Reconciling Evolution | Part One

Faith & Science Conversation
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Which includes geology, genetics, particle physics, and cosomology, but not claims that try to compress sequential faunas or radiometric decay into short periods of time.

It doesn’t need to. Mutations (entirely controlled by God, but that is a theological claim, not scientific) create new information, if (as most mutations are) they simply change bases or add new one. How useful those changes are varies dramatically. Most are extremely minor (e.g., this protein gets produced a bit less). There is a possibility that that change contributes to slightly increasing the number of descendants that individuals with that change have. If so, that change is perpetuated. If this happens enough times, new species can appear. And, if it is more useful in some situations than other, speciation can happen.

Given the number of uses of “day” that are plainly not sidereal or solar days, and the fact that easily observable evidence suggests a much greater age of the earth than 6,000 years (and has been known to suggest that for 250+ years), it seems likely that that it is not intended to tell us about pre-human history, beyond “God made everything, and there were no battles among the gods or chaos monsters to overthrow.”

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Two points here.

First of all, for any form of creationism to qualify as “biblical” it must obey Deuteronomy 25:13-16:

¹³Do not have two differing weights in your bag — one heavy, one light. ¹⁴Do not have two differing measures in your house — one large, one small. ¹⁵You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lᴏʀᴅ your God is giving you. ¹⁶For the Lᴏʀᴅ your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly.

Any creation model that does not obey these verses is not Biblical. Evolutionary creationism obeys these verses. Young earth creationism does not.

Secondly, contrary to what young earth pseudoscientists claim, for something to be “observed, tested and repeated and falsified,” you do not have to have been there to see it happen from start to finish. It is sufficient to have two or more different measurements, whose assumptions are independent of each other, that give the same results. For example, when radiometric dating gives ages that match up with ages from tree rings, lake varves, ice cores, and even direct GPS readings of continental drift, that is observation, testing, repeatability and falsification.

Now where have I heard that question before? Oh yes, that’s what the Pharisees said to Jesus.

Does 2 Peter 3:8 say that a day with the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day or does it not? Does Psalm 90:4 say that a thousand years are like a day in God’s sight or do they not? Does 2 Corinthians 3:6 say that the letter kills but the Spirit gives life or does it not? Did Jesus berate the Pharisees and the Sadducees in Matthew 23 for their strict wooden literalistic approach to the Law or did He not? It is by the authority of the Bible itself that we say that a strict wooden literal reading of Bible passages that contain figures of speech is not appropriate and just ends up nullifying it rather than upholding it.

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Does 2 Peter 3:8 say that a day with the Lord is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day or does it not? Does Psalm 90:4 say that a thousand years are like a day in God’s sight or do they not?
So what exactly does that have to do with Exodus 20 and genesis 1

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Do you really need it to be spelled out?

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Yes, please - do go ahead and enlighten me.

Just as a side note - it makes for an interesting thought to think of it in this way – God created in six days then rested on the seventh. So if one takes one day for a thousand years and vice versa then we have had about 6000 years ( of hardship and God creating His Spiritual kingdom ) gone past and the next 1000 years of rest is upon us. Quite something to nibble on for you there.

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OK I’ll take it from the top.

The earth is 4.5 billion years old, not six thousand. That is not an opinion, or an assumption, or an interpretation; it is a fact. It is one of the most well established facts in the whole of the earth sciences, on a par with the fact that the earth is a globe and not a flat disc, or with the fact that the distance from London to New York is 3,500 miles and not seven and a half metres. The evidence in support of this fact is extensive, unambiguous, insistent, and leaves nothing whatsoever open to interpretation. It is determined by measuring things, and not by any form of “secularism” or “evolutionism” or “naturalism.” Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying to you, or doesn’t have a clue what they are talking about. To deny that the earth is 4.5 billion years old is to deny the evidence of your eyes and your ears in the way that the Party demanded in George Orwell’s 1984. Such a denial is simply not a legitimate option for anyone who is honest and living in the Real World.

As Christians, we need to be honest about this. If we do not accept that the Bible gets it wrong, we must find some way of reconciling the measured 4.5 billion year age of the earth with a six day creation.

Fortunately, the Bible does give us a way to reconcile the two: viewing time from God’s perspective as different from, and independent of, time from our perspective. God’s time and our time are two completely different dimensions. That is what 2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4 both tell us: there is not a one-to-one mapping between our time and God’s, but the two vary independently. This means that it is perfectly reasonable to accept that events that unfolded over 4.5 billion years of our time could have been just six days from God’s perspective.

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“By whose authority are you saying so?” The authority of Jesus Christ, the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity. And better yet, Jesus the Logos authorizes us to think critically. and to use the mind God have us to seek God’s Truth.

Jesus the Logos is the Alpha and Omega of our faith. The Logos means that God gives us minds to think for ourselves, based on the facts as best we can determine them, rather than allow others to make decisions for us. Jesus is not the Mythos, the Word of God based on authority and tradition.

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.

Jesus did not gg around telling people that He was the Messiah, the Christ. In fact when two disciples of John, who was in prison, came to Him, and asked Him point blank if He were the One,
Luke 7:20-23 (NIV2011)
20 When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’ ”
21 At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind.
22 So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.
23 Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

Jesus said, Do not take my word for it. Look and see. Judge for yourself what is true.

In John 5 Jesus said that God the Father did not rest on the seventh day of Creation, because the Father has never rested. The Priestly Editor used the Creation story to justify the Sabbath by saying God rested on the seventh day in the Exodus version fo the Decalogue. In the Deuteronomy version of the Decalogue it says:.
Deuteronomy 5:15 (NIV2011)
15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

The Hebrew word used for day in Gen 1 is “yom,” which often means day, but can be used to mean other periods of time. We know that the universe had a beginning because it is finite, even though only the Bible says that it has a Beginning, and it is created by God out of nothing by logical inference.

Therefore, the universe was created in time, on the first day. Someone used this “day” motif to say that God created the universe in 6 days and rested on the seventh as the rationale for the Fourth Commandment. Jesus pointed out that is was not true. God the Father and God the Son have not rested. The day motif is not literal. Yom here is an unspecified period of time, which is the way traditional theologians have thought of it.

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Wait for it … did you witness it? The only one who could have inspired a book that says otherwise. I know, weird.

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So as you say then, you believe firmly, totally and conclusively that the earth is 4.5 billion years old. Whilst of course it is a firm and totally conclusive fact that the bible teaches in Genesis 1, Exodus 20:8-11 and Exodus 31:17 that the heavens, the earth and everything in it was created in six normal, human understandable days. So again, as you say - you must find some way to reconcile your firm and totally conclusive belief in the 4.5B years with the biblical statements. Your way of doing it is to assume that your human scientific statement holds sway and it is the word of God that must somehow accommodate your belief system. Hence you reach out into some verses you’ve found and mold them to accommodate your need - and it fails miserably to convince me because of the context you are pulling it out of.

Unfortunately for you there is exactly and precisely such a one to one mapping between our time and God’s time: Exodus 20:8-11 does that concisely and in no uncertain terms. God makes it unmistakably clear that He created everything in exactly six days. That’s how I read it and that’s how I understand it.
There is nowhere in the bible that God makes any statement that can even remotely be construed to mean that He created over a long period of time such that it can be approximated to billions of years.
So now here’s the thing - if God says He created in 6 days then surely either He is mistaken or your belief system is. If as you say - your facts are immutable then you are not talking about the same god as that in the bible. Whatever or whoever created the earth over 4.5 billion years is not the god of the bible, that much is very, very clear. So if you cling to that belief ( and you are entitled to it ) and you also claim to believe the bible then perhaps it’s necessary to see what it says in Exodus 20:23. Do not make any gods to be alongside me;

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Really? So by whose authority was the bible written then? Was it not that same Jesus? So how then can he be contradicting himself? The words in Genesis 1, Exodus 20:8-11 and Exodus 31:17 are crystal clear. I do not know how you can mistake it for anything else other than what it says.

Yes, that’s precisely why I do not let evolutionist believers think for me - I believe what the bible teaches in simple, clear and unmistakable terms. Even a child can understand it - no need for those swayed by human interpretations.

The bible firmly contradicts your statement - it says in Genesis 1 and 2, Exodus 20:8-11 that he RESTED on the 7th day. So if the bible is inspired by God, why would He be contradicting Himself? I think that perhaps you should go and read those chapters for yourself and use the brain God has given you to think very carefully about what it says.

So the “Priestly Editor” took liberty to write whatever he thought he should to make the bible say what he wanted to suit his purposes? Did he then also decree that whoever went out to work on the Sabbath should be killed as well? Are you saying that the bible is not inerrant - that is has been fiddled with by humans with nefarious intentions? That’s what I understand from your statement.

So, now just who is that “someone” you are referring to? The reading from the bible is crystal clear - the god of the bible created in 6 humanly understandable days and He makes it clear in a very literal sense. There is no mistake about that.
So here’s the point - if you deny it, it must be because you believe that the earth is 4.5B years old and the universe is >13B years old, i.e. creation took a long, long time and is still ongoing ( stars still being formed ). This clearly is not the same creation as that in the bible or at least not the same creative god as that in the bible. We are talking about two different gods here. I choose to believe in the god of the bible because various things I observe around me click fully with the biblical narrative - and in so doing I take great care to obey the words of Exodus 20:23: Do not make any gods to be alongside me;

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It’s nothing to do with “belief systems,” Kevin. It’s a matter of measurement. Measurement. As I’ve said, the Bible demands that our approach to weights and measures must be honest and accurate. Deuteronomy 25:13-16: I’ve already made this point. And it is neither honest nor accurate to try and make measurements say six thousand years when they clearly and unequivocally say 4.5 billion.

I’m sorry Kevin, but Deuteronomy 25:13-16 applies to every context. No exceptions, no excuses. To suggest that there are contexts to which those verses do not apply is to demand the right to tell lies about those contexts. Especially when the contexts concerned are science, because measurement is the very foundation on which science is built.

There’s something that you need to understand here, Kevin. Measurement has rules. Honesty has rules. If you don’t want to be called a liar, you need to stick to those rules. And I and others have documented numerous instances where young earth claims do not even acknowledge the rules, let alone stick to them. Do you want me to explain this in detail?

I’m sorry, Kevin. If your small-b bible really is that intransigent that the days of creation were 24 hour solar days and can not be interpreted any other way, then your small-b bible teaches things that are demonstrably and indisputably untrue. Your small-b bible demands that we reject the evidence of our eyes and ears as its final, most essential command. Your small-b bible is the manifesto of The Party from George Orwell’s 1984 and it preaches a god who is Big Brother. If your small-b bible really is that intransigent, then your small-b bible is the manifesto of a cult.

My Bible (with a capital B) tells us that what we see in creation is an accurate reflection of reality (Romans 1:20). My Bible (with a capital B) tells us that God does not lie – and creating evidence for a history of 4.5 billion years that never happened is lying. My Bible (with a capital B) tells us that we must not bind up heavy loads on people’s backs without lifting a finger to help them – and demanding that we reject the evidence of our eyes and our ears as your final, most essential command is binding up heavy loads on people’s backs without lifting a finger to help them. My Bible (with a capital B) tells me that we are saved by the Blood of Jesus, not by making things up or inventing our own alternative reality just so that we can read it as if it were a computer program. My Bible (with a capital B) tells me that we can believe and trust in God no matter how old the earth is or who or what did or didn’t evolve from what. My Bible (with a capital B) is flexible enough to accommodate objective reality and to allow us to acknowledge it as such.

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Fine. If you see scripture as unmistakably irreconcilable with science and choose your interpretation of scripture, that is your prerogative. Feel free to ignore it then. I know people who maintain science is of the devil.

However, speeded up radioactive decay is not in science nor the Bible.
Humans living with dinosaurs is not in science nor the Bible.
Hyper evolution of kinds is not in science nor the Bible.
Speeding tectonic plates is not in science nor the Bible.
Post flood ice age is not in science nor the Bible.
Mega algae blooms turning into instant chalk cliffs is not in science nor the Bible.

All the verbiage from AiG et al concerning dendrochronology, radiometric dating, oil formation, the grand canyon, and on and on, is neither Biblical nor scientific.

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Where does truth come from?

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any link to the article?

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Reconciling Evolution | Part One - Podcast-episodes

@marvin Try this from the top of the post.

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Thanks. I meant “See my essay on God and Freedom on Academia.edu”

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What are God’s days?

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Using this as a measuring tool or a get-out clause is a misuse. The passage is about understanding patience and the passage of time, and not how God measures it.

Richard

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Genesis actually states that it was created in 6 period of light which is what " יום " stands for. This might as well be corresponding with modern descriptions https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Geologic_Clock_with_events_and_periods.svg/800px-Geologic_Clock_with_events_and_periods.svg.png
In the earliest phase under constant bombardment the dark atmosphere would have limited light transmission from outside. After that most likely opaque atmosphere acting like a diffuser lightguide so you would have had diffuse light all time. Only once the atmosphere had cleared the moon and sun would have been visible. So to think of those periods in terms of 24hours is at best naïve.

After all, the bible is a narrative written in a poetic language to be understood by people who could not read or write. In modern times with the increased literacy the problem is more that the target audience can get lost in the words as they now can read and write but not think :slight_smile:

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There’s a steep cost to pressing the parallel between God’s days and ours to be exactly one-to-one. Not only are the days put in parallel, so is the rest:

Therefore the Israelites shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout their generations, as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign for ever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed. (Exodus 31:16–17)

God is even described as being refreshed (like a tired person) in order to stress the parallel! Are we really willing to say that God’s rest is “exactly and precisely” the same as our rest? Or can we see that even when God stoops to be known in ways we can understand – even like a human worker who labours for six days and then is refreshed on the seventh – this does not mean God is literally on our level?

Truly stooping to our level is the story of John 1 and Philippians 2, not Genesis 1.

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