(Borrowing Plato's style):
Me: Would you agree that God is eternal?
You: Yes.
Me: And that God is unchanging?
You: Yes.
Me: So by that logic, what God is at any given point in time, God is to this day?
You: Yes.
Me: So even at the first point in time, as recorded by Moses, God was the same there that He is now?
You: Yes.
Me: Then if we look at the very beginning of the Bible, aspects of God's nature reflected there should still be present today?
You: Yes.
Me: The first five words of the Bible are these:
"In the beginning, God created"
This means that God's very first act in our history is the act of creation. That should mean that God is a creator, yes?
You: Of course.
Me: So that means that God is still a creator.
You: yes.
Me: If God is still a creator, what is He creating? In all of creation, from the tiniest atom to the largest galaxy, we see no evidence of new matter. We see no new Heavens anywhere, we see no new Earth anywhere. We see only what we have. If God creates things by saying a word and *poof* they exist, then we should still see things coming into being as *poof* - new object here. Even if things are so far away that we can see back into the history of the universe to what you claim is the beginning, 6,000 years ago, we should see evidence of new objects *poofing* into existence. But we don't see that. What we do see, however, are stars coalescing out of gasses, and other stars exploding into gasses. We see a great cosmic dance of new systems being formed or destroyed, but never do we see something appear where there was nothing before. This can mean only one of two things:
#1) We haven't looked hard enough, despite our massive space telescopes and arrays.
#2) The definition of God's creation is not a *poof* exercise, but rather a building exercise. The same way I might create a house out of bricks, wood, nails, and cement.
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20 comments:
Don't forget, God created Adam with the appearance of age - he looked 20+ yrs old or whatever. Why not the same for the universe?
God didn't create Adam with only the appearance of age. He created Adam with the physical strength, discernment, procreative abilities, etc. of an adult.
What's important about that is that it's not a thin veil of age pulled over our eyes. Adam was not a 1 year old trapped in a 20 year old's body when he sinned. He was an adult in the eyes of God. In the same way, the universe is not a 6000 year old baby trapped in a billion-year-old body. Additionally, God is not deceitful - that is a property of Satan. I'm not one to ascribe to Satan the same power of creation that I would ascribe to God, but that's the power you would have to assume he has to be able to create the light between the stars and Earth. For God to do it only to trick mankind? No, couldn't happen, not with the nature of God as we understand it. Could God have done it for another purpose? Sure, but... God could just as easily have simply created a universe 6 billion years before it was needed and then sat around playing pool for a few eons.
Now, if you want to argue that time gets all wonky with regard to God, I'd buy that argument, but it's really only semantics. We see light moving at the speed of light regardless of how fast we ourselves are moving. If time works the same way, then it could be only 6,000 years ago in God's timeline that He created the universe, but because we see the universe aging as we ourselves age, it would seem like billions of years to us. I say that's semantics because if that's the argument you buy into, then you really need to drop the 6,000-year-old earth idea: as far as human perception is concerned, it's much older, and that means as far as human science is concerned, it's much older, and *THAT* means that for everything that human beings could possibly need to understand about the universe, at least until we unravel the mysteries of time and space, we NEED to look at the universe in the billion-year mindset.
He was an adult in the eyes of God.
Right. He was actually only a few days/weeks/whatever old, but he wasn't created as a zygote, see what I mean? He was created in an adult form.
the universe is not a 6000 year old baby trapped in a billion-year-old body.
It's actually ~6000 yrs old but in some ways looks several billions. It appears to be older, in some ways, than it really is.
God is not deceitful - that is a property of Satan
1 Cor 3:18-21
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,”
and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” So let no one boast in men.
It's not God Who is deceptive, it's man.
God has told us clearly, explicitly, how He made the universe, how He created it. He has told us approximately when. Yet you would correct Him. Here you are with your shaving brush, microscope, etc, telling God that's not really how it went down.
You believe man with his inability to replay the past, his limited instrumentation, his very limited knowledge, and his limited methodology, over the God Who not only was there at the time, but actually accomplished this great feat by Himself!
You're like a CSI team checking the scene of a car accident 100 yrs after it took place. You sift and you prod and you examine the faded tracks and pavement, looking for clues. And all the while, the faithful eyewitness who saw the whole thing is standing right there yelling at you, "Um, hello? Just ask me what happened!" And you're ignoring him, just for the sake of looking good to other people so they won't label you a creationist. It's kind of shameful, really.
but that's the power you would have to assume he has to be able to create the light between the stars and Earth.
God created it, not Satan. You're right - Satan has no creative power like that.
Could God have done it for another purpose? Sure, but... God could just as easily have simply created a universe 6 billion years before it was needed and then sat around playing pool for a few eons.
But He *didn't*, and told us so.
And yes, certainly God has another purpose. Why not take Him at His Word for what He actually did and let Him worry about His own purposes?
This all comes down to the question - how seriously do you take the Word of God? It's a question you have to answer.
Peace,
Rhology
Have you ever heard of the Catholic ideology: Truth cannot contradict truth?
This is the best method of Biblical interpretation I've found. If something is proven scientifically, and the Bible appears to say something contradictory, then it is our interpretation of the Bible that must be flawed. The Bible is completely true 100% of the time, but we, as fallible humans, are not able to interpret it correctly 100% of the time. The logical thing to do, then, is to assume our personal interpretation is wrong rather than scientific methods that have been time-tested and scrutinized by the world scientific community.
No, never heard it actually.
Romanists (today, anyway) are among the least skilled at interpreting the Bible and taking what it says seriously, so I don't put very much stock in that kind of thing.
I asked you how seriously you take the Word of God and you didn't answer directly, but you certainly answered indirectly and left the answer without doubt - not very.
You've got your priorities all wrong here.
1) God says something.
2) Man says something.
Which is more trustworthy? The omniscient, all-seeing, all-ordaining, omnipotent being Who created the entire universe in all its grandeur and all its detail?
Or the tiny, insignificant, exceedingly limited, ignorant human being who uses limited methodology, limited instrumentation, limited fore- and past-sight, limited knowledge, and limited thinking abilities to find truth?
That is the choice before you. "Science" has been SO wrong SO many times on SO many issues to SUCH degrees of wrongness that to say what you've said here is ludicrous. I suggest you get your mind on God, off the things of this world (Colossians 3:1). You're making yourself a friend of the world, and "friendship with the world is enmity towards God" (James 4:4).
The logical thing to do is to interpret the Scr rightly and submit everything to what the Scr says. You think the biblical text is less likely to be intepretable correctly than scientific "data"? You think interpretation and bias don't come into play when trying to come to scientific conclusions? Wake up.
Humans are unable to get the Bible right enough, yet we are certainly, doubtless, able to get observational data right 100% of the time so that scientific conclusions are flawless? What an amazing double standard. This is why a biblical worldview is so important - the junk you are spouting here is much more akin to what an atheist would say than what a disciple of Christ should.
Peace,
Rhology
au contraire, I think I take the Word very seriously, which is, after all, why we are having this debate anyway. However, I differ with you on what I think it is I'm talking about:
When events happen in the Bible, such as Christ's birth, crucifixion, miracles, and so on, those specific events are "primary sources." They are literally what happened, and, without the text surrounding them, they are divorced of meaning. The rest of what is written in the Bible is an interpretation of the literal event; and while that interpretation is divinely inspired, it is still an interpretation which means that it cannot be divorced from all of the contextual meanings it originally carried, including meanings derived from the specific time, place, author, and audience of its original time. The former, the events (and ideas, for that matter) are eternal; the latter, the interpretations, are temporal. God sent the Holy Spirit to guide us in making our own interpretations of the scriptures, but to do so we must understand the context and the content, and which of the two is meaningful in an eternal and divine sense.
Many have divided this into "literal vs. figurative" arguments and into "local vs. global" arguments - ie, this was something told to the ancient Jews, but no longer applicable. I don't think those two arguments are sufficient to explain the problem. They are reflections of the rhetorical analysis needed, but like reflections they are not the thing. Ceci n'est pas une discourse.
There is an additional problem. The interpretation of authors within the Bible constitutes a secondary source, but the Bible has since been translated through several languages, picking up interpretations of other scholars (who, I will grant, may have been divinely influenced - you certainly believe it to be so). Those scholars do not live in the specific time any given chapter was written and thus, while they may have a good understanding of ancient Hebrew or Aramaic, they do not understand the cultural influences and meanings that words would derive differently in a specific time. Even with Divine inspiration, the differences between English and Ancient Hebrew, and between modern and ancient contexts, means that there are some meanings that will be picked up by the new words and lost from the old words. You know this to be the case from an examination of the Greek words for love, which are all translated into English as the one word, "love," but which, in the original Greek, carried 4 very different and distinct meanings.
Genesis was written by an unknown author, presumably Moses (note: that's a mankind-created tradition), with Divine guidance at a time much later than the actual Creation. It was written in the Hebrew specific to the time, translated by Biblical scholars throughout the ages, and delivered finally to us now in many different forms. The NIV is just one of those translations, as is the ASV. Are both divinely inspired? Is one somehow *more* divinely inspired than the other? Regardless, when you read the Bible, you take a further interpretation of the scriptures; if you are a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit interpreting for you, but it is an interpretation *for you* and not for anyone else. This is evidenced by the fact that many different Christians have come to many different conclusions on the same passages of text. You might believe that a woman does not need to wear a hat in church, but other even modern Christians do not agree. You might believe that a woman should or should not lead church services, but again, other modern Christians would disagree with whatever point you take. Some of these are surely guided by the Holy Spirit the same as you are. Any failure to reconcile those disputes can only be due to one of three things: #1) interpretations being for personal use only; #2) the other Christian not being guided by the Holy Spirit; #3) You yourself not being guided by the Holy Spirit. Which of those three do you think is the most pompous? Regardless, my point is that interpretations of the Scripture come through a myriad of filters along the way, and none of them can successfully get all of the information in one fell swoop because there is information left out at every layer along the way. Every layer also adds its own ideas, so that all of our interpretations are different, unique for our particular time, place, and situation in life. Indeed, every interpretation is private and personal, granted uniquely to us by the Holy Spirit. The interpretation tells us only what we need to hear.
Interpretation certainly comes into play with scientific data. However, the data is another primary source. We can see it and observe it NOW, and we can do so with a fleet of millions of scientists. We can test it and determine its truth through proper application of the scientific method. We cannot do this with many of the things in the Bible. That is not to say the Bible is in any way invalidated by science; rather, the science is a way of testing our interpretations of the Scriptures to determine whether those interpretations are valid or invalid.
Therefore I submit: when science gives us conclusive evidence that our interpretation of Scripture is wrong - and, when that evidence is conclusive by merit of its retesting against hypothesis supported by the original interpretation of the Scripture - that it is proof not that science is invalid (which is what you argue) or that Scripture is invalid (which is what atheists argue), but rather that our interpretation is invalid (which is what Catholicism argues). Scripture is still True and Eternal.
Also, while I have been a good guy not to point this out so far, I have turned the other cheek now more times than I care to count. You assume that I am not as strong a Christian as you are because I disagree with your interpretations of the Scripture, and have judged me for it. To do so is judgmental, pompous, and arrogant. What you *should* do is not lambaste me and assume the worst about my faith, and instead simply keep the arguments on topic. Do not bash my character to try to strengthen your position.
I'd respond, but...look, do you realise when I submitted my comment? 09 June, and it's 30June today.
If I'm not mistaken, you simply never published another of my comments on another thread, and I don't feel like typing up a comment that will never appear.
I do hope you'll rethink your obviously angry statement of:
You assume that I am not as strong a Christian as you are because I disagree with your interpretations of the Scripture, and have judged me for it. To do so is judgmental, pompous, and arrogant.
I don't assume it; I read it in what you write on your blog. Your worldview is not a very biblical one. It is in some respects, and in others it's just not. And I explain why I say those things in my comments.
If you think my interp of Scr is wrong, let me know, and most of all, let me know WHY.
In fact, this very comment is a brilliant example of how your worldview is sub-biblical.
There are numerous admonitions in the NT to test what is good and throw out what is bad - Matt 7, 1 Thess 5, 2 Cor 13:5 etc.
We are called TO JUDGE those who claim to be believers - 1 Cor 5, Matt 18:18-20. Not to NOT JUDGE; but TO JUDGE. And here you are complaining that I've "judged you".
Whatever "judged" means.
I haven't said you're hellbound.
I haven't said you're not saved.
I haven't said your mom is ugly.
So for one thing, I haven't even done what you say.
What I have done is judge your worldview, as I'm commanded to. Judged it and found it wanting. Why? B/c it does not agree with what God has revealed.
It's not b/c I'm better than you or anythg; it's b/c my worldview is more biblical than yours, by the grace of God. I have spent time and effort crafting my worldview around what the Bible says, and you have spent at least some time listening to the world and moreover investing at least some of its statements with at least some authority. Now is not the time to whine that someone pointed it out; now is the time to change, repent, and conform your mind and heart to what God has revealed.
Do not bash my character
Where have I done that?
What you *should* do is not lambaste me and assume the worst about my faith
Where have I assumed anything about you? I go by what you say, not by what I want you to say. If you said what I wanted, you'd be my clone. ;-) That's not what I'm after, but what I *am* after is to see a fellow believer walk worthy of his high calling.
I've published every comment you've written - the only comments I don't publish are those advertising other sites.
What I take issue with is that I write a lengthy answer or reply, perfectly discrediting your world view, and you don't seem to read it at all; rather, you grab one single sentence in the midst of an argument and answer that, as though that one sentence somehow shows my entire belief system to be faulty.
Go read over my last post again and answer more than just my response regarding your lack of response. I explain there why your view of the Bible is incorrect, even though for some reason you assume I don't. That entire posting is doing just that.
Additionally, you assume your view is more biblical simply because your interpretation of the Bible is different from mine and you believe that interpretation is better. It's a form of circular logic - your belief is better because your belief is better.
The three points at which you lambasted me:
1) "You've got your priorities all wrong here."
Answer: Nope. I believe God's Word comes first. I just don't believe you're reading it right.
2) "I asked you how seriously you take the Word of God and you didn't answer directly, but you certainly answered indirectly and left the answer without doubt - not very."
Answer: I take the Word of God extremely seriously, which is, as I said in another reply, the entire reason why we're having this discussion. I interpret it differently than you do, but it is still the #1 priority in my life. Your assumption that it should be anything else is insulting.
3) "This is why a biblical worldview is so important - the junk you are spouting here is much more akin to what an atheist would say than what a disciple of Christ should."
...in your worldview of what a Christian is. Your view is limited to a particular set of beliefs. I'm challenging that your beliefs are too narrow to adequately define my Christianity; but, by keeping a narrow set of beliefs, you lump my rhetoric in with atheistic rhetoric, thereby implying that I am, if not an atheist, at least no better than an atheist.
Now, on to the rhetoric:
First of all, let's define our topic a bit. I think that some of the discord between us has come from an incorrect assumption regarding the nature of our argument. You made a statement that: "That is the choice before you," that the choice is "Which is more trustworthy" with the options being God or man. I argue that you're incorrect in your definition of the topic. Neither of us believe that man is more trustworthy than God. We both believe God has complete primacy. I would instead define the topic as this: "Which man is correct?" As I've argued before, the problem of reading the Scripture comes from man's interpretation of it. God is still the one speaking through the Scripture - it is the Word of God. But along the way, that Word has gotten interpreted by many different people, and I don't trust any man regarding his interpretation of the Word, regardless of how much *HE SAYS* he has been driven by the Spirit to interpret it faithfully. If I assume that He has been led by the Spirit, that means I'm now putting my faith in a man, rather than in God.
You summarized your question with a parable about a CSI team. Let's assume that it is. The CSI team goes in and checks for evidence, ignoring the person who is standing there saying "Just ask me what happened!" Of course they are! People lie. And even when they don't lie, the human memory is spongy at best, remembering correctly some details, incorrectly other details. Evidence loses some of its details too, but the scientific method applied to that evidence ultimately yields specific, definable pieces of information that the human memory may simply not contain. The witness might have thought the culprit had red hair, when really it was white and the lighting in the room was red, or the witness might have thought the culprit was 400 lbs, when really the culprit was 200lbs and wearing a heavy jacket. The CSI team would, of course, ask the witness as well, but no case can be completely proven by the statement of a single witness. this is why the CSI team needs the witness of evidence.
In the same way, we as humans need the witness of evidence to the nature of God. The Scripture, having been interpreted by humans, is subject to human misunderstandings. Even if you assume that every human between God and you has interpreted the Scripture correctly, you have to assume that you yourself are interpreting the Scripture correctly as well in order to believe that you're still getting exactly the message that God wants you to have.
When the CSI team goes to present their case before the judge, they'll ask for the witness's statement, and then present *corroborating evidence.* That's all science is - corroborating evidence.
You also argue that scientific data can be subject to bias. Sure it can. Everything can. Let me repeat that: Everything can be subject to bias. That includes our interpretations of the Scripture. I admit, there may be some bias on my part toward science, and that that may make me interpret the Scripture in a way that favors science; you, on the other hand, are biased against science and interpret the Scripture in a way that disrespects science. However, I used to believe as you did about Scripture, being firmly convinced that the world was only 6000 years old and that evolution was impossible; it was only after reading different interpretations of the Scripture, and studying it fervently, that I became convinced that the language used in Genesis was inadequate to say that this was fact.
For example...
The NIV and KJV use language during the creation that implies literal back-to-back days: "There was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day" for instance. The ASV, on the other hand, replaces the article "the" with the article "a." This is a profound change on the meaning of the creation: the days are no longer back-to-back, but rather a little more fluid.
Further, the language of the Bible never claims that Adam was the first man. Observe:
Further, look at the language regarding Adam and Eve:
"Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground" (Genesis 1:26-28, NIV, emphasis mine).
You'll notice that man was created "male and female" on the "sixth day." How can it possibly be that God created both male and female on the sixth day, if He didn't create Eve until after He had finished resting?
Further, rather than saying Adam was the "first man," Scripture only claims that he was made "When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground" (Genesis 2:4-5, NIV).
So your assumption that the Earth must be 6000 years old, which is never said in the Bible but can be interpreted through calculation of all the respective ages each person was at the time of the birth of his offspring, is based on a concept of Adam being the first man, a concept which is never acknowledged by the Scripture!
If Adam isn't the first man, created on the 6th day, then there is effectively no method of calculating the distance in time between the creation of mankind in general and the creation of the one man, Adam, in particular. And suddenly, there is no logical reason to believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.
OK man, yes, you publish every comment. Honestly, though, it's hard to keep interest when the comments are published with such long delays.
So, on to your comment:
They are literally what happened, and, without the text surrounding them, they are divorced of meaning.
I assume you mean that they carry a minimum of meaning to the reader, which is a more nuanced way of saying it.
An event, especially one that carries such import as Christ's resurrection or crucifixion, carries objective meaning, whether it is communicated or not, whether it is communicated fully or not. I'm sure there's a lot of meaning we still don't get from each of those.
The former, the events (and ideas, for that matter) are eternal; the latter, the interpretations, are temporal.
What's your argument for that?
The book of Revelation pictures numerous beings worshiping the Lamb for all eternity "for You were slain", for one example.
God sent the Holy Spirit to guide us in making our own interpretations of the scriptures
Since any intake of any text or speech necessitates interpretation, yes.
Many have divided this into "literal vs. figurative" arguments and into "local vs. global" arguments
Those categories are far too clumsy to try to fit on the whole Bible.
But it sounds like you agree...
The interpretation of authors within the Bible constitutes a secondary source, but the Bible has since been translated through several languages, picking up interpretations of other scholars (who, I will grant, may have been divinely influenced - you certainly believe it to be so).
1) I think you're mixing up "interpretation" and "translation".
2) The interpretation from biblical authors' pens are no less inspired, no less breathed out by God, than other parts of the biblical text. For an example, see Mark 7:14-19. Jesus speaks from 14-18 and then Mark steps in with a quick "Thus He declared all foods clean." That's Mark's interpretation of Jesus' words. Not the only interp, but one that we can be 100% sure is justified.
3) The Bible has been translated INTO hundreds of languages, but not THRU 100s. The English Bible is translated from the Greek and Hebrew text. That's ONE translation. The French Bible is not then translated from the EN. It's translated from the Gk and Heb. Japanese, from Gk and Heb. Etc.
4) Everything is divinely "influenced". Eph 1:11-God works all things after the counsel of His will.
Romans 8:28, Ps 115:3. God obviously has a vested interest in communicating clearly to His people, so yes, God had a hand in preserving His Word intact.
Those scholars do not live in the specific time any given chapter was written and thus, while they may have a good understanding of ancient Hebrew or Aramaic, they do not understand the cultural influences and meanings that words would derive differently in a specific time.
What's your argument for that?
Understanding of such things runs very deep, actually.
Even with Divine inspiration, the differences between English and Ancient Hebrew, and between modern and ancient contexts, means that there are some meanings that will be picked up by the new words and lost from the old words.
1) This is true but only goes so far.
2) Be careful - this is a two-edged sword. It applies to ANY meaning of ANY part of the Bible; not just to my "pet" doctrines but to yours as well. You might as well claim you know nothing about Jesus if you want to take this very far.
3) So God chose a poor medium of communication?
You know this to be the case from an examination of the Greek words for love, which are all translated into English as the one word, "love," but which, in the original Greek, carried 4 very different and distinct meanings.
1) Only 3 of which occur in the NT, BTW.
2) this is a good reason to make sure that Greek lexica and other resources are available to the general public.
The NIV is just one of those translations, as is the ASV. Are both divinely inspired?
Nobody is claiming that a translation is divinely inspired.
if you are a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit interpreting for you, but it is an interpretation *for you* and not for anyone else.
This is clearly false.
Perhaps you think that the Gospel is for me but not for anyone else. Or that it's not universal. Or that words don't mean things. Or that everyone can have their own totally different conception of Jesus' identity.
This is evidenced by the fact that many different Christians have come to many different conclusions on the same passages of text.
This is the Perfect Computer Manual fallacy.
If you send 5 Christians with the same Bible into 5 different rooms and they come out with 5 diff interps, that's a good argument for not trusting people. How is this the Bible's fault?
Once again God takes the blame from you. Apparently nothing is good enough.
You might believe that a woman does not need to wear a hat in church, but other even modern Christians do not agree.
Again, the authority of the text is not derived from whether someone agrees with it or not.
Some of these are surely guided by the Holy Spirit the same as you are.
A person is not guided INTO ERROR by the Holy Spirit. Think about it.
Any failure to reconcile those disputes can only be due to one of three things
Correct. Could be sin, could be ignorance, could be the fact that people are weird and idiosyncratic.
Let's not extend this too far - God is capable of communicating in such a way that His Word is accessible and understandable to all. Don't put humans in first priority; this is God's universe and we are God's creation. He knows better than we.
Interpretation certainly comes into play with scientific data.
I would argue far more than biblical data.
the data is another primary source. We can see it and observe it NOW, and we can do so with a fleet of millions of scientists.
It may be a primary source, but a fossil, for example, or a rock stratum doesn't SAY anything. It is not text. It is dirt and bone. What it DOES say is:
Fossil: I am a fossil.
Rock stratum: I am a rock stratum in between other rock strata.
That's it.
The problem starts when these scientists bring faulty presuppositions into their analyses and conclusions.
God has told us how He formed the universe and the earth and life on earth. Anyone who thus goes to a fossil in order to prove that WRONG is doing just what I said - bringing faulty presuppositions into their analyses and conclusions. God was there, these scientists were not. Why try to prove God wrong? Why not rather assume that if your conclusion does not match what God has said, you need to try harder, search further? Why put man first (again) rather than God?
Well, it's obvious why - sin - but this is a rhetorical question.
We cannot do this with many of the things in the Bible.
Anythg a fossil can tell us is FAR less direct than text.
What is your argument for this?
the science is a way of testing our interpretations of the Scriptures to determine whether those interpretations are valid or invalid.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Why do you think the Scr is so critical of human understanding and human wisdom? Of unbelief?
When the Bible does not agree with the findings of modern science, you are proposing the Bible got it wrong, then?
Or that our interp of the Bible is wrong? How could we misinterpret the fact that the Bible states that God created plant life before the sun? What did I "interpret" there? Where can science inform us about how we got that wrong?
Scripture is still True and Eternal.
Its meaning is apparently inaccessible, though, when we're not sure about what science says or what it's going to say in 100 years.
You seem to lack a good appreciation for how much science has changed in just the last 50 years, 100 years, 200 years. It has gotten TONS of things wrong, for LONG periods of time.
And yet it was impossible, in your mind, to know the truth about the earth's and life's origin before the 1850s. Jesus, Who claimed that Adam was a real person and that Noah was a real person, was wrong all that time, but NOW we know what the deal really was. He wasn't there, after all.
Oh wait, He was.
I have turned the other cheek now more times than I care to count.
Care to cite some examples?
You assume that I am not as strong a Christian as you are
I made no assumptions about that. I told you that your ideas as you expressed them are sub-biblical.
have judged me for it.
As I am called to in Matthew 7, Matthew 18, 1 Thess 5, 1 Cor 5-6, etc.
Here's my advice - if you don't want your ideas parsed, stop blogging and stick to weather, sports, and fashion when you talk to people.
and instead simply keep the arguments on topic. Do not bash my character to try to strengthen your position.
Where have I done so?
you assume your view is more biblical simply because your interpretation of the Bible is different from mine and you believe that interpretation is better
Again, I don't assume anything. I weigh your arguments and find them wanting; I tell you why my interp is better. You so far, OTOH, have appealed to the ever-changing morés of science to back you up.
I just don't believe you're reading it right.
Then offer an argument and exegesis to that effect. Don't appeal to human wisdom.
I interpret it differently than you do, but it is still the #1 priority in my life.
To appeal to human wisdom as you're doing is to do precisely that of which I accuse you - you're submitting the Word to a higher authority - science.
thereby implying that I am, if not an atheist, at least no better than an atheist.
Reading into my statements like you're doing is nothing less than what you accused me of - you're judging me. And in this case, it's not justified. Quote me doing so.
As I've argued before, the problem of reading the Scripture comes from man's interpretation of it.
So the choice is:
1) Man's interpretation of God-breathed text, with God's assurance that He will exercise illumination over that reading with faith.
2) Man's interpretation of not-God-breathed non-text data, with no such assurance from God.
You choose 2 over 1.
I don't trust any man regarding his interpretation of the Word
But you somehow trust some men to tell you what a rock means, as if a rock is meant to communicate, as if a rock is meant to tell time.
ignoring the person who is standing there saying "Just ask me what happened!" Of course they are! People lie.
God doesn't. Now, what is your argument?
The witness might have thought the culprit had red hair, when really it was white and the lighting in the room was red, or the witness might have thought the culprit was 400 lbs
And yet if the wreck happened on a Saturday, do you think the witness will tell you 20 yrs later that it happened on Mars? Or inside an active volcano? Or even if it were in broad daylight, would he tell you that the sky was actually bright orange when it happened? Witnesses are GENERALLY reliable, and VERY reliable when you go to such silly extremes as you're proposing. I'm answering you on your own terms.
but no case can be completely proven by the statement of a single witness.
How much less, then, if all you have is a rock?
That's all science is - corroborating evidence.
Not in the case of the age of the earth it's not. There is no "evidence" that the earth is really really old.
All presumed "evidence" is just data that you think can be accounted for by an old earth model but is also accounted for just as easily by a young earth model. So it's not evidence for your side at all.
But, remember, God was there! And He told you what happened! But b/c of some rocks and bones, you think we just have no idea what God said.
Everything can be subject to bias. That includes our interpretations of the Scripture.
And science, only far moreso. Especially when the presupposition is unbelief, as most of these Darwinian scientists go into it with.
Further, the language of the Bible never claims that Adam was the first man.
Gen 2:4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven.
Gen 2:5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.
Gen 2:6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.
Gen 2:7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Gen 2:8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.
You'll notice that man was created "male and female" on the "sixth day." How can it possibly be that God created both male and female on the sixth day, if He didn't create Eve until after He had finished resting?
Did you miss the obvious break in the narrative between 2:3 and 2:4?
He's starting over to focus on Day 6.
See, there's great reason to mistrust interpretations like THIS, sure! But not when the whole context is taken into acct and fairly elementary missteps like these are not incorporated into the process.
Peace,
Rhology
Only a quick reply for now, as I don't have the time today to get into a deeper one.
One simple question: what is the basis for saying that Adam is the first man?
Quite simply: Genesis and Jesus Christ, and the Apostle Paul said so.
Genesis doesn't say so, it merely says "before the plants of the field" - which, btw, refers to the thorny plants and weeds that didn't come in until after God destroyed the garden. It certainly doesn't refer to all plants, because those would've been created on a previous day.
So show me where Christ and Paul say it.
To save you some time: Christ never talked about it, good luck finding that. Paul's only comment was to Timothy:
"I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner."
But to say that Paul was declaring Adam to be the first man is to be stretching the comment WAY out of context. Here, he's merely providing information as to why he believes men should be teachers and not women - because man was created before woman, and woman was the one who was first deceived. It refers only to the order of creation of Adam and Eve, which I will agree with him completely on, and not to the concept that Adam and Eve were the only people created.
Now, Adam did name Eve because she was to be the mother of all mankind. However, I'll make two arguments to this: 1) Adam was not a prophet, so he might have only assumed that she would be. 2) Assuming for a moment that the flood did effect the entire world (and I believe it did, though not strongly enough not to set up the possibility for debate here), the only people who lived after the time of the flood were Noah's sons and daughters-in-law. We can trace the line of Eve down through Noah, so in that sense, Adam was literally correct.
Hey man,
Thanks for continuing in the conversation. It really is interesting to me.
Genesis doesn't say so, it merely says "before the plants of the field" - which, btw, refers to the thorny plants and weeds that didn't come in until after God destroyed the garden.
I was referring to:
Gen 1:11 Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, {and} fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so.
Gen 1:12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:13 There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
The 4th day is when God creates the light. That's out of order.
So show me where Christ and Paul say it.
OK.
Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--
Rom 5:13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Rom 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
Rom 5:15 But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
Rom 5:16 The gift is not like {that which came} through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment {arose} from one {transgression} resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift {arose} from many transgressions resulting in justification.
Rom 5:17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
Rom 5:18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.
Rom 5:19 For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.
What if Adam wasn't a real guy? What are we to conclude about the reality of all the rest of this psg?
1Pe 3:18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, {the} just for {the} unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
1Pe 3:19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits {now} in prison,
1Pe 3:20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through {the} water.
Mat 19:3 {Some} Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, "Is it lawful {for a man} to divorce his wife for any reason at all?"
Mat 19:4 And He answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created {them} from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE,
Mat 19:5 and said, 'FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH'?
Mat 19:6 "So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate."
Mat 24:36 "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.
Mat 24:37 "For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.
Mat 24:38 "For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,
Mat 24:39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Luk 17:26 "And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man:
Luk 17:27 they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
Luk 17:28 "It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building;
Luk 17:29 but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.
Luk 17:30 "It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed.
I would urge you to consider how you could provide a meaningful and consistent exegesis of these psgs if you take the position that Adam was not a real person who fell into sin as described in the historical narrative of Gen 1-3.
It refers only to the order of creation of Adam and Eve, which I will agree with him completely on, and not to the concept that Adam and Eve were the only people created.
So... human males arose via evolution first?
BTW, I don't actually know what you believe about this, so I should ask you to clarify here. How did the earth arise, when, and when did humanity and other life arise and how? Just briefly, not a dissertation or anything. :-D
1) Adam was not a prophet, so he might have only assumed that she would be.
So even though the text says that God brought her to Adam and then he named her, it really means that he named her BEFORE she ever arrived on the scene? is that right?
We can trace the line of Eve down through Noah, so in that sense, Adam was literally correct.
So Eve never existed?
How did Adam procreate? Was he the first man? How did other humans arise then?
these are real questions, not rhetorical; obviously I need to understand better where you're coming from.
Thanks!
WHOOAAA, back up a second here.
I am not challenging that Adam was *A* man, or even that he was the progenitor of the human race or *EVEN* that he was created directly by God, with Eve being created from his rib.
What I am challenging is the notion that Adam is the *first* man. The text of Genesis does not specify that Adam was the man created on the 6th day, and in fact the language of Genesis to me makes it sound like he was created much later than the rest of humanity.
Sorry, but that undoes most of what you were saying, as I think you misunderstood my claim and thus wrote about that.
So even though the text says that God brought her to Adam and then he named her, it really means that he named her BEFORE she ever arrived on the scene? is that right?
No, I'm saying that Adam and Eve were together, just as described, but that Adam didn't know anything outside of Eden, could only assume that Eve would be the mother of all mankind; or, if he did in fact have some divine knowledge of the eventually coming flood, he could have named her as a result of that.
So Eve never existed?
How did Adam procreate? Was he the first man? How did other humans arise then?
I don't even have a clue where you got the idea I said that, sorry. No, Eve existed, but she was not the first woman.
To summarize:
On the 6th day, God made man and woman simultaneously, but not Adam and Eve at that time. He created Adam and Eve later, in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve did produce offspring, and those offspring produced offspring, etc. until the time of Noah, when Noah and his offspring survived the flood. This interpretation still posits Adam and Eve as the father and mother of mankind, but it does not assume that they were the very first humans created.
OK, don't be upset, sorry. I am glad to know what you really think.
A few questions.
-Does the Bible record these pre-Adam humans? Where?
-Either way, how does that affect your exegesis of the texts I cited?
Gen 1:26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
Gen 1:27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Gen 1:28 God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
Gen 1:29 Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;...
...
Gen 2:4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven.
Gen 2:5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.
Gen 2:6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.
Gen 2:7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
When 2:5 says there was no man, does that just mean "there was no man in the area"?
What does your idea do to the idea of original sin in Romans 5? Was there no sin before Adam's sin? Since death entered the world thru sin, did no one die before Adam's sin?
Peace,
Rhology
The concept of Adam as not the first man only lends itself to a belief in an older Earth. It has no practical application for the revelation of Truth through the Bible; I argue that that is in both directions, that saying that the Earth is young also does nothing for the Bible's message. However, to liberal, empirical thinkers, they may relate better to a Bible that somehow fits available empirical evidence rather than one that denies it.
I don't think that the argument about Adam being the first one to sin breaks down the argument in Romans or even Hebrews at all. Sin entered the world through Adam not because he did something wrong, but because he did something he *knew* was wrong. God had specifically told him "don't do this" and yet he did it anyway. Any other man on earth would not have been guilty because the knowledge of what was wrong wasn't there.
This all requires a pretty explicit definition of sin, which I will now attempt to dispense:
Sin is an action on our part that we take knowing that it might separate us from God.
Applications:
Conservative Christianity has already answered the question of "what about a man who doesn't know about morality," although perhaps they do not realize it. We often argue that a very small child, who has not yet learned the difference between right and wrong, has no potential for willingly committing wrong and thus cannot be guilty of crimes in the eyes of the Lord. We believe that babies who die are still allowed into Heaven, despite the idea that "'No one comes to the Father except through'" Christ. Perhaps this is an issue of sanity - who among us could believe that babies who die would be condemned to hell, considering that they have not had the opportunity of making that decision for themselves? It seems horribly cruel, and to imagine God as making that condemnation is to imagine a horribly cruel God, who cares more for "the letter of the law" than its intent.
Because no other man had yet known God in the way that Adam was chosen to know God, no other man could have had the knowledge necessary to be immoral. Thus, no other man had yet sinned.
Adam was the first man told to be good, and he was the first man who chose not to be. It was Adam (and Eve) who ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - the tree that granted the power to comprehend the difference. This was the first point at which anyone could have comprehended the difference, and it was the point at which Adam understood himself to have sinned. But, it was sin only because God had given him a directive, and he had chosen to go against it.
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As for the other part - why the Bible says "there was no man to work the ground" - that's a valid point. Any argument I can make on interpreting that particular line requires a bit more license than you'll probably allow me to take, only because it's not the simplest interpretation (and fundamentalist belief teaches that the simplest interpretation is always the right one). However, here are a few things I could say to allow it:
1) "work the ground" means to cultivate (which is also the word that the New American Standard Bible uses here). It's possible that before the time of Adam, no man was cultivating the ground - men were hunters and gatherers only, and had not moved on to a crop-based society yet. Science tells us that the first agricultural societies sprang up 12,000 years ago.
2) It's possible the account of the Garden of Eden is limited to the world in which the ancient Jews lived. The word "world" in these passages could also have been translated "land" (although here I start to step into a commonplace), and thus it's possible the account only pertains to the land that has any importance for the Jews. Thus, in this particular area there was no other man, certainly no man to tend the Earth. Adam and Eve are then created in isolation, but outside their world humans were already making these advancements.
The argument of Adam not being the first man has broken down I think on that one line - while I can say that it's possible to interpret those lines in those ways, I'm not comfortable claiming that those are in any way accurate. Thus, before I continue on with the argument, I need to shore up my position. There are only 3 possibilities to it:
1) This portion of the Bible should be taken figuratively
2) There are alternative interpretations such as I have described that do fit the model well, but that I perhaps have not yet considered
3) My original premise is faulty
I'm going to need to invest a lot more mental energy than I have time to do to accomplish that. My leaning is toward 2, because that has been the way I've answered other portions of the story of creation.
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