Origins TheologyForum for the discussion of Creation Science (Young/Old) vs Theistic Evolution. Discussion of Atheistic Evolution should be taken to the Discussion and Debate forums.
How do I even know that sin is real? Maybe what I think is sin is just a feeling? Sin could just be a mythological expression of a feeling I sense. How can I believe it's real when there is the mythological figure named Adam who committed an act called sin that never really happened? What then would keep me from thinking that the God of the Bible wasn't Himself a mythological god?
__________________ David Cooper: "When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense;therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, literal meaning, unless the facts of the context indicate clearly otherwise."
The above portion of Scripture is what is called a "predication." A quality, characteristic, or state is asserted about the subject, in this case, the word "grapha," writing or scripture. Literally, it means "All Scripture is divinely breathed in" which we get the modern rendering of "all Scripture is given by God."
And so it is given by God.
I've deleted your questions because I have better ones for you:
Why did God give thsi Scripture to the Hebrews? What was His intent? (Which then brings up the question: What wasn't his intent?)
If we say that The intent of Scripture is to be a record of God's message to an ancient people, and to be an inspired source of sound doctrine, then we all agree that Scripture is true and infallible... in the areas for which it was meant.
Once you try to turn Scripture into something it is not... the complete, comprehensive, and 100% literal story of everything... then you run into trouble.
If you say #3, then THIS scripture passage is a lie and how can you trust anything in a collection of books which have lies.
Of course, "Not literal" is nowhere near the same as "lie," but we might not be ready to take the discussion to that level.
Let me just ask one simple question: Can you learn anything from a book that's not 100% literally, factually true?
Hebrew mythology might not only be limited to the earth being flat and cute stories about naked people with fig leafs. Hebrew mythology might also encompass stories about redemption from Egypt by fictious angels and an imaginary God.
It just might be. It may very well be that after thousands of years, God's original message got conflated with mythology, politics, social inequalities, and various agendas of Biblical authors.It just might be that something got lost in the translation, so to speak.
It's certainly very possible. But aren't you glad that you've got more than the Bible to support your faith?
Aren't you glad that whether or not the Holy Spirit has revealed Himself to the Biblical authors, you know that He has revealed Himself in your life and shown you the truth of God's Word better than the Bible (factual or not) could?
Aren't you glad you have faith?
How can you know and trust anything in the Bible? (serious question)
Because a far more reliable source already set me straight on the matter.
Once upon a time, I had an experience which could only be described as Holy. My decision to accept Christ into my life was based not on the Bible, but on a choice... the choice to accept that experience as a sign of God's presence in my life. My life since then has convinced me that my choice was the right one.
Do not ask me to describe my experience, because I will never be able to find the words to do it justice. The authors of the Scriptures, even inspired, had that exact task before them. It could not have been easy, and I believe (I know I have no reason to, but I believe) that it could not have been 100% successful.
God cannot be contained in mere words.
Now, am I to believe that the totality of God's Truth can be expressed in something as mundane as language... be it Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or English? Am I to understand that the Truth or falsehood of God hangs on whether or not the Scriptures are factually true? On whether such-and-such a term is translated a certain way, or interpreted to mean this or that?
More than one Sincere devout Christian has made the claim that if anything in the Bible were factually false, then it is worthless. More than one has even claimed that such a revelation would cause them to abandon the faith.
If that's what you beleive, then I have a question for you: Is the Bible the only thing you have?
__________________ "If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high,
You'd laugh and say 'Nothing's that simple!' But you've been told many times before,
Messiahs pointed to the door, And no one had the guts to leave the temple!" -- The Who
How do I even know that sin is real? Maybe what I think is sin is just a feeling? Sin could just be a mythological expression of a feeling I sense. How can I believe it's real when there is the mythological figure named Adam who committed an act called sin that never really happened? What then would keep me from thinking that the God of the Bible wasn't Himself a mythological god?
Faith.
__________________ "If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high,
You'd laugh and say 'Nothing's that simple!' But you've been told many times before,
Messiahs pointed to the door, And no one had the guts to leave the temple!" -- The Who
But really, I don't see how that is a great objection to me. All around us, truth is often expressed through fiction. When we talk of love we often use the example of "Romeo and Juliet", even though those are fictional people in a play written by a certain person. We tell our children fairy-tales to teach them moral lessons; Jesus did use parables to bring His points across, and many of the crucial ones like the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son aren't packaged as parables at all if one looks at their wording.
No doubt people can and do learn moral truths through fictional means. However, if something is presented as history but actually is an allegory, that is not clearly defined, wouldn't that be confusing? How can one use allegory to describe a historical event without clearly defining the terms? Are there such stories? I can't say I've come across one before.
Don't allegories typically teach a moral lesson or tell of a personal struggle but not history? How can our origins be considered such an abstract idea that it needs an allegorical explanation? Even if you can somehow present it as such, how does the reader ever take a day to mean trillions, especially when evening and morning are used and no means are used to adequately explain the allegory?
It is in my opinion quite a stretch to associate Genesis with an allegory.
Originally Posted by shernren
So why can't the very real truth of God's creative activity and man's sinful rebellion be transmitted through fiction? What more when the pre-scientific culture of the Israelites would not have been able to handle accounts of how it really happened.
As evolutionists like to repeatedly say, why state something to sound one way when it actually is something entirely different?
You make presumptions as to the lack of ability that the Israelite nation had to understand some rather simple concepts. I can't imagine that the understanding of long periods of time isn't something exclusive to the modern age, I'm sure the people of the Old Testament could have and did grasp such concepts without much trouble.
__________________ David Cooper: "When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense;therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, literal meaning, unless the facts of the context indicate clearly otherwise."
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
__________________ David Cooper: "When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense;therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, literal meaning, unless the facts of the context indicate clearly otherwise."
No doubt people can and do learn moral truths through fictional means. However, if something is presented as history but actually is an allegory, that is not clearly defined, wouldn't that be confusing?
It might, but if the moral truth is clear enough, so what?
As long as the message gets though, why quibble over the medium?
How can one use allegory to describe a historical event without clearly defining the terms? Are there such stories? I can't say I've come across one before.
George Orwell's Animal Farm comes to mind. Whether you read it literally as a story as animals on a farm, or as an allegory of the Russian Revolution, the moral comes through: Many revolutions fail because those who come to power become corrupted by it. Is there any point in Animal Farm where Orwell has to spell out that it's allegorical?
My own experience with allegories is quite the opposite: You don't have to be told that the story is historical or allegorical, because the message comes through loud and clear either way.
Don't allegories typically teach a moral lesson or tell of a personal struggle but not history? How can our origins be considered such an abstract idea that it needs an allegorical explanation? Even if you can somehow present it as such, how does the reader ever take a day to mean trillions, especially when evening and morning are used and no means are used to adequately explain the allegory?
An allegory that needs to be explained is a failed one.
It is in my opinion quite a stretch to associate Genesis with an allegory.
Well, that's an opinion.
As evolutionists like to repeatedly say, why state something to sound one way when it actually is something entirely different?
I'm an evolutionist, and I've never said that. What are you referring to?
You make presumptions as to the lack of ability that the Israelite nation had to understand some rather simple concepts. I can't imagine that the understanding of long periods of time isn't something exclusive to the modern age, I'm sure the people of the Old Testament could have and did grasp such concepts without much trouble.
You'd be surprised. Ancient literature (never mind the Hebrews...I mean in general) is, well... ancient.
__________________ "If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high,
You'd laugh and say 'Nothing's that simple!' But you've been told many times before,
Messiahs pointed to the door, And no one had the guts to leave the temple!" -- The Who
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
...and what is the Word of God?
__________________ "If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high,
You'd laugh and say 'Nothing's that simple!' But you've been told many times before,
Messiahs pointed to the door, And no one had the guts to leave the temple!" -- The Who
I can't believe you are saying this. G.K. Chesterton once said that original sin is the one doctrine for which we have empirical proof. We all know from experience that we are not what we ought to be; that we do what we ought not to do, that we speak hurtful words and think unkind and selfish thoughts.
Are you really an exception to the human norm?
Maybe what I think is sin is just a feeling?
Or rather feelings of guilt and shame are signals that tell us we have sinned.
Sin could just be a mythological expression of a feeling I sense.
So? How does that make you without sin? Does it mean you did not do or think or say those things that gave rise to the feelings?
How can I believe it's real when there is the mythological figure named Adam who committed an act called sin that never really happened?
But sin really did and does happen. What does it matter if one particular individual did or did not sin, when all of us sin all the time?
As I see it my sin is Adam's sin. Your sin is Adam's sin. The sin of each and every person past, present and future is Adam's sin. That is what Adam's sin is: the sin of humanity. Because that is who Adam is: all of us who are human.
What then would keep me from thinking that the God of the Bible wasn't Himself a mythological god?
Your experience of the presence of God in your life.
__________________ The high, the low, all of creation God gives to humankind to use. If this privilege is misused, God's Justice permits creation to punish humanity~~ Hildegard of Bingen cited in, Earth Prayers from around the World
No doubt people can and do learn moral truths through fictional means. However, if something is presented as history but actually is an allegory, that is not clearly defined, wouldn't that be confusing? How can one use allegory to describe a historical event without clearly defining the terms? Are there such stories? I can't say I've come across one before.
Why should it be? Many allegories are presented as a history. In fact, the only way we can know that an allegory isn't a history is not by reference to the text, but by reference to the outside world. If we lived in a world where parents commonly named their children Christian, Interpreter, Faithful, etc., we probably wouldn't consider The Pilgrim's Progress an allegory, but an actual historical journey of a real Christian who "actually went through" everything he did, as narrated and interpreted by Bunyan. The Phantom of The Opera, Possession, and The Name of The Rose are all complete fiction masquerading as history. So why not Genesis?
Don't allegories typically teach a moral lesson or tell of a personal struggle but not history? How can our origins be considered such an abstract idea that it needs an allegorical explanation? Even if you can somehow present it as such, how does the reader ever take a day to mean trillions, especially when evening and morning are used and no means are used to adequately explain the allegory?
I once wrote a script for a high-school drama themed around science. It had two scenes: the first had a witch-doctor making the village believe that he was very powerful and thus convincing them into giving him lots of possessions and fame, the second had a scientist visiting the village a few days later and using science to explain and dismiss the witch-doctor's "powers". I presented the drama as all occurring within the span of a few days, and there was no reason to suppose that they were anything other than days. The drama would have made no sense if I took "days" to mean a thousand years as clearly both witch-doctor and original inhabitants would be long since dead (to use creationist analyses).
And yet, I was actually writing an allegorization of the Dark Ages. The witch-doctor represented the attitude of ascribing everything to arcane supernatural forces, the villagers were the multitude who never knew better, and the scientist represented the coming of science. And lo and behold, those darned days actually did represent a thousand years.
Did I lie to represent a thousand years as a few days? No. Why didn't I actually make those few days a thousand years, and the witch-doctor a few thousand intellectually-strangled clergymen, and write for a few million villagers, and name the scientist Newton? Because I was writing a drama designed to be delivered in five minutes, which (hopefully) would be memorable, and which would present the gist of the matter. And that drama won first place.
If even a lousy fallible human writer like me can pull off an allegorization like that while successfully communicating everything I intended to, how hard can it be for God?
It is in my opinion quite a stretch to associate Genesis with an allegory.
Perhaps in yours; but not in mine.
You make presumptions as to the lack of ability that the Israelite nation had to understand some rather simple concepts. I can't imagine that the understanding of long periods of time isn't something exclusive to the modern age, I'm sure the people of the Old Testament could have and did grasp such concepts without much trouble.
And yet we don't see any contemporaneous culture which so much as reached for a view of the universe which was very old yet finitely old. Either they thought the universe was young, or thought the universe was so old as to be infinitely old and without beginning. Remember, they couldn't even smelt metal.
__________________
And who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? - Origen, 215AD [De Principiis 4.1.16]
fallible human writer like me can pull off an allegorization like that while successfully communicating everything I intended to, how hard can it be for God?
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