Comment on Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution? by Bob Pickle.
Gerhard Hasel in 1975 in http://documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals/ST/ST19750601-V102-06.pdf states that Gen. 1:1 is referring to the creation of “the planet Earth, our globe, and its more or less immediate surroundings.” Thus, he must have included our solar system in the creation of Gen. 1:1, while excluding the rest of the universe. He also contends that bara means to create out of nothing. That led me to look at usage of bara. Gen. 2:4 states, “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” This verse doesn’t seem to permit us to separate by billions of years God’s creating and God’s making of the earth and heavens.
This one was unexpected: In p. 10 of History of the Sabbath, J. N. Andrews states: “That this creative act marked the commencement of the first day instead of preceding it by almost infinite ages is thus stated in 2 Esdras 6:38: ‘And I said, O Lord, thou spakest from the beginning of the creation, even the first day, and saidst thus: Let heaven and earth be made; and thy word was a perfect work.'”
Even if we give no credence to the apocrypha, this verse does suggest that Jewish writers at the time 2 Esdras was written understood Gen. 1:1 in the same way J.N. Andrews did, and in the same way Pfandl and others think Ellen White did.
R. H. Brown in http://documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals/MIN/MIN19700301-V43-03.pdf states after quoting Ellen White’s statement about pre-existing matter and after quoting ST 3-13-1884:
Both context and usual usage of terms indicate that the author of these statements was speaking of the creative activity that took place during the first six days of the Creation week described in the book of Genesis
Brown’s citing of ST 3-13-1884 was particularly helpful since it led me to other statements than MH 414 and 8T 258. 3MR 208 & 3SM 312 contain the same sentiment, taken from Ms 127, 1897, and in the previous paragraph, found on 3MR 207 and 3SM 311, she writes, “I am afraid we have altogether too cheap and common ideas.” Given that Wilcox’s quoted statement is dated 1898, we may have the possibility that Ellen White’s 1897 statement is a response to Wilcox’s sentiments. Thus, I’m not sure we can say that Ellen White never tried to respond to his views.
Brown’s article coupled with his article in http://documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals/RH/RH19711104-V148-44.pdf leads us to several conclusions: (a) Brown believes 8T 258 is referring to creation week. (b) Brown believes God brought matter into existence during creation week so as to harmonize 8T 258 with the idea that the planet is 4.5 billion years old. (c) Brown believes that radiometric dating has “firmly indicated” that the earth’s crust is billions of years old. (d) Brown believes that fossils in sediments yielding old radiometric ages is due to the incorporation of this previous material into those sediments. Thus, how Brown explained it to me sometime in the last decade or so is how he explained it back in print in 1971.
I highly doubt that we can find informed advocates of the passive gap theory that do not hold that view partly in order to accommodate the ancient ages assigned to Precambrian rocks. Brown explicitly gives this as a reason to adopt this view.
Gerhard Pfandl in 2005 in http://documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals/MIN/MIN20050601-V78-06.pdf mentions two Adventist views on Gen. 1: “The Adventist Gap Theory,” and “The Original Creation Account.” On the latter he states:
This view sees the six-day Creation week beginning in verse 1, not in verse 3. In other words, “heaven and earth” in verse 1 refers only to our planetary system or our Milky Way and not to the universe as a whole.
After citing Ellen White’s “not indebted to pre-existing matter” statement, Pfandl states that he believes that “Ellen White held the second view.”
When speaking of “The Adventist Gap Theory,” Pfandl does not say whether or not this includes the idea that God made the sun and moon long before creation week.
Robert Leo Odom in 1959 wrote in http://documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals/MIN/MIN19591201-V32-12.pdf that the stars of Gen. 1:16 could refer to the planets of our solar system. In suggesting this, he cites Bible writers and Ellen White (Ed 14; GW 50) calling our planets “stars.” Odom was influenced in this direction by a number of letters he received from “leading Seventh-day Adventist ministers and teachers.” He states that “the view that the entire solar system may have been created in the six-day period of the creation of the earth merits consideration.”
While neither Pfandl nor Odom are coming down hard in favor of their preferred view, readers sometimes did. Howard Wieland in 1977 in http://documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals/RH/RH19770414-V154-15.pdf states re: 8T 258, “This plain language would have to be terribly distorted to make it agree with the article [“The Oklo Natural Uranium Fission Reactor”]. Such distortion is entirely unnecessary.”
Uriah Smith was quoted as believing in the passive gap theory. The part quoted was the ninth point of 12 that he gave. Here is his point 8, as taken from the quotation from Bible Truth found in RH 7-3-1860:
Nor is there anything in scripture which asserts that animals never died until man sinned, or that they would not have died if man had not sinned; though it is freely admitted that man himself would have been immortal if he had not by transgression lost the favor of God. The Bible does not even assert, although it may be true, that there are circumstances revolting to our feelings often attending the death of animals, beyond what would have attended their dissolution if man had not sinned.
I don’t understand the last sentence, but I do understand the first, and don’t have a clue where he came up with the first part of that first sentence from. It may therefore be unwise to give point 9 much prominence when trying to prove that the earth existed before creation week. And Uriah’s comments certainly don’t address the question of whether the sun and moon existed before Day 1.
@Sean Pitman: Does the question remain open to you?
Bob Pickle Also Commented
Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Sean Pitman: I have already cited DA 465 and Ed 14 where “stars” is limited to objects within our solar system. Therefore, I do not understand why you would base an argument on the “stars” of Day 4 without making some sort of effort to prove that “stars” on Day 4 cannot be limited to the “stars of our solar system.”
Showing that God formed woman from Adam’s rib does not address the point that Ellen White made: God formed our world and created the earth out of nothing. After He did that, then certainly He could have formed man and the animals from something. But thus far you have not given any reason for concluding that Ellen White was not referring to creation week when she said what she did in MH and 8T.
The available texts do not leave open the question of whether the sun and moon existed before Day 4. That is an idea that comes from outside the Bible. It isn’t in the text.
You assert that Gen. 1:1 can be interpreted to mean that the sun, moon, and Jupiter existed before creation week. How so? It uses the Hebrew word for heavens, but says nothing about the sun or moon or Jupiter. It is Day 4 that explicitly says that God created the sun and moon on that day. It is Gen. 2:1 that says that the heavens were finished after creation week. Gen. 1:1 says nothing about the heavens already being finished before creation week; the verse does not use the word “finished” at all.
Did the scholars you cite arrive at their views of Gen. 1:16 solely from reading the text? Or are they trying to get the text to accommodate the conclusions of scientists that believe differently than what the text states? Two sources tell me that “made” in vs. 16 is an imperfect, not a perfect. Why then does Grudem say that an imperfect should be taken as a perfect? Is his basis for thus amending the text solely the Bible, or is it something else?
Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Sean Pitman: The post’s date isn’t important to me. I was just trying to understand what happened.
I don’t think you answered my question: “Do you think it possible that Ellen White’s 1897 statements were a rebuttal of Wilcox’s sentiments as he expressed them the following year?” She obviously was addressing some sort of ideas that had come into Adventism. If these ideas weren’t what Wilcox expressed, what were they?
Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution?
@Sean Pitman: Please read MH 414 and 8T 258 again, and see if you think those particular quotes leave the question open.
We could come up with a long list of points that Ellen White, perhaps (since there might be an unpublished letter), never personally corrected this one or that one on, so we can only take that so far. For example, some held that an atonement was made at the cross, some held that no atonement was made until Christ ascended to heaven, and some held that no atonement was made until 1844. I do not recall Ellen White rebuking proponents of two of these three contradictory positions, even though she did support one of these positions in her writings.
Do MH 414 and 8T 258 really leave the question open?
Recent Comments by Bob Pickle
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Thanks, Sean, for this informative article!
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While in Roosevelt, New York, August 3, 1861, different churches and families were presented before me. The different influences that have been exerted, and their discouraging results, were shown me. Satan has used as agents individuals professing to believe a part of present truth, while they were warring against a part. Such he can use more successfully than those who are at war with all our faith. His artful manner of bringing in error through partial believers in the truth, has deceived many, and distracted and scattered their faith. This is the cause of the divisions in northern Wisconsin. Some receive a part of the message, and reject another portion. Some accept the Sabbath and reject the third angel’s message; yet because they have received the Sabbath they claim the fellowship of those who believe all the present truth. Then they labor to bring others into the same dark position with themselves. They are not responsible to anyone. They have an independent faith of their own. Such are allowed to have influence, when no place should be given to them, notwithstanding their pretensions to honesty.
Erv has had decades to come into line. According to the above counsel from the Lord, “no place” should have been given him regardless of his pretensions. And it is far past time that place cease to be given him.
WASC Team Recommends Formal Notice of Concern Regarding LSU
Richard,
Either I’m misunderstanding what is allegedly going on, or you are missing the point.
If a church educational institution, such as LSU, begins to promote evolution as the true story of origins (not just teaching about evolution with an emphasis on the evidence for Biblical creation), and if the church tries therefore to rein it in, and if the WASC says the church can’t do that, then the WASC is meddling with the church’s educational mission, and what the church’s educational institutions can and cannot teach.
“They do require that the institution makes education its primary function ….”
True education or false education? If true education, then the WASC should have no problem with the church requiring LSU to stick with true education principles, and to abandon false education principles. It’s fine to require a school to teach about evolution, but requiring a school to promote evolution over creation or intelligent design is a whole different matter.
By the way, a union president should have the institution’s conformity to true education principles as his primary objective, or else he shouldn’t be chairman of the board. But I think the WASC may be opposed to this, not in favor of it, based on what is being reported.
WASC Team Recommends Formal Notice of Concern Regarding LSU
If what you have reported is accurate, then WASC isn’t doing its job, since it isn’t holding LSU accountable to principles of true education.
If these non-Adventist accrediting bodies refuse to do their job, then we may just have to go some other route. They aren’t God, after all.
Of course, one might argue that WASC’s job is to hold institutions accountable to principles of false education, not principles of true education. But who would or did give it that kind of job? And there have been non-Adventist entities and individuals that have promoted true education.
Is La Sierra University Legally Distancing Itself from the Church?
@Chris Chan:
Note that on p. 1 under Article 4 “Pacific Union” is defined as “Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.” So every time you read “Pacific Union” thereafter, it means “Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.”
That’s the legalese way of simplifying a legal document when the same person or organization is referred to multiple times throughout the document. If the other conferences are only mentioned once, it wouldn’t make sense to define a shorter term for them too.
