Evolution and the Biblical Flood

Because Jesus walking on water, feeding the five thousand, and working other miracles is explicitly said to be miraculous. The vapor canopy is just ituttut's personal interpretation of one verse. Moreover, I think it is a mistaken interpretation, as I have said before, because God miraculously creating and sustaining a vapor canopy would be contrary to every other part of creation where he made the object and set it along its way according to natural law.

People who thinking that God just warped in water to make the flood and zooped it away when it was done don't bother me. My only complaint there is that the geological evidence is not consistent with a recent global flood. If it weren't for that I might tend to agree with them.

 

"Everybody simplied ignored the post from JWI on page three. God is supernatural. We don't need to determine the science about how the water got there if God said it was there. Maybe He created it out of nothing and made it all disapear just the same. Maybe there is a scientific explanation. Who cares. Why are you guys not debating how scientifically Jesus walked on water, or turned water into wine, or made five loaves of bread into enough to feed five thousand (must have been some serious pressure and a water canopy involved!)"

I think my very first post on this thread addressed that issue.

And there is a fundemental difference between walking on water and a global flood.

Walking on water would leave no trace. We accept it on faith that it happened as we envision it.

A global flood would leave a trace and we can therefore have a discussion on whether the flood was global or local.

 

UTEOTW and Petrel,

Thank you for taking the time to refute the misinformation being posted by your opponents in this thread.

 

The word that I used was “misinformation.” In my use of that word, I was not referring to the Book of Genesis, but rather to the junk science being put forward in defense of an interpretation that most certainly is incorrect.

The New Testament makes it expressly clear than the greatest miracle of all time was the resurrection of Christ. Genesis 6-11 makes it expressly clear that no miracles or violations of any natural laws were involved in the story of the Ark. Genesis 6-11, therefore, can NOT be an accurate historical account of an actual event. That much we know for certain. We can write off Genesis as being nothing but fiction, or we can seek to understand it more accurately as a part of the divinely inspired body of literature that we know as the Holy Bible. I choose to understand it more accurately as a part of the divinely inspired body of literature that we know as the Holy Bible.

 

Yeah, I guess all them animals gathering together and getting on the ark is an everyday thing.

/sarcasm

 

I don't buy the canopy theory since I see no biblical or scientific evidence. However, there is nothing in the Bible to suggest your assertion that God set everything along its natural way. If something is as out of place as the flood, perhaps that is our evidence right there that he didn't.

I actually agree with you on this one. If there is no evidence that there was a global flood then it should give us pause. It will give pause to my intrepretation for sure, but let me be honest. If I simply can't read my intrepretation of Genesis 6 any other way, then I will have to assume it is our science that is faulty. As for Genesis 6, I haven't looked at it in years so I will refrain from commenting.

Once again I agree. I think it should leave a trace. What I disagree with is that the water must come from a perfectly natural source. Indeed, we would at least agree, natural or not, that God started it in motion exactly when he wanted and didn't forsee it happening in the future via newtonian mechanics and quickly decided to make a judgement out of it. If God did sweep away the water supernaturally though, I agree it would be strange for Him to also make the evidence disapear.

Eh, I don't think Genesis 6-11 does any such thing. Can you offer some evidence of this outside of "it never says miracle" which is a complete argument from silence.

 

God can make it rain anytime He so chooses.

Jer 10:13 When he uttereth his voice, [there is] a multitude of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures.

We are even told the method. He simply speaks it. Just as he said, "Let there be light."

Man cannot understand God completely. His intelligence and power are so great that He can simply speak anything into existence.

Science can only scratch the surface of God's intelligence. When science discovers natural laws, these are laws God has known from eternity. He is the author. It is His design.

Perhaps God used purely natural laws to create the Flood. Perhaps he used supernatural power. All the animals coming to Noah is evidence that this was a supernatural act. Perhaps the rain was as well.

I wouldn't say there isn't any evidence of a worldwide flood. Any person who has seen the Grand Canyon can see evidence of tremendous water erosion. I do not believe this was caused by a river over millions of years. I believe as the Flood of Noah's time receded that it caused the Canyon. There are great areas of the western United States that show evidence of a flood.

When I see pictures like this it certainly looks as though it was caused by water.

http://www.geog.utah.edu/%7Ehmiller/photos/Muddy_creek_pinnacles.jpg

And these are areas far removed from an ocean or large lake.

 

Hello Petrel. You are right in your Oct. 5 post on page 4, viz. “I don't see the point in arguing the science with ituttut because he has obviously decided that his interpretation of this verse must be right and is accepting it as a matter of faith”. I know little of nothing about science, other than some things that make sense to me. My science holds more water than any science presented here of that world that then was. What was then is not now. I see you agree with me of how it was done, and it was not done by natural means, or rather “natural law”. You surprised me in correctly “pegging me” as one of faith, not needing or requiring proof (I believe today unavailable to us). I thank you for that.

Here is what I believe. Genesis 1:6-7, ”And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.” This was done by “supernatural law”, as was all creation. With the “water vapor Canopy” in place, this “supernatural law” was in harmony with all of creation at that time.

Here is what I believe. Genesis 1:8-10, ”And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9. And God said, Let the waters under the Heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.” This was done by “supernatural law”, and was in harmony will all of creation at that time. The Canopy didn’t leak a drop of water.

Here is what I believe. All the way to Genesis 11, the Canopy held, and that world of “supernatural law” continued. The earth and heaven that was is not going to be the same. The dynamics will change, and energy not being able to sustain in its “supernatural law”. It will deteriorate into what you claim what was “from the beginning”, viz. “natural law”. This is the reason none are able to explain verses 11 and 12, ”11. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 12. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” We can’t explain the passing of those, the heaven and earth that then was, or the rain of 40 days and forty nights by “natural law”.

I believe chapter 8, and verse 22, ”While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” Here is something we are able to understand in our “natural law”.

In chapter 9 we get more natural law, and even the authority for the “death penalty”. And in verse nine I see the evidence of the “natural law”. We call it Rainbow. He set His bow in the clouds confirming what He had said in chapter eight, “while the earth remaineth, “natural law” will rule. He knows when the energy of this world will run out.

I don’t wish to apply all of II Peter 3:5-7 here, but only to clarify the passing of that heaven and earth of the “supernatural law”, how it was created, and what holds this world together.

The heavens of old, and the earth standing out of the water, and in the water was created by Jesus Christ, the Word of God. That world perished, being overflowed with water. The “supernatural law”, unbounded and never ending energy was allowed to be degraded. Jesus Christ today keeps in store our heaven and earth until a time determined. Christian faith, ituttut

 

If you don't believe in a literal world wide flood then how can you believe that Jesus was actually present in Gen. 1 when the world was formed? How do you believe in Gen. 3:15 when the redemption of mankind was revealed? It is either all literal or it isn't I'm not saying you lost if your a theistic evolutionist but you sure are playing into the devil's hands when you espouse that stuff and promote it . How do I know your being played by the devil? Bros. & sisters, any theory, concoction, theology etc... that has the possibility of causing some to doubt their Bible is of Satan. Theistic evolution doesnt' help to promote the Bible it helps to weaken the Bible.Not that the Bible can be weakened but that is what happens to some christians who are not that grounded when they start to buy into this bunk that came straight from the pit. God can breath into man the breath of life yet He needed help to do the rest. What garbage.

 

Well, yes. It's either all literal or it isn't... all literal. I don't think there's any total literalists around here; we all realize there's some parts of Scripture that aren't literal.

If that were true, then based on my own personal experience, YEC would be of Satan. It caused me to doubt my Bible because it said that either the YEC interpretation of Scripture is right and geology, astronomy and biology are wrong, or the Bible is useless and science is right. That dichotomy -- fortunately it's a false dichotomy -- caused me to go through a real crisis of faith back when I was struggling with the evidence for an old earth and older universe. (At that point I knew very little about evolution and most of what I knew was wrong, so I was absolutely certain it was bunk. Evolution wasn't the issue.)

I think Satan can use many things that did not originate with him to cause people to doubt the Bible. I think YEC, OEC and even TE are among those things. Let's try not to give him credit where it isn't due.

Nobody here believes that. That's like saying God could bring the Hebrews out of Egypt but he needed the Babylonians to help him punish Israel when she turned away. Both this statement and your statement ignore the fact that God is sovereign over everything, including all natural processes he made, and including all the nations he made. To think that evolution or the Babylonians are outside help for God is to make the mistake of setting some parts of his creation up as if they were uncreated and equal with God.

 

Not within the time frame of the annual ice layers laid down in Antarctica, that is, not within the past 400,000 years.

 

Does that include clinging to biblical interpretations that are contrary to what we observe to be the case in the real world?