>God commanded the earth to do something
> By commanding
>the earth to bring forth vegetation, I would presume that the earth obeyed
>and brought forth vegetation. But earth was the immediate cause of
>vegetation.
>No. It affirms that God used a secondary agent to actually create the
>vegetation.
> the earth was the immediate, active
>agent which actually brought forth the animals. When I tell one of the
>guys working for me to make me an oil prospect, I am not active-he is the
>active, creative agent.
Then you have just asserted that the
proper interpretation of verse 20 KJV,
is that God commanded the waters to
bring forth winged fowl? Do you also now
contend that water created birds?
>But this
>argument is equivalent to merely saying that I should agree with your
>interp.
I took great pains to avoid
intrepretation. Do you mean translation?
>All of these verses say that God commanded the Earth to do something.
But does it really? A plain reading of the
verses you quote show that God commanded
something to occur ("Let the earth
(literally) "sprout" vegetation..."). This
is a far cry from ("The earth shall create
vegetation...") which the Holy Spirit could
have very easily inspired the original
author to write. But He did not.
There is a saying, "If the plain sense
makes no sense, then every other sense is
nonsense". For the sake of argument only,
If one was to concede that the whole
interpretation of these verses is
debatable, then your model is as weak as
the weakest of any other conceivable
explanation which you attempt to deny.
>I will obviously grant you this case. I have to. But you must grant me
>the last 3 cases if we are to be honest with each other.
Obviously you know that I cannot because I
would then be conceding to a contradiction
in scripture.
First you said:
>Animals do not produce animals according to their kind.
Then you said:
>then this is
>absolute proof that it is quite possible for animals to mix with diverse
>kinds.
The verse I quoted translates "gender" for
copulate. Are you saying that this is
absolute proof that animals can copulate
and reproduce with diverse kinds of
animals, or only their own species?
> When I tell one of the
>guys working for me to make me an oil prospect, I am not active-he is the
>active, creative agent.
And an intelligent creator too, I venture!
:-)
> If God created
>the world, why do Christians, who worship God, greet each new scientific
>discovery as if it would disprove God and the Bible and thus, must be
>explained away?
Too many absolute statements here to
respond to but I'll try...
Most merely disagree on the interpretation
of some of the "discoveries" and dogma, and
not necessarily the data. Many don't want
to see man's interpretation hold more
authority than scripture, especially when
scripture is properly translated and read.
Hope your hand gets better!
-------------------------------------------
----------------------------
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens
another." Proverbs 27:17"
-------------------------------------------
----------------------------
Paul Durham pdd@gcc.cc.md.us
Oakland, Maryland