Can we really Believe the Creator's Word?

Yes, you did answer my earlier question, which was looking for the general interpretational approach of old-earth advocates to the Word of God, and the influence that has had on their faith. That answer was very helpful. This time, I am looking more specifically at how OE folks approach the Creation account, itself.

Thank you. Do you (or others) see any correlation between the "days" of creation and any of the geologic eras? From your answer, I take it that you probably don't but I wonder if others have ever attempted such a harmony.

I appreciate the effort and time you and others have put into consideration of my queries.

 

In the particular case of the vitamin c genetic error, this does not work. Not if you are talking about a Creator Who does not make mistakes.</font>[/QUOTE]Forgive me if I'm about to ask a completely ridiculous question. How do we determine that this is a mistake and not merely a difference? I'm really not trying to play word games here, but I would like to know how we go about determining that some genetic characteristic is, in fact, a flaw, and not merely a difference.

Thank you for your input and consideration.

 

Thanks for the question, which keeps coming up in one form or another on this issue, of course.

In my case, I view the format of six days of creation as a structured poetic narrative. I do not consider it to be literal any more than I consider that the temptor who approached Adam and Eve in the garden was literally a snake.

Having said that, there are some hauntingly suggestive passages in the creation narrative that speak to what we know today about how the cosmos unfolded, physically speaking.

In the beginning, for example, God said "let there be light". Who cannot stop and contemplate the similarity with these words and the beginning of all space and time in a burst of energy? Light, or electromagnetic radiation in extremely high frequencies, can create all the elementary particles.

On the second day, we see how God created the firmament - which He called heaven - and seperated the waters above from the waters below the firmament.

Now in the ages past the literal interpretation was that there was a big dome over our heads, in which the itty bitty sun and the itty bitty moon and the itty bitty stars were stuck on the underside, and it held back the primordial waters (except when its windows were opened and it rained).

But I find it poetically suggestive of the inflationary period at the beginning of our universe. Space itself is not "water" and a hypersphere of four dimensions with a three dimensional surface that forms our universe is not a "dome" but somehow these words remind me of these things.

And the days of creation that follow - if one sets aside the idea of chronological succession, and instead thinks of them in catagorical succession, and being indefinate time spans rather than a literal day - it can make a kind of sense.

The literal narrative of chapter one doesn't agree with the literal narrative of chapter two anyway - as to the order of creation. In one, animals come ahead of man, in the other animals come after man.

This is a strong hint that it is not intended to be interpreted literally.

 

All of creation shared in the fall of Adam. We don’t know nor can we accurately assess the where and the when. God did not make the mistake, Adam did and it fell on ALL of creation, Adam having been given rule over it:

Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Romans 8:21-22
Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

I said:

You said:

Yes, I still feel like saying this.

I said:

You said:

Yes, normally for this reason I stay out of the creation-evolution debate, it’s difficult enough in the Bible Versions where I post most of the time for everyone to remain calm and collected. The creation debate seems to get really out-of-hand on occasion.

Though I feel it is of major importance it is not enough (IMO) to add one more division to the Body of Christ.

HankD

 

Genesis one is a detailed explanation of the six days of creation, day by day. Genesis two is a recap and a more detailed explanation of the sixth day, the day that Adam and Eve were made. The recap is stated in Gen. 2:4, 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. Then, Moses goes on to detail the creation of Adam and Eve as is seen in verses 7 thru 24 of Gen. two. Proof that it is not a creative account is found in the fact that animals aren't even mentioned until after the creation of Adam. Why? Probably because their purpose was designated by Adam. They didn't need to be mentioned until after Adam was created.

 

I'll try and answer a few things at once here.

" Do you (or others) see any correlation between the "days" of creation and any of the geologic eras? From your answer, I take it that you probably don't but I wonder if others have ever attempted such a harmony."

You are right. Some do, but I do not. I do not think there is anything to be gained from such attempts. You get into a kind of progressive creation. It is like trying to have your cake and eat it too. Now, one parallel that you can draw is that in the text God does create all at once. Neither did He in actuality. The universe was formed and then stars formed and then the earth formed and then life arose and diversified and then man appeared. But I would not go so far as to try and equate the days to "ages."

From HankD "No but how about because we have a "shared" Creator."

and from NiC "Forgive me if I'm about to ask a completely ridiculous question. How do we determine that this is a mistake and not merely a difference? I'm really not trying to play word games here, but I would like to know how we go about determining that some genetic characteristic is, in fact, a flaw, and not merely a difference."

Let me try again with the Vitamin C example. All animals (well, almost as we shall see) use a set of four enzymes made by four different genes to make their own vitamin C. I think the precursor used is a form of sugar, but do not hold me to that. Now in all primates, this does not happen. They must get their vitamin C from their diet. Which does not seem to be a problem usually. Now three of the needed enzymes are made correctly, but the fourth is not. I could give you the name, but it would not help much. Thegene for the fourth enzyme is corrupted. There is a very specific genetic mistake that cripples the gene. This exact same mistake, right down to the exact nucleotide, is found in all primates. Now, how do we know it is a mistake? Well, we can look at the same genes and enzymes in other animals and see how they work. We can sequence the genes between the species. Everything is the same except for this one little error. The new gene does not make a useful protein, either, so it is not that it has a different function.

Now, how is this explained. Well from my point of view, the last common ancestor of the primates had this mistake and since the diet of primates tends to be high enough in fruits to compensate, it tended to act like a neutral mutation rather than a harmful one. I do not understand the "shared" Creator logic. If God did not want primates to make vitamin C, why not just keep all of the enzymes out of the genome? Why put that machinery in place just to break one of the gears? It is not very elegant. Why ALL of the primates and the primates only? Why, in the handfull of other animals that cannot make vitamin C, choose a completely different mutation?

Now, as far as the retroviral DNA... How can this possibly be because of a "shared" Creator? Let me explain. The retrovirii have the ability to slip (random?) sections of their DNA into the genome of their host. If this is a germ line cell that happens to be used for reproduction, then this long term repeat (LTR) of DNA is passed on to the offspring. Now a lot of our genome, I think the number is about 5%, consists of these viral LTRs. This represents biilions of years of eukaryotic evolution. Most of the LTRs greatly mutated over the years. (This by itself is argument against a young earth. If all of these viral repeats were placed into the genome in the last few thousand years, then there would be a wide variance in which LTRs are found in which people. That most people share the same set indicates how long they have been being put in there.) Now, when comparing the LTRs in humans and the other apes, you find that there are several "recent" additions. These are LTRs where the same piece of DNA has been inserted into the same place in the genome of all the different apes including humans. Again, this is an easy answer for common descent. With knowledge of the repeats and knowledge of the heirarchy of apes, it would be predicted that they would share some segments. But this is a problem for recently created "kinds." You must suppose that the same type of virus infected all the different "kinds" AND inserted the exact same piece of DNA AND inserted it into the same place AND that this section was not only passed down to the offspring but also spread throughout the populations of all the various ape "kinds." Why would a common designer sprinkle viral DNA snippets into the genome? Why would a common designer them sprinkle the same snippets into other creatures in a way that makes them look related? Remember, this is foriegn, viral DNA. It serves no purpose.

"I’m curious as to your theory as to the virgin birth, which science hasn’t been able to demonstrate in humans or the resurrection of Christ, which science hasn’t been able to demonstrate in humans. Your theory????"

Simple. The same as yours. They were miracles. Do you really think I would be here if I did not have faith in those things? You are trying to equate two things that are not equal. I have never said that God could not create is six days. Do you think Him incapable of creating in 13.7 billion years? I have said that the evidence from His own Creation shows that He created 13.7 billion years ago. I take it on faith that He was born of a virgin, died for our sins and rose again. If I needed evidence for that, it would not be faith. If I needed evidence for that, it would be impossible to present. But to deny that He created many years before what you tell me I should think, would be to deny the very evidence of the creative act spread before me in the Creation.

 

Well, its a fact that most animals don't need a daily intake of vitamin C. Your pet dog, your pet cat, the cattle in the field, the bear in the woods, all of them make their own vitamin C in their bodies.

We have succeeded in identifying the gene that gives the instructions for making vitamin C.

As you know, we don't make it. We have to have it in our diet.

The damaged genes for making vitamin C have been located in our genome.

We share the same damaged genes with other primates. The evolutionary explanation for these facts is that some early primate lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C and never missed the ability, because it was eating fruit all the time anyway. That early ancestor passed that defective gene along to all its descendants, which includes you and me.

A few other animals, less closely related to us, have lost the ability to make vitamin C. They have different damage to their C making genes. Guini pigs (sp?) and fruit bats are the only ones I know of, besides us primates.

I hope that explanation helps.

Humans deprived from vitamin C, as they often were in the early days of long sea voyages, will develop scurvy.

 

Well, that is a rescue interpretation. It is made to rescue the otherwise obvious discrepancy between the accounts, and for no other reason.

The account itself literally states that God only made the animals after he started the quest for a companion for man. If Genesis One did not exist, all the literalistic interpreters would unite to say man was created first, and then the animals.

In like manner, if the fossils and the genome and the distant stars and the geological record did not exist, we would all agree that the universe was made in six days about 6 to 10 thousand years ago.

But God made the stars and the fossils and the genome and the geological record and we read those and learn from them; in so doing, we are learning from God just as much as when we read the Bible.

 

No Paul, you’re not learning from God. You’re learning from fallible man who is trying to explain what God has already revealed to us through His Word. We can and have learned a tremendous amount about God when science uses God and what He’s revealed to us through His word.

The science you choose to follow, starts from outside the Word of God and you and other evolutionary Christians try to bend and reshape the Bible to conform to the atheistic communities evolutionary theories, which in fact doesn’t acknowledge God.

Now I’ll direct a question to you, which I’ve posed numerous times and has been largely, ignored. I’m curious as to your theory as to the virgin birth, which science hasn’t been able to demonstrate in humans or the resurrection of Christ, which science hasn’t been able to demonstrate in humans.

Why do you pick and choose what to have faith in? Is it b/c faith in the resurrected Christ is essential for salvation? Both accounts, whether it be the creation account and the resurrection are both matter of fact statements from the Holy Spirit. So why do you adjust your faith to agree with the resurrection of Christ, when science so boldly disagrees?

 

john6:63

Since I have already answered your question, I'll direct one at you.

I have given you two profound examples of evidence for common descent above, the LTRs and the vitamin C mutation. What do you make of these?

 

To answer all the "Why did God..." questions, I have one answer. I don't know except for this one: "Why put that machinery in place just to break one of the gears? It is not very elegant". It was the result of man's sin not God's "mistake". All creation was affected by Adam's sin over which He had god-like power (then).

The human creation indeed shares some genetic likenesses (but not all) with apes. As I said before, we can't know how sin transmitted down through all of creation in every nook and cranny and molecule. There are bound to be some "mistakes" (as a result of sin) which we share with other species and not others.

We have no concept and admittedly neither does science as to the Laws of "creation" except that those laws are no where to be found in any text book on earth (except for the Bible and that in a simplified form (IMO)).

The current laws of physics and the maintenance (equilibrium) of the universe probably dont even resemble the Laws of Creation. There are related issues debated constantly concerning time compression, C as a constant (or not), etc.

For now I personally take the simplistic view of a 24X6 hour/day creation.
Other brethren take pleasure in other views. That's OK for now.
The essential question is whether God is the Creator.
On that we all agree. We dissagree on the details.

We'll all find out the details when we are able to understand it when He returns and we are resurrected.

If I am wrong, OK. If others, OK.

HankD

 

Any time fallible men learn from the world and from the heavens as they do science fallible men are learning from God

Any time fallible men stick to an interpretation that disgrees with what God shows them in the heavens and in the earth they are refusing to learn from God even as they say they are sticking to what they call the truth.

Fallible men rejected Jesus on the grounds He didn't match their expectation of the One to come. Fallible men rejected the Apostle Paul and followed him around, rejecting his message of Christ on the grounds it conflicted with scripture.

How can you tell if you are embracing a false interpretation of scripture? You can check it out and see if it matches the real world.

YEC does not match the real world.

Science is not about God. A plumber can fix your pipes even if he is an atheist. They will work fine even if he swears while he fixes them, if he follows the scientifically correct procedures to fix them.

Science doesn't demonstrate miracles. Miracles are, by definition, outside the normal laws of nature. They are accepted then by faith.

First you tell me how so many devout christians manage to find it in their hearts to disagree with the literal teachings of scripture concerning the cause of day and night. Scripture teaches us that it is literally the moving of the sun across the sky. Most christians today believe it is caused, instead, by the rotation of the earth. They believe this in spite of the literal teachings of scripture because they have accepted the modern scientific point of view about the solar system and the relative sizes of the earth and sun and so forth.

In other words, as UTEOTW and I have repeatedly stated, literalists generally do exactly what they accuse us of doing, that is, accept their own knowledge over the literal teachings of scripture, when that knowledge has become certain enough within their own minds.

Well, for some of us, the truth about evolution and the ancient age of the universe has become that solid in our minds, as real to us as the rotation of the earth is to you. We cannot help that - its clearly seen in the way things are.

 

"To answer all the "Why did God..." questions, I have one answer. I don't know except for this one: "Why put that machinery in place just to break one of the gears? It is not very elegant". It was the result of man's sin not God's "mistake". All creation was affected by Adam's sin over which He had god-like power (then)."

Who said God made a "mistake?"

But you really did not address the issue. The issue is NOT that man has a broken peice of machinery for making vitamin C. The issue is that man and all of the other primates not only have a broken peice of machinery for making vitamin C, but also that the piece is broken in exactly the same way across all the different species. You have no answer for that. This is but a small piece of the evidence for common descent. Taken by itself, you might be able to say it was a very unlikely coincidence. But taken with all the other data, it fits a pattern which says that man shared a common ancestor with the other primates.

 

I said…

You responded…

I did not originate the word “mistake” in this thread someone else did.
That is why I put quotes around it.
If it was you then if God (by implication) did not make the “mistake” then who did.
I attributed/redefined the “mistake” to the sin of man.

Just because you say I haven’t addressed the issue doesn’t make it true. I have addressed the issue and will again in the next quote response.

So say you. I have said before and I will say it again. The sin of man affected all of creation, some in exactly the same way some not so. Man is a carnivore, most apes are not (yes I know old world monkeys are carnivorous). Apes have all body hair we do not. We have moveable thumbs suited for tools, apes do not. The obvious flaw of this Vitamin C position is the blanket supposed consistency “across all the he different species” when in fact you have pointed out just one similatity (so far) that exists. But what would it matter if it was exactly the same "across all the different species" To me it doesn't point to a common ancestory but the impact of man's sin upon the creation of a common Creator over which man was given dominion.

I am not descended from baboons, my ancestors were not baboons. Others may believe what they will, that is their prerogative.

HankD

 

I was recently in Chatanooga, TN visiting some Civil War memorials. When I read the plaques describing the history that took place there, I didn’t wonder what the author meant by when he said that a certain general took a Calvary regiment on horse back across the battlefield. Did I embrace a false interpretation of this plaque, if I believed exactly what was written? It’s history right? We’ll so is Genesis. Genesis 5:1-2 state:

This my friend is Adam’s direct account of Gods creative power that he witnessed in the Garden and what no man witnessed was given by revalation to both Adam and Moses who acted as an editor of Adams account.

Science does have its limits. Normal operational science deals only with repeatable observable processes in the present. This has indeed been very successful in understanding the world, and has led to many improvements in the quality of life.

Creationists affirm that creation cannot ultimately be divorced from the Bible any more than evolution can ultimately be divorced from its naturalistic starting point that excludes divine creation a priori.

You’re right, that’s because science is largely atheistic. God said in Genesis one that In the beginning (Time) God created the heavens (Space) and the earth (Matter).
Is science in agreement with the above statement? If not (which I’m betting) which do you accept? Science’s theories or Gods Word?

Is it not a miracle, that by the very Word of God the heavens and earth were made? At what point to you abandon science and their theories and accept by faith that God spoke this universe into existence? Will those in the scientific community accept you and your faith in that God spoke and it stood fast?

First, I don’t believe that Joshua was conducting a scientific experiment when he prayed that God would stop the sun. This is what he observed on a daily basis and God wasn’t trying to convey that the sun rotated around the earth. Every night our weather reports the times of sunset and sunrise. Why is this worded as such?

 

"Man is a carnivore, most apes are not (yes I know old world monkeys are carnivorous)."

No. Both humans and the other apes are omnivores. They eat a mix of plants and meat when available.

"Apes have all body hair we do not."

No again. Humans, chinps and gorillas all have the same density of hair follicles on their body. Humans do have shorter, finer hair.

"We have moveable thumbs suited for tools, apes do not."

No, the other apes also have an opposable thumb, though not quite as useful as ours because of their style of locomotion. They are capable of a precision grip similar to humans and chimps make use of tools though they do not make tools.

"when in fact you have pointed out just one similatity (so far) that exists."

Actually two. I also pointed out the shared viral LTRs. But, this is just the tip of the iceberg. We can go through the various other pseudogenes. We can go through the similarity of the genes and proteins. We can go through the fossil record. As I said, if it were just the vitamin C, we could blame it on a very unlikely coincidence. But it is the pattern of evidence, which we have just scratched the surface of.

"I am not descended from baboons, my ancestors were not baboons. "

This is true. But y'all do share a common ancestor.

 

I wonder if the six days and nights were not literal days than did it rain for 40 thousand years while Noah was on the Ark the same word for day is used isn't it.

 

UTEOTW says

"But y'all do share a common ancestor."

And just who might that ancestor be, Brother?

Brother David

 

Noah!

 

Diane----true! I can trace my roots back to Noah and his three boys and their wives---actually, it would have to be one of those three boys---because Mr. and Mrs. Noah had no more kids after the flood.

But---for the life of me---that Baboon ain't a part of the ancestory linking back to those three boys!