How old is the earth?

[Jahzzz]

6000 years or 4.5 billion years?

[Chris Marks]

Perhaps you could start by telling us your own interpretation, Jahzzz?

[Anton I. Yermakov]

My own interpretation is that Earth is about 7,000 to 6,000 years old. (the Glorious Exalted Hesychasts who dwell in the Third Heaven can believe in "divine evolution", "Sanctified beast Adam", Apokastasis panton(God forbid and forgive me for mentioning this heresy!),Apophatic Theology, Divine Darkness, Fr. John Meyendorff, Byzantiology, levitation, Exalted Lights, etc, etc.)

I don't mean to offend anyone but I am a simple Orthodox believer, not a hesychast.

[Mark Davis]

Anton, I am not sure that I understand your reference to Fr John Meyendorff in this context! Could you clarify?

Mark

[Anton I. Yermakov]

The reference to Fr. John Meyendorff was there because he is a "prime example" of academic theology. The Pseudo-Hesychasts of our times tend to like it(Why?)

For example, in one of his books Father Meyendorff states "Nikon has altered the ancient Russian rites to match those of the Greeks. He was completely wrong". I happen to know Church Slavonic and both Rites (Old and New), so I decided to see who is right (St. Nikon or Fr. John.) Here is a perfect example: (translated into English)

New Rite: Let my prayer arise...
Old Rite: Let it arise itself, my prayer...

As you see, the Old Rite was plagued by mistakes and mistranlations. I could post more examples if you wish.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Greetings in Christ, Anton,

I would personally be quite interested in your posting a few more examples of what you believe to be 'mistakes and mistranslations' in the Old Rite. 'Let my prayer arise' and 'Let it arise itself, my prayer' are both admissable translations of the original text; though the latter is a bit more archaic in terms of emphatically translating the reflexive pronoun.

Could you pass along the title of Meyendorff's book from which you quoted?

Yours INXC,
Matthew

[John Popov]

According to text I have read, we are in the 7509th year since creation.

[M.C. Steenberg]

John, what text is this?

[Anton I. Yermakov]

I am sorry I have not been here for a long time due to illness. The passage is actually from Paul Meyendorff's book "Russia, Ritual and Reform". Sorry for the mistake.

For a good modern-day comparison to the Old Believers, the Matthewite Old Calendarists and ROCIE would be closest examples (although they are not schismatics)

[M.C. Steenberg]

Blessed Nativity to all. Anton, I am glad to see you here again, and hope you are feeling better. Thank you for the reference to Meyendorff's book.

I believe that there are a few genuine Old Believers still around, but they are scattered here and there and are especially small in number. Obviously nothing like their previous history!

INXC, Matthew

[Anton I. Yermakov]

I have quite a bit of experience with the "old" rite and the Old Believers. Most of the Old Believers are United Belief (in communion with the Patriarch). The schismatics are few in number and are extremely hostile against the Church.

(Also for a note- the Old believers boast of their old singing traditions. That is not true, actually- they have lost the tradition. For actual proper Znamenny and other ancient chants, Valaam monastery has it. The old believers, however, rush and bungle their chant beyond understanding. Their chants make the blood boil (in my experience).

[Gregory Myron]

Anton, where are these old believers you have experience with? Which part of the world? The experiences you describe don't match at all with my own experiences of the old believers. Perhaps some of these things are unique with the groups you've seen?

Gregory

[Anton I. Yermakov]

The Old Believers in my experience were both schismatic Priestless and Priestly Old Believers in the area of Moscow. Boris(?) Kutuzov, a choir conductor, was the most prominent one. ( I am not sure on what faith he is- but he is very hostile to St.Nikon and the restoration of service books)

[Razhden Guriadze]

I was told that the calendar we used in the country of Georgia was based on the time since creation.If that is true then this is the year 7509.

The calendar as I understand it starts the new year on the 1st of September, which falls on the 14th of Sept. in the Gregorian calendar.

[Ben Mincey]

According to geologists,the earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old.While this is based on science,I do not think that science and religion contradict each other.In my opinion,the more science uncovers about this universe we live in,the further we are pointed in the direction of God.We as human beings,the planet on which we live and the universe in which our world is placed,are far to perfect in their function and form to be "random".To say all is random and without purpose,is to insult the very intellect that God gave us!Did God not give us self awareness that we might know Him,and His infinite love for us?Is not learning about the endless wonders of God's creation, yet another way to learn about and love our Creator?I think that science can and should be turned to the glorification of our Lord and Savior,and a proper appreciation for His creation.The earth was created in six days,and on the seventh God rested.But how does God define a day,much less a year?May Christ bless you all and I ask that you pray for me,the most worthless of sinners.May God bless us all during this Holy Season.

In Christ,
Ben Mincey

[Razhden Guriadze]

Ben, I tend to agree with you.God gave Moses the story of creation by whatever means. He(God) told the story in a manner which was understandable by Moses.

There have been some interesting events in the area of "dating" carbon 14 dating can be off by several thousand years, if I understand correctly.The amino acid test is only off by less than a month.(I think.)

I heard of a test(the name of which I don't know) which gives the age of the dinosaur bones at about 7500 years. I am certainly not sure if this test actually exists or is somebody's idea of a joke.

I think that it would be funny to find out that God had "planted" the bones as His joke.
If this last test does exist and is accurate as I was told then we would have to look at some type of event which altered the aging process of bones.

I know that the leaky's "created(by them)" creature has been determined by Dna testing to be the bones of several animals and not one.

When we see God face-to-face we can ask Him.

God's blessings to all,
Razhden

[Ben Mincey]

You make an excellent point Razhden.Ultimately only God knows the whole story.But looking out at the vastness of creation and all the secrets that she holds,is a wondrous and humbling thing.There is another great inference you make about the Leakys.It is interesting how often the "secular world" forgets that the "theory of evolution" is just that-a "theory"http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif!

In Christ,
Ben

[Joseph Bell]

Perhaps the question posed should have been, "Do you have faith in God or science?" I believe that the two are not exclusive. My first priority is to faith in our God, the Trinity, one in essence and undivided. Atheism based on science is as daring as any philosophy, but not really any more valid. (It is based on paradigms that are, by definition, limited in their scope- and made to be broken!) I choose to play it safe by trusting in my heart, which through God's grace has led me to his Orthodox Church. In these last day's, we Christians are indeed being severly tested. May God bless us in our struggles and grant us the ability to be true and honest witnesses to the faith.

Yours in Christ,
Joseph Bell

[John Curtis Dunn]

Does the Sun rise and set or does the earth circle the sun while rotating on an axis?
Who doubts the first and how many people can prove the second? Are there two sciences or only one? Which world do you live within?

Searching for a Geological foundation for faith.

Every couple of weeks, or so, a fellow employee feels obligated to attempt to prove to me His belief that God does not exist is more rationale than my faith in the Divinity of Jesus Christ. What kind of rock does he build his house of faith upon, sand or stone? He argues it is upon the solid rock of science, which he assures me to be irrefutable. He assures me the "rocks cry out" the evidence which proves God to be an imaginary projection of man's attempt to make sense, purpose or meaning where there is none.
So for your ammusement I have written Irmos 3 with stichari(sp?) and Sedalion for a "Canon To The Foundation of Sand."

Irmos Tone 4.6 billion
'O let us give thanks to the Geologist for they have interpreted the sedimentary traditions hidden within the rocks. The Forerunner said, "Out of these stones God can raise up children unto Abraham." But the worldly wise Geologist has unveiled the secret age hidden as a pearl of great price within the earth.

REFRAIN: The rocks cry out to us, "there is no heaven or hell."

How old is planet earth the wise children asked the Geologist in 1865? A man named Thompson replied, Not a day older than 20 million years.

REFRAIN: The rocks cry out to us, "there is no heaven or hell."

Then in 1897, with the passage of only 32 years he discovered new math and found that 20 million years plus 32 years equals 40 million years, 20m + 32y = 40m. Yes, in the year 1897 the earth was a mere 40 million years old.

REFRAIN: The rocks cry out to us, "there is no heaven or hell."

In 1899, only two years later, J. Joly proclaimed the earth to be 90 million years old, 20m + 32y + 2y = 90m. Yes, in the year 1899 the earth was a mere 90 million years old.

REFRAIN: The rocks cry out to us, "there is no heaven or hell."

In 1921, only 22 years later, Rayleigh calculated the new age of the earth to be 1 billion, 20m + 32y + 2y + 22y = 1b. Yes, in 1921 the earth was a mere 1 billion years old.

REFRAIN: The rocks cry out to us, "there is no heaven or hell."

Then 11 years later W.O. Hotchkiss proved the earth to be 1.6 billion years old, 20m + 32y + 2y + 22y + 11y = 1.6b. Yes, in 1932 the earth was a mere 1.6 billion years old.

REFRAIN: The rocks cry out to us, "there is no heaven or hell."

Then A. Holmes in 1947 multiplied Hothkiss' sum by 26 years and arrived at 3.35 billion years; 20m + 32y + 2y + 22y + 11y X 26y = 3.35b. Yes, in 1947 the earth was a mere 3.5 billion years old.

[same tone]
Glory to the Big Bang Theory and to the Evolution between the species and to the Survival of the fittest.

Sedalion, Tone 3.5 billion

"Wait a minute, does not 1.6b X 26 years equal 3.5b not 3.35 billion. Well, yes if you insist that the first and last of the 26 years must have been full years. However, the first and or last of the 26 years must have been short of a full twelve months." (composers note: I will let others calculate the actual number of days required within the first or last of the 26 years to arrive at an exact sum of 3.35 billion. If you disagree with my formula, please remember we are adding apples and oranges.)]

[tone 4.6 billion]
For today we believe in 4.6 but tomorrow who can prevent us from 6.5 billion years.

____________________________________

Today Geologist instruct us to believe the earth to be shy of 5 billion years, or as Mr. Ben Mincey has stated it, "According to geologists, the earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old."
[see Post: Wednesday, April 03, 2002] In 137 years the earth has aged, 4.5 billion 980 million years. However, if we multiply all this by the life of dog; we can all return to our vomit.

As to the question about how God calculates a year? Any answer would simply be nonsensical. If someone insists on an answer however, I would say 365 days. Why not? Did not our Lord enter into time through a perfect gestation, that would be March 25 until December 25 {A formula that seems to work within either calendar.)

John Curtis

[John Curtis Dunn]

PS. Looking at the evolution of Geological earth dating kinda reminds a person of the JW's dating of the return of Christ....

John Curtis

[Jennifer Thompson]

Peace to all!

"I think that it would be funny to find out that God had "planted" the bones as His joke."

I think that this is an interesting comment that Rahzden made because I see a bit of connection with it and the manner in which science and theology may actually meet in their interpretation of the age of the Earth. A possible explanation of the vast difference in conclusions that science and theology have made is that God has created an Earth with its very own history. However, I do not beleive that such an act would have been a joke from God. :0) I do beleive that it forces us to rely on faith to beleive in Him rather than using science to prove Him. I also could see a bit of providence in it. A possible example of this is our fossil fuels, which, according to science take millions of years to form. If the Earth has only been around for 7.5k years or if God had not provided it (possibly through a created history with a story similar to what science sometimes describes), then it wouldn't be here.

Science is a good thing, a very good way to study the Earth that God has created. We must always remember that science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God nor that he did or did not create the Earth as His Word tells us.

May God bless us!
Jennifer

[Ben Mincey]

Your post was funny John,I liked the play on wordshttp://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif.As far as my statement about how God measures time,that was meant to be purely rhetorical.In my opinion,science is only a religion or "god",IF you make it so.Like anything in life,science can be used for good or ill.We use money everyday to purchase items we need,to pay bills,etc,etc.This represents using money as a tool in our everyday life.BUT,when money becomes the end all/be all for an individual,the very measuring stick by which said individual defines their existance,THEN money becomes that persons "god".The same can be said of science.

Science has enabled us to better understand our world.We have overcome horrible diseases that used to kill millions,we have created technological wonders that have made life easier and more livable for many,and the list goes on and on.CONVERSELY,science has also been used to preform some of the most evil atrocities which man has inflicted on man.Mass murder,nuclear weapons,biological agents...once again the list goes on and on.The point is that it is the PEOPLE using the science,NOT the science itself which brings forth the end result.It is up to the INDIVIDUAL as to how science is used or misused.

If one puts their total trust and faith in science,makes science a "god" if you will,then that individual will always be disappointed!After all,the science is only as good as the person(s) using it.We humans are imperfect creatures,so our theories are often imperfect,as is the science that is used to explain said theories.But then that is why they are called "theories" after all.

But should this keep us from trying to better understand our universe,or our world?I think not!

Almighty God gave us self awareness and the ability to know right from wrong for a reason,and it was NOT so we would stick our collective heads in the sand.We were given these gifts so that we could know and love our Creator.One way of doing this is through the exploration and discovery of His creation.God never commanded anyone not to question,wonder or think.Indeed,not qustioning can be a very dangerous thing,just ask the folks who followed Hitler,or the people who had Kool-Aid
with Jim Jones-I know they are dead,it is a rhetorical statement.Science can indeed become a god,but so can a million(at least!),other things in life,many which we must deal with everyday(science included).It is up to us as individuals to choose if we allow God to come first in our lives.God won't force us to love Him,if He did it would not be love!As for the "rocks" crying out John,THEY DO!!! Indeed all of creation,the rocks,the trees the sky and the animals.The stars,the moon,the sun,the biggest to the smallest thing in our nigh infinite universe ALL cry out to the Glory and Majesty of Almighty God!

If we allow it science can be a way,albeit small and imperfect,of encountering this Glory.

My God Bless and keep you,
Ben Mincey

[Ben Mincey]

As an addendum.Jennifer Thompson writes:


"We must always remember that science cannot prove or disprove the existance of God nor that He did or did not create the Earth as His Word tells us."

All I can say to that is Amen!!!http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gifScience is simply humanity's (imperfect) way of trying to understand and explain the created world/universe in which we exist.Science cannot explain,nor will it ever be able to explain The Creator.

God Bless,
Ben Mincey

[Razhden Guriadze]

I have talked with some scientists about the creation of the universe.
They always get back to the "big bang".

I have asked them what existed "before" the "big band"?

They always reply "Why, before that everything was one homogeneous substance." (Does this sound familiar?)

I ask them "What caused everything to come together to cause the "big bang". There they are at a loss to explain.

I submit that something intelligent (which makes it a someone.) ,which was not physical as we know it, caused all of the atoms to come together and that was the start of creation.
Or, In the words of my Jewish friend ,"Ahhaaaa!.

I think we have heard this before.

ICXC,
Razhden

[M.C. Steenberg]

In his recent post containing a satirical 'Ode to the Foundation of Sand', John wrote:


Irmos Tone 4.6 billion

I was laughing all afternoon at this, John. With all the tonal variations that come to life during the Fast, this number doesn't seem so far off. http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif

INXC, Matthew

[John Curtis Dunn]

Ben Mincey Posted on Saturday, April 06, 2002
>>"As far as my statement about how God measures time,that was meant to be purely rhetorical.In my opinion,science is only a religion or "god",IF you make it so. .....This represents using money as a tool in our everyday life.BUT,when money becomes the end all/be all for an individual,the very measuring stick by which said individual defines their existance,THEN money becomes that persons "god".The same can be said of science.<<<

Of Course I would agree, which is why I prefaced my exercise in creative writing with a reference to my fellow employee. The commandment reads: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." yet for many (such as my co-worker) science has come between him and knowing GOD. For in his "pseudo-scientific worldview (paradigm) God is unknowable precisely because "science" cannot prove the existence of God. Such persons always are calling for "scientific" evidence or facts to prove God's existence.

It seems to me, that many (if not all) of these individuals became confused when they learned that the earth rotated on an axis while orbiting around the Sun. Up until that moment they only knew and believed that the Sun rose and set on the horizons. Faced with two seemingly conflicting kinds of "scientific knowledge" they have never been able to reconcile the seemingly contradictory realities within their minds and thus they feel they are unable to live in a world where the sun rises and sets. Why? Because both can't be true.

Of course this is a simplified explanation of the dilemma experienced within the minds of such persons. Evens so, it seems that it characterizes the kind of schizoid thinking which plagues many persons today. "Thinking themselves to be wise, they become fools." In the case of my fellow-worker, this thought pattern has produced infantile type questions which seem to him to justify his "unbelief" in Jesus Christ as God-man.

"I went to Church for seventeen years before I rejected a belief in Christ," he tells me. Statements like these are designed to assure me he has fully investigated all apologetics for my belief in God becoming man and dwelling among us. Then follows, "There is no way Noah could have fit all the animals on the Ark." or "How could all the animals have co-existed together with Noah and his family and enough food to feed them all?" These kinds of questions express a inability to hold reconcile two seemingly contradictory sciences. ("Ever hear of hibernation," I reply. "Many scientist believe all animals and humans have this gene and they are searching for the trigger mechanism. Why? so they can make future deep space voyages." Yet, even if such a gene is discovered along with a way to trigger it, skeptics such as my co-worker will find a way to use such scientific facts to justify their unbelief.

Ben wrote: >>"As for the "rocks" crying out John,THEY DO!!!"<<

Yes, I agree. I for one believe the evidence of science DOES prove the existence of God. It is currently vogue to reject the traditional apologetics for evidence of design by arguing that all belief in God is axiomatic. However, I believe such axiomatic evidence is proof of God, at least in an Orthodox Christian worldview. But then as an Orthodox Christian, I accept Dionysius the Aeropagites teaching about God.

But that would be another topic under another thread, correct?

Thank-you for your comment about my "Canon to the foundation of Sand" being funny. " As a great American Stooge once quipped in court, "Truth is stranger than fiction, Judgy wudgy." (Curly from "Order in the Court.")

John Curtis

[John Curtis Dunn]

I wrote in my last post: >>"These kinds of questions express a inability to hold reconcile two seemingly contradictory sciences"<<

I meant to write: "These kinds of questions express an inability to hold and reconcile two seemingly contradictory sciences"<<

Sometimes my dyslexic fingers take over.
John Curtis

[John Curtis Dunn]

For those of us who follow the Traditional Orthodox Calender (sometimes referred to as the Old or Julian calendars; of which both expressions are not precise)today is the Feast of the Annunciation. What, if anything, can this Feast (one of the most, if not the most miraculous of all Feasts) reveal to us and help us aquire an Orthodox mind in order to apprehend the mystery of Creation in an Orthodox fashion?

The 'zeitgeist' within our milieu rejects all ideas of creation from nothing as "unscientific". Even the so called "Big Bang" theory must begin with some "homogeneous substance" [as Mr. Razhden Guriadze pointed out in his post of Saturday, April 06, 2002] or as I have heard it described "a primordial soup." However, this Feast of the Annunciation arrives almost as if it were designed for the our over-scientific and rationalistic minds, at least IMO.

Therefore, the following Homily extracted from the "The Prologue of Ohrid" seems wholly appropriate within this thread. For what good is it, if we are able to ascertain the age of the rocks, yet, we are unable to judge the spirit of our age? For we are in an era of Great Apostacy; when the minds of men easily swayed by sirenic voices turn away from the "Mystery of God with Us" to 'stellar static radio waves'. Having established as their foundation the calculations of Geologist; the 'pseudo-scientific-gnostiic' builds his edifice of unbelief upwards into the very stars. Exalted by rationalistism they "boldly go where no man has gone before."

What is it they seek? Nothing less than to have their wisdom exalted onto the very throne of God. And then by ridicule to have the Orthodox Christian mind driven out of the city of modern culture.

O'What a joyous feast is this Annunciation, Come, let us eat fish together.

John Curtis

HOMILY
Until God spoke, there was no light. Nor was there anyone who could know what light was, until God spoke, and light came into being. In the same manner, when God spoke, then water and the dry land came into existence, the firmament of the heavens, vegetation, animals and finally man. Until God spoke, none of this existed nor was there anyone, except God, Who could know that all of this could exist. By the power of His word, God created all that is created on earth and in the heavens. Whatever God wanted to exist and spoke that it be, must be and it cannot but be, for the word of God is irresistible and creative. The creation of the world is a great miracle of the word of God.

Having created all things, God again, by His word, established the order of creation and the manner of behavior and relationship of creatures one with another. This order and manner which God established is a great miracle of God's word. There exists an order and manner among created things, visible and comprehensible for us people; and there also exists an order and manner, invisible and incomprehensible. According to that invisible and incomprehensible order and manner, which is a mystery in the Holy Trinity, there have occurred and are occurring those manifestations which people call miracles. One such manifestation is the conception of the Lord Jesus Christ in the womb of the All-Holy Virgin Mary without a husband [The Virgin Birth]. This appears like an interruption in the visible and comprehensible order and manner but it is never an interruption for the invisible and incomprehensible order and manner. This birth, truly, is a great miracle; perhaps the greatest miracle that was ever revealed to us mortals. But the entire created world is a miracle, and all the visible and comprehensible order and manner is a miracle, and altogether these miracles came about by the word of God; therefore, much in the same way the Lord was conceived in the Virgin's womb. Both one and the other was all brought about by the power and word of God. That is why the wonderful Gabriel replied to the question of the All-Pure One which is the question of all generations: "How can this be?" (St. Luke 1:34), and he answered her: "For nothing will be impossible for God" (St. Luke 1:37).

O Lord God, our Creator, Immortal and Existing Miracle-Worker, enlighten our minds that we no longer doubt, but believe and enlighten our tongue that it not question You, but praise You.

To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

[M.C. Steenberg]

The course of this particular conversation is quite interesting inasmuch as it demonstrates the rising popular acceptance of something Orthodoxy has always understood: that 'science' and 'religion' need not be contrasting arenas of human life and thought. The distinction between the two is actually a very modern, recent development, stemming principally from an over-zealous Christian response to what was a over-emphatic presentation of the theory of natural selection around three decades ago. The polarity began then -- but was a false polarity from its outset.

'Science', as a word, simply means 'knowledge' (Latin scientia), and as 'religion' is the life of true knowledge, the Church has always considered 'science' a part of that life. Only when science is ripped apart from religion and set at odds with it, can it not be embraced in this way.

But a healthy embrace for true science has always been a part of Orthodox spirituality. In reference to the accurate understanding of the natural world, in particular, it has long formed a crucial step in the ascetic development of the spiritual life.

INXC, Matthew

[Richard McBride]

Compare Matthew's comment:
"The course of this particular conversation is quite interesting inasmuch as it demonstrates the rising popular acceptance of something Orthodoxy has always understood: that 'science' and 'religion' need not be contrasting arenas of human life and thought. The distinction between the two is actually a very modern, recent development, stemming principally from an over-zealous Christian response to what was a over-emphatic presentation of the theory of natural selection around three decades ago."

with this thinking:

"We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules
known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment."

Richard Dawkins
--The Selfish Gene

Taken from TPM http://www.philosophers.co.uk/tpmshop.htm

[Chad Duskin]

When I asked this question to a professor I had in college his response was interesting. He said that in the story of creation we are told that God created man, not a baby; birds, not eggs; trees, not seeds. That everything created was created with age already a part of it. The earth could have been created 8000 years ago but aged to look 4.5 billion. That would be consistent with the rest of the story.

[Razhden Guriadze]

Greetings in Christ,

Chad, you bring up an interesting point.

I consider myself one who reads "the words" of the Bible and not just meaning.

I have known that God created Adam as a man and not a baby, etc. .

I just never applied these things this way.

Thank you again.
God bless us all,
ICXC,
Razhden

[John Curtis Dunn]

If I say "The Sun rises." Have I made a religious statement or a scientific statement?

With my "Canon to the foundation of Sand" I was addressing a pseudo-scientific-Gnosticism of which there are people who eclectically select data (usually only that which is popular) to justify their unbelief in God, Christ and the Church. Sadly, one of my own Godsons studying to be a Geologist at Oklahoma University lost his faith because he could not reconcile his new found knowledge with his Christian beliefs.

This is why I opened with a question about the Sunrise versus the earth's rotation. It appears that some individuals are incapable of living within the tension of modern science and a Christian confession of faith. Inevitably it seems that most choose one or the other to be the master of their spiritual course. Is it not sad when intelligent men and women abandon the knowledge of God for rocks?

But what is even sadder is that having chosen this path they are making disciples of other young minds. This disciple making goes well beyond the realm of higher academic discipline. It is widely disseminated through the lower schools as "evidence against" the knowledge of God, how so? I am not referring to the text book or even the teacher that makes use of such, no, I am referring to the conversations which take place between students outside of the classroom; perhaps a it is trite, but this is adequately described as popular science. How do I know this?

I work with several young men who are only recently out of High School and freely discuss why they have abandoned the religious faith of their parents for a pseudo-intellectual scientific worldview (my description not theirs). The age of the earth is only one of their reasons, the age of the earth is based upon the age of the moon, which if I am not mistaken is dated around 4.5 million years + or - 0.1 billion years (for a 2% tolerance). Also it should be mentioned that the age of comets or the erosion rate of the continents is also considered as a part of the 'geological clock'.

I am not a scientist and neither are the men with whom I work. Yet, they eagerly present to me the latest info culled from one of the programs on the National Geographic Channel, the History Channel or PBS. This is presented always to argue how it proves the nonexistence of God. How do I reply to these men? I have only one certain answer, which I believe, is scientific. "Within all sciences there may be found competing explanations which allow for an alternative worldviews. And within specific disciplines of science there exists alternative interpretations of the facts."

The most common rebuttal I receive is sarcasm; which is usually a quip something like, "I can't believe in a God which creates a universe designed to fool men into making false conclusions about their environment." I simply reply "God is not responsible for the methods and interpretations of scientific data used by men to deny His existence." These men went through school never being taught there IS an alternative view which is equally scientific. For it is not the empirical data which is the problem between Evolution and Creationism, it is the philosophy by which the data is understood. For these men science does not consist of theories but of absolutes, which in the face of competing religious worldviews appears quite certain.

Within my post I presented one example within one scientific discipline in which there has been a development of theories each one resting on its own scientific analysis. By spoofing this development I was not attacking the science but rather the use of that science to justify unbelief. I believe it is fair to say that through out the 137 years I covered the conclusions of these men and others were used by many to justify their unbelief?

I was not intending to argue the young versus old earth theories, this was not the subject of my post to the List. I was addressing a perspective that makes use of such arguments to justify unbelief and excuses individuals from investigating the evidence for Orthodoxy and the theory of the age of the earth is just one theory used to excuse themselves.

In my follow up post I quoted the Homily for March 25 found within the Prologue of the Ohrid. The following paragraph from that Homily shows that it is not 'science' which is being rejected.

>>"Having created all things, God again, by His word, established the order of
creation and the manner of behavior and relationship of creatures one with
another. This order and manner which God established is a great miracle of
God's word. There exists an order and manner among created things, visible
and comprehensible for us people;"<<

The above quote expresses no "antiscientific" sentiment, however, why should I as an Orthodox Christian except the Old versus Young earth theory? Why should I except the Big Bang Theory? Why should I except the modern stellar theories? From what source does the evidence that floating gases developed into stars originate? What scientific laboratory has been able to create a star? Where is scientific evidence, which proves the theory of an Oscillating universe, and can scientist create an oscillating universe over and over so that we can actually see the accuracy of that science? Which Scientist has been able to show tangible evidence that hydrogen spontaneously generates matter in outer space? How can we know that the decay rate has always remained constant? Could not changes in the atmosphere result in a rate of change in decay? Is it not possible that leaching carried away portions of daughter products? Is it not true that Argon easily migrates out of rock? Where have scientist duplicated Geological Over thrusts?

The men I work with were not taught in school about the circular reasoning which is widely disseminated through out the all theories of Evolution, including the age of the earth.

"Material bodies are finite, and no rock unit is global in extent, yet stratigraphy aims at a global classification. The particulars have to be stretched into universals somehow. Here ordinary materialism leaves off building up a system of units recognized by physical properties, to follow dialectical materialism, which starts with time units and regards the material bodies as their incomplete representatives. This is where the suspicion of circular reasoning crept in, because it seemed to the layman that the time units were abstracted from the geological column, which has been put together from rock units."_*J.E. O'Rourke, "Pragmatism vs. Materialism in Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, January 1979, p. 49.

"The rocks do date the fossils, but the fossils date the rocks more accurately. Stratigraphy cannot avoid this kind of reasoning, if it insists on using only temporal concepts, because circularity is inherent in the derivation of time scales."_*J.E. O'Rourke, "Pragmatism vs. Materialism in Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, January 1976, p. 53.

According to Phillip Johnson author of Darwin on Trial one "Harvard University geneticist Richard Lewontin, has written that the key to educating the public about science is not to emphasize the teaching of particular facts and theories, but rather to teach students to believe in materialism as a philosophy and in "Science, as the only begetter of truth."

What is being suggested in Lewontin's program for scientific education? Is it not a prejudice against any idea that materialism is the only truth knowable to rational man? His idea is already being assimilated among many young persons of which I gave examples in my previous post. Are we to assume only the Christian can be a bigot towards knowledge? Another pseudoscientific Gnostic wrote: "Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind." George Gaylord Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution.

I work in a trade; I construct custom cabinetry and countertops for private and corporate jets. I work with fifteen other men of whom five are under the age of 25. All five of these openly share the sentiment expressed by Mr. Simpson, yet not one of them has had any higher education than High School. Where did they acquire this pseudoscientific Gnosticism and who will answer for having taught such a heresy to them? I do not oppose science, I oppose those who have made out of science a god or to be perfectly fair a "god-lessness."

"I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning, consequently assumed
it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption . . The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do . . For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom."—*Aldous Huxley, "Confessions of a Professed Atheist,"

One day I was reading an interview with the late Malcolm Muggridge in which he said something to the effect "A day will come when the myth of Evolution will be seen to have been only that: a myth."

John Curtis

[John Curtis Dunn]

Stories of frozen animal carcasses known simply as mammoths, where often the topic in the tundra of northeastern Siberia. It was once a common belief that these mammoths were large moles, and they were sometimes referred to as "ICE-RATS." It was once also believed that if these mammoths were exposed to daylight, they died. Have you had your chuckle yet? As wild as the proceeding story sounds, modern scientists are responsible for their own ‘modern myths,’ which in the face of scientific reality are as just as incredulous. One such myth concerns the mammoth also once known as the "ICE-RAT." [1]

As recently as 1997 "a Russian bulldoze operator working in Siberia noticed a block of muddy ice containing a dark mass. On closer inspection he was amazed to see the contours of a small elephant-like creature. He had discovered a perfectly preserved Woolly Mammoth," [2] But these Mammoth creatures were the subject of scientist even in the mid 1800s. Dr. Leopold von Schrenck, Chief of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at Petrograd, published the following account in 1869: "The mammoth ... is a gigantic beast which lives in the depths of the earth, when it digs for itself dark pathways, and feeds on earth ... They account for its corpse being found so fresh and well preserved on the ground that the animal is still a living one."

Scientist have taught us to believe the huge elephant like mammal, known simply as the MAMMOTH, became extinct no later than 10,000 years ago. These awesome creatures have been found depicted upon the walls of caves, for example in south France. We are taught these paintings were produced by our own prehistoric ancestors; commonly known as the "cave man." These paintings are estimated to be around 30,000 years old. Below is a timeline chart, which is often used to give our children, a chronological bearing to the questions, and us "who is man?" And "where did he come from?"

Today there is tremendous pressure being coerced upon 21st century man to accept mega-evolution [3] as the only acceptable scientific choice. In most classrooms, students are being taught evolution as if it were beyond questioning. Leaving the classroom these former students enter into the market place of ideas and begin to interact with Orthodox Christians in with the very bigoted prejudice of which they accuse Christians. Claiming to be open minded they show that they have created for themselves a closed minded philosophy.

This closed minded philosophy is sometimes taken up even by Christians who except as an axiom that "the existence of God cannot be proven." [4] Yet, as Orthodox Christians we have heard and been taught the Holy Scriptures which state: "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities**his eternal power and divine nature**have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." St. John Chrysostom with his Spirit-filled discernment taught us:

"Where are those who disbelieve the Resurrection? Who are they, I pray? Are they Gentiles, or Christians? for I am ignorant. But no, I know well: they are Gentiles, who also disbelieve the work of Creation. For the two denials go together: the denial that God creates any thing from nothing, and the denial that He raises up what has been buried. ..."The fool will speak foolishness." (Is. xxxii. 6.) Are you not ashamed not to grant, that God can create from nothing? If he creates from matter already existing, wherein does He differ from men? But whence, you demand, are evils? Though you should not know whence, ought you for that to introduce another evil in the knowledge of evils? Hereupon two absurdities follow. For if you do not grant, that from things which are not, God made the things which are, much more shall you be ignorant whence are evils: and then, again, you introduce another evil, the affirming that Evil is uncreated. Consider now what a thing it is, when you wish to find the source of evils, to be both ignorant of it, and to add another to it. Search after the origin of evils, and do not blaspheme God. And how do I blaspheme? says he. When you make out that evils have a power equal to God's; a power uncreated. For, observe what Paul says; "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." (Rom. i. 20.) But the devil would have both to be of matter, that there may be nothing left from which we may come to the knowledge of God."

The last line quoted expresses the end game of evolution; [5] the removal of the knowledge of God from within Creation, and having accomplished this, to assert that all evil is a natural evolutionary byproduct. But how does the ‘mammoth’ play into this debate between the Evolutionist and the Creationist? What specifically should give us pause before we whole heartily accept the ‘evolutionary and chronological theory’ concerning the mammoth?

In February and March of 1992, the British explorer Sir John Blashford-Snell [6] went trekking through a remote valley in the Bardia region of western Nepal in search of "giant elephants" which had been reported by the locals. Two representatives of these ’mammoth’ sized elephants, both bulls, were observed and photographed. The two beasts, were estimated to have footprints measuring 22.5 inches across with a height at the shoulders of 11 feet 3 inches and over 12 feet at the crown of the head. These two mammoth creatures were both larger than the largest-ever recorded specimen of the Asian elephant, Elephas maximus What was most notable about these creatures were that both had two very large domes on their forehead, and a distinctive nasal bridge. These two features are not present on normal Asian elephants, but are, however, distinct on an extinct species of primitive elephant, the Stegodont , as species of Mammoth. Both had the sloping back which was characteristic of the Stegodont.

But where these only two mutant pachyderms or could they actually be living Stegodonts? Both Snell and Canadian paleontologist Dr. Clive Coy , have speculated that the giant Nepalese elephants could very well be, in fact, representatives of the presumably extinct Stegodont. The prevailing theory is that these two must be mutants of the normal Asian elephant, rather than a Stegodont or even a separate, new species of elephant. Why? Because both Snell [who actually observed them] and Coy’s speculations fail to pass the "orthodoxy" of modern crypto-zoology! Quite simply, the idea is to far fetched since we know that the mammoth became extinct no later than 10,000 years and probably more like 30,000 years ago.

Still, it has been noted that these creatures appear identical to the ‘cave man paintings’ found in such locations as south France. Undaunted by these findings some crypto-zoologist refuse to simply dismiss the two creatures as ‘freaks’ of nature. Indeed, some find it quite probable that these are actual living sightings of ‘evolution in the making.’[7] Whether or not these pachyderms are indeed modern mammoths or just mutants for a scientist freak show, it is evident that speculations of evolutionist within the cryto-zoological discipline is no better than the reason which gave rise to the name "ICE-RAT."

[1] Quoted by Walt Brown Ph.D in "Frozen Mammoths" In the Beginning Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, Center for Scientific Creation, 2001, seventh edition from Siberian Man and Mammoth, Muriel D. Simpson (London: Black & Son Limited, 1939)
[2] http://www.crystalinks.com/wooleyanimals.html
[3] ‘Mega-evolution is distinct from ‘micro-evolution.’ Micro-evolution is the discipline of science which addresses the science of genetics and the changes of characteristics within species. Mega-evolution asserts, without any scientific evidence, the idea of evolution from molecules to man. The former is an actual science observable and reproducible. The latter is conjecture designed to reconcile conflicting data into an explainable system of ideas, called philosophy. This philosophy is preeminently corporeal at its foundation and is thus opposed to any idea or knowledge of God being introduced into its system. There is an alternative philosophy in which science can be conducted and the data can be assimilated. This is known sometimes as Creation Science or Scientific Creationism.
[4] There are some Orthodox Christians who propose what is called "theistic evolution." This is simply a semantic invention, no such thing as "theistic evolution" exists ANYWHERE in the biological sciences. It is merely a nominal religious belief tacked on to an atheistic evolutionary system. [IMO]
[5] Evolutionists will sometimes state that "science does not deal with final causes." This may be true, but Evolutionary theory certainly does--if not by statement then certainly by implication. And it most certainly is not limited to the late Carl Sagan and his transparently atheistic assertion about the physical cosmos "being all there is and all that ever will be." Since evolutionary theory is built entirely without God, and God has absolutely no place in ANY step of the evolutionary process (including the very origins of life), it is obvious that evolutionary theory IS making a tacit statement about final causes--and it is an atheistic one at that.
[6] Sir John Blashford-Snell (also known as Colonel) is the founder of the "Scientific Exploration Society", see "http://freespace.virgin.net/sci.explore/" The exploration and research in Western Nepal of the largest Asian elephant ever recorded continues today. For the latest update on these explorations visit http://www.ses-explore.org/past/nepal.htm
[7] One of the definitions used by evolutionists is to define evolution as "change through time." The use of this phrase is intended to characterize Creationist as believing in a perfectly static earth. This definition is a debate tactic designed to facilitate a non-sequitur: "If you agree that any change occurs in living systems, or in populations of living systems, then you must also admit that molecules-to-man evolution takes place. The mega-evolutionist argues it is only a difference of degrees within the same process." This is simply to state , "since a cow can jump, and we might not agree exactly how high it can jump under favorable circumstances, therefore we are free to believe that a cow can jump all the way around the moon." (quoted from John Woodmorappe


John Curtis

[John Curtis Dunn]

... the world was not conceived by chance and without reason, but for an useful end and for the great advantage of all beings, since it is really the school where reasonable souls exercise themselves, the training ground where they learn to know God; since by the sight of visible and sensible things the mind is led, as by a hand, to the contemplation of invisible things. "For," as the Apostle says, "the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." (HOMILY I. In the Beginning God made the Heaven and the Earth.)


How fast was "In the beginning?" Was it instantaneous maturity? Or was it a long drawn out process of billions of years? Some opponents of the instantaneous probability and thusly against a literal six day evening and morning period, object to the idea that God would create the world with the appearance of age. Why? The way it has been articulated to me is, "What kind of God would create a world to appear older than it actually is; which subsequently results in men miscalculating the age of the earth and thus, rejecting the knowldge of God.? Some who ask this question have rejected altogether any knowledge of God within creation. Others have opted to reconcile Science and Religion by 'baptizing' Evolutionary theories of Science with the knowledge of God. These latter are sometimes referred to as "Theistic Evolutionist."

In my mind it appears that for the Orthodox Naturalist (a scientific philosopher) the Genesis account sets the boundries of each day's creation between the 'evening and morning.' Are these words meant to be understood as a chronology of time? "And God called the light, Day, and the darkness he called Night: and the evening and the morning were the first day" Gen 1:5,8,13,19,23,31.

We sometimes imagine that if we were present at the "In the beginning", the question of whether the 'heavens and the earth', where created with the appearance of age or whether we could see the evolution of age, would be resolved. Would it? St. Basil the Great seems to propose that our curiosity would yet be abated, even if we were present to observe "In the beginning".

"Perhaps these words "In the beginning God created" signify the rapid and imperceptible moment of creation. The beginning, in effect, is indivisible and instantaneous." (ibid.)

The significant thought is expressed in St. Basil's use of "rapid and imperceptible moment of creation". It seems that St. Basil perceives the moment of creation to be so instantaneous that our observation would result in no perceptable change. We know that change has occurred yet having entered into the moment of creation we cannot measure the moment of change. For we did not know before hand when that moment would occur, in that it belonged wholly to the Father's good pleasure.

Or stated in another way, " One moment NO CREATION the next CREATION'S EXISTENCE, in which there would be no perceptable change. Indeed, so rapid is the creations response to God's call, that the possibility of remembering the preceeding moment of non-existence would be impossible. Maturity of Creation would seem then to infer 'spontaneous mature praise in obedience." Creation responds as a congregation coming into existence with the faithful cry of "AMEN" to Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

Perhaps this change foreshadows the moment of the Parousia. If we could measure the moment of Christ's appearance and our subsequent Resurrection, we might also ascertain the age of the moment of Creation. But, who in the Gospels analyzes the moment? I might suggest it was those who are numbered among the "unfaithful and un-believers," who are left wondering "when did we see you hungry, thirsty or naked," or 'if only we had known the hour of the thief's appearance?'

Deceived by their inherent atheism it appeared to them that nothing governed or ruled the universe, and that was all was given up to chance. To guard us against this error the writer on the creation, from the very first words, enlightens our understanding with the name of God; "In the beginning God created." What a glorious order! He first establishes a beginning, so that it might not be supposed that the world never had a beginning. Then be adds "Created" to show that which was made was a very small part of the power of the Creator. In the same way that the potter, after having made with equal pains a great number of vessels, has not exhausted either his art or his talent; thus the Maker of the Universe, whose creative power, far from being bounded by one world, could extend to the infinite, needed only the impulse of His will to bring the immensities of the visible world into being. If then the world has a beginning, and if it has been created, enquire who gave it this beginning, and who was the Creator. (ibid.)

[M.C. Steenberg]

Greetings to all,

Following upon some of the past discussion on the days of creation and the immense task of trying to discern the full meaning of the creation account, I came today upon a quotation which I thought rather applicable, in my re-reading of Theophilus of Antioch:


"Of this six days' work no man can give a worthy explanation and description of all its parts, not though he had ten thousand tongues and ten thousand mouths; nay, though he were to live ten thousand years, sojourning in this life, not even so could he utter anything worthy of these things, on account of the exceeding greatness and riches of the wisdom of God which there is in the six days' work above narrated. Many writers indeed have imitated the narration, and essayed to give an explanation of these things; yet, though they thence derived some suggestions, both concerning the creation of the world and the nature of man, they have emitted no slightest spark of truth. And the utterances of the philosophers, and writers, and poets have an appearance of trustworthiness, on account of the beauty of their diction; but their discourse is proved to be foolish and idle, because the multitude of their nonsensical frivolities is very great; and not a stray morsel of truth is found in them. For even if any truth seems to have been uttered by them, it has a mixture of error. And as a deleterious drug, when mixed with honey or wine, or some other thing, makes the whole [mixture] hurtful and profitless; so also eloquence is in their case found to be labour in vain; yea, rather an injurious thing to those who credit it" (To Autolycus, 2.12).
Perhaps it will be reassuring to see that one of the earliest Fathers of the Church was also overwhelmed at the magnitude and wonder of God's creation of the world; and to learn of his hesitation before the task of approaching it.

On with the discussion...

INXC, Matthew

[Gordon Streit]

Genesis doesn't teach that the Earth is young, 7-8000 yrs or whatever. You can't use the genealogies to compute its age, since the genealogies were not exhaustive lists, nor did they give everyone's age.

One can take a literal view of Genesis and still believe the age of the Universe is in the billions of years. The Jewish physicist Dr. Schroeder applies his knowledge of relativity to show how in this short essay from http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/jsoc/chadash/dino.htm

Dinosaurs, the Bible and a Glass of Milk
Gerald Schroeder holds his BSc, Msc and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of ‘Genesis and the Big Bang, the Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and the Bible', published by Bantam Books, and teaches on the Discovery programme of Aleynu. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and five children.

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In three weeks of a family trek along the fjords of Norway, the only controversy I could find was which trail would be more beautiful. What joy to return to my homeland (Israel) where the real problems of the world are being sorted out, such as: can the milk inside a bag be kosher if there is a picture of a dinosaur on the outside? It is high time we lay to rest the canard that dinosaurs are the fantasy of some deranged, anti-Bible scientists. In short, it is possible to believe in the Bible and dinosaurs too!
The controversy over dinosaurs has two aspects: age and existence. Palaeontologists insist that dinosaurs first appeared 200 million years ago and disappeared 65 million years ago. How do these millions of years fit in with the six biblical days that preceded Adam? Then, if dinosaurs were such a big deal, if they really dominated all forms of animal life for over 100 million years, why is there not even a hint of their existence in the Bible?

As written in the Talmud, deal with the first point first. The Biblical calendar measures time from the creation of Adam NOT from the creation of the universe. The six days of Genesis have never been included in the calculations of these years. Yet all the early commentators that discuss the duration of those six days are unequivocal; the days were 24 hours each. If they were simply 24 hour days, why aren't they included in the calendar? Have Rosh Hashanah a week earlier.

The six days were not included because, in the words of the commentators, those six days "contain all the secrets of the ages of the universe" (Nahmanides and Ibn Ezra on Lev.25:2). The repetitive phrasing; "And there was evening and there was morning..." for the first six days of creation hints at a difference from the other days. It is an objective description, almost as if we were observing from some platform in space. Quite different from the remainder of the entire Bible, where the flow of time is linked to individual events. "And all the days that Adam lived were 930; and then he died." (Gen.5:5). The perspective is now intimate, earthly, that is the key.

When talking of the flow of time, prspective is crucial. Albert Einstein, in his laws of Relativity, discovered that fact. Events correctly measured as lasting 24 hours, when observed from a moving location may seem to last seconds or millions of years, all depending upon the relative differences in gravity and velocity between the two locations. That is the nature of time in our universe. We measure the billions of years of the Earth's existence and the millions of years since the dinosaurs from our perspective on Earth. The amazing reality is that, based on the size and expansion of the universe, by the laws of Relativity, millions of years, when viewed not from the Earth but from a perspective that encompasses the entire universe, lasted exactly six days. The biblical calendar begins with Adam, and with him the Bible's perspective of time becomes that of human kind. Now to the fossils.

Claims that only a few fragments of fossilised dinosaur bones have been found are pure fiction. The fossil record is extensive and consistent on a world-wide scale. Although there is no reference to specific species other than humans in the 31 verses that describe the events of the first six days, there is an allusion to those creatures we have labelled dinosaurs. "And G-d created the large taneenim..." (Gen.1:21). Taneenim is variously translated in crocodiles (Koren Jerusalem Bible), whales (King James version), sea-monsters (Hertz-Sonicino).

The word, taneen reappears in Exodus. At the burning bush, G-d directs Moses to return to Egypt to free the enslaved Israelites and gives him a sign. Moses is told to cast his staff on the ground. He did so "and it became a nahash" (Ex.4.3). Nahash is the Hebrew word for snake. Later when Moses confronts Pharaoh with the demand for Israel's liberation, Pharaoh asks for a sign, Moses throws down his staff "and it became a taneen" (Ex. 7:10). We see that the Bible uses nahash and taneen in parallel when the meaning is snake. Snake or nahash is the name of a particular type of animal within the general category of reptiles. In chapter one of Genesis only general categories of animal are mentioned, since taneen is used there, it must refer to the general category animals in which snakes are included. That is, taneen must refer to reptiles.

The more accurate translation of Genesis 1:21 is "And G-d created the large reptiles...". Only one animal in all of Genesis chapter one is described as large and that is the reptile. The largest creatures ever to roam the Earth are the large reptiles, the dinosaurs - larger even than the largest blue whale yet sighted.

It is possible that G-d put the fossils in the ground to trick us. Why G-d would choose to is another matter. We have seen from this study of time that the six days of 24 hours in Genesis contained the billions of years of cosmic history; plenty of time for the dinosaurs to have roamed the Earth.

So the existence of dinosaurs is not a threat to the Bible and certainly not to the kashrut of milk. The real threat to the Bible is ignorance, the secularist's ignorance of the Bible and the believer's ignorance of the wonderful laws of nature by which our universe functions.


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[Owen Jones]

Dear Gordon,

thanks for your message. I think the issue of the age of the earth, and the issue of evolution, are two quite separate issues. My understanding is that some of the Fathers were adamant about a literal Biblical dating of the Earth while others were more nuanced. But Darwinism is completely unscientific and completely incompatible with the Christian doctrine of Creation (which has to be consistent with science since God is not a magician). There is not a shred of evidence that something has either self-generated or has evolved into something other than what it is. Yet this ideology has permeated modern consciousness, and pre-determines political, social and religious as well as scientific debates.

Seraphim

[Hermit]

Oops, looks like my reply earlier didn't make it, was having some trouble logging in (I'm Gordon).

I'd agree that Darwinism in the sense of random mutations causing evolution is wrong ... I believe God created the first pairs of each species. Geneticists had predicted that the fossil record would eventually show gradual changes between species, but instead it still shows very different new species suddenly appearing, lasting a few million years perhaps with only minor changes, and then suddenly dying out.

But there's no evidence for a young earth, and huge amounts of evidence it is billions of years old. In addition, there's no date provided in Genesis, and the Hebrew word translated as "days" can also mean an indeterminate period of time.

Here's a Christian website that deals with these matters: http://www.reasons.org/

[Moses Anthony]

I'm the furtherest thing from a reputable scientist that you can get, so I can only offer information.As I said I'm no scientist, and I'm still young to the Orthodox faith, therefore I'm not aware of the position of Orthodoxy on this matter.

In Protestantism there's a man; Dr. Ken Ham, who is the Executive Director of Answers in Genesis (AiG). He has been lecturing about this very thing for years. The web site is www.AnswersInGenesis.org (http://www.AnswersInGenesis.org) . By birth I believe he's an Australian, although he has been here in the United States for some time.

aus
Moses

[Thinh Ton]

Hello all!

I've been here for the first time and am struck about the high tendency of hostility against the evolution theory in particular, but also against science in general articualted in the commentaries of yours. Concerning the theory of evolution I am of the opinion that it is currently the best explanation of the reality we are faced at. Even Christian theologies cannot ignore that if they don't want to be taken unseriously in the scientific and acadamic dialogue. In respect to the Bible, I think we have to take into consideration what the Bible really says and what not. And the Bible does not make any articulation about evolution as such.

[sinjin smithe]

Well, I guess I will throw my two cents into the cauldron. One interesting thing is that all scientific theories about the origin of the universe violates one of the first two laws of thermodynamics.

[Owen Jones]

Dear Mr. Ton,

While it is true that many Christians attempt to rely on Genesis as a complete and total scientific explanation of the origin of things, which I don't believe it is intended to be, that should not allow us to be distracted from the central problems. I'll offer a short list which is not intended to be comprehensive:

1) There is no shred of scientific evidence to support any of Darwin's Theories. In Origin of the Species he said that he had the evidence elsewhere but he never produced it. Scientists in his own day effectively refuted all of the four pillars of Darwinian evolution.

2) Specifically, there is no evidence that anything has ever evolved into anything else. If you are anyone else can produce such evidence, believe me, it will get noticed. Things mutate and adapt, but only within species.

3) While there is change, even development in nature, there is no evidence of gradual change. There are no missing links precisely because there are no links. Human beings appeared dramatically, suddenly, just as everything has.

4) That something can be spontaneously produced out of nothing defies all we know about mathematics and physics.

5) That virtually all educated, intelligent human beings up until the 18th century believed that only God created means utterly nothing to Darwinians says more about their foolishness than anything.

6) Darwinism is a social theory produced by English Victorianism. It is the mild-mannered English version of Hegelianism which claims that history is inevitably progressing to an ultimate point of fulfillment in time. This is of course absurd, a form of occultism if you go back and study the intellectual origins of this idea in the Italian REnaissance.

7) Darwinism, like all progressivist ideologies, claims to be scientific when it is not, and is inherently totalitarian. It rejects any questions regarding its system. And any progressivism necessarily resorts at some point to political power to achieve its goals. Since its goals can never be achieved -- social perfection -- it has to grab more and more power and eliminate, by force if necessary, the reactionaries who are conspiring to prevent the progress from taking place.

But the bottom line is this -- please, if you can, show me evidence of one species evolving into another species.

Seraphim

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Thinh Ton and others,

Welcome to the discussion community, Thinh; it is nice to have you here, and especially to hear your views on the past life of this thread.

I would start by offering one word of caution: message boards of this type are, by their nature, rather often filled with the postulation of certain ideas and their comparison with Orthodox thought; and given that many of these ideas come from a culture outside of the Church, such boards are often filled with 'dis-proofs'. This shouldn't be taken to imply, in the case of scientific thought in specific, that the Church is in some way 'anti-science' - but only to imply that such discussion as these tend to bring out views by negation rather than spontaneous, positive description. http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif

But on your question regarding evolution in particular, I thought I might respond to two of the points raised by Owen in his post:


1) There is no shred of scientific evidence to support any of Darwin's Theories. In Origin of the Species he said that he had the evidence elsewhere but he never produced it. Scientists in his own day effectively refuted all of the four pillars of Darwinian evolution.

2) Specifically, there is no evidence that anything has ever evolved into anything else. If you [or] anyone else can produce such evidence, believe me, it will get noticed. Things mutate and adapt, but only within species.

I think that point 1 needs to be qualified carefully with point 2. In the sense that 'evidence' might be taken to mean general observations that can be interpreted in line with an over-arching theory of evolution, then there is, in fact, abundant evidence for such a theory. It is all circumstantial evidence, mind you; but there is plenty of this.

What is entirely absent is any direct evidence for evolution as a coherent theory. Evolution as a cosmological and anthropological theory is not simply the idea that things change and adapt over time (which they obviously do, and demonstrations of which form the whole of the 'proofs' or evidence offered for evolution), but that such change and adaption can actually form a new species out of one (or many) that previously exists -- and for this there has never been a single piece of direct evidence discovered. This is not mere religious banter directed against a view which many religious people dislike; it is the actual state of the scientific theory taken from a scientific perspective - and thankfully more and more scientists are now willing to admit it.

The theological motivations for a rejection of the theory of evolution are interesting and poignant in their own right; but they are often interpreted by individuals and groups as religious beliefs standing at odds with the 'overwhelming evidence of modern science'. If one is fair and honest, he or she will see that this simply isn't the case.

Seraphim Rose, who wrote much (of mixed quality) on the theory of evolution from an Orthodox perspective, effectively boiled the issue down: Given that there is no scientific proof either for or against the theory of evolution, but that the ascertainable data can be interpreted through either a progressive humanist or traditional Christian lense, the acceptance of either becomes a question of faith and belief. The data itself presupposes no conclusions, but allows for many. The one which an individual accepts depends on faith far more than it does on science.

INXC, Matthew

[sinjin smithe]

Matthew I believe that Father Seraphim Rose wrote a book about this whole issue of which I forget the title. I hoping to get the book one day and read it.

[Katerina]

"Genesis, Creation and Early Man"
He first investigates what the Fathers of the Church have to say about the subject.

In Christian Love,

Katerina

[M.C. Steenberg]

I believe that Father Seraphim Rose wrote a book about this whole issue of which I forget the title.

This volume is, indeed, Genesis, Creation and Early Man, as Katerina mentioned. However, it is somewhat inaccurate to say that Fr Seraphim 'wrote a book' on this subject: the said work is actually a collection of independent texts, lectures, notes and other writings compiled after Fr Seraphim's repose by members of his community.

Whether one ends up agreeing with the entirety of Seraphim Rose's methodology and conclusions in all regards, the volume is an insightful look at the matter from a different perspective; and Fr Seraphim collected together multiple patristic texts that speak to the matter, which is of value on its own.

INXC, Matthew

[Moses Anthony]

Dear Thinh,

You're correct in saying that the Bible does not speak specifically about evolution. The problem is this; it is impossible to believe in the evolutionary theory, and at the same time hold to the tenets of The Faith as expresed in Holy Scripture. The two are in no way compatible!

If it were not for the advancements of computer scientists -some of whom no doubt devout Christians-, who would be reading these posts. Holy Tradition; ie, the Scriptures is not a book of science, but from where I sit, when it speaks about scientific matters it is correct.

Now as to the other point you raised, being taken seriously in academic dialogue. To be taken seriously in any context, one must believe what they're saying. Scripture tells us that the person who vascillates is like a wave of the sea, unstable in all their ways. It is because of failure to do that very thing, that 'religious people' are not taken seriously, even in debates about matters of faith.

It's true that the Bible doesn't speak about evolution, but then again, neither does the evolutionary theory speak concerning Almighty God.

There's been some discussions about this very thing, and about knowledge in general, which the moderator no doubt has archived. I suggest you search through these.

Moses

[Owen Jones]

mmmm....

I don't think the issue of Darwinian evolution hinges on belief. It is simply bad science. However, the bad science is the result of an implicit atheism, which is itself not simply an issue of belief, but also bad science. I wish more people understood theology as a science. It is as rigorous as any other science in its investigatory approach. It simply has different methods of measurement. All classical theologians saw themselves as rigorous scientists, with theology at the pinnacle of science. Without the foundational sciences of geometry, mathematics, astronomy, there could be no theology. Theology is not just a matter of belief. If it were simply a matter of belief, then Christian theology could be no more compelling than Buddhist theology, or Muslim theology, or chocolat theology.

[Thinh Ton]

Hello all,

thank you for your statements.

To be clear: I understand THEORIES as models which try to explain and to bring into coherence what is observed in nature in order to understand the world which we also call reality. Every theory is an approach to reality on the base of scientific data. I am aware that each theory therefore is not absolute and finally remains in its very essence a speculative reconstruction. But however, every scientific theory is never built up arbitrary, but is back up by measurable observations, which people use to call “evidence”. In this case we call it a verification of this theory, but in turn, it can also be falsified by “evidence” as well. Well, an evidence is never evident out of itself, which means it needs to be interpreted (in the frame of a theoretical paradigm itself or of a certain world view) in order to give this “evidence” any sense. A look at the history of science shows us that theories perished and new theories appeared, depending on their plausibilities and the level of knowledge of the time (see also Thomas Kuhn’s theory of science). As we see, even in science there is a process taking place which is nothing else than an evolution.
I think that the fact of evolution in the proper sense of a (slow) development cannot be denied. And exactly in that sense I do understand evolution.
Evolution theory can be interpreted very differently, even theistically. I would like to know in what regard do you think the evolution theory is incompatible with the Christian faith.

Best wishes,

Thinh

[Owen Jones]

Dear Thinh,

Theory means something quite different in classical philosophy and classical Christian theology than it does post-18th century. It certainly is not a "model." As for the methods of science you have laid out, this is not the only method. It's the post-enlightenment scientific method which has led to certain advances in some areas but also movement backwards in others, due to the fact that truth has been reduced to method, which one cannot do in principle. Truth is not a function of method. You might want to look at Hans Georg Gadamer's "Truth and Method."

We've already addressed some of your questions regarding evolution/development. It really depends on who's theory of evolution your are talking about, but certainly today Darwin's is normative. I'm sure we haven't proven anything to you, but I think we've raised the problem cogently by asking the question: where is the evidence that any species has ever evolved into another species? Where is the evidence that simple organisms have evolved over time into more complex organisms? Where is the evidence that living things can evolve from non-living things --what is the mechanism. There are also increasing alarm bells regarding the deliberate falsification of some of the experiments that have been used to justify Darwinism and are standard features of all of the textbooks.

There are other questions that easily dispense with the pillars of Darwinism. More recently, biologists, flummoxed by these and other questions, have developed new terminologies in order to skirt the questions, terminologies such as "punctuated equilibrium." I'm not sure anyone understands what these terminologies mean. In fact, if there was any scientific field in total disarray it would be biologists who cannot even state with assurance that there is such a thing as life. They have no cogent definition of life, of what constitutes a living thing. That's because Darwinism is not science but a progressivist ideology.

NOw, is there development in nature over time? This is quite a different question.

[sinjin smithe]

Owen, what do you mean by biologists cannot state with assurance that their is a thing called life? When I took my biology course it seemed to me that there was a set of criteria as to what constitutes a living thing.

[Owen Jones]

A good book on this subject is the New Biology by Augros and Stanciu. In it they quote numerous biologists questioning or at least very confused about the very definition of life. Textbooks run about 30 years behind the intellectual fashions.

[sinjin smithe]

Thanks Owen for the book suggestion, I will check it out. As my biochemistry professor tells me, textbooks are full of errors.

[Denis Chapaev]

How do you do, dear participants of the forum.
It's my 1-st message on this forum.

I've recently begun to study the Orthodox tradition so there is a question about age of the Earth:
they speak about 6000-years-old. Where is this number from? Are there scientific transactions of orthodox saint fathers about age of the Earth?

Thank you for your answer beforehand.
Yours faithfully.

P.S. I'm sorry to have troubled you and for my clumsy English.

[David Lanier]

Evolution and Creationism and how the two can live together. That is not a subject that can be easily addressed with a few paragraphs.

I highly recommend Fr. Thomas Hopko's 17 part lecture series on Darwin and Christianity (http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/series/darwin_and_christianity) for a much more in depth discussion and analysis.

[Ryan]

I think those attempting to reconcile Christianity with Darwinism are missing the bigger picture- the fundamental contradictions between the Christian worldview and the Enlightenment ideology nowadays known generically as "modern science." I wish Philip Sherrard's book Human Image: World Image were more widely known and available- it cuts right through the pointless debates between "creationists" and Darwinists.

http://deniseharveypublisher.gr/books/human-image-world-image

[Michael Stickles]

Fr. Seraphim Rose's book Genesis, Creation and Early Man (http://www.sainthermanpress.com/Catalog/Writings_of_Father_Seraphim/genesis_book.htm) (published by St. Herman Press, they have a new edition coming out) covers the patristic understanding of creation. There is also St. Basil the Great's Hexaemeron (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3201.htm), a series of nine lectures on the six days of creation.

A review of Fr. Seraphim Rose's book says that the Fathers "were not dogmatic about the precise age of the earth ... but they placed it approximately at 5500 BC ." However, this review was by an Evangelical young-earth creationist, so I am unsure whether the Fathers quoted by Fr. Seraphim actually said that, or whether the reviewer was reading it into the text (I haven't read the book myself).

The primary source of the 6000 years figure seems to be various calculations based on the genealogies in the Bible. The oldest I am aware of is that of Venerable Bede, the church historian (6th/7th century), who placed creation at 3952 BC. Similar calculations were made in the 16th-18th centuries by the Anglican Bishop James Ussher, the French scholar Joseph Scaliger, Sir Isaac Newton, and Johannes Kepler, among others, with creation dates ranging from 3949 BC - 4004 BC. Various creation science groups have since published studies claiming that various processes from magnetic field decay to helium diffusion support this figure, but I've never looked at those studies closely and can't say if they make sense or not.

My own understanding of the patristic view (based, unfortunately, on minimal information) is that the Fathers really didn't put much stock in such calculations. Rather, it seems that for them the reason for examining the creation was essentially what St. Basil said at the conclusion of his first homily (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/32011.htm) of the Hexaemeron:


Let us glorify the supreme Artificer for all that was wisely and skillfully made; by the beauty of visible things let us raise ourselves to Him who is above all beauty; by the grandeur of bodies, sensible and limited in their nature, let us conceive of the infinite Being whose immensity and omnipotence surpass all the efforts of the imagination.

In Christ,
Michael

[Denis Chapaev]

I highly recommend Fr. Thomas Hopko's 17 part lecture series on Darwin and Christianity (http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/series/darwin_and_christianity) for a much more in depth discussion and analysis.

Thank you for Thomas Hopko's lecture about this question, Mr. David Lanier.
Is there a book variant of the lecture?

[Denis Chapaev]

Thanks. It's necessary to read Hexaemeron.

[Owen Jones]

Many Christians believe that in order to debunk Darwinism it is necessary to disprove the theory that the earth is billions of years old. Obviously, if the earth is only 6,000 years old, the theory of evolution has no standing whatsoever. Were it that easy! There are many substantive reasons as to why Darwinian evolution is neither "scientific" nor philosophically rational. But it takes some work. The theory that the earth is billions of years old is defended on the basis of the existence of many extinct species, the history of geological disruptions, the time it takes, for example, for something like the Grand Canyon to be "created" through gradual erosion, but the most commonly used argument is carbon dating. Some people have tried to argue that carbon dating is not sacrosanct because it presumes a consistent, steady state of decay of the Carbon 14 molecule (atom?) which they say cannot be proven, and could be a false theory based on the possibility of major cosmic ray influences. And so the argument goes on and on. My own view is that Christians should understand that the age of the earth is not really relevant to the arguments posited between evolution and its critics. The theory of evolution as a theory of origins is at the heart of the matter. There is no such thing as a scientific theory as to the how and why of existence. And yet people who claim to be rational and scientific act as if Darwinism explains how things come into existence, and why they are the way they are at present.

[David Lanier]

Thank you for Thomas Hopko's lecture about this question, Mr. David Lanier.
Is there a book variant of the lecture?

I am not aware of a book on this by Fr. Hopko Denis. He just finished up the lecture series in August of this year, so I imagine it's a little early to expect a book to be released, but again, I'm not really sure. It would be great to see a book on this though.

[Benjamin Amis]

I am not aware of a book on this by Fr. Hopko Denis. He just finished up the lecture series in August of this year, so I imagine it's a little early to expect a book to be released, but again, I'm not really sure. It would be great to see a book on this though.

Perhaps we should all email him and request that he publish the lectures? ;-)

[Timothy Mulligan]

6000 years or 4.5 billion years?

In either case, as of this Saturday, it will be 9 years older. ;)

[Denis Chapaev]

I am not aware of a book on this by Fr. Hopko Denis. He just finished up the lecture series in August of this year, so I imagine it's a little early to expect a book to be released, but again, I'm not really sure. It would be great to see a book on this though.
Please, report in this topic, when the book will been published. I perceive English in audio-files very bad, so more comfortable to get the book.

[David Lanier]

Please, report in this topic, when the book will been published. I perceive English in audio-files very bad, so more comfortable to get the book.

Denis I do not know father Hopko personally, but I will try to get word to him. No guarantees it will ever be published in a book however, but it seems that it would be a great topic for a book and I don't know of any Orthodox books covering the subject of Darwin and Christianity currently; so why not?

[Benjamin Amis]

I've heard Fr. Hopko say on occassion that he does his best to read each and every email he receives, and usually answer them in some way, either by simply replying, or a lot of times I've heard him dedicate an episode of his podcast Speaking the Truth in Love on Ancient Faith Radio to an email question he has received. Anyone who wants to email him about this...it couldn't hurt.

[Paul Cowan]

Maybe someone can invite him to join us here and share his thoughts first hand? since we seem to be referring to him so much lately.

[Evan]

Having listened to the whole series, I would add a word of caution about it. I've downloaded hours' worth of Father Hopko's podcasts. They were, in effect, my introduction to Orthodoxy. My debt to him is tremendous.

However, Father Hopko explicitly warns listeners that he has not read Darwin's works (he claims that he tried, and then stopped after a time) and is relying on "pop knowledge" (his words, not mine) of evolutionary theory. I would highly recommend his verse-by-verse studies of Genesis, simply because he's such a great exegete, but when it comes to reconciling the claims of Darwin and his followers with the Church's witness... I don't think Father Hopko purports to be an authority and I wouldn't take him to be one.

My opinion, of course. I wouldn't expect an exhaustive treatment of Darwin from those podcasts. He touches upon issues like animal death, reading Genesis literally (drawing a helpful distinction between what the Fathers meant by "literal history" and what we normally do), how we ought to regard apparent factual inconsistencies in the Bible, etc. But if you want an in-depth engagement with how Darwinian species development accords with Holy Scripture, he doesn't give that. Perhaps that's because he doesn't think Holy Scripture tells us anything directly about it that poses a problem with accepting Darwin's understanding. Then again, he says he hasn't read Darwin (he reads one passage after noting that he hasn't read all of "The Origin of Species (By Means of Natural Selection)."

I do not intend to disparage Father Hopko. But citing him as an authority on how the Orthodox should regard Darwin may be to claim more for Father Hopko than he claims for himself.

In Christ,
Evan

[Mark Harris]

Evolutionary theory implies transition through a multitude of iterations and attempts and these would be barely indestinguishable from each other. Clearly we see no scientific evidence of this and on the magnitude of change that Darwin was proposing that has come about through evolution we should see all of the steps even now , particularly as we are told evolution is happening all of the time. We should be seeing many more species variants of everything , every step of the chain , and a multitude of steps still living even between the Ape and Man but we don not see this , we see a huge variety of distinctly different species. I don't know how this ties back intot the age of the Earth debate but I think evolutionary theory , other than at the margin, is false.

[Michael Stickles]

Evolutionary theory implies transition through a multitude of iterations and attempts and these would be barely indestinguishable from each other. Clearly we see no scientific evidence of this and on the magnitude of change that Darwin was proposing that has come about through evolution we should see all of the steps even now , particularly as we are told evolution is happening all of the time. We should be seeing many more species variants of everything , every step of the chain , and a multitude of steps still living even between the Ape and Man but we don not see this , we see a huge variety of distinctly different species.

Not at all. I believe the currently dominant theory is "punctuated equilibrium", which postulates that species stay relatively stable for long periods of time, then undergo short bursts of rapid change (though "short" and "rapid" are understood from a geologic viewpoint, where 50,000 years would be "short"). One variant understands change to be driven primarily by isolated populations, which face stronger natural selection pressure. So, transition forms would be comparatively rare in time and space, and pushed out rapidly by the succeeding generations until a new stable form is reached. So, if among critter A's population, a subgroup A1 becomes isolated and undergoes evolution through B, C, D, E, F, and G before becoming stable as H, you would expect to only end up seeing A and H, with B through G undergoing successive "extinctions".

That's not to say I see this as a compelling theory - I don't. But it does for the most part sidestep the objections you've raised. If you were to find other objections that it couldn't sidestep, the theory would just "evolve" again into something that could explain or sidestep them. Evolutionary theory does a much better job explaining evolutionary theory itself, than it does explaining the origin of species.


I don't know how this ties back intot the age of the Earth debate ...

Well, one way is that evolutionary theory - whether punctuated equilibrium, phyletic gradualism, or something else - absolutely requires a very old Earth, otherwise it would not have nearly enough time to produce what we see around us. On the other hand, young-Earth creationism absolutely requires the Earth to be only several thousand years old, otherwise the particular type of Biblical literalism they rely on would be falsified.

I'm pretty sure Orthodoxy doesn't have a particular doctrinal stake in anything that would absolutely require an old, young, or middle-aged Earth. Some of the Fathers did give young ages for the Earth, but as far as I know those have never been considered part of the consensus patrum.

In Christ,
Michael

[David Lanier]

Having listened to the whole series, I would add a word of caution about it. I've downloaded hours' worth of Father Hopko's podcasts. They were, in effect, my introduction to Orthodoxy. My debt to him is tremendous.

However, Father Hopko explicitly warns listeners that he has not read Darwin's works (he claims that he tried, and then stopped after a time) and is relying on "pop knowledge" (his words, not mine) of evolutionary theory. I would highly recommend his verse-by-verse studies of Genesis, simply because he's such a great exegete, but when it comes to reconciling the claims of Darwin and his followers with the Church's witness... I don't think Father Hopko purports to be an authority and I wouldn't take him to be one.

My opinion, of course. I wouldn't expect an exhaustive treatment of Darwin from those podcasts. He touches upon issues like animal death, reading Genesis literally (drawing a helpful distinction between what the Fathers meant by "literal history" and what we normally do), how we ought to regard apparent factual inconsistencies in the Bible, etc. But if you want an in-depth engagement with how Darwinian species development accords with Holy Scripture, he doesn't give that. Perhaps that's because he doesn't think Holy Scripture tells us anything directly about it that poses a problem with accepting Darwin's understanding. Then again, he says he hasn't read Darwin (he reads one passage after noting that he hasn't read all of "The Origin of Species (By Means of Natural Selection)."

I do not intend to disparage Father Hopko. But citing him as an authority on how the Orthodox should regard Darwin may be to claim more for Father Hopko than he claims for himself.

In Christ,
Evan

Perhaps a better title for a book on the subject would be "Evolution and Orthodoxy" or "Evolution and Creationism from an Orthodox Perspective"? Granted that the Very Rev. Fr. Hopko admits he hasn't read Darwin's work, but he could collaborate with someone who does know more about Darwin in the effort to commit his thoughts and great wit to print. I imagine if he were to undertake the task of writing a book on the subject that it would take a year or better to get it drafted, revised, and print-worthy.

I did email him btw. :-)

[Yolanda]

This is a very interesting question 7519

[Owen Jones]

I agree with Evan although Fr. Hopko is at least taking a stab at it. But there is no substitute for going to the text. Most of Darwin's book, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" is field biology. At the very least one should read the concluding chapter, which is revised in several editions. In one of those editions, Darwin attributes the theory of natural selection to Herbert Spencer, the English liberal economist and "social philosopher." What is clear, and Hopko alludes to this, is that Darwin uses an aesthetic argument in defense of the theory, not a scientific one. He argues in part that God could not have caused such diversity in nature that he has witnessed and examined. The bottom line is that it cannot, and never will be, a theory of origins, because of the problem of infinite regression, a problem with which Darwin was completely unfamiliar and never addressed.

[Owen Jones]

btw, Ben Stein deals with the problem of infinite regression in his documentary which Fr. Hopko refers to several times although he does not address this issue directly. I think it has passed by Fr. Hopko's attention as well. When Dawkins is interviewed, the way he deals with it is that aliens from outer space must have somehow seeded the earth with life initially. Which of course does not deal with the issue of infinite regression at all, merely exposes the fact that it is irrational.

[Evan]

btw, Ben Stein deals with the problem of infinite regression in his documentary which Fr. Hopko refers to several times although he does not address this issue directly. I think it has passed by Fr. Hopko's attention as well. When Dawkins is interviewed, the way he deals with it is that aliens from outer space must have somehow seeded the earth with life initially. Which of course does not deal with the issue of infinite regression at all, merely exposes the fact that it is irrational.

I have an idea of what you mean by the "infinite regression" problem, but not enough of one to know why Dawkins' "solution" actually doesn't solve it. It seems that it does from the standpoint of logic-- there is now something that "starts" the process-- even if it is profoundly silly (where did the alien species come from? Did evolution take place there, too? If it did, what started it? How would we know?). Could you clarify?

In Christ,
Evan

[SeraphimHJ]

Hi! According to the Hebrew calendar, the earth should be [roughly] 6,158 years old.

[Ilaria]

Evolution and Creationism and how the two can live together. That is not a subject that can be easily addressed with a few paragraphs.look how it may:
as far as I remember, I think it was S. Bulgakov who said something great in this regard:
I've heard that there are two opponents on the theory of life - the creationists and the evolutionists;the creationist believe that man was created by God; the evolutionists believe that life evolved so that man evolved from a monkey. I've also heard that they are fighting each other for their ideas; but I don't understand why.
I really believe that there are men created by God and there are men evolving from monkeys, who are quite different species then those created by God, in His image.

[Owen Jones]

Evan, you have made the point for me -- that infinite regression is silly. Absurd, irrational are two other descriptions of it. If life on earth was seeded by aliens, who or what seeded the aliens, and so on, ad infinitum. You cannot have an infinite series of logical propositions and end up with a logical conclusion about anything.

[Evan]

I can't pass up this opportunity to cite Thomas Aquinas' "Five Ways." Of course, the good doctor is following Aristotle.

From the Summa Theologica, First Part, Question 2, Article 2:

"The second way (to know that God exists) is from the nature (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10715a.htm) of the efficient cause (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm). In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm). There is no case known (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08673a.htm) (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm) of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm) it is not possible to go on to infinity (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08004a.htm), because in all efficient causes (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm) following in order, the first is the cause (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm) of the intermediate cause (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm), and the intermediate is the cause (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm) of the ultimate cause (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm), whether the intermediate cause (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm) be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm) is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm) among efficient causes (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm), there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm). But if in efficient causes (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm) it is possible to go on to infinity (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08004a.htm), there will be no first efficient cause (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm), neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm); all of which is plainly false (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05781a.htm). Therefore it is necessary (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10733a.htm) to admit a first efficient cause (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03459a.htm), to which everyone gives the name of God (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06608a.htm)."


In Christ,
Evan

[Kusanagi]

Hi! According to the Hebrew calendar, the earth should be [roughly] 6,158 years old.

However in the Jewish Chronicle newpspaer in UK they list the year as 5000 and few years.

I believe they start counting from after the flood.

St Isaac the Syrian believes the world is 7000 years old at least.

[Ryan]

I would earnestly entreat everyone here, before fretting about Darwinism, the age of the earth, the days of creation, etc., to just familiarize yourselves with the basic Orthodox Christian natural philosophy. Much of the worrying about whether this or that teaching is "literal" or not would dissipate when we realize that the visible world is not "literal" from the Orthodox standpoint- it is meant to be a gateway to contemplating heavenly realities, a mirror, a shadow.

The basic Orthodox approach to contemplating nature is very nicely outlined toward the end of St. Nicodemus' Handbook of Spiritual Counsel, in the section "On the Spiritual and Proper Delights of the Mind." St. Nicodemus enjoins us to contemplate "the reasons of creation, that is, the eternal purposes of God in creating and providing for his creatures, both the visible and the invisible." At the same time he warns the spiritually immature from overly occupying themselves with natural contemplation: "When the mind is still passionate it cannot see the immaterial and spiritual reasons hidden in the shapes and beauty of physical nature and the passionate and irrational imagination takes precedence to formulate these reasons passionately according to its own standards. Thus instead of selecting from this physical experience knowledge and reasons that are spiritual, such persons select only mere shapes and passions and passionate idols. And instead of rising through nature to the spiritual and incorruptible nature of the Creator so as to marvel at this and to love God and be immersed in him, they remain on the physical level of admiring and being filled by the corruptible beauty of nature only, so as to virtually worship the creation and not the Creator- a condition which many naturalists of the past and of today are suffering."

Even more forceful for today is the long essay The Universe as Symbols and Signs by St. Nikolai Velimirovic, which was just reprinted by St. Tikhon's press- I would highly recommend that everyone read this work as a key for framing current debates about revelation and its relationship to modern science. St. Nikolai compares the created world to an alphabet. Those who study the creation in itself, and do not penetrate to the spiritual meanings behind it, are like children playing with letters who are ignorant of what letters signify or how to read them. This is as much true of todays materialist natural philosophers ("scientists") as it was of the pagans. "It is clear from this that whoever reads the natural without knowing the spiritual content and significance of what he has read, reads death, sees death, appropriates death." (p.11) "Therefore," he says later, " every literal reading of nature leads finally to idolatry." (p.36)

It is also true of the "Biblical literalists" who have a crude and opaque conception of the natural world, which in turn gives them a crude conception of the spiritual world. Young earth creationism, old earth creationism, theistic evolution, all miss the point by accepting the modern natural philosophy which is grounded in dualism, which divorces the visible world from the invisible world and proposes to study nature in isolation.

[Jonathan Gress]

I liked that idea someone suggested earlier in the thread, about how everything was created with age, according to the Genesis account. It seems like something one could make more of, if one had the time and inclination.

At the moment, I can only conclude that the Genesis account, literally interpreted, and the account of the origins of the universe according to science do indeed contradict each other. This is not only with respect to absolute measurements of time, like how old the earth is, or how old our species is, but also relative chronology. Perhaps the most obvious example is the relative chronology of the creation of the sun, moon and stars on the one hand, and plant life on the other. The Genesis account clearly puts the creation of plants before the creation of the sun, but scientific reconstruction clearly puts it after.

How to resolve the contradiction, I simply don't know. I find it curious that creationists often use two arguments against evolution and an old earth, which actually cancel each other out. They say that our fallen reason is incapable of ascertaining the true history of creation. Fair enough, but then they go on and talk about how unscientific evolutionism and the old earth is anyway, using all the "scientific" arguments of the creation scientists. Didn't they just say human reason can't ascertain the true age of the earth? So why are they turning to scientific reasoning to bolster their case?

The other thing that troubles me is that no one, as far as I can tell, has really gone through all the patristic literature (I know, there's a lot of it), and worked out whether or not there are certain unchanging principles according to which the Fathers used and interpreted the science of their day. I see a lot of proof-texting by one side or the other, purporting to show that the Fathers either support an evolutionary, old-age earth, or a young earth creationist one, but I don't see any attempt to interpret these quotations according to general principles of the "theology-science interface", if you can so call it.

For example, if a Father says that the six days of creation were literal 24-hour days, am I to interpret that in the same way I interpret his references to the four elements of matter? Since, as far as I know, there are no theological objections to the modern periodic table of elements, which lists over 100 of them, I assume I am free to reject the Father's understanding of physics and chemistry as outdated, and as not impinging on his theology. What is so different about the Father's understanding of the short time in which it took creation to occur? Or indeed, concerning the immutable nature of biological species? Both of these ideas have also been superseded by modern science, and yet frequently I see arguments against the old earth or evolution based solely on the fact that various pre-modern Fathers, who had no worldly knowledge of modern science (I am not considering prophecy here), also happened to believe in pre-modern ideas.

I have a hunch that the answer, or a road that might lead to the answer, lies in a more metaphysical understanding of the Genesis account on the one hand, and scientific reconstruction on the other. Genesis speaks of a time and place when the world as it was, and the world as it ought to have been, were one and the same. After the Fall, however, the world as it is, and the world as it ought to be, are different, infinitely different. All we can see is the world as it is. We can internally reconstruct a history of the origins of the world as it is, but without knowledge of the world as it ought to be, we cannot comparatively reconstruct the ancestor of these two worlds, i.e. we cannot reconstruct Paradise (I am using terms from comparative historical linguistics deliberately). I believe that is what St Nikolai Velimirovic, and other modern Orthodox critics of science are getting at. To gain that knowledge of the world as it ought to be, and not just as it is, you need to undertake the road to Paradise that has been paved for us by Christ.

[Michael Stickles]

At the moment, I can only conclude that the Genesis account, literally interpreted, and the account of the origins of the universe according to science do indeed contradict each other. This is not only with respect to absolute measurements of time, like how old the earth is, or how old our species is, but also relative chronology. Perhaps the most obvious example is the relative chronology of the creation of the sun, moon and stars on the one hand, and plant life on the other. The Genesis account clearly puts the creation of plants before the creation of the sun, but scientific reconstruction clearly puts it after.

How to resolve the contradiction, I simply don't know.

Well, getting rid of the normal way of "literally" looking at Genesis would be the first step, I'd imagine. That way of interpreting it has some interesting internal problems. For example, let's first look at Genesis 1, verses 3-5 (emphasis added):


And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Now look at verses 14-19 (emphasis added):


And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

So - if God separated light from darkness on the first day, what's the point of creating something to do it on the fourth day? Wasn't that already done? Or is there something else going on here?

I've read that Hebrew verb tenses often have to be figured out from context, and I'm wondering if we have something like that going on here - perhaps the lights in the sky had already been created "to separate light from darkness", but were just not fully revealed from the perspective of Earth until day four. Or perhaps just the sun and moon had been created, and were now joined by the creation (or revelation) of the stars. Given this possibility, if a creation sequence similar to that currently postulated by scientists was revealed to Moses by God in a vision, I can see the whole thing playing out before his sight in a manner consistent with the descriptions in Genesis 1. God's purpose would not primarily be to reveal scientific truth, but rather to reveal Himself, and I think that's got to be priority one in interpreting Genesis.

In Christ,
Michael

[Jesse Dominick]

dating the earth from the Scriptures is much older than the Venerable Bede. The earliest I am aware of is St. Theophilus of Antioch, in his work to Autolycus:

III.XVIII literal timeline
And from the foundation of the world the whole time is thus traced, so far as its main epochs are concerned. From the creation of the world to the deluge were 2242 years. And from the deluge to the time when Abraham our forefather begat a son, 1036 years. And from Isaac, Abraham's son, to the time when the people dwelt with Moses in the desert, 660 years. And from the death of Moses and the rule of Joshua the son of Nun, to the death of the patriarch David, 498 years. And from the death of David and the reign of Solomon to the sojourning of the people in the land of Babylon, 518 years 6 months 10 days. And from the government of Cyrus to the death of the Emperor Aurelius Verus, 744 years. All the years from the creation of the world amount to a total of 5698 years, and the odd months and days.


and there is much more information about the dating of the creation according to the Fathers and the Church http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/Byzantine_Creation_Era

[Jonathan Gress]

Interesting interpretation, Michael. I don't really buy your interpretation of the relative chronology of creation, however. I recall that the traditional "literal" exegesis held the light created on day one to be diffused throughout the sky, and that the purpose of creating the sun on the fourth day was to concentrate that light in a single heavenly body. Moreover, as the passage clearly states, the main purpose of creating heavenly bodies of light was to serve as markers of times and seasons. So the position of the sun tells you what time during the solar year you are in, and the phase of the moon tells you what time during the month. The stars also serve to mark seasons and places.

If you really want to stretch the Mosaic account to fit scientific reconstruction of history, you could argue that in the early phases of life on earth, when there were only plants and perhaps very primitive animals, the atmosphere of earth would have been so moist that the sun, moon and stars would be mostly hidden by clouds. Therefore, as you suggest, the fourth day represents the vanishing of this dense moisture and the appearance of the sun, moon and stars as regular fixtures in the sky. As I say, though, I think this is a stretch.

Stretching Genesis to fit modern science seems to me a futile exercise. If you believe that any non-literal interpretation of Genesis undermines all of Christianity, then just accept Genesis as it is and don't bother about science. If, like me, you can't bring yourself to deny the soundness of modern science's reconstruction of early history, but also can't bring yourself to deny Christianity, you must admit that the Mosaic account is not scientifically accurate, and whatever purpose it has is purely spiritual. As I said before, my take on it (and I don't insist that everyone follow me on this) is that the purpose of the Genesis account of creation, Paradise and our first parents is to describe for us the world as it ought to be, a world which, in some mysterious way, we have fallen away from by our own transgressions, both individually and collectively as the human race. The message is that it is possible for the world as it is to become the world as it ought to be, but this is only possible by the Grace of God. I can't rationalize how we can say that we have already fallen away from that union of 'is' and 'ought', since according to rational science there never was a world as it ought to be. By our own reason, we can only see the world as it is. Knowledge of the world as it ought to be is given to us solely through revelation. The other message is that the world as it ought to be is in some mysterious way more real than the world as it is, but this paradox cannot be resolved by our reason, but by God's Grace revealing the truth to us.

[Nick Katich]

At the moment, I can only conclude that the Genesis account, literally interpreted, and the account of the origins of the universe according to science do indeed contradict each other. This is not only with respect to absolute measurements of time, like how old the earth is, or how old our species is, but also relative chronology. Perhaps the most obvious example is the relative chronology of the creation of the sun, moon and stars on the one hand, and plant life on the other. The Genesis account clearly puts the creation of plants before the creation of the sun, but scientific reconstruction clearly puts it after. How to resolve the contradiction, I simply don't know.

I would suggest that a good starting point is to read St. Gregory of Nyssa's "Apologetic Defense of the Hexaemeron" which is readily available on the internet. In short, his brother, St. Basil, gave a series of homilies on the Six Days from whence derives the majority view of the Six Days. Gregory actually had problems with his brother's explanation. Although he defends the analysis, to a point, he really corrects the problematics raised by his brother. Gregory actually posits that that the total plan of creation actually originated in the mind of God (so to spedak) and that all of creation instantly came into being through His Will. He then goes on to explain that the sequential Six Days narrated in Genesis is an effort not to explain how things came into being or any sequence of creation (since it was simultaneous) but to explain the interdependence of the various components of creation. It is fascinating reading and a marvelous work too often forgetten by theologians and other scholars. His argument is grounded in great part on the fact that in Greek, Genesis begins with not "In the beginning" but rather "In the Kephale" which could be read as in the head or in the mind.

In is interesting to observe that according to the Big Bang theory, the universe came into being in a simultaneous instant and everything that formed over time inexorably contained the plan of its eventual being. I'm a non-Aristotelean, but his teleological arguments can provide a path to non-contradiction.

[Owen Jones]

My understanding is that there is no completed action in Hebrew verbs.

[Michael Stickles]

If, like me, you can't bring yourself to deny the soundness of modern science's reconstruction of early history, but also can't bring yourself to deny Christianity, you must admit that the Mosaic account is not scientifically accurate, and whatever purpose it has is purely spiritual.

I really can't agree with that statement.

Genesis was not written from the western, linear mindset. "Scientifically accurate" cannot and does not mean the same thing in Moses as it does in Archimedes or Newton, since the way of looking at the world is very different (that also sums up the problem I have with many standard Creationist pronouncements).

I also can't agree that the purpose of Genesis is purely spiritual - if by that phrase one means that it has no relevance to the physical proceses of creation. The purpose of Genesis - as well as everything else in the Scriptures - is for the salvation of man, so in that sense it is "purely spiritual". But that says nothing one way or the other about scientific accuracy.

This is not "stretching" Genesis. The term implies that the text has some innate and obvious rigid interpretation which must be wrestled with to make it fit another shape of facts. But the eastern mind and the Hebrew language allow for considerable flexibility in looking at the "facts" underlying a text, and which way is the right way must often be established from a context outside the text itself.

This brings to mind a time when I was studying Sun Tzu's Art of War in Chinese, and realized that one passage I was looking at could be interpreted at least six different ways - and at least three of them were probably "right". I don't know if Hebrew language and thought are quite that flexible, but the approach to reality definitely comes from a different angle than we're used to in the west.

ADDENDUM: I should probably clarify, though, that if Jonathan's statement is altered to read "the Mosaic account is not scientifically accurate in the normal western sense of that term" then I'd agree.

[Nick Katich]

Owen: take a look at http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/37_lesson03.html regarding Hebrew verbs.

[Jonathan Gress]

Thanks, Nick Katich! The only thing is I'm not sure about the Greek Genesis using the word "kephale". The Greek church's textus receptus certainly uses "arche", i.e. "beginning".

http://www.myriobiblos.gr/bible/ot/chapter.asp?book=1&page=1

[Jonathan Gress]

Thanks for attempting to clarify terms, Michael. Yes, I meant by "scientific" what we in the modern West think of as "scientific".

And I think your point is sound about not excluding the material aspect of the Mosaic account of creation. If the conflict between modern science's account of the origins of everything and the Mosaic account are not strictly speaking contradictory, assuming they are speaking in different terms, then certainly they are paradoxical, because it isn't clear how to define the terms in such a way that the contradiction is resolved. It appears they are both true at the same time, but how this can be the case is something for future generations (if ever) to work out.

Nick's reference to St Gregory's treatise, and his belief that creation was instantaneous and that the "six days" were purely symbolic, intended to illustrate the synchronic structure of creation, rather than the diachronic developments, is fascinating and I will certainly try to look into it. I suppose before I start I can't help but recall that St Gregory at other times was known to veer in some of his works from the patristic consensus, namely in his acceptance of Origen's "apokatastasis" doctrine. So it is possible that St Gregory does not represent the consensus here, either.

[Nick Katich]

I suppose before I start I can't help but recall that St Gregory at other times was known to veer in some of his works from the patristic consensus, namely in his acceptance of Origen's "apokatastasis" doctrine. So it is possible that St Gregory does not represent the consensus here, either.

Johnathan: I'm not sure it is charitable to think that St. Gregory veered from the patristic consensus. I'm certain that there were many areas of theological thought were there was no patristic consensus. Such is always the case with "speculative" theology, so called. It is easier to talk about what has been revealed than to talk about the eschaton which has not yet occurred. On the "apokatastasis" issue, it first originated with Clement of Alexandria and subsequently speculated upon by Origen. St. Gregory was indeed an adherent of aspects of what we commonly call "apokatastasis" but he did not go quite as far as Origen, in particular to the salvation of Satan himself. That being said, the Emperor, in his anathemas wanted to condemn Origen specifically for this doctrine. However, a careful study of the anathemas actually adopted by the 5th Council against Origen would appear to indicate that the 5th Council went contrary to the Emperor's wishes on that point. Thank the Lord that all theological speculation has not been condemned or thought might stop. There is an interesting article on Theandros that suggest that Maximos the Confessor also held an "apoktastasistic" view. You can find it here: http://www.theandros.com/restoration.html It has never been suggested that Maximos veered. In fact, he is considered by many as the benchmark of Orthodoxy. In fact, the restoration of the Beginning at the Escaton is a view widely held in Orthodoxy (as long as we stop short of Satan). Since we don't know exactly how the creation of the "angels" fits in with the creation of the physical world, it does indeed become difficult to speculate in that area.

[Jonathan Gress]

I only thought St Gregory may not represent the consensus because after reading Fr Seraphim Rose's exposition of the patristic interpretation of Genesis, I believe he made a very strong case that the consensus involved quite a literal understanding of the six days. This is the long essay available here:

http://orthodoxinfo.com/phronema/evolution_frseraphim_kalomiros.aspx

As I said before, I don't know quite how to reconcile this consensus with the theories of modern science. I know that elsewhere Fr Seraphim addressed the science issue, but I understand that there he relied heavily on the "creation science" of Henry Morris and other Protestant literalists, and I am not confident in the evidence or reasoning that creation science brings to bear on the matter. I don't find I can fault the mainstream scientific literature in terms of evidence or reasoning, even after reading the "intelligent design" literature, which focuses more on the failure of mainstream science to explain everything about origins than about constructing a coherent creationist theory. Just because evolution can't explain everything doesn't mean it doesn't explain most things. Theories that can explain everything usually have no explanatory value, because they don't predict what can not occur.

The main reason I find evolution inherently plausible is because species don't appear to be as fixed in reality as traditionally thought. Within each species there is typically much variation, you can see the evolution of races, breeds and subspecies in real time ("microevolution"), you have the example of hybrids in many plant species and some animal species (yes, animal hybrids are usually sterile, but plant hybrids are usually not), the fossil record indicates a progression in biological complexity from the earliest to the latest strata (despite occasional "gaps"), you have vestigial anatomy, "junk DNA" and other functionless parts of organisms that don't make much sense if you believe every species was specially created by an omniscient and omnipotent intelligence, but do make sense if you believe they were inherited from older organisms in which they did have a function, you have lateral "gene-swapping" in many kinds of bacteria, and so on. The concept of the fixed species is easier to explain as the product of our own tendency to abstract and categorize from a spectrum of data than as an accurate statement about biology.

As for the age of the earth, the uniformitarian principle in geology is simply irreconcilable with an earth that is 7500 years old, or with a Great Flood.

So I am left to conclude that Genesis is meant to be understood literally according to the Fathers, and yet the science has failed to support the literal interpretation. This could well be because the early days of the universe lie beyond the ability of human reason to perceive, in which case we have no need of "creation science". We just have to accept that Scripture reveals one account of origins, and our own powers of reasoning reveal another.

Finally, even if we accept that St Gregory's concept of instantaneous creation is reconcilable with the patristic consensus, I wouldn't extrapolate from this that St Gregory would have accepted Darwinian evolution, old earth geology and so forth. It comes down to a difference between creation of the world in a single instant, and creation over a period of six 24-hour days.

[Evan]

It is a given that we must insist that the material world really was created by God for the same reason that we insist that God really became material. Matter matters. Matter is good. Salvation was wrought in the midst of the earth, and it will be complete when our bodies rise from the dust.

I've heard it said by certain Orthodox theologians that this is ALL that we need to insist upon. That God really created the world, and it doesn't really matter how. The trouble for me is that such an affirmation seems perfectly consistent with a Deistic model of creation that doesn't sit comfortably with the unique shaping and molding we see in Genesis, which depicts the creation of man as something deliberate and set apart from the creation of rocks and plants and animals. Indeed, it depicts the creation of animals as something deliberate and set apart from the creation of rocks and plants. So far as I can tell, Darwin rejected outright this model of creation, and saw it as far less noble and majestic than a model of creation that brought multiplicity out of a common primordial soup.

I'm still working with this issue myself, so I don't pretend to have any answers, but I think that it's important to come to terms with what Darwin actually said, as opposed to rest content in the notion that faith and science are not necessarily at odds. Of course they're not. The Fathers depended upon the science of their day. But certainly they CAN be at odds, and it is my hope that, God willing, someone who has thoroughly immersed themselves in Darwin's work will undertake the task of confronting these issues directly in light of the Church's abiding witness.

In Christ,
Evan

[Nick Katich]

Johnathan:

Consider the following:

1. The Origin of Species should properly be called the Origin of Some Species. In his book, Darwin speaks of the fact that the evolution of species that he describes originally derived from a handfull of pre-existent species. About 7 to 10, if I recall correctly. With respect to where those pre-existent came from, Darwin explicitly says that he did not know, that we will probably never know and that God only knows. I'm serious. He actually said that!

2. About 7,000 years ago, quite suddenly, with no evidence of a slow evolutionary process, a special animal suddenly appeared and in significant numbers. It was Man as we know him. He suddenly appeared with his (ours) rational brain fully developed and he immediately began to use it inventing the wheel, stone tools, grain agriculture, etc. Where did he come from? No missing link has ever been discovered. Although there are some similarities physically with other bi-ped primates, there is no similarity in the nature of the brain. I'm reminded of the opening scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey where the ape like creature looks at a leg bone and, before he even puts it to the test, his eyes go wide open. He just out of the blue has an insight: i.e. he can grasp it in his hand and use it as a tool and weapon. That's how suddenly rational man came into history. I do not overlook the fact that science dates his appearance at about 7,000 years ago.

3. Louis Agassiz was Darwin's contemporary. After doing his reseach in the Swiss Alps and some other parts of Europe, he fathered the principal theories upon which all of geology is built and, it is geology which gave Darwin the necessary time element for his theories to evolve (pun intended). In 1846, Agassiz came to the United States and did further research here. To him the Rocky Mountains looked like they were of recent origin. Other research further put his theories to the test. Finally, after completing his further studies here, he repudiated all of his theories. Yet, the Royal Academy then and geologists today refuse to even look into the basis for his repudiation. They merely accept his original theories as their foundation and continue to built an edifice upon a foundation declared to be defective by the one who poured it.

The Big Bang of instantaneous and simultaneous creation, teleology, evolution and 7000 years ago, by the breath of the Spirit, the sudden appearance of rational Man. I could easily live with that notion. Forgive me. A little George Gamow, some Aristotle (ugh!) and a little Aquinas (yuk!), and a reconciliation theory is born!

[Jonathan Gress]

Your assertion that science dates the appearance of humanity no earlier than 7000 years ago is completely untrue, unless by "science" you are referring only to creation science. If you want to know what mainstream science believes about human origins, you can start with this page:

http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/homosapiens.htm

Whether we trace all species back to one species or to seven, we still have challenged the biblical notion that every single distinct species today was created separately from the other.

It's not as if geological research stopped with Agassiz. Perhaps you should read up how modern geologists date rocks before asserting that the whole of modern geology is based on false premises.

As I say, science says one thing, Genesis another. If you want to challenge what science has to say on scientific grounds, you will have to familiarize yourself with the scientific literature first, rather than argue against creationist straw men. You can argue that no matter how good the reasoning or the evidence of modern science, we must prefer Scripture to human reason, but then you've already conceded that human reason alone has no choice but to accept an old earth and evolution.

[Jonathan Gress]

I think Evan is onto something. Biologists generally only deal with how different species evolve from common ancestors, not with how living organisms evolved from non-living matter. Most scientists who do work on that believe that life must have arisen from chemical processes on earth, although a few fringe scientists have put forward the idea that life came here from outer space. Of course, that only begs the question of how life arose on the source planet. But yes, the two are separate. The biochemist Michael Behe, for instance, does not believe life could have evolved from inert matter, but he does accept that life evolved by natural selection after it first arose by whatever creative process.

I'd like to throw a thought out there and see what you guys think. Genesis says that God created man from dust. According to mainstream science, of course, all life, including humans, evolved by chemical processes from inert matter. Also, evolutionary biology does not distinguish one species from another in absolute terms. A species can evolve into a very different kind of organism, but there is no single moment of transition. The transition is always gradual. The distinction between species is only apparent when comparing different chronological stages in the evolution of the organism, or when comparing two populations that have taken different evolutionary paths. Therefore, you could at a stretch say that the gradual evolution of humanity through successive stages of inert matter, simple organisms and complex organisms fits the Genesis account. I know I objected earlier to "stretching" Genesis to fit science, but I thought this idea was interesting.

[Theophrastus]

Therefore, you could at a stretch say that the gradual evolution of humanity through successive stages of inert matter, simple organisms and complex organisms fits the Genesis account. I know I objected earlier to "stretching" Genesis to fit science, but I thought this idea was interesting.

I'm sympathetic with the idea that Genesis broadly reflects evolutionary lineages, but I would still, like you did earlier, object to "stretching" Genesis to fit science.

For instance, in Genesis 1, land plants appear before the life in the waters. Yet, evolutionarily speaking, life evolved (or so the current consensus among biologists tells us) in an aquatic (marine, most likely) environment.

I think if one understands Genesis as describing a world-view very different from that of modern science, then that would in fact increase one's wonder and awe of God's creative powers.

[Kenneth Evans]

...For instance, in Genesis 1, land plants appear before the life in the waters. Yet, evolutionarily speaking, life evolved (or so the current consensus among biologists tells us) in an aquatic (marine, most likely) environment...

There was a throw-away line from some 90s comic book -- "what if it's all true?". (Grant Morrison, I think).

What if Genesis is big enough to metabolize any and all scientific discoveries? The discoveries may reflect the Truth of Genesis, and Genesis need not dispute the truth of science. The story is what's True. The science is also more or less true*.

"T"rue and "t"rue are two different things, and not mutually exclusive.
Magnetism is true. Evolution is true. Love is True. Sacrifice is True.

*Science is an ongoing process, though, and old theories die out when careful observation of nature shows that new explanations are needed.

[Paul Cowan]

what is your definition of evolution?

[Ioan]

Well, my understanding is that if you're an Orthodox Christian, you believe the Earth is around 7500 years old (this being well documented). If you're not orthodox, then you either believe something else, or you're going to ask 'forever'.

[Father David Moser]

Well, my understanding is that if you're an Orthodox Christian, you believe the Earth is around 7500 years old (this being well documented).

Some Orthodox believe that the Earth is around 7500 years old - others do not. The only documentation we have of that is the Genesis account coupled with the genealogical records of the Pentateuch. The further back you go the more unreliable the dating becomes. Also this is based on the assumption that the "day" in Genesis means a 24 hour period which is also not part of Orthodox dogma (although some Orthodox Christians hold that opinion). In fact, I think the best "Orthodox" answer to that question is "I don't know, does it matter?"

Fr David Moser

[Ioan]

Some Orthodox believe that the Earth is around 7500 years old - others do not. The only documentation we have of that is the Genesis account coupled with the genealogical records of the Pentateuch. The further back you go the more unreliable the dating becomes. Also this is based on the assumption that the "day" in Genesis means a 24 hour period which is also not part of Orthodox dogma (although some Orthodox Christians hold that opinion). In fact, I think the best "Orthodox" answer to that question is "I don't know, does it matter?"

Fr David Moser

Well, then, I will side with your comment, and remain on the the earth is more or less 7500 years old. Thank you, Father!

[Kenneth Evans]

Well, then, I will side with your comment, and remain on the the earth is more or less 7500 years old. Thank you, Father!

The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, as far as we can tell. That number has changed over time as we have refined our method and learned more about geology.

Scientific method and fact in observing the natural world does not have to be an attack on faith, good people. Faith is faith. Science is science.

Both/and. truth and Truth.

[Ioan]

The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, as far as we can tell. That number has changed over time as we have refined our method and learned more about geology.

Scientific method and fact in observing the natural world does not have to be an attack on faith, good people. Faith is faith. Science is science.

Both/and. truth and Truth.

Sure, faith is faith. Science is not faith! Go on believing science!

[Kenneth Evans]

Sure, faith is faith. Science is not faith! Go on believing science!

I don't "believe" in science, any more than I "believe in" hammers; science is just a tool for understanding the natural world.

I would no more go to mathematics for advice on being a good father to my son, than I would go to the Scriptures for insights into stoichiometry. These are two different realms of knowledge and understanding, I think.

[Ioan]

I don't "believe" in science, any more than I "believe in" hammers; science is just a tool for understanding the natural world.

I would no more go to mathematics for advice on being a good father to my son, than I would go to the Scriptures for insights into stoichiometry. These are two different realms of knowledge and understanding, I think.

Sure, science is a way for man to measure time. Time is a way for God to measure science. What are we trying to figure out? What God means by time? Or, what science means by God?

[Paul Cowan]

The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old, as far as we can tell. That number has changed over time as we have refined our method and learned more about geology.

Scientific method and fact in observing the natural world does not have to be an attack on faith, good people. Faith is faith. Science is science.

Both/and. truth and Truth.

Have you read the beginning of this thread? Here is a good starting point (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?1506-How-old-is-the-earth&p=19663&viewfull=1#post19663).

Science is WAY over rated.

Paul

[Ryan]

Scientific method and fact in observing the natural world does not have to be an attack on faith, good people. Faith is faith. Science is science.

There are as many sciences as there are philosophies and cosmologies. What passes for "science" nowadays is a philosophy based on dualism or materialism and this methodology is certainly an attack on Christian faith. The common notion that there is a single, objective, universal methodology generically called "science," which happens to be the approach taken by Bacon, Newton, and their followers, is an enormous propaganda victory fo the deists and atheists.

[Kenneth Evans]

There are as many sciences as there are philosophies and cosmologies. What passes for "science" nowadays is a philosophy based on dualism or materialism...

Ryan, I grant you that there are problems with science, and that science shouldn't be thought of as one monolithic enterprise. But I think it is through the advances in observation of nature that "science" is now able to observe holistic and non-materialistic attributes of nature.

All this does sound a little like attacking the messenger (scientific method) for bringing the message as it's understood (the Earth is about four and a half billion years old) -- science is just a set of tools, and its one of the best we've got.

Faith and scripture are not for determining the age of the Earth or for proving mathematical theorems or for developing new medicines for HIV patients. Science does that stuff.

Faith is for approaching the Mystery of the Creator (science can't help us there)!

[Ryan]

This concept of "non-overlapping magisteria" (to use Stephen Jay Gould's phrase) only makes sense if one is a dualist. For the Fathers, natural philosophy, done properly, is a gateway to theology.

[Owen Jones]

The Church Fathers are scientists. What they do is closely and empirically examine things, which are both material and spiritual and their processes and relationships. They theorize about them, but not in the vulgar modern sense of a theory about something, which everyone can come up with ex nihilo, but a theory that conforms to observational experience, the same way a material scientist comes up with a general theory of atoms, say, based on both mathematical models and lab observations. So in fact theology cannot conflict in any way, shape or form with the material sciences. If there is an appearance of a conflict, it may or may not be a real conflict that is substantive in nature. On the other hand, if there is an absolute insistence that there is a substantive conflict, then there is something wrong with one or the other. Not every theological principle or theory is absolute. I was just reading the Philokalia and there is an official doctrinal statement of faith produced at Mt. Athos, where it is cited that some Fathers say that the intellect is located in the head, while other Fathers say it is located in the heart, and St. Gregory of Nyssa says that it is not located in the body at all, and they are all right! So there is a difference in scientific methods between the material sciences and theology. So you cannot reduce science to method. You cannot force theological method to perform scientifically based on the same method as the material lab sciences or the methods used in observing planets through a telescope, even though they are both empirical as well as theoretical. To be specific, an astronomer can look through a telescope and observe what planets and other forces in the universe are doing, but there are some things he cannot say about them, such as why they are there in the first place! You should not expect him to be able to unless he includes theological and philosophical reasoning. Nor should you expect a theologian to be able to discern the difference between blood cell and liver cell by observing human nature. Etc. The method of the theological sciences are different than those in the material sciences, but they are not opposed to one another, and one method does not negate the other method.

[Ioan]

Firstly, I would like to apologize for the aggressive tone of my previous posts in this thread.

Though, I believe this is a simple question, for which a definitive answer exists.
For Orthodox Christians, the process of finding an answer to a question is by checking to see if
it's already been addressed in Holy Tradition, ie by The Holy Fathers and Saints. In our case,
Tradition says that the Earth is around 7500 years old. If it says differently, please, let
us know where, and what the number is. I don't think it's absolutely relevant whether we know what The
Fathers based their teachings on, be it Genesis and/or other sources. What we are saying is that we
believe in their Holiness and power of discernment. I find it hard to believe that they
didn't know that every one of their words was very important. As far as Holy Fathers making mistakes,
this is extremely rare, and only other Holy Fathers or Saints can catch and correct this in order to have a bearing on our
Tradition; in any other phase, it's simply just speculation.

Another thing is that I don't think it matters whether days were longer than 24 hours
in the past. 1 day is 1 day, no matter how long it is. Though, The Fathers agree that
the days in Genesis were literal days. If you believe that the days correspond to some sort
of ages of Earth's history, please let us know WHO ARE these Fathers that lead you to such
conclusions. In the book of Joshua (10,13) it says, "...sun stood still in the midst of heaven,
and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day."
Therefore, time's passing is not dependent on the physical motion of the sun, or any other object.
Time is something God created, and my understanding is that wherever the word 'day' is used in The Bible as a measurement of time, it means the same thing in all places. So, whatever went on during the 7 days of Creation, the days themselves were equal to each other, and are equal to any other day thereafter. Wouldn't it be confusing and rather useless to even call them days, otherwise?

[Jesse Dominick]

Firstly, I would like to apologize for the aggressive tone of my previous posts in this thread.

Though, I believe this is a simple question, for which a definitive answer exists.
For Orthodox Christians, the process of finding an answer to a question is by checking to see if
it's already been addressed in Holy Tradition, ie by The Holy Fathers and Saints. In our case,
Tradition says that the Earth is around 7500 years old. If it says differently, please, let
us know where, and what the number is. I don't think it's absolutely relevant whether we know what The
Fathers based their teachings on, be it Genesis and/or other sources. What we are saying is that we
believe in their Holiness and power of discernment. I find it hard to believe that they
didn't know that every one of their words was very important. As far as Holy Fathers making mistakes,
this is extremely rare, and only other Holy Fathers or Saints can catch and correct this in order to have a bearing on our
Tradition; in any other phase, it's simply just speculation.

Another thing is that I don't think it matters whether days were longer than 24 hours
in the past. 1 day is 1 day, no matter how long it is. Though, The Fathers agree that
the days in Genesis were literal days. If you believe that the days correspond to some sort
of ages of Earth's history, please let us know WHO ARE these Fathers that lead you to such
conclusions. In the book of Joshua (10,13) it says, "...sun stood still in the midst of heaven,
and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day."
Therefore, time's passing is not dependent on the physical motion of the sun, or any other object.
Time is something God created, and my understanding is that wherever the word 'day' is used in The Bible as a measurement of time, it means the same thing in all places. So, whatever went on during the 7 days of Creation, the days themselves were equal to each other, and are equal to any other day thereafter. Wouldn't it be confusing and rather useless to even call them days, otherwise?


great post!

[Michael Stickles]

The Fathers agree that the days in Genesis were literal days. If you believe that the days correspond to some sort of ages of Earth's history, please let us know WHO ARE these Fathers that lead you to such conclusions.

While not an "age", Irenaeus (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.vii.xxiv.html) explicitly links the sixth day of creation to II Peter 3:8 - "a day of the Lord is as a thousand years" - in stating that Adam died on the same day that he ate of the fruit, in accordance with God's word that "in the day that ye shall eat of it, ye shall die."

I have read that several other of the fathers (including Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Basil, Ambrose, Hippolytus, Augustine, etc.) also made statements indicating that the days of creation were not (or at least were not necessarily) 24-hour periods; however, I haven't spent much time trying to track them down, and the only reference besides Irenaeus' that I did track down seemed "iffy", to say the least. So I don't know how widespread the "opposing" view was.

But in any case, the primary question is not whether some (or many) of the fathers treated the days of creation as literal days, or the date of creation as 5500BC (or 4000BC, or whichever of their dates we choose). It is whether those pronouncements are considered part of the consensus patrum, and from my (admittedly limited) research I do not think they have been.


So, whatever went on during the 7 days of Creation, the days themselves were equal to each other, and are equal to any other day thereafter. Wouldn't it be confusing and rather useless to even call them days, otherwise?

Well, no. I honestly don't see why it would be.

[Paul Cowan]

The earth is 16,164 days old. Nothing existed before I did. I wasn't aware of anything prior and nothing prior matters until I arrived to alter the world. God said, "let it be" and it be'd. As far as I am concerned He said this the same day I was born. Anything that seems to be older than I am was created on that fateful day in its current state of decay. The world is mine and God created it for me and my amuzement. I am the center of the universe.

I will say, I am very appreciative of the people, places and things He created for me to enjoy in all stages of their development. Even the 8-track tape. All supposed history, technology and artifacts were put here for me to discover and wonder at the majesty of God. Who else could orchestrate such diversity and complexity but an all powerful God who loves me so much He gave me you all and this place to play in?

Paul the first

[Herman Blaydoe]

A "day" is mathematically defined as the time it takes for the earth to complete one rotation on its axis. The Sun produces light. When your part of the earth faces the Sun, it is daylight. When the part of the earth you happen to be standing on is facing away from the Sun, it is night. Regardless of your theology, these are facts, do with them as you will.

When he wrote Genesis, Moses had no idea that the earth was round, rotated on its axis and orbited the Sun. He was not writing a history book, nor was he writing a treatise on astronomy. He was explaining God to a "stiff-necked people". The Fathers also believed that all the elements of the world were composed of "air", "water", "earth", and "fire". We do know a little more about the physical universe than they did. Should we throw out the periodic table because the Fathers never wrote of it? If you want to believe in a literal 7 day creation, knock yourself out, but I doubt that Judge of All will ask you when you stand in His presence, "how long did it take to create the Universe"? I prefer to believe there is more to the story than both Scripture and science have revealed at present. Funny thing though, as science gets closer to the microcosmic and macrocosmic, it touches God and does not know quite what to do about it.

[Ryan]

What people are referring to generically as "science" is just the natural philosophy of Epicurus, revived and refined in the West European "Enlightenment." It begins with some presuppositions- for instance, that the natural world can be accurately apprehended purely by the senses. Those who say that we can use "science" for understanding the natural world and theology for understanding the spiritual world, as two completely separate disciplines, have assumed, probably unconsciously, a non-Christian dualist way of thinking.

St. Maximus the Confessor, in The Church's Mystagogy, outlines the basis of Christian natural philosophy:


There is but one world and it is not divided into parts. On the contrary, it encloses the differences of the parts arising from their natural properties by their relation to what is one and indivisible in itself. Moreover, it shows that both are the same thing with it and alternately with each other in an unconfused way and that the whole of one enters into the whole of the other, and both fill the same whole as parts fill a unit, and in this way the parts and uniformly and entirely filled as a whole. For the whole spiritual world seems mystically imprinted on the whole sensible world in symbolic forms,for those who are capable of seeing this, and conversely the whole sensible world is spiritually explained in the mind in the principles which it contains. In the spiritual world it is in principles; in the sensible world it is in figures.

St. Nikolai Velimorovich, in his The Universe as Symbols and Signs, expresses the same truth:

It is clear from this that whoever reads the natural without knowing the spiritual content and significance of what he has read, reads death, sees death, appropriates death. Also, whoever considers visible nature as the only reality and not as a riddle in the mirror of the spirit, does not know more than the child who may recognize letters but is far from understanding written words. And again, whoever looks at a visible thing as at something absolutely real and eternal by itself, as the ancient Hellenic naturalists did, and their modern followers do, is certainly an analphabetic idol worshipper. He sees the letters but cannot guess their meaning. Spiritual reality belongs to eternity while the symbols of that reality belong to time.

The modern materialist natural philosophy does not give us real truth about nature. To be sure, it is not completely false- the visible world created by God is not an illusion. I think this materialist approach could be compared to someone conducting a symphony, and somehow leaving out particular instruments, say, the wind instruments, despite the composer's intentions. The audience will still hear the other instruments, and hear parts of the piece accurately, but other parts they get completely wrong. Overall, the presentation is utterly distorted, but the conductor will point to the parts he got right, and say "you liked this part, so you must accept the other parts too." Similarly apologists of modern materialism are eager to uphold the wonders of modern medicine, technology, transportation, etc. The argument is made that this philosophy "works", therefore it must be True. And indeed if the purpose of life is the acquisition of material objects, the lengthening of our earthly lives, or the creation of ever newer and more complex gadgets, then materialism does indeed "work." But Christians have different values.

[Ryan]

The Fathers also believed that all the elements of the world were composed of "air", "water", "earth", and "fire". We do know a little more about the physical universe than they did. Should we throw out the periodic table because the Fathers never wrote of it?

The 4 elements and the elements in the periodic table are not the same category of "element." To say that one supplants the other is to misunderstand. The 4 elements may not be apprehensible by an empiricist approach but since when was empiricism our philosophy anyway?

[Herman Blaydoe]

Some of the Fathers were rather ardent about Ptolemaic astronomy. We know this is not a valid cosmological model. We do learn things about the universe around us. I am not saying that science has all the answers, in fact it doesn't even know all the questions. But to make Holy Scripture a science text book is doing something that I do not believe the actual writers ever intended. But neither is science nothing more than a divine recapitulation.

The fact is, neither science nor Holy Scripture really tell us the exact nature of our beginning. Genesis is the combination of two rather different accounts of the events. Both accounts are attempts to explain who God is and who we are. Every word of Holy Scripture is Truth, even if not every event happened exactly as recorded.

I recommend a less-than-divine recapitulation of this subject starting with a post from Hieromonk Irenaeus, formerly Fr. Dcn. Matthew: The scope of this thread (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?5284-An-alternative-history-in-Genesis&p=67917&viewfull=1#post67917)

Herman the recapitulative Pooh

[Michael Stickles]

After re-reading the "scope" post (thanks for the reminder, Pooh), I think at one point we were actually working our way back in that direction. I am reminded of a comment Olga made in a different context:


Hymnography, like iconography, must pass the most stringent examination for it to be considered canonical. Long-standing members of this forum well know my stance on this matter. Hymnody and iconography are the cornerstones, the distillation, of the expression of the Orthodox faith, of its teachings.

So, dropping back to part of my most recent comment:


But in any case, the primary question is not whether some (or many) of the fathers treated the days of creation as literal days, or the date of creation as 5500BC (or 4000BC, or whichever of their dates we choose). It is whether those pronouncements are considered part of the consensus patrum, and from my (admittedly limited) research I do not think they have been.

I am not aware of any hymnography of the Church dealing directly with the age of the earth, or the specific length of the days of creation, but that certainly doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Does anyone know of any such hymns? That would certainly be of relevance to this discussion, and would help in ascertaining the consensus patrum (the same would be true of iconography, but I have no idea how you could paint those concepts into an icon, except to have it written on a scroll).

In Christ,
Michael

[Ioan]

While not an "age", Irenaeus (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.vii.xxiv.html) explicitly links the sixth day of creation to II Peter 3:8 - "a day of the Lord is as a thousand years" - in stating that Adam died on the same day that he ate of the fruit, in accordance with God's word that "in the day that ye shall eat of it, ye shall die."

I have read that several other of the fathers (including Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Basil, Ambrose, Hippolytus, Augustine, etc.) also made statements indicating that the days of creation were not (or at least were not necessarily) 24-hour periods; however, I haven't spent much time trying to track them down, and the only reference besides Irenaeus' that I did track down seemed "iffy", to say the least. So I don't know how widespread the "opposing" view was.

But in any case, the primary question is not whether some (or many) of the fathers treated the days of creation as literal days, or the date of creation as 5500BC (or 4000BC, or whichever of their dates we choose). It is whether those pronouncements are considered part of the consensus patrum, and from my (admittedly limited) research I do not think they have been.



Well, no. I honestly don't see why it would be.

It would be because you said "a day of the Lord is a thousand years". That means all days of the Lord are a thousand years each, that means they are ALL equal to each other.
Now, since God rested on the 7th day, that means all 7 days are equal, otherwise He'd 'get mad' because the day He rested on was shorter (well, a joke). Now, if one goes to Church on Sunday, he knows that day is equal to the other six. And then, our Lord rose on the 3rd day, ascended on the 40th, so on. All these days are equal to each other, and follow the 7-day week model that God established since Genesis. That WAS one of the reasons why God established the world in 7 days.
Anyway, like I said before...the sun stood still, in Joshuah, but time still passed, so time does not follow the Sun, but the Sun was so calibrated to rise and set according to time (a day). In other words (for those who...), the earth rotates once around its axis during a day.

[Jesse Dominick]

I have read that several other of the fathers (including Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Basil, Ambrose, Hippolytus, Augustine, etc.) also made statements indicating that the days of creation were not (or at least were not necessarily) 24-hour periods; however, I haven't spent much time trying to track them down, and the only reference besides Irenaeus' that I did track down seemed "iffy", to say the least. So I don't know how widespread the "opposing" view was.

Hi Michael! I hope everything is well with you and the family! I think you will find similarly "iffy" statements from St. Justin and Clement of Alexandria, but they also have other statements that are pretty clear in the literal direction, in my opinion. but their allegorical interpretations are often put forth as if that is necessarily mutually exclusive with a literal interpretation.


St. Justin Martyr, 1st Apology, chapter 67
But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead.
Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata 4.25
Whence He commands them not to touch dead bodies, or approach the dead; not that the body was polluted, but that sin and disobedience were incarnate, and embodied, and dead, and therefore abominable. It was only, then, when a father and mother, a son and daughter died, that the priest was allowed to enter, because these were related only by flesh and seed, to whom the priest was indebted for the immediate cause of his entrance into life. And they purify themselves seven days, the period in which Creation was consummated. For on the seventh day the rest is celebrated; and on the eighth he brings a propitiation, as is written in Ezekiel, according to which propitiation the promise is to be received.

The Stromata 5.6
Now the high priest's robe is the symbol of the world of sense. The seven planets are represented by the five stones and the two carbuncles, for Saturn and the Moon. The former is southern, and moist, and earthy, and heavy; the latter aerial, whence she is called by some Artemis, as if Aerotomos (cutting the air); and the air is cloudy. And cooperating as they did in the production of things here below, those that by Divine Providence are set over the planets are rightly represented as placed on the breast and shoulders; and by them was the work of creation, the first week. And the breast is the seat of the heart and soul.

The Stromata 6.16
Wherefore Solomon also says, that before heaven, and earth, and all existences, Wisdom had arisen in the Almighty; the participation of which-that which is by power, I mean, not that by essence-teaches a man to know by apprehension things divine and human. Having reached this point, we must mention these things by the way; since the discourse has turned on the seventh and the eighth. For the eighth may possibly turn out to be properly the seventh, and the seventh manifestly the sixth, and the latter properly the Sabbath, and the seventh a day of work. For the creation of the world was concluded in six days. Sts. Basil and Ambrose explicity say that the days were 24 hrs, and I have not seen St. Hippolytus explicitly say that the days are 24 hrs, but I think it can be reasonably inferred from what he says.


St. Basil, Hexameron, 2.8
Why does Scripture say "one day the first day"? Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first which began the series? If it therefore says "one day," it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that they contain. Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day-we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by Scripture does not the less circumscribe their duration. It is as though it said: twenty-four hours measure the space of a day, or that, in reality a day is the time that the heavens starting from one point take to return there. Thus, every time that, in the revolution of the sun, evening and morning occupy the world, their periodical succession never exceeds the space of one day. But must we believe in a mysterious reason for this? God who made the nature of time measured it out and determined it by intervals of days; and, wishing to give it a week as a measure, he ordered the week to revolve from period to period upon itself, to count the movement of time, forming the week of one day revolving seven times upon itself: a proper circle begins and ends with itself.

St. Ambrose of Milan, Hexameron 1:37
In notable fashion has Scripture spoken of a “day,” not the “first day.” Because a second, then a third, day, and finally the remaining days were to follow, a “first day” could have been mentioned, following in this way the natural order. But Scripture established a law that twenty-four hours, including both day and night, should be given the name of day only, as if one were to say the length of one day is twenty-four hours in extent.

St. Hippolytus of Rome, On Genesis
Gen. I. 5. And it was evening, and it was morning, one day.
Hippolytus. He did not say3 "night and day," but "one day," with reference to the name of the light. He did not say the "first day; "for if he had said the "first" day, he would also have had to say that the "second" day was made. But it was right to speak not of the "first day," but of "one day," in order that by saying "one," he might show that it returns on its orbit and, while it remains one, makes up the week.
i think this quote is kind of confusing, but at the end he seems to me to be saying that these days of creation are the same days that make up a week.



On Daniel, 4
But that we may not leave our subject at this point undemonstrated, we are obliged to discuss the matter of the times, of which a man should not speak hastily, because they are a light to him. For as the times are noted from the foundation of the world, and reckoned from Adam, they set clearly before us the matter with which our inquiry deals. For the first appearance of our Lord in the flesh took place in Bethlehem, under Augustus, in the year 5500; and He suffered in the thirty-third year.
Saying that Christ came in 5500 shows that he interpreted the days to be literal, for if they were 1000 yrs each, then Christ would have come in the year 12500.

St. Augustine says that the entire creation week was actually one instantaneous moment, but he is insistent that the rest of the timeline given in Scripture is accurate.


St. Augustine, City of God, Book XVIII.XL In vain, then, do some babble with most empty presumption, saying that Egypt has understood the reckoning of the stars for more than a hundred thousand years. For in what books have they collected that number who learned letters from Isis their mistress, not much more than two thousand years ago? Varro, who has decla...red this, is no small authority in history, and it does not disagree with the truth of the divine books. For as it is not yet six thousand years since the first man, who is called Adam, are not those to be ridiculed rather than refuted who try to persuade us of anything regarding a space of time so different from, and contrary to, the ascertained truth? For what historian of the past should we credit more than him who has also predicted things to come which we now see fulfilled?
and St. Irenaeus also says:


St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5.28.3
For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. And for this reason the Scripture says: "Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and all their adornment. And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works."247 This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years;248 and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.
of course we see that he was wrong about the earth ending in the year 6,000, but nevertheless, he derives that idea from a literal interpretation of the days of Genesis.

[Ryan]

Some of the Fathers were rather ardent about Ptolemaic astronomy. We know this is not a valid cosmological model. We do learn things about the universe around us. I am not saying that science has all the answers, in fact it doesn't even know all the questions. But to make Holy Scripture a science text book is doing something that I do not believe the actual writers ever intended. But neither is science nothing more than a divine recapitulation.

Again, someone uses the generic term "science" to refer to a specific natural philosophy propagated in the modern era which rests upon dualism or materialism. It is not a neutral, objective, or universal method- it was devised by men with particular philosophical inclinations which are not agreeable to the Christian worldview.

I don't think it's meaningful to say that the Ptolemaic model has been proven wrong by modern astronomy. The astronomy that gave us the Ptolemaic system looked on the creation not merely to figure out how it works, but what it means- what philosophical or spiritual truths can be discerned in the workings of the heavens. The modern discipline of astronomy has no such goals. Its method is empiricist and it does not look for any meaning in creation. If we really want to ascertain which model is more accurate, the chief question is what our values are. How should we study the creation, and to what purpose? For our purposes, and from our values, a geocentric model is more accurate.

Ptolemaic astronomy doesn't hold up according to the materialist standards of modern astronomy, but then modern astronomy doesn't hold up according to the spiritual cosmology that informed the Ptolemaic philosophers and the Fathers of the Church who, while filtering the good from the bad in pagan philosophy, certainly found much more of use there than we can find in the atheistic modern natural philosophy.

[Herman Blaydoe]

Please. Ptolemaic astronomy doesn't work because it is based on a flawed understanding of the basics of the Universe. It does not properly explain or correctly model the observed universe. It is simply WRONG, regardless of your "philosophy" or values. It doesn't work, despite some rather elaborate epicycles and various attempts to adjust and justify it.

As someone trained in celestial navigation, if I tried to do it using Ptolemaic principles, I would be very very lost. One of my values is not being lost.

This discussion is getting a bit strange and strained. I'm done.

Herman the non-Ptolemaic Ptooh

[Ioan]

Hi Michael! I hope everything is well with you and the family! I think you will find similarly "iffy" statements from St. Justin and Clement of Alexandria, but they also have other statements that are pretty clear in the literal direction, in my opinion. but their allegorical interpretations are often put forth as if that is necessarily mutually exclusive with a literal interpretation.
Sts. Basil and Ambrose explicity say that the days were 24 hrs, and I have not seen St. Hippolytus explicitly say that the days are 24 hrs, but I think it can be reasonably inferred from what he says.

i think this quote is kind of confusing, but at the end he seems to me to be saying that these days of creation are the same days that make up a week.


Saying that Christ came in 5500 shows that he interpreted the days to be literal, for if they were 1000 yrs each, then Christ would have come in the year 12500.

St. Augustine says that the entire creation week was actually one instantaneous moment, but he is insistent that the rest of the timeline given in Scripture is accurate.

and St. Irenaeus also says:

of course we see that he was wrong about the earth ending in the year 6,000, but nevertheless, he derives that idea from a literal interpretation of the days of Genesis.

Thank you for this great and very informative post!

[Michael Stickles]

It would be because you said "a day of the Lord is a thousand years". That means all days of the Lord are a thousand years each, that means they are ALL equal to each other.

Sigh.

The correct quote was "a day of the Lord is as a thousand years." (and to be pedantic, I didn't say it, Irenaeus did - I simply quoted him, and he was quoting Scripture). And no, that does NOT necessarily mean that "they are ALL equal to each other." I am, frankly, mystified at how you keep coming to this conclusion, which is not supported by the evidences presented. It has to be assumed a priori.

Also, I quoted Irenaeus specifically to respond to the question as to whether any of the Fathers treated the days of creation as an "age" instead of 24 hours. A thousand years is not quite an "age", but it is significantly longer than 24 hours. And Jesse noted Augustine going in the other direction, saying that the whole week of creation was an instantaneous moment. We do not have patristic unanimity here.

Finally, let me highlight the last entry from Jesse's collection of patristic quotes:


and St. Irenaeus also says:


St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5.28.3
For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. And for this reason the Scripture says: "Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and all their adornment. And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works."247 This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years;248 and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.

of course we see that he was wrong about the earth ending in the year 6,000, but nevertheless, he derives that idea from a literal interpretation of the days of Genesis.

Yes, "of course we see that he was wrong". But then again, St. Irenaeus' pronouncement of the time when all things would come to an end was never considered part of capital-T Tradition, the consensus patrum, and so the fact that it passed without the Lord's return causes no scandal or embarrasment to the faithful. It was not part of the "deposit of faith", just an opinion.

And that brings me back to my earlier question. Where is the evidence that considering the length of the days of creation to be 24 hours each, or the age of the Earth to be 7500 (or 6000, or whatever) years, is part of the consensus patrum? Do we see the Church - not merely some Orthodox here or there - dogmatically and consistently asserting these things as truth?

If we do, I would like to see the evidence. If not, then I think Father David said it best:


I think the best "Orthodox" answer to that question is "I don't know, does it matter?"

In Christ,
Michael

[Ryan]

Please. Ptolemaic astronomy doesn't work because it is based on a flawed understanding of the basics of the Universe. It does not properly explain or correctly model the observed universe.

According to what standards do you judge its model incorrect?


As someone trained in celestial navigation, if I tried to do it using Ptolemaic principles, I would be very very lost.

That's odd, since celestial navigation assumes a geocentric model, even for navigators who otherwise accept the Copernican system...

[Devin B.]

I'm just curious as to why we cannot simply say that the Church Fathers were wrong on this aspect. Not to mention that the Bible is "scientifically" wrong. Neither the Church Fathers, nor the Bible are meant to be scientific records. As Orthodox Christians, we also do not believe that the Bible is inerrant or infallible, so it's acceptable to say that Genesis is "scientifically" wrong, but "spiritually" accurate.

Remember, that there are two different creation stories, and neither completely agrees with the other, so which are we to take as "canon" and which are we going to use to determine the age of the Earth?

We also need to remember that what matters is not the scientific aspect of Genesis, but the fact that what is says is that everything was created through the Word of God. And that God himself is the source and creator of all things.
"I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible."

It doesn't matter how God created things, it doesn't matter how old the Earth is, whether it's 7,500 years or 4.5 billion years. What matters is our worship of the one God, the Holy Trinity, and the recognition that the Holy Trinity is the source and creator of all things.

We also have to prevent ourselves from taking the position that science and religion are inevitably opposed to one another when in fact they are not. We must avoid fundamentalism at all costs, and must recognize that the job of science is to explain/discover the created world. It can do nothing to determine/discover anything about God or even anything outside of our own time. (that is, it can't discover/explain anything in eternity)

Even evolution is not opposed to Christianity (save for atheistic evolution and absolute Darwinian Evolution), as it could just be the way that God chose to create things. In fact, I would say it was a brilliant thing for God to do and only makes me marvel more at his creation.

What do I personally believe? If I had to take a stance, I would say the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. This number is subject to change, but that is science, it's constantly discovering new things about God's creation. God didn't create us just to sit back and close our minds off and not discover more about his creation. We aren't fundamentalists and we don't take the entire Bible literally and we also don't believe it to be inerrant or infallible. It's also not a scientific or historical record. So to say that the Bible is wrong in the Earth being 7,500 years old is not wrong. We also need to remember that the Bible doesn't say anywhere that the Earth is 7,500 years old. This is the interpretation of other people using numbers that are in there for other reasons and that are in different contexts from one another.

If we have to believe it was literally seven 24-hour days, or if we have to believe it was literally 7,500 years. Then why should we not believe that Christ will reign a literal 1,000 years (as Revelation says), or why don't we believe that there will literally only be 114,000 righteous? Numbers in the Bible mean various things and are in various contexts, some are to be taken literally, many others are to be taken symbolically. The point isn't that it's historically/scientifically accurate. The point is that there is a larger meaning than "the earth can only be 7,500 years old".

Believe what you want to believe on the subject, but do not say that "Orthodox Christians MUST believe it's only 7,500 years old" because frankly, you have no basis to make that claim, and in fact, are excluding millions of actual, practicing Orthodox Christians. (of course, the same goes for the old-earthers) The age of the earth is in fact, NOT a dogma of the Church. Therefore, we can hold theolegoumena about it and differ from one another, but still be Orthodox. It has no effect on our salvation, and also has no effect on our core, dogmatic theology, therefore, we cannot declare old/young earth theories to be "un-Orthodox"...

[John Bundstein]

I have enjoyed this thread and have only one thing to add out of my own ignorance. Once very long ago when I was young I was told by a E&R seminary student that there is no confict between science and the Bible because they do not ask the same question. Science asks HOW and the Bible and faith asks WHY.

[Mark Harris]

at the end of the day it's a mystery like many other things and does it really matter ?

[Jesse Dominick]

And that brings me back to my earlier question. Where is the evidence that considering the length of the days of creation to be 24 hours each, or the age of the Earth to be 7500 (or 6000, or whatever) years, is part of the consensus patrum? Do we see the Church - not merely some Orthodox here or there - dogmatically and consistently asserting these things as truth?

If we do, I would like to see the evidence. If not, then I think Father David said it best:



In Christ,
Michael


i guess it depends on what one would accept as the voice of the Church. i think, despite St. Augustine, that there is pretty amazing uniformity on this subject. this blog post collects many Fathers together, the majority of whom interpret the days to be 24 hrs, and the rest, like St. Augustine and Origen, who at least accept a young earth: http://oldbelieving.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/orthodoxy-and-creationism/

also, im not sure if it came up on this thread before, but the Church adopted the Byzantine Creation Ear calendar which placed creation at 5508 BC. there is an entry about it here: http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/Byzantine_Creation_Era

in my opinion, these two factors are expressing the voice of the Church.

[Herman Blaydoe]

According to what standards do you judge its model incorrect?

Do you really know and understand the Ptolemaic system and its shortcomings? It does not work. It does not properly explain or predict the positions of the celestial bodies, despite the use of epicycles and extremely complicated attempts to make it work.


That's odd, since celestial navigation assumes a geocentric model, even for navigators who otherwise accept the Copernican system...

Um, well, actually, no. I was trained in celestial navigation by the US Navy. Measured angles to celestial bodies are measured relative to the center of the Earth, yes, but but that has nothing to do with the Ptolemaic system. I recommend you get a decent beginner's book on celestial mechanics, or Galileo for that matter. Otherwise I am not letting you anywhere near a sextant.

Herman the navigating Pooh

[Devin B.]

i guess it depends on what one would accept as the voice of the Church. i think, despite St. Augustine, that there is pretty amazing uniformity on this subject. this blog post collects many Fathers together, the majority of whom interpret the days to be 24 hrs, and the rest, like St. Augustine and Origen, who at least accept a young earth: http://oldbelieving.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/orthodoxy-and-creationism/

also, im not sure if it came up on this thread before, but the Church adopted the Byzantine Creation Ear calendar which placed creation at 5508 BC. there is an entry about it here: http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/Byzantine_Creation_Era

in my opinion, these two factors are expressing the voice of the Church.

That doesn't make it a doctrine though. In fact, it's perfectly acceptable to say that the Church Fathers were simply wrong. Some of them did their best to look at science and even consider it in their writing, but even the science of their day was limited. They had no clue about Neanderthals, Homo erectus etc...

Again, just because the Fathers believed in a Young Earth doesn't mean that the Earth is Young, and it also doesn't mean it's a doctrine. Again, it doesn't matter, and it's a mystery. It's perfectly acceptable to say they were simply mistaken about the age of the Earth. They weren't focused on how old it is, neither does it really matter how old the Earth is. Again, the Bible is not a historic or scientific record, and if we spend our time trying to justify and/or coincide the Bible with Science, then we are going to miss the real point behind the Scriptures.

[Jesse Dominick]

That doesn't make it a doctrine though. In fact, it's perfectly acceptable to say that the Church Fathers were simply wrong. Some of them did their best to look at science and even consider it in their writing, but even the science of their day was limited. They had no clue about Neanderthals, Homo erectus etc...

Again, just because the Fathers believed in a Young Earth doesn't mean that the Earth is Young, and it also doesn't mean it's a doctrine. Again, it doesn't matter, and it's a mystery. It's perfectly acceptable to say they were simply mistaken about the age of the Earth. They weren't focused on how old it is, neither does it really matter how old the Earth is. Again, the Bible is not a historic or scientific record, and if we spend our time trying to justify and/or coincide the Bible with Science, then we are going to miss the real point behind the Scriptures.

i dont see how this is a matter for science -- the Fathers are commenting on Scripture when they say the days of Genesis are 24 hr days, and Scripture is of course their area of expertise.

and what i dont understand is, if Genesis isnt a science book, then why do people interpret it according to latest scientific trends? if its not a science book then scientists should have nothing to say about it ...

[Paul Cowan]

if its not a science book then scientists should have nothing to say about it ...

Careful, They can turn this around and say the same about Christians and science. Its not an either/ or. Its an if/ and.

[Ioan]

The correct quote was "a day of the Lord is as a thousand years."


Well, this has nothing to do with the duration of a day, but if it did, all days would have to be "as (long) as a thousand years". This is a metaphor, and I believe it's supposed to lead one to contemplating the fact that God is Eternal, All-Powerful, etc.
For whatever reasons, people do say things like, "today felt like a month", or "yesterday flew so much faster than today", but in no way do they mean that the actual duration of a day is not always the same.

[Herman Blaydoe]

Ioan, not sure why, but you seem to be saying that we are allowed to use allegorical interpretations, but the writers of Holy Scripture are not? Their "day" MUST be a 24 hour one, they are not allowed any license, poetic, literary or otherwise? Literalness was generally not a hallmark of ancient writing. Requiring it millennia after the fact seems somewhat unfair.

Indeed, the Fathers commented on their area of expertise. Celestial mechanics was NOT that area.

Herman the allegorical Pooh

[Theophrastus]

and what i dont understand is, if Genesis isnt a science book, then why do people interpret it according to latest scientific trends? if its not a science book then scientists should have nothing to say about it ...Genesis actually is a scientific text book, that is, it expresses the understanding of the physical cosmos as ancient Middle Easterners understood it (with the hard-dome 'firmanent', etc.). But Genesis takes this understanding and conforms it to the Abrahamic revelations.

[Michael Stickles]

Well, this has nothing to do with the duration of a day, but if it did, all days would have to be "as (long) as a thousand years".

Why? Again, the argument makes no sense to me. It seems to pre-suppose a literalist "conformitarianism" in the concepts and terminology of Scripture that does not, so far as I can see, apply.


For whatever reasons, people do say things like, "today felt like a month", or "yesterday flew so much faster than today", but in no way do they mean that the actual duration of a day is not always the same.

In the case of Irenaeus, he was saying that God's statement "in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die" was literally fulfilled; that even though Adam lived over 900 years, he still died in the sixth "day". Yes, he was speaking to the duration of that "day", and he used the verse from Peter's epistle to back up his point. What Irenaeus said is pretty clear; whether it fits with other ideas (patristic or modern) or is fully consistent (both internally and with Scripture) is another matter.


i guess it depends on what one would accept as the voice of the Church. i think, despite St. Augustine, that there is pretty amazing uniformity on this subject. ...

also, im not sure if it came up on this thread before, but the Church adopted the Byzantine Creation Ear calendar which placed creation at 5508 BC.

Uniformity among the fathers does not indicate that the Church holds their view as a dogmatic position, just as variation among the early fathers doesn't mean the Church eschews a dogmatic position. If something was held by the fathers, continued to be consistently held by them over time, and found its way into the hymnography and/or liturgical life of the Church, we would be safe in calling that part of the consensus patrum. I still don't see that for this issue.

Also, if the OrthodoxWiki article you linked is correct, the Byzantine Creation Era calendar has not been in official use by anyone for over 280 years. That seriously dilutes its value as evidence. The article also quotes the Orthodox Study Bible as saying (emphasis in the original):


Regarding questions about the scientific accuracy of the Genesis account of creation, and about various viewpoints concerning evolution, the Orthodox Church has not dogmatized any particular view.

Which is pretty much the same argument I'm making here.

I try to approach this and other issues according to the precepts Fr David mentioned in a different thread a year or so ago:


Scripture finds its existence and its meaning within the life of the Church - it cannot be properly understood in any other context. So also the patristic writings will either resonate with the life of the Church indicating that they are "accepted" or they will clash with the life of the Church indicating that we should beware of them. ... to truly have a handle on scripture and on the patristic writings it is necessary to live the life of the Church, to experience the services, the prayers, the hymns, rhythm of life; to conform oneself to that life and begin to resonate with it. Then we see scripture come alive and we begin to sense the harmony (or disharmony) of the patristic writings, in one sense we just know what is true and what is not. Of course we also must submit those feelings, that "sense" back to the judgment of the Church (usually through our relationship with or spiritual father or our parish/monastic community) so that we don't fall into self delusion.

I do indeed sense a "disharmony" here, but the disharmony I sense is not with the idea of a young earth and recent creation, nor with the idea of an old earth and non-literal view of Genesis. Rather, it's with the attempt to force one or the other view to have a dogmatic status. And that sense seems to me to be in accord with the judgment of the Church.

In Christ,
Michael

[Ioan]

Ioan, not sure why, but you seem to be saying that we are allowed to use allegorical interpretations, but the writers of Holy Scripture are not? Their "day" MUST be a 24 hour one, they are not allowed any license, poetic, literary or otherwise? Literalness was generally not a hallmark of ancient writing. Requiring it millennia after the fact seems somewhat unfair.

Indeed, the Fathers commented on their area of expertise. Celestial mechanics was NOT that area.

Herman the allegorical Pooh


No, I never said allegory; I said metaphor.

[Herman Blaydoe]

So Moses is not allowed to be metaphorical either? Either way, it seems a bit unfair.

Herman the metaphorical Pooh

[Jesse Dominick]

Genesis actually is a scientific text book, that is, it expresses the understanding of the physical cosmos as ancient Middle Easterners understood it (with the hard-dome 'firmanent', etc.). But Genesis takes this understanding and conforms it to the Abrahamic revelations.


i agree that Genesis reveals scientific truths to us. i was attempting to point the contradiction in those who, wanting to interpret Genesis allegorically, will say that its not a science textbook, but then they turn around and look to scientists for the proper interpretation! if its not a science textbook then why would scientists be your interpreters?

i think that Genesis reveals theology/spirituality, which necessarily has scientific implications, but as it is a record of the acts of God in Holy Scripture it belongs to the Holy Fathers to expound upon it, not scientists.

[Devin B.]

i agree that Genesis reveals scientific truths to us. i was attempting to point the contradiction in those who, wanting to interpret Genesis allegorically, will say that its not a science textbook, but then they turn around and look to scientists for the proper interpretation! if its not a science textbook then why would scientists be your interpreters?

i think that Genesis reveals theology/spirituality, which necessarily has scientific implications, but as it is a record of the acts of God in Holy Scripture it belongs to the Holy Fathers to expound upon it, not scientists.

Who ever said we ask scientists to interpret Genesis for us?

For those that believe in an Old Earth and in theistic/Christian evolution, they aren't asking scientists to interpret Genesis for them. They simply just don't believe that the way Genesis describes creation is entirely what factually happened.

You seem to assume that these people are taking a scientific/metaphorical approach on everything, which would include things such as the parting of the waters and other miracles. (which some non-Orthodox interpret as natural phenomena rather than God acting in creation) Instead, they are simply not taking Genesis as scientific fact, and are letting science inform us on the scientific history of the Earth.

Genesis is not about the scientific history of the Earth. Genesis, and in fact, the rest of the Bible is about the history of mankind, and God's constant condescension to us and our constant disobedience. It's also leading up to the incarnation of God himself, and his greatest act within time.

The Bible is not infallible, and it is prone to error. We cannot be fundamentalists when it comes to interpreting and looking at the Bible. We must recognize that human beings wrote the Bible, and it's not going to be entirely factually, historically and scientifically accurate. Even so, we must recognize that spiritually, it is completely accurate.

It's okay to admit that the Church Fathers and the Bible is wrong about the age of the Earth, because the age of the Earth does not matter at all. Who cares how old it is? The only thing that matters is that God created everything, whether it was in 7 days, several million years, through a Big Bang, Evolution or an instant, doesn't matter. God made everything out of nothing, and we are the pinnacle of his creation. That is what really matters. Genesis is NOT a scientific book, sure it has aspects in it, especially in relation to creation, but we aren't to understand it as being scientifically accurate.

[Herman Blaydoe]

I think it a bit of a stretch to say that Holy Scripture is "prone to error". Perhaps it depends on how you define "error", but I prefer to say that every word of Holy Scripture expresses Truth, even if not everything happened exactly as recorded. I don't define that as "error". If three different people give you their version of something they all witnessed and there are differences in their accounts, do we say they are in "error"? Do we say that Shakespeare's "Henry the VIII" is in "error"? What an idea!

But I do agree that to demand that Genesis be the basis for determining the Laws of Physics or celestial mechanics is probably not a good idea. I really don't think that was Moses' intention.

Herman the navigating Pooh

[Devin B.]

I think it a bit of a stretch to say that Holy Scripture is "prone to error". Perhaps it depends on how you define "error", but I prefer to say that every word of Holy Scripture expresses Truth, even if not everything happened exactly as recorded. I don't define that as "error". If three different people give you their version of something they all witnessed and there are differences in their accounts, do we say they are in "error"? Do we say that Shakespeare's "Henry the VIII" is in "error"? What an idea!

But I do agree that to demand that Genesis be the basis for determining the Laws of Physics or celestial mechanics is probably not a good idea. I really don't think that was Moses' intention.

Herman the navigating Pooh

Yes, I'm sorry that I didn't make it clear, I apologize. I don't mean that the Bible is "wrong". Rather, I believe it indeed is true. But this doesn't mean innerancy/infallibility, and it also doesn't mean that the Bible is always scientifically and historical accurate/factual on all accounts. (though it is factually accurate on many levels, there are still instances where it isn't).
As Presbytera Dr. Jeannie Constantinou says, we don't believe the Bible needs to be "actual factual". While it in fact is "actual factual" in many instances, this isn't always so, but even when it isn't "actual factual", that doesn't mean it isn't true.

[David Puline]

Just heard a podcast lately that the Orthodox speaker doesn´t give a rip how old the world is...6 thousand or billions or even the Creation story if it isn´t seen in the light of Christ and His salvation and resurrection history. Isn´t that interesting.

[Kosta]

Just heard a podcast lately that the Orthodox speaker doesn´t give a rip how old the world is...6 thousand or billions or even the Creation story if it isn´t seen in the light of Christ and His salvation and resurrection history. Isn´t that interesting.

My thoughts exactly, especially since the Church tends to interpret the first day of creation as a revelation of the Trinity. It is the 'eternal day'. The gospel reading for Pascha from John's Gospel explains to us why its the eternal day because Christ is the Light of the World which darkness cannot comprehend.

[Jesse Dominick]

Uniformity among the fathers does not indicate that the Church holds their view as a dogmatic position, just as variation among the early fathers doesn't mean the Church eschews a dogmatic position. If something was held by the fathers, continued to be consistently held by them over time, and found its way into the hymnography and/or liturgical life of the Church, we would be safe in calling that part of the consensus patrum. I still don't see that for this issue.

well the Fathers have certainly maintained a consistent position right down to this very day on this issue. I dont know if this specific issue has made its way into hymnography, but our hymns do speak of the Genesis story literally as a whole. And I would say it has made its way into our liturgical life, through our Jewish heritage -- Saturday is still the Sabbath for us, and Holy Saturday is the Great Sabbath - Christ's rest in the tomb fulfills God's rest on the 7th day. If the 7th day of creation was not actually a day, then Christ would merely be fulfilling a figure of speech rather than an actual historical reality. And of course, Scripture itself tells us quite plainly that God instituted the Sabbath because He rested on the 7th day. If He actually rested for an elongated period, then why would the Jews only rest one day? i see that as a lost parallel.

also, i would have to ask the question, if this is not a dogmatic issue, is not a part of the Apostolic faith, then why do so many Fathers take the time to comment on it? I think we would be hard-pressed to find a Father who hasn't somewhere commented on this issue.

additionally, its not only in passing that the days are mentioned. some Fathers are quite explicit about how to interpret them:

- St. Bede the Venerable, in his commentary on Genesis, said it is ok to employ allegorical interpretations (the 4 rivers are the 4 Gospels, etc) which he did to a great extent, as long as you do not lose the explicit faith that is based in the history of Genesis (quoted in Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Vol. 3: The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-1300) )



-St. Symeon the New Theologian tells us that the creation account is quite clear and detailed :



Ethical Discourses 1.1
God did not, as some people think, just give Paradise to our ancestors at the beginning, nor did He make only Paradise incorruptible. No! Instead, He did much more. Before Paradise He made the whole earth, the one which we inhabit, and everything in it. Nor that alone, but He also in five days brought the heavens and all they contain into being. On the sixth day He made Adam and established him as lord and king of all the visible creation. Neither Eve nor Paradise were yet created, but the whole world had been brought into being by God as one thing, as a kind of paradise, at once incorruptible yet material and perceptible. It was this world, as we said, which was given to Adam and to his descendants for their enjoyment. Does this seem strange to you? It should not. Pay attention to our argument, and it will show you clearly how this is so from the holy Scripture. It is written there: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void.” Next, the remaining creative works of God are given in exact detail, and then, after “there was evening and morning the fifth day, “ Scripture adds: “Then God said, “Let us make man after our image, in our likeness . . . male and female He created them [1:26-27]. Male and female, it says, not as though Eve had already come into being, but instead as she was still in Adam’s side, co-existing with him.
-- St. Methodios says that it is dangerous to deny the literal level of Genesis:



Discourses, III.2
For it is a dangerous thing wholly to despise the literal meaning, as has been said, and especially of Genesis, where the unchangeable decrees of God for the constitution of the universe are set forth, in agreement with which, even until now, the world is perfectly ordered, most beautifully in accordance with a perfect rule, until the Lawgiver Himself having re-arranged it, wishing to order it anew, shall break up the first laws of nature by a fresh disposition. But, since it is not fitting to leave the demonstration of the argument unexamined-and, so to speak, half-lame-come let us, as it were completing our pair, bring forth the analogical sense, looking more deeply into the Scripture; for Paul is not to be despised when he passes over the literal meaning, and shows that the words extend to Christ and the Church.
-- Julius Africanus connects the Hebrew timeline to modesty, and declares it to be the truth:



Chronology Fragment, I
For why should I speak of the three myriad years of the Phoenicians, or of the follies of the Chaldeans, their forty-eight myriads? For the Jews, deriving their origin from them as descendants of Abraham, having been taught a modest mind, and one such as becomes men, together with the truth by the spirit of Moses, have handed down to us, by their extant Hebrew histories, the number of 5500 years as the period up to the advent of the Word of salvation, that was announced to the world in the time of the sway of the Caesars.
-- Eusebius tells us that Scripture is clear about the days, and that the days of creation are the same as those days we experience now:


Preparation for the Gospel 13:12
But what is clearly stated by the Law, that God rested on the seventh day, means not, as some suppose, that God henceforth ceases to do anything, but it refers to the fact that, after He has brought the arrangement of His works to completion, He has arranged them thus for all time.
'For it points out that in six days He made the heaven and the earth and all things that are therein, to distinguish the times, and predict the order in which one thing comes before another: for after arranging their order, He keeps them so, and makes no change. He has also plainly declared that the seventh day is ordained for us by the Law, to be a sign of that which is our seventh faculty, namely reason, whereby we have knowledge of things human and divine.
-- here St. Basil points out that Scripture itself tells us that God spoke to Moses plainly and face to face:



Hexameron, 1.1
If the weakness of our intelligence does not allow us to penetrate the depth of the thoughts of the writer, yet we will be involuntarily drawn to give faith to his words by the force of his authority. Now it is Moses who composed this history . . . who disdained the pomp of royalty, and, to share the humble conditions of his compatriots, preferred to be persecuted with the people of God . . . Moses, finally, who, at the age of eighty, saw God, as far as it is possible for man to see Him . . . according to the testimony of God Himself, ‘If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make Myself known to him in a vision, and I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; . . . he is faithful in all My house, I speak with him face to face, even plainly and not in dark sayings’ (Num. 12:6-8)


and here he says that those who did not admit the common meaning of Scripture are elevating themselves above Scripture, and thus it should be understood as it is written:


Hexameron, 9:1
Those who do not admit the common meaning of the Scriptures say that water is not water, but some other nature, and they explain a plant and a fish according to their opinion.... (But) when I hear "grass," I think of grass, and in the same manner I understand everything as it is said, a plant, a fish, a wild animal, and an ox. Indeed, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel (Rom. 1:16)."... (Some) have attempted by false arguments and allegorical interpretations to bestow on the Scripture a dignity of their own imagining. But theirs is the attitude of one who considers himself wiser than the revelations of the Spirit and introduces his own ideas in pretense of an explanation. Therefore, let it be understood as it has been written

-- St. Augustine tells us that allegorical interpretations do not do away with literal interpretations:


City of God, Book XIII.XXIOn this account some allegorize all that concerns Paradise itself, where the first men, the parents of the human race, are, according to the truth of holy Scripture, recorded to have been; and they understand all its trees and fruit-bearing plants as virtues and habits of life, ...as if they had no existence in the external world, but were only so spoken of or related for the sake of spiritual meanings. As if there could not be a real terrestrial Paradise! As if there never existed these two women, Sarah and Hagar, nor the two sons who were born to Abraham, the one of the bond woman, the other of the free, because the apostle says that in them the two covenants were prefigured; or as if water never flowed from the rock when Moses struck it, because therein Christ can be seen in a figure, as the same apostle says, "Now that rock was Christ!"No one, then, denies that Paradise may signify the life of the blessed; its four rivers, the four virtues, prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice; its trees, all useful knowledge; its fruits, the customs of the godly; its tree of life, wisdom herself, the mother of all good; and the tree of the knowledge of good ...and evil, the experience of a broken commandment. The punishment which God appointed was in itself, a just, and therefore a good thing; but man's experience of it is not good.. . .These and similar allegorical interpretations may be suitably put upon Paradise without giving offence to any one, while yet we believe the strict truth of the history, confirmed by its circumstantial narrative of facts.
-- St. Ambrose tells us that God spoke to Moses plainly, without figures and riddle:


Hexameron 1.6
Wherefore, he tore himself away from pleasure and, shunning all the excitement of the royal palace, retired to a secluded spot in Ethiopia. There, removed from all other cares, he gave himself wholly to divine contemplation, in order that he might behold the glory of God face to face. This is in accord with the testimony of Scripture, that ‘there arose no greater prophet in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.’ He spoke to God the highest, not in a vision nor in dreams, but mouth to mouth. Plainly and clearly, not by figures or riddles, there was bestowed on him the gift of the divine presence.
and here he says that Moses did not speak of a long, slow creation, and seems to even argue against a primitive form of evolution:


Hexameron, 1.7
For, if [Moses] had already accepted from God what he should say concerning the liberation of the people, how much more should you accept what He should say concerning heaven? Therefore, ‘not in the persuasive words of wisdom,’ not in philosophical fallacies, ‘but in the demonstration of the Spirit and power,’ he has ventured to say as if he were a witness of the divine work: ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth.’ He did not look forward to a late and leisurely creation of the world out of a concourse of atoms . . . He did not hold, as the philosophers teach, that a stronger conjunction of atoms furnished the cause of their continuing duration. He pointed out that those who give such tiny and unsubstantial first principles to heaven and earth were just weaving a web like a spider’s . . . No wonder that they know not their Ruler who know not their God, by whom all things are ruled and governed. Let us follow him who knew both the Author and the Ruler, and let us not be led astray by vain opinions.
-- St. Ephraim even says it is impermissible to interpret the days allegorically:



Commentary on Genesis 1, pg. 282
No one should think that the Creation of Six Days is an allegory; it is likewise impermissible to say that what seems, according to the account, to have been created in six days, was created in a single instant, and likewise that certain names presented in this account either signify nothing, or signify something else. On the contrary, we must know that just as the heaven and the earth which were created in the beginning are actually the heaven and the earth and not something else understood under the names of heaven and earth, so also everything else that is spoken of as being created and brought into order after the creation of heaven and earth is not empty names, but the very essence of the created natures corresponds to the force of these names.
-- St. John Chrysostom instructs us not to listen to those who allegorize Genesis, and thus equates trusting Scripture and sound dogmas with a literal interpretation:


Commentary on Genesis, Homily 13:4
Perhaps one who loves to speak from his own wisdom here also will not allow that the rivers are actually rivers, nor that the waters are precisely waters, but will instill, in those who allow themselves to listen to them, the idea that they (under the names of rivers and waters) represented something else. But I entreat you, let us not pay heed to these people, let us stop up our hearing against them, and let us believe the Divine Scripture, and following what is written in it, let us strive to preserve in our souls sound dogmas.
St. John also says that God spoke to Moses so clearly and explicitly because He is concerned for our salvation:


Commentary on Genesis, 7:3
The blessed Moses, instructed by the Spirit of God, teaches us with such detail ... so that we might clearly know both the order and the way of the creation of each thing. If God had not been concerned for our salvation and had not guided the tongue of the Prophet, it would have been sufficient to say that God created the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and living creatures, without indicating either the order of the days or what was created earlier and what later.... But he distinguishes so clearly both the order of creation and the number of days, and instructs us about everything with great condescension, in order that we, coming to know the whole truth, would no longer heed the false teachings of those who speak of everything according to their own reasonings, but might comprehend the unutterable power of our Creator. also, there are several other things to mention:
1. several Fathers specifically argue against an old earth, and many specify that to elongate the days takes away from God's glory, as if He couldn't create quickly
2. several give specific reasons why God created in a week
3. the Fathers are adamant that knowledge of creation and the pre-fall world cannot be known through human efforts but only through revelation. thus any interpretation that doesnt come from within the Church cannot be correct according to the Fathers' understanding
4. the Fathers teach that, although truth in science accords with truth in revelation, revelation is clearly the higher wisdom and can be used to judge lower forms of knowledge. St. Theophan the Recluse says:


"The positive teaching of the Church serves to know whether a concept is from the Truth. This is a litmus test for all teachings. Whatever agrees with it, you should accept it, whatever does not- - reject. One can do it without further deliberations" [1]. "Science goes forward fast, let it do so. But if they infer something inconsistent with the Divine Revelation, they are definitely off the right path in life, do not follow them" [2]. "Believers have the right to measure the material things with spiritual ones, when materialists get into the realm of the spiritual without a slightest scruple... We have wisdom as our partner, while theirs is foolishness. Material things can be neither the power nor the purpose. They are just the means and the field of activity of spiritual powers by the action of the spiritual beginning of all things (Creator)"

-- from St Feofan Zatvornik, Nastavleniya v duhovnoi zhisni. - Pskov-Pechery Monastery of Holy Dormition: Mosc. Patriarchate Publ., 1994. And 2. St Feofan Zatvornik, Sozertsanie I razmyshlenie. - Moscow, Pravilo very, 1998.
http://creatio.orthodoxy.ru/sbornik/sbufeev_whynot_english.html


Also, if the OrthodoxWiki article you linked is correct, the Byzantine Creation Era calendar has not been in official use by anyone for over 280 years. That seriously dilutes its value as evidence. well its not that the Churches no longer recognize the dating of the Byzantine Creation Era calendar, but that they no longer refer to the year as from the creation of the world, but they now use the BC/AD system. However 2011 still corresponds to 7520 from the Creation of the world. Here is another article that I recently came across which helps explain this better:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etos_Kosmou#Usage_in_Russia

[Jesse Dominick]

Who ever said we ask scientists to interpret Genesis for us?


the idea that the days are not literal days, but are rather long periods of time, and that the world is millions or billions of years old comes not from within the Church, but from the scientific community.

[Herman Blaydoe]

Are you at all familiar with the theory of relativity? Seems 24 hours isn't always 24 hours, relatively speaking. Should we declare Einstein a heretic?

The Fathers treated Ptolemy as "literal" or "real" or whatever term you want to use. Should we declare Galileo a heretic (again)?

The Fathers AND the authors of Holy Scripture, for that matter, used the best knowledge available to them at the time to explain things, but they were not divine stenographers, or holy robot writers.

I'm saying neither the Genesis nor the Evolution theory provides a full account of exactly what happened. I say I just don't know and I doubt any of us really will while we are still on this side of the "glass darkly", but that might just be me and I freely admit I am but a bear of little brain.

Herman the relative Pooh

[Jesse Dominick]

The Fathers AND the authors of Holy Scripture, for that matter, used the best knowledge available to them at the time to explain things, but they were not divine stenographers, or holy robot writers.



this assertion assumes that the Father's commentaries on Genesis are derived from secular learning, rather than prayer and divine revelation, but I have no reason to believe that. St. Basil certainly doesn't indicate that that is his source. i cant figure out why we hold up the Fathers as God-bearing luminaries on most subjects, but on this one, we want to reduce them to merely inadequate scientists.

i know this isnt going to mean much to some ppl, but ill say it anyways. i have heard from a friend who is close to Vatopaidi Monastery that before Elder Joseph reposed it was divinely revealed to him that Genesis is historically accurate. i cant substantiate this story in any way, but i have no reason to doubt it as it falls in line with all the other Fathers.

[Ryan]

this assertion assumes that the Father's commentaries on Genesis are derived from secular learning, rather than prayer and divine revelation, but I have no reason to believe that. St. Basil certainly doesn't indicate that that is his source. i cant figure out why we hold up the Fathers as God-bearing luminaries on most subjects, but on this one, we want to reduce them to merely inadequate scientists.

Dualism. The sad truth is, most of us, even Orthodox Christians, have inherited a dualist cosmology where the spiritual and natural realms are completely separate and the study of them comprises two "non-overlapping magisteria." According to this schema, we use materialist methods to study the material world and spiritual methods to study the spiritual world, and the two have little or nothing to say to each other. The Fathers had a much more integrated view of the natural world, which they saw as chiefly symbolic of spiritual realities, and penetrated with divine energies. The purpose of contemplating nature is to lead us to contemplation of spiritual realities. This understanding is unfortunately lacking even in most of today's Orthodox teachers when they talk about "science". the predominant view today is that we just study nature for its own sake- this is idolatry, but it also the philosophy promoted generically and misleadingly as "science" in our schools, our media, and everyday life.

[Herman Blaydoe]

this assertion assumes that the Father's commentaries on Genesis are derived from secular learning, rather than prayer and divine revelation, but I have no reason to believe that. St. Basil certainly doesn't indicate that that is his source. i cant figure out why we hold up the Fathers as God-bearing luminaries on most subjects, but on this one, we want to reduce them to merely inadequate scientists.

Sorry, but I simply do not see it as an "either/or" situation. Are you saying that the Fathers did not have any secular learning? This is patently false, we know differently from their own writings. They absolutely studed knowledge from Ptolemy and Plato and Aristotle and a host of others. How can you possibly say otherwise? I am not the one denigrating them, I, for my part, never said they were "inadequate", what a crazy idea! But I do not require that they be omniscient or infallible to maintain my faith. If that is what it takes to get you trhough the day then to God be the Glory. I still maintain that the purpose of Holy Scripture is to explain the why and the what, and is not all that worried about the how and neither am I.


i know this isnt going to mean much to some ppl, but ill say it anyways. i have heard from a friend who is close to Vatopaidi Monastery that before Elder Joseph reposed it was divinely revealed to him that Genesis is historically accurate. i cant substantiate this story in any way, but i have no reason to doubt it as it falls in line with all the other Fathers.

You are right, anything that is second hand "I heard from somebody some where that...." does not carry much weight, even if I read it on the Internets!

Herman the Pooh who likes to test all things and keep that which is good (as advised by the Holy Apostle Paul)

[Jesse Dominick]

Sorry, but I simply do not see it as an "either/or" situation. Are you saying that the Fathers did not have any secular learning? This is patently false, we know differently from their own writings. They absolutely studed knowledge from Ptolemy and Plato and Aristotle and a host of others. How can you possibly say otherwise? I am not the one denigrating them, I, for my part, never said they were "inadequate", what a crazy idea! But I do not require that they be omniscient or infallible to maintain my faith. If that is what it takes to get you trhough the day then to God be the Glory. I still maintain that the purpose of Holy Scripture is to explain the why and the what, and is not all that worried about the how and neither am I.

i know they were learned in secular studies as well. but thats not a reason to reduce their commentaries to being a simple borrow from their secular studies. perhaps we should stop talking about "hypostasis" and "physis" and "homoousios" cause those are just pagan philosophical terms, and we're so much wiser than that, right? of course we both know thats a ridiculous idea - but thats the point. the Fathers didnt base their commentaries on Scripture on paganism.

i dont know what it means to say the Scriptures arent worried about the how -- what does that mean?! no one's attempting to explain HOW God created -- He spoke and out comes creation - i cant fathom that!

but what does "day" mean? that doesn't really have anything to do with "how," and its a question that the Fathers wrote a great deal about so there's no way I can dismiss it as unimportant. like i said in my previous post, many Fathers spoke pretty adamantly about this issue, and many saw a specific purpose to the cycle of 7 days. not to mention that Scripture itself plainly states that the Jews celebrate the Sabbath because God rested on the 7th day. There's nothing in Tradition that is unclear on this matter.




You are right, anything that is second hand "I heard from somebody some where that...." does not carry much weight, even if I read it on the Internets!
its not "somebody, somewhere" - its Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi on the Holy Mountain - concrete person, concrete place. an elder who is recognized as holy. but since i know that the style of most people is to automatically disbelieve and dismiss such things (although if someone took the time to write in a book it would suddenly be a "source" ... i dont get it), we can let St. John of Kronstadt corroborate that for us:


When you doubt the truth of any person or event described in Holy Scripture, then remember that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” as the Apostle says and is therefore true, and does not contain any imaginary persons, fables, and tales, although it includes parables, which everyone can see are not true narratives, but are written in figurative language. The whole of the word of God is single, entire, indivisible truth; and if you admit that any narrative, sentence, or word is untrue, then you sin against the truth of the whole of Holy Scripture and its primordial truth, which is God Himself. “I am the truth,” said the Lord; “Thy word is truth,” said Jesus Christ to God the Father. Thus, consider the whole of the Holy Scripture as truth; everything that is said in it has either taken place or takes place. – My Life in Christ, pg. 70

[Jesse Dominick]

Dualism. The sad truth is, most of us, even Orthodox Christians, have inherited a dualist cosmology where the spiritual and natural realms are completely separate and the study of them comprises two "non-overlapping magisteria." According to this schema, we use materialist methods to study the material world and spiritual methods to study the spiritual world, and the two have little or nothing to say to each other. The Fathers had a much more integrated view of the natural world, which they saw as chiefly symbolic of spiritual realities, and penetrated with divine energies. The purpose of contemplating nature is to lead us to contemplation of spiritual realities. This understanding is unfortunately lacking even in most of today's Orthodox teachers when they talk about "science". the predominant view today is that we just study nature for its own sake- this is idolatry, but it also the philosophy promoted generically and misleadingly as "science" in our schools, our media, and everyday life.


great post! sounds like you've been reading St. Nicholai Velimirovich ...

[Herman Blaydoe]

i know they were learned in secular studies as well. but thats not a reason to reduce their commentaries to being a simple borrow from their secular studies. perhaps we should stop talking about "hypostasis" and "physis" and "homoousios" cause those are just pagan philosophical terms, and we're so much wiser than that, right? of course we both know thats a ridiculous idea - but thats the point. the Fathers didnt base their commentaries on Scripture on paganism.

Um well, but they certainly used the extant terminology of the day to try and explain things to those pagans, using words and terms they could understand. I am not sure what you are saying beyond that.


i dont know what it means to say the Scriptures arent worried about the how -- what does that mean?! no one's attempting to explain HOW God created -- He spoke and out comes creation - i cant fathom that!

Sorry but that sounds like a personal issue.


but what does "day" mean? that doesn't really have anything to do with "how," and its a question that the Fathers wrote a great deal about so there's no way I can dismiss it as unimportant. like i said in my previous post, many Fathers spoke pretty adamantly about this issue, and many saw a specific purpose to the cycle of 7 days. not to mention that Scripture itself plainly states that the Jews celebrate the Sabbath because God rested on the 7th day. There's nothing in Tradition that is unclear on this matter.

Well, the definition of "day" is not laid out in the Creed, and while I know that is not the end-all and be-all of all theology, nowhere in the official creedal statements of the Church does it require that I must accept each and every word of Holy Scripture as literal or that I must accept a 148 hour Creation. Oh and defined how exactly? Because the length of a day is slightly different now than it was in Moses' day. We have to add leap days and even leap seconds to keep things aligned, things that Moses nor the Fathers really concerned themselves with. Are leap seconds heretical?!


its not "somebody, somewhere" - its Elder Joseph of Vatopaidi on the Holy Mountain - concrete person, concrete place. an elder who is recognized as holy. but since i know that the style of most people is to automatically disbelieve and dismiss such things (although if someone took the time to write in a book it would suddenly be a "source" ... i dont get it), we can let St. John of Kronstadt corroborate that for us:

So you say. But who, pray tell, are YOU? Are YOU the Elder Joseph? Did you personally hear this from him directly? Are you a direct witness? No? Then it is technically "hearsay". I don't know who this "friend" is, so how can I possibly consider this "friend" a "reliable" source of what the good elder did or did not say? Perhaps this person made it up. Perhaps he/she/it misheard what was said. Maybe this person only heard the story from someone else who may or may not be telling the truth. Perhaps you made this person up. Where are the corroborating sources? In short why should I consider YOU as an authoritative source of what was said? Many people have said that many other people have said certain things that were never actually said at all, especially on the Internet.

Sorry hearsay doesn't cut it in my line of work as an engineer. I need real, documentable sources, corroborated by other documentable sources before I jump to any conclusions. Why do you think we have FOUR Gospels instead of just one?! Even the Church requires more than "a friend told me that a father said..."

Elder Joseph isn't the issue here. What he may or may not have said is not the issue here. A rather disturbing misunderstanding of "time" and the use of literary (as opposed to "literal"?) conventions by certain moderns as opposed to the understanding of certain ancients, I suspect, is the issue here. A "day" can be metaphorical as well as literal, it doesn't even have to be both at the same "time", it can be either/or and not lose one iota of meaning either way.

Herman the not a literal Pooh

[Michael Stickles]

the idea that the days are not literal days, but are rather long periods of time, and that the world is millions or billions of years old comes not from within the Church, but from the scientific community.

And, on the other hand, it seems that the modern need to dogmatically assert that the creation days are literal 24-hour days, and that the age of the earth is in the 6000-7500 year range, comes not from theological necessity but from a perceived need to "put something up" against current scientific pronouncements. It is just as driven by science as the opposite view, only in an oppositional rather than accomodationist way.

While there is indeed a strong common thread in the writings of the Fathers, we do see contradictions even within those mentioned - for one example, St. Ephraim's claim that it is impermissible to speak of creation occurring in an instant, as opposed to St. Augustine and St. Gregory who claimed that very thing. The fact that some gave specific reasons why such things should be is not decisive either - St. Irenaeus gave specific reasons why all things would come to an end 6000 years after the creation, and regardless of whose creation date you use, that time has come and gone.

In any case, I reiterate that this common thread does not, by itself, indicate that such understanding is considered dogma by the Church.

In Christ,
Michael

[Jesse Dominick]

And, on the other hand, it seems that the modern need to dogmatically assert that the creation days are literal 24-hour days, and that the age of the earth is in the 6000-7500 year range, comes not from theological necessity but from a perceived need to "put something up" against current scientific pronouncements. It is just as driven by science as the opposite view, only in an oppositional rather than accomodationist way.

While there is indeed a strong common thread in the writings of the Fathers, we do see contradictions even within those mentioned - for one example, St. Ephraim's claim that it is impermissible to speak of creation occurring in an instant, as opposed to St. Augustine and St. Gregory who claimed that very thing. The fact that some gave specific reasons why such things should be is not decisive either - St. Irenaeus gave specific reasons why all things would come to an end 6000 years after the creation, and regardless of whose creation date you use, that time has come and gone.

In any case, I reiterate that this common thread does not, by itself, indicate that such understanding is considered dogma by the Church.

In Christ,
Michael


well, but isnt that the way it always goes in the history of the Church? We could say proclaiming Christ as homoousios with the Father was just a reaction to Arianism, officially proclaiming Mary as the Theotokos is just a reaction to Nestorianism, etc. And those issues also had variability before their official proclamations - you can certainly find subordinistic Christologies before Nicea. Or something like Chiliasm - that is a known heresy now, but plenty of Fathers, like St. Justin Martyr taught it before its condemnation. So, the fact that this issue of the days is being pressed in reaction to the latest scientific theories isnt problematic as far as I can tell.

Looking at just the length of the days, by itself, probably isn't that big of a deal - even if you could demonstrate that the days are allegorical thats a long way from proving that Genesis is compatible with evolution - but they are part of a bigger package, of maintaining fidelity to the Fathers in the face of scientific theories that represent a major shift in theology. Many Saints and holy elders living since Darwin have either explicitly condemned evolution, or at least continued to interpret Genesis literally, including the traditional timeline: St. John of Kronstadt, St. Nektarios, St. Barsanuphius of Optina, St. Justin Popovich, St. Theophan the Recluse, St. Ignatius Brianchanninov, Fr. George Calciu, Fr. Seraphim Rose, Elder Paisios, Elder Cleopa, Fr. Philotheos Zervakos, St. Nikolai Velimirovich, etc etc. If they are wrong for maintaining this teaching in the face of scientific trends then I'm ok with being wrong or too dogmatic.

[Jesse Dominick]

also, which St. Gregory are you referring to? I'm reading St. Gregory of Nyssa's Hexameron right now -- he says that "beginning" is a-temporal because it is itself the beginning of time (which IIRC St. Basil also says), but throughout the rest of his work he clearly talks about a sequence in creation, and the passage of time in the creation week.

[Herman Blaydoe]

Now I have no problem with ridiculing evolution as not having the answers, as I said, I don't think they asked the right questions to begin with. But I have to suspect that the idea of homoousios is not on the same level as dogmatizing a literal 24 hour day of Creation. They are not the same, and the idea of equating them is a problem.

Herman the questioning Pooh

[Michael Stickles]

also, which St. Gregory are you referring to? I'm reading St. Gregory of Nyssa's Hexameron right now -- he says that "beginning" is a-temporal because it is itself the beginning of time (which IIRC St. Basil also says), but throughout the rest of his work he clearly talks about a sequence in creation, and the passage of time in the creation week.

Whichever one was meant by the person who noted he believed in an instantaneous creation - the Fathers I referred to were from, as I said, "those mentioned" in this thread, and I didn't take time to verify all claims made regarding their positions (if I had to discount everything said in this thread, I'd still know that there was at least one Father who held that view, but wouldn't remember who).


Many Saints and holy elders living since Darwin have either explicitly condemned evolution, or at least continued to interpret Genesis literally, including the traditional timeline: St. John of Kronstadt, St. Nektarios, St. Barsanuphius of Optina, St. Justin Popovich, St. Theophan the Recluse, St. Ignatius Brianchanninov, Fr. George Calciu, Fr. Seraphim Rose, Elder Paisios, Elder Cleopa, Fr. Philotheos Zervakos, St. Nikolai Velimirovich, etc etc. If they are wrong for maintaining this teaching in the face of scientific trends then I'm ok with being wrong or too dogmatic.

To say that those teachings (specifically, the creation days being literal 24-hour periods and the creation of the earth being between 4000-5500 years before Christ) are not considered dogma does not mean the Fathers were "wrong" for maintaining them. It merely means that the Church as a whole does not consider them "articles of faith", so to speak, and so declines to make a dogmatic pronouncement regarding them.

[Bryan J. Maloney]

What parish priests have told me is that it's more important that I get a handle on dealing with argumentativeness, lust, anger, uncharitability, etc. before I need to worry much about the age of the earth. I'm going to follow their advice.

[Donna Rail]

What parish priests have told me is that it's more important that I get a handle on dealing with argumentativeness, lust, anger, uncharitability, etc. before I need to worry much about the age of the earth. I'm going to follow their advice.

Well said. I used to joke with my Mom, "What is the age of the Earth?... Well, we're here now." It has some age, and somebody knows what it is, but my primary task is probably something else. :)

[Nina]

Earth is a woman (hence the Mother Earth title) and a true woman never reveals her age. :P

We must see things in the light of the love of God and of our salvation. We know we are returned to Earth when we die and one day when Christ comes this Earth with all that has will go away since God said it Himself.

[Ioan]

I have posted so much in this thread out of zeal not according to knowledge. I have recently found out a take on these matters from a contemporary father, one which I believe puts things in a different light altogether. Thus, the 7 days of Creation are actually 7 stages of Creation. The measuring of time as we know it, begins on the 4th day, when God made the Sun and the Moon as "a sign for seasons, days and years". Before that, we don't know how long the actual stages were. For instance, the first stage, "in the beginning", is supposedly as old as God is -- Eternal. This beginning is never defined. So, the 7500 years or so that The Holy Fathers talk about, actually began on the 4th day of Creation. Some Church writings to help with this:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/19376312/Homilies-on-Genesis---Saint-John-Chrysostom
http://www.orthodoxonline.org/forum/threads/2594-Saint-Basil-Nine-Homilies-of-the-Hexaemeron#axzz1S40ts5Ae

[Jesse Dominick]

I have posted so much in this thread out of zeal not according to knowledge. I have recently found out a take on these matters from a contemporary father, one which I believe puts things in a different light altogether. Thus, the 7 days of Creation are actually 7 stages of Creation. The measuring of time as we know it, begins on the 4th day, when God made the Sun and the Moon as "a sign for seasons, days and years". Before that, we don't know how long the actual stages were. For instance, the first stage, "in the beginning", is supposedly as old as God is -- Eternal. This beginning is never defined. So, the 7500 years or so that The Holy Fathers talk about, actually began on the 4th day of Creation. Some Church writings to help with this:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/19376312/Homilies-on-Genesis---Saint-John-Chrysostom
http://www.orthodoxonline.org/forum/threads/2594-Saint-Basil-Nine-Homilies-of-the-Hexaemeron#axzz1S40ts5Ae

St. Basil is rather clear, when speaking of the first day, that the measuring of time is NOT dependent upon the sun, and that the first day is in fact 24 hrs long:

Homily 2.8
“And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night.” [/URL]Since the birth of the sun, the light that it diffuses in the air, when shining on our hemisphere, is day; and the shadow produced by its disappearance is night. But at that time it was not after the movement of the sun, but following this primitive light spread abroad in the air or withdrawn in a measure determined by God, that day came and was followed by night. “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bible/asv.Gen.1.html#Gen.1.5)Evening is then the boundary common to day and night; and in the same way morning constitutes the approach of night to day. It was to give day the privileges of seniority that Scripture put the end of the first day before that of the first night, because night follows day: for, before the creation of light, the world was not in night, but in darkness. It is the opposite of day which was called night, and it did not receive its name until after day. Thus were created the evening and the morning.Scripture means the space of a day and a night, and afterwards no more says day and night, but calls them both under the name of the more important: a custom which you will find throughout Scripture. Everywhere the measure of time is counted by days, without mention of nights. “The days of our years,” says the Psalmist. “Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been,” (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bible/asv.Ps.90.html#Ps.90.10) said Jacob, and elsewhere “all the days of my life.” Thus under the form of history the law is laid down for what is to follow. And the evening and the morning were one day.[URL="http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bible/asv.Gen.1.html#Gen.1.5"] (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/bible/asv.Ps.23.html#Ps.23.6) Why does Scripture say “one day the first day”? Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first which began the series? If it therefore says “one day,” it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that they contain. Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day—we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by Scripture does not the less circumscribe their duration. It is as though it said: twenty-four hours measure the space of a day, or that, in reality a day is the time that the heavens starting from one point take to return there. Thus, every time that, in the revolution of the sun, evening and morning occupy the world, their periodical succession never exceeds the space of one day. But must we believe in a mysterious reason for this? God who made the nature of time measured it out and determined it by intervals of days; and, wishing to give it a week as a measure, he ordered the week to revolve from period to period upon itself, to count the movement of time, forming the week of one day revolving seven times upon itself: a proper circle begins and ends with itself.

[Jesse Dominick]

St. John Chrysostom, Commentary on Genesis 6:4

(Moses) shows you that everything was accomplished before the creation of the sun, so that you might ascribe the ripening of the fruits not to it, but to the Creator of the universe.

He created the sun on the Fourth Day so that you might not think that it produces the day.




St. Leo the Great, Sermon 27 On Nativity, chapter 5

For as it is now day time and now night time, so the Creator has constituted divers kinds of luminaries, although even before they were made there had been days without the sun and nights without the moon. But these were fashioned to serve in making man, that he who is an animal endowed with reason might be sure of the distinction of the months, the recurrence of the year, and the variety of the seasons, since through the unequal length of the various periods, and the clear indications given by the changes in its risings, the sun doses the year and the moon renews the months. For on the fourth day, as we read, God said: "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, and let them shine upon the earth, and let them divide between day and night, and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be in the firmament of heaven that they may shine upon earth."




Victorinus, On the Creation of the World

In the beginning God made the light, and divided it in the exact measure of twelve hours by day and by night, for this reason, doubtless, that day might bring over the night as an occasion of rest for men's labours; that, again, day might overcome, and thus that labour might be refreshed with this alternate change of rest, and that repose again might be tempered by the exercise of day. "On the fourth day He made two lights in the heaven, the greater and the lesser, that the one might rule over the day, the other over the night,"2 -the lights of the sun and moon and He placed the rest of the stars in heaven, that they might shine upon the earth, and by their positions distinguish the seasons, and years, and months, and days, and hours.


St. Basil, Hexameron 2.8

“And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night.” Since the birth of the sun, the light that it diffuses in the air, when shining on our hemisphere, is day; and the shadow produced by its disappearance is night. But at that time it was not after the movement of the sun, but following this primitive light spread abroad in the air or withdrawn in a measure determined by God, that day came and was followed by night.

[Ioan]

Jesse, I will stop suggesting that the 7 days were not of equal length of time. I believe I misunderstood some things which led to assumptions that I mistook for facts. I will step out of such discussions until I am absolutely certain that I have understood what I am saying.

[Owen Jones]

The points being made in Genesis 1 & 2 are theological. The fixation on whether or not it is literal fact detracts from the theological/spiritual/mystical truths revealed in these passages. That should be the focus of our attention. If there is one Biblical principle, it is that facts, in and of themselves, have no meaning. Things and facts only exist for one reason, and that is to point to their originator. What all of these passages have in common is the point that created things are iconic.

[Steve Roche]

Is there a definition given by the fathers of thedifference between the 1st day "light", and the 4th day"sun"? Or is there an accepted ‘church’ definition that helps toexplain this? (A definition that does not include evolution, but allows for alonger duration, perhaps? – I don’t want to provoke an evolutionary response,as it does not edify). I looked in older posts but couldn’t find this answer…sorry if it has been covered already.


Steve

[Jesse Dominick]

St. Ephraim, in harmony with the other Fathers, tells us clearly that this light had nothing to do with the sun, which was created only on the Fourth Day:

The light which appeared on earth was like either a bright cloud, or a rising sun, or the pillar that illumined the Hebrew people in the desert. In any case, the light could not disperse the darkness that embraced everything if it had not extended everywhere either its substance or its rays, like the rising sun. The original light was shed everywhere and was not enclosed in a single definite place; it dispersed the darkness without having any movement; its whole movement consisted in its appearance and disappearance; after its sudden disappearance there came the dominion of night, and with its appearance this dominion ended. Thus the light produced also the three following days.... It aided the conception and bringing forth of everything that the earth was to produce on the third day; as for the sun, when it was established in the firmament, it was to bring to maturity what had already been produced with the aid of the original light.



St. Basil teaches:

The heavens and the earth had come first; after them, light had been created, day and night separated, and in turn, the firmament and dry land revealed. Water had been collected into a fixed and definite gathering. The earth had been filled with its proper fruits; for, it had brought forth countless kinds of herbs, and had been adorned with varied species of plants. However, the sun did not yet exist, nor the moon, lest men might call the sun the first cause and rather of light, and lest they who are ignorant of God might deem it the producer of what grows from the earth.... If the creation of light had preceded, why, now, is the sun in turn said to have been made to give light?.... At the time (the First Day) the actual nature of light was introduced, but now this solar body has been made ready to be a vehicle for that first-created light.... And do not tell me that it is impossible for these to be separated. I certainly do not say that the separation of light from the solar body is possible for you and me, but that that which we are able to separate in thought can also be separated in actuality by the Creator of its nature.. "Let them serve," He says, "for the fixing of days," not for making days, but for ruling the days. For, day and night are earlier than the generation of the luminaries.


St. Ambrose makes a special emphasis on this point:

Look first upon the firmament of heaven which was made before the sun; look first upon the earth which began to be visible and was already formed before the sun put in its appearance; look at the plants of the earth which preceded in time the light of the sun. The bramble preceded the sun; the blade of grass is older than the moon. Therefore, do not believe that object to be a god to which the gifts of God are seen to be preferred. Three days have passed. No one, meanwhile, has looked for the sun, yet the brilliance of light has been in evidence everywhere. For the day, too, has its light which is itself the precursor of the sun.



source: http://creatio.orthodoxy.ru/english/rose_genesis/chapter2.html

[Steve Roche]

Thanks Jesse,

The source URL link at bottom is most useful. It will takeme a couple of reads to take it all in. The explanation of why the “first day”is actually “one day”, not the “first day” is explained well. I think Iremember reading some earlier writings from the fathers too - Origen,Hippolytus or Clement – that explained the 1st light in other terms: theidea that there are two “truths” running parallel to each other – physical andspiritual. I don’t want to speculate, as the fathers did this greater thanI ever could, staying within the boundaries of the intended application.

You contributed well

Steve