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.
Roger, it is interesting how you make adamant extended statements about what I believe based on so little evidence. But I understand you are doing this in order to find out how I will respond. My basic response is that sometimes we over-doctrinalize things. By that I mean that we make definitive distinctions that scripture does not make. For example, we are saved by faith. Jesus even said to at least one individual that her faith had saved her. The epistles also say the same thing. Not saved by works. But James clears up how works fits with faith. We can only show our faith by our works. (The woman whose faith had saved her, had annointed Jesus with oil.) Abraham was justified by his obedience, which came from his faith. No works, no obedience, means no faith. Beyond that, we should be careful not to make more definitive statements than what scripture makes.
Bible is also clear that we are sinners. Psalms say there is no one without sin. Paul says he was controlled by the sinful nature. But God's spirit changes that nature. To talk about this in the abstract is sometimes interesting, but is not valuable as applying it to your own life. The question is not how many people has God saved. The question is: do you love God? If you love God, then you know you belong to Him, that God loves you, and you know that you want to do what God desires.
The mystery of whether God chooses us in spite of our rejection of Him, or because of our love for Him, or both, or either, is not something that we need to butt heads about. The difference between reformed thinking and free-willism is not as big as some like to make it to be. Left to ourselves we all sin. We all deserve judgement. We all have a tendency and an inclination to reject God. With God's grace, with God's spirit, we can love God and live for God. The details are mysterious. Some people accept Jesus quickly and willingly while others fight, kicking and screaming before they accept him. Others reject Christ until the day they die. Our job is to accept Christ, and then to share Christ. To give God the glory and not take the glory for ourselves.
If scripture speaks of this relationship between God and the believer in different ways, then we should not deny our ability to speak of it in different ways.
We cannot save ourselves by blaming God for our own sin. We cannot save ourselves by our own good works. We must accept Christ, and then acknowledge that it is a free gift, including even the faith to accept.
Ephesians 1 gives God the glory for our salvation, and for granting his spirit. Even blaming God for not saving everyone is a backwards way of praising God for saving some. Suppose he had saved no one? But the mystery and uncertainty of not fully understanding God's mind is not something we will solve on this side of heaven.
When you say I don't like this or that about scripture, you are mistaken. I don't say I like this or don't like that about what scripture says or about what Jesus says or what the epistles say. What it says is what it says and I simply try to understand it, or at least accept it. When it says seemingly contradictory things, I believe these things fit together in a comprehensive whole. I do not claim to have more wisdom than God. I certainly do not have the authority nor even the ability to judge God. So if I did not like something that Jesus said, that would be an indictment against me, not against Jesus, nor against scripture.
So you ask me, "what makes you think that God created all there is, including our world...". My question to you is this: do you think God is the creator? Did he create everything? Did someone else create some of it? Did it create itself? Are you concerned about whether God is the creator, or about how he created?
Thanks for your replies, Edwin. Developmentalism. That is what you believe in... apparently. Hmm. See I believe that God develops things, and we develop things... but I believe not in developmentalism. I believe in God and trust scripture.
Although the renaissance did believe in enlightenment, but that did not have much to do with God's purpose, but rather with a humanistic approach to life.
So you believe in sin... but have difficulty explaining it, if it is simply a natural outworking of evolution which god used to create. How could you say that sin is not just a human construct? Why is sin not just the natural impulses of the evolutionary process? And if it is, why would god want us to change these predatory impulses? The predatory impulses which he created? (I mean lying, stealing, lusting, adultery, cheating, killing....)
The reason why distinguishing evolution and naturalism is significant, is that naturalism implies that God has nothing to do with evolution. On the other hand, if God does have something to do with evolution, then you need to ask what and how. Because evolution certainly defines sin differently than God does.
You say that Jesus now sits at the right hand of the Father. That he is ruling in the world. Where do you think he was sitting when the world was created? When you attribute progress or "more just" to Canada and USA and Europe (presumably) than Egypt and Greece and Rome I would agree that you are possibly right. But the issue is not developmentalism. The issue is God's grace and the witness of Christians. For example, the abolition of slavery in the USA and the destruction of the slave trade in Britain. Mostly motivated by christian men. But keep in mind, the USA was already a country for almost 100 years before that, and settled as colonies 200 years before that. And not by barbarian hordes.
Anyway, it is not in citing examples of this and that, which we can prove progress or not. One nuclear bomb seems to outweigh a lot of progress, especially since it is part of the progress. Scripture is a better guide. And scripture promises times of blessing, and a time when Satan is released, that great beast. It also promises a judgement of those who disobey God. It also promises that there will be a time when no one has to teach his neighbor about God or salvation, because everyone will already know. But this seems to be heaven itself. There is no sense of an evolutionary process leading us to become better. Rather there is a declaration of needing faith and God's spirit, not to evolve, but to become new. To be born again.
Thanks for your reply. At least we are beginning to understand you.
Chapter 3 of the book, "Evolution's Achilles Heels" was written by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, a PhD in Physical Chemistry, and chess master in New Zealand. His chapter is on the origin of life. He covers several topics in 32 pages, but what I found interesting was his discussion of probabilities, and the elemental basic requirements for life. Apparently, the hypothetical minimum genome consists of 387 protein-coding genes, and 43 RNA-coding genes. This would be for a mycoplasma which is about the simplest organism found. Mycoplasma genitalium (a bacterium) has the smallest known genome and contains 482 genes comprising 580,000 bases.
The chance of attaining the minimum, making very generous assumptions (generous means unrealistic), is about (10) to the power of -5000. Like guessing a 5000 digit PIN on the first try. Evolutionists say that given enough time randomness makes anything possible. Sarfati says there are 10 to power of 80 atoms in the universe. 10 to power of 12 atomic interactions per second. 10 to power of 18 seconds since the evolutionary big bang. This makes only 10 to power of 110 interactions possible. The chance of getting the minimal life is one in 10 to the power of 4925. Not enough time. No chance. Impossible through randomness. It is statistically impossible.
This does not include all the probabilities necessary for developing this simple life into all other life forms through sheer random chance of obtaining favorable mutations and additions of information which are not lost. So Edwin, what would it take for you to lose your faith in evolution?
What I mean by faith in evolution, Roger, is that people believe in it whether they understand it or not, and whether they can prove it scientifically or not. Whether evolutionists are atheists or not, they generally examine and assume evolution from the perspective that God does not influence it. Evolution is primarily history, paleo and geological history. Evolutionists will say that God has no direct involvement; this is an atheistic position, even if the evolutionists themselves are deists. It's like saying that everything that happened to King David, or Pharaoh, or Jesus, was just an accident of history. That God had no purpose in it. That God also does not do miracles, nor does his spirit influence anyone. It's that type of atheistic mindset that says that there really was no flood caused by God, and that destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was no act of God.
I am somewhat willing to stretch the length of days before the sun and moon became visible on Day 4, because of the possibility that it does not violate scripture itself. If a day was really long (measured in hours or by an atomic clock) because the earth was not spinning, or for some other reason, it would still be a day by an evening and morning. Think of a space ship beyond earth's horizon, which does not experience a morning and evening. But that is different to me than saying that millions of days or years happened during that period. I am willing to stretch the length of days if the evidence requires it, which it may not do when we fully understand what the physics is telling us. But extending the length or number of days after animals and fish and birds and man were created seems to me to violate the principle of the good creation in scripture and negate the entire point of the genesis story.
Speculating on the first few days of creation in the genesis account, we see that the earth was there, but had no viable form, and was dark. Then light was created, which we could say perhaps was the source of stars of the universe, and a source of day and night for the earth. The earth then became divided into waters above and waters below, the appearance of an atmosphere. Still no land. The third day, dry ground appeared, a very dramatic physical thing. Presumably mountains, valleys, seas, oceans. A major shift of elements and rocks. Before this, just water. After this, land. Was this associated with a difference in the properties of the earth such as its rotation, polar angles, etc.? The same day, we get seeds and plants and trees, presumably at the end of this day. The fourth day, separate lights, the lights that we identify today with day and night, ie. sun and moon and stars. We had light before, but now the lights are separated into distinct bodies such as sun and stars, and reflected on the moon and other planets. This is speculation, and could be totally out, or partially out as far as trying to find a naturalistic explanation. Whether God sent another planet or star to collide and cause the earth to begin its rotation and orbit, or whether He simply touched the earth with his finger to make it spin... well, we don't know.
But we do know that seeds and plants needed to be directly created, because they could not create themselves. Science tells us they cannot create themselves. We know that fish and birds and reptiles and other animals needed to be created, because they could not and cannot create themselves, not even by accident. There is no reasonable naturalistic explanation for how they came about. Once they came about, they seem to be able to change a bit, but not in a grand evolutionary sense. And scripture is pretty clear that God created man from the dust of the earth, not from some animal. God used some of the same principles for creating man, that he used for creating mammals. He used nervous systems, blood, endoskeleton, dna, and bimodal principles. But again, similarity of design does not mean similarity or inheritance of origin.
Jonathan Sarfati wrote a book called, "Refuting Compromise" which you might want to read if you are really interested in pursuing this idea of theistic evolution. It will probably clarify the difficulties.
In my perception, it is ironic, Edwin, that on the one hand, in your world, Adam never existed, yet on the other hand, God still spoke. As your own arbiter of what to accept and what not to accept in scripture, it is difficult to carry on a rational discussion. By your standards it would be as easy for me to deny that God spoke at all. Especially that he spoke creation into existence, which you seem to deny anyway. (or are you now suggesting a punctuated equilibrium? or God of the gaps?).
It sometimes seems that the strongest believers in raw evolution theory are those who do the least examination of the empirical difficulties with it.
Scientists who study origins without considering God' s word, and His role, just might be the same as a mechanic trying to understand an engine without considering the fuel that makes it meaningful Just because they are studying God's world, does not mean they are listening to God, anymore than a teenager riding a God-created horse down a God-created trail to a God-created stream is listening to God. Although scripture does say that even those who have not heard of Christ are still without excuse before God, because they can see God's hand in the world around them, if their hearts are open.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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....
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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.
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Roger, it is interesting how you make adamant extended statements about what I believe based on so little evidence. But I understand you are doing this in order to find out how I will respond. My basic response is that sometimes we over-doctrinalize things. By that I mean that we make definitive distinctions that scripture does not make. For example, we are saved by faith. Jesus even said to at least one individual that her faith had saved her. The epistles also say the same thing. Not saved by works. But James clears up how works fits with faith. We can only show our faith by our works. (The woman whose faith had saved her, had annointed Jesus with oil.) Abraham was justified by his obedience, which came from his faith. No works, no obedience, means no faith. Beyond that, we should be careful not to make more definitive statements than what scripture makes.
Bible is also clear that we are sinners. Psalms say there is no one without sin. Paul says he was controlled by the sinful nature. But God's spirit changes that nature. To talk about this in the abstract is sometimes interesting, but is not valuable as applying it to your own life. The question is not how many people has God saved. The question is: do you love God? If you love God, then you know you belong to Him, that God loves you, and you know that you want to do what God desires.
The mystery of whether God chooses us in spite of our rejection of Him, or because of our love for Him, or both, or either, is not something that we need to butt heads about. The difference between reformed thinking and free-willism is not as big as some like to make it to be. Left to ourselves we all sin. We all deserve judgement. We all have a tendency and an inclination to reject God. With God's grace, with God's spirit, we can love God and live for God. The details are mysterious. Some people accept Jesus quickly and willingly while others fight, kicking and screaming before they accept him. Others reject Christ until the day they die. Our job is to accept Christ, and then to share Christ. To give God the glory and not take the glory for ourselves.
If scripture speaks of this relationship between God and the believer in different ways, then we should not deny our ability to speak of it in different ways.
We cannot save ourselves by blaming God for our own sin. We cannot save ourselves by our own good works. We must accept Christ, and then acknowledge that it is a free gift, including even the faith to accept.
Ephesians 1 gives God the glory for our salvation, and for granting his spirit. Even blaming God for not saving everyone is a backwards way of praising God for saving some. Suppose he had saved no one? But the mystery and uncertainty of not fully understanding God's mind is not something we will solve on this side of heaven.
When you say I don't like this or that about scripture, you are mistaken. I don't say I like this or don't like that about what scripture says or about what Jesus says or what the epistles say. What it says is what it says and I simply try to understand it, or at least accept it. When it says seemingly contradictory things, I believe these things fit together in a comprehensive whole. I do not claim to have more wisdom than God. I certainly do not have the authority nor even the ability to judge God. So if I did not like something that Jesus said, that would be an indictment against me, not against Jesus, nor against scripture.
So you ask me, "what makes you think that God created all there is, including our world...". My question to you is this: do you think God is the creator? Did he create everything? Did someone else create some of it? Did it create itself? Are you concerned about whether God is the creator, or about how he created?
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Thanks for your replies, Edwin. Developmentalism. That is what you believe in... apparently. Hmm. See I believe that God develops things, and we develop things... but I believe not in developmentalism. I believe in God and trust scripture.
Although the renaissance did believe in enlightenment, but that did not have much to do with God's purpose, but rather with a humanistic approach to life.
So you believe in sin... but have difficulty explaining it, if it is simply a natural outworking of evolution which god used to create. How could you say that sin is not just a human construct? Why is sin not just the natural impulses of the evolutionary process? And if it is, why would god want us to change these predatory impulses? The predatory impulses which he created? (I mean lying, stealing, lusting, adultery, cheating, killing....)
The reason why distinguishing evolution and naturalism is significant, is that naturalism implies that God has nothing to do with evolution. On the other hand, if God does have something to do with evolution, then you need to ask what and how. Because evolution certainly defines sin differently than God does.
You say that Jesus now sits at the right hand of the Father. That he is ruling in the world. Where do you think he was sitting when the world was created? When you attribute progress or "more just" to Canada and USA and Europe (presumably) than Egypt and Greece and Rome I would agree that you are possibly right. But the issue is not developmentalism. The issue is God's grace and the witness of Christians. For example, the abolition of slavery in the USA and the destruction of the slave trade in Britain. Mostly motivated by christian men. But keep in mind, the USA was already a country for almost 100 years before that, and settled as colonies 200 years before that. And not by barbarian hordes.
Anyway, it is not in citing examples of this and that, which we can prove progress or not. One nuclear bomb seems to outweigh a lot of progress, especially since it is part of the progress. Scripture is a better guide. And scripture promises times of blessing, and a time when Satan is released, that great beast. It also promises a judgement of those who disobey God. It also promises that there will be a time when no one has to teach his neighbor about God or salvation, because everyone will already know. But this seems to be heaven itself. There is no sense of an evolutionary process leading us to become better. Rather there is a declaration of needing faith and God's spirit, not to evolve, but to become new. To be born again.
Thanks for your reply. At least we are beginning to understand you.
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Chapter 3 of the book, "Evolution's Achilles Heels" was written by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, a PhD in Physical Chemistry, and chess master in New Zealand. His chapter is on the origin of life. He covers several topics in 32 pages, but what I found interesting was his discussion of probabilities, and the elemental basic requirements for life. Apparently, the hypothetical minimum genome consists of 387 protein-coding genes, and 43 RNA-coding genes. This would be for a mycoplasma which is about the simplest organism found. Mycoplasma genitalium (a bacterium) has the smallest known genome and contains 482 genes comprising 580,000 bases.
The chance of attaining the minimum, making very generous assumptions (generous means unrealistic), is about (10) to the power of -5000. Like guessing a 5000 digit PIN on the first try. Evolutionists say that given enough time randomness makes anything possible. Sarfati says there are 10 to power of 80 atoms in the universe. 10 to power of 12 atomic interactions per second. 10 to power of 18 seconds since the evolutionary big bang. This makes only 10 to power of 110 interactions possible. The chance of getting the minimal life is one in 10 to the power of 4925. Not enough time. No chance. Impossible through randomness. It is statistically impossible.
This does not include all the probabilities necessary for developing this simple life into all other life forms through sheer random chance of obtaining favorable mutations and additions of information which are not lost. So Edwin, what would it take for you to lose your faith in evolution?
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What I mean by faith in evolution, Roger, is that people believe in it whether they understand it or not, and whether they can prove it scientifically or not. Whether evolutionists are atheists or not, they generally examine and assume evolution from the perspective that God does not influence it. Evolution is primarily history, paleo and geological history. Evolutionists will say that God has no direct involvement; this is an atheistic position, even if the evolutionists themselves are deists. It's like saying that everything that happened to King David, or Pharaoh, or Jesus, was just an accident of history. That God had no purpose in it. That God also does not do miracles, nor does his spirit influence anyone. It's that type of atheistic mindset that says that there really was no flood caused by God, and that destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was no act of God.
I am somewhat willing to stretch the length of days before the sun and moon became visible on Day 4, because of the possibility that it does not violate scripture itself. If a day was really long (measured in hours or by an atomic clock) because the earth was not spinning, or for some other reason, it would still be a day by an evening and morning. Think of a space ship beyond earth's horizon, which does not experience a morning and evening. But that is different to me than saying that millions of days or years happened during that period. I am willing to stretch the length of days if the evidence requires it, which it may not do when we fully understand what the physics is telling us. But extending the length or number of days after animals and fish and birds and man were created seems to me to violate the principle of the good creation in scripture and negate the entire point of the genesis story.
Speculating on the first few days of creation in the genesis account, we see that the earth was there, but had no viable form, and was dark. Then light was created, which we could say perhaps was the source of stars of the universe, and a source of day and night for the earth. The earth then became divided into waters above and waters below, the appearance of an atmosphere. Still no land. The third day, dry ground appeared, a very dramatic physical thing. Presumably mountains, valleys, seas, oceans. A major shift of elements and rocks. Before this, just water. After this, land. Was this associated with a difference in the properties of the earth such as its rotation, polar angles, etc.? The same day, we get seeds and plants and trees, presumably at the end of this day. The fourth day, separate lights, the lights that we identify today with day and night, ie. sun and moon and stars. We had light before, but now the lights are separated into distinct bodies such as sun and stars, and reflected on the moon and other planets. This is speculation, and could be totally out, or partially out as far as trying to find a naturalistic explanation. Whether God sent another planet or star to collide and cause the earth to begin its rotation and orbit, or whether He simply touched the earth with his finger to make it spin... well, we don't know.
But we do know that seeds and plants needed to be directly created, because they could not create themselves. Science tells us they cannot create themselves. We know that fish and birds and reptiles and other animals needed to be created, because they could not and cannot create themselves, not even by accident. There is no reasonable naturalistic explanation for how they came about. Once they came about, they seem to be able to change a bit, but not in a grand evolutionary sense. And scripture is pretty clear that God created man from the dust of the earth, not from some animal. God used some of the same principles for creating man, that he used for creating mammals. He used nervous systems, blood, endoskeleton, dna, and bimodal principles. But again, similarity of design does not mean similarity or inheritance of origin.
Jonathan Sarfati wrote a book called, "Refuting Compromise" which you might want to read if you are really interested in pursuing this idea of theistic evolution. It will probably clarify the difficulties.
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In my perception, it is ironic, Edwin, that on the one hand, in your world, Adam never existed, yet on the other hand, God still spoke. As your own arbiter of what to accept and what not to accept in scripture, it is difficult to carry on a rational discussion. By your standards it would be as easy for me to deny that God spoke at all. Especially that he spoke creation into existence, which you seem to deny anyway. (or are you now suggesting a punctuated equilibrium? or God of the gaps?).
It sometimes seems that the strongest believers in raw evolution theory are those who do the least examination of the empirical difficulties with it.
Scientists who study origins without considering God' s word, and His role, just might be the same as a mechanic trying to understand an engine without considering the fuel that makes it meaningful Just because they are studying God's world, does not mean they are listening to God, anymore than a teenager riding a God-created horse down a God-created trail to a God-created stream is listening to God. Although scripture does say that even those who have not heard of Christ are still without excuse before God, because they can see God's hand in the world around them, if their hearts are open.