Author Topic: The Age of the Earth  (Read 2315 times)

PeteWaldo

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The Age of the Earth
« on: March 14, 2015, 10:43:19 AM »
From brother Ellis about a year ago as posted in another thread:
http://www.islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=3625.msg16062#msg16062

"I just posted this on this one of the Christian forums. It’s important, because the Bible description of Creation in six days causes many to distrust the Scripture. Are the astrophysicists and geologists right or is the Bible a trustworthy historic record?
 
I worked with multiples, MPD/DID sufferers, for several years (see my book on the subject, "The Shining Man With Hurt Hands"). I could be in conversation with one alter who would decide to go "inside," i.e. into the spiritual world, and I might not talk to that same alter again for several days. When I saw her again, I would ask if we had been talking continually or if time had elapsed between our two conversations. Well guess what, time had not elapsed while she was inside, so in the spiritual world there is no time! Actually, time is a creation of God . . .
 
Isaiah 45:12  “I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.”
 
The universe was not created in place, but "stretched out," and that took time. So God created time in this Universe by His act of stretching out the heavens. But God exists in eternity, outside of time, in timelessness, and understanding that fact changed my whole view of the six days of creation!
 
Sometimes we have to stand back and look at scriptural events from God's perspective. There were no human observers at creation, only God was there. Therefore, God must have dictated the account of the six days of creation to Adam, Genesis 5:1. So was God telling man about creation’s six "days" from His position when there is no time, or from finite man's who is bound by time? Can't tell from text, but we should at  least look at the possibility that the Lord was describing those days from His position in timelessness, in which 1,000,000,000 years are but an eye-blink, 2Peter 3:8.
 
So could creation have taken place in six 24 hour days? Of course, but as God saw those “days,” could creation have taken place over geologic ages? Of course.
 
What I'm getting at is this: Once we understand that God dictated the account from His eternal timelessness, the supposed paradox between science and the Scripture disappears into thin air. It is no longer important whether the six days of creation are six 24-hour days or six geologic ages! In my opinion, neither position does damage to Scripture so we can all happily worship the Lord with brethren who hold either position."

Bistabuster

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Re: The Age of the Earth
« Reply #1 on: March 14, 2015, 06:46:56 PM »
Not arguing the concept here but would like to throw in a couple of points here.

Time, as we know it, was identified multiple times in the Bible for creation except at only one point it wasn't. 
Gen 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23 and 31 indicating a 24 hour clock.  It even states that the seasons and year was built into the creation giving more reason to say that it was time as we see it today!

Also, Exodus 20:9-10 gives us CLEAR indication that 6 days ARE 6 literal 24 hour days!  No hypothetical statement here.  God says what He means and means what He says. 

Here it is....

Exodus 20:9-11 
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

This is an absolute statement that requires no interpretation.  It is clear.

Just my 2 cents. 

PeteWaldo

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Re: The Age of the Earth
« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2015, 03:47:52 PM »
Not arguing the concept here .......

Not exactly sure your post reflects that. Maybe if you have visited the link in the last post on that thread which included:

Augustine:  "...In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture."

...... but would like to throw in a couple of points here.

Time, as we know it, was identified multiple times in the Bible for creation except at only one point it wasn't. 
Gen 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23 and 31 indicating a 24 hour clock.  It even states that the seasons and year was built into the creation giving more reason to say that it was time as we see it today!

Also, Exodus 20:9-10 gives us CLEAR indication that 6 days ARE 6 literal 24 hour days!  No hypothetical statement here.  God says what He means and means what He says. 

Here it is....

Exodus 20:9-11 
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

This is an absolute statement that requires no interpretation.  It is clear.

Just my 2 cents.

This was Ellis' point:

In my opinion, neither position does damage to Scripture so we can all happily worship the Lord with brethren who hold either position."

So whether six literal days, or six thousand-year "days", or if God had chosen to He could have made the earth appear to humanity as though it had been here for six geologic ages.

And that just as Ellis suggested it is nothing for Christians to break fellowship over, the reason I included a wide range of views within the Christian sphere, as in the (link in last post of other thread), is so that if someone indoctrinated into the religions of atheism and Darwinism happens along, it doesn't have to start him out with an immediate "deal breaker", since there are lots of views that can help get him over that hump.

It's my way or the highway is a Jehovah's Witness kind of example. The multitude of views is from many folks that have spent a lot of time in study, as a result of being called to this area of scripture.

"A Spectrum of Creation Views held by Evangelicals"
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Evolution/index.html