Is that the same as speaking him into existence? Not so much.
Ah, that was your point.
I agree you are absolutely correct here…the problem is, spoke what into existence? I didnt claim that Adam and Eve were spoken into existence.
God spoke creation into existence…but he personally made man.
I am making the assumption now that you have a problem with the following:
Genesis 1: 3And God said, “Let there be light,”a and there was light.
6And God said, “Let there be an expansec between the waters, to separate the waters from the waters.”
9And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered into one place, so that the dry land may appear.”
11Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees, each bearing fruit with seed according to its kind.”
14And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to distinguish between the day and the night, and let them be signs to mark the seasons and days and years. 15And let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth.”
20And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.”
24And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.”
Now note the difference between the above and what follows (the significant difference shown below is why there is further description of the creation narrative in Genesis Ch 2):
26Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itselfd and every creature that crawls upon it.”
27So God created man in His own image;
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.e
It’s funny though, that does not refute the reality of evolution and the fact that Genesis 1-11 is ANE literature, not to mention the antiquity of the earth and the universe.
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let me clarify The text does not say, In the beginning God said “let there be the heavens and the Earth”. it says
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. (Genesis 1:1,2)
I believe this is extremely important omission, I myself for my whole life believed God spoke the heavens and earth into existence. But I’m now questioning that assumption
“I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls on the other.” Shakespeare: Macbeth
this is the only Shakespeare I ever remember, but it is so profound. It keeps me humble especially when talking about God.
(@Troy: Is this adequately on topic? Your call.)
@adamjedgar had no reply in the other thread where he was tagged:
I agree it does not. I dont see that as being problematic however, we have a rather simple and obviously binary choice to make and I choose YECism because i have made that binary choice.
I know that Biologos disagree because they are convinced the Science must control our theology, however, i see problems with that approach because it simply does not agree with self evident biblical interpretations. Of course that means i am more than willing to follow the science as put forward by Answers in Genesis, Creation Ministries, The Seventh Day Adventist Church and any other organisations who follow YECism. I also accept that even within these groups, there are those who are not entirely convinced YEC are right.
I would urge anyone who is genuine about this to go into the bible and very deeply and carefully study the Sanctuary…study it from the beginning of the Old Testament to the End of the book of Revelation. Once you do that and completely understand the importance of the Sanctuary, you will find the following:
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Sunday worship is a doctrine that is heavily influenced by unsound theology and very likely indicative of the mark of the beast. If we allow Sunday worship, we take away the relevance and importance of Exodus 20:11
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The sanctuary service proves that God is unchanging…he does not make a set of moral laws then change them on a whim simply because his son died on the cross. The salvation plan existed since BEFORE the foundation of the earth…he did not need to wait almost 4000 years to change the Sabbath (which appeared at the end of the creation week AFTER the foundation of the earth) at the Cross
You know what is really weird? I know Denis L. I attended a lecture 20 years ago at university and later a private meeting with him at the church I was attending. I was most disturbed by the theodicy/ theological problems old age of earth creates. The atonement didn’t make sense if death before sin. Its been a ping pong ball in my head for 20 plus years.
But then I realised, Satan or evil presence in the Garden does the same thing as old earth. According to Doc of original perfection the logic falls apart in the text. That’s why I’m looking at the whole thing differently now maybe the doctrine of original perfection is the culprit not the text.
maybe I should reach out to Denis and run this all by him LOL!!
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I’m sorry, but that is your badly mistaken perception. Truth comes from reality, and the realities contained in scripture cannot conflict with the realities of the cosmos: they both are from God.
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St Roymond I don’t think I linked my reply’s to this post correctly… lol, they are above somewhere.
Anyway counteracted could be relaced with formed into? or overcame ? I’m my mind I’m trying to describe creation thru Christ. I’m seeing Christs dead body as the singularity of Gen 1vs 1 by which all things are formed through. God takes the dead and makes alive. Hence we have a resurrection account. Its as you describe the singularity ( I’m suggesting death of Christ) is the raw material for creation. there is some valid metaphysical reasoning behind this in my posts, if you can find those reply’s!
oddly I found this fun fact…
The Universe, at the earliest stages we can ascribe a “size” to it, could have been no smaller than roughly the size of a human being.
Hmm interesting…
Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation,” he said. “What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn’t. I’m an atheist.”
You know who wrote the above quote? Stephen Hawking.
Now what were you saying?
Hawking clearly disagreed with your type of claim and therein lives the foolishness of TEism. Modern scientists scoff at God and yet you follow their hypothesis thinking God can be blended with it.
Both the bible and secular science intepretations disagree with TEism. Both say its wrong.
What??
Are you implying that parents show some parallel to the problem of evil? or that they are somehow a parallel to devils?
Because an atheist doesn’t believe in the Creator and because you believe that the Sovereign God of the universe cannot control atoms and molecules, therefore you’ve disproven evolution and proven the earth is only 6 ka old. Did I get that right?
I evidence to the contrary otherwise. Personally. A case in point.
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Trying to understand what you meant.
The hope was that you would explain more about what you meant by this. I was having trouble fitting it into the context of the discussion.
I was saying that skeptical theism was about the problem of evil and not about justifying the idea that God is sensitive to insults.
And I am not understanding these questions – not what they mean or why you are asking them.
Essentially blaming God for evil would be offensive to Him so historically everyone blames Adam for evil. By suggesting God created a negative initial condition that needed to be improved also may be offensive to God. But I’m suggesting the opposite. The negative nature of gen1v1,2 highlights who God is thru juxtaposition.
GOD VS initial Creation
Light--------------------Dark
Ordered (law) --------Chaos
Alive --------------------Desolation
What “negative state”?
God didn’t make a “negative state”, He started as He wished to. There was not yet anything negative about darkness or even about chaos – that only came later when the Deceiver brought sin to the Earth.
That was correctly deemed a heresy long ago. God didn’t create the universe within Himself, so there was no need to create “space within Himself”, nor is that actually possible.
You’re playing the same sort of logic games that led the medieval church astray so often.
Maybe you should learn to read the scriptures.
The Holy Spirit Himself, as recorded in Acts 15, reduced the entire Old Testament instruction to just four items.
The Sabbath is not on His list.
The Ten Words are off-topic because this is a discussion about the New Covenant, for which the Holy Spirit reduced the entire Torah to four items.
The Ten are not on His list.
Now you’re accusing the Holy Spirit of taking away the relevance and importance of His own scripture.
In this you are correct: when He reduced the entire Torah to just four items, He did not include Exodus 20 in His list.
That was Stephen Hawking speaking as an atheist first and a scientist second.
Adam, if you want to argue against a scientific theory, you need to understand how to do it properly. You do not argue against a scientific theory by quote mining famous scientists for broad, sweeping statements about subjects that the theory does not address. If you want to argue that scientific theories such as evolution and deep geological time are not a fact, you must do one of the following two things:
- Either present some physical, measurable evidence that clearly contradicts and falsifies the entire theory as a whole. Note in particular that the evidence that you present must contradict the core fundamentals and not just the fine details.
- Alternatively, provide an alternative theory that explains the evidence that we see in nature in more detail, with greater mathematical precision, and with fewer assumptions, fewer unanswered questions, and less special pleading, than the theory you are challenging.
I covered the first point here:
And the second point here:
Read both of these articles carefully before you continue with the debate, Adam. Because if you aren’t doing what they say, you are just wasting everyone’s time.
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You were talking about attributing evil to God. I noted that at the very least it was attributing inadequacy to God.