Young Earth Creationism is a False Theology

Well, my opponent did not seem to put forth any arguments himself, and simply accused me of ignorance, so let's clarify a few thing: 1. My opponent did not put forth any of his own exegesis on the last round. 2. My opponent did not address the firmament as an ancient cosmology. 3. My opponent did not address the exegesis of the waters directly. His only argument against it was: "nothing in the verses cited speak of "eternal waters"" Despite my arguments that it did. Basically "Nu-uh." 4. My opponent did not actually address my argument that Genesis 1 and 2 contradict. He only claims it is not without back-up. That being said, I will provide a short rebuttal before continuing to theological arguments. And since my opponent asked for any credentials, I will provide them. I am a second year ancient history and language studies student with a moderate degree of Hebrew language knowledge. That being said, I will try to explain this next part as well as I can: Hebrew word " בָּרָא" Genesis 1:1 in English says "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." In Hebrew, that would be: בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ earth-Accusative-Heavens - Acc. - God------Bara-----In the Beginning Notice I did not translate what would be the verse "created." In Hebrew, the verb usually comes before the noun, and the objects it is modifying have the object of the accusative pointing them out. Bara, the untranslated word, does not mean "created" in an Ex Nihilo sense. Instead, it's more of a forming, choosing, building, or shaping sense out of pre-existing material. (1) It does not have a very good equivalent in English. Take for instance this usage in Ezekiel 21:19 " "Son of man, mark (bara) out two roads for the sword of the king of Babylon to take, both starting from the same country. Make (bara) a signpost where the road branches off to the city." " Obviously God isn't commanding a mortal man to created a sign out of nothing. It's a word of molding. This goes quite well with a more ancient view of cosmology where the god or gods creates from the eternal waters, a concept we've already established. Here's the Enuma Elish Babylonian Creation Story to give a similar account. Apsu and Tia-mat were ancient chaos water forms(2): " When the heavens above did not exist, 2 And earth beneath had not come into being— 3 There was Apsû, the first in order, their begetter, 4 And demiurge Tia-mat, who gave birth to them all; 5 They had mingled their waters together..." Even when nothing else existed, the waters did. Same as in Genesis, where water is used to form, not created. And if you don't accept that, which Young Earth Creationists don't, you're not truly taking the account "literally." Now, onto theological arguments Theological Arguments Against Young Earth Creationism: I will have three arguments against Young Earth Creationism: 1. It is not necessary 2. It is not consistent with God's character 3. It is a new theology historically not used by the church 1. It is not necessary One argument I hear consistently from YEC's is that the Genesis account, including sin, is 100% necessary for the Gospel narrative. This is simply not the case. We all have our own sins before God. We do not need a magic sin that does not exist to make us do wrong things. We do a good job all by ourselves. In fact, it is dangerous to blame out "sin nature," making it seem like our actions are not our fault. We need salvation apart from a literal Adam and Eve or a literal fall. We still sin. Romans 3:23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard Isaiah 53:6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all. 2. It does not align with God's character God is a just God, and He is a loving God (Is. 30:18, Job 34:12, 1 John 4:8, John 15:3) In that, He judges fairly and loves all people equally. One who is just would not punish descendants for the crimes of the grandfather or father, much less a ancestor 6,000 years ago. Consider this verse: Ezekiel 18:19-20 “Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live.The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." God punishes or rewards for one's own responsible actions. 3. It is a new theology in the church. Strict YEC is a new and whip-lash reaction to evolution. However, this is not a theology that has historically been concrete in the past. Augustine interpreted the passage with a lot of metaphorical spiritual flare of “spiritual light” and separating “visible” and “invisible (spiritual)” things. (3) This is in stark contrast to Fundamentalists who like to claim their view is the only orthodox one. Conclusion: My conclusion, then, is that YEC is not only an unnecessary, inconsistent, and falsely claiming orthodoxy, it is incoherent with the text itself, which contains ample examples of ancient cosmology and mythology that a Young Earth Creationist would have to ignore in order to keep their position. Sources: 1)http://biblehub.com... 2)http://www.ancient.eu... 3)Various, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Genesis 1-11 Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2001.