Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rita Cullimore on October 31, 2011 at 6:44am

DEsmond,

Amen. And I want to start with myself. The way to do that is believing and study with the Holy Spirit.

Blessings,

Rita

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Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on November 2, 2011 at 9:28am

Bro Desmond,

 

I have not read anyone elses responses here and plan to do so when time allows because this is one of my fav topics. We have had multiple discussions about such issues, here are two of them:

the Gap theory http://www.allaboutgod.net/forum/topics/the-gap-theory

 

Is Evolution Compatible with Christianity?

http://www.allaboutgod.net/forum/topics/is-evolution-compatible-with

 

Some say it is, others say it isn't. I say not a chance.

I think R.C. Sproul said it best:

"First of all, it's not compatible with the Bible. Second of all, it's not compatible with science. ... Keep in mind, a question of the origin of life is not, in its final analysis, a biological question; it's a historical question. Biologists can pitch in by looking at the structures of cells and that sort of thing, but they can't really tell you how it started."

Here is Charles Hodge's classic work, "What is Darwinism?":
http://books.google.com/books?id=XZqr...

 

We all agree to micro evolution, but not macro evolution.

 

 

I am a firm believer in a literal 6 day creation. God seals the case for a 24 hour day in creation by stating: there was evening and there was morning, after each day, for the exception to the 7th day. 

 

 >>Is science wrong though?

 

Not at all. It was bible believing men that started scientific explorations. Science was nurtured by Christian men and its genesis was in Christianity.

 

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Permalink Reply by Bible-Talk on November 2, 2011 at 3:40pm

Welcome David - it's great to see you. Thanks for sharing. I will respond more as I try and work my way through all the posts. Take care my brother (*_*)

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Permalink Reply by Bible-Talk on November 5, 2011 at 8:04am

Hi David,

It's interesting to hear the views of people on the issue of evolution. In my conversations with people on this subject one thing that I find very interesting is how people define "evolution"? Most people identify it as having nothing to do with God, both believers and non believers! Many eminent theologians have also considered it to be unacceptable. Many scientists do not! What I also find very interesting are the thoughts of prominent scientists who are Christians and believe in evolution. This is an area where the definition of "evolution" takes on a newer meaning for me. The scientific definition/understanding of evolution is being used by eminent Christian scientists to show how evolution is compatible with God, science and the bible - how God used evolution as a tool.

I am not in agreement with R C Sproul's claim that evolution is not compatible with the bible and/or science and why does he accept micro EVOLUTION.?

 

 

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Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on November 7, 2011 at 12:36pm

Hey Bro Desmond,

 

>>What I also find very interesting are the thoughts of prominent scientists who are Christians and believe in evolution.

 

Can you name me a few of those scientist? I remember the Jesus Seminar years ago which had the following men among the participants:

 

Notable fellows of the Jesus Seminar include Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk, Stephen L. Harris, and Burton Mack. Borg is a liberal Christian who articulates the vision hypothesis to explain Jesus' resurrection.^[42] Crossan is an important voice in contemporary historical Jesus research, promoting the idea of a non-apocalyptic Jesus who preaches a sapiential eschatology.^[15] Funk was one of the most important representatives of recent American research into Jesus' parables.^[43] Harris is the author of several books on religion, including university-level textbooks.^[44] Mack describes Jesus as a Galilean Cynic, based on the elements of the Q document that he considers to be earliest.

 

Acts of Jesus

In 1998 the Jesus Seminar published The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus.^[4] To create the material for this book, they voted on the individual acts of Jesus as recorded in the gospels, much as they'd previously voted on the individual sayings attributed to him.

According to the Jesus Seminar:

• Jesus of Nazareth was born during the reign of Herod the Great.
• His mother's name was Mary, and he had a human father whose name may not have been Joseph.
• Jesus was born in Nazareth, not in Bethlehem.
• Jesus was an itinerant sage who shared meals with social outcasts.
• Jesus practiced faith healing without the use of ancient medicine or magic, relieving afflictions we now consider psychosomatic.
• He did not walk on water, feed the multitude with loaves and fishes, change water into wine or raise Lazarus from the dead.
• Jesus was arrested in Jerusalem and crucified by the Romans.
• He was executed as a public nuisance, not for claiming to be the Son of God.
• The empty tomb is a fiction – Jesus was not raised bodily from the dead.
• Belief in the resurrection is based on the visionary experiences of Paul, Peter and Mary Magdalene.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar

 

All the names above belong to extremely liberal, so called theologians. They have titles from universities, but they are so far from the truth that one wonders whether they work for Satan rather than for God. They believe and assert nonsense as the one I inserted above.

 

These men call themselves Christians scholars, as some prominent scientist do. But are they? Does their walk and teaching (the fruit) show that they are? Only God knows, but they surely do not show it from their illogical findings or Scientific believes. So name me a few of the prominent Christian Scientist and let's analyzed their claims against the existing evidence.

 

If you are not in agreement with most conservative, scriptural and historical Christianity that evolution is not compatible with the bible, than why is that so? Why is evolution compatible with the bible?

 

What new evidence has been erupted to show that Christianity is compatible with the Darwinian philosophy?

 

I can place here and impressive amount of data that points out the numerous discrepancies in the religion of evolution theory and their lack of transitional fossils to prove their alleged events in evolution. Scientist that want to continue to support evolutionary thought, fill in the gaps with fictitious species or throw into the tree of life animals that they really have no idea if they were indeed transitional ones or fit into the part of the tree they are placing it in. There is no way to go back in history to verify their claims. There are no fossil evidences to support it either.

 

Christians do agree with micro evolution because they involve changes within a species. But do not involve changes that eventually make a complete different species. I am familiar with the arguments against the definition Christians or Creationists, as they call us, attached to the term, micro and macro evolution. I would like us to look at the prominent Christian Scientist you are alluding to.

 

 

  

Personally I take this debate very seriously for it comes down to either God created the universe or evolution theory, for which there is no real evidence, but a bunch of complicated terms and wishful thinking along with forced evidence.

 

This is what we as Christians have to contend with, check out how intellectual the teachers of evolution are. In the midst of their so call evidence there huge lakes of assumptions. It really is pathetic.

 

 Blessings bro

 

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Permalink Reply by Bible-Talk on November 11, 2011 at 6:22am

Hi David and thanks for the post.

One of the scientists that I am thinking of is Denis O. Lamoureux.

My personal view is that God created man - I do not believe that God used evolution as a process to create  "man from monkey". That man evolved from primates is in my view a false speculation on Darwin's part.

 

I do however see God using evolution as a process in fashioning man from dust. That is not to say that I believe God used Darwinian evolution to do so.

 

If we are going to accept micro evolution based on science, does that mean we are applying the same criteria about the evolutionary creation of mankind - since micro evolution is not mentioned in scripture?

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Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on November 13, 2011 at 2:11pm

Grazer,

 

Denis O. Lamoureux -

 

Evolutionist and evangelical Christian Denis O. Lamoureux proposes an approach to origins that moves beyond the 'evolution-versus-creation' debate. Arguing for an intimate relationship between the Book of God's Words and the Book of God's Works, he presents evolutionary creation a position that asserts that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit created the universe and life through an ordained and sustained evolutionary process. This view of origins affirms an evolutionary understanding of the concept of intelligent design and the belief that beauty, complexity, and functionality in nature reflect the mind of God.

http://www.Evolutionary-Creation-Christian-Approach-Evolution/dp/15...

 

His approach is not compatible with the bible.

 

>>The likes of Collins, Alexander, Lennox, Polkinghorne have been shouting that evolution is purely a mechanism, it does not negate a designer of the mechanism, that purely Darwinian means is not enough since it pre-supposes a self replicator and would in fact need a designer

  

I have never heard Lennox Say that he subscribes to evolution. He shouts from the rooftops that it is purely a mechanism, but a mechanism t he does not believe to be true. In the circles that people like Lennox moves in, they have to be polite and give the benefit of the doubt to the evolutionist. But he and other scientist/theologians certainly do not subscribe to such nonsense. We all have a common ancestor. Yeah! His name is God, the creator.

 

God doesn’t need billions or millions of years to create. He speaks and it’s a thing of the past. Evolution is anti Christian and gives us a purely natural cause for the Universe. Christian evolution is a contradiction created by very liberal theologians and Scientists who testify to being Christians, but who definitely are not theologians.

 

Francis Collins

 

In your book, you say religion and science can coexist in one person's mind. This has been a struggle for some people, especially in terms of evolution. How do you reconcile evolution and the Bible?

As someone who's had the privilege of leading the human genome project, I've had the opportunity to study our own DNA instruction book at a level of detail that was never really possible before.

It's also now been possible to compare our DNA with that of many other species. The evidence supporting the idea (not a fact, but an idea) that all living things are descended from a common ancestor is truly overwhelming. I would not necessarily wish that to be so, as a Bible-believing Christian. But it is so. It does not serve faith well to try to deny that.

 

(ok it appeared in the past that the world was flat because of the evidence supporting that idea as well, but the world is round)

 

But I have no difficulty putting that together with what I believe as a Christian because I believe that God had a plan to create creatures with whom he could have fellowship, in whom he could inspire [the] moral law, in whom he could infuse the soul, and who he would give free will as a gift for us to make decisions about our own behavior, a gift which we oftentimes utilize to do the wrong thing.

 

I believe God used the mechanism of evolution to achieve that goal. And while that may seem to us who are limited by this axis of time as a very long, drawn-out process, it wasn't long and drawn-out to God. And it wasn't random to God. Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Science-Religion/2006/08/God-Is-Not-T...

 

Common substance does NOT lock the case for evolution to have been a mechanism used by God to create. Yes we have common substance because One God made all of creation.

 

Francis Collins is not even close to being a scholar in theological matters. He is simply a believer, according to his confession of faith, but He is not a theologian. His opinion about theological matters doesn’t carry much weight. Is too bad that people who are renowned in one field think they have authority in another. Being a scientist does not make you a philosopher or a scholar in theology.  

 

Denis Alexander’s book, Creation or Evolution: Do we have to choose? Is a great work for theistic evolutionary theology in evangelicalism, some say. I say is rubbish.

 

The trouble is that this apologetic for evolutionism fails to start from the primacy of Scripture, even though the first two chapters ostensibly tackle scriptural issues. However, they do so by using the classic arguments to “explain away” problems of harmonising evolution with Scripture, rather than face up to the incompatibility of the two philosophies.

 

For example, in chapter two, Alexander repeats the tired old bromide that “the biblical understanding of creation is not primarily concerned with how things began, but why they exist.” Yet, a plain reading of Genesis 1 gives no reason why God made the world. It simply tells us how He did it! The reasons why God made the world can indeed be reasoned from the rest of Scripture, but the thrust of Alexander’s assertion is incorrect.

 

The reason for his assertion is so that he can place evolution on a higher plane than Scripture, while seeming to do the opposite. If this seems harsh, then we need to examine how Alexander uses issues out of context to suit this purpose. It is noteworthy that he starts the book with the comment “I . . . make no attempt in this book to defend the role of the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, but simply assume that this is the starting point for all Christians” (p11).

 

It should indeed be our starting point, but biblical truth should not be just a starting point—our whole philosophy and worldview should be submitted to the acid test of biblical authority. That includes our interpretation of scientific data. His inability to submit his ideas to Scripture have led to his adoption of non-biblical misunderstandings.

 

For example, he asserts that “Adam was brought by God in Genesis 2:19–20 to name all the animals” (p103). In fact, the verses do not say this. Adam was to name only a small number of kinds of animals brought to him by God. Alexander asserts that this must mean Adam needed to name about 20 million species; whereas, the Bible speaks of kinds not species. And he asserts that we have not yet fulfilled that command, whereas the Bible suggests that the activity in question was closed when God fashioned Eve from Adam’s side.

Straw-Man Arguments

Many of Alexander’s assertions are of a similar type. His opposition to biblical creationism, outlined in chapter six, “Objections to Evolution,” employs many familiar straw-man arguments. In this chapter, he repeats his assertion that “virtually no biologist in the research community actually doubts evolution.” He has made this assertion before in both TV and radio debates with both Professor Andy McIntosh and me, and we have both corrected him on this point. Continuing to repeat this comment, he could be accused of disingenuousness.

 

He then goes on to repeat the claim that creationists ought to publish refutations of evolution in peer-reviewed scientific journals, as if such journals were neutral. We have explained why this cannot happen many times, and recent news events have underlined this difficulty, such as the hounding from his Royal Society post of the evolutionist Michael Reiss, who merely suggested that maybe school children with creationist views should be treated with a little respect by their teachers (see News to Note, September 20, 2008).

 

The “scientific” sections of Alexander’s book are problematic. They contain a strange juxtaposition of actual science that no one would disagree with (such as the development of species by natural selection) with a number of bald statements, which Alexander gives as “facts,” without any justification. Examples of the latter are numerous. On page 134, he suggests that “there are good reasons why the eye evolved not once but many times during the process of evolution,” but doesn’t give any of the reasons. On page 135, he says “the physical properties of the universe were defined in the very first few femtoseconds after the Big Bang,” even though he must know that there are significant numbers of non-Christian scientists who do not accept the big bang.

Cavalier Use of Scripture

Alexander’s use of Scripture is, to say the least, cavalier. For example, in chapter four, he offers a number of old bromides as supposed evidence for “evolution in action”—namely, peppered moths, sickle cell anaemia, and superbugs. All these supposed examples have been answered on this website. But what really “takes the biscuit” is that Alexander then claims scriptural evidence for this type of “evolution” by quoting Matthew 13, saying “Jesus himself used the same idea in his famous parable of the sower who needs to scatter far more seed than will ever germinate and lead to a good crop.” This is merely an artificial way of introducing Jesus into a godless argument.

 

Yet Alexander misses a more honest place to introduce Jesus. Later in the same chapter, he describes the well-known scale model of the supposed 4.6 billion year history of the earth crammed into 24 hours. When he states “Just two minutes before midnight hominids start to appear and a mere three seconds before midnight anatomically modern humans make their entry,” he fails to engage with how this fits with Jesus’ description of Adam being “at the beginning” (Matthew 19:4).

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v3/n1/creation-evoluti...

 

R.C. Sproul’s position on Creation. Here is his commentary on the Westminster Confession’s phrase “…in the space of six days.”

 

In the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days; and all very good. In the Genesis account of creation, we read; “So the evening and the morning were the first day” (Gen. 1:5). This narrative proceeds from the first day to the sixth, each time referring to “the evening and the morning” and numbering the day. On the seventh day, God rested (Gen. 2:2).

 

In our time a considerable number of theories have arisen denying that the creation, as we know it, took place in twenty-four hour days. Common to these theories is the acceptance of the dominant scientific view that the earth and life on it are very old. Many consider the biblical account to be primitive, mythological, and untenable in light of modern scientific knowledge.

 

This crisis has resulted in several attempts to reinterpret the Genesis account of creation. We are reminded of the sixteenth century, when Copernicus and his followers repudiated the old Ptolemaic view of astronomy. They argued that the center of the solar system is not the earth (geocentricity), but the sun (heliocentricity). It was a sad chapter in the history of the church, which had believed for more than fifteen hundred years that the Bible teaches geocentricity, when it condemned Galileo for believing and teaching heliocentricity. Both Luther and Calvin opposed Copernicus’s views, believing them to undermine Scripture’s authority.

 

Actually the Bible does not explicitly teach geocentricity anywhere. Scripture describes the movements of the heavens from the perspective of someone standing on earth: the sun moves across the sky, rising in the east and setting in the west. We use that same language today. The church thought that because the Bible uses this kind of descriptive language, it was therefore teaching something about the relationship between the sun and the earth. This is a clear case of scientific knowledge correcting the church’s interpretation of the Bible.

 

There are two spheres of revelation; the Bible (special revelation) and nature (general revelation). In the latter, God manifests himself through the created order. What God reveals in nature can never contradict what he reveals in Scripture, and what he reveals in Scripture can never contradict what he reveals in nature. He is the author of both forms of revelation, and God does not contradict himself.

 

The church has always taken the position that all truth meets at the top, and that science should never contradict Scripture. Scientific discoveries, however, can correct the theologian’s faulty understanding of Scripture, just as biblical revelation can correct faulty speculations drawn from the natural order. When the scientific consensus on a particular point is on a collision course with the unmistakable teaching of Scripture, I trust Scripture before I trust the speculations and inferences of scientists. That is consistent with the history of the church and Christianity. We believe that sacred Scripture is nothing less than the Creator’s truth revealed.

 

We have a problem not only with a six-day creation, but also with the age of the earth. Is the earth a few thousand years old or billions of years old (as scientists today insist)? Although the Bible clearly says that the world was created in six days, it gives no date for the beginning of that work. It would be a mistake to become embroiled in too much controversy about the date of creation.

 

In a Massachusetts college I taught Introduction to the Old Testament to two hundred and fifty students. Because the class was so large, we met in the chapel. Once I opened the old pulpit Bible to Genesis 1, and at the top of the page I read “4004 B.C.” I did some research to see how that date had been determined. In the seventeenth century an archbishop, James Ussher, made some calculations based on the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 and other chronological clues in the Old Testament. He even pinned down the day of the week and the time of day when creation occurred. I hasten to tell my students that we must be very careful to distinguish between the text of Scripture and additions to the text. In defending the biblical authority, we are not obligated to defend a theory based on the speculations of a bishop in times past.

 

If we take the genealogies that go back to Adam, however, and if we make allowances for certain gaps in them (which could certainly be there), it remains a big stretch from 4004 B.C. to 4.6 billion years ago. We also have the problem of the antiquity of the human race. It seems as if every time a new skeleton or skull is discovered, scientists push back the date of man’s origin another million years.

 

Scholars have proposed four basic theories to explain the time from of Genesis 1–2:

1. the gap theory,
2. the day-age theory,
3. the framework hypothesis, and
4. six-day creation.

 

Gap Theory

The gap theory was made popular by the Scofield Reference Bible (1909), which more than any other single edition of Scripture swept through this country and informed the theology of an entire generation of evangelicals. It became the principal instrument for propagating dispensational theology throughout America. In this Bible, Genesis 1:1 reads, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” and verse 2 reads, “And the earth became without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Other Bibles read, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Verse 2 describes what most scholars consider to be the as-yet-unordered, basic structure of the universe—darkness, emptiness. Then the Holy Spirit hovers over the waters (v.2) and God says, “Let there be light” (v.3). Thus came the light and then the creation of the heavens, fish, birds, animals, and so on.

 

The Hebrew word in verse 2 translated “was” is the very common verb hayah, which ordinarily means “to be.” Hayah means “to become” only in special circumstances, which are not present here. The Scofield Reference Bible translates verse 2 as “became” instead of “was” in order to facilitate the gap theory. As a result, only verse 1 refers to the original creation. Verse 2 then refers to a cosmic catastrophe in which the originally good and properly ordered creation became chaotic, dark, and fallen. After this period of darkness (the “gap”), God recreates the universe which could have been created billions of years ago, followed by a gap of billions of years (including the “geologic column” of immense ages), after which God returned to his distorted creation and renovated or reconstituted it relatively recently. The gap theory has also been called the restitution hypothesis, meaning that the creation narrative in Genesis is not about the original creation, but about the restitution of a fallen creation.

 

An entire generation was fed this theory through the Scofield Reference Bible. However, Scripture nowhere explicitly teaches that the original creation was marred and then after many years reconstituted. The broader context of the whole of Scripture militates against the gap theory.

 

Day-Age Theory

According to the second approach, the day-age theory, each “day” of Genesis 1 may be an age. After all, one day in the Lord’s sight is like a thousand years (2 Peter 3:8). Also, expressions like “in the days of Noah” and “in Abraham’s day” can refer to open-ended periods. The Hebrew word yom, translated “day” in Genesis, can mean something other than a twenty-four-hour period, as it must in Genesis 2:4, which refers to “the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” Accordingly, each “day” in Genesis 1 may refer to a thousand years, and perhaps even to millions of years. This will at least ameliorate some of the difficulties we have with those who argue for a gradual evolution of life-forms on this earth.

 

However, the day-age theory, like the gap theory, ignores the immediate context as well as the large biblical context. It ignores the fact that each of the six days of creation consists of an evening and a morning. If yom here means something like ten million years, then we need to give the words evening and morning the same kind of metaphorical meaning. From a literary, exegetical, and linguistic perspective, the day-age theory is weak. As a Christian apologist, I would not want to defend it.

 

The day-age theory tends to accommodate a theory of biological macroevolution that is incompatible with the Bible and purposive creation—the creation of all living things by the immediate agency of the sovereign God. Macroevolution teaches that all life has developed from a single, original cell, and that this happened through a somewhat fortuitous, chance collision of atoms, without an intelligent planner or Creator orchestrating the emergence of these species. Those who favor the day-age theory often link themselves with a position called theistic evolution, which grants the basic premises of biological evolution, but says that God, not chance, guided the process of evolution.

 

Macroevolution differs from microevolution. While the former teaches that all living things have developed from one original cell, the latter teaches that, over period of time, species undergo slight changes in order to adapt to their environment. Microevolution is not in dispute, either biblically or scientifically. Macroevolution has never been substantiated by observation or experiment, and it places its faith in an endless string of extremely improbable, yet beneficial chance mutations.

 

A frequent argument for macroevolution is the principle of common structure. All forms of life are made up of the same basic substances: amino acids, proteins, DNA, and that sort of thing. Because all living things have similar constituent parts, the argument goes, they must have developed from common ancestors. A common substance or structure, however, does not necessarily imply a common source. The fact that all forms of life are made of the same basic building blocks neither negates the possibility of evolution nor substantiates it. One would expect an intelligent Creator to have made all life-forms with a similar design—one that works on this earth.

 

When teaching a university course to thirty upper-level philosophy students, I asked who believed in macroevolution. Almost all the students raised their hands. I then asked them to explain why they believed in it. Their only argument was “common substance, therefore common source.” Most said they believed it because they had been taught in school, and they assumed their teachers knew what they were talking about.

 

Macroevolution, in the final analysis, is not a question of biology or natural science, which rely upon experimented verification, but of history, which tries to interpret evidence left from the past in a coherent fashion. The discipline of paleontology, which studies the fossil record, claims to put evolution on a scientific footing, but it performs no experiments to substantiate evolutionary processes. It simply lines up similar fossils and infers that one creature must be related to another by common decent.

 

In the recent past in Russia, leading international scholars who favor macroevolution met. While comparing notes, they found that the weakest evidence for their theories is the fossil record. I remember reading the Royal Society’s bulletin at that time and thinking, “What other source matters?” The fossil record is the one that counts, and yet that is the one that militates against their theory. I read an essay recently in which a professor argued for macroevolution on the basis of certain geological formations. He argued for an old earth on the ground that stratifications in the rocks contain fossils, which indicates a uniformitarian process that took millions of years to produce the whole formation. He then determined the age of each stratum by determining the kinds of fossils contained in each. This is a blatant example of what logicians call begging the question. It is circular reasoning to date the fossils by the rocks, and then date the rocks by the fossils. That just will not work.

 

We now have good evidence that stratification of rocks proves the antiquity of nothing. Within days after the Mount St. Helens explosion had subsided, scientists discovered that the cataclysmic upheaval of that volcanic explosion had laid down exactly the same rock stratification that had been assumed would take millions of years to develop. In other words, Mount St. Helens proved that catastrophic upheavals can produce the same empirical data as twenty million years of gradual deposition. We will not get into uniformitarianism or catastrophism here, except to say that they have been attempts to accommodate macroevolution. This tends to support and popularize the theory of theistic evolution, and it also uses the day-age theory of Genesis—a dangerous thing to do.

 

Framework Hypothesis

The third approach, called the framework hypothesis, was originally developed by the Dutch scholar Nicholas Ridderbos. He argued that the literary form of the book’s first few chapters differs from that of its later chapters. Certain basic characteristics found in poetry are missing from historical narrative, and certain characteristics found in historical narrative are missing from poetry. For example, the book of Exodus, with its account of the Jewish captivity in Egypt, has genealogies, family names, real historical places, and an unmetered literary style (i.e., lacking a particular rhythm), making it clearly prose and historical narrative. After the account of the exodus, the book’s author inserts the song of Miriam, which is in metered rhythm and is therefore clearly poetry. The literary structure before the song manifests all the characteristics of historical narrative, as does the structure following the poem.

Therefore, it is usually not difficult to distinguish between poetry and historical narrative in the Old Testament. But the opening chapters of Genesis, according to Ridderbos, exhibit a strange combination of literary forms. On the one hand is a discussion of the creation of a man and a woman who are given names that thereafter appear in genealogical accounts. In Hebrew literature this clearly signals historicity. The Garden of Eden is said to be set among four rivers, two of which we know were real rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates. The style of writing is not metered or rhythmic, as Hebrew poetry normally is. All this indicates that the opening chapters of Genesis are historical narrative.

 

There are some anomalies, however. We find trees in this garden with strange names: “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and “the tree of life” (Gen 2:9). Had they been apple or pear trees, there would have been no problem. But what does a tree of life look like? Is the author of Genesis telling us that a real tree was off limits, giving it a metaphorical meaning as the tree of life? We are also introduced to a serpent who speaks. Because of these two features, some have argued that the literary structure of the opening chapters of Genesis was self consciously and intentionally mythological, or at least filled with legend and saga.

 

Ridderbos contended that the beginning chapters of Genesis are a mixture of historical narrative and poetry, with part of the poetic structure being the repeated refrain, “So the evening and the morning were the first day” (Gen 1:5), and so on. Ridderbos concluded that Genesis gives us not a historical narrative of the when or the how of divine creation, but a drama in seven acts. The first act ends with the statement, “So the evening and the morning were the first day.” The author of Genesis, then, is trying to show that God’s work of creation took place in seven distinct stages, which incidentally fit remarkably well into the stages identified by the modern theories of cosmic evolution.

 

Therefore, the framework hypothesis allows one to step into a Big Bang cosmology while maintaining the credibility and inspiration of Genesis 1-2. This is not history, but drama. The days are simply artistic literary devices to create a framework for a lengthy period of development.

 

In America Ridderbos’s work was widely disseminated by Meredith Kline, who for many years taught Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, then at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and then at Westminster Seminary California. Because Kline endorsed the framework hypothesis, many people, particularly in the Reformed community, have embraced it, provoking a serious crisis in some circles. Some Reformed pastors today hold to a literal six-day creation, while others hold to the framework hypothesis, and yet they otherwise hold to the same system of orthodox theology.

 

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One must do a great deal of hermeneutical gymnastics to escape the plain meaning of Genesis 1-2.

 

Six-Day Creation

For most of my teaching career, I considered the framework hypothesis to be a possibility. But I have now changed my mind. I now hold to a literal six-day creation, the fourth alternative and the traditional one. Genesis says that God created the universe and everything in it in six twenty-four-hour periods. According to the Reformation hermeneutic, the first option is to follow the plain sense of the text. One must do a great deal of hermeneutical gymnastics to escape the plain meaning of Genesis 1-2. The confession makes it a point of faith that God created the world in the space of six days.

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Permalink Reply by The evidence based Stig on November 11, 2011 at 4:25pm

it comes down to either God created the universe or evolution theory,

Not sure why it comes down to that. Either there was a creator or there wasn't. Evolution theory, even if true, does not rule out a creator due to the differences between mechanism and agency. The real conflict is between literal 24-hour days or evolution theory. I take this debate very seriously too and it concerns me greatly that people think they have to choose evolution or God. I don't need to choose between both and more than I need to choose between the internal combustion engine and Henry Ford.

Btw, do you believe the earth is fixed?

“For the foundations of the earth are the LORD’s; 
   on them he has set the world" (1 Samuel 2:8)

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Permalink Reply by David Velasquez on November 11, 2011 at 4:39pm

Ok Gracer

Show me why evolution is a fact and not fiction; evolution in the macro level. Are you completely oblivious of the fact that the evolution theory has no need for a creator?

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Permalink Reply by The evidence based Stig on November 12, 2011 at 2:46am

Using purely Darwinian means, the theory of evolution does not require a creator. The likes of Dawkins, Atkins etc have shouted from the roof tops about how evolution disproves God. The likes of Collins, Alexander, Lennox, Polkinghorne have been shouting that evolution is purely a mechanism, it does not negate a designer of the mechanism, that purely Darwinian means is not enough since it pre-supposes a self replicator and would in fact need a designer (as illustrated in the Henry Ford example)

Whether it's true or not is another argument. The point is that evolution, even if true, does not disprove God.

 

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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on November 11, 2011 at 4:44pm

Grazer,

 

It is fixed in the heavens as the third planet from the Sun. It is held in its place of orbit by gravity that holds it in it's place. Thus, is the foundation a flat base or God's wonderful design that holds the universe in order?

 

Is there not an invisible or imaginary pillar that goes through the poles in which the earth rotates rather than wobble aimlessly in space?

 

Note Psalm 8

 

Food for thought.

 

Lord Bless,

LT

 

 

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Permalink Reply by The evidence based Stig on November 11, 2011 at 4:53pm

Is there not an invisible or imaginary pillar

But not a literal one which you would need to believe to support the 6 24 hour day creation as well as young earth.

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