A THEOLOGY of Creation. What do you think?

Question

Visit this link and ready my answer:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aj_Q0AMNoeHEU02pNSKhkWPsy6IX?qid=20070126083949AASuVSo&show=7#profile-info-278314a9c1b47d192e22487d6a766f4caa



Have you heard anything like this?

Do you agree or disagree?

Where do you think I am flawed?

If you would like to DISCUSS this and not just post an answer, feel free to IM me or EMAIL me.

I WILL choose a BEST answer. The most logical and thought out answer.

To wuzzamaddayou:

Well, when you read comments in Bible translations those are usually comments made by people who are not Hebrew/Ancient Near East Scholars.

All Jewish interpretation on the subject says it refers to a 24 hour period. Also it is the MOST natural reading of the material. I am not saying that it DID ACTUALLY occur in 7 24 hour periods, I am saying that is how the creation story is TOLD. You can ask ANY REAL scholar on ANY of the Ancient Mespotamian creation stories that they all refer to a literal 7 days. But that doesn't mean that is exactly how it happened.

To mullah robertson,
The reason I think about it, is not to FIND out HOW it happened. But because I have a sincere desire to know God more. Sometimes the WHY questions are the most influential in our walk with Christ.

To Stacey B,
The whole 1,000 days is like 1 day to God, or visa versa. This is not an exact forumula. That is telling us a theological concept that God is eternal and is not bound by time as we know it.
But I do not exact the days being eras theory either. Its clear that the days are meant to be a full day light and darkness as they understood it. Most likely near 24 hours.

To Everyone:
After I do one more add detail, I will not be posting any more comments until later on this weekend.

To Smarterthanthou:
I will respond to your comments via email. I may not be until tomorrow morning, however. But I WILL respond.

To skepsis:
This is not my attempt to mesh both Science and Scripture. This is my attempt to interpet the Creation account. I would hold to these views about what creation means theologically no matter if science said the Earth was 6,000 yrs old or if science said it was billions of years old.

I would like to add, as you could imagine these thoughts are not original to me. I owe much of my discussion to the lectures and published materials of John Fortner, Ph.D. Though I am not saying this is direct from him or a direct quotation of him. Some of it may be other is orig. to me.

Answer 1

Oh, I like people like you!! It makes my miss my grad school days where we had amazing discussions like this. I very much agree with your answer. History and ancient culture are not my strong points, but assuming your source material is accurate, the theological argument is sound.

All cultures/societies of the pre-scientific world had creation stories. It's a basic human need to explain where we came from and why we are here. These cultures operated by instinct on areas where we rely on science. That, in my opinion, is the reason that the human race didn't die out thousands of years ago from inbreeding. They didn't worry about how only a small group of people could have populated the earth. For one thing, they didn't have any concept of how many people where living on the planet. For another, the focus of attention was on the here and now. People were dealing with basic survival - they didn't feel the need to worry about whether or not "seven days" really meant seven risings and settings of the sun. Besides, it happened so long ago that for all they knew, the sun could have stayed up longer back then. (Remember, they had no concept of the solar system as we do now.)

The way I see creation stories is that they are the "philosophical why" of how the earth came to be. In our times, science provides a more accurate (as far as we currently know) "how." Each of these satifies a different need and, when properly understood, coexist very nicely.

Answer 2

The attempted reconcilliation of sacred scripture with scientific evidence has been around for quite a while now. Essentially, it is a wish to not lose a treasured belief to cold, meaningless facts. It is admirably sincere but unrewarding. Fundamentalists will accuse you of betraying scripture with your tweaking. Atheists will accuse you of gumming up science with superstitious gobbledygook.

Scripture is NOT science. It is NOT history. It was never intended to be. History attemps to tell us "what". Science tries to tell us "how". Faith proposes to explain "why". Their paths do not cross well.

Scripture isn't a journal. It doesn't report the news. It tells stories. We think of "stories", "myths" and "legends" as lies, propaganda, maybe rearranged facts. But facts are trivia, they have no meaning in themselves. A story has a cause, an event, a response and a moral. It is told for a purpose. A journal entry may be honest but it doesn't make a difference to people's lives. We gain knowledge from raw data, but wisdom requires some interpretation.

Scripture doesn't have to be "accurate", but it does have to be relevant. If the Genesis writer had described the development of galaxies, solar systems and planets whirling around on top of nothing over billions of years, he'd have been locked away. No such evidence was observable and the theory didn't contribute any moral lesson. If a "prophecy" couldn't be linked by the hearer with a current situation, it would be disregarded as lunacy. The point of Genesis 1 is to say God built the world in an orderly and logical fashion: light, sky, land; sun, birds, animals. The "details" are illustrations, not reportage. It doesn't need to be reconciled because it was never intended to describe a laundry list of events, only its meaning. ("God saw that it was good.")

I suggest you be a scientist when discussing science issues, a person of faith when living your values. Don't try to do both simultaneously. These disciplines work best undiluted.

Answer 3

Wow, that was really interesting, and I'm not being sarcastic. Your belief is that God used culture to write the Bible? (please, correct me if I'm wrong) But God doesn't believe in being like the world (be in this world, not of it) , so why would he use the culture of the Mesopotamians to get his point across? Do you not think its possible for God to have created the universe in seven days?

"When you understand that Creation has more THEOLOGICAL significance then SCIENTIFIC significance. Then science has more room in your faith understanding. The Creation account is not meant to be a police report. That is to detail EXACTLY how it happened and WHEN it happened. The Creation account, like I said earlier, is a Historical event told with THEOLOGICAL significance."

By that do you mean that what is written in the Bible about creation isn't what happened? And if that is what your saying, then aren't you saying God is wrong (he would be bending the truth of what happened, and that would go against the ten commandments, which he laid out)? I believe the Bible to be the truth, and that means EVERYTHING in it, not just a bit of this and a bit of that, I believe that nothing was screwed up and that it was God's inspired word. God Bless. Please, e-mail me, I'd love to here what you have to say.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

Your answer sums up my view...albeit a bit more elaborately. In most Bible translations I've read, they all pretty much agree that creation was not seven literal days of 24 hours. I also think that as well. Science has pretty much discredited the fact that all of this could have been done in 7 literal days. I think the days represent the steps of creation. What is eerie is how similar the Bible's account is almost identical to science's account, thats why I cannot discredit it.

This is the order of creation in the Bible:

The universe, then light and energy (creation of the elements), then formation of earth, then atmosphere, then plant life, then animal life (first from the sea, then land) then man.

How does this differ drastically from what science says? Take out the concept of 7 literal days and it seems logical to me.


IN RESPONSE TO YOUR RESPONSE:

You may find this interesting. According to "The Five Book of Moses" by Robert Alter, the ordering of the "days" in the ancient Hebrew texts in Genesis use cardinal numbers rather than ordinal numbers.

From wikipedia: "In linguistics, cardinal numbers is the name given to number words that are used for quantity (one, two, three), as opposed to ordinal numbers, words that are used for order (first, second, third)."

This lends to the argument that perhaps these were not intended as literal days, but rather a sort of "checklist" of how things came to be.

Answer 6

God said that death was the penalty of sin. If we have fosils that are millions of years old than that would mean that death happend before sin entered into the world, which would mean the Bible wouldn't be true. But since it is true for Christians that believe the gospel(and I do) that would mean it's not possible for the earth to be millions of years old if you take into account Genesis. Also the Bible says 1000 days are like one of mans days. Here is the catch though. At the end of each day in Genesis the Bible states. The evening and the morning were the first day. Moses was clearly explaining to us an earth day. A thousand years in heaven( Gods time table) could have gone by for Him while it still would only have been one earth day for us. And even if you want to say "see moses said a 1000 days to one of our days." True, however he didn't say one day is like a million years. He said what he meant to say. So even if each day were a 1000 earth years to God and 1000 years on earth than it still would not explain millions of years. Which would mean our earth would still be young. Also, we know of people who witnessed life thousands of years ago. But we have no witnesses for life a million years ago. It's a speculation at best.

Another Edit: I do believe in Genesis account of one day being one earth day. Otherwise we would not have been told that the evening and the morning were the first day. To dismiss this specific statement is to be foolish.

Answer 7

I even have an element along with your concept, right that's the way it ensue: If the universe has a purpose for its creation, particularly guy's, then it ought to skill the writer invented adult males as an instrumental for relaxing his grand scheme of issues. possibly the writer eats human soul as meal and snack too; basically think of concerning to the nutrition chain in nature...hm, who could be on the spectacular as owls preying on mice? whether, i will under no circumstances have the real answer to the purpose of existence frequently. And that's no longer pleased with me, amazingly the full universe basically collapsed into dirt. without purpose me called me the Ash. having a purpose I called me the beef. i do no longer think a enhanced existence because of the fact it make me so meaty meat. The universe call me a complicated case, which I evaluate because of the fact the suitable compliment in my existence. My purpose for being right that's to learn all i will and to dig a black hollow to bury all of the paradoxes interior my ringing head. i like your thought the sport is very equivalent to a complicated sonata which empowers on the 2d and leaves without hint.

Answer 8

My question is why worry about it. If you think God created the universe, great. Let science do what it can to tease out the details of how it happened. Your belief of why it happened is up to you. There is no need to overlay a theology over top of science. Science isn't perfect, but history shows that it will trump blind belief in the long run.

Answer 9

Intelligent design is a scientific theory... Christians just embrace it as the correct theory...

Answer 10

I think it is pretty good. You might like the works of Meredith Kline.

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/WTJ/WTJ58Kline.html