Why does Theology have to be so complicated?

Faith & Science Conversation
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No most followers of ID are not YEC. The two are fundamentally different.

Heres one reason why…

ALL YEC believe in a literal 7 day creation.

No ID believe that because ALL I/D are old earth…not young earth.

You are trying to conflate the two because both believe in a purposeful creation rather than one of random natural selection. Both ID and YEC see that as heresy and you will not find any biblical theology or doctrine supporting it.

The problem is, they do not hold to a fundamental crewrionist doctrine… they struggle with the notion that Adam was created a mature male and that the earth was created in 6 literal days.

That is because a literal crewrion doesnt support Old Earth belief. Listen to John Lennox, the man skirts around this dilemma all the time…he rarely addresses it (same with Myer and Behee). But when they are nailed down with the question of a literal 6 day creation (my foundational belief as a YEC), none of them accept it and all of them align with TEISM on an old age earth and non literal reading of genesis chapters 1-11.

So to say they align more closely with creationism for me, that is ridiculous…they are nothing like us fundamentally in my personal view )but that’s me obviously I’m SDA and I don’t speak for other YEC as there are a lot of denominations whose doctrines i disagree with too)

I see ID as a sub branch of TEISM not YEC. I compare them with Stephen Andersons new independant fundamentalist baptist movement being a sub branch of baptist denomination.

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Paul Nelson, Philosopher and Discovery Institute senior fellow, is YEC (see A Case for Young-Earth Creationism.

There are others.

Paul is actually one of the more honest and approachable individuals in that camp.

Most of the association between ID and YEC is informal; YEC loves to quote ID without noting their acceptance of cosmological time or some form of evolution.

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I accept that…but my point was, the 1960;s Edwards vs aguillard case was what set the foundational rule…the precedent of law that was used later to destroy the ID workaround!

Let also acknowledge that according to the ID community, this was not a fight against TEism specifically…it was a fight against secularism and its atheistic ideals and goals. They were afraid of losing God in schools. That is why its so unfortunate that you are keen to turn this into a ID/YEC debate…you seem to think that squeezing ID out of the picture along with YEC will produce a sudden Christian revival in society because secular scientific theory and non biblical religious theology will now harmonize. For me i see that process as heresy because it produces doctrines that are simply unbiblical.

To be honest, the solution here is simple…if you prove your doctrines biblically, and they align with naturalistic scientific theory, then you will find me in agreement with you on those doctrines. I have no problem with that and its not a challenge btw…its my commitment to a standard that i follow.

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ah now we see the thorn in the bush…you see even you disagree with the very quotation you provided and have highlighted it right there!

I can call myself a believer in science, however, you as an evolutionary Christian reject that YEC scientists are able to engage in sound science, and yet here you are saying that an ID community who is rejected by YEC (because they are heretics) are aligned with YEC??? I don’t think so Ron, you are playing both sides of the coin there!

As i have already highlighted earlier, the only common ground is that God actively designed all creation. ID do not believe in the foundational doctrine of all YEC (6 LITERAL DAYS OF CREATION).

I think i need to simplify this…

There are two camps

  1. YEC - “Young” Earth Creationism
  2. Theistic Evolutionism - “Old” Earth
    No ID fit into category 1 above…they are not YOUNG earth proponents. You can skirt around this fundamental all you like…the fact is, they are NOT YOUNG EARTH and all of them openly state that as a matter of fact!

The reason why individuals try to link ID with YEC is because:

  1. a stupid conspiracy that Ellen White of the SDA Church started the YEC movement and that ID are influenced by her writings.
  2. there is this inference that YEC scientists are not real scientists and so therefore a movement started from within YEC that demonstrated that if YEC perform sound science, they will become ID. Thats ridiculous…Michael Behee (one of the foundational members of ID) wasn’t even Christian prior to his conversion at the hands of Stephen Myer…so he did not come out of YEC movement!
  3. Both YEC and ID agree that what we see in our reality is not the result of random unguided processes. It was this discovery that led Michael Behee to realise that naturalism in the secular sense was fundamentally flawed and he has sought to demonstrate that scientifically every since.

The thing is, YEC have always believed the principle “that we are not the product of unguided random processes”, we have never needed a scientific experiment to prove it to us…we got that from the Bible written thousands of years ago!!! this is further evidence that the claim ID came from YEC is false. It came from the secularists who realised the notion of unguided random processes was wrong and began to seek a world view that aligned with that discovery. When they couldn’t reconcile the young earth part, they formed their own world view.

Now have YEC moved over to the ID community? Im sure plenty have…but that does not have any relevance to where the belief started in the minds of Michael Behee and Stephen Myer. Again, this is no different to Stephen Andersons NIFB movement…they are still Baptists. fundamentally ID are Old Earth just like you are…YEC are Young Earth (these are the two umbrellas)

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You may want to inform Paul Nelson that he is not a YEC.

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I d suggest that since you know of him, your task would be to convert him over to your movement would it not? He is a heretic to me, i don’t want him in my camp as he preaches false doctrine of Old Age Earth! Im a literal Creationist…as are all YEC!

I will read his book though…so thank you for that link.

EDIT…

I had to rewrite this…i got the wrong idea initially because i misunderstood what he meant by recent and progressive creationism ( i incorrectly took his statement of “recent” as meaning the creationist view itself was a modern development in theology).

I note he says the following…and whilst i accept his claim does have some basis, I’m not so sure i agree with entirely. For example, he says…

"Christians who are theistic evolutionists are in a cruel bind. Their theology demands a God who acts in space and time. They are captured, however, by a methodological naturalism in science that will not allow them to scientifically consider positive evidence for a creator. The are so early of being wrong about proclaiming God's activity in the natural world that they have decided that his activity is invisible to human science"

I am certain that the last part of the above quote is not consistent with what i have observed on these forums. We have a thread on this forum titled “Creation photos around the world” that I’m certain falsifies the above claim.

I do accept the next statement he makes, however,

"Christians who are theistic evolutionists...often resort to speak of a God who "sustains" the universe....but this clever solution simply hides the problem under theological jargon!"

Update…

Ron I’m trying to figure out your reason for suggesting this book…the author says the following about 17% of the way into the book:

Does this mean that we denigrate science and empirical research? Do we wish to “hold science hostage” to some out moded reading of the Bible? Of course not. We do not wish free thinking held hostrage by scientists or theologians. As we shall argue later, recent creationism is an attempt to reinterpret the data, not to deny their existence or importance. As it is now interpreted, the data are mostly against us…failure to deal with that data in a recent creationist scientific theory would be sufficient reason to give up the project, We think, however, that progress is being made. The potential rewards outweigh the liabilities.

This seems to indicate to me that the authors are not old earth creationists but rather are YEC followers of the teachings of Kurt Wise and others in the AIG movement? This means that they are not actually ID according to Stephen Myers and Behee standards, but that they are ID according to YEC standard. These are two very different positions/standards. These author recognise the biblical standard and are attempting to use science to find the “data” that supports YECism.

I do not see any dilemma in the question “did Adam have a naval” or “the distant starlight problem”. The bible says that God created the earth functioning and Adam a mature man old enough to talk/think in order for him to name the animals and walk/tend to the garden. I do not see any issue with the “mature” answer to these dilemmas. The author evidences my defense there by saying

one our our mothers loved to refinish and “antique” furniture. She would make a new chair look like and old chair. Was she deceiving her guest when she placed such a chair in the living room? God needed such a creation to sustain life on earth. It might be necessary to have the universe the size and shape it is in order for life on this planet to survive…faraway stars, demanded by the need to have a universe, combined with a desire to have a night sky full of “action” would lead to the creation of an apparent history.

Have you read the whole book yet?

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Thank you for the great response. I don’t think of “born into it” as a calvinist thing, but more a Jewish thing. Remember the circumcision.

Western Christianity is too much into personal faith as the only thing just as you said,

I talked to a baptist pastor before about infant and baby and little children born in the family of believers. I asked that since He didn’t believe of baptizing anyone if they can’t make any confession of faith, then what was the pathway of salvation for infants and baby and little children born in the family of believers? If these died of diseases, accidents and other things, what would happen to them? That pastor could only pleads for God’s mercy toward them without any certainty. Is that the best things God offer to these children? Didn’t Jesus say that these children belong in the kingdom of God? (Luke 18:15-17)

If you are familiar with NPP or the writing of N.T. Wright or James Dunn or E.P. Sanders, then another view of Judaism emerged differently from the reformation. While Luther saw Judaism in Jesus’ time essentially the same as the Catholic church at his time, the historical record and the biblical evidence pointed to a different kind of Judaism at the time of Jesus. Judaism was a religion of grace. Israel was a chosen nation because God chose them by grace. For it was thru this nation, the messiah would come. Salvation was never in question and not even an issue. The Law was given because God wanted His people to live according to His rule, but not about being saved. However, if the people of Israel did not want to live by the Law, the judgement would come in the future. Their faith was therefore a corporate faith. New born babies were circumcised at the 8th day as a covenant seal. These became part of the community of a chosen nation. So that personal confession of faith that had become a staple for evangelical christian ws a very narrow view of salvation. Not that it is wrong, but it left out a lot of babies and little children out of the Kingdom of God.

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I think theology is complicated for a few reasons. We are all part of this modern world. We don’t share the same worldview as ancient Jews. We don’t speak the one final language as fluently and socially aware as them. We have thousands of years of dogma. We try to make the Bible systematic and inerrant.

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Thank you Adam for your thoughtful response as I can see the reasoning for your answer.

If I understand your position correctly, the consequence of sin will be

  • Physical death - eternal consequence

  • Eternal death in the lake of fire - redeemed by Christ.

If this is correct, then I do have some questions about this position.

  • Where do in the bible to find support for
  • The blood of Christ had redeemed the believers from eternal death, but could not redeem us from eternal consequence of sin of physical death. Any support from the bible here?

Since you know a lot about OT doctrines, then why it did not become a symbol of what Jesus did on the Cross. It did not end of the cross, but it ended with His resurrection. Where did Jesus go between His death and resurrection? To Gehena perhaps? It was where Jesus went to the eternal fire of Hell and suffered the punishment for us completely, but this eternal death could not conquer Jesus and He was raised again. I thought the scapegoat’s head should be Jesus who was cast into the wilderness. It was the symbol of Jesus suffering in Hell for us.

Why would satan receive the blame for our sin? It didn’t make any sense, nor the bible ever teach such things.

The Cross should be the fulfilment of all the symbolic process of OT sanctuary because after the cross, there was no more need of the temple (the place for sacrifice) and we have a living high priest in heaven.

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Clarifying what a “follower” is would help communication.

Most of the leaders in the ID movement accept an old earth. However, they do not draw attention to this because much of their popular support comes from young-earthers who don’t know the difference. It is this popular following under the delusion that there is a dichotomy between theistic young-earth creationism and atheistic old-earth evolutionism, which I meant by ID followers, not the leadership. The reality is that there are myriad different viewpoints on the theological and scientific questions, and assuming a false dichotomy results in wrong conclusions. No popular modern view corresponds well with any of the prevailing ideas relating to creation in 1800, much less in 1200 AD or 1200 BC.

Also, the phrase “Intelligent Design” is popular with many young earthers who are not specifically tied to the ID movement. Many bad antievolution arguments proposed by ID advocates have been repeated by young-earthers. The distinctions between ID and YEC are not clear-cut, though their cores are indeed different.

If they oppose evolution, then TE is not an appropriate designation. YEC often falsely claim that all old earth is evolutionary. In reality, the fact that science indicates an old earth was established by the 1770’s, well before there was any significant acceptance of evolution. Most geologists rejected evolution until after Darwin published a coherent model. The claim that old earth ideas were developed in support of evolution is historically false and constitutes slander against the work of many geologists.

In fact, there is variation within anti-evolutionary old-earth views. Assessing whether they are closer to YEC or TE would require specifying how you are measuring, as well as which YEC and which TE.

The basic problem with YEC and anti-evolution ID is that they are not good theology and not good science. ID promotes itself as a fight against secularism, as does creation science. But the foundational belief of Christians must be trust in the saving work of Christ. Our primary goal must be to honor God in all that we do. The end does not justify the means. Arguments are not automatically good if they support my position; we must carefully assess whether arguments (especially arguments that we like and are tempted to quickly accept) are of good quality, thoroughly honest, etc. Job warned his friends that God does not tolerate partiality, even partiality towards God. Both ID and creation science actually rely on secular concepts of science rather than a biblical understanding. If God is sovereign over all things, then the claim that “methodological naturalism” is the problem is wrong. The biblical understanding of science is that it is a physical description of God’s normal patterns of running the universe. There is nothing “naturalistic” about that. Whether or not evolution is a good description of how God works, it is merely an attempted description of God’s working, like any other scientific model. Calling it methodological naturalism implies that science is an alternative to God. But it is true that science is generally incompetent at detecting God in the way that ID and creation science want it to detect Him. The idea that the Bible must be speaking in a modern scientific and historical way is imposing the idea that science is the ultimate authority, and God has to measure up to scientific scrutiny. The error is exemplified by Meyer’s latest title about the “God Hypothesis”. Atheists claim that God is a hypothesis and disproven, ID and much YEC claim that God is a hypothesis and proven, but the Bible warns against putting God to the test.

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It isn’t.

I didn’t say that. I said theists, not theism.

No. Some theists are legalistic.

If I ever make that complaint, you may chastise me. Until then, try responding to my actual words. Quoting complete sentences would be a good start.

I didn’t say anything about evolution. I didn’t even imply anything about evolution.

My point was simple, straightforward, and apparently made you so uncomfortable that you omitted most of it and ‘replied’ to something I didn’t say, but which you thought you could criticise.

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Bovine faeces.

Many Discovery Institute fellows are YEC. Charles Thraxton is an example, as are Dean Kenyon and Paul Nelson. Many of the presenters at ID conferences are YEC. Jorge Fernandez is one example.

Other examples will be provided if you persist in this falsehood.

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Let’ not acknowedge that, because it’s not true. The ID community spent a lot of effort pretending that they were purely a scientific endeavour and denying that they had anything to do with religion. They even denied their own fund-raising material.

They failed because their supporters, though dishonest enough to go along with the lie, often weren’t smart enough to uphold it.

You should read the Kitzmiller transcripts. They’ll show you what ID really is.

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Please add my correct view :wink:
3) christocentric creationism

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Which is understandable, since those bad arguments were originally proposed by young-earthers and repeated by ID advocates.

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That would seem to be a correct understanding.

The problem appears to arise when people (ike me)claim thaat ToE does not reflect God or “smell” of Him. IOW because ToE is a scientific theory it is assumed that it is describing God’s actions, whereas I , and many others do not see that. ToE is chaotic and based upon luck and / or probability.
The usual analogy is a room full of monkeys with typewriters eventually writing Shakespeare. The problem with that is that the text would not be coherent, you would have to know Shakespeare to “find” it amongst the millions of other incoherent letters and punctuation marks. Realistically it could not happen. However, what it does allude to is that ToE relies on the finished article to back track the path of its conception.

Claiming a genetic connection proves very little unless all the genetic material is present in the first nucleus. The moment you start “inventing” DNA code it becomes a real “code” that is something that can be both found and created. The idea that this “code” could be in existence without any sort of Intelligent Design is something that seems to be taken for granted. IOW DNA code is, in itself, a product of chance not intelligence.So that any sequence could be valid or invalid and the slectio nof validity is?

Natural Selection?

No, the only test of validity would be that the construct obtained functional results.

But

One correct sequence is not enough to create more than a microbe, you need literally millions of them to assemble what we see now, let alone anything that has been and gone.

plus

we have the so called “Transition Species” whose only function is to join the dots between A and Z.

Plus

There is an old adage: “If it ain;t broke, don’t fix it”

If that was even remotely true the world would be populate by single celled organisms who have survived since the conception of life .IOW ToE relies on the concept of “improvement” which would seem to be a purely human concept.

We are always trying to make
The smaller chip, or the more efficient engine, or the greener fuel supply, or (ad nauseum)
All these things rely on two other things

  1. diagnosis
  2. reinvention (or at least "tweaking)

Which requires Intelligence.

Therefor, even if God did just

Light the blue touch paper and retire immediately
(Which is contrary to Scripture)

He would still have had to build in some sort of Communal, or supervisory intelligence to see what is required and make the appropriate adjustments which is not part of ToE.

The result is not the “watchmaker God” Because a watch does not change or adapt to its environment and eventually wears out. The result is Theistic, guided, development (AKA Theistic Evolution)

As a side note

Biblical creation would work. (Of course) But it denies all the evidence that can be found which is tantamount to burrowing your head in the sand or a hedgehog curling up on a motorway and not getting hit by an innocent passing vehicle.

Richard

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So are planetary orbits, weather, chemistry, history, quantum mechanics, dice rolls, etc., etc.

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The Bible affirms God’s sovereignty over probabilistic events such as casting lots. Mathematically, “chaotic” in a technical sense refers to systems where the exact outcome is, in principle, calculatable, but in practice it is too sensitive to the exact starting conditions to be humanly predictable. For example, we do have good equations describing how weather works, but we have to know just what all the atoms in the air are doing in order to calculate precisely what the exact weather will be in two weeks. We can’t know things that precisely, so for practical purposes it’s not all that different from being random. But the weather is also under God’s control, as are things that are humanly unpredictable and have no math formula, such as the long-term course of history.

Biological evolution has components that are mathematically random - our best models are probabilistic - such as “Will this particular DNA base mutate from A to G?” It also has extremely non-random components, such as the laws of physics that constrain what body plans will be functional. Much is sort of random and sort of not in different ways. For example, particular DNA regions have higher or lower probability of mutation.

How “random” is it overall? That’s not readily determined. Different people perceive it as more or less random, to a significant extant reflecting their worldview rather than the data. Even if two people agree on the level of randomness, how they interpret it may differ. Gould claimed that the Cambrian diversification was extremely random, reflecting an overall metaphysical randomness. Some of the ID movement claims that the diversification was extremely random, reflecting design. In reality, the diversification was less random than these claims affirm; since Gould’s writing, many of the bizarre mystery creatures have found a home.

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More seriously, the response to the claim of there being only two camps is Absolutely Not! There are myriad camps, even among those that fall reasonably within young-earth and theistic evolution categories. Old-earth nonevolutionary creationism, young-earth atheism, and old-earth atheism are broad categories that do not fall under either of those camps. Within YEC, you have promoters of rival scenarios for flood geology and the like, the rare advocate of the Omphalos-type argument, geocentrists, and assorted other categories, for example.

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And the relevance is?

Oh yes, they all come under the umbrella of science!

Same old argument. Was wrong first time, hasn’t changed with the weather.

Richard

PS You were there when the Universe was made then?
Had to be by chance?