Doubt & Faith Struggle

Faith & Science Conversation
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ll your statements claiming you are staying with the text were true, you would reference your statements with the text, however, you rarely do that and for obvious reasons…it doesnt align with your theology!

  1. I believe that the biblical genealogies- because they give us a specific family lineage of names and ages, are literal…and because they go right back to Adam and Eve, i can know that my YEC beliefs are based on that lineage to creation (given the bible specifically tells us that Adam was the first man created in 1 Corinthians 15).

45So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being;

49And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man

Now before you get consumed by the above…

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

You say, the creation account and the bible lineages we find throughout its pages (numerous Old Testament stories of the lives of individuals in the family tree of Christ) are not representative of the actual age of humanity nor the earth because science theory says it must be 4.5 billion years old, you do that despite very direct recordings of what many of those individuals did, where they lived, people they married, children they had, trials and tribulations around them…these are not fairytale stories of morality, they are the real stories of the people whose names are recorded in them. If you are going to put them into the fairytale category, then Christ also goes there because a man cannot be raised from the dead, nor can he rise up into the sky against gravity!

Below is an opportunity to place your theology on trial…

Prove to all of us here that 1 Corinthians 15 is NOT stating that; Adam was the first created man and that we bear his likeness.

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How is it when v5 speaks of the first day while a 24 hour day was not created yet, that happens in v14.

v3 - And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Whatever the light was it did not came from the sun.

No climate as we nowadays know it.

Gen 2:5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground,
Gen 2:6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—

Also - v2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep

Without form and still rotating around the sun in a 24 hour cycle?

IMO (meaning I could be wrong) is to look in a different way at v2 -

  1. We live in a violent Universe
  2. In that Universe is a planet without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.
  3. That’s not what we expect from an almighty and all loving God.
  4. So why is that?
  5. IMO it is symbolism for the satanic rebellion and what Satan stands for, void, chaos and most of all darkness.
  6. Then God starts to create preparing a world, 2 places -
    6a. Paradise, a supernatural place, no death, love rules, exactly what we would expect from an almighty and all loving God. No knowledge of good and evil for its inhabitants as long as they obey that small command from God.
    6b. Recreate the rest of void earth making it a natural place where both good and evil rule, where death is inevitable, choices can be made favoring good (God) or evil (Satan). And of course eventually this battle is won by Christ and all of that was foreseen and decided before Gen 1.1 —> Ephesians 1:4-6, 1 Peter 1:19-20

Looking at it from this even more symbolic perspective I also see the six 24 hour days together with the 7th day also symbolic as the 7th day points to the installation and keeping the Sabbath. Also, why should an almighty God need six days and take a rest because He is tired? He could have done the 6 days in a split second without becoming tired.

63

I’m surprised that you ask this question because its the bible states emphatically the complete opposite of your interpretation there on the first day of creation (note the last sentence in the image below)

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Let me ask you a question…

My understanding is that those who believe in Theistic Evolution say, God created science and then cannot change science and must act within the boundaries of science right?

Are you able to explain Revelation 21 to us all given that life needs sunlight to exist apparently?

10And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, 11shining with the glory of God.

23And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, because the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24By its light the nations will walk, and into it the kings of the earth will bring their glory.f 25Its gates will never be shut at the end of the day, because there will be no night there.

If you were to jump on an airliner that was able to fly continuously around the globe at the same rate as the sun, would you age in days/years? How would you know?

How is it possible that Satan existed in the universe when we have no biblical evidence of the exact time when he entered the arena other than it was AFTER creation had finished already? The New Testament tells us that Satan was the angel Lucifer in heaven prior to his fall from heaven…so how is it possible that Void = Chaos = Satan???

Also, my understanding is that TEists here do not accept that heavenly angels (remembering Lucifer/Satan was also an angel) are capable of manipulating physical matter directly. They cannot create or destroy outside of the realm of science. If that’s the case, how can void represent anything to do with an angel?

Finally, are you suggesting that anywhere in the universe where God has not yet created something (whether it be light or any matter) is a domain of Satan? Thats a huge stretch given the bible specifically says that Satan and his angels were cast down to the earth…how can they be in space if they are cast and, by inference, obviously bound to this planet until the final judgment where they will be thrown into the lake of fire before this world is recreated new again (see new earth in revelation 21)? Most denominations as far as i am aware believe hell is here on earthbut deep below its surface somewhere (“down there”).

REVELATION 20:7

ESVAnd when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison

I wish to finally address you last comment

What is interesting in there is that the Sabbath predates the giving of the law at Sinai by over 2000 years (at least, or millions of years according to your belief system). that’s problem no 1 for you because it destroys the 1st vs 2nd covenant doctrine of that mainstream Christian movement. It doesnt bother me because i do not believe there is any difference between the covenants except the first was written on tablets of stone, the second on our hearts and in our minds (the meaning…1st covenant = mans efforts to take on the responsibility, 2nd covenant = Gods promise to take on the responsibility)

Next, this entire argument that keeps coming about about God needing a rest…Christ emphatically refuted that theory when he made the following statement “THE SABBATH WAS MADE FOR MAN”!!!

God resting had nothing to do with being worn out…its not even relevant as the Sabbath is very clearly a day for worshipping our creator…it was a weekly institution of worship…not some arbitrary mumbo jumbo ancient religious ritual! God doesn’t want worship to be a works-based ritual, he has never wanted that. He demonstrates that by giving us righteousness by faith through Grace. The bible says even Abraham was deemed righteous by his faith. So righteousness by faith is the way humanity has always been saved from the wages of sin…its not just a New Testament thing.

You are starting to lose me with 6b.

without law there is no moral code right? If that is fundamentally true, and i believe it is, what command from God are we talking about?
Next, if the command from God you speak of is the one about not eating of the tree in the middle of the garden…how is it that the entire earth is now held to ransom because of Eve’s disobedience? The bible says sin entered the world through “one man” Adam and it will be removed from the world through one man Christ ,the second Adam. We know from a wealth of biblical support that the second Adam (Christ) is a metaphorical term not a second Adam created alongside the original Adam in the garden of Eden. The point of this statement is to show that the first Adam sinned and lead the world astray, the second Adam (Christ) dies on the cross and makes atonement for the sins of His own creation thus providing a mechanism for salvation/redemption.

We know quite comprehensively that the lamb of God was Christ our creator. Read Isiah 9:6 and Philllipians 2

7but emptied Himself,

taking the form of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

8And being found in appearance as a man,

He humbled Himself

and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross.

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It’s not a question, it’s a statement.

Whatever the light is (likely God’s light opposing the darkness) it is not the light of the sun since the sun wasn’t created, right? You like literal, so we discuss literal, I see symbolism.

I am not into Theistic Evolution.

And maybe that’s the light on the first day? God’s light that don’t need a sun?

I never said that, nor implied that, I said SYMBOLISM as a result of the satanic rebellion in heaven. Your literal brain vs my symbolic brain on this issue.

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65

I will just deal with this because none of the above answers the dilemmas i presented.

I answered the dilemma you presented about there being NO [FIRST] DAY until after the sun was created in Genesis 1:14, by quoting "and there was evening and there was morning day 1 in Genesis 1:5 (you ignored that, and i suspect thats because it directly addressed your apparent dilemma)

Anyway, moving on form the above that has now been resolved…

My assumption from the above-quoted statement is that you, by inherent association, claiming death and suffering entering the world are symbolic right?

So let me ask,

Did Christ die on the cross symbolically or literally?

Was Christ raised symbolically or literally?

Did Christ ascend into heaven symbolically or literally?

Is the second coming Symbolic or literal?

Now…Did Adam really sin or was it symbolic?

Is the Second Coming a real event where dead corpses will be raised from the ground and levitate into the air alongside living people, or is it just symbolic? If its symbolic, What happens to the dead people exactly? Are they spirits who go to heaven and the rest who are alive stay here? What happens when the New Jerusalem comes down to the earth from heaven and God and his angels all move here with the remnant who have been redeemed unto him…where do all those symbolic spirits go?

My assumption must be that you have no idea how old the earth is and do not be too concerned if it approximately 6000 years old based on genealogies in the bible, however you would not agree its 4.5 billion years old (because one cannot extrapolate anything even remotely that age from the bible) right?

Next there’s Moses…after coming down from the mountain, spoke directly to the people and passed on Gods statements regarding the law, so you have no problem with Exodus 20:8-11 right?

8Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant or livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates. 11For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.

A real event or symbolic? What about the rest of the law is it also symbolic?

If you answer is yes Moses and the giving of the 10 commandments are symbolic, i have a big dilemma for you…atonement then becomes symbolic as well right? So explain why a man physically died on the cross to atone for the sins of all of His own creation…ie humanity, when all that was needed was symbolism (ie the sacrifice of sheep and goats)? Doesnt the new Testament tell us we cannot be saved by the blood of sheep and goats (the symbolism it represented)?

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No, no, no, false.

What’s are you doing?

Did I say God needed a rest?

NO.

I gave you reasons to read the creation story more symbolic, God did not have to say He rested on the 7th day and yet He did. The Jews understood the symbolism.

67

please answer the following …i have long moved on from the above…your statement “the jews understood the symbolism” is exactly the dilemma that i presented to you…but you missed the point…so i pasted it below again.

You need to ensure that you read right to the bottom before answering.

68

I have to go to bed…so ill leave you with the following statement:

one cannot make the logical argument, creation was symbolic, the fall was symbolic, the giving of the law was symbolic…

then out of the blue make the claim that the entire New Testament, which if memory serves, is the first time the holy spirit is specifically mentioned in the bible and so spirituality is all over the new testament…that the entire Gospel ISNT symbolic and that the Second Coming is real!

Christ died physically on the Cross…fundamentally every Christian must believe this was a literal event…it wasn’t symbolic! Now if the cross is recorded as having really happened, how can you possibly ignore Old Testament prophecies that said that was what was going to happen and it was to fulfil the promise of a real person/man…a saviour, in the Old Testament? Even the Maggi who came to visit the young child new of the prophecy and they were not even Jewish!!!

69

The sarcasm is not appreciated.

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70

is that an answer…or are you now realising the theological dilemmas you are faced with? Im not being sarcastic…do i think that your theology is sound? Who cares, that’s not relevant. If you are unable to allow for you theology to be stripped bare, how can you be sure that you have thought it through as well as it needs to be and that its even right?

Its only when significant holes start to form in ones theology that we realise that perhaps a lot more study is required and that may even result in a significant change in direction.

BTW, i did look at the texts in Ephesians and in 1 Peter…the simple answer is that Trinitarian Christians all believe that Christ predetermined that if His Creation should fall into temptation, then he would come and die to make atonement for sin. What this tells us is that yes, Lucifer’s rebellion in heaven was likely before the creation of this world. However, the bible also makes it very clear that the casting out of heaven of Satan (formerly Lucifer) and his angels occurred AFTER the earth was created.

oh by the way… a little food for thought on that note…Christ was incarnated as a man…“a little lower than the angels”. This means that lucifer as an angel (now Satan) doesnt have much higher authority than we do!

I have to go to bed now. I really appreciate the dialogue with you. Im sorry you feel I’m being sarcastic…i suppose we could make that statement about Bill Nye in his visit to ark encounter when he spoke with Ken Ham too!

71

Hope you slept well.

I like you and don’t have anything against YEC, it has been the belief for thousands of years. As one of the Last of the Mohicans you stand as a rock in the surf sea, I can appreciate that.

What I don’t like is that you make wrong assumptions about me, saying things I never said, nor meant to say. This takes the fun away talking to you.

God bless.

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72

If you’re just going to keep lying there’s little point to this.
I say the opening Creation account tells us nothing about the age of the earth because it tells us nothing about the age of the earth.
I say the “bible lineages” tell us nothing about the age of the earth because of how genealogies were used in ancient times.

So? The books of John Grisham and James Michener do the same thing – are you counting them as history?

You’re the only one who applies the term “fairytale” to the scriptures. Why is that?

You’ve got it backwards – you need to prove that Paul is saying that. Here’s the text:

Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

It doesn’t mention Creation, it doesn’t say anything about likeness. It can be taken that Adam was real, but “first man” can be a legal term as well as a temporal one – in fact it tends to be taken that way quite commonly when theologians call Adam the “federal head” of mankind.

But you’re just dodging – this has nothing to do with the text that you butcher by stuffing modern scientific meanings into ancient words. You have to make the case where the issue is, which means you have to show that in ancient Hebrew “אֶרֶץ” can mean “planet”.

There is no “planet” in verse 2; you have the same challenge to meet as above.

And why wouldn’t we expect tohu wabohu and darkness from God? especially when those are the conditions that all the ANE religions considered to be existent at the beginning? What verses 1-2 are doing is taking that normal ANE view – where darkness and chaos were pre-existent, before the gods – and saying, “You guys are all wrong; none of it was pre-existent because YHWH-Elohim made it”. It’s a message that works well today when people worry about the idea that the universe exists on its own; the text still declares “That’s wrong; Yahweh made it”.
This is why it is not just important but necessary to read the text in its original context: the amount of theology in it when read that way is often mind-boggling, and we miss it when we read it in the YEC fashion as though it was some sort of objective newspaper articles.

There is no ha-Satan in the text yet, so that is just speculation. It’s not symbolism at all, it’s the standard ANE view of the eternal chaos & darkness the gods arose from, except the Genesis writer is announcing that YHWH-Elohim made it. If you want a modern concept that fits, think of the tohu wabohu and darkness and the deep as a heap of raw materials; the ANE cosmology said those were always present but Genesis say no, YHWH-Elohim made them.

Augustine made the same point in one of his books.
In another place he noted that there is no reason to take these as 24-hour days because God cannot be confined that way, that what Genesis 1 is doing is saying that God used a heavenly 7-day work week and thus we should us an earthly 7-day work week; it is thus a heavenly template projected onto our earthly world.

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73

If we ignore the temporal aspect of v.1 then Lucifer was included in “heavens and earth”, since (1) that is a phrase that means “everything that exists” and (2) each term refers to its entire realm, i.e. heaven means everything included as heavenly and earth means everything included in the earthly realm.
So in your time-schedule reading of Genesis Lucifer is already there. On the other hand you do have a point if we acknowledge the temporal aspect of v.1, "When God began to create . . . . ", since then v.2 is a statement of the condition of the raw materials – though if those are merely the raw materials for the earthly creation, Lucifer presumably was around already since “heavens” comes before “earth”.

Since you like to read science into the scriptures, I’m surprised you would entertain the idea that there is anywhere where God hasn’t created something; physics says that there is no such thing as empty space, that it is all a “sea” of particles popping in and out of existence – thus in every tiniest bit of space there is only that which God created.
Besides which, space itself is created, so it doesn’t need to have any “light or matter” to be something God has created.

They hadn’t yet been cast down as of Genesis 1:1-2.

False. That’s a legalistic concept that fails to recognize that the mere existence of relationship establishes a rudimentary moral code.

It isn’t. You love to accuse people of bad theology, but this actually is bad! Paul doesn’t even mention Eve, only Adam.

What does the Bible have to do with figuring out the age of the earth? Do you look in the Bible to find the boiling point of water? God gave us reason to be able to figure out how the universe works, and it would be silly to think that He expects us to not make use of that gift.

Why do you make up things that people haven’t said? It’s disrespectful and makes you look like an idiot.

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Just chiming back in before going hiking and funny enough leading a small tour on native hardwoods along a swamp and pitcher plant bog.

Most of us go through doubt and struggle with our faith. For many it’s scary to let go of the Bible as this book that fell from heaven created by the Holy Ghost hikacking people to write out a perfect flawless book over thousands of years. Normally first people get use to realizing some translations are way. They can’t all be perfect. Then they begin to get around to understanding that this is copoes or copies and so maybe the copies we have are messed up and don’t perfectly reflect what was there. Then they get use to the issues of things like Masoretic vs Septuagint. Then they start getting use to contextual analysis and learning about tropes and genres and symbolism in the Bible. Then they begin to dig more into accomondationism.

Then for some like myself accomondationism bleeds into syncretism and omnist versions of Christianity. For me, this is when my faith became the strongest. Realizing Christianity and Judaism themselves are forms of the god accommodating humanity just like Buddhism, Animism and even European pagan faiths. Realizing the gospels are just as full of myths as the Torah. No longer feeling like god is this fiery soul eating all knowing being who forced man to write the Bible and live predestined lives and having to say that David was a good guy and so on. Was very freeing and strengthening to allow the “creator” to be mysterious and some accommodating mankind all around the world, and potentially beings all through the universe and maybe even other universes.

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Then what is earth in v2 if it’s not a planet ?

I understand the ANE view, but unlike you (and most of the readers here, I think) I am not so easily convinced to lump about everything under ANE, I prefer to defend what my views are and adjust if necessary (as far as I have them, because indeed as you say the theology is mind boggling) giving them the benefit of the doubt until defense no longer makes sense.

The question I raised about v2 is WHY?

For you that is clear, ANE, for me maybe, but let’s explore other possibilities first and my take on “void, chaos and darkness” are symbolism for the satanic rebellion (thus what the Satan stands for) is not a bad one, without saying it is truth. At least it is theology instead of ANE.

Great :slight_smile:

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The cause for using valid words in the translation of Genesis is the context of the message.

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Land – a flat disk under a solid sky-dome.

But the ANE is the historical context – and without that you can’t get the actual theology, you can only make up your own. “Explor[ing] other possibilities first” is just avoiding listening to the actual text. It’s a form of anti-truth where what you make up for yourself counts more than the actual meaning.

Anyway . . . .Why would there be symbolism about a Satanic rebellion that doesn’t come along till two chapters later? The first chapter is about Creation, not about rebellion, especialy a rebellion that doesn’t happen until the Creation is firmly established.

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This time it’s you who is speculating :grinning:

ANE is a belief system you have chosen to believe, not necessarily truth. ANE religions don’t exists any longer for good reasons, the Bible is still the most sold book.

My take on v2 is that when God does / says something He ALWAYS does that for a reason and my job is to try to figure out what He meant with void, chaos and darkness. I don’t start with ANE, I am looking for spiritual understanding.

Don’t get me wrong, I came from far, raised as YEC plus the myth the Scriptures are true from A to Z as the Holy Spirit breathed truth to the authors when they wrote the Bible as we now have it. It was hard to accept that what I believed for decades was not true. I shed some tears over it and had to re-investigate my faith again. Meaning, there is still hope I will accept ANE :upside_down_face: eventually.

Because the first sin wasn’t on Earth (with A&E) but in heaven, before Gen 1:1, the satanic rebellion.

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Definitely.

Concentrate on following Jesus’s teachings rather than on his divinity.

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The Chaos, void, darkness is juxtaposition to Order, fullness, and light. This is a juxtaposition of God, and necessary for anything to exist in a Maximal God.

The Earth under water is Jesus in death.

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying,

“I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and you heard my voice.
3 For you cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
passed over me.
4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away
from your sight;
yet I shall again look
upon your holy temple.’
5 The waters closed in over me to take my life;
the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head
6 at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
O Lord my God.
7 When my life was fainting away,
I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
into your holy temple.
8 Those who pay regard to vain idols
forsake their hope of steadfast love.
9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving
will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

10 And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

The Third day the earth (christ) is raised from the death (leviathan) and Christ body now produces Seed and vine. Seed and vine = these when crushed produce Bread and Wine. Adam is told to eat the sacraments of true religion.
Genesis 14:18

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.)

Genesis is high Christology. Heb 1:2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

we must interpret genesis through a christological lense to gain spiritual insight.

27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

I’ve written a layman’s systematic theology on this concept if your interested, it’s a working draft

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