The TRUE reason for the EvC controversy, and why it can not be resolved.

The fallen world began with the Fall, that is, with the original sin of Adam and Eve.

I'm not following you. Or following this thread really. I merely felt like correcting your mistake about when the fallen world started. I've been waiting to see if I'll eventually get what GFC is saying.But I THINK he's saying that we can't KNOW what you are claiming is known by science, because conditions were so drastically altered at the Fall that none of science's assumptions and methods are trustworthy back before that point. They do fine in the fallen world, but beyond that period of time are useless. God isn't deceiving us, it's just that the physical universe was altered by sin and our tools can't detect a previously nonfallen universe. So great age is merely a false reading based on faulty tools.

GFC is going to have to explain what he meant as I was simply doing my best to understand it and am not sure I got it all that well If he placed the Fall at the Flood he's wrong. The Flood was merely the first great consequence of the sin that started accumulating at the Fall, and there is reason to believe that this great consequence DID alter things quite a bit. So I guess he could try to make the case that the consequences of the Fall in the physical world didn't really occur until the Flood -- but I don't think he can make that case totally, as death certainly began with Original Sin, and God threw Adam and Eve out of Eden then, to till a changed earth.But none of this precludes science, as science is really the result of belief in an orderly universe which was not really fully believed by any people, even the Greeks, until the Biblical God became known, which is why science took off with such strength in Christian Europe.Since I believe that it was belief in the rational God of the Bible that stimulated the growth of science, I certainly don't believe that science is impossible and that we can't know anything, quite the opposite. Science is a great gift from God and it has brought great knowledge and blessings into the world.But I do of course believe that notions about a very ancient earth have to be wrong, based on the same Bible I believe brought this rational science to us in the first place, so I'm intrigued by GFC's idea about how our science can't discover the originally perfect universe God created.

If I understand what GFC is saying, what's wrong with your picture is that none of those calculated ages are correct because our measuring instruments are untrustworthy, because everything in the universe changed after the Fall. So these ancient ages are false readings.The error seems to be specific to time or great age, and HOW he explains why the false readings are specific to great age I don't know.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-25-2006 01:58 PM

YOU don't see the Biblical evidence for the Fall but the majority historic Church disagrees with you, as you can see in most of the catechisms and confessions of the churches through the centuries, as they all affirm the Fall.There is plenty of Biblical evidence of changed conditions after the Fall, although WHAT conditions are what we are thinking about. And if GFC is right, the kind of evidence you are requiring wouldn't exist because our instruments would fail to recognize it.But we do have God's word, which is the most reliable instrument of all, and it tells us on God's authority that death entered with the Fall, that the whole Creation was cursed with the Fall, and that a global Flood was God's first great punishment of the sin that the Fall brought into the world. Terrific evidence there. The best.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-25-2006 02:07 PM

The basic evidence was given in my Message 81: Oh, and the catechisms and confessions of the churches are evidence that the Bible testifies to the Fall too. As I also said.I'm sure you don't need me to remind you of the Biblical account of the serpent's seduction of Eve and Adam to disobedience of God, of course, although you refuse to believe that it is a record of the first sin. In that you are at odds with the historic church.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-25-2006 02:16 PM

There is nothing about the fossil record that I find difficult for my beliefs. Radiometric dating is the only problem, and GFC's theory addresses that.

Aristotle's pagan views corrupted the Roman Church. Biblical Christianity has no problem with science, which is why it really took off after the Protestant Reformation. Science simply did not GO anywhere in the world until then. That's my point. And the first European scientists were Christians. Yes, I acknowledged that the Greeks had science, and I wouldn't deny that it existed elsewhere either. But science as we know it, empirical science, the scientific method, did not happen until the Chrsitian west ran with it.

People have this very strange idea about European history, as if the Church caused it to regress and created the Dark Ages, apparently never having digested the fact that Europe was a great heathen Dark Continent when the Roman Empire existed. Many tribes of Europe strenuously resisted Roman efforts to civilize them, and later strongly resisted Christian missionary efforts as well. It was a PRIMITIVE place for STARTERS -- no REGRESSION was needed, it was ALREADY the Dark Ages in Europe. The Church's influence was CIVILIZING, but it couldn't work miracles overnight with a bunch of wild warring tribes who lived by raping and pillaging and burning down the villages of other tribes. Missionaries gradually set up monasteries and churches but it was a thousand years before the whole continent was Christian and civilized -- and in the case of Europe the two terms are historically synonymous.Feudalism was a necessary - and progressive -- system in historical context.Again, back to why science doesn't work for knowledge of the pre-Fall world, God didn't change anything, human sin did.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-25-2006 03:12 PM

Credit where credit is due. Fine, the Muslims contributed all that, but the fact remains that it was in the Christian west that science developed to what it is today.

I know everybody at EvC likes to make up their own theology and there are probably as many Christian theologies here as there are posters, but you are in disagreement with the majority historic church on this one. The Fall was all our doing, and trying to blame God for it is SUCH a typical symptom of it too.

In the context of a continent of warring raping and pillaging tribes, feudalism was GREAT progress -- it consolidated areas and provided protection against the enemy tribes and criminal bands, and built up the economy which otherwise would never have happened. Injustice is the mark of fallen man so nobody's saying it was an ideal system -- such is impossible to fallen man -- it simply was the best they could have had at the time they had it, and eventually Christian inspiration did away with its injustices and made its methods unnecessary overall as Europe became civilized bit by bit.Aristotle was indeed extremely important to the Roman Church, but it was his thinking that opposed Galileo because he clung to the earth-centered universe. The Bible has no opposition to Galileo even though the RCC rationalized Aristotle by it.Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance yet. How very retro. You must be very young. Or a very old hippie.

No problem, at EvC being an agnostic or an atheist or a Buddhist doesn't stop anyone from having their own Christian theology.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-25-2006 05:18 PM

Don't you guys get tired of pushing the same old phony definition of "omnipotence?" Talk about literal minded!! And completely closed to learning anything. God's power is GOOD because God is GOOD. He cannot do anything EVIL, He cannot commit sin or tempt to sin. To say that means he's not omnipotent is just plainStupid.

God is Omnipotent. But people here like to define this stupidly to mean he's not omnipotent if he can't do evil. God cannot violate His own laws or His own nature.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-25-2006 10:34 PM