Results 1 - 5 of 5
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | How old is the earth scripturally? | Gen 1:1 | Daninjapan | 4392 | ||
Thank you Phillip. May the Lord bless you! I’ll try to respond to a few of the issues you raised, but I still recommend Dr. Hugh Ross’ Reasons To Believe Ministries for a fuller coverage of old earth creationism. First, your introducing evolution into the discussion is off track. I do not believe in evolution. Old earth creationists believe in fiat creation by the one and only all-powerful Creator God, the same as young earth creationists. There is no question about God’s power - of course He could create the earth in six literal days if He chose to - or even in six seconds! The question is, “What did the sovereign Creator God actually choose to do?” Old earth creationists believe that the bulk of the evidence reveals that God chose to take considerable time, even millions of years, in His creative activity. Sure he could have done it a lot faster - but He seems to have chosen to do it slowly. “Why did He do it that way?” is a far more difficult question - which I won’t even attempt to go into here. That said, I agree that Romans 5:12 is relevant to the discussion. This verse, “… one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin …” (NAS) tells us that death came through Adam’s sin. But, what kind of death? The context shows that Paul is explaining justification by faith in this passage - and thus eternal life. Paul is doing a contrast and comparison between spiritual death and spiritual life. The primary meaning of “death” here is spiritual death. The verse may also refer to physical death of humans, but there is little reason to extend the meaning to encompass animal and plant death. In fact, in most verses that speak of the gospel, the word “life” refers primarily to spiritual life and the word death refers primarily to spiritual death. Also, in Genesis 2:17 God tells Adam, “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.” If God was talking about physical death here then His Word did not come true - Adam did not physically die “in the day that he ate” - Adam lived hundreds of years after he ate the forbidden fruit. But Adam and Even did die spiritually at the very moment that they ate - their harmonious relationship to God was severed. Adam’s physical death was a secondary result that God had not directly said anything at all about. Exodus 31:17, as you pointed out, is also on target for this discussion. The verse states, “…in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed.” At first glance this seems to be a proof text for a literal six day creation. But we must take into account comparison with all other relevant passages. First, before we say that the six days in Exodus 31:17 are absolutely literal, let’s ask whether the seventh day in the same verse is literal. Did God, whose existence is outside of time, literally rest for one 24 hour day? It seems unlikely. Also, while Genesis tells us God rested on the seventh day, Hebrews 4 tells us that some will yet enter the Sabbath rest of God - the implication is that the seventh day rest of God is still continuing. In Genesis 1 and 2, the sixth day is also remarkable. Genesis 1:27 tells us that male and female - Adam and Eve - are created on the sixth day. Genesis 2 has Adam name the animals on the same sixth day. While God can work at any speed He chooses, Adam is human. Since this is before the fall, Adam may have been more intelligent and energetic than humans are today, but he still basically human. Could he really meet all the animals and birds, name them, and discover that they could not fully meet his emotional needs for fellowship, and then finally find that Eve met those needs after she was created - all in one 24 hour day? Unless you greatly restrict the meaning of “all”, Adam would have had to name dozens of animals a second, non-stop for 24 hours. Remembering that Adam, however, intelligent, must remain fully human, it seems seriously improbable. Finally, in Genesis 1 the days are numbered using an interesting formula, “And there was evening and there was morning, one day” - etc. From my earliest Bible reading days this phraseology bothered me. In various cultures, days have been counted midnight to midnight, sunrise to sunset, sunrise to sunrise, and evening to evening. But I have never ever heard of anyone counting days from sunset to sunrise - that would be counting nights, not days! But if the text is somewhat poetic and is intended to be read as detailing six long periods of God’s creative activity, then the phraseology suddenly makes sense. The sense of the text would then be: “There was a twilight when God’s creative activity was suspended and then a new dawn when God began His creative activity again, creative era #1” - etc. May the Lord bless you! |
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2 | How old is the earth scripturally? | Gen 1:1 | Phillip | 4461 | ||
Creation Continued - As for God resting on the seventh day, is it unreasonable to say that God literally created the heavens and the earth in six 24 hour increments, even though He is outside of space and time, and that He could also rest from creating for a literal 24 hour period? As you said, God could have created the heavens and the earth in 6 minutes if He wanted to, but He did it in six 24 hour days and rested on the seventh for a reason. He was giving Israel an example to follow just as Christ has given us an example to follow. God gave Israel the law and used His creation to lead them into following it as Ex 20:9-11 shows, (9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy). Jesus gives us the example of how to live our lives every day of the week including the Sabbath, (Matt 12:12 ...So then, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath) You are very observant in noting the difficulty of Adam naming all of the animals in one day. I am not learned in the science of species but I am aware that there are myriad more kinds of dogs then there were in the beginning because of cross breeding. The same is true of other animals and plants as well. I have no idea how many different kinds of cattle and beasts of the field there were in the beginning, but I accept God's word and believe that there were not too many for Adam to name especially since God brought them to him (2:19). Another fascinating aspect of this is much better explained by Dr Carl Baugh. He speaks about the mental and physical capacity of Adam before the fall as compared to man today who is suffering from the effects of degenerating sin. The comparison is of a perfectly created man made in the image of God versus a fallen man. I have no response for you about God's usage of evening and morning but I thank you for pointing it out to me so I may seek to understand it. I will offer you an interesting question as to God's design plan that you may not have noticed before. God created vegetation and trees on the third day and then created the sun on the fourth day. Now I would have done it differently. I don't know why He did it that way except maybe to disprove those who believe that God took 6 thousand years instead of 6 days for creation. That would mean that vegetation and trees would have had to survive for one thousand years before sunlight was created. Glory to the Lord Almighty, Phillip |
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3 | How old is the earth scripturally? | Gen 1:1 | Daninjapan | 4541 | ||
My New Friend, Philip, I appreciate your desire for truth and your heart to know God and to be obedient to His Word. May His Spirit lead and guide as we seek to understand His Word. You have obviously spent some time thinking about this difficult issue. However, your assertion that old age creationism is a “stepchild” of evolution - is simply not true. Note the following: (1) In the earliest days of the church, Origen, Augustine and others held to non-calendar day interpretations of the six days based on their understanding of the text alone. (2) The Protestant reformers did not all hold to a calendar-day interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2. (3) Both the Gap Theory and the Day-Age Theory were originally developed before Darwin’s theories were published. (For documentation of these points, see http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/pca_creation_study_committee_report.html ) (4) Finally, while some old age creationists point to science as supporting their interpretation, those references are generally to astronomy and geology - fields that are entirely independent of evolutionary theories. For example, direct observation of stars millions of light years means that the light has been traveling toward us for millions of years. This is a direct, repeatable, observation (not a fanciful theory based on a few bones like evolution). Since God cannot lie, and therefore general and special revelation must agree, apparent disagreements require that we go back and reexamine our interpretation of both Genesis and of the observation of the stars. First, we find that the distances between stars are measurable and seem to be very solid science, and when we reexamine Genesis, we find that an old earth interpretation is compatible with the text - in fact such interpretations have been around for centuries. Personally, I think that even without bringing science into the discussion, the bulk of the Scriptural evidence supports non-calendar days for creation, but that is admittedly heavily dependent on interpretation. I checked out the web page (Dr Carl Baugh www.creationevidence.org) that you referenced. There is a lot of anti-evolution material, but since I don’t accept evolution anyway, there appeared to be only one reference which is directly applicable to our discussion - the reference to “Starlight and Time”, a book by Russell Humphreys. Dr Hugh Ross has responded to the views proposed in this book on his web site, (See http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/unravelling.html ) In your response you said, “I do not believe that God would call creation good if it was marred by death of any kind (spiritual,physical, human,animal or plant)” You may have this belief if you wish, but its seems very strange to me. God giving the plants for food and then afterward calling the creation good clearly indicates that God found plant death acceptable in a good creation. To say otherwise would be to accuse God of doing the first “ungood” thing by giving the plants for food! (2) The events of Genesis 2:4-25 all occur (time-wise) before God calls creation good in Genesis 1:31. So the plants of the field were already there. Regardless of how superior Adam’s intelligence and abilities might have been before the fall, and regardless of the introduction of new types of animals, I think if you research a little about how many animals and birds, and then count the number of seconds in a day, you will see that any being that could name them all in one day, and do the emotional processing required to discover that none of them were emotionally satisfying companions would not be human in any conceivable sense of the word. (Also, remember that the extinction eliminated many, many species.) You said, “God created vegetation and trees on the third day and then created the sun on the fourth day.” and then objected to the old earth interpretation because , “That would mean that vegetation and trees would have had to survive for one thousand years before sunlight was created.” This is no problem because (1) Light, whether from the sun or other sources was already present, so plants could survive without any difficulty. (2) An alternative reading of the passage is that the sun and the moon were actually created in Genesis 1:1 and that their creation is noted specifically on Day 4 because that is when they became visible from the earth due to atmospheric clearing. This view would also help us to understand why Genesis 1:2 tells us that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” - this statement would then have the function of establishing the location of the observer of the creative work as being on earth. Have a nice day and God bless you! Daninjapan |
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4 | How old is the earth scripturally? | Gen 1:1 | Phillip | 4546 | ||
Daninjapan, My Learned Friend, I apologize for my over zealousness in linking old age creationism to evolutionary thought. Obviously you have researched this matter more than I. I will try to refrain from comments that I have little knowledge about which I'm afraid will severely limit my input to any topic. I will however continue to risk being wrong with regard to scripture with the hope of that not happening or that I may learn from my errors, both to God's glory. May I ask if it would be correct to assume that old age creationists believe all of the rest of God's word except that He made the heavens and the earth in 6 days? In my ignorance, I do have difficulty in believing that scientists of astronomy (big bang) and geology (rock and strata formations taking millions of years to form) are independent of evolutionary theories. I have not timed it myself but I do not argue that light from some stars takes millions of light years to reach earth. However I believe God is capable of creating a universe of immeasureable dimensions and having it in complete working order at the instant of creation with starlight from the farthest stars reaching earth in the same instant. Just as I believe He made Adam a complete and perfect, fully functional adult at the instant of his formation from dust. I appreciate your investigating Dr Baugh's website and I am sorry there is not the detailed observations there as are in his books and videos. Unfortunately, I cannot begin to do his work justice and we will leave it at that. I took your advice and viewed the link to Dr Ross's website about the book "starlight and time" but it is far above me both intellectually and physically. You showed your resourcefulness again by pointing out that many species (kinds) have become extinct. I do not have the ability to do as you suggested to compute the total kinds of animals God made at creation, just the faith to believe He did what He said. May I say that your last point has always intrigued me about creation, as to what God actually did when He created light on day one and then light giving celestial bodies on day 4. I must say I find your theory to be somewhat swayed by evolution (atmospheric clearing) but I do not have a theological response that I can back up with scripture at this time. I have enjoyed our discussion but we seem to be equally entrenched in our different views on this subject and I don't believe we will change each other's mind but hopefully we have served to deepen our dependence upon God and His magnificence. I am sincerely thankful that our God's ways are "so far above our ways" yet He loves us enough to send His son to die for us that we may be restored to Him and someday reside with Him in His glorious heaven. Amen? May the Lord Richly Bless You, Phillip |
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5 | How old is the earth scripturally? | Gen 1:1 | Daninjapan | 4558 | ||
Dear Phillip, I definitely say "Amen" to the glories of God being far beyond our ways and to the wonders of His love in sending Jesus to die for us. I do look forward to seeing you in heaven, when the final truth on all of these issues regarding interpretation of His Word will be made clear by His Presence. Halleluia! Meanwhile, in working with these issues, may I humbly suggest that you consider distinguishing between sciences and pseudo sciences? Evolution, particularly theories of human evolution, derives from extrapolation far beyond what the "evidence" of fossils suggests. Distances between stars are measurable - you don't have to "time" the light from one star to another - we can measure how fast light travels and we can calculate the distance to stars geometrically. Also, in the same way, while we both have serious objections to evolution, there is no reason for us to object to the scientific work of the average zoologist who spends his time making lists of animals, and categorizing and describing them. The original basis of the zoological effort was the statement in Genesis that they were made "after their own kinds". From reading the Bible, zoologists decided to try to categorize the animals according to these kinds. They have been quite successful, although we might object to a few of their choices. The result is you don't have to count the animals yourself, you can look up estimates of the number of animals in the published works of these zoologists. You can then examine the categories and drop out any that you feel aren't included in Adam's effort to name "all the animals" - for example, it might be reasonable to propose that despite the word "all" that the text is not intended to include naming all of the bacteria, etc. I would caution you about the line of reasoning that would say that since Adam was fully formed when he was made that God might have had the light from distant stars already arriving at earth when He made those stars. Some people have proposed this, but this idea has a significant problem. Adam being fully formed with an "appearance of age" as an adult is not deceptive because there was no one else there to be deceived by it. It was only Adam and God and God could explain it to Adam. Light already arriving from far distant stars would remain as a false evidence about the age of those stars for all generations following - it would make God's creation inherently deceptive. Neither of us would dare call God a deceiver. Old age creationists believe all of God's Word - including Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 1 records that God made the world in six days - old earth creationists agree with that also - it is revealed in Scripture. However, old earth creationists find that a number of unusual features of the text indicate that God did not intend for us to see these six days as being the same sort of days as the 24 hour calendar days we are familiar with today. Instead these are six periods of time, called days, but with a length which is not revealed. Before you complain that the word day means day and nothing else, let me point out two more things from the account. (1) In Genesis 2:4 the word "day" is used to collectively refer to the six days of Genesis 1 (See NAS). A big problem if these are calendar days, no problem if "day" in this context only means a length of time. (2) In Genesis 2:8 we are told that "the Lord God planted a garden toward the east". Use of the word "planted" instead of "created" implies that the garden needed time to grow. If the sixth day is "long" this is no problem, but if it is a 24 hour day then the garden grows quite unnaturally fast. With that, let's let it rest for now. We can simply agree to disagree on this issue and rejoice in our salvation in Christ and in the knowledge that one day, He will explain all of the mysteries to us. God bless you! In Jesus' love, DaninJapan |
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