Why every Christian should have a literal view of scripture.

[Carl Emerson]

Certainly God can do things that transcend our limited rational capacity. But I do not think that He deceives those who study natural sciences into thinking the earth is much older than it actually is.

No one is fooling anyone, but science has limits.

What if time changed its rate ?

This would throw out the accuracy of dating technology.

Graph the ages of the Patriarchs - is comes out close to a growth curve (e)

Maybe we do not have the tools to understand these things yet ???

Can man live for 1000 years ?

Science would say no...

 

[FaithT]

This certainly makes me laugh when they say the earth is millions of years old, where do they get their figures from ?

I am totally baffled that anyone could believe the earth is 6000 years old.

 

[Apple Sky]

I am totally baffled that anyone could believe the earth is 6000 years old.

Actualy the earth is more than 6000 years old, God made the earth in 7 days ( a day for God is a thousand years for us) = 7,000 years plus the ages that have gone by. which brings us upto about 13,000 years.

 

[trophy33]

True I don't know, but scripture tells me different.

A day for God is a thousand years for us.

And thousand years for God is a day for us. Oops, sorry I broke your math.

The verse is obviously not literal, because both cannot be literally true.

 

[Apple Sky]

And thousand years for God is a day for us. Oops, sorry I broke your math.

So I got it backwards, so what, I mean't it the same.

 

[FaithT]

Actualy the earth is more than 6000 years old, God made the earth in 7 days ( a day for God is a thousand years for us) = 7,000 years plus the ages that have gone by. which brings us upto about 13,000 years.

It’s still baffling.

 

[trophy33]

So I got it backwards, so what, I mean't it the same.

You missed the point, again.

 

[Strong in Him]

Actualy the earth is more than 6000 years old, God made the earth in 7 days

Six days.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

( a day for God is a thousand years for us)

No, as I have said, Peter says that for the Lord a day is LIKE 1,000 years.

= 7,000 years plus the ages that have gone by. which brings us upto about 13,000 years.

So 7,000 years went by before God created the earth?

The earth is way older than 13,000 years.

 

[Apple Sky]

You missed the point, again.

Oops your right, a thousand years for God is a day for us, Soz.

 

[Apple Sky]

The earth is way older than 13,000 years.

What makes you think this ?

 

[trophy33]

Oops your right, a thousand years for God is a day for us, Soz.

So, think about it. Its obviously not any key to "decipher" the age of anything, its a literary device to illustrate that our perception of time is different from God's.

 

[ViaCrucis]

My counterargument: Christians should take Scripture seriously.

Taking Scripture seriously means we can't lump all of Scripture as "literal" or lump all of Scripture as "non-literal".

I would even go so far that there are times when Scripture blurs the lines between literal and non-literal. Because Scripture is God's divinely inspired word, but it is God's divinely inspired word written in a human context--a context of culture, of time, and with the same nuances and complexity that human beings have always had when using language and communicating ideas. That means something can be literally true, historically true, but still employ non-literal language. And we should allow for that nuance to exist, maybe we can't know with total certainty every nuance--but we should allow for that level of complexity and nuance. Otherwise we will inevitably make the Bible self-serving to ourselves and our own agendas.

And most importantly, and this cannot be stressed hard enough: The Bible has a single principle Subject, Jesus. The point of the Bible is always Jesus.

When Jesus stops being the central focus, we are almost certainly starting to read the Bible wrong, regardless of whether it is literally or non-literally.

If we are trying to uncomplicate the Bible by trying to come up with an overly simplistic hermeneutic, then we probably are doing it for ourselves, because we want easy answers to difficult questions; or because we are more interested in our own agendas rather than trying to do the hard work of making ourselves subject to the Scriptures.

It's why I can't be a "literalist", it's also why I reject all manner of nonsensical "allegories" or playing symbolic and esoteric games with Scripture. I can't do either because neither is being faithful to the text of Scripture, nor faithful to the intent of Scripture.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Strong in Him]

What makes you think this ?

Maybe a few hundred scientists, astronomers, palaeontologists etc - some of whom are/have been Christians - who know about such things.

 

[Strong in Him]

Oops your right, a thousand years for God is a day for us, Soz.

You obviously keep missing it, so here is is again "1,000 years for us is LIKE a day"
Peter does not say it IS a day.

 

[ViaCrucis]

What makes you think this ?

Before we can answer that, first you'd need to answer the following:

Do you believe that there is a real world of objective and observable phenomena?

Let me offer a concrete example of what I mean: If I look with my two eyes and see an orange in a fruit bowl, and I take that orange into my hand, peel that orange, then eat that orange--it tastes like an orange, it's juice, sweet, a little tart. Did that actually happen? Was the orange real? Did what I see actually exist? Is what I did something that really happened?

Now, something more broad: Does the world actually exist? Are the things I see actually real? Are my perceptions of the world--through my eyes, my nose, my sense of touch, etc--real? Is this an objective, real, actual world with real, actual, and objective existence. And can anything be known about it through direct observation, direct experience, and by learning about it?

Is the world real, or is the world an illusion?

Because if the world is real, then we can learn about the world through observation, experience, and methods of testing.

But if the world is not real, but merely an illusion of some kind, then all of that goes out the window.

So we first have to establish whether the world is real, and if it is real, then we can probably find a way of testing its age. And if there is a way of testing its age, and if that is found out through objective standards of testing, with repeated consistency, then we can therefore have a reasonable sense of age and knowledge about it.

But that relies on the world being real.

And if the world isn't real, then we have more problems to worry about than arguing about how old everything is.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[FaithT]

Maybe a few hundred scientists, astronomers, palaeontologists etc - some of whom are/have been Christians - who know about such things.

I was going to say that I know this because I went to school. Your answer is better.

 

[FaithT]

Before we can answer that, first you'd need to answer the following:

Do you believe that there is a real world of objective and observable phenomena?

Let me offer a concrete example of what I mean: If I look with my two eyes and see an orange in a fruit bowl, and I take that orange into my hand, peel that orange, then eat that orange--it tastes like an orange, it's juice, sweet, a little tart. Did that actually happen? Was the orange real? Did what I see actually exist? Is what I did something that really happened?

Now, something more broad: Does the world actually exist? Are the things I see actually real? Are my perceptions of the world--through my eyes, my nose, my sense of touch, etc--real? Is this an objective, real, actual world with real, actual, and objective existence. And can anything be known about it through direct observation, direct experience, and by learning about it?

Is the world real, or is the world an illusion?

Because if the world is real, then we can learn about the world through observation, experience, and methods of testing.

But if the world is not real, but merely an illusion of some kind, then all of that goes out the window.

So we first have to establish whether the world is real, and if it is real, then we can probably find a way of testing its age. And if there is a way of testing its age, and if that is found out through objective standards of testing, with repeated consistency, then we can therefore have a reasonable sense of age and knowledge about it.

But that relies on the world being real.

And if the world isn't real, then we have more problems to worry about than arguing about how old everything is.

-CryptoLutheran

Good answer.

 

[Apple Sky]

Maybe a few hundred scientists, astronomers, palaeontologists etc - some of whom are/have been Christians - who know about such things.

Just because they have labeled themselves doesn't make them right.

 

[trophy33]

Just because they have labeled themselves doesn't make them right.

You must study the field for quite a lot of years and then prove yourself in your work. You cannot just label yourself a scientist and start publishing.

 

[Apple Sky]

I was going to say that I know this because I went to school.

I went to school & found it to be a place of indoctrination & untruths from most of our history to earth it's self.