Evidence for God from Science

I'd like to ask -- probably Again -- but Why is it so hard to accept God's power To create this world in six 24-hour days.

crochet1949 wrote:I'd like to ask -- probably Again -- but Why is it so hard to accept God's power To create this world in six 24-hour days.

Nobody has any problem saying that God could create in six 24-hour days. We have a problem with those who say He must have created in six 24-hour days.

It's not about what we think God could have done. It's about what we think He actually did.


Crochet,

Why is it so hard to not conflate millions or billions of years, with Godless naturalism?

RickD, I have come around the other way going from an OEC to a YEC. Looking at the evidence of both over the years, I find the critics of YEC don't objectively look at the evidence but name call, while at the same time accept much of the junk that is passed off as science by evolutionists. I like Ken Ham's arguments about the layering of fossils. I also like the analogy of glasses that he talks about.

swordfish7 wrote:RickD, I have come around the other way going from an OEC to a YEC. Looking at the evidence of both over the years, I find the critics of YEC don't objectively look at the evidence but name call, while at the same time accept much of the junk that is passed off as science by evolutionists. I like Ken Ham's arguments about the layering of fossils. I also like the analogy of glasses that he talks about.

That's fine. But I'm not one who didn't objectively look at the evidence. I was a hard-line YEC. I believed Ken Ham and others when they said that Christians could only believe in a young earth. I believed him and others, hook line and sinker, when they said the only way that scripture can be understood, was in line with a young earth belief.

It wasn't until I actually started looking objectively at the evidence, that I realized the evidence for a young earth was severely lacking. And it wasn't until I started studying scripture for myself, that I started to see that I could believe in something other than YEC, and still hold to a literal interpretation of scripture.

RickD -- what were the Scriptures you were studying for yourself that .......still hold to a literal interpretation of Scripture.

crochet1949 wrote:RickD -- what were the Scriptures you were studying for yourself that .......still hold to a literal interpretation of Scripture.

Mainly Genesis, regarding creation days.

What got me to think out of my YEC "box", was a rabbi I heard on the Dennis Prager show, who said that yom can literally mean something other than a 24-hour day. Up until then, I just took the word of Ken Ham, Henry Morris and others, that the word yom, which we translate as "day" had to mean a 24-hour day.

Then when the rabbi said that, it was as if a light bulb went off in my head. So, I began researching on my own, with the help of Rich Deem, Hugh Ross, and others.

While I'm sure me saying this would make him uncomfortable, nonetheless even Jac concedes that Day-Age is a literal word-based interpretation which is a credit to the Day-Age interpretation unlike say Theistic Evolution which is literally irreconcilable with Scripture.

Although that is then qualified, with Jac saying a plain reading in applying a strict Historical-Grammatical method that keeps to the immediate context in understanding what the original author and audience would have understood just doesn't support Day-Age. I think if we take Scripture without any scientific overlay, that there seem to be a weakness in Day-Age not being the immediate plain interpretation one might come to via Scripture alone. Whether that's a weakness in the hermeneutic itself in not recognising the Holy Spirit's superintendence...

Applying the method with the same rigor however, the Hebrews clearly understood a literal day as involving the Sun, one that has evening and morning. Consider Joshua's long day when the Sun stood still while they fought. This was longer than 24 hours and the basis for day is the Sun going through the sky, not a period of time. Therefore many YEC interpretations which place the Sun being created on day 4, or that call a literal day 24 hours (e.g., Hamists), are struck by the same hermeneutic when strictly applied.

The only interpretation that passes the acid test of this literal hermeneutic when strictly applied is one that says the Sun was created in the beginning, such that a literal day with the Sun can be had on the first day.

How about the concept that the Holy Spirit guided the writer to write exactly what the people would understand. Do we occasionally over-think Scripture?

And God Also has charge of nature as is seen in the passage about Joshua's long day when the sun stood still for that length of time. It didn't change the length of days.

References to "a strict Historical-Grammatical method" sort of get lost in the reading.

crochet1949 wrote:How about the concept that the Holy Spirit guided the writer to write exactly what the people would understand. Do we occasionally over-think Scripture?

And God Also has charge of nature as is seen in the passage about Joshua's long day when the sun stood still for that length of time. It didn't change the length of days.

References to "a strict Historical-Grammatical method" sort of get lost in the reading.

This should be considered but it also should be considered that over time as more of God's word was written by men guided by the Holy Spirit more is revealed in God's word for us to search out as we read and study it and it reveals more to us that we may have overlooked and that if/when it does? We should change to accommodate it. Renewing our mind.

crochet1949 wrote:How about the concept that the Holy Spirit guided the writer to write exactly what the people would understand. Do we occasionally over-think Scripture?

References to "a strict Historical-Grammatical method" sort of get lost in the reading.

Noone here, except perhaps Hugh, questions whether Scripture is inspired. Your relaxation of methods of interpretation would go against any case YECs would muster, as it is the Historical-Grammatical method that they claim superiority on with their "literal" interpretation.

I disagree with YEC, nonetheless it is important to have objective methods of interpretation, otherwise all meaning is lost and anyone's opinion is as good as another's. The Historical-Grammatical method, known as a/the literal method of interpretion, I respect and consider quite valuable.

Kurieuo wrote:

crochet1949 wrote:How about the concept that the Holy Spirit guided the writer to write exactly what the people would understand. Do we occasionally over-think Scripture?

References to "a strict Historical-Grammatical method" sort of get lost in the reading.

Noone here, except perhaps Hugh, questions whether Scripture is inspired. Your relaxation of methods of interpretation would go against any case YECs would muster, as it is the Historical-Grammatical method that they claim superiority on with their "literal" interpretation.

I disagree with YEC, nonetheless it is important to have objective methods of interpretation, otherwise all meaning is lost and anyone's opinion is as good as another's. The Historical-Grammatical method, known as a/the literal method of interpretion, I respect and consider quite valuable.

Is the historical - grammatical method where you read the bible as the writer at the time would understand it and ignore other scriptures later on in other books that apply to what the earlier book said? Because based on arguments I've heard this seems to be the case and I think it was made up to accommodate only the YEC interpretation. So that you must ignore what other scriptures say that apply and that gives greater understanding and adds context to the topic.It seems they have done this just for the sake of Genesis and they want you to read it like it was the first book of the bible and ignore what the rest of the bible reveals about creation.

crochet1949 wrote:And God Also has charge of nature as is seen in the passage about Joshua's long day when the sun stood still for that length of time. It didn't change the length of days.

The point isn't how long we understand a day to generally be. Rather the Joshua passage shows us that a literal day (yom) as understood by the original audience was in fact associated with the heavens above i.e., Sun going through the skies. An understanding of literal day therefore requires such, indeed an evening and morning would literally require the Sun.

As Joshua 10:12-14 has written:

• 12Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,
  “O sun, stand still at Gibeon,
  And O moon in the valley of Aijalon.”
  
  13So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,
  Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies.
  Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.
  
  14There was no day like that before it or after it, when the LORD listened to the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel.

Please note, I'm not arguing against YEC here, but rather it is a challenge to particular YEC claims. In particular, those who substitute 24 hours into the Genesis 1 passage for the first three "days" and yet claim to be adhering to a strictly literal interpretation of the word day (yom).

Such normally do this because they interpret the Sun being created on Day 4, however if this is so, then we really don't have truly literal "days" during the first three days of creation. Nor can we can really have an evening and morning. Just pause and think about that for a moment, perhaps you don't really care much, but it is an important point if claiming literal superiority on "day" to first have your own interpretation clean. Otherwise any protest that the Day-Age interpretation (which says the days represent unspecific periods of time) now evaporates.

Now again, I'm not arguing here against YEC at large. Some YEC interpretations have the Sun's creation in the beginning, and these can truly embrace literal understanding of "day" in all the splendor that the original audience attached to day.

With the Joshua passage above I find very interesting for two reasons.

1) Day is defined by the Sun and the moon going through the sky. It is a long day because "the sun stood still, and the moon stopped."

2) Day is also clearly used in the sense of "time" (something missing from Genesis 1). That is, that passage says that the sun stopped and did not go down "for about a whole day." This is a specific reference to a property of a day: time.

On point #2, nowhere does the grammar support "day" being used as the sense of time in Genesis 1, not on the first three days, not anywhere. We do not have God creating "for a day" but rather, "there was evening and morning, day one." Therefore, one must accept (according to a truly literal hermeneutic) that truly ordinary days (with the Sun going through the heavens above Earth) are intended for days 1-3.

Genesis is the book of beginnings -- that's when God created 'day' and 'night' / and the evening and the morning were the 1st day. vs 3 - 5 and the next vs 6 - 8 were the 2nd day.

I didn't know that the Historical / Grammatical Method Was literal interpretation.

So --Yes, I guess the answer would be that days 1-3 are truly ordinary days.

I'd brought up Joshua's extra long day as an example of God being in charge of nature -- the passage states that there's never been a day like that before Or Since then. The Lord was fighting for Israel.

The point is how can you have a day if the sun was not created until the 4th day which is what young earth creationists teach. They don't know the difference between created and made though,which is why they interpret it like they do. They make Genesis 1:1-3 all apart of the first day and this messes them up interpreting it correctly. The fact is the first day does not start until verse 3.

They doubt Genesis 1:1 when it says God created the heavens and earth in the beginning,they doubt this and the fact that heavens includes all of the planets,stars,sun and moon,etc they doubt this and then think made means the same thing as created. This also comes from not understanding or ignoring other scriptures throughout both the old and new testaments.I'm just explaining why young earth creationists interpret Genesis 1 wrong.

crochet1949 wrote:Genesis is the book of beginnings -- that's when God created 'day' and 'night' / and the evening and the morning were the 1st day. vs 3 - 5 and the next vs 6 - 8 were the 2nd day.

I didn't know that the Historical / Grammatical Method Was literal interpretation.

So --Yes, I guess the answer would be that days 1-3 are truly ordinary days.

Yes, the Historical-Grammatical method of interpreting Scripture is very literal, paying special attention to the context of a particular passage, time of its recipients (the intended audience) and obviously grammatical constructs.

Historical Criticisim on the other hand, which you may have been thinking of, such is more of a skeptical method that treats Scripture like any other historical piece of writing when analysing. Interpretations are often clouded with secular thinking devoid of any true theological meaning.

HG is what the International Council of Biblical Inerrancy embraced as a main method of correctly interpreting Scripture in their Chicago Statement.

Those who appeal to this method range from those who are very strict and rigid in application (as ACB points out, to the point that a passage found in another book of Scripture cannot be included when interpreting a passage under examination) to those who are less strict (i.e., the Serpent in the Garden of Eden wasn't a literal snake but just represents Satan who is crafty and the like as revealed in Rev 12:9;Rev 20:2).

More strict applicants to HG I think have a problem with prophecies or must work out elaborate ways, for example, to consider how the original audience would have foreseen the Messiah in prophetic words of the OT. If the original audience wouldn't have been aware to or suspected something more to prophectic words with dual meanings, then we must reject any prophetic insights that change the meaning of the writer actually knew and intended.

Then, there are others, who just see such as a weakness in the hermeneutic itself which seems to deny Divine authorship across 100s and 1000s of years between many different authors. So they will loosen the reigns a little when it comes to prophecy and the like.

crochet1949 wrote:I'd brought up Joshua's extra long day as an example of God being in charge of nature -- the passage states that there's never been a day like that before Or Since then. The Lord was fighting for Israel.

Indeed, God is in complete control. Not one particle moves in the universe without God's superintendence. Everything is a miracle, it's just that God decided to create natural laws, structures and order that we're simply born into, it all becomes very normalised and we take for granted the absolute miraculous working of it all.