourselves to a natural explanation of these things. But when we look to a beyond natural explanation, what do we have other than God's miraculous action? So the question that poses itself then is this.

In regard to the numerable datable events of earth and galactic history--do our observations point to real events of the past (natural explanation) or are we observing things God created only 6,000 or so years ago that point to a fictitious past? (supernatural explanation)

Well, I'll say this again also. I don't think we are observing things that God created that point to a fictitious past. I believe that our extrapolating method of stretching what we now know as 'natural properties' beyond what we really have any observable evidence to verify is a flawed method.

What I want to know is what the second explanation tells us about God, or what we think about God.

We know that God works outside natural causes. The question at hand is "Does God also work inside natural causes?"

The 'second explanation being which one exactly? No, God does not 'work' inside natural causes. He created the natural causes and because He created them as natural causes, they work according to their God given design. God doesn't have to work within natural causes because they are natural causes that He created to do just what they do.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[miamited]

Are tree-ring chronologies reliable?:


As to your question, I don't feel the need, personally, to go and count tree rings myself, or to become an expert in any or all of the sciences in order to accept data that I am told about. The system is flawed, but it works well enough due to self-correction. That's what happens when you have scientists climbing over one another to prove each other wrong.

My interest is more in the implications of what we believe. What you are saying here is that not only is the world not old, but that it doesn't even look old. The implications of that are that the majority of millions of scientists from the majority of dozens of fields have been falsifying evidence for hundreds of years.

That's a conspiracy that even the tin-hatters would scoff at. Occam's razor is useful here.

Hi SE,

Well, no, that's not exactly what I'm saying in all cases. However, in this particular case of using dendrochronology to measure years, Yes, I believe that we are counting things as older than they are based on some fairly simple tests that have proven that it is very possible and often likely that trees have produced more than one ring in some years. Yes, I have very little faith in the matter of cross-dating being reliable. All you have are men who look at two samples and test them and based on some fairly inconclusive evidence make the claim that because this set of rings seems to have fairly similar sizes and widths of these other rings over here on a second sample, then they must be rings created in the same years.

My first question that comes to mind is where in the world do you even get wood, that disintegrates fairly rapidly once it has been removed from its life source, that you know to be older than a 5,300 year old living specimen? Now, the article says that much of it comes from shipwrecks. Well, the history of men sailing the seas isn't that old and how in the world do you have any confidence that you know where a piece of timber was harvested from? How can you take a piece of wood from an old sunken vessel and make, with any confidence, a claim that the wood came from the same area, living under the same local weather patterns as a the first specimen?

As I said, we are right now having a severe drought in the most western states of the US, but you can go 50 miles from a severe drought area and come into an area that is having a less severe drought or even an area that is having reasonable regular seasonal weather patterns. I live in Seneca SC and we've had a fairly dry spring, but 35 miles from my house in Greenville SC they've just experienced some of the worst flooding conditions they've had in many, many years. They got 9" of rain in an hour and my grass is turning brown.

So, unfortunately, it's really quite a bit of guesswork when we try to match these various tree samples one with another.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[Colter]

This thread was inspired by a comment posted in another thread.



Sometimes I laugh, but most of the time am just amazed and disappointed what some christians (even preachers apparently) will trust over the Bible.

I've looked into egyptian chronologies a bit, and noticed that even egyptologists joke about how disarrayed egyptian history is. One, Sir Alan Gardiner, is quoted as calling it ‘merely a collection of rags and tatters’ *

Now compare that to the impeccable scribal practices of the ancient hebrews how diligently and ritualistically preserved their history. The Bible is without equal in its preservation. No ancient document even comes close. Yet professing christians (and I have no reason to believe they're not sincere) look to egyptian and sumerian chronologies to judge the biblical chronologies.

As Ken Ham often laments, "why do we do this?" I try to put my finger on how this happens, but can only just conclude the devil is very clever, and knows how to sway the masses—even many believers.

Some good articles to check out for further study on ancient historical chronologies, and the ice age:

*Fall of the Sothic Theory: Egyptian Chronology Revisited

Egyptian history and the biblical record: a perfect match?

The Antediluvian Patriarchs and the Sumerian King List

The Ice Age and the Genesis Flood​

For one, the "Bible" is a collection of books that were sorted from other lists of books that had been used before the canonization by the Roman Church. The authors of the books don't claim to have been writing Gods world, rather they were preserving what was sacred to them at the time. In the case of the OT books the Hebrews redacted and edited their history while in Babylon but left signs of previous material within the new records. One glaring example is Cain finding his wife in the land of Nod or the Nodites as part of the fragmented, jumbled up story of the incarnate Adam and Eve.

Additional reasons that disciples of Christ don't adhere to the Jews dubious time lines would be the age of the earth and the geological record of life that evolved on it.

 

[mark kennedy]

For one, the "Bible" is a collection of books that were sorted from other lists of books that had been used before the canonization by the Roman Church.

Let's not forget the contributions of Moses and Ezra, the Old Testament wasn't dreamed up in some Catholic monastery.

The authors of the books don't claim to have been writing Gods world, rather they were preserving what was sacred to them at the time. In the case of the OT books the Hebrews redacted and edited their history while in Babylon but left signs of previous material within the new records. One glaring example is Cain finding his wife in the land of Nod or the Nodites as part of the fragmented, jumbled up story of the incarnate Adam and Eve.

Names come to mind like Joseph, Moses, Esther, Daniel and Nehemiah and Ezra and these names are inextricably linked to names of profound historical significance. They did lay claim to God's revelation, a direct revelation communicated through prophets and confirmed with miracles. The narrative of the OT is an unbroken chronology spanning thousands of years, always in the custody of the Hebrews throughout it's history. Even in Babylon the law was preserved inside a wall to be found when Nehemiah and Ezra returned to the land. You need to learn your Old Testament.

Additional reasons that disciples of Christ don't adhere to the Jews dubious time lines would be the age of the earth and the geological record of life that evolved on it.

The reason that history is vital is because God's redemptive history is recorded. The reason God is not recognized as Creator in modern times isn't because God is not a viable cause of the universe and life, especially man. God is simply rejected as the cause of anything going all the way back to, and including, the Big Bang. That's not science, it's supposition. It really has nothing to do with the genealogies somehow being flawed. The problem is that they give very specific time lines that are hard to nail down to a specific date, they are invariably relative. That's not a logical disproof, it's a literary feature.

Have a nice day
Mark

 

[gluadys]

Hi glaudys,

Well, first of all God had already told us that He created Adam from the dust of the ground.

No problem with that. But did God tell us that as a scientific fact or as a symbol of humanity's close relationship to the stuff everything on earth is made of?

Adam is dead the body has disintegrated and the fact that he did or didn't have a belly button wouldn't have been provable within a few months of Adam's death.

True, but his family would have known and could have told younger generations who did not know first-hand. So there could have been testimony even without evidence. And let us not pooh-pooh testimony. There is no physical evidence available to us today that Jesus rose from the dead. And only a chosen few saw and touched him. So all that we hold most dear as Christians comes from their testimony--not from evidence.

Again, let me also say, as I've said before, this issue of some scar over the eyebrow is something that you need to discuss with SE. You keep bringing that up as some argument against my position and I've never ever said that I believe there was ever a scar over Adam's eyebrow. You are, however, absolutely correct, IF God had put a scar over Adam's eyebrow it would not have been to make him like his children. I agree with you. Now, go tell SE that I agree with you on that point.

You are avoiding the point. We are not talking about whether or not Adam had a scar. That is irrelevant. But supposing he did, what would that say about his age? That is the key question.

Well, I'll say this again also. I don't think we are observing things that God created that point to a fictitious past.

Unlike Adam, whose scar is speculative, the things we are observing that God created do have "scars"--remnants of things that happened to them at some datable time in the past. If that past is not fictitious, but real, then the past extends back far longer than a few thousand years. It extends back over 13 billion years for the universe as a whole, over 4 billion years for the planet earth and about 200,000 years for our species.

Why should we take Bishop Ussher's flawed calculations over the testimony of God's own creation?

The 'second explanation being which one exactly?

In regard to the numerable datable events of earth and galactic history--do our observations point to real events of the past (natural explanation) or are we observing things God created only 6,000 or so years ago that point to a fictitious past? (supernatural explanation)​

The section in bold is the second explanation.

No, God does not 'work' inside natural causes.

How do you know that? Why would you expel God from his own created world?

This negative answer sounds to me more consistent with Deism or Athiesm To me when you say God does not work inside natural causes, it reinforces the idea that natural=without God. But that was never a Christian, or even a Western, understanding of 'natural' until very recent times. Traditionally, 'natural' described something that happened without human participation, not without divine participation.

So I would ask, where does this idea of excluding God from natural causes come from? Have you borrowed it from atheists?

 

[NannaNae]

duplicate

 

[NannaNae]

I agree it isn't old and it doesn't look old . at the south end of south end of south america are some under water islands where Antarctica has pulled away and rolled out south from west side of south America in some age.. these raised under water islands are in a very curious place there is a huge amount of water currents moving around and around Antarctica through that strait . why in billions of years can there still be any raised spots in the ocean floor that aren't volcanic anywhere in the ocean especially in an area between two continents that is narrowed.

those raised areas that look like a hair pin on a topographical maps of that area in that strait prove the world isn't old, and that a lot of stuff has changed and even recently.
just that spot alone proves what at least two of those many events that no one of scientism will ever answer or allow to be answered were.
very cool go take a look.

 

[Colter]

Let's not forget the contributions of Moses and Ezra, the Old Testament wasn't dreamed up in some Catholic monastery.



Names come to mind like Joseph, Moses, Esther, Daniel and Nehemiah and Ezra and these names are inextricably linked to names of profound historical significance. They did lay claim to God's revelation, a direct revelation communicated through prophets and confirmed with miracles. The narrative of the OT is an unbroken chronology spanning thousands of years, always in the custody of the Hebrews throughout it's history. Even in Babylon the law was preserved inside a wall to be found when Nehemiah and Ezra returned to the land. You need to learn your Old Testament.



The reason that history is vital is because God's redemptive history is recorded. The reason God is not recognized as Creator in modern times isn't because God is not a viable cause of the universe and life, especially man. God is simply rejected as the cause of anything going all the way back to, and including, the Big Bang. That's not science, it's supposition. It really has nothing to do with the genealogies somehow being flawed. The problem is that they give very specific time lines that are hard to nail down to a specific date, they are invariably relative. That's not a logical disproof, it's a literary feature.

Have a nice day
Mark

Hi Mark, I agree, good points. Those of us of faith can see the hand of God woven all throughout the current cannon list of the Bible. However I don't agree that the books were preserved as documents of perfection. Church government is comprised of the same kind of corruptible men as secular governments with various political motives. History revisionism was common with ancient cultures, in fact it still is today. But for me these human imperfections are to be expected, it doesn't affect my faith in God. Evolved religion sets the stage for revealed religion. Monotheistic Judaism provided a framework for Jesus to build his ministry.

 

[mark kennedy]

Hi Mark, I agree, good points. Those of us of faith can see the hand of God woven all throughout the current cannon list of the Bible. However I don't agree that the books were preserved as documents of perfection.

The imperfections of the Scriptures are unmistakable and inevitable marks of human handling. They are so common they are in nearly every chapter of the New Testament and yet only represent a few percentage points of the actual record. No doctrines or any of the history effected.

When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered there was a lot of talk about how much change there would be in the thousand years that had no manuscript evidence. Guess what they found? Normal variant text.

Church government is comprised of the same kind of corruptible men as secular governments with various political motives. History revisionism was common with ancient cultures, in fact it still is today. But for me these human imperfections are to be expected, it doesn't affect my faith in God. Evolved religion sets the stage for revealed religion. Monotheistic Judaism provided a framework for Jesus to build his ministry.

I don't know that I disagree with any of that, I'm a little suspicious of an expression like 'evolved religion' but I expect you mean progressive. You seem confused about how we came to receive the canon of Scripture and before kings and clerics recognized the Scriptures the community had produced and preserved them. The Hebrew and Christian communities, respectively, had recognized them on a nearly universal level well before any council would be convened. Certainly kings opinions about them were often, little more then an after thought.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[NannaNae]

but only a perfect God can teach perfection through the imperfect!
yes the book is perfect-perfectly human as it is... perfectly inspired to our imperfections.. it is meant to inspire us to create a conversation with HIM.
in that conversation is his perfection found and created in us.

 

[miamited]

No problem with that. But did God tell us that as a scientific fact or as a symbol of humanity's close relationship to the stuff everything on earth is made of?

I'm not sure I understand the difference between a 'scientific fact' and a 'fact'. If you mean, is something that God said supposed to be proved scientifically, I would say no. Nothing that God does can be proved scientifically because the things that God does are outside of our abilities to weigh and measure by man's abilities through scientific study. However, I wholeheartedly believe that the things that God tells us about how He works in our physical realm are 'facts'.

I've always found that this idea of their being something called a 'scientific fact' is just a pair of words that people use to appear to make a point that doesn't really exist. Is there such a thing?

True, but his family would have known and could have told younger generations who did not know first-hand. So there could have been testimony even without evidence. And let us not pooh-pooh testimony. There is no physical evidence available to us today that Jesus rose from the dead. And only a chosen few saw and touched him. So all that we hold most dear as Christians comes from their testimony--not from evidence.

And you and the generations future to Adam would have believed some handed down family account for about how long?

You are avoiding the point. We are not talking about whether or not Adam had a scar. That is irrelevant. But supposing he did, what would that say about his age? That is the key question.

I'm not sure it would say anything bout his age, but arguing over issues that don't exist but are just suppositional in nature is really a waste of the limited time that God has given us here on the earth. How about let's discuss whether or not a line of alien starships stood over the Red Sea with their laser beams cutting a path through the sea as the Hebrews passed through?

Unlike Adam, whose scar is speculative, the things we are observing that God created do have "scars"--remnants of things that happened to them at some datable time in the past. If that past is not fictitious, but real, then the past extends back far longer than a few thousand years. It extends back over 13 billion years for the universe as a whole, over 4 billion years for the planet earth and about 200,000 years for our species.

Well, that's only if our scientific theories are correct and we absolutely discount any possibility that a God, who can make the sun stand still in the sky, can't possibly have made things in the past act of creation work differently than we understand.

Why should we take Bishop Ussher's flawed calculations over the testimony of God's own creation?

I don't really know who Bishop Usher is but if he's in agreement with the Scriptures, then I'm in agreement with him, despite his possible human frailties.

In regard to the numerable datable events of earth and galactic history--do our observations point to real events of the past (natural explanation) or are we observing things God created only 6,000 or so years ago that point to a fictitious past? (supernatural explanation)​

The section in bold is the second explanation.

Well, glaudys, if the creation event really happened as the Scriptures say, then whatever man works to come up with to deny such 'facts' would be the 'fictitious' part. Now what God has done.

How do you know that? Why would you expel God from his own created world?

This negative answer sounds to me more consistent with Deism or Athiesm To me when you say God does not work inside natural causes, it reinforces the idea that natural=without God. But that was never a Christian, or even a Western, understanding of 'natural' until very recent times. Traditionally, 'natural' described something that happened without human participation, not without divine participation.

So I would ask, where does this idea of excluding God from natural causes come from? Have you borrowed it from atheists?

Oh, I will never expel God from His creation. I'm not great enough to do that and, of course, everything would fall apart if I did. I have never excluded God from the natural causes, I just hold Him up as so powerful that He can establish them as He sees fit and they will endure until He changes them.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[Colter]

The imperfections of the Scriptures are unmistakable and inevitable marks of human handling. They are so common they are in nearly every chapter of the New Testament and yet only represent a few percentage points of the actual record. No doctrines or any of the history effected.

When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered there was a lot of talk about how much change there would be in the thousand years that had no manuscript evidence. Guess what they found? Normal variant text.



I don't know that I disagree with any of that, I'm a little suspicious of an expression like 'evolved religion' but I expect you mean progressive. You seem confused about how we came to receive the canon of Scripture and before kings and clerics recognized the Scriptures the community had produced and preserved them. The Hebrew and Christian communities, respectively, had recognized them on a nearly universal level well before any council would be convened. Certainly kings opinions about them were often, little more then an after thought.

Grace and peace,
Mark

By evolved religion I mean the purely evolutionary function of the spirit of worship among any culture. The evolution of religion among humans is universal, it is in response to the innate spirits of God. These religious activities produce the Shamans and eventually the priest class. These natural developments, stimulated by fear and the gravity of the spirit, lead to a conceptual framework where upon real revelation can occur. But in between one real revelation and the next, a great deal of human speculation, theology and doctrine formation takes place which is frankly purely human. [For the Jews it became all about being chosen, they lost sight of what they were "predicted" for. They turned inward on themselves, segregated]

The "Hebrew and Christian communities" were human. The Hebrew community rejected Christ, the Christian community has had it's own failings in the name of religion. That was my point. By the times of the canonization of certain books, those books had indeed already been constructed. But the councils still lopped off books that Christian communities saw as important, it's just that the Roman Christians had the power of political alliance and it's shear numbers that overwhelmed the rest and set the standard.

 

[miamited]

How do you know that? Why would you expel God from his own created world?

This negative answer sounds to me more consistent with Deism or Athiesm To me when you say God does not work inside natural causes, it reinforces the idea that natural=without God. But that was never a Christian, or even a Western, understanding of 'natural' until very recent times. Traditionally, 'natural' described something that happened without human participation, not without divine participation.

So I would ask, where does this idea of excluding God from natural causes come from? Have you borrowed it from atheists?

Hi glaudys,

Now that I have a bit more time on my hand let me see if I can explain this understanding that I have a little more simply. No, I don't take anything from an atheist. An atheist doesn't know the truth so I would be foolish to take into my understanding anything that they would say as truthful.

An atheist denies in his heart that there is a god. I allow and confirm that there is a God and that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The God who reveals Himself to His created through the written words of the Scriptures that He caused to be written and handed down through thousands of generations of Hi people, Israel.

The Scriptures tell us that God established the boundaries of the oceans. That they can go this far and no further. So, at one moment in time God established these boundaries and they are now set and was now refer to this boundary as the 'natural boundary' of the oceans. It is where God established that it could run its course. I don't see Him as having to run down to the seashore or hold up His hands from heaven or even having to command every time a wave comes in that the wave stop where it is supposed to stop. And then the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one, well, hopefully you get the picture.

God establishes the natural laws and forces at work in this realm that He has created one time and then they become, well, natural. Now, once God has established the natural laws to work, if it is his desire or purpose, God can cause the natural law to be broken. This then becomes a miracle because it is something that happens outside of the natural way of things to naturally operate.

If I am correct, our only disagreement here is in how involved, on a day to day basis, God is in sustaining what happens daily upon the earth. I do believe that God has a fairly stand back and let it roll posture in all the regular and mundane processes of the creation, but, while allowing those things to roll on, He is absolutely watching over and providing countless and often miraculous blessings by His careful oversight for His children and anyone else that He chooses.

If this answer seems somehow wrong to you, then it will just have to seem that way to you. As far as 'how' I know these things to be true, well, honestly no differently than I'm sure you know your position in this to be true. I have read and studied the Scriptures. I have prayed for wisdom concerning these things just as James encourages us when we lack wisdom in something. The Scriptures tell us that God is with us always and I absolutely agree with that, but as far as the natural work of the Creation, I believe God only needs to get involved when the natural isn't going to suit His purpose. Anyway, I hope this helps.

God bless you.
IN Christ, Ted

 

[gluadys]

I'm not sure I understand the difference between a 'scientific fact' and a 'fact'. If you mean, is something that God said supposed to be proved scientifically, I would say no. Nothing that God does can be proved scientifically because the things that God does are outside of our abilities to weigh and measure by man's abilities through scientific study. However, I wholeheartedly believe that the things that God tells us about how He works in our physical realm are 'facts'.

Let me distinguish between God saying and God doing. We have a text that describes God creating the heavens and the earth over a period of six days, followed by a seventh day of rest, establishing the sabbath. Now you take this to me "God said he made the world in six days". But you don't only mean that God said this. You also mean that God said this because this is what God actually did. Right? That is what I am describing as a fact or (potentially) a scientific fact. That the whole of the created universe we see was established in virtually its present form during an actual six-day period about 6,000 years ago.

Another alternative is that the text is describing God's creative work in symbolic terms. Numerals, for example, often have symbolic meanings in scripture. If that is the case, God is still saying the world was created in six days, not because that is an actual historic time-frame, but because he is telling a story about the creation of the world, not giving a factual report of how it happened.

Now I know you believe the first and you know I believe the second. And we can agree to disagree and leave it at that. But, is there a way to decide who is right?

I've always found that this idea of their being something called a 'scientific fact' is just a pair of words that people use to appear to make a point that doesn't really exist. Is there such a thing?

I expect there are some facts which are not particularly testable via scientific methods. Certainly a believer holds some things to be factual which cannot be proved in a scientific manner. So 'scientific fact' carries the implication that there is observable, evidential support for the factuality of whatever.

And you and the generations future to Adam would have believed some handed down family account for about how long?

Possibly for as long as people who did not witness it have believed in Christ's resurrection. But even if it was not widely believed, the testimony would still exist. One might mock at the gullibility of people who believed the story, but one could not say the story was never told.

I'm not sure it would say anything bout his age,

Well, this is the sticking point then, because it would definitely say something about his age. A doctor could tell from the condition of the scar and surrounding tissue how old the scar was. The doctor could certainly distinguish between a scar that was only days old from one that was weeks or months old and a scar that was weeks or months old and one that was several years old.

Now, it follows that, if Adam had such a scar, he would have to be at least as old as the scar. Probably older. So say the scar looks to be more than 5 years old. The doctor would conclude Adam had to be more than five years old.

So if you then say: "but, doctor, Adam was created just this morning as a mature individual", the doctor could reply," he may have been created as a mature individual, but it could not have been this morning. It had to be five or more years ago. That is the only way he could have a scar that looks like that."

but arguing over issues that don't exist but are just suppositional in nature is really a waste of the limited time that God has given us here on the earth. How about let's discuss whether or not a line of alien starships stood over the Red Sea with their laser beams cutting a path through the sea as the Hebrews passed through?

As I say, we are not actually considering whether or not Adam had a scar. It is an analogy and the point is to consider what scars tell us about age. Creation has many characteristics which we may call "scars", traits that take their origin in some datable event of the past. Each time we can date such an event, we can say "the earth must be at least X years old, because this happened to the earth X years ago."

Well, that's only if our scientific theories are correct and we absolutely discount any possibility that a God, who can make the sun stand still in the sky, can't possibly have made things in the past act of creation work differently than we understand.

Actually, you are agreeing that our scientific theories are right. Let's go back to Adam. You agreed that if the doctor did not know his origin, the doctor would put an adult age to him--on the theory that a person of his height, weight, length of bones, number & type of teeth, etc. would take a certain number of years to grow into that condition. And with the exception of Adam and Eve, the doctor would be correct, for all other humans have been born as infants and taken time to grow into maturity. Right?

The doctor's theories are right, and the only reason his conclusion would be wrong is that Adam was created already mature. That act of creating a man already in a mature state is a miracle, and falls outside of scientific theories.

Same with the rest of creation. The scientific theories are correct. The ages assigned are correct (within known margins of error) on the basis of the theories. The only way they can be incorrect is because something that falls outside scientific theories happened.

The question is: did those miracles actually happen? (Not could they happen--we agree they could. But did they happen?) This is where the issue of scars comes in.

I don't really know who Bishop Usher is but if he's in agreement with the Scriptures, then I'm in agreement with him, despite his possible human frailties.

James Ussher - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It is not so much that he agrees with the Bible, as that he used an interpretation of the Bible to calculate the date of creation, and millions of people have assumed he was right. For some time, many bibles were printed with Ussher's dates in them. My mother's bible had them.

Well, glaudys, if the creation event really happened as the Scriptures say, then whatever man works to come up with to deny such 'facts' would be the 'fictitious' part. Now what God has done.

Yep, that is the question. Has God created the world with the age it appears to have given its scars that bear testimony to that age. Or has God created the world much more recently, scars and all, pointing to a past that never was?

If you choose the latter case, why did God make the world to point to a past that never was?

The Scriptures tell us that God established the boundaries of the oceans. That they can go this far and no further. So, at one moment in time God established these boundaries and they are now set and was now refer to this boundary as the 'natural boundary' of the oceans. It is where God established that it could run its course. I don't see Him as having to run down to the seashore or hold up His hands from heaven or even having to command every time a wave comes in that the wave stop where it is supposed to stop. And then the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one, well, hopefully you get the picture.

God establishes the natural laws and forces at work in this realm that He has created one time and then they become, well, natural. Now, once God has established the natural laws to work, if it is his desire or purpose, God can cause the natural law to be broken. This then becomes a miracle because it is something that happens outside of the natural way of things to naturally operate.

If I am correct, our only disagreement here is in how involved, on a day to day basis, God is in sustaining what happens daily upon the earth. I do believe that God has a fairly stand back and let it roll posture in all the regular and mundane processes of the creation, but, while allowing those things to roll on, He is absolutely watching over and providing countless and often miraculous blessings by His careful oversight for His children and anyone else that He chooses.

If this answer seems somehow wrong to you, then it will just have to seem that way to you. As far as 'how' I know these things to be true, well, honestly no differently than I'm sure you know your position in this to be true. I have read and studied the Scriptures. I have prayed for wisdom concerning these things just as James encourages us when we lack wisdom in something. The Scriptures tell us that God is with us always and I absolutely agree with that, but as far as the natural work of the Creation, I believe God only needs to get involved when the natural isn't going to suit His purpose. Anyway, I hope this helps.

God bless you.
IN Christ, Ted

I think actually if we try to pin down what God does vs. what God allows to happen, we might agree quite closely. It is more a matter of considering the relationship of God to ordinary nature.

I would agree God does not micro-manage creation to the point of stopping each individual wave. (In that case would we not rightly blame him for the many deaths caused by that tsunami a few years back? Just as much as if he had deliberately caused it via a miracle?) But perhaps God does not merely decree a boundary for the sea, but holds it in place. (Though the place itself is obviously somewhat flexible).

God may not personally shift tectonic plates around; but God does drive the forces that do shift them. And occasionally those shifts do cause earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes etc. God doesn't just decree gravity, but sustains the force of gravity, even when the consequence is sometimes an airplane crashing and killing all on board.

Now why is it important to me to consider that God is constantly active in nature? I hesitate to endorse the "stand back and let it roll" posture, for various reasons.

First, it is very close to Deism. It makes God appear indifferent to creation most of the time.

Second, because it is so close to Deism, it has nurtured an attitude toward nature that sees natural events as outside of God's care and even as not being God's work at all. It is not far from such an attitude to that form of atheism which takes a natural origin of events to be evidence of the absence of God.

Third, many Christians, and, it seems to me, most especially Christians who object to evolution, have apparently adopted this very attitude. You don't have to read many of these threads to find creationists who refer to "naturalistic" explanations as god-denying explanations, as a view of nature that is "wholly materialistic" or "takes God out of the equation". These are terms about nature and natural events and processes used almost exclusively by creationists. (And when they are not used by creationists, they are used by atheists using nature as evidence of the absence of God.)

I think this is a terrible state of affairs. I believe in a God who created and is creating the natural world of which we are a part. I believe in a God described in our scriptures as forming me in my mother's womb, sending rain and sunshine as needed to just and unjust alike, providing sustenance to humans and beasts, bringing seeds to germination to grow food for all who need it. Scripture does not present God as simply decreeing these things happen, but as actually doing them. Even when there is a sort of intermediary (as when in Genesis, God says "let the earth bring forth grass . . .") scripture still presents this as God acting creatively.

So I would like to see all Christians step back from the brink of Deism and consider that God is active here and now in natural events and processes. Yes, this is most clearly seen in miracles, but we must not, absolutely must not limit God's action in nature to miracles. It is not just the miraculous storm that brings rain in answer to prayer; every rainfall comes from God, according to the seasonal pattern God has set. And if we can describe that pattern in meteorological terms, that is not evidence of the absence of God. It is a description of what God is doing to give us the rain we need.

IOW, a dry, factual, filled with numbers, scientific report of natural causes is not inherently materialistic and god-denying. We only make it so when we ourselves think of nature as being empty of God. We should rather think of it as a way of describing God's continual providential care of creation. After all, just because we have figured out how God does something (e.g using gravity and other forces to keep the planets in orbit) , doesn't mean God has stopped doing it.

 

[miamited]

Hi glaudys,

To you and others who may ask: "What does Ted believe?" Here is a pretty good description for those who are interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAuGRhZsMCs

May the God who is described within this message be merciful to me, an unworthy and unrighteous sinner. May His love and care, provision and hope for the future be enjoyed by each of us who would desire to be one of His children. Amen.
In Christ, Ted

 

[Smidlee]

I'm not sure it would say anything bout his age, but arguing over issues that don't exist but are just suppositional in nature is really a waste of the limited time that God has given us here on the earth. How about let's discuss whether or not a line of alien starships stood over the Red Sea with their laser beams cutting a path through the sea as the Hebrews passed through?

Even modern science supports an unrepeatable event that stretch the heavens in order to make their model fit the data. They just believe this supernatural event happen 13 billion years ago while I believe God could just as easily stretch the heavens in a few thousand years ago. In fact I believe God created the universe exactly as the scripture said He did. He spoke the universe into existence just like the World of Warcraft programmers spoke (using a keyboard) their universe on the PC. If man can create his universe with age so can God. When compared to the reality of God I believe this physical universe is a virtual world make up of information (Word of God)
I know my theory could be wrong but it just as scientific as some of the nonsense scientist comes up with.