That is not an accurate assessment.
What biblical reasons are there to accept the scientific view of the earth as billions of years old?
I donât think thatâs quite accurate somehow. There is a lot of history in the Old Testament. Certainly just about everything from the time of David onwards (or at the latest, Solomon) is corroborated by archaeological evidence.
Thereâs even evidence that could possibly tie up with events as far back as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Abrahamâs time. Itâs only when you get into Genesis 1-11 that thereâs debate over how to tie the chronological ends together.
So ⌠no, actually, we do take much or most of the Old Testament as history.
1 Like
I read that previously and didnât find anything concrete which would actually assist you in this particularly important part of the hermeneutical process. Reading different translations, and reading conservative study Bibles, is not a great help in this regard. Whatâs missing from your description is any actual application of the hermeneutical process. For example, how do you determine the date when Genesis 1-11 was written, and how do you determine the original audience to whom it was written?
[quote=âMike_Gantt, post:287, topic:36256â]
Science is attempting to âreconstructâ the past, but it is âgeneratingâ history to do so - it is not âreconstructingâ history. Scientifically-generated history (SGH) is an intentionally non-prejudicial term. The only purpose of the term is to distinguish that to which it applies from history as it has been traditionally understood throughout all human civilization.[/quote]
But itâs an artificial distinction. Science does not generate history, it uncovers it. The history science uncovers uses the same method as the history historians uncover. Typically however, it is far more reliable than the history historians uncover, because unlike historians scientists can literally observe the past.
Are you aware that we are your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus? Are you also aware that splitting up followers of Christ into âusâ and âthemâ does remarkable harm to the witness we show to those who are not?
7 Likes
I am not here to persuade.
For the record, I affirm a historical Adam. Nothing in evolution unsettles this. I do take Genesis as history, but I disagree that it is âhistoryâ in the way you mean it.
And I uphold Genesis and all Scripture as historical as clearly as did Jesus.
Only disagreement here is in your understanding of me.
Show me where I have twisted the meaning?
Of course, and I remind you the same. Reading our own view into Scripture is a grave compromise. Repenting of that is what led me, by Godâs grace, away from the rigid and non-biblical young earth creationism I in which I was raised. Leaving YEC, for me, was returning to an orthodox view of Genesis.
5 Likes
[quote=âMike_Gantt, post:292, topic:36256â]
I was using the term as it is colloquially used in media today.[/quote]
Youâre not in the media. Youâre trying to have a philosophical conversation about science, theology, and epistemology, no?
[quote]My purpose was not pejorative, but rather to emphasize the distinctions between one point of view and the other. In any such succinct comparison, some precision is lost.
[/quote]And a great deal of meaning.[quote=âMike_Gantt, post:292, topic:36256â]
I certainly wasnât suggesting by what I wrote there that âevolution is authortarian hearsay.â
[/quote]Maybe not there, but you certainly did elsewhere in this topic:
No. Scientists prospectively test the empirical predictions of scientific hypotheses; thatâs where most of the scientific observations come from! This is true whether the events they are studying are ongoing or historical.
When youâre not presenting science as mere hearsay, youâre presenting it as mere retrospective inferences and denying its prospective, empirical essence. This is what pseudoscientists do to conceal the fact that they donât test hypotheses.
1 Like
There is no doubt they thought six day creation was closer to truth than any other story. But even church fathers challenged the exact meaning of the six days cited!
The narrative of Biblical history is already too conflicted to accept it as inerrant!
Chris, it is ironic that you began with this and then proceeded to a focus on forensic science. I say ironic because to say that we can scientifically determine whether the world was created supernaturally over six days or naturally over billions of years is the logical equivalent of saying we could have a chemist analyze the wine and determine whether it was supernaturally or naturally produced. Or that if we had the bread and fish that Jesus fed the multitude we could scientifically distinguish those which were handed to Jesus in the beginning from those which He supernaturally added to them.
Iâm not saying scientists could not tell the difference in the wine, or in the bread and fish. I donât know. Maybe they could; maybe they couldnât. How can anyone say for sure? Does God have an obligation to make supernaturally-produced wine look different from naturally-produced wine to a scientist? And if to a scientist, why not to a layman? Thus I think we go too far when we say that creation would have to look different to scientists if it were supernaturally-created over six days from the way it would look if it were naturally-created over billions of years.
Since this example falls well within the historical boundary markers of a young earth, I donât see how it applies to our discussion. I see no biblical problem with Hubble and the Chinese lining up on this.
The expression âthe principle of accommodationâ was yours; I was only trying to accommodate you (pun intended). It is not really the way I look at it. My point on geocentricity was that I never felt the Bible driving me to it. Therefore, I never felt the need to âaccommodateâ the Bible on this point.
When you say that âScientifically-generated history does not refute properly interpreted Biblical testimonyâ youâre only making a âtrue Scotsmanâ argument because the ultimate meaning of the statement is that âproperly-interpreted Biblical testimonyâ is that which comports with SGH.
I could say much more about your post but I trust this has been sufficient to demonstrate why I cannot yet in good conscience see us granting science the same freedom to do history that we grant it to do science. To grant that license, there needs to be a principled way to distinguish history in the Bible we can let go of and history we must cling to.
Actually, I need to word that requirement more precisely. It needs to be âa biblically-principledâ reason. I add this because itâs become obvious to me that most people who hold SGH to be more reliable than history found in the Bible do so with a principle in mind. And that principle is that SGH is more reliable. They believe this reliability to be based on multiple factors including the elimination of the biases and limitations that are sometimes found in human testimony and the limitations of an ancient text whose authors are unavailable to clarify ambiguities. This is a principled position, even though I disagree with it. For me to treat history coming from science the way I treat science coming from science, I need a biblically-principled way of knowing when to let go of, and when to cling to, a historical fact presented in the Bible.
This is why I was initially attracted to @Bill_IIâs thesis that history in Gen 1-11 was âhistory of a different kind.â While I did not ultimately feel he could support the thesis, I give him credit for focusing in the right place: SGH, not science per se.
What you say you need seems, to a modern and informed audience, to be
- Rather arbitrary;
- Capricious;
- Unconvincing;
- And discreditingâŚ
All at the same time.
I think the problem here is not with âgenerateâ but with âhistory.â That is, you seem to be using the word âhistoryâ to mean what happened. I can understand that usage. However, in this forum, I am using âthe pastâ to mean âwhat happenedâ and âhistoryâ to mean âthe record of what happened.â
Yes, this is the Mount Everest of biblical obstacles to accepting SGH over biblical history. Thank you for emphasizing it.
I am not saying this mountain cannot be scaled, though I am admitting that I do not see how it can be. Nevertheless, I am sincerely giving people here the opportunity to show me something I may be missing, some blind spot I may have on this subject, some way that we can legitimately understand Jesus differently on this point.
While you may be right that my going forward is ânot working,â I feel it would be premature to shut down my search right now. I think there are people here who are in good faith trying to show me where I am wrong, and while much of what theyâre saying is redundant, not all of it is. And redundancy is not always bad either.
Nevertheless, I will not keep an open mind indefinitely - in that case, my brains would eventually fall out. I began this search about a month ago. I think we are definitely closer to the end of this discussion than we are to the beginning.
Hi Mike and @r_speir, I donât understand completely what you both are worrying about here. Would you mind expanding on that? I do not see Jesus anywhere affirming a young-earth scenario in His teachings. Once He quotes from Genesis 2 to emphasize the sanctity of marriage, something I whole-heartedly affirm. Also, the idea that Jesus had limited knowledge of natural history is consistent with the orthodox Christian doctrine of kenosis (self-emptying). It is a logical consequence of Jesus taking on all the limitations of a human being. Allow me to quote something I have written in the context of a different discussion here:
Finally, just a remark on this:
Thatâs unfortunate, Mike. As I said, for many people it takes years and loads of cognitive dissonance before they change their minds on these matters. Oftentimes, to improve the structure of a building (read: worldview) you need to break it down first, at least partly. So it can feel like youâre moving backwards (destroying the building), while it is actually opening the way towards a better structure overall.
Peace,
Casper
2 Likes
No I understand that fine. But the issue is with the word âgeneratedâ and all the more so with your understanding. A record of what happened is always generated as it happens â or at the very least, as soon as possible afterwards. In the Houses of Parliament here in the UK, for instance, that would be the Hansard reporters. In geology, it would be the fossil record. Thatâs why I say that the appropriate word is âreconstructâ rather than âgenerate.â To suggest that historians or scientists âgenerateâ history has very strong connotations of just making things up.
I hesitate to say this, but a more accurate term would actually be âinterpret.â You do need to be careful with this one though. YECs often say that something is âjust an interpretationâ as a way of trying to portray it as little more than guesswork, but it isnât. Some interpretations can be made with a very high degree of confidence, and the age of the earth is one of them.
No, Mike. The two are not the same. The wine, the loaves and the fishes no longer exist, but even if they did, and we could carry out tests on them, we wouldnât find that same detailed history. At most weâd find a non-specific âold,â but we wouldnât find, for example, that the wine came from the Rhineland in 23 BC plus or minus two years. And we certainly wouldnât find the lengthy and detailed history of specific events happening at specific times and in specific places that we see in the evidence for the age of the earth.
Thatâs the whole point. Nothing about the wine, loaves and fish has left evidence today that we would have to consider deceptive in order to believe that those events were real history. On the other hand, a young earth is only possible if God had created vast swathes of extremely detailed evidence for 4.5 billion years of history that never happened.
2 Likes
Let me try one more time. What is different about the history in Gen 1-11? First and foremost there is no recorded eye witness account. Second consider how the original authors viewed history. They would modify the ages in a genealogy to accord a person greater or lesser honour and leave some people out altogether. Not what I would consider to be keeping an accurate history. What was considered âhistoryâ in the ANE is not the same as what you consider history to be. Third if you want to believe that the oral traditions that might have passed the story down from Adam (who actually wasnât even there for the very beginning) where in the Bible does it say we can trust these oral traditions to be a fully functional history? I believe the inspiration of the writers of Scripture allows us to trust the message that is being recorded but I donât hold to the inspiration of a detailed history. To me the Holy Spirit prompts the writerâs memory and proof reads what is being written to make sure the message is correct but doesnât add anything directly. That is what Jesus tells the Apostles the Holy Spirit âwill remind you of everything I have told you.â
Donât groan but letâs discuss storehouses. You have no problem accepting that in Job the mention of a physical object like a barn would only be considered in a spiritual sense. The word is used 4 times in the OT and in the other 3 uses it means a very non-spiritual barn. How did you decide it was only used in a spiritual sense? Which leads us to day. Day is likewise used for a literal 24 hour period of time and a day of unknown length, you could say in a spiritual sense. So how do you decide that a day used in reference to the Lord must mean a 24 hour day when we are told that to the Lord âa day is as a thousand yearsâ? Is it really so hard to see that the 4th commandment would use a physical day to apply to us and a spiritual day to refer to the Lord?
I canât object if this is the way you see the issue, but it wouldnât work for me because, for one thing, the conflicts involve more than dates - they also involve whether a given event occurred at all or occurred in the way the Bible or science describes.
Yes, but thereâs a long time and a lot of important things - including seminal events - happening between Adam and David.
Using Jesus as my guide, I see Moses as author and his fellow Israelites as the original audience. This applies not just to Gen 1-11, but for all five books of the Law of Moses.
As I said to someone else, we may be using words differently. For me on this topic, I see history as the record of what happened (the past). Therefore, I would not see science as seeking to âuncoverâ history; I would see it as seeking to uncover the past, and produce (write, generate) history (that records what was uncovered). This is just the same for the historian, who seeks not to âuncoverâ history but rather uncover the past (what happened) and write (produce, generate) the history (i.e. the historical record of the past, the historical record of what happened).
Yes, but Iâm not denying that those events are historical, and neither do many of the other regular contributors to this forum.
The points where you think we are disagreeing with the Bible are actually points on which the Bible leaves a lot of things wide open to interpretation. The only thing we are disagreeing with is Answers in Genesisâs young-earth eisegesis of the Bible.
1 Like
I am trying in this discussion to be sensitive to the sensitivities of all participants - including you. However, I seem to offend your sensibilities about science quite frequently, and your view is either too sophisticated or too idiosyncratic for me to fully discern. In short, I donât know how to stop giving offense to you without shutting up entirely.
Iâll continue to do the best I can, but it would help if youâd give me a little latitude on the vocabulary.
2 Likes