From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. (dfsiemensjr@juno.com)
Date: Mon Sep 01 2003 - 14:11:10 EDT
There is a "small" problem because John and others of his ilk do not
think their position through. If the Bible is totally true without any
admixture of the writers' worldview, then the Creator made the universe
so that honest men would see it differently. 6000 cannot be 13x10^9. This
means that God deliberately mislead or, to phrase it more bluntly,
produced a lie to deceive the majority of human beings. If he lied in
this area, one what basis can I hold that he did not lie in scripture?
What basis have I to believe that Jesus is the Son of God? The
fundamental problem is that a liar cannot be trusted even when he speaks
the truth.
If, on the other hand, God used the understanding of those to whom and
through whom he spoke to present an image of his production and
protection of all things, refining the message as greater understanding
was gained, then we have a true message that is consonant with the
message of science. The choice, for scientist and laity alike, is a lying
God and young earth or a truth-telling God and an old earth.
By the way, if the Bible is the whole truth, 6000 cannot be stretched to
10-20,000.
Dave
On Mon, 01 Sep 2003 12:14:53 -0400 Walter Hicks
<wallyshoes@mindspring.com> writes:
>
> I heard John MacArthur present this viewpoint on the radio.
>
> Science is fine for telling us the present. However, it cannot
> validly
> extrapolate to the past and ignore God's Word. God created the
> Universe for man.
> It says so in the Bible. If He he did so, why waste 15 billion years
> when it is
> just as easy for Him to bring it into existence in 6 days as the
> Bible
> proclaims? That does not dispute what science sees in an "apparent"
> history.
>
> There is obviously no way to discriminate between these two
> outlooks. It is only
> a philosophy which says that it must be the way that it appears to
> be because
> God would not deceive in the physical universe. By the same token,
> one can claim
> that God does not deceive in the Bible.
>
> So I contend that a Christian non-scientist can well accept a
> literal Bible over
> the thoughts of a scientist. (I do not mean following the ICR!) If
> such opinions
> were reserved to a church Bible study it would be fine. It is just
> the Kooks who
> have to run around and make believe they have a scientific
> explanation of things
> that make life miserable.
>
> One of the more contentious issues is, Of course, evolution. It is
> the widely
> publicized outlook that this is a "random" process that makes for
> rebellion
> against scientific extrapolation to the past. If we spent more time
> attacking
> Dawkins and the ilk we might look more credible to the
> non-scientific Christian.
>
> Just an opinion.
>
> Walt
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