When it come to evidence, that which I directly observe

Comment on The Rise of Theistic Evolutionism – The Salvation of Christianity? by Wendell.

When it come to evidence, that which I directly observe I can tell in a court room in a trial and it would be accepted as direct testimony of an eyewitness. If I hear something, it is the same thing – unless I hear a conversation, in which case it is classified as hearsay and is typically inadmissable in court.

Yet, when you think about it, this is a bit ridicusous. What I see, smell or feel I can report in a courtroom as an eyewitness, and even if I hear something other than a conversation, I can testify to it. Or, at least, this is the way I understand the courts handle this. Yet, all of these are sensory things and all are rather unreliable. If I hear a conversation, then that eyewitness testimony is considered unreliable and not admissible. But studies by scientists have found that the same is true of eyewitness reports in other sensory areas as well. I seem to recall that someone did a study in which they had a person run into a room and grab a purse and then run out of it immediately. On questioning later, the students in the classroom reported a very wide range of observations about the “thief” (all prearranged, of course, with the person whose purse was grabbed). A number of the observations did not match the thief at all and the remaining ones were generally inaccurate. This was done repeatedly and the same results came out of it. From what I have read, other similar studies have been conducted by others and the same results have come out of it. What it points to is that eyewitness reports, whether by sight, hearing, smelling, feeling and tasting are all quite unreliable.

This being the case, then why exclude conversations as being hearsay on the basis of unreliability when in fact all of the sensory reports are rather unreliable?

But there is a difference between what we have with the Bible and a courtroom. The Bible says that men wrote as the Holy Spirit moved them to write. He did not dictate their words, but I rather think that if it was inaccurate, God would have had them rewrite it. Also, we have information where God was essentially quoted. We know that Moses wrote Genesis and God talked to him directly. Yes, Moses was the one who wrote down what God said, so it is hearsay information. But you cannot get closer to God than that. God does not talk to everyone like he did Moses. At some point, you are going to have to put some faith into it, or you will never discover the truth about God. We have enough evidence to know that God does not lie. That being the case, then his words, even if “hearsay”, should be reasonably reliable and we should be able to trust it.

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The Rise of Theistic Evolutionism – The Salvation of Christianity?
Bill Sorensen,

I think that it is a terrible ordeal because when this comes about, you are either ready or you are not. Those who are not ready become desperate to become ready, but find that they cannot do so. The result is a desperate realization that they are lost. Yet, they look for salvation, but in the end, they find that they are receiving the plagues and definitely are lost. Many within the church will leave and those around them who remain will feel the sadness of their leaving because of the reason behind it.

The parable of the 10 virgins teaches exactly that this is what happens. Remember that there were 5 without sufficient oil and they were told to go out and buy more oil. So, they go looking for it. When they have found it, then they come knocking on the door, but they are not admitted because it is too late.

The oil represents the Holy Spirit in the early and middle parts of the parable, but at the end, I believe that it represents the word of God because when the door is closed, that is the end of the investigative judgment. There will be no Holy Spirit for anyone not saved once this happens, and yet in the parable, the five foolish virgins show up at the door, apparently having found the oil. But this oil at this point cannot represent the Holy Spirit because it will be impossible for them to have it then. Rather, I think that what it must represent then is soem experience and knowledge that they have lacked, particularly some particular type of knowledge that is found in the Bible, and once they find it and understand it, they think they are ready, but find that they are not to be admitted and will never be.

For whatever its worth, this is my understanding of this.

The Rise of Theistic Evolutionism – The Salvation of Christianity?
James,

I don’t fully understand this debate either. What I do not understand is why Seventh-day Adventists would ever consider theistic evolution to be true. I am saying that while the scientific evidence does appear to support it, there is the issue of the truthfulness of God and the Bible. If one accepts that God is true and does not lie, then why disbelieve what he says in Genesis? If one accepts that, then be a Christian. If one does not accept that, then go out and enjoy the world. There is no significant future for such, whether they be in the church or not because they do not believe God. The Bible says that salvation is by faith and if you don’t believe him, you have no salvation even if you are a Seventh-day Adventist.

So, it is by faith. We have an eyewitness. Do we believe him or not?

The Rise of Theistic Evolutionism – The Salvation of Christianity?
To Holly Pham,

You are right about that, of course. The woman who wrote me about this says that she was talking to someone about the work that Walter Veith has done (she believes what Walter Veith is doing is right) on teaching creationism and this pastor apparently made comments to the person she was talking to which effectively negated what she had just said. Aside from the issue of how this pastor handled this, there is the issue of him being plain wrong about it because he should not be doing that.

I urged her to report this pastor to her conference, but she declined. I don’t know why. This woman lives in the Seattle area and attends a church in that area. I live in Southern California, so am not in the same conference. I have not attended this man’s church, so cannot vouch for what she is saying from personal observation, so I doubt that the Washington conference would pay much attention to what I say about him.

I have done some investigation and discovered that this man has comoe to the attention of this web site before. He has written and published on the Internet a letter that was written against the letter that David Asherick sent out about the teaching of evolution at La Sierra, so you may well be able to guess who this person is. I did not realize that he had done this. I have read over his letter, and while some of what he says is partly true, there is a lack of understanding on his part of just what SDAs have been taught about creation and evolution.

Given the notoriety that has already attended this man’s presence in that church (which I did not realize was the case before last night), my guess is that his conference is well aware of what he is doing and has done nothing so far to stop it.

Unfortunately, this lack of action by the conference is not helping the kids in his congregation who have gone through his evolution class in church, nor does it help anyone else influenced by such thinking. To be honest with you, I think that someone needs to develop a more coherent plan of action on what to teach the children in the church about evolution and creation, and do so in a way that supports the Bible rather than the science. Science is good in so far as it can measure things, but it cannot know the whole story based on circumstantial evidence.

Let me add this little story about circumstantial evidence. Years ago my father told me of a man who was dating a young woman (this event happened in the state of Nebraska). There was another young man who wanted this girl and was jealous of the young man who was dating her. One day this fellow went to the place where she was living and killed her. Before he killed her, he learned from her that the young man that she was dating was to see her a short while later. Knowing this, he left her purse outside her home, knowing that this fellow would come by later and find it, and apparently not finding her home, would likely take the purse home with him, expecting to give it to her later when he next saw her. That worked, because her boyfriend did find the purse and took it home after she did not answer the doorbell. Of course, the police were called and they went looking for the boyfriend, and finding her purse in his possession, they arrested him for having murdered her. Based on the circumstantial evidence that he had her purse and apparently was known to have been to her home at about the time the murder took place, put him up for trial, where he was convicted of murder. He was later executed for that crime that he did not commit. Years later the other young man finally admitted on his deathbed what he had done. Of course, it was too late for the state to do anything about it, but God will take care of it later.

The point of this is that all scientific evidence of life having been here for billions of years is circumstantial in nature. It is the best that science, apart from the Bible, can do because we do not have time machines with which we can go back in time and witness the events happening and prove that they happened as they say they did. But circumstantial evidence can be misleading, just as it was in the case of that your fellow who was executed for a murder that he did not do. Circumstantial evidence can be misleading for many scientific reasons, but these would be reasons that science has failed to either understand or account for. Scientists do not know everything that has happened in this universe and even they are beginning to admit that there likely is a lot of physics that they do not at present know. Some physicists even say that we may never be able to actually know what reality is. There are just so many bizarre things that go on in our universe everyday that scientists cannot explain, even if we have mathematics that can quantify it. They cannot know all. That is the bottom line. They have no eyewitnesses to their proposed events of the long ago past. We have an eyewitness. Therein lies the difference.