Agreed, but you have to ask yourself, “Why would God lead Moses and the Israelites to believe that He had created the world in six days if in fact He knew that it was going to eventually come out that He had actually taken billions of years and that anyone who stood by the six-day claim would look like a fool to the educated world?”
It was unnecessary for God to give a reason or a pattern for keeping the fourth commandment. After all, none of the other nine were given in such “Do as I do” form. He didn’t say, for example, “Don’t steal because I don’t steal.” Therefore, God could have just said, “Work six days and take the seventh as a rest” and no one would have asked, “But is that what You did?” Gen 1-2, Ex 20:8-11 and Ex 31:12-17 all go out of their way to say that God created the universe in six days. Why make such a point of something when 1) scientific findings would ultimately reveal it not to be the truth, and 2) it was not necessary to justify any of the ten commandments with personal example.
If you’re going to take a different view of the six days in Ex 20 and Ex 31 from the one Moses and the Israelites took, you have to have some good answers to these obvious questions.
P.S. I’ve heard people say, “But the ancients had no conception of billions?” Even if that’s so, it’s beside the point. No one I know is asking, “Why didn’t God teach them billions?” Rather, the question is “Why would God make such a big deal about it being six days…if it wasn’t?”
I recognize that Moses’ authorship of the Pentateuch is controversial, and I have no hope that we’re going to settle it here. For my part, I think it’s obvious that Jesus, His disciples, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees all believed Moses to be the author of the first five books of the Bible. Since they were much closer to the scene and the sources than me, I feel no desire to question them. Of course, that Jesus believed it trumps all else. That you take a different view from me is certainly your right.
I suggest we not argue about it, but just recognize we stand in different places. If it ultimately becomes critical to the question at hand, we can revisit.
This is not a matter of God creating the earth with fossils already in the ground, but rather brings Noah’s Flood back into play. But please let us not digress into an argument about the flood. Simply recognize that I am not arguing that God embedded the original earth with fossils.
But if you insist that the earth is billions of years old doesn’t it mean that you do believe “that we can scientifically determine whether the world was created supernaturally over six days or naturally over billions of years”? Whether you said it explicitly or not is irrelevant. To insist that the universe has been billions of years in the making according to natural processes is to imply that it was not created through supernatural processes over six days - and to imply that you know that this is so. Thus you are “saying” that we can know whether God created the universe naturally or supernaturally by scientifically investigating it. I don’t see how any human being can make such a claim, any more that I see how a scientist could say he would know whether the wine in Cana was created naturally or supernaturally by analyzing it.
As far as I can tell.
Sorry, Chris, but that’s way too much science and much too long and intricate a scenario for me.
I remember that you accept Walton’s “functional ontology” thesis; I hope you remember that I don’t. If it helps you follow Jesus, good! It does help me follow Him.
Given your embrace of Walton, I wouldn’t expect you to say anything else. Alas, I in good conscience cannot say that I do not see it. Jesus’ acceptance of the historicity of the OT seems unquestionable, and as I said above to @Casper_Hesp, the only way past this I can see is to find a biblically-principled way to distinguish biblical fact from non-fact in a scientific world if Jesus’s earthly life is set aside as our guide on the basis of His pre-scientific existence.
As for my exegesis of Matt 19 relative to the matter at hand, see above my comments to @jammycakes.
As far the the geocentricity issue, I don’t have anything new to say except that you are anachronistically superimposing your 21st-century view on believers of the past. I know you don’t see this, and I don’t know how to explain it to your satisfaction. I’ll just say this: you’re only subtracting your knowledge of scientific details to arrive at their view when you should be subtracting your scientific framework as well.
“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.”–Mike_Gantt
Those fossils and the rocks above and below them are the evidence for an ancient Earth. You are saying that the evidence for an ancient Earth was produced during the initial creation of the Earth.[quote=“Mike_Gantt, post:344, topic:36256”]
Simply recognize that I am not arguing that God embedded the original earth with fossils.
[/quote]
If you are saying that the act of creation produced the evidence that scientists interpret as billions of years, then YES, you are saying that God embedded the original Earth with fossils.
And in response, many creationists (sometimes even you) claim that they don’t date young because the way they were created makes them look like they are old. When I point out that this requires God to plant fossils in the ground, the story suddenly changes to the flood being the cause of fossils. I then point out that the rocks should have young dates if they were laid down in a recent flood but they in fact have old dates, and that is explained away as being a product of the initial creation. Around we go.
Jonathan (I believe I can safely speak for him on this) and I do not believe scientific conclusions. We accept them provisionally. We’re both perfectly willing to change that acceptance if convincing evidence comes along. That’s what I mean about false framing.
Mike, in which translation of the Bible does Exodus 20:11 include the word “regular”? In any case, even if they were 24 hours long, they certainly weren’t regular. Three of them had no sun and no moon for starters — yet Genesis 1:14 is clear that that is how days are demarcated.
The internal logic of the passage only requires them to be six days. It does not require them to be man’s time rather than God’s time. 2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4 again.
It just says “in the beginning,” but it doesn’t say in the beginning of what. It could just have been in the beginning of God’s dealings with mankind. The only thing I take out of this is that Adam and Eve were historical people, even if evolution is true and even if they weren’t the only people around at the time. This verse need not be in conflict with an ancient earth.
Mike, there’s something you need to realise here. How old we believe the earth is, and who we believe did or did not evolve from what, does not change how old the earth actually is, nor does it change who actually evolved from what.
The fact of the matter is that our choice is as follows. Either:
2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4 allow for an ancient earth, and the passages you have cited can be understood within that context; or
God created the earth 6,000 years ago over six 24-hour days with evidence for 4.5 billion years of history that never happened; or
the Bible is wrong.
As a Christian, I reject (3) out of hand. I also reject (2) because it casts God as a deceiver, and there is no Biblical basis for it whatsoever. This leaves us with (1), which solves the problem as neatly as you’re going to get.
But what is your basis for this belief? I have already quoted Scripture itself showing that the Bible doesn’t attribute the entire Pentateuch to Moses, and doesn’t attribute any of Genesis to him. Why do you think it’s “obvious”, when the Bible tells us otherwise? How can you base your belief on no evidence at all?
With reference to mathematical conceptions, I remember being taught in elementary school how to add and subtract. I played with marbles, so they could help me keep track if I ever got confused. When I got to junior high, I learned about negative numbers but the marbles didn’t help because I couldn’t physical represent “negative three marbles.” Of course, debt could be used as analogy - as in “I owe three marbles” - but everyone still knew there was no such thing as a negative marble. Nevertheless, we went merrily on our way through algebra, actually having fun watching equations work out fine while treating negative and positive numbers with equal respect. Why can’t deep time be regarded like negative numbers - conceptually valid and computationally useful without being regarded as physical facts?
That’s like asking “Why can’t positive numbers be regarded like negative numbers - conceptually valid and computationally useful without being regarded as physical facts?”. Deep time is a product of verifiable physical facts. We have no reason at all to view it as simply imaginary.
As I’ve said to others, I am not capable of making the scientific argument for Noah’s flood, rather than billions of years, being the primary cause of the fossil record. I’m just saying that the existence of those arguments gives me a rational basis for believing in a supernatural six-day creation without believing that God embedded fake fossils in the earth. This doesn’t make me right, but it does make me rational.
The arguments don’t give you a rational basis for believing that, unless they are based on verifiable facts. So unless you can demonstrate the scientific validity of the arguments, you’re not being rational; you’re supporting your belief with unsubstantiated arguments which are not based on facts.
There is much evidence, strewn throughout the New Testament. It is, however, subtle; there is no “Moses was indeed the author of the Pentateuch” verse (though John 1:17 and John 7:19 come close to it) - precisely because the issue was not controversial in that day.
The evidence for my position is much too lengthy to recount here, but I will give you a few examples. First, note phrasings like “Moses in the Law and also the Prophets” (John 1:45) and “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44) which identify the Torah (Gen, Ex, Lev, Num, Deut) with Moses. Second, note the use of the mere name “Moses” as a synonym for the Torah as in Luke 16:29 and John 9:28. Third, no other individual name besides Moses is associated with the commandments given in the Torah. Jesus argued with the Jewish religious leaders of His day about a lot of things…but not about this.
Ok well I have been through every single reference I could find, and presented the evidence in that infographic I posted previously. The Bible never says this. The fact that you acknowledge the only evidence you can find is “subtle” says a lot.
But again, this is talking about the Law. You can see that they never refer to Moses as writing anything but the Law. Look in the Old Testament and you’ll find the same; I even quoted every single passage in the Old Testament which tells us explicitly what Moses wrote.
But the commandments in the Torah are the Law, and the Law is not the Pentateuch. So I hope you’ll acknowledge that the view Moses wrote the Pentateuch was in fact a much later Jewish invention; the Bible never says it, and the Bible specifically says otherwise. Look at the quotations I provided from the Old Testament in particular.