Modern Science in the Biblical Creation Story

Faith & Science Conversation
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No i say that on a very good knowledge of Biblical theology. I have a very deep interest in ensuring that Biblical theology is my primary source of knowledge of my existence.
I do not care for explaining away very deep biblical theology with shallow statements that do not consider deep theology.
For example (and this is not an illustration specific to TEism)…

I take the 10 commandments as literally as they were spoken. I do not see them as being independent of current Christian morality. People attempt to explain away the specific relevance of all of the 10 commandments in order to avoid keeping the 4th one (the sabbath). The reality is, biblical theology very clearly illustrates that failure to keep the 4th commandment is to ignore the importance of the patience of the saints in Revelation 12 for our salvation. “…here are those who keep the commandments and have the faith of Jesus”.

We know that if we “break just one commandment, we break them all” (James 2:10).

This means that without a doubt, anyone who, knowing better, refuses to keep the Sabbath will not go to heaven…they will not be saved. This is an absolutely irrefutable biblical-theological fact! Does this mean that all non-Sabbath keeping Christians will not go to heaven…absolutely not? However, it does mean those who know better almost certainly will not! And since i know better, my conscience tells me i must not fail in this one as i have no excuse…i know better. I have a couple of aunties who are catholic, will they not go to heaven? I would argue at least one of them will be in heaven…she is a wonderful lady who genuinely follows Christ to the best of her knowledge and conscience.

So, if i am to make a mistake on the keeping of the commandments, would i be better to make the error in keeping the commandments, or saying that i don’t need to keep them anymore? Is not the safest option to go too far in my commitment rather than not far enough?

Second, am i denying the greatest commandment “love the Lord thy God and thy neighbor as thyself” by keeping all of the 10 commandments? (before you answer this question, please consider…the first 4 commandments are about loving God, and the second half of them are about loving our neighbor!)

TEism on the other hand is arguing that the first books of the bible are an allagory…they at not a literal historical account. This means that the entire writings of Moses are essentially a fable. This is a worrying side of the fence to sit on…TEism is taking the unsafe approach in favour of first ensuring that Evolution remains the authoritative explanation of our existence…ignoring any Creation Scientist (of which there are an ever increasing number of these days) who very clearly show that secular science is seriously wrong theologically!

I would much rather align my science and biblical theology such that i am not taking unsafe pathways theologically. That is setting ones house apon the rock. The wise man sets his house upon the rock, the foolish man sets his house upon the sand (Matthew 7:24-27)…this is talking about ensuring ones theological foundation is based upon the Bible first as our rock…not scientific theory!

It is not good enough to make the claim (as the founder of this Biologos movement has foolishly done) that we need TEism because evolution is taking Christians away from the gospel. That is a compromise the bible warns us not to make…remember what Samuel said to king Saul…“To obey is better than to sacrifice” (1st Samuel 15:22)

I follow the lead of Joshua… “But as for me and my house , we will serve the Lord ” (Josh. 24:15, NKJV) I will never place any science in front of Bible theology…especially when the Bible theology is so very self evident across its entire spectrum of books. If you choose to dissagree with this statement, then i very much believe that you are in conflict with Bible theology.

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Your ‘knowledge’ of biblical [sic] theology is a priori and is therefore no such thing.

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and what, your belief that science is not exactly the same thing, is any different? Are you not also bound by the exact same view of deductive reasoning?

Would you not in fact be agreeing with me using that explanation? I mean lets face it, if my theology is based on self evident Biblical statements, which remain consistent across 66 books of the Bible written with a historical foundation of at least 4500 years…

i would state in reply that your point above is self defeating if/when used to counter my argument…surely that is indicative of one choosing pre eminence of secular scientific belief over sound well constructed theological understanding.

This leaves you with the exact same problem TEism always faces…please read and then describe, from a TEism world view, the prophetic events of Revelation 21.

As i see it currently, a TE view of Revelation 21 is that God will completely destroy this earth, any corrupted part of the universe, all trace of sin and, evolution will, over 4.54 billion years re establish a new heavens and a new earth.

May i ask, how does the big bang fit in with Revelation 21 exactly without also destroying any part of the existing universe that is not currently corrupted by sin? Are you now going to claim that the wages of sin is also spilled out upon those in the universe who have never sinned, or are you claiming there is not other life outside of this planet in the universe?

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I don’t know why you’re talking about TE. It’s as meaningless as YEC. Worse in fact. At least YEC is blissfully consistent in its utter ignorance of reality.

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The EC world view, if there is such a thing, only allows us to understand how God created life and places no restraints on what God might do in the future. So any interpretation of Revelation 21 is a possibility.

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YEC’s maintain their theology by making stuff up.

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you have not answered the question…using a TEism world view (which is exactly what this forum is…a theistic evolutionary world view), how does one write a theologically consistent account of Revelation 21? (what would it look like in summary?)

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might i suggest you support your statement by providing an in depth criticism of the following scientific video by Dr Andrew Snelling https://youtu.be/6uLNGHOiDIQ

Is that made up is it or are you simply going to ignore the evidence he puts forward and reply with …he’s a quack?

What Dr Kurt Wise and Andrew Snelling do wonderfully well is search for evidence in support of the historical biblical accounts of creation and the flood. They use the Bible as the primary source of authority, then find scientific evidence that supports it.

What TE’s do, is attempt to use secular scientific theories…such as Darwinian doctrine, to deny the theology of the bible. That is not at all sound Christian theology and it does not result in the outcome the proponents of this world view claim.

I have rarely on this forum seen a single answer that is based on sound biblical theology. It is no wonder that TEism is ridiculed by both sides of the debate…in attempting to gell the two with a very poor interpretation of scripture, it in fact finds itself isolated and for good reason! I believe that ultimately, YEC will win the day because it is able to consistently compliment sound biblical doctrine with good science Does it makes mistakes…of course, however, nothing new on that front…the secular explanation of the big bang is point and example.

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Hey @jammycakes, note the previous post. :grimacing:

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OK Adam, I’m going to turn schoolteacher on you.

Go and get a pen and paper, and write out one hundred times, by hand, in exquisite calligraphy, the following:

I must provide a summary with timestamps whenever I post a one-hour video on the BioLogos forum.

Then post a photograph or a scan of your hundred lines here. Along with a summary of the video, with timestamps, if you want any of us to respond to it.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Expecting any of us to spend an hour of our time watching a video and then two or three hours critiquing it, is disrespectful towards everybody’s time. Especially when the video comes from someone with a lengthy track record of making claims about science that are demonstrably untrue – in some cases, blatantly so.

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Well, I am not a theologian nor do I pretend to understand Revelation with its imagery, but here is a review of how N. T. Wright sees it. Personally, I see no reason to consider it either as YEC or EC. Some Revelation-Related Thoughts from N.T. Wright's 'After You Believe'

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You have not understood my answer. The EC world view does not constrain what God might or might not do in the future (which you appear to think that it does). As a result there isn’t a single EC interpretation of Revelation 21. I could give you mine, but what would be the point. Other EC’s would have different views.

Since there is a wide diversity of opinion here I wouldn’t agree with you. This is a place to discuss the intersection of faith and science.

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Or just do a quick Goggle search and find someone that has already debunked the video.

Might I suggest you look at this paper that points out the numerous less than truthful statements made by Dr. Snelling.
http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Nr69Radiohalos.pdf

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No, he needs to do his hundred lines. He’s been told about this before and he still isn’t paying any attention. He wouldn’t get away with that kind of attitude in school.

It should be noted in particular that billion fold accelerated nuclear decay is science fiction. If it had any basis in reality, it would have released enough heat to raise the temperature of the earth’s surface to 22,000°C – and that was the admission of a group of YEC scientists that included Andrew Snelling himself.

Any YEC claim that appeals to such a ridiculous scenario can safely be dismissed out of hand for this reason alone. It’s patent nonsense. In fact, to call it patent nonsense is an insult to patent nonsense.

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No one is saying interpret the Bible based on science. People are saying that the Bible doesn’t insist we deny reality. Science has shown us some things about reality that are reliable and true. The Bible is also reliable and true, which means any interpretation that forces you to choose between reality and “believing the Bible” is an inadequate interpretation. The truth of the Bible has been contextualized into people’s realities for thousands of years. There is nothing wrong with saying “How does this fit with reality” in our modern scientifically informed world, just as the church has been doing for centuries. Interpretations change as the Bible is recontextualized. We don’t think slavery is fine anymore. The Protestants have a different take on works and salvation than the church of 400 AD did. It’s simply not true that “historical theology” is a single narrative that has never been re-examined. Plus, EC is not asking Christians to re-evaluate any of the central tenets of Christianity. Jesus atoning for the sins of the world and reconciling us to a God of love is still at the center.

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That isn’t how you’re supposed to do science! Is anybody looking for evidence of a firmament, or a fixed, flat earth, or demon possession as a cause of epilepsy?

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No need to resort to ad hominin attacks on Snelling. As is often the case, this YEC argument collapses from its own essential implications.

In lieu of wasting time on videos, I have done your homework for you and refer to the Snelling article Radiohalos—Solving the Mystery of the Missing Bullets

The implications are astounding. At least 500 million uranium-238 atoms had to alpha decay within a few hours or days. The equivalent of “100 million years” of uranium-238 decay had to occur within hours!

Do I really have to spell out the problem here? 100 million years equals how many days? Let’s say 36 billion. So spread over three days - exactness is not required here - we are looking at decay speeded up by a factor of ten billion.

Now radiohalo’s shows what? The path of an alpha particle as it crashes from its emission velocity of about 5% of the speed of light to a stand still, whereupon conservation demands all of that kinetic energy has been transferred to heat. The heat is inherent, there is no getting around it.

The earth currently produces 15 to 41 TW of radiogenic heat based on the current radioactive isotopes, but that would have been at least twice as high prior the decay we are discussing, so 30 to 82 TW. Multiply that by the accelerated decay rate and you get upwards of 300 billion TW for three days.

The Earth receives 173,000 TW of solar energy continuously. Speeded up radioactive decay based on Snelling’s numbers yields well over a million times that heat. Noah’s flood would have been scalding steam, the ark afloat on a sea of molten rock, and that is if the planet were not vaporized. Obviously, nothing would remain of any halos. Think that exaggerated? A nuclear explosion is just rapid nuclear decay due to a fission chain reaction.

So yes, Snelling is making stuff up. And speeded up radioactive decay is not in the Bible.

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You use secular scientific theories all of the time. You use secular scientific theories to explain why it rains, even though the Bible states that God creates rain.

Do you think adding the word “secular” somehow taints it and makes it untrue? Are you suggesting that YEC is in fact inconsistent with science?

Shouldn’t sound biblical theology be consistent with what we have discovered about the universe?

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Speaking of biblical theology, it was because of Tremper Longman, that I first saw how the sea and darkness will not be part of the new creation.

To take the chaos that the sea represents, a step further, how appropriate would be seeing it as analogous to the quantum flux.

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