The poor people in Australia would be dragged right off the continent by gravity. The barycenter would be somewhere below the north pole in that model.
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I’m curious are you stating that YECist believes that God is unable to forgive people without Christ? Also y’all believe that Gos designed everything to make sure humans failed so that he could send Christ? He designed us to be sinners from the start?
Yes, this was a series of articles with a range of perspectives on a specific theological topic. We are a host for many views in the BioLogos “tent.” People who are ECs can also be politically conservative or liberal, Black or white, Southern Baptists or Lutheran. It’s an effort to try and honor different traditions and beliefs in an ecumenical way.
For example, we have both articles that support and do not support a historical Adam. We have posts on dialoguing with Southern Baptists, ID supporters, etc.
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Apply the same logic to the debate between atheistic Heliocentrism and Geocentrism which the Bible demands.
Kurt Wise is not God, nor are any of the creationists.
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Perhaps not, if we are talking about YEC Bible gravity. #planetBizarro
After spending my whole life hearing from organizations that took an all-or-nothing view of biblical interpretation, the idea of a “big tent” was somewhat foreign to me when I first discovered BioLogos. I kept looking over the website when I first came for a quick, succinct, “here is where we spell out every single thing we believe” checklist or something like that – something that would divide everyone into neat little categories based on which views they affirmed or didn’t. On the off chance that anyone has made their way here from the AIG website and is reading this, I hope you’ll stick around and do some reading, and give yourself a chance to defer judgment for a while. Maybe the Church is bigger than you think.
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If a better understanding of Gods word is what you seek (obviously it isnt because you take science first), then might i suggest that you study some biblical scholarly works as your first and foremost authority instead of science.
you still do not grasp to conflict that is caused by removing the literal genesis account. I have already tried to explain this but you missed the point…
- Jesus physcially existed…this is irrefutable…even Bart Erhman agrees with this and supports it as fact!
- Jesus disciples gave first hand accounts of his ministry and phsysical death on the cross.
- Jesus physical death on the cross was foretold in the physical slaying of animal sacrifices (sheep and goats) in the Old Testament.
Yet miraculously, you ignore these facts citing that all of this has only a spiritual implication??? Sorry but that is nothing short of being enormously problematic theology. If it is only spiritual, then why did all those sheep and goats and then the Son of God have to die physically?
Next, what does the term spiritual Israel mean? Does that mean that all Christians are spirits? Not at all. That is a confusion of the term and the theology of the Bible and this is exactly the problem here.
Once a person attempts to “cut out texts of the bible that disagree with evolutionary theory” the bible is essentially rent in two!
What you have left is a movement that neither modern secular science nor religion accept. Both sides call theistic evolution heresy! It will never gell with either side. In the meantime, the fate of Laodicea awaits the believers in this theology!
oh thats right…its not science therefore its not real! If its not real, then what on earth are you calling yourself Christian for?
I get the sense from your posts that you think science is just an authority figure that people just choose to believe or not believe. What I think you are missing is that theistic evolutionists consider the objective and demonstrable physical reality around us as an authority, not some group of people who say they are scientists. Why shouldn’t demonstrable facts be considered when interpreting scripture? If we have to ignore physical reality in order for an interpretation of the Bible to work, what does that say about the Biblical interpretation?
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again i pose the same theological issue that no one from the theistic evolution camp has adequitely answered…
you still do not grasp to conflict that is caused by removing the literal genesis account. I have already tried to explain this but you missed the point…
- Jesus physically existed…this is irrefutable…even Bart Erhman agrees with this and supports it as fact!
- Jesus disciples gave first hand accounts of his ministry and physical death on the cross.
- Jesus physical death on the cross was foretold in the physical slaying of animal sacrifices (sheep and goats) in the Old Testament.
Yet miraculously, you ignore these facts citing that all of this has only a spiritual implication
None of that requires a young Earth, a 6 day creation week, a recent global flood, nor separately created species.
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Not sure you are addressing me, as your comments and presumptiveness do not seem to correlate to my comment, but let me assure you that the breadth of biblical scholarly works is vast and deserves more of your attention beyond that found in a narrow view,
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If “I interpret it, I believe it, that settles it” works for you, fine. Go in peace. Nobody is forcing you to deal with science of nature. Curse anathema on understanding of this world, pronounce that science is haram, denounce geology, biology, and astronomy to be blasphemy. Just do not return with “oh, science matters after all”, and unload the usual YEC dump of pseudo science.
After all, most of what is found in YEC is not in the Bible anyways. Speeded up radioactive decay, hyper evolution of kinds, rapid magnetic reversals, anything to do with the speed of light, dinosaurs on the ark, rapid movement of continental plates, post flood glaciation - none of that is to be found in scripture.
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All Christians are Christians by the same means, by faith in our Savior, the Lord Jesus, who died for our sins, was buried, rose on the third day and is now seated at the right hand of the Father. By the Holy Spirit we confess, “Jesus is Lord,” to the glory of the Father. And there’s an end to it.
I will refer you to Romans 8 for instruction. In the meantime, I will remind you (and anyone feeling beaten down by your accusations) of the encouragement Christians receive from our Lord from parts of that chapter:
8:10-12 “But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your motal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
8:14-17: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”
8:28-30: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that he might be the firstborn among any brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”
Who are YOU to judge someone else’s servant?
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would you mind citing theological references for that claim, because as far as i understand it, the opposite is the case!
Let me explain my view on this (and i am not unique here)
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Lucifer rebels in heaven…its a real physical rebellion according to the bible. Lucifer is physically cast out of heaven and down to the earth as a result of this rebellion (both literal events, not spiritual ones)
I believe there is a strong following in the belief that the reason for the rebellion, and hence Lucifer being cast to the earth was over the creation of this particular planet…i think the bible more than adequately supports this belief. -
Adam and Eve are tempted by Satan (lucifers new name after his demise) and sin bringing the wages of sin upon themselves as stated by God in Genesis 2:16&17
> 16And the LORD God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, 17but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”
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God then was faced with a dilemma, wipe out his creation and start again, or offer forgiveness and a plan of salvation. They are physical actions…not metaphorical. They are physical because the cause was a literal physical event!!! (surely this is a simple logic anyone even with a limited intellect would expect and can understand?) God is also faced with the original claim made against him by Lucifer in heaven… which essentially only allows for the plan of salvation option. It is Lucifer who forces this pathway not God. Lucifer clearly makes the claim that according to Gods eternal law, the wages of sin is death. God cannot exist with sin…therefore, punishment must be applied to anyone who sins! That punishment is very much a physical death a complete erasing from existence!
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In order to offer forgiveness, there is still a problem…who takes on the punishment for sin? Lucifer (now Satan) demands the law be fulfilled! God offers some special here…he would allow himself to take the blame…he would suffer the punishment of his own law to show the universe that Lucifers claims against God in heaven at the time of the heavenly rebellion, are false!
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The sacrifical system is introduced to educate and to remind Gods crown of creation (mankind) that he is going to take the punishment for mans sin upon himself. God will pay the price…not spiritually (that can be done without any pain and suffering) but physically! Mankind cannot possibly comprehend the extent to which his creator will go to save us from our sins if he does not physically come down here, live our life, and although innocent, be physically tortured and physically executed on our behalf!!!
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Now the really special part, our own creator who we not only rebelled against in Genesis 3, and then crucified (Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, John 19), forgives those of us who believe on Him! We are then physically taken into heaven from this physical earth and eventually physically return to a new physical earth Revelation 20:21&22
> 1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God
You cannot possibly reconcile the theology that the very first part of the bible is metaphorical when describing the exact events that cause the need for our salvation in the first place! that is an absurd proposition that simply isnt logical or consistent…It is contrary to the very theology of the bible and is therefore 100% in error.
Your claim about YEC’s choosing literal and metaphorical is also nonsense. That is nothing more than a straw man argument made in ignorance. Any individual who bothers to genuinely study the passages of scripture are easily able to determine whether or not passages should be taken literally or metaphorically…and the reason why is because there are many other passages in scripture that one can turn to in order to ensure the correct approach is being taken! Where a conflict arises, clearly something is very wrong and one must reassess. I have not yet seen a single apparent conflict argument put forward by theistic evolution where they have adequately supported their claims on this point without making elementary errors!
And you don’t understand the conflict that is caused by insisting on a strict literal reading of the Genesis accouint.
The earth is not six thousand years old. Get over it. To insist that we must believe in a young earth, you are insisting that we must deny the evidence of our eyes and ears in a way that is quite frankly Orwellian. To insist that the Bible demands a young earth is to insist that the Bible demands that we believe demonstrable falsehood. It is to weaponise the Bible in such a way as to attack our very concept of what is real and what isn’t. It is to tie up heavy burdens on people’s shoulders without lifting a finger to help them. It is to slam the door to the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. It is to nullify the Word of God with your tradition. I’m sure you’ve heard these things before.
There are some of us here who continue to believe the Bible despite this because we recognise that “not literal” is NOT the same as “not true.” We recognise that there are approaches to Scripture (day-age, framework hypothesis, etc) that we opt for because they preserve the Bible’s integrity while recognising the facts and without trying to make things up, invent our own reality, or get into some kind of cultish la-la land. The Bible tells us that a day with the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. (2 Peter 3:8; Psalm 90:4). You may not think that that’s a lot to go on, but at least it acknowledges that the Bible is true. The only other alternative is to believe that the Bible is false, and if you are a Christian, that is not an option. But a six thousand year old earth is not an honest option for anyone, Christian or not.
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This is such a good point and not properly addressed so much as rebuffed with hand waving and mud slinging.
From the second posting @beaglelady linked in a related thread
- Anyone who teaches in direct contradiction to Scripture is a false teacher. Although identifying a false teacher may be difficult in some cases, it is self-evident that anyone admitting to teaching something contrary to what the authors of Scripture wrote is by definition a false teacher .
It is obvious that young-earthers as represented by the one who penned the article they published do not admit the slightest gap between “what the authors of scripture wrote” and their insistence that a literal reading of an English translation of the Bible as understood within the US bible-belt nowadays is precisely what those writers intended. How can they not recognize that this is their own interpretation and not a proxy for whatever those ancient authors intended?
Edited to add that I was trying to post this in the thread where @jpm had suggested a third possibility to the author’s two. Not sure what went wrong though I did start this on my phone and went to the computer so I could properly quote the artical beaglelady linked.
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That’s rather circular. The whole question is if the Garden of Eden account in Genesis was a physical event. The question isn’t answered by simply asserting it.
Are we humans sinful? Yes. That is true whether the Adam and Eve story is a literal event or an allegory. The Garden of Eden story doesn’t have to be a literal event in order for humans to need forgiveness for the sins they have committed. In fact, the Garden of Eden story gives us a wonderful allegory for how humanity gains intelligence and then gains its place as a moral agent (i.e. knowing good and evil).
If you want to claim that you have never committed a sin in your life, and the only sin you have is what you have inherited from a literal Adam and Even, then you may have a point. But I am guessing this isn’t the case.
The irony is not lost on me. The presence of talking snakes, magical trees that grant knowledge . . . sure reads like metaphor to me.
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Where does truth come from?
actually, that is an interesting argument. Unfortuntaley, it is not my interpretation at stake here…the Bible is very self evident and actually quite straighforward on these things. For example:
generally speaking the genealogies found in the bible (there are two main ones considered Adam to Noah, and Jesus own family tree) are not possible to reconcile with evolutionary timelines…and this is why the theistic evolution movement very carefully avoids making claims to the contrary of that argument!
This only leaves a manipulation of the text itself (such as what JW’s do in order to support their doctrines) or intentional manipulation of interpretation in order to make the bible fit science.
Now here’s the thing, if science started with creation as it premise and its proposition was that the bible is 100% the innerant word of God, and that the bible narratives are a true account of our existence, then one has to then conclude that the plan of Salvation in the bible (based entirely on those same literal narratives in Genesis 1-3) is also literal!
It appears to me that theistic evolution and young earth creationists dissagree on the nature of our interpreation of a science that is our construct!
Heres the problem, God did not give us the intricate details of science in the Bible…we simply do not have that. So, in light of this, theistic evolutionists are chosing to rely on the inerrancy of science in order to explain something that is not scientific! I see this a flawed way of doing things.
Secular science, remembering that the vast majority of scientists are atheists who deny a god even exists, is not interested in God.
Why then should any Christian not seek to ensure that the secular science, inspired by atheists essentially, is not corrupt and against the bible? I find it rather suprising that this forum is so eager to attack Christian scientists with excellent credentials like Dr Kurt Wise for deciding that its about time Christian scientists started with the Bible as their proposition, and then fit the science around the bible!
The answer i get to the above complaint is that Dr Kurt Wise is ignoring scientific fact! honestly, is that really your argument? that is the most absurd rebuttal i think Christians can make. Even theistic evolutionists accept that there are some fundamental issues with their theory that are unlikely to be resolved…so they just ignore them. Dr Wise (and others) has started to publish decent answers to the issues facing the young earth creation side of the argument that have revolutionised the movement. The are not ridiculous claims he makes, they are well documented and well researched solutions of very high scholarly standard (for exmple, pre flood “floating forests”).
I am ear-bashing theistic evolution and i am fundamentally opposed to it and i make no apologies for that. However, the main reasons why i am opposed to it is because even with my poor theological understanding (I am only a Bachelor of Education degree holder not a theologian), even i can find massive holes in the theology of this movement. They are issues so large that they cannot be reconciled adequately without extensive manipulation of thousands of years of cumulative scholarly religious development. Kurt Wise has not attempted to deny such history…its the interpretation of science that is recent and science definitely is attempting to deny it.
How can EC’s claim they are Christians? How can YEC’s claim they are not? Whoever claims they are speaking for God is almost certainly the ones on the least sure Christian footing. x