Featured In the beginning...

Six thru eight.

 

You know, I believe in the young earth interpretation, but if I am wrong, and there is billions and billons of years, so what? It does not affect anyone's salvation, or eternal destinies. This is one of those subjects that is fun to talk about, but has no consequence.

I do know this. In the beginning suggests the start of time. God was obviously here before the beginning, in something we call eternity past, because we cannot come up with a word to completely understand that state. No time, and no space kind of boggles the mind.

 

It most definitely has consequence.
If the Beginning of our Scripture can't be taken literally, then any point thereafter can be interpreted vaguely, since precedence is set.

 

I believe the Genesis story literally. Guess I did not make that clear. However, I disagree about the consequences. If I do not agree with you about the length of the Creation, what is the penalty? If I do not believe John 3:16, what is the penalty? Sorry, but I do see a difference.

 

Prophet, I know that there is a "problem" with your argument here, I just don't know what it is, or how to express it with logic.

If I say to you....remember Jesus's words "if you eye offend you, pluck it out" I suspect that you would say that is not to be taken "literally".

Then of course you would "hit me" with context, hyperbole, parable.

How is this different, when one suggests that the creation narrative is not meant to be a detailed engineering schematic account?

 

Here's how:
Mat 13:10-11
10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

Nowhere in scripture does it tell us this about Genesis chapter 1 & 2.

 

You are thinking selfishly, here.
You already believe God, so there is no penalty.
What if you were an unregenerated scientist, studying fossils, or strata?
The literal account of Creation, followed by the Great Flood would make your whole life much simpler, easier, if you heard it, and believed.
But if some Disciple, trying to sound sage, told you that it wasn't necessarily literal, you would be condemned to wander in darkness, unable to grasp the story being told by the Earth.
Faith is the evidence of things not seen. My faith isn't evidence to me, that won't hold up in any court. My faith is evidence to others, of the action of the invisible God, in me.

Jn 3:8
8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth:so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

My faith in the Word of God, to be taken liteally, unless otherwise told by it, is evidence to those to whom I am a witness.

 

I wished I had the rhetorical and intellectual ability to respond effectively, and of course respectfully.

I am not thinking any more selfishly than any of us "think".

Why in the world would you suggest that as an "unbelieving scientist" (which I hope we both agree, I am not) would be "simpler" to just accept your accounting on the matter? Science is "simple" and fascinating I might add.

I am not attempting to sound "sage". I too, many years ago would have and did proclaim much the same positions that you hold to.

I agree, Faith is profound, and I appreciate and certainly agree with that definition of faith in the letter to the Hebrews. Looking a Genesis from a different angle than you has nothing to do with faith in God. In fact, understanding natural creation, it could be argued, gives one an even greater appreciation for what God has done, given that faith is an element of ones life.

My faith, too, I hope, demonstrated in my relationships, how I love, how I spend my time, how I engage, how I distribute my resources.....I hope speaks to people outside of a relationship with Christ.

Do you have a "creation position" litmus test? Must one accept your "literal' interpretation to be considered a believer? Would you, do you, fellowship at all with any who do not hold to your "literal" views on Genesis?

 

It is clear that Jesus believed in the literal account of Genesis as he quotes from it several times as factual history. When speaking about marriage and actually quoting the law of marriage he places the institution of marriage "from the beginning" rather than millions, if not billions of years AFTER the beginning. Paul directly refers to Genesis 1:3 as a historical and literal event (2 Cor. 4:6) rather than some kind of metaphor or allegory.

Do you know of any Biblical writer after Moses that speaks of the creation of the world as anything other than in terms of a literal and historical account? If not, would not those who deny the literal historical account of creation be in opposition to all inspired writers of the Biblical canon? I don't think that I would want to take sides against them.

 

Would you care to answer the second question?

Did God change the underlined, which are now, after the flood of Noah?

For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, 2 Peter 3:5,6,7

If that flood was Noah's would not that verse also mean there was a change to the heavens (plural) after the flood?

In what manner were they ignorant concerning Noah's flood relative to the heavens of old and the earth?

 

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Cor 4:6

My point exactly of which on several threads no one will address.

Is not Jesus Christ the Son of God the very light of God as seen in the face of the Son of Man?

Is not Jesus of Nazareth the very light of God? Is not the light shining out of the darkness in 2 Cor 4:6 the very light and darkness spoken of in Acts 26:18? To open their eyes, to turn from darkness to light, and the power of Satan unto God,

Is that the same darkness and light spoken of in Genesis 1:2,3?

Was Satan who has the power of death already present on the earth in Genesis 1:2?

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,

Divided the good light from the darkness and thereby the first day of evening and morning of which Jesus said contained twelve hours each in John 11?

What if you have a flashlight will you still stumble in the night of John 11?

My answer is yes because you will not have the light of the world even with a flashlight.

Was Satan on the earth on Genesis 1:1?

Did God create the first man Adam for the purpose of the Christ coming into the world as a living soul? For a purpose relative to Satan?

Remember it was not a reaction nor an afterthought. Foreordained before the foundation of the world.

 

Well, since you see it let me offer a little edification bro: this is how I'd break down the problems with his argument: Its loaded with rhetorical analogy/comparison, it exaggerates the effect = hyperbole, draws on a false dilemma fallacy – (leaves you only one (false) (his consequence also = scare tactic fallacy) alternative), finishes with slippery slope fallacy as its conclusion – (If you let X happen, next thing you know Y will happen – It is up to person who offers such a claim to show why the action will lead to the second.)

There is no valid reason given to why you should accept his conclusion as true, none.

In a nutshell, his "if" leading to his conclusion "then" is classic slippery slope+.

 

The flood was a global cataclysmic event. We're told that in the day that Noah went into the ark, all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. I don't subscribe to the canopy theory, and I can't conceive of any way beyond supernatural revelation to know exactly what occurred, but it resulted in the surface features we see today, and, in some way, the appearance of the sky.

Some surmise that the seasons were a new phenomenon in the days after the flood. That would mean that the event which brought a global deluge tilted the earth on its axis. That would mean the sun, moon and constellations would also necessarily appear in new locations.

Who knows? The point is, the cataclysm was such that it changed the earth and the sky.