Young Earth? Old Earth? Which if Either is Unworthy of God?

Two Debates, first one:

Allen J Dunckley

6 Oct 2023

The God of the OECs and TEs is "Another Jesus"

His is another Jesus whom the Apostles did not preach, 2 Cor 11:4.

As a theologian who follows the Bible, I believe that the Jesus presented by Old Earth Creationists (OECs) and Theistic Evolutionists (TEs) is “Another Jesus” as revealed in 2 Corinthians 11:4 and Galatians as "another Gospel." This means that their concept of Jesus is different from the traditional one. According to them, THEIR Creator Jesus did not CREATE SUPERNATUALLY ; instead, He created the world through a NON-MIRACULOUS natural evolutionary process that involved death, suffering, and bloodshed and was anything but “Very Good.”

Furthermore, they believe that the flood described in the Bible brought by the pre-incarnate Jesus was only a non-registered, regional event and did not affect the whole world; hence, it was meaningless. Their version of Jesus aligns with modern scientific theories but does not match the Creator-God revealed to us in Scripture.

If this Jesus is not the Supernatural Creator as Scripture Reveals Him to Be, then he cannot be their Supernatural Savior to save them from their sins.

Allen J Dunckley

Auteur

To those that what I said not being clear, I clarified the "miracles" of the OEC version of Christ during creation in the above OP. There is nothing miraculous about Naturaliistic slow evolution over millions of years. That was the whole point the Deists, that is, the proto-atheists intended -- to have no miracles or SUPERNATURAL involved in Nature and its processes.

Ken Wolgemuth

Allen Dunckley,
//Their Creator Jesus did not perform supernatural acts//. This statement is simply false. I am an old earth creationist and I believe that Jesus Christ is the supernatural Creator of everything in the universe, and He created matter "ex nihilo", out of nothing. This is reported in the Bible in Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". Colossians 1:16:17. Furthermore, 'In Him all things hold together." So He sustains the universe continuously. I believe that God supernaturally destroyed all wicked mankind and associated animals by Noah's Flood as described in Genesis 6-8. What that looked like, I do not know. I believe that God supernaturally caused the walls of Jericho to fall down once the Israelites marched around the city as God had directed. It is possible that God used an earthquake to accomplish this, but maybe not.

The reason I am persuaded that young-earth creationism is false is because of the evidence we see in creation itself that requires a long time to form. This accumulation of fossils in the sedimentary record I believe is real, because it is a repeatable science of observation today. Your children can go see this record for themselves and revise it with new discoveries. The gazillions of animals in the Paleozoic sediments, plus the completely different dinosaur animals during the Mesozoic could not have grown up in the few thousand years from Creation to Noah, to be buried in the one year of Noah's Flood as claimed by YECs. Then all the gazillions of mammal fossils to have lived in the last 4,400 years since Noah's Flood. This could not have happened with the present laws of physics, and principles of chemistry and biology during the young earth time frame. Period.

Could God have supernaturally done this as you, Charlie, and millions of YECs believe? Of course.

Let me state what your belief seems to mean. Sometime between 10,000 years ago and say 3,000 years ago, God miraculously created those gazillions of Paleozoic fossils, plus the gazillions of dinosaurs and Mesozoic fossils, and the gazillions of Cenozoic fossils of animals that never lived, and organized those gazillions of different species into the orderly pattern of the 12 geological time periods to fool us into thinking these animals lived and died in their respective habitats. In my opinion, this makes your god to be more like a cosmic prankster than God the Creator who is the God of all truth.

It sure seems to me that this makes the God of YECs into "Another god". How in the world can you explain the fossil record? The flood geologists' story just does not hang together, because all the Paleozoic and Mesozoic animals could even be alive physically on the earth's surface for burial in one year by Noah's Flood. I can't even imagine it. How many feet high would they be stacked on top of each other?

I want to share one bullet point from Frank Turek in his lectures about creation. "There is no conflict between the Bible and the natural world. There may be conflict between some interpretations of the Bible and the natural world." I see YECism right here, at war with the natural world, due to their interpretation of the Bible.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Ken Wolgemuth "Let me state what your belief seems to mean. Sometime between 10,000 years ago and say 3,000 years ago, God miraculously created those gazillions of Paleozoic fossils, plus the gazillions of dinosaurs and Mesozoic fossils, and the gazillions of Cenozoic fossils of animals that never lived, and organized those gazillions of different species into the orderly pattern of the 12 geological time periods to fool us into thinking these animals lived and died in their respective habitats. In my opinion, this makes your god to be more like a cosmic prankster than God the Creator who is the God of all truth."

I can be more precise about the date.

2958 BC. God created LOTS of fossils by sending a Flood.

But where do you get "of animals that never lived" from?

Most of them were very well and alive 2959 BC (some were not made yet, and some were sick before they fossilised).

"into the orderly pattern of the 12 geological time periods"

Can you show me exactly one place on earth where:

• several different (at least three) of these "time periods" appear together?
• in the right order?
• in settings that were not aquatic when they lived?

I add the last condition because it's fairly easy to have several levels of biota living above and below each other in water, less so on the flat surface called land.

Ken Wolgemuth

Hans-Georg Lundahl, There are so many gazillions of fossils in the 12 Periods of Geologic Time that they could not be alive on the land at the same time, piled on top of each others. Not even time to grow.

The Williston Basin in North Dakota has all 12 Geologic Periods in order. I will let you look it up yourself.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I did. Megamyonia is a brachiopod, and Kirkella is a trilobite.

Did you miss that I spoke of LAND fossils?

Williston Basin is Aquatic.

At least for the Ordovician, which is the most typical result, I also caught a glipse of palaeocene plants.

If you think there are different faunas of land fossils piled on top of each other, I suggest you help me look THAT up.

My source for the two fossils, by the way:

Ordovician fossils from wells in the Williston Basin, Eastern Montana
Ross, Reuben James, 1918- author.; Geological Survey (U.S.), issuing body.
1957, Disponible en Ligne
https://omnia.college-de-france.fr/discovery/fulldisplay/alma997046759207166/33CDF_INST:33CDF_INST

Then the other:

Allen J Dunckley

6.I.2024

The Truth is...

Charlie Wolcott*

The modern "Young Earth Creation" "movement" is the same as the Reformation. It is a RETURN to what has always been taught. It is a codification of what has always been taught. And it is a rise to confront a false teaching that has infiltrated the church for the last 200 years, a teaching that was intentionally set up to destroy faith in the record of Scripture but not let the Christians realize that is what it was doing. The deception worked and because the church slept on that point, it has taken a lot of work to undo the damage being done.

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl*

Charlie Wolcott "is the same as the Reformation. It is a RETURN to what has always been taught."

Not really.

The modern YEC movement is a revitalisation of what has still always been taught and never ceased to be taught.

A "return" to "what always HAD been taught" is contrary to Matthew 28:20.

Charlie Wolcott

Hans-Georg Lundahl I did not say "had". I said "has". It has never changed nor will change. Modern "science" will never be right because it is always changing.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Well, my bad, but then its not a return, and the comparison with the Reformation is fortunately moot.

* (note)

Unless someone hacked, I misread what Charlie Woolcott wrote.

II

Ken Wolgemuth

Charlie Wolcott,
Your idea of comparing this modern YEC movement to the Reformation sounds very confusing, because the categories are quite different. As I understand it, the Reformation was about core theology and the indulgences. The modern YEC movement is not about core theology but mostly tertiary issues of the age of the earth and the mechanism of biological evolution, neither of which affects salvation. The modern YEC from 1961 is significantly an anti-science movement of rejection of understanding God's truths revealed in creation, in light of Romans 1:20 "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities---his eternal power and divine nature---have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." I know the passage is primarily focused at those who reject God completely, although God's character is still revealed to us as God's children.

II a

Charlie Wolcott

Ken Wolgemuth If you knew Romans 1 is about those who completely reject God, you would know better than to listen and side with those whom it is talking about. You would know better than to sit at the feet of those who mock and deny him and call their models science. You would know better than to teach the same thing those people do. You don't have to embrace YEC. But by teaching OEC and millions of years...you JOIN those whom Romans 1 is talking about. Those who deny God and worship the creation, putting it as the authority over all matters...as you have done...instead of letting the Creator actually be the Creator and TELLING YOU how he did things.

Your understanding of theology is not exactly sound. Those in the days of the Reformation thought that it wasn't a salvic issue either. Neither did those who defended Arius in the 3nd century. They argued just as you did. I know YOU think it is not a salvic issue. But the last 200 years of seeing every church and institution that teaches OEC die and go full liberal should be enough compelling evidence that a born-again believer will want nothing to do with it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Charlie Wolcott , is that so?

"Those in the days of the Reformation thought that it wasn't a salvific issue either."

I think the Council Fathers at Trent very much agreed the issue was highly important for Salvation of the individual soul.

Allen J Dunckley

Author

Hans-Georg Lundahl Charlie and I have shown Ken Wolgemuth the disaterous effect "enlightenment" thinking has had on the Gospel of Christ and the Character and Nature of God. Key theology, not secondary nor tirtiary! He hand waves this truth away in the name of His golden calf called NATURALISTIC Science.

He is correct on one point: Romans 1:19-20 does say Creation points to the Nature and Character of God -- ONE WHOSE NATURE AND CHARACTER IS SUPERNATURAL and WHO created SUPERNATUALLY in a miraculous 6 normal earht days.

THIS CREATOR GOD is the opposite of the OEC versoion of the creator.

And he actually thinks the "speed of light" measures "time." LOL

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I actually also thing distance X speed of light measures time since light emitted.

I also think the stars were one light day up on creation day 4, visible to fish and birds on day 5, either still that distance, or at most 3 and a half light years up, if, for instance the Antichrist defies Christ on the beginning of the final tribulation, and Christ immediately steps off his throne and goes down, at light speed, arriving at the end of the tribulation.

As I am a Geocentric, I have no qualms about dismissing the pretence that "parallax measures distance" ...

Also, the sole possible mechanism for Sun going around Earth each day is God moving the Heavens around Earth. Theoretically, angelic beings or supermen could be moving each body through complete void, but this option goes out of the window with Coriolis. And even when it was an option, it implied the diverse beings doing so obeyed a common plan.

II b

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Ken Wolgemuth If the world is billions of years, you are very hard set to find a first man within the last 7000 of them.

If Adam was not the first man, original sin makes no sense.

If Adam had biological ancestors who were not fully human, God was a monster to him before he sinned.

If Adam lived 40 000 or 750 000 years ago, Genesis 3 is not recorded and transmitted history, and it has never traditionally been claimed as prophecy.

YE / OE once WAS tertiary, before radiometric dates involved it with Christian anthropology. It no longer is so.

Ken Wolgemuth

Hans-Georg Lundahl, Just because the earth is 4.6 billion years old has no implications about when Adam was created, whether 6,000 or 30,000 years ago or earlier.

If you want to continue an exchange, send me a message to [omitted for his privacy]

This group has become so toxic and Pharisaical that I will not try to continue a friendly exchange here.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Ken Wolgemuth Our exchange is what it is, irrespective of the group as such.

"has no implications about when Adam was created, whether 6,000 or 30,000 years ago or earlier."

Yes, it has.

It has via the carbon date of a Neanderthal woman called La Ferrassie.

If Earth was created 7000 years ago, or little more, the carbon 14 content would have been still very low, like before the Flood.

If Earth was created millions of years ago, the carbon 14 content would already have been like at present.

III

Jeff Reichman

Than I have to assume you accept in his work "Confessions" and "The Literal Meaning of Genesis" (also known as "De Genesi ad litteram"). Augustine was not a strict literalist when it came to interpreting the biblical account of creation.

In "The Literal Meaning of Genesis," Augustine argued that the six days of creation need not be understood as a literal, 24-hour day period. Instead, he proposed a more symbolic interpretation, suggesting that God created the world with a simultaneous ordering of potentialities rather than in a temporal sequence. Augustine believed that God's creation could be understood as a simultaneous act, and the six days were seen as a literary device to help humans comprehend the divine order.

Augustine also emphasized the importance of interpreting biblical passages in a way that aligns with reason and does not contradict established knowledge. He cautioned against a rigid literal interpretation that might conflict with the empirical evidence available in his time.

Of course it's important to note that Augustine's views were shaped by the scientific and philosophical understanding of his era, and his interpretations have been influential in shaping the approach of many Christian thinkers to the interpretation of Genesis.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Jeff Reichman It is highly worth noting that Genesis is more than just the creation account, that the timespan of that was if anything shortened in De Genesi ad Litteram Libri XII (specifically books 5 and 6), but that that shortening was optional. Yes, I checked a few years ago.

It is if anything even more worth noting that this was why I set strict Biblical chronology to the side soon after converting, and returned to it on reading what St. Augustine wrote about what happened AFTER creation - City of God, which I suggest you check, and on any point after the six days account, like Genesis 5 and 11, you'll find he supports a literalistic understanding. Specifically he makes a Q and A session about them and about the Flood in books 12 to 16 of the work.