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timlings
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 130

Posted 7/17/2002 9:16 AM (GMT -6)

Hey everybody.

I've recently been thinking again about this whole debate, and was wondering what everybody else thinks. But first a little bit of a background as to where I'm coming from.

At my secondary school [read high-school] I was often pestered by a creationist friend of mine. I thought a lot of what he said was rubbish, and didn't pay much attention. I pretty much thought that evolution explained how we got here, althogh I would say that ultimately God made us.

Then, whilst at university, I was challenged by God as to what exactly I thought about the first few chapters of Genesis. I was double-minded in my thinking at that point: I would talk about the fall in explaining the gospel, yet I didn't believe that the account had any historical value. I then met some Christians who did believe in creation and weren't nutcases, so ended up reconsidering my view. I read some creation-science stuff, and was pretty convinced. I became a young-earth 7-day creationist. [Oh the labels...]

But reccently I've been thinking about it all again. Looking at a pro-evolution website (www.talkorigins.com), I realised a lot of creation-science arguments were pretty rubbish and didn't hold water scientifically. Which leaves me with some questions:

1) I believe in the trustworthiness of scripture, and so want to take Genesis seriously. How should I read it? Is it literally true in a scientific sort of way? If so, why is there so much evidence for evolutions? But if it's just a mythic text, with spiritual truth but not historical truth, where is the gap? Abraham existed but the rest didn't? Genesis appears to reads like a historical narrative, not a parable.

2) But if evolution is the way it happened, then that opens a whole cans of theological worms. Like.... Was there a real 'space-time' fall (as Francis Schaeffer and others seem to think there needs to be)? It seems pretty vital to have an old adam if Jesus is meant to be the new adam. If death only entered God's perfect creation after the fall, how does that square with the million-year chain of death required by natural selection? Hmm.

My problem is that I look at both evolution and creation science and come away half convinced, half unsatisfied. Anyone got a different take on it all?

Sorry if this has already been debated at great length already...

love

Tim

anewbeginning
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 88

Posted 7/18/2002 6:35 AM (GMT -6)

Hi timlings:

Have you checked out www.reasons.org ? (Reasons to Believe)
They have developed a reaonable attempt to reconcile the bible with science. They also have many great books for sale on their site.

Edited by - anewbeginning on 07/18/2002 11:36:29 AM

timlings
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 130

Posted 7/18/2002 7:41 AM (GMT -6)

Thanx 4 the website anewbeginning. From a brief look through, it seems pretty cool.

Interesting points from it [if anyone's interested...]

* The days in genesis 1 are more like ages/epochs, rather that 24-hour periods. This fits with science but also with the other bits of the bible. God created life in 6 'days' and is now resting from creating - Genesis 1 doesn't tell us that 7th day is over yet. The old age of the earth fits in with other bits of the bible too.

quote:
The figures of speech used in Psalm 90:2-6, Proverbs 8:22-31, Ecclesiastes 1:3-11, and Micah 6:2 all serve to depict for us the immeasurable antiquity of God's presence and plans. If these literary devices are used appropriately and accurately (as we know they must be, for they were inspired by God), then the earth and its foundations must reach back at least a few orders of magnitude beyond the relatively brief span of recorded history. Habakkuk 3:6 directly declares the mountains to be "ancient" and the hills to be "age-old."

From http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/longdays.html?main

* We must look at the two forms of revelation that God's given us: his word and his world. If they contradict each other, we need to check we've got our science or our theology right! The website points to loads of evidences of a designer in creation, which makes for some good creation.

* Another point I liked was that the bible predicts the big-bang [!?!]. .

quote:
In Isaiah 42:5 both properties were declared, “This is what the Lord says—He who created the heavens and stretched them out.”

From http://www.reasons.org/resources/fff/2000issue3/index.html?main

The big-bang theory says that the universe began at a certain point of time in history , and has been expanding ever since. God really is stretching out the heavens like a tent! Crrazy.

Well, that's answering a few of my questions. Anybody else out there got any opinions on the matter?

Lots of love

Tim

Terry_Baxter
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 187

Posted 7/18/2002 3:16 PM (GMT -6)

Hey Timlings,

This is pretty big question, as you know. I rather think your path in thought development is fairly normal. Many home-schooled or chirstian-school eductated folks probably start at the point of 7-day young earth creation, and then slowly expand their thinking, hoping against hope that their worldview is defensible.

A few quick points on this topic.

There are reputable scientists who are young earth creationists. The ones I've read/heard admit that there are serious challenges to their theories, but are confident that careful study will reveal the Bible's account to be literally true.

There is a larger group of reputable scientists who are old-earth creationists. Most of these folks are Intelligent Design advocates. These scientists actually can get published in non-religious journals. Hugh Ross and others fall in to this category, as do hundreds of Believing university profs the world over.

There is a group of believers who also happen to be strict evolutionists. This group is dwindling rapidly. Most have huge problems reconciling an unbiased scientfic approach and the thoroughly rhetorical and presuppositional conclusions of naturalistic evolution.

From the last group, the work I'd recommend is the statements of faith. That is, how one can be an naturalistic evolutionist and still be a believer. If you find them convincing and un-problematic, this takes some of the angst out of your search: you're convinced you're following God whichever side you come down on.

For what it's worth (mind you I'm not a trained scientist, but a trained analyst of arguments), the old-earth/intelligent design crew is on the most solid ground. I also think there are weighty theological ramifications to the belief that evolution is the ONLY explantion for people as they exist today. Among them, the metaphorization of large chunks of the Bible and the question of how/why God decided to beginning intervening in people's lives again (at what point did God decide we were Homo Sapiens and therefore in His image, etc. etc.)

If you or others are interested, I can point you toward some of the websites for groups in each camp, and give you a brief review (if I have time).

More interesting, if you have specific sticky wickets that you'd like to bring up--you know, the questions that haunt you about creationism--bring them up here for discussion.

Be God's,
Terry

timlings
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 130

Posted 7/21/2002 10:44 AM (GMT -6)

Hey Terry

Thanx for reply.

> For what it's worth (mind you I'm not a trained scientist, but a
> trained analyst of arguments), the old-earth/intelligent design
> crew is on the most solid ground.

I think that's where I'm heading at the moment. Though still thinking about it all...

Anyway, there were some interesting theological reflections here, but the computer ate them. Grr!

Here's a few qestions though.

* Theistic evolution sometimes seems to be a bit like 'God of the Gaps'. By pointing to problems in current scientific research about the origins of life etc, they point to intelligent design. But what happens when the gaps get filled in?

* Should we view God's influence on evolution [if it happened that way] the same way that God sustains the universe? If you look at the world around, it can be described in a materialist way. But at the same time, without God, atoms wouldn't stick together. Should we look for obvious supernatural interventions in creation, or more subtle ones? The incarnation of Jesus was an amazingly supernatural event, yet it looked pretty normal to your average observer at the time [well, apart from the miracles...]. Jesus didn't actually physically look like God after all.

Anyway,

love

Tim

ps. I fear this is becoming a one-sided dialogue...anyone else got an opinion?

Edited by - timlings on 07/21/2002 3:59:06 PM

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