Was the world created in 7 days?

[captaincoog]

6 days is no problem for God. 6 milliseconds is no more or less difficult. Either is 6 trillion years. The point is that once we start tampering with the words as they appear, it is a slippery slope, and things get inconsistent from Genesis all the way through to Revelation.
There is a very interesting site, creationontheweb.org/ that is a Protestant site but is very good. Scientific explanations of the 6 day possibility are well rounded.
Take a look if you like. Their magazine was recommended by an FSSP priest I know.

 

[SEMO_Bill]

Carol Marie,
I’m sorry that this question of literal (word-for-word) interpretation as opposed to literary interpretation has you so upset. Don’t give up your faith because of it. I’m not cradle Catholic, but joined through RCIA (a journey that keeps me inspired more and more). Just prior to my conversion (which I truely believe God initiated) I was nothing. I believed in nothing. I didn’t want to believe in anything. I was liken to Saul of Tarsus in my attempts to illustrate to my wife that her Christianity was bogus and that the whole concept of Christianity was a big fat lie to mankind that should never have happened. Why was I like that? Simple. I was raised on the literal interpretation of the Bible and my logical mind could not accept the seemingly contradictions from one book of the Bible to the next. All of the “literalists” I consulted to have them explain those inconsistancies to me could not. They didn’t know why and I didn’t know why. So I just said the “heck” with it and separated myself from religion all together. Which brings me back to my conversion. I was at a point in my life where suicide was looking more and more favorable. But guess what? God wasn’t having any of that. He knew how I thought and what would get me moving on the right path. He brought that about. And, unlike so many people God brings into the fold, He wasn’t taking any chances by turning me loose to find a church on my own to join. He pushed me right into the Catholic Church. I thank God daily for doing that. He not only saved my physical life, but He saved my soul. I decided that if God wanted me to come into full communion with the Church that He turned over to St. Peter, then I was bound to follow the dictates of that Church. Who am I or who is anyone else to gainsay what God brought about. One of the things I learned in my journey of faith is that interpreting the Bible literally (word-for-word) will get you into trouble every time. And yes, we would do well to listen to what the Church tells us. I would like to suggest three books that you might find interesting by Fr. Oscar Lukefahr, C.M. The books are ‘"We Believe…’ A Survey of the Catholic Faith’", “A Catholic Guide to the Bible” and “The Search For Happiness”. Fr. Lukerfahr heads the Catholic Home Study Service which has been responsible for the Catholic education of thousands of people the world over. He answers a lot of the questions that have been put forth in these forums. But in any case, please do not give up on us simply because of a disagreement in Biblical interpretation, literal or literary. God Bless you and may all the saints in Heaven pray for you. Yours in Christ…SEMO Bill

 

[CarlosG]

6 days is no problem for God. 6 milliseconds is no more or less difficult. Either is 6 trillion years. The point is that once we start tampering with the words as they appear, it is a slippery slope, and things get inconsistent from Genesis all the way through to Revelation.
There is a very interesting site, creationontheweb.org/ that is a Protestant site but is very good. Scientific explanations of the 6 day possibility are well rounded.
Take a look if you like. Their magazine was recommended by an 7FSSP priest I know.

I would also like to encourage people to check that site out, and think critically about it (and about ALL tough questions in life!). Check their sources, check the logical cohesion of their statements, look for counter-arguments. If this issue is important to you then do the homework. I can say ive done enough homework to come to a justified conclusion even though I realize I don’t know everything and i could definitely be wrong about everything I know.

But everything I have seen and read makes me distrust sites like that, and right off the bat I notice they equate evolution with old earth, as if they are married. Geology was around far before the evolutionary theory. They also seem to be using anomalies to prove their whole theory while ignoring the huge mountains of evidence (no pun intended) to the contrary. Every system lives with anomalies and an old earth is no different in this respect. They would have quite a few if their theory were the accepted one right now.

They often cite themselves in the footnotes of the articles and the articles cited also cite themselves seemingly ad infinitum. That is not good scholarship, it wouldnt have been accepted from my jr college professors let alone any professional science journal worth its salt. If its anything I have learned its that scientists are their own worst critics and are ruthless when it comes to untested theories, and justly right.

Alot of their articles are written in a watered down manner so people can easily digest them and repeat them and proselytize to the lay people. I think all sides would agree that this issues should not be dumbed down as if it were a watercooler discussion about your favorite sitcom. This also goes for evolution sites, although I find that they are less prone to doing this quite simply because they care less about lay people advancing their ideas for them.

This seems to be going round and round, so lets try something different, post some evidence that the earth is young and lets test it. If you claim the Bible says the earth is young (lets just leave evolution out of it for the time being because thats not the issue in the OP) then what we find around us in Gods natural revelation will confirm this. Please dont tell me that science is fallible because it is “man-made” (that is the paraphrased from their site) because quite honestly, this is obvious, but its also quite obvious that Biblical exegesis is also fallible.

So lets have it, someone post your first piece of evidence from Gods natural revelation that the earth is young. Please keep it civil!

 

[rossum]

Information also, has never evolved in nature. There is no information occurance outside from intelligence.

What definition of “Information” are you using? The two standard scientific definitions of information are Shannon Information and Kolmogorov Information. Both of these can be increased by mutations. For example, we can start with a piece of DNA containing some information:

ATGCATGTCAGTA

this piece of DNA contains some information. Now there is a gene duplication mutation in the genome so this piece of DNA is duplicated:

ATGCATGTCAGTA

ATGCATGTCAGTA

This gives us two copies of the same piece of DNA. Shannon information has doubled and Kolmogorov information has increased by one bit.

Now there is a point mutation in one of the copies:

ATGCATGTCAGTA

ATGCATGACAGTA

The Shannon information is unchanged while the Kolmogorov information pretty much doubles. Both standard measures of information have increased through mutation. If your sources are using a different measure of information then you need to tell us what measure of information you are using. If you cannot measure it then how can you tell if it is increasing, decreasing or staying the same?

For a separate argument, what about back mutations? If a second mutation undoes a change from a previous mutation then one or the other must be an increase in information. For example, if the change from ATGCATGTCAGTA to ATGCATGACAGTA is a decrease in information, then the change from ATGCATGACAGTA back to ATGCATGTCAGTA has to be an increase in information.

As a final point, many biologists consider that the useful information in the genome is copied from the environment - random mutation and natural selection are a process for transcribing information from the environment into DNA so the information can be passed on to descendants.

The infornation argument you are using here is not scientifically valid.

rossum

 

[Zooey]

Given those choices, I’m going with #1

If I am to believe that it is God’s Word - that everything contained in the Bible is TRUE - when God says he formed man out of the dust I have to believe Him.

On one hand I have God’s own Word.

On the other hand I have scientists - most of whom are atheists.

I cannot reconcile the two - so I’m going with God.

Then you have placed yourself in a ghetto from which you cannot hope to preach the gospel to the secular world.
.

Well…Here I am, Your Friendly Neighborhood Methodist, in Carol Marie’s “ghetto” with her…And quite happy to be here.
Do I believe that the world is only 6,000 years old? I have no idea how old the world is. The Bible says that “a day with the Lord is as 1000 years, and 1000 years as one day”. So I assume that those 7 days of creation could cover a long, long span of time.
But I do not, and will not, subscribe to “men developed from monkeys & somewhere along the way turned into apemen, then men”.
I’m sorry, but you all can believe that kind of hogwash if you want to.** I believe that humankind are a special creation of God**.
(Mind you, I don’t get much respect over here in the Methodist Church, either…)

 

[Zooey]

Why don’t you believe in 6 24-hr days? That is what Genesis says.

No; it says 6 “yoms”. Yom= period of time with a definite start & end.

From the Catechism:

157 Faith is certain. It is more certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who cannot lie. To be sure, revealed truths can seem obscure to human reason and experience, but "the certainty that the divine light gives is greater than that which the light of natural reason gives."31 "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt."32

Genesis 1 gives the order, Gen 2 gives the details about the creation of humans.

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/genesis2.php

:yup:

Agreed. And both man & beasts were created on the sixth “day.”

Chapter 2 is just a retelling - it provides the details.

It’s like this:

#1 Yesterday I woke up, went to work, drove to the grocery store & shopped, came home, cooked dinner, took a bath and went to bed at 10pm.

vs.

#2 Yesterday I had to go to work. My boss drives me crazy. I was busy all day. I made hamburgers on the grill for dinner which my kids just loved. Hamburger was on sale at the grocery store. went to bed and slept well beccause I had a relaxing bath.

Sames stories. And in #2 no one would suggest I bought hamburger AFTER I grilled - right?

Chapter 1 is the chronological telling of events. Chapter 2 is all about Adam - it provides details specific to him. Both are literal and true.
.

What about this authority?

1950 – On August 12, Pope Pius XII issues the encyclical Humani Generis which addressed false opinions that were threatening to undermine Catholic doctrine. The pope, in echoing St. Augustine and Providentissimus Deus, declared that the modern exegete’s desire to depart from a literal interpretation of Scripture in favor of a non-literal interpretation was foreign to Catholic teaching: “Further, according to their fictitious opinions, the literal sense of Holy Scripture and its explanation, carefully worked out under the Church’s vigilance by so many great exegetes, should yield now to a new exegesis, which they are pleased to call symbolic or spiritual” (no. 23).

Gosh I love that guy.

Can’t go wrong with the Douay-Rheims…

371 God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. The Word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him."242 None of the animals can be man’s partner.243 The woman God “fashions” from the man’s rib and brings to him elicits on the man’s part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of love and communion: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh."244 Man discovers woman as another “I”, sharing the same humanity.

417 Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called “original sin”.

The Catholic Church teaches that Adam and Eve are real individuals. Not symbolic beings.

God bless you ,Manny! This is a ray of light in a sea of chaos.

 

[Orogeny]

No; it says 6 “yoms”. Yom= period of time with a definite start & end.

So which version of the Bible do you read? I know the King James doesn’t use the term yom. My NAB doesn’t use the term yom. In fact, I don’t know of any english translation that uses the term yom. So, if as you say yom doesn’t equate with day, doesn’t that mean that we have a translation error right off the bat?

Peace

Tim

 

[Orogeny]

In recent years archeologists have found that Darwin’s theory is not substantiated by the fossil records,

I would like a citation from a peer-reviewed journal to substantiate this claim.

Remember that the scientists in 1492 thought that the world was flat. When we try to change God’s word to fit the science of the time we are shone to be foolish. “God confounds the wisdom of the foolish”.Michael

That is not a true statement. Just a quick search with Google can illustrate that.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

It was known that the earth was not flat long before Christ.

Peace

Tim

 

[nerfherder]

Re: Evolution and the Garden of Eden/Adam and Eve

The issue of whether we believe Genesis is literal or part of a creation myth (I believe the latter) also impinges on matters relating to the source of original sin (if no serpent, then whence evil?), Eve as the mother of us all (monogenisis), and the apparent contradiction between creationism and evolution.

From the Internet:

The Church has not yet clarified the question of monogenism versus polygenism, though an International Theological Commission document on creation and evolution endorsed by Cardinal Ratzinger from 2004 states:

“While the story of human origins is complex and subject to revision, physical anthropology and molecular biology combine to make a convincing case for the origin of the human species in Africa about 150,000 years ago in a humanoid population of common genetic lineage. However it is to be explained, the decisive factor in human origins was a continually increasing brain size, culminating in that of homo sapiens.”

This passage admits of both monogenetic and polygenetic interpretations, since it is unclear whether the “humanoid population” is to be regarded as the first humans, or the immediate ancestors of the first humans.

Catholic theology affirms that that the emergence of the first members of the human species (whether as individuals or in populations) represents an event that is not susceptible of a purely natural explanation and which can appropriately be attributed to divine intervention. Acting indirectly through causal chains operating from the beginning of cosmic history, God prepared the way for what Pope John Paul II has called ‘an ontological leap…the moment of transition to the spiritual.’"

The Vatican has avoided making any explicit pronouncement on the question of the theological necessity of monogenism.

 

[Zooey]

So which version of the Bible do you read? I know the King James doesn’t use the term yom. My NAB doesn’t use the term yom. In fact, I don’t know of any english translation that uses the term yom. So, if as you say yom doesn’t equate with day, doesn’t that mean that we have a translation error right off the bat?

Peace

Tim

The original Hebrew says “yom”. Yom can mean day; in fact “Yom Kippur”= Day of Atonement. A day is a yom; a yom is not necessarily a day.
It’s not a mistranslation, so much as it is,a failure to read & interpret Scripture inductively–comparing Scripture with Scripture; and a failure to consult the original languages.

 

[Orogeny]

The original Hebrew says “yom”. Yom can mean day; in fact “Yom Kippur”= Day of Atonement. A day is a yom; a yom is not necessarily a day.

I understand that. However, your bible says day and there are not many different possible understandings in english of the word day. Those that translated the scriptures clearly understood that and still used the word day.

It’s not a mistranslation, so much as it is,a failure to read & interpret Scripture inductively–comparing Scripture with Scripture; and a failure to consult the original languages.

If you are suggesting that we must go back to the original languages to get the true meaning, then I would suggest that we scrap the english translations because they are incomplete at best. I, however, don’t believe that we should do that.

Peace

Tim

 

[CarlosG]

This article should add fuel to the fire for both sides:
sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=C420F7DE-E7F2-99DF-3E47CE32FD4AD465&chanID=sa003

On one side you have us being privy to Gods great universe unfolding in front of our eyes as we see back in time billions of years, a privilege that, had we came significantly later…well ill let them say it:

“This is about the only time in the history of the universe when you could detect it, and that’s really weird,”

On the other hand…

But before getting too smug, be aware that we also may not be privy to long lost evidence of other mysteries.

Which can be spun to to discredit dating techniques and problems in cosmology.

Obviously the article is far from in depth but its certainly food for thought.

 

[Orogeny]

This article should add fuel to the fire for both sides:
sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=C420F7DE-E7F2-99DF-3E47CE32FD4AD465&chanID=sa003

I get an error when I try that link.

Peace

Tim

 

[CarlosG]

wierd, I dont , even when I click on the quoted link. heres the link again
****sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=C420F7DE-E7F2-99DF-3E47CE32FD4AD465&chanID=sa003*******

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

As a Catholic are you required to believe the world was created in 7 days as it says in Genesis?

If not, how do we know, when reading the bible, whether we take its words literally?

Thanks!

1. No​

1. Because the Bible contains different kinds of literature. To take an example from TV: is everything on “The Simpsons” to be understood as being the same kind of thing as a news programme or documentary ? No one in their right mind would take “The Weakest Link” as discussion of US foreign policy. (OTOH, there are some astonishingly stupid people around - so they might.)
2. A news report about a robbery, a thriller on TV, & a dictionary, all of them containing shotguns, do not belong to the same literary type - yet they all mention the same object, meaning the same thing by that word “shotgun”. There is a lion in the Narnia books - that doesn’t mean the books are about African wildlife, nor that the books are a diary of life in the Serengeti. The reality of lions in Africa, does not mean that Aslan the lion is real in the same way.

So with Genesis 1-11. People make distinctions between types of literature all the time - except that, for some reason, some people are reluctant to do so when reading the Bible; or, as here, Genesis 1. Genesis 1 uses mythical language, to narrate a true fact: God is the One Creator of all things - that, not the number of days, is the truth of the chapter.

 

[CarlosG]

hmm, go to their home page:
sciam.com/
it should be the third article down on the front page main stories

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I get an error when I try that link.

Peace

Tim

It worked for me - I’ve sent a copy of the article in a pm , without the photographs​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

So… if the seven days creation is considered a myth… then what about the fall of man with Adam and Eve?

Once you discount creation in the literal sense, you then poke holes in most of Genesis. Without a literal interpretation of Original Sin, you now have taken the relevence of not only the Word of God in the Bible, but the Gospel message as well.

Slippery slope indeed.

It’s perfectly possible to have a real fall, without a real Adam & Eve: because there is nothing in the nature of losing the friendship of God which strictly requires the existence of A & E. - people fall by sinning, not by having relatives called Adam & Eve. They could have been called Janet & John, & the point of the story would have been tortally unaffected. As the story was written not in modern English but in ancient Hebrew, they were called Adam & Eve. The characters are fictions - sin, unfortunately, is not.​

Because the Fall is unaffected, the Gospel is unaffected. ##

 

[buffalo]

Gottle of Geer;2280378. The characters are fictions - sin:

Not Catholic teaching.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I’ve often wonder what the purpose have having the earth around billions and billions years before man would have been. Specially if we believe the earth was made for man.

…

Simple - man is not the centre of creation; dinosaurs & carbonised trees didn’t exist for man, any more than flowers or mountains do. They, like man, & like every other created thing, exist for Jesus Christ. As the NT makes clear.​

As long as we imagine that our glorious race is the reason for the existence of creation, we’re going to overlook the One for Whom alone it does exist, Who is alone its true Master & Lord. If He, & not we, is the Model & Purpose & Goal of all creation, all the problems that arise from thinking that we are the main attraction vanish.