Re: Cobb County

No discipline can exist apart from God and his revelation, to say so is
to claim that man is autonomous from God.

drsyme@cablespeed.com wrote:

> If you are of the reformed persuasion, you believe in man's Total
> Depravity. Man has a mind that is unable to see spiritual truth, and
> no one is able to come to Christ unless God open's their eyes to the
> Gospel.
>
> But, that does not mean that man cannot reason, and make observations,
> and use logic and mathematics to understand how things are. Man's
> depravity has nothing to do with science.

Man's depravity is total, it affects every area of his thinking,
although not completely. Total does not refer to complete destruction
in a specific area as you misstate above, but some impairment in all
areas. The total is in scope, not depth.

> Many of the YEC'ers, want to make all scientists evil because they do
> science without a religious bias. But religion is religion, and
> science is science, they are different disciplines. They cannot be
> mixed.
>
> So science needs to be interpreted without any reliance on the Bible.
> It is science, not religion.

That is functional atheism, not Christianity. We can do nothing apart
from God's word, to try to do so leads to error, deception and an
ultimate rejection of GOd's truth in favor of man's own will. It is the
first and greatest sin, to claim we can have knowledge of anything apart
from God.

Even the atheist only knows what he knows because God allows him to do
so and because his reasoning is based on the scriptural foundation he
denies. His inconsistency in thinking is all that allows him to have
knowledge.

The consistent atheist would never know any truth since there would be
no foundation for that knowledge apart from God. If all ability to know
evolved, there would be know basis for claiming that our knowledge gave
us an accurate view of the universe rather than the deceptive view of
the universe which is most likely for our survival. A Pure evolutionary
science apart from scripture is self-destructive.

>
> The question is, if the answers from science, and spiritual truths
> from the Bible conflict, whose authority do you default to?

God. I'll take God's word over man's word any day of the week.

> I do not see it as putting science over the Bible, if something that
> is clear in the scientific realm, like the age of the universe for
> example, helps us to understand Biblical passages that are less clear,
> like Genesis 1 and 2, then I see that as a good thing, science is
> increasing our knowledge and helping us to understand the point of
> Genesis.

Or maybe it has led you to impose science's view onto scripture
illegitimately. What authority do you have for reinterpreting scripture
by the man-made knowledge in science? Does the authority of science
exceed the authority of God?

> If you use a clearer passage in the New Testament to help interpret a
> less clear passage in the Old, or a passage in Colossions to help
> interpret a passage in Romans, does that mean that you are putting one
> in authority over the other? No. It means you are using the clear to
> interpret the unclear.
>
> Good scientists, and hopefully most Christian scientists, would claim
> that there is a limit to the knowledge that one can attain through
> scientific endeavors. But, that does not mean that truth elucidated
> through scientific methods, cannot help us to understand scripture.

The ultimate question is as you have stated above, when science and
scripture conflict, which do you trust most. The Christian trusts God's
word, the atheist trusts science. Many scientists on this list seem to
operate as functional atheists claiming fallible men performing science
are more reliable than God's own word.

>
>
>
>
> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 11:38:54 -0800
> Edward Hassertt <ehassertt@mac.com> wrote:
>
>> Dick Fischer wrote:
>>
>>> Moorad wrote:
>>>
>>> >Perhaps nature should be studied in the light of Scripture.
>>>
>>> Clearly, this has been what has gotten us into trouble. Nature needs
>>> to stand on its own two feet unimpeded by what we think the
>>> Scriptures say.
>>
>>
>> Well at least after a few weeks of asking questions I get what I was
>> asking for, a statement of where the loyalty of scientists on this
>> list lies. If nature must stand on its own without scripture, we
>> have a functional atheism that places science above scripture.
>> Nothing can stand on its own two feet apart from scripture for the
>> Christian since God's revelation is two-fold, the general which leads
>> to many erred results according to scripture (nature), and the
>> specific which is God's very word to man (scripture). Scripture
>> teaches us what nature says about God, not the other way around.
>>
>>> Otherwise you open it all up to how we interpret Scripture. And no
>>> one interprets the same. Can we impose on nature six 24-hour days
>>> of creation because God says so?
>>
>>
>> So we can impose a evolutionary system on nature because man says
>> so? So you admit, man has authority over GOd and man's view can be
>> imposed on nature, while God's revelation cannot! Thank you for
>> belong so clear, at least my presupposition has been proven correct,
>> that scientists on this list, for the most part, hold much more
>> loyalty to scripture, than to God's word. CLear evidence of this is
>> in your statement that we cannot allow scripture to be imposed on
>> nature, but we can allow science to be imposed on scripture.
>>
>>> What you would get is a blood bath.
>>>
>>> Dick Fischer - Genesis Proclaimed Association
>>> Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
>>> www.genesisproclaimed.org
>>> <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> .......................................................................................
>>
>> The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor
>> between classes, nor between political parties either, but right
>> through every human heart - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
>> .......................................................................................
>>
>>
>> Edward J. Hassertt
>> Reason By Faith
>> Auburn, Washington
>>
>> http://www.reasonbyfaith.org
>>
>> Christian Legal Discussion:
>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/advocatusdeus/
>
>

-- 
.......................................................................................
The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between 
classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every 
human heart   -  Alexander Solzhenitsyn
.......................................................................................
Edward J. Hassertt
Reason By Faith
Auburn, Washington
http://www.reasonbyfaith.org
Christian Legal Discussion:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/advocatusdeus/