Comment on The Adventist Accrediting Association to Approve LSU’s Accreditation by Sean Pitman.
EG White did not discuss in detail the age of the physical earth or a gap creation because it was not an issue for her. It was only when gap creation, or other long ages for days was discussed that she wrote of infidel geologists.
Indeed, because the popular geologists of her day claimed that life has existed, suffered, died and evolved on this planet for hundreds of millions of years. Mrs. White rightly understood such claims as directly undermining a key pillar of the Christian faith which claims that all suffering and death on this planet, for sentient creatures, was the result of the moral Fall of mankind. This is one of the most fundamental positions of Christianity because it ties in sin with suffering and death and argues that the Redemption offered by God required the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross.
Beyond this, I do not see such statements from Ellen White as any more definitive regarding the age of the raw material of the Earth or the universe, nor does she claim that she was shown, by God, that no raw unformed material pre-existed creation week. Such statements simply are not there – as I’ve already explained. She also never remonstrated with or called to task any one of the leaders of the church in her day for promoting and writing about the passive gap concept. Given her keen interest to deal with various important “heresies” espoused by the leadership of her day, the fact that she did not counter the passive gap theory is quite interesting and suggestive to me that she did not consider this theory to be fundamentally at odds with any key elements of the Adventist faith nor did she feel herself directed by God to counter this particular concept. Therefore, this particular question remains open for me (and for most of the conservative leaders and educators of the church today).
Are you now saying that you accept the traditional Adventist position of YEC?
As I’ve already explained, there is no “traditional Adventist YEC position”. Many of the founders of Adventism held to the passive gap theory of creation and the YLC position from the earliest days of the formation of the church. In fact, very very few in early Adventist leadership went as far as J.N. Andrews did in supporting the standard YEC position that the entire universe was created during the Genesis creation week.
The reason I personally favor the passive gap position is because the very same language is used to describe the first appearance of the stars. The stars themselves evidently did not become visible from the author’s perspective until the Sun and the moon also became visible on Day 4. I do not believe this to be coincidental. Clearly, the Bible promotes the idea that the stars and other created worlds pre-existed our creation week. Ellen White also promotes this idea in her writings. Therefore, if the stars were not visible until Day 4, it only stands to reason that whatever blocked them from being viewed (like a non-transparent or cloudy atmosphere) would likely have also blocked the Sun and the moon from being viewed from the author’s perspective as well. This leaves open the possibility, even the likelihood, that the Sun and moon were already there – but were simply blocked from view in the same way the stars were blocked from view from an Earth-bound perspective.
In this light, the language of the opening verses of Genesis already contain a gap in time between the first two verses. Therefore, any definitive argument that the Bible rules out any kind of raw material from forming our planet before the creation week is not clearly supported by the available texts as far as I can tell. There simply is no way for me to definitively make this claim – either from the Bible or from the writings of Mrs. White. This is hardly an “infidel” position since it is a literal interpretation of the text that assumes that the author wrote a literal historical narrative of what he saw, from a limited human perspective, regarding creation week. This position is also not an effort to promote mainstream geology or neo-Darwinism. Not even close. It is in perfect harmony with the key elements of Christianity, the cause of sin, suffering, and death on this planet, and the reason for the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross for our Redemption.
And, I really don’t care what Martin Luther believed. Martin Luther, while he did some great work for God and was a man for his time, still held to many doctrinal errors. He is hardly an authority regarding numerous Adventist doctrines and interpretations of the Bible.
Sean Pitman Also Commented
The Adventist Accrediting Association to Approve LSU’s Accreditation
This is the same language used by the Bible. Whatever “wiggle room” the Bible leaves open is still open when one uses this language. The Bible is not clear that the “creation of the heavens and the earth” means that the material of the Earth itself was created during creation week. Quite the opposite is true. The Bible seems to suggest that something was here prior to creation week. Or, at the very least, leaves this question open.
The Adventist Accrediting Association to Approve LSU’s Accreditation
Oh please. You do realize that there are difference kinds of “heavens” in Hebrew understanding? This is not a statement arguing that God made the entire universe…
The Adventist Accrediting Association to Approve LSU’s Accreditation
The question is if you or anyone else has even tried to explain how the evolutionary mechanism (RM/NS) can tenably work beyond very very low levels of functional complexity. The answer to that question is no. This means that this mechanism is not backed up by what anyone would call real science. It’s just-so story telling. That’s it. There is nothing in scientific literature detailing the statistical odds of RM/NS working at various levels of functional complexity. And, there is no demonstration beyond systems that require a few hundred averagely specified residues.
What is interesting is that no one who controls the mainstream journals will publish any observations as to why a real scientific basis for the Darwinian mechanism is lacking. The basic information is there. Contrary to Pauluc’s claims, a precise definition of “levels of functional complexity” has been published, along with what happens to the ratios of potential beneficial vs. non-benficial sequences. What no one is allowing to be published is the implications of this information.
Regardless, the implications should be clear to you. The math is overwhelmingly clear. If the ratio of beneficial vs. non-beneficial goes from 1 in 100 to 1 in 1,000,000,000,000 the fact that the average time to success will decrease quite dramatically doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out. Evolutionists, who have actually seriously considered this problem must recognize the implications here, but seem to be trying to brush it all under the rug because no one knows of any other viable mechanism (again, despite Pauluc’s unsupported claims to the contrary – to include his “life enzymes”).
In any case, it is possible for you to move beyond blind faith in the unsupported claims of your “experts” and consider the information that is available to all for yourself. Start at least trying to do a little math on your own and you will no doubt recognize the problem for yourself regardless of what your experts continue to claim – without any basis in empirical evidence or science.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.
Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).
Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.
