A few hot-off-the-cuff reactions to Part IV.
First, you say:
"I make no pretense of being a learned Bible scholarf or an expert on
the Hebrew language. All I am is a scientist reasoning through the
available facts."
But most of the rest of Part IV involves interpretation, Bible
scholarship, etc. Thus, many of the *facts* you claim to be dealing
with lie exactly in the area you have admitted to being non-professional
about. The claim to being just "a scientist reasoning through the
available facts" rings a bit hollow here.
You then say:
"I fully realize that the scientific community loses a great deal of
credibility by not being forthright about the problems with evolution."
A bit of caution might be in order here. For one thing, some of the
things advanced by creationists as "problems with evolution" simply are
not. For another, confidence that some problem does have an
evolutionarily viable solution, and paying it little attention because
of that confidence, does not necessarily constitute lack of
forthrightness. I think that you may be right that there have sometimes
been some fast and loose dismissals of problems, but I suspect that the
cited "loss of credibility" has more often involved the first two things
just mentioned than the third.
You then go on to your "Retroactive Fall Theory", and claim that that
theory holds that "God removed all trace that He had ever had a hand in
the creation of the universe and left Adam and Eve and their descendents
to their own devices."
If RFT says that, then, it seems to me, RFT is in serious trouble.
Psalm 19:1 and Romans 1:20 would appear to make the "removed all traces"
claim seriously problematic. And it also seems to me that it is one of
the clearest, most basic teachings of Scripture that God absolutely did
not leave Adam and Eve and their descendants "to their own devices".
What is the Gospel story if not a denial of that?
You then continue:
"Having defended the young earth position...".
Are you referring back to earlier portions of the pamphlet? Because in
this part, all you've done is to claim - without any support given at
all - that God removed all traces of his having had a hand in the
creation.
Onward.
"...it is simply amazing to me that the Bible has been transmitted so
faithfully that it is possible to argue over a grammatical point more
than three thousand years after the original was written."
What exactly is the connection here? Are you suggesting that we
couldn't squabble over grammatical points if it hadn't been faithfully
transmitted? Why not? Is there more such squabbling over Biblical
texts than other ancient texts? And (in the next couple sentences) do
you mean to be suggesting that Hebrew has not changed in ways
corresponding to the changes in English? Is that true?
A bit later you say:
"...the Bible does not say that God introduced physical death as a
result of Adam's sin. In fact, the Bibler implies just the opposite.
Consider Genesis chapter 2 verse 17, '...for in the day that you eat of
it, you shall die.' After he eats of the fruit, however, Adam lives for
another 900 years. Was God wrong? or did He mean a different kind of
death (i.e.spiritual death)?"
Another alternative is that "day" meant something other than 24 hours
here. We cannot have *both* 'day' meaning 24 hours and 'die' meaning
physical death, but that does not yet tell us which we have to change.
You continue:
"If He meant spiritual death, doesn't that mean that physical death was
already present? Wouldn't Adam have asked aGod whatrr death was if
physical death had not already existed?"
Arguments from silence are usually not very powerful.
A bit later:
"The Bible says that God chose not to create the heavens, the earth and
life instantaneously."
Of course, many creationists will respond that each thing God did create
was created instantaneously - just not all simultaneously.
"Time is the ultimate power in our universe."
Uh oh.
"Those who argue that the universe is smaller and younger than modern
scientists describe are, in my mind, denying the infinte power and glory
of God."
Why is that? Saying that God did not do something is not to say that
God could not do that thing. You claim that God did not create
instantaneously. Are you "denying the infinite power and glory of God"
in making that claim? Of course not. So why does saying that although
God could have taken eons he chose not to - and told us of that choice -
constitute a denial of God's power?
Del