The “instinct” that i exerted early on in my career as a human to permanently borrow the pack of army men out from fellow kindergarden student’s cubbie, frankly, i now call stealing. The Bible calls that sin. My sinner ways apparently started early on in life. And by the way, the practical side of me thinks that calling stealing a simple form of instinct sure grounds for the quick implosion and demise of a society. That is just me, a sinner speaking, so i could be wrong.
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I quoted a clear statement in Genesis. You ignored it and are now repeating your standard excuse that anyone who points out your errors is “trusting mainstream science.” Greg, I mentioned NOTHING about mainstream science in my post. As to “fitting scripture into that form second”, you are the one who is ignoring what the Bible says about the purpose of the Tree of Life in the garden and are “fitting scripture” into your own humanistic mindset.
Yes. You are very off in your humanistic assessment. You keep on forcing the Bible into your personal preferences because you think God should conform to your demands about what he should and shouldn’t do.
Isaiah 45:7 disagrees with you, @Greg. Argue with the Bible, not me:
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
—Isaiah 45:7 (KJV)
I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things. — Isaiah 45:7 (ASV)
The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these. — Isaiah 45:7 (NASB)
You claim that God is not responsible even for natural evil but the Hebrew word translated in this verse clearly refers to natural evil (what we today usually call natural disasters and calamity.)
Here’s a few more Bible translations to help you out:
I form light and create darkness, make prosperity and create doom; I am the Lord, who does all these things. (CEB)
I create light and darkness, happiness and sorrow. I, the Lord, do all of this. (CEV)
I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things. (ESV)
I create the light and make the darkness. I send good times and bad times. I, the Lord, am the one who does these things. (NLT)
I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things. (NRSV)
So, Greg, are you going to claim that every one of the Bible translation committees associated with the above renderings of Isaiah 45:7 are conforming the Bible to evolutionary thought? What utter rubbish.
Yes, Greg. Many of your assessments are “off”. I prefer to believe what the Bible says about God instead of your humanistic defiance of Biblical truth.
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What the bible calls sin is irrelevant to modern secular society. Sin is imaginary. Humans have biological instincts to survive, to eat, to mate. Society has norms and laws on how everyone in society should behave while living, eating, and mating. But the ultimate decision makers on what is right and what is wrong is an individual’s own reasoning at the situation that they are in.
What will the lions eat? What, for that matter, will the sparrows and squirrels eat, as the eating of seeds and nuts kills both?
You are probably thinking of Isaiah 11:6.
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. — Isaiah 11:6 (NIV)
Many of the Christian and rabbinical scholars I studied under emphasized this imagery being symbolic rather than literal. Indeed, one finds such symbolism through many centuries of theological literature. For example, St. Augustine claimed, when speaking of “the lion lying down with the lamb”, that the lion stands for Christ resurrected and the lamb stands for Christ’s sacrifice. C.S. Lewis picked up on this theme in his Chronicles of Narnia.
Notice that Isaiah 35:9 basically forbids lions and other violent beasts from the future paradise:
No lion will be there, nor any ravenous beast; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, — Isaiah 35:9 (NIV)
This appears to directly contradict Isaiah11:6, until one realizes that metaphorical language can explore such imagery in various ways to make theological points, not necessarily literal statements about zoological ecosystems.
Greg, I would again encourage you to not only read those “intricate commentaries” you talked about but to try to understand them and learn from them.
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God created the calamity called the Genesis flood did He not? The calamity was so profound that some scholars suggest that it could have altered the laws of physics…it wiped the earth clean and essentially made a new earth. Why did He do this we ask? Genesis 6: The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
God created a place called hell. Is hell evil? Yes. Did God create the essence of hell out of the bounties of his nature or out of justice due because people choose to turn their back on Him? Hands down, the latter.
And i would be a fool not to mention the history of the Roman Empire. They studied methods of torture in order to come up with the most painful and humiliating form for criminals and political enemies. The option they chose was to nail the very worst criminals to a tree completely naked, exposed for the world to observe their shame. The sounds, sights and smells in these events count be depicted as a calamitous evil at its worst. Writhing pain, crying mothers, scavengers readying themselves for a meal, and the smell of rotted and burning flesh. God in His ultimate wisdom chose to send His Son who was Himself in the form of man, knowing that this was His destiny. He chose this out of His love for all humanity. God is perfect. He is love. He is volitional.
He is a Creator, designer, innovator. He is holy. He is just. He is a forgiver. And everything that He is can be known through His creation through its observation of who He is directly, or even through eyes of fallen creatures who observe the results of what He is not in a fallen world.
For you to sit their and take one single verse out of context and suggest to me that God has evil within the fabric of His nature is the most ridiculous unbiblical idea. God allows evil. He allowed Hitler to reign. He allows hurricanes to wipe out towns. He is sovereign over this very disagreement! And He makes subjects with the freedom to choose what is not part of His nature.
And even in this, His forgiving, redeeming nature brings illumination to His perfect, holy essence.
We have spoken about how some religions are formed by borrowing a fellow cultures ideas. You and others have suggested to me that the Judeo Christian worldview has borrowed from which i vehemently disagree. But it seems to me that it is you that is trying to thrust the God of Scripture into a form borrowed by another religions. Are you familiar with ancient mythological religions where the gods use calamity out of the fabric of their natures to create? And i am not talking about a form of justice administered to an oppressor or a murderer sort of thing. Im speaking of deities who use forms of evil to create because this is intracate within their nature. Are you familiar with these? Opposed to this, the God of Scripture simply speaks, the form is made, and God calls this good. You, borrowing from ancient myths try to place the beauty of the only God’s creative mission into an ancient mythological form via evolutionary principles espoused by mainstream science. Isnt this rewritting Scripture to appease the heavily laden philosophical forms within mainstream science?
According to early Genesis, humans and animals are purely vegetarian. I have heard mockery of Answers in Genesis depicting dinos as vegetarians. To the mind subjected to the nature we know about today, of course this sounds silly. But they are choosing to abide by the exacting language in Scripture which they acknowledge as the very words of God. Before the fall, dinos vegetarian. After the fall, they become meat eaters. Same for humans.
So I tend to agree with this thinking because if the God i know who is capable of creating the cosmos chose words to describe His ways in these terms, i as just a small little ant of a human being would be wise to trust this line of thinking over my own.
In the renewed earth, scripture speaks of the same sort of paradigm as before the fall of man.
Scripture, in principle therefore treats plants as a diffferent form of “life” from animals.
All of these items i speak about are not necessary for coming into relationship w God. That starts with a gospel of salvation from sin. I am just sharing theology from the judeo christian worldview which i abide by when folks ask.
So you mean that there was death before the fall, just no death of animals. But wouldn’t that result in Adam being knee-deep in flies?
I do wonder about the venus fly trap, and other carnivorous plants.
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I dont contemplate these things until driven to think through them…i honestly dont know exactly how to picture the exact essence of nature before the fall. The whole idea of “natural” is 100% defined by what we experience and thus feels natural, thus the idea. My daughter, at dinner out tonight, showed me an app that takes your picture and contorts it to a sort of video caricature. It also takes an audio of the voice and alters it. We were laughing at the craziness of the look and sound produced by the app altering our faces and voices. Then i told her to think about if God chose to give us that type of look and sound in general- which in this case, the average human look today we are used to would look strange. “Natural” is completely subjective, and im sure we will be surprised one day to learn that life will one day beyond this life will transcend our ability to even comprehend in our humanity today on this natural earth.
Anyway, I asked a buddy of mine who is a big time young earth proponent about the idea of a person accidentally stepping on a mouse and killing it before the fall. Does God protect the mouse? Then your example of flies. And what about humans for that matter…were they to reproduce until the earth is full then eternal birth control from there? So of course i have questions and i have a little grey matter upstairs in these latter yrs. 
all i know is that early Genesis paints a picture that God is not a creator anywhere similar to the mythological deities who created via chaos and destruction which evolutionism encapsulates. I choose to take the high road of caution in not going beyond how the Scriptures define our Maker. Beyond early Genesis which i abide by but cannot understand fully, the Bible is incredibly full of such profound wisdom that is practical even thousands of years later. And thru it is this thread about an atonement which all point to a suffering servant Messiah who is Jesus who was also prophesied to be a conquering king which will also be fulfilled. Additionally these Scriptures are “active” I am amazed how i will run into Scripture that addresses pertinent info timely and beneficial to my current position in life. Or they will bring a profound conviction and a trip to behind the woodshed for some discipline.
You may not be interested in any of this. Most atheists hear these things as a form of entertainment that they think contrast to their self defined high and mighty scientific and illumined intellect. Yes, this in itself is even quite clearly defined as a reality in Scripture…nothing new under the sun as history is cyclical it seems.
Let’s face it, you don’t contemplate them even then. You are of course free not to think about things, including the mutual incompatibility of the various things you say. But I am free to point out the inconsistencies too. Everybody wins?
I have mentioned this before at least 4 times: when an ant freely stumbles into a 3000 sq foot house being built, its cognition abilities for discovering and contemplating the actual realities and “incompatibilities” are limited for understanding the true essence of the structure to that ant. When God questions Job, He starts by sarcasticallly asking Job “where you there when I created” and lists off items. We weren’t there John Harshman. We can understand a fraction of our reality. Some scientists are self deceived to believe that science can unpeel most reality but like the analogy about the ant, they forget that just perhaps they dont have the pieces of information available to even work with, nor the cognition available for actual discovery of reality. The ant is pretty confident that the large mole hill of that house offers scraps of food around where the big animals eat lunch and a reprieve from wet weather…a nice place for a home. But all of its capabilities are impossibly inept for truly discovering the ultimate multi faceted reality of that structure. The gap between the builder of the house and the ant pales in comparison to the great Builder God and humankind.
God created the cosmos from nothing. We can understand that mass energy finding a starting point from a great Cause outside of the natural reality seems the most sensible of all options (if we are honest). But we do not have the tools in our cognition toolbox to totally understand the nature of the Cause and His ways unless He chooses to reveal them. I have scoured the planet for options about such communication and the only one that stands above the rest is the judeo christian worldview. Everything from the fact that this faith has multiple authors contributing all in agreement in the main tenants to the Bible being an archeological roadmap to the incredible transformative power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes, this is the one. The Creator has a manuscript that communicates about our reality and the Bible is it. When the Bible says God created kinds instantly, this means that He did not embody nature to evolve them. When the Bible says that all of creation was subjected to futility and death after man disobeyed, then that is ultimately true. And when God says that our sin problem can only be remedied but trusting Jesus Christ for forgiveness, making Him our ultimate love, then i believe this, and i have. This was the best decision i have ever made. The Bible says in a nutshell, that the man or woman wise in their own eyes must become as a fool, stepping away from trusting themselves for salvation and instead trusting an invisible, yet ever present God for it instead. This is called goodnews, and true wisdom personified in the OT chapter 8 of Proverbs is fulfilled as reported in the NT verse in John 3:16. If you are who you depict yourself to be John Harshman, you, like the rest of us, are a sinner in need of a Savior. A mustard seed size of faith in an enormous powerful forgiving God is all that is needed to repent of sin and accept forgiveness.
Common creationist trope. We may understand a fraction of our reality, but I understand a larger fraction than you do.
Well at least you show some humility with the first part there. Enjoy your day John. I am back fr vacation and in full gear getting back into workload.
So, you are back to conceding that God creates evil? You are all over the place.
Of course, even though hell is a frightful concept, it is not a free moral agent. So it doesn’t do evil. And you wrote that God created “the essence of hell”…“out of justice…”, so you apparently don’t think it was evil for God to create a hell.
So now you agree that God created the “calamity called the Genesis flood” which is also a judgment. You said hell was “evil”, so are you now conceding that the flood was also “evil”? By calling it a “calamity”, you just agreed with all of those translations from Isaiah which used either “evil” or “calamity” to describe some of what God creates. Somehow, when you speak of God creating “evil”, that’s just fine—but when I say the same thing and cite actual specific scriptures you get all upset and defiantly call it “taking scripture out of context!”
Who are these unnamed scholars? And what is their scriptural evidence for claiming it could have altered the laws of physics? What is their scientific evidence?
Of course, there is no such evidence. It is utter rubbish for these unnamed people to make such a silly claim. Nothing in the Genesis account suggests changes in the laws of physics. In fact, the very opposite is the case. Noah observes no changes in the laws of physics. Birds continue to fly under the usual aerodynamic conditions. The heat of the sun and less than 100% air humidity and the flow of water under gravity causes the land to drain and to experience evaporation and drying.
How contradictory! Greg complains all of the time that anyone who disagrees with him has given in to scientific claims—while he chooses to cite the “science” of unnamed scholars who say the laws of physics changed. What rubbish. And how conveniently arbitrary!
No. Not even close. The Bible makes no such claim. Instead, not until 2Peter 3 is there talk of a replacement of the earth. Of course, in the Genesis account, ERETZ is not talking about “planet earth”. It refers to the land Noah observed around him. The text says the ark landed in the hill country (or mountains) of a region called Ararat. (Nobody today knows where that region was located.) Thus, those mountains/hills were not flattened in the flood. (Or id Greg’s imaginary new laws of physics suddenly create them?)
Greg’s “altered laws of physics” rank among my new favorite attempt at a desperate device to save his bizarre set of Bible interpretations.
Out of context? Read the entire chapter in Isaiah and then explain to us all exactly what I have ignored in the context.
Meanwhile, keep in mind that the word “evil” has a very wide semantic domain in English. Those meanings include “evil” in the sense of that which is terribly sinful as well as in the sense of calamitous and disastrous. I never claimed that God is sinful or produces sin. I would definitely claim that God is described in the Bible as creating various calamities and disasters. (Indeed, you just claimed that the flood was calamitous, so you came over to my side on that.)
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You are missing the point. There is an infinitely wide cavern dividing the idea of God creating new objects that are fully representative of His nature which is,100% perfect, pure and free of any form of evil and God reacting in forms of wrath, or sovereign allowance of the bits of fruits from the evil in disobedience of moral volitional creations called human beings, made in the image of their Creator. If one cannot understand this, then one may not be able to grasp the truest essence of the gospel. The gospel should not allow a neutral, pale and contrite reaction. It should rather offer a floored w humility, reverence and thankfulness that God was willing to absorb His wrath that His disobedient subjects were fully deserving of by taking this upon Himself on the cross.
Evolutionary creationism must demand that God has death and suffering and disease as the attributes of His nature for Him to exert His creative works… i see none of that in Genesis before the fall. There is not even animal death or disease before the fall…they were vegetarians! Contrary to this, I see the opposite of the Genesis account in Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian and many other ancient forms of creation myths. I illuminated myself and looked up as many as i could, and many reveal patterns of chaos, death, battle being the foundation piece upon which creation rests. The Genesis account runs completely contrary to these. Evolutionism runs in synche.
LOL! Right. 
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I have to admit this one cracked me up too. 
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With those intelligently designed teeth, that carrot didn’t have a chance!
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