> I enjoyed the latest discussion between Niel Haave and Steven Schimmrich,
> which sort of left off with the idea that it's a challenge to reconcile our
> understanding of a natural universe with the existence of a supernatural God.
>
> I think that a good place to start is to "reimage" the first chapter of
> Genesis by asking the childish question; "If the first chapter of Genesis
> resembled the evolutionary record (ER) then how would they match?" (Of
> course, the question assumes the answer, but there's no better way to
> phrase it.) Now the challenge is to find novel ways to compare the first
> chapter with the evolutionary record.
>
> Perhaps the most obious way to start is to look at what the first
> chapter of Genesis and the evolutionary record have in common.
> They both depict a sequence of events. Each 'event' is denoted
> by a special term (day for Genesis, epoch or era for ER). They both
> locate the origin of man within the context of the sequence of events.
>
> The obvious start points to a "day" to "epoche" comparison. What
> six epochs occur in a sequence and sort of match the processes that
> are described for each day in Genesis?
The major assumption here, however, is that the creation story in Genesis
is in some sense a literal, historical accounting of the acts of creation.
Not everyone would accept that it is.
The problem is that the sequence of events described in Genesis don't
really mesh with the fossil record. Hugh Ross has tried to harmonize
them in "Creation & Time" but I personally don't think he was very
successful.
- Steve.
-- Steven H. Schimmrich KB9LCG s-schim@uiuc.edu Department of Geology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 245 Natural History Building, Urbana, IL 61801 (217) 244-1246 http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/s-schim Fides quaerens intellectum