Tourists visiting Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia, are also left with a choice. At the intersection of the road leading out of the park area, and the two lane road it meets, is a sign to Halifax with two arrows pointing in directly opposite directions. Peggy’s Cove sits on a peninsula, and you can drive to Halifax, going either way. I believe that is the situation when it comes to the question this article brings up.
Supposing one or the other is the “correct” understanding - what difference does it make (to use a popular quote) when we meet at the cross? This becomes an issue only for the church when it needs to prove its unique status as “knowing all things” through its foundational inerrancy.
The one posted response is a sample and only the beginning of the anger that will ensue. We’ve been here before. The irony is that the verbal battles that this subject always brings out, belies the Christianity that supposedly motivates the arguments.
The actual TRUTH is that none of us were present at creation. At least science can admit to that; while the evangelicals (and that is beginning to include SDAs) need to repeat the prescribed points of doctrine that keep them safe.
I can understand that. It’s scary to live by faith; but the other irony is that those quoting memorized texts have their faith in those texts - which is not the same as having faith in the Spirit that produced them to the ancients and to us. God has blessed the human race with a teachable brain; and we thank Him everyday for the progress He has directed, in our understanding of His creation. We might as well discard all the science that is saving lives, and is the basis of much of the church’s mission, if we’re going to pick and choose which scientific laws we’re going to respect, and which we’re going to throw back in God’s face as unacceptable.
The third irony is, that the “deep science” is coming around to looking for God within their equations. Gallelio got into serious trouble for stating that the earth wasn’t the centre of the universe. The church, in the name of Christ, almost killed him for that. Fast forward to the the 21st century: quantum physics, as well as astro physics, is declaring that it looks like man might be the center of this universe, after all. It seems that all this wasted empty space we gaze at in the night is all necessary for life on earth to exist.
Science isn’t off the hook either. The irony with scientific atheism, as Keith Ward says, is "PRECISELY THOSE WHO LOUDLY PROCLAIM THE POINTLESSNESS OF THE UNIVERSE (denying a Creator) HAVE OFTEN SPENT THEIR LIVES IN A SELFLESS DEVOTION TO TRUTH AND FELT AWE AND AMAZEMENT BEFORE THE BEAUTY AND INTELLIGIBILITY OF BEING.