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Bill Dembski on young vs. old Earth creationists, and where he stands

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Continuing with James Barham’s The Best Schools interview with design theorist Bill Dembski – who founded this blog – on why some key young earth creationists hate ID theorists, just as Christian Darwinists do:

TBS: In a debate with Christopher Hitchens in 2010, you cite Boethius in saying that goodness is a problem for the atheist in the same way that evil is a problem for the theist. We would like to hear more about both sides of this interesting observation. First, the problem of evil, which is a main topic of your recent book The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World (B&H Academic, 2009). For the sake of our readers: The “problem of evil” is basically the apparent incompatibility of evil with the omnipotence and goodness of God. In a nutshell, could you tell us about your personal take on this perennial problem?

WD: My basic line on the problem of evil is the very traditional Christian view that God allows evil temporarily because of the greater good that ultimately results from having allowed it. My entire prepared remarks in the debate with Hitchens are available online. I encourage readers of this interview to look at it.

What I was dealing with in The End of Christianity is a more narrow problem, namely, how to account for evil within a Christian framework given a reading of Genesis that allows the earth and universe to be billions, rather than merely thousands, of years old. I’m an old-earth creationist, so I accept that the earth and universe are billions of years old. Young-earth creationism, which is the more traditional view, holds that the earth is only thousands of years old.

The reason this divergence between young-earth and old-earth creationists is relevant to the problem of evil is that Christians have traditionally believed that both moral and natural evil are a consequence of the fall of humanity. But natural evil, such as animals killing and parasitizing each other, would predate the arrival of humans on the scene if the earth is old and animal life preceded them. So, how could their suffering be a consequence of human sin and the Fall? My solution is to argue that the Fall had retroactive effects in history (much as the salvation of Christ on the Cross acts not only forward in time to save people now, but also backward in time to save the Old Testament saints).

“Ken Ham has gone ballistic on [my book]—literally—going around the country denouncing me as a heretic, and encouraging people to write to my theological employers to see to it that I’m fired for the views I take in it.

The book is a piece of speculative theology, and I’m not convinced of all of its details. It’s been interesting, however, to see the reaction in some Christian circles, especially the fundamentalist ones. Ken Ham has gone ballistic on it—literally—going around the country denouncing me as a heretic, and encouraging people to write to my theological employers to see to it that I’m fired for the views I take in it.

At one point in the book, I examine what evolution would look like within the framework I lay out. Now, I’m not an evolutionist. I don’t hold to universal common ancestry. I believe in a literal Adam and Eve specially created by God apart from primate ancestors. Friends used to joke that my conservativism, both politically and theologically, put me to the right of Attila the Hun. And yet, for merely running the logic of how a retroactive view of the Fall would look from the vantage of Darwinian theory (which I don’t accept), I’ve received email after email calling me a compromiser and someone who has sold out the faith (the emails are really quite remarkable).

There’s a mentality I see emerging in conservative Christian circles that one can never be quite conservative enough. This has really got me thinking about fundamentalism and the bane it is. It’s one thing to hold views passionately. It’s another to hold one particular view so dogmatically that all others may not even be discussed, or their logical consequences considered. This worries me about the future of evangelicalism.

When I first began following the conservative resurgence among Southern Baptists more than a decade ago, I applauded it. You have to understand, I did my theological education at Princeton Seminary, which was representative of the theological liberalism that to my mind had sold out the faith. The pattern that always seemed to repeat itself was that Christian institutions and denominations that had started out faithful to the Gospel eventually veered away and denied their original faith.

With the Southern Baptists, that dismal trend finally seemed to be reversed. Some of the Baptist seminaries were by the late ’80s and early ’90s as liberal as my Princeton Seminary. And yet, the Southern Baptist Convention reversed course and took back their seminaries, reestablishing Christian orthodoxy. But Christian orthodoxy is one thing. A “canst thou be more conservative than I?” mentality is another. And this is what I see emerging.

What’s behind this is a sense of beleaguerment by the wider culture and a desire for simple, neat, pat solutions. Life is messy and the Bible is not a book of systematic theology, but to the fundamentalist mentality, this is unacceptable. I need to stop, but my book The End of Christianity has, more than any of my other books (and I’ve done over 20), been an eye-opener to me personally in the reaction it elicited. The reaction of Darwinists and theistic evolutionists to my work, though harsh, is predictable. The reaction of fundamentalists was to me surprising, though in hindsight I probably should have expected it.

“The reaction of Darwinists and theistic evolutionists to my work, though harsh, is predictable. The reaction of fundamentalists was to me surprising, though in hindsight I probably should have expected it.”

Why was it surprising to me? I suppose because during my time at Princeton and Baylor, I myself was always characterized as a fundamentalist. “Fundamentalist,” typically, is a term of abuse (Al Plantinga has had some funny things to say about this, but I digress). But I intend fundamentalism here in a very particular sense. Fundamentalism, as I’m using it, is not concerned with any doctrinal position, however conservative or traditional. What’s at stake is a harsh, wooden-headed attitude that not only involves knowing one is right, but refuses to listen to, learn from, or understand other Christians, to say nothing of outsiders to the faith. Fundamentalism in this sense is a brain-dead, soul-stifling attitude. I see it as a huge danger for evangelicals.

Next: Bill Dembski on the problem of good

See also:

Bill Dembski on the Evolutionary Informatics Lab – the one a Baylor dean tried to
shut down

Why Bill Dembski took aim against the Darwin frauds and their enablers #1

Why Bill Dembski took aim against the Darwin frauds and their enablers Part 2

Bill Dembski: The big religious conspiracy revealed #3

Bill Dembski: Evolution “played no role whatever” in his conversion to Christianity #4

So how DID Bill Dembski get interested in intelligent design? #5b – bad influences, it seems

So how DID Bill Dembski get interested in intelligent design? #5a

So how DID Bill Dembski get interested in intelligent design? #5b – bad influences, it seems

Bill Dembski: Trouble happens when they find out you mean business

What is Bill Dembski planning to do now?

What difference did Ben Stein’s Expelled film make? Dembski’s surprisingly mixed review

Bill Dembski on the future of intelligent design in science

Comments
Gregory, OLD earth began to be slowly accepted by even Christians over the past 200 years since Lyell and Hutton introduced their uniformitarianism which is now understood to be wrong. Comparing YEC to flat earth is a bit insulting. The flat earth idea is almost completely a myth. There is evidence for a young earth while there is no evidence for a flat earth. If you think the proper interpretation of Genesis 1 is long age days, fine. It is not the normal interpretation though. It is a recent interpretation made to accommodate science. Jesus, the Jews, the NT saints, and almost all the early Church Fathers, etc. all believed in a young earth and a literal Genesis.(A few took an allegorical approach to Genesis in addition to the historical view, but they still believed in a young earth.) I have trouble believing that God couldn't have done a better job of communicating an old earth to us if indeed that is the message of Genesis. Just doesn't make sense to me and it causes havoc with Scripture interpretation in the rest of the Bible in order to maintain that view. ie local flood, etc. Ken Ham does not equal YEC. Dembski does not equal OEC. You want to censor YECers? Fine. But respectfully speaking, this particular thread is about Dembski's OEC interpretation of Genesis and the fall. So I think this is an appropriate dialog. I don't appreciate the word "hyper-literalism" being used to describe YEC interpretation. It is hyper-literal to you simply because you don't want to interpret it literally. If reading the word day as a 24 hour day is hyper-literalism, then Scripture interpretation is hopeless. I don't see how it could be any clearer. Exodus 20 even confirms this interpretation. To read long ages into the Bible in the length of the days of creation means the burden of proof is on you because it is not the natural interpretation neither has it been the prevalent interpretation throughout history. If Dembski wants to promote his view of the Fall being retroactive, then we should be able to interact with that. Gregory, how do you fit in a global flood with the old earth interpretation of Genesis 1?tjguy
March 5, 2012
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Yes, because 'more traditional view' here is meant pejoratively. YEC today is indeed flat-earth-like. It gives the religion of those who promote it a bad name. In the past 200+ years, OLD earth is commonplace among Christians, Jews and Muslims (except in hyper-literalistic USAmerica & Yahya-ist Turkey). So, defending the 'traditional' in this case means being old-fashioned and out-dated. There *are* great traditions (cf. T.S. Eliot), of course. YEC, however, is clearly not one of them. The more Christians who rise to educate themselves & who move beyond the YECism of their mothers, fathers, cousins and other relatives, the better. Dembski is an OLD EARTH believer and so is the vast majority of the IDM, e.g. DI Fellows (Paul Nelson's micro-/macro- hiccup perhaps the lone dissent). Deal with it.Gregory
March 3, 2012
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I’m an old-earth creationist, so I accept that the earth and universe are billions of years old. Young-earth creationism, which is the more traditional view, holds that the earth is only thousands of years old... What’s at stake is a harsh, wooden-headed attitude that not only involves knowing one is right, but refuses to listen to, learn from, or understand other Christians, to say nothing of outsiders to the faith. Fundamentalism in this sense is a brain-dead, soul-stifling attitude. I see it as a huge danger for evangelicals. bevets 1 The paragraph I quoted above could EASILY be descriptive of an attitude that is FREQUENTLY directed toward the Young Earth position by many (most?) Christians who do not subscribe to YEC. One of the virtues of ID is that it enables us to put aside OEC/YEC bickering and unite against a common foe — a wise strategy for BOTH sides to embrace. Ted Davis 118 “creationism in a cheap tuxedo.” I’ve defended ID against that charge elsewhere, but Gregory 124 Speaking up to Ted Davis & expecting him to climb down to a 21st c. flat-earth-like ideology based on biblical hyper-literalism is a strange & unrealistic suggestion... Why not respectfully get rid of the YEC-ists for behaviour like this? For defending the "more traditional view" in a thread that specifically addresses the age of the earth?bevets
March 2, 2012
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That Bill Dembski has openly and clearly confirmed he is *not* a YEC (iow, he rejects YEC!) should be enough for the YECs who are here supporting (big tent) ID to check their backwards bases. Speaking up to Ted Davis & expecting him to climb down to a 21st c. flat-earth-like ideology based on biblical hyper-literalism is a strange & unrealistic suggestion. Name-dropping is one side of the coin; insider-information is another more respectable one. That bevets & tjguy don't know the major players personally is a common feature of internet blog discussion vs. 'classical' academic life. My support is with Ted's rigorous history (though I disagree with his TE/EC), & a professor who time and again demonstrates a 'higher' view of scripture than he is given credit for by YEC-IDists in this thread. Here is an example of the 'ID big tent' misfiring. Why not respectfully get rid of the YEC-ists for behaviour like this? YEC is 'Low' (e.g. Ham) - OEC (e.g. Dembski) is 'High' by the example given here.Gregory
March 2, 2012
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Ted Davis I know Terry Mortenson personally... That pretty much sums it up: the historical sciences are, in the opinion of Mortenson and other leading YEC proponents, simply not legitimate. They are examples of "science falsely so-called." To some extent (as I've pointed out here before), ID has bought this as well-especially when language and conceptions from John Calvert's circle is embedded into other web sites, including this one. Whenever that happens, critics of ID have legitimate reasons to wonder whether ID is simply "creationism in a cheap tuxedo." I've defended ID against that charge elsewhere, but when attitudes such as these are embraced in places like this, I am led to wonder... I have nothing more to add on this thread. tjguy Ted, you certainly realize that all creationists fit in the ID camp, but not all IDers fit in the creationist camp, do you not? I don't think YEC says that secular science is not legitimate, but it does say that when we deal with origins where we can't repeat, validate, test, etc. that we are all at a disadvantage. Ted has nothing more to add on this thread.bevets
March 2, 2012
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Thanks Ted for that account of Mortensen's approach.
In a splendid article many years ago (“Nineteenth Century Christian Geologists and the Doctrine of Scripture.” Christian Scholar’s Review 11 (1982): 212-29), Davis Young shows how several influential Christian geologists of the early 19th century accepted, promoted, and even help to advance an old-earth understanding of natural history. Names such as John Fleming, John Playfair, Hugh Miller (a leading Scottish evangelical writer), and others did this while holding a high view of scripture.
Personally,it is hard to see how you can have a high view of Scripture while doing this. Because here you are giving science done from a naturalistic worldview, authority to interpret Scripture. Holding to an old earth means rejecting what the Bible has to say about a global flood. The two just don't mesh.
That pretty much sums it up: the historical sciences are, in the opinion of Mortenson and other leading YEC proponents, simply not legitimate. They are examples of “science falsely so-called.” To some extent (as I’ve pointed out here before), ID has bought this as well–especially when language and conceptions from John Calvert’s circle is embedded into other web sites, including this one. Whenever that happens, critics of ID have legitimate reasons to wonder whether ID is simply “creationism in a cheap tuxedo.” I’ve defended ID against that charge elsewhere, but when attitudes such as these are embraced in places like this, I am led to wonder…
Ted, you certainly realize that all creationists fit in the ID camp, but not all IDers fit in the creationist camp, do you not? I don't think YEC says that secular science is not legitimate, but it does say that when we deal with origins where we can't repeat, validate, test, etc. that we are all at a disadvantage. So eyewitness testimony can give us a huge help in interpreting what we see in the natural world. The flood an excellent example of this. The Bible is clear on a global flood and if you don't accept this testimony, then you will be way off in your interpretations of the geological record.tjguy
March 1, 2012
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lastyearon 19 What’s that about Intelligent Design having nothing to do with Creationism? bevets 61 Speaking as a YEC, I find it hard to believe that you are not aware of the distinction — ESPECIALLY if you have been around this blog for more than a couple days. bevets 77 All Creationists accept ID — as far as it goes. Only some IDers accept Creationism (which is most commonly associated with YEC). bevets 75 I appeal to the authority of Scripture. It is the verbal plenary inerrant Word of God. It trumps the ‘Book of Nature’ every day that ends with ‘y’. Our view of nature can only be primitive. I am confident that God has it all figured out — and my best resource for God’s thoughts is God’s Word. And I will ALWAYS prefer the interpretation (of Genesis) of an accomplished Hebraist over an accomplished Astrophysicist. bevets 86 So you are moving on from your appeal to the authority of one physicist to an appeal to authority of ANOTHER physicist on the topic of HEBREW interpretation? I am not interested in possible interpretations. I want to know the best interpretation. The best interpretation of special revelation trumps the ‘best interpretation’ of general revelation. Ted Davis 118 His own approach is precisely the opposite to that Galileo advocated with his two-book model. “The Bible is the propositional verbal revelation of God, but the creation is the more-difficult-to-interpret, non-verbal revelation about God. Therefore, it is methodologically mistaken to use fallen men’s interpretations of the cursed creation to reinterpret God’s plain inerrant Word to make it fit sinful men’s fallible theories about the unobserved past.” That pretty much sums it up: the historical sciences are, in the opinion of Mortenson and other leading YEC proponents, simply not legitimate. They are examples of “science falsely so-called.” To some extent (as I’ve pointed out here before), ID has bought this as well–especially when language and conceptions from John Calvert’s circle is embedded into other web sites, including this one. Whenever that happens, critics of ID have legitimate reasons to wonder whether ID is simply “creationism in a cheap tuxedo.” I’ve defended ID against that charge elsewhere, but when attitudes such as these are embraced in places like this, I am led to wonder… Scientists sometimes deceive themselves into thinking that philosophical ideas are only, at best, decorations or parasitic commentaries on the hard, objective triumphs of science, and that they themselves are immune to the confusions that philosophers devote their lives to dissolving. But there is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination. ~ Daniel Dennett YECs do not reject historical science, however we do insist on examining assumptions.bevets
March 1, 2012
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Sorry - included my comment in the blockquote!Jon Garvey
March 1, 2012
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I have nothing more to add on this thread. Nevertheless an excellent and helpful summary, Ted - thanks. My reply to that position would be that, indeed, an eyewitness account is worth more than a good deal of forensics - but it's still possible to mistake an eye-witness account of something else for one of the event you happen to be interested in.
Jon Garvey
March 1, 2012
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I know Terry Mortenson personally, I've heard him speak, I've read his book, "The Great Turning Point," and I have corresponded with him on occasion. I see his work as very similar to that of the late Byron Nelson, "The Deluge Story in Stone." (Byron was the grandfather of pro-ID philosopher Paul Nelson.) Nelson believed that the acceptance of an old earth and the abandonment of flood geology in the late and 18th & early 19th century resulted not from examining geological evidence, but from the work of ungodly thinkers who replaced the Bible with false science (as he saw it). As far as I can tell, this is also Mortenson's view. History (as usual) is a lot more complicated than this. For example, as Jitse van der Meer has shown (“Georges Cuvier and the Use of Scripture in Geology,” in: Van der Meer, J.M., Mandelbrote, S. (Eds.) Nature and Scripture: History of a Dialogue. Vol. 2. Brill Academic Publishers. 2008, pp. 115-144), there is (often overlooked) evidence that Cuvier was very active in French Protestant circles, that he regarded the Bible as having divine authority, and that he applied the principle of accommodation to his understanding of the creation and flood narratives. Ironically, Mortenson seems (IMO) to have taken a bit too uncritically the traditional "warfare" view of the history of science & religion, which pitted uniformitarianism vs Christianity in ways that many historians today would find untenable. The "warfare" narrative suited A D White in the 1890s, it suits Dawkins and company today, and it also (apparently) suits the YEC agenda as well. I've seen many YEC people promote the new, anti-warfare history of science and religion (to which I have also tried to make contributions) as a good thing, yet they seem to want it quite badly when writing the history of natural history. In a splendid article many years ago ("Nineteenth Century Christian Geologists and the Doctrine of Scripture." Christian Scholar's Review 11 (1982): 212-29), Davis Young shows how several influential Christian geologists of the early 19th century accepted, promoted, and even help to advance an old-earth understanding of natural history. Names such as John Fleming, John Playfair, Hugh Miller (a leading Scottish evangelical writer), and others did this while holding a high view of scripture. (I realize that the sources I am citing here are not available on the internet, but books are not obsolete, contrary to what some would like us to believe, and public libraries still have inter-library loan, the last time I checked. So much of the best scholarship on science and religion is simply not available for free download. You simply have to wait a week or so to read it.) IMO, the underlying issue is the principle of accommodation--especially the way in which Galileo used it to argue for the acceptance of Copernican astronomy. (For some reason, the deeply pious Kepler, who used in identical ways prior to Galileo, never seems to come up in these conversations. It's always Galileo, whose relatively impious attitude is often connected with his attitude toward science and the Bible in creationist writings.) I'll cut to the chase. Mortenson simply rejects the overall approach of Galileo, Kepler, Hitchcock, Silliman, Dembski, and anyone else who thinks that the Bible is accommodated to the ordinary understanding, when it comes to matters of science. Here is what Mortenson told me, relative to this (in an email that I published with his permission in an article a few years ago): His own approach is precisely the opposite to that Galileo advocated with his two-book model. “The Bible is the propositional verbal revelation of God, but the creation is the more-difficult-to-interpret, non-verbal revelation about God. Therefore, it is methodologically mistaken to use fallen men’s interpretations of the cursed creation to reinterpret God’s plain inerrant Word to make it fit sinful men’s fallible theories about the unobserved past.” That pretty much sums it up: the historical sciences are, in the opinion of Mortenson and other leading YEC proponents, simply not legitimate. They are examples of "science falsely so-called." To some extent (as I've pointed out here before), ID has bought this as well--especially when language and conceptions from John Calvert's circle is embedded into other web sites, including this one. Whenever that happens, critics of ID have legitimate reasons to wonder whether ID is simply "creationism in a cheap tuxedo." I've defended ID against that charge elsewhere, but when attitudes such as these are embraced in places like this, I am led to wonder... I have nothing more to add on this thread.Ted Davis
March 1, 2012
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Ted Davis Second, your view that an old earth is a secular interpretation belies the fact that many Christian geologists themselves were among those who helped to establish an old earth in the first place. The scriptural geologists were not opposed to geological facts, but to the old-earth interpretations of those facts. And they argued that old-earth interpretations were based on anti-biblical philosophical assumptions, and in this they were correct. Buffon was a deist or secret atheist, as were Lamarck and Hutton. Laplace was an open atheist. Werner, Cuvier, Smith and Lyell were probably deists or some sort of vague theists. These developers of old-earth theory were hardly objective, unbiased, let-the-facts-speak-for-themselves observers of the physical evidence, as is so often supposed. They were in fact just as biased as the scriptural geologists. While these old-earth proponents had varied opinions about the existence of God, they all rejected the God who is revealed in Scripture and operated with the assumptions of philosophical naturalism in their interpretation of the astronomical and geological evidence. ~ Terry Mortensonbevets
February 29, 2012
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Creationist view summarized: (taken from this article: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v6/n1/yec-view-summary)
Young-earth creationists believe that the creation days of Genesis 1 were six literal (24-hour) days which occurred 6,000–12,000 years ago. They believe that about 2,300–3,300 years before Christ, the surface of the earth was radically rearranged by Noah’s Flood. All land animals and birds not in Noah’s Ark (along with many sea creatures) perished; many of which were subsequently buried in the Flood sediments. Therefore, creationists believe that the global, catastrophic Flood was responsible for most (but not all) of the rock layers and fossils. In other words, some rock layers and possibly some fossils were deposited before the Flood, while other layers and fossils were produced in postdiluvian localized catastrophic sedimentation events or processes).
Also, here is an explanation of this:
9. The global catastrophic Flood of Noah was responsible for producing most (but not all) of the geological record of rock layers and fossils (Barrick 2008). Careful exegesis has shown that this was not a local flood in Mesopotamia (Sarfati 2004, pp. 241–286; Whitcomb and Morris pp. 1–88). It is most unreasonable to believe in a global, year-long Flood that left no geological evidence (or that it only left evidence in the low lands of the Fertile Crescent, as some suppose) (Hallo and Simpson 1998, pp. 32–33). The global evidence of sedimentary rock layers filled with land and marine fossils is exactly the kind of evidence we would expect from Noah’s Flood. If most of the rock record is the evidence of the Flood, then there really is no geological evidence for millions of years. But the secular geologists deny the global Flood of Noah’s day because they deny that there is any geological evidence for such a flood. So, the fossiliferous rock record is either the evidence of Noah’s Flood or the evidence of millions of years of geological change. It cannot be evidence of both. If we do not accept the geological establishment’s view of Noah’s Flood, then we cannot accept their view of the age of the earth. So, it is logically inconsistent to believe in both a global Noachian Flood and millions of years.
tjguy
February 29, 2012
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Ted, agreed. The old earth idea was worked out before Darwin published his book. Of course, Lyell had a huge influence on Darwin. Darwin had Lyell's book with him on the Beagle and he was absorbing his ideas at that time already. My point was though that the idea today that the earth could be young is categorically dismissed by most scientists(I guess I should say evolutionists to be more accurate) because it is an impossibility in light of the "FACT" of evolution. That is what I was trying to say.
Ted said: "every geologist worth his salt would have accepted an old earth long before 1859."
Well, that is an opinion statement. That is how you see it. No doubt there were many Christian geologists back then who accepted an old earth. There were also a group of scriptural geologists who did not and they had very good arguments. That is the way it is today. Many Christians hold to an old earth, but that doesn't make their views true and neither does it invalidate their faith.
Second, your view that an old earth is a secular interpretation belies the fact that many Christian geologists themselves were among those who helped to establish an old earth in the first place.
That may be true, but I think it would be helpful to read a scholarly work on the history of this paradigm change in geology. Below I have included one quote from the paper and the url. Hutton and Lyell were the main instigators of the old earth idea and they based it on the idea that the present was the key to the past. These guys were thoroughly secular. However, sometimes, the past is the key to the past. If a flood occurred, then they would surely come up with a false interpretation of the geological record. Here is a quote from this paper written about how the interpretation of the rocks changed from biblical to non-biblical. www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v18/n1/old-earth-geology This is an excellent scholarly work on this issue and worth a read.
"The scriptural geologists (of the 19th century) were not opposed to geological facts, but to the old-earth interpretations of those facts. And they argued that old-earth interpretations were based on anti-biblical philosophical assumptions, and in this they were correct. Buffon was a deist or secret atheist,12 as were Lamarck13 and Hutton.14 Laplace was an open atheist.15 Werner,16 Cuvier,17 Smith18 and Lyell19 were probably deists or some sort of vague theists. These developers of old-earth theory were hardly objective, unbiased, let-the-facts-speak-for-themselves observers of the physical evidence, as is so often supposed. They were in fact just as biased as the scriptural geologists. While these old-earth proponents had varied opinions about the existence of God, they all rejected the God who is revealed in Scripture and operated with the assumptions of philosophical naturalism in their interpretation of the astronomical and geological evidence."
Then there is this correspondence from Lyell to allies:
In his private correspondence, Lyell admitted to the strongly anti-biblical (“anti-Mosaical”) nature of his ideas. In 1829, just a few months prior to the publication of the first volume of his Principles of Geology, Lyell wrote, in a letter to fellow old-earth geologist Roderick Murchison: "I trust I shall make my sketch of the progress of geology popular. Old [Rev. John] Fleming is frightened and thinks the age will not stand my anti-Mosaical conclusions and at least that the subject will for a time become unpopular and awkward for the clergy, but I am not afraid. I shall out with the whole but in as conciliatory a manner as possible." .... By the following year, we see that Charles Lyell has a clear agenda, i.e. to “free the science from Moses”. That is what Lyell wrote on 14th June 1830 in a letter to George Poulett Scrope: I am sure you may get into Q.R. [Quarterly Review] what will free the science from Moses, for if treated seriously, the [church] party are quite prepared for it. A bishop, Buckland ascertained (we suppose [Bishop] Sumner), gave Ure a dressing in the British Critic and Theological Review. They see at last the mischief and scandal brought on them by Mosaic systems … . Probably there was a beginning—it is a metaphysical question, worthy of a theologian—probably there will be an end. Species, as you say, have begun and ended—but the analogy is faint and distant. Perhaps it is an analogy, but all I say is, there are, as Hutton said, ‘no signs of a beginning, no prospect of an end’ … . All I ask is, that at any given period of the past, don’t stop inquiry when puzzled by refuge to a ‘beginning,’ which is all one with ‘another state of nature,’ as it appears to me. But there is no harm in your attacking me, provided you point out that it is the proof I deny, not the probability of a beginning … . I was afraid to point the moral, as much as you can do in the Q.R. about Moses. Perhaps I should have been tenderer about the Koran. Don’t meddle much with that, if at all. If we don’t irritate, which I fear that we may (though mere history), we shall carry all with us. If you don’t triumph over them, but compliment the liberality and candour of the present age, the bishops and enlightened saints will join us in despising both the ancient and modern physico-theologians. It is just the time to strike, so rejoice that, sinner as you are, the Q.R. is open to you. P.S. … I conceived the idea five or six years ago [1824–25], that if ever the Mosaic geology could be set down without giving offence, it would be in an historical sketch, and you must abstract mine, in order to have as little to say as possible yourself. Let them feel it, and point the moral.”4 Lyell’s secretive scheming not only deceived the church to accept his false ideas that undermined the Gospel, but he set geology on a wrong path for over a century.
You ended with this:
I agree with you that evolution requires and old earth, but it’s not the other way around: an old earth does not require evolution, indeed many advocates of an old earth have flatly rejected evolution on various grounds (including biblical grounds).
Again I agree with what you say here. An old earth does not require evolution, but here is the point I am trying to make. An old earth view precludes a global flood. You cannot logically hold both views at the same time. BA77 tries to do this. He thinks it allows him to remain true to science and the Bible at the same time, but the two positions are in diametrical opposition to each other. Of course, Davis Young just throws the whole global flood idea and the Scriptural record about it out the window. This is my problem with him. His approach to Scriptural interpretation is definitely science first then Scripture. Here is a good review of his rewrite of Christianity and the Age of the Earth which is titled The Bible, Rocks, & Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth. http://creation.com/review-young-and-stearley-bible-rocks-and-timetjguy
February 29, 2012
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Responding briefly to tjguy at 97, where he says, "I have chosen biblical truth over secular interpretations of the evidence. Most scientists do believe in an old earth, but they HAVE to have an old earth for their views of evolution to work! They have no choice but to believe in an old earth." TJ: You bring in a classic myth here, namely, the claim that secular scientists believe in an old earth because they already accept evolution, which requires it. Two big problems with this view. First, the old earth was worked out prior to Darwin historically. If Darwin had never lived, and even if no one before Darwin had ever contemplated "transmutation" (the French and English word that was used for "evolution") at that point, every geologist worth his salt would have accepted an old earth long before 1859 (the year in which Darwin's "Origin" was published). Back at #105 I give a URL where you can study two leading American examples of this, Silliman and Hitchcock, neither of whom ever accepted "transmutation." Both were strongly committed to the Bible, and both completely accpeted an old earth. Second, your view that an old earth is a secular interpretation belies the fact that many Christian geologists themselves were among those who helped to establish an old earth in the first place. Davis Young has written extensively about this (see especially his book, "Christianity and the Age of the Earth"). I agree with you that evolution requires and old earth, but it's not the other way around: an old earth does not require evolution, indeed many advocates of an old earth have flatly rejected evolution on various grounds (including biblical grounds).Ted Davis
February 29, 2012
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Correction to post 111. The article was written to respond to Wayne A. Grudem, not John Grudem as I mistakenly wrote. I apologize!tjguy
February 29, 2012
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Yea! I figured out how to use the quotes, block quotes, etc! Hopefully my posts will be a bit easier to read now.
Exodus 20:8-11. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Here is a brief apologetic for the YEC position using this verse from the same article as I quoted from in the previous post: www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v2/n1/systematic-theology-age-of-earth
As noted at the beginning of this essay, Exodus 20:8–11 is a very important passage for the defense of young-earth creationism, and Grudem says that it “is hard to avoid” our conclusion. However, he attempts to neutralize these verses by saying that the passage teaches that the Jews were to work six days because God set a pattern of working six successive periods and resting on the seventh period (Grudem 1994, pp. 295–296). But if God created over six long ages of time and was only establishing a pattern of 6 + 1 for the Jewish work-week, He could have (and would have) used an indefinite time word or phrase, rather than the only Hebrew word that means a 24-hour day. Also, Grudem declares that in the very next sentence (and commandment, Exodus 20:12) “‘day’ means ‘a period of time’.” However, that verse does not use “day” singular, but “days” plural, and everywhere else “days” (Hebrew, yamim) is used in the Old Testament, the context shows that it always means literal days. Furthermore, when the commandment says that our “days may be prolonged” it does not mean that the days will be longer than 24 hours (and Grudem agrees), but that we will live a greater number of (literal) days, that is, a longer life. So, Grudem’s comments fail to refute the creationist argument from the fourth commandment.
The biblical text seems to be strongly in favor of the YEC interpretation as is confirmed by the view of the orthodox Jews up until 200 years ago or so. I think we are all concerned about proper interpretation and protecting God's truth. These arguments should be a help to us all as we seek to understand what God is trying to communicate to us in these early chapters of Genesis. Grudem himself says it is hard to avoid our conclusion and yet he gives it his best shot? Why? Because he thinks the earth is old and is trying to find a way to read that idea into the Scripture it would seem. BA77, it would be interesting for you to read the section in this paper about the flood as well. God bless!tjguy
February 29, 2012
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BA77, It looks like you have bailed this conversation - but I will continue to post a few thoughts anyway. Still waiting for an answer to the questions in post 110. I also want to address a few of your arguments about a literal 24 hr day interpretation of Genesis 1. The following was taken from a YEC response to some of the OEC arguments put forth by John Grudem. Here is the url which you can read for a more thorough answer: www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v2/n1/systematic-theology-age-of-earth
The fact that the seventh day of creation does not have the phrase “there was evening and there was morning, the seventh day” does not necessarily imply that it is continuing through to the present time, as Grudem suggests, and that therefore the six days of creation were not literal (Grudem 1994, p. 294). The phrase’s absence may be a literary device to reinforce the fact that God completed His creation and did not resume creation activities on the eighth day of history. The parallel of the creation week to the Jewish week in Exodus 20:8–11 confirms that the seventh day in both weeks was completed, and it was the same length as the previous six days. Also, the past tense verbs of Genesis 2:1–3 and Exodus 20:8–11 show that Moses is looking back at past completed days long before he wrote either book. Furthermore, Adam was created on the sixth day and lived on the seventh day and all the literal days of his literal life totaled 930 years of days (Genesis 5:5). So, if the seventh day is still continuing, then Adam is not yet dead. But also, if we accept that the seventh day of creation week continues to our time, then this means that God is not now creating but is resting. Consequently, the processes that scientists study today are not God’s creation activities, but rather His resting activities of providence. Therefore the old-earth theories, which rely on evolutionist geological and astronomical interpretations of and extrapolations from present-day processes to say how things came into existence and how long ago, are false."
There is some pretty interesting stuff here. Since Adam was created on the sixth day, the sixth day had to obviously have been a short day since he only lived a total of 931 years!tjguy
February 29, 2012
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OK, BA77, in concluding this dialog, I have just 3 questions for you that you. 1) How do you justify an old earth position with a global flood? You have avoided this question the last 3 times I asked so I’ll try once more. I have explained why these two positions are logically contradictory. Hugh Ross himself, and most OECers reject a global flood for that very reason. Even your pal, Ross fan Rich Deems who you have been quoting and using to support your position disagrees with you. Do you know why he & Ross deny it? What would you say to Ross to help him get over his scientific problems with a worldwide flood? Secular scientists reject the biblical record therefore they look at the geological record and try and figure out how it came to be using totally natural assumptions – the main one being “The present is key to the past.” However, starting from that faulty assumption, they would end up with wrong conclusions for sure because they have rejected some important information that would help inform their interpretation of the geologic record – namely the global flood. So, I simply want to know how you integrate these two positions when most scientists see them as contradictory. I hope your solution will not be to reject the Bible's account of the global flood, but to reject Ross & Deem's interpretation of an old earth. 2) What do you think the prevalent view of the early church fathers was when it came to creation and a literal interpretation of the text? IF you think that the prevalent interpretation of the early church fathers and the Jewish people WAS the literal 24 hour view, do you really believe that God couldn’t have more accurately communicated the real truth to His people from the beginning? I mean there are other words or ways to say that the earth was old and that He took a long time to create it. Do you really think that the Jews and early church fathers and most Christians were deceived until finally Lyell & Hutton came along and so to speak “set us free from Moses”? Reading Genesis 1, do you really get the idea that the original intent of the author was to communicate that each day was a long period of time? Thanks for the Paul Copan text. Much of what he has written has already been answered by YEC theologians. For every Paul Copan there are others who have been converted the opposite way. tjguytjguy
February 27, 2012
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F/N: let's make it very specific. We come across a linear arrangement of 1,001 coins [H = 1/T = 0]:
c1 - c2 -c3 - . . . - c1001
. . . that just happen to be coded for the first 143 ASCII characters for the immediately above post [= a separately describable functional specification at a certain level of complexity]. Would be be warranted to infer that the coins just happened to fall out that way on being shaken up and dropped [ = blind chance plus mechanical necessity], or to infer to design by a designer who knows the ASCII code and the message above? Why, or why not? KFkairosfocus
February 26, 2012
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Onlookers (and LYO): First, it seems much of this thread is taken up with disputes between OEC's and YEC's on scripture interpretation. Precisely one of the distinguishing features of Creationism that marks it as utterly different from design theory as a scientific project. So, LYO's "superset" talking point crashes in flames, with a live case in view. Meanwhile s/he is simply refusing to seriously address the evidence in front of us that the project of inferring design on empirically tested, reliable signs is substantive. Similarly, that there are quite specific empirical tests that could have potentially falsified the design inference principle. But instead, they are providing empirical support. Lastly, Math Girl's tired point on it can't be defined exactly has been dusted off and trotted out. LYO should at minimum respond to the points here on before being allowed to even try such a resurrection. In short the evidence in front of us is that we are seeing drumbeat repetition of ill-founded dismissive talking points, not responsible dialogue. If LYO is interested in dialogue, s/he is invited to the thread that is not running a side discussion on hermeneutics and the like. KFkairosfocus
February 26, 2012
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continued
'Other than Christ, no other religious leader was foretold a thousand years before he arrived, nor was anything said about where he would be born, why he would come, how he would live, and when he would die. No other religious leader claimed to be God, or performed miracles, or rose from the dead. No other religious leader grounded his doctrine in historical facts. No other religious leader declared his person to be even more important than his teachings.' - StephenB - UD Blogger The Precisely Fulfilled Prophecy Of Israel Becoming A Nation In 1948 - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4041241 Bible Prophecy Fulfilled - Israel 1948 - article Excerpt: Although July 15, 537 B.C. can not be verified by outside sources as the exact day of Cyrus's proclamation, we do know that 537 B.C. was the year in which he made it. As such, we can know for certain that the Bible, in one of the most remarkable prophecies in history, accurately foresaw the year of Israel's restoration as an independent nation some two thousand five hundred years before the event occurred. http://ezinearticles.com/?Bible-Prophecy-Fulfilled---Israel-1948&id=449317
The preceding start date, used in the prophecy calculation, is confirmed by the archaeological record:
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT Excerpt "In late years several cuneiform tablets have been discovered pertaining to the fall of Babylon which peg both Biblical and secular historic dates. The one tablet known as the "Nabunaid Chronicle" gives the date for the fall of Babylon which specialists have ascertained as being October 12-13, 539 B.C., Julian Calendar, or October 6-7, 539 B.C., according to our present Gregorian Calendar. This tablet also says that Cyrus made his triumphant entry into Babylon 16 days after its fall to his army. Thus his accession year commenced in October, 539 B.C. However, in another cuneiform tablet called "Strassmaier, Cyrus No. 11" Cyrus’ first regnal year is mentioned and was determined to have begun March 17-18, 538 B.C., and to have concluded March 4-5, 537 B.C. It was in this first regnal year of Cyrus that he issued his decree to permit the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. (Ezra 1:1) The decree may have been made in late 538 B.C. or before March 4-5, 537 B.C. In either case this would have given sufficient time for the large party of 49,897 Jews to organize their expedition and to make their long four-month journey from Babylon to Jerusalem to get there by September 29-30, 537 B.C., the first of the seventh Jewish month, to build their altar to Jehovah as recorded at Ezra 3:1-3. Inasmuch as September 29-30, 537 B.C., officially ends the seventy years of desolation as recorded at 2 Chronicles 36:20, 21, so the beginning of the desolation of the land must have officially begun to be counted after September 21-22, 607 B.C., the first of the seventh Jewish month in 607 B.C., which is the beginning point for the counting of the 2,520 years." http://onlytruegod.org/jwstrs/537vs539.htm
The precisely fulfilled prophecy of Israel becoming a nation again is of no small importance, since the restoration of Israel clearly signifies the time immediately preceding the return of Christ.
The Signs of Israel's Rebirth: Lesson 1: The Parable of the Fig Tree Concluding Statement: Now it should also be perfectly clear what the parable of the fig tree in the Olivet Discourse means (Matt 24:32-34). As the disciples were walking into the city on Tuesday morning after Palm Sunday, they noticed that the tree which Jesus had cursed the day before had withered and dried up. Later, on Tuesday evening, when the memory of the withered fig tree was still fresh in their minds, Jesus spoke the parable in question. He said that when the church sees the fig tree leafing out again, it will know that "it is . . . at the doors." The Greek for "it is" can also be translated "he is." In prophecy, "door" is often a symbol for the passageway between heaven and earth (Rev. 4:1). What the parable means, therefore, is that when the nation of Israel revives after its coming disintegration and death in A.D. 70, the return of Christ will be imminent. http://www.themoorings.org/prophecy/Israel/Israel1.html
Even Sir Isaac Newton, who is considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, scientist who has ever lived, was a avid student of Bible prophecy:
Israeli library uploads (Sir Isaac) Newton's theological texts - February 15, 2012 Excerpt: He's considered to be one of the greatest scientists of all time.,, However, the curator of Israel's national library's humanities collection said Newton was also a devout Christian who dealt far more in theology than he did in physics,, "He (Sir Isaac Newton) took a great interest in the Jews, and we found no negative expressions toward Jews in his writing," said Levy-Rubin. "He (years before it was remotely feasible) said the Jews would ultimately return to their land." http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-israeli-library-uploads-newton-theological.html Sir Isaac Newton's Prediction For The Return Of Christ - Sid Roth video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4041154 "Prophetic Perspectives, 2008-2015" - Jim Bramlett Excerpt: For years I have been intrigued with Newton's interpretation of Daniel 9:25 and the 62 weeks and 7 weeks (62 X 7 = 434 years, and 7 X 7 = 49 years), counted "from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem." In his commentary on Daniel, a copy of which I have, Newton wrote that the interpretation of those 69 weeks is usually incorrect, violating the Hebrew language. He said the two numbers should not be added together as most scholars do, but the 434 years refer to Messiah's first coming (which he demonstrated), and the 49 years refer to His second coming, after Israel is reestablished, an idea unheard of 300 years ago but happening in our generation The start date for counting has been controversial. Many thought the 49-year-count would be the date of Israel's rebirth on May 14, 1948, but, alas, that did not work out. Other dates were tried unsuccessfully. But what if the count begins on one of the two most historical dates in Jewish history, the date in the miraculous Six-Day War when Israel captured Jerusalem and the Temple Mount: June 7, 1967? Assume the 49-year count (49 Jewish years X 360 days = 17,640 days), does start on June 7, 1967. Using a date-counter Web site at lwww.timeanddate.com/date/duration we learn that the 17,640-day count takes us exactly to September 23, 2015. September 23, 2015 is the Day of Atonement! What are the odds against that? Many have believed that the Second Coming will be on the Day of Atonement. If he knew this, old Isaac Newton would be doing cartwheels and back flips right now. http://www.prophecyforum.com/bramlett/prophetic_perspectives.html
Also of note: Besides prophecy, and even the personal witness of Christ's reality from millions of people who have experienced the presence of His spirit, many people, including myself, argue that the Bible itself is proof of God’s supernatural and personal involvement with man because, among other things, the Bible is 'alive', and I mean that in a way that specifically differentiates the Holy Bible from inanimate objects. This is because the words of the Holy Bible have literally, in a event that turned my worldview completely upsidedown, 'come alive' as I was reading them: This following testimony reveals one such time this occurred:
Strange But True - Miracle Testimony https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfNTNocmRjZGtkdg&hl=en
Verse and Music:
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The Word - Sara Groves - music video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ofE-GZ8zTU
bornagain77
February 25, 2012
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Perhaps to focus on where we do agree on the Bible instead of just where we disagree, I believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God:
The Nature of the Inspiration of the Bible (1 of 2) - Dr Geisler http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vub_ecXRKlA The Nature of the Inspiration of the Bible (2 of 2) - Dr Geisler - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg61Ba6_7Rk
In fact, I find that the strongest 'proof' for showing others that the Bible uniquely is the 'supernatural' word of God to man is the fulfilled prophecy of the Bible:
Isaiah 46:9-10: "Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning And from ancient times which have not been done, Saying, My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure."
i.e. I feel the Bible finds a greatest level of verification for its claim for supernatural (divinely inspired) authorship from the hundreds of precisely fulfilled, and unambiguous, prophecies in it that can be verified by numerous outside sources. Unique among all books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events-in detail-many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur. Approximately 2500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter—no errors. (The remaining 500 or so reach into the future and may be seen unfolding as days go by.) Here are a few resources showing the clarity and authenticity of Bible prophecy:
Bible Prophecy - Verify History http://www.allabouttruth.org/bible-prophecy.htm Bible Prophecy - podcast http://www.allaboutgod.com/stream/think-again-10.m3u The Bible: The Word of God? Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Evidence - video http://vimeo.com/22684022 The Prophesied Second Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1Yyhb0EH6KaMTeX5bYuLD2fRFgEYJC2RKsjiTcqgEbII Probability Of Just Eight Prophecies Being Fulfilled - Jesus - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4041170 The Case for Jesus the Messiah — Incredible Prophecies that Prove God Exists By Dr. John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon, and Dr. Walter Kaiser, Jr. Excerpt: But, of course, there are many more than eight prophecies. In another calculation Stoner used 48 prophecies (even though he could have used 456) and arrived at the extremely conservative estimate that the probability of 48 prophecies being fulfilled in one person is one in 10^157. How large is the number 10^157? 10^157 contains 157 zeros! Let us try to illustrate this number using electrons. Electrons are very small objects. They are smaller than atoms. It would take 2.5 times 10^15 of them, laid side by side, to make one inch. Even if we counted four electrons every second and counted day and night, it would still take us 19 million years just to count a line of electrons one inch long. But how many electrons would it take if we were dealing with 10^157 electrons? Imagine building a solid ball of electrons that would extend in all directions from the earth a length of 6 billion light years. The distance in miles of just one light year is 6.4 trillion miles. That would be a big ball! But not big enough to measure 10^157 electrons. In order to do that, you must take that big ball of electrons reaching the length of 6 billion light years long in all directions and multiply it by 6 x 10^28! How big is that? It’s the length of the space required to store trillions and trillions and trillions of the same gigantic balls and more. In fact, the space required to store all of these balls combined together would just start to “scratch the surface” of the number of electrons we would need to really accurately speak about 10^157. But assuming you have some idea of the number of electrons we are talking about, now imagine marking just one of those electrons in that huge number. Stir them all up. Then appoint one person to travel in a rocket for as long as he wants, anywhere he wants to go. Tell him to stop and segment a part of space, then take a high-powered microscope and find that one marked electron in that segment. What do you think his chances of being successful would be? It would be one in 10^157. Remember, this number represents the chance of only 48 prophecies coming true in one person (there are 456 total prophecies concerning Jesus). http://www.johnankerberg.org/Articles/ATRJ/proof/ATRJ1103PDF/ATRJ1103-3.pdf The King Jesus (A Precise Mathematical Prediction) http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/m.sion/kjesenpr.htm
bornagain77
February 25, 2012
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I read Bill's book ("The End of Christianity") with great interest. Indeed, Bill sent me a prepublication version b/c he knew I'd relate to parts of it very strongly. Edward Hitchcock, the American geologist from whom Bill takes the idea of God planning in advance of the fall for death in the animal kingdom, is someone I've taught for about a quarter century. Many years ago I put a number of important American texts about science & religion onto a part of my web site (see below), not only for my own students to read but also for anyone else who wants to see the sources for themselves. The information on Hitchcock I have there hasn't been updated in quite some time, and it's not entirely correct (he didn't discover dinosaur tracks, e.g., although he did publish the first images of them). This part needs no updating, however: "Some of his most interesting points involve natural theology, a subject dear to his heart. His careful treatment of theological questions suggested by the presence of death in the animal kingdom prior to the fall of Adam and Eve, an issue that remains central to contemporary debates on creation/evolution, is especially important. His comments in the 8th edition (1847) are even more interesting on this point than those in the later (1863) edition. In the earlier text, Hitchcock explicitly links death before the fall with God's foreknowledge of the fall: 'God, in view of the certainty of man's transgressions, adapted the world beforehand to a fallen creature, who must die.'" You can read the text for yourself at http://home.messiah.edu/~tdavis/texts.htm Bill also uses Newcomb's problem to help develop his argument. Since my first published academic paper was on "Newcomb's Problem and Divine Foreknowledge," I was also fascinated by that aspect of the book. http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1984/JASA3-84Davis.html All told, responses to this aspect of Bill's book have been fascinating. I can understand how he feels about "fundamentalist" attitudes. I fully agree with what he says about fundamentalism being an attitude more than a specific set of beliefs. I always use George Marsden's definition of "fundamentalism" as "militant anti-modernism," b/c of how it neatly combines both aspects of it in such an accurate way. Reactions within the Southern Baptist (Bill teaches at a SB seminary) fold have been especially interesting, but it's easy to find those various opinions and I'll pass over them here. Suffice it to say, that Bill's experiences (and those of many others in similar situations) remind me of Bernard Ramm (another conservative scholar who was castigated by fundamentalists), who spoke of certain "hyper-orthodox expositors" and then went on to argue for an overall view of science and the Bible that seems (to me) pretty close to Bill's. It was Ramm's book that motivated Whitcomb & Morris to write "The Genesis Flood," advancing George McCready Price's flood geology over Rammm's concordism. What goes around comes around, apparently.Ted Davis
February 25, 2012
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bornagain77, "Oh goody, another appeal to authority, all the while denying the appeal to authority!" I am reading your other posts with interest and appreciate your contribution to this blog. So, I think you should know better. Notwithstanding your somewhat sarcastic response, I have not argued against your OEC nor did I argue for YEC position. And most definitely did not appeal to authority. It is now obvious to me that you, Paul Copan and possibly Dr. Whitefield are not familiar with mainstream Hebraic scholarship. Now I repeat again, just because their view is majority does not mean it is correct. But in order to show scholars like von Rad, Wenham, Barr, Stek, Gunkel, etc. are mistaken one would need to engage their arguments in a similar fashion ID offers challenge to Neo-Darwinism. Now the fact that days [yôm] in Genesis 1-2 are literal days (that this is not so is a real beating of the dead horse) in no way confirms YEC position. That is clear from the writings of above mentioned scholars and Paul Copan's reference to Sailhamer's position. It seams to me this little detail escapes you. And as you pointed out in the second part of your post, there are other arguments vs YEC. Finally I will also join you with no more responses regarding this issue. Cheers.inunison
February 25, 2012
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Oh goody, another appeal to authority, all the while denying the appeal to authority! :) Okie Dokie one more round in the 'my authority is bigger than your authority' game, and then, no more responses from me on this 'beating a dead horse' subject;
The Days of Genesis: An Old-Earth View - Paul Copan (Written in dialogue with Dr. John MacArthur, who takes the young-earth view) Areopagus Journal 5/2 (March-April 2005): Hermeneutics and Authority For much of my life, I’d believed in a recent universe, being suspicious of any “billions of years” talk. But after reading scientifically-trained authors—Christian and non-Christian with no apparent axe to grind—who repeatedly spoke of an ancient cosmos, I investigated further. To my surprise, not only did many young-earth “evidences” in which I had taken scientific refuge come crashing down, I found that most such “evidences” were highly selective, skewed, outdated, or otherwise problematic. I would have been happy to find solid support for a young universe (and I’m still open to persuasion), but I regularly found it to be shaky at best. The more I have studied the Scriptures and the relevant, wide-ranging scientific data, the more reasonably I can conclude that (1) the universe is billions of years old and (2) Scripture accords nicely with this evidence. The breathtaking splendor of God’s creation isn’t diminished if the process took billions of years rather than six 24-hour days. The heavens still declare God’s glory. I am firmly committed to Scripture’s authority, but the difference between John MacArthur and me is hermeneutical. One must distinguish between Scripture’s authority and our interpretations of Scripture. As Francis Schaeffer (incidentally an old-earther) wrote, “We must not claim, on the one hand, that science is unnecessary or meaningless, nor on the other hand, that the extensions [i.e., interpretations] we make from Scripture are absolutely accurate or that these extensions have the same validity as the statements of Scripture itself.”i John Calvin astutely observed that students of Scripture can make the Bible appear silly to the scientifically-minded by insisting on pressing certain aspects of biblical language as literal. For example, Genesis 1:16’s observational language refers to the sun and the moon as “the two great lights.” Some of Calvin’s contemporaries had interpreted this to mean that the moon must be bigger than Saturn, which is false. However, Calvin asserts that Moses simply addresses the common man—without need for scientific exactness (as with our use of “sunrise” and “sunset”).ii The two “books” of God’s self-revelation—His Word and His world—aren’t ultimately contradictory. On the one hand, Scripture should not be held hostage to certain scientists’ pontifications (e.g., Christians across the centuries have held to creation out of nothing even when the empirical 2 evidence wasn’t as clear as it is today).iii On the other, scientific discoveries have at times demanded that humans adjust their interpretations of Scripture (regarding the earth’s immovability, its being on foundations, its spatial centrality in the cosmos, etc.). Theologians and scientists can learn from each other. Clearly, Genesis 1-3 is historical (e.g., Adam and Eve as the first couple who were tempted and sinned: Lk. 3:38; Ac. 17:26; Rom. 5:12-19; 1Tim. 2:13-14; 1 Cor. 11:8-9; 15:21-2; 2 Cor. 11:3); however, it has a number of non-literal/metaphorical elements as well (some evangelical exegetes consider the early chapters of Genesis “poetical-historical”). Thus we must not over-literalize Genesis 1-3 given important theological/literary motifs: God’s “dividing,” which foreshadows priestly responsibilities in the tabernacle (Lev. 10:10; 11:46), metaphor (God “breathed” and “walked”), poetic parallelism (1:27; 2:2), poetically arranged strophes with “echo” and “re-echo (“God said”/“and there was”), etc. Unfortunately, many young-earthers have accused old-earthers of not taking the biblical text “literally” (an often ill-defined, inconsistently-used term that fails to take genres and important literary features into consideration)—or of compromising with naturalistic evolutionists. But many careful evangelical exegetes such as Gleason Archer, Craig Blomberg, Walter Kaiser, Craig Keener, Derek Kidner, Kenneth Mathews, Vern Poythress, Bruce Waltke (to name a few) have observed from the text itself that the word “day [yôm]” in Genesis 1-2 hardly entails a 24-hour time-period; the text is more generous than this. Furthermore, another view to consider is the “literary framework” view, in which the author isn’t interested in a specific chronological or scientific account, but speaks literarily/theologically, underscoring the fact of God’s creation.iv First, God forms (days 1-3—light separating from darkness; water above and below separated; earth’s vegetation) and then fills His creation (days 4- 6: lights in the heavens, birds/fish, and animals/humans). At any rate, the biblical text does allow for greater flexibility regarding the “days” of Genesis. ,,,, The Days of Genesis 1-2 Before arguing for a greater flexibility of interpretation regarding the word “day” in Genesis 1-2, I point out that even if one takes Genesis 1’s days as 24-hour periods, one can still believe in an ancient universe, including ice ages, animal death, and dinosaur extinction (e.g., Old Testament scholar John Sailhamer holds just such a view—“textual creationism”).viii As for the meaning of “day” in Gen. 1, Beeson Divinity School’s Kenneth Mathews correctly observes: “there are many indications that ‘day’ in its customary sense may not be intended.”ix Here are some: (1) Those who take a young-earth view typically claim that the ordinal (e.g., second, third) with yôm (day) is always a literal 24-hour day. But this isn’t so. Take the restoration passage of Hosea 6:2: “[The LORD] will raise us up on the third day”—a phrase identical to Gen 1:13; this case presents a clear exception. Interestingly, Luke 13:32 reads,x “Go and tell [Herod], ‘Behold, I [Jesus] cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third [day] I reach my goal.” Clearly something other than a 24-hour day is in mind here (see also Ps. 90:4, where human life is like a “day [yôm]”; 2 Pet. 3:8). (2) The phrase “day one [yôm echad]” in Gen. 1:5 is also found in Zech. 14:7, referring to “the day of the LORD”—clearly not a 24-hour day. (3) Genesis 2:4 reads “in the day [yôm] the LORD God made earth and heaven”—referring to the entire act of creation. So within the text of Genesis 1-2 itself, we have clear indication that “day” can mean more than 24 hours. (4) “Evening” is mentioned before “morning” throughout Gen. 1; this is an unusual rendering and suggests a sacramental and symbolic usage that points forward to Israel’s celebration of holy “days and months and years” (Gen. 1:14; Sabbath and Passover began the evening before). (5) If the sun was not made until the fourth day, as young-earthers claim, then why think that the preceding days were 24-hours in length? (6) “Evening”/“morning” isn’t mentioned on the seventh day, suggesting God’s complete rest from this initial creation is still continuing to this day (cp. Heb. 4:4: “God rested on the seventh day from all His works”)—a very long “day” of rest! If this final day can be more flexibly understood, then why can’t the others? (7) Some say that Exodus 20:9-11 (“in six days the LORD made heaven and earth . . . and rested the seventh day”) demonstrates a literal 24-hour view of “day” in Gen. 1. However, the focus is on a divine pattern being set for humans to follow, but this doesn’t mean that all comparisons are equal. Consider 1 Jn. 3:16: Christ’s (unique atoning) laying-down-of-life sets a pattern for our (repeated, non-atoning) laying-down-of life for our brethren. Also, note that the fourth commandment is repeated in Ex. 31:12-17, which adds that God “was refreshed”—which isn’t to be taken literally (cp. Isa. 40:28). Why insist that “day” be taken as such? (8) The third day calls for a lengthy process of plants to grow, produce seeds, and yield fruit (Gen. 1:11-12); a 24-hour interpretation would require extremely rapid plant development, as in time-lapse photography in which a seed grows to full flower in seconds! (9) The sixth day also requires more than 24-hours: Adam names thousands of animals, gets acquainted with their mating habits, realizes he’s alone, etc., suggesting more than just 24 hours. And Adam’s cry at Eve’s arrival suggests significant passage of time—“At last! [happa`am]” (2:23). Note the same phrase used at Leah’s 4 “vindication” in childbearing “at last” (29:34-5); Jacob’s finally leaving Laban after fourteen years (30:20); Jacob’s finally departing this life having seen Joseph (46:30). (10) If Gen. 1-2 is a historico-poetic genre, then it is unfair to make unwarranted literary demands upon it (such as the ordinal + yôm configuration = 24 hours). Think of how wrong-headed it would be to insist that Revelation’s numbers be literalized for similar reasons, when this genre (apocalyptic-prophetic) is highly symbolic. For these and other reasons, a high view of Scripture does not require holding to 24-hour days in Gen. 1; there is greater flexibility, which leaves wide open the possibility of an old-earth view. Furthermore, other plausible approaches—such as Sailhamer’s “textual creationism” (“day” as 24 hours) or the literary framework hypothesis—allow for an ancient universe as well. Paul Copan Pledger Family Chair of Philosophy and Ethics Palm Beach Atlantic University i Genesis in Space and Time (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1972), 36. ii John Calvin, Genesis, repr., trans. John King (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 86-87. iii Paul Copan and William Lane Craig, Creation Out of Nothing: A Biblical, Philosophical, and Scientific Exploration (Grand Rapids/Leicester: Apollos, 2004). iv This is briefly described in Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy, Across the Spectrum (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 67-73. v I draw upon various astronomers, astrophysicists, geologists, etc. such as J. Gribbin, In the Beginning (Boston: Little, Brown, 1993); John D. Barrow and Joseph Silk, The Left Hand of Creation (New York: Oxford, 1993, 2nd ed.); Davis A. Young, Christianity and the Age of the Earth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982; repr. Artisan Pub.)—to name a few. vi Light from distant stars becomes visible to humans (Tycho Brahe’s 1572 starburst; Ian Shelton’s [Feb. 1987] observing a supernova 160-170,000 light years away), which goes against “appearance of age” idea. vii Creation’s goodness doesn’t imply perfection or completion. On animal death, see Paul Copan, “That’s Just Your Interpretation” (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), chaps. 16-17 and “How Do You Know You’re Not Wrong?” (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), chap. 9. viii Genesis Unbound (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 1996). ix Genesis 1-11:26 NAC (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1996), 149. x Though the Gospels were written in Greek, Jesus’ originally spoke in Aramaic http://paulcopan.com/articles/pdf/revised-genesis-science.pdf
bornagain77
February 25, 2012
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bornagain77, "I therefore referenced a exhaustive study of the Hebrew text itself of Genesis 1 in post 82, as well I referenced a study of the specific Hebrew text in question in post 78." Come again? You accept 3 page article and single self-published book, both by same author, against entire opus of scholars that argue differently including most respected OT Commentaries, Hebrew Lexicons and Hebrew Dictionaries? Not to mention the fact that scholarly affirmation of Hebrew "yom" meaning a literal day comes from number of authors who cannot be classified as recent-creationists or young-earth proponents. And no I am not "Appealing to Authority", Dr. Whitefield might be the lone reed of truth in the sea of Hebraic deception for all I know. However for one who first and foremost erects the straw-man "Genesis One does not say that the Earth is “young,” i.e., about 10,000 years old" I do not hold much hopes. Because I haven't read the book and you apparently did, maybe you can enlighten me how transliteration from Hebrew to English establishes that "yom" (day) does not mean a literal day. On the other hand maybe you shouldn't bother because, as you implied earlier, there must be no conflict between Scriptures and OEC position, so whatever author you quoted claimed must be truth.inunison
February 25, 2012
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bevets I'm an old-earth creationist, so I accept that the earth and universe are billions of years old. Young-earth creationism, which is the more traditional view, holds that the earth is only thousands of years old. ~ William Dembski no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers ~ James Barr Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University James Barr was a liberal and, of course, did not accept young earth. But he agreed that the Hebrew is as clear as the English. It is hard for me to believe anyone would come away with old earth from the text if they did not bring (external) old earth assumptions to the text. I dont know how normal days could have been made more explicit. I am not aware of any early sources that explicitly state 'longer periods of time' - OECs generally exploit ambiguity. James Barr was: 1) An acknowledged expert 2) Referencing consensus in his field of expertise 3) Not predisposed to accept the position he was affirming Hugh Ross has: 1) No expertise in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Early Church, or Antiquities 2) A predisposition to accept Old Earth I appeal to the authority of Scripture. It is the verbal plenary inerrant Word of God. It trumps the 'Book of Nature' every day that ends with 'y'. Our view of nature can only be primitive. I am confident that God has it all figured out - and my best resource for God's thoughts is God's Word. And I will ALWAYS prefer the interpretation (of Genesis) of an accomplished Hebraist over an accomplished Astrophysicist. So you are moving on from your appeal to the authority of one physicist to an appeal to authority of ANOTHER physicist on the topic of HEBREW interpretation? I am not interested in possible interpretations. I want to know the best interpretation. The best interpretation of special revelation trumps the 'best interpretation' of general revelation. You have mentioned a book written by a physicist. I could also list books written by people who actually read Hebrew. bornagain77 Bevets, I love it when this happens. This podcast just 'serendipitously' came up on ENV; "Dr. Daniel Shechtman: The Nobel Prize Winner Who Dared to Question the Consensus" Challenging consensus in science is a virtue. Challenging consensus in theology is not (heretics question consensus (I am not suggesting ANYONE is a heretic)) Since you and bevets have chosen this route of playing the whose authority is bigger game, I therefore referenced a exhaustive study of the Hebrew text itself of Genesis 1 ... the Hebrew text itself does not warrant a strict YEC 24 hours per day interpretation. In fact, unwarranted assumptions have to be made about the meaning of the Hebrew text itself in question in order to make the text fit a YEC view. Your foundation in textual integrity, which you are absolutely dependent on for your view, is simply not nearly as strong as you imagine it to be (No matter how many YEC experts you stack Neither of us are experts in Hebrew. I could repeat YEC arguments I have read, but neither of us are qualified to judge the merit of those arguments. That is why I consult the experts AND the consensus of experts INCLUDING experts who do not share my view. You come back with opinions from people who are speaking OUTSIDE their field of expertise to support assumptions they bring to the text. If Albert Mohler contradicted Hugh Ross on the finer points of physics, neither of us would give Mohler's opinion much weight, but when Ross contradicts the consensus of experts you find this convincing. I do not.bevets
February 25, 2012
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BornAgain77, I apologize for my last post. I wrote it hastily and there were lots of mistakes in it. It was sloppy. Anyway, I was thinking a bit more about your post and I will add a few comments. BA: "Moreover it seems clear to me that you have chosen philosophy (even though it is the Bible) over what the evidence says." tj: I understand this is how you see it. You think the earth has been proven to be old by science. You think the evidence for an old earth scientifically speaking is overwhelming, therefore anyone who does not accept that fact is choosing philosophy as you call it over the evidence. Like I said in my last post, the so-called evidence has been arrived at based on the philosophical assumptions of naturalism. So, if you start out with the wrong assumptions, you will obviously end up with an answer that disagrees with the Bible. You however seem to accept those conclusions and then go back to the Bible and try and find a way to interpret it to fit with the "evidence". And it seems that you look down on YECers because, according to your view, they “give a philosophy overriding authority in empirical science”. Let me give you an example of why I believe your approach to science and Scripture is wrong or could potentially be lead to problems and wrong conclusions. The flood is a good example. No one observed the flood, so if we didn’t have a historical eyewitness account of the flood, we would NEVER even come close to guessing that a worldwide flood took place. There might be difficult things to explain without knowledge of the flood, but we would find some way to explain it without assuming a flood. No global flood - this is the starting assumption of most scientists. The flood did not take place. That is an impossibility to them. So they look at the geological record and try and figure out how it came to be using totally natural assumptions – the main one being “The present is key to the past.” However, starting from that faulty assumption, they would end up with wrong conclusions for sure. They would be way off in their interpretation of the geological record because they were missing some key knowledge – namely that of a worldwide flood. So a believing scientist would start with this very important knowledge and use it as a lens through which to look at the geological record and it will aid him in making a more accurate interpretation. So, the biblical record, (you call it a philosophy, but not sure why. You have a philosophy too, right?) is the proper starting point. This is the foundation of creation science. I understand why ID cannot/does not do that, but in rejecting the knowledge that God has given us in His Word, we put ourselves at a disadvantage when trying to figure out what happened in the past. Nature can be interpreted in any number of ways – just look at all the ideas about the big bang. I think there must be a hundred different versions out there. Why? None of them work. None of them cover all the bases. Why? The Big Bang is based on secular/naturalistic assumptions about the universe – namely that it all happened naturally. So they try and come up with an idea to explain how this might be feasible using totally natural means. The result? Nothing explodes and everything is created! You have all kinds of fudge factors to try and save the theory. For example, first inflation was called upon to solve the horizon problem. Then it was realized that, if inflation was true, there was only a few percent of the necessary mass of the universe in existence. So then, to save inflation, the missing mass was called into existence in the form of dark matter. But nucleo-synthesis can’t produce much more normal matter than is observed. So to save dark matter, esoteric new forms of matter are postulated, none of which has yet been observed. The jury is still out, but you would never know that. I don’t know whether dark energy or dark matter exist or not, but right now, it seems this stuff is mostly a matter faith made necessary to temporarily fill the huge paradigm sinking holes in the Big Bang, until the next fix pokes another hole somewhere else in the paradigm. If you think about it, anybody can construct a model with almost any given feature if you make enough drastic changes elsewhere in the model. Anyway, the point is, this kind of storytelling is very difficult to be accurate with. So we start with God’s Word, which we know is true and trustworthy. It gives us a head start on other scientists. We are told that it all happened in 7 days. The genealogies point to a young earth. We are told that an earth covering flood took place which affects our interpretation of the geologic record and fossil record. We’re told that languages were created at babel which affects our understanding of sociology. The Bible influences our understanding of archeology and anthropology as well. Jesus himself said that he created them male and female at the beginning of creation, not after 99.99% of history has passed. And, from ancient times, both Jews and the early Christians almost without exception believed in a literal 24 hour interpretation of this passage. (I don’t know how you could read it otherwise really.) This to me is very strong evidence that this is the right interpretation of the passage. I find it hard to believe that God would have given us His Word in such a way that would mislead us for so long. And then, thanks to Charles Lyell, who wanted to free geology from Moses,(This was Lyell's stated goal so obviously he saw Genesis as teaching a young earth) we finally came to realize that our interpretation of Genesis 1 has been wrong all these years. Hmm. Maybe that doesn’t bother you at all, but this just doesn’t make sense to me at all. If the Bible is wrong about the age of the earth, perhaps Darwin was right too. Perhaps the cosmologists are right too. Perhaps the views of secular historians, psychologists, and anthropologists should trump the Bible. Perhaps the miracles in the Bible, which of course we cannot verify, never happened either. Perhaps the patriarchs didn’t really live to be hundreds of years old. Perhaps there was no flood. Perhaps the Bible is wrong about other things too. There is no end to this. But the funny thing is, when you begin to look at this universe through the small earth lens, you find a lot of things that make sense. It is not as anti-scientific as you may think. I doubt young earth scientists have answers for all the old earth evidences, but the same thing can be said for old earthers as well. We are both dealing with the past and neither of us has enough information to solve all the problems. But God’s Word holds true no matter if all the scientists in the world unite against it. Wrong assumptions, missing information, biases, etc make accurately piecing together the past difficult, if not impossible. So, science is not the arbiter of truth, not when it comes to evolution and not when it comes to the age of the earth either. I’m also wondering if you have ever considered why Dr. Hugh Ross does not believe in a global flood. He sees the need to make the flood a local flood in order to preserve the long ages for the earth. What would you say to someone like Dr. Ross who sees belief in a global flood and an old earth as contradictory, to convince him that these two positions are not contradictory? BA: In empirical science, as it is ideally supposed to be practiced, evidence has final say as to which hypothesis is more plausible. TJ: So here we see our biggest difference. You take the “evidence” arrived at from assumptions based on naturalism and accept the conclusions of these scientists about the evidence as the final authority and YECers take God’s Word as the final authority. BA: It is simply forbidden to give a philosophy, no matter how appealing, overriding authority in empirical science as you seem very prone to do! TJ: Again, for you ultimate and final authority rests in empirical science as opposed to God’s Word. You call the Bible a philosophy – I call it God’s truth and yes, it trumps science where the two interact because we accept God’s Word a priori as the standard for truth. This is how all the great Christian scientists of the past worked and thought and things went just fine for them.tjguy
February 25, 2012
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tjguy, You are repeating the same mistakes you and bevets made yesterday, i.e. appealing to authority. Since you and bevets have chosen this route of playing the whose authority is bigger game, I therefore referenced a exhaustive study of the Hebrew text itself of Genesis 1 in post 82, as well I referenced a study of the specific Hebrew text in question in post 78. The point is that the Hebrew text itself does not warrant a strict YEC 24 hours per day interpretation. In fact, unwarranted assumptions have to be made about the meaning of the Hebrew text itself in question in order to make the text fit a YEC view. Your foundation in textual integrity, which you are absolutely dependent on for your view, is simply not nearly as strong as you imagine it to be (No matter how many YEC experts you stack on top of that pea under the mattress). tjguy, The evidence for dating stands on its own merits of empirical evidence, and is not built from 'naturalistic' assumptions. This is especially true of the Speed of Light constant I find particular fault with. You simply cannot get any more basic to dating than the speed of light constant itself.
Albert Einstein – Special Relativity – Insight Into Eternity – ‘thought experiment’ video http://www.metacafe.com/w/6545941/
Like I said yesterday, we must agree to disagree. Your mind is made up and thus I will respond no more.bornagain77
February 25, 2012
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LYO: FYI: your ID is a superset of creationism talking point is answered here, and it would be well worth your while to read EA's post just above that comment, here, as well. At least if you are responsive to your duties of care to truth and fairness. I trust that enough has been said here and there to show that your suggestion that the design inference is not subject to empirical test is unwarranted and reflects a failure of duties of care before objecting. You would also be well advised to reflect very carefully on BarryA's new post here. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
February 25, 2012
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