Roger, I see you have still not provided any actual examples of recent discoveries that make evolution more possible. Okay, it seems philosophical generalities work better for you. But you are maligning and slandering to say that I disregard all evidence that would counter a non-evolutionist approach. Rather, I watch how others deal with this evidence and scrutinize it. For example, I have just read another chapter in "Evolution's Achilles Heels", the 20 page chapter on radiometric dating, by Dr. Jim Mason, who received a PhD in Experimental Nuclear Physics from McMaster U, Canada. He was employed in the defense industry, and was VicePresident of Engineering. He became a christian at the age of 40, and became a biblical creationist several years later.
In most of my years, I have always wondered about radiometric dating for age of rocks and fossils, because it seems so "scientific". It's outside of my areas of experience, although I have dabbled briefly with trace N15 isotope in looking at nitrogen cycling when fertilizer is added to soil, but that was a long time ago. At that time, it was thought that C14 (carbon dating) could reliably give radiometric dates up to about 40,000 years old. We now have equipment that can measure smaller amounts of radiation accurately, and so apparent ages up to 90,000 years can be determined with carbon dating. So is this a problem for young earth? Not according to Jim Mason. He points out that the K-AR (potassium-argon) method of dating said that a Mt. Ngauruhoe 1949 volcanic eruption and a 1975 eruption were either less than 270,000 years or 1 million years old. The method indicated that a 1954 eruption was less than 270,000, or 0.8 million, or 1.3 million, or 3.5 million years old. The accuracy is to 200,000 years. These tests were done in 2003. A method that indicates one million years of age for a 50 year old rock formation, seems to be a bit of a problem for the accuracy of the method. At minimum, it should indicate 200,000 years or less.
What about Mt. St. Helen's volcanic rock? The lava dome formed in 1984 had measurements done on it, both on whole rock and on constituent rock types. Whole rock was dated 350,000 years, while rock components ranged from 340,000 years (Feldspar) to 2.8 million yrs(Pyroxene). That's about 100,000 times the real age. And some rocks are dated as 8 times as old as other rocks in the same formation. Do you think that makes the method reliable? The excuse given by old agers are that the recent rocks have some original Ar in them. Okay, that makes sense, but why does that not also make sense for rocks they consider "old". Only a small amount of original argon in the "old" rocks would give false ages, and would make a 6,000 year old rock date as 18 million years old.
The isochron dating methods applied to Mt. Ngauruhoe rocks, finds dates of 133 million years for Rb-Sr (Rubidium-Strontium method), 197 million years for Sm-Nd, and 3.9 billion years for Pb - Pb (lead-lead). This does not seem accurate. The methods do not corroborate each other, and all ages are dramatically wrong. Some rocks from the Grand Canyon were dated using the isochron method of radiometrics, and Pb/Pb method dated the rocks as 600,000,000 years older (about 50% older) than the Rb/Sr method, even though experimental error is determined to be only 80 million years or less. That is a huge difference... more than half a billion years. Does that sound accurate to you? Is that a way of dating differences between layers of rock?
Some examples which might be easier to understand are carbon based. Mass spectrometers can measure much more accurately than the old geiger counters, and it would take a dating of more than 90,000 years old (15.6 half lives) before the C14 would be undetectable. In 2003, ten coal samples were analyzed. They had been dated at from 37 million to 318 million years old. If they were that old, the equipment should not detect any C14. However, they all contained C14. By C14, they were dated at 45,000 to 60,000 years old. What a vast difference compared to millions of years! Seven diamond samples were also tested. Diamonds had previously been dated at 1 to 3 billion years old. However, they still had C14 in them. By C14, they were dated at about the same age as the coal. So which method is accurate then?
Dr. Mason then goes on to explain that even 50,000 years is too old for a young earth. But again, what assumptions are being used? He says if the ratio of C14/C12 was much smaller at the time the vegetation was buried than it is today, then it would be much younger than it appeared by uniformitarian theory. If there was less solar activity, and there was more C12 in the atmosphere, then that would have lowered the ratio of C14/C12. Intense volcanoes at the time of burial would also have increased the amount of C12 at time of plant burial/coal formation.
Finally, radiometric dating using helium gives a different picture. Helium is a byproduct of U/Pb degradation. It diffuses out of rocks such as zircon crystals at a constant rate after being formed, so that will give a clue as to how long the process has been going on, when combined with the U238/Pb ratios. The diffusivity rates mesh really well with predicting a zircon age of about 6000 years. These zircon crystals have an alleged age of 1.5 billion years. So which dating method is right?
None of this information comes from 4 or 5 five pages in the Bible. It comes from the book of nature, which we consider also the revelation of God in nature.
Well said, Roger. You have stated well your perspective, and the perspective of many about christianity and scripture. One sentence however, caught my attention: where you quote, "why does God blame people for not responding? Haven't they done what God made them to do?" Paul responds that we do not have the right to question God in this regard. As humans, we have no right to blame God, nor our parents, for our own sin, or for our own rejection of God. It is still we who reject God, isn't it? We know that people accept God, and follow Christ. Is it physically and mentally impossible for humans to follow Jesus? Obviously not. So why would we blame someone other than ourselves? It is our tendency to blame someone else that reveals our sin and our rejection of God. But at the same time, if we love God and accept Jesus as Saviour, it would be a denial of our sin to suggest that we could do this on our own. In all cases, we give God the credit for our salvation and for the gift of faith, and realize that in our failures it is we, not God who is to blame.
Suppose you were trusted with your parents money, but then stole it, and your father brought you to justice, and you went to jail. Now your father pays the bail, and you get out. If you refuse to leave the jail, is it now your father's fault? Is it your father's fault that you stole because he trusted you with his money? Is your father unjust because he brought you to court?
Infralapsarianism is where man's responsibility is determinative, while supralapsarianism relates to God's responsibility being greater. While these are interesting perspectives, it is better not to over-doctrinalize too much and simply live our lives, and not try to live God's life for Him, If God gave us the choice to follow him, and we discover that without God's grace and gifts, we would always reject him, we find that our free choiosing always makes the wrong choice by itself, and makes the right choice by God's grace. In trying to take credit for making the right choice by yourself, you might simply be making yourself your own god. On the other hand, be thankful when you follow Christ.
"Heb 6:10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised."
At the risk of overloading Edwin, and of getting Jolanda concerned, I am pasting a quote from Philip Westra from another thread on this topic, which Edwin has never responded to directly. I would love to hear his response.
"About the article itself: 1) The author (Walhout) frames the whole thing in a reading of history that is simply inaccurate. Purgatory, indulgences, relics, etc. did not form the "backbone of Christianity" 500 years ago. When these became too important, the Reformation happened. To put creation, sin and salvation (think Apostles Creed) on par with these is simply wrong. 2) Apart from the concluding blurb from a synodical report, Walhout fails to mention anything about how the church has already been wrestling with these issues for the past 150 years. This includes the various ways Genesis 1 has been interpreted well before Darwin came along, the numerous scholars who have described Adam and Eve as the representative head of the human race, and the work of scholars today in wrestling with these questions (i.e. books and articles by the Haarsmas at Calvin College). 3) This article lacks helpful distinctions, such as the difference between evolution and naturalism, which help us ask and answer the important questions. 4) He does suggest evolutionary theory calls for a reworking of doctrines like creation, sin and salvation. About sin, he says, "We will have to find a much better way of understanding what sin is, where it comes from, and what its consequences are. Theologians will have to find a new way of articulating a truly biblical doctrine of sin and what effect it has on us." In other words, evolutionary theory will enable theologians to be true to the Bible in our theological articulations. The implication being that now we will really understand the Bible. I think the problems in this are obvious. I am a bit floored that anyone in this forum might suggest that sin and salvaiton are not core doctrines of the Christian faith. 5) The author makes a prediction about the future, a prophetic claim, if you will. If history teaches us anything, it teaches us that we humans with our best sciences cannot predict the future. Unless Walhout received this from God himself (including being from Scripture), he should not put this forward as something that will inevitably happen. Being a false prophet is a serious matter in the Bible."
With regard to distinguishing religion from worship.... maybe that's where the confusion is. So let me try to answer my own question (I'm not sure about the pay-grade...) All of life is religious, because it reflects your faith values. All of life reflects who your God really is, and how important you think your God is. Or whether you are trying to serve more than one god. The atheist or christian who serves himself, the fan who adores his hockey team, the father who serves his work: how have these things been placed in life relative to God who puts his claim on us. If you worship God daily, that becomes part of your religion. If you worship God only on Easter sunday, that is a reflection of your religion. The way you do your work, and the type of work you do, reflects your relationship to God, and in that sense is part of your religion. If you say that God has no place in your bedroom, or your office, or your tractor-trailer unit, then that is part of your religion, even if it is not worship. And perhaps serving God, and worshipping God are not necessarily the same thing?
Roger, I was just listening to a video on facebook, and on this video was being read the verse where Jesus says that not all who say, "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom. But only those who do the will of the father. In spite of your sinful nature and your inclination to defy God, you don't have to deny Him. You can accept, trust, and obey. Arguing about it theologically will neither justify you, nor will it save you. I disagree with your analogy, because your sinful nature does not prevent you from accepting the gift God gives; it only inclines you against accepting. If you are controlled by your inclinations, that is a problem. We know that from personal experience in our daily life. So pray for God's spirit to control you.
God never broke anyone's legs in the sense of your analogy. God did not create us with a sinful nature. Man broke his own legs thru the choice God gave him, thru his fall, and his inability to run the race is part of his fallen humanness, not the humanness that God created him with. God provides the wheelchair, but man refuses to sit in it or refuses to operate the controls. He complains that he should not have broken legs, and says that God should have prevented him from breaking his own legs.
God provides the means to be saved from drowning, but often people swim in the wrong direction, or refuse the lifeboat or flotation device or the rope or plank offered to save. They have their own conditions for salvation, and thus die.
"God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes on him, shall not perish but will have eternal life. Whoever believes on him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already. Everyone who does evil hates the light..." God provides the light, but "men love darkness instead of light, because their deeds are evil..."
Blaming God for your own sin is inconsistent. Blaming God because some people reject him is illogical. Blaming God because he does not ensure that everyone exercises their free will to obey him, is making yourself God, while at the same time making people robots, also a logical inconsistency. When God exercises a special grace to rescue someone like the apostle Paul, that does not justify others who reject the obvious gift of grace God has made known to them through scripture or the witness of others.
God's grace is sufficient for everyone. Christ's sacrifice was big enough for anyone and everyone. But rejected by many.
Romans 7 indicates that Paul says that when controlled by the sinful nature we bore fruit for death. But now, dying to what previously bound us, dying to our own notions of our own goodness, we serve in the way of the spirit. I have the desire to do what is good, but cannot carry it out in the way I want, says Paul. So Jesus rescues us from our sinful nature, and we may live in the way of the spirit, instead of in the way of the sinful nature. Do we want to reject this rescue? Can we accept it? Many have accepted it, and the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. Do not let your argument with God keep you from accepting his gift.
Roger, thanks for your reply. Your last comments have been very revealing and put other of your comments into perspective. I will only say something about your reference to Jesus comment that only God is good. Just as many of Jesus statements (ie. about his death and resurrection) were not understood until later, so this one too is understood later as ironical. The Jews were only saying that Jesus was a good man.... maybe like Job, or King David, or Elijah. But Jesus pointed out that because no one was truly "good", as the Psalms pointed out (and they would have understood this alluded reference), Job, David and Elijah were also not truly good. Therefore, if Jesus was truly good, then he would also be God. If he was God, then he could be truly good. So this statement does not deny the divinity of Christ in any way, but hints at the truth of their description of Jesus as good.
Roger, I understand your concerns. Even though I was never an evolutionist, I always thought it was difficult to discount radiometric dating. But the issue is not of a few examples that disprove the method. The problem is that the methods for dating something old cannot be proven, unless we can use something that we already know the age. The evolutionists will say that we know how old something is by the fossils in it. Then they select a method that will give them that approximate age. Once you get into the billions of years with an 80 million year error bar in it, they can jiggle the ages to fit the fossils. But the problem is that there is no objective way to verify the ages, or whether the dating method is using the right assumptions. Evolutionists will say that you must use a method that is accurate for the general anticipated age, and so a Pb/Pb method should not be used for dating things as young as 100,000 years, and C14 should not be used for dating things as old as a billion years. This sentence seems to make sense, but it doesn't. C14 method should indicate that there is no detectable C14 for very old carbon. Pb/Pb method should not give ages in the billions of years for a fifty year old rock, no matter what the normal error range is. Tossing out these anomalies in order to fit the preconceived ages is not scientifically legitimate. Replication should get rid of these anomalies if it was just experimental error.
If the methods do not give you the correct answers when you know what the answers should be, then how can you trust them when they give you answers and you have no other objective way of verifying them? It's not a matter of calculating incorrectly. They measured and calculated correctly. Their measurements were precise and careful. But their assumptions were incorrect. This was very obvious with the K-Ar method, which they admit, but they are reluctant to extrapolate original AR to "older" samples, because it messes up their hypothesis and their assumptions about age.
For fossils, it is not a matter of discrediting a few fossils. The fact is that there are only a very few supposed transitional fossils. There should be more transitionals than endpoint fossils, as Darwin and other evolutionists admit. Today some evolutionists admit that the lack of transitional fossils is a bigger problem today than it was 150 years ago. But they can only identify a very few transitionals out of the millions of fossils available. So when these are discredited, then even those disputed hypothesized transitionals fall short, and none are left. None. You generalize that there is an abundance of evidence for evolution, but cannot come up with even one or two examples for scrutiny. I think you say this as a matter of faith....
There is also the matter of evolutionists discrediting or trying to discredit fossil evidence which some creationists have highlighted. For example, some human footprints have been photographed and seen by a number of fossil hunters, as superimposed on dinosaur footprints. The evolutionists automatic response is that humans and dinosaurs did not live in the same eons, and thus the fossil is impossible. Again, it is based on their assumptions. Evolutionists supposed that the coelecanth fish fossil was a prehistoric fish found millions of years ago, and extinct, because it was not found in more recent sediment layers. They supposed it was an ancestor of the tetrapod, in other words a link to land dwelling animals. But they were wrong on both counts, because the coelecanth is still in existence today, in much the same form as the fossil form. Furthermore, its fins are the wrong shape for converting to feet, so again, no link, no transition.
Evolutionists apparently have no explanation for why the helium-zircon crystal dating method gives such a young earth age, and why it would not be as valid a method as the other radiometric methods.
It's not one or two problems. It's many problems. Serious problems. Problems that change the playing field.
Both evolutionists and creationists based their science on their faith presuppositions, Roger. I personally think that since since a day is measured by evening and morning, that before the sun and moon were created, the daylengths might have had more hours or seconds. I say, might have had; it's not something to be definate about. For this reason, the actual age of the elements of the earth might not be 6000 yrs. I have just read a chapter on cosmology, which highlights the different theories of the beginning of the universe. Issues such as the red-shift, expansion of universe, dark matter and dark energy are discussed. Some of these things are nothing more than pure theory, with no actual way of scientific experimentation. The main point is that there is no experimental way of proving these theories. We can only check to see whether they are consistent with what is observable, but even then, there is more than one theory that seems to be possible. It is the most complicated aspect of origins. So I will make no comments on it at all.
Roger, thanks for your comments. I am curious to see how Edwin will respond to them. On my part, I am not sure you really exist, since I have no real evidence, outside of some words written by someone appearing here on this page. It might be a real person; it might be a pseudo person. :) I won't say much right now... maybe later, other than that your suggestion that I am afraid to step or move outside (of something) is presumptious, and a bit school-boyish. ("Scaredy cat, scaredy cat...") . In that case we are all motivated by fear. Edwin or I might suggest that you are afraid to step into Christian reality, and treat Scripture like a normal piece of literature rather than like a fable which it was not intended to be.
The interesting thing to me is that common sense and a bit of research indicates that the theory of evolution is having more and more difficulties as time goes on; yet many people continue to steadfastly believe in it without question. I think they are afraid to let go, or even to examine it critically.
George, I don't want to minimize the unity of the church. However, it seems to me that your article is concentrating more on the unity of ministers, and not on unity in the church. I am assuming also that you are referring to crc ministers getting together, although you don't say. Then you refer to only 5 or 6 ministers present from other churches, but again, I assume only crc churches.
John 17 is referring to much more than just ministers. It is referring to much more than just crc. To find unity in diversity is the difficulty we have as christians. To understand the combination of orthodoxy and orthopraxis is also a difficulty. But I would say the issue of attending a funeral or having ministerial meetings is not first of all a matter of unity, but a matter of pastoral care. There is unity in it, yes, but if ministerial meetings only involve one denomination, then there is also a matter of disunity inherent in it. Ironically.
On the other hand, unity is an important issue and we must struggle with it. Our desire for unity is at the root of every christian's desire to love one another as Christ loved us.
My own goal for unity would be to have those who believe infant baptism is okay to be united with those who prefer adult baptism. Can you imagine neither one condemning the other, and respecting the unique aspects of each approach? It seems inconceivable....
I'm really waiting for Edwin's response... But, since you claim you actually exist, I will respond as if you do, to some of your statements.
You mention various Christian realities. Yes, they exist. How would you determine which were man-made and which were God directed?
What makes the Biblical story of creation more reliable than other stories of creation? You'd have to be specific. But one of the other stories that would appear to be less reliable is that of the world living on the back of a turtle. The biblical story is more reliable first because it was written down, second because it fits with what is observed, third because it makes a more realistic distinction between man and the rest of creation, fourth because it points out that light (in other words, energy and physical laws) was created before various distinct heavenly bodies. It's also not a vague story about undefinable things, but actually leads to the first person who could be traced back through a lineage that was defined. The other creation stories often resemble the biblical story, but an examination shows where the other stories seem to have lost either the realities, or the defined characteristics of the biblical story.
The biblical story also explains the origin of the struggle between good and evil, and why God wants to bring us back to the good creation as he originally created it.
However, no matter how accurate it is, and how much one simply believes it because he trusts scripture, the other reality is that evolutionary theory reached its apex some decades ago, and in fact has more problems today than it did twenty or fifty years ago, from a merely scientific perspective. As an aside, when you say that there was no science in ancient times, it reveals that you need to learn a bit more both about ancient times, and about science. Science is merely observation of nature, and utilization of it. When people planted crops, they were using biological science thousands of years ago. The bible even talks about creators of musical instruments, tools, workers of iron, etc., long before the flood. These are all scientific endeavors. Scientific knowledge has increased and continues to increase over time, but it has always existed. Knowing that plants need water, and that a boat can float, is scientific knowledge.
Evolutionary theory still lacks the evidence of transitional fossils that we would expect, if it was true. It still has no explanation for the development of the intricacies of various components of the human cell, or for the mechanisms of propulsion of certain single cell animals, nor for the origin of biological life using merely evolutionary mechanisms. There is a lack of believable explanation of why certain organic particles can be found in supposedly millions of years old layers of rock or in dinosaur fossils. There is a problem with being unable to accurately date recent volcanic rock with K-Ar methods.
Whether these things would eventually have explanations, the fact remains that there are more problems with evolutionary theory today, than there were in the past.
Christian science must use scientific principles to evaluate evidence, regardless of motivation. There is much faith in evolution underlying the way it is examined and taught by evolutionists; evolutionists tend to give their theory the benefit of the doubt, and that is probably causing them not to examine the problems with the theory in the same way as an objective non-partisan approach might do.
I'm glad though that you are willing to examine some of these things.
Posted in: My Banner Article
Roger, I see you have still not provided any actual examples of recent discoveries that make evolution more possible. Okay, it seems philosophical generalities work better for you. But you are maligning and slandering to say that I disregard all evidence that would counter a non-evolutionist approach. Rather, I watch how others deal with this evidence and scrutinize it. For example, I have just read another chapter in "Evolution's Achilles Heels", the 20 page chapter on radiometric dating, by Dr. Jim Mason, who received a PhD in Experimental Nuclear Physics from McMaster U, Canada. He was employed in the defense industry, and was VicePresident of Engineering. He became a christian at the age of 40, and became a biblical creationist several years later.
In most of my years, I have always wondered about radiometric dating for age of rocks and fossils, because it seems so "scientific". It's outside of my areas of experience, although I have dabbled briefly with trace N15 isotope in looking at nitrogen cycling when fertilizer is added to soil, but that was a long time ago. At that time, it was thought that C14 (carbon dating) could reliably give radiometric dates up to about 40,000 years old. We now have equipment that can measure smaller amounts of radiation accurately, and so apparent ages up to 90,000 years can be determined with carbon dating. So is this a problem for young earth? Not according to Jim Mason. He points out that the K-AR (potassium-argon) method of dating said that a Mt. Ngauruhoe 1949 volcanic eruption and a 1975 eruption were either less than 270,000 years or 1 million years old. The method indicated that a 1954 eruption was less than 270,000, or 0.8 million, or 1.3 million, or 3.5 million years old. The accuracy is to 200,000 years. These tests were done in 2003. A method that indicates one million years of age for a 50 year old rock formation, seems to be a bit of a problem for the accuracy of the method. At minimum, it should indicate 200,000 years or less.
What about Mt. St. Helen's volcanic rock? The lava dome formed in 1984 had measurements done on it, both on whole rock and on constituent rock types. Whole rock was dated 350,000 years, while rock components ranged from 340,000 years (Feldspar) to 2.8 million yrs(Pyroxene). That's about 100,000 times the real age. And some rocks are dated as 8 times as old as other rocks in the same formation. Do you think that makes the method reliable? The excuse given by old agers are that the recent rocks have some original Ar in them. Okay, that makes sense, but why does that not also make sense for rocks they consider "old". Only a small amount of original argon in the "old" rocks would give false ages, and would make a 6,000 year old rock date as 18 million years old.
The isochron dating methods applied to Mt. Ngauruhoe rocks, finds dates of 133 million years for Rb-Sr (Rubidium-Strontium method), 197 million years for Sm-Nd, and 3.9 billion years for Pb - Pb (lead-lead). This does not seem accurate. The methods do not corroborate each other, and all ages are dramatically wrong. Some rocks from the Grand Canyon were dated using the isochron method of radiometrics, and Pb/Pb method dated the rocks as 600,000,000 years older (about 50% older) than the Rb/Sr method, even though experimental error is determined to be only 80 million years or less. That is a huge difference... more than half a billion years. Does that sound accurate to you? Is that a way of dating differences between layers of rock?
Some examples which might be easier to understand are carbon based. Mass spectrometers can measure much more accurately than the old geiger counters, and it would take a dating of more than 90,000 years old (15.6 half lives) before the C14 would be undetectable. In 2003, ten coal samples were analyzed. They had been dated at from 37 million to 318 million years old. If they were that old, the equipment should not detect any C14. However, they all contained C14. By C14, they were dated at 45,000 to 60,000 years old. What a vast difference compared to millions of years! Seven diamond samples were also tested. Diamonds had previously been dated at 1 to 3 billion years old. However, they still had C14 in them. By C14, they were dated at about the same age as the coal. So which method is accurate then?
Dr. Mason then goes on to explain that even 50,000 years is too old for a young earth. But again, what assumptions are being used? He says if the ratio of C14/C12 was much smaller at the time the vegetation was buried than it is today, then it would be much younger than it appeared by uniformitarian theory. If there was less solar activity, and there was more C12 in the atmosphere, then that would have lowered the ratio of C14/C12. Intense volcanoes at the time of burial would also have increased the amount of C12 at time of plant burial/coal formation.
Finally, radiometric dating using helium gives a different picture. Helium is a byproduct of U/Pb degradation. It diffuses out of rocks such as zircon crystals at a constant rate after being formed, so that will give a clue as to how long the process has been going on, when combined with the U238/Pb ratios. The diffusivity rates mesh really well with predicting a zircon age of about 6000 years. These zircon crystals have an alleged age of 1.5 billion years. So which dating method is right?
None of this information comes from 4 or 5 five pages in the Bible. It comes from the book of nature, which we consider also the revelation of God in nature.
Posted in: Check, Check, Checkmate!
Good article!
Posted in: My Banner Article
Well said, Roger. You have stated well your perspective, and the perspective of many about christianity and scripture. One sentence however, caught my attention: where you quote, "why does God blame people for not responding? Haven't they done what God made them to do?" Paul responds that we do not have the right to question God in this regard. As humans, we have no right to blame God, nor our parents, for our own sin, or for our own rejection of God. It is still we who reject God, isn't it? We know that people accept God, and follow Christ. Is it physically and mentally impossible for humans to follow Jesus? Obviously not. So why would we blame someone other than ourselves? It is our tendency to blame someone else that reveals our sin and our rejection of God. But at the same time, if we love God and accept Jesus as Saviour, it would be a denial of our sin to suggest that we could do this on our own. In all cases, we give God the credit for our salvation and for the gift of faith, and realize that in our failures it is we, not God who is to blame.
Suppose you were trusted with your parents money, but then stole it, and your father brought you to justice, and you went to jail. Now your father pays the bail, and you get out. If you refuse to leave the jail, is it now your father's fault? Is it your father's fault that you stole because he trusted you with his money? Is your father unjust because he brought you to court?
Infralapsarianism is where man's responsibility is determinative, while supralapsarianism relates to God's responsibility being greater. While these are interesting perspectives, it is better not to over-doctrinalize too much and simply live our lives, and not try to live God's life for Him, If God gave us the choice to follow him, and we discover that without God's grace and gifts, we would always reject him, we find that our free choiosing always makes the wrong choice by itself, and makes the right choice by God's grace. In trying to take credit for making the right choice by yourself, you might simply be making yourself your own god. On the other hand, be thankful when you follow Christ.
"Heb 6:10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised."
Posted in: My Banner Article
At the risk of overloading Edwin, and of getting Jolanda concerned, I am pasting a quote from Philip Westra from another thread on this topic, which Edwin has never responded to directly. I would love to hear his response.
"About the article itself: 1) The author (Walhout) frames the whole thing in a reading of history that is simply inaccurate. Purgatory, indulgences, relics, etc. did not form the "backbone of Christianity" 500 years ago. When these became too important, the Reformation happened. To put creation, sin and salvation (think Apostles Creed) on par with these is simply wrong. 2) Apart from the concluding blurb from a synodical report, Walhout fails to mention anything about how the church has already been wrestling with these issues for the past 150 years. This includes the various ways Genesis 1 has been interpreted well before Darwin came along, the numerous scholars who have described Adam and Eve as the representative head of the human race, and the work of scholars today in wrestling with these questions (i.e. books and articles by the Haarsmas at Calvin College). 3) This article lacks helpful distinctions, such as the difference between evolution and naturalism, which help us ask and answer the important questions. 4) He does suggest evolutionary theory calls for a reworking of doctrines like creation, sin and salvation. About sin, he says, "We will have to find a much better way of understanding what sin is, where it comes from, and what its consequences are. Theologians will have to find a new way of articulating a truly biblical doctrine of sin and what effect it has on us." In other words, evolutionary theory will enable theologians to be true to the Bible in our theological articulations. The implication being that now we will really understand the Bible. I think the problems in this are obvious. I am a bit floored that anyone in this forum might suggest that sin and salvaiton are not core doctrines of the Christian faith. 5) The author makes a prediction about the future, a prophetic claim, if you will. If history teaches us anything, it teaches us that we humans with our best sciences cannot predict the future. Unless Walhout received this from God himself (including being from Scripture), he should not put this forward as something that will inevitably happen. Being a false prophet is a serious matter in the Bible."
Posted in: All of Life is Worship - Really?
With regard to distinguishing religion from worship.... maybe that's where the confusion is. So let me try to answer my own question (I'm not sure about the pay-grade...) All of life is religious, because it reflects your faith values. All of life reflects who your God really is, and how important you think your God is. Or whether you are trying to serve more than one god. The atheist or christian who serves himself, the fan who adores his hockey team, the father who serves his work: how have these things been placed in life relative to God who puts his claim on us. If you worship God daily, that becomes part of your religion. If you worship God only on Easter sunday, that is a reflection of your religion. The way you do your work, and the type of work you do, reflects your relationship to God, and in that sense is part of your religion. If you say that God has no place in your bedroom, or your office, or your tractor-trailer unit, then that is part of your religion, even if it is not worship. And perhaps serving God, and worshipping God are not necessarily the same thing?
Posted in: My Banner Article
Roger, I was just listening to a video on facebook, and on this video was being read the verse where Jesus says that not all who say, "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom. But only those who do the will of the father. In spite of your sinful nature and your inclination to defy God, you don't have to deny Him. You can accept, trust, and obey. Arguing about it theologically will neither justify you, nor will it save you. I disagree with your analogy, because your sinful nature does not prevent you from accepting the gift God gives; it only inclines you against accepting. If you are controlled by your inclinations, that is a problem. We know that from personal experience in our daily life. So pray for God's spirit to control you.
God never broke anyone's legs in the sense of your analogy. God did not create us with a sinful nature. Man broke his own legs thru the choice God gave him, thru his fall, and his inability to run the race is part of his fallen humanness, not the humanness that God created him with. God provides the wheelchair, but man refuses to sit in it or refuses to operate the controls. He complains that he should not have broken legs, and says that God should have prevented him from breaking his own legs.
God provides the means to be saved from drowning, but often people swim in the wrong direction, or refuse the lifeboat or flotation device or the rope or plank offered to save. They have their own conditions for salvation, and thus die.
"God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes on him, shall not perish but will have eternal life. Whoever believes on him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already. Everyone who does evil hates the light..." God provides the light, but "men love darkness instead of light, because their deeds are evil..."
Blaming God for your own sin is inconsistent. Blaming God because some people reject him is illogical. Blaming God because he does not ensure that everyone exercises their free will to obey him, is making yourself God, while at the same time making people robots, also a logical inconsistency. When God exercises a special grace to rescue someone like the apostle Paul, that does not justify others who reject the obvious gift of grace God has made known to them through scripture or the witness of others.
God's grace is sufficient for everyone. Christ's sacrifice was big enough for anyone and everyone. But rejected by many.
Romans 7 indicates that Paul says that when controlled by the sinful nature we bore fruit for death. But now, dying to what previously bound us, dying to our own notions of our own goodness, we serve in the way of the spirit. I have the desire to do what is good, but cannot carry it out in the way I want, says Paul. So Jesus rescues us from our sinful nature, and we may live in the way of the spirit, instead of in the way of the sinful nature. Do we want to reject this rescue? Can we accept it? Many have accepted it, and the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. Do not let your argument with God keep you from accepting his gift.
Posted in: My Banner Article
Roger, thanks for your reply. Your last comments have been very revealing and put other of your comments into perspective. I will only say something about your reference to Jesus comment that only God is good. Just as many of Jesus statements (ie. about his death and resurrection) were not understood until later, so this one too is understood later as ironical. The Jews were only saying that Jesus was a good man.... maybe like Job, or King David, or Elijah. But Jesus pointed out that because no one was truly "good", as the Psalms pointed out (and they would have understood this alluded reference), Job, David and Elijah were also not truly good. Therefore, if Jesus was truly good, then he would also be God. If he was God, then he could be truly good. So this statement does not deny the divinity of Christ in any way, but hints at the truth of their description of Jesus as good.
Posted in: My Banner Article
Roger, I understand your concerns. Even though I was never an evolutionist, I always thought it was difficult to discount radiometric dating. But the issue is not of a few examples that disprove the method. The problem is that the methods for dating something old cannot be proven, unless we can use something that we already know the age. The evolutionists will say that we know how old something is by the fossils in it. Then they select a method that will give them that approximate age. Once you get into the billions of years with an 80 million year error bar in it, they can jiggle the ages to fit the fossils. But the problem is that there is no objective way to verify the ages, or whether the dating method is using the right assumptions. Evolutionists will say that you must use a method that is accurate for the general anticipated age, and so a Pb/Pb method should not be used for dating things as young as 100,000 years, and C14 should not be used for dating things as old as a billion years. This sentence seems to make sense, but it doesn't. C14 method should indicate that there is no detectable C14 for very old carbon. Pb/Pb method should not give ages in the billions of years for a fifty year old rock, no matter what the normal error range is. Tossing out these anomalies in order to fit the preconceived ages is not scientifically legitimate. Replication should get rid of these anomalies if it was just experimental error.
If the methods do not give you the correct answers when you know what the answers should be, then how can you trust them when they give you answers and you have no other objective way of verifying them? It's not a matter of calculating incorrectly. They measured and calculated correctly. Their measurements were precise and careful. But their assumptions were incorrect. This was very obvious with the K-Ar method, which they admit, but they are reluctant to extrapolate original AR to "older" samples, because it messes up their hypothesis and their assumptions about age.
For fossils, it is not a matter of discrediting a few fossils. The fact is that there are only a very few supposed transitional fossils. There should be more transitionals than endpoint fossils, as Darwin and other evolutionists admit. Today some evolutionists admit that the lack of transitional fossils is a bigger problem today than it was 150 years ago. But they can only identify a very few transitionals out of the millions of fossils available. So when these are discredited, then even those disputed hypothesized transitionals fall short, and none are left. None. You generalize that there is an abundance of evidence for evolution, but cannot come up with even one or two examples for scrutiny. I think you say this as a matter of faith....
There is also the matter of evolutionists discrediting or trying to discredit fossil evidence which some creationists have highlighted. For example, some human footprints have been photographed and seen by a number of fossil hunters, as superimposed on dinosaur footprints. The evolutionists automatic response is that humans and dinosaurs did not live in the same eons, and thus the fossil is impossible. Again, it is based on their assumptions. Evolutionists supposed that the coelecanth fish fossil was a prehistoric fish found millions of years ago, and extinct, because it was not found in more recent sediment layers. They supposed it was an ancestor of the tetrapod, in other words a link to land dwelling animals. But they were wrong on both counts, because the coelecanth is still in existence today, in much the same form as the fossil form. Furthermore, its fins are the wrong shape for converting to feet, so again, no link, no transition.
Evolutionists apparently have no explanation for why the helium-zircon crystal dating method gives such a young earth age, and why it would not be as valid a method as the other radiometric methods.
It's not one or two problems. It's many problems. Serious problems. Problems that change the playing field.
Posted in: My Banner Article
Both evolutionists and creationists based their science on their faith presuppositions, Roger. I personally think that since since a day is measured by evening and morning, that before the sun and moon were created, the daylengths might have had more hours or seconds. I say, might have had; it's not something to be definate about. For this reason, the actual age of the elements of the earth might not be 6000 yrs. I have just read a chapter on cosmology, which highlights the different theories of the beginning of the universe. Issues such as the red-shift, expansion of universe, dark matter and dark energy are discussed. Some of these things are nothing more than pure theory, with no actual way of scientific experimentation. The main point is that there is no experimental way of proving these theories. We can only check to see whether they are consistent with what is observable, but even then, there is more than one theory that seems to be possible. It is the most complicated aspect of origins. So I will make no comments on it at all.
Posted in: My Banner Article
Roger, thanks for your comments. I am curious to see how Edwin will respond to them. On my part, I am not sure you really exist, since I have no real evidence, outside of some words written by someone appearing here on this page. It might be a real person; it might be a pseudo person. :) I won't say much right now... maybe later, other than that your suggestion that I am afraid to step or move outside (of something) is presumptious, and a bit school-boyish. ("Scaredy cat, scaredy cat...") . In that case we are all motivated by fear. Edwin or I might suggest that you are afraid to step into Christian reality, and treat Scripture like a normal piece of literature rather than like a fable which it was not intended to be.
The interesting thing to me is that common sense and a bit of research indicates that the theory of evolution is having more and more difficulties as time goes on; yet many people continue to steadfastly believe in it without question. I think they are afraid to let go, or even to examine it critically.
Posted in: Oneness: Its Importance & How It's Shown
George, I don't want to minimize the unity of the church. However, it seems to me that your article is concentrating more on the unity of ministers, and not on unity in the church. I am assuming also that you are referring to crc ministers getting together, although you don't say. Then you refer to only 5 or 6 ministers present from other churches, but again, I assume only crc churches.
John 17 is referring to much more than just ministers. It is referring to much more than just crc. To find unity in diversity is the difficulty we have as christians. To understand the combination of orthodoxy and orthopraxis is also a difficulty. But I would say the issue of attending a funeral or having ministerial meetings is not first of all a matter of unity, but a matter of pastoral care. There is unity in it, yes, but if ministerial meetings only involve one denomination, then there is also a matter of disunity inherent in it. Ironically.
On the other hand, unity is an important issue and we must struggle with it. Our desire for unity is at the root of every christian's desire to love one another as Christ loved us.
My own goal for unity would be to have those who believe infant baptism is okay to be united with those who prefer adult baptism. Can you imagine neither one condemning the other, and respecting the unique aspects of each approach? It seems inconceivable....
Posted in: My Banner Article
I'm really waiting for Edwin's response... But, since you claim you actually exist, I will respond as if you do, to some of your statements.
You mention various Christian realities. Yes, they exist. How would you determine which were man-made and which were God directed?
What makes the Biblical story of creation more reliable than other stories of creation? You'd have to be specific. But one of the other stories that would appear to be less reliable is that of the world living on the back of a turtle. The biblical story is more reliable first because it was written down, second because it fits with what is observed, third because it makes a more realistic distinction between man and the rest of creation, fourth because it points out that light (in other words, energy and physical laws) was created before various distinct heavenly bodies. It's also not a vague story about undefinable things, but actually leads to the first person who could be traced back through a lineage that was defined. The other creation stories often resemble the biblical story, but an examination shows where the other stories seem to have lost either the realities, or the defined characteristics of the biblical story.
The biblical story also explains the origin of the struggle between good and evil, and why God wants to bring us back to the good creation as he originally created it.
However, no matter how accurate it is, and how much one simply believes it because he trusts scripture, the other reality is that evolutionary theory reached its apex some decades ago, and in fact has more problems today than it did twenty or fifty years ago, from a merely scientific perspective. As an aside, when you say that there was no science in ancient times, it reveals that you need to learn a bit more both about ancient times, and about science. Science is merely observation of nature, and utilization of it. When people planted crops, they were using biological science thousands of years ago. The bible even talks about creators of musical instruments, tools, workers of iron, etc., long before the flood. These are all scientific endeavors. Scientific knowledge has increased and continues to increase over time, but it has always existed. Knowing that plants need water, and that a boat can float, is scientific knowledge.
Evolutionary theory still lacks the evidence of transitional fossils that we would expect, if it was true. It still has no explanation for the development of the intricacies of various components of the human cell, or for the mechanisms of propulsion of certain single cell animals, nor for the origin of biological life using merely evolutionary mechanisms. There is a lack of believable explanation of why certain organic particles can be found in supposedly millions of years old layers of rock or in dinosaur fossils. There is a problem with being unable to accurately date recent volcanic rock with K-Ar methods.
Whether these things would eventually have explanations, the fact remains that there are more problems with evolutionary theory today, than there were in the past.
Christian science must use scientific principles to evaluate evidence, regardless of motivation. There is much faith in evolution underlying the way it is examined and taught by evolutionists; evolutionists tend to give their theory the benefit of the doubt, and that is probably causing them not to examine the problems with the theory in the same way as an objective non-partisan approach might do.
I'm glad though that you are willing to examine some of these things.