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Genesis 1 talks about God's spirit hovering over the waters. In the ancient world waters represented chaos. As for the "Without form and void" I've read some on it but don't really understand it, however what I have gotten was that there was something here for a while. Looking to Mrs. White this earth was created for the angels and beings on other worlds to try to look at the evidence for the great controversy. What ever happened here during the time of "without form and void" it ended up having the universe choose one side or the other in the Great Controversy. Once the two sides formed based on the weight of evidence rather than being forced by proof, then they finally got proof as God hovered over the chaos and started that one special week.

NOTE: This thread comes from the background of the thread on Sunday and the 7th day. Back before the Age of Enlightenment, when I was in college, I took a class in the Education Department on the psychology of learning. In that class, I was introduced to the concept that not only do adults learn differently from children, but adults also have differences in learning style. IOW, people in general do not learn in the same manner. Much later in life, when I was doing graduate work in psychology, I learned more about how adults understand the world around them and how they learn. Among the various psychological tests that examine this part of our psychology, I came to appreciate the MBTI. This instrument posits that there are 16 different personality types. [NOTE This is not the only instrument that suggests 16 basic personality types.] Each of these personality types has a direct opposite type. IOW, an ISTJ will see the world around that person and make decisions quite differently from that of an ENFP. This is the same for each of the other 14 MBTI personality types. Recently a R.G. White and I have engaged in an extensive, frank discussion. While we have discovered some points of agreement, our differences have remained. At times, each of us has talked above the head of the other. In some areas, we have probably not even understood the other. As a result, I have come to the conclusion that we are not likely to ever come together and be convinced by the other. I believe this is a reality that does not represent a fault in the other person. It is just how we are constituted. We are different people and sometimes we are not going to get together in a common agreement. I will suggest that this also is a challenge for God, as to how the Holy Spirit has to work with us and yet not violate our free will I will be the first to say that some will disagree with me on this. Never the less, I think so. J .

Thank you for this perspective. Too often Adventist apologetics has taken the following form: 1. A is a distinctive teaching of the SdA Church 2. B supports A, therefore 3. B is true. Anyone who ponders the possibility that A can be supported without B, or that perhaps A might be misunderstood and in need of re-evaluation, is metaphorically tarred and feathered as a heretic. In my humble opinion, no one can observe, study and ponder the mysteries of life and the universe and seriously believe it is the result of happenstance; similarly no one can observe, study and ponder the mysteries of life and the universe and seriously believe Genesis 1 & 2 literally occurred. Since the dawn of the scientific age, religion has been fighting a losing rearguard battle with the scientific method. One after one, the previously held biblical "truths" fell - from the geocentric model of the universe supported by Genesis 1, to the properties of the rainbow, to the nature of dreams and visions, to the documented unreliability of eyewitness testimony of extra-ordinary events, to the mis-diagnosis of conditions such as epilepsy, erroneously attributing them to daemon possession, one by one the old traditions fell. Creation "science" has done an admirable job in trying to square the circle The fossil record is incompatible with Genesis 1 & 2. Creation "science" likes to use the flood as a "catch-all" to explain all which is unexplainable, but the geological evidence points to a slow-moving ice-age, not a catastrophic flood. Science doesn't have all the answers. This is not the way science works. The scientific method consists of establishing a hypothesis and then attempting to disprove it. If a hypothesis cannot be disproved, it is a theory and is useful if it accurately predicts natural phenomena. There is always the possibility that the theory is disproved at a later date. No one needs to accept evolution as a random process occurring over millions and millions of years in order to take note of and accept the fact that the observable world is inconsistent with "young earth creationism".

I have heard of this guy and many others. Unfortunately, many others exist within the church. I might also mention misbehaving priests with boys happens in the Roman church, not to mention all the nuns who found out that being the bride of Christ was more than they thought. I find it strangely interesting how some of these people manage to integrate molestation with church activities. Better to just ponder the lesson of the wheat and the tares. And "ask who plants the tares?" And also ask, "if Satan was really into wrecking the church of God, is this not one of the ways he would do it." Why are we even surprised it happens?

Not getting into all of the themes being discussed here (too busy!), but I'm interested in why you're reading 'without form and void' as chaotic, JoeMo. To me it sounds like simply a location in space in which there is nothing. That's how I understand 'void', and of course, empty space does not have a 'form' (shape). That would mean all the physical laws would apply, and would not require some event to create chaos. I guess that would take care of the 'ancient starlight' problem (i.e. the universe is old but Earth is younger). It would not take care of the radioactive dating of rocks that show the planet itself is billions of years old (though much younger than the universe as a whole). It would just mean that you interpolate a large lapse in time between the creation of Earth and then the rest of the events describing the creation of life in the remainder of Genesis 1.

Consider mine affliction

Yesterday the Seventh-day Adventist Church completed a quarter-long series of adult Sabbath School lessons on the book of Revelation. My former student, Ranko Stefanovic, helped to author the main lessons studied around the world and I helped to author the Teachers’ Edition. Through this blog, last quarter, Ranko and I were able to share with […] The post Returning to Conversations About God appeared first on Jon Paulien's Blog. View the full article

I would add another issue to the list that Kevin has given: A common argument that some Adventists make that many important doctrines of the Bible , to include the doctrine of the Sabbath would be undermined and even thrown out if one were to accept a time period greatly exceeding 6,000 to 10,000 years. I reject this argument. (Actually, I think it is nonsense.) I am thinking right now of PhD. (chemical geology) Adventist who believes in a much longer time period. Yet, he is a strong advocate for the Sabbath, deeply involved in the ministry of the local SDA congregation that he attends and is in harmony with other doctrinal positions that the SDA Church has taken.