Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The Riddle of Theistic Evolution, Part 4


And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day,” Genesis 1:17-19.

Here we have the clearest, most plain description of day-to-night transition chapter one offers. Follow the verses: God set the sun and moon in the heavens to give light upon the earth, and to govern both the day and the night; the end result was that the sun and moon separated light from darkness. Here we have a simple description by the writer of Genesis of a 24 hour day with the sun and moon rising and setting as they do every day of our lives today.

The language is unambiguous. God finished the thought by saying that the fourth day, now clearly marked by revolving planets and the shining of the sun, had ended. To suggest at this point evolutionary ages were implied is simply deceitful and dishonest. To present a warning in love, it is also dangerous. God warns that Scripture twisting results in destruction for those who indulge in the habit, 2nd Peter 3:16.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day,” Genesis 1:20-23.

Two days before life began teeming in the seas God had created plant life on the dry land. This again is contradictory to evolutionary theory which states that life in its primitive form began in the ocean and eventually, after natural selection and/or mutation had millions of years to advance races, something crawled out, breathed air, and became the first land dwelling creature. It also answers the enigma of sex’s origin: God created it for the purpose of filling the earth. Evolutionary theory cannot answer the riddle of sex: how did pairs (male and female) evolve millions of different times at the same time and near one another to continue their species? Genesis gives a different answer: the species were created in a finished condition and sexual union was a means to ensure their race did not die out.

We shall find the already mentioned phrase “after its kind” repeated about ten times throughout this one chapter. This implies that a whale cannot become something other than a whale. There is variation within species but genetic limits to variation never permit cross-species change. It has never been witnessed in nature, or forced by science. The subscriber to Theistic Evolution asserts that God chose to create animals by Darwinian Evolution; in fact it would be a clearer concession to admit that Darwin discovered the truth of God’s creative efforts apart from Biblical revelation. The advocate of Theistic Evolution teaches that Evolution is implied by allegorical interpretations of Scripture; Genesis was never meant to be taken literally. This is their opinion because they have chosen to place their faith in the theory of Evolution rather than an infallible God. But they confess a modicum of faith in God’s word by believing the portions of the Bible that aren’t in error. Forgive my observation, but if any part the Bible addresses is in error then it is not God’s word.

Both sea dwelling animals such as “sea creatures” (NKJV) and winged fowl (birds) were created simultaneously on this, the fifth day. The KJV renders the Hebrew word “tannin” as “whale,” where the word can mean “serpent, snake or monster of the deep.” These “tannin” in Scripture are most often rendered “dragons” in the KJV, and may be references to what we presently call dinosaurs. The word tannin is often followed by phrases such as “of the wilderness” or preceded by “den of,” Isaiah 34:13; 35:7; Jeremiah 9:11; 10:22; Micah 1:8; Malachi 1:3, etc. In Scripture they are depicted as desolate, dangerous animals that are loud and fearsome. Specific names for such awesome animals are given in Scripture such as Leviathan, Job 41:1; Psalm 104:26, and Behemoth, Job 40:15. There are fossilized footprints throughout the USA and other countries of human and dinosaur tracks side by side, as well as a fossilized print of a human print, seemingly clad in sandals, that had crushed a trilobite beneath its heel. Much more evidence implying that humans and dinosaurs were once contemporaries exists; not the least of which are the many dragon legends that hearken back to the beginning of written history. Please consider that the only reason man believes dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago is because Evolution is all that is taught in public schools, and evidence that contradicts it is suppressed and libeled as “unscientific” or “religiously motivated.”

I say this as an appeal to Christians. “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments (basic principles) of the world, and not after Christ,” Colossians 2:8. We continue to unearth incongruity after incongruity, leaving us with no choice but to make a choice: is Evolution true, or is God’s word truth? Compromise isn’t possible; if Evolution is in fact true the Genesis account of creation is so far from the mark as to be purely laughable. Or perhaps it is the other way around.

3 comments:

  1. Great post, Ian.

    Far too many fall for the substitution of human philosophy and tradition rather than What Christ says.

    As you point out, if only part of scripture is true, then the false parts make the entire thing a lie, even though it contains some truths.

    Any successful lie has to have some truth to convince anyone.

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  2. Hi Ian,
    I have just been reading your post here. I believe there is also a spiritual,(larger picture) meaning to the six days of creation. I believe that the sun and the moon brought in on the fourth day represent Jesus the bridegroom (likened to the sun), and the church the faithful witness (likened to the moon) which has no light of it's own and can only reflect the light of the sun. I have written a full article on this called 'Let us make man in our image' on my blog www.lighthousevision.blogspot.com if you are interested in reading it.
    Brenda

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  3. Hello Brenda, and thank you for the comment.

    I have heard the parallel before and enjoy the contrast between Jesus, our Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2)and the believer who is a reflection of His glory.

    Whatever our Lord's reason for the six day creation week it is comforting to know that indeed God did have a reason; we are not left subject to the blind, random processes of Evolution. God bless.

    "Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves," Psalm 100:3.

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