To Christians who aren't creationists
April 24, 2012 at 3:33 am
(This post was last modified: April 24, 2012 at 3:44 am by Tea Earl Grey Hot.)
I just have a few questions to those Christians who might be here who aren't creationists (i.e. don't believe young earth, don't deny evolution etc.) I'm having trouble seeing how the text can really allow evolution.
Questions on the creation account
Firstly how do you interpret Genesis 1 and 2? I'm aware of the long-ages, gap theory (whether to account for evolution or the angelic conflict) and framework hypothesis.
Assuming you believe in long-ages, how do you account for the order of creation being different than what science tells us?
How do you reconcile evolution which requires death for natural selection to work, with the idea of death entering the world after the fruit of the tree was eaten? If death is just spiritual death, did men never kill each other or do other sins until that point?
Who were really Adam and Eve? Were they truly the first human beings?
Questions on the events after the creation in Genesis
Was Noah's flood universal or local?
How did men live to 900 years old? Or did they?
Was the tower of Babel a real event? If so, does it account for all the languages of mankind?
Questions of the legitimacy of your interpretations of these events
Is your interpretation truly what the text intended? In other words, how do you defeat creationist's arguments that you take it to mean whatever you want it to mean to accommodate science?
And for those of you who might just say it's just inspired stories and we don't need to take it as actually happening at all to appreciate the meaning of the stories...
If you take all the spectacular events in the first few chapters of genesis to be just stories (i.e. like parables, not having actually occurred in any sense), how do you account for the way the NT treated it? The NT from my memory treats Genesis as literal, as for instance, when tracing Jesus' genealogy all the way back to Adam.
Thank you.
Edit: Also, thank you for not being creationists.
Questions on the creation account
Firstly how do you interpret Genesis 1 and 2? I'm aware of the long-ages, gap theory (whether to account for evolution or the angelic conflict) and framework hypothesis.
Assuming you believe in long-ages, how do you account for the order of creation being different than what science tells us?
How do you reconcile evolution which requires death for natural selection to work, with the idea of death entering the world after the fruit of the tree was eaten? If death is just spiritual death, did men never kill each other or do other sins until that point?
Who were really Adam and Eve? Were they truly the first human beings?
Questions on the events after the creation in Genesis
Was Noah's flood universal or local?
How did men live to 900 years old? Or did they?
Was the tower of Babel a real event? If so, does it account for all the languages of mankind?
Questions of the legitimacy of your interpretations of these events
Is your interpretation truly what the text intended? In other words, how do you defeat creationist's arguments that you take it to mean whatever you want it to mean to accommodate science?
And for those of you who might just say it's just inspired stories and we don't need to take it as actually happening at all to appreciate the meaning of the stories...
If you take all the spectacular events in the first few chapters of genesis to be just stories (i.e. like parables, not having actually occurred in any sense), how do you account for the way the NT treated it? The NT from my memory treats Genesis as literal, as for instance, when tracing Jesus' genealogy all the way back to Adam.
Thank you.
Edit: Also, thank you for not being creationists.
My ignore list
"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
