SDA Creationism and Self-Contradiction

The SDA church is identified as being young-earth creationist, and to deny that would be to deny SDA membership. Verifying this is the official SDA news website, which reported:

Seventh-day Adventist world church President Ted N. C. Wilson forcefully asserted that life has existed on the Earth for only a few thousand years, not millions of years. …

He pointed to Bible passages such as Genesis 1, 2 and Psalm 33:6, 9 and the writings of [SDA Prophetess Ellen G.] White to reject a popular teaching that each day in the biblical creation week might have lasted millions of years, thereby making the world much older than the 6,000-odd years that Creationists believe have passed since the Earth was formed. …

In his speech, Wilson quoted from White’s book Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers: “When the Lord declares that He made the world in six days and rested on the seventh day, He means the day of 24 hours, which He has marked off by the rising and setting of the sun.”

[Actually, Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31 presents the opposite, giving the repetitive formula: “there was evening and there was morning.” He endorsed White’s unscriptural reversal to bolster his next concluding point:]

“How much plainer could it get?” Wilson asked.

He said that the very name “Seventh-day Adventist” pointed to a literal six-day creation because it would make little sense to commemorate a seventh-day Sabbath if the original Sabbath had lasted for years instead of 24 hours.

“If one does not accept the recent six-day creation understanding, then that person is actually not a ‘Seventh-day’ Adventist since the seventh-day Sabbath would become absolutely meaningless historically and theologically and most of our Biblically based doctrines centered in Christ and His authoritative voice would become meaningless as well,” Wilson said.

He cautioned against associating with scientists, humanists and “some who claim to be Seventh-day Adventists” who have embraced an evolution-based creation theory.

[If he’s lumping old-earth creationism in with theistic evolution, then his whole talk was an imprecise and confused denunciation.]

“Do not believe them nor participate in this manipulation of biblical truth regarding creation and the visible commemoration of creation—the Sabbath,” he told conference participants. …

He said educators should support creationism from the heart or do “the honorable thing” and resign.^[1]
[End quote]

But then the same news website, on the same page, presented the research of a Chinese member who stated regarding Chinese history: “you have 4,000, 5,000 years of Chinese history.”^[2]

This is clearly incompatible with the young-earth creationist 6,000-year interpretation, for Chinese culture has to be post-diluvian (after Noah’s Flood) according to the Bible!^[3] No comment is made regarding this, for it passed under their official noses unnoticed. Leaving this demonstrably glaring contradiction unaddressed in an official news outlet is extraordinarily unprofessional and is itself a sound reason to reject the SDA church as being hypocritical.

Both articles are on the same page on creation, providing a self-contradictory—absurd—presentation: http://www.adventist.org/en/beliefs/humanity/creation/

It’s like trying to be a spiritual luminary while simultaneously eclipsing yourself—it’s self-contradictory and absurd. As I said regarding a self-contradictory Mormon claim, “belief systems that harbor colossal absurdities of astronomical magnitude are simply not worth being associated with.”^[4] We have to protect ourselves from such association.—1 Corinthians 15:33, Philippians 4:5.


Footnotes:
^[1] Wilson: No room for evolution as truth in Adventist schools (August 18, 2014) https://news.adventist.org/en/all-news/news/go/2014-08-18/wilson-no-room-for-evolution-as-truth-in-adventist-schools/ Complete talk is here: ‘God’s Authoritative Voice’ http://www.adventistreview.org/affirming-creation/%E2%80%98god%E2%80%99s-authoritative-voice%E2%80%99

^[2] Researcher finds relationship between Chinese characters and Biblical text https://news.adventist.org/en/all-news/news/go/2017-06-15/researcher-finds-relationship-between-chinese-characters-and-biblical-text/

^[3] In this scheme, there were 1,656 years from Adam to the Noachian Deluge (Noah’s Flood). Thus, the Deluge occurred over 4,344 years ago (6,000-1,656). If Chinese culture is 4-5,000 years old, then it would either begin before the Deluge (and consequently would have been wiped out by it) or begin too soon after it. Thus, it is clearly incompatible with 6,000 years of human history.

^[4] Raising Cain... jimspace3000.blogspot.com/2017/10/raising-cain.html

See also:

• The Earth that Adam Knew?
  jimspace3000.blogspot.com/2012/01/earth-that-adam-knew-what-did-earth.html