The canon started being decided the moment churches started swapping copies of Paul’s letters and using them for reading during worship.
Yeah, I doubt the thought was recursive to include what had just been written.
And the above doesn’t really help since we don’t know what letters or possibly Gospels were known to the writer of II Timothy.
On the other hand, assuming that at least some of Paul’s letters were known to the writer as writings being read in the churches, we have an endorsement of the canon-making process as being the various churches deciding and agreeing on what should be read in the churches.
I have explained to you many times before and even given examples where bible doctrine is self revealing…its easily found by following very simple steps. These all start by ensuring context, obvious writer intent, cross referncing simlar ideas from other relevant texts, comparing with overall biblical themes…its not difficult St Roymond…it really isnt. The problem here is thst humans complicate things by trying to manipulate scripture to satisfy pre existing biases (and these dont need to be scientific btw).
I accept the complaint about why so many religions? why so many denominations of Christianity?
However even you know full well that the vast majority of denominations are a direct result of the reformation. From that there are many sidesteps that have produced unusual and highly suspicious doctrines. Almost all of these, when scrutinised carefully, are found very wanting and even false.
I agree with the claim that is biblically supported in the text “the heavens declare the glory of God”…i argue its a heck of a stretch to link that with evolutionary science when the very basis of your claim that denies the first chapter of the very philosophy you claim to believe in.
What is really strange is that its repeated again in the Gods eternal moral law given long before sinai or the Israelites ever existed…even before Adam and Eve were created, “that God created the earth in 6 Days in Exodus 20”…which is not even in the first 12 chapters of Genesis. To add to this, God makes mention again of the relevance of His moral law in the book of Revelation…John is given vision a direct reference to creation in Genesis which links with the 10 commandments (specifically the 4th), a statement of what God truly values right at the very end of time. In it God calls “Saints” those who keep His commandments and have the testimony of Jesus (notice both are included…so the testimony of Christ by itself is not enough!).
If God didnt think a literal creation important, why keep repeating it , making reference to it, linking back to it, over and over again all throughout the bible. Its directly and indirectly referenced as a major theme of the whole bible and also in the writings of founding fathers of the Christian faith (the apostles).
How you can ignore that is extremely troubling for your world view i think.
It has everything to do with it: your statement had nothing to do with what I had said – you just tried to twist it, once again ignoring anything that doesn’t fit your filter. Your “negative criticism” didn’t even address what I wrote, and it’s tragic that you can’t get out of your restrictive little box to see that.
Here’s what I said – not claimed, but stated because it’s fact:
“By the way, there are more than a few people who see God’s hand in evolution because it is such an elegant system for fulfilling the command to “Bring forth!””
There are in fact many people who see God’s hand in evolution, and in fact they do so because it’s an elegant system, and in fact they do connect it to the command “Bring forth!” I have reported this before multiple times now.
You need to open your eyes and actually hear what other people are saying instead of shutting them out by declaring “It’s wrong!”
What does that have to do with my fellow students, and thousands like them, who due to their studies of evolution concluded there must be a Designer and as a result came to Christ?
The reference to Saul isn’t in the least relevant – more relevant would be God speaking to Balaam through his own donkey since the matter at hand is God speaking to people through (the study of) evolution.
You haven’t addressed what comes before that: actually studying the scripture text. You short-circuit that by assuming that what it looks like to you in English is what it actually is, which is a really arrogant assumption, which is really dangerous since we should be humble before the text and begin by asking what it is you’re looking at.
But you never even look at what type of literature you’re reading, which makes it impossible to discern the writer’s intent. You talk about “styles” instead of the actual matter which is genres, and you insist that the only choice besides yours is allegory, which you have been told repeatedly is not the case.
So stop doing that. You’ve actually admitted that that is what you do when you told us you have to read it to fit your worldview. Making the scriptures fit your world is the first step towards false teaching because it is a guarantee you’ll get it wrong.
My only “pre-existing bias” is that the scriptures have to be read as the ancient literature in an ancient language by ancient authors using ancient worldviews expressed in ancient literary genres.
Um, what? Try sticking to what I wrote.
My claim was that atheists and agnostics due to their study of evolution have concluded that there must be a Designer and that some of them ended up coming to Christ. The “basis of my claim” is that I was there when some of them followed that path. Your denial amounts to making another demand of the Holy Spirit, namely that He can’t be allowed to bring people to Christ in ways you don’t approve of. If I had followed back then what you have to say here then I would have chased them away from Christ.
Why do you keep reporting to something that isn’t even relevant? Moral law has nothing to do with the fact that people come to Christ due to studying evolution, and the only reason I can see for you to keep repeating it is that you have to in order to hide from truth that invalidates your worldview.
As someone else pointed out, someone referring to the Creation accounts does not mean that your interpretation of them is correct.
You insist that scripture has to fit the worldview of scientific materialism. I insist that scripture has to fit the worldview(s) of the writer(s). Only one of those honors the One Who inspired the scriptures.
Why so many? Because people repeatedly did (and do) the same thing that YEC is based on: they demand that the scriptures fit the worldview they were raised in. That’s what led to pretty much every heresy ever.
I bought the book ‘The lost world of scripture’ yesterday. I have read just the first few chapters but it seems to give a credible explanation of what it did and does mean that the biblical scriptures are word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit. I recommend for those who want to understand more about the topic.
Mutations are continually producing new genetic information, as is sexual reproduction with the recombining and reshuffling of genes that occurs during meiosis and fertilization. Natural selection tests whether this genetic information is adequately functional for the organism to survive and reproduce. But selection can favor having higher genetic diversity in certain genes, as well as eliminating versions of a gene that do badly. For one thing, environments are variable. Genetic features that are advantageous under one set of circumstances may not work so well under others, and there are also multiple solutions to most genetic challenges. Thus, different populations in a species are likely to show some genetic differences both from the mathematically random variation of these had this unimportant mutation and those had a different one and from the fact that the differences between where the two populations live is likely to make some features more useful in one place versus the other. Natural selection can be disruptive, favoring two or more separate forms. As a simple case, consider a population that ranges across an area that has some black soil and some pale soil. A population will be better camouflaged if individuals are either black or pale, but not intermediate. This would favor two species developing from the one, each one specializing on a particular soil color. There’s a decent chance that some random and functionally unimportant genetic differences would also end up in one or the other of the resulting populations.
There are also cases where having more variation within a population is advantageous. If a predator learns to target the common forms, the rarer ones will have an advantage. Having more different variants is helpful there. Conversely, your immune system needs to have lots of variation to hope to hit on antibodies that target potential threats. The relevant genes are extremely variable, with high mutation rates.
Thus, natural selection may favor both increases and decreases in genetic diversity.
So while the light and dark pigments do not new species make, the conditions that lead to that difference in populations can lead to further changes that can make new species.