Paradise Cafe Discussions - A Place For Bible Research And Christian Encouragement

Hi Folks

Someone had posted an earlier post from this person's blog, and after reading around on his site, I came across the following well thought out post:

http://www.theapologeticfront.com/2007/0...david.html

I think, for Old Earth Creationists, it's well worth reading. (I'm already a Young Earth Creationist, so I naturally found the arguments very convincing :D )

My favourite points were basically these...

* If you wish to place orthodox science above Scripture, then to be consisent, you should also accept macroevolution, which is considered orthodox science.

* The meaning of "day" must always be driven by context. He gives the following example:

In my father's day, he would go to bed early Sunday evening and rise early in the morning of the following day, and spend the next six days traveling, during the day, to cross the whole country.

It is clear that "my father's day" is the time of his father, "Sunday evening" and "the morning of the following day" is talking about normal 24 hour days, and the evening and mornings of such a day, "the next six days travelling" is referring to 24 hour periods, and "during the day" the day part of such 24 hour periods.

All of these meanings are context dependent. We would be doing the author a dis-service if we tried to argue something else.

* If the first verses of Genesis can be interpreted any way we like, then the rest of the Bible is open to any interpretation we choose.

Why take anything literally, when it could ALL be a metaphor?

* Similes are not rules, but likenesses. Peter's "one day is like [or as] a thousand years" (quoting Psalm 90:4) is a SIMILE, a likeness... not a rule. The context teaches about the patience of God - it's not attempting to establish a rule or meaning of the word "day"... as becomes clear when reading both Peter's and the psalm's context.

I thoroughly recommend this article. (I wonder how many will actually read it...)

Thanks for the link!!!

I haven't read it all but have saved it in a word doc. to read on paper ( I do that with long articles )

Yes I too have a hard time thinking Jonah was in that Whale for 3000yrs:D

Here a link to Ken Ham audio on the " day " subject.

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.as...1609129420


Blessings

BB:happyheart::heartbeat::happyheart:

Hi Interpretum! :clap:


Hows it going mate? :thumbsup:


Well, one could say, that given the rather "rushed" nature of Genesis -- it could either be a literal "day by day" creation period -- or God is just giving a brief description of what happened, so as to get to the "good stuff",... i.e Adam and Eve, the serpent, trees, garden of eden...etc.


Cheers mate! :friends::friends::friends:

To much black and white thinking here. The article is well written but relies on the premise that the bible is the inerrant word of God, which doesnt take into account the different doctrines of inspiration that have been believed in church history. It also doesnt address the idea that something can be true and inspired in other ways as opposed to literally or scientifically true.

God takes the long term view of things for many reasons which is why suffering is part of mans existence. One can make a cup of tea very quickly if one isn't interested in the quality of the cup, but allowing it to brew takes time, but the result is so much better. The creation account in Genesis is a bit like this to me. The article doesnt seem to acknowledge that God can inspire a man to write something that he himself will never understand fully in his life time, or on every intended level. The idea that the bible is inspired in order to be understood by all people in every time is false. If God made the whole universe in six literal day then one needs to ask why it took God any time at all? What about instant creation? However if God takes along time to do things based on his own higher criteria and longer term view, it begins to explain why waiting on the Lord is so profound a lesson taught by all the spiritual masters in the bible. When God answer a prayer he often doesnt provide it in six day. It often takes years.

The argument that Old Earth Creation and evolution imply no original sin is very astute due to its implication that death existed before Adam. The article reasons that death causes sin or it nullifies Paul's words and much else in the bible. However this back and white thinking and literalism is quite silly and far too simplistic when one considers a few things about reality. Sometimes baby die! Have they sinned? Of course not. So the argument becomes one that they died because of inherited sin past down from the parents and their parents before them ect. The big problem here is that God no longer holds children responsible for their parents sin. Possibly he never did but that point aside.

Eze 18:2 "What does it mean to YOU people that YOU are expressing this proverbial saying on the soil of Israel, saying, 'Fathers are the ones that eat unripe grapes, but it is the teeth of the sons that get set on edge'?
Eze 18:3 "'As I am alive,' is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, 'it will no more continue to be YOURS to express this proverbial saying in Israel.

The conclusion of this is summarized in this statement a few verses later.

Eze 18:20 The soul that is sinning-it itself will die. A son himself will bear nothing because of the error of the father, and a father himself will bear nothing because of the error of the son. Upon his own self the very righteousness of the righteous one will come to be, and upon his own self the very wickedness of a wicked one will come to be.

Many a Christian think that suffering, death, illness and everything like that is caused by sin somewhere along the line however Jesus contradicted this view.
Joh 9:2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?
Joh 9:3 Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

No original sin connection here.

Luk 13:4 Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Si·lo'am fell, thereby killing them, do YOU imagine that they were proved greater debtors than all other men inhabiting Jerusalem?
Luk 13:5 No, indeed, I tell YOU; but, unless YOU repent, YOU will all be destroyed in the same way."

One doesnt have to believe in original sin to realize that something is lacking in human experience and that we need to aim for something higher.

Ecc 9:11 I returned to see under the sun that the swift do not have the race, nor the mighty ones the battle, nor do the wise also have the food, nor do the understanding ones also have the riches, nor do even those having knowledge have the favor; because time and unforeseen occurrence befall them all.

Young earth creationists seem to think they have all the answers to life complexity however I repeat Paul's words.

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. "

What is it with English people and Tea? :thumbsup::dontknow::hibye::D

not speaking for English people but tea is a great comfort. I have an entire section dedicated to teas in my cabinets and make a big deal out of tea time in the evening. I read a book once entitled ''If Tea Cups Could Talk'' and there were points in that to make you think--lives have been shared more over cups of tea than anything else I dare say :heartbeat: ...no doubt more than you asked for Beau but I couldn't resist :heartbeat:

I knew it!!!! :D

You really are English! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

LOL, yeah I suppose a lot has been accomplished over a cuppa - and, it is comforting --- though, im not really a hot drink, drinker. I prefer my drinks either cold or warm, as I like to drink them fast, not slow....maybe im just not there yet? :friends::grouphug::happyheart:

Ah yea but if you drink bear with friends are you a fast drinker or a slow one?

Well, hot drinks, I dont like as I cant drink them fast. Warm to cold drinks are good, because then I can drink them fast or slow.

That depends, as I am not much of a beer drinker to begin with -- unless its one of those days where the temperature exceeds 40C - then id think about it!

But, when I think of the times when I have had something to drink - if I am thirsty, then I will drink fast.

But if im not thirsty, ill drink slow.

Its context specific! ;):drinking::friends::hibye::D

Well yea, but you get the principle despite there being literally an infinite amount of possible contexts. Perhaps I should list a couple of thousand and you can choose one that perhaps ever applied to your life?

He doesn't touch on what I feel is the biggest argument for the days being longer than 24 hours - the fact that the seventh day is still ongoing, thousands of years after its start. If the seventh day is longer than 24 hours, it makes sense to believe the other days were too.

Hi all,
BRIAN MENTIONED THE BLACK AND WHITE THINKING!
I agree with him.

This quote is totally loaded and illogical:
quote:
* If you wish to place orthodox science above Scripture, then to be consisent, you should also accept macroevolution, which is considered orthodox science.

This kind of reasoning, you will realize, really gets up my nose..it's stupid.

It presumes that old earth creationists put science above scripture.

What YEC really mean is, that they believe their understanding is God's truth! And OEC don't agree with their view.
Well, you will recall, many of us have met such infallibility from religionists before.

In regard to science, many things are only an approximation to the truth.

Isomam will tell you the final word has not been said with regard to physics...there are many unanswered questions and I suspect there will always be. Not all scientists agree 100% when they are experts in a particular field. So why should YEC say science is a OEC sacred cow?

When YEC start telling me I should believe something, they are absolutely sure is not true, because it is orthodox science, they show themselves to be ingenuous.

There are far more possibilities as to how God spoke life into existence that fits an infantile time frame that causes its adherents to think in simplistic black and white.

Hi Interpretum.
Here it is. All scriptural. No extra-biblical science mumbo-jumbo.

The following quote is a description of what happened to the waters below the expanse on the third day of creation:

Below is a pair of time stamps for the start and the end of the flood in Noah's day:

Its nearly a year from start to finish. And that's not even counting the time it takes for the seeds to sprout into plants and trees.

Conclusion: If it takes nearly a year for the flood waters to drain off in Noah's day then it takes longer than a twenty-four hour period for water of the third day to drain off into seas.

@Seraphim:

God himself answers your question:

"Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." (Exodus 20:9-11)

Because God worked SIX DAYS, and rested on the SEVENTH, he was setting a pattern for the Jews to follow. (I wonder how many people allegorize this passage.)

Sure, but we still all die because of Adam's sin. That is kind of the point of Christ's death, is it not?

"For since by man [came] death, by man [came] also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (1 Cor 15:21,22)

If this is not true, then there really was no point in Jesus actually dying... because he didn't die for our sins.

Unless maybe Adam was an allegory... Jesus was an allegory... maybe Paul too? Obviously the line can be moved as far as we want, when we don't take a historical narrative like Genesis to mean what it says, when it refers to "day one, "second day", third day", in the context of an evening and morning... and when God bases one of his 10 commandments on the literalness of it! (To paraphrase: Work 6 days and rest the seventh, because that's what I did)... then anything is fair game.

@Nanamocomuck:

That the seventh day is continuing is an assumption not supported by scripture.

Sure, the Genesis account does not tell us explicitly that the 7th day ended, but it didn't need to... it is implicit in the 7 day CYCLE (6 days of work, 1 of Sabbath) that God created for the Jews:

"For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day."

God had COMPLETED his creation of heaven and earth by the 6th day day, so it doesn't need to tell us about the ending of the 7th day.

Besides, as Jesus said in reply to those who accused of breaking the sabbath:

"My Father has been working until now, and I have been working." (John 5:17)

Clearly the seventh day could not be continuing in Jesus' day, because Jesus said his Father had been working... whereas Genesis tells us God rested on the seventh day. Which is it?

Unless, of course, the seventh day was as God implies in the 10 Commandments, a literal day... on which the Jews celebrated the Sabbath. Did the Jews not view it as a literal day?

Paul's comment in Hebrews 4 has been used to show that the "seventh day" is still continuing... but in fact, Paul makes no such claim. In fact, he makes the opposite claim... that the "seventh day" had already ended:

"...although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh [day] in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"...

In other words, Paul knew that the seventh day had already ended... and yet scripture spoke of people entering into God's rest, so he says:

"For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God."

So the rest that we wish to enter is NOT the "seventh day", but is "another day", and is spiritual in nature... which is Paul's argument.

To repeat: Paul explicitly states that the rest we wish to enter is another day... NOT the seventh day.

@Derek:

Respectfully, Derek... you do. I have discussed the science of these topics with you in other threads, and your argument is basically that Science seems to support X, and if X contradicts the plain meaning of Scripture, then the meaning of Scripture must be adapted to support current known Science.

That sounds like putting Science above Scripture to me.

The fact is, that the six creative days are literal is not "Young Earth Creationist's truth"... God himself says:

"Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God... For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day." (Exodus 20:9-11)

Thus, according to you, the Jews for thousands of years have essentially been MISLED by God.

I personally do not believe God is a liar. He tells us explicitly and in several ways that He created heaven and earth in SIX DAYS, and then he has the Jews follow this pattern, because He set the pattern for them!

And yet, a Jew who violated the Sabbath could be put to death.

By saying, these six days are not really days, you are making God out not only to be a liar, but also completely unjust... because he said he did it in six days, then required the Jews to follow that, and then required the stoning of anyone who violated this literal interpretation!

So I'd respectfully suggest to you it's not "our" interpretation... it's the interpretation given by God to the Jews.

So you can use all the name calling you like (i.e. "infantile", "black and white", "stupid")... but Young Earth Creationists are merely telling you what God himself already told us both in Genesis, and in Exodus and explicitly in the 10 Commandments, where He told the Jews to celebrate the Sabbath (work 6 days, rest 7th) because that's what He did.

You say... no, God isn't speaking literally here, because Science has "proved" the Universe is older.

Therefore Scripture is adapted to Science. You do put Science above Scripture, when it is clearly and plainly interpreted to us by God.

@ThinkingMan:

This comparison with Gen 1 and the Gen 7 flood is a good argument (actually one of the best so far), and it clearly implies that under "normal" circumstances, waters draining off land take at least a year.

(1) I'm guessing, by the way, that you take the Flood timetable literally, i.e. "in the first month, on day one of the month"... is this a creative period being spoken here? Or an actual day? And how do you know? Did the flood go on for 40 literal days? Or is this an allegory for 40 epochs? Why are Noah's "forty days" literal, but Genesis 1's "six days" not?

(2) It's interesting that it ONLY takes a year to drain off... and yet those who insist "six days" are not six literal days don't argue these are "six days" are really six years.... but they argue each one is thousands of years long (or longer)... even though, as you've astutely pointed out, it took just ONE YEAR to drain the earth after the flood. There is no consistency... they use 2 Peter and the day for a thousand year rule, and yet they believe each one is not 1,000 but 7,000 years long! So they violate the "rule" they quote! (But why not the "day for a year" rule in Ezekiel instead?)

But anyway, these points aside... the first six days of the Universe were not "normal" in any sense of the word. Even athiests will concede that, at the beginning of the Universe, the ordinary laws of physics were not operating normally. It is not "normal" for virtually nothing to explode and form a Universe :D

When God created the Universe, why would it even take any time at all? Time is a function of space... which is what God is here creating!

I think everyone who reads the Genesis 1 account will concede that God is using supernatural force here. You don't naturally create something out of nothing, and besides... "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" (Gen 1:2)... implying supernatural interaction.

However, in the Flood account, God uses forces that He had already built into creation:

"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened." (Gen 7:11, NIV)

So while we are not told precisely what caused these to open, we are told the source of the waters: God had built a "great deep" in the earth, which burst open... along with the floodgates of the heavens.

This is the difference: In the Creation account, God is making things directly... while the Flood waters were brought about indirectly, and so while He triggered the release of water, the action of the water took place in a non-supernatural manner.

To give you an example: God created Man from the dust. Did it take God any extended period of time to do so, or to a casual observer, would it be instantaneous?

We are not told - but we ARE told that the animals were created distinct from one another, and man distinct from the animals... macroevolution did not occur, contrary to orthodox science. There is certainly no reason to think why it would take God any extended period of time to create Adam.

So he can create a fully functioning animal, plant or human as quickly as he likes... and he can do the same with a land mass, an atmosphere, etc. With the Flood, He was not creating anything new... but was, in fact, destroying a world based on mechanisms He had already built into His creation.

So we cannot compare the activity of Gen 1:9-13 with Gen 7 because they came about under different circumstances. In fact, to compare the two, we would be committing the classic Uniformitarian error... if God had only just created the atmosphere in Gen 1:7,8... clearly we are talking about a world still in formation when the seas are created a few verses later... whereas, in the Flood, the world was already fully formed.

However, your point does raise an important issue: There is certainly no need for these "six days" to be thousands of years in length, given that the floodwaters receded in just one year.

But still, the Creation account clearly implies supernatural activity... God creating and making things... not only does he make the animals and man, but he also makes the atmosphere, the sea, and the dry land.

The only reason it takes God any time at all to do these things, is because He is setting a pattern for us... six days, followed by one day of rest.

Your realize Interpretum that this discussion has the potential to go on indefinitely when God really cares about weather we have a loving heart. Gods not gonna adversely judge an evolutions or a creationist if they are doing the will of Jesus.