This goes back to the discussion of freewill.
As long as people have a sinful nature and free will, there will be people who do wrong and we have limited ability to stop the,.
I believe he is indicating to you that there are two separate creation accounts in Genesis 1-3 that were written by two different authors and they contradict on a number of details. Therefore, by way of the law of non-contradiction, both accounts cannot be true as literally interpreted by modern conservatives. You might reject that there are two accounts and think the one account doesn’t contradict. If so, a follow up will probably be to point out a list of the discrepancies and differences on his part. If you don’t reject their being two mutally exclusive narratives, which version is “historical” to you in the modern sense?
Vinnie
1 Like
Vinnie, extracting a passage and interpreting it completely separate from the rest of scripture is an error people often make.
The declarations must be interpreted in light of the examples.
A good example is Paul and his desire to the free of the “thorn in the flesh.” Didn’t happen, despite his faith.
It is like math — you can learn the theorems, but you don’t understand until the examples are understood too.
I don’t disagree. That is not the issue. Jesus being incorrect or a liar is the issue. God csn stop a person’s bullet from hitting a soldier without messing with the person’s free will. He just has to curve the bullet. This is evasive. The problem isn’t Jesus or what is attributed to him in the Gospels. It’s interpreting it all with a wooden literalismas if it’s all encyclopedic statements of theological facts. It’s outdated Cartesian thinking.
Vinnie
1 Like
You said you are a YEC person.
There are two creation accounts with different orders and methods of creation.
You asked “what do you want to know?”
I want to know which, if either, account you think is literal history?
That may happen sometime, but if it happened all the time there would be no room for faith.
I am not sure how Jesus saying you will get anything you ask for in my name/prayer is an I interpretive issue. It’s rather straightforward and benign. How can it be any clearer? It only needs to have 5,000 different caveats (must be God’s will—what he was going to do anyways) because it is obviously false when taken at its literal word in a Cartesian sense. The bottom line is if we want to interpret Jesus in this manner, he clearly made false statements like this. No amount of scripture or caveats will change this. A Christisb whose child is being raped has a genuine prayer.
Saying Paul didn’t have his thorn removed with prayer isn’t salvaging Jesus’s statement. It’s only serving as another example of its incorrectness. I am not sure why you bring it up. It’s fairly obvious we don’t get whatever we ask for in prayer, even if our intentions are good. That is the problem. We need to be careful with what we claim is a “declarations” as if it’s some inerrant and universal mandate or fact. That is my only point in all this.
Vinnie
1 Like
I have a question …
We have BioLogos here but where is the fruit of one who has Zoe life that Jesus gives?
The constant harassment of YEC believers is hostile.
2 Likes
God is omnipotent and sovereign. Just because can’t see a way, doesn’t mean he couldn’t. Will there be room for faith in heaven? Will there be free will? If not on the latter what do I care if I go there or not. I’ll just be a robot. But if heaven has free will clearly there is a place where people don’t die of gun violcence, get tortured and starve to death. Are you saying heaven can’t actually exist? If I am free in heaven how could it be free of sin?
Vinnie
1 Like
You offered to answer questions.
I asked a question.
How is that harassment or hostility?
On the contrary, I am hoping you will see that the early chapters of Genesis cannot be read literally, since they literally disagree with each other. That is meant to be helpful.
1 Like
No, I am not saying that heaven doesn’t exist.
But I will say that we are unlikely to be able to envision heaven now.
Nevertheless, the point persists: taking a specific declaration and separating it from the clarifying examples in scripture is an error and leads to confusion.
1 Like
Okay Vance 
I’m done with this discussion
There are no clarifying examples. They only show the “declaration” to be false in this case. I also have a different hermeneutic when it’s comes to interpreting scripture as a whole.
Well, Vinnie, we disagree.
The examples in scripture do clarify the lives of believers and God’s interactions with us.
But I see that we will continue to disagree, so thanks for the discussion.
1 Like
Yes we will on the issue. Thank you as well. I will offer one more comment as maybe a “meta-argument” on this whole situation. Feel free to ignore or share your thoughts.
But if a statement so straightforward by Jesus has to be clarified by so many caveats and really seems contrary to reality as we know it, how can we be sure a tiny blurb about heaven in a one-off saying where Jesus is arguing against opponents be taken so easily as a literal declaration of the actual state of heaven? I see too much inconsistency in this approach.Jesus ends up being whoever modern Protestant theology conditions us to see him as. Everything must conform to that narrative. We can add caveats to everything Jesus says and then serve our own selves in the name of Christ. I’d rather dig deeper and find the real Jesus. That requires humility and not assuming or over-extending small blurbs in scripture as immutable, inerrant, and universal- divine proclamations. The humanity of Jesus is too evident in scripture for me to do this.
Vinnie
I will add one more comment: when we judge or interpret ancient Near East communication methods by modern Western standards, we may be mislead.
While these statements may have been, in part, said for us, they were not said to us. They were said to people with a very different culture and different experience.
Because there is perfect social justice. There is no lack, no want, no pain, no suffering, no loss, no desire, no capacity to inflict that on others. In heaven there can be no sin. You will be freed of disordered passion.
2 Likes
If you feel being harassed, please report.
I kept getting negative feedbacks by Pastors who are against Evolution Theory.
Many even view there is no way you can believe in Christ if you believe human came from Apes.
Will we learn? Love? Take pleasure in things?
What you are describing could be taken as dreadfully boring. An eternity of blah? Sounds like torture. Sounds like hell without the fire.
2 Likes
Thanks.
So, it is very very likely that Jesus Christ in His human nature did believe in 6 literal 24 hours creation that is the central tenet of today’s Young Earth Creationism.
But, the knowledge shall increase.
This means that the context of common understanding at that time must not be imposed upon modern day Christians.