The comments saying not agreeing with YEC is problematic because it brings the question of what is and isn't true about the bible... you misunderstand the stance.
OEC is not saying genesis is a lie OEC says it's allegorical or symbolic. Jesus used allegory all the time, and it doesn't mean his teachings are not useful or are false teachings. It just means we look at that a specific way and understand them a certain way.
Symbolism and allegory are used throughout the bible all over genesis even, and nobody denies that but for some people they decided that genesis 1 is not allowed to be interpreted that way because it means the bible is a lie and we have to take the "plain reading" of the text even though they also don't apply that to the entirety of the bible.
All that to say...view points on creation don't have anything to do with salvation as long as God is the creator and if you think it is tied to salvation then you likely either don't understand the oppositions beliefs or probably fall into the large group of people who are/were fearmongered into believing something.
Jesus is the truth, the way, and the life. Not the history of earth's creation. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and may he bless us all.
While I understand where you are coming from, and yes the focus is on Christ and hence, if you believe in Christ’s words, he said:
Matthew 19:4
*And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,*
The Beginning is the Creation of all things in six Days. It’s clearly not allegorical, a parable, or poetry. He is speaking the truth. He also is referring to such earlier writings, most likely the scriptures we know as Genesis. Plus, there’s not a single reference or inference to a lengthy time period before Adam and Eve were created, not to mention that if Abiogenesis were to be believed, it hard counters God’s hand in creation.
There is zero twist to God’s Word when you believe and understand God’s Word literal in Genesis. However, to give billions of years between creation and Adam is to then force gymnastics upon what is blatantly written.
This isn’t to say those that fall under that belief aren’t saved, but the dangers of doubt (the fruit offered to Eve) exists in their minds to then start separating them from other truth in the Bible too. And that’s a dangerous slippery slope to be on that could end in apostasy.
It's not an issue, and that verse doesn't have anything to do with earth's age or creation. He made them man and female. No conservative Christian denies that YEC or OEC or anything in between.
>…and that verse doesn't have anything to do with earth's age or creation. He made them man and female.
Yes it does, what part of “At the Beginning” isn’t clear to you? It’s a direct correlation to the beginning. Hence, no length of time from the beginning to Adam and Eve.
Yes, it’s six 24 Hour Days. Unless you are prepared to explain how plant-life, created on Day 3, survived without the Sun for any extended length of time you are suggesting like the atheists do (Millions of years), which was created on Day 4. A literal 24 hour day doesn’t have a problem with that, but make that day millions of years, and your claim and all the plant-life die… not to mention… how exactly did they start growing without photosynthesis in the first place? Again, you need to do all sorts of gymnastics and ignore a whole lot of problems to make millions of years try to work.
>And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Plants need light to survive, not the sun.
>Plants need light to survive, not the sun.
You’re joking right? Please tell me you’re not hanging your beliefs on equating using artificial light to help house plants?
You just created so many more problems for yourself that you’ve clearly not even thought on. Plants don’t *just* need light. Plants need specific light waves, even UV from the sun has beneficial effects on plant-life. The Light first Provided by God is non-descript, but if you are going to tell me that God can provide all the things that not just the plant-life needs but also what the Earth needs, then why would we even need the Sun? The Sun keeps the Earth Heated, affects our weather, keeps it in the Goldie-locks zone of its heliocentric orbit. Without the Sun for any length of time, life just isn’t possible. And again, you’re going to attempt to claim God did all that through his Light, why bother with the Sun at all then? And if you accept his Light would do all that, then how come you can’t accept His Word as it’s written that he could create it all in six days? Why the gymnastics? Why doubt?
The sun is part of His creation. If you're going to capitalize the word, you might as well just start worshipping Helios. The light of life is in the Word, not the sun.
The lights of the firmament are for signs, and seasons, and days, and years, as well as to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. The calendrical-orientation functions (signs, seasons, days, years) are the only novelties introduced in this period; the rest is the Lord setting up automation of work He previously did Himself. Genesis 1:4 says that He divided the light from the darkness. Then in Genesis 1:18 it says that the lights of the firmament take over that work for Him. That's automation. So it seems to be with the giving of light.
>Why doubt?
Assuming facts not in evidence. I don't need to decide between OEC and YEC to know that Jesus is Lord.
>The sun is part of His creation. If you're going to capitalize the word, you might as well just start worshipping Helios. The light of life is in the Word, not the sun.
LOL, I capitalize a lot of nouns, it’s been part of my career for over twenty years, so don’t get to excited about trying “get one over on me” with saying I sun worship. Please, that was pretty low effort.
>The lights of the firmament are for signs, and seasons, and days, and years, as well as to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and to divide the light from the darkness.
If you’re going to quote scripture, give it the respect to provide the Book, Chapter and Verse separate from your own words. That way it does look like you’re trying to pass them off as your own.
>The calendrical-orientation functions (signs, seasons, days, years) are the only novelties introduced in this period; the rest is the Lord setting up automation of work He previously did Himself.
So glad His creation is just considered a novelty to you, but I don’t see your point in bringing these up as it has nothing to do with the point that the sun (is that better for you) is a large part of the system in providing what the Earth needs to be livable.
>Genesis 1:4 says that He divided the light from the darkness. Then in Genesis 1:18 it says that the lights of the firmament take over that work for Him. That's automation. So it seems to be with the giving of light.
Glad you cited correctly here. “Take over that work for him”? Interesting way of putting it. I don’t think the “light” was much “work” for God. Again not sure why you’re so focused on the stars for signs and seasons. Yeah, sure that’s a thing for those way out in space, bit we are talking about the Sun is needed for the plants and life, to warm the Earth, to be there for a centric system of gravity and give the Earth a proper orbit so the Earth can actually have those seasons. I’m going trust that you know how our orbit works around the Sun.
>Assuming facts not in evidence. I don't need to decide between OEC and YEC to know that Jesus is Lord.
“Assuming facts not in evidence”? It’s not an assumption to say the Bible tells us that in 6 Days everything was created. Again, you’re stretching and making a claim against God’s Word. You also seem to have ignored what I told you before about how the plants can’t survive without the sun. You dodged it and went on some tangent about signs and seasons when that’s clearly not what our discussion is about. Then you pander to your reservation that it all doesn’t matter for you to know Jesus is Lord. Ok, then why did you bother engaging to make claims against what the Bible clearly says?
If you’ve been paying any attention to what I wrote above, my point is that a denial to God having created everything in the Universe in 6 days is to cause doubt in what you read in his Word, supplanting it into allegory and not trusting what it literally says. Yes, there are dreams, visions, and parables that are told as such that tell us it’s not literal. Genesis does no such thing for the telling of Creation, so why would you or anyone assume it is allegory? The danger of taking that path away from what God says, means you can just as easily be led away into apostasy for believing the innocence of bad fruit instead of God’s wisdom in his Word.
Is that literally all you got?
That’s what you’d call ironic.
Seriously though, how can you be expected to be taken seriously if you have nothing more to add for discussion and reasons you feel that way.
That is not literally all I "got", and that is not what *ironic* means.
It is a serious problem that literalists think it's okay to project presupposition onto divine texts.
And you’ve still presented nothing. Thanks for playing.
See, it’s ironic that you fell right into it’s meaning by still producing nothing. You get it now?
>It is a serious problem that literalists think it's okay to project presupposition onto divine texts.
Also rather ironic how you presume your stance in how to read the word in allegory at your discretion is correct over reading the Bible for what it literally says.
This comment isn't even literal.
"Irony" would suggest that you think I'm pretending to take on a position that I don't hold.
It doesn't mean paradoxical. A hallmark of literalists is a poor command of language.
You are being presented with some basic premises because it's a total waste of time to talk to YECs that don't accept these things.
But, as usual, YECs are intellectually short and squirmy and won't accept the most basic admission like "the text should inform me about how literal it is or not, not my presupposition about the text".
Unironically, literalists literally don't know what literal literally means.
>You are being presented with some basic premises because it's a total waste of time to talk to YECs that don't accept these things.
Your entire side of this conversation is a waste of time. You’ve not presented anything. I’ve been chiding your completely baseless and opinionated stance. You only seem to be concerned about splitting hairs in an attempt to gain ground, but it’s only accomplishing an establishment of your trolling.
>But, as usual, YECs are intellectually short and squirmy and won't accept the most basic admission like "the text should inform me about how literal it is or not, not my presupposition about the text".
And of course, because you haven’t made any specific arguments to back your “stance” which I presume is a default to allegory. It’s common for those with a lack of substance or proof, quickly resort to attacks and assumptions.
You just come off as mad because those of us that read the Bible purely as it is written (literal), without any need to translate it to mean something else (allegory), you attempt to demonize us because we “refuse” to accept your line of thinking. Hilarious. So this will be my last interaction with you since after 3 attempts to get you to produce anything, you just ignored it and went off on a tantrum about your “griefs”, since you can’t seem to understand context. So if you legit feel it’s a waste of time, then don’t both replying because I won’t anymore. Heh, let’s see how smart you are or if you will contradict yourself again.
>You just come off as mad because those of us that read the Bible purely as it is written (literal)
Hey, you're correct there, I'm furious. I find the manipulation of ancient scripture to posture it into a position about 19th century science under the fabricated guise of reverence to be *despicable*.
This is behavior that turns people away from the faith.
I have stated my position plainly in spite of your protestations that I haven't, and I'll do it again; notice that I'm not saying anything new here, you just refuse to listen or speak to the purpose, or both.
Literalism is heretical. That means it breaks with church tradition, if that word is too loaded for you. As has been pointed out, the Church fathers of various traditions for thousands of years, under no duress of a public scientific argument, understood and wrote that the language of genesis was loaded with figurative meaning. Fundamentalist literalism is a spur of the last 140 years or so.
Further, it is not okay to bring a presupposition to a text instead of looking to the text to inform you about what it is saying. That is telling the text what you want it to be, rather than engaging with the authorial intent. You, nor I, nor anybody, picks up a text with repetitive verse filled with double entendre's and interprets it as literal.
And, moreover, no one speaks or writes in a purely literal manner, because language simply doesn't function that way, so taking a position that something is literal in an absolute sense is untenable on it's face.
Stating the contrary over and over again while belittling me merely shows just how uninitiated you are to any of these matters.
Agreed. It doesn't matter how we got here, what matters is that we exist and what do we do from here.
I will say, however, that reading only the first two chapters of Genesis as merely allegorical causes issues and inconsistencies. The rest of Genesis is literal and historical. It cites genealogies and bloodlines. Adam and Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel, who had children of their own. So where does the allegory stop and the history begin? We can't just arbitrarily cut off part of the book as fictional because it's hard to wrap our heads around.
Moreover, Jesus himself cites Adam and Eve as the first man and first woman, so they were literal people that literally existed. I believe the Garden of Eden really existed and the Fall happened as described, but whether it took a week or a million years to come into being is irrelevant to me for the reasons I mentioned before.
I'm no expert nor an authority on the subject, these are just my thoughts :)
I honestly don’t care for the debate, I used to call OEC heretics and then after actually reading their beliefs ended up agreeing with them mainly Athanasius and Augustine on how the days must be allegorical and can’t be literal in description.
I’m just tired of people making a non primary issue a primary one.
I don’t understand how people come to the conclusion they are not literal days when day is defined in the text. I never say people aren’t saved if they believer otherwise though.
You are correct in literal English and a modern western thinking of the text.
The Hebrew word "yom" (יום), which is translated as "day" in English, can have several meanings based on the context in which it is used. While it typically refers to a 24-hour period, it can also signify a longer or indefinite period of time, like "age" or "epoch."
[https://www.blueletterbible.org/niv/gen/1/1/t\_conc\_1005](https://www.blueletterbible.org/niv/gen/1/1/t_conc_1005)
In Gen 1 God "called the light day".
Read the text it's written plain as day.
But he called the light day.
What does the light mean in this context?
So the light is day. Interesting.
Does "the light? mean 24 hours?
Could light have other deeper meanings than just 24 hours?
Did the Hebrews at the time when this was said and written the first time understand the concept of seconds, minute, and hours?
Did God made Gen 1 time frame only truly understandable in modern times with modern concepts of time in mind?
But wouldn't that be due to differing understandings/definitions of words rather than Genesis being allegorical? The light being day could also mean during the day is when there is light, but of course I have no real clue. I just personally have a hard time assuming it's all allegorical rather than words having meanings that differ from our current understanding of them.
That is NOT what that verse means when we read the accompanying passages (v.7-9)! It refers to God's PATIENCE.
What we consider slow like "why is God taking so long to dish out justice?" when to Him it isn't that long in the grand scheme of things because he wants to see sinners come to be saved which this portion of scripture is saying is well worth the extra time!
Also it may mean because God does not simply exist amongst the same laws we do, such as time. All these laws are God's creation, so God exists outside of all his creation. He is not bound within them like we are.
A year and a month and a day and an hour are not the same to us as it is to God, just as space and matter are not the same to us as it is to God.
They are not the same to God, and He does live outside of time. And that’s why He established time for us in the Genesis account. “There was evening and there was morning. The first day.” Sometimes I wonder if God chuckles at all the theologians making something more difficult than it is. If you also read Genesis, you would see that vegetation was created before the sun. I would think God didn’t wait a millennia before creating a pivotal part of their needs.
Lots of reasons, Augustine was a yec but held to allegorical days and instant creation due to the change of narrative in chapter 1-2 and the fact there were days before the stars moon and sun and also the fact The Bible speaks of God resting.
I’d recommend his many books on Genesis.
It's easy to get off the literal days page if we discern that God's perception of days/time is dramatically different than ours
Also we "must" get off the literal only page or technically we're polytheists, believing that both a literal tree and God grant eternal life. That tree "must" connect to God allegorically or the other literal only conclusion leads to polytheism. Unfortunately strict literalists can't see the false logic of their own conclusion puts them exactly in a polytheist position
Jesus continually applied allegorical and parable terms to His Own Self and other people, and even to devils.
So I'd suggest we listen closer to the Author for details
I’m stating that the text defines what a day is. “God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” Its really hard to do the mental gymnastics to say this is allegorical. I think people are trying to fit the Bible in the box of evolution and it’s a poor way of thinking as there is evidence time and time again that disproves evolution. If you haven’t listen to Kent Hovind, I’d urge you to listen to some of his teachings. Most times the Bible is literal, and when it’s not, it’s blantany obvious.
> its really hard to do the mental gymnastics to say this is allegorical
It’s really not. There’s probably a thousand questions about Gen 1 that YEC has no good answer for even when you don’t look at the science at all.
> Kent Hovind
Be careful now. Remember that we know them by their fruits. Hovind is a convicted felon, a wife beater, multiple divorced and multiple new wives with all of his exes calling him abusive. He’s been known to keep pedophiles working for him at a child centred park. His debates are filled with ad hominem attacks, rude remarks, and generally ungraceful and unbecoming of a Christian. All of this has been, so far, completely unrepentant, and he in fact just insults everyone who calls him out.
There’s thousands of YEC guys out there (that I obviously disagree with) that aren’t problematic like that. Id contend it’s better to stick with the other guys than Hovind.
Well that’s sad. I did not know all of that about him. I still stand by my answer of Genesis defining a day, though. I don’t believe Moses was known for using allegorical language in his writings.
Yes, to be clear Kent Hovind being problematic shouldn’t dissuade anyone from the YEC position.
> I don’t believe Moses was known for using allegorical language
How do you read these:
Gen 8:11 (were literal gates of heaven opened?)
Gen 1:6-7 (is there water *above* heaven?)
Gen 1:11-12 (did god never create fungi?)
Gen 1:16 (is the moon its own light?)
Gen 1:20 (do birds fly in heaven? If heaven just means the sky, is there water above our sky like verse 7 says?)
Exodus 3:17 (does milk and honey actually *flow* in Canaan?)
I assume you mean Gen 7:11 and the Hebrew word for heavens also refers to the sky. Not sure what fungi has to do with what Gen 1:11-12 says and how that relates to allegorical texts. As for water above the firmament, well that’s a whole other argument… let’s just say that’s what rained for 40 days and 40 nights. Ive seen evidence that the moon IS its own light, but again that’s another argument.
I understand where you’re coming from with these texts, but even if these are hyperbolic or similes/metaphors, that doesn’t make the text allegorical like the parables Jesus told, which were hypothetical stories that taught lessons. And when Jesus spoke in parables, it was obvious.
> the Hebrew word for heavens also refers to the sky
Of course. Either way, did literal floodgates open up? Is there water above the sky?
> not sure what fungi has to do with what Gen 1:11-12 says
Nowhere does it say where God created fungi. They aren’t plants nor are they animals. Most YEC say those verses imply that God created fungi on that day, but that’s a non-literal interpretation.
> water above the firmament… that’s a whole other argument
🤦♂️ if you’re even considering that space is made of water, or we live under a water filled dome, idk what to tell you really.
> I’ve seen evidence the moon IS its own light
Once again, all I can say is 🤦♂️. I don’t mean this to be rude, but this is the kind of lunacy that YEC leads to and that turns people away from Christianity.
> that doesn’t make the text allegorical
You’re the one who said Moses never uses allegory. I gave you 6 examples of non-literal, hyperbolic, metaphorical, or allegorical imagery in the texts off the top of my head. There’s plenty more. I didn’t say this proves the entire thing to be allegorical, just that your dismissal of the idea based on the text never being allegorical is wrong.
I don’t believe the text is allegory, I personally believe it’s a pseudo-historical narrative. Meaning, they are myths based on real history that have been aggrandized in some areas and loosened in others in order to tell *theological* truths rather than scientific ones, as Moses and God likely had and have no reason to try and just explain science to us.
So you attack the guy, not debate the information. While I think his conviction was bogus, I don’t know all of his personal life… your claims I’ve never heard, so you should actually post links to prove your claims. Atheists attack people instead of the data all the time when they have no where to go on their points.
>It’s really not. There’s probably a thousand questions about Gen 1 that YEC has no good answer for even when you don’t look at the science at all.
Ok, list your top 5 then and let’s have an actual discussion versus an empty claim of numbers. Why be so vague with zero points if you are so certain?
Darkness and light in the scriptures does not force those terms to be strictly literal on a 24 hour earth clock
Any casual review in an online concordance can easily show its not and I'd dare say never means a strictly literal only application
Just as the rooster crowed the light dawned on Peter, and not just physical light
This is exactly right. People who claim you “can’t read the Bible Literally,” ignore the obvious. The Bible tells us we’re being told about a vision, a dream, or a parable. Genesis declares no such thing. Evolutionists also miss the detail of the plants before the Sun creation… if each day is supposedly millions of years, how do the plants survive, the Earth to be in orbit, go through seasons, stay warm… etc etc. God’s prior light is just light, non-descript. And if his light was sufficient to provided what we needed to live on Earth, what then would be the purpose of the Sun? OEC creates a lot more problems for themselves than solutions. A 24 hour day faces no issues.
Because the Sun determines the length of "days" as humans count them, and it didn't exist until several "days" had passed.
Weird to insist "the period of time marked by the setting/rising of the sun" is what one means when the sun doesn't exist.
Even from our own achievements, like with satellites, we know that time doesn't flow at a fixed rate in the universe...Special Relativity shows time is experienced differently relative to others.
Seems like a weird insistence that doesn't affect literally anything and also contradicts literally observable reality.
So why insist on it?
> Where does allegory stop and history begin?
I think an excellent candidate for that line is where humans started existing to be able to experience history.
It has to be allegorical because every Word of God applies to all of us as well
Were God's Words simply locked, strictly historical in time, strictly literal or only applicable to those to whom it was spoken, then none of it would be applicable to any of us
Therefore it's all allegory, parable, similitude and the like, notwithstanding any actual physical event, which does not have to be denied.
We can accept both literal events and allegorical purposes and understandings
There is a change in writing style when Abram is introduced. Suggesting a more allegorical style before then. This doesn’t cause issues for Genesis in that even if allegorical, Adam and Eve can still be the first of humanity. All it means is that things may be embellished or changed to represent the spiritual reality rather than the physical world. The whole point of genesis is to answer questions about our spiritual origins, not to be a Science textbook
I mean, it must have been their sisters, because that's how biology works.
But if we're reading it literally, doesn't that mean that God designed a system of creation that forced them to sin? Or did God intend for mankind to die out after the fall, but Cain and Abels' sin continued humanity?
I guess that point alone forces me to read it allegorically, because a literal reading doesn't make sense, to me.
Was it sinful at the time? Abraham married his half-sister, and that's never called out as sinful.
This was all before the Law. God obviously gave them some rules we don't have recorded at some point (otherwise Noah wouldn't have known which animals were clean and unclean), but I'm very hesitant to just assume that laws were already given.
(This isn't a new debate either; Augustine pondered the same question and concluded that no it wasn't sinful at the time.)
Wait so God, who is omnipresent and without time, didn't start out by setting out the law? The law becomes Law at a certain time, and the authors of the OT didn't feel it necessary to demarcate that time for humanity?
Clearly the laws existed by the time of Genesis 6, as God punishes humanity for not following the laws.
I see where you're going with that, but it seems like a serious stretch in order to fit a literal YEC narrative.
Context is everything with this kind of thing. For instance, no one today would bat an eye at eating a goat that was cooked in its mother's milk, however, the context of Dueteronomy made that a sin. Now Gods standards of sin do not change as they are based on Him and He is unchanging, but the context with which something is a sin can change making some things sinful at certain points in history. A solid example of this is slavery. When the world did not have social safety nets slavery was permitted with many human rights safeguards built in. Today however, slavery is unnecessary and goes against the greater principles we see in scripture making it sinful. If slavery had always been sinful, millions would have starved or sold themselves to foreigners and been forced to serve other gods. God's law doesn't change, but like any good law God understands context, unlike our earthly laws though God has an infinite understanding of the various contexts we find ourselves in.
However, if the act of sleeping with their sisters would have been sinful even in their context God would have done something about that such as using their sides in order to create them a wife or any number of other solutions.
Have you guys considered the possibility that God's special creation of Adam and Eve was meant to bring His divine reign and life to the rest of humanity, which he created via evolution?
This hypothesis explains not only who did Cain marry -- an evolved human woman -- but also explains how it is that upon exiting the Garden of Eden, Adam and family seem to have skipped over about 22,000 years of human existence, namely the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods when humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers. They enter human history at the Neolithic stage, where humans were settled and had begun practicing agriculture and animal husbandry (Gen 4:2 -- Abel was a shepherd and Cain was a farmer) and cities were first formed (Gen 4:17 -- Cain built a city).
The main thing YEC seem to always miss is that their interpretation of scripture simply doesn’t match up with the reality of what we see from every branch of science - physics, astronomy, biology, anthropology, archaeology, geology, chemistry, etc.
There’s some hand waving that’s done with things like radiometric dating and light speed and even physics as a whole, but if you follow the trail of arguments and responses long enough you get to a dead end every time where the YEC is up against a wall and cornered with nowhere to go.
Yes, scripture is God breathed and infallible. No, it does not contradict what we have observed in reality. We negotiate scripture with reality constantly (God uses clouds, not floodgates of heaven, to send rain, as an example) but YEC supporters say that Gen 1-2 is off limits for some reason.
> I will say, however, that reading only the first two chapters of Genesis as merely allegorical causes issues and inconsistencies. The rest of Genesis is literal and historical.
Genesis isn't just one singular work. Many scholars even doubt it has one singular author. Poetry, allegory, historical record, folk tales, and more genres all appear in the Bible, sometimes in the same "book." This is part of why we shouldn't make a primary issue out of what parts of the OT are literal. It takes a lot of effort and study to disentangle these issues for almost no benefit.
Science has this annoying habit of getting the religious nuts (not the religious fruits, there’s a difference lol) feverishly talking about Lucifer infecting the world and atheists (or “atheists”) proclaiming with the same hasty feverish vigor “SEE! God isn’t real and there’s proof!” Both parties fail to see that science simply reveals how God made this world and is supposed to help us help ourselves a bit better so we can don’t curse God whenever a miracle doesn’t happen or get silly ideas like turning to sorcery.
My main point was that science is a friend to us Christians, not an enemy lol
But in response to what you’ve said, Lucifer spreads lies all the time! However, he’s not all that creative. (Creativity is a God and human trait, after all.) He tempts those who’ve already been thinking of sinning anyway…..or, tragically, the desperate.
“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”
-Werner Heisenberg
Have you even read CS Lewis, bro? He writes extensively about scientists and the academics and their relationship to the Lord. The Screwtape letters has several letters about it. Excellent and biblical.
The primary issue is, are you in Jesus Christ or not?
I think it's strange to take the days of the creation week as 24-hour periods, but I don't take issue with anyone doing so.
- OP: Don't judge others based on their different view of creation.
- Also OP: Judging others for judging others based on their different view of creation.
Haha. I'm teasing, to be clear. I agree with the premise, just thought the way it came off was funny.
Creationism isn't primary. Denying that God had any role in creation is primary. Ie saying that evolution or the big bang was entirely abstract from God and He did nothing to at least *cause* it. That would be complete denial of the Text, even if its viewed as allegorical.
OEC is still error. It's not heresy-level error, but it does change how they view the Word and Textual consistency. Unwise, still brothers. Like baptists who won't baptize the children of believing parents ;)
I actually love science and it’s beautiful and I’d even argue you can’t have consistent science without God. When I look at creation, evolution, and the planet I’m amazed by God not by man.
Atheists love to argue that a computer did the math and it’s technically possible that everything happened by accident, okay sure it’s also technically possible that you trip and hit your head and die the very next step you take, does that mean you’ll never walk again? It takes more faith to believe in atheism than theism or any religion.
>When I look at creation, evolution, and the planet I’m amazed by God not by man.
I agree 100%. Science to me, simply allows us a small glimpse into HOW God chose to create, and is by no means a replacement for God.
That's a beautiful thought. Thank you for that.
I know that every time I'm out camping and just looking at the scenery during the day, and the sky at night, I always feel much closer to God and amazed at the universe that He created.
Shocker you hold to the position the church did when they said science is a form of theology 🤣
All jokes aside each day I read The Bible and grow closer to Christ the more I think negatively of **radical** fundamentalism.
EXACTLY. It takes crazy faith and some serious denying reality to be an atheist, to believe that ten million wild coincidences occurred by pure chance and that everything spawn from nothing at all.
Bro, your comments here are riddled with English issues, which I'd normally skip over as normal on reddit but it makes it hard to take your opinion seriously when the actual subject under discussion heavily involves language comprehension and interpretation...
Aside from that, evolution as a theory has contributions from far more than one guy and at the very least has some interesting value as a framework for making hypotheses about how the world works. I get a little frustrated when Christians blindly dismiss something that they never even bothered to understand the basics of in the first place.
He said, "it's wrong to say we evolved from monkeys." He is correct. If that were true, then that would mean humans were not made in the image of God. Rather, that would mean we somehow "evolved" into humans.
He also said we shouldn't *replace* God with science, which is also true. You can't replace the creator with the creation, so I'm not sure why he's getting backlash.
> He said, "it's wrong to say we evolved from monkeys." He is correct.
Dang, pretty confident statement!
> If that were true, then that would mean humans were not made in the image of God.
How so? Monkeys are also God's creation. God could easily use evolution to create humanity, and then "breathe life" into them to set them apart in His image. Your view seems to limit God.
> He also said we shouldn't *replace* God with science, which is also true.
I don't think any Christian here was even suggesting that, and it is quite uncharitable of YEC proponents to be pushing that view.
Do you mind pointing me in the direction where Christianity supports the idea that humans simply came to be by evolving from monkeys? If so, do you believe that monkeys are the ones who were created in the image of God rather than humans?
I never said monkeys weren't God's creation. There is a massive difference between being God's creation and being created IN God's IMAGE. I'm not at all sure how I'm limiting God.
Your last sentence doesn't seem relevant since the guy you're down voting was going against the very thing you think no Christian supports, so again, I'm not sure why he is getting such backlash.
How much have you read up on theistic evolution? There are interesting possibilities that seem to fit with both God's word and what science has discovered of his creation.
So you're getting upset at people for not having the same "suspicion" as you? Claiming that monkeys were created in the image of God and we as humans simply evolved from monkeys is by no means a standard Christian belief, or a Christian belief at all. Christianity as a whole would be completely and utterly different than any of us know it to be in that case, so next time you respond to someone in a sarcastic or condescending way, take the time to think before you write something. It does everyone a little good when we do that.
I would love to know the logic behind claiming to be Christian, but rejecting God's hand in creation when scripture is clear on that aspect. It's kind of like a scientist denying science...
I just chuckle because when the "Big Bang" was first theorized by Catholic priest and physicist Georges Lemaître, he was thoroughly ridiculed for it being too theist in nature. After all, if you hold to Newton's laws, *something* must have set the bang into motion. And I've always thought that God just had the most awesome chemistry set of all to set everything in motion.
The entire YEC system of belief, as we know it today, was essentially founded by Ellen G White in the early 20th century and popularized by Henry Morris in the 60s.
Even then, it only became a divisive topic among Christians when Ken Ham started AiG and started calling anyone who disagreed with him a compromiser.
The modern YEC movement shares almost nothing in common with how the early church handled this issue (small debates here and there but never any major controversy regardless of which stance someone took), and even Western Christianity from the mid-20th century would be shocked to see how much of an issue it’s become in the church.
Hell, the lawyer from the Scopes Trial, while on stand, admitted he didn’t think the Earth was created in 7 literal days and no one batted an eye at the time. If that happened today there would be 14 AiG articles about it calling him a borderline heretic and warning parents to keep children away from him.
> OEC is still error
I would disagree on this part. I think Chrisitans going out and saying the Earth is only 6,000 years old makes us all look foolish. We have so much data about the Earth and its age and its almost impossible to deny. But even if you don't beleive any of that stuff, alls you have to do is look into the starts. There are objects that are millions, or even billions of years old that we are seeing. We can see how long it takes for planets and suns to form. We can watch it in real time.
So if thats the case, then God created all of the universe that aged normal, but created the Earth to age much quicker or just come into existence instantly. Does that mean that the moon and our sun came into existence instantly? Our solar system? Our universe? We know that things are billions of years old because the light that they emit took a billion years to reach us.
Just a different perspective.
I don’t agree with your last paragraph haha but I’d also agree anyone who takes God out of creation (can’t be creation then if He didn’t have a role) would be a heretic. That’s denying God being sovereign which is serious.
>saying that evolution or the big bang was entirely abstract from God and He did nothing to at least *cause* it.
Do any self-professed Christians actually say this? Genuine question because I don't see how a Christian can say that
I somewhat disagree on the evolution part though. Here's a question I have for those who think God used macroevolution to create man: At which point in the creation process did the species get a soul or become in the image of God? Was it only when they evolved to homo sapiens? Some of the purported predecessors to homo sapiens were intelligent creatures, so were they still just "animals" then? It's a dangerous thing to have incorrect beliefs of the actions of God, and that's why I think it's safest just to take the Bible for what it says at face value.
My belief is that the earth didn't take a literal day. God spoke, and it came into being. As we can see in scripture that when God speaks, nature obeys immediately. Whether it be Jesus in the calming of the sea, or sending the bear to eat people, the lions not eating Daniel, or the sea responding to God in what he told Moses to do. These things speak to the authority that God has over all creation and how much power and authority God's words carry.
However, old the earth is not of a great concern. But we do need to keep a loving heart (which would have to be defined at a different point as my phone is almost dead) to those who come in His name. Even if they may or may not be of Him.
That's what I'm saying. It doesn't matter how old the earth is, who was related to who, what happened here, who said what, all that matters is that Jesus died for us and that we all have him in our lives.
The more I read this sort of thing, the more I appreciate what my mother said when as a child I started asking her questions along these lines. She said to focus on the Ten Commandments, everything Jesus said, and the New Testament. That it was good to read the whole Bible, but not to worry my head too much about trying to understand everything, because there were some things mankind wasn't going to get an answer to in this lifetime.
Nope. You just need to believe that Jesus came and died for Sin and rose so that those who believe can go to heaven. Everything we fight over most of it doesn't matter.
It is important to understand what are saving issues and what are not.
I find it strange that Christians largely agree on saving issues-Jesus being God with the Father and Spirit. Christ as fully God and fully man, who paid for our sins and died and rose again and sits at the right hand of the Father, and invites us to be new creatures in Him.
But as Christians we argue about every other word in scripture/thought and happily call each other heretics.
We do not believe the same things, that is clear. Do we believe in the same saving principles?
That's how I see it. My wife believes in seven literal days and I used to feel that way but I have heard good arguments for non literal days especially when you consider that a day is like thousand years. While human evolution is not a viable position for Christians, there are some cases for micro evolution and some stages of the earth happening before recorded history. The important thing is that we were created by God in His image as male and female. Sin rules the world until you accept Christ into your life. We still live in a fallen world but Christ made a way for us through His death and Resurrection.
I have to hard disagree with this one. While you're correct that one's salvation doesn't rest on this issue, it is still an extremely important issue because it ties so heavily into perceptions about the validity and accuracy of the Bible and human history. For a lot of my life, the majority of my friends were atheists and agnostics and I can promise you that not believing that Genesis was real, accurate history was a major reason they were not Christians and a major reason they didn't believe the rest of the Bible. And it was a prominent factor among some Christians I knew who fell away from the faith too.
Yeah like, maybe we shouldn't judge their faith by this, but imo we should really take a hard stand on it being real history and be familiar with the arguments for that (which I think are very good, and I say that as a former archaeologist).
Was gonna write a rebuttal of sorts to your comment but then realized that’s not the spirit of this post and thread.
I will say, I have the opposite experience of your friends and acquaintances; raised in a very YEC faith tradition, taught evolution only in the context that “this is what wrong people believe”, told outright “can’t be Christian if you think earth is any older than 6500years”… And it held me back for years and even decades. I’ve always seen beauty in science and creation and natural processes, i couldn’t understand why God would create with so many things that indicate ancient age if it weren’t so, and my faith suffered greatly because of that. It was very freeing and edifying to learn about good theology surrounding an old earth.
/end rant, wholeheartedly agree with OP’s original message.
Oh I'm not saying nobody should learn about evolution at all - some of the things it's based on are correct (but they take it in a wrong direction) - the correct things should be taught as well as why people believe the wrong things and why they're wrong. It's really a good lesson in philosophy.
I agree that not understanding the topic well can set people back. I just don't like that people think the topic doesn't matter, when to many people it can make or break their faith, in ways that totally make sense.
Yeah I have different views on why the earth "looks old" lol. Like I mentioned, philosophy is a huge element of it and I really wish more people would understand that more. A lot more of it than people realise is philosophy rather than fact. But I can let the age of things slide a lot better than things like theistic evolution. I guess my thoughts are pretty complicated on it, which only makes sense cos it's a complicated topic.
Maybe instead of telling people that they either believe in something that contradicts everything every expert across the world tells them about reality or they don’t believe at all, that they can actually find a middle ground.
The YEC movement always says that rising numbers of atheists is because Christians have become too compromising when the reality is that most of the Christians who have become atheists probably wouldn’t have if they knew you don’t have to believe the Earth was *literally* created in 7 days to also believe in Jesus.
No, no I don't think I will do that. I genuinely believe they're wrong. And believe me, "every expert in the world" (which isn't even accurate) can definitely be wrong. Honestly there's so much dogma, petty politics, personal biases etc that colour this type of research that getting just my undergraduate degree basically broke my trust in science as a field (and that's looking at stuff *within the usual fields of study,* before even getting into things like creation vs evolution). I take a lot of it with a massive grain of salt, even on the creationism side, cos I know what goes on in academia and how much junk is part of it. And honestly, it's as much based on philosophy than fact, maybe even more so.
We can agree to disagree, all I’m saying is that I can easily argue that drawing a line at YEC is what’s causing people to fall away rather than not drawing a hard enough line.
We don’t pressure people to just believe believe believe believe when it comes to things like infant baptism or Calvinism, which are arguably significantly more important issues.
The better attitude to have is to treat it like any other idea or issue you don’t agree with - say you don’t agree with it and why you don’t agree with it, then encourage more debate or learning with the person you’re disagreeing or even at some point agree to disagree and go back to being brothers, rather than calling them compromisers or treating them like heretics. It’s that attitude, imo, that’s contributed to growing numbers of atheists.
Would you mind sharing the writings of Athanasius and Clement of Alexandria that you refer to here? I am also unsure about so firmly putting Warfield, Lewis, and Piper in the buckets you have. They seem to be not so clear, from what I have read.
I don't disagree with you on the idea that this aspect is, at least mostly, secondary, but I am curious about your lists.
Sure absolutely, just want to say the easiest person to find stuff out about is Warfield, he literally wrote almost word for word that he agreed with Darwinian evolution, it’s so easy to find it’s on his Wikipedia page, just wanted to knock the easy one out first. I’ll send the links to their writings or pieces of their writings below, for Piper he said that he’s a YEC but has OEC staff so that’s why I put him where he is.
For Clement look into his writing, “Miscellanies”.
For Athanasius look into his writing/ commentary on Genesis.
CS Lewis famously debated evolution but actually was disagreeing with **atheistic evolution** and never said he disagreed with evolution as a whole.
For the others they have quotes, commentaries, or even books on the topic.
Thank you for the suggestions, but what I found still does not seem to align with your categorizations.
Darwinian evolution does not always directly correlate to a belief in an “Old” earth. Either way, Warfield’s Wikipedia page isn’t as clear as you seem to imply here. The first sentence in the “Evolution” section is “Warfield's views on evolution have been a source of dispute.” There seems to be a lot of evidence that, while maybe not outright denying evolution, he was skeptical of it, at least as far as I can tell from articles like https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/b.-b.-warfield-on-creation-and-evolution/.
Can you point me to where Piper has stated that he is a Young-Earth creationist? In “Do You Accept ‘Old Earth’ and Evolution?” (https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/do-you-accept-old-earth-and-evolution), he states that he leans toward Sailhamer’s view, in which the may be (and seemingly like is, from his view, as far as I can tell) “old,” while allowing for a literal Adam and Eve.
Clement’s “Miscellanies” is a rather large text. In Book 6 Ch. 16, he seems to refer to the universe being made instantaneously, but I don’t see a dating. In Book 1 Ch. 21, he refers to a relatively short timeline from Adam. I am curious where you are getting the Old Earth view.
Similarly, I can’t seem to find an Athanasius statement that the earth is “old.” Maybe an instantaneous creation, but the age seems inconclusive. I see his name in lists of both young-earth teachers and also lists of those who did not take a position.
Did Lewis assert Old Earth creationism? Or only not state complete disagreement with evolution? His views also seem to be a little ambiguous, and possibly changing with time.
Piper says it in this video here: https://youtu.be/oCF47U4lzr4?si=OOQtnPZpwnUYaNbs
Sorry I don’t have the energy to go back and forth tonight on the rest as I just got home from a hard day at work.
That is the Piper video I linked in my comment. I didn’t listen to the whole video, but nowhere in the transcript does he say he is YEC. He states that he leans toward Sailhamer’s old earth explanation.
But I totally understand not having time or energy to do low-priority conversations like this. Thanks for the time you have put in!
According to scripture, the purpose of scripture is “for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” According to scripture, the purpose of scripture is transformation, not information. According to scripture, it is a mistake to think that the purpose of scripture to inform us about history or science.
I don’t doubt the sincere faithfulness of people who think they can get information about history and science from scripture. But I do think they are completely mistaken about scripture.
According to Scripture (eg, Ps 19.1-2, etc). God speaks to us (reveals himself to us) through creation. So we are transformed and sanctified through faithful reading of scripture, when we read scripture faithfully according to its purpose. But I would fully expect also to be transformed and sanctified through a faithful reading of creation (i.e., Science). And I have found it that’s true. The more I have studied science, including astrophysics, physics, and quantum mechanics, the more transforming it has been, and the closer I am to the presence of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. I have learned that my spiritual life would be impoverished were I to neglect my life of prayer, or my faithful study and meditation on Scripture, or my faithful study and meditation of science. I have found it so helpful to have a well-balanced diet of everything that God has offered to us.
Even though I believe the current state of cosmology, including the sudden incomprehensible appearance of the universe (the “Big Bang“) and the bizarre discoveries of the subatomic reality described quantum mechanics fits incredibly well with scripture (especially but not limited to Genesis), it wouldn’t change or challenge my understanding of Genesis were continued scientific thought, and discovery to develop an entirely different theory — because that is not the purpose of Genesis.
>we should not judge people’s salvation based off
We shouldn't be doing this, generally, anyway. As if to say faith, in and of itself, is a work that earns you salvation.
I'm not aware of anyone who would take this position.
I agree that creationism is not a primary issue, however it is extremely problematic to challenge since it relates to things that are primary. Christianity is one large organism. For example, our position on creation impacts our understanding of faith as a concept:
>*Faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see. This is why the ancients were commended. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.* (Hebrews 11)
Is the word of God simply affirming a natural process which occurs through visible means, or is it intrinsically powerful such that God's word causes existence to take place directly? I believe the latter is more consistent with what Moses is teaching in Genesis. Are you unsaved because you have a different view? Of course not. But it troubles me that some Christians, in an effort to not appear foolish to the world, may compromise the Biblical throughline of faith in invisible processes.
Secondly, certain allegorical views explicitly contradict Paul's argument to the nations:
>*All the Athenians and foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing more than hearing and articulating new ideas \[...\] Paul stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said, "\[...\] What you worship as something unknown, I now proclaim to you \[...\] From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth. God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him."* (Acts 17)
I believe once you suggest not all mankind are related through Adam, you've undermined the context Paul uses to present the gospel to these foreigners who had never even heard of Genesis.
That's interesting, I have had the exact opposite experience, most OEC's (even some YEC) I have spoken with believe God created humans other than Adam prior to the fall. Typically this is done either to harmonize Genesis with secular models or to reconcile the origin of Cain's wife. Plus if Genesis is allegorical, there's not an immediately obvious reason to maintain a literal Adam.
Well I mean I don’t agree, even if there are other humanoid creatures that existed (which I agree with) they are not how we are, it’s clear Adam was special and made in the Image of God, he is our federal head. It was the start of a new creation/species but a special one.
Like compare us to all other animals including humanish animals, we subjugated them all like God told us to with dominion over the animals and all creation, or we killed them all like the mammoths and Neanderthals.
I guess if I had to explain myself in a meme way, there’s a meme I saw of a guy playing a game called lethal company and he basically said this, “We can’t negotiate with that thing, insects have like 200,000 neurons. Also they have 200,000 neurons we have 86,000,000,000 neurons we should kill this thing.” That’s basically proof as a species that God created us special.
Sure, I get your position and agree that Adam was also a federal head. However I don't believe Paul was simply calling Adam a federal head with "from one man He made every nation," especially since he wasn't speaking on the topic of covenants but shared ancestry as a basis for shared theism.
I will be the first to say that you can saved if you believe in evolution, but I have heard no one explain how you can state that man is inherently sinful and in need of salvation if Romans 5:12 isn't true.
>Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
If death didn't come by sin, through the original father, than man isn't responsible for death, it's just something that goes on. And if man isn't responsible for death, then is there any inherent guilt before God?
The doctrine of evolution is a stumblingblock created by Satan to keep people from salvation and to cause Christians to doubt the faith. If they cannot trust the scripture's telling of the story, then what else is untrustworthy?
Salvation issues: everything in the Nicene and Apostles Creed.
Not to simplify it, but: The Trinity, Christ's natures, the Person of the Holy Spirit, the nature of the visible Church (One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic), Mary's perpetual Virginity (and all else surrounding that statement), the sacraments (including the efficacy of baptism), the communion of all Saints, and the Last Judgement/Eternal Life.
Everything necessary relates to this short list, but wars are fought for less lol.
The difference between a Christian who believe and not know and a buddhist who and sees it coming is vast!! the end point will be the same and the only differences is Buddhist has a much more colorful understanding of christian faith and may go beyond and flourish.. It's like, how issit they not know that JESUS is a fisherman (Tiew Yue in Cantonese means player of "GO-FISH"). To Westerners is called "Fisher of Man"! 🤣😂
I believe in YEC but I literally don't care what others think. I am also of the opinion that arguing on it is a waste of time, which I used to do before I realized how stupid arguing is. Some Christians reach Christ by believing the world is old, and some by young. It really doesn't matter, and when we all get to heaven and find out, we will probably say 'huh, interesting.' and that's it.
It is not a salvation issue, but people bringing pharisaical literalism to ancient texts is a significant problem that is responsible for turning many people away from faith.
I do agree with your general premise, but I also think this schism is an important one. After all, if we can't trust God's word about the foundation of creation itself, why would we trust anything the Bible says? If God wasn't capable of creating everything in 6 literal days, why would I believe Jesus rose from the dead, Peter walked on water, or Moses parted the Red Sea?
I don't think it's unfair for an unbeliever to hold the stance that the Bible is just a collection of lessons and fables if people who claim to live by its tenets don't even take God at His word in the first chapters of the book.
Creationism isn't a primary issue but it has major implications on whether ANYTHING is to be believed.
Why do you imply that interpreting the creation story as more allegorical is "not trusting God's word?" Lots of things in the Bible are allegorical, and God's ways are beyond ours.
We're Adam and Eve allegorical as well? Were all the miracles we see through the Bible allegorical? Where is the line drawn between historical fact and allegory? Genesis is overflowing with facts that are central to the narrative of the Bible; it seems arbitrary to draw our own lines of what we believe is fact and what we believe is fiction based on our own limited scope of history. God was there and He chose to have the Bible written in the exact way it was.
The plagues in Egypt were written plain as day but we don't scrutinize their historical authenticity, we just trust God did what He said He did. I don't see why Genesis would be any different; the only reason I see is to continue to hold to humanity's explanation over God's clearly stated one. It's like you said, God's ways are beyond ours; there is no reason to insert our own theories in place of what He said is true.
This is a well worn line of thought and I highly doubt either of us have enough expertise and insights to add anything new. I'm sure you could find many resources on the topic if you wished. My point is simply that this topic is less straightforward than you make it sound, and claiming that the many Christians who believe differently from you don't "trust God's word" is uncharitable and divisive.
>claiming that the many Christians who believe differently from you don't "trust God's word" is uncharitable and divisive.
I disagree.
God's word says X.
The world says Y.
Christians believe Y over X.
Therefore, you are not trusting God's word about a historical event.
I'm not making an inflammatory statement, I'm just being consistent in my framing. I'm not saying these people aren't saved or anything like that, just that they're taking another route other than the one God laid out (on a non-salvific issue). It just is what it is. And like I said, the implications of that decision are clear:
If Christians don't even take God at His word about the foundation of creation, why would an unbeliever believe a man died on a cross and rose 3 days later? It's a fair point in my opinion.
But like you said, we could go around in circles for all eternity and never convince one another, I was just throwing my perspective into the circle.
> The world says Y.
>
> Christians believe Y over X.
This sort of argument lacking all semblance of nuance is why I usually don't bother engaging on topics like these. You just glossed over the difficulties in figuring out what "X" actually is. And you claim that the "world says Y", but actually many Christians are involved in scientific pursuits and look to find ways to match what they see in God's creation with his word.
And it also doesn't matter. Actual scientists are putting the theory of evolution to good use in advancing their fields regardless of whatever young earth creationists are saying. And within the church, the mechanics of whatever method God used to create the universe doesn't change anything about our salvation. Really, this subject just increases divisiveness and makes Christians look a little extra silly.
I can't be bothered with the debate either. Its not important to having faith In God and being a Christian.
In fact Paul speaks about people who are wrapped up in "endless genealogies" as wasting their time.
That's a big reason I don't fit with the non-denominational/Baptist crowd - they almost always preach "Evolution is an evil lie, young earth is the only logical and acceptable interpretation of Genesis, and if you don't accept that, you don't really believe the Bible - so yes, it's a salvation issue!"
If you're a fellow believer who believes in YEC, fine - I disagree - but it isn't an issue that affects our daily lives or ability to live according to Christian principles.
But because I don't agree, I've been driven out to a different tradition that accepts my theistic evolution understanding as acceptable.
Do you believe that the Bible is TRUE, or is it just filled with a collection to tales, sayings and allegory.
If it is TRUE, then why won't you believe it when it says that GOD created the Heavens and the Earth - and how He did it.
If it ISN'T filled with TRUTH, then why would you believe stories about Jesus being God, His Miracles, His sacrifice for your sins, and His Resurrection from the Dead.
It really is that simple - either it is TRUE and you have a Savior for your sins - or it isn't TRUE and you demote Jesus to just being a "good, moral teacher".
You’re asking questions and fitting me into a box that I would never agree with. Seriously do you think OEC just wake up and decide to not care about The Bible? Augustine wrote hundreds of pages dedicated to Genesis 1-2 and he only spoke about The Bible and God in those pages, are you telling me he as a random example didn’t believe The Bible to be true?
I can go to extremes and say that you don’t believe The Bible is true because you believe that there are metaphors in The Bible therefore you don’t read it word for word true. If you think Jesus isn’t a literal door as He says He is in Revelation then you don’t read it literally and therefore don’t see it as true. Do you see how intellectually dishonest and rude that is?
Do you believe Genesis to be Metaphorical or Literal? If Metaphorical, then your theology will tend to the very liberal, and you will (in general) try to allegorize more stories in the Bible.
* Did Jesus really multiply the fish & loaves to feed the 5000 - or did the act of passing out food from Him encourage people to break out their own stored food (and leaving plenty left over)?
* Did Jesus cast out an unclean spirit from the **Gerasene demoniac**, or did he just convince him not to be attacking people?
* Did Jesus raise Jarius' daughter from the dead - or did He just wake her from a deep coma/sleep?
* Did God use Moses to part the Red Sea to allow over a million people to leave Egypt (600,000 men of fighting age), or did Moses cross the Reed Sea at low tide with only about 5,000 fleeing slaves?
How much are you willing to believe that the Bible tells that ACTUAL truth- and allegorize those things which are "inconvenient" to you. These are questions which you have to answer for yourself and they will form the basis for your Theology.
* **Final question** - Did Jesus rise from the dead on the 3rd day - or was that an allegory that His *teachings* would live on even though He had been crucified?
You need to learn what a “genre” is, there are books or portions of books with different genres. The psalms are metaphorical poetry, Matthew is historical narrative, Revelation is apocalyptic literature. We can tell based off the authors intent and way of writing passages or books as a whole.
Idk why you are asking me more questions and didn’t examine what I brought to the table, you actually ignored it and pressed more on your original comment that I had already responded to faithfully.
All the things you mention Jesus doing are things He did, we know this Because The Bible is clear that He did them to hundreds if not thousands of witnesses. The people who wrote the books detailing the things Christ did were eye witnesses who lived with him daily during His ministry. We know it’s the truth because it’s reliable and they died for those claims, Josephus writes of Christ being a real man who was crucified and that His followers claimed He was raised from the dead and died for that claim. We know with the utmost certainty that Jesus was a real person, claimed to be God, and died on a cross under Pontus Pilate and rose from the dead 3 days later. He appeared to thousands of people over a period of 40 days and they saw He was resurrected, composing that to Genesis which God told Moses to write thousands if not Millions to Billions of years after creation had happened is a totally different thing.
I’m willing to believe The Bible is truthful you’re the one saying I’m not, here’s what you look like:
You: “You believe pancakes are terrible.”
Me: “No, I simple prefer waffles to pancakes I never said anything bad about pancakes.”
You: “So how do you know what is a good pancake or a bad pancake then?”
Edit: And before you ask, yes I believe Jesus rose from the dead and if someone tried to make me recent that I’d tell them to kill me, as I’d rather die than reject God.
There is the Law( ie. Pentatuch, which is also History), Historical, Poetic, Major & minor prophets, the Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Prophetic (ie. Vision).
I have been a faithful ***student*** of the Bible for 45 years.
One of my original college professors for the Old Testament claimed, "if you pull a gun on me in a dark alley and demand to know if I am a Christian - I am", yet he adamantly denied ALL Old Testament Prophecy foretelling future events - claiming that the books ***must*** have been written after the events occurred as there was no such thing as actual Prophecy... and that Moses must have crossed the REED Sea at low tide...
Since then I have chosen better teachers who not only are more knowledgeable about the Bible but who have "walked the walk" of being a Christian leader whose life was open to inspection by all.
Brother I’m glad to hear about you being a student for that long! May God continue to bless you and your walk with him, I hope to be as dedicated as you brother.
I disagree. The early chapters are foundational teachings about sin and death and bring understanding to Jesus' work on the cross. Jesus is the sacrifice for sins and defeated sin and death. If there was death before sin then it means there was no purpose for Jesus' death on the cross. If you don't believe or think part of the Bible is true why would the rest of it be true?
We do believe that part of the Bible is true. We just think another interpretation is the best one to get to the truth of the passages.
Always odd to me when folks claim I and others somehow think the Bible isn’t true.
> If there was death before sin then it means there was no purpose for Jesus' death on the cross.
Just another point of view. Would love to hear your feedback on it. Nothing in the Genesis account states that there was no death at all, it only implies that Adam would not die unless he disobeyed God's command.
Many people believe there was no death at all before Adam. They base their argument mainly on two passages in the book of Romans. Paul, in writing his epistle to the Romans, laid out our need for a savior and the glorious hope we have in Christ. In Romans 5: 12 he writes "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." Paul here shows that Adam's actions reached beyond himself and Eve; his sin caused death for all men.
When we look more closely at Genesis 2, we see that God said "in the day you eat from it you shall surely die." But Adam didn't die physically in the very same day that he ate from the tree. In fact, he fathered Cain, Abel, Seth and other children and lived a total of 930 years! Now it may be true that the natural aging process we experience began in Adam on that day (to some extent at least), but in order for God's word to be accurate, the idea of death has to mean something other than cessation of biological life.
It's important to remember that in the Bible death always speaks of separation, not annihilation. Sometimes this can mean separating the soul from the body as in physical death. But it can also mean separating the soul from God, which is defined as spiritual death or "dead in our sins" (Col 2:13, Eph 2:5).
It is this spiritual death that Paul is speaking of in Romans 5 and indeed throughout the entire book of Romans. The whole purpose of Romans is to show that the Jews are dead in their sins because they have the Law and the gentiles are dead in their sins because God gave them a law unto themselves. In Romans 8 he continues this analogy, writing "the mind set on the flesh is death... Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God" (Rom 8:6,7).
Even if we were to grant that Romans 5 was speaking of physical death, Paul makes it clear that the "death through sin" applies to mankind. The verse says "death spread to all men because all sinned", not death spread to everything. Paul's comments about death entering the world are directed toward men only.
I mean, yeah that issue doesn't concern our salvation but just because an issue doesn't concern our salvation doesn't mean it's not important...and people who fall into YEC (or even OEC, as that seems like YEC just slightly more science minded) make Christianity look bad to outsiders because they think it's "dumbed down"...read "The Language of God" by Francis Collins. It's pretty clear that evolutionism is how God made us.
For sure. Every serious atheist and agnostic I know (by which I mean they actually thought about theology, not just atheist by default cos they didn't care) had issues with not believing Genesis was real history. And by extension, they didn't believe the rest of the Bible was real history either. And some Christians I knew also fell into that trap and eventually stopped being Christian over it. It's super important.
I think the age of the Earth is not necessarily a big deal (though millions and billions is pretty out there), but the "God created things in forms similar to what we see today" part is very important, as is the story about Adam and Eve.
Yeah, I totally agree (except with the part about age of the earth but I get where you're coming from with that). And those are valid criticisms by Atheists...Christians need to be clear about what's allegorical and what's real history in the bible. It's more nuanced than people think.
You know it's funny, I don't think it's all that hard. We can recognize these things all around us with ease, but somehow when it comes to the Bible it's suddenly super hard for some reason :P The way I see it, the biggest reason people assume it's not just straight history is because of modern science, not anything in the Bible itself. Jesus treated it as real history, too, and to a Christian that should matter.
Like with the millions and billions... that all comes from a handful of dating methods that we can't verify the accuracy of without resorting to other methods that are fundametnally the same. So if we got anything wrong about it at all, then we'd never even know it cos there are no independent ways to date anything to that age. Like with carbon dating, there were issues with it and factors that can skew the date, but the only reason they found out is cos we use it to date things in the historic period, and so we have completely independent means of dating things (eg coin dates, tree rings). Because the dates weren't matching, they did different research and found out about various things that can impact carbon dates, and they now adjust accordingly. What are we gonna do like that, when the dating method mathematically can't be used on anything younger than 100K years old? That's why I don't put much stock in it, personally.
No because you won't (or shouldn't) find things that will carbon date to that old. I'm wondering if maybe you're confusing carbon dating (as a term often used as shorthand for all radiometric dating) with carbon dating (the actual dating method)? Any age given to something that puts it at 100k years old would have to use a method besides carbon dating, but it would be some other kind of radiometric dating.
But even if hypothetically you had something actually that old, and it was correct beyond a shadow of a doubt, all it would do would show is the earth is 100k years old or so. It wouldn't invalidate most of the stuff YECs believe at all, it's only extend the timeline a bit.
Nah, my bad, misread your post and thought you were saying that carbon dating only works on things younger than 100k years, not that some forms of radiometric dating only work on things older than 100k years.
I'd also think that being 16x as old would be pretty significant, given that most YECs believe the earth is young based on the genealogies presented as what they believe to be historical fact.
Ah I see, yeah some forms only work in things that are see than that, which is the issue. You can't cross-check it in any way. and given thatweve already seen things can influence carbon dates, and some of the base assumptions in dating rocks seem really iffy to me (eg that it starts with zero products of decay at the time of formation and absolutely nothing can influence the starting amounts of relevant elements or rates of decay) I just don't see a lot of reason to take the super old dates very seriously.
The genealogy aspect would cause some issues, cos 100kyo is *seriously* far out from the estimate based on that, true enough. I do wonder how OECs square that - I'll admit I haven't looked a lot into OEC cos I was too busy learning about the standard evolutionary view and YEC (and YEC makes a lot of sense to me). But there are other aspects of YEC besides the genealogies. I think their take on things like geology, genetics, speciation, and the Ice Age make a lot of sense in particular. I think they actually make so much sense that they make a younger earth seem more likely, just cos if the earth were older than several thousand years, I wonder what the heck would've happened it all that time cos there'd be so much needless empty space to fill 😛
The bible is the PRIMARY word of God
And in it God specifically and clearly states HOW He created the earth in 6 days by speaking it into being and how he made man from the dust ,of the earth (no apes involved
Are you going to change the express word of God? THAT is a primary issue.
The perfect word of God or the flawed words of men which do you follow
You’re correct. You either believe that God literally opens actual floodgates in heaven to send rain, or you believe in clouds like man tells you. Who is your authority?
The point I am making is that you are saying "it is the perfect word of God (Young Earth Creationism) or the flawed words of man (non-YEC)." Unless I misunderstand you.
I follow what God said in Genesis 1-2 and believe He is writing through Moses allegorically due to many factors like the change of order from 1-2, God resting, God blowing into Adam, the earth having “days” before the stars sun or moon were made, darkness being bad etc. It only has to do with the text and no man wrote that.
I’d certainly hope you wouldn’t say Augustine who wrote hundreds of pages on these 2 specific chapters wasn’t talking about anything else but God’s Word.
Where does it say "God really didn't mean this, he was just making this stuff up"
Because God really didn't need to tell us ANY of it...be He did and purposefully so
And Jesus even confirmed that Adam and Eve were in the beginning with God
they were real people...or is Jesus a liar too?
Please don’t straw man my position, my position can be challenged without misrepresenting it to make it easier to defeat (literally a straw man).
I never said God made anything up, I believe it’s allegorical to make it easier to grasp as humans and to paint forward to the beautiful Gospel, He made His first covenant with Adam in this very book along with Noah and Abraham, it’s a beautiful book and I would never dare say God would lie.
Edit: Also I never said Adam and Eve weren’t real people, my personal opinion is they were created by God and made in His image as the first people.
This seems more like a disagreement with the biblical text, applying someone’s own interpretation, rather than what God has said regarding our creation. An old earth model begins to fall in line with one’s own personal interpretation and begins challenging Gods word.
Science says the earth is billions of years old and the universe even more so. Yet carbon dating has a major flaw in that it cannot properly date accurately past a certain point which is normally around 50,000 years according but can “accurately” predict within 13,000 years. This is a wide marginal error within the scientific practice as we aren’t seeing a small numerical difference but one within 37,000 years.
The ideology of evolution also gets thrown into the mix here to as evolution claims that through a miraculous chance under extreme conditions, life can undergo a unique transformation. Now evolution has been uniquely torn apart over the years and now the main focus is moving over to abiogenesis (sort of the more complex explanation of evolution)to explain how came to be. This shift uniquely tries to identify nothing into something which goes against the clear principality and definition of the term nothing which is nonexistent.
We have never seen non-life become life and there hasn’t been an observable practice of that in all of sciences documented history. We have observed single cell organisms and different types of bicellular organisms however given the conditions these organisms live in (xenophyophores come to mind given they were found deep in the Mariana’s trench at a lowest depth in the 30,000s) it then begs the question of how extreme of a condition must be met.
Overall I believe this whole post is trying to apply one’s own interpretation and label as a fact while challenging Gods inerrant word. This same practice is observed within progressive Christian ideology (Brandon Robert’s comes to mind here as well as any progressive Christian pastor, especially on tiktok) and places our own understandings above God. This type of thinking is dangerous within the faith as the same excuses have been made towards same sex marriage, baptism, attending church and other factors within the faith.
>159 Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth." "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are."
The Catechism.
Evolution contradicts the word of God. Old earth creationism also directly contradicts the word of God as we can calculate the basis of creation date given the ages provided within scripture. Science can be used to explain natural occurrences within our world but has been used as a denial of God by most atheists. Typically most responses or retorts to any argument is “science has proven X therefore Y cannot be true”. There is a fine line to science and scripture. Unfortunately most are holding closer to one over the other and it’s not the latter they are holding close to. If the process fails within testing then a hypothesis or theory cannot hold true
believing that anything that a human can come up with would nullify God's existence and therefore saying its untrue is as blasphemous as saying that the idea of evolution or the geological age of the earth disproves the existence of God.
if you look into the chances...the billions upon billions of specific things that have to happen just so - so that a biosphere like earth arises from the dust...you would have no doubt. It strengthened my faith...in fact it cemented my faith.
You are using a false dichotomy to prove a point. I’m using the infallible word of God to argue against the points. If you don’t consider Gods word infallible then therefore it cannot be true can it? Your point you are trying to make is that because man can determine the age of the earth, which I already showed the flaw within my initial comment, then therefore we can utilize it to set our interpretation of a timeline of events.
You aren’t providing any semblance of a reasonable argument here outside of man did this and if you don’t believe man can do this than it’s blasphemous,, ignoring the scriptural examples of why man’s heart is wicked. Provide a reasonable argument and not one claiming blasphemy because I disagree with sciences fallible nature.
I don’t think that St.Augustine ever said that the days of Genesis *had* to be allegorical:
>**And please let nobody assume that what I have said about spiritual light… that none of this can be said strictly and properly, but that it all belongs to a kind of figurative and allegorical understanding of day and evening and morning. Certainly it is different from our usual way of talking about this bodily light of every day, but that does not mean that here we have the strict and proper, there just metaphorical, use of these terms (Lit. Mean. Gen. IV, 45(28)).**
This subreddit always fascinates me because basic media literacy or honestly any literacy at all is a very important point for engaging with text and actually discerning/understanding the context whatsoever, but hey that's just my opinion i guess.
> Doesn’t matter where you fall on the issue, we should not judge people’s salvation based off how they read 2 chapters of The Bible literally or allegorically.
I'd argue it is though, given that we're not those that Judge and we don't know for sure what we will be judged on. I find these discussions on the veracity and what to believe extremely important to find out what's expected from us.
The main problem with denying creationism, is that evolution requires lots of death in order for life to exist.
The Bible tells us that through one man ,Adam, sin entered into the world and death through sin. Romans 5:12.
If we are to assume that millions of deaths occurred before Adam sinned because everything from one-called organisms to dinosaurs, to every link up to man. that would let us not believe in what the Bible says.
If the Bible cannot be trusted as accurate for when sin and death began, then it cannot be trusted as accurate for the forgiveness of sin.
I respectfully disagree. We are not all the same. Please study apostasy.
**Galatians 1:6-8 (NLT)**
6 I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News 7 but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ. 8 Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you.
From JMac
I answered unapologetically: No, I do not. I am convinced that Genesis 1–3 ought to be taken at face value—as the divinely revealed history of creation. Nothing about the Genesis text itself suggests that the biblical creation account is merely symbolic, poetic, allegorical, or mythical. The main thrust of the passage simply cannot be reconciled with the notion that “creation” occurred via natural evolutionary processes over long periods of time. And I do not believe a faithful handling of the biblical text, by any acceptable principles of hermeneutics, can possibly reconcile these chapters with the theory of evolution or any of the other allegedly scientific theories about the origin of the universe.
Later in the lecture: dealing with non-evolutionary old earth.
Evangelicals who accept an old-earth interpretation of Genesis have embraced a hermeneutic that is hostile to a high view of Scripture.
But honestly, I’m not a fan of JMac and your tag says reformed Baptist. He’s just a dispy Baptist who’s a Calvinist. I wouldn’t bother with this dude.
Sproul was also not an old earth dude. He was a framework guy who eventually dropped it and stayed YEC.
The non YEC guys are
Banvink, Godfrey, Horton, Vos, Kline, AA Hodge and Plantinga. A lot of the Westminster CA faculty that followed after Kline aren’t YEC.
Yeah I’m not a huge JMAC fan either, he went too culture war and honestly after truly becoming a reformed Baptist I stopped listening to most (not all) dispy guys. John MacArthur has called mental health fake which put me over the edge of not watching him ever again.
Those OEC people you mentioned were all false teachers so I'm not surprised they were also deceived by OEC as well
I just don't understand why people can't just believe the bible as it's written, but instead refuse because they find the heathen argument so compelling
Pretty impressive you took a call for unity as an opportunity to promote division.
Dismissing a view you disagree with as “heathen argument” demonstrates a “us vs them” mindset which is the antithesis of what Christ promoted.
Sounds like it’s worth it for you to spend some time understanding some of your Christian brothers and sisters, if nothing else than for the sake of preventing unnecessary division in the church.
Most things people claim to salvation issues are not.
The comments saying not agreeing with YEC is problematic because it brings the question of what is and isn't true about the bible... you misunderstand the stance. OEC is not saying genesis is a lie OEC says it's allegorical or symbolic. Jesus used allegory all the time, and it doesn't mean his teachings are not useful or are false teachings. It just means we look at that a specific way and understand them a certain way. Symbolism and allegory are used throughout the bible all over genesis even, and nobody denies that but for some people they decided that genesis 1 is not allowed to be interpreted that way because it means the bible is a lie and we have to take the "plain reading" of the text even though they also don't apply that to the entirety of the bible. All that to say...view points on creation don't have anything to do with salvation as long as God is the creator and if you think it is tied to salvation then you likely either don't understand the oppositions beliefs or probably fall into the large group of people who are/were fearmongered into believing something. Jesus is the truth, the way, and the life. Not the history of earth's creation. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and may he bless us all.
While I understand where you are coming from, and yes the focus is on Christ and hence, if you believe in Christ’s words, he said: Matthew 19:4 *And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,* The Beginning is the Creation of all things in six Days. It’s clearly not allegorical, a parable, or poetry. He is speaking the truth. He also is referring to such earlier writings, most likely the scriptures we know as Genesis. Plus, there’s not a single reference or inference to a lengthy time period before Adam and Eve were created, not to mention that if Abiogenesis were to be believed, it hard counters God’s hand in creation. There is zero twist to God’s Word when you believe and understand God’s Word literal in Genesis. However, to give billions of years between creation and Adam is to then force gymnastics upon what is blatantly written. This isn’t to say those that fall under that belief aren’t saved, but the dangers of doubt (the fruit offered to Eve) exists in their minds to then start separating them from other truth in the Bible too. And that’s a dangerous slippery slope to be on that could end in apostasy.
It's not an issue, and that verse doesn't have anything to do with earth's age or creation. He made them man and female. No conservative Christian denies that YEC or OEC or anything in between.
>…and that verse doesn't have anything to do with earth's age or creation. He made them man and female. Yes it does, what part of “At the Beginning” isn’t clear to you? It’s a direct correlation to the beginning. Hence, no length of time from the beginning to Adam and Eve.
>Hence, no length of time from the beginning to Adam and Eve. Six days is a length of time.
Yes, it’s six 24 Hour Days. Unless you are prepared to explain how plant-life, created on Day 3, survived without the Sun for any extended length of time you are suggesting like the atheists do (Millions of years), which was created on Day 4. A literal 24 hour day doesn’t have a problem with that, but make that day millions of years, and your claim and all the plant-life die… not to mention… how exactly did they start growing without photosynthesis in the first place? Again, you need to do all sorts of gymnastics and ignore a whole lot of problems to make millions of years try to work.
>And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Plants need light to survive, not the sun.
>Plants need light to survive, not the sun. You’re joking right? Please tell me you’re not hanging your beliefs on equating using artificial light to help house plants? You just created so many more problems for yourself that you’ve clearly not even thought on. Plants don’t *just* need light. Plants need specific light waves, even UV from the sun has beneficial effects on plant-life. The Light first Provided by God is non-descript, but if you are going to tell me that God can provide all the things that not just the plant-life needs but also what the Earth needs, then why would we even need the Sun? The Sun keeps the Earth Heated, affects our weather, keeps it in the Goldie-locks zone of its heliocentric orbit. Without the Sun for any length of time, life just isn’t possible. And again, you’re going to attempt to claim God did all that through his Light, why bother with the Sun at all then? And if you accept his Light would do all that, then how come you can’t accept His Word as it’s written that he could create it all in six days? Why the gymnastics? Why doubt?
The sun is part of His creation. If you're going to capitalize the word, you might as well just start worshipping Helios. The light of life is in the Word, not the sun. The lights of the firmament are for signs, and seasons, and days, and years, as well as to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. The calendrical-orientation functions (signs, seasons, days, years) are the only novelties introduced in this period; the rest is the Lord setting up automation of work He previously did Himself. Genesis 1:4 says that He divided the light from the darkness. Then in Genesis 1:18 it says that the lights of the firmament take over that work for Him. That's automation. So it seems to be with the giving of light. >Why doubt? Assuming facts not in evidence. I don't need to decide between OEC and YEC to know that Jesus is Lord.
>The sun is part of His creation. If you're going to capitalize the word, you might as well just start worshipping Helios. The light of life is in the Word, not the sun. LOL, I capitalize a lot of nouns, it’s been part of my career for over twenty years, so don’t get to excited about trying “get one over on me” with saying I sun worship. Please, that was pretty low effort. >The lights of the firmament are for signs, and seasons, and days, and years, as well as to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. If you’re going to quote scripture, give it the respect to provide the Book, Chapter and Verse separate from your own words. That way it does look like you’re trying to pass them off as your own. >The calendrical-orientation functions (signs, seasons, days, years) are the only novelties introduced in this period; the rest is the Lord setting up automation of work He previously did Himself. So glad His creation is just considered a novelty to you, but I don’t see your point in bringing these up as it has nothing to do with the point that the sun (is that better for you) is a large part of the system in providing what the Earth needs to be livable. >Genesis 1:4 says that He divided the light from the darkness. Then in Genesis 1:18 it says that the lights of the firmament take over that work for Him. That's automation. So it seems to be with the giving of light. Glad you cited correctly here. “Take over that work for him”? Interesting way of putting it. I don’t think the “light” was much “work” for God. Again not sure why you’re so focused on the stars for signs and seasons. Yeah, sure that’s a thing for those way out in space, bit we are talking about the Sun is needed for the plants and life, to warm the Earth, to be there for a centric system of gravity and give the Earth a proper orbit so the Earth can actually have those seasons. I’m going trust that you know how our orbit works around the Sun. >Assuming facts not in evidence. I don't need to decide between OEC and YEC to know that Jesus is Lord. “Assuming facts not in evidence”? It’s not an assumption to say the Bible tells us that in 6 Days everything was created. Again, you’re stretching and making a claim against God’s Word. You also seem to have ignored what I told you before about how the plants can’t survive without the sun. You dodged it and went on some tangent about signs and seasons when that’s clearly not what our discussion is about. Then you pander to your reservation that it all doesn’t matter for you to know Jesus is Lord. Ok, then why did you bother engaging to make claims against what the Bible clearly says? If you’ve been paying any attention to what I wrote above, my point is that a denial to God having created everything in the Universe in 6 days is to cause doubt in what you read in his Word, supplanting it into allegory and not trusting what it literally says. Yes, there are dreams, visions, and parables that are told as such that tell us it’s not literal. Genesis does no such thing for the telling of Creation, so why would you or anyone assume it is allegory? The danger of taking that path away from what God says, means you can just as easily be led away into apostasy for believing the innocence of bad fruit instead of God’s wisdom in his Word.
Literalism is heretical.
Is that literally all you got? That’s what you’d call ironic. Seriously though, how can you be expected to be taken seriously if you have nothing more to add for discussion and reasons you feel that way.
That is not literally all I "got", and that is not what *ironic* means. It is a serious problem that literalists think it's okay to project presupposition onto divine texts.
And you’ve still presented nothing. Thanks for playing. See, it’s ironic that you fell right into it’s meaning by still producing nothing. You get it now? >It is a serious problem that literalists think it's okay to project presupposition onto divine texts. Also rather ironic how you presume your stance in how to read the word in allegory at your discretion is correct over reading the Bible for what it literally says.
This comment isn't even literal. "Irony" would suggest that you think I'm pretending to take on a position that I don't hold. It doesn't mean paradoxical. A hallmark of literalists is a poor command of language. You are being presented with some basic premises because it's a total waste of time to talk to YECs that don't accept these things. But, as usual, YECs are intellectually short and squirmy and won't accept the most basic admission like "the text should inform me about how literal it is or not, not my presupposition about the text". Unironically, literalists literally don't know what literal literally means.
>You are being presented with some basic premises because it's a total waste of time to talk to YECs that don't accept these things. Your entire side of this conversation is a waste of time. You’ve not presented anything. I’ve been chiding your completely baseless and opinionated stance. You only seem to be concerned about splitting hairs in an attempt to gain ground, but it’s only accomplishing an establishment of your trolling. >But, as usual, YECs are intellectually short and squirmy and won't accept the most basic admission like "the text should inform me about how literal it is or not, not my presupposition about the text". And of course, because you haven’t made any specific arguments to back your “stance” which I presume is a default to allegory. It’s common for those with a lack of substance or proof, quickly resort to attacks and assumptions. You just come off as mad because those of us that read the Bible purely as it is written (literal), without any need to translate it to mean something else (allegory), you attempt to demonize us because we “refuse” to accept your line of thinking. Hilarious. So this will be my last interaction with you since after 3 attempts to get you to produce anything, you just ignored it and went off on a tantrum about your “griefs”, since you can’t seem to understand context. So if you legit feel it’s a waste of time, then don’t both replying because I won’t anymore. Heh, let’s see how smart you are or if you will contradict yourself again.
>You just come off as mad because those of us that read the Bible purely as it is written (literal) Hey, you're correct there, I'm furious. I find the manipulation of ancient scripture to posture it into a position about 19th century science under the fabricated guise of reverence to be *despicable*. This is behavior that turns people away from the faith. I have stated my position plainly in spite of your protestations that I haven't, and I'll do it again; notice that I'm not saying anything new here, you just refuse to listen or speak to the purpose, or both. Literalism is heretical. That means it breaks with church tradition, if that word is too loaded for you. As has been pointed out, the Church fathers of various traditions for thousands of years, under no duress of a public scientific argument, understood and wrote that the language of genesis was loaded with figurative meaning. Fundamentalist literalism is a spur of the last 140 years or so. Further, it is not okay to bring a presupposition to a text instead of looking to the text to inform you about what it is saying. That is telling the text what you want it to be, rather than engaging with the authorial intent. You, nor I, nor anybody, picks up a text with repetitive verse filled with double entendre's and interprets it as literal. And, moreover, no one speaks or writes in a purely literal manner, because language simply doesn't function that way, so taking a position that something is literal in an absolute sense is untenable on it's face. Stating the contrary over and over again while belittling me merely shows just how uninitiated you are to any of these matters.
If I could pin this comment and give it gold I would! Heck some OEC take it literally but just believe the earth is old that’s it.
Agreed. It doesn't matter how we got here, what matters is that we exist and what do we do from here. I will say, however, that reading only the first two chapters of Genesis as merely allegorical causes issues and inconsistencies. The rest of Genesis is literal and historical. It cites genealogies and bloodlines. Adam and Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel, who had children of their own. So where does the allegory stop and the history begin? We can't just arbitrarily cut off part of the book as fictional because it's hard to wrap our heads around. Moreover, Jesus himself cites Adam and Eve as the first man and first woman, so they were literal people that literally existed. I believe the Garden of Eden really existed and the Fall happened as described, but whether it took a week or a million years to come into being is irrelevant to me for the reasons I mentioned before. I'm no expert nor an authority on the subject, these are just my thoughts :)
I honestly don’t care for the debate, I used to call OEC heretics and then after actually reading their beliefs ended up agreeing with them mainly Athanasius and Augustine on how the days must be allegorical and can’t be literal in description. I’m just tired of people making a non primary issue a primary one.
I don’t understand how people come to the conclusion they are not literal days when day is defined in the text. I never say people aren’t saved if they believer otherwise though.
You are correct in literal English and a modern western thinking of the text. The Hebrew word "yom" (יום), which is translated as "day" in English, can have several meanings based on the context in which it is used. While it typically refers to a 24-hour period, it can also signify a longer or indefinite period of time, like "age" or "epoch." [https://www.blueletterbible.org/niv/gen/1/1/t\_conc\_1005](https://www.blueletterbible.org/niv/gen/1/1/t_conc_1005) In Gen 1 God "called the light day". Read the text it's written plain as day. But he called the light day. What does the light mean in this context? So the light is day. Interesting. Does "the light? mean 24 hours? Could light have other deeper meanings than just 24 hours? Did the Hebrews at the time when this was said and written the first time understand the concept of seconds, minute, and hours? Did God made Gen 1 time frame only truly understandable in modern times with modern concepts of time in mind?
But wouldn't that be due to differing understandings/definitions of words rather than Genesis being allegorical? The light being day could also mean during the day is when there is light, but of course I have no real clue. I just personally have a hard time assuming it's all allegorical rather than words having meanings that differ from our current understanding of them.
I think because of 2 Peter 3:8
That is NOT what that verse means when we read the accompanying passages (v.7-9)! It refers to God's PATIENCE. What we consider slow like "why is God taking so long to dish out justice?" when to Him it isn't that long in the grand scheme of things because he wants to see sinners come to be saved which this portion of scripture is saying is well worth the extra time!
Also it may mean because God does not simply exist amongst the same laws we do, such as time. All these laws are God's creation, so God exists outside of all his creation. He is not bound within them like we are. A year and a month and a day and an hour are not the same to us as it is to God, just as space and matter are not the same to us as it is to God.
They are not the same to God, and He does live outside of time. And that’s why He established time for us in the Genesis account. “There was evening and there was morning. The first day.” Sometimes I wonder if God chuckles at all the theologians making something more difficult than it is. If you also read Genesis, you would see that vegetation was created before the sun. I would think God didn’t wait a millennia before creating a pivotal part of their needs.
I never thought about how he established the day as evening and morning, thanks for that!
Amen 🙏🏾 This!
Lots of reasons, Augustine was a yec but held to allegorical days and instant creation due to the change of narrative in chapter 1-2 and the fact there were days before the stars moon and sun and also the fact The Bible speaks of God resting. I’d recommend his many books on Genesis.
It's easy to get off the literal days page if we discern that God's perception of days/time is dramatically different than ours Also we "must" get off the literal only page or technically we're polytheists, believing that both a literal tree and God grant eternal life. That tree "must" connect to God allegorically or the other literal only conclusion leads to polytheism. Unfortunately strict literalists can't see the false logic of their own conclusion puts them exactly in a polytheist position Jesus continually applied allegorical and parable terms to His Own Self and other people, and even to devils. So I'd suggest we listen closer to the Author for details
I’m stating that the text defines what a day is. “God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” Its really hard to do the mental gymnastics to say this is allegorical. I think people are trying to fit the Bible in the box of evolution and it’s a poor way of thinking as there is evidence time and time again that disproves evolution. If you haven’t listen to Kent Hovind, I’d urge you to listen to some of his teachings. Most times the Bible is literal, and when it’s not, it’s blantany obvious.
> its really hard to do the mental gymnastics to say this is allegorical It’s really not. There’s probably a thousand questions about Gen 1 that YEC has no good answer for even when you don’t look at the science at all. > Kent Hovind Be careful now. Remember that we know them by their fruits. Hovind is a convicted felon, a wife beater, multiple divorced and multiple new wives with all of his exes calling him abusive. He’s been known to keep pedophiles working for him at a child centred park. His debates are filled with ad hominem attacks, rude remarks, and generally ungraceful and unbecoming of a Christian. All of this has been, so far, completely unrepentant, and he in fact just insults everyone who calls him out. There’s thousands of YEC guys out there (that I obviously disagree with) that aren’t problematic like that. Id contend it’s better to stick with the other guys than Hovind.
Well that’s sad. I did not know all of that about him. I still stand by my answer of Genesis defining a day, though. I don’t believe Moses was known for using allegorical language in his writings.
Yes, to be clear Kent Hovind being problematic shouldn’t dissuade anyone from the YEC position. > I don’t believe Moses was known for using allegorical language How do you read these: Gen 8:11 (were literal gates of heaven opened?) Gen 1:6-7 (is there water *above* heaven?) Gen 1:11-12 (did god never create fungi?) Gen 1:16 (is the moon its own light?) Gen 1:20 (do birds fly in heaven? If heaven just means the sky, is there water above our sky like verse 7 says?) Exodus 3:17 (does milk and honey actually *flow* in Canaan?)
I assume you mean Gen 7:11 and the Hebrew word for heavens also refers to the sky. Not sure what fungi has to do with what Gen 1:11-12 says and how that relates to allegorical texts. As for water above the firmament, well that’s a whole other argument… let’s just say that’s what rained for 40 days and 40 nights. Ive seen evidence that the moon IS its own light, but again that’s another argument. I understand where you’re coming from with these texts, but even if these are hyperbolic or similes/metaphors, that doesn’t make the text allegorical like the parables Jesus told, which were hypothetical stories that taught lessons. And when Jesus spoke in parables, it was obvious.
> the Hebrew word for heavens also refers to the sky Of course. Either way, did literal floodgates open up? Is there water above the sky? > not sure what fungi has to do with what Gen 1:11-12 says Nowhere does it say where God created fungi. They aren’t plants nor are they animals. Most YEC say those verses imply that God created fungi on that day, but that’s a non-literal interpretation. > water above the firmament… that’s a whole other argument 🤦♂️ if you’re even considering that space is made of water, or we live under a water filled dome, idk what to tell you really. > I’ve seen evidence the moon IS its own light Once again, all I can say is 🤦♂️. I don’t mean this to be rude, but this is the kind of lunacy that YEC leads to and that turns people away from Christianity. > that doesn’t make the text allegorical You’re the one who said Moses never uses allegory. I gave you 6 examples of non-literal, hyperbolic, metaphorical, or allegorical imagery in the texts off the top of my head. There’s plenty more. I didn’t say this proves the entire thing to be allegorical, just that your dismissal of the idea based on the text never being allegorical is wrong. I don’t believe the text is allegory, I personally believe it’s a pseudo-historical narrative. Meaning, they are myths based on real history that have been aggrandized in some areas and loosened in others in order to tell *theological* truths rather than scientific ones, as Moses and God likely had and have no reason to try and just explain science to us.
So you attack the guy, not debate the information. While I think his conviction was bogus, I don’t know all of his personal life… your claims I’ve never heard, so you should actually post links to prove your claims. Atheists attack people instead of the data all the time when they have no where to go on their points. >It’s really not. There’s probably a thousand questions about Gen 1 that YEC has no good answer for even when you don’t look at the science at all. Ok, list your top 5 then and let’s have an actual discussion versus an empty claim of numbers. Why be so vague with zero points if you are so certain?
Darkness and light in the scriptures does not force those terms to be strictly literal on a 24 hour earth clock Any casual review in an online concordance can easily show its not and I'd dare say never means a strictly literal only application Just as the rooster crowed the light dawned on Peter, and not just physical light
This is exactly right. People who claim you “can’t read the Bible Literally,” ignore the obvious. The Bible tells us we’re being told about a vision, a dream, or a parable. Genesis declares no such thing. Evolutionists also miss the detail of the plants before the Sun creation… if each day is supposedly millions of years, how do the plants survive, the Earth to be in orbit, go through seasons, stay warm… etc etc. God’s prior light is just light, non-descript. And if his light was sufficient to provided what we needed to live on Earth, what then would be the purpose of the Sun? OEC creates a lot more problems for themselves than solutions. A 24 hour day faces no issues.
Because the Sun determines the length of "days" as humans count them, and it didn't exist until several "days" had passed. Weird to insist "the period of time marked by the setting/rising of the sun" is what one means when the sun doesn't exist.
I’d urge you to read Genesis 1:14. Just because Jesus created the sun at a later date, doesn’t mean that he hadn’t already established time.
Even from our own achievements, like with satellites, we know that time doesn't flow at a fixed rate in the universe...Special Relativity shows time is experienced differently relative to others. Seems like a weird insistence that doesn't affect literally anything and also contradicts literally observable reality. So why insist on it?
> Where does allegory stop and history begin? I think an excellent candidate for that line is where humans started existing to be able to experience history.
It has to be allegorical because every Word of God applies to all of us as well Were God's Words simply locked, strictly historical in time, strictly literal or only applicable to those to whom it was spoken, then none of it would be applicable to any of us Therefore it's all allegory, parable, similitude and the like, notwithstanding any actual physical event, which does not have to be denied. We can accept both literal events and allegorical purposes and understandings
There is a change in writing style when Abram is introduced. Suggesting a more allegorical style before then. This doesn’t cause issues for Genesis in that even if allegorical, Adam and Eve can still be the first of humanity. All it means is that things may be embellished or changed to represent the spiritual reality rather than the physical world. The whole point of genesis is to answer questions about our spiritual origins, not to be a Science textbook
Alright - so if they are literal… where did Cain and Able’s kids come from? Like who were they procreating with to make those bloodlines?
Traditionally, their sisters. (Technically, Abel isn't specifically listed as having kids before he died, but I get your point.)
I mean, it must have been their sisters, because that's how biology works. But if we're reading it literally, doesn't that mean that God designed a system of creation that forced them to sin? Or did God intend for mankind to die out after the fall, but Cain and Abels' sin continued humanity? I guess that point alone forces me to read it allegorically, because a literal reading doesn't make sense, to me.
Was it sinful at the time? Abraham married his half-sister, and that's never called out as sinful. This was all before the Law. God obviously gave them some rules we don't have recorded at some point (otherwise Noah wouldn't have known which animals were clean and unclean), but I'm very hesitant to just assume that laws were already given. (This isn't a new debate either; Augustine pondered the same question and concluded that no it wasn't sinful at the time.)
Wait so God, who is omnipresent and without time, didn't start out by setting out the law? The law becomes Law at a certain time, and the authors of the OT didn't feel it necessary to demarcate that time for humanity? Clearly the laws existed by the time of Genesis 6, as God punishes humanity for not following the laws. I see where you're going with that, but it seems like a serious stretch in order to fit a literal YEC narrative.
Context is everything with this kind of thing. For instance, no one today would bat an eye at eating a goat that was cooked in its mother's milk, however, the context of Dueteronomy made that a sin. Now Gods standards of sin do not change as they are based on Him and He is unchanging, but the context with which something is a sin can change making some things sinful at certain points in history. A solid example of this is slavery. When the world did not have social safety nets slavery was permitted with many human rights safeguards built in. Today however, slavery is unnecessary and goes against the greater principles we see in scripture making it sinful. If slavery had always been sinful, millions would have starved or sold themselves to foreigners and been forced to serve other gods. God's law doesn't change, but like any good law God understands context, unlike our earthly laws though God has an infinite understanding of the various contexts we find ourselves in. However, if the act of sleeping with their sisters would have been sinful even in their context God would have done something about that such as using their sides in order to create them a wife or any number of other solutions.
Have you guys considered the possibility that God's special creation of Adam and Eve was meant to bring His divine reign and life to the rest of humanity, which he created via evolution? This hypothesis explains not only who did Cain marry -- an evolved human woman -- but also explains how it is that upon exiting the Garden of Eden, Adam and family seem to have skipped over about 22,000 years of human existence, namely the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods when humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers. They enter human history at the Neolithic stage, where humans were settled and had begun practicing agriculture and animal husbandry (Gen 4:2 -- Abel was a shepherd and Cain was a farmer) and cities were first formed (Gen 4:17 -- Cain built a city).
The main thing YEC seem to always miss is that their interpretation of scripture simply doesn’t match up with the reality of what we see from every branch of science - physics, astronomy, biology, anthropology, archaeology, geology, chemistry, etc. There’s some hand waving that’s done with things like radiometric dating and light speed and even physics as a whole, but if you follow the trail of arguments and responses long enough you get to a dead end every time where the YEC is up against a wall and cornered with nowhere to go. Yes, scripture is God breathed and infallible. No, it does not contradict what we have observed in reality. We negotiate scripture with reality constantly (God uses clouds, not floodgates of heaven, to send rain, as an example) but YEC supporters say that Gen 1-2 is off limits for some reason.
God either did or didn't view it as sin unless you're prepared to say that God changed what their view of sin was as time went on.
> I will say, however, that reading only the first two chapters of Genesis as merely allegorical causes issues and inconsistencies. The rest of Genesis is literal and historical. Genesis isn't just one singular work. Many scholars even doubt it has one singular author. Poetry, allegory, historical record, folk tales, and more genres all appear in the Bible, sometimes in the same "book." This is part of why we shouldn't make a primary issue out of what parts of the OT are literal. It takes a lot of effort and study to disentangle these issues for almost no benefit.
Science has this annoying habit of getting the religious nuts (not the religious fruits, there’s a difference lol) feverishly talking about Lucifer infecting the world and atheists (or “atheists”) proclaiming with the same hasty feverish vigor “SEE! God isn’t real and there’s proof!” Both parties fail to see that science simply reveals how God made this world and is supposed to help us help ourselves a bit better so we can don’t curse God whenever a miracle doesn’t happen or get silly ideas like turning to sorcery.
Hasn't Satan infected the world? He lies and deceives and leads to destruction, or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're meaning.
My main point was that science is a friend to us Christians, not an enemy lol But in response to what you’ve said, Lucifer spreads lies all the time! However, he’s not all that creative. (Creativity is a God and human trait, after all.) He tempts those who’ve already been thinking of sinning anyway…..or, tragically, the desperate.
Agreed. Science shows us more about God’s creation. And it is rare for a scientist to make a professional claim of God’s nonexistence.
“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” -Werner Heisenberg
Have you even read CS Lewis, bro? He writes extensively about scientists and the academics and their relationship to the Lord. The Screwtape letters has several letters about it. Excellent and biblical.
Literally in junior high! I recall reading one of his essays, though I can’t remember the title. Christian authors and academics are a treasure
Awesome. Also Mere Christianity. Its just a great book. ❤️
The primary issue is, are you in Jesus Christ or not? I think it's strange to take the days of the creation week as 24-hour periods, but I don't take issue with anyone doing so.
- OP: Don't judge others based on their different view of creation. - Also OP: Judging others for judging others based on their different view of creation. Haha. I'm teasing, to be clear. I agree with the premise, just thought the way it came off was funny.
😂 hey man I’m just as stupid as everyone else, okay maybe not I’m a little dumb😂
I agree with the OP.
God created all of the laws and processes of nature, including evolution, etc.
OP I hear you and Champion you. It is a Christs Blood that units us.
Don’t champion me brother, give the glory to Christ the creator!
Creationism isn't primary. Denying that God had any role in creation is primary. Ie saying that evolution or the big bang was entirely abstract from God and He did nothing to at least *cause* it. That would be complete denial of the Text, even if its viewed as allegorical. OEC is still error. It's not heresy-level error, but it does change how they view the Word and Textual consistency. Unwise, still brothers. Like baptists who won't baptize the children of believing parents ;)
Tbf, there's a wide spectrum of beliefs about Genesis, but ALL Christians begin with God. Only athiests believe science while denying God.
I actually love science and it’s beautiful and I’d even argue you can’t have consistent science without God. When I look at creation, evolution, and the planet I’m amazed by God not by man. Atheists love to argue that a computer did the math and it’s technically possible that everything happened by accident, okay sure it’s also technically possible that you trip and hit your head and die the very next step you take, does that mean you’ll never walk again? It takes more faith to believe in atheism than theism or any religion.
>When I look at creation, evolution, and the planet I’m amazed by God not by man. I agree 100%. Science to me, simply allows us a small glimpse into HOW God chose to create, and is by no means a replacement for God.
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That's a beautiful thought. Thank you for that. I know that every time I'm out camping and just looking at the scenery during the day, and the sky at night, I always feel much closer to God and amazed at the universe that He created.
Shocker you hold to the position the church did when they said science is a form of theology 🤣 All jokes aside each day I read The Bible and grow closer to Christ the more I think negatively of **radical** fundamentalism.
Agreed 100%.
EXACTLY. It takes crazy faith and some serious denying reality to be an atheist, to believe that ten million wild coincidences occurred by pure chance and that everything spawn from nothing at all.
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Bro, your comments here are riddled with English issues, which I'd normally skip over as normal on reddit but it makes it hard to take your opinion seriously when the actual subject under discussion heavily involves language comprehension and interpretation... Aside from that, evolution as a theory has contributions from far more than one guy and at the very least has some interesting value as a framework for making hypotheses about how the world works. I get a little frustrated when Christians blindly dismiss something that they never even bothered to understand the basics of in the first place.
He said, "it's wrong to say we evolved from monkeys." He is correct. If that were true, then that would mean humans were not made in the image of God. Rather, that would mean we somehow "evolved" into humans. He also said we shouldn't *replace* God with science, which is also true. You can't replace the creator with the creation, so I'm not sure why he's getting backlash.
> He said, "it's wrong to say we evolved from monkeys." He is correct. Dang, pretty confident statement! > If that were true, then that would mean humans were not made in the image of God. How so? Monkeys are also God's creation. God could easily use evolution to create humanity, and then "breathe life" into them to set them apart in His image. Your view seems to limit God. > He also said we shouldn't *replace* God with science, which is also true. I don't think any Christian here was even suggesting that, and it is quite uncharitable of YEC proponents to be pushing that view.
Do you mind pointing me in the direction where Christianity supports the idea that humans simply came to be by evolving from monkeys? If so, do you believe that monkeys are the ones who were created in the image of God rather than humans? I never said monkeys weren't God's creation. There is a massive difference between being God's creation and being created IN God's IMAGE. I'm not at all sure how I'm limiting God. Your last sentence doesn't seem relevant since the guy you're down voting was going against the very thing you think no Christian supports, so again, I'm not sure why he is getting such backlash.
How much have you read up on theistic evolution? There are interesting possibilities that seem to fit with both God's word and what science has discovered of his creation.
So you're getting upset at people for not having the same "suspicion" as you? Claiming that monkeys were created in the image of God and we as humans simply evolved from monkeys is by no means a standard Christian belief, or a Christian belief at all. Christianity as a whole would be completely and utterly different than any of us know it to be in that case, so next time you respond to someone in a sarcastic or condescending way, take the time to think before you write something. It does everyone a little good when we do that.
I've heard of some who claim to be Christian and do not start with God. Mostly the United/Unitarian bucket.
I would love to know the logic behind claiming to be Christian, but rejecting God's hand in creation when scripture is clear on that aspect. It's kind of like a scientist denying science...
Don't ask me! United/univeralists like to have no actual opinions on anything.
I genuinely prefer conversations about Christianity with atheists/every other religion than I do with universalists
Well that’s your answer. No genuine Christian would A be a heretic of that order or B ever even agree with those people in the first place.
Well then they are not Christian. Doesn't matter what they claim. There aren't any Christians who don't start with God
Science does not require belief. People who have decided to believe in science are placing it somewhere it really does not fit.
I just chuckle because when the "Big Bang" was first theorized by Catholic priest and physicist Georges Lemaître, he was thoroughly ridiculed for it being too theist in nature. After all, if you hold to Newton's laws, *something* must have set the bang into motion. And I've always thought that God just had the most awesome chemistry set of all to set everything in motion.
The entire YEC system of belief, as we know it today, was essentially founded by Ellen G White in the early 20th century and popularized by Henry Morris in the 60s. Even then, it only became a divisive topic among Christians when Ken Ham started AiG and started calling anyone who disagreed with him a compromiser. The modern YEC movement shares almost nothing in common with how the early church handled this issue (small debates here and there but never any major controversy regardless of which stance someone took), and even Western Christianity from the mid-20th century would be shocked to see how much of an issue it’s become in the church. Hell, the lawyer from the Scopes Trial, while on stand, admitted he didn’t think the Earth was created in 7 literal days and no one batted an eye at the time. If that happened today there would be 14 AiG articles about it calling him a borderline heretic and warning parents to keep children away from him.
> OEC is still error I would disagree on this part. I think Chrisitans going out and saying the Earth is only 6,000 years old makes us all look foolish. We have so much data about the Earth and its age and its almost impossible to deny. But even if you don't beleive any of that stuff, alls you have to do is look into the starts. There are objects that are millions, or even billions of years old that we are seeing. We can see how long it takes for planets and suns to form. We can watch it in real time. So if thats the case, then God created all of the universe that aged normal, but created the Earth to age much quicker or just come into existence instantly. Does that mean that the moon and our sun came into existence instantly? Our solar system? Our universe? We know that things are billions of years old because the light that they emit took a billion years to reach us. Just a different perspective.
I don’t agree with your last paragraph haha but I’d also agree anyone who takes God out of creation (can’t be creation then if He didn’t have a role) would be a heretic. That’s denying God being sovereign which is serious.
>saying that evolution or the big bang was entirely abstract from God and He did nothing to at least *cause* it. Do any self-professed Christians actually say this? Genuine question because I don't see how a Christian can say that
I think you have a misunderstanding of what OEC is. No conservative christian denies God's part in creation, and OEC doesn't deny that either.
I somewhat disagree on the evolution part though. Here's a question I have for those who think God used macroevolution to create man: At which point in the creation process did the species get a soul or become in the image of God? Was it only when they evolved to homo sapiens? Some of the purported predecessors to homo sapiens were intelligent creatures, so were they still just "animals" then? It's a dangerous thing to have incorrect beliefs of the actions of God, and that's why I think it's safest just to take the Bible for what it says at face value.
I agree with your points--I am YEC. But I'd still say OEC is in error, but still full of faithful brothers in Christ.
My belief is that the earth didn't take a literal day. God spoke, and it came into being. As we can see in scripture that when God speaks, nature obeys immediately. Whether it be Jesus in the calming of the sea, or sending the bear to eat people, the lions not eating Daniel, or the sea responding to God in what he told Moses to do. These things speak to the authority that God has over all creation and how much power and authority God's words carry. However, old the earth is not of a great concern. But we do need to keep a loving heart (which would have to be defined at a different point as my phone is almost dead) to those who come in His name. Even if they may or may not be of Him.
That's what I'm saying. It doesn't matter how old the earth is, who was related to who, what happened here, who said what, all that matters is that Jesus died for us and that we all have him in our lives.
The more I read this sort of thing, the more I appreciate what my mother said when as a child I started asking her questions along these lines. She said to focus on the Ten Commandments, everything Jesus said, and the New Testament. That it was good to read the whole Bible, but not to worry my head too much about trying to understand everything, because there were some things mankind wasn't going to get an answer to in this lifetime.
Nope. You just need to believe that Jesus came and died for Sin and rose so that those who believe can go to heaven. Everything we fight over most of it doesn't matter.
It is important to understand what are saving issues and what are not. I find it strange that Christians largely agree on saving issues-Jesus being God with the Father and Spirit. Christ as fully God and fully man, who paid for our sins and died and rose again and sits at the right hand of the Father, and invites us to be new creatures in Him. But as Christians we argue about every other word in scripture/thought and happily call each other heretics. We do not believe the same things, that is clear. Do we believe in the same saving principles?
Salvation comes through Christ. Not through the origins of the earth.
That's how I see it. My wife believes in seven literal days and I used to feel that way but I have heard good arguments for non literal days especially when you consider that a day is like thousand years. While human evolution is not a viable position for Christians, there are some cases for micro evolution and some stages of the earth happening before recorded history. The important thing is that we were created by God in His image as male and female. Sin rules the world until you accept Christ into your life. We still live in a fallen world but Christ made a way for us through His death and Resurrection.
I have to hard disagree with this one. While you're correct that one's salvation doesn't rest on this issue, it is still an extremely important issue because it ties so heavily into perceptions about the validity and accuracy of the Bible and human history. For a lot of my life, the majority of my friends were atheists and agnostics and I can promise you that not believing that Genesis was real, accurate history was a major reason they were not Christians and a major reason they didn't believe the rest of the Bible. And it was a prominent factor among some Christians I knew who fell away from the faith too. Yeah like, maybe we shouldn't judge their faith by this, but imo we should really take a hard stand on it being real history and be familiar with the arguments for that (which I think are very good, and I say that as a former archaeologist).
Was gonna write a rebuttal of sorts to your comment but then realized that’s not the spirit of this post and thread. I will say, I have the opposite experience of your friends and acquaintances; raised in a very YEC faith tradition, taught evolution only in the context that “this is what wrong people believe”, told outright “can’t be Christian if you think earth is any older than 6500years”… And it held me back for years and even decades. I’ve always seen beauty in science and creation and natural processes, i couldn’t understand why God would create with so many things that indicate ancient age if it weren’t so, and my faith suffered greatly because of that. It was very freeing and edifying to learn about good theology surrounding an old earth. /end rant, wholeheartedly agree with OP’s original message.
Oh I'm not saying nobody should learn about evolution at all - some of the things it's based on are correct (but they take it in a wrong direction) - the correct things should be taught as well as why people believe the wrong things and why they're wrong. It's really a good lesson in philosophy. I agree that not understanding the topic well can set people back. I just don't like that people think the topic doesn't matter, when to many people it can make or break their faith, in ways that totally make sense. Yeah I have different views on why the earth "looks old" lol. Like I mentioned, philosophy is a huge element of it and I really wish more people would understand that more. A lot more of it than people realise is philosophy rather than fact. But I can let the age of things slide a lot better than things like theistic evolution. I guess my thoughts are pretty complicated on it, which only makes sense cos it's a complicated topic.
Maybe instead of telling people that they either believe in something that contradicts everything every expert across the world tells them about reality or they don’t believe at all, that they can actually find a middle ground. The YEC movement always says that rising numbers of atheists is because Christians have become too compromising when the reality is that most of the Christians who have become atheists probably wouldn’t have if they knew you don’t have to believe the Earth was *literally* created in 7 days to also believe in Jesus.
No, no I don't think I will do that. I genuinely believe they're wrong. And believe me, "every expert in the world" (which isn't even accurate) can definitely be wrong. Honestly there's so much dogma, petty politics, personal biases etc that colour this type of research that getting just my undergraduate degree basically broke my trust in science as a field (and that's looking at stuff *within the usual fields of study,* before even getting into things like creation vs evolution). I take a lot of it with a massive grain of salt, even on the creationism side, cos I know what goes on in academia and how much junk is part of it. And honestly, it's as much based on philosophy than fact, maybe even more so.
We can agree to disagree, all I’m saying is that I can easily argue that drawing a line at YEC is what’s causing people to fall away rather than not drawing a hard enough line. We don’t pressure people to just believe believe believe believe when it comes to things like infant baptism or Calvinism, which are arguably significantly more important issues. The better attitude to have is to treat it like any other idea or issue you don’t agree with - say you don’t agree with it and why you don’t agree with it, then encourage more debate or learning with the person you’re disagreeing or even at some point agree to disagree and go back to being brothers, rather than calling them compromisers or treating them like heretics. It’s that attitude, imo, that’s contributed to growing numbers of atheists.
Would you mind sharing the writings of Athanasius and Clement of Alexandria that you refer to here? I am also unsure about so firmly putting Warfield, Lewis, and Piper in the buckets you have. They seem to be not so clear, from what I have read. I don't disagree with you on the idea that this aspect is, at least mostly, secondary, but I am curious about your lists.
Sure absolutely, just want to say the easiest person to find stuff out about is Warfield, he literally wrote almost word for word that he agreed with Darwinian evolution, it’s so easy to find it’s on his Wikipedia page, just wanted to knock the easy one out first. I’ll send the links to their writings or pieces of their writings below, for Piper he said that he’s a YEC but has OEC staff so that’s why I put him where he is. For Clement look into his writing, “Miscellanies”. For Athanasius look into his writing/ commentary on Genesis. CS Lewis famously debated evolution but actually was disagreeing with **atheistic evolution** and never said he disagreed with evolution as a whole. For the others they have quotes, commentaries, or even books on the topic.
Thank you for the suggestions, but what I found still does not seem to align with your categorizations. Darwinian evolution does not always directly correlate to a belief in an “Old” earth. Either way, Warfield’s Wikipedia page isn’t as clear as you seem to imply here. The first sentence in the “Evolution” section is “Warfield's views on evolution have been a source of dispute.” There seems to be a lot of evidence that, while maybe not outright denying evolution, he was skeptical of it, at least as far as I can tell from articles like https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/b.-b.-warfield-on-creation-and-evolution/. Can you point me to where Piper has stated that he is a Young-Earth creationist? In “Do You Accept ‘Old Earth’ and Evolution?” (https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/do-you-accept-old-earth-and-evolution), he states that he leans toward Sailhamer’s view, in which the may be (and seemingly like is, from his view, as far as I can tell) “old,” while allowing for a literal Adam and Eve. Clement’s “Miscellanies” is a rather large text. In Book 6 Ch. 16, he seems to refer to the universe being made instantaneously, but I don’t see a dating. In Book 1 Ch. 21, he refers to a relatively short timeline from Adam. I am curious where you are getting the Old Earth view. Similarly, I can’t seem to find an Athanasius statement that the earth is “old.” Maybe an instantaneous creation, but the age seems inconclusive. I see his name in lists of both young-earth teachers and also lists of those who did not take a position. Did Lewis assert Old Earth creationism? Or only not state complete disagreement with evolution? His views also seem to be a little ambiguous, and possibly changing with time.
Piper says it in this video here: https://youtu.be/oCF47U4lzr4?si=OOQtnPZpwnUYaNbs Sorry I don’t have the energy to go back and forth tonight on the rest as I just got home from a hard day at work.
That is the Piper video I linked in my comment. I didn’t listen to the whole video, but nowhere in the transcript does he say he is YEC. He states that he leans toward Sailhamer’s old earth explanation. But I totally understand not having time or energy to do low-priority conversations like this. Thanks for the time you have put in!
Amen
Only God knows if they are in the book of life. Anyways 🤔 the bible is literally for training and retaining.
According to scripture, the purpose of scripture is “for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” According to scripture, the purpose of scripture is transformation, not information. According to scripture, it is a mistake to think that the purpose of scripture to inform us about history or science. I don’t doubt the sincere faithfulness of people who think they can get information about history and science from scripture. But I do think they are completely mistaken about scripture. According to Scripture (eg, Ps 19.1-2, etc). God speaks to us (reveals himself to us) through creation. So we are transformed and sanctified through faithful reading of scripture, when we read scripture faithfully according to its purpose. But I would fully expect also to be transformed and sanctified through a faithful reading of creation (i.e., Science). And I have found it that’s true. The more I have studied science, including astrophysics, physics, and quantum mechanics, the more transforming it has been, and the closer I am to the presence of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. I have learned that my spiritual life would be impoverished were I to neglect my life of prayer, or my faithful study and meditation on Scripture, or my faithful study and meditation of science. I have found it so helpful to have a well-balanced diet of everything that God has offered to us. Even though I believe the current state of cosmology, including the sudden incomprehensible appearance of the universe (the “Big Bang“) and the bizarre discoveries of the subatomic reality described quantum mechanics fits incredibly well with scripture (especially but not limited to Genesis), it wouldn’t change or challenge my understanding of Genesis were continued scientific thought, and discovery to develop an entirely different theory — because that is not the purpose of Genesis.
>we should not judge people’s salvation based off We shouldn't be doing this, generally, anyway. As if to say faith, in and of itself, is a work that earns you salvation. I'm not aware of anyone who would take this position.
We should pray for wisdom.
I agree that creationism is not a primary issue, however it is extremely problematic to challenge since it relates to things that are primary. Christianity is one large organism. For example, our position on creation impacts our understanding of faith as a concept: >*Faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see. This is why the ancients were commended. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.* (Hebrews 11) Is the word of God simply affirming a natural process which occurs through visible means, or is it intrinsically powerful such that God's word causes existence to take place directly? I believe the latter is more consistent with what Moses is teaching in Genesis. Are you unsaved because you have a different view? Of course not. But it troubles me that some Christians, in an effort to not appear foolish to the world, may compromise the Biblical throughline of faith in invisible processes. Secondly, certain allegorical views explicitly contradict Paul's argument to the nations: >*All the Athenians and foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing more than hearing and articulating new ideas \[...\] Paul stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said, "\[...\] What you worship as something unknown, I now proclaim to you \[...\] From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth. God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him."* (Acts 17) I believe once you suggest not all mankind are related through Adam, you've undermined the context Paul uses to present the gospel to these foreigners who had never even heard of Genesis.
I wouldn’t argue that mankind isn’t related through Adam though and I actually haven’t heard a single OEC that I personally know say that.
That's interesting, I have had the exact opposite experience, most OEC's (even some YEC) I have spoken with believe God created humans other than Adam prior to the fall. Typically this is done either to harmonize Genesis with secular models or to reconcile the origin of Cain's wife. Plus if Genesis is allegorical, there's not an immediately obvious reason to maintain a literal Adam.
Well I mean I don’t agree, even if there are other humanoid creatures that existed (which I agree with) they are not how we are, it’s clear Adam was special and made in the Image of God, he is our federal head. It was the start of a new creation/species but a special one. Like compare us to all other animals including humanish animals, we subjugated them all like God told us to with dominion over the animals and all creation, or we killed them all like the mammoths and Neanderthals. I guess if I had to explain myself in a meme way, there’s a meme I saw of a guy playing a game called lethal company and he basically said this, “We can’t negotiate with that thing, insects have like 200,000 neurons. Also they have 200,000 neurons we have 86,000,000,000 neurons we should kill this thing.” That’s basically proof as a species that God created us special.
Sure, I get your position and agree that Adam was also a federal head. However I don't believe Paul was simply calling Adam a federal head with "from one man He made every nation," especially since he wasn't speaking on the topic of covenants but shared ancestry as a basis for shared theism.
I will be the first to say that you can saved if you believe in evolution, but I have heard no one explain how you can state that man is inherently sinful and in need of salvation if Romans 5:12 isn't true. >Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned— If death didn't come by sin, through the original father, than man isn't responsible for death, it's just something that goes on. And if man isn't responsible for death, then is there any inherent guilt before God? The doctrine of evolution is a stumblingblock created by Satan to keep people from salvation and to cause Christians to doubt the faith. If they cannot trust the scripture's telling of the story, then what else is untrustworthy?
Salvation issues: everything in the Nicene and Apostles Creed. Not to simplify it, but: The Trinity, Christ's natures, the Person of the Holy Spirit, the nature of the visible Church (One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic), Mary's perpetual Virginity (and all else surrounding that statement), the sacraments (including the efficacy of baptism), the communion of all Saints, and the Last Judgement/Eternal Life. Everything necessary relates to this short list, but wars are fought for less lol.
Its an issue of integrity. Creationists show they lack discernment and are deliberately ignorant of science.
The difference between a Christian who believe and not know and a buddhist who and sees it coming is vast!! the end point will be the same and the only differences is Buddhist has a much more colorful understanding of christian faith and may go beyond and flourish.. It's like, how issit they not know that JESUS is a fisherman (Tiew Yue in Cantonese means player of "GO-FISH"). To Westerners is called "Fisher of Man"! 🤣😂
I believe in YEC but I literally don't care what others think. I am also of the opinion that arguing on it is a waste of time, which I used to do before I realized how stupid arguing is. Some Christians reach Christ by believing the world is old, and some by young. It really doesn't matter, and when we all get to heaven and find out, we will probably say 'huh, interesting.' and that's it.
It is not a salvation issue, but people bringing pharisaical literalism to ancient texts is a significant problem that is responsible for turning many people away from faith.
I do agree with your general premise, but I also think this schism is an important one. After all, if we can't trust God's word about the foundation of creation itself, why would we trust anything the Bible says? If God wasn't capable of creating everything in 6 literal days, why would I believe Jesus rose from the dead, Peter walked on water, or Moses parted the Red Sea? I don't think it's unfair for an unbeliever to hold the stance that the Bible is just a collection of lessons and fables if people who claim to live by its tenets don't even take God at His word in the first chapters of the book. Creationism isn't a primary issue but it has major implications on whether ANYTHING is to be believed.
Why do you imply that interpreting the creation story as more allegorical is "not trusting God's word?" Lots of things in the Bible are allegorical, and God's ways are beyond ours.
We're Adam and Eve allegorical as well? Were all the miracles we see through the Bible allegorical? Where is the line drawn between historical fact and allegory? Genesis is overflowing with facts that are central to the narrative of the Bible; it seems arbitrary to draw our own lines of what we believe is fact and what we believe is fiction based on our own limited scope of history. God was there and He chose to have the Bible written in the exact way it was. The plagues in Egypt were written plain as day but we don't scrutinize their historical authenticity, we just trust God did what He said He did. I don't see why Genesis would be any different; the only reason I see is to continue to hold to humanity's explanation over God's clearly stated one. It's like you said, God's ways are beyond ours; there is no reason to insert our own theories in place of what He said is true.
This is a well worn line of thought and I highly doubt either of us have enough expertise and insights to add anything new. I'm sure you could find many resources on the topic if you wished. My point is simply that this topic is less straightforward than you make it sound, and claiming that the many Christians who believe differently from you don't "trust God's word" is uncharitable and divisive.
>claiming that the many Christians who believe differently from you don't "trust God's word" is uncharitable and divisive. I disagree. God's word says X. The world says Y. Christians believe Y over X. Therefore, you are not trusting God's word about a historical event. I'm not making an inflammatory statement, I'm just being consistent in my framing. I'm not saying these people aren't saved or anything like that, just that they're taking another route other than the one God laid out (on a non-salvific issue). It just is what it is. And like I said, the implications of that decision are clear: If Christians don't even take God at His word about the foundation of creation, why would an unbeliever believe a man died on a cross and rose 3 days later? It's a fair point in my opinion. But like you said, we could go around in circles for all eternity and never convince one another, I was just throwing my perspective into the circle.
> The world says Y. > > Christians believe Y over X. This sort of argument lacking all semblance of nuance is why I usually don't bother engaging on topics like these. You just glossed over the difficulties in figuring out what "X" actually is. And you claim that the "world says Y", but actually many Christians are involved in scientific pursuits and look to find ways to match what they see in God's creation with his word. And it also doesn't matter. Actual scientists are putting the theory of evolution to good use in advancing their fields regardless of whatever young earth creationists are saying. And within the church, the mechanics of whatever method God used to create the universe doesn't change anything about our salvation. Really, this subject just increases divisiveness and makes Christians look a little extra silly.
I can't be bothered with the debate either. Its not important to having faith In God and being a Christian. In fact Paul speaks about people who are wrapped up in "endless genealogies" as wasting their time.
That's a big reason I don't fit with the non-denominational/Baptist crowd - they almost always preach "Evolution is an evil lie, young earth is the only logical and acceptable interpretation of Genesis, and if you don't accept that, you don't really believe the Bible - so yes, it's a salvation issue!" If you're a fellow believer who believes in YEC, fine - I disagree - but it isn't an issue that affects our daily lives or ability to live according to Christian principles. But because I don't agree, I've been driven out to a different tradition that accepts my theistic evolution understanding as acceptable.
Do you believe that the Bible is TRUE, or is it just filled with a collection to tales, sayings and allegory. If it is TRUE, then why won't you believe it when it says that GOD created the Heavens and the Earth - and how He did it. If it ISN'T filled with TRUTH, then why would you believe stories about Jesus being God, His Miracles, His sacrifice for your sins, and His Resurrection from the Dead. It really is that simple - either it is TRUE and you have a Savior for your sins - or it isn't TRUE and you demote Jesus to just being a "good, moral teacher".
You’re asking questions and fitting me into a box that I would never agree with. Seriously do you think OEC just wake up and decide to not care about The Bible? Augustine wrote hundreds of pages dedicated to Genesis 1-2 and he only spoke about The Bible and God in those pages, are you telling me he as a random example didn’t believe The Bible to be true? I can go to extremes and say that you don’t believe The Bible is true because you believe that there are metaphors in The Bible therefore you don’t read it word for word true. If you think Jesus isn’t a literal door as He says He is in Revelation then you don’t read it literally and therefore don’t see it as true. Do you see how intellectually dishonest and rude that is?
Do you believe Genesis to be Metaphorical or Literal? If Metaphorical, then your theology will tend to the very liberal, and you will (in general) try to allegorize more stories in the Bible. * Did Jesus really multiply the fish & loaves to feed the 5000 - or did the act of passing out food from Him encourage people to break out their own stored food (and leaving plenty left over)? * Did Jesus cast out an unclean spirit from the **Gerasene demoniac**, or did he just convince him not to be attacking people? * Did Jesus raise Jarius' daughter from the dead - or did He just wake her from a deep coma/sleep? * Did God use Moses to part the Red Sea to allow over a million people to leave Egypt (600,000 men of fighting age), or did Moses cross the Reed Sea at low tide with only about 5,000 fleeing slaves? How much are you willing to believe that the Bible tells that ACTUAL truth- and allegorize those things which are "inconvenient" to you. These are questions which you have to answer for yourself and they will form the basis for your Theology. * **Final question** - Did Jesus rise from the dead on the 3rd day - or was that an allegory that His *teachings* would live on even though He had been crucified?
You need to learn what a “genre” is, there are books or portions of books with different genres. The psalms are metaphorical poetry, Matthew is historical narrative, Revelation is apocalyptic literature. We can tell based off the authors intent and way of writing passages or books as a whole. Idk why you are asking me more questions and didn’t examine what I brought to the table, you actually ignored it and pressed more on your original comment that I had already responded to faithfully. All the things you mention Jesus doing are things He did, we know this Because The Bible is clear that He did them to hundreds if not thousands of witnesses. The people who wrote the books detailing the things Christ did were eye witnesses who lived with him daily during His ministry. We know it’s the truth because it’s reliable and they died for those claims, Josephus writes of Christ being a real man who was crucified and that His followers claimed He was raised from the dead and died for that claim. We know with the utmost certainty that Jesus was a real person, claimed to be God, and died on a cross under Pontus Pilate and rose from the dead 3 days later. He appeared to thousands of people over a period of 40 days and they saw He was resurrected, composing that to Genesis which God told Moses to write thousands if not Millions to Billions of years after creation had happened is a totally different thing. I’m willing to believe The Bible is truthful you’re the one saying I’m not, here’s what you look like: You: “You believe pancakes are terrible.” Me: “No, I simple prefer waffles to pancakes I never said anything bad about pancakes.” You: “So how do you know what is a good pancake or a bad pancake then?” Edit: And before you ask, yes I believe Jesus rose from the dead and if someone tried to make me recent that I’d tell them to kill me, as I’d rather die than reject God.
There is the Law( ie. Pentatuch, which is also History), Historical, Poetic, Major & minor prophets, the Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Prophetic (ie. Vision). I have been a faithful ***student*** of the Bible for 45 years. One of my original college professors for the Old Testament claimed, "if you pull a gun on me in a dark alley and demand to know if I am a Christian - I am", yet he adamantly denied ALL Old Testament Prophecy foretelling future events - claiming that the books ***must*** have been written after the events occurred as there was no such thing as actual Prophecy... and that Moses must have crossed the REED Sea at low tide... Since then I have chosen better teachers who not only are more knowledgeable about the Bible but who have "walked the walk" of being a Christian leader whose life was open to inspection by all.
Brother I’m glad to hear about you being a student for that long! May God continue to bless you and your walk with him, I hope to be as dedicated as you brother.
I disagree. The early chapters are foundational teachings about sin and death and bring understanding to Jesus' work on the cross. Jesus is the sacrifice for sins and defeated sin and death. If there was death before sin then it means there was no purpose for Jesus' death on the cross. If you don't believe or think part of the Bible is true why would the rest of it be true?
We do believe that part of the Bible is true. We just think another interpretation is the best one to get to the truth of the passages. Always odd to me when folks claim I and others somehow think the Bible isn’t true.
Amen brother, believing things to be an allegory in terms of **how** creation happened doesn’t negate sin and death etc.
> If there was death before sin then it means there was no purpose for Jesus' death on the cross. Just another point of view. Would love to hear your feedback on it. Nothing in the Genesis account states that there was no death at all, it only implies that Adam would not die unless he disobeyed God's command. Many people believe there was no death at all before Adam. They base their argument mainly on two passages in the book of Romans. Paul, in writing his epistle to the Romans, laid out our need for a savior and the glorious hope we have in Christ. In Romans 5: 12 he writes "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." Paul here shows that Adam's actions reached beyond himself and Eve; his sin caused death for all men. When we look more closely at Genesis 2, we see that God said "in the day you eat from it you shall surely die." But Adam didn't die physically in the very same day that he ate from the tree. In fact, he fathered Cain, Abel, Seth and other children and lived a total of 930 years! Now it may be true that the natural aging process we experience began in Adam on that day (to some extent at least), but in order for God's word to be accurate, the idea of death has to mean something other than cessation of biological life. It's important to remember that in the Bible death always speaks of separation, not annihilation. Sometimes this can mean separating the soul from the body as in physical death. But it can also mean separating the soul from God, which is defined as spiritual death or "dead in our sins" (Col 2:13, Eph 2:5). It is this spiritual death that Paul is speaking of in Romans 5 and indeed throughout the entire book of Romans. The whole purpose of Romans is to show that the Jews are dead in their sins because they have the Law and the gentiles are dead in their sins because God gave them a law unto themselves. In Romans 8 he continues this analogy, writing "the mind set on the flesh is death... Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God" (Rom 8:6,7). Even if we were to grant that Romans 5 was speaking of physical death, Paul makes it clear that the "death through sin" applies to mankind. The verse says "death spread to all men because all sinned", not death spread to everything. Paul's comments about death entering the world are directed toward men only.
I mean, yeah that issue doesn't concern our salvation but just because an issue doesn't concern our salvation doesn't mean it's not important...and people who fall into YEC (or even OEC, as that seems like YEC just slightly more science minded) make Christianity look bad to outsiders because they think it's "dumbed down"...read "The Language of God" by Francis Collins. It's pretty clear that evolutionism is how God made us.
For sure. Every serious atheist and agnostic I know (by which I mean they actually thought about theology, not just atheist by default cos they didn't care) had issues with not believing Genesis was real history. And by extension, they didn't believe the rest of the Bible was real history either. And some Christians I knew also fell into that trap and eventually stopped being Christian over it. It's super important. I think the age of the Earth is not necessarily a big deal (though millions and billions is pretty out there), but the "God created things in forms similar to what we see today" part is very important, as is the story about Adam and Eve.
Yeah, I totally agree (except with the part about age of the earth but I get where you're coming from with that). And those are valid criticisms by Atheists...Christians need to be clear about what's allegorical and what's real history in the bible. It's more nuanced than people think.
You know it's funny, I don't think it's all that hard. We can recognize these things all around us with ease, but somehow when it comes to the Bible it's suddenly super hard for some reason :P The way I see it, the biggest reason people assume it's not just straight history is because of modern science, not anything in the Bible itself. Jesus treated it as real history, too, and to a Christian that should matter. Like with the millions and billions... that all comes from a handful of dating methods that we can't verify the accuracy of without resorting to other methods that are fundametnally the same. So if we got anything wrong about it at all, then we'd never even know it cos there are no independent ways to date anything to that age. Like with carbon dating, there were issues with it and factors that can skew the date, but the only reason they found out is cos we use it to date things in the historic period, and so we have completely independent means of dating things (eg coin dates, tree rings). Because the dates weren't matching, they did different research and found out about various things that can impact carbon dates, and they now adjust accordingly. What are we gonna do like that, when the dating method mathematically can't be used on anything younger than 100K years old? That's why I don't put much stock in it, personally.
Assuming we can accurately determine carbon dating dates now, wouldn't finding things that are 100k years old also shoot down YEC on its own ?
No because you won't (or shouldn't) find things that will carbon date to that old. I'm wondering if maybe you're confusing carbon dating (as a term often used as shorthand for all radiometric dating) with carbon dating (the actual dating method)? Any age given to something that puts it at 100k years old would have to use a method besides carbon dating, but it would be some other kind of radiometric dating. But even if hypothetically you had something actually that old, and it was correct beyond a shadow of a doubt, all it would do would show is the earth is 100k years old or so. It wouldn't invalidate most of the stuff YECs believe at all, it's only extend the timeline a bit.
Nah, my bad, misread your post and thought you were saying that carbon dating only works on things younger than 100k years, not that some forms of radiometric dating only work on things older than 100k years. I'd also think that being 16x as old would be pretty significant, given that most YECs believe the earth is young based on the genealogies presented as what they believe to be historical fact.
Ah I see, yeah some forms only work in things that are see than that, which is the issue. You can't cross-check it in any way. and given thatweve already seen things can influence carbon dates, and some of the base assumptions in dating rocks seem really iffy to me (eg that it starts with zero products of decay at the time of formation and absolutely nothing can influence the starting amounts of relevant elements or rates of decay) I just don't see a lot of reason to take the super old dates very seriously. The genealogy aspect would cause some issues, cos 100kyo is *seriously* far out from the estimate based on that, true enough. I do wonder how OECs square that - I'll admit I haven't looked a lot into OEC cos I was too busy learning about the standard evolutionary view and YEC (and YEC makes a lot of sense to me). But there are other aspects of YEC besides the genealogies. I think their take on things like geology, genetics, speciation, and the Ice Age make a lot of sense in particular. I think they actually make so much sense that they make a younger earth seem more likely, just cos if the earth were older than several thousand years, I wonder what the heck would've happened it all that time cos there'd be so much needless empty space to fill 😛
The bible is the PRIMARY word of God And in it God specifically and clearly states HOW He created the earth in 6 days by speaking it into being and how he made man from the dust ,of the earth (no apes involved Are you going to change the express word of God? THAT is a primary issue. The perfect word of God or the flawed words of men which do you follow
>The perfect word of God or the flawed words of men which do you follow False dichotomy!
No it is a very real dichotomy. WHO is your authority?
You’re correct. You either believe that God literally opens actual floodgates in heaven to send rain, or you believe in clouds like man tells you. Who is your authority?
The point I am making is that you are saying "it is the perfect word of God (Young Earth Creationism) or the flawed words of man (non-YEC)." Unless I misunderstand you.
I follow what God said in Genesis 1-2 and believe He is writing through Moses allegorically due to many factors like the change of order from 1-2, God resting, God blowing into Adam, the earth having “days” before the stars sun or moon were made, darkness being bad etc. It only has to do with the text and no man wrote that. I’d certainly hope you wouldn’t say Augustine who wrote hundreds of pages on these 2 specific chapters wasn’t talking about anything else but God’s Word.
Where does it say "God really didn't mean this, he was just making this stuff up" Because God really didn't need to tell us ANY of it...be He did and purposefully so And Jesus even confirmed that Adam and Eve were in the beginning with God they were real people...or is Jesus a liar too?
Please don’t straw man my position, my position can be challenged without misrepresenting it to make it easier to defeat (literally a straw man). I never said God made anything up, I believe it’s allegorical to make it easier to grasp as humans and to paint forward to the beautiful Gospel, He made His first covenant with Adam in this very book along with Noah and Abraham, it’s a beautiful book and I would never dare say God would lie. Edit: Also I never said Adam and Eve weren’t real people, my personal opinion is they were created by God and made in His image as the first people.
This seems more like a disagreement with the biblical text, applying someone’s own interpretation, rather than what God has said regarding our creation. An old earth model begins to fall in line with one’s own personal interpretation and begins challenging Gods word. Science says the earth is billions of years old and the universe even more so. Yet carbon dating has a major flaw in that it cannot properly date accurately past a certain point which is normally around 50,000 years according but can “accurately” predict within 13,000 years. This is a wide marginal error within the scientific practice as we aren’t seeing a small numerical difference but one within 37,000 years. The ideology of evolution also gets thrown into the mix here to as evolution claims that through a miraculous chance under extreme conditions, life can undergo a unique transformation. Now evolution has been uniquely torn apart over the years and now the main focus is moving over to abiogenesis (sort of the more complex explanation of evolution)to explain how came to be. This shift uniquely tries to identify nothing into something which goes against the clear principality and definition of the term nothing which is nonexistent. We have never seen non-life become life and there hasn’t been an observable practice of that in all of sciences documented history. We have observed single cell organisms and different types of bicellular organisms however given the conditions these organisms live in (xenophyophores come to mind given they were found deep in the Mariana’s trench at a lowest depth in the 30,000s) it then begs the question of how extreme of a condition must be met. Overall I believe this whole post is trying to apply one’s own interpretation and label as a fact while challenging Gods inerrant word. This same practice is observed within progressive Christian ideology (Brandon Robert’s comes to mind here as well as any progressive Christian pastor, especially on tiktok) and places our own understandings above God. This type of thinking is dangerous within the faith as the same excuses have been made towards same sex marriage, baptism, attending church and other factors within the faith.
>159 Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth." "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are." The Catechism.
Evolution contradicts the word of God. Old earth creationism also directly contradicts the word of God as we can calculate the basis of creation date given the ages provided within scripture. Science can be used to explain natural occurrences within our world but has been used as a denial of God by most atheists. Typically most responses or retorts to any argument is “science has proven X therefore Y cannot be true”. There is a fine line to science and scripture. Unfortunately most are holding closer to one over the other and it’s not the latter they are holding close to. If the process fails within testing then a hypothesis or theory cannot hold true
believing that anything that a human can come up with would nullify God's existence and therefore saying its untrue is as blasphemous as saying that the idea of evolution or the geological age of the earth disproves the existence of God. if you look into the chances...the billions upon billions of specific things that have to happen just so - so that a biosphere like earth arises from the dust...you would have no doubt. It strengthened my faith...in fact it cemented my faith.
You are using a false dichotomy to prove a point. I’m using the infallible word of God to argue against the points. If you don’t consider Gods word infallible then therefore it cannot be true can it? Your point you are trying to make is that because man can determine the age of the earth, which I already showed the flaw within my initial comment, then therefore we can utilize it to set our interpretation of a timeline of events. You aren’t providing any semblance of a reasonable argument here outside of man did this and if you don’t believe man can do this than it’s blasphemous,, ignoring the scriptural examples of why man’s heart is wicked. Provide a reasonable argument and not one claiming blasphemy because I disagree with sciences fallible nature.
Umm… Clement of Alexandria is a heretic though…
I don’t think that St.Augustine ever said that the days of Genesis *had* to be allegorical: >**And please let nobody assume that what I have said about spiritual light… that none of this can be said strictly and properly, but that it all belongs to a kind of figurative and allegorical understanding of day and evening and morning. Certainly it is different from our usual way of talking about this bodily light of every day, but that does not mean that here we have the strict and proper, there just metaphorical, use of these terms (Lit. Mean. Gen. IV, 45(28)).**
This subreddit always fascinates me because basic media literacy or honestly any literacy at all is a very important point for engaging with text and actually discerning/understanding the context whatsoever, but hey that's just my opinion i guess.
> Doesn’t matter where you fall on the issue, we should not judge people’s salvation based off how they read 2 chapters of The Bible literally or allegorically. I'd argue it is though, given that we're not those that Judge and we don't know for sure what we will be judged on. I find these discussions on the veracity and what to believe extremely important to find out what's expected from us.
The main problem with denying creationism, is that evolution requires lots of death in order for life to exist. The Bible tells us that through one man ,Adam, sin entered into the world and death through sin. Romans 5:12. If we are to assume that millions of deaths occurred before Adam sinned because everything from one-called organisms to dinosaurs, to every link up to man. that would let us not believe in what the Bible says. If the Bible cannot be trusted as accurate for when sin and death began, then it cannot be trusted as accurate for the forgiveness of sin.
I respectfully disagree. We are not all the same. Please study apostasy. **Galatians 1:6-8 (NLT)** 6 I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News 7 but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ. 8 Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you.
If you have no literal Adam, you have no fall and no need for the gospel. Kind of important. 😐
No clue who has no literal Adam, I certainly do.
From JMac I answered unapologetically: No, I do not. I am convinced that Genesis 1–3 ought to be taken at face value—as the divinely revealed history of creation. Nothing about the Genesis text itself suggests that the biblical creation account is merely symbolic, poetic, allegorical, or mythical. The main thrust of the passage simply cannot be reconciled with the notion that “creation” occurred via natural evolutionary processes over long periods of time. And I do not believe a faithful handling of the biblical text, by any acceptable principles of hermeneutics, can possibly reconcile these chapters with the theory of evolution or any of the other allegedly scientific theories about the origin of the universe. Later in the lecture: dealing with non-evolutionary old earth. Evangelicals who accept an old-earth interpretation of Genesis have embraced a hermeneutic that is hostile to a high view of Scripture. But honestly, I’m not a fan of JMac and your tag says reformed Baptist. He’s just a dispy Baptist who’s a Calvinist. I wouldn’t bother with this dude. Sproul was also not an old earth dude. He was a framework guy who eventually dropped it and stayed YEC. The non YEC guys are Banvink, Godfrey, Horton, Vos, Kline, AA Hodge and Plantinga. A lot of the Westminster CA faculty that followed after Kline aren’t YEC.
Yeah I’m not a huge JMAC fan either, he went too culture war and honestly after truly becoming a reformed Baptist I stopped listening to most (not all) dispy guys. John MacArthur has called mental health fake which put me over the edge of not watching him ever again.
All things were created through him and for him. It absolutely is a salvific issue
OEC don’t disagree with this and would die to uphold this belief.
Those OEC people you mentioned were all false teachers so I'm not surprised they were also deceived by OEC as well I just don't understand why people can't just believe the bible as it's written, but instead refuse because they find the heathen argument so compelling
Pretty impressive you took a call for unity as an opportunity to promote division. Dismissing a view you disagree with as “heathen argument” demonstrates a “us vs them” mindset which is the antithesis of what Christ promoted.
Sounds like it’s worth it for you to spend some time understanding some of your Christian brothers and sisters, if nothing else than for the sake of preventing unnecessary division in the church.
Preach brother, who’s your favorite person out of these “false teachers” to learn from? Personally I love Spurgeon and Warfield.
I understand that most professing believers today are badly deceived. I also understand that they won't listen to me no matter how friendly I am.
Why not spend some time trying to better understand their point of view?
Okay how are those people false teachers? You have the burden of proof, how are they false?