In The Beginning 2 - Theories of Origin
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02 - Theories of Origin Genesis 1:1-2
Saturday, December 31, 2016
9:35 AM
Before I begin tonight - I left out an extremly important point last week. I started by saying we didn't know exactly what kind of genre Genesis is - I was going to leave you hanging and then at the end tell you it is history - I failed to do that and wanted to start out this week with that in view. If we look at Genesis as just poetry or myth or any other type of genre we will miss the point of the book. God is revealing himself to us first as creator and then as God of all Gods.
1 Timothy 6:20-21 (KJV)
20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:
21 Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.
The origin of the world and us has perplexed theologians and scientist for years. Many speculations, theory's, and ideas have been postulated and pondered as to how we really came to be here. From an explosion to the procreation of two gods
There are currently according to Norman Geisler, "Three primary alternatives on the nature of creation." [1] These three alternatives he lists are;
Materialism: Creation out of MatterBasically means that matter (physical energy) is eternal. It has always been and will always be. The first law of thermodynamics "Energy can neither be created or destroyed."Materialism subdivides into two those that involve a God (Platonism) and those that do not (Atheism).
Platonism: God Created Out of Preexisting Matter"Many ancient Greeks believed in creation by God out of some previously existing, eternal "lump of clay."In Platonism creation is a formation not an origination. While there is a God, he is not all powerful and creator of all things.
Atheism: Matter is EternalA second worldview within materialism, I should note that agnostics will often hold this view as well. An Atheist says there is no God; an agnostic claims not to know if there is a God or not. Both of them hold that you do not need God in order to explain the universe. "Matter is simply there and always has been in one form or another." One outspoken astronomer of this mindset was Carl Sagan who passed away in 1996 but he stated, "THE COSMOS IS ALL THAT IS OR EVER WAS OR EVER WILL BE" (C, 4). Humans are simply Stardust pondering stars. Rather than God creating people, people created God. As Karl Marx put it, mind did not create matter; matter created mind (op. cit., 231).Some points on this worldview:Matter is eternal - as one atheist put it, "If matter came to be, it came into existence from nothing and by nothing" (Kenny, FW, 147).No Creator is NecessaryHumans are not immortal
Out of Materialism, evolution is deducted. Evolution is essentially the idea that things made themselves. "It includes these unproven ideas:Nothing gave rise to something at an alleged 'big-bang,'non-living matter gave rise to lifeSingle-celled organisms gave rise to many-celled organisms Invertebrates gave rise to vertebratesApe-like creatures gave rise to manNon-intelligent and amoral matter gave rise to intelligence and moralityMan's yearnings gave rise to religions, etc [3]While I am not going to spend a long time refuting evolution as I am operating under the premise that everyone here already knows that evolution is man's way of ignoring God. I do want to mention a few more things before we move on though Jonathan Sarfati in his book REFUTING EVOLUTION, reminds us that, "Many evolutionary books…contrast religion/creation opinions with evolution/science facts. It is important to realize that this is a misleading contrast. Creationists often appeal to the facts of science to support their view and evolutionists often appeal to philosophical assumptions from outside science. While creationists are often criticized for starting with a bias, evolutionists also start with a bias, as many of them admit. The debate between creation and evolution is primarily a dispute between two worldview, with mutually incompatible underlying assumptions." [2]
The BiasProfessor D.M.S. Watson a leading biologist and science writer of his day wrote:"Evolution [is] a theory universally accepted not because it can be proven by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." [4]It's no longer a question of biased religious creationists versus objective scientific evolutionists but as Sarfati continues, "it is the biases of the Christian religion versus the biases of the religion of secular humanism resulting in different interpretations of the same scientific data."Boyce Rensberger an avowed evolutionist admits:"At this point, it is necessary to reveal a little inside information about how scientists work, something the textbooks don't usually tell you. The fact is that scientists are not really as objective and dispassionate in their work as they would like you to think. Most scientists first get their ideas about how the world works not through rigorously logical processes but through hunches and wild guesses. As individuals, they often come to believe something to be true long before they assemble the hard evidence that will convince somebody else that it is. Motivated by faith in his own ideas and a desire for acceptance by his peers, a scientist will labor for years knowing in his heart that his theory is correct but devising experiment after experiment whose results he hopes will support his position."[5]Evolution is at best a poorly thought out theory of origin, at worst a damnable lie from the very pits of hell, to again make people ask "did God say?"
One last argument before going on - Geology says that life originated in the primeval oceans. Where does Genesis say the first life was? Genesis 1:11 says the first life was on the land.
While there are various forms of it on the other side there is CREATIONISM: The belief that a DIVINE CREATOR - CREATED EVERYTHING THERE IS. I like that we live in an amazing universe. The word "universe" comes from two Latin words, ‘uni’, which means single, and ‘verse’ which means a spoken sentence. Did you know we live in a single spoken sentence? God said: “Let there be...” Genesis 1:1 - In the Beginning - Literally means "In The Absolute Beginning" Now there are even several variations of "THIS BEGINNING" that I want to mentionThe Gap Theory - This was made especially popular by the Schofield Bible. Does anyone have one of those? the Gap Theory teaches;Genesis 1:1 is referring to: The original world was created beautiful and perfectGenesis 1:2 speaks of: God committed this earth to Satan to administer. Satan rebelled and he and his whole kingdom came under God’s judgment, and the earth became waste and void.Genesis 1:3-31 refers to: the subsequent work of the six days was a work of re-creationIn the King James Version, Genesis 1:2 reads, “And the earth was without form and void.” the advocates of the gap theory suggest that God must have originally created an earth replete with living things, and later destroyed it, causing it to become tohu (waste) a picture of Judgement and destruction. This causes a paragraph to be inserted between verses 1 & 2. I don't think God would be very happy with someone inserting something into his word that he didn't put there. The Day Age Theory - Teaches that each day was thousands if not millions of years each. (While I believe in miracles this would have been the greatest miracle ever) On day three God created plants, herbs and trees and then thousands or millions of years later he would have created the Sun. How would they have been kept for all of those years? The literal six day theory - This is the one that I and most all evangelical confessing Christian's believe that in six twenty four hour periods God created the world and all that is in it. The classic passage for this is found in Exodus 20:11 “in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,”
4.
5. Is the purpose of 2 Peter 3:8, “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years,” to teach us how to calculate time from God’s point of view? Explain your answer. NO! Peter is dealing with the conflict between uniformitarianism and creationism prophesied in the last days. Thus, he is saying that, despite man’s naturalistic scoffing, God can do in one day what, on uniformatarian premises, might seem to require a thousand years. God does not require aeons of time to accomplish His work of creating and redeeming all things.
If the intent of the writer had been to write of long ages of creation, he could certainly have done so. For example, the Hebrew word olam, ~l'A[ (meaning “long, indefinite time”) could have been used instead of yom. The ancient peoples to whom he was writing were quite familiar with the idea of long ages and gradual development out of chaos, since all ancient cosmogonies involved great aeons of time. But if his intent were to tell of a literal creation in six solar days, it would be impossible to express this concept any more clearly than in the account as we actually have it.
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[M] Geisler's Systematic Theology - Systematic Theology – Volume Two: God, Creation.[M] Refuting Evolution - Jonathan Sarfati 2000 Master Books http://creation.com/refuting-evolution-chapter-1-evolution-creation-science-religion-facts-bias[M] Refuting Evolution - Jonathan Sarfati 2000 Master Books http://creation.com/refuting-evolution-chapter-1-evolution-creation-science-religion-facts-bias[M] D.M.S. Watson, Adaptation, Nature 124:233, 1929.[M] Boyce Rensberger, How the World Works (NY: William Morrow 1986), p. 17–18