If God created a 12 billion year old universe 6000 years ago

You are not following the text of Scripture, Fred.

God created the universe , Gen 1:1, then we are told what the condition of the earth is BEFORE day one comences. The structure of the text is clear, each day clearly begins with the exact same phrase, "And God said..." [the first place being v. 3]

And day one comes after the earth was created and described. The light of day one is remedy the condition of "darkness" on the earth [read v. 2]

 

And neither should we. I rarely, if ever, pick up a physics book when reading a history book. Why should I? Most of the Bible is narrative, historical. Genesis falls into that category. One doesn't need physics to read history.

 

There isn't one. It is a matter of faith.

 

How do you apply this method to Peter walking on water?

 

The so-called 'evidence' of an old earth is all based on unprovable assumptions. As DHK has already pointed out, the scientific method does not apply to these things because it is impossible to directly observe them.
Radiometric dating? Only makes the earth look old if you assume the decay rates have always been the same since the earth began to form. The original processes that God used to prepare the earth for living creatures and humanity, causing things to happen in single days that would have taken long ages for natural processes to accomplish, could certainly have involved great acceleration of decay rates. The year long global flood could also have involved altered decay rates as the entire surface of the earth was radically changed. Science cannot definitively determine one way or the other exactly what happened during these periods, so the assumption of constant rates is not reasonable.
Fossil strata? The Mt. St. Helens eruption showed that many layers of strata can form very rapidly, not requiring all those millions of years at all. In fact, many fossils have been discovered that have been dated at 50 or even 100 million years that still have some soft tissues intact. This should not be physically possible after only a small fraction of their alleged age. So when you remove the old earth assumptions, fossils actually look quite young!
Fossil fuel deposits? Research has showed that these can actually form far faster than traditionally believed. In fact, many oil deposits that are dated old actually still exist under levels of pressure high enough that they could not be sustained for anywhere near the ages that are assigned to them. Again, when you remove the old earth assumptions, these too actually look young.
Light from distant stars? That's admittedly a tricky one. Light simply being created by God in transit is not really an adequate explanation for everything we can observe. But there are other possibilities. Dr. Russell Humphreys, a Creationist physicist and cosmologist, has spent years developing a theory that involves an event horizon fairly close to earth during the creation period that would have allowed billions of years to pass in the rest of the universe during the literal six days of the Creation. It's highly technical stuff, and I've only read a brief summary (that's all I could handle anyway, lol). But the point is that you should follow your own advice, and not put limits on God. I would never claim to completely understand His mind. I just accept the simple statements of His Word, and the easily understood story of a young earth that the Bible as a whole relates. Just because the majority of early 21st century scientists see the earth as old based on their limited knowledge (and heavily influenced by their biases) doesn't mean God couldn't have created everything in a manner completely consistent with both His Word and the state of the world now. I don't need everything to be validated by human science before I take God's revealed Word at face value. The real inconsistency is how you preach to us about how we should not put limits on God, at the same time that you yourself are limiting Him by making the plain statements of His Word subordinate to the opinions of modern human scientists. There are alternatives to prevailing opinions of the day, and undoubtedly more that no human has yet thought of. I have faith that everything in God's Word makes perfect scientific sense, even if we can't see and understand all of the truth yet!

 

Genesis is a hodge podge of different type of narratives. Genesis account is certainly a theological narrative crediting God with Creation of the Cosmos, Creation of Humanity, the Institution of Marriage, and Sabbath theology. I don't think when this bit of information was passed on to man "how creation specifically occured" was in God's mind when communicating with man his revelation that he did these things. What was important was how man was to view his standing with God. The general truths organized in a way ancient man could understand the more important consepts regarding what God wanted to reveal about himself took precidence. Thus I don't think the Genesis account is a specific tale of how God created the Universe. I think its a general one that makes certain points theologcially. Its irrelevant that the world has been here 4.5 billion years on which life has gone through many phases contintents shifted, temperatures varied drastically from Ice Ages to all continents being no more than expansive wastelands which stories the fossil record tells well. We can see that the Scutosaurus lived long before and died out long before the dinosaurs living in the Jurasic such as T-Rex, primarily in habiting the Permian period. What has this to do with Man or his relationship to God? Nothing. What is important is to understand is what God wants to reveal about himself and our role. And so the Genesis account is a narrative that deals with these matters in a way early man can understand leaving out things like how matter is made up, what causes gravity, that the earth travels around the sun and the sun travels around the galaxy and the galaxy moves throught the universe soon (in Universe Terms not ours) to colide and be eaten up by Andromeda. I also think it unacceptable that God would create man is such a was as to initially have sexual relations with his sister, which he later forbids in law. which causes two problems 1) God's inconsistency and 2) genetic problems within the whole of humanity. Also in Cain's statement

that other men existed at the time of Cain. So I do believe in a real adam and eve. And a real fall. Now was Adam the human representative of humanity like a King and a special preist to God and his actions therefore is passed on representatively? Or was he just the first to be made self aware and later others were made that way? I don't honestly know and the bible doesn't tell us. Also note we can tell from lice that the modern man as he is now exisisted for at least 100,000 years. Much longer than supposition of 7,000 - 10,000 years ago. Plus we have human structures dating back to 12,000 years ago.

 

And a real man arrives back on the board.... Welcome back Thinkingstuff....long time bro!

 

Thank you for the warm welcome.

 

The book of Genesis is not a "hodge podge" but a calculated inspired revelation from God. Jesus quoted from Genesis 2 as God's revealed will in regard to marriage. He never treated it as anything but a literal historical account. He never treated it as allegorical, typical, symbolic or spiritualized. Nowhere in the scriptures can you or any other rejector of the Genesis account of creation find where any writer uses the words "evening and the morning" any other way than literal and historical.

When you start hypothesizing what was in "God's mind" in direct contradiction to what God's word states is a dangerous position. The earliest scientists regarded the Genesis account as literal and historical (Newton, etc.). Evolutionary scientists have a record of "facts" that became "errors in human judgement."

I will side with Christ and his approach to the Genesis record. Christ NEVER treats it as anything other than historical and literal so why should His followers IF they are following Him?

 

One does not discount the other. It is both. Though God reveals himself to man in such a way as man can understand him in his main points don't forget God also inspired men to write or orally transmit the accounts in genesis to others. The account is equally the work of God as it is the narrative of several men from their perspectives. Which is why the account focuses on the middle east and does not mention people in North America, China, Japan, and else where in the world.

Which means his establishment of the institution of Marriage is consistent with the narritive.

In as far as we can understand it at the time of the narrative. He doesn't mention Matter, the composition of gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, etc... So the Historical account is lacking when we want to get into the actualy specifics of creation. God is speaking on the General Level relaying the important information as I've listed above and will let his creation reveal itself as we become more knowledgeable and he reveals more of it over time. Just like Trinitarian doctrine. God alludes to it in the OT, but it becomes clearer in the NT and Finally reaches greater clarification centuries later. Not that its a new revelation but it certainly becomes clearer much later as we understand more about God and his nature.

You obviously forget my previous view already submitted on this topic. I believe God created the world Just as he said in Genesis but in generality not specifity. The first 3 days are the actual creation - Something from nothing - Darkness to light, Water Earth, vegitation - animals - and man. Organized pretty much as we discovered from observation. Days 4-6 more specific but still overal generalities where day four relates to day 1 and 5 to 2 and 6 to 3 and 7 crowing with the theology of the sabbath. its all we need to know generally speaking. But its not a specific account.

Evening and Morning is a literary composition for memorization like a chorus in a song. That is how its used in the account. You see the same method used in the Unuma Elish typical of that region's literary development and accounts. it establishes a pattern which ends in a theology of the Sabbath in a memorable way. Also when you tell a child a story you might begin "Once upon a time" whether it was yesterday, 10 years ago, One thousand years ago is irrelevant. Just as easily you can say "On one day" which day is irrelevant. How about "it was a dark and stormy night" this gives the illusion of specifity however what it wednesday, thursday, saturday, sunday? Again irrelevant. What is relevant is that on that particular day it was rainy and dark. Such is the Genesis account. You can look a such stories and say within the continuity of the story the word rainy means rain but the question of which day and when is not really answered. You attempt to say well since it was rainy it means spring rains in 1984. However, that wasn't the point of the text. The narrative is the point not physics.

I haven't done that at all. I said God establishes the sabbath, takes credit for creating the Cosmos, creating man, creates the establishment of marriage and provides for the understanding of man's condition in relation to God because that is what God reveals to us in those passages. He does not tell us the age of the universe. He does not inform us of how the physics of it work, he does not inform us of geological surveys because that is not his intent his intent is to narrate the begining of Salvation history with a simple and general account of creation establishment of institutions and shows man's relation to God.

Newton was also an alchemist believing he could turn lead into gold. He was also and a occultist. Doesn't down play the fact that he was also a genius. But in many ways we was like those people who believe in "the bible code" Turning the Hebrew Bible into a numerical code. Nonsense. However, like I said I believe God made the world in the order he said just not literally 6 days.

Yes this is true just like in many ways "early scientist" who took the bible literally believed in a flat earth, the sun and planets revolved around the earth, and that slavery was condoned by God. We know so much more now that it is ridiculous to even hold such views but certainly early scientist believed it. And Christianity Held many discoveries back because people insisted on the literal view of Genesis. Look at what happened to Cappernicus and Galileo. And today you can go to Kentucky and see statues of children walking with dinosaurs when the geological record clearly indicates this did not occur. However, you might as well as believe in the Lord of the Rings as hold to that view.

Jesus Never, Ever, Ever said The Cosmos existed for only 6,000 years. What Jesus does is hold to the Theology and the consitent narrative of salvation history. Because that is what is important to him. Making Man right with God to save us. Not to become some celestial teacher of how the cosmos works. No. Jesus holds it together by his will. What is important is that he brings men to the Father.

First of all because it is true but not in the way you propose. And second because Jesus is conserned with salvation. Not science. For him science is an act of his will a result of his activity. He creates and maintains the Universe. His goal is man thus man is what he discusses in the consistent narrative of salvation. He's not a science teacher. To him Everything about creation apart from salvation is overlooked in scriptures. Which is why its not important whether King David had 7,000 horses or 700 horses in two differing accounts of the same episode in the OT. That is an irrelevant detail to the story so no one cleans it up. Its an irrelevant detail to the story that the earth has been around for 4.5 billion years. Or that the earth revolves around the sun. Or that there are not four corners of the earth, or that the winds aren't held back by gates, etc..

 

The very essence of educated foolishness, willful perversion simply to win an argument.

 

This history stuff is so easy piesey! Just track the creation & development & distribution of beer...thats how civilization began. God's obvious gift to man.:laugh:

Cheers

 

Jesus is God in the flesh and as the Omniscient Creator treated the Genesis account as literal and historical. He did not treat it as allegorical, spiritualized, metaphorical, or as a "hodge podge"! Your argument is precisely the same as those who deny the inspiration of the Scriptures - they argue that Christ was concerned with salvation not with science but simply conveyed the traditional thinking of the day thus reducing him from God in the Flesh to deceived and errant common man confined to the cultural concepts. This is the response of fools who intentionally pervert the Word of God to suit their own foolish thinking. I do not stoop to make God in the flesh an ignoramus and prisoner of false cultural concepts.

 

Great Post TS. And to the poster who said it is a willful perversion, just ignore, as their own motivation however well intentioned is driven by the same passion, to win their own argrument.

 

EWF, I recorded a PBS program entitled, "How Beer Saved the world", there were actually some compelling arguments provided in the program.

 

Prove it. Everyone I heard espouse what I've proposed believe in the inspiration of the bible. The people I know who deny the inspiration of the bible suggest that its all false. That Genesis was written during the babylonian captivity. That Jesus May or May have not existed but certainly not the way the bible portrays it. That Jesus' body was thrown in a pit eaten by dogs. I have not suggested any of these things. Nor have the people I know who hold the view I propse. These are the ideas which people who don't believe in the inspiration of the bible hold. The view I propose is held by people who hold to the legitamacy of the inspiration of The Holy Scriptures.

You still have to prove the point. And second saying that Jesus was conserned with Salvation rather than science DOES NOT "reduce him from God in the Flesh to deceived and errant common man" but in fact it DOES show that God speaks to us truthfully on a level by which we can understand him.

Now, Now a man of your intelligence does not need to insult others because they disagree with you. I have not and others who hold my view have not said there is no God. That is a device of your own imaging.

No you stoop to make God fit into your theological box which is of your construct. God simply could not mean something other than what you want him to mean. To me that is arrogance. For instance I think you would deny that men participated in writing the bible. That it was men who put pen to parchement. They were inspired certainly. Yet in their inspiration they spoke as they observed things. For instance

Ezekiel may not understand what he saw but he certainly reported what it was he viewed from his perspective otherwise he would have a narrative of explination the spiritual and physics of what he saw. But no he didn't fully understand the revelation so he described it as he saw it.

 

Thank you. I will keep that in mind. I tend to be just as stubborn wanting to "win" my argument. You and I both know we believe in the inspiration of the bible and that its true in all it asserts. We just might disagree with what specific assertions are being made with those who don't hold our view. Your is the more charitable way. Thank you for reminding me of it.

 

I am glad that you believe in the inspiration of the Bible. I believe your statement here, because quite frankly, you are the only one I have ever heard that has ever espoused such a theory. Thus "everyone I heard espouse what I've proposed," probably just includes you. It is your opinion that you are posting, not the theological position of any others.

 

DHK, you can put me down for holding similar positions, in that, what I often "see" put forth here in BB land, seems to ignore the human element involved in the revelation of scriptures. There is no great "heresy" for one to acknowledge that the Bible is most certainly the record of God's revelation while also acknowledging the human involvement in that endeavor. The Bible is Truth, but it is not a volume of the sum total of ALL truth. (IMHO)