/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Yes.

However, let us take a step back here. It is indeed "literal" and "literally true" but it also speaks of 1) an event that the author was obviously not there to behold, and 2) an event that happened before the entire creation was disfigured through the Fall. So we should keep this in mind. The Fathers point out that the Paradise (or Garden) of Eden was both of a material and spiritual nature, and Adam and Eve themselves were in a pre-fallen state, neither mortal nor immortal, and even death was not a part of the world. The world as it was before the Fall was in a different mode of existence than it is now, so to speak, and therefore we should not be surprised that the Garden of Eden cannot be located on a map (especially as it is where righteous Christians go when they die, per Luke 23:39-43) and that when we observe this fallen world, we see that it is billions of years old.

Although I believe Augustine is alone in this, he is nonetheless intuitive to point out that the creation couldn't have been about six literal 24-hour long days, because God is not constrained by time and therefore the creation would rather have been instantaneous. This is one example of how Genesis 1-3 use the most appropriate language possible to describe something that is ultimately impossible to describe with our fallen, earthly ways of thinking.

However, the claim that the creation story just describes the way the world evolved, or that God creating man "from the earth" is a reference to evolution from previous species, is complete nonsense and pure modernism. The scriptures say the world was made in six days, with God resting on the seventh day (and the 8th day being the Day of the Lord, Easter). That's it. The first chapter of Genesis already describes how God designed His creation, do we really need to pretend the scriptures aren't inspired enough to tell us the full story?

>>766322

Taking the Bible in general as a metaphor is a very dangerous heresy, it can lead to many theological abominations. And I'm no physic, so I can't really comment on this guy.

>>766325

Note also that I'm not proclaiming this as doctrine. If you consider that there is another reason for the observed world showing something different than the scriptures do, go ahead. But simply rejecting the truth of the scriptures is unacceptable. The creation story isn't even an apocalypse like what Ezekiel, Daniel, and John saw.

>>766326

I understand, I am just unaware of how the Catholic Church or any other denomination reconciles evolution.

Yes

There is no internal reason to point to it being nonliteral metaphor or allegory. It's treated as historical prose.

>>766325

>It's literal, but…

<Adam wasn't mortal

<Eden didn't exist

<The Earth is billions of years old

>>766327

Glad you couched this, you're being inconsistent

>>766325

Couldn't Augustine be wrong? The first day would be the beginning of time as creation would bring about motion and thus change and thus time. That isn't to say that it would necessitate 24-hour periods. I am just looking for a better reconciliation of Creation with the Scientism™ argument of Darwinian evolution.

>>766329

That Adam wasn't mortal is literally Orthodox (and Catholic) dogma. As far as I know it is only some Jews who interpret Genesis to mean Adam was created mortal. What denomination are you?

>Eden didn't exist

You think I said Heaven doesn't exist? Please reread.

>The Earth is billions of years old

Again, I am not claiming this as doctrine. I do not see a reason to doubt scientific claims on this, but that is unimportant - what is important is that the first chapters of Genesis, like the rest of the scriptures, are literally true.

>>766328

I find it really fun when people try to turn evolution into some kind of metaphysical monstrosity

>>766330

Augustine could be wrong (that wouldn't be the first time). I was just pointing out his perspective.

Either way the Fall disfigured all of the created world, including time, so I do not think too much about it. Whatever is in Genesis 1-3 is true; if we are unable to reach back to that truth through scientific observation, it is our fault for living in a fallen world of our own making, and we should be thankful that the scriptures (and icons!) tell us the underlying reality of the world that we are blind to (whether that is moral, historical, metaphysical…).

>>766322

We have this thread every month.

>>766331

When you say "mortal", do you mean "man" or "capable of death"?

I assumed you meant "man". Is that not right?

Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive

1 Corinthians 15

>>766372

Huh? Of course man was created man. I have no clue how you equate "mortal" with "man".

By "mortal" I mean "capable of dying". Adam and Eve were not created "mortal" or "immortal" but rather they were created with the choice to choose either life or death. By breaking the fast imposed by God, they chose death.

If it isn't interpreted literally, then people make Jesus himself out to be wrong.. or at least a liar. For he referred to Adam and Eve, referring to a man and a woman becoming one.. or saying that those in Judea will suffer punishment for persecuting the righteous, and refers to the example of Abel and Cain.

>>766498

I don't recall these passages, would you be able to share?

I used to be like some theistic evolutionist like everyone, but as of lately I've become a 6 day YEC

>>766659

Are you me? When you start taking the Bible seriously, it's hard not to be YEC

>>766665

What breadpilled me was hearing a sermon about how Jesus' first miracle of turning water into wine was a parallel to creation. There were six jars of water, six days of creation. Spirit hovering over the water in the beginning. Jesus created something that by "Science" would say that it looked old, but it wasn't old. He created something that seemed aged.

Genesis is the most misleading and idiotic book in the Bible if creation isn't true.

>>766680

>He created something that seemed aged

So God's a liar or a trickster?

>>766680

>Genesis is the most misleading and idiotic book in the Bible if creation isn't true.

This is very true. Also consider that people usually say that Genesis is allegorical up to Abraham (anyone who claims Abraham didnl't exist isn't worth listening to), yet Abraham lived nearly 200 years. This coupled with research that compared the language of the creation account and found that it is a historical narrative (opposed to allegorical story) with 99.9% possibly opened my eyes. At that point, 'science' be darned, if the Bible says God did it in 6 days, than that's what He did. See figure 2 on this article: https://www.icr.org/article/biblical-hebrew-creation-account-new-numbers-tell-/

>>766587

I was the anon who wrote that. ID changed.

Yeah..

He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?" - Matt 19:4,5

On using Abel with other historical events:

Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and ascribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. -Matt 23:34,35

>>766711

>Institute for Creation Research

<what is a priori

Considering how laughably wrong they get everything else, I don't think the Bible is exempt from such treatment.

Insisting on Creation is a great stumbling block. I encourage anyone who uses it (even some of these funny evangelical institutes.. their hearts' are in the right place). It'll help weed out the pretenders.

Like I said earlier, without it, you can't even believe in Christ.. for he referred to it (and also other stories, like the flood and Noah). It also gets to the heart of sin and what Christ saves us from the begin with. People without a creation story would eventually just try to turn Christ into another garden variety "guru" with precepts on life.. and then apply their theistic evolution mentality wholesale, where ALL of our thoughts on religion are evolving.

But his Incarnation is more than that. And only in the context of Creation does it make sense.

>>766680

>>766665

I want to be YEC, but I dont understand where Dinsoaurs fit in?

>>766767

>>766767

>>766767

Seconded.

As far as I know, this man (Dr. Robert Gentry) has never been properly debunked (outside of amateurs saying "Uh uh!").

He's been defunded and shut out of research opportunities.. but not debunked. He deserves that much at least.

>>766767

>>766798

Beasts of the earth that lived in their own biomes, and couldn't handle the drastic change in climate soon after the deluge. i suppose that if the creation narrative is literal, then some might have survived if they migrated south of the equator before that, but must have been out-competed by other animals.

https://creation.com/dinosaur-questions-and-answers

>>766784

Fawcett was a nutter. He disappeared when he left to start a Thelema commune in the Amazon rainforest with his son as a god.

>>766804

Nor can you "prove" that its a metaphor. I suppose the Church was just wrong this whole time, and we've just now figured out the TRUE meaning of Genesis.

>>766804

Hermeneutics doesn't rely on external proof

The only relevant question is "what did the author intend?" All signs point to historical prose.

>>766815

Strictly on a literary intention angle, it's polemic. Not merely prose. The Sumerians and Egyptians had elements of the same story.. but with key differences. Egypt had a formless "chaos" in the universe's primordial state, and the "Sun" (Ra) emerged out of it and brought order. But in the Genesis story, it's the Word of God who says "Let there be light!" and creates the sun and other things. The sun is merely a creation like everything else.

As for Sumer, the simularities are more in the Eden story. Except in Sumer, the garden was created FOR the gods.. and humans were just drones meant to manage it. Until Enki (the trickster/reptillian god) rebelled against the other gods and convinced the humans to his side. In this tradition, Enki is the great liberator and friend of mankind. Probably the origins of the Prometheus myth as well.

But Abraham himself was a Sumerian who knew this stories.. and turned it completely on it's head. Where the garden was made FOR man, and God had nothing but love for humanity. And it was the serpent who was the enemy instead, who enslaved man in ignorance and sin.

To get back to the original point, it's not merely prose, but warring ideologies between 3 distinct priestly traditions. And I'm sighting with the Abrahamic one.

>>766832

Now you're starting with the presupposition that it's not true

>>766833

It's not a presupposition. These texts actually exist. There's nothing I came up with through theory or on my own. I'm just comparing them.

Wait, I see what you mean. You think I'm assuming some untruth to it.. simply because it's polemic.

I don't think that. I think Abraham knew the real God and got the real story. The surrounding world may have known bits of it, but it was distorted, and favored the narrative of tyrants (either tyrannical kings or tyrannical gods).

>>766873

Which ones specifically? Ugly members of the genus Homo, or non-Homo apes? They don’t really present a problem.

>>766888

>Ugly members of the genus Homo, or non-Homo apes?

Both Homo and the Australopithecines, given that some of the gracile forms of the latter seem to overlap with the earliest forms of the former.

>They don’t really present a problem.

Considering how many creationists vehemently deny australopiths were upright or that critters like habilis were human, I'd say they do.

>>766897

There are problems with australopithecine posture, but many secular anthropologists now believe they may have been quadrapedal. As for habilis, it seems to be a “wastebasket taxon” holding some australopiths and some Homo.

You could try reading some creationist articles on it.

https://creation.com/fossil-evidence-for-alleged-apemenpart-1-the-genus-homo

>>766930

>Quite familiar with it already, thanks. Standard skewing of the facts and half-truths.

Just read it, it won’t hurt you. Check their sources too. I know you won’t though, because you’ve made up your mind on the matter.

>>767031

I could say the same for the assertion that the fossils support human evolution.

Just read it.

>>767032

I already did, some of the same claims I've seen in Lubenow's works and elsewhere. Similarly, they fall flat on their faces when you actually look into it.

>>766329

yes. also dinosaurs lmao

>>766322

I'm not really worried about the creation story. I'm convinced of the logical necessity of the One God, and I'm convinced of the historical fact of Christ's death and Ressurection. I can learn about the precise historical facts behind the world's beginning if God ever deigns to have me in His presence, until then I'm sure there's a perfectly fine explanation behind the text of the book and the physical evidence for evolution. But the point of the Christian faith isn't whether or not dinosaurs were real; it's about following the teachings of Christ.

>>767033

Explain how.

>>766322

It's real, it's a fact, it's truth, but it's not literal. Genesis is a poetic truth.

>>767755

Is the crucifixion literal or a poetic truth?

>>767756

Everything after Genesis and before Revelation are taken as literal truth. Especially the books in the New Testament.

>>767756

It'd be more apt to say Jesus' parables actually happened. Or that He's actually a rock.

>>767758

So the flood didn't happen?

>>767762

I believe it didn't happen in a literal way. The point of genesis is to explain the nature of humans and the nature of God. What separated humans from God and what righteous things men do to be reunited with God.

>>767765

>>767762

Like how the Revelation writer saw Nero and made him a symbolism for Antichrist, the Genesis writer was inspired by the Ziggurat of Babylon and wrote it down as the tower of Babel as a symbol for humanity's and angels' rebellion against God.

>>767767

How do you pick and choose which parts are just-so stories inspired by something else?

>>767769

I don't think that's an important thing to do. The most important thing is you have to understand the message Genesis and Revelation try to convey.

>>767773

And I do.

For the record, I am only trying to defend my position on Genesis. I disagree with old earth creationists, but it is not going to bar them from Heaven.

>>767765

So what separated humans from if not the liyrtal man Adam?

>>767790

Literal

>>766322

Literal? No. Contains truth? Yes.

>>767841

Like Harry Potter?