Theistic Evolution And The Age Of The Earth
- Theistic evolution- tries to connect God to organic evolution theory.
- They are "Darwinites" who cannot shake the idea of God from their heads, so they attempt to correlate the two. They have made great inroads into the thinking of the church.
- Jack Sears- former Chairman of the Biology Department at Harding University: "If you continue to teach this (true creationism - JTC), you will destroy their faith."
- Members of the science department at Abilene Christian,
- one who boasted that he taught organic evolution as a fact was an elder in the church, and handed out a photocopy of Genesis 1-2 to every student with the creation account described, in his own handwriting, as a myth!
- both admitted they had lowered the grade of a student who confronted and refused to accept their evolutionist teaching
- neither would sign their name to the following statements of exhoneration: (p 83-84)
- John Clayton- former atheist and popular brotherhood lecturer
- 1968 DGE? lesson 8 "Man is a very recent newcomer to this planet."
- (1977) speaking of birds, mammals, and man: "all of these are recent additions to the earth"
- letter to Basil Overton (1978) "I have never maintained that the earth is of great antiquity."
- 1990 DGE? lesson 8 "The evidence is that the earth and man have been here much more than 6000 years."
- In his 1990 work, The Source, he writes of astronomic dating methods, "Thus it is possible to calculate how long the Sun has been involved in its present kind of reaction. . . just over 4.5 billion years- another indication of the age of our system."
- In the same book, in discussing algae growth patterns, he said, This is the main method used in establishing the idea that life began on earth some 1.3 billion years ago. . . Probably the most convincing argument for dating methods is that they do work."
- 1990 DGE? lesson 7 "Dating methods are based on assumptions that are increasingly dubious, and sampling and analyis techniques are prone to error."
- (1991) DGE? Intermediate Teacher's Guide Q: "Why is it that man has not speciated while monkeys have? What explanation(s) exist? A: "Man's origin is too recent for enough genetic differentiation to have taken place to speciate us."
- Theistic Evolutionary Theories:
- The Gap Theory: There is a multi-billion year gap b/w Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.
- There was an initial creation in Genesis 1:1 with plant and animal life, and pre-Adamic humans.
- This world was anihilated following the Satanic rebellion against God.
- God started over in Genesis 1:2.
- The Day-Age Theory The use of "day" in Genesis 1 does not refer to literal, 24-hour days, but to vast eons of time.
- Day- Hebrew "yom" 2274 occurances: day- 2008; time-64; daily- 32; year- 14
- Its use as "time":
- Genesis 4:3 "in the process of time" = "at the end of days" Cain and Abel's sacrifice
- Genesis 26:8 "when he had been there a long time" = "prolonged days"
- Genesis 47:29 "the time drew near that Israel must die"
- In the more than 100 instances of non-prophetic literature, whenever a numeric adjective precedes the word "yom", it always refers to a literal, 24-hour period of time.
- In the more than 700 instances of non-prophetic literature whenever it appears in the plural form "yamim", it always refers to a literal, 24-hour period of time.
- In the more than 100 instances where the phrase translated "evening and morning" are used with "yom", it always refers to a literal 24-hour period of time.
- Genesis 1:5 "The evening and morning were the first day" literally- "and evening was, and morning was a day, one."
- Genesis 1:14 "Let their be lights in the firmament to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years."
- Exodus 20:11 ". . . for in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. . ."
- Exodus 31:17 ". . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed."
- "In the Beginning" Genesis 1:1
- A direct reference to the beginning of time as we know it: Genesis 1 - 2.
- The origin of man are referenced to the beginning of all things
- Isaiah 41:4 "Who hath called the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, the first and the last."
- "He who made them at the beginning made them male and female"- Matthew 19:4; Mark 10:6 "from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female."
- Matthew 19:8 "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it hath not been so."
- II Peter 3:3-4 "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, 'Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.'"
- The fall of man is reference to the beginning of creation- John 8:44 "You are of your father, the Devil. . . he was a murderer from the beginning."
- Tribulation at the fall of Jerusalem is referenced to the beginning- Mark 13:19 "For in those days there will be tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the creation which God created until this time, nor shall ever be."
- Why is it the case that when so-called "science" and the Bible are in conflict, the Bible is always twisted and manipulated to be fitted to evolutionary science?
- To paraphrase Dr. Bert Thompson- I am tired of seeing the Bible strained through the seive of "science" to see if it can be accepted.