Young Earth Creationism Vs Evolution Vs Theistic Evolution Debate Thread:

Now we have a specific thread dedicated to debate over Young Earth Creationism Vs Evolution Vs Theistic Evolution . Now maybe we can actually confine this debate into this thread and try to keep it from spilling over into other threads that are not even about Evolution or Creationism.




*Young Earth Creationism - the religious belief that the Universe, Earth and all life on Earth were created by direct acts of God less than 10,000 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism



* Evolution - 1. Is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits.

2. The gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form.




* Theistic Evolution - The view that evolution occurred, but was planned and guided by God. The belief that God planned and created the universe in such a way that life would come into being without any further supernatural intervention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution




Please present any information or views you would like to Debate.

Would any one like to present their view in a clear way with one post ?

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Originally Posted by jude1:3

Would any one like to present their view in a clear way with one post ?

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There are several ideas being offered in an attempt to compromise creation with evolution. Some people think that God used evolution to create us. This type of thinking comes from the belief that scientists have proven that the earth is millions or billions of years old. Therefore, in order to harmonize the creation account found in Genesis (which says it all took place in a matter of days); non-literal scenarios have been concocted.

1. The Gap Theory – This says that there was a gap of thousands, or millions, of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.
2. The Day-Age Theory- This theory posits that each day mentioned in Genesis was actually a much longer period, perhaps thousands, or millions, of years.
3. Theistic Evolution- This theory posits that God created the basics, got the ball rolling, and stepped back to let the evolutionary process work on its own.
4. Progressive Creation- This is the idea that God allows evolution to work on its own for the most part, with God stepping in at different times to guide the process.

However, all of these theories suffer from these same fatal flaws, and probably more:
1. When God finished the creation week, He pronounced everything “very good” (Genesis 1:31). These compromise theories all say that God created a less than perfect world, which then ‘evolved’ into something better. Was God mistaken when He pronounced His creation very good? Did the evolutionary process have to improve upon God’s initial *** of creation? This hardly describes the biblical God found in the Scriptures.

2. The evolutionary theory of natural selection is based on survival of the fittest. This means that animals with better instincts and better fighting skills would triumph over and kill the weaker animals. This, in theory, would result in improvements in the gene pool of succeeding generations until the animal world ‘evolved’ enough to produce man. However, the biblical record says that there was no death until Adam and Eve disobeyed God and sinned (Genesis 2:17; Romans 5:12-21; I Corinthians 15:21-22). Therefore, according to the Bible, there could not have been thousands, perhaps millions, or billions, of years of violence and death prior to the fall. It cannot be both ways. Either the Bible is true and evolution is a lie or evolution is true and the Bible is in error. The choice is God’s word or man’s word.

3. If there were great lengths of time between creation of the universe and the creation of man and woman, then Jesus was mistaken when He said, “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female’” (Mark 10:6 ). How else can this be understood except in the most clear and obvious way? Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, is telling us directly that Adam and Eve were a part of the creation week.

The fact is that science has not proven the age of the earth. Many times the impression is given that scientists are smarter than regular people are, so if we disagree with them, their opinion is right and ours is wrong. They try to convince the average Christian that the Bible is mistaken, or simply written in a manner primitive man would have written in order to describe things he did not understand. It is said that now we have the scientific understanding to explain, and therefore, correct the biblical record. However, if the Bible is God’s word to us, we can be confident that it contains no mistakes at all. Or are we to conclude that it was out of God’s control to protect the message He wants us to have?

Thanks disciple. I'll post my thoughts when I get home.

I take the view of past Christians such as ST. BASIL the Great and St. Ephraim the Syrian on this topic:




ST. BASIL * VOLUME VIII

And the evening and the morning were one day. Why does Scripture say "one day the first day"? Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first which began the series? If it therefore says "one day," it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that they contain. Now Twenty-Four Hours Fill Up The Space Of One Day--we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by Scripture does not the less circumscribe their duration. It is as though it said: Now Twenty-Four Hours Fill Up The Space Of One Day, or that, in reality a day is the time that the heavens starting from one point take to return there. Thus, every time that, in the revolution of the sun, evening and morning occupy the world, their periodical succession never exceeds the space of one day.

* THE BOOK OF ST. BASIL ON THE SPIRIT HOMILY II pp. 64-65 * 330 A.D. - 379 A.D


Hexaemeron (Homily 2)
#8 from this site:

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/32012.htm





* St. Ephraim the Syrian*
“No one should think that the Creation of Six Days is an allegory" - *St. Ephraim the Syrian* / Commentary on Genesis Ch.1

What view does Alan hold on this ?

what is your point? if you are a true christian there is only 1 view you can hold and that is that God created everything in 6 24 hour days roughly 10,000 years ago. Anything else would be heresy and compromising with blind & deceived secular thought.

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Originally Posted by DrDavidT

what is your point? if you are a true christian there is only 1 view you can hold and that is that God created everything in 6 24 hour days roughly 10,000 years ago. Anything else would be heresy and compromising with blind & deceived secular thought.

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Well I dont believe any of that idea for a moment... :)

Its not logical....

It's not scientific

It's not a position held by Christian writers in the past.

Young Earth Creationism (YEC) is a false idea that gets all dressed up in the clothes of a Christian teaching, but underneath is still just simply wrong and all the fancy clothes in the world does not change that fact.



When the topic came up on Dr Walter Martin's radio show, (and it did all the time), in his answers Dr Martin always allowed for the great ages of time that would be necessary for evolution.

Walter Martin always allowed for the findings of science to go forward in this study of origins without going into some type of panic.

I remember many times Walter correcting people that held to the YEC position.
I know that when Dr Martin would take a break from doing his show he would turn the mic over to Mr Ken Samples, and I believe Mr Samples is currently working with Dr Hugh Ross ( see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2P3uH9Z3IY )

I believe that Mr Samples position is based on Dr Martin's position , thus supporting the understanding that the Earth is millions and billions of years old.




Now when Dr Martin would teach on a topic, something with the CULTS or with some point like we are talking about here, he always would say that the first step is defining the terms...for a lot of time can be spent going round-n-round when people are using terms that simply have different meanings to different people.

In that way when we talk about the term "Evolution" many people fall into the false understanding of that term meaning the same as "There is no God"

If you hold that understanding of the term "evolution" then every time i say that "Genesis and evolution work hand in hand with each other" you will think that cant be true at all.

But if you understand the term the way I do, as it simply being a natural system of this earth, like the 'wind" or the "sky and sea" then there is Nothing about the term "Evolution" that is connected to a lack of there being a God.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrDavidT

what is your point? if you are a true christian there is only 1 view you can hold and that is that God created everything in 6 24 hour days roughly 10,000 years ago. Anything else would be heresy and compromising with blind & deceived secular thought.

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I agree with you. Finally Me and DrDavidT agree on something LOLZ.:D

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Originally Posted by jude1:3

What view does Alan hold on this ?

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while I tried to read the quotation a few times, Im really not sure of the guy's point?

as for the term "evening and morning" I take them to mean in the Bible the very same thing they mean today....and that is to see the SUN lower in the sky due to the earths rotation as seen from an earth-bound location, until the sun appears to dip below the horizon.


thats what the term "evening" means today,,and thats what the term means on day one of genesis too!


There is no reason to try to twist into the term a new and unnatural meaning...

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Originally Posted by jude1:3

What view does Alan hold on this ?

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Now if you are talking about the meaning of the term "day" in the story of Genesis, and if you believe that all the things added in front of the word 'day" or after it must force it to mean only 24 hours?...

My answer is thats just not true at all...





and if you are saying that the oldest understanding of the Genesis 'days" was that they were only talking about 24 hr days and not anything else?
That also is not true..

The church has enjoyed a rich tradition from the start of having great writers who understood that the 'days of genesis' could be seen to be talking about vast ages of history....

Let me give the reader some advice.


On the Bible Answer Man radio talk show, the host Dr Walter martin had to deal with questions concerning evolution and genesis all the time.

Walter may or may not have had his doubts on the ins and outs of evolution, but one thing was clear about how Walter answered such questions about the genesis text.

Walter Martin always gave an answer that allowed for the vast ages of time that evolution needed to be true.


Im not saying Martin "believed' in evolution....But it was very clear that Walter did not believe the text of Genesis was against the idea that the earth millions and billions of years old.

Walter always showed he respected modern science, and at no point did Walter try to support any of the claims and understandings promoted by the Young Earth Creation teachers.




There is another thing to also keep in mind.
When Walter took a break from his radio show and had a guest host take over for him, that duty fell to a close friend of his names Ken Samples.

and after Martin's p***ing, Mr Ken Samples has worked closely with Dr Hugh Ross, who is very well known opponent of the Young Earth teachings.






So what does this all mean?
It means that my total rejection of all the Young earth Creationism teachings stands on firm ground!

Both with the text of the Bible support what im saying, and with leading teachers of the Bible support what Im saying.

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Its not logical....

It's not scientific

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it doesn't have to be either, it just has to be the truth. God does not represent himself doing anything but creating as he said in Genesis 1 so any alternative to genesis 1 is not the truth no matter how logical or scientific.

Walter Martin was able to defend the Bible, and yet keep his understanding of the Text in Genesis very logical, and backed by science.