Shane, I took classes from McCloskey at WWC (now WWU). …

Comment on Dr. Geraty clarifies his “Challenge” to literal 6-day creationism by Erik.

Shane,

I took classes from McCloskey at WWC (now WWU). He was insistent that life on this planet has existed for a minimum of 12,000 years based on his studies of core drillings on the sea corals and upon various other “evidence.” Apparently, the corals add regular layers of calcium deposits in much the same manner as trees add rings. The coral layers were marred by certain major events in history, such as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which put radioactive material into the environment in that year. These aberrations, apparently, exactly line up to the known historical years for those events based on the count of the coral layers. And McCloskey claimed that the 12,000 years’ worth of coral layers indicate life on this planet goes back at least that far. (Nevermind that God didn’t create seeds only, but the full-grown trees whose biological age would match their size just as Adam’s biological age would have matched his mature form.)

During the same time period that I was at WWC, several students became atheists. Some from my class, who were very intelligent and had been brought up in good Adventist homes. Other courses besides those of the biological sciences share the blame, including some of the courses in the honors program. McCloskey was the professor with the strongest leanings toward evolution. Most of the professors in the biology department, from my perspective, were firm creationists. One of the other professors did seem to favor the ideas of mainstream science, but I would still consider him a creationist.

In any case, sometime after I graduated, the Upper Columbia Conference was apprised of certain aspects of the education at WWC and the effect it was having upon the students, including turning out some atheists, and the UCC was much displeased. Elder Jere Patzer, then president of UCC, most certainly addressed the issues with the Union, and some changes were made. I do not believe staff changes were ever publicized, and the situation was handled quietly.

Erik

Erik Also Commented

Dr. Geraty clarifies his “Challenge” to literal 6-day creationism

If Dr. Geraty is rejecting the evening+morning definition of one DAY in Genesis 1, then he has to be intellectually consistent and apply whatever definition of a DAY he chooses to all the time prophecies and any reference to a DAY in the Bible.

Michael,

I’m sure you are well-intentioned and sincere, but your meaning is not quite clear in the part I quoted above. I think you are correct, but it sounds almost like you are saying prophetic days can have only one definition, which would be incorrect (and is not what you meant, if I interpret correctly).

William Miller, a thorough Bible student and commended by Ellen White for his study methods, wrote a good article on the prophetic time definitions in the Bible. There are three possible uses for a “day” in prophecy, he tells us: 1) a literal day; 2) a year; and 3) a thousand years. For each of the latter there are precisely two passages which give us this definition: “each day for a year,” Numbers 14:34 & Ezekiel 4:4-6; and a day for a thousand years, Psalm 90:4 & 2 Peter 3:8.

It just so happens that the literal days were always still literal days. The spies were in Canaan forty literal days, not forty years nor forty thousand years. The forty days, we are told explicitly, were to represent forty years of wandering in the wilderness.

Second Peter 3 is also telling us that each of the (literal) days of Creation week represent one thousand years. The days are literal days, with one evening and morning each. Yet they represent 1000 years each of time that would follow them. Remember how Adam was told that the “day” he ate the fruit he would die? He died within that “millennium” in accordance with Peter’s words. Peter specifically draws the prophetic parallel for days two, three, and seven of Creation, but we generally focus on just day seven, and think of the entire chapter as being in reference to that “day of the Lord,” i.e. the millennium.

If our Adventist church today correctly understood the prophecy God gave through His created works in that literal Creation Week we would not be having this debate about long-age evolution. Feel free to peruse an overly-concise explanation of the prophecy here:

http://mundall.com/erik/creation.htm

God bless!


Recent Comments by Erik

CCC Requests “Decisive and Conclusive Resolution” from LSU
Dear Adventist in High School,

The devil frequently mixes just a small amount of error in with a larger amount of truth. This is sufficient to accomplish his purposes. He does not need to undermine every truth, only some select truths. The Bible tells us how to know whether or not we can accept something as pure and true: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20). If what they say, even a part of it, does not agree with scripture, even the rest of what they have said is of no value according to this.

We have a saying in English that goes something like this:

A barrel full of sewage with one tablespoon of wine is sewage.
A barrel full of wine with one tablespoon of sewage is sewage.

It does not matter how much “wine” there may be with that sewage, the sewage has perverted the entirety.

Consider how entirely the “sewage” has perverted truth at LSU, given that one of the professors’ statements relegated Mrs. White to “the lunatic fringe” for “the absolute necessity of believing that the only way a creator God could do things is by speaking them into existence a few thousand years ago.” Mrs. White clearly informed us that Creation week was six literal days about six thousand years ago, and further, she has told us that God was not dependent upon pre-existing matter and could but speak them into existence. Yet all of that flies in the face of those who wish to believe their own opinions to be superior to inspiration, doesn’t it? It makes perfect sense that if they believe we evolved from apes, they could not believe what Ellen White taught was true.

Nay, the evolutionist “sewage” has defiled the pure and true at LSU, and its effect permeates the remaining departments of the university. One cannot contain such a far-reaching apostasy as this within a single corner or department of the university. Indeed, we have been given clear evidences that the theologians at the university have also been affected. Whither goes the biology department, and then the theology department, thither goes the whole school.

Erik


Mrs. White: “Don’t send your children to…”

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13)

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” (Romans 8:14)

“That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.” (Philippians 2:15)

“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:1-2)

We are the sons of God if we receive Christ and follow Him. The line of Seth did this, and were, therefore, called the sons of God. Cain’s descendants did not follow God, and were not called His sons.

Erik


Mrs. White: “Don’t send your children to…”

The descendants of Seth were called the sons of God–the descendants of Cain, the sons of men. As the sons of God mingled with the sons of men, they became corrupt, and by intermarriage with them, lost, through the influence of their wives, their peculiar, holy character, and united with the sons of Cain in their idolatry. Many cast aside the fear of God, and trampled upon his commandments. But there were a few who did righteousness, who feared and honored their Creator. Noah and his family were among the righteous few. {3SG 60.2}

After the translation of Enoch to heaven, the sons of men that were set against the worship of God were drawing away the sons of God. There were two parties in the world then, and there always will be. The worshipers of God called themselves the sons of God. The descendants of Seth went up into the mountains and there made themselves homes separate from the sons of Cain. Here in their mountainous homes they thought to preserve themselves from the prevailing wickedness and idolatry of the descendants of Cain. But after the exhortations and the influence of Enoch were removed from them, they commenced to unite with the descendants of Cain. {CTr 39.2}

That should help clarify the identity of the “sons of God.”

Erik


Mrs. White: “Don’t send your children to…”

It does our position no service to claim too much or to base too much on such large leaps into very thin air… claiming that this or that animal within the fossil record was the clear result of human genetic manipulation before the flood and for that reason was not saved on the Ark….

Sean,

It seems like Ellen White said “Every species of animals which God had created was preserved in the ark” (1 SP 78.2). Therefore, any species which became extinct at the time of the flood must necessarily have come about via amalgamation. That seems fairly clear. So we know where T-Rex came from, right?

Erik


Mrs. White: “Don’t send your children to…”
David,

Your logic is sound regarding what amalgamation cannot be properly applied to. Such applications as forbid certain inter-human marriages are racist, as you have said, and as I have attempted to express. I almost fully agree with your reasoning on this. However, I will differ slightly on one point, and that is that since we do not know how the amalgamations occurred, we cannot rule out the possibility of men tinkering with plant, animal, and human genetics by means of cross-breeding (as opposed to a more “laboratory” approach). They were very intelligent. Perhaps they knew ways of intermixing species which we would never guess could be mixed with any survivable result, including humans with animals.

So, on the lighter side, if evolutionists like to think they have descended from apes…maybe we should give them a fair hearing (and a DNA test)!

Erik