# Age of the Universe



## Zenas

How does a believer respond to the age of the universe posited by the naturalist which states that the ovservable universe is 13.7 billion years old because light, which is the fastest thing existing, took that long to reach us?


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## caoclan

Adam and Eve were created with the appearance of age. So were the plants, animals and the earth. Andrew, you can check out Answers in Genesis website, it is wonderful for creation apologetics.


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## toddpedlar

Zenas said:


> How does a believer respond to the age of the universe posited by the naturalist which states that the ovservable universe is 13.7 billion years old because light, which is the fastest thing existing, took that long to reach us?



Part of the difficulty with a statement such as that is that it is fraught with assumptions. When one says the universe is 13.7 billion years old because that's how long it too light to get from point A to point B, the problem is that the figure of 13.7 billion light years (the distance assumed for the farthest things) is based on a model that relates recession rate of those bodies (measured by the well-supported Doppler shift of light) to a distance scale. This relationship has a GREAT deal of underlying assumptions and deductions based on those assumptions, and further deductions sitting on those prior deductions plus a bit more experimental data.


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## caoclan

... but the naturalist unbeliever most likely will not accept any explanation as valid because it will not fit their presuppositional beliefs. Not that you shouldn't give them a good answer, but don't .


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## Tripel

Zenas said:


> How does a believer respond to the age of the universe posited by the naturalist which states that the ovservable universe is 13.7 billion years old because light, which is the fastest thing existing, took that long to reach us?



I respond by saying that it is possible the universe actually is 13.7 billion years old.


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## caoclan

Tripel said:


> Zenas said:
> 
> 
> 
> How does a believer respond to the age of the universe posited by the naturalist which states that the ovservable universe is 13.7 billion years old because light, which is the fastest thing existing, took that long to reach us?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I respond by saying that it is possible the universe actually is 13.7 billion years old.
Click to expand...


 Can't find that in the text.


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## Denton Elliott

This was a good book:

Starlight and time


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## toddpedlar

Joshua said:


> The speed of light, as far as I know, has not always been constant. Furthermore, as Todd noted, it's based on unfounded assumptions. Can God not create an already mature earth with light already there? Yeah.



Not that this is the way I'd necessarily resolve the issue, but God did say "let there be light" - he didn't say what it would be doing when it was created. 

As for the speed of light constancy issue, I really think that's a poor resolution for the issue. The implications of a changing speed of light are really quite problematic from a physical point of view - and it's not a necessary explanation.


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## Puritan Sailor

Zenas said:


> How does a believer respond to the age of the universe posited by the naturalist which states that the ovservable universe is 13.7 billion years old because light, which is the fastest thing existing, took that long to reach us?



Simple question: Says who? I don't know of any man who has lived 13.7 billion years to observe the truth of the statement, therefore it is not scientifically verifiable. It's speculation. Naturalists simply assume it has taken that long, because that is the way light behaves now. They don't know the starting point. And really, they don't know if it will change sometime in the future either. Remember, they believe in evolution and chance, so it's possible that light may evolve in coming years and change it's speed or properties yet again...


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## Skyler

Zenas said:


> How does a believer respond to the age of the universe posited by the naturalist which states that the ovservable universe is 13.7 billion years old because light, which is the fastest thing existing, took that long to reach us?



'Amen, brother?'

As a Humphreyite, I agree that _parts_ of the universe are that old. Some are younger, some are older, depending upon how close they are to the earth; owing to relativity, time flowed faster for them than it did on Earth during creation week, so they actually did age billions of years.


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## Skyler

The problem with the "created light" idea is the 1970A supernova. If this hypothesis were true, the star that was observed to explode actually never did--the image of its explosion was created in transit, and behind it was a supernova remnant the whole time. In other words, we saw an event that never happened. I personally don't think God would create a deception like that; it seems inconsistent with His nature.


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## VictorBravo

My response is usually something like, "well, sure, it looks that way." And then shrug. 

Lots of things "look that way" but aren't. I don't spend a lot of time trying to come up with fantastic alternative theories because that ends up playing the game on the empiricist's turf.

I remember a decade or so ago when some creation science people were trying to prove that the moon couldn't be so old because the level of dust on the surface was not something like 10 feet deep. Turned out that their assumptions were off by several orders of magnitude. 

Ooops. So much for using empirical speculation to disprove empirical speculation.


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## toddpedlar

Skyler said:


> Zenas said:
> 
> 
> 
> How does a believer respond to the age of the universe posited by the naturalist which states that the ovservable universe is 13.7 billion years old because light, which is the fastest thing existing, took that long to reach us?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 'Amen, brother?'
> 
> As a Humphreyite, I agree that _parts_ of the universe are that old. Some are younger, some are older, depending upon how close they are to the earth; owing to relativity, time flowed faster for them than it did on Earth during creation week, so they actually did age billions of years.
Click to expand...


Come on, let's not add confusing misinterpretations of physics to the question of the age of the universe... the suggestion of relativistic time dilation as a solution fails on the face of it. The age determination of 13.7 billion years does not arise from anything that would be impacted by relativistic effects.


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## caoclan

Skyler said:


> The problem with the "created light" idea is the 1970A supernova. If this hypothesis were true, the star that was observed to explode actually never did--the image of its explosion was created in transit, and behind it was a supernova remnant the whole time. In other words, we saw an event that never happened. I personally don't think God would create a deception like that; it seems inconsistent with His nature.



I understand your concern, but that doesn't rule out the fact that God did that. And certainly I wouldn't dream of classifying his ability or right to do such a thing as a deception. It seems as if you dismiss the ability (or probability) of God to create the universe with the appearance of age out of hand, as it doesn't support the supposed evidence interpreted by secular scientists, whose presuppositions are to eliminate or deny the supernatural.


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## ChristianTrader

I would say, you find me some dark energy or some dark matter and then we can discuss further the scientific case for 13.7 billion or so years.

CT

-----Added 6/26/2009 at 12:23:26 EST-----



Denton Elliott said:


> This was a good book:
> 
> Starlight and time



Just so you know the most advanced current creationist interpretation of cosmology can be found here: https://store.creation.com/us/product_info.php?sku=10-3-505

I think the cleanest way to describe it, is that it takes Humphrey's work and fixes a lot of stuff (the author actually has a serious amount of experience in cosmology) and basically shows that if you do not assume dark matter and dark energy, you can make sense of the data and be consistent with a young universe.

CT


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## chbrooking

On a related note, though . . . and I'm not talking 13.7 Billion . . . it does appear, from geological/paleontological records and such, that the earth is very old. And since creation is revelation, does a young earth theory necessarily imply that God's revelation is deceptive? Just a question. It's an issue I'm only recently dealing with. So, instead of flaming me, help me 'see the light' (bad pun intended).


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## DMcFadden

Todd,

I defer to your knowledge here. What is wrong with the Russ Humphrey gravitational time dilation ("white hole") explanation (in layman's terms)?

Claiming 13.7 billion years presents problems for the old earthers too. "Observed" distances in the universe exceed the 13.7/13.8 billion number. The horizon problem is a difficulty for big bangers as well. (Granted there are proposed solutions by them to the problem. I'm just indicating that it is not all cut and dried).

Incidentally, if memory serves me, my high school physics class was claiming closer to 20 billion years. It is interesting how the "assured" results of science change over time. Again, it has a lot to do with the interpretive framework in which the "facts" and observations are put.


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## ChristianTrader

chbrooking said:


> On a related note, though . . . and I'm not talking 13.7 Billion . . . it does appear, from geological/paleontological records and such, that the earth is very old. And since creation is revelation, does a young earth theory necessarily imply that God's revelation is deceptive? Just a question. It's an issue I'm only recently dealing with. So, instead of flaming me, help me 'see the light' (bad pun intended).



I think the first thing is to first understand that there are many assumptions that go into determining the age of things. If those assumptions break down, then so do the conclusions.

Things that take x billions years under the current forces at work today, may take much less time under various extraordinary circumstances.

CT


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## caoclan

... and these assumptions we have to agree with to agree that the universe is that old is forcing us to play on their home field. I like to play at my home field.


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## cih1355

Did God connect the earth and the stars with light without making that light travel from the stars to the earth? 

Did God make the light appear on the earth without causing the light to travel?


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## Skyler

caoclan said:


> Skyler said:
> 
> 
> 
> The problem with the "created light" idea is the 1970A supernova. If this hypothesis were true, the star that was observed to explode actually never did--the image of its explosion was created in transit, and behind it was a supernova remnant the whole time. In other words, we saw an event that never happened. I personally don't think God would create a deception like that; it seems inconsistent with His nature.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I understand your concern, but that doesn't rule out the fact that God did that. And certainly I wouldn't dream of classifying his ability or right to do such a thing as a deception. It seems as if you dismiss the ability (or probability) of God to create the universe with the appearance of age out of hand, as it doesn't support the supposed evidence interpreted by secular scientists, whose presuppositions are to eliminate or deny the supernatural.
Click to expand...


1. No, it doesn't rule out that fact. It does make it, In my humble opinion, very, very unlikely.

2. Appearance of age isn't what bothers me. It's being shown something that doesn't exist. I don't have a problem with a mature creation. What the 1970A supernova would be, though, is not simply a mature creation, but a star that never existed.

3. I'm not sure I follow, Todd. How does relativistic time dilation "fail on the face of it"?

-----Added 6/26/2009 at 01:12:29 EST-----



cih1355 said:


> Did God connect the earth and the stars with light without making that light travel from the stars to the earth?
> 
> Did God make the light appear on the earth without causing the light to travel?



Did God dispense with the laws of physics he created?


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## Brian Withnell

Couple of things:
1) if God created the universe with apparent age, it really would be 13.7 billion years old, even if time has not existed that long.
2) While I know the 144 hour creation theory would have problems with this, there are plenty of theories for interpretation of Gen 1 that do not require 144 hours.

Of the two, anyone could use the former. For the 144 hour creationist, the first should be fine. God could have created Adam with a navel, with a scar on his right arm that looked for all the world like a shark bite, and as a 25-year-old man.

For the second, it would present problems for those that hold to a YE, 144 hour creation. But it is consistent with a non-literal view of the Gen 1 creation account (like Augustine's) and certainly does no damage to the rest of scripture.


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## caoclan

My answer is that God did dispense with the "normal" course of how creation now functions as He was creating. I am not saying that no star existed in your supernova example, but I am saying that the idea of millions/billions of years does not exhaust the possibilities available to God. Remember what was said in Job 9:1-10 (esp. 8-10). "He stretched out the heavens." 

Then Job answered and said:

2 “Truly I know that it is so:
But how can a man be in the right before God?
3 If one wished to a contend with him,
one could not answer him once in a thousand times.
4 He is wise in heart and mighty in strength
—who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?—
5 he who removes mountains, and they know it not,
when he overturns them in his anger,
6 who shakes the earth out of its place,
and its pillars tremble;
*7 who commands the sun, and it does not rise;
who seals up the stars;
8 who alone stretched out the heavens
and trampled the waves of the sea;
9 who made the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
10 who does great things beyond searching out,
and marvelous things beyond number.*


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## Brian Withnell

caoclan said:


> Skyler said:
> 
> 
> 
> The problem with the "created light" idea is the 1970A supernova. If this hypothesis were true, the star that was observed to explode actually never did--the image of its explosion was created in transit, and behind it was a supernova remnant the whole time. In other words, we saw an event that never happened. I personally don't think God would create a deception like that; it seems inconsistent with His nature.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I understand your concern, but that doesn't rule out the fact that God did that. And certainly I wouldn't dream of classifying his ability or right to do such a thing as a deception. It seems as if you dismiss the ability (or probability) of God to create the universe with the appearance of age out of hand, as it doesn't support the supposed evidence interpreted by secular scientists, whose presuppositions are to eliminate or deny the supernatural.
Click to expand...


My problem with this is very simply put. If my son put together evidence of something that never happened, didn't actually say that the event that he made to appear to have happened, what would you call it? Duplicity? Deception? Certainly a violation of the 9th commandment. Do we really want to attribute to God what we would call lying in our own children?


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## caoclan

Brian Withnell said:


> Couple of things:
> 1) if God created the universe with apparent age, it really would be 13.7 billion years old, even if time has not existed that long.
> 2) While I know the 144 hour creation theory would have problems with this, there are plenty of theories for interpretation of Gen 1 that do not require 144 hours.
> 
> Of the two, anyone could use the former. For the 144 hour creationist, the first should be fine. God could have created Adam with a navel, with a scar on his right arm that looked for all the world like a shark bite, and as a 25-year-old man.
> 
> For the second, it would present problems for those that hold to a YE, 144 hour creation. *But it is consistent with a non-literal view of the Gen 1 creation account (like Augustine's) and certainly does no damage to the rest of scripture.*



At what point do we begin reading Genesis "literally?" There are many who would take that line of reasoning past Genesis 1.

-----Added 6/26/2009 at 01:30:49 EST-----



Brian Withnell said:


> caoclan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Skyler said:
> 
> 
> 
> The problem with the "created light" idea is the 1970A supernova. If this hypothesis were true, the star that was observed to explode actually never did--the image of its explosion was created in transit, and behind it was a supernova remnant the whole time. In other words, we saw an event that never happened. I personally don't think God would create a deception like that; it seems inconsistent with His nature.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I understand your concern, but that doesn't rule out the fact that God did that. And certainly I wouldn't dream of classifying his ability or right to do such a thing as a deception. It seems as if you dismiss the ability (or probability) of God to create the universe with the appearance of age out of hand, as it doesn't support the supposed evidence interpreted by secular scientists, whose presuppositions are to eliminate or deny the supernatural.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> My problem with this is very simply put. If my son put together evidence of something that never happened, didn't actually say that the event that he made to appear to have happened, what would you call it? Duplicity? Deception? Certainly a violation of the 9th commandment. Do we really want to attribute to God what we would call lying in our own children?
Click to expand...


I didn't say God deceived. I am making the point the star could have very well exploded, then God "stretched out the heavens." Eisegetical interpretation into God's natural creation is problem for Christians as much as is eisegetical interpretation of the Scriptures. The problem is you have to continually change with the interpretations of unbelieving scientists. And you are at the mercy of believing they always tell the truth about the things they report. Scientists have been know to lie, just look at the history of the supposed "missing links."


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## VictorBravo

Brian Withnell said:


> My problem with this is very simply put. If my son put together evidence of something that never happened, didn't actually say that the event that he made to appear to have happened, what would you call it? Duplicity? Deception? Certainly a violation of the 9th commandment. Do we really want to attribute to God what we would call lying in our own children?



The main problem here is it's not your created son we are talking about. You are measuring God against a human interpretation of a standard of morality. How is it certainly a violation of the 9th commandment? If God created a mature tree, and then said, "I created this mature tree," there is no lie.

Now if God created a mature universe and said, "I created this in the space of six days" and he leaves it at that, how can that be called a lie? 

It hardly fits that by finding evidence of a mature universe we are in a position to attribute deception to God.


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## Brian Withnell

caoclan said:


> Brian Withnell said:
> 
> 
> 
> Couple of things:
> 1) if God created the universe with apparent age, it really would be 13.7 billion years old, even if time has not existed that long.
> 2) While I know the 144 hour creation theory would have problems with this, there are plenty of theories for interpretation of Gen 1 that do not require 144 hours.
> 
> Of the two, anyone could use the former. For the 144 hour creationist, the first should be fine. God could have created Adam with a navel, with a scar on his right arm that looked for all the world like a shark bite, and as a 25-year-old man.
> 
> For the second, it would present problems for those that hold to a YE, 144 hour creation. *But it is consistent with a non-literal view of the Gen 1 creation account (like Augustine's) and certainly does no damage to the rest of scripture.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> At what point do we begin reading Genesis "literally?" There are many who would take that line of reasoning past Genesis 1.
> 
> -----Added 6/26/2009 at 01:30:49 EST-----
> 
> 
> 
> Brian Withnell said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> caoclan said:
> 
> 
> 
> I understand your concern, but that doesn't rule out the fact that God did that. And certainly I wouldn't dream of classifying his ability or right to do such a thing as a deception. It seems as if you dismiss the ability (or probability) of God to create the universe with the appearance of age out of hand, as it doesn't support the supposed evidence interpreted by secular scientists, whose presuppositions are to eliminate or deny the supernatural.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> My problem with this is very simply put. If my son put together evidence of something that never happened, didn't actually say that the event that he made to appear to have happened, what would you call it? Duplicity? Deception? Certainly a violation of the 9th commandment. Do we really want to attribute to God what we would call lying in our own children?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I didn't say God deceived. I am making the point the star could have very well exploded, then God "stretched out the heavens." Eisegetical interpretation into God's natural creation is problem for Christians as much as is eisegetical interpretation of the Scriptures. The problem is you have to continually change with the interpretations of unbelieving scientists. And you are at the mercy of believing they always tell the truth about the things they report. Scientists have been know to lie, just look at the history of the supposed "missing links."
Click to expand...


On the first part, the idea of a figurative interpretation of Gen 1 goes back at least to Augustine ... long before OE science was born. It isn't looking at science that causes people to think that there is reason for a figurative interpretation of Gen 1. As to what those that don't hold the scripture as inerrant, what difference does their sin make to me? None.

On the second part, while it is possible to come up with a conjecture about the laws of physics and time, and the nature of the universe that would mean that we really do have, again, what I would call duplicity in my son, it is not being forthright and honest. It is making something appear one way, when it really isn't that way. Having to come up with pure conjecture is a problem that really isn't needed if one finds an unifying interpretation of both natural and special revelation. And finding a unifying interpretation of both also would give us more confidence in having the correct interpretation (that is, that our sinful and stubborn nature had not deceived us).


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## caoclan

victorbravo said:


> Brian Withnell said:
> 
> 
> 
> My problem with this is very simply put. If my son put together evidence of something that never happened, didn't actually say that the event that he made to appear to have happened, what would you call it? Duplicity? Deception? Certainly a violation of the 9th commandment. Do we really want to attribute to God what we would call lying in our own children?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The main problem here is it's not your created son we are talking about. You are measuring God against a human interpretation of a standard of morality. How is it certainly a violation of the 9th commandment? If God created a mature tree, and then said, "I created this mature tree," there is no lie.
> 
> Now if God created a mature universe and said, "I created this in the space of six days" and he leaves it at that, how can that be called a lie?
> 
> It hardly fits that by finding evidence of a mature universe we are in a position to attribute deception to God.
Click to expand...


Amen. Let God be true thought every one were a liar.


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## toddpedlar

DMcFadden said:


> Todd,
> 
> I defer to your knowledge here. What is wrong with the Russ Humphrey gravitational time dilation ("white hole") explanation (in layman's terms)?



I'm not familiar with the argument - but the problem with any description that suggests some sort of dilation of time in some part (all?) of the universe that is moving relative to us - or a gravitational time dilation effect, which is a general relativistic, rather than special relativistic, effect - is that I dont' see how such an explanation can cause us to misread the distance scales involved. We don't "see" age, it is inferred from the red-shift vs. distance relationship (and then the distance is related to age by d = ct, where c is the speed of light). So any kind of time dilation that causes "clocks" that move relative to us to "run slow" (so that in the "moving" part of the universe, lots of time has passed whereas in our part of the universe less time has passed) would not impact the measurements we make from which we infer age. 

Now if Humphrey is not actually making a gravitational time dilation statement, but a gravitational redshift statement, that's a different story (but there will still be problems with it also, as not all high redshift stars are big, but have a range of sizes). 



> Claiming 13.7 billion years presents problems for the old earthers too. "Observed" distances in the universe exceed the 13.7/13.8 billion number. The horizon problem is a difficulty for big bangers as well. (Granted there are proposed solutions by them to the problem. I'm just indicating that it is not all cut and dried).
> 
> Incidentally, if memory serves me, my high school physics class was claiming closer to 20 billion years. It is interesting how the "assured" results of science change over time. Again, it has a lot to do with the interpretive framework in which the "facts" and observations are put.



I believe that change (From 20-ish to 14-ish) is a matter of differences in the "Hubble constant" that relates red shift value to distance... it changes based on the fits to the immense amount of data that has been collected. Again, though, the underlying premises are assumptions that the means of relating red shift to distance are correct.


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## caoclan

Brian,
Simple question: Did God deceive when he created Adam and Eve and the rest of creation appear to be mature, even though they were a nanosecond old when he created them?


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## DMcFadden

Todd,

If you ever get any spare time, I would love to hear your take on Russ Humphrey's book already cited above (post #8). He includes some math to back up his arguments. However, I'm just a dumb bureaucrat who runs an old folks home. What do I know about them high-falutin arguments?


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## Brian Withnell

victorbravo said:


> Brian Withnell said:
> 
> 
> 
> My problem with this is very simply put. If my son put together evidence of something that never happened, didn't actually say that the event that he made to appear to have happened, what would you call it? Duplicity? Deception? Certainly a violation of the 9th commandment. Do we really want to attribute to God what we would call lying in our own children?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The main problem here is it's not your created son we are talking about. You are measuring God against a human interpretation of a standard of morality. How is it certainly a violation of the 9th commandment? If God created a mature tree, and then said, "I created this mature tree," there is no lie.
> 
> Now if God created a mature universe and said, "I created this in the space of six days" and he leaves it at that, how can that be called a lie?
> 
> It hardly fits that by finding evidence of a mature universe we are in a position to attribute deception to God.
Click to expand...


The issue is the evidence of things that did not happen. We do not judge God, but we judge the interpretation that would require deception on God's part. If the interpretation would require duplicity, then it is wrong. You are correct that I hold a standard up to judge my son ... that standard is the nature of God revealed in his word. Duplicity is not a part of God's nature, and so I have a hard time believing he would create evidence of something that not only didn't happen, but that never existed in the first place. It isn't that God would do that, but if our interpretation of scripture would put that upon God, then our interpretation of scripture is just plain wrong. I'm not judging God, I'm judging what I believe is a wrong interpretation of scripture through the logical argument of reductio ad absurdum. The idea of a literal 24 day in the six days of creation would make God be a liar in natural revelation. That makes the 144 hour interpretation wrong, as it is impossible for God to lie.

While it is barely plausible that a 144 hour creation is correct ... it would require what anyone would call duplicity if the exact circumstances and entities were removed from the telling ... it is not necessary to the text, it is not necessary to keep a consistent view of scripture, it is not necessary for any theology of the faith touching either the nature of God or salvation.

Figurative interpretation of the six days is not novel, it does not come from synergism of secular science and the Bible, and is a result of carefully looking at the passage in context of the whole of scripture. I see no compelling reason to hold to a 144 hour interpretation, and many reasons to reject it. I know I am in a minority position on this, but I see no viable options.


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## toddpedlar

Skyler said:


> 3. I'm not sure I follow, Todd. How does relativistic time dilation "fail on the face of it"?



You are saying, if I'm not mistaken, that the universe (all of it, moving relative to us?) is in fact 13.7 billion years old, whereas we measure creation as 6000 years ago or so. Those parts of the universe are moving relative to us, so time dilation, you seem to have said, can explain the difference. A moving clock runs slow (this is well accepted and experimentally proven) and therefore in the part moving relative to us, 13.7 billion years can have passed, while on earth, only 6000. I think I've understood your explanation properly, but correct me if I'm wrong.

However, the problem with this is at least twofold. 

1) We don't measure the age of the universe by looking at some kind of clock. We infer the age from the relationship that is accepted between distance scale and speed of recession of stars (which itself is inferred from the red shift of spectral lines in the light emitted by stars). The age is then given by solving the equation Distance = time interval * speed of light for the time interval. So the problem is that if the part of the universe is receding (and you say it ages 13.7 billion years while in our part only 6000 years has passed) the same relationship still applies between red shift and distance. The time interval passing on those receding stars is irrelevant because we haven't actually measured it. 

Now even if the above were wrong, then you'd still have the second problem: 

2) The recession speeds are far too slow to cause time dilation of the magnitude proposed. The ratio between the dilated time interval and our interval is 13.7 billion / 6000, or 2.28 million. This requires, then a speed of recession that differs from the speed of light by only one part in 10 billion. Recession speeds of galaxies that have a red shift of 6 (those that are of order 14 billion light years away according to Hubble) are more like 0.96. If the speed of recession required for the time dilation factor you speak of was the actual speed of the farthest galaxies, we'd be talking red shifts of 5 MILLION. Biggest redshifts are 6-7. No dice.


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## toddpedlar

DMcFadden said:


> Todd,
> 
> If you ever get any spare time, I would love to hear your take on Russ Humphrey's book already cited above (post #8). He includes some math to back up his arguments. However, I'm just a dumb bureaucrat who runs an old folks home. What do I know about them high-falutin arguments?



Well, like I said I'd be happy to look at it if I could get a hold of a copy - but I have my doubts either in terms of gravitational time dilation (which I think can't hold any water) or in terms of gravitational red shift (which probably can't either).


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## AThornquist

UGH, MY BRAIN!


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## Zenas

Todd,

What books would you recommendo n the subject? I'm interested in it and I think there are some problems that I don't really have the scientific background at the moment to fathom.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian

I think "Creation and Change" by Doug Kelly answers a lot of these questions Andrew...


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## shackleton

To figure how far away the distant galaxies are and the light that comes from them aren't they noting how far it has traveled in a certain amount of time then calculating it back to when it would have all been together, (big bang), then seeing how long it would take for it to be where it is now? 
If it did not start all the way back as one glob but closer to where it is now wouldn't that it look like it was older than it was? Mathematically?


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## Zenas

The logical way I assume they assume is thus:

They measure that the light had to travel for (x) amount of years in order to reach us, ergo, if the light started traveling at the begining of the dimension of time in our universe (y) and it just now reached us, then (y) = (x) and therfore, our universe is (x) amount of years old, i.e. 13.7 billion years old.


----------



## toddpedlar

Zenas said:


> Todd,
> 
> What books would you recommendo n the subject? I'm interested in it and I think there are some problems that I don't really have the scientific background at the moment to fathom.



You mean on the subject in total, or the subject of reconciling red shift data to shorter timeframes? I've not found too many of the latter category that are very good - like I said, the "changing speed of light" idea fails miserably because of all the ramifications of c not being a constant with respect to time, and any "time dilation" explanation seems to me to fail also.

In terms of explaining conventional cosmology (which I think is necessary to understand well if you're to critique it) you need to understand special relativity first ( A. P. French has an old classic book on Special Relativity that's very good) and then move on to cosmology proper (Introduction to Cosmology by Narlikar is pretty good).


----------



## Zenas

Have there been any recent major changes to cosmology? I only ask because as I read on wikipedia, bastion of all secular knowledge, there is a conventional and modern cosmology.


----------



## Tripel

caoclan said:


> Brian,
> Simple question: Did God deceive when he created Adam and Eve and the rest of creation appear to be mature, even though they were a nanosecond old when he created them?



I'm not Brian, but since I probably share a similar stance to Brian on this issue, I'll take a stab. No, I don't think that is considered deception on God's part. I think there is a difference in creating something that is _mature_, and something that is _aged_. God created man as mature, but brand new.

Another example would be trees. If you were to cut down a tree in the garden of Eden, would there be age circles on the stump? From a 144 hour creation standpoint, I would think the answer would be no. The tree is mature (in that it is fully grown and bearing fruit) but it is not aged in that it doesn't show the markings of years of growth. For the tree to have age circles (thus showing its likely age), one could say that is deceptive of God.

What I think is most likely is that the trees in Eden, DID have age circles because they grew to their maturity over the span of many years. 

...and I acknowledge I could be wrong here. I don't pretend to have it all figured out.


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## toddpedlar

Zenas said:


> Have there been any recent major changes to cosmology? I only ask because as I read on wikipedia, bastion of all secular knowledge, there is a conventional and modern cosmology.



Modern (I think) deals with things like inflation (accelerating rates of expansion of the universe) and dark matter / dark energy, both of which are fairly recent attempts to explain some discrepancies between observations and conventional cosmological expectations. So, in a word, yes - but you've got to understand the conventional before you tackle the modern.


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## VictorBravo

Brian Withnell said:


> The issue is the evidence of things that did not happen. We do not judge God, but we judge the interpretation that would require deception on God's part. If the interpretation would require duplicity, then it is wrong.



That is precisely the problem. The interpretation of what, though?

If your standard is the apparent age of the earth, then you measure Scripture by that standard.

If your standard is Scripture, then you evaluate your interpretation of the age of the earth.

In other words, God has said, in essence, "Behold my creation. It is what it is and I did it." If we interpret our obsevations as evidence of things that did not happen, maybe the fault is in how we interpret that evidence, rather than assuming that it is a true interpretation and then using it to evaluate Scripture.


----------



## shackleton

Is it possible that the earth being under water for about a year, just because the part near Mt. Ararat was dry does not mean the entire earth was dry, are the effects of a world wide flood enough to account for the look of "age?" 

The entire earth does look like it has been under water, like a dried up river bed. Could the frozen poles be left over water from the flood? I guess it is safe to assume that Iceland was once covered in ice and Greenland was once green.


----------



## toddpedlar

victorbravo said:


> Brian Withnell said:
> 
> 
> 
> The issue is the evidence of things that did not happen. We do not judge God, but we judge the interpretation that would require deception on God's part. If the interpretation would require duplicity, then it is wrong.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That is precisely the problem. The interpretation of what, though?
> 
> If your standard is the apparent age of the earth, then you measure Scripture by that standard.
> 
> If your standard is Scripture, then you evaluate your interpretation of the age of the earth.
> 
> In other words, God has said, in essence, "Behold my creation. It is what it is and I did it." If we interpret our obsevations as evidence of things that did not happen, maybe the fault is in how we interpret that evidence, rather than assuming that it is a true interpretation and then using it to evaluate Scripture.
Click to expand...


And this rule of interpretation is not deemed "scientific", despite the fact that God's revelation, being truthful communication of fact from God to man is very valid evidence to take into account. (but I can't get anywhere discussing this with scientists)


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## toddpedlar

shackleton said:


> Is it possible that the earth being under water for about a year, just because the part near Mt. Ararat was dry does not mean the entire earth was dry, are the effects of a world wide flood enough to account for the look of "age?"
> 
> The entire earth does look like it has been under water, like a dried up river bed. Could the frozen poles be left over water from the flood? I guess it is safe to assume that Iceland was once covered in ice and Greenland was once green.



I'm not sure how you judge that rock "looks like it has been under water". 

The name Greenland doesn't imply (and historical records don't show) that it was wholly "green". Similarly the name "iceland" has a completely different history also - it isn't an implication that it was encased in ice.


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## ChristianTrader

Zenas said:


> Have there been any recent major changes to cosmology? I only ask because as I read on wikipedia, bastion of all secular knowledge, there is a conventional and modern cosmology.



https://store.creation.com/us/product_info.php?sku=10-3-505


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## Brian Withnell

shackleton said:


> To figure how far away the distant galaxies are and the light that comes from them aren't they noting how far it has traveled in a certain amount of time then calculating it back to when it would have all been together, (big bang), then seeing how long it would take for it to be where it is now?
> If it did not start all the way back as one glob but closer to where it is now wouldn't that it look like it was older than it was? Mathematically?



That is true ... the problem is that we "see" things that occurred long before 6000 years ago. One of the closest supernova in recent history is 1987a, and that was well over 100,000 light years away. In other words it took more than 100,000 years for the light to travel from the explosion of the star to earth. If that is the case, then the YE theory of interpretation of Gen 1 has a problem in the observation of something that just never happened.

These nearer supernovae hold more of a problem (in my view) than the more distant supernovae. The nearer supernovae are close enough that we would have to discard many of the issues we might hold as conjecture for a very distant supernova. Those that are 13 billion years in the past have a greater chance of things being totally different in the opening moments of the universe. Saying that we measure the apparent age at 13 billion years, and that this particular supernova was "only" 160,000 - 170,000 thousand years ago would put it cosmologically in the very recent past. It is one thing to say how we cannot possibly know what was happening in the first moments of a big bang, but 200,000 years ago if the apparent age is nearly 14,000,000,000 years? We saw it with our own eyes! It was visible on earth without the aid of a telescope.

The problem is that if God is telling the truth in natural revelation, then in special revelation our interpretation must be off if we hold to a YE. Yes, you can conjecture that the star never existed (if the YE interpretation is correct, it must not have existed) but then that means that you already have concluded that the only viable interpretation is YE, and then you have to fit the natural revelation to a preconceived interpretation of scripture. I find that not necessary, nor satisfying what I know about the nature of God and being truthful in all he says. So what is my only alternative? That God lies? God forbid! My conclusion is that YE interpretation of Gen 1 must be wrong.

The only alternative I could see would be in the following dialog. 
We say to God: "Wow, look at that!"
He replies to us: "Look at what? That never even happened."​


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## caoclan

Brian Withnell said:


> victorbravo said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Brian Withnell said:
> 
> 
> 
> My problem with this is very simply put. If my son put together evidence of something that never happened, didn't actually say that the event that he made to appear to have happened, what would you call it? Duplicity? Deception? Certainly a violation of the 9th commandment. Do we really want to attribute to God what we would call lying in our own children?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The main problem here is it's not your created son we are talking about. You are measuring God against a human interpretation of a standard of morality. How is it certainly a violation of the 9th commandment? If God created a mature tree, and then said, "I created this mature tree," there is no lie.
> 
> Now if God created a mature universe and said, "I created this in the space of six days" and he leaves it at that, how can that be called a lie?
> 
> It hardly fits that by finding evidence of a mature universe we are in a position to attribute deception to God.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> The issue is the evidence of things that did not happen. We do not judge God, but we judge the interpretation that would require deception on God's part. If the interpretation would require duplicity, then it is wrong. You are correct that I hold a standard up to judge my son ... that standard is the nature of God revealed in his word. Duplicity is not a part of God's nature, and so I have a hard time believing he would create evidence of something that not only didn't happen, but that never existed in the first place. It isn't that God would do that, but if our interpretation of scripture would put that upon God, then our interpretation of scripture is just plain wrong. I'm not judging God, I'm judging what I believe is a wrong interpretation of scripture through the logical argument of reductio ad absurdum. The idea of a literal 24 day in the six days of creation would make God be a liar in natural revelation. That makes the 144 hour interpretation wrong, as it is impossible for God to lie.
> 
> *While it is barely plausible that a 144 hour creation is correct ... it would require what anyone would call duplicity if the exact circumstances and entities were removed from the telling ... it is not necessary to the text, it is not necessary to keep a consistent view of scripture, it is not necessary for any theology of the faith touching either the nature of God or salvation.
> 
> Figurative interpretation of the six days is not novel, it does not come from synergism of secular science and the Bible, and is a result of carefully looking at the passage in context of the whole of scripture. I see no compelling reason to hold to a 144 hour interpretation, and many reasons to reject it. I know I am in a minority position on this, but I see no viable options.*
Click to expand...


1. I don't understand how you can dismiss a literal reading of Genesis so flippantly as to say "While it is barely plausible that a 144 hour creation is correct." How do you interpret the decalogue? Figuratively? You know that figurative statemet in the 4th Commandment "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day."

2. Are Adam and Eve figurative? 

3. Is the entry of sin into creation figurative? "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—"

4. If yes to #3, were there millions/billions of years of death?

5. Are the effects of sin figurative?


----------



## DMcFadden

Todd,

I have the greatest respect for experts (particularly those I trust like you). My layman's understanding is that Russ argues that the assumptions of the Big Bang put our solar system in a different place than he assumes in his computations. If you ever look it over, it would be great.


----------



## shackleton

toddpedlar said:


> I'm not sure how you judge that rock "looks like it has been under water".



I am thinking of someplace like Utah or the Grand Canyon, they look like an area that has been swept by a great flood. Even the evolutionists state that it is from glaciers melting, so could it possibly be the flood of Noah.


----------



## toddpedlar

DMcFadden said:


> Todd,
> 
> I have the greatest respect for experts (particularly those I trust like you). My layman's understanding is that Russ argues that the assumptions of the Big Bang put our solar system in a different place than he assumes in his computations. If you ever look it over, it would be great.



I understand - and I'd be glad to look at the book... just have to find a copy.


----------



## DMcFadden

Todd,

Save the money and try the following:

Humphreys answers Various Critics

Check out "Starlight - Time and Again," particularly the response by Humphreys at the end.

Here is a link to a non-technical preview of his argument (just a preview). Starlight and Time


----------



## Brian Withnell

victorbravo said:


> That is precisely the problem. The interpretation of what, though?
> 
> If your standard is the apparent age of the earth, then you measure Scripture by that standard.
> 
> If your standard is Scripture, then you evaluate your interpretation of the age of the earth.
> 
> In other words, God has said, in essence, "Behold my creation. It is what it is and I did it." If we interpret our obsevations as evidence of things that did not happen, maybe the fault is in how we interpret that evidence, rather than assuming that it is a true interpretation and then using it to evaluate Scripture.



If God said "the heavens declare the glory of God" then I can look to the heavens to see what God wrote there as well as in the scripture. It isn't that I use natural revelation first, or even special revelation first. It is that I make every attempt to reconcile both. Not doing so is to discard something of what God has said. Discarding what he recorded in his word leaves us with no way to find salvation, for natural revelation gives insufficient knowledge of the only way of salvation. Discarding natural revelation is just as much discarding what God has said. Finding a way of looking at both at the same time and making sure we use the whole counsel of God in both special revelation and natural revelation I have to believe leaves us less likely to err. God does not lie. He is not duplicitous. He is not deceptive. If our interpretation of either the natural revelation or the Word would make him so we are wrong in one realm or the other. When God says "Behold my creation" we must be careful not to read into what he said beyond what he said. That is what I think a 144 hour creation does.


----------



## caoclan

Brian Withnell said:


> victorbravo said:
> 
> 
> 
> That is precisely the problem. The interpretation of what, though?
> 
> If your standard is the apparent age of the earth, then you measure Scripture by that standard.
> 
> If your standard is Scripture, then you evaluate your interpretation of the age of the earth.
> 
> In other words, God has said, in essence, "Behold my creation. It is what it is and I did it." If we interpret our obsevations as evidence of things that did not happen, maybe the fault is in how we interpret that evidence, rather than assuming that it is a true interpretation and then using it to evaluate Scripture.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If God said "the heavens declare the glory of God" then I can look to the heavens to see what God wrote there as well as in the scripture. It isn't that I use natural revelation first, or even special revelation first. It is that I make every attempt to reconcile both. Not doing so is to discard something of what God has said. Discarding what he recorded in his word leaves us with no way to find salvation, for natural revelation gives insufficient knowledge of the only way of salvation. Discarding natural revelation is just as much discarding what God has said. Finding a way of looking at both at the same time and making sure we use the whole counsel of God in both special revelation and natural revelation I have to believe leaves us less likely to err. God does not lie. He is not duplicitous. He is not deceptive. If our interpretation of either the natural revelation or the Word would make him so we are wrong in one realm or the other. When God says "Behold my creation" we must be careful not to read into what he said beyond what he said. That is what I think a 144 hour creation does.
Click to expand...


God has spoken through natural revelation, but remember that special revelation states that all creation groans in travail as in birth pains (sin has effected creation and on our ability to interpret it rightly). None of the YEC have "discarded" natural revelation as you have implied. We just have a different take on natural revelation. 

As to your statement "we must be careful not to read into what he said beyond what he said," I say the same thing to you. Assumptions used by unbelievers are by nature biased presuppositions, why accept them at face value?

Please address my questions in post #52. How do you reconcile your view with Scripture's reference to Genesis 1 that is found outside Genesis?


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## shackleton

Brian, 
What is your definition of young earth? Less than 4.5 billion, (the estimated age of just the earth), or 6,000? I would say Usher was way off in his estimation of 6,000 years but there is not much indication beyond that how old. The genealogy from Genesis has many holes in it. If it is counted chronologically you have Adam dying with the people drown in the flood at only 1,000 years. When gaps are taken into account we do not now how many generations have been left out and we do not know how long Adam and Eve lived without sin. I would _imagine_ that if it was around 100,000 years the earth would look pretty old since that is still a long period of time. Scientists seem to believe that man as we know him came on the scene about then anyway. I would imagine that would allow time for ice ages and volcanoes since there is ample evidence of both. 

The main thing is that the bible is clear that Yahweh created the universe and everything in it, we just do not know much about the specifics.


----------



## Brian Withnell

caoclan said:


> 1. I don't understand how you can dismiss a literal reading of Genesis so flippantly as to say "While it is barely plausible that a 144 hour creation is correct." How do you interpret the decalogue? Figuratively? You know that figurative statemet in the 4th Commandment "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day."
> 
> 2. Are Adam and Eve figurative?
> 
> 3. Is the entry of sin into creation figurative? "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—"
> 
> 4. If yes to #3, were there millions/billions of years of death?
> 
> 5. Are the effects of sin figurative?



It isn't flippantly it is after careful consideration. Augustine did not flippantly dismiss the literal reading either, yet he also dismissed it. 

1) The fourth commandment (word) is a command to remember the sabbath to keep it holy, and God references the account he gave of creation in doing so. Given I believe the Gen 1 account is figurative, the reason for putting the account into six days with an ongoing 7th day of rest could (this is conjecture) be so he could establish the sabbath. While that is an explanation of the reason for the formless/void then formed/filled parallel, it certainly isn't necessary for God to explain why. I hold strictly to a sabbath because I see it not only as commanded in the summation of the moral law, but throughout scripture. I don't see that as providing interpretive value to the Gen 1 account. There are plenty of sections in scripture which we read as obviously figurative, and have just as much external support for the analogy presented and yet have no trouble with it. We are the bride of Christ, the passages that speak of God's people committing adultery reinforce that analogy, but we don't make crass dictates that the passage equating the church to Christ's bride are literal.

2) Adam and Eve are not figurative. The whole of the need for salvation hinges on a literal Adam and a literal Eve. Paul's reasoning for not ordaining women reflects back on the deception of Eve, and her being formed from Adam. (Though you don't ask, I in no way think evolution occurred. While the Bible doesn't speak to the "how" of God creating Adam from the dust of the ground, the "evidence" for life even beginning from pure mechanistic processes is patently absurd ... the only reason scientists hold to it is because they have no alternative that doesn't allow "God out of the box".)

3) The entry of sin into creation is not figurative, or in any other way chance. Adam as the federal head of mankind sinned in eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil after Eve, being deceived by the devil ate. Adam did so in pure disobedience and so as the federal head of creation, sin passed into all the world.

4) As the answer to #3 was no, I presume that you don't want an answer to this question.

5) The effects of sin are not figurative. My first wife died because of the sin of Adam and the effects of sin even upon those that are elect in Christ. The corruption of all of man's faculties are real, immediate, and eternal for those without Christ. For those in Christ, the effects of the substitutionary atonement (the imputation of our sin to Christ, the imputation of his righteousness to us) makes the effects of sin for the regenerate temporal during the whole of this age ... but in the age to come there will be no more sin, sickness, crying or death. The old things will pass away, and those who sleep in Christ will be literally raised from the dead, and those that still remain will be changed from mortal to immortal. Yet no longer capable of sin.


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## caoclan

Thanks for replying Brian. In your response to point #1: The Lord stated: "For in six days..." It doesn't appear to be a figurative statement in that legal context. Also, Israel did actually commit adultery against the Lord.

Response #2-5: I didn't think you believed Adam and Eve were figurative, I am using them as an illustration to challenge when the figurative nature of Genesis 1 begins and ends. 

My question to you is when does the literal section of Genesis begin, does it begin from the account of day 6?


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## brianeschen

Brian Withnell said:


> If God said "the heavens declare the glory of God" then I can look to the heavens to see what God wrote there as well as in the scripture. It isn't that I use natural revelation first, or even special revelation first. It is that I make every attempt to reconcile both. Not doing so is to discard something of what God has said. Discarding what he recorded in his word leaves us with no way to find salvation, for natural revelation gives insufficient knowledge of the only way of salvation. Discarding natural revelation is just as much discarding what God has said. Finding a way of looking at both at the same time and making sure we use the whole counsel of God in both special revelation and natural revelation I have to believe leaves us less likely to err. God does not lie. He is not duplicitous. He is not deceptive. If our interpretation of either the natural revelation or the Word would make him so we are wrong in one realm or the other. When God says "Behold my creation" we must be careful not to read into what he said beyond what he said. That is what I think a 144 hour creation does.


Do you take exception to WCF 1:9 and 1:10? It seems that in using General Revelation to interpret Scripture, you would have to.


> 1:9 The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly (Act_15:15; 2Pe_1:20, 2Pe_1:21).
> 1:10 The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined; and in whose sentence we are to rest; can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture (Mat_22:29, Mat_22:31; Act_28:25; Eph_2:20).


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## chbrooking

Well, my question has sparked a good discussion. Thanks guys. If you are wondering, as one who is in the initial stages of wrestling with this question, I don't think Brian's (Withnell) opposition has dealt adequately with his case. 

While I recognize that only a minuscule portion of the earth has been excavated, it is, you'd have to admit, odd that the animals change as we move deeper and deeper -- and where are the men? If the flood is responsible for the fossil record -- why is there a sequence evident, and where are the people? Further, what about the supernova that Brian mentioned? I would have no problem with a mature creation. But, to be trite, I think it _would_ be wrong for God to put a belly button on Adam, or rings in the trees of the garden -- if they were created mature. James is explicit that God cannot lie. Since creation is revelation, that there is an appearance of great age hasn't been adequately rebutted in your discussion, In my humble opinion gentlemen. 

Again, just my two cents, as an observer. Thanks for the discussion. It is enlightening.

-----Added 6/26/2009 at 08:20:56 EST-----

As for using natural revelation to interpret scripture -- what would you say to the church's adjustment to their interpretations that came with the Copernican revolution?


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## Peairtach

chbrooking said:


> Well, my question has sparked a good discussion. Thanks guys. If you are wondering, as one who is in the initial stages of wrestling with this question, I don't think Brian's (Withnell) opposition has dealt adequately with his case.
> 
> While I recognize that only a minuscule portion of the earth has been excavated, it is, you'd have to admit, odd that the animals change as we move deeper and deeper -- and where are the men? If the flood is responsible for the fossil record -- why is there a sequence evident, and where are the people? Further, what about the supernova that Brian mentioned? I would have no problem with a mature creation. But, to be trite, I think it _would_ be wrong for God to put a belly button on Adam, or rings in the trees of the garden -- if they were created mature. James is explicit that God cannot lie. Since creation is revelation, that there is an appearance of great age hasn't been adequately rebutted in your discussion, In my humble opinion gentlemen.
> 
> Again, just my two cents, as an observer. Thanks for the discussion. It is enlightening.
> 
> -----Added 6/26/2009 at 08:20:56 EST-----
> 
> As for using natural revelation to interpret scripture -- what would you say to the church's adjustment to their interpretations that came with the Copernican revolution?



But what if God made the world and universe appear old (general revelation) and then told us it wasn't so old (special revelation). Any scientist examining Adam would think he was mature and had developed through various natural processes for 18-21 years (?). But then they would read the Bible or ask Adam and find out they were wrong. God wasn't lying.

Was Christ lying to the governor of the feast when He ordered the water changed into wine to be presented to him?

Miracles are out in naturalistic science. Some would say science by definition is naturalistic or should be naturalistic. Yet miracles can speed up (by pass?) natural processes that would ordinarily take a longer time. An evangelical view of the creation of the universe involves miracles. I'm not saying that this answers all the difficulties.


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## ChristianTrader

chbrooking said:


> -----Added 6/26/2009 at 08:20:56 EST-----
> 
> As for using natural revelation to interpret scripture -- what would you say to the church's adjustment to their interpretations that came with the Copernican revolution?



I think there has been bad interpretations of natural revelation as their have been bad interpretations of special revelation.

CT

-----Added 6/26/2009 at 09:12:24 EST-----

Just in case anyone cares: R. Humphrey's newest paper on time dilation, can be found here: http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j22_3/j22_3_84-92.pdf It is supposed to have key updates to what was put forth in 94 in his starlight and time book.


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## caoclan

chbrooking said:


> Well, my question has sparked a good discussion. Thanks guys. If you are wondering, as one who is in the initial stages of wrestling with this question, I don't think Brian's (Withnell) opposition has dealt adequately with his case.
> 
> While I recognize that only a minuscule portion of the earth has been excavated, it is, you'd have to admit, odd that the animals change as we move deeper and deeper -- and where are the men? If the flood is responsible for the fossil record -- why is there a sequence evident, and where are the people? Further, what about the supernova that Brian mentioned? I would have no problem with a mature creation. But, to be trite, I think it _would_ be wrong for God to put a belly button on Adam, or rings in the trees of the garden -- if they were created mature. James is explicit that God cannot lie. Since creation is revelation, that there is an appearance of great age hasn't been adequately rebutted in your discussion, In my humble opinion gentlemen.
> 
> Again, just my two cents, as an observer. Thanks for the discussion. It is enlightening.
> 
> -----Added 6/26/2009 at 08:20:56 EST-----
> 
> As for using natural revelation to interpret scripture -- what would you say to the church's adjustment to their interpretations that came with the Copernican revolution?



Brother, _please_ examine the Answers in Genesis website. They have scientists more knowledgeable in these areas than any on this board. They present their material in an easily grasped and compelling manner. God said he did it in 6 days, period. And He said so in more than one place, in more than one book (and genre). The serpent said "Hath God said?..." 

The AIG website has free online videos from biologists, astrophysicists, geologists, and others. Someone is interpreting the data wrongly (either the naturalist scientists or the creation scientists), but only one group is looking at natural revelation through the lens of special revelation.


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## Puritan Sailor

shackleton said:


> The genealogy from Genesis has many holes in it. If it is counted chronologically you have Adam dying with the people drown in the flood at only 1,000 years. When gaps are taken into account we do not now how many generations have been left out and we do not know how long Adam and Eve lived without sin. I would _imagine_ that if it was around 100,000 years the earth would look pretty old since that is still a long period of time.



Just a few notes of correction... 

First, Scripture tells us how old Adam was when he died, 930, not 100,000 years.

Second, the geneology in Genesis is narrated and constructed in such a way that it is almost impossible to avoid the set timetable, or have alleged gaps and holes. I'm aware of only one such gap, after the flood, where Luke follows the LXX order (without the dates) instead of the Masoretic text and includes only one more name than the order listed in Genesis. The narrative in Genesis, records the age of the father, and the age at which the descendant was born. You can't poetically avoid such precision. 

Third, at least according to my math, Adam died long before the flood. Noah was born 1056 years after Gen 5 begins, about 126 years after Adam dies. The flood occurred 1,656 years after the clock starts in Gen 5. Noah's own father, Lamech, would have died 5 years before the flood came. His grandfather Methuselah would have died the same year of the flood, perhaps even in the flood. 

Fourth, when Jesus speaks about Adam and Eve, he speaks about their marriage, and the murdering and lying activity of Satan as "in the beginning." Such language does not lend itself to huge amounts of time before the Fall, (100,000 years is a much longer time period than we have existed since the Fall.) And do you really want to argue that Adam and Eve had no children after living 100,000 years in Eden? Commanded to be fruitful and multiply, and unable to do so even after all the blessings God had bestowed on them, without any curse? There's some implications there that you may want to work out... 

It's much easier to re-exegete the _facts_ of science than it is to re-exegete such otherwise clear historical narrative language in Genesis.


----------



## Brian Withnell

caoclan said:


> Thanks for replying Brian. In your response to point #1: The Lord stated: "For in six days..." It doesn't appear to be a figurative statement in that legal context. Also, Israel did actually commit adultery against the Lord.
> 
> Response #2-5: I didn't think you believed Adam and Eve were figurative, I am using them as an illustration to challenge when the figurative nature of Genesis 1 begins and ends.
> 
> My question to you is when does the literal section of Genesis begin, does it begin from the account of day 6?



I'd say the transition starts in 2:4 ... the text at 2:4 says


> This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven.



Up to that point, there is a unique structure, the days are enumerated yet they don't seem to be there as a chronology (the 4th day problem). In verse 2:2-3 the sabbath is established and rather than parallel thoughts (formed/filled) the culminating day, unlike all the others has no end. The seventh day is sanctified and different from the rest (no pun intended). God is in a sense still in that day (he is still resting from creation in that he is not creating any more).

At 2:4, there is a very obvious cut in thought. Even if you accept a 144 hour creation, 2:4 is not in chronological order, and so it marks a change in the text. At the very least it is going back to before man existed and retelling the creation of man. So there is a clear distinguishing cut between 2:3 and 2:4 no matter what the interpretation of 1:1 - 2:3 one takes.

The creation account in 2:4 and following seem much more detailed in the particulars (thus not pointing to figurative interpretation). The details of "day 6" from chapter 1 and the creation of man, followed by the animals, then by woman in Ch 2 also could be taken as pointing to a figurative Ch 1 (see 1:24 - 26, the order implied is all the animals, then man; 2:18 - 25 seem to point to a more detailed and different order of creation). If Moses were relating a chronology in Gen 1, then you would not expect him to have man created after the animals when just a few lines later he says the animals were created after man, but before woman. Again, it points clearly to a figurative Gen 1.

2:4 is clearly a break, and what comes after is certainly not just a continuation of what came before. When Moses penned it, he clearly thought the two sections were different. So a very plausible break would be the figurative creation account with culminates in God resting for the rest of this age from his work of creation and then moving to the account of the actual order (chronology) that things were done.


----------



## brianeschen

chbrooking said:


> As for using natural revelation to interpret scripture -- what would you say to the church's adjustment to their interpretations that came with the Copernican revolution?


I would still say that it is not proper to use natural revelation to interpret special revelation. I believe the Westminster Confession is correct that the infallible rule to interpret Scripture is Scripture.


----------



## Brian Withnell

Puritan Sailor said:


> It's much easier to re-exegete the _facts_ of science than it is to re-exegete such otherwise clear historical narrative language in Genesis.



Just a couple of thoughts: Augustine did not re-exegete Genesis in order to fit science ... there was no science ... and he clearly saw Gen 1 as a figurative six days. Given the "order" in Gen 1 is different from Gen 2 for the 6th day creation (animals then man in Gen 1; man, animals, then woman in Gen 2) how do you reconcile them without one or the other being figurative?

If Gen 1 is a chronology, why would Moses have stopped on day 7 (which he never closed out) and go back to day 3 (or day 2 ... no plants at the start of Gen 2 creation) and add detail, but leave out great chunks?

Why is there no account of rain in Gen 1, when clearly God did not bring forth plants until there was rain (2:5)?

From what I can see, there is a clear difference in the character of the account in Gen 1 and the account in Gen 2. Moses had something in mind when he separated the two accounts of creation, so what was the difference? The detail of Gen 2 seems to point clearly to a non-figurative account. (Moses names names, gives reasons for the order things were done.)

The day 1 - 6 account calls for the birds of the air to be created on day 5 (ahead of man if it is a chronology) and 2:19 certainly implies a different order. A simple reading would either say there is a contradiction, or that one or the other is figurative.

Notice that *everything* I've pointed out here is in the text. It is not looking to science to interpret scripture, it is looking at scripture to interpret scripture. It is looking at what other great men (Augustine) saw in scripture. Even if science came out tomorrow and said the earth was only about 6000 years old, I would *still* say Gen 1 is figurative because of the passage itself. The apparent age of the earth has very little to say about how to read Gen 1. It isn't that it has nothing to say about Gen 1 ... because if Gen 1 is to be taken figuratively, then we might be able to see that a literal interpretation would conflict with the book of God's work.

While it might be possible for some to say they interpret scripture through the lens of science ... they therefore would err often as man finds more that he doesn't know about the creation ... it is also true that some will look at scripture and occasionally find that even those that do things the wrong way might by God's providence conclude what is correct.

-----Added 6/27/2009 at 12:51:58 EST-----



brianeschen said:


> chbrooking said:
> 
> 
> 
> As for using natural revelation to interpret scripture -- what would you say to the church's adjustment to their interpretations that came with the Copernican revolution?
> 
> 
> 
> I would still say that it is not proper to use natural revelation to interpret special revelation. I believe the Westminster Confession is correct that the infallible rule to interpret Scripture is Scripture.
Click to expand...


Brian, what do you do with the change in the churches intepretations that came with the heliocentric theory of the solar system? While what you answered is tangential to the question, it did not specifically answer the question.

My answer to the question is that sometimes we get interpretation wrong because we are fallible. Sometimes we find evidence that we have gotten our interpretation wrong by looking out the window. If looking out the window shows me something that would call into question my interpretation of scripture, could I not be looking at what God has said (out the window) to correct my false interpretation of what he said in scripture?

It would not be the normative means of looking at scripture ... but clearly the words on the pages of scripture come about because of the "out the window" experience we have that allows us to form language. In a real sense, we have to use at least the tools of language to interpret scripture, and those tools of language are not formed in abstract, they are formed by looking at the world (general revelation) around us.

Do you think the earth is flat and the center of the solar system? If not, why?


----------



## Johan

caoclan said:


> Skyler said:
> 
> 
> 
> The problem with the "created light" idea is the 1970A supernova. If this hypothesis were true, the star that was observed to explode actually never did--the image of its explosion was created in transit, and behind it was a supernova remnant the whole time. In other words, we saw an event that never happened. I personally don't think God would create a deception like that; it seems inconsistent with His nature.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I understand your concern, but that doesn't rule out the fact that God did that. And certainly I wouldn't dream of classifying his ability or right to do such a thing as a deception. It seems as if you dismiss the ability (or probability) of God to create the universe with the appearance of age out of hand, as it doesn't support the supposed evidence interpreted by secular scientists, whose presuppositions are to eliminate or deny the supernatural.
Click to expand...


(1) Why will God create a universe with an apparent age? I agree with Skyler that it is inconsistent with His nature.

(2) There is absolutely no denial of the supernatural in having a 13.7 billion year old universe!


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## Puritan Sailor

Brian Withnell said:


> Puritan Sailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> It's much easier to re-exegete the _facts_ of science than it is to re-exegete such otherwise clear historical narrative language in Genesis.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Just a couple of thoughts: Augustine did not re-exegete Genesis in order to fit science ... there was no science ... and he clearly saw Gen 1 as a figurative six days. Given the "order" in Gen 1 is different from Gen 2 for the 6th day creation (animals then man in Gen 1; man, animals, then woman in Gen 2) how do you reconcile them without one or the other being figurative?
Click to expand...


I for one am not convinced that Augustine denied the traditional view. To quote Matthew Winzer from another lengthy creation thread: 


> "Augustine was far from clear in his presentation on this subject. He wrote four different works which espoused at least three different theories. First, an allegorical approach; second, revelation to angels approach, which some mistakenly liken to the framework theory; third, in the City of God, a literal historical approach, in which he vaguely states that it is not for us to say what the days were. In this last work he takes at least the chronology of the days literally because he argues when the angels must have been created in relation to them. He also espouses the Eusebian chronology of history from the creation of the world, which is essentially the same methodology as that employed by young earthers."



In the City of God, Bk11 (and his sermon on Ps 67), he espouses what we consider the traditional view, along with a "young earth" chronology, following Eusebius. In his commentary on Genesis 1, he seems to argue for an instaneous creation and an allegorical approach to explaining/presenting the work of creation in Gen 1. It may be that we just don't have enough information to nail Augustine down, or it may be that Augustine shifted or was unclear himself regarding his view. The other problem is that people who try to rally Augustine's support for a non-literal view are not adopting an Augustinian cosmology either, which is clearly a young earth cosmology. And for Augustine, it is likely that the lines between his historical and allegorical interpretations were probably not so distinct as we would hold today, because the historical events could have an allegorical purpose for him as well. 



> If Gen 1 is a chronology, why would Moses have stopped on day 7 (which he never closed out) and go back to day 3 (or day 2 ... no plants at the start of Gen 2 creation) and add detail, but leave out great chunks?
> 
> Why is there no account of rain in Gen 1, when clearly God did not bring forth plants until there was rain (2:5)?



He stopped on day 7 because the week was done. Plus there's some typology going on too, as indicated in Hebrews. Then he moved into a differently structured narrative with a different purpose. But it was the same Moses who wrote in Ex 20:11 that it was in fact created in 6 days and that God rested the seventh day. He interprets himself, and both accounts occur in narratives not poetry. 

The problem of "plants" is resolved in at least two ways: 
First, they were days of ordinary length, not days of ordinary providence. The same God who created light from nothing has no problem sustaining his plants for a few hours without sun or rain. 
Second, it says there was no "plant of the feild", not "no plants at all." The fact that “it had not yet rained” and there was “no man to till the ground” are indications of a time before the curse when man ate from the fruit trees rather than tilling the ground to eat the "plants of the field," which after the Fall man was required to do (Gen 3:17-18). 



> From what I can see, there is a clear difference in the character of the account in Gen 1 and the account in Gen 2. Moses had something in mind when he separated the two accounts of creation, so what was the difference? The detail of Gen 2 seems to point clearly to a non-figurative account. (Moses names names, gives reasons for the order things were done.)
> 
> The day 1 - 6 account calls for the birds of the air to be created on day 5 (ahead of man if it is a chronology) and 2:19 certainly implies a different order. A simple reading would either say there is a contradiction, or that one or the other is figurative.



Yes, there is a different focus in the narratives, but neither is figurative. In Gen 2, the chronology is not stressed. Note how many times Adam is "put in the garden". The structure of the narrative is changed in focus. It assumes the creative activity of Gen 1. It doesn't need to explain those details further, but instead is unfolding all those relevant details in how they relate to God's special dealings with Adam. There is no contradiction when the intent and context of the narratives are considered, just as there are no true contradictions between the 4 Gospels despite clear differences in their carefully constructed presentations of Christ’s earthly ministry. Just because you tell a story differently on two occasions, doesn't mean that one version is figurative and one is not. It means you are fashioning the details of each version to communicate what you think is relevant for your audience to know about the event. 



> Notice that *everything* I've pointed out here is in the text. It is not looking to science to interpret scripture, it is looking at scripture to interpret scripture. It is looking at what other great men (Augustine) saw in scripture. Even if science came out tomorrow and said the earth was only about 6000 years old, I would *still* say Gen 1 is figurative because of the passage itself. The apparent age of the earth has very little to say about how to read Gen 1. It isn't that it has nothing to say about Gen 1 ... because if Gen 1 is to be taken figuratively, then we might be able to see that a literal interpretation would conflict with the book of God's work.


 
I've already commented on Augustine above. But, in order to interpret the passage figuratively, you have to have some indication in the original language that it should be interpreted that way, and there is none. It's not poetry because there is no parallelism. Every indication in the Hebrew grammar screams historical narrative. You have the waw conversive used frequently (narrative trademark), you have parameters for the days, the days are numbered (always indicating ordinary days in Hebrew). And Moses says it was 6 days of work with a seventh of rest in Ex 20:11, grounding our duty in God's own historic example. I don't know what else you need to kill a figurative interpretation. 

I agree with you about the supernova stuff. If it happened it happened. I don't think God created a fake supernova or created any light not corresponding to actual events. My objection to the naturalistic explanations about astronomical events is from the simple fact that from our little sliver in the universe, they are making huge assumptions about "age," how the universe works and has always worked, all without any scientific verification which they so arduously claim is needed to prove anything. The simple fact is that God has intervened and altered properties in the universe on multiple occasions (i.e. miracles), including global climate change, and even messing around with the sun and stars. We don't know the ripples that such activity has caused, and how that should affect our interpretation of general revelation. And even in science, with all the research in relativity, light, and gravitation, the paradigms keep shifting and are unreliable. Yet, special revelation has always been clear. 

Sorry a little long...


----------



## chbrooking

With all due respect to you and to them, Sean, I won't visit the AIG website for this simple reason: I took a class in college that was straight out of their 'research'. I learned all kinds of things that got me all excited. Then, when I took them into the real world, I found they just didn't stand up. Take as only one example, the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which was touted as the be all end all proof against evolution. It simply doesn't apply! Not being a scientist, I swallowed it whole. But when I began to do my own research, I found that that wasn't what the 2nd law taught at all.

So, while I'm not naturally a cynic, I just don't trust their science.

Incidentally, a much more solid argument against evolution is a theological one -- and that's an area I'm competent to comment on. When it comes to advanced science, I'm just stuck with he says versus she says. And since both authorities have disappointed me, I'm reluctant to rely on either side's "science". 



caoclan said:


> chbrooking said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well, my question has sparked a good discussion. Thanks guys. If you are wondering, as one who is in the initial stages of wrestling with this question, I don't think Brian's (Withnell) opposition has dealt adequately with his case.
> 
> While I recognize that only a minuscule portion of the earth has been excavated, it is, you'd have to admit, odd that the animals change as we move deeper and deeper -- and where are the men? If the flood is responsible for the fossil record -- why is there a sequence evident, and where are the people? Further, what about the supernova that Brian mentioned? I would have no problem with a mature creation. But, to be trite, I think it _would_ be wrong for God to put a belly button on Adam, or rings in the trees of the garden -- if they were created mature. James is explicit that God cannot lie. Since creation is revelation, that there is an appearance of great age hasn't been adequately rebutted in your discussion, In my humble opinion gentlemen.
> 
> Again, just my two cents, as an observer. Thanks for the discussion. It is enlightening.
> 
> -----Added 6/26/2009 at 08:20:56 EST-----
> 
> As for using natural revelation to interpret scripture -- what would you say to the church's adjustment to their interpretations that came with the Copernican revolution?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Brother, _please_ examine the Answers in Genesis website. They have scientists more knowledgeable in these areas than any on this board. They present their material in an easily grasped and compelling manner. God said he did it in 6 days, period. And He said so in more than one place, in more than one book (and genre). The serpent said "Hath God said?..."
> 
> The AIG website has free online videos from biologists, astrophysicists, geologists, and others. Someone is interpreting the data wrongly (either the naturalist scientists or the creation scientists), but only one group is looking at natural revelation through the lens of special revelation.
Click to expand...


----------



## ChristianTrader

brianeschen said:


> chbrooking said:
> 
> 
> 
> As for using natural revelation to interpret scripture -- what would you say to the church's adjustment to their interpretations that came with the Copernican revolution?
> 
> 
> 
> I would still say that it is not proper to use natural revelation to interpret special revelation. I believe the Westminster Confession is correct that the infallible rule to interpret Scripture is Scripture.
Click to expand...


I would disagree here. I think that general or natural revelation is part of the stuff that you bring to scripture when you begin to interpret it. If you bring the wrong view of it when you look to scripture, then you will probably read the wrong stuff out of it.

Also Westminster does not imply that general revelation is any less clear than special revelation. They both can be distorted to ones own destruction.

CT


----------



## chbrooking

Patrick,

When the text says that God created the sky "between the waters, separating the water above from the water below", what does that mean -- literally? Is there a cosmic ocean? In Genesis 7, when "the windows of the expanse/sky were opened" and "the great springs of the deep broke forth", are we to understand from that that, as the ancients certainly did, that we have ocean above and ocean below? I'd love to read Genesis 1 literally. I'm just struggling to do so.


----------



## caoclan

chbrooking said:


> Patrick,
> 
> When the text says that God created the sky "between the waters, separating the water above from the water below", what does that mean -- literally? Is there a cosmic ocean? In Genesis 6, when "the windows of the expanse/sky were opened" and "the great springs of the deep broke forth", are we to understand from that that, as the ancients certainly did, that we have ocean above and ocean below? I'd love to read Genesis 1 literally. I'm just struggling to do so.



The waters below, obviously is the ocean, lakes, etc. The waters above, I believe refer to the atmosphere, there is water in the atmosphere. the great springs of the deep refer to the subterranean water, which exists to this day, but existed in more volume prior to the flood.


----------



## shackleton

Puritan Sailor said:


> First, Scripture tells us how old Adam was when he died, 930, not 100,000 years.
> 
> Third, at least according to my math, Adam died long before the flood. Noah was born 1056 years after Gen 5 begins, about 126 years after Adam dies. The flood occurred 1,656 years after the clock starts in Gen 5. Noah's own father, Lamech, would have died 5 years before the flood came. His grandfather Methuselah would have died the same year of the flood, perhaps even in the flood.



I know this, this is the point I was trying to make. Some say that the earth is only 6,000 years old, according to Usher's dates but if that were the case then Adam would have died in the flood. 
There is not much indication that the genealogy includes everyone that existed from Adam to Noah.

I was not saying that Adam and Eve lived in the Garden for 100,000 years before the fall, I was saying that there could be a large, unknown time frame between Creation and the Flood. There is no indication as to how old the earth is, the bible was not written for that purpose. 100,000 is just a number I threw out there. All we really know is that scientists say that the earth looks old and they conclude, according to their atheistic beliefs that it would have taken billions of years for things to get to look the way they are, they logically deduced this based on their preconceived ideas. 
The only reason we are discussing this is because we are trying to reconcile what science believes with what the bible clearly teaches.


----------



## chbrooking

So the sky is BELOW the atmosphere???? You see, it's just that kind of "reaching" / special pleading that isn't plausible or even intellectually respectable to me -- and I'm a believer.



caoclan said:


> chbrooking said:
> 
> 
> 
> Patrick,
> 
> When the text says that God created the sky "between the waters, separating the water above from the water below", what does that mean -- literally? Is there a cosmic ocean? In Genesis 7, when "the windows of the expanse/sky were opened" and "the great springs of the deep broke forth", are we to understand from that that, as the ancients certainly did, that we have ocean above and ocean below? I'd love to read Genesis 1 literally. I'm just struggling to do so.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The waters below, obviously is the ocean, lakes, etc. The waters above, I believe refer to the atmosphere, there is water in the atmosphere. the great springs of the deep refer to the subterranean water, which exists to this day, but existed in more volume prior to the flood.
Click to expand...


----------



## shackleton

I would imagine Moses wrote Genesis the way he did because of beliefs of the surrounding pagan nations. Just like we are all discussing the "old" earth because of pagan scientists, I am sure the pagans back then had something they believed and Moses was writing against that, we just do not know what it was. Most of what the Jews were told to do or not do was the result of something the surrounding pagan nations were doing. God's people were to be set apart from the pagan nations and be separate, Holy.


----------



## ColdSilverMoon

chbrooking said:


> With all due respect to you and to them, Sean, I won't visit the AIG website for this simple reason: I took a class in college that was straight out of their 'research'. I learned all kinds of things that got me all excited. Then, when I took them into the real world, I found they just didn't stand up. Take as only one example, the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which was touted as the be all end all proof against evolution. It simply doesn't apply! Not being a scientist, I swallowed it whole. But when I began to do my own research, I found that that wasn't what the 2nd law taught at all.
> 
> So, while I'm not naturally a cynic, I just don't trust their science.



I agree with you about AIG, Pastor Brooking. They have some good stuff, but they also have some ridiculous info that makes Christians look foolish when they try to argue with secular scientists. 

Interestingly, as a Biology and Biochem double major from a secular university, I found it easier to reject Evolution the more I learned about it. There's no need to embrace weak "Christian" science - the Creation account (which I believe is figurative) stands up on its own just fine.



Puritan Sailor said:


> I for one am not convinced that Augustine denied the traditional view. To quote Matthew Winzer from another lengthy creation thread:
> 
> 
> In the City of God, Bk11 (and his sermon on Ps 67), he espouses what we consider the traditional view, along with a "young earth" chronology, following Eusebius. In his commentary on Genesis 1, he seems to argue for an instaneous creation and an allegorical approach to explaining/presenting the work of creation in Gen 1. It may be that we just don't have enough information to nail Augustine down, or it may be that Augustine shifted or was unclear himself regarding his view. The other problem is that people who try to rally Augustine's support for a non-literal view are not adopting an Augustinian cosmology either, which is clearly a young earth cosmology. And for Augustine, it is likely that the lines between his historical and allegorical interpretations were probably not so distinct as we would hold today, because the historical events could have an allegorical purpose for him as well.



I love Rev Winzer and have learned a great deal from him on here, but to say Augustine did not deny the traditional view is a big stretch. In _Confessions_ he is quite clear that he rejects the 24-hour view - he lays out 6 possible explanations of Genesis 1, and explicitly rejects the literal view. I don't have time to provide quotes now (maybe later today or tomorrow), but read Books 11-13 of _Confessions_ and Augustine's position on the Creation account is clear.


----------



## ChristianTrader

shackleton said:


> Puritan Sailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> First, Scripture tells us how old Adam was when he died, 930, not 100,000 years.
> 
> Third, at least according to my math, Adam died long before the flood. Noah was born 1056 years after Gen 5 begins, about 126 years after Adam dies. The flood occurred 1,656 years after the clock starts in Gen 5. Noah's own father, Lamech, would have died 5 years before the flood came. His grandfather Methuselah would have died the same year of the flood, perhaps even in the flood.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I know this, this is the point I was trying to make. Some say that the earth is only 6,000 years old, according to Usher's dates but if that were the case then Adam would have died in the flood.
> There is not much indication that the genealogy includes everyone that existed from Adam to Noah.
Click to expand...


Where are you getting it that it if Ussher was correct then Adam would have had to die in the flood? If taken in a straightforward manner, there are over 1600 years between the birth of Adam and the flood.

Also to be fair, the 6000 year figure did not begin with Ussher but was pretty standard throughout church history.

CT


----------



## shackleton

Ussher's theory puts only 1,000 years from creation to Noah and Adam lived to about 930, he may not have died in the flood but they would have been contemporaries and Noah would not have been the only righteous one in God's sight. Other righteous people in the line would have died in the flood as well.


----------



## ChristianTrader

shackleton said:


> Ussher's theory puts only 1,000 years from creation to Noah and Adam lived to about 930, he may not have died in the flood but they would have been contemporaries and Noah would not have been the only righteous one in God's sight. Other righteous people in the line would have died in the flood as well.



I just did some searching and everything I can find says that Ussher dates the flood at 2349 or 2348 BC. Which is over 1600 years from the date he placed on creation (4004 BC).

What is your source for your info?

As an aside: 1600 years from Creation to the Flood is easy to reconcile with 6000 year history of the earth. So it ends up being a moot point either way if one wants to challenge the pedigree of YEC.

CT


----------



## Peairtach

*Quote from Clark*
_As for using natural revelation to interpret scripture -- what would you say to the church's adjustment to their interpretations that came with the Copernican revolution? _

Apparently the church was influenced by Aristotleian cosmology (popularly held science of the time) in their interpretation of the Bible.

Anyway, where colloquial expressions such as "the sun rising" are used, this is just telling us about the colloquialisms of the time (some of which are still used today) and not using literal language. God is just accomodating to ordinary human speech.

The question of the Days of Creation is of a different order. When God chose to present the creation in this way was it a colloquial view that the creation was done in six days? Was God accomodating to what was already believed/said by Abraham, etc? Was God using a metaphor? Was He describing things as they happened to tell us that He _did_ take six literal days to create? Those before Moses seem to have known about and held to the seven day week, which is the only unit of time that comes from special revelation rather than general revelation, unlike days, mo(o)nths and years.

There seems to be little evidence from the Bible that the days are to be taken metaphorically, apart from the fact that the sun wasn't made until the fourth day, and certain things in the Bible clearly go against the metaphorical/mythological view e.g. Exodus 20. Evangelicals have taken Genesis to be a literal and historical book (unlike much future prophecy) in accordance with the New Testament. If Genesis One is to be taken as metaphorical/mythological where will the unravelling of the evangelical (and biblical) interpretation of Genesis end?

If the Days are taken metaphorically - to help blend with currently popular science - theological problems arise, e.g. the curse being imposed before the first sin. Evangelical theology itself starts to unravel.


----------



## brianeschen

Brian, thanks for the questions, it is helping me think through these issues more thoroughly.


Brian Withnell said:


> Brian, what do you do with the change in the churches intepretations that came with the heliocentric theory of the solar system? While what you answered is tangential to the question, it did not specifically answer the question.


To be more specific, the Copernican model did not necessitate a change in the way Scripture is interpreted. Copernicus could after all be wrong.


Brian Withnell said:


> My answer to the question is that sometimes we get interpretation wrong because we are fallible. Sometimes we find evidence that we have gotten our interpretation wrong by looking out the window. If looking out the window shows me something that would call into question my interpretation of scripture, could I not be looking at what God has said (out the window) to correct my false interpretation of what he said in scripture?
> 
> It would not be the normative means of looking at scripture ... but clearly the words on the pages of scripture come about because of the "out the window" experience we have that allows us to form language. In a real sense, we have to use at least the tools of language to interpret scripture, and those tools of language are not formed in abstract, they are formed by looking at the world (general revelation) around us.
> 
> Do you think the earth is flat and the center of the solar system? If not, why?


I don't believe the earth is flat, but I don't believe that has been widely held by Christians at any point in history. I believe the issue with Copernicus was the earth being the center of the universe or not. The only way to tell if there are any fixed bodies in the heavens is to be outside the universe.

I agree with you that general revelation helps us understand special revelation. The concern I have is when the two get put on the same level in terms of authority. Written communication (especially something as precise as the Bible) is more clear than what we observe around us. If the two are in conflict which one governs the way we view the other? It is true that both general and special revelation speak with the same message, but I believe Scripture is more clear.

To bring it back to the age of the universe along with the interpretation of Genesis 1. It was not until the 19th century and the old earth geologists that the Church at large began interpreting Genesis as figurative. I find it hard to believe that the Church for the thousands of years prior had to wait for the geology of the 1800s to get it right.

Thanks for the interaction.

-----Added 6/27/2009 at 12:00:12 EST-----



ChristianTrader said:


> brianeschen said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> chbrooking said:
> 
> 
> 
> As for using natural revelation to interpret scripture -- what would you say to the church's adjustment to their interpretations that came with the Copernican revolution?
> 
> 
> 
> I would still say that it is not proper to use natural revelation to interpret special revelation. I believe the Westminster Confession is correct that the infallible rule to interpret Scripture is Scripture.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I would disagree here. I think that general or natural revelation is part of the stuff that you bring to scripture when you begin to interpret it. If you bring the wrong view of it when you look to scripture, then you will probably read the wrong stuff out of it.
> 
> Also Westminster does not imply that general revelation is any less clear than special revelation. They both can be distorted to ones own destruction.
> 
> CT
Click to expand...

Yes, I believe that is where the disagreement is. The Westminster divines make a distinction between general and special revelation in chapter 1 of the WCF (see 1:1). Why do you think that they did not include general revelation in 1:9? Or why in WLC Q&A 3 did they not include general revelation as an equally valid rule of faith and obedience? If general revelation is just as clear, why not use both?


> Question 3: What is the Word of God?
> Answer: The holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, the only rule of faith and obedience.


----------



## shackleton

To be honest I have not read much on Ussher nor am I very familiar with what he has written, but I have heard a lot of people reference him and 6,000 years but when reading the actual text of Genesis 5 it seems immediately cleat that there is room for extra years in there. 

First of all, the genealogy skips Cain and Abel and starts with Seth who was born when Adam was 130. This at least means that from the time of creation, including the Fall and at least two children prior to Seth, is 130 years. Every sentence ends with, "and he had other sons and daughters," these are never named and are not considered to be important. This genealogy is only detailing the lives of the seed of the woman that Moses deems important. The line of Cain is never once mentioned.

Just from reading it seems plain that not everyone was mentioned so an accurate number of years from Creation to the Flood cannot be determined. Once again, it was not written to give the information we are trying to get out of it. All I am saying is that it is most likely more than 6,000 years but much less than the 4.7 billion evolutionists give it. We don't even know exactly what happened during the Flood, what all was entailed in that catastrophic event. There could have been volcanoes as well as water and earthquakes we do not know. I just do not think we should let scientists who have as an agenda to rule God out set the pace for beliefs in origins. They are looking at the same things we are but reading into it their view that however it happened, _God _did not do it. Our guess is as good as theirs.


----------



## caoclan

chbrooking said:


> *So the sky is BELOW the atmosphere???? You see, it's just that kind of "reaching" / special pleading that isn't plausible or even intellectually respectable to me -- and I'm a believer.*
> 
> 
> 
> caoclan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> chbrooking said:
> 
> 
> 
> Patrick,
> 
> When the text says that God created the sky "between the waters, separating the water above from the water below", what does that mean -- literally? Is there a cosmic ocean? In Genesis 7, when "the windows of the expanse/sky were opened" and "the great springs of the deep broke forth", are we to understand from that that, as the ancients certainly did, that we have ocean above and ocean below? I'd love to read Genesis 1 literally. I'm just struggling to do so.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The waters below, obviously is the ocean, lakes, etc. The waters above, I believe refer to the atmosphere, there is water in the atmosphere. the great springs of the deep refer to the subterranean water, which exists to this day, but existed in more volume prior to the flood.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


Is that a serious question? The expanse (the sky) does separate the oceans and land from the upper atmospheres, does it not? Or do you think you live in the stratosphere and the other layers, as pictured below:






Also, reread Genesis 1:6-8 for further reference:

6 And God said, d “Let there be an expanse [1] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 And God made [2] the expanse and e separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were f above the expanse. And it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven. [3] And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.


----------



## chbrooking

First of all, Sean, where's the water? Where is the sky in relation to it? You said the water above the sky was the atmosphere. You must be using atmosphere in a different sense than is customary. Were our spaceships flying through a cosmic ocean? And if you say, "But there IS water in the stratosphere and above", I'm going to ask, so how does the sky separate the water below from the water above? And since the water below was pooled, it would seem to indicate that it's not in our atmosphere now (because it was liquid water that was in view). But there's more vaporous water in the troposphere than is in the stratosphere, and more water there than is in the mesosphere, etc.

I was raising a very serious interpretive question. Your dismissal of the question betrays the fact that you have not read the Genesis account closely. And who is using natural revelation to interpret scripture now? By interpreting the upper waters as a vapor canopy or something, you are not taking a natural reading of the text. The text seems to indicate that there was water (liquid water: where would you get that it was vaporous from the text?). Then God put a sky within the water, separating water above the sky from water below the sky. Then, he pulled the water below the sky into pools (seas, lakes, rivers, etc.). The water above the sky didn't change. That would be a 'literal' reading.

For those of you holding out for an earth-centric universe, you have not escaped the dilemma. Once again, if this were true, the laws of physics would be at odds with the truth -- in which case we're right back to what brought up the question -- deception.

Undoubtedly, advances in science have influenced our interpretation of the scriptures. And I don't see how that is at odds with special revelation governing general revelation. Special revelation does not have to give us all the details. It gives us a framework within which our interpretation of general revelation can be trusted. Special revelation prohibits me from interpreting general revelation without reference to God. It prohibits me from taking an autonomous view of science. 

The only reason you are sure that "the sun rises" is a colloquial expression is BECAUSE of general revelation (examined with telescopes and such). We HAVE to look around us. There's no problem with doing so. The problem is if we look around us and think ourselves competent to evaluate and understand creation apart from special revelation and the God revealed there.


----------



## brianeschen

chbrooking said:


> For those of you holding out for an earth-centric universe, you have not escaped the dilemma. Once again, if this were true, the laws of physics would be at odds with the truth -- in which case we're right back to what brought up the question -- deception.


The laws of physics do not disprove geocentrism. It is impossible to do. Both models work. NASA actually uses a geocentristic (not heliocentristic) model when it launches spacecraft.


----------



## Theognome

Okay, I'm gonna settle this once and for all-

The only person(s) who can say how old the universe is is someone that knows the universe's birthday. And, since no one on this thread seems to know when the universe's birthday is, y'all might as well give up now and save some face.

Theognome


----------



## Mushroom

All motion is relative to the observer- Einstein.

There is no 'center' of the universe that we can observe. The sun is the center of the solar system, yes, but it certainly is not the center of the galaxy, nor is it the center of Earth's system, which includes the moon. Centricity is just about motion of bodies relative to each other. This is NOT a heliocentric anything. We observe from Earth. It's just easier to track the _solar system's_ movements using a heliocentric model. Try using that to track the moon's motion. It looks pretty wobbly from that perspective.


----------



## chbrooking

Okay, so the sun is swinging around us?

To say that NASA uses a geocentric system to launch shuttles isn't significant to the discussion. They used a lunar-centric calculation to slingshot Apollo 13 back to earth. Big deal. But physics does explain orbit -- otherwise we couldn't have satellites. And the earth orbits the sun. That pretty well gives the appearance that the earth isn't the center of the universe, since it's not even the center of our solar system. So, again, if the universe is truly geocentric, then deceptions seems to be involved. But we're getting a little off-topic.


----------



## Brian Withnell

Puritan Sailor said:


> I for one am not convinced that Augustine denied the traditional view. To quote Matthew Winzer from another lengthy creation thread:
> 
> 
> In the City of God, Bk11 (and his sermon on Ps 67), he espouses what we consider the traditional view, along with a "young earth" chronology, following Eusebius. In his commentary on Genesis 1, he seems to argue for an instaneous creation and an allegorical approach to explaining/presenting the work of creation in Gen 1. It may be that we just don't have enough information to nail Augustine down, or it may be that Augustine shifted or was unclear himself regarding his view. The other problem is that people who try to rally Augustine's support for a non-literal view are not adopting an Augustinian cosmology either, which is clearly a young earth cosmology. And for Augustine, it is likely that the lines between his historical and allegorical interpretations were probably not so distinct as we would hold today, because the historical events could have an allegorical purpose for him as well.
> 
> 
> 
> He stopped on day 7 because the week was done. Plus there's some typology going on too, as indicated in Hebrews. Then he moved into a differently structured narrative with a different purpose. But it was the same Moses who wrote in Ex 20:11 that it was in fact created in 6 days and that God rested the seventh day. He interprets himself, and both accounts occur in narratives not poetry.
> 
> The problem of "plants" is resolved in at least two ways:
> First, they were days of ordinary length, not days of ordinary providence. The same God who created light from nothing has no problem sustaining his plants for a few hours without sun or rain.
> Second, it says there was no "plant of the feild", not "no plants at all." The fact that “it had not yet rained” and there was “no man to till the ground” are indications of a time before the curse when man ate from the fruit trees rather than tilling the ground to eat the "plants of the field," which after the Fall man was required to do (Gen 3:17-18).
> 
> Yes, there is a different focus in the narratives, but neither is figurative. In Gen 2, the chronology is not stressed. Note how many times Adam is "put in the garden". The structure of the narrative is changed in focus. It assumes the creative activity of Gen 1. It doesn't need to explain those details further, but instead is unfolding all those relevant details in how they relate to God's special dealings with Adam. There is no contradiction when the intent and context of the narratives are considered, just as there are no true contradictions between the 4 Gospels despite clear differences in their carefully constructed presentations of Christ’s earthly ministry. Just because you tell a story differently on two occasions, doesn't mean that one version is figurative and one is not. It means you are fashioning the details of each version to communicate what you think is relevant for your audience to know about the event.
> 
> I've already commented on Augustine above. But, in order to interpret the passage figuratively, you have to have some indication in the original language that it should be interpreted that way, and there is none. It's not poetry because there is no parallelism. Every indication in the Hebrew grammar screams historical narrative. You have the waw conversive used frequently (narrative trademark), you have parameters for the days, the days are numbered (always indicating ordinary days in Hebrew). And Moses says it was 6 days of work with a seventh of rest in Ex 20:11, grounding our duty in God's own historic example. I don't know what else you need to kill a figurative interpretation.
> 
> I agree with you about the supernova stuff. If it happened it happened. I don't think God created a fake supernova or created any light not corresponding to actual events. My objection to the naturalistic explanations about astronomical events is from the simple fact that from our little sliver in the universe, they are making huge assumptions about "age," how the universe works and has always worked, all without any scientific verification which they so arduously claim is needed to prove anything. The simple fact is that God has intervened and altered properties in the universe on multiple occasions (i.e. miracles), including global climate change, and even messing around with the sun and stars. We don't know the ripples that such activity has caused, and how that should affect our interpretation of general revelation. And even in science, with all the research in relativity, light, and gravitation, the paradigms keep shifting and are unreliable. Yet, special revelation has always been clear.
> 
> Sorry a little long...



I don't mind it being long. But I think you missed the point in several cases. 

The point with Augustine is not that his view was necessarily correct, but that he held to a figurative view. If a figurative view was plausible to Augustine, then it certainly was NOT related to a scientific OE theory. If he had reason to think a figurative interpretation was possible, it is without merit to say the only reason to think a figurative interpretation only occurs because of general revelation. I use his "instantaneous" theory not to say he was correct on all things, but to destroy the false argument that the only reason to hold to a figurative interpretation is compromise of scriptures because of science. It is my hope that that argument is forever gone as it is not only false, but insulting to those that hold to figurative meaning without bowing the knee at the alter of science.

The point with plants, rain and man is that the reasons given in Gen 2 for their not existing. From an examination of Day 2, it appears all the plants were created at that point, yet in Gen 2 God had not and Moses specifies the reason for them not yet existing. So either additional creation occurred out of the order specified in Gen 1, or Gen 1 is not a chronology. While I see that you state Gen 2 is not the chronology, Gen 2 seems to be more concerned with chronology to me that Gen 1.

The two times that the account states that man was placed in the garden appear to me to be bracketing a paranthetical description ... much like what we would do if we stopped a narrative, related a small set of details that are important, but not part of the narrative, and then resumed. In order to have the parenthetical not disrupt the flow, we restate where we were and then continue.

I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but there are those that have examined Gen 1 in the report to the PCA GA that were. (FYI, I tend to hold to option C for the original intent of the divines in the section relating to "in the space of six days".) The argument that there is nothing of poetical in Gen 1 seems to be contradicted in it. If nothing else, if it were prose, it is highly structured and the argument that it just followed the chronology of a structured creation seems convenient rather than convincing. Even if the grammar is not in parallel, the logical constructs are without doubt parallel.

One thing that I may be using inconsistent with "terms of art" in relationship to the body of Gen 1 ... when I say it is "figurative" I mean that it is not a chronology, but a logical ordering. I don't know if "figurative" is the best term for that, but what I mean by figurative is that it isn't six 24 hour days in chronological order. Much of what we see in the gospels appears in what looks like chronological order, but viewing one from another and the orders don't always match (which is not to say any of them are inaccurate in what they say as much as how the author chooses to say it). 

I'm not willing to say that the six days are literal 24 hour days in chronological order as I don't think the text supports it. What I do say is that it was in a logical sense 6 days, and that God created ex nihilo.

In any case, thank you for the analysis. It was probably the best I've seen so far ... even if I disagree with the result. 

Just as a side question ... do you think that at least some of the resistance to a non-literal view is out of rejecting anything that comes close to supporting evolution? I can appreciate Christians wanting to oppose evolution any way they can, but evolution is such a poor theory from even a mechanistic secular point of view, that it should almost be ignored (other than to point out the total absurdity of it from a secular mechanistic point of view -- origin of life is essentially impossible, even with a billion chances/second for 14 billion years). But that is 

-----Added 6/27/2009 at 06:59:45 EST-----



Theognome said:


> Okay, I'm gonna settle this once and for all-
> 
> The only person(s) who can say how old the universe is is someone that knows the universe's birthday. And, since no one on this thread seems to know when the universe's birthday is, y'all might as well give up now and save some face.
> 
> Theognome



Does that mean that because I wasn't around when a particular tree started growing in a forest, that I cannot make any approximation of the age of the tree?

-----Added 6/27/2009 at 07:12:52 EST-----



Richard Tallach said:


> ... Was God accomodating to what was already believed/said by Abraham, etc? Was God using a metaphor? Was He describing things as they happened to tell us that He _did_ take six literal days to create? Those before Moses seem to have known about and held to the seven day week, which is the only unit of time that comes from special revelation rather than general revelation, unlike days, mo(o)nths and years.



I am not saying (I cannot answer for anyone else) that Genesis is mythological. I would argue against that vociferously. Historical figurative (maybe that is a new term, but it "fits" my view ... it is relating what happened, but not necessarily in order, but ... relationally? not sure what word to use, so I use figuratively).


----------



## Peairtach

If it was generally believed among the patriarchs, including e.g. Adam and Noah and Abraham, and by Moses and the children of Israel, that they had six days for work, rest, play and worship, and one day devoted to rest and worship, and that this was because God had told them that He had created on six days and rested on the seventh, was not this falsehood on God's part?

If Christ makes the finest wine in a moment and presents it to the ruler of the feast, that is not falsehood unless Christ indicates that it took ages to make by natural processes. If Christ said He had made it in a moment and we insisted that it must have taken ages, is that not an expression of unbelief - not total unbelief, but unbelief at that point?

If God fills and forms the unfilled and unformed world in Six Days and yet it appears as if - _by natural processes_ - it would have taken donkey's years, that is not a lie unless He tells us it took donkey's years.


----------



## Brian Withnell

brianeschen said:


> It was not until the 19th century and the old earth geologists that the Church at large began interpreting Genesis as figurative. I find it hard to believe that the Church for the thousands of years prior had to wait for the geology of the 1800s to get it right.



I'm only going to point you to what I think is a clear showing of Augustine interpreting the Gen 1 as figurative, I've found it online with CCEL.org (I highly recommend them btw, a wonderful group) and reading online is free, but the reference you might want to read is here:
NPNF1-02. St. Augustin's City of God and Christian Doctrine | Christian Classics Ethereal Library​In any case, the thing that you might want to consider is that he might not agree with what I make of the passage, but he certainly talks of the days as not being like the ones we experience. This is just one page from The City of God and Christian Doctrine, you might want to look at the whole of the section. It is obvious to me that Augustine did not view the six days as literal 24 hour days. That was long before the 19th century....


----------



## brianeschen

Brian Withnell said:


> brianeschen said:
> 
> 
> 
> It was not until the 19th century and the old earth geologists that the Church at large began interpreting Genesis as figurative. I find it hard to believe that the Church for the thousands of years prior had to wait for the geology of the 1800s to get it right.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm only going to point you to what I think is a clear showing of Augustine interpreting the Gen 1 as figurative, I've found it online with CCEL.org (I highly recommend them btw, a wonderful group) and reading online is free, but the reference you might want to read is here:
> NPNF1-02. St. Augustin's City of God and Christian Doctrine | Christian Classics Ethereal Library​In any case, the thing that you might want to consider is that he might not agree with what I make of the passage, but he certainly talks of the days as not being like the ones we experience. This is just one page from The City of God and Christian Doctrine, you might want to look at the whole of the section. It is obvious to me that Augustine did not view the six days as literal 24 hour days. That was long before the 19th century....
Click to expand...

I thought there might have been one  . . . that's why I said the "church at large." I don't believe the position was widely held until the 19th century.


Augustine said:


> What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!


 Yup, I agree, all God tells us is that they were days.


----------



## Puritan Sailor

Brian Withnell said:


> The point with Augustine is not that his view was necessarily correct, but that he held to a figurative view. If a figurative view was plausible to Augustine, then it certainly was NOT related to a scientific OE theory. If he had reason to think a figurative interpretation was possible, it is without merit to say the only reason to think a figurative interpretation only occurs because of general revelation. I use his "instantaneous" theory not to say he was correct on all things, but to destroy the false argument that the only reason to hold to a figurative interpretation is compromise of scriptures because of science. It is my hope that that argument is forever gone as it is not only false, but insulting to those that hold to figurative meaning without bowing the knee at the alter of science.



I understand you're trying to defend the pedigree of non-literal interpretation. But you need to understand the can of worms you're opening hermeneutically by doing that. As I understand it, Augustine was more open to interpreting Scripture allegorically, a pattern which I'm not sure you would like to follow, in other passages. 



> The point with plants, rain and man is that the reasons given in Gen 2 for their not existing. From an examination of Day 2, it appears all the plants were created at that point, yet in Gen 2 God had not and Moses specifies the reason for them not yet existing. So either additional creation occurred out of the order specified in Gen 1, or Gen 1 is not a chronology. While I see that you state Gen 2 is not the chronology, Gen 2 seems to be more concerned with chronology to me that Gen 1.



I'm not sure how you can say Gen 1 is not concerned about chronology, when the days are actually numbered (again, only used of ordinary days), and Moses again states they were days in Ex 20:11. The Sabbath is chronological important isn't it? 



> The two times that the account states that man was placed in the garden appear to me to be bracketing a paranthetical description ... much like what we would do if we stopped a narrative, related a small set of details that are important, but not part of the narrative, and then resumed. In order to have the parenthetical not disrupt the flow, we restate where we were and then continue.



Yes, that is correct. And that is also what's occurring with the comments about the plants and animals in the passage. They are portions summing up other actions, and being restated in their relevant position to Adam's covenantal position before God. And again, the "plants" mention in Gen 2 are very specific terminology, the "plant of the feild" and "tilling the ground" are terms which aren't picked up again until the curse in Gen 3:17-18. They are signals to the original audience that this was a time before the curse. 



> I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but there are those that have examined Gen 1 in the report to the PCA GA that were. (FYI, I tend to hold to option C for the original intent of the divines in the section relating to "in the space of six days".) The argument that there is nothing of poetical in Gen 1 seems to be contradicted in it. If nothing else, if it were prose, it is highly structured and the argument that it just followed the chronology of a structured creation seems convenient rather than convincing. Even if the grammar is not in parallel, the logical constructs are without doubt parallel.


Every Hebrew scholar knows it's not prose. It's the tight structure that leads them to question the otherwise clear historical narrative trademarks. But almost all Hebrew historical narratives are structured, some more so than others. I'd encourage you to read John Currid's commentary on Genesis, and also his book on Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament. Very helpful works not only on Gen 1-2 but also on other interesting OT texts. 



> One thing that I may be using inconsistent with "terms of art" in relationship to the body of Gen 1 ... when I say it is "figurative" I mean that it is not a chronology, but a logical ordering. I don't know if "figurative" is the best term for that, but what I mean by figurative is that it isn't six 24 hour days in chronological order. Much of what we see in the gospels appears in what looks like chronological order, but viewing one from another and the orders don't always match (which is not to say any of them are inaccurate in what they say as much as how the author chooses to say it).
> 
> I'm not willing to say that the six days are literal 24 hour days in chronological order as I don't think the text supports it. What I do say is that it was in a logical sense 6 days, and that God created ex nihilo.



How do you know God created ex nihilo? If it's not a historical narrative, then what about it is historical? When the normal rules of grammar don't apply anymore, (even after Moses repeats it was 6 days) then what do you use? And how do you decide? Once you say it's not history, then you've lost your moorings, and you can really make the passage say (or not say) anything you want. 



> In any case, thank you for the analysis. It was probably the best I've seen so far ... even if I disagree with the result.



For further reading, I would again suggest Currid above, but also Doug Kelly's Creation and Change (the exegetical portions, not necessarily the scientific portions, though they are interesting reading). Others could suggest more. 



> Just as a side question ... do you think that at least some of the resistance to a non-literal view is out of rejecting anything that comes close to supporting evolution? I can appreciate Christians wanting to oppose evolution any way they can, but evolution is such a poor theory from even a mechanistic secular point of view, that it should almost be ignored (other than to point out the total absurdity of it from a secular mechanistic point of view -- origin of life is essentially impossible, even with a billion chances/second for 14 billion years). But that is



Rejecting evolution is part of it, not only because the theory itself is absurd logically and scientifically, but because it's the theory of evolution, and more specifically, naturalism, which usually forms the foundation for criticizing the traditional reading.

But also I think (and this is just me) that most of this debate over Gen 1 is rising from a more general concern among conservatives and Reformed people over the importance of clear language. The devastation of post-modernism in the realm of language has woken up a lot of Christians to see the importance of clear language and authorial intent. When words are otherwise clear, and someone comes along and says they mean something else entirely, people get suspicious and the Clintonian warning flags are raised. Christians are tired of liberal trojan horses and confusion. They want clarity when they read their Bibles and are tired of teachers who cut and paste and redefine the Scriptures whenever it suits them (not accusing you of this btw). They've seen the same patterns over and over again in denomination after denomination; deny the historicity of Genesis, bit by bit, eventually lose the other historically problematic Scriptures like the gospel of John... until we're no longer a Christian religion. Christians want certainty, and when you re-interpret an otherwise clear Scripture, Christians get uneasy. But again, that's just my opinion.


----------



## Brian Withnell

brianeschen said:


> Augustine said:
> 
> 
> 
> What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!
> 
> 
> 
> Yup, I agree, all God tells us is that they were days.
Click to expand...


Ah, the exact position I take. 

I really appreciate the PCA committee work on creation ... in the "intent of the divines" section, the third choice is the one that I believe is true ... the divines stated exactly the same words as scripture without pushing toward anything more or less, so that as we might learn more of the intent of God in the words of Moses we would not have something that would need to be changed. Like you said, God tells us they were days ... and while we can guess as to what they might have otherwise been, it is pure conjecture.


----------



## Puritan Sailor

chbrooking said:


> Patrick,
> When the text says that God created the sky "between the waters, separating the water above from the water below", what does that mean -- literally? Is there a cosmic ocean?



I'm not sure. I've always read it to be a distinction between the primeval oceans and the sky (I believe the same word is used in Ps 19:1 in reference to the sky). Regardless of what the phrase may mean, it doesn't change the grammar of the passage. 



> In Genesis 7, when "the windows of the expanse/sky were opened" and "the great springs of the deep broke forth", are we to understand from that that, as the ancients certainly did, that we have ocean above and ocean below? I'd love to read Genesis 1 literally. I'm just struggling to do so.



So you question the historicity of Gen 7 too? Great springs of the deep seems easy enough, we still geyers and springs today. As for the "windows of heaven," I'm not sure. I'll have to study the Hebrew later and get back to you when I have the time. Perhaps there was some sort of water canopy as some alleged before the flood, perhaps it was a supernatural phenomenon only associated with the flood judgment, or perhaps it was just a Hebrew idiom for "it rained a lot" kinda like we say "raining cats and dogs." How else would you describe the torrential rainfall if you didn't have modern metiorology to give you the modern vocabularly? The ancients knew the rain came from the sky somehow. We still don't understand all the intricacies of rainfall today. Just because a word or phrase is difficult to translate into modern English, it doesn't change the grammatical structure of the whole passage.


----------



## chbrooking

Just a minor correction: Genesis 1 is prose.
I say it is a minor correction, because it doesn't really affect this discussion. The question goes to structure and intent, not to the linguistic artifice.

What has still not been adequately dealt with, In my humble opinion, is the difficulty you face when you take a literal interpretation. How will you handle the upper waters in the text? If you take them as a cosmic ocean, then you're forced to recognize that this was condescending to an ancient cosmology -- in which case, you are hard-pressed to read this literally. If you take them as a vapor canopy or something, then YOU are the one using natural revelation as a hermeneutical grid for special. As I said, I'm not sure that's a problem. But it is ONLY because we 'know better' that you would go there. There's nothing in the text that would indicate that this is anything BUT liquid water in the heavens.


----------



## dr_parsley

I should have the faith to say that the bible is totally infallible and the humility to say that my interpretation may not be. In the weight of logic and evidence, if one of those has to fall down, then it's my faith in my interpretation not my faith in the bible being infallible. Suppose evidence was very strongly towards an old universe, then I would rather humble myself and say that my interpretation seemed to be in error than give a witness that the Christian faith is irrational and prideful. The bible is infallible and correct throughout, my interpretation is far from being so. If I disregard the empirical evidence on the basis of my interpretation then my motivation for doing so would be 100% pride (in my intellect and faith).

Now some say the evidence is not there or that I'm looking at the evidence with eyes of unbelief, but one needn't look at evidence with unbelief or belief - one can assess the evidence impartially and (again without a-prior presuppositions) consult the witness of the church through history (which contained wiser and more intelligent men than I).

In my opinion, the widespread adherence to 144 hour creation 6000 years ago is not conservative - it is a recent (post Enlightenment) phenomenon. Longer term conservatism would take a more balanced view.


----------



## Theognome

Brian Withnell said:


> Theognome said:
> 
> 
> 
> Okay, I'm gonna settle this once and for all-
> 
> The only person(s) who can say how old the universe is is someone that knows the universe's birthday. And, since no one on this thread seems to know when the universe's birthday is, y'all might as well give up now and save some face.
> 
> Theognome
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Does that mean that because I wasn't around when a particular tree started growing in a forest, that I cannot make any approximation of the age of the tree?
Click to expand...


What it does mean is that y'all are taking this a bit too seriously, and a sprinkling of humour was needed. Apparently, it was not completely effective.

Theognome


----------



## Brian Withnell

Patrick,

First thanks. I do appreciate your well thought out posts, even if I don't agree with what you are posting. I am sure you are posting clear reasons for what you hold. And I think you are seeing what I am saying. The whole point of the Augustine thing was as you say, questioning the label "traditional interpretation" and the argument that figurative only came up very recently.

I also appreciate that you, even if you don't agree with the evaluation that the structure in Gen 1 is poetry of some kind, you see it as not straight prose. I almost get the feeling that some people won't acknowledge anything lest it give _any_ credibility to a different interpretation than what they hold. I understand you don't find it convincing, but at least you acknowledge what I have seen and read:


> Every Hebrew scholar knows it's not prose. It's the tight structure that leads them to question the otherwise clear historical narrative trademarks.


While I understand you don't think there is enough there to make Gen 1 a figurative historical passage, at least I'm hearing an acknowledgement that there is a structure that calls into question the "it is nothing more than a historical narrative" that it seems like some imply. Honesty in evaluation is much more likely to convince someone of your position that just ignoring the weak points of the position one takes. I really do appreciate the integrity you demonstrate.

I also appreciate the caution in approaching what might be implied by the position I've taken ... and expressing it clearly is so much more useful than trying to hit someone with a sledgehammer to get them to change their opinion, and then if it doesn't work, leave them without addressing any weaknesses in thought. For example, your bringing up "how do you know God created ex nihilo" not only gives you an argument for support of your position, but if I am not convinced, it makes me think through the position I've taken. 

BTW, for that particular doctrine, I never thought of Gen 1 as the main passage of scripture for support of it ... I've always thought the primary basis for that doctrine was John 1 ... maybe because I've embarked a couple of times on attempts to learn Greek and translated it, and seen what I believe is that doctrine so clearly taught there. Yet I would also say that even if one doesn't take Gen 1 as a historical narrative, that is, if it is in some way a figurative passage, that does not in any way change the fact that it certainly communicates that God created all that we find. Sort of like people arguing for a purely figurative interpretation of the Song of Songs, and saying that it really doesn't say anything about marital love, but only the love of Christ for the church ... even if it is an extended allegory, the basic meaning is still there as well. Even if Gen 1 is looking at creation from a non-chronological view, it still is showing that God created. You cannot have something figurative in scripture without the figure itself being true.

I'll have to see if I can get a copy of Currid to read.

I suppose I'm a fish out of water more often than not with the current "have to fight against ______" mostly because I try to (sometimes with more or less success) to approach Bible study like I would mathematics. While I understand the nature of combating error, I try to look at the axioms, what the full range of interpretation has been, and then go for what I think best fits the axioms.

But again, I do want to thank you for your obviously well thought out reasons. At least at this point I don't reach the same conclusion, but at least now I can understand a better rational than fighting against evolution or mechanistic secularism (totally inadequate basis for interpretation).

-----Added 6/28/2009 at 01:46:44 EST-----



Theognome said:


> Brian Withnell said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Theognome said:
> 
> 
> 
> Okay, I'm gonna settle this once and for all-
> 
> The only person(s) who can say how old the universe is is someone that knows the universe's birthday. And, since no one on this thread seems to know when the universe's birthday is, y'all might as well give up now and save some face.
> 
> Theognome
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Does that mean that because I wasn't around when a particular tree started growing in a forest, that I cannot make any approximation of the age of the tree?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> What it does mean is that y'all are taking this a bit too seriously, and a sprinkling of humour was needed. Apparently, it was not completely effective.
> 
> Theognome
Click to expand...


 Ah, now I see. The humor did not come through (which is often the case in text messages, and the reason for emoticons in what were originally BBS messages ... and yes, this nerd actually used a BBS system in the late 70's early 80's.) ;-)


----------



## Puritan Sailor

Brian Withnell said:


> Patrick,
> First thanks. I do appreciate your well thought out posts, even if I don't agree with what you are posting. I am sure you are posting clear reasons for what you hold. And I think you are seeing what I am saying. The whole point of the Augustine thing was as you say, questioning the label "traditional interpretation" and the argument that figurative only came up very recently.


Thanks for the interaction. I know the issues are hard to wrestle with. I guess I've wrestled with them and already know where I stand. But as I concluded my last post, I don't think the battle over Gen 1 is an isolated issue, but part of a broader issue over the use of language and the implications such has for the gospel. 



> I also appreciate that you, even if you don't agree with the evaluation that the structure in Gen 1 is poetry of some kind, you see it as not straight prose. I almost get the feeling that some people won't acknowledge anything lest it give _any_ credibility to a different interpretation than what they hold. I understand you don't find it convincing, but at least you acknowledge what I have seen and read:
> 
> 
> 
> Every Hebrew scholar knows it's not prose. It's the tight structure that leads them to question the otherwise clear historical narrative trademarks.
> 
> 
> 
> While I understand you don't think there is enough there to make Gen 1 a figurative historical passage, at least I'm hearing an acknowledgement that there is a structure that calls into question the "it is nothing more than a historical narrative" that it seems like some imply. Honesty in evaluation is much more likely to convince someone of your position that just ignoring the weak points of the position one takes. I really do appreciate the integrity you demonstrate.
Click to expand...


I can fully acknowledge the structure of the passage yes. But I cannot agree it is poetry. There is simply no _poetic_ structure there. Structure for Hebrew narrative does not mean non-historical. That's simply the way they recorded their history. We need to remember, that for most of the original audience, they did not possess the Scriptures on their own. They learned through hearing it read. They were written originally in that way to be heard and easily remembered, and passed along orally, thus the need for repititions, word plays, chiasms, and all the other structures we see in Hebrew narrative. With Gen 1, it was probably even more so, in order to teach the children from a very young age how God created the world, and how it was so much more majestic than the competing cosmogonies of their pagan neighbors. 



> Even if Gen 1 is looking at creation from a non-chronological view, it still is showing that God created. You cannot have something figurative in scripture without the figure itself being true.


This is an implications I would suggest you think through even more so. For OT narratives, theology and history were not seperate. God taught theology through historical acts. If you take a historical narrative and remove the historical situation in which it _appears_ to present itself, then you lose the very foundation you need to actually learn the theology from the event. You can make it say anything after that (think Bultmann...). That's why I asked you the question about creation ex nihilo. Yes, there are other passages which teach it, but if you re-interpret the only detailed account of the creation event that we have, then that has implications for how we understand all the later references to creation. 



> I'll have to see if I can get a copy of Currid to read.



I think you will enjoy him, or at least appreciate him. He used to be a Framework guy, then later in life moved back to the traditional view, and I learned much from him in seminary. 



> I suppose I'm a fish out of water more often than not with the current "have to fight against ______" mostly because I try to (sometimes with more or less success) to approach Bible study like I would mathematics. While I understand the nature of combating error, I try to look at the axioms, what the full range of interpretation has been, and then go for what I think best fits the axioms.



That is fine. I approach Scripture in the same way. But we are also 21st century American thinkers, and must take into account the cultural air we breathe. It affects us in ways that we are often not aware, especially as to what interpretation may best fit how we understand the axioms. We all have those hidden axioms that need to be sanctified. 



> But again, I do want to thank you for your obviously well thought out reasons. At least at this point I don't reach the same conclusion, but at least now I can understand a better rational than fighting against evolution or mechanistic secularism (totally inadequate basis for interpretation).



I appreciate the interaction too. You are asking good questions which make me think as well. Thanks. 

-----Added 6/28/2009 at 03:56:04 EST-----



chbrooking said:


> Just a minor correction: Genesis 1 is prose.
> I say it is a minor correction, because it doesn't really affect this discussion. The question goes to structure and intent, not to the linguistic artifice.
> 
> What has still not been adequately dealt with, In my humble opinion, is the difficulty you face when you take a literal interpretation. How will you handle the upper waters in the text? If you take them as a cosmic ocean, then you're forced to recognize that this was condescending to an ancient cosmology -- in which case, you are hard-pressed to read this literally. If you take them as a vapor canopy or something, then YOU are the one using natural revelation as a hermeneutical grid for special. As I said, I'm not sure that's a problem. But it is ONLY because we 'know better' that you would go there. There's nothing in the text that would indicate that this is anything BUT liquid water in the heavens.



Again, just because a word or phrase is hard to translate, it doesn't change the structure of the whole passage which is clearly historical narrative. If by prose you mean a well-structured account, I can accept that. If by prose, you mean a poetic or figurative account, then I cannot agree it is prose. The Hebrews had writing conventions for that and we find examples in the Psalms and wisdom books. The structure simply doesn't fit Hebrew poetry.


----------



## Theognome

Brian Withnell said:


> Theognome said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Brian Withnell said:
> 
> 
> 
> Does that mean that because I wasn't around when a particular tree started growing in a forest, that I cannot make any approximation of the age of the tree?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What it does mean is that y'all are taking this a bit too seriously, and a sprinkling of humour was needed. Apparently, it was not completely effective.
> 
> Theognome
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Ah, now I see. The humor did not come through (which is often the case in text messages, and the reason for emoticons in what were originally BBS messages ... and yes, this nerd actually used a BBS system in the late 70's early 80's.) ;-)
Click to expand...


I am the antiemoticon. If I can't express myself in text properly, then I deserve to be misunderstood. 

Theognome


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## HanleyBri

When we are speaking about an all powerful God creating - we must remember that there is nothing outside his power whereby even the light from distance stars can be stretched across space in a moment. It not reasonable to say this would be deception. Many miracles recorded in the New Testament - looked like it was done over time or by some other means - but that wasn't the case. Mary looked pregnant. She LOOKED like it was the result of sexual activity - however it was not. Jesus turned water into aged wine - it LOOKED like months or year were needed in the creation of this wine - but there was not. It LOOKED like there was plucking and fermentation done on this grapes, but there was not. When God decides to push aside laws of nature - this is not deception - but proof of God’s vast power over His creation.


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## LawrenceU

I'm late in this thread. One issue that troubles me greatly is when we presume the following:
1. The earth must be old because it 'looks' old:

Why do we say it 'looks' old? Because we've been trained to think it looks old. All those layers of rock. All those hydrocarbons. They take millions of years to lay down and be formed. They don't. They can be formed in weeks. We have now watched it happen.

2. If God created to earth to look 'mature' then he is deceptive. (First, who defines deception? Puny man or Almighty God.):

Aside from that using the same logic it was deceptive for God to create mature, cooked / dried fish and bread to feed all those folks. It was deceptive for him to create wine. (The only wine in history that didn't need to ferment.)


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## Peairtach

Are there not yet going to be great surprises for (unbelieving) scientists?

Were they not surprised to find many fully-formed galaxies much closer to the "big bang" than they thought likely when they did that Ultra Deep Field picture with the Hubble telescope?

View attachment 616


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## chbrooking

Puritan Sailor said:


> chbrooking said:
> 
> 
> 
> Just a minor correction: Genesis 1 is prose.
> I say it is a minor correction, because it doesn't really affect this discussion. The question goes to structure and intent, not to the linguistic artifice.
> 
> What has still not been adequately dealt with, In my humble opinion, is the difficulty you face when you take a literal interpretation. How will you handle the upper waters in the text? If you take them as a cosmic ocean, then you're forced to recognize that this was condescending to an ancient cosmology -- in which case, you are hard-pressed to read this literally. If you take them as a vapor canopy or something, then YOU are the one using natural revelation as a hermeneutical grid for special. As I said, I'm not sure that's a problem. But it is ONLY because we 'know better' that you would go there. There's nothing in the text that would indicate that this is anything BUT liquid water in the heavens.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Again, just because a word or phrase is hard to translate, it doesn't change the structure of the whole passage which is clearly historical narrative. If by prose you mean a well-structured account, I can accept that. If by prose, you mean a poetic or figurative account, then I cannot agree it is prose. The Hebrews had writing conventions for that and we find examples in the Psalms and wisdom books. The structure simply doesn't fit Hebrew poetry.
Click to expand...


By prose, I meant to affirm that it was NOT poetry. 


*Prose*
1 a: the ordinary language people use in speaking or writing b: a literary medium distinguished from poetry especially by its greater irregularity and variety of rhythm and its closer correspondence to the patterns of everyday speech.

By this comment, I was not contributing to the material of the discussion, so much as correcting a rash statement that you made: 


Puritan Sailor said:


> Every Hebrew scholar knows it's not prose.



This simply isn't true.

-----Added 6/28/2009 at 08:38:55 EST-----

Folks, I have been trying to get clarity on two things. I have not taken an autonomous view of science.

I'm trying to understand how we are to understand Gen. 1:6-7.
I'm trying to understand how God can give every indication that something happened that didn't without being guilty of deception (which is impossible). We must be careful, in our zeal to defend special revelation, not to set special and general revelation against one another. They are complementary, not competitive. It is only because I have submitted to special revelation that I demand consistency between general and special revelation. It is the same God who is revealed in both forms. God doesn't lie to us in nature and then let us in on the game in scripture. 

It is for this reason that I think the attempts to point to Mary's pregnancy or the miracle at Cana are inappropriate. These are by definition miracles. They are out of the ordinary. They are more about special revelation than general. Are we to assume the miraculous in our science? I don't think I want to get on a plane where the engineer designs a flat wing and expects it to fly, just counting on the miraculous. Are you saying that our senses are totally untrustworthy -- even for the believer?


----------



## Puritan Sailor

chbrooking said:


> Puritan Sailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> chbrooking said:
> 
> 
> 
> Just a minor correction: Genesis 1 is prose.
> I say it is a minor correction, because it doesn't really affect this discussion. The question goes to structure and intent, not to the linguistic artifice.
> 
> What has still not been adequately dealt with, In my humble opinion, is the difficulty you face when you take a literal interpretation. How will you handle the upper waters in the text? If you take them as a cosmic ocean, then you're forced to recognize that this was condescending to an ancient cosmology -- in which case, you are hard-pressed to read this literally. If you take them as a vapor canopy or something, then YOU are the one using natural revelation as a hermeneutical grid for special. As I said, I'm not sure that's a problem. But it is ONLY because we 'know better' that you would go there. There's nothing in the text that would indicate that this is anything BUT liquid water in the heavens.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Again, just because a word or phrase is hard to translate, it doesn't change the structure of the whole passage which is clearly historical narrative. If by prose you mean a well-structured account, I can accept that. If by prose, you mean a poetic or figurative account, then I cannot agree it is prose. The Hebrews had writing conventions for that and we find examples in the Psalms and wisdom books. The structure simply doesn't fit Hebrew poetry.
> 
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> By prose, I meant to affirm that it was NOT poetry.
> 
> 
> *Prose*
> 1 a: the ordinary language people use in speaking or writing b: a literary medium distinguished from poetry especially by its greater irregularity and variety of rhythm and its closer correspondence to the patterns of everyday speech.
> 
> By this comment, I was not contributing to the material of the discussion, so much as correcting a rash statement that you made:
> 
> 
> Puritan Sailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> Every Hebrew scholar knows it's not prose.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> This simply isn't true.
Click to expand...


I appreciate the correction. I meant poetry there, as I understood prose to refer to fictional or poetic composition instead of history. Thank you, and sorry for my rashness.


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## Skyler

While thinking today, I realized that the true age of the universe has been right in front of our eyes the whole time.

42!

And if you think you have memories from before then, well, that's just because it was a mature creation. *nods*


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## Peairtach

*Quote from Clark*
_It is for this reason that I think the attempts to point to Mary's pregnancy or the miracle at Cana are inappropriate. These are by definition miracles. They are out of the ordinary. They are more about special revelation than general. Are we to assume the miraculous in our science? I don't think I want to get on a plane where the engineer designs a flat wing and expects it to fly, just counting on the miraculous. Are you saying that our senses are totally untrustworthy -- even for the believer?_ 


Just a minute, Clark. 
This is (one of) the essential differences between those who believe in some form of creationism and those who believe in a naturalistic view of origins. We don't need to assume the miraculous for everyday science, but in questions of origins we _should_ be aware that the miraculous will be there. 

It was because of a lack of faith in the God of miracles that Darwinism was formulated. It is e.g. because of a lack of faith in the God of miracles that the naturalists have to come up with "accidental" scenarios for everything from the origin of the universe to the formation of the sun, moon and stars, to the origin of life and the development of Man. It is because they know that modern popular origins science is thoroughly moulded in the religion of anti-miracles naturalism that Christians/creationists take things like "the big bang" with a large pinch of salt. If an origins miracle is seen by naturalistic science it's bound to be (mis)interpreted naturally. The possiblity of miracles is completely off the radar of the naturalistic origins scientist.

I assume that even theistic evolutionists believe in some miracles at the beginning, otherwise they believe that God is not creator at all, just sustainer and providential governor - and they're coming close to that anyway by being theistic evolutionists. 

*Quote from Clark*
_These are by definition miracles. They are out of the ordinary._

Was there nothing "out of the ordinary" about the beginning of the universe, the solar system, the earth, plant life, animal life and Man? Naturalists would like to think that such things are so ordinary that they are within the ken of ordinary men and treat such things as e.g. their belief that life popped out of non-life as if it was inevitable and should happen every day.


----------



## chbrooking

Richard,
I don't deny miracle. But you are missing the point altogether. The age of the earth really has nothing to do with whether it was miraculously created. It could have been done in 6 days and still be 5 million years old. The question, rather, is, can we trust the information available through general revelation. Surely the noetic effects of sin have made us untrustworthy interpreters. That untrustworthiness is principally a moral problem, though. Unbelieving scientists may do science quite well -- they just pursue it autonomously. 

And that's how this little rabbit trail came up. I pointed out that the geologist or paleontologist encounters something that seems to indicate great age. The supernova example above gives the same indication. I'm sure the list could go on. So, if general revelation indicates great age, then don't we need to examine our assumptions about chronology in the Bible? God cannot lie. When I said that, some pointed to the water to wine miracle as proof that appearance to the contrary does not always indicate deception. To this, I responded, NOT by denying miracle -- or even that creation is miracle -- but I responded by saying we assume a "regular", a "normal" for our science. Even the word miracle assumes that there is an ordinary. I'm not talking about the beginning -- surely that was miraculous. I'm talking about the information that God implanted in the creation. Was he seeking to lead people astray? 

Further, appreciating the water to wine thing requires that we know the ordinary process to appreciate the miracle. The virgin conception is the same way. I'm just saying that running down the miracle road is to evade the question, not answer it. What I'm getting at is this: we have to careful not to efface the difference between special and general revelation. And we have to be careful not to set them in opposition to one another.


----------



## ChristianTrader

chbrooking said:


> Richard,
> I don't deny miracle. But you are missing the point altogether. The age of the earth really has nothing to do with whether it was miraculously created. It could have been done in 6 days and still be 5 million years old. The question, rather, is, can we trust the information available through general revelation. Surely the noetic effects of sin have made us untrustworthy interpreters. That untrustworthiness is principally a moral problem, though. Unbelieving scientists may do science quite well -- they just pursue it autonomously.
> 
> And that's how this little rabbit trail came up. I pointed out that the geologist or paleontologist encounters something that seems to indicate great age. The supernova example above gives the same indication. I'm sure the list could go on. So, if general revelation indicates great age, then don't we need to examine our assumptions about chronology in the Bible? God cannot lie. When I said that, some pointed to the water to wine miracle as proof that appearance to the contrary does not always indicate deception. To this, I responded, NOT by denying miracle -- or even that creation is miracle -- but I responded by saying we assume a "regular", a "normal" for our science. Even the word miracle assumes that there is an ordinary. I'm not talking about the beginning -- surely that was miraculous. I'm talking about the information that God implanted in the creation. Was he seeking to lead people astray?
> 
> Further, appreciating the water to wine thing requires that we know the ordinary process to appreciate the miracle. The virgin conception is the same way. I'm just saying that running down the miracle road is to evade the question, not answer it.



I guess one quick question is "what is normal for science"? Would a volcano erupting be normal for science? Does science understand the consequences of 40 days and 40 nights of worldwide rain?

Next, no perception can occur without interpretation and interpretation implies a hermeneutic. And people come to various perceptions of rocks etc with different hermeneutics and likewise different interpretations.

Lastly, earlier you spoke of your specialty being theology and not science, therefore seeing much of the discussion as a "he said vs. someone else saying something else" type of scenario. But when pushed you seem to get very dogmatic about various scientific interpretations very quickly. Which way do you wish to play this?

CT


----------



## chbrooking

ChristianTrader said:


> I guess one quick question is "what is normal for science"? Would a volcano erupting be normal for science? Does science understand the consequences of 40 days and 40 nights of worldwide rain?
> 
> Next, no perception can occur without interpretation and interpretation implies a hermeneutic. And people come to various perceptions of rocks etc with different hermeneutics and likewise different interpretations.
> 
> Lastly, earlier you spoke of your specialty being theology and not science, therefore seeing much of the discussion as a "he said vs. someone else saying something else" type of scenario. But when pushed you seem to get very dogmatic about various scientific interpretations very quickly. Which way do you wish to play this?
> 
> CT



I'm not playing it any way. I'm merely trying not to have my questions piously dismissed.

You are quite correct that interpretation is not a neutral something -- that our presuppositions govern our interpretation of the evidence. But making that statement doesn't really solve all of the issues. Much of this discussion comes out of the fact that special revelation must govern our interpretation of general -- something which I wholeheartedly affirm. But that does NOT mean that general revelation cannot have any impact on the way we read special revelation.

However you want to understand X-centricity (geo, helio, other), the fact of the matter is that Galileo and others had to fight the church. The church was reading special revelation and understanding that the earth had to be the center around which the sun turns. We now know that the center around which the earth and sun turn is their common center of mass, which for convenience sake, given the relative densities, we can say is the sun. What is clear is that the church's old reading of things like "the sun rises" has been rejected. Now these statements are recognized as figures of speech or colloquial expressions, and NOT SCIENTIFIC DATA.

Let me give an illustration to help you see where I'm coming from (even though I'm not a scientist):
When I go on an archaeological dig, it is assumed (and it is the only reasonable assumption) that, unless there was some disturbance of the layers, the deeper you dug, the older the material remains you uncover are. That is, you wouldn't find the remains an iron age settlement buried beneath a bronze age settlement. 

Why should I expect the paleontologist to interpret his data differently? I don’t think that is a ridiculous or impious question. I don’t think I have to be a scientist to see that. Now, if we want to discuss what they found in the layers of the earth, THAT might lay these concerns to rest -- that is, if there isn’t consistency in the layers or something. But from what little I’ve read, there DOES seem to be this consistency. 

SO... since the biblical chronology is based upon genealogies. And since genealogies can be shown to be incomplete, or done in a summarizing way, and such, there’s nothing in the Bible that DEMANDS that I read it as young earth. And since there MAY be (a matter worth discussion, not dismissal) evidence in favor of old earth (not naturalistic -- not denying creation ex nihilo), perhaps that evidence ought to be brought to bear to correct our assumptions about chronology. That’s all I’m saying. 

By the way, CT, I appreciate your willingness to engage the question intelligently, rather than simply dismiss it.

I never did get an answer to the separation of waters thing. I wish someone would speak to that.


----------



## Mushroom

> encounters something that *seems* to indicate great age.


Therein lies the rub. What *seems* to contradict scripture is always error. There may be other explanations than what we have concluded in the past, but whenever we go 'allegorizing' scripture without biblical warrant we're headed down a dangerous path.

-----Added 6/29/2009 at 10:17:16 EST-----

The most you could say is that both the Church and Galileo were wrong. But if you apply the axiom that motion is relative to the observer, you'd have to say the Church was more accurate than Galileo, because neither were standing on the surface of the sun. And since we have not yet determined the outer edges of the universe, you have no evidence that the Church was not entirely right. Again, heliocentricity is only of use in determining the movement of objects that are influenced by the gravity of the sun as a group, nothing more.


----------



## ChristianTrader

Clark,
I do not accept that the Biblical Geneologies can be shown to be incomplete or just simply summarizing. If you wish to show that such is the case, then be my guest.

CT


----------



## Peairtach

*Quote from Clark*
_I'm not playing it any way. I'm merely trying not to have my questions piously dismissed._

One reason why many Christians take the Six Days literally is because there doesn't seem to be enough evidence _in the Bible_ to take them metaphorically.

Also, when the days _are_ taken metaphorically and the millions of years of fossils etc are put in there, we have theological problems that don't fit:-

(a) Milllions of years of the curse on creation, _before_ Adam sinned.

(b) Millions of years in which the creation has no head/viceregent/prophet/priest and king.

Because of these weighty biblical and theological considerations, and because modern cosmogony is thoroughly infected at every point by naturalism, and because the creationists have found at least 100 younger scenario indicators, those of us who hold to literal 24-hour days are willing to leave it there - without all the answers, knowing that naturalistic science doesn't have all the answers either - and wait for developments in science, while not holding our breath.

On an apologetical level, I'm willing to tell seekers and young Christians who ask about the resolution of origins science and Scripture, that some of my genuine brothers believe in the days being long or the Framework Hypothesis, but I tell them why I disagree and I warn them that theistic evolution is a step too far, into Liberalism and baptised humanism.


----------



## chbrooking

Well, since I have three of you to respond to, I won't try the quote thing.

Brad,
Okay, so motion is relative to the observer. Fine. But that doesn't change the fact that the earth is not stationary -- which was Cardinal Bellarmine's primary contention. The earth and the sun are rotating about the center of their masses. Since the sun is much denser, the earth moves far more than the sun does -- so much so, in fact, that we can say the earth orbits the sun. Whatever the center of the universe is, we cannot suppose that the earth is its fixed center. That would violate the laws of physics. We rely on these laws to keep our satellites where they are. In other words, the observance, description and measurement of motion is all in relation to the observer. But that does not mean that the laws of physics don't apply to the objects -- that would be to misread Einstein. It would mean that motion is radically SUBJECTIVE. And that would be a conclusion destructive, not only for science, but for our ability to communicate.

As to "seemed", I agree that our presuppositions govern. And given a choice between the Bible and my eyes, I'll choose the Bible. But I'm not convinced, yet, that I've been forced into that choice. The only thing pulling me toward a young earth is the genealogies -- you could even take a literal 6+1 day creation and be old earth. They are distinct questions.

CT,
Well, it is pretty evident that Matthew skipped Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah and Jehoiakim. He did so for a literary/theological purpose. That seems to indicate that we ought to exercise caution in the assumption that these genealogies present an exhaustive list.

Richard,
If you've been paying attention, I'm not an evolutionist. I think these are two separate issues. You don't have to be an evolutionist to be old earth. I'm the one who initially made the point that, on theological grounds, I reject evolution. That wasn't the discussion I was trying to have. I wanted to know how we are to reconcile the appearance of age in general revelation with the denial of it in scripture (a denial I am not convinced exists) if general revelation is revelation and God cannot lie (both of which I affirm).

Be sure you don't attribute to me views that I do not hold. 

And STILL nobody dealt with Gen 1:6-7! 

There are two distinct conversations here. I'm interested in both. But I don't think it is helpful to confuse or conflate the two.


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## Mushroom

> But that doesn't change the fact that the earth is not stationary -- which was Cardinal Bellarmine's primary contention.


Stationary relative to what?

There's all sorts of motion happening in the universe, and innumerable forces and systems influencing that motion. But to the feller standing on the street outside my house, the Earth is stationary, and everything else is moving around it. Densities and masses and gravitational influences notwithstanding, the Sun does revolve around the Earth. That is observeable every 24 hours. That it is a part of another, larger sytem is immaterial to that fact.


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## chbrooking

So you've bought Hume -- there is no causation, only description?

The feller on your street may be having things happen around him, but his standing there isn't the cause of the lady going to the grocery store. I think you are confusing the observance, description and measurement of motion with the things that are influencing it. If motion were totally independent of physical forces, we could not launch a satellite -- the scientists would have a huge problem. One would be calculating the trajectory and speed from where he was standing. The other from where he was standing. That's silly. The calculation has to be relative to the real body around which something turns, not to the person making the calculation.


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## Mushroom

Don't know Hume from humous.

When launching satellites one is interacting with a variety of systems for a specific purpose to attain to a specific location in the universe. Gravity, friction, and inertia must all be taken into account. But you don't have to take into account the gravitational pull of Betelgeuse to do that, only the systems relavent (there's that word again) to your exercise.

A man walking on the Earth observing nature as his Creator has displayed it before him sees a geocentric system. The only time he needs to take any other system into account is when he sets about to interact with said system, such as launch moonrockets or space probes. Just like he doesn't have to interact with ocean currents until he steps off the shore and attempts to sail to Australia. But that wouldn't make those currents the central system of creation.

But back to my question: Stationary relative to what?


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## chbrooking

Agreed. So this point has nothing whatever to contribute to the conversation.

Relative to the sun -- or to be precise, the center of the combined mass. That's what the controversy was.


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## Peairtach

*Quote from Clark*
_Richard,
If you've been paying attention, I'm not an evolutionist. I think these are two separate issues. You don't have to be an evolutionist to be old earth. I'm the one who initially made the point that, on theological grounds, I reject evolution. That wasn't the discussion I was trying to have. I wanted to know how we are to reconcile the appearance of age in general revelation with the denial of it in scripture (a denial I am not convinced exists) if general revelation is revelation and God cannot lie (both of which I affirm).

Be sure you don't attribute to me views that I do not hold. _

Dear Clark,

I wasn't insinuating that you are an evolutionist. I was just covering other possibilities.

I don't know how to resolve the problems that you raise, but for the reasons given as far as I'm aware, the Framework Hypothesis or the Day Age Theory aren't the answer.

The Modified Gap Theory may deal with some problems. Consult with OEC's and YEC's and their literature/websites for further thoughts.

Richard.


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## ZackF

DMcFadden said:


> Incidentally, if memory serves me, my high school physics class was claiming closer to 20 billion years. It is interesting how the "assured" results of science change over time. Again, it has a lot to do with the interpretive framework in which the "facts" and observations are put.




The newer telescopes have helped. The Hubble data was not in, as well as others, when I was in high school. I remember the 15-20 billions of years number. Most cosmologists from what I have read or listened to, secular or otherwise, embrace their hypotheses as hypotheses even when their favored hypothesis is "reigning."


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