New Testament Support for the FLOOD

The implication I seem to be getting (not specifically from you Helen) is that the secular man should not be trusted. So the obvious question is, why can the secular man not be trusted at all? Must he be wrong all the time? If there aren't absolutes then why demonize the secular man.

It may be a surprise, but I agree with you that the nature of mankind is evil (as in selfishness type evil, not slaughtering children type). I think this is the point of Genesis, in fact. I also agree that the only way to please God is to accept Jesus as your personal savior.

What I'm having trouble with is this attitude (again not necessarily you Helen), that the secular man can do no good. If the secular man discovers something, it is not to be trusted-because he is secular, not because he doesn't have evidence or support for his position.

It's this sort of predjudice that I think is harmful.

 

I understand what you are saying, and I think we agree on a number of points here. When anyone is dealing with an opposing point of view in any field, I think definitions are the first order of business. So 'good' must be defined. And, if by 'good' the idea is beneficial in some way towards someone other than self, then we all must admit that anyone can do good. But God judges the heart, right, so that is what is going to be looked at by Him, even though we humans can only judge actions and words and make presumptions about the heart from there.

I have a feeling we agree on that part.

The part where there may be conflict between you and me has to do with trusting the mind of the 'natural' man. Now I have no problem with the fact that my orthopedic surgeon is a Muslim, believe it or not (I have an artificial knee and severe arthritis in one foot -- on the other side!). His skill is almost legendary and I am happy to trust my bones to him. I have no trouble with the fact that the folks at Toyota who service our van may or may not be of any particular religious or philosophical pursuasion. But these are matters of technical expertise. They do not deal in their fields of training with explaining life and thus influencing faith.

But consider this, that the tendency of every unsaved heart IS towards the evil, right? That that necessarily means away from God. Then the tendency of any unsaved person when dealing with origins will be to rebel against God Himself. There is no way around that. Their interpretations of the data are going to be governed by the natural tendencies they have. That's the way we human beings are. And because MOST men are unsaved (which is very difficult for me to contemplate, actually), most men will find themselves in agreement regarding matters pertaining to life and the meaning of life which are in disagreement with -- if not actual rebellion toward -- God and what He has caused to be written.

For those who claim Christianity, this forces them into the absolutely illogical position of the theistic evolutionist. This position will 'allow' God to have started everything and then front-loaded it so that it would all go according to plan, despite what He has in His Word. But after God wound up the clock, so to speak, the mind of man is what is trusted to discern the rest. I find this position untenable for a Christian. When the mind of man and the mind of God come into conflict, guess who I would rather trust?

The hardest thing in the world for me, philosophically, was to face the evolution I grew up being taught, believing in, and then teaching myself -- straight in the face and forgetting all the conclusions I had been told were true, looking at the evidence.

If I wanted the truth, and I did, I had to admit evolution did not have any real evidence to back it up, and, in fact, there seemed to be a reasonable amount of evidence against it and actually for special creation.

It's not an easy thing to do, but one of the reasons I am on this forum is to try to present the material and the evidence that caused me to make that difficult change from the 'popular' and accepted position to one which I came to understand which, although being minority and unpopular, was actually the truth.

And when I look back on it, I would have to answer you in your question with a 'no, the mind of secular man cannot be trusted where anything to do with the meaning of life is concerned.' Not because the secular man desires to be dishonest, but because dishonesty is part and parcel of the natural man, whether he wants it or not. It takes Christ to change that.

All that being said, I admit I feel as frustrated as any evolutionist ever could (and maybe, at times, more so) with the lack of thinking and lack of knowledge that comes to the fore in the creationist camps. While I admire and respect simple faith in God's Word, I also know it is not the same as actual data in the scientific arena. Nor does it trump data, for God is the Creator and the data is also from Him! Two witnesses to one creation. It is the interpretations, both of His Word and the data, which make the wildest differences, eh?

And the heart of the man which attempts to discern them. So the condition of the heart is of utmost importance here, in this field.

 

Perhaps evidence would be more persuasive than unsupported assertions.

 

Amen!

 

Secularism: Indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations. Not belonging to a religious order or congregation. “Indifference” I believe is the keyword here for some.

Now, do all scientists fall under this definition? Not at all. There are scientists, teachers, college professors and people, just to name a few, that do.

One of these scientists or professors tells me that the earth cannot be 10,000 yrs old b/c of some rock they’ve found, isn’t going to convince me that it’s true, b/c reading Genesis and the genealogy doesn’t agree. These same folks also will tell me that it’s impossible for a human that’s been dead for three days to be brought back to life, b/c it’s never been witnessed in modern medicine, isn’t going to convince me either, b/c the prophecy in the OT and the Gospel accounts in the NT tell me otherwise.

I take the whole Bible as Historical Fact. And I am closed minded to any thing other than historical fact. Some take it as part historical fact and part Spiritually allegory.

When the Bible tells me that God was going to destroy them, along with the earth, with floodwater; I and a whole lot of other people, who haven’t been influenced by secular man, believes this to be a global flood. Am I adding to Gods word? NO. When I think of the earth, I think of the earth as the whole earth, not regional or local.

If this was a local flood, then why did God command Noah to build an ark? Think about it, God was pretty upset with the people of Noah’s day. Noah didn’t build the ark in just a few months. If this wasn’t a global flood, then God would’ve instructed Noah to pack your family up and trot down the road a few miles, b/c I’m gonna flood this area TODAY! In addition, after the flood, God said to Noah,

If this was a local flood then God lied to Noah, b/c there has been many devastating local floods since. The God I believe in is true to His word and doesn’t lie.

It had to be a global flood, b/c after the murder of Abel,

The misconception that people think is that God made man, a day later Adam and Eve partook in the forbidden fruit and a few years later God destroyed the earth. Noah was 600 yrs old when the Flood was sent upon the earth. Not only that, but there was a long period of time before the birth of Noah, Cain and his offspring had loads of time to populate as well as Adam and his offspring. People tend to skip the genealogy of the Bible, b/c it’s boring.

If this was a local flood, then the Noah and the ark account in Genesis would be silly.

Why do I bring up the Flood, b/c some don’t believe this to be a global flood, therefore there is an “indifference” some people have with the word of God.