So which is correct? Hint, all interpretations are human and fallible.
No there are as many explanations as there are interpretations.
Maybe in some cases but many serious Christians would still disagree with you.
Exactly. And the age of the earth will not be on the entrance exam when we get to heaven.
Sorry Bill II
Tried quoting you back but still learning on this discussion board.
Bill II: So which is correct? Hint, all interpretations are human and fallible.
Me: But we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord. How can one grow without His knowledge and grace without His truth?
2 Corinthians 11:4 For if he that cometh preached another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
There are different Jesusā out there that are not the biblical Jesus.
Yes agree, our perceptions of the age of the earth does not determine our salvation. Only if we are born again by His Spirit.
Going to give others a chance to respond. It gets confusing as I see replies to one another. If something is not directed to me, then I know it wasnāt to me. Donāt reply to me on this post no more 
To respond to a specific statement, highlight that statement, then click the "quote " balloon and it will be inserted with the proper attribution into your post, or if you have not started a post, will start one for you with the quote at the top. You are right, with multiple posters it can get confusing at times. Also, if you hit the reply button at the bottom right of a post, it will link to that post, but the reply button at the bottom of screen chains back to the original post. For example:
Iām not sure if you meant this the way it sounds. It sounds like you are saying the way you perceive or interpret the Word is the only correct way of seeing it, and any one who sees differently is essentially apostate. I suspect you really have a bit more humility and accept that you can be wrong on some issues, or that perhaps there are layers of meaning in scripture, some of which you may not have appreciated as of yet, or perhaps some things are intentionally vague and fluid, so as to have meaning to different people in different places in space and time.
I guess the fly in the ointment now as through the history of Christendom if who determines what is false teaching. Personally, I suppose we all have to rely of the Holy Spirit in our personal lives, but it seems the Spirit leads different people in different directions. How do we resolve that, or do we just accept the tension and move forward?
His truth, see John 14:6, is simply believe in Me. So I can accept evolution and worship the same Jesus as you. To imply anyone that does not agree with you is following a false Jesus is not considered gracious dialogue. I know where you are coming from. I was once there, but like you I was open minded enough to realize that while not false my beliefs could be better.
And please consider this. Jesus is never recorded as mentioning Adam. I have always thought that was meaningful.
And you donāt do this?
I think it foolish to use the argument āanyone who doesnt agree with my churches theology is using self interpretationā.
The truth of all of this is rather easy, almost all scholars develop doctrine that starts from self evident text. The reformation is an example of this fact, Martin Luther started something that caused a nuclear explosion in study of the scriptures to try to better understand the basic fundamental questions we all ask concerning our existence (how, why, when, and where/what next)
The problem here is, if we start out by denying the very first statements in the Bible (which are universally accepted as being self evident), then we are lost before we even begin!
As an illustration, and there are various applications of the following doctrineā¦Im not going to get into that ā¦
Lets say that keeping the Sabbath is a false teachingā¦āits not really meant to be kept as stated in the 10 commandments, we now live under the spirit of the new covenant and are no longer bound by the law.ā
Hereās the problem with the above belief, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbathā¦in fact, the bible goes even further than this, we find in Revelation that JESUS IS OUR SABBATH REST!
When the Israelites were entering the Land of Canaan, they were enterring into Gods rest. The land of Canaan is the type and Heaven is the antitypeā¦ie it is what the term actually meansā¦we are enterring into heaven. We cannot enter into heaven by denying the Sabbath. Revelation 14:12 quite clearly tells us, the saints (who will receive eternal life and not be condemned to death) are those āwho keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesusā!
So if we are forced due to theistic evolution to deny God resting on the Seventh Day of creation because it cant possibly be a literal 7 day week, we deny the 10 commandments, we are in fact denying our own salvationā¦we cannot enter Gods restā¦its self evident and to be honest so very very simple!
The above might sound like a rather far fetched illustration, however, it does outline how, by explaining away self evident revelation from passages (such as Exodus 20, Hebrews 4:1, Matt 12:8, and Rev 14:12) within the bible that form the basis for our entire Christianity, we destroy our chance at salvation!
People who dont realise the importance of very obvious bible truths and seek to rework bible passages to suit ourselves, are ābeing lost with a bible in hand!ā
One should never attempt to explain away any part of the bible simply because it does not agree with us or even science. We need to take a look at the scienceā¦and if denyers of my argument above were really honest with themselves, then they would ensure that they do watch the entire series of āIs Genesis Historyā. I do not believe this series has all the answers, in fact, it may well even be wrong on many things, however, we cannot possibly attain a balanced view of this topic if we do not openly explore that channel and others like it.
At the end of the day here is another really simple self evident truthā¦what if it turned out that secular science really was wrong and God held us all accountable for that error? Who would be on safe territory, the person who took the Bible literally, or the person who attempted to use āsecular scienceā to explain away the bible? I know where i would feel the safest!
Now i do agree that the Bible is not a science textbook, however, on the flip side, science is absolutely not able to explain God either! And while I am on this point, why do theistic evolutionists appear to deny the mature earth explanation that has been around for centuries?
How do theistic evolutionist respond to the following chargeā¦
We know that prior to the fall of man in Genesis Chapter 3, there was no sin. I believe that even theistic evolutionists would have to accept this as bible truth. The reason for this is that the introduction of sin into this world is found in both Testaments of the bibleā¦it cannot possibly just be figurative under the circumstances in which it is referredā¦particularly when used by the apostle Paul in Romans and Corinthians. I think it obvious, the apostle Paul believed that sin came about because of the disobedience of Adam and Eve and did not exist on this earth prior to that time! (we know obviously Satan first sinned in heaven, i dont believe that changes the point here though)
Are theistic evolutionists saying the apostle Paul is wrong? Surely not, so in light of that self evident truthā¦
May i then ask, God said to Adam in Genesis 2 āin the day that you eat of the fruit of the Tree [of the Knowledge of Good and Evil] you will dieā
"Theistic Evolutionists propose millions of years of random mutations and physical death prior to the arrival of human beings, and then claim only spiritual death is the punishment and curse for sin. The Bible dispels this notion, with death being a curse and an enemy which Christās sacrificial atoning death and victorious resurrection delivers His followers from rather than a by-product of a developmental process to finally establish human life." (a quote from worthy christian forums)
Rom 5:12 Therefore as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; so death passed to all men, because all sinned.
Rom 8:18-23 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (19) For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. (20) For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; (21) because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. (22) For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. (23) Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.
1Co 15:52-54 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (53) For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. (54) So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
How does theistic evolution resolve the above dilemma? How can death exist without sin? Does natural selection as proposed by Darwin and his forebearers, exist without death?
I have an interesting idea about the above questions that potentially dissagrees with my own theologyā¦(i am an honest person on these issuesā¦
If death did not exist, why did Adam and Eve need to ātend the gardenā? (what did ātending a perfect creationā actually mean)
There are significant problems with your take on Genesis.
You are presenting a Genesis 1 and 2 mashup, with God resting on the 7th day (your point 2) and THEN
God forming all the animals (your point 5)
So whatās up with that? (And no, you havenāt ādebunctā anything).
Why donāt you respond to my post?
Are you saying that they ate the fruit and then died that day?
Thank you, Adam
At the end of the day here is another really simple self evident truthā¦what if it turned out that secular science really was wrong and God held us all accountable for that error? Who would be on safe territory, the person who took the Bible literally, or the person who attempted to use āsecular scienceā to explain away the bible? I know where i would feel the safest!
They have theological problems with God being deceptive.
People believe different things about the historicity of Adam and Eve and Paulās take on it. Some think Paul was referring to a literary character to make a point and the reference doesnāt say anything about whether Paul thought Adam was the literal and historical first human on earth. Others say Paul probably thought Adam was the first human because he didnāt know what we know today about natural history and it doesnāt matter because his theological points hold. The idea of divine accommodation allows that not all the authors of Scripture had to be 100% correct about science and history in order to communicate Godās truth.
Young earth creationists impose views of death on the Bible that are foreign to its context. See this article for an explanation of how the biblical use of death does not fit with the YEC view.
The biggest problem I personally have with the YEC take on Genesis is that it essentially proposes a second creation event not mentioned in the Bible in which God remakes the world worse because of sin. You have to posit that the creation of Genesis 1 is an entirely different creation than the one we have now, if there is no animal death and no animal predation or carnivory. (Leaving aside that such a world would be unsustainable and quickly become āimperfectā since the life cycles that keep nature healthy and population levels in ecosystems in harmony depend on death and decay as part of the cycle.) You have no tectonic plate activity (earthquakes and volcanos cause death) and a different weather system, since there would be no ānatural evilsā like tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, and floods. To get from that hypothetical āperfectā world to what we see now, God recreates or un-creates many of the herbivores into carnivores and scavengers and invents all the unpleasant parts of creation that destroy things or cause pain and disease just to punish humans and make their lives difficult. Some people think that roses did not have thorns until the fall. That means God created them just to be vindictive. You have God instituting new natural cycles, changing the weather and geology, fundamentally altering the biology of creatures (carnivores have different teeth, jaws, and digestive systems than herbivores), and creating sickness inducing microorganisms, pests, and genetic defects.
In that scenario God is proactively creating every way the world is currently imperfect or contributes to death, and you have him going about the act of special creation in an apparently degenerate way, motivated not by love and holiness and artistry, but by the need to curse his fallen human children for their sin. This sounds much more problematic to me than the idea that God declared the world āgoodā even though it included death and disease as part of its natural order. Or that parts of Genesis are intended to teach theological truths like universal fallenness of humanity in the present not give a historical blow by blow account of how the situation came about.
Some people respond that God did not actively create these death causing things, they just āhappenedā as a result of sin, but that in untenable in my book. God is the source of all creation. Evil and sin are not creators. When creationists insist that when Adam and Eve ate fruit there was this āchangeā that radically impacted the structure and function of all creation, either they are saying sin has āmagicalā creative powers (like in some childrenās movie where the hero unleashed some bad power that creeps over everything transforming it dark and scary and bad) or God himself purposely changed and redesigned his creation.
I believe God created everything that is. I wonāt allow āsinā to have creative power. Sin is a state of rebellion, not a personal entity with agency and creativity and intelligence. Sin affects how created things interact, it doesnāt create new things. Thorns, malaria carrying mosquitoes, Ebola, poisonous snakes, these are all part of Godās creation. Sin did not design them or bring them into existence.
If God proactively re-did creation to make it cursed, we have problems with the character of God. If natural evil is something God allows to exist in his creation, that is one thing. It has its theological and philosophical problems. (Thatās why we call it āthe problem of evilā) But if natural evil is something God did not intend for creation, but put it there anyway on purpose, because he was forced to by human choice to disobey or because he wants to because he want to punish humans for disobeying, that means either Godās hand is forced by humans or God created all bad things as a punishment. That is very problematic theologically and philosophically for me. Thatās saying God imagined and purposely created every terrible disease and pain inflicting thing we see in this world, because he was mad about sin.
God will never be angry with us for accepting reality. But if secular science is wrong, do you believe that the earth doesnāt move because the Bible says this?
Canāt speak for everybody, but for me that was a key question, and the answer was that it denies the goodness of God. If God is good, and the Bible is true, then a āearth created with the appearance of maturityā cannot be true as those observations relate a history and are evidence of events in the past that never happened, if not as preserved. That would make creation a lie and deceptive, more consistent with the work of Satan. So, there is a part of me that considers that blasphemy. The answer to that of course is that the appearance of age is false, and that interpretation of scripture is wrong. God is good, the Bible is true, and the correct interpretation is consistent with observed creation.
With no snark intended, this is a very ignorant statement. (1) It is patently false that these statements are universally recognized as being self-evident. For example, we struggle to even know how to translate the first few verses. (2) Disagreeing with your interpretation does not equate to denying the truthfulness of the Bible.
In my experience in these discussions, claims of āobviousā or āclearā or āself-evidentā usually erect a conversation-blocker from the get-go. Any counterargument is automatically deemed as coming from a place of lower intelligence, spirituality, or character. So why actually listen (i.e., converse)?
The question that started this thread was how do we interpret the days of Genesis. These days occur in Genesis 1, not in Genesis 2 or 3. In Genesis 1 a simple account is given as to how God created the universe. This creation is essentially a description of the big bang and the subsequent growth of life on earth. (This requires that you see v. 2 as saying that the earth is formless and empty, i.e. non-existent except as a concept in Godās mind.) Then there is the question of the 6 days of creation. I have listed out the time of the appearance of the various things created on the sequence of days and found that according to our science, they make each day about a half of the preceding day - as if the rate of time were decreasing by half each day. Time moves more slowly in a reference frame where there is more gravitational pressure. If God were doing his creating from some hypothetical point just outside the universe, the gravity would have been huge; one day for him could have encompass billions of years for us with our current earth gravity. As the universe expanded, and the pressure of gravity lessened, the rate of time for him and the rate of time for us would come closer each day. Why would the creation be told in terms of Godās time rather than ours? There are no humans in Genesis 1 until they are created on the 6th day, and then they are not the tellers of the story.
Gerald Schroeder describes this kind of thing in The Science of God. Iām not sure that he has described an entirely airtight case, but I think he has the main idea right.
The 6 24-hour days of creation, when stretched by the effects of gravity make the first book of the Bible believable and in fact miraculous for a modern reader. The ancients could not have understood it, but they could accept it. We, on the other hand, cannot accept something that contradicts what we already know to be true, but we can understand with much more depth what Godās words mean. God knew this, and knew that we would need something that we could see as proof of his reality. There are details to be dealt with still hanging out; but I think this is the meaning of the 6 24-hour days of Genesis 1. Both the YEC folks and the old earth folks are right. Time is relative. It really is. Both clocks are right; theyāre just located in different places.
I am quite satisfied, and excited, by this way of looking at Genesis 1 But I know most of the rest of you will probably hate it for one reason or another. So have at it.
The first question for me would be, āWhy would God want to describe the Big Bang to ancient peoples who didnāt even think they lived on a planet circling the sun?ā It would be nonsense. Certainly, he was trying to reveal to them who he was, and what that meant, and the text reflects that.
OK, you invited.
Yet you proceed with a very non-simple explanation!
Said no OT scholar ever, ancient or modern. There are many views on what to do with v. 2, but this isnāt one of them. How can you be so confident in a position never entertained in the history of scholarship?
What does this mean? Does it require God to be constrained to time and then located on the edges of the universe?
Please tease this out. We know the account was written by a human (or several humans) at some point, so youād need to offer an argument of how the story we have got there. You can posit direct revelation, but where is there any indication that thatās the best explanation.
This is one of the biggest hermeneutical problems I have with your proposal. Unless weāre dealing with some esoteric prophecy, I see no reason to think the original audience didnāt know what was being stated. Thereās no grounds for regarding Genesis 1 as prophecy. (Iām open to extra Christological layerings with progressive revelation, but this isnāt what you are proposing.)
Itās not about simply liking or disliking a position. Itās about the strength of the argument. All I can see is a heap of speculations with no grounding in the text or the history of interpretation. I think the first issue you need to address is why you assume a concordist reading of the text.
I do appreciate that you recognize (and donāt dismiss) the strength of the scientific evidence we have.
Hi Jpm,
I honestly am not even sure i understand your point hereā¦
so to simplify your point, and to ensure that we are on the same pageā¦
you are stating that God didnot create a mature earth or a mature man or a mature anything. So what did God create? Are you simply saying that all God created was the science?
Honestly, that would have to be an incredible stretch of the imagination for any rational person to believeā¦its complete nonsense and discredits the entire bible narrative. It in fact makes the very point of salvation irrelevant! You are denying the story of the Sanctuary and therefore denying the need for salvationā¦its an awful proposition. Im sorry, but I cannot (and i belive the same goes for any and all christians), I cannot accept that is a logical or consistent position to take.
You are irrefutably claiming science first and God secondā¦of that there is absolutely no doubt. Im sorry but i was required to study a couple of semesters of philosophy in christian education at university and i have to say,
Now i come back to something i have thought before on this topicā¦
theistic evolution is false. So, the real question is, can a theistic evolutionist be saved?
I believe that is of far more value to us than arguing over theologiesā¦errant interpretations of scripture etc.
I believe that one day some agnostics will find themselves in heaven. I think God will get a real kick out of the look of absolute shock on their faces when they realise they were wrong and yet they have been saved.
If anyone is interestedā¦i would love to briefly explain my thoughts on this . The reason why i think its relevant hereā¦it seems that the salvation issue is always raised whenever people start calling others theology heresy!
Well, we are definitely not on the same page. You are correct in that I do not think that God made a tree, a bird, or a man de novo in a mature states.Even the text tells you that in that nothing really was zapped into being but was ābrought forth.ā And even if you take a more literal view of Adamās creation in Genesis 2, even there God formed and molded him from the components of the ground, and he was not a living being, a human, until he breathed into him life (with his anthropomorphicālungs and lips.). All of which sounds more of a process than a simple zapping into being. Perhaps the molding and forming from the earth took a few billion years. God lacks neither the time nor the power to do it that way. Eveās creation is a bit more of a story of creating in a mature state, but even it started with the side of Adam, and makes a theologic point rather than a material one.
You really lose me when you speak of it making salvation irrelevant. Does not our sin separate us from God, and do we not need salvation from our bondage to sin, regardless of the process used in creation? I really do not follow your logic or theology, and I might add do not understand what you are saying that I am saying, so it would be fair to say you have do not understand either. Does salvation depend on your reading of Genesis being accurate? How does that work? Seriously,
āLet your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.ā -Colossians 4:6
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