The Fall of Historical Adam, (Federal Head of man), impacts all of humanity to need Christ's Salvation

Faith & Science Conversation
, ,
1

Dear All,
I have had it on my heart for a little while now to post this.

Not quite sure where to begin, I spent a few minutes looking at the Forum list and came across an article by Jim Stump, of Oct 14,2015. In that article, in one part, it appears that a Biologos position is stated as:
“What we’re absolutely committed to is the claim that all human beings sin and need salvation; that fact is sufficient to guarantee Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.”
On that statement of belief, I agree, and expect all Bible believing Christians would also agree!

It’s overwhelmingly clear through reading the Bible that death first came into the world as a consequence of the rebellion/sin that occurred at the fall in the Garden of Eden, by disobedience to God’s direct command; "from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die.”
I suspect that Adam started to die on the day that he rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden.

From what I have read thus far, it appears the Biologos organisation absolutely supports an evolution based explanation for the origin of the diversity of life on Earth; please correct me if I am wrong in this!

My understanding of the Holy Scriptures is that death is a direct result of sin, “The wages of sin is death” , i.e., death does not precede sin, death follows after the first sin is committed.

Now my understanding of evolution is that it requires death and lots of it, in the assumed ascension over hundreds of millions of years via natural selection, from the assumed first cell to the abundant diversity of life we now see living and having lived on Earth.
If it is fair to say that an explanation for the diversity of life on Earth is evolution’s engine room, that is, genetic mutations and natural selection giving rise to survival of the fittest and/or luckiest; said another way, death of the unfit and/or unlucky; over hundreds of millions of years, then we have a glaring contradiction between the Biblical history of the origin of death and the assumed belief in evolution that requires millions of years of death and struggle.

I believe the very reason why the Son who has been with the Father and the Holy Spirit in eternity, came into the world as a man, flesh and blood like all of us, for the very purpose of taking the penalty for sin in our place, to defeat the enemy of death once and for all. But if death through the imagined process of evolution, is the method God used to create the diversity of life and man, then death is not really an enemy at all.

It’s clear to me that evolution is a deceitful lie misleading millions away from the truth of the scriptures; particularly the historical reading of Genesis, that clearly describes what God created, who our great, great,great…great, great, great, grandparents were, i.e., Adam and Eve and how the intruder death came to exist in the creation that God said is very good when he had finished creating in creation week.
Obviously, at that point the Creation was perfect and there was NO DEATH or pain or sorrow, just a beautiful Earth, all life and the universe and time.
How AWESOME, POWERFUL, RIGHTEOUS, JUST and GOOD is our Lord and Saviour, Jesus.

It is clear that Jesus believed that Adam and Eve were real people and He should know as He is the Creator, He created them, thus, it should be obvious to all that religious faith in evolution is misplaced.
I trust God’s word to us over the mere feeble speculations and assumptions of fallen mankind, **Genesis 6:5 “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”

Christ’s chief apostle, Peter, commanded us1 Peter 3:15
“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

The Greek word translated ‘answer’ in 1 Peter 3:15 is in fact ἀπολογία (apologia). This term is derived from the Greek words ἀπὸ (apo) = away from and λόγος (logos) = logic/reason, so means ‘out of logic/reason’, so refers to a reasoned defence that would be given in a court of law.

The word for ‘reason’ above is λόγος (logos), in this context meaning evidence that provides rational justification for one’s belief.

2 Corinthians 10:4–5
"4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

Of course, evolution is the major anti-God pretension of our age, thus all God fearing, Bible believing Christians who know the Lord must make great efforts to demolish it in accord with Paul’s word in 2 Corinthians quoted above.

May our Lord and Saviour provide clarity and wisdom to those seeking truth.
God Bless,
j

1 Like
2

Evolution is just the most plausible theory on the development of the species, it is not an “anti-God” at all. It doesn’t explain how life began, but how it developed. The people like Richard Dawkins are just deluded. This video is quite helpful:

Alex O’Connor Exposes The Weaknesses of Richard Dawkins. Glen Scrivener REACTS.

Without having to take on the dogmas of Christianity, I find this video is brilliant in making the point that Richard Dawkins’ assumption that Darwin has answered “the big one” is completely wrong. It is more about the fact that theism in any form has not yet been taken from the table. It can also be pantheism, panentheism, or whatever, but the proof has not been supplied that whatever it is we call God is implausible.

2 Likes
3

I don’t think any correction is needed there. As far as scientific explanations go, Biologos sees the basic evolutionary framework as the vastly supported and productive theory on how life has developed. More could be said, of course. But that is correct as far as it goes.

That’s where differences begin to accumulate, since you were also correct to note that evolution involves vast eons of physical life and death long before anything like the sin and rebellion of humans would have been around. So if you understand all references to death as meaning only physical death, then obviously that view would be contradictory to any deep-time view with vast eons of life and death in it. Obviously the many Christians here who accept the findings science don’t hold to the same understandings of those creation passages that you choose to hold to.

And that difference will show itself more and more (as I think it does) in your subsequent discussion. What it doesn’t do, though, is separate you or them from following Christ, and holding scriptural testimonies of and about Christ in very high and authoritative regard.

Thanks for your blessings and thoughts. May we all seek and find truth together.

-Merv

2 Likes
4

The problem is that it is even more overwhelmingly clear from science that death existed in the world long before humans arrived on the planet. Our interpretation of Bible passages doesn’t determine reality. I prefer to live in reality and interpret the theological truth of the Bible in harmony with known incontestable facts about the world.

Of course, evolution is the major anti-God pretension of our age, thus all God fearing, Bible believing Christians who know the Lord must make great efforts to demolish it in accord with Paul’s word in 2 Corinthians quoted above.

Evolution is just a scientific model, and as such, it doesn’t speak at all to the existence or non-existence of God or how the supernatural interacts with the natural world. It doesn’t tell us how life was created, only how life diversified and changed over time.

4 Likes
5

So let me get this straight.

You are telling us that one of the most mature and well studied theories in the whole of biology—a subject that is supported by vast swathes of detailed, coherent, unambiguous and in some cases mathematically precise evidence, that has been studied in vast detail by hundreds of thousands of professional scientists across multiple disciplines over the course of two centuries or more, that has applications in multiple different lines of study, some of them of significant importance for the economy or public health, and that is foundational to numerous other areas of scientific inquiry—is a lie?

You are telling us that hundreds of thousands of professional scientists, from dozens of nations with multiple different political and religious backgrounds, have been acting in concert to falsify evidence in a highly coherent, tightly coordinated and rigorously disciplined manner on an industrial scale at the cost of trillions of dollars for more than a hundred and fifty years?

That’s a pretty extraordinary conspiracy that you’re talking about there. If it really is happening then aliens in Area 51, NASA faking the moon landings, 9/11 being an inside job, chemtrails, and the US Navy covering up the existence of mermaids would be child’s play by comparison. If it really is happening then there must be someone, somewhere, blowing the gaff on it by now. Who, where, and when?

5 Likes
6

In a nutshell, here is how I reconciled evolution and the classic creation story, A&E lived in the Garden, a supernatural place: in the presence of God, no death, no sickness etc. Because of their rebellion they were thrown on the natural evolved earth, away from the presence of God, a place where death rules, in fact is a necessity.

2 Likes
7

Thanks Mervin for your candid explanation, it is much appreciated!

The idea that death through an assumed ‘deep time’ is not death as stated in, “The wages of sin is death”, contradicts the clear intention of the scriptural authors in Genesis and Romans.
Certainly there is the second death that is to be avoided but that is a separate matter entirely and has to do with whether we have accepted our Lord’s gracious gift of salvation or not, at the day of judgement.

The scriptures explain the history of creation very well!
God in His omniscience, (knowing what was to come in the future regarding the mental contortions some people would be prepared to put themselves through to accommodate a belief that is different to how the Word says He created), made certain that the historical account of creation in Genesis could not be misinterpreted, i.e., “And there was evening and there was morning, (number) day.”
I really don’t know what more He could have done to ensure that the creation narrative in Genesis was not misinterpreted to mean anything other than what is stated in Genesis as historical narrative.

I accept the findings of science. I work in science. I understand the scientific method very well.
This is not a matter of science versus the Bible. The science is absolutely consistent with the Biblical account in Genesis.

  • List item

Why do you think there is the appearance of a catastrophic global flood having occurred in the past in the sedimentary layers in places miles thick, across the entire planet including under the oceans, that have billions of dead things fossilised in them that from their pristine condition obviously necessitated rapid burial that prevented scavenging and decomposition from bacteria? The order of fossils found documents the order of burial of plants and animals at the sedimentary rock location during the global flood of Noah; nothing more and nothing less. No deep time. No evolution.

  • List item

Why do you think we find an ever growing number of uncontested examples of real dinosaur soft tissue, including blood cells, DNA fragments, actin, collagen and an array of other proteins and physical anatomical structures in unpermineralised bone found sticking out of the ground in places where the summer diurnal temperature range often exceeds 40 degrees C or around 100 degrees F?

  • List item

Where are the billions upon billions of transitional forms that demonstrate the assumed ascension of life from the imaginary first reproducing cell to the diversity of life on Earth we see today?

  • List item

Why do we find Carbon 14 in many diamonds that are supposedly 300 million years old when all detectable C would be gone in a tiny fraction of that immense period of time?

To list but a few questions that illustrate the palpable fallacy of placing one’s faith in ‘deep time’ and ‘evolution’. The Bible CAN be trusted to mean exactly what it says. Scripture is not rubbery, it is God’s word to us, and our loving God is not inept nor is He illiterate, when He says He created in 6 days and rested on the seventh, you can be absolutely certain that He meant that He created in 6 literal 24 hour days and rested on the seventh literal 24 day so that we would have an example to follow, i.e., the seven 24 hour day week.

After studying the evolution/creation debate for many decades it’s clear to me the whole evolution edifice is a house of cards, with lots of smoke and mirrors. The false belief of evolution was initially established through ignorance, deception and people wishing to be seen as intelligent intellectuals up to date with the latest science. The problem with evolution is that it is categorically NOT scientific. In just about any other discipline of science, the theory would have been falsified long ago and thrown out, but of course evolution is the only theory that I am aware of that is still taught in universities yet it is absolutely unfalsifiable. It does not stand up when it is scrutinised carefully, it is a false philosophical belief system that has nothing to do with real empirical science.

Unfortunately the religious stranglehold of evolution in academia continues to deceive many who do not take the time to perform real science to test its validity. It is sad that so many just accept evolution as a given and do not test the basic premises.

Thank you again Mervin for being honest and gracious about your beliefs in this vitally important matter.
There was a time when I was much younger, that I shared your belief in ‘deep time’ and ‘evolution’.
I prayed for wisdom and not long after, many, many decades ago I was visited by an old friend (of the Salvation Army) who I haven’t seen since, and He left me three copies of Creation magazine. That was well into last century, but God graciously opened my eyes to the historical reality of the creation account and global flood exactly as stated in Genesis. I praise God for His love for us all that He loves us all so much that He endured the punishment that His own righteousness demands.

I pray that our Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit grant to you the wisdom to know the truth.
Your brother in our Lord Jesus,
jon

8

We don’t. We only find the ultimately stable breakdown products of dinosaur soft tissue.

Please make sure that you’re getting your facts straight about what the evidence consists of before you start trying to make arguments about what it does or does not support.

It’s contamination. Period. And no, contamination is NOT any kind of “rescuing device.” Every scientific study must fully and correctly account for contamination before claiming anything out of the ordinary. By dismissing contamination as a “rescuing device,” young earthists are insisting that the basic rules and principles of the scientific method do not apply to them. In other words, they’re demanding a free pass to make things up and invent their own alternative reality.

As someone who works in science and knows the scientific method very well, you should know this.

3 Likes
9

Hi Christy,
thank you for your reply.

What evidence do you offer that supports your belief that, “death existed in the world long before humans arrived on the planet.”?

The point I was making was not about whether God exists, but rather it is about whether the Bible can be trusted to mean what it says about origins as evolution is clearly a departure from the Word that states that God (Jesus the Son) spoke the creation into existence. In the same way that Jesus spoke the water into wine, or He spoke and the wind and waves calmed, the same Creator, the same method.
I believe the Biblical account is both accurate and is consistent with the real empirical evidence.

Even though it is claimed to be science, I’ve yet to see an example where belief in it has produced a useful thing we use in the world today. Evolution is pseudo-science, a false paradigm through which many view the origins issue.

God Bless,
jon

10

Off the top of my head: oil, ChatGPT, and cancer treatments for starters.

3 Likes
11

Hi James,
thanks for your reply.

**

  • List item

So what would you put down as the top three from the supposed “vast swathes of evidence” you assert exist?**

I have stated nothing of the sort, this is a straw man that you have created!

God Bless,
j

12

I refer the Right Honourable Gentleman to the answer I gave just nine minutes ago.

You may not have stated that explicitly, but if they haven’t been doing that then evolution can not be a lie, because that is what would be needed for it to be one.

1 Like
13

I’ve met Andrew Snelling many years ago, and he is a fine Christian and God fearing man who is a geologist. He gets it right, " Successful oil…exploration and discoveries do not depend on believing the strata are millions of years old. In fact, the supposed ages are irrelevant, both to the exploration techniques used and to successful discoveries."

God Bless,
j

14

Two words: Arrhenius Equation.

Read this article:

It explains not only that Andrew Snelling is lying, but why he is lying. By claiming that petroleum geologists don’t need to know the ages of rock deposits, he is basically denying that the aforementioned Arrhenius Equation is a thing.

2 Likes
15

Incorrect, we DO find, blood vessels, DNA fragments, containing a few base pairs, various components of proteins and break down products from them that still exist in real unpermineralised dinosaur bone in harsh environments. That the bone itself exists intact after the imaginary hundreds of millions of years is in itself clear proof that the ‘deep time’ paradigm is false.

To believe the ‘deep time’ myth for the dinosaur bones, you automatically must accept the contravention of known laws of physics and chemistry. Bone let alone blood cells, proteins, DNA fragments etc, simply cannot last hundreds of millions of years, the chemical bonds fall apart, there should be nothing left if the bones were truly hundreds of millions of years old. The obvious solution is that the bones are merely a few thousand years old and have not disintegrated as they would if they were actually hundreds of millions of years old.

Incorrect. Contamination has been accounted for and ruled out.
The C 14 is real, the only truthful explanation is that the diamonds are NOT hundreds of millions of years old!

Please see:
Diamonds: a creationists best friend ; AND
Carbon14 in Diamonds? It shouldn't be there! · Creation.com ; AND
Does Carbon Dating Prove Millions of Years? · Creation.com

God Bless,
j

16

Dear James,
I refute the blatant false accusation that you have made against a fine Christian man, Dr Andrew Snelling.
You do yourself no favours being a bulldog for the accuser.
There is little to be gained from continuing dialogue with you as no-one will be edified by your accusations, and thus I have decided this will be my last reply to you.

May our Lord and Saviour Jesus, bless you and give you insight about the truth.
j

17

Would that be the same Dr. Andrew Snelling that uses millions of years in his professional publications but only thousands of years when he is writing to a YEC audience. The same Dr. Andrew Snelling that claims the folded rock layers in the Grand Canyon were folded when they were soft and therefore have no cracks who was photographed in front of one of those folds with a crack plainly visible behind him?

2 Likes
18

It’s overwhelmingly clear from reading Paul that he thought that, or at least that was willing to advance that as a possible framework for understanding sin and death. Most of the Bible doesn’t say anything of the sort.

1 Like
19

The entire fossil record.

You can believe that Jesus spoke creation into existence and is the author of life and not insist that Jesus spoke creation into existence as it is in its present form a few thousand years ago.

Okay. You aren’t a scientist.

3 Likes
20

I too have studied the evolution/creation debate for many decades. Unlike you, however, I have actual first-hand experience as a scientific researcher, both in evolution and in other scientific disciplines, including experimental physics. Based on that experience, I can state with complete confidence that what you’ve written here is complete nonsense. Common descent by natural processes is a highly successful scientific theory that has successfully explained and predicted vast amounts of data in a wide range of fields. Professional creationists deal with that data by misrepresenting it, denying its existence, or simply ignoring it.

I have yet to see a creationist who could explain even simple features of the genetic data I deal with every day.

8 Likes