Christian Faith Requires Accepting Evolution?

Evolution denies the truth that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Gen. 1:1

 

Don't Christian Theistic Evolutionists accept that though?

God created originally, but used Evolution to "guide" the process along?

 

You forget the Gap Theory though Jon-Marc.

 

Do you find it that those of us who are "young earth" tend to be Creationists, those of us "old earth" to be into Theistic Evolution?

 

Not all are many who hold the Gap theory don't hold to theistic evolution and are creationist.

 

Actually it does not as the Hebrew word used and translated as day can mean a variety of lengths of time. It has been translated as 'day' in English ... but even in English the word 'day' may or may not mean 24 hours.

That is your interpretation. However that leaves you with huge problems with Gen. chapter 2. If you are going to insist on a very literal interpretation of Gen. 1 you cannot in honesty they try to say Gen. 2 is not also very literal ... and the two conflict. To hold with your interpretation you must take a liberal interpretation of one so that it will fit into the other.

I take a much more conservative approach. I accept both as two explanations of creation told such that different people could understand and know that God created the universe, the world ... everything. But my understanding does not try to make them scientific explanations ... a liberal interpretation is not required in either instance.

 

Still the Hebrew word does not necessarily mean 24 hours ... cardinal number or not.

In the same sense every era has an evening and morning.

Death or awareness of death? If you take this literally then you have to take all, even all of Gen. 2 literally and they contradict.

In Gen. 2 man is taken from the dust. In Gen. 1 it does not say.
In Gen. 1 Eve is taken from Adam's rib. In Gen. 2 she is also taken from dust ... hard to reconcile the two literally.

I see no contradiction with scripture here. All is from God anyway.

So?

Again the Hebrew word does not necessarily mean 24 hours. God could do it in 24 seconds or 24 million years and still the same Hebrew word could be used.


If you insist on a literal understanding of Gen. 1 as well as Gen. 2 you have huge problems.

I have a different literal take. They are literal stories constructed in such a way that primitive peoples could understand that God did all. This is a much more conservative stance than taking a liberal interpretation of one of the creation stories so that it seemingly does not contradict the other. I am not that liberal. I take the stories of creation as they are and do not try to force them into saying something they do not say. They are not science. They are not biology. They are not ethics. They are not chemistry. They are understandable explanations, standing on their own and saying, "God did it."

 

Then count me as a primitive.

 

The same day and night arguement is used to justify Friday as the day of His crucifiction but scripture doesn't bear that out either.
Christ was crucified on a Wednesday and alive by Saturday night after having spent three full days and nights in the grave. They were literal days and nights. The Gensis record as 6 24 days with the 7th as rest is born out in scripture, Genesis 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Notice it is qualified as the evening (night) and morning (day) making it the full 24 hour period.

 

This is an interpretation. We really do not know if it was 24 hours or not. That is our observation of a day now and we judge that from the rotation of the earth for us on earth. We now know that time is not constant. For instance, if you traveled at 85% of the speed of light time would not seem to change for you. But when you returned, say to earth, time would have gone at a different rate. The rate of time passing depends on your reference point. And we must remember that God is outside of time and thus his reference point is very different than ours. We are locked in time. God is not.

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

We agree on this I am sure.

Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

We have no idea how long this state lasted. The Bible does not say. To say it is 24 hours is to make a liberal interpretation of this verse.

Genesis 1:5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Of course he called it day and night ... of course in Hebrew or whatever language God spoke. But there is nothing here that makes it 24 hours ... to insist such is an interpretation that will not hold. It may be right or it may be wrong but we do not know for sure. It is an article of faith.

If you follow the order of creation in Genesis 1 it follows the idea of evolution in that God created in an orderly fashion from the simple to the complex;

1. light and darkness
2. set the world rotating establishing time and as for time we really do not yet fully understand time.
3. plants
4.animals
etc., etc. all in a logical order.

Genesis 2 does not follow a logical order.

The important truth is that God did it!

 

What proof do we have that the earth is not around 6000 years old?

There is none, science can't prove it in fact true sceintific laws prove a young earth more than an old.

 

Just a simple question others would have to answer on this!
IF Bilions of years old, wouldn't the Moon had crashed into the Earth already, as Earth gravity brings it closer on each orbit due to gravital attraction?

 

Nope, won't happen. In fact the moon is getting further from earth.

I don't know how long this has been going on ... I do not know if anyone knows.

There are 2.54 cm per inch.

 

Yet another case for a young earth if it has been "getting larger, at a rate of about 3.8 centimeters per year" then a 4.5 billion year old earth would mean the moon should be at a +1.7 million km and yet it is said to be 384,000 km. if it has been expanding at that rate, and of course we need a starting point in km to really know how large it should be. Since we weren't around when the moon and earth were created we can't have the exact figure.

 

I do not believe I have ever said that earth is 6000 years old. I don't remember speculating on how old earth is though I would if you want ... but it would be speculation.

I'll not speculate on this however. The Xia dynasty in China ruled from 2100 bc until 1500 bc.

Huang Di, or the Yellow Emperor is said to have ruled China from 2697–2597 bc and is called the founder of Chinese civilization. I may be wrong, but I believe 2697 predates the time some fundamentalists believe God created earth. I saw his grave in the northern part of Shaanxi province in 1995. Could he have really ruled for 100 years? Don't know, but the Bible records people living far longer than that long ago.

 

According to the Jewish calender we are in the year 5771 which dated from the creation of Adam. So by that the earth should be 5771 years old, but if you believe the Theistic Evolutionist the earth is like the evolutionist say 4.5 to 5 billion years old so the question what proof do we have that the earth is older than 6000 years or 5771?

 

Actually Gen 1 goes in the face of evolution. If you note v.11-12, God made the plants before he made the sun. So therefore God would have had to sustain the plants as there was no sun to sustain them. Then God made birds, fish, then animals. If I am not mistaken evolutionist, believe it goes fish, animal, then bird. Seems to go against evolution to me.

Gen 2 seems to follow order to me. Notes God made the earth and heavens (vs4) then it talks of him bringing water up(vs.6), then it notes man was brought from the dust of the earth(vs. 7) which implies that land was made before man. Gen 1. is almost like a chart saying this is how it all was made, now that you understand that, lets zoom in (Gen 2) on this day and see man.

I am confused, do you support evolution or are simply pushing that you cannot teach a literal Gen 1? Without a literal Gen 1-11 it cast doubts on the entire Bible, as Adam and Eve, Noah are all referenced by other people. The important truth is that God did create it, but it does matter how you view it and how you teach it. :thumbsup:

 

Welcome!!! I agree with you on your breakdown.

 

CTB, you are correct. The Hebrew word used for day can mean a period of time that does not mean a literal 24 hour day. It is used that way often, (the day of the Lord, the day of Jacobs trouble, etc.). However, when you look at the way the word day is used in Genesis 1 and compare the usage to other places in the Old Testament it becomes evident that a literal day is indicated for instance. In the Old Testament, outside of Genesis 1 the word day is used with a number 410 times. In each of those instances it is referring to a literal day. In the Old Testament, outside of Genesis 1 the word day is used 23 times with the word morning and 23 times with the word evening. In each of those instances it is referring to a literal day. Outside of Genesis 1 the word day is used with night 52 times and again all those instances referr to a literal day. And finally in the Old Testament outside of the book of Genesis the word day is used with the words morning and evening 38 times and in each of those cases it refers to a literal day. Why do we ignore clear interpretative guidelines and insist on something else in the case of Genesis 1? It makes no sense to do so. For example, there is no debate about how long Joshua marched around Jericho or how long Jonah was in the belly of the whale. The only time there is controversy regarding how to intrepret the word day is in Genesis 1. In reality if we would follow the same guidelines for intrepretation for Genesis 1 as we do everywhere else in the Old Testament there is no controversy. The information presented here was obtained from Answers in Genesis.