evidence for earth's age

Bodies, being a part of creation, are contingent. But all of God’s properties are necessary. Therefore the Son’s incarnation cannot be what explains his distinction from the other divine Persons, and if it did, that would also imply that the Father and the Holy Spirit are the same Person. The Son does indeed possess a distinct, created consciousness - as a result of the incarnation - in addition to his divine one, but his having such a created consciousness adds nothing to the personhood he already possessed from eternity. Perhaps the best way to conceptualize the incarnation from a philosophical standpoint is that it is a unique, one-way relation of dependence of the human nature upon the divine Logos, who in turn undergoes no change as a consequence of that relation and is not dependent upon the assumed human nature in any way.

The traditional, post-Chalcedonian way to interpret “not my will, but Thy will be done” is to understand the former as referring to the human nature/will unique to the Son, and to the latter as referring to the divine nature/will common to the Father and the Son (and the Spirit).

 

You're right, however it did not need to be in the mind of the one holding the quill; it only had to be in the mind of God. What the writer wrote was God-breathed, inspired by Him. God also grants inspiration to those who diligently labor to translate into another language such as English. I believe the words "us" and "our" are not there by accident, but were divinely inspired by God for good reason, and that reason is to teach us a bit about Himself. I suppose some people don't feel that way about scripture, and I can't control how others feel or think, but I know what I believe.

 

I reject the implication. I am reading scripture to learn what He reveals about Himself in the words He divinely inspired, not revamping God to suit myself. (Whereas, some people prefer to revamp the words themselves to suit their conceptions. Not referring to you specifically.)

 

“God-breathed” is just a poetic way of saying “living” (cf. Gen. 2). It doesn’t mean that ‘inspired’ writers were receiving their ideas via telepathy or hypnotic suggestion and then writing them down. Some of these writers in fact - the author of Luke/Acts, for example, along with Paul in 1 Cor. 7:12 - either implicitly or explicitly deny that this was what they were doing. One could, strange as it might sound, affirm that the writings of Plato, Shakespeare, or Milton are “inspired” as well, without in any way denying the teaching of Art. 6 (viz., regarding the sufficiency of Scripture for the purpose of salvation). Truth is truth, no matter its source. In any case, interpretations with any just claim of plausibility must at the very least be contextually credible.

 

2Tim 3:12-17 (ESV) Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2Ti 3:16 KJV-- All scripture is given by inspiration of God...

It does indeed imply that the written word of God is "living" in a sense, but it means more than "just" a poetic analogy or whatever, as 2 Timothy 3 highlights. The "sacred writings" are on an entirely different, far higher level than any other writings the world has ever known; they are God's message to mankind, a message that is not merely entertaining or helpful but is spiritually profitable.

Although I recognize that Hebrews 4:12 primarily refers to Jesus, perhaps in some secondary sense it is also true of the written word: For the word of God is quick (alive), and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The written word seems supernaturally able to convict sinners and to guide & equip sinful saints. Well, many of them, anyway.

Shakespeare may have been "inspired" to write his plays, but it was human inspiration, not the sort of divine inspiration by which God gave us the holy scriptures. To equate in any way the works of Shakespeare or Plato with the Bible would be a monumental error.

 

“All” doesn’t mean “only.” An animal can be a dog without being a greyhound, and surely a great work of literature can be “profitable” for “correction in righteousness,” for example, without necessarily being part of the biblical canon. Anyone who disputes this really should read Augustine. Undeniably, the dialogues of Plato and the plays of Shakespeare continue to speak in a profound way beyond the confines of the times and circumstances in which they were written, and breathe life of their own into thought and reflection upon the human condition in our own day. A world in which those works weren’t read and appreciated would be a profoundly impoverished one indeed. One may affirm all this and more without denying the teaching of Art. 6.

 

I don't want to get into another micturation competition, and we've both expressed our opinions on this, so I vote we just 'agree to disagree'.

 

While not disagreeing that scripture is 'inspired' in a particular and peculiar way, as indicated by presumably Apostolic authority, I feel you may be doing God and injustice in assuming that God took no part whatever in the authorship any of Shakespeares works. The Holy spirit is/was by no means limited to only those writings that have appeared in the canon of scripture. The Holy Spirit still inspires human authors to this very day. It is just that what truth scripture reveals through the Holy Spirit is sufficient unto salvation. It is not all the truth there is that God wants us to know. The Spirit didn't pack up authorship and retire after John's Revelation of Jesus Christ was done and dusted. The Spirit is still very active in the world and continues to be until the end of the age. The Spirit, I think, is still a very active author.
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BTW, the pseudoscientific claims referenced in the OP are thoroughly addressed here:
https://sites.nd.edu/james-applewhite/
The age of the earth isn’t seriously questioned in the scientific community, as the lines of overlapping evidence for its antiquity are simply too strong. One might as well debate heliocentrism or the spherical shape of the earth. It’s a waste of time, akin to reinventing the wheel. There’s no compelling reason for the subject to continue to arise.

 

That article is a perfect example of how evolutionists try to have it both ways simultaneously. Darwin's idea of millions of gradual, incremental metamorphoses over millions of years should have resulted in our being able to uncover (after a century of excavation) thousands of clear examples of intermediate life forms. Because it has not, evolutionists have almost universally adopted a hypothetical model in which sudden, drastic mutations (such as, perhaps, a well-formed eyeball appearing in offspring whose parents had none), and they claim this as their explanation for the dearth of intermediate forms. Yet when anyone calls them out for the extreme absurdity of their new model, they will forgetfully argue once again for the incremental model.

The article's author writes, "I will admit, we do not have a single, solid answer as to how life began." Then he says, "Until we discover an answer, AIG will have their Biblical scriptures as their only proof while scientists will have their theories about the origin of life..." What a dimwit! The author concedes that Christians have proof, while self-deluded, God-despising, humanistic scientists have nothing more than mere theories (more like weak hypotheses, really).

The only valid reason for anyone to forsake and deny the proofs of Bible scripture in favor of man-made "theories" is to justify one's own existence apart from God. For if the scientist can convince himself to accept unproven and unprovable hypotheticals about spontaneous generation of life and its subsequent development by a combination of sheer happenstance and 'survival of the fittest', he then has no need to believe that he is answerable to a divine Creator who will one day judge him. The godless scientist prefers to worship the 'superior intellect of man' as his god, and to comfort himself about impending death with whatever myth suits him the most.

The Bible tells us that God created all things, that He created the first man and the first woman, that they sinned and caused humanity as well as the entire earth to come under a curse, and that a countable, specified number of generations were born & died between the lives of Adam and Jesus incarnate. Any self-professed Christian who does not believe these things cannot count himself a Bible-believer in the truest sense; he denies and disbelieves a fundamental Truth which the Bible states. He denies and disbelieves what is implicit in the Creed which he recites: "I believe in one God... the Creator of...all that is, visible and invisible." He chooses instead to believe that the Creator made the earth with its primordial soup and then sat back while single-celled life spontaneously occurred from the right chemicals and the right energy source at the right time, which over eons fumbled and bumbled its way (basically by happenstance and by accident) into higher and higher life forms, until finally a couple of homonids managed to become self-aware and to father the race of homo sapiens. That is the theory of evolution and of how life began on earth. It is a religion which strives to rival our own, and every Christian needs to recognize it as such: a religion supplied by the deceiver, Satan, in which man worships his own power to reason.

I will believe the written word of God long before I succumb to believe the hypotheses and unproven theories of self-absorbed "scientists" whose greatest love is their own intellects.

It may be conceded that we do not know the exact length of each "day" of God's creation. But make no mistake, the religion of evolution goes much, much further, because it denies God as the Creator of the earth, the universe, the specific plants, the specific animals, and--most significantly--man.

 

Please note from the context of my comments that I'm addressing macro evolution, not the phenomenon commonly termed micro evolution. The two are quite distinct, and the evidence of the latter does not prove the existence of the former.

 

I think understanding what macro and micro evolution actually are would be more helpful here rather than the tendency to assume that all scientists only believe either because they are hardbitten atheists and only biblical fundamentalists are real followers of Jesus Christ.

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolution-at-different-scales-micro-to-macro/

Also the idea that only The Bible is 'inspired' and every other area of research into God's creation is a revealing of 'satanically inspired' fiction, constitutes a naive and unhelpful assumption which obfuscates or obliterates the plain truth we are trying to seek by our enquiry, BOTH into the sciences and the scriptures. Both of which constitute the actual creative work of God.
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As I've pointed out here before, there is no distinction between macro- and microevolution as processes. The 'macro-' and 'micro-' refer to the difference in the magnitude of outcomes as a function of the amount of time allotted. Small amounts of time only allow for small changes; large amounts of time allow for much greater changes. The processes themselves are one and the same, viz., genetic drift, random mutation, natural selection, etc. Smaller changes can be observed in a species within a single lifetime; larger changes are recorded in the fossil record. The bare assertion that there is some difference other than magnitude of outcome as a function of time is a creationist talking point that simply has no basis in actual science. Repeating it here does no service to the intellectual credibility of Christianity.

Christians cannot expect non-Christians to respond favorably to arguments that reason toward the conclusion that certain events like the resurrection of Jesus are facts with which they must reckon, if they are not willing themselves to accept the commonly known and much better established facts of modern science. The earth really is billions of years old, and all life on earth really is descended from a common ancestor, regardless of who believes it. Any credible defense of Christianity (or any other religion) must begin with that acceptance; otherwise, it is no different from arguing in favor of any of the ancient myths.

 

What there is "no basis in actual science" for is the assumption that macroevolution is the explanation for life as we know it.

Barn swallows may have "evolved" from tree swallows. Albino fish may have "evolved" from non-albino fish due to being trapped in a cave. Brown moths may have "evolved" from more colorful moths because birds ate their colorful cousins. But they are still birds, fish, and moths. They haven't developed opposable thumbs, given birth to rabbits, or become self-aware. These micro-changes, due to the fact that systems tend to go from higher organizational order to lower states or from great diversity of genetic material to more limited or corrupted (mutated) forms, should more properly be termed, "devolution."

Yet evolutionists see these micro-changes, they look around at the vast diversity of life forms in existence, and they ass-u-me that the micro-changes over a long period of time caused macro-evolution from the lowest state (a single-celled organism) all the way up to the highest state of order (humans... although some evolutionists might argue for dolphins ). Why do they make this assumption? They make it because, in their "learned opinion," no other rational explanation exists to explain the state of living beings we observe today. You see, Genesis' account of God and His creation of all living beings is not a rational explanation and therefore (in their learned scientific opinions) must be rejected. ("Assumption is the mother of screwups.")

They have so convinced the populace (through the secular public education system, including the secularly-slanted writing and publishing of textbooks) that macroevolution is regarded by all good scientists as settled, factual science, even Christians now attempt to rationalize away the plain words of the Bible and to reconcile the Biblical world-view with the humanistic view of macro-evolution. This despite the real, actual fact that macro-evolution is merely an assumption and a hypothesis rather than the settled fact the evolutionists portray it to be.

Humans have been "sold a bill of goods," and most have swallowed the devil's bait, hook, line, and sinker.

But go ahead and defend these deceptions if you must. Just don't pretend to do it in the name of Christ!

 

The Genesis account is not a scientific statement from God concerning how the world came into existence and the methods employed by God to create life on earth from bacteria to the human race. When it was written the scientific method of discovering truth was unknown to mankind. Knowledge and learning could only be obtained through revelation, guesswork or impirical reasoning, (the last two at least often faulty and driven by superstition). God's dealings with the Israelite nation were the actual beginnings of enlightenment. The teachings, works and life of Christ were the crux of it, and the human race began to noticeably, seriously notice the effects of divine enlightenment, only from the late 17th century onwards. To label this enlightenment 'the works of Satan', is to my mind, perverse in the extreem, since, being the master of lies he would far have preferred humanity to have remained ignorantly and superstitiously, in the dark ages.

So you correctly say it is not a 'scientifically' rational explanation. It is a story explaining the fact that all this was the work of The God that the Hebrews and now the Christians also, worship. To make that point it has no need to accurately describe the exact method God has employed to bring about life on earth which eventually became capable of having a relationship with their creator. Which we believers may presume, according to other inspired writings in the sacred scriptures, was intended by God right from the beginning of all things.

As a scientifically rational statement it is quite rightly rejected by science, but as an ancient, sacramental, allegorical, metaphorical, mythic explanation for the existence of mankind, we believe, inspired by the creator, (no atheist can rationally deny the possibility it is inspired), it stands unparalleled in human history, as the earliest example of a surprisingly accurate, though mythic, account of the creation sequence on our planet, by a mysteriously incomprehensible, monotheist spiritual entity, we choose, for the sake of convenience, (because it/he/she is naturally indescribable), to call our 'God'.

 

Well said. I have absolutely no idea what @Rexlion is talking about at this point or what possible evidence he could be relying on, so I'll leave you to it good sir.

 

Nor is the account of God's destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah a scientifically rational statement, nor are the account of the twelve plagues upon Egypt, the account of the death angel killing every firstborn son except for those who placed blood on their doorposts, the account of the Israelites' passage through the Red Sea on dry land, the account of Jesus' resurrection, etc, etc, scientifically rational. Yet we hold them to be true and accurate accounts because the written word of God says so.

Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

How do you know the creation account is a myth? Were you there? Are you so wise that you are able to say with great certainty that the Book of Genesis relates, not God's truthful word but instead, a myth?

My faith is different from your faith. You believe in a God who inspires myths and you claim your Bible contains myths. I believe in a God who inspired writers to write truths, not myths.

If the creation account can be mythical, then the resurrection account could be mythical. You've started down a rabbit hole that leads to doubt and unbelief.

 

You are perhaps deliberately misunderstanding the word mythic when applied to the first 5 chapters of Genesis. It does not mean fake, fictional, fabulous, untrue or imaginary. It describes an ancient form of literature which describes reality in poetic and imaginative narrative containing symbolical meaning rather than literal historical and scientific facts. Mythic narratives contain hidden truths, rather than literal truths. They need not be scientifically accurate or even practically plausible. The truth they contain is couched in entertaining sequential story form so as to be easily committed to memory and transmitted from generation to generation. They are not literal historical accounts. Not all biblical narrative in Genesis is truly mythical. Some narratives are folk memory of actual historical events which may have become mythicised in transmission over time, before being written down.

When you are reading the Bible, particularly, the first five books in it, but many of the others as well, you are probably not reading the equivalent of the periodic table, a historical account of the second world war, or a recipe for a wedding cake, complete with weights of ingredients and accurate baking temperatures. You are reading mostly STORIES. Jesus told mostly STORIES. Everything that Jesus said was IMPORTANT and TRUTH, even though it was nearly ALL = STORIES.

Stories are not themselves FACTS, they nevertheless convey truths, sometimes more effectively than can mere FACTS. That is why Jesus used them predominantly.

This is astonishingly faulty logic. The two narratives have no other connection with one another except being contained in the same library. Libraries have their books in sections because they contain entirely different subject matter.
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Well, excuse me for thinking that your use of the word "mythic" would be in accordance with the dictionary definition (the established norm for word usage).

mythic
adjective

1. Of or relating to myths; described in a myth; of the nature of a myth; fabulous; imaginary; fanciful; mythological.
2. Larger-than-life.
3. Mythical; existing in myth.

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At least now I know how you use the word. You might have to remind me from time to time, if you use the word "mythic" again, so I don't lose sight of your special definition.