Genesis 1 - Literal or not??

This is a subject I am quite interested in and would like to make a couple of comments.

"All christians believe in a 6-day creation story."

The first is to say this is where we usually get into trouble with the moderators on this subject. And with each other for that matter. It seems that some are willing to call into question the salvation of those who disagree with them on this matter of interpretation. We can debate it, and we can disagree, but I do not think we accomplish anything by doubting the salvation of someone who disagrees with us.

My second is to ask two questions for the young earthers, preferably without turning it into a debate. I think the moderators have asked us to use the Other Doctrines forum for debating this matter.

The first question is what reasonable physical evidence would convince you of an old earth? The second, is what would happen to your faith if you were presented such evidence?

Those of us who are old earth have already had to confront these issues. I personally was YEC for most of my life. A few years ago I started reading some YEC material and was shocked into looking at both sides. I finally came to the conclusion that only an old earth made sense. No, I do not have all of the answers from a Biblical perspective. But I think we can say that for other subjects, also, that there are some things we just will not understand this side of Heaven. But the point is that I came to the table with the young earth preconceptions and the doubts and distrusts of those "evolutionists" and yet I was still convinced. So it is just not true that you must first have preconceived notions of an old earth to accept an old earth.

One other thing. Above someone said "I however have no problem with one who says, "I believe the bible is speaking literally so I'll go with that - even if science says otherwise." That person is going by faith - if he/she has no questions about the possibility of this then great! What I do have a problem with is the stance which says,"all the evidence favors a young earth." Anyone with much education of a science background knows this is simply not the case!!"

With this I must agree. Those of you who interpret a young earth, fine. I do not really have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with are those who insist that the evidence supports a young earth. In my experience and in my opinion, it takes a lot of twisting to try and make that work. When I first read the YEC material, I got very angry over what I saw. Fortunately, it was at the people that I thought were doing the distorting and it was not a reason to doubt God. But for some, this is not the case. When they are confronted with the information, some lose their faith. Others never come to God over it. And that I think is the real harm.

Ok, back to your regularly scheduled debate...

 

And now back to your regularly scheduled program...

Charlies, I disagree with your views on YEC vs. OEC however I do not have a problem with holding OEC and still maintaining biblical inerrancy.

The problem is really one of interpretation, not inerrancy. Thanks for the thought provoking discussion.

 

I like the analogy some have made concerning the wine that Jesus made at the wedding at Cana as a creation model.

Wine implies age. Planting, growing and cultivating perhaps several years until the vine brings forth grapes worthy of wine.

Then there is the harvest, the squeezing and the aging.

Let us suppose one looked at a vessel of wine which Jesus created at Cana and asked "how long did it take to make this wine?"

Two answers would come forth, those who saw Him make it would say "a second or two".

Those who didn't see Him make it would say "several years".

HankD

 

Here is the problem I have with the water to wine analogy. It does not work for what we actually see.

I'll give a few very general examples.

First from astronomy. We can look out and see stars and galaxies far greater than 6000 light years away. Billions of light years in fact. If these were just static points of light, the analogy would work. But they are not static. We see histories unfolding before our very eyes in these distant objects. For example, we daily see great explosions in the form of gamma rays bursts and supernova from the distant universe. If the light was created in transit, then we are seeing histories that never existed.

From geology. It again is not just that the rock "look" old. They have histories. Sedimentary rocks are filled with fossils. If these rocks were created in place, then they have fossils of plants and animals that never lived. Other types of rock show old histories, too. For instance igneous rocks show history not only of their formation, but also of their effects on the pre-existing rocks.

And from biology. There is evidence of a very old earth here, too. The fossil record, for instance, with all those transitionals. Or biogeography. Or genetics.

Now, none of this is too say that there may not be young earth ways of explaining this and much more data. (Though I have never seen such explanations that I found credible.) We need not debate them here. We can move to the appropriate forum, if we so choose, and start some on topic threads. The point is that I find the "appearance of age" lacking because it is more than just "it looks old." It ignores that there are real histories behind the appearance.

 

Apart from the appearance how do you konw that??? You see, this is where the "science" of it breakdowns. You see what is "here and now." You do not see what was in times past. Unless someone trustworthy was there to record it for you, then you have no idea what actually happened ... you are only guessing, or suggesting, or hypothesizing.

But they do ... The only thing that denies a YEC is the facts interpreted by a set of presuppositions against YEC. Is is not true that the secular scientist has automatically ruled out divine creation as an explanation? How can we come to an objective conclusion when one of the possible answers is already ruled out???

The theologian is not at the mercy of the scientist though. Science is constantly changing its conclusions, and for good reasons ... they keep learning new things.

This can be the case, but does not have to be. A person, properly taught in both theology and science, has no problem. They understand the limits of "science" when it comes to this discussion (see above).

We simply cannot give men's changing hypotheses the same weight as we give to the unchanging word of the Creator God. And when we rule out one position becuase of a philosophical bias, we cannot pretend to be objective.

The truth is this: If every thing in Gen 1 is literally true, and it happened a relatively short time ago, we would expect to see exactly what we see. There is no evidence that demands an old earth.

 

Did the vines or the grapes of the wine which Jesus made pre-exist the wine?

Again the wine that Jesus made appeared to have a history. What about the rain necessary to produce the grapes and yeast cells necessary to ferment the wine?

OK how about the loaves and fishes? What might the fish DNA of those fish which Jesus created look like?

I disagree, this has everything to do with “Genesis 1 Literal or not?”.

HankD

 

But why? This is what I keep trying to get at. They rarely conclude the earth is young because of a passel of presuppositions that they bring to the evidence. Remember, the evidence for an old earth is the conclusions of people looking at the here and now. It is not the evidence itself, but rather the conclusions drawn from the evidence. Both YEC and OEC work with the same evidence. It is the presuppositions that determine the conclusions they draw from it. When someone concludes that the universe is 15 billion years old, it is not because there is objective evidence that leads them to that conclusion. It is because they draw conclusions based on what they see presently. They surmise how it might have gotten to be the way that it is. But we must emphasize "surmise" and "might." They cannot prove such things, as is evident by the continually changing hypotheses about such matters.

I think before we buy the words of "science" we need to pass them through the word of God. If God intended to communicate a creation over vast periods of time, then why did he not do that? He certainly had at his disposal adequate language to communicate such, and in fact did communicate long periods of time through various Hebrew constructions. But when he wanted to communicate long periods of time, he never once used the constructions found in Gen 1. And when he used the constructions found in Gen 1, he never meant anything other than 24 hour days. Why, if God meant something else, did he not say something else? This indeed is where the opinions of science so called fall short. (I say "so called" because it is not really science inasmuch as it does not involve observation and repetition. It involved untestable hypotheses. So I would urge great caution before buying the words of men over the words of God.

I am not sure what you mean by "baloney of creation science." THat would certainly be interesting to hear.

 

"Apart from the appearance how do you konw that??? You see, this is where the "science" of it breakdowns. You see what is "here and now." You do not see what was in times past. Unless someone trustworthy was there to record it for you, then you have no idea what actually happened ... you are only guessing, or suggesting, or hypothesizing."

and

"If every thing in Gen 1 is literally true, and it happened a relatively short time ago, we would expect to see exactly what we see. There is no evidence that demands an old earth."

These two statements are opposed to one another. First you say that you cannot know what happened without an eyewitness. Then you say that what we see is what one would expect to see in a young earth. Which is it?

Back to the first statement, it is false to say that you cannot figure out what has happened without an eyewitness. Police do it all the time through forensics. I assume that you are not advocating that we release all of prisoners convicted on forensic evidence because there was not an eyewitness? We can look at how things work and figure out what happened. There is no reason this is not so. You say that "The only thing that denies a YEC is the facts interpreted by a set of presuppositions against YEC." But I have asked young earthers repeatedly to look at the facts in question and show me how to re-interpret them in a way that fits a young earth, that explains the data better than an old earth explanation, and that shows where the old earth explanation is wrong. This request remains unmet. For the most part, not even attempted. The claim is easy to make but difficult to demonstrate. And remember that I started out with a strong young earth bias and it was the young earthers themselves who made me look elsewhere.

"Did the vines or the grapes of the wine which Jesus made pre-exist the wine?"

No, they did not exist at all.

"Again the wine that Jesus made appeared to have a history. What about the rain necessary to produce the grapes and yeast cells necessary to ferment the wine?"

But to make your analogy work, once the water was turned to wine, some farmer "remembered" growing the grapes, harvesting them, crushing them and fermenting them. Water to wine has an actual appearance of age. It is a miracle. Just like the loaves and fishes. Once the miracle happened, someone did not suddenly have amemory of catching and bringing those fish there nor of baking the loaves. Now, we can go find ourselves tonight a telescope and we can all see things happening far more than 6000 light years away. Light has a finite speed, so however many light years away you look, you are looking that far back in time. So what you are saying is that you have no problem going outside tonight, looking up, and watching a history unfold that never actually happened. I am uncomfortable with that, to say the least. Maybe you are not.

Besides, if you admit that these things really look old, then maybe they are.

To me, your postion reminds of what in its absurd, extreme form is known as Last Thursdayism. If we cannot trust what we see to be the truth and if we have no way to tell the difference between what is really old and what only appears to be old, then how can we be sure of anything. The extreme part comes in by asking you to prove that what we are experiencing was not created last Thursday by super-intelligent aliens as an experiment with all our memories, books, histories, everything created to give us an illusion of age for the purpose of the experiment.

"I disagree, this has everything to do with “Genesis 1 Literal or not?”."

If you wish, we can go down that path. I agree that this has a strong bearing on the question at hand. If the evidence really does show that the earth is young, then it is settled in all our minds. However if it shows that the earth is old... It gets back to the unaswered questions from my first post. What evidence would change your mind and what would you do if presented with such evidence? Would you feel better about using a non-literal interpretation? Would you lose your faith? What would happen.

I do not shrink from examining the evidence if you wish to take that path. I just would rather do that in another thread both because of the expressed wishes in the past of the moderators and to avoid taking this thread too far from its intent.

 

"I am not sure what you mean by "baloney of creation science." THat would certainly be interesting to hear."

I think I know what he means. It was such stuff that made me take a look at both sides. As I said, I came to the table YEC and distrustful of old earth ideas. But when I began reading YEC material, something did not seem to add up. The kicker for me, and you see it used constantly, is the Second Law of Thermodynamics argument. That is the one, due to my training in thermo as an engineer, where the holes became very apparent to me. Once I came across that one, and digested it for a while, I began searching out as many topics as I could. I would go see what the YECs had to say and then the OECs and then mainstream science. I tried to read as much in the Bible as I could find that was applicable and pray for guidance a lot at the same time. I finally was left that a young earth was not consistent with the world around us.

Furthermore, you begin to see the effects that such "baloney" has on the opinions of non-Christians about Christians and the effects on the faith of those who are taught that young earth is the only way to go and then are confronted with the evidence. I find the effects devestating and that is one reason I am so interested in this topic and seem to find most of the threads with it as a subject. Then again, I am very open to those better interpretations that you say exist. Are you open to the possibility of an old earth?

 

A history of what? The light could have been stretched out from its point of origin at creation.

So far no one has seen in detail this "history" of billions of years, it is assumed to be so.

Another factor is the "constant" C which has apparently been proven to not be a constant and perhaps even "compressed" closer to creation.

HankD

 

"So far no one has seen in detail this "history" of billions of years, it is assumed to be so"

Huh?

Take a look at this.

http://heritage.stsci.edu/1999/04/big.html

Warning! This is a moderate sized image and might take a while on dial-up!

This is a picture of SN1987A. In 1987, the star known as SK -69 202, a blue supergiant, exploded. It is the most studied supernova in history. It has been tracked from the first shower of neutrinos up until today as the expanding rings brighten and dim as they interact with their surroundings. But this star was located 160,000 light years away. We are seeing things as they happened 160,000 years ago. This is not any static point of light put up there with light in transit to fill the night sky. This is a real object that really exploded 160,000 years ago. It is not "assumed," it happened.

Now, here (small image)

http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/sn1997ff4.jpg

is a supernova, SN1997ff, from about 11.3 Billion light years distant. Again, this is not some assumed object. It is a real star that really exploded over 11 billion years ago. Would you instead have us suppose that we are looking at the light of an object that never really existed and that never really exploded?

"Another factor is the "constant" C which has apparently been proven to not be a constant and perhaps even "compressed" closer to creation."

Where has it been proven to "not be a constant?" You will have a hard time making a case that we can see distant objects because of an increased speed of light. But I would like to hear it.

 

Light was speed up thru ceasum gas in a lab. at least a part of it was it went I believe 7 times the speed of light. And a Blackhole is something else that slows the speed of Light. Being that the Universe is vast and we do not really have a complete understanding of it we can not say for certain that there is not nothing out in space that affects the speed of light or something making stars look futher away than they really are like looking thru water at the bottom of a river it may look shallow but could be 4ft over your head.

Also a Dr. Russell Humphreys came up with a theory that the Earth is not the center of the universe but near it. And that time moves slower for us than it does for those stars futher away from the center of gravity. So they would be aging faster than us and I guess moving faster than us. But you will have to read His take on it to get a good answers just search www.ICR.org or www.answersingenesis.com for Gary Russell or Starlight and Time you can also find info from a google search as well.

But never they less gravity has a big affect on the speed of light it can bend it or slow it down so who knows what esle is out there beyond our current level of physics that allows light to speed up in space. Or if time is faster in certain parts of space or slower in others. It has already been proven that an Atomic Clock at sea level in England starts to get slower than an Atomic Clock in Colorodo.

 

That's incorrect. A black hole is an object whose escape velocity is greater than the speed of light. It doesn't change the speed of light, any more than a light bulb in the "off" position does. But light is only one type of radiation. There are many others like X rays. X rays have a different energy level, and are thus not effected by a black hole in the same way visible light is affected. Black holes typically give off X rays, even though they don't give off light.

 

The Genesis account was inspired by an eyewitness, in fact, the very Creator himself. Therefore, his account is trustworthy. Forensics is a completely different type of evidence, and even at that, is not entirely foolproof. To try to compare modern criminal forensics with the origins of the universe is a wholly incompatible comparison.

Not really, becasue the text of Scripture precludes it and there, so far, has been no evidence to the contrary that does not depend on jumps I am not prepared to make.

 

But those observations are one thing. You presuppose much more ... that the carbon in the rock was decaying at a constant rate, that it started with a presupposed amount, that there has been nothing to accelerate or decelerate etc. None of the presuppositions can be proven. With the light, again you presuppose that there has actually been 100,000 years and that light has traveled at a constant speed. Niether of which is proven. The latter is certainly more solid, but not beyond question. The former is certainly questionable, based on the appearance of age that God very clearly created the world with.

And I would respond that the strength of the presuppositions is not at issue. It is the validity of them. I believe mine are more valid, inasmuch as they are based on teh truthfulness of hte unchanging God whereas yours are based on the constantly changing theories of science.