No, Ervin, there’s not a fundamentalist “wing.” The church …

Comment on The Reptile King by David Read.

No, Ervin, there’s not a fundamentalist “wing.” The church subscribes to all of the fundamentals except verbal inspiration, but even on the nature of inspiration we are closer to the fundamentalist position than to the liberal position.

On the issue of origins, the literal, recent creation week is well settled Adventist doctrine. There are some liberal pockets like Loma Linda that would like to change that, but they won’t be able to.

David Read Also Commented

The Reptile King
If it is covered, then it’s covered. No need to have the word apologetics in the course title, as long as students are being exposed to the arguments in support of our faith.


The Reptile King
I know Lee Spencer, and he is well qualified. He knows his natural history both the Darwinist and creationist. I’d be curious as to why he’s having a hard time publishing, but I know Art Chadwick is doing outstanding science on his dinosaur dig but hasn’t published much except for abstracts. I know both will publish some good stuff in the future.


The Reptile King
Jeff, the verses in Genesis that are relevant to the age of the earth are in chapters 5 and 11. Together with other chronological data in the Bible, these verses show that the earth is young, about six to eight thousand years old.

Regarding your practice of science, I’ve never been interested in your personal career preferences. The line of questioning I’ve engaged in since you mentioned Matthew 18 was to lead you to the idea that, in the abstract, in principle, one who believes in the historicity of Gen. 1-11 ought to do origins science using a model or paradigm that assumes the truth of that history. Was I mistaken in assuming that you would be able to reason in principle, beyond the concrete realities of your personal situation?


Recent Comments by David Read

LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@Pauluc: I do not agree that science must be naturalistic, but if that is your bottom line, it will not trouble me much where it concerns most day-to-day science–the study of current, repeating phenomena. But a rigid naturalism applied to origins morphs into philosophical atheism. Hence, mainstream origins science is not science but atheistic apologetics. This is what should not be done at an Adventist school, but sadly what has been the rule at La Sierra.


Dr. Paul Cameron and the God of the Gaps
@Pauluc: The Adventist doctrine of creation is that God created the world in six days and rested on the Seventh day and hallowed it. (Gen. 2:2-3; Ex. 20:11) Do you believe that doctrine? It won’t do to say that you accept some vague “Christian doctrine of creation.” The Seventh-day Adventist Church has a very specific mission to call people back to the worship of the creator God, on the day that He hallowed at the creation.

You say you believe that the “core doctrine of Christianity is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ,” but what was Jesus Christ incarnated to do? Wasn’t his mission to redeem fallen humanity, to be the second Adam who succeeded where the first Adam failed? And doesn’t your view of origins make nonsense of a perfect creation, a literal Adam who fell, and the need for redemption because of Adam’s sin? You seem to want to gloss over all the very profound differences you have not only with Seventh-day Adventist dcotrine, but with the most basic reasons that Seventh-day Adventism exists.

The syncretistic hodgepodge religion you’ve created for yourself, combining elements of a biblical world view (the incarnation) and elements of a pagan worldview (a self-created creation) is not Adventism. It is anti-Seventh-day Adventism.


LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@Holly Pham: Holly, I will try, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.


LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@Pauluc: Since no creationist could land a job as chairman of a biology department at a public university, it seems entirely appropriate that no Darwinist should be given the chairmanship of a biology department of a Seventh-day Adventist college.

The SDA educational system doesn’t exist to expensively duplicate the public university system. It exists to provide a uniquely biblical and Seventh-day Adventist education to interested young people. If mainstream origins science is correct in its assumptions and conclusions about our origins, the entire enterprise of Seventh-day Adventism is an utterly foolish waste of time. So at Adventist institutions, our professors should assume that Darwinistic science is false, and that creationistic science is true (just the reverse of how it is done at public universities), and proceed accordingly.


LSU Removes Dr. Lee Grismer as Chairman of the Biology Department
@gene fortner: What I like about your list of topics, Gene, is that it points out that many disciplines are implicated in the necessary change of worldview. It isn’t just biology and geology, although those are the main ones. History, archeology, anthropology and other disciplines should also be approached from a biblical worldview. The biblical worldview should pervade the entire curriculum.