How does something with no form rotate? Rotation would require a shape with an axis of rotation. See how you apply your modern understanding to the Bible to get something that isn’t there?
But if God created by His command, why would it take 24 hours? He poofed and it was done.
You have read that God has always existed in the Bible haven’t you? If God didn’t exist before time that would mean there is an infinite amount of time in our past. If the past is infinite it would mean it has never gotten to us.
It uses evening and morning in the same basic sense for all the days. There was light shining on the earth as it rotated, thus giving evening a morning. It doesn’t matter that that light was not the sun for the first 3 days. It is still evening and morning.
Since there was evening and morning, that indicates rotation. It obviously had some form or it would not physically exist. Without form and void probably refers to the fact that God hadn’t put it into its final form with land, trees, animals, and people in place.
As for why he used 24 hours, ask him since he is the one who said it. He could have done everything in a millisecond, but decided to take 6 days.
God has always existed, but that doesn’t mean the idea of time suddenly came into existence 6000 years ago. I am sure God could count back in time as far as he wants before the act of creation, just like we do with our calendars.
Only to someone who knows that the earth rotates. The ancient Hebrews didn’t know this.
It might have physically existed but without form means without form when you read the text plainly. No form means no rotation.
Nice to see you are now guessing as to what the text means. I thought it was all so easy to understand.
I certainly am not saying time came into existence 6000 years ago. If time has always existed as you say it has then you have a problem. What do you get when you subtract 14 billion years from an infinite amount of time? You are left with an infinite amount of time. No matter how far back you want to go you can never get to the beginning of time. If time is infinite it would require an infinite amount of time to reach our present which means it can never get here.
It is a little hard to know exactly how to answer. You say that you believe the Bible and Christianity are true, yet, as it appears to me, deny the plain meaning of the Bible and Christianity - especially when you say you don’t believe Jesus is God.
The way I interpret it is to take the plain meaning at face value. If I am talking with a person who I know is not always lying and deceptive with his words but is always honest and straightforward, then I take what they say at face value. Obviously I think God is honest and straightforward and I think he has written his word so that it is simple enough for a child to understand and yet profound enough that the greatest mind on earth can only begin to understand its depth.
As far as the description of the sun, both viewpoints are correct. From a point of view on the earth, the sun is seen to move across the sky and if you make the earth the center of your reference frame that is correct. It makes the motion equations a lot more complicated, but you can write them and they will be correct. However, I don’t think it is even that complicated. We talk about sunsets and sunrises today, recognizing that the earth is rotating and circling the sun, but from our point of view, sunset and sunrise is a simple and accurate description of what we see. God uses the terms the same way, in a way that we can understand, but without making any errors. So he can use the term sunrise and we understand it, just like we do with each other, but he doesn’t say that the sun circles the earth.
They may or may not have known, but that doesn’t matter. God had them write what happened, that there was evening and morning the first day. He could have had the light orbit the earth and that would have been evening and morning as well.
The text says it existed physically. If you interpret no form to mean that it didn’t exist physically I think you need to get a dictionary for no form. If it existed physically, it could rotate.
You can guess about points that are not explicitly described, but the problem comes when you deny what it clearly says.
The point you are missing is that time is not a substance that came into existence at any time. It is an idea, not a substance. God could count back, using days as measurement units, as far back as he wanted to and tell you what he was doing and thinking at that point in time. We are getting a little abstract here, and the Bible doesn’t clearly say what I am saying here. I think it implies this, but I could be mistaken. I don’t think I am mistaken, but am open to change.
What was the light? Where was it located? How was it similar or different from sunlight? Did it provide warmth? What scripture would you base any answers upon?
It just might be that there is an intentional lack of information in the account so that the point (God is omnipotent Creator) could be understood by people of all time throughout history.
In more detail, God has always existed. When you subtract 14 billion years from an infinite amount of time, you do get an infinite amount of time. If God counted back 14 billion years and told you what he was doing then, the fact that he could continue to go back forever doesn’t mean he can’t tell you what was happening 14billion years ago. He could keep on going back forever. God always existing doesn’t mean that he could not have created us at a certain point in time, remembering that when I say in time I am not talking about it like a substance, but like an idea.
You are right when you say God doesn’t tells a lot about the light. That is probably one of the points, to show God is omnipotent Creator. I am sure there are others. However, whatever the point he had for telling us about it, he still says light, which we all understand as compared to darkness, and he does say evening and morning, which we also all understand as what happens every day. Its like he said evening and morning so you couldn’t miss the point that these are 24 hr days.
It shouldn’t be. I am asking you for evidence that your interpretation of the Bible is correct. Telling me how much you believe the Bible is true, and how simple you think the Bible is, doesn’t achieve this. If you cannot provide evidence that your interpretation of the Bible is correct, then just say so. It is clear that there is a great deal you do not know about the Bible (you didn’t even know about the “leprosy” issue for example, even though that has been in Bible commentaries for over 100 years), so you don’t seem to me to be someone who is reliable when it comes to understanding the Bible.
Again, you are not answering my question. I will make it really simple for you. Who was right, Galileo or Cardinal Bellarmine? To remind you, this is what Bellarmine said.
But to want to affirm that the sun really is fixed in the center of the heavens and only revolves around itself (i. e., turns upon its axis ) without traveling from east to west, and that the earth is situated in the third sphere and revolves with great speed around the sun, is a very dangerous thing, not only by irritating all the philosophers and scholastic theologians, but also by injuring our holy faith and rendering the Holy Scriptures false. For Your Reverence has demonstrated many ways of explaining Holy Scripture, but you have not applied them in particular, and without a doubt you would have found it most difficult if you had attempted to explain all the passages which you yourself have cited.
I add that the words ’ the sun also riseth and the sun goeth down, and hasteneth to the place where he ariseth, etc.’ were those of Solomon, who not only spoke by divine inspiration but was a man wise above all others and most learned in human sciences and in the knowledge of all created things, and his wisdom was from God. Thus it is not too likely that he would affirm something which was contrary to a truth either already demonstrated, or likely to be demonstrated. And if you tell me that Solomon spoke only according to the appearances, and that it seems to us that the sun goes around when actually it is the earth which moves, as it seems to one on a ship that the beach moves away from the ship, I shall answer that one who departs from the beach, though it looks to him as though the beach moves away, he knows that he is in error and corrects it, seeing clearly that the ship moves and not the beach. But with regard to the sun and the earth, no wise man is needed to correct the error, since he clearly experiences that the earth stands still and that his eye is not deceived when it judges that the moon and stars move.
What you mean is that people are putting their assessment of God’s clear physical evidence over your interpretation of God’s statements in the Bible. As I said before, if the text is not primarily about creation timelines, then you’re actually missing what God is clearly saying.
I mean, there are many times when what are “clear statements” we insist on interpretation differently. Has your eye ever led you to sin? Do you still have it? Because Jesus’ instructions are “clear statements”…
Here’s a question for you–based on the clear teaching of Genesis 1, how did God create the animals?
To answer the question before this: Galileo was correct and the priest was wrong.
Concerning what Solomon said, you are missing the obvious point. You use the words sunrise and sunset. That doesn’t prove that you don’t know the sun is the center of the solar system. It is a short and accurate description of what is occurring. You don’t waste the time every time you see a sunset or sunrise to say, “Oh, what a beautiful sight given by the rotation of the earth as it circles about the sun.” At least I hope you don’t talk like that. You are not lying or making a mistake when you say it is a beautiful sunset. Everyone knows what you mean. It is accurate communication - neither a mistake or a lie.
I already gave the evidence, but I will give it more context in case anyone is interested.
You can prove Christianity is true in the following seven steps:
The world is real, that is, it exists. Proof: You cannot prove this absolutely, everything could be a dream or an illusion, but nobody really believes this or they wouldn’t avoid cars when crossing the street.
Everything complex THAT WE KNOW HOW IT GOT THAT WAY has a designer. For example, a chair, or a window, or a computer. Anything that we know how it came about, that is complex, had a designer.
The world is complex therefore it must have had a designer, a god of some sort.
There a million ideas about god. Who is right?
Jesus said he is God and would prove it by rising from the dead - and he did. You cannot reasonably deny this historical fact. The eyewitness testimony is too strong. So Jesus, having proved he is God, has more credibility than anyone else.
Jesus said the Old Testament was true and the New Testament would be. (This is where we were arguing. I said that the plain literal meaning is the way Jesus and Paul treated the scriptures, just as I do. I gave a couple examples in Matthew and John along with one from Galatians that show this fact.)
The Bible says that only Christianity is true therefore the point is proved.
The text is about many things, but you have to ignore the clear meaning of the text and try to make it say what it clearly does not say in order to avoid 24hr days. The science agrees with the Bible as well.
Yes and there are metaphors, poetry, and parables as well, Gen 1 is clearly none of these.
It says he made the fish and birds on day 5 and the land animals on day 6. Doesn’t give much more detail than that he made them, or made them abound or swarmed them in the case of the fish.
Jesus said the mustard seed is the smallest seed. It isn’t. Jesus believed in the world as his culture presented it to him. Do you really think Jesus secretly knew that continents were always moving? That “falling stars” were not, in fact, stars? That stars were, in fact, suns billion sof miles away?
It is your willingness to disregard the plain truth of the Cosmos around you that makes the new generations of adults lose faith in your kind of religion.
And the reason why you know that is because of science. Despite what the Bible very “clearly” says, very “obviously” says, the “plain literal meaning” of the Bible, you choose to believe something else, because of the scientific evidence (not because of what the Bible says). So now you understand why other Christians accept evolution.
As I have told you this is irrelevant. I am not asking you to prove the Bible true, or prove Christianity is true. We both agree on that. I am asking you to provide evidence that your interpretation of the Bible is true. You have not done that at all.
First of all you don’t treat the Scriptures that way; you abandon the “plain literal meaning” when it collides with science, so you don’t believe that the sun moves around the earth. Secondly Jesus and the apostles treated the Scriptures in a very broad range of ways, and many times they interpreted them in a manner which is very different to the “plain literal meaning”.