Transcript 20140817-TI-CreationVEvolution-pt1

Biblical Creation
• Gen. 1:1-8 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was
on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over
the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and
there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and
God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light
Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the
morning were the first day. Then God said, ‘Let there be a
firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters
from the waters.’ Thus God made the firmament, and divided the
waters which were under the firmament from the waters which
were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the
firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the
second day.”
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Biblical Creation
• “In the beginning it please God the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, for the manifestation of
the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and
goodness, to create or make the world, and
all things therein, whether visible or invisible,
in the space of six days, and all very good.”
(London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689,
Ch. 4, p. 1)
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Chronology of Biblical Creation
• 1 Kings 6:1 “And it came to pass in the four hundred and
eightieth year after the children of Israel had come out of the
land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel,
in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, that he began to
build the house of the Lord.” ~966 BC
• Exodus was ~1446 BC
• Gen. 15:13 “Then He said to Abram: ‘Know certainly that your
descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will
serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years.’”
• Ex. 1:8 “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not
know Joseph”
period of affliction begins ~1886 BC
• It’s unknown how long Israelites were in Egypt from Joseph to
affliction.
• Use Gen. 5, 11, 21 to work back to creation, ~4000-8000 BC
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Creation v. Evolution
The significance of the debate
• Rom. 1:28 “And even as they did not like to retain God in their
knowledge…”
• Ex. 20:11a “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the
earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.”
• Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the
world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men,
because all sinned. “
• “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”
Richard Dawkins, Oxford
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Creation v. Evolution
• Romans 1:19-23: because what may be known of
God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to
them. For since the creation of the world His invisible
attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made, even His eternal power and
Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because,
although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as
God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their
thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and
changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an
image made like corruptible man--and birds and fourfooted animals and creeping things.
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Definition of Evolution
• “Change in living things over time.”
(McGraw-Hill textbook)
• “The process of change in the traits of
organisms or populations over time.
Evolution, through the process of natural
selection, can lead to the formation of new
species.”
(National Geographic)
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Definition of Evolution
• “In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change,
and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and
political systems all evolve. Biological evolution…is
change in the properties of organisms that transcend
the lifetime of a single individual..….The changes in
populations that are considered evolutionary are
those that are inheritable via the genetic material
from one generation to the next. Biological evolution
may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything
from slight changes in the proportion of different
alleles (genes) within a population to the successive
alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to
snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions.”
Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology
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Definition of Evolution
• Very simple life forms arose from non-living
chemicals, and over the eons, by mutation
and natural selection, these simple life forms
developed into all the complex plants and
animals on earth, including many extinct
species, all by random chance, without the
assistance or direction of an intelligent being.
(Tim Irving)
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Theistic Alternatives to
Biblical Creation
• Gap Theory
• Theistic Evolution/Day-Age View
• Framework Hypothesis
• Progressive Creation
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Gap Theory
• A time “gap” exists between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2.
• 1:2 is translated as “The earth BECAME
without form and void”.
• During this gap, evolution occurred as taught
in secular science.
• When God was ready to create man, He
“reformed” the heavens and earth. They
“became without form and void.”
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Gap Theory Problems
• “became” is very unlikely in this context
• “without form and void”: Why would
fossils and old rocks remain?
• What does “the first day” (1:5) mean in
this context?
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Theistic Evolution/Day-Age View
• Evolution happened as taught in
naturalistic science, but God was the
directing force behind it.
• Days of Genesis correspond loosely to
geologic eras.
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Theistic Evolution Problems
• All of the old-earth models require the
Word of God to be interpreted so as to
conform to human “knowledge”.
• Language of Genesis specifies solar
days – “the evening and morning were
the nth day”.
• Submit to the authority of “science”.
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Framework Hypothesis
• Genesis 1 is a “literary framework” not
wedded to a specific view of the age of
the earth.
• Genesis 1 is non-literal, non-sequential,
i.e., things didn’t necessarily happen in
the order they in which they are given.
• Same old problem – the words of
Scripture are pretty clear.
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Framework Hypothesis
• “It is the interpretation of Gen. 1:1-2:3 which
regards the seven-day scheme as a figurative
framework. While the six days of creation are
presented as normal solar days, according to
the framework interpretation the total picture
of God’s completing His creative work in a
week of days is not to be taken literally.
Instead it functions as a literary structure in
which the creative works of God have been
narrated in a topical order”.
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Framework Hypothesis
• “The framework interpretation strives to understand
the text of Genesis 1:1-2:3 on its own terms,
independently of any questions that may arise from
the empirical study of origins. In contrast to the other
two positions, the framework interpretation
recognizes the exegetical implications of the unique
literary and theological character of this inspired
record of the history of creation. The Holy Spirit has
given us an inerrant historical account of the creation
of the world, but that account has been shaped, not
by a concern to satisfy our curiosity regarding
sequence or chronology, but by predominantly
theological and literary concerns.”
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Framework Hypothesis
Day Creation
Kingdoms
Day
Creature Kings
1
Light
4
Luminaries
2
Sky, seas
5
Sea creatures,
Winged creatures
3
Dry land,
vegetation
6
Land animals,
Man
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Framework Hypothesis
• The “two triads” idea was pioneered in 1924
by Dutch theologian Arie Noordtzij.
• Not obvious to church fathers, or to the Jews
before them, or to Moses who recorded it.
• But Irons and Kline say this view “strives to
understand the text…on its own terms.
• They say the Holy Spirit did this on purpose:
“that account has been shaped… by
predominantly theological and literary
concerns.”
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Framework Hypothesis
• Very insidious – promoted by noted
Reformed theologian.
• “Our position is that natural revelation and
Scripture cannot contradict one another. If
there is an apparent conflict between our
interpretation of natural revelation and our
interpretation of Scripture, the only role of
natural revelation in the exegetical task is to
serve as a warning that we may need to
reexamine our exegesis.”
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Progressive Creation
• God created “progressively” in accord
with evolutionary timetable, e.g., God
created the first one-celled life,
• When ready He created the next stage
of more complex life, and so on to the
dinosaurs, etc., culminating with man
• Again, problem with text of Genesis.
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Progressive Creation
• Hugh Ross wrote the Day-Age section in The
Genesis Debate. In it he combines the DayAge theory with Progressive Creation.
• Astronomer by training
• Founder and President of Reasons to Believe
“an international, interdenominational
organization dedicated to proving that
science and faith are allies and to
establishing the veracity of Scripture.”
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Progressive Creation
• “We build our day-age interpretation upon the
conviction that we can trust God’s revelation
as truth in both the words of the Bible and the
works of creation – including the entire
physical universe….Our day-age
interpretation treats the creation days literally
as six sequential, long periods of time.”
• He means literally!
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Progressive Creation
• Creation of entire physical universe by God’s
fiat miracle.
• Singling out the earth for a sequence of
creation miracles. At its beginning, earth is
empty of life and unfit for it; primordial
atmosphere and interplanetary debris
prevents light of sun, moon and stars from
reaching surface of earth’s ocean.
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Progressive Creation
• Clearing of the interplanetary debris and
partial transformation of earth’s atmosphere
so light can penetrate to earth’s ocean.
• Formation of water vapor to establish water
cycle.
• Formation of continental land masses.
• Creation of plants on continental land
masses.
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Progressive Creation
• Transformation of atmosphere to
occasionally transparent. Sun, moon,
etc. now visible as distinct objects.
• Creation of swarms of small sea
animals.
• Creation of sea mammals and birds by
God’s fiat miracles.
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Progressive Creation
• Creation by God of three specialized kinds of
land mammals, all specifically designed to
cohabit with humans:
• 1) short-legged mammals
• 2) long-legged mammals that are easy to
tame
• 3) long-legged mammals that are difficult to
tame.
• Creation of the human species by God’s fiat
miracle.
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Progressive Creation
• “Irons and Kline seem to misunderstand our
response to scientifically unverifiable biblical
narratives. Most biblical narratives portray human
history, which can be verified using historical data.
Biblical narratives for which little or no specific
verification can (yet) be found may still be believed
on the basis of more general proofs for biblical
authority. However, we must regard any creation
account or narrative of human events that clearly
contradicts scientific and/or historical data as
erroneous, mythical, or fictional.”
Hugh Ross, The Genesis Debate, p. 192.
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Theistic Alternatives Summary
• All but the Framework Hypothesis are
variations on Theistic Evolution, and the
Framework Hypothesis allows for it, and
seems to encourage it.
• These will all fail because the basically agree
with evolution, which as we shall see, is
demonstrably false. But look at the Scriptural
issues.
• The fundamental problem with any of these
non-literal, old-earth interpretations is that
they make the Word of God bend to conform
to the supposed knowledge of man.
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Theistic Alternatives Summary
• If you can’t believe Gen. 1, what about John 1:1-5,
Ex. 20:8-9,11, Rom. 5:12?
• Proponents of each of them say they believe in the
inerrancy of Scripture.
• “All the participants – J. Ligon Duncan III, David W.
Hall, Hugh Ross, Gleason L. Archer, Lee Irons and
Meredith G. Kline – hold a high view of Scripture,
affirming both the infallibility and inerrancy of Holy
Writ…..Each participant holds firmly to the full
inspiration of Scripture.” Norman L. Geisler, foreword
to The Genesis Debate.
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