you write:
>
>I want to be honest. I have no answers for the flood
>other than Glenn's which I am far from convinced about)
>and I prefer not to live (especially as a missionary)
>this way. I do not need all the answers, but if we can
>not even find ONE POSSIBLE way to reconcile early Genesis
>with the findings of science then life is hard.
>
Life is sometimes very hard. But you have in your hand the
only solution to the flood problem as far as geological
observation is concerned. If I could have thought of ANY
other view I would not have gone the way I did. But there
is NO way I can think of to account for the geology in the
way most Christians try to do it. There is also no way to
account for the anthropological data.
>Note to Glenn, (for all to read!)
>
>I love you in the Lord and sympathise with what you are
> saying. But you are hammering every other position but
your own and not very many people yet believe your
postion. Some lurkers may be feeling cornered
>and ready to give up in despair and slide into atheism.
> You yourself were not far from that recently. I have had
>my doubts too. For everyone's benefit, I am creating
>another post on why I did not give up
>in despair.
Fred, I understand your concerns. Believe me I do. But I
am offering something Christians have become very afraid of
over the past 400 years. And that is concordism. We are
afraid of testing our Bible against reality. We have been
burned time and time again. If it is true that God is God,
and it is also true that God did not give us a spirit of
timidity, then we should be able to find the answers. To
retreat into nonverifiability reduces Christianity into a
fairy tale that we believe because it makes us feel good.
To retreat into anti-observation as the YECs do reduces us
to anti-realists.
Maybe this will help understanding where my position fits
in.
<pre>
Evolution No evolution
Non Historical a b non-historical
Bible ------------------------- Bible
I I
I I
I I
I I
I I
I I
c I I d
Evolution ------------------------ No evolution
Historical Bible Historical
Bible
</pre>
This is a chart of the possible positions on the bible
being historical and evolution. ICR occupies position D, I
only know of one person who occupies B. Most scientists
who are christians occupy A. I occupy C. To my knowledge
no one has previously occupied C in the sense that I
beleive the events are real, not allegorical, not mythical.
We have to think of something, some scenario. Many of
the most vociferous atheists on Talk Origins were former
Christians of both YEC and more liberal stripes who became
convinced that the Bible was FALSE. Historically and
scientifically false! Unless those in Christian apologetics
provide a scenario which allows the Bible to be true in a
conventional sense of that word, we are failing to provide
the proper level of support to our children in this very
scientific age. If I do like Hugh Ross and tell my kids
that Adam was created less than 60,000 years ago and then
they take an anthro course in college and find the things I
have been talking about, what are they to think? Will they
trust me more? Will they be more firm in their faith? I
doubt it.
(By the way, that flute I mentioned this morning is dated
at 45,000 years ago it is 12 cm long, contains 4 holes and
made of the shin bone of a bear. It was found at a site
called Nova Gorica. The tools with which it was found are
associated with Neanderthal. Christians can not escape
from such data. But we can and do bury our heads in the
sand.)
If I tell the children that geology supports a global
flood, and they go into the geosciences like I did and find
out that not one single geological fact I was taught by the
YECs which differs from conventional geology, is true,
what will they think. Not one geological fact the YECs use
to support their position is correct. Am I to sit quietly
by while Christianity is taught that?
But the non-literal view does not seem to be very
satisfactory to me either. It agrees with the atheist that
the Bible is not scientifically or historically true (in
the sence that most history is judged by). If I see a guy
with a knife coming down a dark alley towards me, am I
expected to pull out my own knife and stab myself so that
he won't stabe me? By taking the position that the events
of the Bible are not true we are agreeing in a most
fundamental way with our most vicious enemies. And the
atheists then think we are crazy to keep saying such nice
things about a book which is patently false!
I must ask this. Will my silence (lack of hammering) make
the problems go away? No. It will only allow us to
continue to ignore these problems. I will agree that people
will be more comfortable if I were silent, but God did not
put us on earth to be comfortable.
If Christian apologists can not answer the questions I am
asking then maybe somebody much smarter than I should get
to work answering them in a more conventional and
acceptable fashion. I am sorry that my scenario is not
appealing, but that is not a criterion for truth. If
someone could come up with a flood scenario that worked and
it was within the past few thousand years, I would kiss
their feet. I have looked and failed to find it in over 25
years of searching.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm