Ken, Thanks for your comments. It appears to me that …

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

Ken,

Thanks for your comments. It appears to me that your basic requirement for knowing for sure that God exists is for him to personally appear to you, and appear as he is so that you would know it is God. Am I understanding you correctly?

The only problem with this is that were he to do that, according to the Bible, you would cease to exist. I doubt that is what you really want.

This reminds me of an acquaintance of many years ago. this fellow decided to test whether there was a God or not, so, using his brain to put together a test and taking advantage of the fact that he lived in Colorado, he went up to the top of a high mountain in the middle of a strong thunderstorm with lots of lightning. He shouted at God, “If there is a God, then strike me dead with lightning.” Well, he did feel lots of electricity in his body, and the hair on his head stood up (a good sign that you are about to get zapped by lightning), but in the end, nothing happened. He was still very much alive and well and obviously not dead. So, he concluded that there must not be a God after all.

But if you think about that test of his, how is God to answer such a demand? If he did strike him dead, then he would not know that he was dead and would not know that God indeed existed. And if God then resurrected him, it would be j ust as if he were asleep and would not know he had been dead, according to the Bible as I understand it. So, if God answered his challenge, there would be no way for this guy to know the answer. But by failing to answer his challenge, it does leave him alive in the hope that someday he would find a more rational way to figure out the answer to this question.

As to why God wants to communicate with us, the Bible says that it is because there is a war going on and we are caught in the middle of it. God wants to save us from the results of that war, if possible. But he cannot do so by directly appearing to us because that would kill us. As to why he would involve himself with us at all, besides the war issue, the only reason the Bible gives for it is that God made us in the first place, and as a result, he loves his creation, including the creatures he made and wants to save them if possible. Man his the ability to communicate his thoughts to a far higher degree than any other creature on this world and has the highest brain structure of all. The dolphin is the next smartest animal, but it has not the ability to understand and communicate the ideas of God so far as we know.

I don’t know why God chooses only certain people to speak for him. He is the sovereign of the universe and has the right to decide that. I cannot do that and demanding a more democratic way of doing it isn’t going to change it, though I don’t understand why. But he chooses things based on what he sees as best, given that he can see the end from the beginning, which I cannot do.

Now, if the Bible is correct, then it does indeed rule out the prophets of other religions. That does not mean that their prophets taught no truth, for many of them did. But they have not the light from God because God is not the author of their works. You can go back and read the Babylonian books of wisdom and see some definite wisdom in their thinking, but that does not mean that God is the direct source of it.

Are you willing to accept any other form of evidence other than God appearing directly to you to prove for sure that he exists? If so, what?

The Bible does say that God wants us to reason with him. I think he is wanting us to use our heads to figure these things out for ourselves. That isn’t always easy! He gave us a brain to use, but we have to use it wisely. We have only so much time on this earth and then its over, so we have to use the time wisely.

But let me pose something else to you. You seem to require that God appear to you. You say that you have only qusetions left and no observations to prove that God actually exists. Yet there are lots of things that you have never seen which you know exist. You have never seen an electron, but you know that it exists by the manifestations of its power. You have very likely never seen your own brain, but somehow or another, you do seem to know that you exist also. Now, God has told us that he exists, but that you cannot see him or you will die. So, it is not reasonable that you need to find another test other than requiring that he appear to you? What type of test would you propose? Stand on a mountain top and scream at God to strike you dead with lightning? I hope that you find some better way. But God has already proposed a test for you. He says that he has foretold the future far in advance. Nobody else can do that with accuracy. I can guess that the United States will still be here 10 years from now and have a reasonable chance that I will be right. But predict that it will be here 1,000 years from now? No way that I would likely be right. But if this type of test is not suitable, then what do you propose?

Wendell Also Commented

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.


Recent Comments by Wendell

Louie Bishop Testifies, Again, about His Experience at La Sierra University
If evolution as taught by geologists is the full and complete answer to origins, then there is absolutely no point in being a Christian. If God does NOT have the power to create us as he says he did in the Bible, then there is no way he can recreate you again. Therefore, if evolution is the correct answer, then there is no resurrection, no heaven, and no hell and no consequences in eternity for what you and I do. Further, God is a liar for he told us a fairy tale in the creation story. Hitler and many others like him in history will get away with killing millions of people with no justice coming to them.

If the things that Louie Bishop represents are true (and I am inclined to believe him), then what I have just said above is the message that every thinking LSU student will get out of their science and religion classes. Is this the message parents send their students to LSU to learn and pay good money for? Is this the message that the church wants sent to students at LSU?

It is one thing to teach evolution so that students understand how the world thinks and at the same time, presenting the Bible as the true answer to life’s origins. With the real facts presented from science, students can study these issues and make up their own minds with the facts presented. I will support teachers in doing this.

But its an entirely different thing to teach that evolution is the true origin of life and the Bible is to be regarded as full of fairy tales. I will never support teachers in teaching that evolution is the true answer on the question of origins. Teachers who do this make a serious mistake. God is real, he is all-powerful, evolution is not the correct answer to origins, and the judgment day is coming for all. The cost of such teaching will be fearfully high. And it is coming much sooner than most SDAs think it is. The church needs to turn this thing around, and the sooner the better.


Louie Bishop Testifies, Again, about His Experience at La Sierra University
There may also be evidence in the Bible for the big bang. Consider this verse:

Isa 42:5 “Thus says God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out;….”

He stretched out the heavens. Is that describing the expansion of space itself? It seems reasonable to me that this is talking about that.