Many brilliant theolgians, including the Baptist, A.H. Strong, was a theistic evolutionist. So, it is not easy to just write them off as so many here have done.
We do not deny God, Christ or even the plenary verbal inspiration of scripture.
If it must be known, Darwin was in conflict with the church from his very beginning, so none of us are making excuses that Darwin embraced faith.
The Bible is not a history text, it is the story of redemption and deals particularly with Israel, the tribes and later the establishment of the church. It does not include all of history and there are missing links, for which we depend on profane history to fill in the blanks.
Evolution has taken many forms over the years and one cannot give a blanket statement about it.
Theistic evolutionists do not deny creation at the hand of God, but neither do they deny that there is mnore to scientific history than is capsulated in the Bible as we know it.
One example is the term adam, which was generic for humankind for the first few chapters of Genesis and took on the name Adam in the 5th chapter.
How many fundamentalist believers developed the so-called gap theory between Genesis 1:1 and verse 2 in an attempt to explain the various creations not listed in scripture? They too had doubts about literal creation in an instant and hence recorded in biblical history, and this included the famous fundamentalist, C.I. Scofield!
My point is simply to ask that you not write off all those who embrace a form of evolution to explain scientific history so simply. Some of us are dedicated believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and have spent a lifetime preaching His truth of salvation and holy living.
Indeed, Jim (who isn't SFIC). I think this is a Pond difference in that you won't find many Christians in the UK - well, not in England at least - who subscribe to Young Earth Creationism in the form that seems to be advocated here, but we are aware that something like 40% of Americans (IIRC) believe in it.
What does the number 7 represent in scripture (wholeness or completness of God's working)?
So the 6 days of creation coud be a representation of an outline rather than a scientific look at creation.
The first day and night is differentiated by light and darkness.
Yet we find that sun and the moon were not created yet.
The 24 hour time period is necissarily
dependent on the revolution of the earth which at that point was only raw material and formless.
A day on Mars is 24 hours and 37 minutes and a Year is 680 days.
So by necessity this time measurement based on the movement of heavenly bodies.
So this measurement can not be applied to creation since by it's own account the heavenly bodies were not created.
It makes for sence to say the first 3 days indicate creation on a general basis or in three periods the next 3 days indicate what was created and increation culminating with man kind since that is the object of the story and when these periods were completed God rested from all his work a completion of all activity on Gods part including rest.
Perhaps it's the scientists who are flawed in their aging process. I read about the carbon 14 process being used on a LIVING creature. It showed that the LIVING creature had been DEAD for 3,000 years! Talk about flawed!
Pure & simple this statement sums it all up. Nothing more than a variation on that old question "Did God REALLY say---?"
So much simpler and easier to just believe what God actually said than trying to second guess Him just 'cause some don't want to believe Him.
You really create a problem when you start trying to say what God "meant" when He is so specific; after all where do you stop???
Really dangerous move!!!!!!
Seems to me God had to artificially age the word;
I'd think a 10,000 year old earth would still be covered with lava and have no plant life and no breathable air.
God could artificially age the Earth if it was created in a raw state with a mere word.
This isn't dishonesty, it's necessary.
And this could be included in the Genesis creation account.
The word or words translated "made" do not, to my knowledge, discount the possibility.
Also, even if the above belief is incorrect, saying God "made it look older" is a bit more skeptical than "artificially aging."
We don't know God's motives and his ways are beyond us, so I advise we avoid concluding he is dishonest if this or that, therefore it can't be true.
Since God carefully says, "so the evening and the morning were the first day" (v. 5), "so the evening and the morning were the second day" (v. 8) and so on in verses 13, 19, 23, and 31, I think we are to take this as a typical earth day of 24 hours.
The significance of the moon and sun being created on the 4th day shows us that:
1) God creates light and darkness - it is not dependent on the sun or its movements
2) The sun and moon were being worshipped as gods then and God was putting them in their place. In fact, the words "sun" and "moon" are not even used, saying instead "the two great lights" and "the greater light" and the "lesser light."
With God knowing that this account was the very first part of our Bible, I do not think He would so carefully give us the idea that these were regular days (using the terms "morning and evening") unless they weren't. After all, the people who first got this information around Moses' time would have had no inkling that these days could be ages or long periods of time. They would have assumed a "day" meant a day.
When we interpet the bibe, we must look at what it meant to the writer to the first peoples reading it. What did Moses think
the evening and morning meant, did he understand it to
mean eons, or a day? We can not change the menaing of scripture based on science.
Why would we let men come along and
cause us to doubt God. It means our faith isn't that strong or deep, and we'd better pray nothing more then men's words ever happen to us,we'd give up on God completely if following and believeing Him were to cost us something. People, including christians simply can not put faith in God and beleive Him, they actually have to find it necessary to call God a liar by doubting what He has written in His book.
"It's possible that God----", "If God----", "Maybe God----", "Perhaps God----", "What God really meant ---".
These are all conditions that are acceptable when discussing a topic that God has not spoken to, BUT totally irrelevant, maybe even sacrilegious, when discussing something that God has specifically addressed.
If, and this is a big IF, you are trusting God for your salvation and the rules of your life, then why do you trust man's version of creation over His; man was not there, God was!!!
(Maybe God meant something other than "WHOSOEVER WILL--"!?!?)
No-one doubts what God wrote in His book. But some of us doubt a particular interpretation of it given to us by Man and demonstrated to be at odds with what God has also revealed to us in His creation.
What is found in creation is itself an interpretation and merely a theory. Evolution is not nor can it be proven. We should interpret creation by the Word not visa versa.
Nevertheless it is a theory for which there is much evidence and I see no contradiction between it and the Word of God. It is also the historical position held by Christians throughout most of Church history.
Faith means not needing evidence, means there is no evidence, it means beleiving with no proof. We either have faith in God and His word or we don't. One can not claim faith in God if one is willing to doubt God in favor of man. God spoke it clearly, He created, and He spoke that creation into being, he told us this. You simply do not beleive Him.