Creation Wiki

[jlay]

Here is an honest question. (and it cuts both ways.)

How many people who fall under the OEC are themselves actually familiar with the positions enough to defend them in any intellectual manner?
(Yes, I know we don't know all OECers, and I know we could ask the same of YEC.)
Regarding those who are not. How many hold to OEC not because of reasonable biblical defense but simply because of the pressures of not complying to what is promoted in the secular science community?

[Canuckster1127]

I don't know the answer to that. All I can draw upon is my own experience. I think in general that most OEC proponents can describe a YEC position than there are YECs who can explain an OEC position.

There are different paths that an OEC might have to the position. Some are textual and some are an effort to reconcile general science. I used to try to apologize for the latter but I don't any more. It's not invalid to start with natural revelation as reason to ask questions and see why popular textual positions might be wrong. All truth is God's truth. There's nothing inherently spiritual about embracing a position that goes against physical reality just to claim a willingness to hold to a text just because it is counter to human disciplines.

[RickD]

Here is an honest question. (and it cuts both ways.)

How many people who fall under the OEC are themselves actually familiar with the positions enough to defend them in any intellectual manner?
(Yes, I know we don't know all OECers, and I know we could ask the same of YEC.)
Regarding those who are not. How many hold to OEC not because of reasonable biblical defense but simply because of the pressures of not complying to what is promoted in the secular science community?

Jlay, I don't know how we could ever know the answer to that. It would probably be safe to assume that there are some who consider themselves OEC, don't know it that well, and believe that the secular science community is generally honest in their conclusions. When I was YEC, I kinda believed all secular scientists were anti-God, and had some evil agenda to promote naturalistic evolution. I believed that because, at the time, everything I read from a YEC perspective, said that. then, I began to really study OEC/YEC, and came to the conclusion that not all secular scientists have an agenda.
It seems to be a common argument that some prominent YECs use, that OECs place science before the bible. I think, for the educated OECs that I know, that is certainly not the case. TBH, I think if most people who believed some form of OEC were asked, they'd probably say that it really doesn't matter what the age of the earth is.

[zoegirl]

Here is an honest question. (and it cuts both ways.)

How many people who fall under the OEC are themselves actually familiar with the positions enough to defend them in any intellectual manner?
(Yes, I know we don't know all OECers, and I know we could ask the same of YEC.)

From a biological standpoint, yes, from a physics standpoint, less so, but reasonably...scripture, yes.

Regarding those who are not. How many hold to OEC not because of reasonable biblical defense but simply because of the pressures of not complying to what is promoted in the secular science community?

LOL It's not as if we are welcomed with open arms in the scientific community We are still ridiculed for being Christians, ridiculed for being silly enough to try to believe in the flying spaghetti monster. And still get God of the Gaps thrown in our faces.

Now we just get mud thrown from both sides

[Kurieuo]

Here is an honest question. (and it cuts both ways.)

How many people who fall under the OEC are themselves actually familiar with the positions enough to defend them in any intellectual manner?
(Yes, I know we don't know all OECers, and I know we could ask the same of YEC.)
Regarding those who are not. How many hold to OEC not because of reasonable biblical defense but simply because of the pressures of not complying to what is promoted in the secular science community?

Well, Day-Age OECs don't accept evolution when it comes to life's diversity that we see. If influenced entirely by secular science, then it would appear odd why Day-Age proponents stop short.

Furthermore, a strict YEC interpretation is largely something that originated 17th century and largely popularised via the Scofield Reference Bible.

Of days, we have some of the following writings on Genesis creation days from various early Christian theologians:

Irenaeus said: Thus, then, in the day they eat, in the same did they die... For it is said, "There was made in the evening, and there was made in the morning one day." Now in this same day that they did eat, in that also did they die. ... On one and the same day on which they ate they also died (for it is one day of creation)... He (Adam) did no overstep the thousand years, but died within their limit... for since "a day of the Lord is as a thousand years," he did not overstep the thousand years, but died within them."

Augustine wrote in the 'The City of God': "As for these 'days,' [Genesis creation days] it is difficult, perhaps impossible to think let alone explain in words what they mean."

In 'The Literal Meaning of Genesis' Augustine writes: "But at least we know that it [the Genesis creation day] is different from the ordinary day with which we are familiar."

Elsewhere in the same book he writes: Seven days by our reckoning after the model of the day of creation, make up a week. By the passage of such weeks time rolls on, and in these weeks one day is constituted by the course of the sun from its rising to its settings; but we must bear in mind that these days indeed recall the days of creation, but without in any way being really similar to them.

Origen also wrote of the first six days as representing the time of work for men, and the seventh (Sabbath) day, lasting the full duration of the world: He [Celsus] knows nothing of the day of the Sabbath and rest of God, which follows the completion of the world's creation, and which lasts during the duration of the world, and in which all those will keep festival with God who have done all their works in their six days, and who, because they have omitted none of their duties will ascend to the contemplation (of Celestial things) and to the assembly of righteous and blessed beings.

Thus, the belief the the days of Genesis 1 were longer than a standard 24-hour day existing long before modern science emerged.

[Kurieuo]

Sorry, I realised I did not pay notice to whom the questions were directed.

However, when I came to OEC, I did not call it that, nor did I know about Day-Age in particular. I was neither OEC nor YEC as good as I can remember. Neither did I pay much attention to science. But when I began taking Scripture more seriously and reading through it on my own, through my own diliberations upon Genesis which I found confusing, I did not consider the days in Genesis to be solar days but rather a literary technique being used to explain creation.

Then Ken Ham changed my opinion when I listened to tapes (1999). He essentially steamrolled saying a literal day, 24 hours to be exact, and that the original Hebrew could not be read any other way. If you did not accept this, he said, then you do not have faith in Christ or the Word of God. I rejected his comments about lack of faith, since I knew I had faith in God and the Bible, but I did come to accept his authoritative interpretation as my own.

Moving forward, perhaps a year later, I came across the God and Science website. Rich's interpretation seemed to make so much sense and fit with my initial inclinations.

So, if you're interested in my own journey with creation positions that is it in a nutshell. I came to understand days as non-solar through my own reading of Scripture, shifted to YEC based on authority of someone I thought knew Scripture better than I, and then moved to Day-Age when it came down to more closely examining Scripture via Rich's interpretation. And then I became acquainted with Hugh Ross and Reasons To Believe, science became more interesting to me, and I began to explore it more as it related to or challenged what I believe, and the rest is history.

[SnowDrops]

It probably would be unkind to note how many people YEC representations of the BIble and Science drive away from Christ, so I won't.

As someone already said though, it would be nice of them to call their position YEC, not "mostly" biblical creationism and also creationism in general.