Alan, You speak in general terms about having our minds open …

Comment on Michigan Conference takes substantial action in LSU conflict by Bill Weber.

Alan,

You speak in general terms about having our minds open to new truth as God may reveal it, and, you said, about “…some serious scientific facts that cannot be disputed….” Would you please be more specific?

It’s once thing to have an open mind so that we’ll be able to accept new revelations from God, but a whole different thing if we have an open mind that absorbs anything and everything new, or new to us, that we’re presented with. God wants us to reason together with Him (and I might extend that to “let us reason together” among one another).

And so I repeat, please be specific about what you believe should or shouldn’t be accepted by Seventh-day Adventists concerning the Creation versus Evolution discussion. I think Allen Roy already addressed the topic of dinosuars, although I feel that his ad hominem question, “What planet have you been on?” adds nothing to this conversation but heat, not light.

Thanks, Alan.

Bill Weber Also Commented

Michigan Conference takes substantial action in LSU conflict
Kris,

Teaching about evolution is very different from espousing it. That’s what one or more La Sierra professors reportedly are doing, and that’s the crux of the whole discussion here. Theistic evolution is being taught, and La Sierra is permitting it.


Michigan Conference takes substantial action in LSU conflict
Alan writes of “wider scientific truth” and “scientific facts” that need to be included by our educational institutions in their classes. It’s one thing to present them as information held by many/most people so the students know how to deal with such issues, but quite another to support them and teach that those issues/”truths”/”facts” supercede clear Biblical statements to the contrary which refute them.

Alan also writes, “God expects us all to keep studying His word and His WORLD, not regurgitate the truths we know, but find new ways of understanding and thinking that applies to current world, day, and age.”
Stating, or “regurgitating,” as Alan put it, what we’ve believed about such things as a literal six days of Creation doesn’t make those beliefs wrong. Granted, we might do well to present these beliefs in new ways to better appeal to our current world, but we ought not change our beliefs while doing so. Rather than adding more questions about the truth of the Genesis account, some of the relatively latest scientific discoveries are providing answers — such as the discovery of soft tissue found in T. rex bones. Might we learn newer things in the Creation versus Evolution controversy? Of course. But any such new information will not, can not, discount what God has made clear regarding the subject.

Might there be questions about such things as what is meant by the earth being “without form and void” at that first day of Creation? I believe so. But there’s no need — after examining the Biblical statements based on sound exegesis of the Hebrew and reviewing all the scientific evidence available to the open mind — for questioning, for example, whether the Creation days were literal 24-hour time periods or, instead, a thousand-plus years long. (Please refer to my June 1 post.) Truth can withstand the closest of scrutiny, and so I say, Bring it on! (I humbly admit I am not a scientist but one who, like anyone with an open mind, an honest heart, a prayerful attitude, a concordance, and an Internet connection, can clearly see what “the truth” really is, and isn’t.)


Michigan Conference takes substantial action in LSU conflict
God bless the Michigan Conference leadership and all involved with their decision, and their strong stand for truth in the face of faith-destroying error. Although I’m unfamiliar with the specifics of La Sierra’s errant teachings, ANYTHING supporting the evolutionary theory simply has to be wrong, and wrong to teach in our churches and educational institutions. Why? Perhaps most importantly, it undermines the 4th Commandment, in wbich God Himself, with His own hand, wrote, “For in six days….” And of course, it calls into question the Genesis account of God’s six days of creative activity, and in so doing, encourages doubt in the whole of Scripture. (I’ll leave it to Cliff Goldstein and others much wiser than I to explain from the Hebrew why these clearly are literal 24-hour days/nights.) From a common sense standpoint, how could the vegetation created on Day Three have survived a thousand years (or however much longer) without the sun’s light and warmth, which were brought into existence on Day Four, or, in many plant species, without the assistance of the bees, which were created on Day Five? If one doesn’t have faith in the validity of Scripture, a reading of Michael Behe’s “Darwin’s Black Box” should convince anyone with a true heart and an open mind that although you cannot prove Creation, you can indeed DISprove evolution; it is simply impossible. Millions have given their lives in support of the Bible. The Michigan Conference stalwarts and all who support them are honoring God and those millions, and God has said,”Them that honor Me, I will honor.” La Sierra leaders and faculty, if you offend in one Scriptural area, you offend in all. Please humble yourselves and come to your spiritual senses and become, once again, an influence on your students for good, and not for heresy.