The hinge of our faith
If lots of people and pastors make enough (sanctified) noise about this, something may actually happen. And even if something doesn’t change, since we are not the actual leaders/ policy-makers, our moral responsibility is not in changing things, but in speaking up. And the more voices the better. I don’t know how any committed SDA member, who has heard of these things, can sit idly by. Our name, our doctrines, our reason for existence, our eschatology, and even our soteriology are in being undermined. And we are paying people to do it! The irony is outweighed only by the tragedy. (New England Pastor Blog)David Asscherick
ARISE, Director
Five years ago, David Asscherick preached a sermon titled “Creation: Father God or Mother Nature?” in which he emphasized the importance of the biblical doctrine of creation and its relation to everything else we believe to be true. The audio clip below is from that sermon.
If what David Asscherick says is true, then there is potentially much more at stake here in this great controversy at La Sierra University than just professors misrepresenting the Seventh-day Adventist Church. What is happening to the hundreds of Seventh-day Adventist youth passing through these classes?
Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.
March 23, 2010
Bob quoted Gen 7
The clarity on that point was expressed so many different ways in the chapter – it is no wonder that many people choose to ignore those verses altogether.
We use exegesis to let the Bible speak for itself.
The funny thing about exegesis is that it requires that we take a both-and approach to the text not a snippet either-or solution. So when the Bible gives us the global scope — we take it literally. When the Bible says that the global scope applies to all animals on dry land that have the breath of life – we take it to be a literal global scope applying literally to all life on literal dry land that literally have the breath of life in them.
However – IF we were to make a doctrinal argument that “required” that we ignore the fact of 21-23 that sets the limit on what was killed at the flood – we would quickly get shot down by our non-SDA friends as teaching something that simply snippets some tiny detail out of Gen 7 then tries to argue that the text is not trustworthy because it supposedly goes too far.
The details in the text show that it applies to all life on dry land – which obviously has a global scope but cannot be stretched to include “all life in the sea”.
Again – just stating the obvious.
in Christ,
Bob
March 23, 2010
Geanna seems to be questioning the flood’s height on the assumption that it was a near impossibility. It is true that if the water covered Mount Everest, and did so all the way around the world, we would have billions of acre-feet of water on this planet that do not seem to be here today.
The fact is that a period of continental movement, which caused uplifting of the mountain ranges, followed the flood, and there is little solid evidence today for the actual height of the highest mountains prior to the flood. Likewise, mountains surrounded by water tend to crumble, and even taller ones may have been undermined and submerged in the wild currents of the flood. (Consider the Grand Canyon and how it was formed by a rush of water as a great lake suddenly broke through.)
The flood story is a part of legend in so many cultures of the world as to be nearly universal. If not all of the mountains were covered, then people and/or land animals would certainly have survived outside the ark, for they would have found refuge. But the Bible says that they all died except for those on the ark (see Gen. 7:22). If the Bible is to be believed, then one has little room here to choose which parts. If you reject that the waters covered the whole earth, then you will be forced, like a cascading line of dominoes, to reject numerous other passages in the Bible.
This is the danger of having so-called Christian professors teaching as “fact” that which is in such stark contradiction to the Bible. McCloskey at both Walla Walla and LSU taught as fact that the earth could not possibly have been created just 6000 years ago, since there were “proofs” of the world’s age extending to at least double that. To ungrounded students, this type of “fact” might startle them into a realization that their parents had brought them up on fantasies, and that, therefore, the whole Bible was to be considered fiction. True enough, some of my classmates in college turned atheist during the school year. Can we blame the professors? Of course there are multiple factors involved, just as there are if someone commits suicide. But God will hold each one to account for his or her part in the loss of souls, and those who were in teaching positions will be especially responsible, considering their position of influence.
Erik
March 23, 2010
@Erik: If the flood was universal, all post-diluvian human bengs share a common geographic origin (perhaps mount Ararat) and so necessarily do all flood legends-unless they were invented later. So a universal flood does not imply ubiquitous flood legends and vice versa.
Mark
March 23, 2010
@Erik: If the flood was universal, all post-diluvian human beings share a common geographic origin (perhaps mount Ararat) and so necessarily do all flood legends-unless they were invented later. So a universal flood does not imply ubiquitous flood legends and vice versa.
Mark
March 23, 2010
“By way of objection to this interpretation those who believe in a limited flood, which extended perhaps as far as mankind may have penetrated at that time, urge the fact that kol is used in a relative sense, as is clearly the case in passages such as Ge 41:57; Ex 9:25; 10:15; De 2:25; 1Ki 10:24. However, we still insist that this fact could overthrow a single kol, never a double kol, as our verse has it.”
Thank you for sharing this, David Read.
The double kol is interesting. I found acouple more uses (and there are probably more)::
I Sam 2:22 – Now Eli, who was very old, heard about everything his sons were doing to all Israel and how they slept with the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.
So clearly Eli had the time to listen to and heard about EVERY single detail about the things his sons were doing to EVERY single individual in Israel. The double kol leaves no room for doubt.
II Sam 3:37 – So on that day all the people and all Israel knew that the king had no part in the murder of Abner son of Ner.
So clearly ALL of the people, if not on the planet earth certainly ALL of Isreale including infants and toddlers, knew the king had no part in the murder. The double kol leaves no room for doubt.
Surely there is no hyperbole in the Bible.
March 23, 2010
@Mark: If all post-flood human beings were well aware of the traumatic flood they had just been through, from which they emerged the only survivors on the planet, I suppose it would have been an account that would have survived many a retelling down through the generations which followed. And, if their languages and geographic locations diverged after the flood, these same stories would certainly be found in every part of the world today, having spread out from Mt. Ararat.
That is exactly what happened. The Bible is clear about how the various languages formed. God made them Himself when He confused the people’s languages at the Tower of Babel. That tower was being constructed with the express purpose of providing a flood-safe refuge, hence the memory and influence of the recent flood was still sharp in their minds. The Bible even tells us that during the life of Peleg, who was born about 100 years after the flood, “the earth was divided.” This is a reference to either a) the people being spread apart into separate groups throughout the earth, or b) the divisions of the continents themselves, or both. As the Tower of Babel and the division of the earth were in the same time period, it is safe to presume that all languages and peoples throughout the earth’s regions today had their start in that small collection of descendants from Noah.
Look at this character: 船 That is the Chinese word for “boat.” The left side shows a vessel something like a canoe, while on the right side are two symbols: the two marks at the top form the number eight (八) in Chinese, and the square under it forms the word mouth (口). So, the word “boat” is essentially a triple-concept character in Chinese: vessel eight mouths. (See source for this information here: http://creationwiki.org/Chinese_characters_for_Noah%27s_ark.)
There were eight people in the ark (see 1 Peter 3:20). It seems rather unlikely that the number eight would be tied to the word “boat” or “ship.” Why not 100 instead? The logical conclusion is that this originated in memory of the flood. Yet why would the Chinese know about the flood if it did not happen in China? Remember that the tallest mountains in the world are between Mt. Ararat and the “Land of God” as China was once called.
Erik
March 26, 2010
Bob,
We are getting sidetraked, and there is too much here to respond to every point. Let me try to summarize a few points.
1. From my perspective the real issue is, “What role does coersion play in helping or hindering the discovery of truth.” In my opinion, exploring the issue freely, even looking at and issue from the perspective of an “infadel” can only enhance the cause of truth. Truth is Truth and can never be compromised by our belief or lack of belief. Coersion of belief or consciousness is morally wrong, especially in the Adventist church which is founded on Christ, the Present Truth.
2. Everything following is practically irrelevant.
3. My definition of evolution: Any change in the genome that is beneficial to the organism is evolution. There is no functional difference between micro and macro evolution, it is only a matter of the quantinty of changes. The nylonase gene came into being in the last 75 years, I believe that God the eternal creator created it and I see it as an example of evolution, you seem to believe that God stopped creating and that it isn’t an example of evolution. I believe that God created nylonase, you believe he didn’t. Which of us believes in God as the Creator? I don’t think it is truely possible to believe in God as the creator and not believe in evolution.
4. I have no problem with anything you have quoted from Mrs. White. In my opinion you are reading more into her statements than she intended.
5. I will reiterate, your favorite quote speaks of geology and long periods of time. It says nothing about evolution.
6. If you read the story carefully, both the Bible and Mrs. White imply a rapid form of evolution.
7. By my reading of Mrs White, she believed that the Bible and Nature are both from the hand of God and cannot be in conflict, so any discrepancy we see means that we just don’t understand. I don’t accept the assertion that our understanding of the Bible is more reliable than our understanding of science. I acknowlege that Mrs. White makes statements that seem pro-Bible/antiiscience, but as I quoted previously, she also states explicitly that our schools are to teach science to correct our errors in theology. She could have said it the other way around, but she didn’t.
8. Shannon, I can’t comment on pollens, that is out of my area of expertise, and it really doesn’t pertain to the issue of freedom of thought.
9. Here is your “Bird-dinosaur”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090928205415.htm
10. The very fact that the issue generates so much controversy proves in my mind that there is enough doubt about the truth that we, especially as Adventists should be tolerant of those on the other side. We certanly shouldn’t be firing or threatening anyone.
11. Coersion is the fundamental principle of Babylon, from Cain,Able and the tower of Babel, to the three worthies in the fiery furnace in Babylon, to Pagan Rome and the persecution of Chritians, to Papal Rome and the persecution of the Martyrs, to appostate protestantism and the Salem witch trials, to Islam and 9/11, to contemporary Adventism firing Biology teachers. Remember, Christ did NOT come to save the Righteous (those who by faith think that they are right). He ONLY came to save Sinners (those who think they don’t understand).
12. “The Bible and the Bible only” as the only source for truth sounds nice, but has no foundation in reality.
March 26, 2010
PS.
13. You can’t believe in “The Bible and the Bible only”, then quote Mrs. White or any other source.
March 28, 2010
Ron: So if there were an ultimate being who wrote a book about himself as came to earth as was quoted saying about the book that the understanding of salvation was found in its pages. In addition, his followers kept an accurate record of His live and wrote it down so you could better understand the way He though, taught and lived and added it to this book. Then, I come along and decide. Do I believe what is written in these pages or not? Is part of it correct–the first part? Then I am a Jew. If all? Then I am a Christian. If none, then maybe something else. . . I could chose to believe a man that claims to achieve a higher existence through letting go and multiple cycles of live–then I am a Buddist. Or I could choose to believe an expert in nature that tells me that he has studied rocks and listened to what other people have told him about science and believes that the world came about through evolution with or without a divine aid.
In the end, you are choosing without a doubt to believe in the accuracy of human integrity and intelligence–which may be correct or not, but many times has been proven false as the humans involved needed something to show for their life’s work that made a big impact and turned out to be a hoax–we have that Achilles’ heal. The Christian religion has a God that witnessed of it’s books veracity in a of itself and of His own veracity in an of Himself. If you chose to trust Him, you are choosing to trust something more that human.
With that being said, if someone tells me the way to my house is a long straight road–don’t get tired because it is so long–here are a few markers along the way to look for. That is what all the other stuff is. If James Dobson has a good devotional or Ellen White says something in line with the Bible, it is because God has blessed them with the up building of the work. You should apply the test of the prophets to everything and everyone, “if they do not speak according to the word, it is because there is no light in them.” I think the reason you argue against “Sola Scriptura” is either because you don’t understand it or that you don’t agree with it. What “Sola Scriptura” means is that the Bible is the final rule to the other works and authors and even science. If it does not agree, it has to be thrown out or I need to start to find a new religion if I are honest with myself. So far I have been comfortable with the Bible as the final say.
Think of a government–someone has to have the final say. After much discussion and deliberation on something to happen, the final say is given by the governing body as based on the law or they make a new law adjustment. In my religion, I have chosen the governing body to be the Bible–other things can and will have input but the final analysis will come from it until the day that Christ comes or I am convinced that I am wrong.
This is the correct definition of Sola Scriptura.
I would like also your thoughts on Nehemiah when he told people to not buy or sell on Sabbath or they would be arrested. Or similarly when the people lost their blessing for failing to pay tithe and offering. What about Samuel disciplining Saul for not completely killing off all the Ishmalites. What about the priests of Baal with on Mt Carmel with Elijah–he didn’t just say–we’ll let you go now. At the end of several letters the apostle Paul speaks very strongly about certain individuals and having nothing to do with them. This all sounds a lot like coercion by your definition.
The issue is this: A church should be able to maintain itself and it’s principles. There are many examples in the Bible of this. At the same time, the Bible and church as well as our country supports the individual’s right to choose and learn for himself as long as it doesn’t infringe on others within reason. This is a fine line. I believe it has been crossed and you obviously don’t. I cannot see how these teachers are not impacting students ideology significantly to their bias. As long as you agree with their bias, that is okay, if you don’t then it isn’t. Considering a lot of the parents think it is the other way, this can be misleading obviously.
April 5, 2010
RE:
Shannon, With regard to Sola Scriptura, I actually agree with it in principle, the problem comes with the application. Here are some of the problems.
1. Interpretation: “Then, I come along and decide.”:
Even if everyone accepts the Bible as the final authority, there is still the issue of fallible human interpretation. A case in point, you and I both read the same Bible. You think that evolution can’t be true because God is the creator. I note that God is the eternal creator, and therefore it is impossible to truely believe in God as the creator without believing in evolution (ie. ongoing creation). Who is to say which of us is right? If you appeal to the organized church’s creed, then you have already by definition sacrificed the principle of Sola Scriptura. You no longer believe in the Bible only, but the Bible plus the creed, or the Bible plus the majority opinion about what it means. In my opinion, the principle of Sola Scriptura really demands academic freedom at the individual level, and is therefore a powerful argument AGAINST firing a teacher.
2. The Spanish inquisition: History has shown that the egotism of the majority is highly distructive and that enforcing doctrinal purity by coersion is Satanic precisely because it does violence to the individual’s conscience and reason. Using coersion by treatening a person’s job is acting on the same principle, and is dishonoring the memory of the faithful martyrs.
3. Sources of Truth: To say that the Bible is authoritative, is not to say it is the only source of truth. There are many kinds of truth the Bible says nothing about. For example, the Bible doesn’t say anything about the speed of light, or the length of the Amazon river, or the weight of an atom, or the charge of an electron. It won’t tell you how to pronounce the word “God” in Swahili, which side of the road to drive on or how to fix your car, how to program your VCR, or how much Vitamin D is optimal for health or even something as simple as how add a column of numbers. When we say that the Bible is authoritative, we mean that it is authoritative for its intended purpose, which is to guide us spiritually.
4. The standard for truth set by the Bible itself requires confirmation of truth by sources outside of the Bible. For example, the Bible says that a prophet should be tested by whether what he says will happen, does happen. The trouble with that is that the test is totally worthless as a test looking forward. You can’t tell if the prophet is true until the critical decision time is already past. Even if the event does take place, the source of your knowlege that validates the prophet is independant of the Bible, either through history, or personal observation. As I have pointed out before, it is impossible to arrive at the 1844 date “sola scriptura”. You have to appeal to secular history, and astronomy in particular to identify the date for the decree to rebuild Jerusalem. You might be able to be a Lutheran or a Baptist, but it is in fact impossible to be an Adventist “sola scriptura”.
5. Nehemiah: I think Nehemiah is actually a good example of my point. How did that work for him? Did it result in people loving God and keeping the Sabbath out of thankfulness and joy? No, he only got temporary compliance thru force, but force didn’t win the hearts. Then following Nehemiah’s example, the Jewish people responded by creating more and harsher rules about the Sabbath until Jesus finally had to come and “break the Sabbath law” on purpose, just to show how wrong their approach to the Sabbath was. Then, applying the principles of Nehemiah they tried to push Jesus off a cliff. As I understand it, Jesus wants our love, not our fear. I just can’t imagine Jesus behaving this way.
6. Trust in God: Do you really? (Not you personally, I am using the royal you) It seems to me that you are afraid of God. You are afraid that if you or your child explores a new idea (evolution) you might accidently eat of the tree of knowlege of good and evil, and that God will dam your child in the eternal lake of fire. You are so afraid that you are willing attempt coersion. Like Lilliputins in Guliver’s travels, you set stakes around God, you bind Him up and tie Him down to 28 fundamental beliefs. You presume to tell God what He can and can’t do (eg. continue to create).
I think I have more faith in God. My God loves me enough, that he gave me a real choice. Two real choices that He is in fact OK with (God approved of both choices and both outcomes before Christ ever started the creation of our world). My God wants to live life with me and experience everything, the good and the bad with me. He never forsakes me; even if I intentionally betray Him (eg. Peter), or I turn into a Hitler or a Pol Pot, (eg. the apostle Saul), he still loves me and sticks with me. He chases after me, grabs my arm, turns me around toward him and holds me close. Even if I ultimately reject him, Christ still doesn’t leave or forsake me, Christ walks with me right into the second death. (It was the second death that Christ died on the cross wasn’t it?)
I happen to see evidence of evolution in the Bible. I see evidence of evolution in the writings of Mrs. White. I see evidence of evolution in every particle of the physical universe, and I see evolution in the spiritual universe. I believe that evolution is a fundamental principle of the universe because Jesus is the creator, and He rose from the tomb, and He is alive, and He is still the Creator. I believe that Adventist’s generally have mis-interpreted Mrs. White’s comments about Darwin. I believe that Darwin is a great man, because he spent time worshiping God in the study of nature and opened our eyes to God’s creative power in a way that no one else ever has. Is it any wonder that his work came into prominence at the same time the 3rd angel is reminding us to remember God as the creator? Isn’t it a little ironic that the man who did the most to reveal God’s ongoing creation scientifically was most reviled by those who claim the most to believe in God as the creator?
I used to think I was wrong, but now I’m not so sure. But that’s OK. I would rather be wrong and open to God’s leading, than to be like Judas, so certain that I know what is right, that I am willing to use force to change a mind.
April 5, 2010
Indeed we often get that argument from our Catholic brethren – telling us that that Bible can “be bent” to whatever needs of anyone who wants to use it therefore sola scriptura is not a trustworthy solution – just as you have stated above.
But the careful student of the Bible quickly notices that there is “SIX days you shall labor…FOR IN SIX DAYS God MADE” statement in the Bible supporting Shannon’s position and there is NO “God is creator so believe in evolution” statement in scripture to support your fiction above.
Presto! the Sola Scriptura method is seen to work instantly.
More than that – in Acts 17:11 we see that this sola scriptura method was Sooooo trustworthy that even NON-Christians could use it to evaluate a Christian teacher of no less stature than Paul “Studying the scriptures daily TO SEE IF those things spoken to them by Paul were so“.
Good spin – but as we see from Acts 17:11 the sola scriptura method is so objective and so “doable” that even non-Christians can use it.
Furthermore – as Paul pointed out in Gal 1:6-11 “if WE or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel to you OTHER than the one you have received – let him be accursed”
Paul argued that proven Bible doctrine does have “value” – as it turns out.
But more specifically – the flaw in your argument is that we actually have NO evolutionist argument from the Bible supporting the wild factless claim that Moses was an evolutionist or that he taught his readers to believe in evolutionism.
We have NO evidence from scripture or from Ellen White’s writings that God instructed prophets to promote evolutionism.
So when it comes to a “sola scriptura” discussion – evolutionists do not even show up at the table!
Certainly we can all agree that to force an evolutionist professor to stop believing evolutionism by torturing him (as was the case of the inquisition) is out of the question. If said evolutionist wants to pedal his atheist-centric doctrines or origins and get someone to pay him to do it – let him go to the public university where people actually WANT to pay him to do that very thing.
He need not seek to undermine the institutions of those who do not CHOOSE to pay him to do such a thing.
That is called the “fallacy of equivocation” my friend. You have equivocated between the acts of torture in the dark ages – vs the act of telling someone that they cannot force parents and students to PAY THEM to cram error down the student’s throat – but must go to some institution that WANTS to pay them to do that very thing rather than hijack the funds and resources of institutions that do NOT CHOOSE to embrace error.
Otherwise Calvinists, Catholics, Hindus could all DEMAND that we PAY them to come to our schools and teach their views or else accuse us of engagin in “the inquisition”.
Clearly there is a reason that your model above is called “the fallacy of equivocation”.
in Christ,
Bob
April 5, 2010
True.
The Bible says that GOD is the source of truth “When HE the Spirit of TRUTH comes HE will guide you into all truth” John 16.
So not only do we see “Truth” in what the Bible says – “SIX days you shall labor…for in SIX days the Lord MADE”
We also see “truth” in what God told his prophets even outside the Bible where Ellen White says God showed her the creation week and where she says that theistic evolutionism is in fact the “worst form of infidelity” 3SG 90-91.
WE also see “truth” in nature for as Paul said in Romans 1 “they are without excuse for the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen through the things that have been made”
Thus our study of the “things that have been MADE by God” is a companion and confirming avenue of “truth” with the Bible.
Indeed. It says that God created light Gen 1 and that God made the seas etc Ex 20:8-11, Rev 14:7 … and then when we study “the things that have been made” we gain additional detail.
You have just presented us with classic “bait and switch”. Again – something that critical thinking will instantly pick up on, and a classic method in the science of propaganda. You started out with the claim that the BIBLE is to be tested using outside information – but then you provide an example where a self-proclaimed PROPHET is to be tested by events outside the Bible.
wrong.
In that fallacy you have switched the meaning of sola scriptura to wooden structure that does not in fact exist. Sola scriptura is the argument that all doctrine is to be tested by the Bible.
hint – even Baptists and Lutherans use the 490 prophecy of Dan 9 to point to the affirming events of Christ showing that he is the promised Messiah.
No Bible scholars argue that the act of demonstrating that Bible predictions have come true – is a violation “sola scriptura” principles. No – not even Martin Luther made such a wild claim.
Your appeal to fiction seems to be endless.
1. Christ never broke the Sabbath. You are simply taking on the role of the Pharisees to make that accusation against Christ. In fact Gal 4 states that Christ was “born under the law” and perfectly fulfilled it.
2. The error of the Jews was not due to a reformer like Nehemiah coming in and making the needed reforms within a theocracy. Your wild claim is akin to blaiming God for the presence of witches in Israel – since God made the law that they were to be put to death.
The paucity of logic in your argument is astounding.
1. Jesus said “whom I love I rebuke”.
2. Jesus said “fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in fiery hell” Matt 10
3. Jesus said that the one who tries to bend and break the word of God and “teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven”.
4. Jesus said “think not that I have come to bring peace – I came not to bring peace but a sword”.
5. Paul said in Titus 1 that those who come from inside the church teaching false doctrine (BTW that would include those who teach “the worst kind of infidelity”) “must be silenced” with a compelling Bible based response to their wild fictions.
Your argument that the church should pay no attention to the attacks from within – attacks against fundamental basic Bible doctrine, is without Bible support.
As God told Ellen White – “to remain neutral or do nothing in a time of spiritual crisis” is regarded by God as the worst kind of hostility against God. And yet you appear to even advocate it!
All heresy is at some point “a new idea” be it Satan worship or whatever. Nobody condemns something because “it is a new idea”. You might as well have argued “the argument for evolution is conveyed in words – people should not avoid words”. You are trying to hide evolutionism under a rock — your shell game is not working the way you seemed to have at first imagined.
True. you can choose to believe the Bible and be saved and walk with God or you can choose to undermine trust in the Bible and be lead down a path of self-deception.
God says “O WHY will you die – as I live says the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked”. If your claim is that God does not enjoy watching you choose a course that leads to the suffering and torment in fire and brimstone of the 2nd death – you are correct.
But that is sorry comfort to those who choose the 2nd death.
We get that sometimes from our evolutionist friends – but what we SEE them do is ‘run away” whenever the Bible basis for creation is brought up.
So their wild claim appears to have no substance at all to it.
Well we can all agree that in 3SG 90-91 we see evidence that Ellen White actually WROTE ON that very subject – calling the wild notions about birds coming from reptiles and long ages of evolution “the worst form of infidelity”.
So I think we can all agree that you see evolution mentioned in her writings.
And I believe that evolutionists on this very board have argued that “Ellen White was wrong” when confronted with the very direct statements that she makes on the subject of evolution in 3SG 90-91.
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to look into that.
I “believe Darwin” when HE SAID that HE could find no harmony at all between the Bible and his views of origins demanded by his belief in evolutionism. I “believe Darwin” when HE SAID that after trying for years to imagine some way that both Christianity and his precious darwinism could be true – he finally rejected Christianity because he knew enough about evolutionism to know that they simply do not fit together.
I believe that when God confirmed that very point to Ellen White – that BOTH sources were in that tiny instance – on the same page.
So “yes” I do agree with you that there is a lesson to be learned from Darwin.
And “I believe you” when you say you are using Darwin as your model.
Your method seem to be to go from one level of error to the next resulting in even more “inconvenient details” stand in in the way of your goals.
At some point Ron, it pays to throw away the shovel.
in Christ,
Bob
April 5, 2010
Ron:
I am glad you are so sincere. The Bible is quite clear on creation without need to pull in traditions of the church if you choose to see it but if not that is okay for you.
You describe a God of belief to me that you love and worship. He sounds like a big teddy bear in the sky. “Whatever you little children want down there, that’s okay with me.” That is not what the Bible describes in my reading. A lot of people pick and chose. Your God is well and good but the Bible’s God is in charge and does things His way. He as a set of rules–set in stone–for us and the universe. These were broken and cost His life to make them right again. In one of these it said the world was made in 6 days. His scientific laws are predictable as well but somehow we put these above Him–how is that? Unless we don’t believe in Him but someone else or a pushover. Read Job–to paraphrase–”who’s in charge Job? You or me (God is saying this)?” That was the question of Job and the question for us. Sounds like you want a God that is just happy with you being in charge and doing your own thing and is big enough to just let you do, say and think whatever you want.
It would be a little harder to explain if many bad things had happened to you and your world was falling apart. Where would God be? Job says that God blesses the just and unjust more that they deserve so that if there is something bad that happens, it is not a curse but the normal and we should realize how many blessings we have been under from before. Also, Job implies that God is in charge and we can question and ask but we cannot dictate policy.
I am sure that nothing I can say will change your mind. You seem sincere. I find now there is nothing further to discuss or ask as you are willing to apply negative actions to Paul and Nehemiah both of whom I believe did those things under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
April 11, 2010
Shannon,
Thank you for your graciousness. You also seem sincere to me.
Because I believe that God gave Adam and Eve two legitimate choices, does not mean that I think God is a Teddy Bear. I believe that evil is truely evil, and that our choice of Knowledge of Good and Evil, truely cost God, the death of his son. What I am saying is that God willingly and freely chose to pay the price. God and Christ both talked about it before they chose to create the world, and even in the face of all the tragedy of all the ages, God decided that it was worth it. God didn’t give Adam and Eve the choices blindly and he isn’t threatened. God was reconciled to all the evil we would create even before Christ ever started creating.
Adam and Eve could have chosen innocence and life without death and they never would have known evil, but neither would they have known the Goodness of God’s mercy. There would have remained a huge part of God’s character that would never have been revealed. Like the Angels in heaven, we would never have known God’s mercy, or his justice (remember the angels has no idea of God’s law until he spelled it out to man), his patience, his selflessness, his courage, or compassion. We never would have seen God’s love that wins our hearts at the cross. What’s more, Man’s character would never have become what it is. We never would have seen the patience of Job, the faith of Abraham, the courage of David, the faithfulness of Daniel, the joy of the Samaritan woman, the repentance of Peter, the boldness of the thief on the cross. None of those virtues could have been developed in the garden. Was it Mother Theresa that said, “Yes, I see the world filled with evil, but I also see the overcoming of evil.”? Christ has overcome the world. We don’t even need faith to know that. We see it every day, all around us. Good is overcoming evil.
The real choice God gave man was the choice between a simple good, innocence without death, or a larger and more complex good, death with wisdom (the ability to distinguish between good and evil). It is impossible to obtain wisdom without paying the terrible price of also knowing evil. Of course God could never have advised man to choose something so devastating, but the choice is still a valid choice, given to us by a loving God who just happens to have all the character traits we need to learn and develop in order to come out of the valley of the shaddow of death, on the other side victorious with a deeper knowledge of God’s character than would ever have been possible other wise.
Before the fall, God walked with man in the garden. After the fall, man has become a partaker of the divine nature. Before the fall, the Spirit moved on the face of the waters, after the fall the spirit lives in the heart of man. Yes, we all experience death, but we also experience rebirth, and resurection. God the creator, continues to create. Not just in nature, but also in the hearts and souls of men.
I am not immune, my heart also has been crushed and I know that I will die, but I am OK with that. Like God I am reconciled. I am thankful for the gift God has given. I for one think the risk was worth it. I am happy with the choice Adam and Eve made. I like the fact that the Holy Spirit lives in my heart and that I can partake of the very nature of God and sit with Christ on his throne.
April 11, 2010
Bob,
1. You are confusing two issues. One is the issue of whether the Bible is the ONLY source of truth. The other is the issue of whether God continues to create through a process that we recognize as evolution. Please don’t mix your arguments.
2. Regarding Sola Scriptura, as you said above, the Bible is the sole authority for doctrine. Science is not doctrine. Doctrine is not science. According to Mrs. White they are both books from God, but they are separate.
3. Your famous quote says nothing about evolution. Mrs. White is talking about using long chronology from GEOLOGY, not BIOLOGY, to undermine faith in God. Of course that is the worst of infidelities, because it corrupts the messages of both of God’s books, both science and the Bible. If you corrupt both, then you really do have a problem. How is God going to speak to you? Her problem isn’t with the science. Her problem is with people using science to undermine faith in the Bible.
4. As I recall, the fourth comandment commands us to work 6 days, and it points to God’s example in creation as the reason. It does NOT say that God did not resume working again on Sunday. In fact, Jesus specifically says in John 5:15 that God is working still. I am not aware of any place in the Bible that states that God ceased to be the creator when Adam and Eve sinned. In fact, I think that the Third Angels Message specifically says that we are to REMEMBER that God is the CREATOR. Yes, God created the world in 6 days, but that does not imply that he stopped. He is still the creator, now, 6000 years later.
5. The Bible does teach evolution. True, not a slow evolution like the modern evolutionists are teaching, but actually a very rapid evolution of large carnivors from the time of Adam to the time of Noah. Noah was afraid to leave the ark because of them. Again, in the story of Jonah, God created a new creature specifically for the task at hand. A very rapid evolution if you will.
6. RE: Nehemiah, I am not impuning Nehemiah’s work. All I am doing is following the outworking of the principles he initiated through the Bible history and what I see is that it didn’t work out so good. And yes, according to the standards that Nehemiah set, Jesus did in fact break the Sabbath law. Jesus himself said that he did it. John 5:17 “My father is working still, and I am working”. Jesus did it intentionally and for the very purpose of attacking one of their Fundamental Beliefs.
In Mark 3:1-6. Jesus here again breaks that Sabbath commandment according to the principles initiated by Nehemiah. Given your arguments for Sola Scriptura, I am suprised that you don’t see this point. This seems to be a major issue for Jesus. Mark 3:5 even says that it made Jesus “angry and sore distressed”. In fact breaking the law was exactly Christ’s intent, to show how wrong their fundamental beliefs about the Sabbath were.
7. Again, Sola Scriptura, Mark 3:1-6 addresses exactly what this web site is proposing. Like the Pharisees you are the accussor. You are going out and “holding counsel against him”. Jesus rebukes the “accussor of the bretheren”.
April 11, 2010
I don’t see how you can accuse me of advocating neutrality. I am decidedly NOT neutral. I oppose the purpose of this web site vehemently with all the power I can. I believe it is the very work of the devil within the Adventist Church. As I have argued before the spirit of coersion undermines everything that we as Adventists stand for. In my opinion Mrs. White would be in decided opposition to you.