Comment on If the Creation Account Isn’t True… by Charles.
Richard D. Brown: I have told this episode to many of my students over the years. Back in the early 1980s while at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, one of my colleagues and I were having a discussion in my office about creation versus evolution. We really got into it and were going back and forth. It became obvious that I wasn’t going to change her mind and that she wasn’t going to change mine. While talking, a thought struck me, and I said to her, “You know, Sue, if you’re right and I’m wrong, and there is no God and no creation, at least I have tried to behave myself and be a good citizen, and have lived a good life. If the creation account isn’t true, I will have nothing to lose! But, if I’m right and you’re wrong, and there is a God who created, who gave us the plan of salvation, and the Bible as a guide of life, and you reject Him, then you will have everything to lose! I would rather be safe than sorry!!”Over the years I have often thought of my answer as a possible cop-out, but what else is there? “He that cometh to God must believe that He is….” He that cometh to Darwin must believe that he is. Make and take the best choice. If the creation account isn’t true…, we Adventists will have nothing more to lose than the atheists and the compromisers will, except perhaps being ridiculed, embarrassed, losing our jobs (I was expelled!), etc.But…, if the creation account IS true, then expect “wailing and gnashing of teeth” when Jesus comes. Who in their right mind would not want to be safe, instead of sorry?
David Asscherick spoke in at least one of his presentations about “Pascal’s Wager” – “a suggestion posed by the French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist Blaise Pascal that even if the existence of God could not be determined through reason, a rational person should wager as though God exists, because one living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.”
Well, it seems that there is a certain amount of reasonable logic to such a proposition. Personally however, I see no need for such thinking.
“Science” pretends to have the answers backed up by proof(s). The reality is that science does not prove anything about what has caused the existence of our world today. “Science” is incapable of proving it. If it could determine so much as what gives life, then maybe it could replicate it and demonstrate how life began. It cannot and so it makes hypothesis, suppositions, and theories about a world that IS, but would NOT BE, without the existence of LIFE. LIFE is the beginning of our world as it is today.
To explain LIFE requires acknowledgement of a power beyond anything that mankind (or science) can comprehend. Recognizing such an entity (Creator) thus implies that He would provide his intelligent creation with knowledge of how we came to be, why, and what is in the future. Thus the Bible. The Bible explains all of that in a compelling way to me, as well as the reasons why others of humanity seek a rationality in denial.
I am not participating here to convince anyone who otherwise wishes to believe there is no Creator to Whom they will be accountable. I know that is futile. As Ben Franklin said, “A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.”
The message that is important is that great simple statement that is the very foundation for the existence of the SDA Church: “Fear God and give glory to Him… and WORSHIP HIM that Made Heaven and Earth…”
That is the mission of our beloved movement in THESE FINAL DAYS. Notions of evolutionary ideas and teaching, strike at the heart of the Creator message… It is just that simple. An enemy is doing these things.
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Charles Also Commented
If the Creation Account Isn’t True…
P>So, the teacher asked, “If your parents were morons, what would that make you?””I’d be a evolutionist.”
Yes, I smiled as well.
In reality, evolutionists are not morons. Just brilliant misguided brothers and sisters who need to listen to the “still small voice.”
If the Creation Account Isn’t True…
“Thou shalt not steal”
“Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.”
“Thou shalt not make… any graven image..”
What is to interpret?
When you were a kid and your mother told you to “take the trash out…”, what did you do? “Interpret” that as setting it outside the door or just throwing it into the back yard? I guess you could have made that argument?
For me, scripture is clear in most of what it says and there is little room for variance in “interpretation”.
If the Creation Account Isn’t True…
I think this week’s Sabbath School lesson is awesome and right on target. This quarter’s lessons are mostly contributed by “Jo Ann Davidson”, Professor of Theology at Andrews University.
For those here who do not study the Sabbath School lessons, I’d like to share a couple of paragraphs from The Heart of the Creator (Monday, Jan 9 lesson)
“Think of how mother birds lovingly prepare the nest for their babies. Then, picture them hovering over their babies, bringing them food, and teaching them how to fly. Moses, who had taken care of sheep for 40 years, must have seen this natural phenomenon happen each spring, and it must have made him think of God’s tender care. Under inspiration, he pictured the same emotions in the Holy Spirit’s heart as our human “nest” was being constructed.”
Everything in the Creation account, then, in contrast to the various evolutionary models–which depict our Creation as the work of forces violently competing with each other–reveals a God who loves His creation, who cares about it, and who purposely and carefully designed it. There’s nothing impersonal about the creation, nothing emotionless, nothin purposeless. Love was there at the start of the Creation week. What a contrast to evolution, which teaches that love somehow emerged only after billions of years of selfish violence. Love motivated the Creation, and love will be there when this damaged version of Creation is createded anew.”
Thank-you Jo Ann, for clearly stating the true Adventist position so simply and understandably.
Recent Comments by Charles
La Sierra Univeristy Fires Dr. Lee Greer; Signs anti-Creation Bond
I read something today that seems relevant to these discussions. I am incredulous that we should be having a discussion within the SDA movment about evolution as having a role in our origions.
But teaching evolution as truth is not the only inroad that Satan has made into our church. In fact, there is little area to our core beliefs that has not been compromised.
Read what Ellen White wrote in GC 509: “Conformity to worldly customs converts the church to the world; it never converts the world to Christ. Familiarity with sin will inevitably cause it to appear less repulsive.”
Jesus is coming soon. Not only is there a great work to be done in taking the 3 angels messages to the world; there is a great preparation to be worked within each of our hearts individually.
La Sierra Univeristy Fires Dr. Lee Greer; Signs anti-Creation Bond
To love the historic truths embraced by the SDA church and to defend them is not “hate”.
The End of “Junk DNA”?
I have studied only elementary courses in science and thus much of what I read in the discussions on this thread are a bit over my head.
Still, I think I have come common sense and that is the tool that I have for drawing the conclusions that I hold.
The Bible describes a 2000 year old event in which the God/human man we know as “Jesus” raised Lazarus from the dead. The event, as described, set a scenario in which Lazarus clearly was dead and his body decomposing. Jesus, in a miraculous way, put “LIFE” back into that decomposing body.
Now either that account is a true event, or it is not. What do you choose to believe? Where is the empirical evidence that this could happen? If you believe the account is true, how do your scientific ideas reconcile to the story?
You can study the building blocks of living creatures / plants and observe much of how life is operating. But without that operational essence that is “LIFE”, those building blocks do not exist.
So Mr “Scientist”, please show me first how to take the elements in their raw forms and put LIFE into them. Then I can believe that you have an understanding of our origins. You are looking at living forms (dead or alive) and drawing conclusions about your observations without explaining the most fundamental cause of it all: How did it get started?
Please don’t make a claim: Demonstrate it. If you understand how it was done, show me. I will make the question even more simple: “What is life?”
“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” John 10:10
“…should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
Now if you want to tell me that “God” was some brilliant scientist from another planet who created our beginnings in a laboratory, I will point back to the demonstration by Jesus of the raising of a dead man (Lazarus) after three days of decomposition. Jesus simply called him back to life. There was a reason that Jesus did this and the account of it in scripture makes that reason clear.
I choose to believe that most of our “reality” (including “life”) is beyond our comprehension. There is much about reality that God has reserved to Himself. If you think you can explain it, then you are buying into the lie told by the serpent, “you will become as God…”
Use the intelligence that God has given you to acknowledge your limitations and His role in our existence. Accept by FAITH those things that you cannot understand.
We have been given a few decades of life to live in the world we know and understand today. Empirical evidence available to us would suggest that when we die, that is the sum total and end of it. Of the billions of humans on earth, where is a person among us who has been risen from the dead?
If you have a hope that there is something beyond your death, then you must shed the notion that you can explain our origins as anything besides an unexplainable mystery that God does not share; except for the account of it that He left to us by His servant, Moses.
I choose to accept my limitations and I place my trust and faith in the word that God has left to us, to help us understand how we got here, why we are here, and how it all ends.
“Even so, come Lord Jesus.”
The End of “Junk DNA”?
@pauluc:
So do I understand correctly that your “faith” is subject to your scientific provabilities?
You have not yet addressed what I asked about demonstrating from whence comes “life”? Do you believe that life could exist apart from a miracle working God? Do you believe in miracles? Or do you believe that God is just a very brilliant scientist or magician? OR… is it all just a hoax to persuade us to (whatever)…
At what point do we acknowledge our limitations and that our observations can deceive us?
For what reason was the SDA church founded? Is that reason relative to the reason for its continued existence today?
The name of the church was carefully chosen to reflect the reason for its existence. The “Seventh-Day” refers to the holiness of the the seventh day of the week – in memorial of the literal seven day creation week. The “Adventist” part of the name proclaims that we believe that Jesus is coming again very soon in a very miraculous, splendid, and un-scientific way. BUT, the reason for the existence of this church is the proclamation of these things we believe to be true. It’s not just a club of folks who hold these “beliefs” – although it could sometime seem that way.
No, the seven days of creation were not vast periods of evolutionary development and the clouds of Heaven are not going to be space ships. But in all honesty, from viewing what you write, I would not know what to expect that you believe, relative to our existence and the advent of Jesus in the near future.
I speak in respect to you, with honesty.
I see truth, not as progressive, but absolute. Our perceptions about truth can be progressive or regressive.
Prov 16:25 There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but…..
Do you believe what you observe? Or do you believe the record that was provided by the Creator?
You claim to be a Seventh-Day Adventist, it seems. I wonder, just what is it about the SDA faith (it seems inapproprate to me to label it as a “tradition”) that, for you, distinguishes it from other “religions”? What is the compelling doctrine or belief that drives you to choose this faith over the abundance of others that are in the world?
Again, with all due respect, I honestly wonder.
An apology to PUC
So far the only substantive responses by PUC defenders have been empty sarcasm and ridicule. Unfortunately, 18-year-old students eat that sort of thing up and follow anyone who has mastered tactics that mirror their favorite media characters. Educate Truth isn’t going after anyone. It is simply laying out the evidence and presentations for all to see and assess for themselves. Educate Truth doesn’t have to point out the dishonesty and the underlying problem that balanced views in science are not being respectfully presented on Adventist college campuses.
