Comment on Avondale College Arguing in Favor of Darwinian Evolution? by Bob Pickle.
Sean Pitman: I know this is a topic of significant interest and importance to you, but it really isn’t to me. For me the topic remains open, as I’ve explained in some detail, and I’m not really interested in going round and round further on it. I do wish you all the best and I’m not going to challenge you on this topic if you feel strongly about it.
And perhaps that is the best approach for now. However, I do not think that shooting-from-the-hip responses and evading questions is the best procedure when trying to convince the public regarding Adventist beliefs about origins.
For example, I posted a link (with comments) to where Leo Odom in 1959 used Ed 14 to support the idea that the stars of Gen. 1:1 were the planets of our solar system, a view held by the writers of letters to him when he was a young minister. Your response was the following:
Sean Pitman: It’s not like I’m unaware of the historical disagreement or controversy over this question. I’m well aware of it.
And yet you had already posted that you had never heard the idea before. It would have been much more credible if you had said thanks for the reference, that you didn’t know the idea had been openly discussed in Adventist literature that long ago, rather than giving the impression you already knew about the reference when you had already said you had never heard the idea before.
Another example: I specifically asked you to list the “many” “pioneers” you referred to in your OP, and you evaded the question. At this point I have to conclude that your wording in your OP is a misstatement of the facts. It would have been far better to either give a list or correct the wording rather than to ignore the issue, since it raises questions about accuracy that neither you nor I want raised. This has nothing to do with being open about the topic or not going round and round about it. You stated certain things as fact in your OP, and those facts now appear to be false.
One last example: I raised the question of Po halos and He/Pb retention rates a number of times, and I can’t find above where you discussed that evidence other than making the conclusory statement that it wasn’t convincing. So I will just guess that you lean toward the idea that God created a solid world very quickly at some ancient point of time, with the Po already in situ in the granite, since long cooling under today’s laws would not permit Po halos to exist. In this way one could hold to an ancient earth and still have a rational, non-falsified explanation for the existence of the halos.
But then, I wouldn’t have a clue how you propose that more He and Pb didn’t diffuse out of those zircons in the last 1.5 billion-year-old. And this raises the question of whether there are other times when issues aren’t being discussed in a methodical manner that experts in the various fields will find convincing. And that too is counter-productive.
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
The End of “Junk DNA”?
Thanks, Sean, for this informative article!
Dr. Ervin Taylor: ‘A truly heroic crusade’
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.
