Ken, Yes, what has happened to me is a very difficult

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

Ken,

Yes, what has happened to me is a very difficult thing to explain. Consider that there is more that I forgot to include.

My friend did not know me when he had the dream in 1967, and did not meet me until 1971. Thus, this is interesting because there is a 4 year gap between when he had the dream and when I met him. So, if this is some type of brain wave transmission, its isn’t just across space, but also across time as well.

I know that I was in grade school when this happened. My friend is 5 years older than I, so I should not have met him at all, but because of a mutual friend, we were introduced and became good friends anyway. Oh, and by the way, the fellow who introduced us is one of the brothers of the guy who went on the mountain top and yelled at God to strike him dead with lightning – if he is there.

My friend lived in eastern Kansas when he had the dream and I was living at Loveland, Colorado, in 1967. I met him at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1967 I was planning to attend a different Adventist college when I reached college age, but just before I met my friend in 1971, my parents suddenly decided that they wanted to move to Lincoln, so off we went. It was a sudden change of plans that brought this about. Of course, with the college just down the street, I ended up attending Union rather than another SDA college when I reached that stage of life.

If transmission of brain waves is possible, then assuming that it can also be done over time, then why can we not change the past at will? Why not will Adolf Hitler to be accidentally killed, or something like that and really change history? The trouble with this is that for every action that I might undo by such methods, someone else will not like it and will find a way to “undo” whatever it is that I have done in order to change the past. Now, that is important because if I am right about what the pope is going to do, then according to this prorphecy, when he changes his name, it will be done because he once again receives the power to prosecute people for heresy as he had until 1798. If I am right, this will alter the course of history and what I know about this will also help alter the course of the Adventist Church. This will result in things happening that the authorities will not like. So, why can they not just use brain waves and somehow or another alter events of the past so that I do not make this discovery at all, and that way save themselves a heap of trouble?

Do you see where this leads? If one can do what you suggested as an explanation, then there is no restriction on someone else finding a way to do it also and that makes history so that it is forever unsettled. Is that the actual state of affairs in this world?

I agree with you that there are many different interpretations of prophecy. But the prophecies are there and can be understood. Unfortunately, many do not understand them correctly. One reason for this is that many do not have the guidance of God to help them understand the Bible. A second reason is that each person is raised in a certain environment, which does make some diffirence in their ability to comprehend things of the Bible. A third reason is that because of this background and learning they do from their teachers, they cannot help but “hear” the commentary in their head when they read the Bible. They read the Bible, sure, but do not really read it. Instead, they read the commentary in their head and that is really all they hear. They don’t let the Bible speak for itself to them but rather they let their preconceived ideas that are in their head tell them what to think when they read it, ideas that are usually planted there by their teachers, who got their ideas from their teachers and so on up the line. But a principle reason for this failure to agree is that in many instances, they don’t want to know the real truth. They want a “convenient truth”, one that seems to support a theory they have, and will not go any further.

A prime example of this is found in Daniel 9 where the angel told Daniel that 70 weeks were cut off for his people. Now, the word used there means to cut off or amputate, meaning it is taken off a larger time period. What many do is take the 70th week and apply it to the end of time. But that is a mistake because the 70th week is part of the larger whole, which began in 457 BC and can run no longer than 1844. Thus, any 70th week that is placed long after that is a false idea because the time period is gone and dead past history.

In the prophecies of Daniel 2, 7 and 8, people claim that these were written after the fact. But not so. Daniel has some Aramaic writing in it, the style of which was written only at the time of the Babylonian kingdom and was forgotten afterwards. Nobody afterwards could have created that because they did not know the style later, in say 164 BC. Also, Belshazzar was the coregent of Babylon when it fell. That knowledge was lost within a few generations because he and his father were disliked. In later generations historians tell us that Belshazzar’s place was assigned to an Assyrian woman. Belshazzar was restored to his rightful place as the coregent of Babylon only in the discoveries made in the last century and a half. Thus, whoever wrote Daniel had knowledge that did not exist in 164 BC.

But there is more. The four kingdoms of Daniel 2 are well documented. Even if you assume that they were written after the fact, there is the state of the divided kingdoms afterwards, the iron and clay. Now, I know that SDAs claim that these represent the strong and weak political kingdoms, but I have to differ with them on this issue. They define the clay as the weak political kingdoms because of some Bible verses that show that clay can represent political kingdoms. But they forget that just as the metals define a political kingdom, so the clay defines a religious kingdom. Clay is rock, and there is a rock which strikes the image and destroys it at the end, a rock which represents not a political kingdom, but rather represents a religious kingdom.

Then it moves much later in time. The prophecy of Daniel 2 says that “they shall mingled themselves with the seed of men” which is an explanation that the state will go to the church and get together with it, which is exactly what Constantine did in 321 and later. And it then moves a thousand years later because it says that the clay and iron would not cleave together, meaning that the church and state would separate. This began to take place in the Protestant Reformation. These events are more than 1500 years after 164 BC. The Bible defines the symbols for you very clearly and need to be misunderstood by anyone. Daniel 7 clearly points to the Papal power with the horn that talked on the fourth dreadful beast. Revelation 13 reveals exactly the same power and described it with characteristics that mimic the life of Jesus, thus pointing to it as the Antichrist. It said that it would have the power of life and death over them and would have that power in all the earth, meaning the territory of the former Roman Empire. That did happen during the dark ages when the church burned a lot of people at the stake. How is it that this is misunderstood?

Well. the Catholic Church sure does not want you to know this. So, they have come up with alternative theories to confuse people about this. Given their history, do you really want to believe their version of things?

Well, I should stop on this and go to your point #3.

I think there is a lot of room for more research into this area. But one thing I know from my own experience with science: things change. There is little that is really genuinely settled in science because it is changing all the time. Truth today is false tomorrow. More than one theory has bit the dust over the years. I would not bet on the theories that science has as the real answer. They know only what they know today. They don’t know what they don’t know. Tomorrow their theories will change in some way or another. I have seen this over and over again not only in science history, but in my own experience with science even since I got my degree in biology years ago.

I know that I have sene that the prophecies are true. I know that if God is true, then the creation story is true. I cannot explain the creation story in light of the current evidence, but that does not mean it will remain that way forever. I know that the Bible says there was an eyewitness who I know does not lie. I’ll take the word of a truthful witness that has real objectivity over circumstantial evidence or that of witnesses who are not truly objective.

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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.