RE: Narrowminded Views #2 - When a Day is Just a Day - Understanding that God has set limits on interpreting Scripture
It's clear you've put a lot of thought into this, so you've probably heard these arguments before:
My understanding is that the point of Genesis and in particular the creation story is not to be a literal blow by blow account, nor is it meant to be treated as a science textbook. The main point is that God is the creator of the world. I think you have to know something about ancient Hebrew storytelling. Imagery is used to convey a much deeper truth than what would be conveyed by taking the imagery literally. It's similar to how in the Psalms, you have descriptions of the earth as having pillars and corners... it's not that the psalm writers were ignorant of the earth being round and all (I really don't know what they knew). It was that they saw the earth as a place of worship, and so imbued it with temple imagery--complete with pillars, corners, and jewels. They weren't lying because their purpose wasn't to scientifically describe the earth, but to meditate on how the earth is a place where God is to be worshiped.
God created time, and as such is not bound by it in the way we are. Everything God is and everything God does takes place in one moment from His perspective. It's us who need it broken down into linear time, but to God it's all one eternal NOW
I'm not trying to convince you with the above, just say that when you consider those perspectives it does become possible to still trust the infallibility and authority of the Bible as God's word while still also considering all kinds of scientific theories about how the earth works. Evolution is one theorem. It explains some things but not others. I suspect it doesn't tell the whole story. But it is possible to entertain various aspects of Evolutionary theory and still acknowledged that God is the cause of it all. In other words, I think you're finding conflict where there isn't any.
The entire foundation of the Christian faith is not on exactly how long in our linear time measures it took for God to create the world. It is based on the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. St. Paul tells us that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then we are to be most pitied for believing it.
Can time be created? For anything to go from nonexistence to existence requires time to account for the change of state.
The Bible doesn't say that God "created time" or that time is a "thing" to be created, rather it teaches that He always existed.
I think that God is without (outside) our dimensions. He has no height, no width, and no depth. Additionally, He has no time. He declares the end from the beginning, and exists outside of that realm, which is why He can tell us the future before it happens.
Yes, in our perspective, any process requires time, but the Bible says in many different ways that God's perspective is different from ours (Isaiah 55, for example).
The Bible says that God created all things. In my simple mind, that would include time. (See John 1:3)
I agree that God created all things, but that just begs the question, Is time a "thing" that is created? I don't think a case can be made for that from the Bible.
It is interesting to notice that the Sun, moon, and stars were given "...for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years" (Genesis 1:14b). The created cosmos is how we measure time. A day is the rotation of the earth on its axis, a month is one orbit of the moon around the earth, a year is one orbit of the Earth around the Sun. A week only comes from creation week, and is not based upon these things. Though it does not answer your specific question, the majority of units of measurement for time all appear by the end of Genesis 1.
Thank you for your reply. If Jesus was a liar, raising Him from the dead would have just made Him another Lazarus or Dorcas; a miracle indeed, but unable to pay for ours sins. Also, in the timeline of things, which I will post about later on, we have these to contrast and compare:
EVOLUTION SAYS:.............................................GOD SAYS IN THE BIBLE:
Sun 1st - then Earth.........................................Earth 1st - then Sun
Stars 1st - then Earth........................................Earth 1st - then stars
Reptiles first - then birds..................................Birds first - then land creatures (like reptiles)
A lot of death prior to man...............................Man's sin brought death
There are more, but I will post about it later. Obviously, these two viewpoints are not just different, they are contrary and opposite. Why? I think that the answer is partially based upon this.
MAN...............................................GOD
Fallible (can be wrong).................Infallible (cannot be wrong)
Can be deceived............................Can not be deceived
Limited information......................Knows all
Was not there.................................Was there (He did it)
Can lie.............................................Cannot lie
I find the "poetry" excuse to be used all too often these days. If I wrote a poem about Obama being the current US President would that make it not true? Psalms can be considered poetry and that book of full of truth. Here is some of that poetry:
"Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments edureth for ever." (Psalm 119:160)
Genesis is the beginning, so Genesis is true, whether man refers to it as poetry or not. Additionally, from Genesis 1, we clearly have evening and morning defining the days. This would mean one rotation of Earth on its axis, which is roughly 24 hours. I hope that these things I've mentioned provide some more things for consideration. I'll share the rest soon in a post with some more info. I will try to get it out later this week, @wiser. Thanks you.
I think I understand better where you are coming from.
The other meaning the word has is more of a religious term than a scientific one. And I think that may be what you are talking about. Any time a scientific theory (and I don't care which one it is) starts getting used as a way to attempt to push God out of the picture, it has crossed the line from science into religion. Science honestly cannot answer theological questions--it's just not what science is meant to accomplish. That doesn't stop people from trying, though, but when they do, then their assertions become religious ones, not scientific ones. At that point, you have to address them on the basis of theology, but there is no need to try to force the Bible to refute the original truly scientific model that's also called "evolution."
The confusion between science and religion comes from the fact that so many people in the intellectual pursuits (which include scientific inquiry) have turned away from God and claim to have no religion. Unfortunately, the human being is specifically created to be religious and of course to be rightly religious, meaning to walk with God. When people turn away from the true religion, well, their entire beings have a vacuum which will be filled with something. In other words, everyone is going to be religious about something because there is no way to not be. So scientists who have rejected God turn their science into a religion, and it really doesn't work well. The answer isn't to come up with our own version of a science religion that we might call "creationism" or "young earth creationism." The answer is to keep science in its proper place, and recognize when people are overstepping its proper bounds by turning science into a (false) religion.
Two. I hear you about using the poetic metaphors of the psalms as an "excuse." That wasn't my intention here, and I totally agree with you that the verse you quoted is true in its literal sense. My point was simply to caution against missing a larger and deeper truth by fixating on the literal interpretation of the imagery. Scripture needs to be approached with the intention to know and obey God (on His terms, not ours); otherwise it's going to be misinterpreted.