Comment on Dr. Geraty clarifies his “Challenge” to literal 6-day creationism by Sean Pitman.
But I would say this in response to your “theoryâ€. If we are not culpable because we are ignorant, then what need is there for grace in light of our ignorance?
But we are not ignorant of one vital truth. As I’ve already noted for you several times: God has written the Royal Law on the hearts of us all. Therefore, we are judged according to how we act relative to this Law that He has placed in our hearts. If He had not written this law on our hearts, and given us a conscience to know between right and wrong, we could not be accused of deliberate rebellion – for how can someone rebel against something that isn’t known?
Sinners are rebels precisely because they did know what was right in their hearts, but rejected to follow that still small voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to all hearts… In other words, they rebelled against their conscience… against the voice of God.
Here is what you said….. “Sin is a deliberate transgression against what we know is right. If we did not already know what was right, we couldn’t transgress against our conscience.” – Sean Pitman
This is a limited view of sin. “Sin is transgression of the lawâ€. I don’t care if “your conscience†is aware of what is right or wrong. When you transgress the law, you are sinning. To limit sin to simply what you know is a faulty theology. I think you are confused.
Sin is indeed “transgression of the law”. And, what is the law? It the law not “love to God and love to man”? Is it not true that “he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law”? – Romans 13:8. Even if a person does not know the name of Jesus or the stories of the Gospel, is it not possible for that person to listed to the Holy Spirit’s voice even though this voice isn’t directly recognized for what it is? Is it not true that in serving the “least of these brothers of Jesus” one is in reality serving Jesus directly? – Matthew 15:40.
I’m just going by what the Bible says and what is reasonable to anyone with a fair mind. How can someone be held responsible for what they honestly did not know? What if God had not told Adam and Eve that they were forbidden to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Would they have been guilty of sin for having eaten of it? Of course not. It is only because they were told not to do it and knew that in doing it they were rejecting all that God had done for them that it was a sin, or rebellion against God, when they did it.
Likewise, there are many holy people throughout history that did not know of many of the doctrinal truths that you and I now know about. They did not observe the Seventh-day Sabbath rest that we have been blest with. However, because they lived up to the light that they did know about, God overlooks their ignorance in those areas that they didn’t know about and does not consider their transgression of His Sabbath day in ignorance to be a deliberate rebellion against Him – or sin on their part.
God does in fact “wink” at honest ignorance – Acts 17:30. But, He does not wink at deliberate rebellion against what we know is true and right.
At no time have I suggested that knowledge alone can save anyone. I have stated that unless a person responds to truth under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they can not be saved. Your view implies that knowledge plays no part in salvation. And in this, you support Geraty who implied the same thing. Knowledge and love both play a part along with faith and obedience.
I didn’t say that knowledge played no part in salvation. Knowledge does play a part, but a very limited part – an indirect part. I specifically said that knowledge, by itself, doesn’t save anyone nor does the lack of knowledge make anyone lost in and of itself. Salvation is entirely based on motive, on the love of true knowledge, what little one might have of it. Salvation is not based on the correct understanding of the literal 6-day creation week for example. There are many people who do not understand this very hopeful truth who will be saved because of their love for their fellow man.
When we come before the judgment, God is not going to ask us how much we know, what doctrines we got right and which ones we didn’t. He is going to ask us if we loved our neighbor as ourselves? As you did it to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me. – Matthew 25:40.
He who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. Romans 13:8.
This is true even though one may not have known the actual name of Jesus or the stories of the Gospel or any of the SDA doctrinal beliefs. If a man or woman in a heathen land who never knew about Jesus showed love to their fellow human beings they have shown evidence that the Holy Spirit is within and that they are living according to the only really important Law, the Royal Law, that God Himself wrote upon the hearts of all.
None the less, we might agree that some error by way of ignorance in the framework of truth, is far better than some truth in a framework of error.
It is better, no doubt, but it isn’t the basis of salvation. Some truth, even if held in the framework of error will save a person who is doing the best he/she can given what little is known.
Again, it is the love of truth that saves, however little that truth may be and however great the errors may be. It is the love of truth and the desire to know more truth that saves.
So that Protestantism that clings to the bible while holding some immature or even faulty ideas, is far better than Romanism that may advocate some aspects of truth while abandoning the bible and opting for church authority. The bible will eventually eliminate all error. And Romanism will eventually eliminate all truth.
This is not entirely correct. There are still, today, very sincere Catholics who simply do not know the “truth” as we know it. They are in fact living according to the best light that they do understand. They are loving to their neighbors and would give you or me the shirt off their backs or their very last dime if we really needed it. Such are holy before God and their honest ignorance on doctrinal issues, to include ignorance regarding the true value of the Bible, will not be held against them.
Remember, there have been millions of people who never saw or even heard of the Bible who were loving and kind toward their neighbors – who even sacrificed their very lives in love for strangers. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” – John 15:13.
Thus we cling to the creation story vs. evolution while Rome embraces some aspects of evolution and rejects the clear biblical narative. And Geraty embraces Romanism and the spirit of Rome by way of human conjecture and science in opposition to the clear revelation of scripture.
The revelation is certainly clear to you and me. However, you cannot know the heart of another. You cannot judge the heart of Dr. Geraty or what he really does know and understand. It is a terrible mistake to presume to step into God’s place and make a moral judgment on another because you think it impossible that this person could be honestly confused on some doctrinal issue. It is better to leave all judgments of the heart up to God and not accuse anyone of deliberate sin or evil simply because they do not understand some point of doctrine like you understand it.
We don’t want his spirit influencing our children in their education process, nor anyone else who embraces his spirit of rebellion to be teaching in our schools.
I agree that Dr. Geraty’s ideas have no place in our schools. However, that isn’t the same thing as suggesting that Dr. Geraty is clearly living in sin or is somehow clearly evil because he doesn’t understand an important doctrine as I understand it. That judgment is God’s alone because only God can correctly judge the heart. You’re just looking on the outward appearance of the man. You really don’t know his heart as God knows it. 1 Samuel 16:7
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Dr. Geraty clarifies his “Challenge” to literal 6-day creationism
@Ron Nielsen:
Sean, it seems to me that if you admit ANY functional change in the DNA the creation/evolution debate is lost in favor of evolution. All the rest, however you define species is just a matter of time and quantity.
Hardly. The vast majority of functional mutations are detrimental – based on a loss of qualitatively unique pre-established functionality. Most of the rare mutations that are functionally beneficial do not produce something that is qualitatively new within the gene pool of options, but produce only an increase or decrease in activity of the same type of functionality that was already there to begin with. And, the very rare beneficial mutations that actually produce something qualitatively unique as well as functionally beneficial never produce anything that requires a minimum of more than 1000 specifically arranged amino acid residues to work – not even close.
The reason for this is that evolution beyond this very low level of functional complexity would require trillions upon trillions of years to achieve – – on average.
This is why the constant demonstration of low-level examples of “evolution in action” do not remotely explain how higher levels of evolution are therefore reasonable – even given a few billion years. The extrapolation is not at all reasonable because of the exponential decline in evolutionary potential with each step up the ladder of functional complexity.
You say, “it’s just a matter of time and quantity”. What you don’t understanding is that the time required is simply not reasonable. The time required to get beyond even the 1000aa level is in the multiple trillions of years. Do you not see that as a problem?
That is why I think it is so dangerous to state that evolution is incompatible with belief in God and creation, because no one, not even you are willing to deny that that the mechanisms for evolution are in place.
The mechanism for evolution is not “in place” beyond extremely low levels of functional complexity. That’s the problem.
It’s similar to saying that because natural processes are known which can produce roughly cube shape granite blocks that obviously such mindless natural mechanisms could explain a highly symmetrical polished granite cube measuring exactly one meter on each side. Such a conclusion does not rationally follow since the higher level illustration requires exponentially more time for the natural mechanism to achieve relative to the lower level demonstration that does not require the same level of constraints…
Except out of wanton ignorance, it is not possible to deny evolution in this day of DNA mapping. If you insist on making evolution and belief in God mutually exclusive you will have to declare every single educated person in the church to be athiests and drive them out of the church. Your stance just isn’t reasonable.
Anyone who wishes to worship in our Church is welcome – even if he/she is an “atheists”. I would not drive anyone who wants to come out of our Church. However, this does not mean that such a one should ever expect to get a paycheck from the SDA Church for promoting his/her atheistic ideas from pulpit or classroom.
You see, attendance is not the same thing as paid representation. A paid representative must be held to a higher standard in any organization.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Dr. Geraty clarifies his “Challenge” to literal 6-day creationism
@Michael Prewitt:
I agree with this general line of reasoning…
Sean Pitman
http://www.DetectingDesign.com
Dr. Geraty clarifies his “Challenge” to literal 6-day creationism
@Geanna Dane:
In other words, you’d believe in the existence and love of God despite all physical evidence to the contrary? That is very similar to the faith of some LDS friends of mine. I suppose it works for some people, but my own relationship with God is based on the evidence that I think He has given me of His own existence and the reliability of his Word combined with personal experiences with answers to prayer, etc.
Now, I agree with you that theistic evolutionists can be saved even if they got the whole origins thing all wrong. God loves everyone and will save all who earnestly seek after Him and love Him in the person of “the least of these…†Salvation itself is not based on correct doctrinal knowledge, but on living according to the Royal Law of Love. However, correct doctrinal knowledge is not therefore worthless. It is very valuable in that it has the power to give us a clearer picture of God here and now and to provide a solid basis of hope here in now in the reality of God and of a bright and glorious future.
I’m sorry, but without correct doctrinal knowledge, without the Bible, you may have some sort of vague idea of God’s existence and maybe even His love for you through the features of nature, but you would have very little else upon which to base a solid hope in such notions. It is the evidence that the Bible is reliable in those things which can be tested and evaluated that gives solid confidence in those metaphysical statements that cannot be directed evaluated – at least for me.
This is why when you argue so strongly for the idea that science works against SDA doctrinal positions and offer nothing up but blind faith that the Bible is true that you undermine the basis of many people’s hope in the reality of the Good News. Your seeming suggestion is that science is quite clearly contrary to some very plain biblical statements and that the only way to overcome such evidence is through blind faith. That simply doesn’t do it for many many people. It certainly doesn’t do it for me.
I hope this helps you to at least understand why your ideas and comments are so strongly opposed by those who actually consider it important that the Bible be consistent with the physical evidence in order for its metaphysical statements to be considered trustworthy…
Sean Pitman
http://www.DetectingDesign.com
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