Why we should believe God created all of Nature, and what that means...

[timewerx]

To fully believe in God is so much more than just believing God is behind a few things...

God is the creator of all things John chapter 1 tells us -- and that means (as the words say) everything

In Genesis we read the "Sons of God" went down to Earth and took human women as wives and bore these monsters called the "Nephilim"

In the Book of Enoch, the Sons of God or the "Watchers" did more than just procreate with human women and create these giant monsters, they also "defiled" nature - God's creations - birds of the air, etc.

The "dog-eat-dog" system we find in nature is probably not God's original design in nature and certainly NOT His ultimate plan but the result of the corruption made by the Watchers. In the New Earth, the lions and the lambs will be able to sleep together.

The "Watchers" are non other than the Angels. Some are good, some are bad, the bad ones are the fallen angels

Our world worships the Angels (the fallen ones), thus the symbol of the "watchers" is very popular:

 

[Diamond7]

Evolution that follows some sort of plan (as of yet undefined) - is also not in the Bible .

That is why we need the Bible and Science. Esp Science is based on Physical Evidence that we do not always have in the Bible. We read about walls of Jericho, but Science actually goes to Ancient Jericho where we can see the wall that we read about in the Bible. In sunday school the first thing we teach them is about Joshua and the battle of Jericho.

 

[Diamond7]

For example the Bible talks about women and children being treated by what some claim is immoral. Like slavery for instance. But without the cultural and time context this can be misinterpreted.

If the parents sold a child into slavery it was because they did not have the food to keep them alive. Also slavery was only 7 years.

 

[stevevw]

Evolution that follows some sort of plan (as of yet undefined) - is also not in the Bible . As noted before if we wanted to delete the Bible statements on origins and simply "spin the wheel" then wherever it stops - we can then suppose a history where THAT is what God put in the Bible instead of what we have today - well that is certain something God 'could have done' in that alternate universe sort of scenario.

I am not saying there is not plan or purpose to Gods creation thus teleology. According to the naturalistic and materialist view there is no purpose. But we know Gods plan for us according to the BIble. Some people like to discover the details of that plan by how His nature works. Thats why I mention that discoveries are showing that plan by how nature is designed for certain outcomes over others. Its what we should expect of God.

But you provide no argument for why Moses and his readers would insert teleology or any other paradigm into the text given that their own legal code in Ex 20:11 stated it was a literal day just as they had at Sinai "six days you shall labor...for in six days the Lord made". Pretty hard to get around that one. And it maps directly to Gen 2:2-3.

So in addition to all the "evening and morning" problems your view would have in chapter 1, chapter 2 and Ex 20:11 seem to sink the whole idea of "not a literal day" for each day.

As mentioned the 7 day work week may have been the way creation was framed to help people back then to present the different stages and message of Gods creation. Using this model can allow for long periods of time for each day. It seems the number 7 was symbolic for a number of things.

Augustine did not claim that scripture was bent on not having a literal day for each of the 7 days -- his argument is that no matter what scripture said to the contrary - a 7 day week was WAY TOO LONG for creation week - since God's knowledge and power is infinite. IN other words Augustine was arguing the direct opposite of evolution.

Which makes it even harder to attribute to them - wild mental gymnastics to be used to get the text away from the literal, direct straightforward rendering of the text - that their own legal code in Ex 20:8-11 demanded.

Actually you are correct that Augustine was saying creation was not set by 7 days or any time period but happened instantly because God could not be confined to uman conceptions of time. But he also said that from that instant creation life developed into a more mature state like a seed develops into a tree. He was actually supporting the idea that life came from water and the earth and evolved into what we have today. That the seed of life had the blueprint for the creation of all living things.

The ancient understanding of Moses and his readers would make it impossible for them to argue against the plain reading of the text.

Thus the rule of exegesis - would demand that we admit to the literal 7 day meaning in the text - since it is already written that way and since their own legal code in its summation of the 7 day creation week - demanded it.

Not really as there are examples where the idea of a literal 24 hour day doesn't make sense and even implies a longer period. For example God rested on the 7th day seems to imply more than a 24 hour day and is in fact still ongoing. Psalm 95 and Hebrews 4 seem to tell us that God’s Sabbath rest remainscontinues. The idea of limiting God to having to rest for 24 hours seems to imply a human conception and limiting God as a human needed to rest and recover. It seems that Gods working week is different to humans and that its an analogical reading.

As I keep noting - a lot of scholarship admits to the intent in the text as written...

And a lot don't. In fact some of the great theologians of ancient time well before science and evolution came along to have its influence thought that creation was longer than 7 days. They had no reason to try and conform Genesis to modern ideas of understanding but rather just what the Bible seem to imply.

Atheists often don't mind "admitting" to what the Bible says - they simply reject the idea that what it says is actually true. As in rejecting the virgin birth, the bodily ascension of Christ, the miracles of the bible and in this example they freely admit to what the Bible says - while rejecting it as 'truth'.

If you notice they often reject the miracle/supernatural aspects. But then they often reject the rest because of this. But I think just because we may say creation involved longer times because the expression of Gods creation was a process doesn't take the miracle/supernatural aspect out of it. We have to remember we are talking about the creation of life and everything from nothing and no matter how that happened its still something beyond material naturalism.

Professor James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has written:

‘Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:​

​

(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience​

​

(b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story​

​

(c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.​

​

Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.​

I would have thought there were just as many who think the days are not literal. I mean the entire Catholic church, the representation of GOds church on earth, the continued same church from the disciple Peter supports a form of evolution. So most of these great scholars disagree.

Its certainly a divided issue and at best I don't think we can know for sure and I don't think it matters so much so long as we believe that GOd is the creator of all things regardless of how He done it.

 

[stevevw]

If the parents sold a child into slavery it was because they did not have the food to keep them alive. Also slavery was only 7 years.

Yes so it is the conext of those times that help us understand. The conext for that time for example was different to say black slavery of the 18th century. Therefore understand the context for what was written in Gensis also helps us understand how people seen things back then. They were not writing in todays terms.

 

[Diamond7]

They were not writing in todays terms.

Yes, even now Paul wonders how this generation accepts what he wrote almost 2,000 years ago. Even he addressed the issue of slavery.

 

[BobRyan]

I am not saying there is not plan or purpose to Gods creation thus teleology. According to the naturalistic and materialist view there is no purpose. But we know Gods plan for us according to the BIble.

If we accept the Bible as the Word of God - then the first thing we find in it is that God already has a teaching/doctrine on origins for all life on planet earth --- telling us that it all came about as an act of infinite power in a 7 day week that the legal code of Exodus 20:8-11 says is the same time frame as the 7 day week at Sinai.

So then we get the idea that the Earth was still rotating at more or less the same speed - 6000 years ago as it does today.

Some people like to discover the details of that plan by how His nature works. Thats why I mention that discoveries are showing that plan by how nature is designed for certain outcomes over others. Its what we should expect of God.

I agree that if someone chooses to reject the Bible and instead of what it tells us about origins - to look at nature and true to deduce/infer what the origins must have been - that they could at least get to "some details" that are not wrong even if many turn out to be wrong in that path of guesswork.

As mentioned the 7 day work week may have been the way creation was framed to help people back then to present the different stages and message of Gods creation

And that's the problem. Once we admit that using the accepted method of exegesis then the Bible does actually teach a 7 day creation week that was more or less the same as the week at Sinai in Ex 20:8-11 -- then belief in an opposing doctrine on origins based primarily on guesswork is admitting that we are rejecting what the Bible actually teaches about origins and trying to guess our way along no matter how our guesses contradict what God says He actually did.

2 Pet 1:21
20 But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture becomes a matter of someone’s own interpretation, 21 for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

2 Tim 3:15
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching (doctrine), for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;

. Using this model can allow for long periods of time for each day.

I agree that we could insert the idea of guessing, and the idea that scripture is not God but is man coming up with a best guess, or that God deliberately stated things without accuracy, technically very very wrong -- so that people who struggled with the concept of time longer than a week could grasp the general idea.

But in Gen 1-9 we see life spans of humans that are not weeks long - but rather 900 years long. The idea that mankind could only understand 1 week of time is not supportable. Not only that but given that it is successions of lives one after another - it means that the Bible writers could understand thousands of years as a timeline. So the idea of writing "In many many thousands of years of time - God created the heavens and earth" was very much in the domain for language and understanding in the OT.

The idea that "one week" was their most accurate stab at it - does not fly very far.

Actually you are correct that Augustine was saying creation was not set by 7 days or any time period but happened instantly

Indeed. His argument is even less compatible with the orderly progression of evolutionism than is the real , literal Bible details and nothing in the Bible text of Gen 1 and 2 or in the summary of it in Ex 20:11 legal code even remotely suggests what Augustine just made up off the top of his head.

Not really as there are examples where the idea of a literal 24 hour day doesn't make sense and even implies a longer period. For example God rested on the 7th day seems to imply more than a 24 hour day

Well in the legal code for it -- that summarizes it - we see it is most certainly one day

Ex 20:8
9 For six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your cattle, or your resident who stays with you. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; for that reason the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

It does not give the reader the idea that it was a "seventh - but never ending day"

and is in fact still ongoing. Psalm 95 and Hebrews 4 seem to tell us that God’s Sabbath rest remains continues.

It says it "remains for the people of God" in Heb 4 -- and as noted above - the summation for the Gen 2 statement in Ex 20:11 makes it clear that it is a day.

The idea of limiting God to having to rest for 24 hours seems to imply a human conception

First of all humans did not make that up. God is the one that describes himself that way. And says that His actions obligate mankind.
But for the context of this thread the only issue we have is the time - the fact that these are days just like the 7 days at Sinai. That's the problem for evolutionism. And what is worse - evolutionism does not fit into 6 literal days where all life is completed - and a rest for the 7th day no matter how long you make that day.

And a lot don't. In fact some of the great theologians of ancient time well before science and evolution came along to have its influence thought that creation was longer than 7 days.

The issue is the text itself - and not that some odd group thought this or that. If you look at my signature line you will find that almost every Christian denomination on the planet accepts the 7 day week format from the OT.

If you notice they often reject the miracle/supernatural aspects. But then they often reject the rest because of this.

No doubt non-Christians have a lot of freedom to admit what the text says and then comment that they reject anything the Bible says that does not fit their bias. Still, they can read it and see what it says.

But I think just because we may say creation involved longer times because the expression of Gods creation was a process doesn't take the miracle/supernatural aspect out of it.

What it takes is the assurance that the Bible is inspired by God and not a bunch of stories, or best-guesses-for-ancient-man.

We have to remember we are talking about the creation of life and everything from nothing and no matter how that happened its still something beyond material naturalism.

We agree on that. The issue is the fact that we are not talking about "What IF we had a Bible with the book of Genesis and the doctrine on origins" in it. We are talking about the fact that we already HAVE a Bible with the book of Genesis and the doctrine on origins in it. That is "the rub" as they say.

I would have thought there were just as many who think the days are not literal. I mean the entire Catholic church, the representation of GOds church on earth, the continued same church from the disciple Peter supports a form of evolution.

Even they argue that in the Ten Commandments it is a real 7 day week.

Mark 7:7-13 is Jesus' response to efforts to downsize-tweek-edit the Bible based on popular tradition of the day.

 

[Diamond7]

telling us that it all came about as an act of infinite power in a 7 day week

Why would it take God a whole week? Could he not create everything in an instant, in the blink of an eye? Also I wonder if God is a trickster because the evidence He gives us shows that the first day was 9 billion years. Or according to Gerald Schroder one trillion days.

Genesis 1:1

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Gerald Schroeder - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[stevevw]

If we accept the Bible as the Word of God - then the first thing we find in it is that God already has a teaching/doctrine on origins for all life on planet earth --- telling us that it all came about as an act of infinite power in a 7 day week that the legal code of Exodus 20:8-11 says is the same time frame as the 7 day week at Sinai.

So then we get the idea that the Earth was still rotating at more or less the same speed - 6000 years ago as it does today.

I agree that if someone chooses to reject the Bible and instead of what it tells us about origins - to look at nature and true to deduce/infer what the origins must have been - that they could at least get to "some details" that are not wrong even if many turn out to be wrong in that path of guesswork.

And that's the problem. Once we admit that using the accepted method of exegesis then the Bible does actually teach a 7 day creation week that was more or less the same as the week at Sinai in Ex 20:8-11 -- then belief in an opposing doctrine on origins based primarily on guesswork is admitting that we are rejecting what the Bible actually teaches about origins and trying to guess our way along no matter how our guesses contradict what God says He actually did.

2 Pet 1:21
20 But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture becomes a matter of someone’s own interpretation, 21 for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

2 Tim 3:15
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching (doctrine), for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;



I agree that we could insert the idea of guessing, and the idea that scripture is not God but is man coming up with a best guess, or that God deliberately stated things without accuracy, technically very very wrong -- so that people who struggled with the concept of time longer than a week could grasp the general idea.

But in Gen 1-9 we see life spans of humans that are not weeks long - but rather 900 years long. The idea that mankind could only understand 1 week of time is not supportable. Not only that but given that it is successions of lives one after another - it means that the Bible writers could understand thousands of years as a timeline. So the idea of writing "In many many thousands of years of time - God created the heavens and earth" was very much in the domain for language and understanding in the OT.

The idea that "one week" was their most accurate stab at it - does not fly very far.

Indeed. His argument is even less compatible with the orderly progression of evolutionism than is the real , literal Bible details and nothing in the Bible text of Gen 1 and 2 or in the summary of it in Ex 20:11 legal code even remotely suggests what Augustine just made up off the top of his head.

Well in the legal code for it -- that summarizes it - we see it is most certainly one day

Ex 20:8
9 For six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your cattle, or your resident who stays with you. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; for that reason the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

It does not give the reader the idea that it was a "seventh - but never ending day"

It says it "remains for the people of God" in Heb 4 -- and as noted above - the summation for the Gen 2 statement in Ex 20:11 makes it clear that it is a day.

First of all humans did not make that up. God is the one that describes himself that way. And says that His actions obligate mankind.
But for the context of this thread the only issue we have is the time - the fact that these are days just like the 7 days at Sinai. That's the problem for evolutionism. And what is worse - evolutionism does not fit into 6 literal days where all life is completed - and a rest for the 7th day no matter how long you make that day.

The issue is the text itself - and not that some odd group thought this or that. If you look at my signature line you will find that almost every Christian denomination on the planet accepts the 7 day week format from the OT.

No doubt non-Christians have a lot of freedom to admit what the text says and then comment that they reject anything the Bible says that does not fit their bias. Still, they can read it and see what it says.

What it takes is the assurance that the Bible is inspired by God and not a bunch of stories, or best-guesses-for-ancient-man.

We agree on that. The issue is the fact that we are not talking about "What IF we had a Bible with the book of Genesis and the doctrine on origins" in it. We are talking about the fact that we already HAVE a Bible with the book of Genesis and the doctrine on origins in it. That is "the rub" as they say.

Even they argue that in the Ten Commandments it is a real 7 day week.

Mark 7:7-13 is Jesus' response to efforts to downsize-tweek-edit the Bible based on popular tradition of the day.

It seems most of the above comes down to one verse Ex 20:8-11 to make the arguement for 24 hour days in Gensis. Yet in the same way we could make arguements for why not to take Genesis literally. As mentioned Genesis alludes to an actual solid dome over the earth. THis could not have been the case so is based on the limited understanding at the time. So there was no literal dome over the earth.

As mentioned the Bible also alludes to the 7th day being more than 24 hours. Psalm 95 mentions because people did not acknowledge God as the creator they will not enter 'Gods rest' implying His rest is still happening even today and always. Hebrews 4 also mentions some who have disbelieved will not enter Gods rests and relates this to Gods creation
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”
And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.”

Miles Van Pelt observes:

In Exod 20:11, the command for the people of God to remember the Sabbath day is grounded in God’s pattern of work and rest during the creation week. The people of God are to work for six solar days (Exod 20:9) and then rest on the seventh solar day (Exod 20:10). If, therefore, it can be maintained that God’s seventh day rest in Gen 2 extends beyond the scope of a single solar day, then the correspondence between the “day” of God’s rest and our “day” of observance would be analogical, not identical. In other words, if day seven is an unending day, still in progress, then our weekly recognition of that day is not temporally identical. As such, there is no reason to maintain that the same could not be true for the previous six days, especially if the internal, exegetical evidence from Genesis 1 and 2 supports this reality.

Genesis 2:4: also alludes to more time than 24hours when it says “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day [yom] that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”

Genesis 1:1 is also said to be a Creation act itself in creating everything out of nothing rather than a summary of what follows. Rather its a background statement about how the universe and earth came to exist. Genesis 1:1 describes the creation of everything “visible and invisible” which corresponds with (Col. 1:16) while Genesis 1:2. is focusing upon the “visible.” Then the rest of creation seems to be the preparing and making the earth for its inhabitants.

This seems to be supports by Joel 3:15-16 which mentions the “heavens” encompasses the sun, the moon, and the stars. Genesis 1:2 tells us that the earth which was already created was without form and void, that darkness covers the waters, and that the Spirit is hovering over it.

If Genesis 1:1 is not an act of creation then where did the earth, waters and darkness come from mentioned in Gensis 1:2.

If the Bible doesn't contradict itself then the above verse cannot be a single day. It implies that creation was one act as though its a coverall for all creation. So here we have a contradiction is the days are to be taken literally as 24 hour days. As already mentioned if the sun was not created until day 4 then where did the light come from in Genesis 1:3?

The Hebrew construction of "let there be" as in let there be light or let there be seasons is not used as 'something being created' but rather its about giving something a function or purpose. So the light, sun and moon were created in Gensis 1:1 but were given function is Genesis 1:13, 14, 16.

Genesis 2:5-7 seems to assume it was more than one calenda day when it mentions that there was no plants and shrubs on day six because there was no rain or humans to tend to the plants and shrubs. The wording seems to allude to a longer period of seasons rather than one 24 hour day.

Biblical Reasons to Doubt the Creation Days Were 24-Hour Periods

Scientific objections aside, the more I study Genesis 1 and 2, the more I think it is unlikely that the "days" are referring to strict 24-hour periods. Here's why.

www.thegospelcoalition.org

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

All nature?
With the Feast of St, Francis approaching:

"For as of old the three children placed in the burning fiery furnace invited all the elements to praise and glorify the Creator of the universe, so this man also, full of the spirit of God, ceased not to glorify, praise, and bless in all the elements and creatures the Creator and Governor of them all.

"What gladness do you think the beauty of flowers afforded to his mind as he observed the grace of their form and perceived the sweetness of their perfume? For he turned forthwith the eye of consideration to the beauty of that Flower which, brightly coming forth in springtime from the root of Jesse, has by its perfume raised up countless thousands of the dead. And when he came upon a quantity of flowers he would preach to them and invite them to praise the Lord, just as if they had been gifted with reason. So also cornfields, and vineyards, stones, woods, and all the beauties of the field, fountains of waters, all the verdure of gardens, earth, and fire, air and wind would he with sincerest purity exhort to the love and willing service of God. In short he called all creatures by the name of brother, and in a surpassing manner, of which other men had no experience, he discerned the hidden things of creation with the eye of the heart, as one who had already escaped into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Chapter 29 The First Life of St. Francis


Rather than viewing creation as something exploit and pillage, what if we viewed it as a sibling?

But then her am I with a vehicle and gas oven. It comes down to our need for energy. We are dependent on our gas, coal, and even "sustainable ' sources of energy turn out to be not that carbon neutral.

 

[Halbhh]

Don't we have to repent first before we can be forgiven?

Yes, precisely -- that's a central part of the "gospel message". So, when you hear the words "gospel message", you are hearing a reference to repentance and relying on Christ in faith for salvation. Repentance is to admit our wrongs to God and rely on His Grace for forgiveness -- which is what we do when we repent/admit that we need Christ to save us from our sins (through Christ we can be forgiven of all of our sins at once, in total!).