[__ Science __ ] Is John Lennox Right About the Age of the Earth?

[AIG.com]

John Lennox says, “You can believe the earth is young, but you don’t have to.” Is he right?

Continue reading...

 

[Barbarian]

Lots of ways to dodge the evidence. One of my favorites is the "virtual history" doctrine of Dr. Gerald Aardsma, a YE creationist who freely admits that the evidence is there, but says it's a sort of "backstory" to make creation look natural. In his doctrine, everything was created a few thousand years ago, but with the "backstory" evidence in place.

It's at least intellectually honest, which is more than you can say for most YE creationist stories.

 

[miamited]

I would say not. I believe the earth, and all of the created universe, was created in the time and sequence that God's word says that it was. But I fully understand that such an understanding comes only through faith in the truth of God's word. If we allow science to teach us about the creation event, then we will never agree with God's testimony of the creation event. Just as if we believe science concerning any of the miracles that God did by His will and His work, we will never find agreement with God's testimony. It's a choice that we must each make, but I do believe that it will make a difference in whether or not Jesus writes your name in his book of Life. Did you believe my Father and His testimony or not?

I firmly believe that when Jesus spoke of believers being one, that he was referring to oneness in agreement in who God is and His testimony to us. Jesus believed God, right?

 

[Free]

John Lennox says, “You can believe the earth is young, but you don’t have to.” Is he right?

Continue reading...

Yes.

I would say not. I believe the earth, and all of the created universe, was created in the time and sequence that God's word says that it was. But I fully understand that such an understanding comes only through faith in the truth of God's word. If we allow science to teach us about the creation event, then we will never agree with God's testimony of the creation event. Just as if we believe science concerning any of the miracles that God did by His will and His work, we will never find agreement with God's testimony. It's a choice that we must each make, but I do believe that it will make a difference in whether or not Jesus writes your name in his book of Life. Did you believe my Father and His testimony or not?

I firmly believe that when Jesus spoke of believers being one, that he was referring to oneness in agreement in who God is and His testimony to us. Jesus believed God, right?

This is all based on you assuming you understand what the Bible is saying and that your understanding is the only one.

 

[miamited]

Yes.

This is all based on you assuming you understand what the Bible is saying and that your understanding is the only one.

Hey Free, Yeah, I know. The Scriptures are so difficult to understand. I mean, how in the world could anyone understand, "For in six days God made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them." That's a tough one. And of course, it's impossible to understand that when Adam was 130 years old that he had a son. I mean there are just so many ways that can be interpreted in language.

So, here's what the Scriptures say that is just impossible for any of us to understand that we don't even know if you are right or I am right or Bill Hickman or Jane Bosman is right in understanding what God's testimony to us says. For in six days God created the heavens and the earth and all that is them. When Adam, which God's word is so unclear about him having been created on the sixth day of that six days of creation that God literally wrote with His own finger on the tablets of stone, was 130 years old he had a son named Seth. Now surely no one has any idea what 130 years is or how long a period of time that is. I mean, we can't even understand that some 250 years ago the nation of the United States was created as a nation upon the earth. How in the world could any of us understand what that number, 250 really means. It's just so ambiguous.

Like I say, the testimony of a lot of what God has told us that He has done can only be taken on faith. That God caused the entire earth to flood. Well we can't prove that, and in fact, science would tell you that such a thing is just impossible. There isn't that much water on the earth. But God's testimony to us is that He did. Are you going to believe Him or science?

Is that what you find so difficult to understand? Or is it not possible to understand because science tells you that it isn't so? You know, if you're going to base your truth in God's word on science, then Jesus wasn't born of a virgin either. Neither did the sun stand still in the sky. Neither did an iron ax head float. I mean all of those things science tells you are impossible feats. But for those who have faith that God's testimony to us is true, then it becomes as clear as glass that this realm in which we exist. This realm of planets and stars and asteroids and grass and trees and rocks upon the earth have only existed for about 6,000 years. It's really a pretty simple calculation if we trust the evidence that God has given us of the things that He has done that we have life and live upon this planet with all the food and oxygen that we need to sustain the lives that God created through the two parent of mankind... Adam and Eve. But one has to have faith that despite all that man's wisdom might tell you about these things, only God's word is the testimony that His children understand as the truth of all that is,

 

[Christ_empowered]

I dunno

Man big take away from the creation in Genesis is that God spoke it into existence. No warring gods no cycles of creation and destruction….

He spoke and the universe was where before there had been nothing.

 

[Free]

Hey Free, Yeah, I know. The Scriptures are so difficult to understand. I mean, how in the world could anyone understand, "For in six days God made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them." That's a tough one. And of course, it's impossible to understand that when Adam was 130 years old that he had a son. I mean there are just so many ways that can be interpreted in language.

So, here's what the Scriptures say that is just impossible for any of us to understand that we don't even know if you are right or I am right or Bill Hickman or Jane Bosman is right in understanding what God's testimony to us says. For in six days God created the heavens and the earth and all that is them. When Adam, which God's word is so unclear about him having been created on the sixth day of that six days of creation that God literally wrote with His own finger on the tablets of stone, was 130 years old he had a son named Seth. Now surely no one has any idea what 130 years is or how long a period of time that is. I mean, we can't even understand that some 250 years ago the nation of the United States was created as a nation upon the earth. How in the world could any of us understand what that number, 250 really means. It's just so ambiguous.

Like I say, the testimony of a lot of what God has told us that He has done can only be taken on faith. That God caused the entire earth to flood. Well we can't prove that, and in fact, science would tell you that such a thing is just impossible. There isn't that much water on the earth. But God's testimony to us is that He did. Are you going to believe Him or science?

Is that what you find so difficult to understand? Or is it not possible to understand because science tells you that it isn't so? You know, if you're going to base your truth in God's word on science, then Jesus wasn't born of a virgin either. Neither did the sun stand still in the sky. Neither did an iron ax head float. I mean all of those things science tells you are impossible feats. But for those who have faith that God's testimony to us is true, then it becomes as clear as glass that this realm in which we exist. This realm of planets and stars and asteroids and grass and trees and rocks upon the earth have only existed for about 6,000 years. It's really a pretty simple calculation if we trust the evidence that God has given us of the things that He has done that we have life and live upon this planet with all the food and oxygen that we need to sustain the lives that God created through the two parent of mankind... Adam and Eve. But one has to have faith that despite all that man's wisdom might tell you about these things, only God's word is the testimony that His children understand as the truth of all that is,

Your condescending tone has no place in these forums. You’re still making assumptions about the text and what you think it says. Have you actually read other points of view, other legitimate readings of the creation account in Gen. 1, or do you just assume your understanding is the correct and only one? Do you believe that the heavens declare the glory of God, and if so, should science be able to tell us some of those things?

 

[miamited]

Hey Free

Sure I have read other points of view. And as I've said, belief in the truth of God's word is always about faith. So, tell me, what part of "For in six days God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them", unclear to you? I mean, I'm not interested in getting into some argument and I apologize if I come across to you as condescending, but lay out your position. You keep throwing out ambiguous claims about other theories and understandings of what seem to me to be pretty clear statements that are found in the Scriptures that, as a believer in the one true and living God, seem to be making the point that we humans can't understand what God has caused to be written to us. Why? You do agree that the Scriptures are God's own testimony to us of all that He has done that we might have life, don't you? Why would you think that this all powerful, all knowing and loving God can't communicate clearly to us. He is literally the foundation of life and man's ability to communicate. So, instead of just throwing out ambiguous claims, are you willing to tell me what you believe as to how you came to be living on this planet in the year that we denote as 2025. Or, are you just satisfied to keep saying, "Well, we can't really know what God meant in His testimony to us."

Why do you believe that God can't clearly communicate to us what He wrote as His communication to us? And if you believe that He can communicate to us clearly what He intended to communicate to us, why would you then accuse me of not being able to understand what He has communicated to us? God has caused to be written an account of how He created this realm in which we live. All the stars and planets and asteroids and growing things upon the earth and living creatures thereon. God has written to you and I how He did that and then followed that account up with a seemingly reasonable account of the generations of lives from Adam, who was created on day six of His creating work to the life of Noah and then forward to the life of Abraham. Why are you not willing to believe that God has actually written to you a fairly clear and concise account of how you and I got to be here living in the year we denote as 2025?

Do you believe that this loving God who created all that is just isn't able to tell us simply and clearly what He has done? Why not? He's the God who created everything and all the life that exists in this realm of His creating. we live in a created realm. Created by the mere fiat command of an all powerful being who just desires or commands or however He causes things to exist to just pop up out of nothing. He has written to you that in the beginning, by His work and effort, He created the planet earth upon which our feet rest. He has then written to you how He then worked with that singular planet existing in the vastness of empty space to make it habitable. He then writes to you that He later, 3 days later, cast all of the other heavenly bodies into the vastness of the empty space surrounding the singular planet that He first created in building a realm of existence in which man was to exist. He says that He did it all day by day over a period of six days and that His final work in creating this realm of existence was to create the first man and then woman and we have now lived to the year that we denote as 2025. God even tells you that Adam named his wife Eve because he (Adam) understood that his wife was the first of all humans to ever come to exist. He named her Eve because he understood that she was the mother of all humans to ever exist. That seems pretty clear to me.

As I understand the Scriptures in the plain and simple reading of the words that He caused to be written to us, God created all that exists in both the earthly and heavenly realm in which we live and breathe in six days. And since time began, a day has always been measured here on the earth as the time it takes for the earth to complete a full rotation upon its axis. It's how we measure days on other planets also. How long it takes another planet to perform a full complete rotation is the measure of a day on that planet. So God is writing to humans who live upon the earth and so when He speaks of the length of a day, He knows that we know that length to be about 24 hours as we account the time span of a day. God knows how to communicate effectively what He wants to communicate to us, but we just don't want to believe it because we have all those wise and learned men whispering into our itching ears this other account. The one where there is no God that just miraculously created this realm, but rather natural processes such as space dust and debris coalescing into planets and stars and such. An account that instead of God, there is some microscopically small point of unimaginable energy that exploded and somehow from that microscopic pinpoint of energy created all that we see surrounding us on both the earth and the heavens. I'm sorry, but I reject any such theories based on the testimony of the God who gave me an account of what He has done that we exist and I believe that He is all powerful and wise to just do what He says that He has done.

Again, I sincerely apologize if that comes across as condescending to you, but it actually is what the simple words that God has caused to be written to us convey as to the His work to create this realm in which we live. That's my God. The one who reveals His plans and purposes to those He created through a written transmission of what He has done and pretty simply 'when' He did it. So, we each one have a choice. Do we believe God's account to us as it is simply written by a being who surely knows how to plainly communicate to those He created? Or do we side with the theories that man expostulates as to how we got here? I'm going with God's testimony and despite your claim that I can't possibly understand it, I think God wrote it out pretty simply for all of to understand, but it is a matter of whether any of us will.

 

[miamited]

Do you believe that the heavens declare the glory of God, and if so, should science be able to tell us some of those things?

Hi Free
Yes, I believe that the heavens declare the glory of God and it is exactly because He is seen as a being so all powerful as to have created all that we see in the heavens by merely His fiat command, as His own testimony tells us, that is that glory. What's so glorious if it's all just a bunch of space dust that coalesced over trillions of years? What? It's glorious that God created the space dust? But what it all eventually over trillions of years turned out to be is just mere happenstance. OOOOOH God! I see you are so awesome that you created space dust that somehow by chance came to be planets and stars in he heavens.

Yes, science can explain it all just as they can explain how the earth was covered by water. Just as science can easily explain to you how a vast sea parted and allowed a cadre of at least several thousand people to walk between two towering walls of water on dry ground. Just as science can explain to you how the sun stood still in the sky or how an entire nation of people in one single night lost every first born child in every family. Just as science can tell me how an iron ax head can float and a donkey speak to a man in an understandable language. Or how the person that the donkey was speaking to could not see what had scared the donkey into being rebellions but then in the next instant he saw a mighty angel standing in his way. Sure science can always explain the miracles that God does by the power and wisdom of His abilities. BTW would you post back to me the scientific explanation of how Mary was found to be with child and yet had not had sexual relations with a man. I mean, you do believe that every child born since Adam was the result of a male sperm impregnating a female egg, right?

Sure that's an entire condescending paragraph to you to hopefully get you to see that no!!!! Science cannot answer a single question as to how God did hundreds of things that are accounted to Him by His own testimony in the Scriptures. What have you got for how science explains that a man, after three days dead, walked out of his tomb and the people unwrapped him and Jesus told them to feed him? How does science tell you that a little child that was also dead got up off of their bed and continued to live? Science cannot answer a single question as to any single miracle that God has done. But science can offer you their best guess as to how all of the beginning of this created realm came to be and many people believe it. But God's testimony to us is that He merely commanded things to exist from nothing. Nothing! Not space dust or exploding energy points. Nothing!

 

[miamited]

Oh, and the scientific account of how the first man came to be is that over trillions of years other creatures had sexual relations and slowly the creatures from those sexual relations changed through some evolutionary process until some ape/monkey like creature began to lift up his knuckles off the ground and walk upright into manhood. That is absolutely a direct contradiction to how God says the first man came to be. God says that He created him from the dust of the ground and then blew into his nostrils His breath of life. That He then placed him all alone into a garden that He had created for that man to live and also made, just as instantly and miraculously, a wife for him that he would not be alone and would have a helpmate. Science absolutely denies that account as being how the first man came to live upon the earth.

So, who are you going to believe? God, that He did form from the dust of the ground the first man? Or science, that the first man was some better made evolutionary creature that was just merely different somehow from the parentage of his own ancestors? I mean, condescending or not, that's an account that God has given you to understand how He made man that you cannot possibly reconcile with any scientific explanation to date. God bless you and trust Him that He's told you the truth. You and I and everyone else lives in a created realm of existence that an all powerful and loving God has made. An existence that He created in order that man can live and that over some several thousand years He is allowing man to live as He will, but for a few who will believe and trust in Him, He is going to give an eternal life of peace and satisfaction also living with Him and His Son who He sent to die for your sin. That's the God that is clearly and simply described in the Scriptures.

 

[miamited]

God created, and man, that He created to share with Him and live with Him, sinned and God cannot abide with sin. So, over the first few thousand years of the existence of this realm of His creating, He called out a man name Abram and made a number of promises to that man and raised up from him a nation of people to do His bidding. He caused them to finally wind up in Egypt where they were cloistered together and continued to grow as a cohesive nation of people. When the time was right and they were a people in number that could continue on to accomplish God's plan, He caused them to be cast out of Egypt and go to the land of promise. Beginning with Moses on that journey to the land of promise, He opened up and caused to be written the account of all He had done. He gave them in their language an account of His work that had brought them to that place in the wilderness. He told Moses how He had created the earth and then the heavens. How He had populated the earth with all living plants and creatures that had brought them to the point where Moses was standing before Him on that mountain.

Then, over the next thousand years or so, God continued to have His account of all that He was doing, written down by His selected prophets among the people that He had called out to do His bidding. They weren't all faithful, but several few were and they did the work that God gave them to do. Then after that thousand years or so, God sent, again through His people, the man Jesus. A man that God had written to His people over and over again about how he would come and what he would do. All of that so that today we can look back and say, "Oh yeah, that's the one that God's testimony told us that we should be looking for." Then, also as God's testimony clearly reveals to us, that man, Jesus, was mocked and killed just as the Scriptures told us. But also as God's testimony told us, his death was special. His death was a death undeserving of him but it came to him so that we might be forgiven our sin.

Now God is waiting. Just as Peter writes to us. We now live in the days of God's patience. He has caused His account to be written down. He has sent His Son to die for our sins and now He waits. For people to realize the completion of His great plan of salvation. To believe it! And to agree to His authority, as our Creator, in how we live our lives. For those people, God is going to give eternal life with Him and His Son in a new city, on a new earth. You are going to see, one day, just how long it takes for God to create planets and stars and the things that man needs to live. But I believe that God expects those who He calls His children, not those who you or I might call His children, to believe His testimony in all that He has revealed to us as to who we are and how we got here and all that God has done in His great love for us.

Now, maybe I'm wrong and it won't matter if we believe His testimony that He has clearly written to us of how He created all that exists, but I must honestly say that there is gnawing in my heart that when God says that no unbeliever will enter into His eternal kingdom...

That He expects us, once we declare that Jesus is who he has said that he is, that we also become one with them in what we know and believe about the God who created all that is and has given us life. You may not believe it that way and that is something that isn't made crystal clear to us. But as I say, just as God was not pleased with the sons of Aaron who did something as simple as burning unauthorized incense, God may also not be pleased with those of us who claim to have trusted in His Son, but then don't believe the Father's testimony. God bless you and hopefully you will come to understand that God's word is true and God's word is not difficult to understand, but it is difficult to believe sometimes.

 

[RandyK]

And as I've said, belief in the truth of God's word is always about faith.

You can have faith in misinterpretations of God's word. That isn't real faith. That is belief in your own intellectual calculations and logic--not faith in God's supernatural word or revelation.

You can assume that the 6 days of creation is God's revelation. But other Christians who believe in God's word think the 6 days of creation is offered in a context in which the days of creation are not to be interpreted as literal 24 hour days.

Is this biblical? Yes. In Zech 14 we read of a day of the Lord that specifically is viewed from God's point of view and not literal as men typically see a "day."

Zech 14.6 On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 7 It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light.

Now, if we are to follow your logic, we should think that Zechariah did not have faith in God's word because he used "day" in a non-literal, perhaps metaphorical way. But of course, Zechariah is himself Scripture, which would lead us to at least entertain that it is biblical to believe the 6 days of creation could be non-literal, eras, or metaphorical days.

In the Revelation John may have received his revelation on such a unique "day of the Lord," because in his visions time seemed to stop, and he saw through the lens of symbols without a strict chronology. We should not insult those who believe the word of God, and yet look at evidence that "day" may not be a literal 24 hour day in the Creation account.

Rev 1.10 On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.

What if God has allowed a certain amount of science to lead skeptics back to the reasonableness of Creation? In this case, it would be counterproductive to dismiss anything that science finds, or to at least fail to test it to see how true it may be.

Seeing the earth as 4.5 billion years old doesn't at all mean that Moses lied when God showed him He used a 6 day construct in ordering His creation. Obviously, Creation extends beyond the laws of physics by its very nature. It is logical, then, to assume that Moses understood he was conveying an outline that extends beyond any reference to the laws of nature, including astronomical laws.

 

[follower]

John Lennox says, “You can believe the earth is young, but you don’t have to.” Is he right?

It does not matter what his opinion was/is, nor what he or anyone else said/says.
Only what God Says .

 

[RandyK]

Oh, and the scientific account of how the first man came to be is that over trillions of years other creatures had sexual relations and slowly the creatures from those sexual relations changed through some evolutionary process until some ape/monkey like creature began to lift up his knuckles off the ground and walk upright into manhood.

I don't see evolutionists describe evolution via sexual intercourse between different species. If I'm not mistaken species don't reproduce with one another.

As I see it, evolutionists come up with gradual change by any number of environmental influences largely because they have no other natural explanation. Their cause and effect speculation excludes the supernatural simply because it cannot be put into a test tube.

Nevertheless, geology is something of a time map, and we would do well to read it as such, rather than dismiss it because we wish God didn't take a long period of time. If the days of Creation were not literal 24 hour days, but more of a Divine sense of demarcation between events, much as we see days separated, then we could see in geology a long earth age in which creatures just showed up at different times, indicating creation by a supernatural influence.

That is absolutely a direct contradiction to how God says the first man came to be. God says that He created him from the dust of the ground and then blew into his nostrils His breath of life. That He then placed him all alone into a garden that He had created for that man to live and also made, just as instantly and miraculously, a wife for him that he would not be alone and would have a helpmate. Science absolutely denies that account as being how the first man came to live upon the earth.

The creation of Adam and Eve on the 6th day is how God counted "days," and not how Man counts days. This was a Divine act of creation, and not human history counting its own "days."

So, who are you going to believe? God, that He did form from the dust of the ground the first man? Or science, that the first man was some better made evolutionary creature that was just merely different somehow from the parentage of his own ancestors?

The alternative to evolution is not only a Young Earth creation. There is also an Old Earth creation. And Old Earth creation can either theorize evolution or spontaneous creation of the various species at different time intervals.

 

[RandyK]

Hi Free
Yes, I believe that the heavens declare the glory of God and it is exactly because He is seen as a being so all powerful as to have created all that we see in the heavens by merely His fiat command, as His own testimony tells us, that is that glory. What's so glorious if it's all just a bunch of space dust that coalesced over trillions of years? What? It's glorious that God created the space dust? But what it all eventually over trillions of years turned out to be is just mere happenstance. OOOOOH God! I see you are so awesome that you created space dust that somehow by chance came to be planets and stars in he heavens.

You are conflating 2 things, unbelief in divine design in creation and unbelief in an ultra-literal interpretation of Scriptures. Those who believe the 6 days of Creation transcended physical lines that mark out days are not showing disbelief in God's work in Creation!

They are trying to harmonize what they believe are true physical phenomena with what Scriptures teach. You seem to admit of no possibility that you could interpret things improperly. And that kind of arrogance is not just condescending--it is dangerous. It can bring disrepute upon the Church such as happened when the Catholic Church wanted to kill Copernicus or Galileo.

Yes, science can explain it all just as they can explain how the earth was covered by water.

Even the idea of a universal Flood could be a misinterpretation of the Scriptural record. From the perspective of a small civilization near the Black Sea, an enormous flood could take place making it appear from someone on a boat that all nearby mountains had been covered with water and the entire civilization in the area flooded and destroyed, along with all of the animals in that region.

This does not require it to be viewed that a universal Flood took place, which I think would contradict any sense that God preserved species of creatures outside the territory of the great Flood. Again, the effort is to harmonize the Scriptural record with the geological record. God has no fear of the truth.

Just as science can easily explain to you how a vast sea parted and allowed...

Sometimes Scripture uses poetry. And when the Psalms read that the parting of the Red Sea erected "walls" of water, I think the indication was poetic--not literal.

What was literally said is that some miles upstream God caused a powerful wind to divert the waters so that the pools dried up temporarily, giving Israel time to cross. It is a miraculous concidence caused by God, but not necessarily water forming a "wall."

a cadre of at least several thousand people to walk between two towering walls of water on dry ground. Just as science can explain to you how the sun stood still in the sky or how an entire nation of people in one single night lost every first born child in every family. Just as science can tell me how an iron ax head can float and a donkey speak to a man in an understandable language. Or how the person that the donkey was speaking to could not see what had scared the donkey into being rebellions but then in the next instant he saw a mighty angel standing in his way.

These are legitimate miracles, just as Jesus' healings were legitimate supernatural acts of creation. But to explain every event is a "miracle" would not be accurate. If they are simply "coincidences" caused by God they are nevertheless "miraculous" to us.

To say that God is behind every act in history is entirely accurate, taking into consideration free will that He has given to Man and to Angel. The act of Jesus' resurrection is both miracle and coincidence caused by God.

Sure science can always explain the miracles that God does by the power and wisdom of His abilities. BTW would you post back to me the scientific explanation of how Mary was found to be with child and yet had not had sexual relations with a man. I mean, you do believe that every child born since Adam was the result of a male sperm impregnating a female egg, right?

What's arrogant about you is that if I do not take your word about the Flood, or the path through the Red Sea, then you would conclude I don't believe God created the earth at all? You would conclude, falsely, that I don't believe in the supernatural or in miracles.

That's faulty logic. I just interpret some events differently than you do, based on the physical record. God may use physical laws, or He may do without them. But what we see is what we see.

 

[miamited]

You can have faith in misinterpretations of God's word.

One certainly can. I think that is proven daily concerning this very issue.

You can assume that the 6 days of creation is God's revelation. But other Christians who believe in God's word think the 6 days of creation is offered in a context in which the days of creation are not to be interpreted as literal 24 hour days.

Right. Others believe that the days of creation are not to be interpreted literally as 24 hour days. But that's without considering the context of the use of the word. When the word day is used with a number it is always referring to a specific day or number of days. They also don't take into account what the word 'day' actually means. I hear so many say, "well, you can't have a day without the sun. Like duh?" But they don't understand the literal meaning of day. The sun even existing has nothing to do with a day. A day is merely the measurement of time that it takes a planetary body to complete a full circle upon its axis. That is literally what a day is. And of course, they're only using the word day as it is written in the Genesis context, still not understanding it, but in the law, when God says that in 6 days God created the heavens and the earth and all that is them, there is no ambiguity that He's speaking of 6 days. Not 6 ages or 6 unknown spans of time that He is calling a day. He clearly and plainly says that in 6 days He created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them.

Zech 14.6 On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 7 It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light.

Now, if we are to follow your logic, we should think that Zechariah did not have faith in God's word because he used "day" in a non-literal, perhaps metaphorical way. But of course, Zechariah is himself Scripture, which would lead us to at least entertain that it is biblical to believe the 6 days of creation could be non-literal, eras, or metaphorical days.

Yes, when Zecharia writes that "on that day", he may be speaking of a time of several days or a season, but that use doesn't have a number associated with it. And unless you've seen that time that Zechariah is speaking of, you may find that when it comes, it comes in a single day. Your argument that because Zechariah used the word day and may not have intended a single day is ludicrous as to whether or not he had faith in God. The word day, according to the Hebrew language has some contextual qualifiers that determine whether it might be a span of time such as some period of days or whether it is referencing a singular period of a day. Then of course, there's always the Genesis contextual prod where God tells you that the day He is speaking of is just like the days that you and I experience today. They were days that consisted of a morning and an evening. Just like every normal earth rotation day has been since the beginning of time in this created realm in which we live.

But look, everyone is free to believe as they will, but this thread asks the question of whether or not it is important what we believe about the very first testimony that God gave us to tell us how we humans got here to be living in the year 2025 and I find that God is all powerful and all knowing and can clearly communicate to us as He knows that we will understand. I also believe that that same all powerful and all knowing God can merely speak or command or desire that a body of rock and dirt come to exist spinning in the emptiness of some vast area of space... and He can do that. That He is a being who can then cover that spinning mass of rock and dirt with water and then separate all that water so that land appears and then cover that land mass with an uncountable multitude of plants and animal life. That that God can just command or desire that the entire area of black empty nothingness surrounding that little planet that He first made with another uncountable array of stars and asteroids and all that we see up there is 'space'. That He did it all in a short amount of time because His ultimate purpose was that He was building a place where He would create His Magnum Opus of creation... man. And that's pretty clearly what His testimony to us tells us. But we have itching ears and because of our rebellion God has loosed us to follow what our reprobate minds desire to do. And I'm just as much a sinner as you are, but I believe God's testimony to me and I believe that His desire in providing it to me is that I can know the truth as to why this planet and all the stars and all the animals, plants and people exist.

 

[miamited]

I don't see evolutionists describe evolution via sexual intercourse between different species.

Well of course you don't. Because you believe that animals reproduce by osmosis or something. I've watched animals in the process of reproducing. The male attaches to the female and they swap their reproductive parts and a kind, just as the parents are, is produced some time later through the gestational period of growth in the mother. Now, you don't feel that that's describing a sexual relation and that's ok with me,... but it actually is.

As I see it, evolutionists come up with gradual change by any number of environmental influences largely because they have no other natural explanation.

Which is exactly how I described it. At some point, through billions and billions of years of 'sexual relations' gradual and subtle changes eventually turn an Orangutan, or some other ape like creature, into a man. But God says that He literally created the first man from dust and then blew the breath of life into that form. Those two descriptions or understandings of how the first man came to be walking around on the earth are not compatible. You have to look at all the evidence. Don't just take one issue of the process and say, "Oh, that part could have been like this." No, when you get to the next descriptor you find out that it couldn't have been like that.

Much like the crossing of the sea. Many say that is was just some relatively shallow body of water. And that's find until you get to the descriptor that says that there was a wall of water on both their right hand and on their left. That's fine until you add the descriptor that as soon as the Hebrews passed through this little pond of water that it all came back and drowned an entire army. Many of which were on chariots which would have put them higher than the Hebrews just walking through the gap. So, it wasn't just some 6 feet deep lake of water.

The creation of Adam and Eve on the 6th day is how God counted "days," and not how Man counts days.

Well, I happen to believe that the Scriptures are God's testimony to us. What about you? Why would God write out a testimony to us that He knows we won't understand? But look, as I've said, everyone is free to believe as they will, but I'm going to provide all of the proofs that I find in God's word that substantiate what I believe God is clearly trying to convey to His created people that He loves. You go with what you believe to be the truth and one day we'll find out. In fact, the Revelation accounts for us that there will be a time that God will create a new heaven and a new earth and we'll all get to see just how fast He can do that. And the rocks and dirt of the earthly and heavenly bodies will still be made pretty much like the ones we have today and if someone smashes one of those newly created rocks that they literally saw God just create, they're still going to look like they existed for billions of years.

 

[RandyK]

Well of course you don't. Because you believe that animals reproduce by osmosis or something.

I really wish you'd stop speaking for me, telling me what I believe, because it's so inaccurate! I do *not* believe animals reproduce by osmosis!

Animals across species do not generally mate. Can I be any clearer about this? You seem to want to make my statements sound ridiculous--what kind of conversation results from that? If you don't think what I said makes sense, why don't you try asking me what I mean, rather than try to make my statements sound absurd?

I've watched animals in the process of reproducing. The male attaches to the female and they swap their reproductive parts and a kind, just as the parents are, is produced some time later through the gestational period of growth in the mother. Now, you don't feel that that's describing a sexual relation and that's ok with me,... but it actually is.

Get back to me when you really want to know what I meant. Different species may mate, but the result is often the production of sterile offspring.

Which is exactly how I described it. At some point, through billions and billions of years of 'sexual relations' gradual and subtle changes eventually turn an Orangutan, or some other ape like creature, into a man. But God says that He literally created the first man from dust and then blew the breath of life into that form. Those two descriptions or understandings of how the first man came to be walking around on the earth are not compatible. You have to look at all the evidence. Don't just take one issue of the process and say, "Oh, that part could have been like this." No, when you get to the next descriptor you find out that it couldn't have been like that.

I'm not arguing for evolution, either macro-evolution or micro-evolution. Some minute changes may be called "evolution," depending on how you view it. I do not believe in macro-evolution at all.

But I do believe in an Old Earth. I believe in spontaneous creation, which took place over a long period of time.

Much like the crossing of the sea. Many say that is was just some relatively shallow body of water. And that's find until you get to the descriptor that says that there was a wall of water on both their right hand and on their left. That's fine until you add the descriptor that as soon as the Hebrews passed through this little pond of water that it all came back and drowned an entire army. Many of which were on chariots which would have put them higher than the Hebrews just walking through the gap. So, it wasn't just some 6 feet deep lake of water.

Nevertheless, that's what the Scriptures say, that wind up river drove the water aside, causing perhaps a shallow area to dry up for passage. It is still a "miracle" of sorts. The "wall" of water on each side was, I think, a poetic expression, showing God's care to protect Israel from the Egyptians, escorting them through an impossible barrier of water.

Well, I happen to believe that the Scriptures are God's testimony to us. What about you? Why would God write out a testimony to us that He knows we won't understand? But look, as I've said, everyone is free to believe as they will, but I'm going to provide all of the proofs that I find in God's word that substantiate what I believe God is clearly trying to convey to His created people that He loves. You go with what you believe to be the truth and one day we'll find out. In fact, the Revelation accounts for us that there will be a time that God will create a new heaven and a new earth and we'll all get to see just how fast He can do that. And the rocks and dirt of the earthly and heavenly bodies will still be made pretty much like the ones we have today and if someone smashes one of those newly created rocks that they literally saw God just create, they're still going to look like they existed for billions of years.

You would not make a good scientist, and would not sound "honest" with the evidence. I think a better Christian witness is to face the geologic evidence, rather than dismiss it as a "false record" of geologic history. Modern knowledge is based on true science--not false science. Christianity is all about truth--not ducking the truth.

But yes, we'll all find out one day, if it even matters. The most important thing is to witness to the truth for others, so that they will see the wonderful design in history and in the Creation. And it's all-important just to know God, who made it all and who can do anything. Thanks for the conversation.

 

[miamited]

You are conflating 2 things, unbelief in divine design in creation and unbelief in an ultra-literal interpretation of Scriptures. Those who believe the 6 days of Creation transcended physical lines that mark out days are not showing disbelief in God's work in Creation!

So says you. But I think what we all should be concerned with is how God understands those who call themselves His children not understanding or believing the basic truth of His testimony. I really am not much interested in how you're going to judge people for unbelief. I want to concern myself with how God's going to judge people for unbelief. Is that person an unbeliever? I mean, I see that as a valid question. God wrote a fairly clear and concise explanation to us and we don't believe it as it is simply written. And those who believe the 6 days of creation transcended physical lines that mark out days may be showing disbelief in God's work in creation. Especially if that understanding also leads them to believe that man came about through some natural process of evolution rather than the direct creating by the hand of God and the breath of God as His testimony to us seems to pretty clearly explain. I mean, you can throw all that other stuff out there, but if one doesn't believe that on the sixth day, of however you want to define the days, that God didn't actually create from the dust of the earth the first man and then that man's wife, I'd say that's where unbelief leads to error.

But I'm just explaining a position and again, each one is free to accept or not, my understanding, but you can't deny that everything I've posted is in line with what God's testimony tells us is the truth of this matter.

You seem to admit of no possibility that you could interpret things improperly.

You're wrong on that. I'm happy to admit error in understanding and I've done it many times as I've grown in my strength and knowledge of God's testimony. But that comes after someone shows me some proof that what I have believed is in error. I actually used to call my self a christian and believed the evolutionary trillion year old concept of how man got to be on the earth. But one day, sitting in my bedroom, I prayed diligently that God would give my an unquenchable thirst to know Him and the truths of His word. For about 6 months I couldn't put the Scriptures down and it was then that I developed the understanding that in these accounts of things long past, I needed to understand a process or event that met all of the descriptors that God has given us concerning a matter. As I've used the flood, there are several understandings that people have, within the body of the church, concerning that event. But when you stop and take each understanding and set it out and match it to each one of the descriptors that God gave us about the event, there really doesn't seem to be any understanding apart from a worldwide flood that would fit all of what God has told us about it.

Many say that it was a local flood. Ok, so how does a local flood remain in an area for months on end? I mean unless some part of the earth is formed into some giant bowl, flood waters that gathered over 40 days is going to drain out through valleys within a matter of days. I would ask someone who believes that to show me how waters remained at least deep enough that Noah couldn't see land for several months in some place on the earth. We have floods all the time, maybe not on the scale of a 40 day rain, but those waters, even after a 40 day rain will not stay flooded in an area for months unless the water is level with every other place on the earth. It is a law that water will always rush out of any opening that is below its level. Where on the earth could God have created a flood that lasted for several months in some local area? There isn't such a place and so far no one has been able to prove that in some time in the past that there was. So, I take that descriptive information and the only conclusion that one can come up with that water would have flooded the earth and remained flooded for months is that the entire earth had to also have water as high as the water was in the flooded regional area. It just is not possible for water to remain high if it is unbounded in any single place around the flood area.

So similarly on this issue of the creation, one has to take all of the evidence that God has given us and match it to any theory of the event. An age cannot possibly be described as consisting of a morning or an evening. An age, or any gathering of several days, would contain several mornings and evenings. That is just a fact. Now, it could be a looooooong single day, but then that begs the question of why that would be so. Is God not able to do the things that He claims to have done unless the day is 1,000 hours long? And surely, even a loooooong day is not going to be millions or billions of years in length. Then finally, we have God's testimony in the law that in 6 days He created all things. So, as I understand it, the days were either roughly 24 hour days like they are now or they were looong days, but certainly that wouldn't be so long as to be decades or centuries or millenniums long. So, I'm willing to consider that the 6 days of creation might have been 30 or 100 or 500 hours long, but that's really about it. What happens to the water that was covering the earth if the earth is turning so slowly as to take 500 or 1000 hours of length, as we understand that length? Do you have any idea? Every claim of any theory has to fit all of the descriptors given by God in His testimony.

These are legitimate miracles,

Oh, like the creation of all that is would not be a legitimate miracle? Ok, if you say so.

 

[RandyK]

Others believe that the days of creation are not to be interpreted literally as 24 hour days. But that's without considering the context of the use of the word. When the word day is used with a number it is always referring to a specific day or number of days.

This is your own rule, and isn't true in the present case. You can describe a day with an evening and a morning and still be using "day" metaphorically, as if God was living on earth, rotating, and creating evenings and mornings. It is obviously intended to give Man a sense of God's ordering things in segments.

For us a "day" is a segment of time in which a task can be completed short-term. To express something as grandiose as Creation God would have to use "day" as a metaphor, since He could create everything in an instant, or over an impossibly-long length of time. In this case, He wanted Man to know He had separate but related purposes in creating sets of things.

You try to humanize God when you make Him subject to a literal day as Man experiences it. But He is God and transcends our solar system and even the physical Creation. His "days" are clearly metaphorical, and yet have value in their organizing things in a way we can understand them.

If you think faith in God's supernatural abilities are limited to seeing these "days" of Creation as literal, with God being subject to "days" as we experience them, you are terribly wrong! That is humanizing God and the opposite of faith, as I see it.

But the point is, those who believe, like I do, in metaphorical days, do believe in miracles, in the supernatural workings of God. And you are wrong to dismiss others as virtually "non-Christian" simply because we do not agree with you.

In this case, your "witness" is less Christian than belief in science with some errors. It is attitude that really matters when we witness to Christ's truth--not just being right or wrong on scientific matters.

They also don't take into account what the word 'day' actually means. I hear so many say, "well, you can't have a day without the sun. Like duh?" But they don't understand the literal meaning of day.

Oh yes they do. I perfectly well understand what a "day" is for Man. But you don't seem what a "day" means for God prior to the creation of planets and stars? As I said, there is a "day known only to the Lord," as Zechariah said.

The sun even existing has nothing to do with a day.

That is completely absurd. You can use language in a nonsensical way if you wish. But nobody will listen to you.

Yes, when Zecharia writes that "on that day", he may be speaking of a time of several days or a season, but that use doesn't have a number associated with it.

You're making up your own rules. You're not a translator--that's obvious. Words can have either literal or symbolic uses. It is context that is key.

But look, everyone is free to believe as they will, but this thread asks the question of whether or not it is important what we believe about the very first testimony that God gave us

No, it is not about believing in God's "testimony." It is about *understanding* what God's testimony really was. If you wish to form your own rules for translating and understanding words, then you're guilty of self-indulging in what you *want* to believe--not in believing what God is actually saying.

But we have itching ears and because of our rebellion God has loosed us to follow what our reprobate minds desire to do.

How rude! If others, who are good Christians, understand the message differently, and still believe in miracles, you aren't right to write them off as "heathen." In fact, I think you are steering others in the wrong direction when you humanize God and make Him subject to "days" of His own Creation!