Thanks. Yes, that’s what I think Macdonald was saying. The “Lord, Lord” believers are those who worship in name only, but don’t feed or clothe the destitute (and in so doing, they neglect Jesus). In contrast, those who start out doing what God commanded know Him better in word and deed. (Matthew 7:21).
It seems to me that God meets us where our hearts are. If He can save a 3 year old who doesn’t understand the plan of salvation, He knows how we all struggle with perception of evil, and counts as His children those who, while not understanding, do what they do understand, and go on to serve the least of these. Macdonald’s passage goes on to say that doing duty is the first step in learning to be more like Christ.
I certainly appreciate the things I learn on this forum.
I wonder if Mennonites in purgatory are given instructions with “More with Less” cookbooks, but have to make do with high school cafeteria food? I would much prefer “More With Less.” I especially would miss the oatmeal-peanut butter-chocolate chip recipe at the back of the book!
Baptist purgatory, now–hmm. Probably it would be broccoli and cauliflower on the “pink mint” plate at the back of the church.
Oh… Were you speaking on behalf of Ken Ham in the part I first quoted? Not only was that not made explicit but it is a bad practice in general for how do we disentangle what they believe from what you believe and from what you are putting into their mouth. Nevertheless my response stands, we can also read the Bible, for there are some things on which the Bible is pretty clear.
But you are right, I was getting a little confused by the convolutions when I suggested that you were doing the same thing to make the Bible contradict science on other issues.
Paul makes it clear in 1 Cor 15 that He is speaking of both Christs resurrection and ours too, for Christ is simply the first of many. And what Paul says is that it is a bodily resurrection to a spiritual body and NOT to a physical (or natural) body. 1 Cor 15: 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. The last Adam is what Paul frequently calls Jesus so this refers to the resurrected Jesus.
merely? Is God merely a spirit? I don’t see anything “merely” about the spiritual. The spiritual is the greater reality not something to which the word “merely” is applicable. I will simply keep on quoting Paul that the resurrection was a bodily resurrection to a spiritual body and any talk of “apostacy” in response to that sounds to me like the way the Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons speak. Or do you aim the word apostacy at the same word “merely” which I take exception to?
Perhaps the blunt tool of language is part of the problem because the word “spirit” is often used for ghosts, and we certainly have the resurrected Jesus saying that He is no ghost – not a spirit in that sense. The resurrected Jesus was not immaterial, insubstantial, or in any way less capable. He might have been difficult to recognize at times and He could appear in a room without opening a door so it is unlikely that He was bound by the laws of nature like a physical/natural body is. Thus in any case, I stick to the exact words Paul that it is a bodily resurrection to a spiritual body – imperishable, powerful, glorious, and made of the stuff of heaven.
Are you saying that Paul is in apostacy? Surely not. In any case, Paul is speaking of the bodily resurrection of Christ and those to follow, and Paul says that is to a spiritual body.
Indeed! Clearly my suggestion that you are reinterpreting the Bible in order to contradict science was confusing you with Ken Ham. Understood.
Thanks Christy. Indeed, but i think this is where old earth science is struggling.
Pethaps the next step is to extrapolate how or if an old earth enhances our view of God, his character?
For me, i think it can and does. Gods intention was to bring us humans into relationship with Him. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and creation itself is at least wonderfully made.
Given God has sent his only Son to save it, we are of great value to Him. Beyond that, my understanding is that this earth will be restored at the second coming, indicating its worth and suggesting it was originally made for eternal timeframes?
All in all, His creation is a great masterpiece of great value. It reflects his loving character.
In contrast, at some level, the YEC view ‘feels’ like God just got up one day and whipped up this world without much planning for forethought. And He could do so tomorrow. The Genesis account does not reveal to us the degree of effort God applied. However, i think good science continues to point to the intricacies and details He put in place in the physical.
Thank you Matthew, it is a very good and mature artical that is a great start to the conversation.
Im biassed, as Im still not onboard with EC, i struggle mostly the E bit. Perhaps because the narrative of E is largely atheistic/naturalistic.
I could consider evolution fitting/working as a historical view of how God carefully and cautiously developed His creation over a long period. I wouldnt term this as trial and ‘error’, but rather a process of refinement and an expression of the huge thought, effort, care and devotion God undertook, perhaps like a lifelong masterpiece of love. Given the whole purpose was to create us, to be with Him, who is Love, he didnt want us to be in a half baked world. I do believe God put all of His fullness into creation, and i dont buy into the idea of life beyond this planet because of this. I dont think i would term this narrative as an evolutionary process though, it is simply the process of creation, much like an artist.
With that as contrast, i honestly cant get my head around the naturalistic view that evolution could overcome the improbability of life entirely undirected. Putting origins aside, its like some kind of slowburning magic that is too slow to test empirically. Then there is the Cambrian explosion, the anthropic principle and irreduciable complexity. I understand that good science is a matter of probable or plausible hypothesis, but pure evolution theory does not come close to my version of plausible, more like impossible.
I do find it plausible if one is seeking an alternative to believing in Creation, such as a secular viewpoint may desire.
While I agree with the EC view, I have some of the same reservations. I reflect on Proverbs 16:33 that states something like,“we cast the lots but God determines the outcome.” Perhaps God works on levels we only vaguely imagine or think of as quantum physics to sustain and direct creation.
Some have proposed God sent a cosmic ray to effect a mutation, or ID perhaps suggests a de novo creation at the molecular level in the DNA (I assume, I really can’t figure out what ID proposes at that level) but perhaps that is far too crude to explain God’s involvement and it is on the level of creation itself.
I understand where you’re coming from. This can be especially emphasized in public debates where a false dichotomy is presented. And once Christians have bought into it or non-Christians have the debate is already lost. If it is either God or scientific explanations The Christians will reject the science, and the non-Christians will reject God.
Really, every aspect of science is naturalistic. There are no gods involved in any explanation of anything in science, nor can there be. I think it would also be anti-Christian to limit the handiwork of God to a term in one of our equations. But something that is really important is that no scientific explanation for anything ever can falsify God. He is not threatened or in opposition to any scientific explanation to anything. Science just simply cannot test the supernatural and therefore is blind to his existence or nonexistence. But how many anti-science groups or anti-Christian groups describe it, it’s either one or the other-which is a lie.
Many Christians, including many that are here believe that God upholds the laws of nature. So to have a scientific explanation is not to eliminate God, but it is to highlight the beauty and grandeur of the laws that he is upholding and is continually involved in creation. This is not a deistic God who just set up the laws and checked out. The Bible testifies that he is actively upholding all things.
Cycling back to the original post. Nothing Ken Ham wrote is new, but there is a bit of a shell game played with words. Though YEC know they can’t use scripture to say belief in a young earth is a salvation issue, there is a sense in which they are saying “in theory” it is not a salvation issue, but “in practice” it is. A 2014 article by Ken Ham gets close to explicitly saying this.
“When creationists take a strong stand that God created the earth six thousand years ago, they’re often accused of making this a salvation issue. Well, it isn’t a salvation issue—but it is!”
Sorry for my late reply. I agree with you. Researching the loss of faith among the younger generation is what brought me here three years ago. The “evolution problem” is just one piece of the puzzle, but it’s an important piece.
Scot McKnight did a similar book that looks at both sides, conversion and deconversion.
The problem with your experience and both books mentioned is that they are qualitative, as you point out. Here is one article that discusses the “credibility gap” you mentioned:
Abstract: The cultural learning concept of Credibility Enhancing Displays (CREDs) concerns the extent to which behavioral models consistently live out their professed ideals. While researchers have suggested that past CRED exposure is an important variable for predicting who does and does not become a religious believer, it is unclear how CREDs relate to when a person rejects the religious beliefs modeled to them during their upbringing. Using a large sample of formerly believing atheists, two analyses assessed the ability of CREDs to predict the age at which an individual became an atheist. In the first analysis ( n = 5,153), CREDs were positively associated with a delay in Age of Atheism, with family-level religious variables (Religious Importance, Religious Choice, and Religious Conflict) moderating this relationship. In the second analysis ( n = 3,210), CREDs remained a stable predictor of Age of Atheism while controlling for demographics, parental quality, religious variables, relational variables, and institutional variables. Overall, while findings support a robust relation of CREDs to atheistic outcomes even when controlling for many other variables that influence religious transmission processes, they also highlight the importance of considering how such other variables modify the impact of CREDs on (non)religious outcomes.
Abstract: Recent research argues that the United States is secularizing, that this religious change is
consistent with the secularization thesis, and that American religion is not exceptional. But we show
that rather than religion fading into irrelevance as the secularization thesis would suggest, intense
religion—strong affiliation, very frequent practice, literalism, and evangelicalism—is persistent and,
in fact, only moderate religion is on the decline in the United States. We also show that in comparable countries, intense religion is on the decline or already at very low levels. Therefore, the intensity
of American religion is actually becoming more exceptional over time. We conclude that intense
religion in the United States is persistent and exceptional in ways that do not fit the secularization
thesis.
The key part of the article, in my opinion:
The downward trend in average American religiousness may then be less the result of a society-wide fading of the importance of religion to people’s lives—which we would expect on the basis of the secularization thesis—and more a function of the politicization of American religion in the late 1980s following the rise of the Christian Right. This politicization of American religion may have, as Hout and Fischer (2002, 2014) suggested, driven moderates out of religion but not necessarily decreased the intensity of American religion. In fact, moderates leaving religion in America could be, at least in part, a reaction against high-intensity American religionists, strict religion, and the contemporary link between religion and right-wing politics in the United States (Djupe, Neiheisel, and Sokhey 2017; Hout and Fischer 2002, 2014).
A lot to chew on here and I have more to say, so I probably should let it rest until tomorrow and see if anyone else is interested.
“Then why does AiG make an issue of the age of the earth — particularly a young age?” The answer is that our emphasis is on the authority of Scripture. The idea of millions of years does NOT come from the Bible; it comes from man’s fallible, assumption-based dating methods.
How and why would the authors of Scripture insert the idea of “millions of years” into their writings? Ham confuses the authority of Scripture with his authority to tell people what “authority” means. Just to ensure that there are no questions about the Evangelical credentials, here’s how R.C. Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries defines the authority of Scripture:
The doctrine of Scripture is foundational to the Christian faith. But there is more to say about Scripture than simply, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” If you don’t grasp what the Bible is and how it came to be, you’ll never fully grasp its meaning. Since the meaning of the Bible is vitally important to our faith and life, we will here briefly define a few key terms that relate to the doctrine of Scripture as the study of God’s Word written.
Ham views the Bible as a history book. I’m a former English teacher. If I were teaching middle school and placed Genesis 2-3 in front of a class entirely unfamiliar with it, I’m fairly certain none of them would identify the genre as literal history, and I honestly would fail the child who did.
Authority: The power the Bible possesses, having been issued from God, for which it “ought to be believed and obeyed” (Westminster Confession 1:4). Because of its divine author, the Bible is “the source and norm for such elements as belief, conduct, and the experience of God” ( Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms ).
The Bible has not remained relevant for more than 3000 years because it tells the literal history of the universe; the Bible remains relevant because it tells us the truth about God and about ourselves. The “power that the Bible possesses” is self-attesting to the individual heart. I grant it authority over myself, if I dare to call myself a Christian.
What does the Bible have authority over? Belief, conduct, and experience of God. In other words, what I should believe about God, how I should conduct myself in light of those beliefs, and how I should approach God (through Jesus Christ our Lord). Ham equates the authority of the Bible with the correctness of its historical details. That’s a giant mistake.
Genesis 1:27-28 (NIV2011)
27 So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
After God created Humans, male and female, in God’s own Image, God blessed them and directed them to survive and prospers, populate the earth and subdue it.
It seems to me that when humans do science they are carrying out God’s command to subdue the earth, not to replace God. This is particularly true since John 1 makes it clear that the universe was created through Jesus Christ, the Word (Logos) of God the Father.
We cannot carry out God’s command to subdue God’s Creation without understanding the universe created through the Logos, and all that entails.
Thanks Roger, you are fair to say that Old earth dating is not ‘wrong’. But, i still suggest that some degree of faith is required to accept the science. E.g, Compared to the ‘fact’ that the earth is a globe and not flat as a 10/10 truth, i give old earth dating methods a 7-8/10, as we are talking very big timeframes using methods that are ultimately based on very young human assumptions.
To apply this further, i simply struggle with the evolutionary narratives i come across, told by experts in the field. E.g. the evolution if the bat. It starts as a normal tree dwelling mammal, starts hiding from predators by hanging upside down, gradually grows lighter frame/body, grows wings from skin, moves into caves, develops sonic radar as its sight, etc. This happened over some crazy long timeframe. In terms of straight up believability that this happened via natural random processes, i give it a zero /10. However, I could accept the concept that God undertook to develop this species, for reasons I can only guess (potentially to protect it from extinction due to the Fall?). However, if God is behind it, that makes it a Supernatual process of creation/maturation. It did not happen unguided and therefore is not evolution.
However, experts in evolutionary science seem to have no trouble accepting these narratives of unguided evolution, or am i wrong?
The fact the earth is a globe is based on observations and measurements of the Earth. Likewise the age of the earth is based on observations and measurements made. The basic assumption is that physical laws that we observe today were the same yesterday and 4 billion years ago. Since God is faithful to uphold the physical laws that He put in place it is a safe bet that they have remained the same. So a geologist that can measure the rate at which magma cools and forms granite can use that rate to determine how long it took a present deposit of granite to cool to ambient temperature. Radiometric dating works on the assumption that radioactive elements decay at a constant rate. Which when combined with careful measurements give the great age of the Earth.
Evolution is not based on narratives. These are just examples for lay people. Evolution is based on the fossil record and genetics. Darwin only had the fossil record and observations of modern species to go on. The results of DNA analysis provides all the support needed to show common descent is real.
You are wrong to assume it is these narratives that provide the “proof”. And as a Christian I don’t believe evolution was unguided. God is, after all, the substainer of all things.
You raise a good question, NTassie. I am not familiar with the genomic evidence re: bats, but I know something about Mexican cave-dwelling fish. Pull up a chair.
Biologists have sequenced the DNA of these cave dwellers and compared it to the DNA of nearby fish populations that look identical but do not dwell in caves. Their genomes are virtually identical. Given their geographic and genetic proximity, it is entirely reasonable to conclude that the cave dwelling population and the nearby population have a common ancestry in the very recent past, approximately 100,000 years ago. Does that make sense?
Now the story gets much more interesting. The one key feature that allows you to distinguish the two populations is that the cave dwellers have lost most if not all of their vision. This loss of sight can be traced to specific mutations present in the cave dwellers’ sight genes that are not present in the sight genes of the nearby population.
It is metabolically expensive to run your vision apparatus. Scientists have studied the metabolism of cave dwellers and found that they use less energy than the nearby population. The loss of sight has made it easier for the cave dwellers to survive, because they need a little less food than their nearby cousins.
Given that the cave dwelling population lost their sight in well under a million years, the changes you cited for bats do not seem unreasonable over the course of millions of years. Of course, I haven’t studied the evidence re:bats in detail, so take my opinion with the grain of salt it deserves.
Does that make sense? Is there another concern I might have missed?
You are not wrong. Darwin and Dawkins say that evolution is unguided, but this is false. Evolution is true in that it took place. Darwinism is false because Darwin failed to understand the process by which evolution takes. Please reference the blog I wrote under the title Is Neo-Darwinism Passe? yesterday.
Or to put things from the theological perspective, God did create life forms using evolution, but this means that God creates through nature, not separate from nature. God or Nature is a false choice, but because both sides insist that we live in a dualistic Reality, both sides insist that w3e must make it.
I think that you would find my book, Darwin’s Myth, enlightening, because I go into the issues of Creation and Evolution in great detail and show how evolution is guided by God through ecology.