@pauluc: Pauluc, I’d also be interested to know at what …

Comment on ‘Yes, Creation!’ at the General Conference Session by David Read.

@pauluc:
Pauluc, I’d also be interested to know at what public presentation Tim Standish opined that Ellen White believed that some races of men were the result of human/animal combinations. I’m very skeptical that Tim Standish said any such thing, especially since you wrongly asserted that Ellen White endorsed Uriah Smith’s views on amalgamation.

David Read Also Commented

‘Yes, Creation!’ at the General Conference Session
@pauluc:

Pauluc, what you are saying is that Tim Standish canvassed the extant interpretations of the amalgamation statements without endorsing any interpretation. This is just as I expected. So you’ve now admitted that neither Ellen White nor Tim Standish ever endorsed Uriah Smith’s dictum about digger indians and Hottentots. But no one believes that Uriah Smith was prophetically inspired or “inerrant.”

To try to show that Ellen White erred, all you can argue is that Ellen White didn’t correct Uriah Smith’s statement. But the thrust of Uriah Smith’s comments, which you have helpfully reproduced for us, was to defend Ellen White from the accusation that she had said the Negro race was not human, and to affirm that her statements cannot be used as an excuse for the mistreatment of any race. Those two main points are unquestionably true, so there was nothing for Ellen White to correct.

Interestingly, Uriah Smith got into trouble when he deferred to the opinion of the naturalists of his day that the demarkation between between human and animal was “lost in confusion.” We all should be very cautious about deferring to contemporary science. But this was just dicta–an irrelevant aside–to his main points that the negro race is human and that the testimonies cannot be used to support racial prejudice.

It is unfortunate that so many have focused on the sentence that begins, “Since the Flood, there has been amalgmation . . .” The other amalgamation statements, which teach that there were two classes of animals in existence at the time of the Flood–the created and the amalgamated–and that the amalgamated were destroyed by the Flood and not carried into the post-Flood world, are indispensible to understanding and interpeting the fossil the record along creationist lines. With the knowledge that there was a human-created, genetically engineered class of animals that was destroyed by the Flood, a huge chunk of the vertebrate fossil record suddenly makes sense within a creationist model.


‘Yes, Creation!’ at the General Conference Session
@pauluc:

Pauluc: Just last year I published a 600 page book, entitled “Dinosaurs–An Adventist View” available for sale at Amazon.com and at your local ABC, that is largely an exploration of the amalgamation statements. I would encourage you to pick up a copy and read it thoroughly with an open mind.

Ellen White clearly taught that there were two classes of animals in existence at the Flood: (1) those that God created, and (2) those that God did not create, that were the result of amalgamation, amalgamation being the main reason God was forced to bring the Flood. Those anaimals that God created were preserved in the Ark, whereas the amalgamated creatures were destroyed in the Flood.

The fossil record confirms Ellen White in detail: there are many creatures that apparently existed before the Flood which do not now exist and never existed at any time following the Flood. These include the dinosaurs, the extinct marine reptiles, the extinct flying reptiles and the mammal-like reptiles. Moreover, these animals partake of a very obviously “amalgamated” character; mammal-like reptiles being combinations of mammals and reptiles and dinosaurs being combinations of several classes, most prominently birds and reptiles. Far from being evidence of Ellen White’s fallibility, the amalgamation statements are a stunning confirmation of her prophetic inspiration.

It is important to understand that “amalgamation” is not a technical term, nor is it a term unique to the sin of the antediluvians. Ellen White speaks of Satan’s methods of amalgamation being what introduced tares and noxious weeds into nature. Likewise, regarding post-Flood amalgamation, Ellen White didn’t say that anyone did it, rather “there has been” amalgamation since the Flood. The only thing in common these three usages have is that they all apparently involve genetic manipulation or change. Please keep in mind that she was writing before DNA was discovered and almost a century before it was determined that DNA carries the genetic information, and that plants and animals can be designed and engineered by manipulation of their DNA.

As Kevin Paulson and Cathy have indicated above, Ellen White never endorsed Uriah Smith’s view that living races were the result of a combination of humans and animals. But I believe it was precisely because the amalgamation statements were being used to support crackpot racist theories that Ellen White avoided using the term “amalgamation” in Patriarchs and Prophets. I do not think she abandoned the concept revealed to her, however, because she uses language in Great Controversy that is almost identical to that used in Spiritual Gifts. In Spiritual Gifts she wrote:

“But if there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere.”

In GC, p. 664, she wrote that the antediluvians “evil inventions, defiling the earth and defacing the image of God, caused Him to blot them from the face of His creation.”

She clearly did not abandon the concept that the antediluvians brought the Flood on themselves by an evil invention that defaced the image of God.


‘Yes, Creation!’ at the General Conference Session
The Seventh-day Adventist Church needs a dynamic apologetics ministry like Answers in Genesis and ICR. Our lay people turn to these ministries because we have nothing comparable in our own church. GRI never has really filled the bill, and likely never will.

We need an outstanding apologetics ministry. It must be an independent ministry, that make its living from donations. It cannot be attached to the church at any level, or to any church affiliated university, or to any church affiliated hospital, or it will become corrupted almost immediately. I’m convicted of this like I haven’t been convicted of anything in a long, long time.


Recent Comments by David Read

The Reptile King
Poor Larry Geraty! He can’t understand why anyone would think him sympathetic to theistic evolution. Well, for starters, he wrote this for Spectrum last year:

“Christ tells us they will know us by our love, not by our commitment to a seven literal historical, consecutive, contiguous 24-hour day week of creation 6,000 years ago which is NOT in Genesis no matter how much the fundamentalist wing of the church would like to see it there.”

“Fundamental Belief No. 6 uses Biblical language to which we can all agree; once you start interpreting it according to anyone’s preference you begin to cut out members who have a different interpretation. I wholeheartedly affirm Scripture, but NOT the extra-Biblical interpretation of the Michigan Conference.”

So the traditional Adventist interpretation of Genesis is an “extra-Biblical interpretation” put forward by “the fundamentalist wing” of the SDA Church? What are people supposed to think about Larry Geraty’s views?

It is no mystery how LaSierra got in the condition it is in.


The Reptile King
Professor Kent says:

“I don’t do ‘orgins science.’ Not a single publication on the topic. I study contemporary biology. Plenty of publications.”

So, if you did science that related to origins, you would do it pursuant to the biblical paradigm, that is pursuant to the assumption that Genesis 1-11 is true history, correct?


The Reptile King
Well, Jeff, would it work better for you if we just closed the biology and religion departments? I’m open to that as a possible solution.


The Reptile King
Larry Geraty really did a job on LaSierra. Personally I think it is way gone, compromised beyond hope. The SDA Church should just cut its ties to LaSierra, and cut its losses.

As to the discussion on this thread, round up the usual suspects and their usual arguments.


La Sierra University Resignation Saga: Stranger-than-Fiction
It is a remarkably fair and unbiased article, and a pretty fair summary of what was said in the recorded conversation.