Days of Genesis

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The second story of Genesis is older then the first as an aside.
 
It is hard to talk about things that we do not know about. We have to use words that already have other meanings to try to convey a reality. Genesis 1 does that when it speaks of light and days. Energy and periods of time would be more acceptable to modern minds, but that kind of speech fractures the poetic meanings. What do day and night, evening and morning mean on the first day?

Scientists do the same thing. When they speak about what happened in the first femtosecond after the Big Bang, they are using a timeline based on seconds having a set length of time that can be divided precisely. They extend that timeline, only occasionally addressing the relativistic question of whose timeline is being measured. We use what we know to express truth about unknowns.
 
Mike_from_NJ said:
What percentage of a passage can be false and still be considered true on the whole?
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The Church does not look at the Old Testament and say “this is false” and “that is true”. The Church treats the OT (and the NT) as God revealing Himself to us through history. The Church is not a literalist in looking at Scripture, but rather a contextualist; it looks at a passage (here, pick one in Genesis) and says “What does this reveal to us about God and our relationship with Him?”. It recognizes a number of ways that truth is revealed, including what could be considered “poetic”; it does not, however, presume that which may be “poetic” to be “scientific” literally.

So: Genesis is not “false” unless you are saying that Genesis is not an accurate scientific explanation of creation, and therefore “false” in the sense of it being “not scientific” - which is not how the Church understands Genesis.
 
Mike_from_NJ said:
Since so much of what God is about is belief in him, why would God allow so much tht is demonstrably false at the very beginning of his holy book, which would certainly increase the likelihood of disbelief?
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Let me try this from another direction. If I say “I looked into my wife’s eyes and saw love”, by your statement about Genesis I am false, and therefore lying, because I should have said “when I looked into my wife’s eyes, I saw rods and cones”. Anyone standing next to you and me when I said that about my wife would instantly know what I mean, and they would immediately understand I am not speaking as an ophthalmologist, but as a husband.

People who read the Bible and do not comprehend (or choose to deny) that the Bible is not literal in all statements are going to have troubles. Most of that comes from one (or more) subsets of the evangelical/fundamentalist Christian churches who take a literal approach. Not to make too fine a point of it, but the Bible was “defined” as to what was in it and what was not, in the Council of Nicaea, so that puts it as the work of the Catholic Church; the evangelical/fundamentalist subsets broke off from the Catholic Church a number of centuries after that, and have been subdividing and splintering ever since. And nowhere in the Bible is it written “everything in here is to be understood literally”.

If someone is told “what is in the Bible is literally true because it is God’s Word”, they have been taught a falsehood; so it would be no surprise they might dispute that (or as you put it, increase disbelief). The Church does not teach that; it let’s science be science, and teaches theology.

I am not trying to attack the evangelicals and fundamentalists; much of what they teach is the truth (or as we say, the Truth). But because they have broken off from the Church ad decided they would interpret the Bible on their own authority, they get down some rabbit holes.
 
“Lost in the translation” is key. Since there was light before the sun was created, light must therefore have a different meaning; it is being expressed in a different sense from strictly material or chronological. Atheists often have trouble with such concepts as many do not perceive the transcendent.

If you forsake heaven, you are bound to, and a slave to earth - all the while earth itself often makes no sense. Any wonder why so many are angry and frustrated? Especially when they encounter joy? Not laughter, as that is only a response to a particular situation. Not happiness, as that comes from material things for the material person. Not externally-generated elation, as that is a passing sensation and can be withdrawn.

Joy. To the core of our being - in all places and at all times. Its foundation is the inner knowledge of eternal truths; truths which explain all existence to a degree which is sufficient for us who are on a pilgrimage. Truths which satisfy. Truths which comfort every iota of our being, and which can never be diminished or taken away.

Of course, joy is produced by love and the God of Genesis is love. We see the inexplicable depth of His love this very weekend. And that experience of love is the source of our joy.
 
Which does not disprove anything which I said. Controlling the storm is neither an example of time nor is it an example of something being “created”; it is a change of existing conditions.

You might want to use your Miriam Webster. change is an action upon something created; it is not a creation in itself. And time is a measure of change; if there is no change, there is no time.
 
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I did not say he did not control the storm. Controlling the storm has nothing to do with the definition of time. He acted; change is an act, not a creation. :The wind did not “uncreate”;; the waves did not "uncreate. No “thing” was created; a condition was changed.
 
You miss the point. God can do things only God can do. No mere man can control local weather conditions or create matter from nothing.
 
Time is not a “thing”. It is a measure of change; if there is no change, there is no time,

And no, I did not miss the point; you are misusing words. Words have meaning; you cannot simply ascribe whatever meaning you want to them. I said absolutely nothing about “mere man” or about Christ; I spoke about your use of words.

Change is not a “thing”; it is an act of a thing, or an act upon a thing. Air is a “thing”. If it moves, it is called “wind”, but it is simply air in motion. If there is no wind, that is not a different “thing” it is simply still (not moving) air. When Christ stilled the wind’ it was air before he stilled it and it was air after he stilled it. He acted upon the air; he did not create more air or less air. He did not “create” something when he stilled it; he stopped its motion. And no, I don’t know anyone besides God who has command over the air. Or the sea.
 
Then please show me some. I can see the rest of His creationg, but I cnanot see “time” because it is not a thing.
 
God could have chosen to create a universe that doesn’t change (no time). Thus, time is a creation.

Also in creating time, he could have chosen time to have different characteristics than it does (e.g. linear, varies with the speed of an observer, etc.)
 
otjm said:
Then please show me some. I can see the rest of His creation, but I cannot see “time” because it is not a thing.
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You think time doesn’t pass unless some physical thing is ‘changing’ or in a state of motion? Hmm.
Surely it’s not impossible to conceive of a model of time which doesn’t depend on physical things changing.

As to the Op…light must come before the stars otherwise where did the stars get their light from?
 
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:You might make models, but reality is always in a state of change. And time is a measurement. so is “12 feet”. Length, width and depth are all measurements of something created.

It all goes back to high school physics.
 
Aquinas11 said:
God could have chosen to create a universe that doesn’t change (no time). Thus, time is a creation.
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No, time is an observable change, thus it is an observation. It is an observation of reality - matter - and you can posit that reality could have been created so that change was linear or exponential, but that rate of change would not vary by whether there was an observer or not. Without an observer, the word “time” has no meaning as there is no observer - and don’t come back and say that God is the observer, because God is outside of time.

You cannot show me time any more than you can show me fast or slow. They are not “created things”. “change” has no meaning except for something created; and time has no meaning except for something created; but neither change nor time are created; the brick which crumbles to dust does not have time. Creation can be captured; time cannot.
 
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