Creation, Man, Sin: In the beginning.....What?

[polonius]

Regarding sin, JW posted:

No, it was a provision for the Adamic or inherited sin of those that would have or will recognize the value of that sacrifice.

RESPONSE: This subtopic takes the present dialogue in another direction. So much so, that I believe it appropriate to create a separate thread on the legend regarding the Original sin, man's guilt, and any need for redemption.

The founding legend of Judaism written in its present form in 800-700 BC begins with the story of creation in seven days and the relationship between God and man and sin.

In the beginning:

Scientists estimate that the hominid lineage diverged from the ape lineage 5 to 8 million years ago. Homo sapiens, the species to which we belong, has existed for about 100,000 years.

www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/faq/cat06.html

So at the very onset, we have a vast disagreement between the Bibles seven days of creation account and what science tells us.

Lets, by way of overview, take a brief look at Bible truth regarding mans nature.

It all begins with an explanation as to why things die.

[onewithhim]

And the Catholic Encyclopedia (on-line) tells us that in addition to Supernatural graces before the Fall, humans had "Preternatural" gifts as well.

"It may be well here to say a few words on the preternatural (relatively supernatural) gifts bestowed on our first parents, which are sometimes confused with the supernatural gifts properly so called. In the beginning God exempted man from the inherent weakness of his nature, i.e. the infirmities of the flesh and the consequent infirmities of the spirit. He made man immortal, impassible, free from concupiscence and ignorance, sinless, and lord of the earth.

Unfortunately man lost those too by sinning. Baptism is suppose to restore the supernatural gifts but the preternatural gifts are lost forever.

Does anyone believe this story?

Claire Evens posted

Hardly. You wonder how someone could contradict themselves so badly in just a few sentences. How could humans be created "immortal," and yet we die? "Immortal" means that they CANNOT die. So how could man lose anything by ANY action?

RESPONSE: Perhaps you would want to read the bible. Nothing died until death entered the world because of man's sin.
Romans 5: 12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned"

Note: We should therefore be thankful to our first parents for sinning. The world must have been getting awfully crowded if nothing died until someone sinned and started death.


Claire Evans posted

Man was indeed created "free from ignorance, sinless, and lord of the earth," but he was not created with "an inherent weakness of his nature, i.e. infirmities of the flesh and spirit." He was created perfect, without any inherent weaknesses. Why would God create an inferior product? (Deuteronomy 32:4)

RESPONSE: The very fact that man is a created being means that he is imperfect. Otherwise, he'd be God.

Claire Evans posted:

Anyway, the excerpt from the Catholic Encyclopedia is very confusing and jumbled. I doubt that anyone can understand what they were trying to say (and probably they themselves don't understand it).

RESPONSE: It's clear to me. Perhaps some teacher or librarian can assist you in understanding it .

This was not Claire Evans. It was me, onewithhim.

I was disagreeing with the Catholic Encyclopedia. I was questioning its reasoning. They said man was created "immortal," and yet Adam and Eve died (and so do their progeny). So whoever wrote the encyclopedia is mixed up.

You say that we should be thankful to A&E for sinning because the earth would really be crowded if we didn't die. Well, it wasn't God plan for people to die, and he told Adam to fill the earth, so He must've had a plan for keeping the planet from overflowing. Who knows, maybe we will be able to populate other planets in the universe (that are exactly like Earth). We will have forever to travel in space.

I don't agree that man is imperfect because he was created. Who decides what is perfect? And would God actually create a defective anything?

(1) "Perfection" can be defined as "having attained the appropriate or appointed end, purpose or goal." It would be God who would say what purpose or appointed end he has given to any particular thing he creates. Adam would have been an example of God's purpose and end, or, goal being achieved in creating humans. Adam was made in every way to achieve God's purpose for putting humans on the earth.

(2) "The Rock! His work is perfect, for all his ways are just." (Deuteronomy
32:4a)


Do you believe what the encyclopedia said? Could you please explain it to me?

[polonius]

Claire Evans posted:

Quote:
Anyway, the excerpt from the Catholic Encyclopedia is very confusing and jumbled. I doubt that anyone can understand what they were trying to say (and probably they themselves don't understand it).

This was not Claire Evans. It was me, onewithhim.


RESPONSE: Oops! Sorry. What was your post's number?

I was disagreeing with the Catholic Encyclopedia. I was questioning its reasoning. They said man was created "immortal," and yet Adam and Eve died (and so do their progeny). So whoever wrote the encyclopedia is mixed up.

RESPONSE: Simple really. Man was created immortal. But because of sin death came into he world.

English Standard Version Romans 5:12

"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned"

[ttruscott]

I was disagreeing with the Catholic Encyclopedia. I was questioning its reasoning. They said man was created "immortal," and yet Adam and Eve died (and so do their progeny). So whoever wrote the encyclopedia is mixed up.

Immortal refers to their being eternal spirits, not their mortal bodies.

[onewithhim]

Claire Evans posted:

Quote:
Anyway, the excerpt from the Catholic Encyclopedia is very confusing and jumbled. I doubt that anyone can understand what they were trying to say (and probably they themselves don't understand it).

This was not Claire Evans. It was me, onewithhim.


RESPONSE: Oops! Sorry. What was your post's number?

I was disagreeing with the Catholic Encyclopedia. I was questioning its reasoning. They said man was created "immortal," and yet Adam and Eve died (and so do their progeny). So whoever wrote the encyclopedia is mixed up.

RESPONSE: Simple really. Man was created immortal. But because of sin death came into he world.

English Standard Version Romans 5:12

"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned"

Yes, I absolutely agree with that Scripture. But it does not indicate that man was created immortal. Immortality means that you can't die. Jesus Christ was the very first person who was granted immortality.

The King of kings and Lord of lords "who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To him be honor and might everlasting. Amen." (I Timothy 6:16)



(My post was post #17.)

[McCulloch]

I'm not sure why you brought up man's supposed evolution from an ape to a man.

There is no historical NOR Biblical support for that idea. The "missing link" has not been found yet, to be confirmed according to the Scientific Method.

You really should attempt to understand an idea before dismissing it. Evolutionary biologists do not claim that humans evolved from apes. The claim is that there are five types of the great apes: gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos and humans. All of the great apes share a common ancestor just as the equines: horses, ponies, zebra etc do.
The quest for the "missing link" is a wild goose chase long ago abandoned by biologists. If a hominid intermediate were to be found between humans and the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, that would only create the need to find two more missing links: one between the hominid and the chimp ancestor and another between the hominid and the human.
You are correct however to claim that there is no biblical support for evolution. But then again, the writers of Genesis thought that the sun and the moon were in the expanse between the waters above and the waters below.

Anyway, the Bible does not say that the earth and everything on it was created in six 24-hour days. The people who favor that ridiculous idea are bending over backwards to try and mash their ideas into the parameters of the Bible's story. If the subject was to be scrutinized, it is easy to see the the 6 creative days were of undetermined length.

Not so. The phrasing "evening and morning the nth day" clearly shows two things. Firstly, the writers meant the days to be discrete. Flowering plants before any sea creatures. Birds and whales before any land animals. Secondly, days were days.

God did not create the Grand Canyon, as we see it today, instantaneously. That idea is absurd. The Bible does not tell us that the earth is only thousands of years old. It says nothing about how old it is,

You are wrong. The writers of Genesis clearly outline the exact number of years between each generation. There is no way to accept that humanity is more than ten thousand years old AND that the Old Testament chronologies are true.

so we are wise if we accept Science's assessment of the earth's age---5 billion years.

Agreed.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius.advice]

Lets, by way of overview, take a brief look at Bible truth regarding mans nature.

One thing that doesn't seem to "JIVE" with modern science is the idea that humans can come about by way of dust and ribs.

Mmmm ribs maybe, depending on the sauce.
This human will "come about" for some of those.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 2 by marco]




[center]
Bible authors must believe a day lasts a thousand years
Part One[/center]

So at the very onset, we have a vast disagreement between the Bibles seven days of creation account and what science tells us.

Well as you know, Polonius a day sometimes means a thousand years.

Not in my science text book it doesn't.

I wonder why people think Bible authors were so STUPID as to think a "day" lasts a thousand years?

I wonder why people think that most translators of the Bible use the term "day" INSTEAD of "thousand years", did they also not know the difference?

A 4 year old knows pretty darn well when it gets dark and it's no longer "daytime", but "nighttime".

This whole "thousand day day" argument represents an extremely silly play on words.
Many poets like to play with words.

[onewithhim]

I'm not sure why you brought up man's supposed evolution from an ape to a man.

There is no historical NOR Biblical support for that idea. The "missing link" has not been found yet, to be confirmed according to the Scientific Method.

You really should attempt to understand an idea before dismissing it. Evolutionary biologists do not claim that humans evolved from apes. The claim is that there are five types of the great apes: gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos and humans. All of the great apes share a common ancestor just as the equines: horses, ponies, zebra etc do.
The quest for the "missing link" is a wild goose chase long ago abandoned by biologists. If a hominid intermediate were to be found between humans and the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, that would only create the need to find two more missing links: one between the hominid and the chimp ancestor and another between the hominid and the human.
You are correct however to claim that there is no biblical support for evolution. But then again, the writers of Genesis thought that the sun and the moon were in the expanse between the waters above and the waters below.

Anyway, the Bible does not say that the earth and everything on it was created in six 24-hour days. The people who favor that ridiculous idea are bending over backwards to try and mash their ideas into the parameters of the Bible's story. If the subject was to be scrutinized, it is easy to see the the 6 creative days were of undetermined length.

Not so. The phrasing "evening and morning the nth day" clearly shows two things. Firstly, the writers meant the days to be discrete. Flowering plants before any sea creatures. Birds and whales before any land animals. Secondly, days were days.

God did not create the Grand Canyon, as we see it today, instantaneously. That idea is absurd. The Bible does not tell us that the earth is only thousands of years old. It says nothing about how old it is,

You are wrong. The writers of Genesis clearly outline the exact number of years between each generation. There is no way to accept that humanity is more than ten thousand years old AND that the Old Testament chronologies are true.

so we are wise if we accept Science's assessment of the earth's age---5 billion years.

Agreed.

You say that I do not understand Evolution. Well, let me say that you do not understand the Bible.

To address your comment on the sun and moon appearing in the heavens, or, "the expanse." In Genesis it says that during the 4th creative "day," God caused luminaries to "come to be in the expanse of the heavens." (Gen.1:14,19) This does not indicate that the sun and moon were created at this point. The first verse in the Bible states: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Gen.1:1) Thus the heavens---with the sun and moon---existed for an undetermined period of time PRIOR to the processes and events said to have occurred during the 6 creative periods described in the subsequent verses in chapter one.

The sun and moon (and the earth) already existed when "day" one commenced. Now it is set forth how the luminaries existed in relation to the earth.

On the first "day," light evidently gradually penetrated the cloud layers still enveloping the earth and would have become visible to any earthly observer, if he could have been there. (Gen.1:3) On the fourth "day" things changed. The statement that "God put them in the expanse of the heavens" on that "day" expresses the fact that God caused the sources of light, namely the sun, moon, and stars, to become DISCERNIBLE in the expanse.

Why do you say that a "day" of creation has to be 24-hours in length? The Jews didn't even use 24 hours as a measurement of a day until after the Babylonian captivity. So Moses wouldn't have meant 24-hours when he wrote Genesis. If you insist that a "day" must mean 24 hours, what does it mean in Genesis 2:4?

[McCulloch]

To address your comment on the sun and moon appearing in the heavens, or, "the expanse." In Genesis it says that during the 4th creative "day," God caused luminaries to "come to be in the expanse of the heavens." (Gen.1:14,19) This does not indicate that the sun and moon were created at this point. The first verse in the Bible states: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Gen.1:1) Thus the heavens---with the sun and moon---existed for an undetermined period of time PRIOR to the processes and events said to have occurred during the 6 creative periods described in the subsequent verses in chapter one.

The sun and moon (and the earth) already existed when "day" one commenced. Now it is set forth how the luminaries existed in relation to the earth.

It is very clear from the text that the earth and water existed prior to the first day. The luminaries are a different matter. You are correct to point out that the writer did not explicitly state that they were created on the fourth day. It seems to be a strange departure in style, however, to claim that the fourth day be the only one without a major actual creative event. Day one, God creates light. Yet, according to you, the luminaries, the sources of light, must have existed prior to him creating actual light. Day two, God creates an expanse, heaven, to separate the water above from the water below. Day three, God creates plant life. Day four, according to you, God creates nothing, but he moves some clouds around so that the lights can be seen. Day five he makes animals for sea and sky. And finally, day six he makes land animals.

Why do you say that a "day" of creation has to be 24-hours in length? The Jews didn't even use 24 hours as a measurement of a day until after the Babylonian captivity. So Moses wouldn't have meant 24-hours when he wrote Genesis. If you insist that a "day" must mean 24 hours, what does it mean in Genesis 2:4?

Wow, that is truly increadible. The Jews, unlike every other society on earth, didn't have a word for the alternating period of light and darkness that happens every 24 hours, until after the Babylonian captivity. Where did you pick up that little gem of wisdom?

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven.

It could very well mean day, a day prior to the first day, when he created light. Or it could very well mean an undetermined period of time. This day has no evening and morning.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 15 by onewithhim]




[center]Denying the theory of evolution.
Part One[/center]

There is no historical NOR Biblical support for that idea. The "missing link" has not been found yet, to be confirmed according to the Scientific Method.

Well, of course there is no BIBLICAL support for the theory of evolution.. that came about in the 1850's. A little bit LATE for Bible authors, don't you think?

Unfortunately, that "missing link" idea has been debunked a LONG time ago:

http://humanorigins.si.edu/education/in ... -evolution

I wonder where people get their science news from?
Creation Ministries International?