- Options
- Login
- Register
- Switch to desktop style
Options
Why do some Christians believe in the Gap Theory?
- Why do some Christians believe in the Gap Theory?
-
Why do some Christians believe in the Gap Theory?
BrotherTony > 11-02-2021, 07:48 PM
My father was a Christian who believed in the Gap Theory. I am not one who does. We often had some interesting discussions on the subject, but I could never bring myself to follow that ideology. One of the biggest arguments that was used by many I've come across who hold to this ideology was that there had to be a longer time between the creation of the universe/angels, and the earth to account for the fall of Satan and his minions. The second one used was that man had to have lasted in the Garden of Eden for some time before falling into sin by eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Anyone here have any input on these things? -
RE: Why do some Christians believe in the Gap Theory?
admin > 11-03-2021, 06:54 PM
I happen to hold my own version of the gap theory. It is much simpler.
Gen 1:1 doesn't detail the beginning of all things. Just the beginning of God's work in humanity.
There is no way to determine the amount of time that passed unto the beginning that Genesis 1:1 references. -
RE: Why do some Christians believe in the Gap Theory?
BrotherTony > 11-04-2021, 09:42 AM
I can understand that position. I find it hard to believe that the angels fell within just a few days from the first day of creation. And I also find it hard to accept that man fell on the seventh or eighth day of existence like some of the pastors I've sat under preach! To me, that's totally unfeasible. -
RE: Why do some Christians believe in the Gap Theory?
aleshanee > 11-05-2021, 07:00 AM
i think it;s because many christians have bought into the idea that we have to have an answer for everything...... there can be no mysteries...... if science asks us a question we can;t answer then we must somehow reconcile that science to the bible.... or else reconcile the bible to science.... and our answers have to be consistent... ...never mind we are trying to appease a bunch of scientists that can;t keep a consistent answer for more than a few months at a time before changing it...
i believe in a young earth.... .. but i also leave it open that many things could have happened.. and a lot of time could have gone by, that we don;t have a record of..... coz, fact is.. the bible does not tell us everything about everything.... it couldn;t.... ..unless it was made up of books without end that took up all the space on earth and then some.... one thing it does tell us is that the earth was a very different place prior to the flood of noah.. ..vastly different... even in the way it functioned... than how it is now.. and it was also different even from that, prior to the fall... ... both the fall and the flood changed things on earth in ways science only pretends it can understand.......
i believe most christians don;t take that into consideration when they think about earths history and the history of mankind on it.... even though they read through the passages that tell about those changes all the time.... they see the natural earth the way it is today and imagine it wasn;t that much different in the beginning... .. ...... meanwhile scientists try to explain what they think they are seeing in the fossil while ignoring the bible altogether... .... ....i see it as a part of faith, being willing to accept that some things are a mystery, ...and will remain a mystery... at least for now...... -
RE: Why do some Christians believe in the Gap Theory?
BrotherTony > 11-05-2021, 01:36 PM
(11-05-2021, 07:00 AM)aleshanee Wrote: i think it;s because many christians have bought into the idea that we have to have an answer for everything...... there can be no mysteries...... if science asks us a question we can;t answer then we must somehow reconcile that science to the bible.... or else reconcile the bible to science.... and our answers have to be consistent... ...never mind we are trying to appease a bunch of scientists that can;t keep a consistent answer for more than a few months at a time before changing it...
i believe in a young earth.... .. but i also leave it open that many things could have happened.. and a lot of time could have gone by, that we don;t have a record of..... coz, fact is.. the bible does not tell us everything about everything.... it couldn;t.... ..unless it was made up of books without end that took up all the space on earth and then some.... one thing it does tell us is that the earth was a very different place prior to the flood of noah.. ..vastly different... even in the way it functioned... than how it is now.. and it was also different even from that, prior to the fall... ... both the fall and the flood changed things on earth in ways science only pretends it can understand.......
i believe most christians don;t take that into consideration when they think about earths history and the history of mankind on it.... even though they read through the passages that tell about those changes all the time.... they see the natural earth the way it is today and imagine it wasn;t that much different in the beginning... .. ...... meanwhile scientists try to explain what they think they are seeing in the fossil while ignoring the bible altogether... .... ....i see it as a part of faith, being willing to accept that some things are a mystery, ...and will remain a mystery... at least for now......
I totally agree! There are many things that we can't reconcile with the Bible...but that doesn't make the Bible any less true, nor God any less God. Science always seems to have a way of trying to complicate things and make them into things they are not. I'll take God's Word over science any day.
-
RE: Why do some Christians believe in the Gap Theory?
aleshanee > 11-07-2021, 12:26 PM
without faith in God.... man tries to make himself God... it was the original sin of satan to imagine he could be like God and even take His place in heaven..... ...so it comes natural that when they reject the existence of God and start looking at the world around them they imagine how it would have come about had they done it and been in charge of it;s creation themselves..... .....incapable of believing in God with the power to do it all in 7 days they imagine it must have taken billions of years....
scientists will all say that good science is based on what you have witnessed first hand... yet when it comes to this issue they ramble endlessly and attempt to wax eloquent about events no human ever in existence witnessed.... one of their biggest arguments is that the earth shows signs of age.... extreme age as they put it.... . as if they couldn;t fathom the idea that extreme events in the life of the earth... (the fall.. flood of noah... etc)... could not have aged the body of the earth in a way not much different than how extreme events prematurely age the body of man..... or that God could have created the earth with some characteristics of age already in place just as He created adam as a full sized man, already grown....
i think sometimes christians forget.. or maybe fail to understand... just what it is we have said we believe when we proclaimed faith in Christ.. and the word of God.... and that is where we begin to fall into traps like extreme gap theory and macro evolution... .... not saying that every christian who believes in a version of gap theory has fallen into a trap... ...but some have.... i had to refrain from getting too hard nosed on this subject when arguing with friends and classmates years ago in college...... but i still love discussing creation and the young model vrs the billions of eons philosophy.... . -
RE: Why do some Christians believe in the Gap Theory?
indsky > 10-04-2024, 04:47 PM
I believe in the "Gap Fact". Reason 1 is because that there was a creation before the creation of earth. Angels were already created and witnessed God's creation of earth. Job tells us that they shouted for joy when He created the earth. Satan had a throne somewhere below God's throne (Isaiah 14:13).
Another reason is that it explains when hell was created. No-gappers say that God created hell after day 7 in Genesis 1 because of the statement in Gen 1:31 (And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.).
Since hell is bad, it could not have been created during that time, thus God's act of creation did not conclude in the first days named in Genesis 1.
The context of Genesis 1:31 is referring to the 6 day's of Re-creation in the narrative.
Why did God tell Adam & Eve to REPLENISH the earth? Yeah, I know Hebrew and what the could mean. But the Bible says replenish, not fill. Radiocarbon dating shows the age of some finds of organic life older than 10000 years. Not all science is wrong. -
RE: Why do some Christians believe in the Gap Theory?
aleshanee > 10-06-2024, 08:05 AM
(10-04-2024, 04:47 PM)indsky Wrote: I believe in the "Gap Fact". Reason 1 is because that there was a creation before the creation of earth. Angels were already created and witnessed God's creation of earth. Job tells us that they shouted for joy when He created the earth. Satan had a throne somewhere below God's throne (Isaiah 14:13).
Another reason is that it explains when hell was created. No-gappers say that God created hell after day 7 in Genesis 1 because of the statement in Gen 1:31 (And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.).
Since hell is bad, it could not have been created during that time, thus God's act of creation did not conclude in the first days named in Genesis 1.
The context of Genesis 1:31 is referring to the 6 day's of Re-creation in the narrative.
Why did God tell Adam & Eve to REPLENISH the earth? Yeah, I know Hebrew and what the could mean. But the Bible says replenish, not fill. Radiocarbon dating shows the age of some finds of organic life older than 10000 years. Not all science is wrong.
nobody said all science is wrong... but who made you the arbiter of which parts are right and which are not?....... do you have a background in science?... work in a science related field?.......
we also did not say we absolutely rejected all manner and forms of gap theory either... pretty much everyone who has discussed this here in the several different threads over the years has stated they believe some model of gap theory could be true.... but to come in new to the forum and claim your specific ideas on a concept the bible is not clear on is a "fact" - seems a little arrogant don;t you think?... especially for a second post here and when nobody knows much about you....
all we know of you is what you posted about having attended trinity baptist college from 1975 to 1981 - but nothing about what you majored in or if you have been on some other previous version of the fundamentalist forums under a different name etc etc..... . i have been around the fff for almost 20 years and never saw the moninker indsky before....
also.... jumping back and forth throughout the bible taking individual scriptures out of context to make a point proves nothing..... it;s how cults are both created and continued..
below is one of the places here where we discusses this topic not too long ago...
https://www.fightingfundamentalforums.co...d-470.html -
RE: Why do some Christians believe in the Gap Theory?
indsky > 10-08-2024, 03:56 PM
(10-06-2024, 08:05 AM)aleshanee Wrote:
(10-04-2024, 04:47 PM)indsky Wrote: I believe in the "Gap Fact". Reason 1 is because that there was a creation before the creation of earth. Angels were already created and witnessed God's creation of earth. Job tells us that they shouted for joy when He created the earth. Satan had a throne somewhere below God's throne (Isaiah 14:13).
Another reason is that it explains when hell was created. No-gappers say that God created hell after day 7 in Genesis 1 because of the statement in Gen 1:31 (And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.).
Since hell is bad, it could not have been created during that time, thus God's act of creation did not conclude in the first days named in Genesis 1.
The context of Genesis 1:31 is referring to the 6 day's of Re-creation in the narrative.
Why did God tell Adam & Eve to REPLENISH the earth? Yeah, I know Hebrew and what the could mean. But the Bible says replenish, not fill. Radiocarbon dating shows the age of some finds of organic life older than 10000 years. Not all science is wrong.
nobody said all science is wrong... but who made you the arbiter of which parts are right and which are not?....... do you have a background in science?... work in a science related field?.......
we also did not say we absolutely rejected all manner and forms of gap theory either... pretty much everyone who has discussed this here in the several different threads over the years has stated they believe some model of gap theory could be true.... but to come in new to the forum and claim your specific ideas on a concept the bible is not clear on is a "fact" - seems a little arrogant don;t you think?... especially for a second post here and when nobody knows much about you....
all we know of you is what you posted about having attended trinity baptist college from 1975 to 1981 - but nothing about what you majored in or if you have been on some other previous version of the fundamentalist forums under a different name etc etc..... . i have been around the fff for almost 20 years and never saw the moninker indsky before....
also.... jumping back and forth throughout the bible taking individual scriptures out of context to make a point proves nothing..... it;s how cults are both created and continued..
below is one of the places here where we discusses this topic not too long ago...
https://www.fightingfundamentalforums.co...d-470.html
The OP was for input relative to the Gap Theory. I simply stated my case. You seem to have an issue with me being new to this turf, is there some sort of prohibition to posting without having achieved some level of active participation over a period of time?
Contrary to what you may believe, there are some Christians who oppose anything in the field of science.
This may be your particular sand box and as such try to be the alpha dog in here. You might find some of my posts not conforming to your personal theology, I really don't care. I also do not know much about you, and I really don't care to know much about you to dig into your various posts our your schooling or things you have been involved in during your lifetime. I am on here to discuss things that interest me and why. You may be on here to dispute and fuss. To that cause, I still do not care.
But otherwise, i bid you peace aleshanee.... -
RE: Why do some Christians believe in the Gap Theory?
aleshanee > 10-08-2024, 08:07 PM
(10-08-2024, 03:56 PM)indsky Wrote: The OP was for input relative to the Gap Theory. I simply stated my case. You seem to have an issue with me being new to this turf, is there some sort of prohibition to posting without having achieved some level of active participation over a period of time?
Contrary to what you may believe, there are some Christians who oppose anything in the field of science.
This may be your particular sand box and as such try to be the alpha dog in here. You might find some of my posts not conforming to your personal theology, I really don't care. I also do not know much about you, and I really don't care to know much about you to dig into your various posts our your schooling or things you have been involved in during your lifetime. I am on here to discuss things that interest me and why. You may be on here to dispute and fuss. To that cause, I still do not care.
But otherwise, i bid you peace aleshanee....
i responded to you the way i did because you came off as an arrogant sarcastic nimrod ... and you are still doing that now - not wishing to discuss differences in opinions and beliefs but ready to bulldoze anything and everything you disagree with and declare your views "facts".... ...and in my opinion you were answered accordingly...... .
so what is your problem?........ you don;t like being disagreed with?...... .. did you miss the sign on the front door of this forum declaring it a fighting fundamentalist forum?...... .. arguing and disagreeing with beliefs others mght have and stating our case is what we do here....... and that includes taking other posters to task when they come off as pig headed and full of themselves - - and especially when they bust in like that as new forum members and go straight to preaching without even offering the courtesy of introducing themselves - which is what most serious new members do when they first join up.. .
but if you can;t handle being taken to task for your attitude and rude manner of communicating...... or being answered with the same kind of medicine you doll out...... ..or... if you came here with a chip on your shoulder and an axe to grind - - then too bad for you... coz none of that is my problem...... get over yourself.....
oh... and by the way..... welcome to the fighting fundamentalists forum......
.