Evangelicals and others and their different approaches to the Bible and biblical authority

Faith & Science Conversation
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Sure Josh. All truth is God’s truth, but that can be used to accept anything and everything you might accept as truth so it isn’t that helpful. I mean someone could say Mohammed is the prophet of God. It’s not in the Bible, but all truth is God’s truth so there you have it. you still need a standard for truth. The Bible is that standard.

I understand what you are saying, but in this instance, the whole Bible is unified in presenting Genesis 1-11. In fact, you have to radically change the meaning of the text to make it fit with the evolutionary story. The Bible gives us some very important information that we need in order to properly interpret the historical record and the book of nature that we have. To ignore that or go against it and then take the book of nature and come back and re-interpret the Bible based on your interpretation of that book is backwards.

I understand the illustration of Gallileo. It’s not quite as simple and straightforward as opponents of the Bible like to make it, but this is a case where we can actually see with our own eyes. There is no interpretation going on at all. When it comes to evolution, we lack that support. No one can prove that life simply emerged from chemicals by luck. No one can prove that evolutionary processes are actually capable of producing the volumes of new genetic information that the first life would somehow have had to produce to get humans. Claiming that genetic mutations could do this is an incredible and unsupportable claim.

It is interesting that with Gallileo, unfortunately the Church took the common prevailing secular scientific view of the day and read it into the Scripture. It was easy to find verses to support that, but in the end, they were wrong.

You do know that the originator of the Ptolomaic System was Aristotle(4th century BC) and Ptolemy(2nd century AD). Aristotle taught that the earth was the center of a perfect universe in which the movements of the stars were circular and never ending. Ptolemy developed his Ptolemaic System.

This science was not derived from the Bible, but the Church readily accepted it as biblical teaching and then held on to it thinking it to be biblical truth, for far too long. I feel Christians do that today when they read the Big Bang into the Bible or when they read evolution into the Bible.

But again, one is an open and shut case that can easily be verified with our own eyes and the other is not. The evolutionary paradigm has tons of gaps and requires tons of timely mutations, each one a veritable miracle of chance. It cannot be observed. The ad hoc explanations for why various things evolved or even how they evolved cannot be tested. As long as they sound plausible(subjective), they are accepted. And a role for God, who is said to be the Creator, is rejected from the start. So God created, but He really didn’t create. Let’s all praise the Great Creator who really didn’t create anything! No wonder evolutionists question the existence of God! He is not necessary at all for evolution to take place, so why add Him to the mix? Isn’t that anti-science?

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Mr. Tokyo,

It is barely possible to prove the immortality of the soul or the general resurrection in the WHOLE of the Old Testament. It is the re-textualizing of Judaism (and the Old Testament) by Messianic Jews - - during the intertestamental period – that dramatically amplifies Jewish theology into Resurrection theology.

But truth be told, there are maybe 2 or 3 equivocal texts in all of the Old Testament that state Christianity’s most important truth: the General Resurrection.

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Agreed with you on that. Taking it in context, the parable refers to the smallest seed that a Jewish farmer would sow in his field. I think we can both agree that Jesus was teaching that out of something tiny, something huge can grow. Pretty straightforward.

I guess what I mean is why didn’t God make things a bit more clear in Genesis? It would not have been a difficult thing to do. Why would He make up a story about Adam and Even when He could have told the true story of Adam and Eve? It doesn’t make sense. The way it is written leads people to misunderstand reality. Jesus continued the misleading statements and it wasn’t until just 200 years ago when we finally figured out the truth - thanks to science, not the Bible. That does a lot to build our confidence in the Bible doesn’t it?

Jesus didn’t talk about dinosaur fossils because the word dinosaur was not even invented until almost 2000 years later. Besides they had nothing to do with anything He was teaching about. But He did discuss the flood which was the event that created most of the fossil record.

OK, now you are again rejecting the plain meaning of the text. And you are accusing YECers of things they don’t believe - like water covered Mt. Everest which was at the same height back then as today. We do not believe that. You are right that there is not enough water to do that. Maybe you need to understand what creationists do actually believe before making assumptions like that. Read the text and see if you think the original author - Moses - meant it to be understood like you think it should. I do not think so. If it was not a global flood, why would Noah need to build an ark and remain on it for 1 year? Or is that all make believe too? How do know what is and what is not make believe? Do you discount the possibility of miracles in these accounts? if so, why? Do you discount the possibility of miracles in the Red Sea account, in Elisha and Elijah’s life, in Jesus’ life, in the apostles’ era? If so, why? If not, why not? Miracles are all anti-science.

If you want to know what creationists actually believe about the flood, the water, the animals, etc., I suggest checking our creation.com There is still some debate in the creationist camp as to where the pre-flood line is in the geological record, but it is pretty clear that the continent wide layers of sedimentary rock would have had to be laid down by huge amounts of water.

Christy, the point is that Peter prophesied that scoffers come who deny the flood. So Peter is saying the flood actually happened. And it was global because Peter is comparing it to the coming global judgment. And it is true. Just as Peter said scoffers have come who DELIBERATELY OVERLOOK THIS FACT. What was the FACT? Let’s read it together again. 1) "that the heavens existed long ago, 2) and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 3) and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

Christy, it says it is a FACT! How do you reinterpret that as a myth?! Listen, if you really think this passage can be interpreted as saying the global flood is a myth, again, biblical interpretation is hopeless. How in the world could God have made it any clearer? If He had meant to say it was a historical fact, how could He have said it better than this?

Is a literal flood the only understanding of this passage? Of course. Peter calls it a fact, but it seems like words seem to lose all sense of their meaning whenever it is necessary to support evolution.

Before you jump on the biologos bandwagon and believe everything Walton has to say, perhaps reading the creationist response to this book might provide a bit of balance. Certainly you will be biased towards his book and interpretation because he is on your side and is a supporter of evolution.

I am not familiar with his treatment of the “foundation of the world”, but I admit I am skeptical of it already because of who Walton is and how he seems to treat Scripture. It seems like you have accepted a lot of what he writes.

Of course. I agree with you that in reality, if read properly, the book of nature(general revelation) will jive with the Bible(specific revelation), but the Bible is inerrant whereas the book of nature needs much more interpretation. The Bible gives us important information that is necessary to know in order to accurately interpret His book of general revelation. The flood is one example of this. If we do not recognize the flood, then we will badly misinterpret the geological record.

Yes, they are the same God. And yes, there are godly scientists who believe in - sorry - accept the evolutionary paradigm as true. But the men who initiated it all were not godly men. Many leaders in the evolutionary movement today are not godly men. Their interpretation of the incomplete data we have concerning the past is totally based on godless principles and the assumption that God was indeed not involved in the creation of the universe at all. They insist, because of their worldview - that there has to be a natural explanation for everything and reject all miracles. It’s no wonder their “theories” do not jive with God’s Word.

The “truth of Scripture is big enough and inexhaustible enough to handle the reality that nature reveals?” Christy, actually, truth is very narrow. If you make the Bible so flexible or so big as to be able to accept anything and everything the evolutionary paradigm has to say, it becomes meaningless in my view.

Paul said " Let God be true though every one were a liar," The one true God of the universe knows far more than you and I. He revealed His truth through His prophets and through nature, but His last and greatest revelation was through his Son. And every word Jesus spoke was given Him from the Father.

Ditto.

Thanks.

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{After posting this comment, I edited it considerably to correct typos and to supply missing words. I can blame this in part on the vision-assistance software upon which I must depend----but mostly it is a shortcoming which seems to accompany old age, a state which I do not recommend. So if you read this post in its initial state as it was emailed to you in a notification message, you will find that this present version is more cogent with far fewer typos.}

  1. TokyoGuy111, the Bible does not claim that the Noahic Flood was global. Genesis says that the flood covered Noah’s ERETZ/land/country/region.

The idea of Noah’s flood being GLOBAL is a popular tradition–but the Genesis text itself makes no claims of a “planet-wide”/global flood. Unfortunately, even modern English Bible translations tend to relegate the less misleading wording (which doesn’t imply “global”) to the alternate translation footnotes at the bottom of the page. ERETZ is the Hebrew word. It is usually translated land or country, even in the 1611 King James Bible. Back then, in 1611, the English word earth still tended to convey a meaning closer to that of the ancient Hebrew word ERETZ: “earth” in the sense of “the ground” or “soil” as what constituted “land” and as an obvious opposite of “the sky” and “the heavens”. Today, post-Space-Age, we naturally associate earth with “planet earth”—but in 1611 that was simply not the case. Back then, as now, when someone said that they were a “tiller of the earth”, everyone assumed them a farmer plowing his land, not the entire planet!

In any case, ERETZ in the Hebrew text of Genesis didn’t refer to “planet earth” because they had no such cosmology (i.e., of the earth being one of many planets orbiting the sun.) ERETZ referred to the disk of land one sees when looking to the horizon in all directions. Many Young Earth Creationist anachronistically try to convert “the circle of the earth” into an amazing prophetic declaration of a spherical earth, but the Hebrews knew the difference between a circle and a sphere and they had words for each. So there is no “planet earth is a sphere!” in the Bible, no matter how much “creation science” wants to give the Bible credit for that “discovery.”]

Of course, if Noah’s flood had been global/planet-wide, and the author had wished to emphasize a much wider extent, the Genesis text would surely have—at the very least—used the plural form of the word ERETZ (lands, countries, regions) to tell us that all of the lands/countries were flooded in judgment. So, TokyoGuy111, I can’t help but ask you this question: If that had been the case, would you be consistent and claim that the plural of ERETZ demanded an interpretation of all of the planets being flooded?)

Today, just as in ancient Israel, ERETZ YISRAEL means “Land of Israel” or “Nation of Israel”----never “Planet of Israel”! I’ve found that that is the most memorable explanation my non-majors would retain long after they took my Old Testament Introduction course, recalling today how they know that Noah’s Flood couldn’t have been global. (I say that because they’ve reminded me in the same conversation in which they introduced me to their grandchildren.)

For the authors of the Torah, “God created the heavens and the earth” meant essentially “God created the universe”----because they had no word for “universe”—but the idiom “the heavens and the earth” [though I prefer the translation “the sky and the land” because it better communicates their ancient cosmology] captures the totality of their universe. The idiom included “everything above and everything below.” And that is why “everything under heaven” (or “everything under the sky”) was a way to refer to everything one saw to the horizon in all directions. Indeed, that “circle of the earth” an observer saw in all directions was their concept of the ERETZ.

English Bible readers tend to ANACHRONISTICALLY read “planet earth” into the origins-related Genesis pericopes (that is, the Genesis creation texts and the Noahic flood pericope.) So assumptions of the flood’s alleged global scope are based on tradition, not the Biblical text. That misunderstanding of ERETZ in Genesis explains virtually everything one needs to know about how the Young Earth Creationist viewpoint got headed in the wrong direction.

Thankfully, the best English translations today tend to have a footnote worded something like this wherever ERETZ/earth appears in the Genesis text: “or land,country”. Yet, if land is the better rendering, why has it not replaced earth in the main text of Genesis in those translations? Answer: Because traditionalists would go ballistic and storm the offices of the publishers and translators. Publishers try to avoid offense and don’t want their translation to fail in the marketplace. Believe me, if those of us who do the translating had the power, there’s a lot of “alternate translations” which would appear in the main text of the Bible—but Bible publishing is a very competitive and minefield-laden market. And because the KJV still holds so much power, even in the minds of those who have moved on to more recent translations, its word choices can’t be dismissed lightly. The power of tradition did not end with the first century Pharisees.

In checking my index, I see that I’ve covered all of these topics in my article from early this year at:Private Site

  1. In that same article I addressed the non-global (yet “worldwide”) nature of the flood by emphasizing the contrasting Greek words used in 2Peter 3:6 to differentiate between the planet-wide judgment by fire and the more regional judgment of the Noahic Flood. To avoid special formatting, I’ll just copy-and-paste a relevant section as it appeared in my blog article:

As to “and the existence of a worldwide flood about four thousand years ago“, we again see the influence of Young Earth Creationists. There are no statements in the Bible concerning a global flood, no “worldwide” flood in the geographical sense. In 2Peter 3:6 we do see in the Greek text a kind of reference to the Noahic “worldwide flood”, but the use of the Greek word KOSMOS instead of the Greek word GE tells even the first year exegesis student that the author of the Second Epistle of Peter specifically referred to “the world of people, that is, the descendents of Adam” (KOSMOS, as in “cosmopolitan") and not the world of rocks and continents (which would have required GE, as in GEology and GEography.) So if we choose to say that the Bible refers to a worldwide flood, we should also clarify that it involved only the entire “world” of the Imago Dei creatures, the Adamic population. And because Young Earth Creationists tell us that less than two thousand years elapsed between Adam’s appearance and the time of the flood, the population would have been limited and probably restricted to a single region. (Why do I claim only a single region? The answer would require a feature length article of its own. But even the simple realization that HA-ERETZ best translates as “the land”, “the region”, or “the country” and has become confused with “planet earth” because of tradition (especially as guided by the 1611 English of the KJV), it isn’t hard to understand that the flood was not even described as destroying “many lands.”

So, TokyoGuy111, if a global judgment of fire requires a global extent of the Noahic Flood, why does the author of the Petrine passage so carefully distinguish between the GE world and KOSMOS world in dealing with those two judgments? Why not refer to both of them in GE globality terms? (Answer: The author understood a distinction you do not. An entire world of Adamic people was being judged in the flood, not an entire planet. But the future judgment by fire shall indeed engulf the entire geologic mass.)

In a lifetime of study in the Hebrew Masoretic text and the Greek New Testament, I’ve yet to find any evidence in the Biblical text for a global flood. The “globality” of the Noahic Flood is a matter of tradition, not text. Obviously, you are free to favor fallible traditions of men if you wish, but I prefer to confine my beliefs solely to what the Bible actually states. (Yes, that sentence was quite deliberately familiar-sounding and tongue-in-cheek to make a point. As a former Young Earth Creationist, I do understand how the posturing works. I used to use that propaganda tactic quite regularly in my sermons, sad to say.)

In summary, I reject the Christian tradition of a global Noahic flood because (1) I find no evidence for it in the Bible, and (2) I find no evidence for it in God’s creation. Human traditions have their value but I generally try to keep them in their limited place and avoid allowing them to obfuscate the Gospel message.

TokyoGuy111, I do very much appreciate your willingness to respectfully engage and discuss these topics. You and Christy have produced a very substantive and valuable thread.

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I think this is where we disagree. If nature is God’s truth, then reading truth discovered from nature into anything cannot be backwards.

If one sets out with a perspective formed by the Bible alone, especially on matters that it cares little about such as science, and any further discovery in another area (nature) cannot change this perspective, then that seems to me like a somewhat arbitrary mechanism of arriving at truth. The Bible is a treasured source of truth, but it’s not like you can’t come to it with other knowledge that is also and equally true. Since there is only one truth, there must be a reckoning between different sources for discovering truth, and in my opinion that reckoning isn’t automatic.

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Yes, that is where we disagree. I believe we need the information God provides in Specific revelation that we see in His Word in order to properly interpret His general revelation that we see in nature. So the historicity of a global flood will have a huge impact on how we interpret the geological record. The teaching of Genesis on creation and the teaching of the bible on the nature of God should inform how we view the interpretations of the data through a viewpoint that allows God no role in creation. etc.

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That’s all fine and good. But sometimes math is math, not an “interpretation.” There are multiple very specific calculations that physicists and geologists can perform using known constants to consistently arrive at the same ancient ages of the universe and solar system. There is no “interpretation” when it comes to the speed of light or the rate of nuclear decay in certain isotopes. It’s math. Now I appreciate that you have a faith commitment to just reject whatever science or math doesn’t fit your understanding of the plain meaning of the Bible as faulty. But people who actually do the math find that a little more difficult. It doesn’t make sense that God would require us to insist 2+2=5 just to prove our loyalty to his word.

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@tokyoguy111,

What I said was the God’s word abridged the full story, which means that it shorted it which also indicates that the story was simplified. That is true of all writing about history and science. Thus the Bible does not have to tell us that Genesis abridges history. That is a given fact.

New there are two major abridgments in Genesis. The first is from the Beginning to the creation of humans in Gen. 1 and 2, and the other from Gen 3-11. Since we are talking about evolution I reduced my comments to Gen 1, abridges billions of years into one chapter, while Gen 2-11 abridges millions of years into 8 chapters. Abridgement shortens and simplifies, it does not falsify.

Why is the Bible an abridged version of history? First is the need to know. People of that time did not need to know about the natural history of the earth to understand YHWH and YHWH’s covenant with them.

Things are different today. We have different questions and intellectual needs. God also provides us with the tools to address and answer these questions, if we choose to use them.

Second is the scarcity of literary resources. The Hebrews were a semi-nomadic people who were not interested in science. They wrote down what was interesting to them which was not science.

Third, the Hebrew language, unlike Greek, was not built for science. It used letters for numbers, which discouraged math, and used metaphor, rather than abstraction, to describe.

The Hebrew Bible was not written primarily for us modern Western folk, but for the Hebrews. If we want to truly understand the meaning of Genesis, we need to first look at it through their eyes. It takes some work, but we can do it with the mind, imagination, and tools that God gave us.

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Of course, the Bible is abridged. Every history book is abridged and simplified, but I guess we disagree on the extent of that abridgement.

Yes, I know this is the Biologos view of the Bible. I simply disagree. I see no such abridgment at all. I don’t think any reader or writer of Scripture saw that abridgment either. - until Lyell and Darwin hit the scene at least. Those years are absolutely necessary if the world created itself because that cannot happen quickly. There is no room in the genealogies for millions of years.

Assuming the 99.999% abridgment is accurate, I could go along with this. I just don’t believe it is accurate.

That’s a strange view of inspiration. The Hebrews were semi-nomadic for a while, but it wasn’t always so. Abraham came from a very advanced city. Adam and his descendants are not pictured in the Bible as stupid Bronze Age goat herders as we so often hear from skeptics. There were farmers already in the 3rd chapter of the Bible - right from the dawn of time in my view. There were metal workers, musical instrument makers, etc. The Jews became nomadic because God led them on a trip from Ur to their new home - the Promised Land. Plus, we agree that the Bible is not a science book. The purpose for writing the Bible was not to teach science, but creationists believe that when God did speak about things related to or intersecting with science, that He spoke accurately. This has to do with your third point as well.

I disagree. The Hebrew Bible was written for you and I as well. Romans 15:4 says this: " For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope."

II Pt. 3:1-2 says this: “…In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles,” I’m sure there are other passages as well, but these two came to my mind first.

By remembering the predictions of the holy prophets, our faith and confidence in the Word of God increases. The Hebrew Bible was written just as much for you and I as for them. The Bible is a gift from God to all mankind, not just the Hebrews.

It was written by Hebrews who were inspired by the Holy Spirit, and sure, their culture and worldview can be seen in it and so is helpful in interpreting parts of it, but saying “It takes some work, but we can do it with the MIND, IMAGINATION, and TOOLS that God gave us.” is a bit scary for me.

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@tokyoguy111

Please use @Relates when you respond to my comments. This makes the dialog much easier.

The farmer in Chapt 3 was Cain, who was not a good example. Abel the shepherd was the good example and model for the Hebrews. Please do not make the silly mistake of confusing being a nomad with stupidity. David was the model Hebrew and he most famously was a shepherd and saw YHWH as the Shepherd. The Hebrew ideal was semi-nomadic herding as opposed to desert dwellers or farmers and city dwellers.

Basically the Hebrews began history with the emergence of humanity, Gen 2. Of course there was not enough time for evolution in the genealogies, which began roughly with the beginning of human history, which was as far back as their records want. This is why it is abridged and if you and creationists disagree with this abridgment so much that you want ignore God’s Truth, that is your loss. That is like throwing the baby out with the bath water, as my father used to say.

Who gave Creationists the right to decide what God did or did not do?

The problem with that belief is that, if God decided to make the Bible scientifically correct, it would be counterproductive to God’s primary purpose which is to bring salvation to humankind. Where are your priorities?

Non-believers say that because the Bible is not scientifically correct, it is false in every way. That is ridiculous, but you seem to agree. The Bible stands on its own two feet. If it is spiritually true, then it is spiritually true. If it is contains some out of date scientific ideas, then that is true. But the Bible is God’s dialogue with God’s people who are not perfect and who are not necessarily scientifically minded.

I did not say that the Bible was not written for us, but you must consider the first audience first. We must not be so self centered that we think that God must tailor God’s book to answer our particular scientific questions first.

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It was local. Also, your squirt gun privileges are hereby suspended indefinitely. How Should we Interpret the Genesis Flood Account? - Common Question - BioLogos

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You are referring to Mark 10:6 which in the International Standard Version states: “from the beginning of creation God made them male and female.” That is a far cry from stating that in the beginning of time God made Adam and Eve. An accurate reading of the bible supports theistic evolution, not young earth creationism. Read my essay Biblically Inerrant Theistic Evolution. It’s awesome. Tell all your friends. Merry Christmas.

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Tokyoguy, sorry for jumping in, but I just had to ask a follow-up question about the “eyewitness accounts God left for us in His inspired Word.” I agree with you that these are accounts God has left for us, but I am having trouble with the “eyewitness” part. Surely, you are not saying that God has physical eyeballs? If you mean “eyewitness,” do you mean a human eyewitness? If so, what human was around to eyewitness the creation of Adam? Yes, Scripture is clear that early Genesis is an “account,” but there is very little detail as to what type of “account” this actually is. I am having trouble understanding where you get the “eyewitness” part from the actual Biblical text.

Thank you for interaction on this very important topic.

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Merry Christmas to you too, Nick!

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Clarke,

I obviously do not mean there were human eyewitnesses of creation. Absurd and impossible.

So, that means I’m talking about God. Now, I guess I’m a bit confused about your statement here. Are you implying that God cannot see because He does not have eyeballs?

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@Relates

Roger, Neither creationists or Biologites have the right to decide what God did or did not do.

But if He tells us what He did or did not do, then I think He expects us to believe Him and take Him at His word. Sorry. I could be wrong. Perhaps He wants us to assume He is not speaking accurately when He touches on science, but I find that really hard to believe.

Jesus said this to Nicodemus: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” John 3:12

I personally find it difficult to believe that God would have written the Bible in such a way as to mislead people all this time, and now, finally, thanks to evolutionists who interpret the past based on their assumption that the Creator could not have been involved in creation, we have figured out the correct way to read the book of Genesis.

This is not like God. It violates the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture, the doctrine that God’s Word is inerrant, and that we can trust it and believe it. If something this clear was wrong for all these years, what else might we find at some point that is wrong? Thanks to science, we now know that the whole Bible and message of salvation and the salvation story is based on a myth?

Then why believe in any miracle written in the Bible? Perhaps we should re-interpret them all, including the resurrection!

How could you argue against such a view? Jesus’ miracles, the resurrection, the escape from Egypt, - they all depend on miracles and science tells us that miracles are impossible. You might feel comfortable picking and choosing what miracles you want to believe and dismiss, but I am not comfortable with that kind of hermeneutic.

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@tokyoguy111,

The problem is that you are suggesting that Genesis is misleading, when it is not. As I told you Genesis 1 is a condensation of what happened, which is not misleading unless you insist that all the details of Creation be included.

Please do not change the subject by talking about other miracles. We are talking about one miracle right now, which is the Creation. When we finish with understanding that the others will fall into place.

You are right, God’s Word is inerrant, but God’s Word is not the Bible as I pointed out to you in John 1, God’s Word is the Logos, Jesus Christ. therefore God’s written word, the Bible, is not perfect. It seems to me that you has better look carefully at the following passage where Jesus denied the statement that God rested from His work on the 7th day.

John 5:16-18 (NIV2011)
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.
17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too am working.”
18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

God did not reveal the science of Creation to humanity in Genesis 1, but God did reveal the us the fact of the Beginning, which we are still trying to understand or refute. Why are you accusing God of misleading humans by not giving us the whole story?

Humans could not understand or accept the whole story of Creation, so this would have been a diversion from the real message of salvation, which would have been lost in the confusion. This is what unbelievers are trying to do and some unwitting believers are helping them saying that the Bible is scientifically inerrant.

Please do not try to tell God how to write the Bible. Please do not insist that science is as important as salvation. God reveal Godself through Jesus Christ. God enables us to understand God’s Creation through God’s word and science.

John 1 says their is no real conflict between good science and good theology. You are making a conflict by both insisting that bad science and bad theology are true. It is our job to find the correct answer by discovering right theology and correcting defective science. See my book, Darwin’s Myth.

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Tokyoguy:Of course, God can see without “creaturely” eyeballs. That is my point. God sees things in ways we as humans can not see. So, when you say that the early chapters of Genesis form an “eyewitness” account, I want to know where you get that from Scripture. My concern about your position is that to suggest that God “sees” things the same way a human eyewitness would is reading something into the Bible that simply is not there. Maybe, but then, maybe not. It does record God’s “account” of creation, but not necessarily in a scientific manner that a human eyewitness would. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” (Isaiah 55:8).

Just something to think about.

Merry Christmas!

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That last comment first … I’ve heard it and I think I know what you mean by it, but I’m wondering how this doctrine is defended from scripture itself (as I’m sure its defenders would want it to be)! I’m aware of the 2 Timothy passage stating that all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching … which is probably the main “go-to” passage to defend this view. But how is the leap made from “inspired by God” and “profitable for teaching” … to … “clear and easy to understand”? I’m sure Nicodemus, a teacher in Israel, would be surprised and chagrined to learn that he, and he alone has trouble interpreting all these things which comparatively less educated (non-Jewish) peoples of two thousand years later now fancy is all clear-as-a-bell to them! It is worth noting that when Nicodemus was chastised, he had first put forward a ridiculously literal understanding. We can probably rest assured that Nicodemus was not seriously suggesting literal re-birth, but just putting that forward as a rhetorical query to engage Jesus to explain further. And Jesus chastises him for not being able to find his way to the proper spiritual interpretation of the teaching. “Perspicuity” is a great word, but I doubt it’s one that scribes (of 1st century or any other) would apply to all the deep thoughts of God. When I try to think of Scriptures that apply to this issue, I’m coming up with things like:

"To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but to others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ " (spoken to His own disciples who themselves often needed the parables explained)

or

Peter commending Paul by saying: “As in all his letters, he writes about these things, in which some things are hard to understand, which the unlearned and unstable distort, as they also do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.”

Now I don’t pretend to understand all these things myself, for example why God would want some things to be hidden behind obfuscating parables (I suspect there is a frustrated divine sarcasm on display, perhaps to provoke jealousy among the hearers.)

All that said, one other passage occurs to me which I think could be enlisted potentially on the side of an alleged “perspicuity”. (Matthew 11 --also in Luke) Jesus prays, “…I thank You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to infants.” --referring to various communities for their lack of repentance in the face of his kingdom work in their midst.

But this rebuke, I strongly suspect, falls equally to all of us on any side of these modern origins issues we entangle ourselves in. I don’t think it can be taken as a rebuke against teaching, or wisdom, or prudence generally (those things are strongly commended elsewhere). But that there are simple postures of the heart before God that cut through all these things, where God reaches in and, despite our infancy before Him, brings us to the place before Him where we need to be. Meanwhile, I think Paul would tell us that if we grow in Christ, we need to cultivate an ability to take in “meat” and not just milk. And that (like any teaching) is hard work.

I fully agree with you that it is silly to think God’s word has gone misunderstood until evolutionary thinkers came along. But I do think we can fault the more militantly secular scientists and the corresponding (also fundamentalist) backlash that brought so much undue focus to bear where it had never been before. With all that we affluent nations are doing and/or complicit in perpetrating on this world, Jesus’ judgment will sting more than ever regarding the things we make ourselves stubborn over.

Thank you, @tokyoguy111, for your perspicacious comments and for persevering here where you no doubt feel ganged up on by most of us. Merry Christmas to all, and may the Christ whom we all celebrate lead us in showing mercy to others as we receive His mercy in our own turn.

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Agreed that there were not human witnesses of creation, but it appears that someone received a prophetic vision of creation and then passed that information down as oral tradition until Moses wrote it down. I talk about this specifically at the end of my ginormous post, Biblically Inerrant Theistic Evolution.