@Professor Kent: You’ve gotta be kidding. You’re going to tell …

Comment on SDA Darwinians compromise key church doctrines by krissmith777.

@Professor Kent:

You’ve gotta be kidding. You’re going to tell us now that God’s word can be trusted ahead of empirical evidence and human reason? That sounds a lot like believing in Santa Claus, the Tooth Monster, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Sorry, but that’s not good enough

What they do not seem to understand is that trusting in God does not mean ignoring empirical evidence. Such arguments only made by our fellow Christians will only serve to fuel the “hyper-skeptical” atheist community since they like to argue that “faith” is simply blind faith without evidence. –Even the Bible does not hold to the view that we should ignore the evidence. 1 Thessalonians 5:21 says, “Submit everything to the test, and hold on to the good.” [1] — The Greek word for “testing” in this verse is dokimazō which means “to prove,” or even “to scrutinize.” [2] What this means to me is that we are to “scrutinize” the evidence and follow it wherever it may lead, irregardless of whether the conclusion is uncomfortable. We are not to “believe” based on no evidence; we are to believe based on a critical evaluation.

Trusting in God should not have to mean dismissing evidence and human reason simply because “human reason is limited,” as some excuses say. Human reason is limited, that much is true, but that is no justification for ignoring the details if they are uncomfortable. Unfortunately, this seems to have become a cop out excuse to do just that.

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[1] I was translating out of a Spanish Bible, so if the wording is different than one is used to, it is for that reason. The Spanish Bible was the first one I could grab at the moment.

[2] Strong’s G1381 – dokimazō, blueletterbible.com

krissmith777 Also Commented

SDA Darwinians compromise key church doctrines
@David Read:

No one says that the builders can “create with the word.” — God cannot be compared to builders.

Did God need a “power generator” to see what he was doing while he was creating the earth and the creatures in it before the forth day?– I would venture to say “no.”

Implying that God would probably need a power generator WOULD still work to demean…since it would set limitations on his creative ability.

Does God have limitations to his creative ability? No. Do human builders? Yes.

As I was reading this reply, I remembered one mocking comment that a skeptic of Genesis said. He said:

And God saw the light was good, because now he could see what he was doing.

Now I can see this with human builders… But I stand by my statement that it demeans God.


SDA Darwinians compromise key church doctrines
@Ken:

Let’s say we were in a room together and you were all teaching me the correct interpretation of Genesis. Let’s say each of your as teachers had a different, albeit slight, interpretation. Would it be wrong of me as a novice to ask if there was an empirical methodology to resolve the issue. Isn’t this what science does without the bias of faith or non faith?

It wouldn’t be wrong of you at all. In fact, I would encourage it.


SDA Darwinians compromise key church doctrines
@BobRyan:

I didn’t say that that Revelation 21 said that the earth had no light; just that it cannot work with the first three Creation days having both “morning and evening” because Rev 21:25 clearly says that in God’s glory there is NO night, and therefore no evening.