True science and true religion agree together.

[Clete]

Crete, I agree with much that you say. But I am not trying to reconcile a biblical worldview with an atheistic one, but with what true science says. These reconcile perfectly as will come out later in the thread.

There is no true science that agrees with the day-age interpretation of Genesis. There is no true religion that agrees with a universe that is billions of years old. Any such position IS the fruit of an attempt to reconcile the atheistic standard model/big-bang cosmology with something that resembles a biblical worldview. In reality it is a perturbation of both or one might call it a bastardization of the two. What you're left with is worse than what you started with.

As for true science agreeing with true religion, the whole premise is a tautology. What is true is true, whether its scientific or religious or whatever but two worldviews who's fundamental premises are in contradiction to each other cannot be made to agree except on an occasional detail and even then by accident. A naturalistic worldview cannot be made to agree with a worldview that acknowledges the supernatural. The atheistic cannot be made to agree with the theistic. One is false.

What you are really saying isn't about science as a worldview but as a method of investigation. What you're saying is that theism is true and more specifically, biblical theism is true, and even more specifically, your implication at least is that your particular brand of biblical theism is true and that therefore it will stand up to the scientific method of cosmological investigation. The problem, I submit, is that you've, essentially, jumped the scientific gun. There is no scientific nor biblical reason to accept the day-age theory. The only people who believe in that nonsense (if you don't mind my frankness) are people who are afraid of what the bible clearly states. By "afraid" I mean that they are afraid that what the bible states won't/can't stand up to scientific scrutiny and so you hedge you bets by accepting what you think is an acceptable middle ground. The effect being that you've loaded the dice in favor of what you think is a scientific worldview but that is actually an atheistic one. Any atheist with any debate skills at all will tear you to ribbons before realize you're even in jeopardy of losing the debate because you've conceded his premise (and contradicted your own) just by stating your own position.

In short, if you're going to have a cosmology that is both scientific and biblical, the atheistic theories about the age of the universe won't survive the process because the bible flatly states that God created everything in six days...

Exodus 20:11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Exodus 31:17 It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.’”​

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Zeke]

Allegorical or symbology portrayed by flesh and blood doesn't negate the Spiritual substance they are casting a shadow of Galatians 4:24-28, the kingdom being none observable to the first born of the flesh Galatians 4:1, Luke 17:20-21 throws a monkey wrench into both sides that rest their foundations on time and observable history that keeps the church going converts stuck in Matt 11:11 mode never finding the truth that is dormant within Matt 11:3 which is the traditional mantra that pretends to understand Spiritual truth but can't rightly divide 2Cor 3:6.

 

[Clete]

No. That is what science theorizes.

The believer need not assume the burden here. Scientific theories are moving targets. To say that science must have the final word is to make an unscientific statement. Science is an open canon, therefore contradiction is to be expected. We expect no contradiction in Scripture because it is a closed canon. What Scripture says it has always said and will always say. Again, science is an open canon. It has said things which it no longer says and what it says today may yet be changed. The believer must allow the Bible to say what it says. Whatever one thinks about physics, astronomy, or any other science, he has no right to impose his unproven, ever advancing scientific explanations on Scripture and make Scripture say something other than what Scripture says.

The epistemic limitation of scientific discovery is that first, it is limited to natural phenomena. Secondly, it is bound to observable fact. Thirdly, is only ever descriptive, never explanatory. Fourthly, deals with probability. Fifthly, is always open to re-evaluation.

With these limitations we can accept everything natural science teaches. The fact that it conflicts with the plain teaching of God's word does not require us to adopt a pseudo-science or to re-evaluate God's word in the light of it. Sarah's womb was dead and Sarah had a child in her old age. The two facts conflict with each other. Both are legitimately maintained in the belief that God calleth those things which be not as though they were.

Some serious hermeneutical hopscotch is needed to deny the literal meaning of days in Exodus 20:11.
- The ordinance of the Sabbath is now doubtful if six days is not literal.
- If the first Adam is allegorical, then the second Adam is, too?
- A literal Adam is required in Romans.
- The Apostle clearly described Adam as the first human sinner—not whatever millions of human-like beings in the presumed evolutionary chain.
- Death came through Adamic sin, an explanation from Scripture that is cast aside in the notion of millions of years of death and destruction prior to Adam assumed by evolution.

AMR

This has got to be the most I've ever agreed with AMR. He's wrong about science never being explanatory and his allusion to Romans 4:17 is erroneous but aside from that, he's nailed it with this post. You can't just figure out a way to make the bible say what you want to hear and agree with something else that you find more credible than the plain reading of the text. If you're going to do that, you might as well be a Calvinist or - a - that is - I mean - a Branch Davidian - yeah - that's what I meant!

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[genuineoriginal]

I agree with you that in six literal days God recreated the heavens and the earth, and rested on the seventh literal day. But this was a recreation.

Proof of this is in the following two verses using the word "replenish".
Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 9:1
And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

Noah was told to replenish the earth after it had been emptied. Why would God tell Adam and Eve to replenish the earth if it had not had life before them?

You are assuming that KJV got it right with translating מָלָא into replenish in seven verses. Does that mean the one hundred and seven times מָלָא is translated as fill by the KJV are all wrong?

 

[iouae]

No. That is what science theorizes.

The believer need not assume the burden here. Scientific theories are moving targets. To say that science must have the final word is to make an unscientific statement. Science is an open canon, therefore contradiction is to be expected. We expect no contradiction in Scripture because it is a closed canon. What Scripture says it has always said and will always say. Again, science is an open canon. It has said things which it no longer says and what it says today may yet be changed. The believer must allow the Bible to say what it says. Whatever one thinks about physics, astronomy, or any other science, he has no right to impose his unproven, ever advancing scientific explanations on Scripture and make Scripture say something other than what Scripture says.
AMR

AMR you are so wrong in saying this.

The Bible is as much open to interpretation as science is.
Science sees light from far distant stars, knows that light travels at a fixed speed and DEDUCES that the universe MUST BE extremely old. There seems no other explanation till, maybe in the future one comes along.

Obviously the writer of the Bible, God, had an exact thought in mind when He wrote "And the earth was/became without form and void". The word "was/became" is open to interpretation. Did God create the earth a mess, or did it become a mess, which He then took 6 days to fix. I say the latter. I say that based on the fossil record which shows many and varied colonies of animals and plants living on earth before Adam and Eve, and with whom Adam and Eve would not have lasted a week. Even the folks in Jurassic park with electric fences, land rovers, guns, concrete buildings and what have you would have struggled to survive. God did not banish Adam and Eve from the garden to go dwell among T rex and Triceratops.

Thus the one (science) informs the other (Bible interpretation). Or one can just refuse to listen to both witnesses and come across as ignorant to whichever witness you ignore.

 

[iouae]

You are assuming that KJV got it right with translating מָלָא into replenish in seven verses. Does that mean the one hundred and seven times מָלָא is translated as fill by the KJV are all wrong?

Someone previously pointed this out. You and they are right. The word means "fill" or "replenish", but "fill" is the more common meaning. I wonder why the KJV translators so far back actually got it right by using "replenish"?

 

[iouae]

There is no true science that agrees with the day-age interpretation of Genesis.

Clete I DON'T espouse the day-age interpretation of Genesis. I espouse the gap between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2 of billions of years. Or, equally alternatively, to go to your last quotes....

Exodus 20:11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Exodus 31:17 It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.’”​

Genesis is describing how God made THIS AGE'S earth, THIS AGE'S sea AND THIS AGE'S all that in them is. The first books of Genesis are describing how God created the creatures of the Holocene. This Geological Age had completely different heavens, earth and sea to previous Geological Ages. For instance the canopy of water vapour in the heavens, completely different earth (continents joined - Pangea in the past) and completely different animals such as dinosaurs comprising "all that in them (the heavens, earth, waters) is.

I seamlessly go between science and the Bible to fill in the blanks which the other leaves out.

And the Bible says that God replenished the current age's flora and fauna in 6 days, 6000 years ago, so thats when I believe the Holocene or most recent geological Age of Man began.

 

[Ktoyou]

AMR you are so wrong in saying this.

The Bible is as much open to interpretation as science is.
Science sees light from far distant stars, knows that light travels at a fixed speed and DEDUCES that the universe MUST BE extremely old. There seems no other explanation till, maybe in the future one comes along.

Obviously the writer of the Bible, God, had an exact thought in mind when He wrote "And the earth was/became without form and void". The word "was/became" is open to interpretation. Did God create the earth a mess, or did it become a mess, which He then took 6 days to fix. I say the latter. I say that based on the fossil record which shows many and varied colonies of animals and plants living on earth before Adam and Eve, and with whom Adam and Eve would not have lasted a week. Even the folks in Jurassic park with electric fences, land rovers, guns, concrete buildings and what have you would have struggled to survive. God did not banish Adam and Eve from the garden to go dwell among T rex and Triceratops.

Thus the one (science) informs the other (Bible interpretation). Or one can just refuse to listen to both witnesses and come across as ignorant to whichever witness you ignore.

You must be a cuckoo bird.:chew: You, arguing with AMR about theology, is like a dirt farmer arguing with a doctor why he does not really need a life saving operation.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

AMR you are so wrong in saying this.

The Bible is as much open to interpretation as science is.
Science sees light from far distant stars, knows that light travels at a fixed speed and DEDUCES that the universe MUST BE extremely old. There seems no other explanation till, maybe in the future one comes along.

Please stop appealing to science in order to interpret Scripture all the while ignoring the theological hopscotch required to support your old earth view that I have pointedly noted.

That vast stellar distances seem contradict the plain reading of Scripture should lead us to question the vast distances versus trying to force the Bible to conform to extra-Biblical theories.

As to your "fossil record" I would begin by pointing out there is no "record," and whatever we have it is not singular. The plan of systematization has an agenda, and this agenda has no science to support it. The "fossil record" is an imaginary ladder of sedimentary rock layers which is not found completely anywhere on the world. In many places whole layers are missing, or are out of order. You can find "young" layers resting on bedrock with supposed billions of years missing. The "record" does not exist. There is no "geologic column," as you may have seen it in dinosaur books, going from Cambrian, Ordivician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Palaeocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, etc.

While there were a few fossils to support the myth of prehistoric creatures they were able to hold people on the edge of their seats waiting for more discoveries to prove the "record." As each piece came to hand it kept filling out the "record," but the "record" itself had never actually been substantiated. The evidence has not been researched to prove a "record," but is merely added to the "record" in a schematic way so as to give the impression of undeniable evidence.

The dinosaur fascination is a little like the bearded lady at the circus. That some scientists use the fascination to bolster their theories is unimpressive from a rational point of view.

YEC's are at least keeping some of the paleontologists honest by offering critique which forces them to be more stringent. But yes, it is pseudoscience when the behemoths and dragons of the Bible are turning up in the so-called "fossil record" when there is nothing in the fossils to demonstrate it.

Science is not explanatory unless it grants God is.

Consider that science is based on observation. Consider further that nobody has observed the creation of the earth or all that lives on it. Knowing that these observations were never made and that science still makes conclusions about these unobserved events proves that they are working from some kind of presuppositional framework.

The Christian witness should not be associated with the transient theories of an ever changing world and thereby be discredited. Its witness is higher than men. Nor should "data" be squeezed into paradigms which only serve to filter the information the paradigm is comfortable with. From a philosophical point of view, Out of nothing, nothing comes. Without creation one has to suppose nothing exists or that everything always existed. Science is impossible without creation and creation is a fact of special revelation.

Creation is not the thing that is revealed, but "the invisible things of him;" and it is revealed "by the things that are made," that is, creation is the instrument of general revelation. Creation itself can only be understood by faith, as Hebrews 11 teaches. Creation is not contrary to reason, but it is certainly above reason, and can only be accepted and appreciated on the basis of the divine testimony.

AMR

 

[iouae]

There is no true religion that agrees with a universe that is billions of years old. Any such position IS the fruit of an attempt to reconcile the atheistic standard model/big-bang cosmology with something that resembles a biblical worldview. In reality it is a perturbation of both or one might call it a bastardization of the two. What you're left with is worse than what you started with.

What you call a "bastardisation" turns out to be a thing of truth and hence, great beauty. I hope you will be open a little to at least find out what I am truly saying.

As for true science agreeing with true religion, the whole premise is a tautology. What is true is true, whether its scientific or religious or whatever but two worldviews who's fundamental premises are in contradiction to each other cannot be made to agree except on an occasional detail and even then by accident.

I can't believe how wrong you are in saying this. Pure science (forget the theory of the Big Bang or Theory of Evolution) are as true as the Bible. If God stretches out the heavens, and we find the heavens are being stretched out, then we know we are on the right track. Or if God says He sits on the circle of the earth, and the earth is a circle, then we know we are right. The two, science and the Bible are a happy couple.

A naturalistic worldview cannot be made to agree with a worldview that acknowledges the supernatural. The atheistic cannot be made to agree with the theistic. One is false.

Sure, science is a pig when it denies God and says everything evolved. But when science fills in what the Bible refuses to speak about, the pre-history of the earth, then who would not want to know where dinosaur bones fit in. They certainly fit nowhere into the Bible narrative. Humans did not walk with dinosaurs. To believe so, makes one Steven Spielberg and science fiction.

What you are really saying isn't about science as a worldview but as a method of investigation. What you're saying is that theism is true and more specifically, biblical theism is true, and even more specifically, your implication at least is that your particular brand of biblical theism is true and that therefore it will stand up to the scientific method of cosmological investigation.

Yes, yes, YES!

The problem, I submit, is that you've, essentially, jumped the scientific gun. There is no scientific nor biblical reason to accept the day-age theory.

That's why I don't accept the day-age theory, because it IS rubbish.

The only people who believe in that nonsense (if you don't mind my frankness) are people who are afraid of what the bible clearly states. By "afraid" I mean that they are afraid that what the bible states won't/can't stand up to scientific scrutiny and so you hedge you bets by accepting what you think is an acceptable middle ground.

Because what you said doesn't apply to me, I certainly don't mind your frankness.

I accept no middle ground. Truth is solid ground, and both the Bible and true science are devoted to this unshakeable ground, wherever it may be found.

The effect being that you've loaded the dice in favor of what you think is a scientific worldview but that is actually an atheistic one.

You must have really hated science at school to so glibly equate true science with atheism. Science, like breakfast cereal is neutral. It is not anti God or pro-God. Its only interested in finding out the truth. True there are practitioners who have no interest in the truth. I sat for years under lecturers trying to pump me full of evolution, and I resisted them since I wanted to know more about science and biology IRRESPECTIVE of their foolishness.

Any atheist with any debate skills at all will tear you to ribbons before realize you're even in jeopardy of losing the debate because you've conceded his premise (and contradicted your own) just by stating your own position.

Atheists and I get along fine. I miss those old atheists with whom I used to have stand-up fights on Michael Cadry's interminable thread, which name of which thread I forget, but I think it was about evolution.

In short, if you're going to have a cosmology that is both scientific and biblical, the atheistic theories about the age of the universe won't survive the process because the bible flatly states that God created everything in six days...

God created the creatures of the Holocene in six days, 6000 years ago. Some creatures from the Age of the Dinosaurs, such as crocodiles may not have needed re-creating since they survived the last mass extinction which left the earth "without form and void" and with water covering the land. Certainly the Coelacanths and fishes probably survived from the Pleistocene through the mass extinction event which preceded the creation of man on earth.

 

[iouae]

if I had to ask you what you are going to be doing for the next billions of years in God's kingdom, all I would get are stony stares and feeble attempts at an answer, such as ...

float on a cloud and play a harp...
stare at the divine visage for all eternity...
walk the streets of gold....

I come up blank and so will you.

Does it not strike you as strange that in a book as big as the Bible, you have no clue what you are striving for, especially since you will be doing whatever that is, forever??

And the future really is IMPORTANT to you, and really DOES concern you, and yet God says so little about it.

How much less do you think God considers it important to tell you what was going on before, in pre-history.
God does not have to tell you about the past, and He does not.

Luckily, the earth is God's shed, or workshop, and God does not bother to clean up very well after his experiments on earth.

He may experiment with Homo habilis, or Homo erectus, or Homo Neanderthalensis or with dinosaurs, and when He gets tired of them, he floods the "shed" and wipes the workbench clean ready for the next project, which happens to be project Adam and Eve and salvation. He has been involved with this project for 6000 years.

And He has already warned us that the shed will be cleaned at Christ's coming, and once more at the end of the Millennium, when the shed will be cauterised with fire. God has a long history of science experiments and we are fortunate enough to find the remains of these experiments as bones in rock.

We are particularly fascinated with the phase God went through from 125 million years ago till 65 million years ago, when God tried to see what was the biggest and baddest land animal He could build. Having found out, and growing tired of these, God went back to creating cute and cuddly, furry, small and weak but pretty creatures such as we see today.

And weakest of all is man. Put us in the arena and we just get eaten. But Hollywood has an OBSESSION with making man stronger with Ironman, and Superman, and Marvel, and Wonderwoman and... and... because like God, we are going through a similar fetish of wondering what it might be like to have superpowers, or be super-strong.

Look at the Fast and Furious type movies where cars are crashing all around, people fall off buildings and stand up etc. God made us so weak for His purpose. I postulate that the Neanderthals were TOO STRONG, TOO brainy, so God dumbed them down and weakened them, because He wants sheep, not Marvels.

I postulate that God tried out various types of Hominids, growing their brain size, growing their vocal capacity, growing their dexterity and bipedal skills and watching how they might react to Him. Too strong and they would be independent. Too weak and they might die out.

Even man living for 900 years as before the flood gave them a sense of immortality and invincibility, and with that came no need for a Creator. After all, they already were like supermen, and 900 years FEELS LIKE living forever. Like Enoch, I would be begging God to let me die already.

... just thinking aloud.

 

[chair]

Not sure what you mean by that, you should speak plainly, Christians have been given a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline not fear and timidity. Jesus believed in an Earth that was only 4000 years old in His time:

Matthew 19:4
"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

beginning
noun
the point in time or space at which something begins.

So do you think Jesus was lying, mistaken or telling the truth?

I was quoting an earlier post.

The verse you brought form Matthew doesn't say anything at all about Jesus' view of the age of the earth. Neither does the verse from genesis, for that matter.

If Jesus thought the world was 4,000 years old (at his time)- he was mistaken.

 

[iouae]

You must be a cuckoo bird.:chew: You, arguing with AMR about theology, is like a dirt farmer arguing with a doctor why he does not really need a life saving operation.

Thanks, I will bear that in mind.

 

[iouae]

Please stop appealing to science in order to interpret Scripture all the while ignoring the theological hopscotch required to support your old earth view that I have pointedly noted.

Yet all the evidence is for an old earth. And if Gen 1:2 is correctly translated as "And the earth BECAME without form and void" [NIV] then science and religion are in harmony, and we can all pack up and go home.

That vast stellar distances seem contradict the plain reading of Scripture should lead us to question the vast distances versus trying to force the Bible to conform to extra-Biblical theories.

Wow - that is straight out of the Dark Ages. Do you still sell indulgences?

As to your "fossil record" I would begin by pointing out there is no "record," and whatever we have it is not singular. The plan of systematization has an agenda, and this agenda has no science to support it. The "fossil record" is an imaginary ladder of sedimentary rock layers which is not found completely anywhere on the world. In many places whole layers are missing, or are out of order. You can find "young" layers resting on bedrock with supposed billions of years missing. The "record" does not exist. There is no "geologic column," as you may have seen it in dinosaur books, going from Cambrian, Ordivician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Palaeocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, etc.

Well fantastic that you at least have heard of the fossil record. In fact it is pretty complete, and there are places where the geologic column is pretty complete, such as the Grand Canyon. And in most places in the world where there has been no disruption of the rocks, the same strata are found above the same strata everywhere. Like many here AMR, you have a (mistaken) disdain for science, to (mistakenly) protect your religious views. When the mistakes of both theologians and scientists are removed, science and the TRUE message of the Bible harmonise perfectly.

While there were a few fossils to support the myth of prehistoric creatures they were able to hold people on the edge of their seats waiting for more discoveries to prove the "record." As each piece came to hand it kept filling out the "record," but the "record" itself had never actually been substantiated. The evidence has not been researched to prove a "record," but is merely added to the "record" in a schematic way so as to give the impression of undeniable evidence.

As you say, there is much ignorance among palaeontologists and anthropologists. I have just finished reading books by Richard Leaky and Dawkins, and they are very often mistaken. But sometimes they are right, with the pure science parts.

The dinosaur fascination is a little like the bearded lady at the circus. That some scientists use the fascination to bolster their theories is unimpressive from a rational point of view.

Dinosaurs are interesting, and have to be explained. Where do they fit into your worldview. Did they walk with Adam and Eve? Did you watch Jurassic park, what would have happened if they did, and those folks had concrete, and electric fences and Land Rovers and Adam and Eve had.... er... a sheepskin.

YEC's are at least keeping some of the paleontologists honest by offering critique which forces them to be more stringent.

YEC are keeping palaeontologists (rightly) laughing at us.

But yes, it is pseudoscience when the behemoths and dragons of the Bible are turning up in the so-called "fossil record" when there is nothing in the fossils to demonstrate it.

Nobody seems to know which animal God was bragging to Job about. If it was a dinosaur, then God could brag to me about them and I would agree with God, that they really are impressive. And I have never seen one.

Science is not explanatory unless it grants God is.

Why do you lay that bottom line on science, as if science has one voice? I speak for my beliefs in science and the Bible and I acknowledge that both "are".

Consider that science is based on observation. Consider further that nobody has observed the creation of the earth or all that lives on it. Knowing that these observations were never made and that science still makes conclusions about these unobserved events proves that they are working from some kind of presuppositional framework.

Of course, and you are right. My one course in Philosophy of Science was all about teaching scientists that we are never neutral, but approach any question with inherent bias. Scientists are well aware of that. Are theologians?

The Christian witness should not be associated with the transient theories of an ever changing world and thereby be discredited. Its witness is higher than men. Nor should "data" be squeezed into paradigms which only serve to filter the information the paradigm is comfortable with.

I remember the word "paradigm" was used a lot in Philosophy of science. But here is where scientists are far more honest than most theologians and religious folks. They postulate something MAY be true. Then they look for evidence, knowing they are biased, so they have qualifiers like needing double blind tests and repeatability, able to predict etc. That is where Einstein has proven so right that theories like gravity waves are a 100 years later being found to exist. But science is prepared to abandon error when evidence proves it wrong, whereas religious types are closed minded to THEIR interpretation of the Bible. Would that religious types would consider their theological paradigm just a working document, not the truth, and be prepared to abandon error.

From a philosophical point of view, Out of nothing, nothing comes. Without creation one has to suppose nothing exists or that everything always existed. Science is impossible without creation and creation is a fact of special revelation.

Einstein postulated that out of nothing visible, the visible comes, as in E = mc2

What Paul says in Rom 1:20 is backed up by science.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

God turned energy from Himself (energy is invisible) into the visible matter. Power is work or energy, same thing divided by time. All invisible. So God's power or energy which is invisible was made into another form which is visible matter.

So when you say, "out of nothing, nothing comes", but out of God or energy (which is not nothing), something can come.

Creation is not the thing that is revealed, but "the invisible things of him;" and it is revealed "by the things that are made," that is, creation is the instrument of general revelation. Creation itself can only be understood by faith, as Hebrews 11 teaches. Creation is not contrary to reason, but it is certainly above reason, and can only be accepted and appreciated on the basis of the divine testimony.

AMR

I agree. The Creator should be better understood and worshiped by us recognising the marvels of His creation.

 

[WatchmanOnTheWall]

Like you Watchman, I like to take Bible words as literally as possible.

But when the Bible says "in the beginning", it does NOT always refer to the same point in time.

For instance...

Gen 1:1
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

This refers to the beginning of the creation of the material universe.

Pro 8:22
The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.

This beginning refers to BEFORE the creation of the material universe.

Jhn 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Jhn 1:2
The same was in the beginning with God.

This beginning refers to long before the creation of the material universe when not even the angels had been created as John goes on to say.

Heb 1:10
And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:

This beginning refers to the creation of the heavens, which was 13.75 billion years ago, and the foundation of the earth, refers to the fact that earth was a ball of matter which consolidated and only cooled 5 billion years ago when life began. The earth in other words had foundations in the making for 8.75 billion years. This is what science says and I don't find it disagrees with scripture which says earth had a foundation. A foundation is not the house, but precedes the house.

The Matt 19:4 one you quoted I believe refers to "at the beginning" when God created man, on the 6th day.

One last technicality. I know a little Hebrew. Hebrew has a definite article "ha" which is a suffix added at the start of a word when the writer means "the".

Genesis 1:1 starts "Bereshith...." which has no definite article. Most accurately it is not speaking of THE beginning but A beginning.
It could even mean "To begin". "Be" at the start of "Bereshith" could be one of many prepositions such as "to" or "in".

Thus it could even be saying "To begin - Gods created the heavens and the earth" meaning the beginning is the beginning of this story or book and not a specific beginning in time. As I say, my Hebrew is limited, but as far as I know this is the case.

We should at least agree that before the beginning there was no time, absolutely nothing existed but the trinity. However, you seem to think there are two beginnings? which is impossible as once time begins then that would become the beginning and Jesus said; 'in the beginning God created them male and female.' which refers to the creation week.

I think what we should address is the interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2 in regards to the Gap theory. Below is the literal translation from the Hebrew:

Genesis 1:1-2
1 In beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness [was] on the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.

http://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/1-1.htm

What was happening is that light had not been created yet, that happens after in the next verse. Therefore darkness (which God called night) was over the surface of the waters that surrounded the entire earth, because at this stage land of course had not been created (which happens in verse nine). Therefore the Earth was without form and void. So what is this 'without form and void' that has become the Gap theory.

http://biblehub.com/hebrew/8414.htm
#8414. tohu
Strong's Concordance
tohu: formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness
Original Word: תֹּ֫הוּ
Part of Speech: Noun Masculine
Transliteration: tohu
Phonetic Spelling: (to'-hoo)
Short Definition: waste
NAS Exhaustive Concordance
Word Origin
from an unused word
Definition
formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness

http://biblehub.com/hebrew/922.htm
#922. bohu
Strong's Concordance
bohu: emptiness
Original Word: בֹּ֫הוּ
Part of Speech: Noun Masculine
Transliteration: bohu
Phonetic Spelling: (bo'-hoo)
Short Definition: void
NAS Exhaustive Concordance
Word Origin
from an unused word
Definition
emptiness
NASB Translation
emptiness (1), void (2).

Also in another Interlinear translation http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/OTpdf/gen1.pdf its described as 'chaos and vacancy' so we can add that:

So putting all that together, God describes the earth as being formless and void which can also mean: confusion, unreality, waste, emptiness, chaos and vacancy.

Now there's nothing in any of those words that could be construed as a period of time let alone a period of time longer than a day. They are all words describing the condition of the Earth which was a vast ocean world and like any great ocean it can be just as described (btw there was no life in this ocean either):

confusion - such as the phrase; 'all at sea'
unreality - it's not where we are design to live, a different reality.
waste - nothing grows on or in this sea, there's not even land to stand on.
emptiness - there's miles and miles of nothing but ocean.
chaos - the wave toss and rage like a boiling cauldron, (poetically).
vacancy - there's just nothing there for us.

The Gap theory is just bunk.

 

[WatchmanOnTheWall]

I was quoting an earlier post.

The verse you brought form Matthew doesn't say anything at all about Jesus' view of the age of the earth. Neither does the verse from genesis, for that matter.

If Jesus thought the world was 4,000 years old (at his time)- he was mistaken.

You think Jesus was mistaken - that says it all.

 

[iouae]

We should at least agree that before the beginning there was no time, absolutely nothing existed but the trinity. However, you seem to think there are two beginnings? which is impossible as once time begins then that would become the beginning and Jesus said; 'in the beginning God created them male and female.' which refers to the creation week.

Watchman, lets discuss the issue of whether time exists in the spirit realm, as it does in our realm.

I take it you won't just accept that a thousand years is like a day to God - meaning its still time.

I define time to be testable if effect follows cause. For instance if God created Lucifer before the physical universe, meaning in the spirit realm, then the effect is Lucifer which follows the process of creation.

Let's see if we agree that at first there was just the Godhead.
Then God created angels.
Then God created the universe, with the "sons of God" singing for joy.
Then Lucifer had a bad thought and turned to Satan.
Then God threw Satan down to the already created world.

Surely if God created the angels, it shows a cause and effect in the spirit realm.
Before - no angels.
After - angels.
If there is a before and after, time existed before the universe.

 

[Jonahdog]

You think Jesus was mistaken - that says it all.

Pretty much.

 

[Clete]

Clete I DON'T espouse the day-age interpretation of Genesis. I espouse the gap between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2 of billions of years. Or, equally alternatively, to go to your last quotes....



Genesis is describing how God made THIS AGE'S earth, THIS AGE'S sea AND THIS AGE'S all that in them is. The first books of Genesis are describing how God created the creatures of the Holocene. This Geological Age had completely different heavens, earth and sea to previous Geological Ages. For instance the canopy of water vapour in the heavens, completely different earth (continents joined - Pangea in the past) and completely different animals such as dinosaurs comprising "all that in them (the heavens, earth, waters) is.

I seamlessly go between science and the Bible to fill in the blanks which the other leaves out.

And the Bible says that God replenished the current age's flora and fauna in 6 days, 6000 years ago, so thats when I believe the Holocene or most recent geological Age of Man began.

Yeah, okay, fine and dandy. The problem is that such a position is neither biblical nor scientific. You are, in effect, making it up as you go, twisting the bible to suit science when you think science is more credible than the bible and twisting science to suit the bible whenever your gut tells you too. The simple fact is that there is no good reason, scientific or biblical, to accept the notion of "geological ages" or the idea of a water vapor canopy and there certainly is no rational reason whatsoever to even entertain the notion that there was multiple creation events such as you suggest in this post.

What you want is to reject biblical cosmology without rejecting the bible. You want to eat your cake and have it too. It won't work. It can't work. Give it up. Either trust in God's word or reject it. The fence your attempting to sit on isn't a fence at all, it is a Spanish Donkey of your own making.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Clete]

What you call a "bastardisation" turns out to be a thing of truth and hence, great beauty. I hope you will be open a little to at least find out what I am truly saying.

I'm all ears - but it won't work. You're making an error than I can tell you don't see. You'll either see it or what I said about paradigm blindness will kick in. Either way, it should be interesting.

I can't believe how wrong you are in saying this. Pure science (forget the theory of the Big Bang or Theory of Evolution) are as true as the Bible. If God stretches out the heavens, and we find the heavens are being stretched out, then we know we are on the right track. Or if God says He sits on the circle of the earth, and the earth is a circle, then we know we are right. The two, science and the Bible are a happy couple.

You say that you can't believe how wrong I am and then agree with what I said.

Look, what is true is true. That's the first law of all reason. What is is. It's called the Law of Identity. All rational thought stems from this single premise. It makes no difference if the truth is spiritual or natural, religious or scientific. The truth is the truth. Your statement that true religion and true science do not contradict is nothing more than a more specific way of stating that what is true is true.

Sure, science is a pig when it denies God and says everything evolved. But when science fills in what the Bible refuses to speak about, the pre-history of the earth, then who would not want to know where dinosaur bones fit in. They certainly fit nowhere into the Bible narrative. Humans did not walk with dinosaurs. To believe so, makes one Steven Spielberg and science fiction.

Actually there is really good evidence in both the scripture and in geology that man did walk with dinosaurs.

I will not debate this point with you. I'm not interested in debating these details. It's your premise that I'm interested in.

If you're interested in confirmation of this claim, go here

Yes, yes, YES!

The scientific method is just sound reason. ANYTHING that is true will stand up to a properly executed scientific method.

That's why I don't accept the day-age theory, because it IS rubbish.

No more so than what you do accept. It still boils down to you having accepted THEIR premise. The Earth very simply is NOT millions or billions of years old and there is plenty of scientific evidence that proves it. The only reason to accept an ancient earth/cosmos is to make time for evolutionary and uniformitarian cosmologies. You cannot accept one without rejecting the other. It isn't the details that are the problem, it's the premises.

Because what you said doesn't apply to me, I certainly don't mind your frankness.

That's a good sign. I hate walking around on egg shells worried about whether someone is going to get offended.

I accept no middle ground. Truth is solid ground, and both the Bible and true science are devoted to this unshakeable ground, wherever it may be found.

I accept that you believe this but I'm telling you that biblical cosmology is not rationally compatible with the idea that the universe is billions of years old. There is no way to get there without making the bible say something it doesn't say, or more correctly, making it not say something that it clearly does.

You must have really hated science at school to so glibly equate true science with atheism.

On the contrary. I've loved science my entire life. I majored in physics for a while (don't have a degree) and have recently spent well over $1000 on a telescope that I use on a regular basis.

Science, like breakfast cereal is neutral.

No, it isn't. You cannot be neutral. You are either employing the scientific method from within a theistic paradigm or you are not. It is not possible to not make this choice. You are, without realizing it I think, attempting to ignore that practically the entire scientific world is very decidedly not theistic (i.e. atheistic). If you think it doesn't effect their conclusions, you're simple wrong. It can't not effect them.

It is not anti God or pro-God. Its only interested in finding out the truth.

That is their stated goal but you cannot find the truth in a theistic world from within an atheistic paradigm. It is contradictory. The two are NOT compatible and will not agree accept on occasion and by accident.

True there are practitioners who have no interest in the truth. I sat for years under lecturers trying to pump me full of evolution, and I resisted them since I wanted to know more about science and biology IRRESPECTIVE of their foolishness.

What you don't see is that their evolutionary conclusions rationally follow from the premises. It is their premises that are the problem. The conclusions are secondary. And their first premise, the bottom most foundational premise is that there is nothing other than natural processes, or put another way, there is no God.

Atheists and I get along fine. I miss those old atheists with whom I used to have stand-up fights on Michael Cadry's interminable thread, which name of which thread I forget, but I think it was about evolution.

Of all people in the world with whom there is to disagree about religious issues, atheists are very often the easiest to get along with. This is because they are, generally speaking, intellectually consistent and make an effort to be rational. They will not, as a rule, move an inch off of their basic premise that there is not God however. If you attempt to engage them on this basis, their paradigm blindness kicks in and their automatic response is to shut down and blow you off as "unscientific" or irrational or both.

God created the creatures of the Holocene in six days, 6000 years ago.

There is no such thing as "the Holocene".

Some creatures from the Age of the Dinosaurs, such as crocodiles may not have needed re-creating since they survived the last mass extinction which left the earth "without form and void" and with water covering the land. Certainly the Coelacanths and fishes probably survived from the Pleistocene through the mass extinction event which preceded the creation of man on earth.

You don't see what you're doing here, do you?

Paradigm blindness in action.

You're ignoring counter evidence, indeed falsifying evidence in order to preserve your paradigm.

There was only one creation. God got it right the first time. There is no biblical reason to think otherwise.

Resting in Him,
Clete