Of redemptive history

[artybloke]

(Or are you limiting the meaning of "real" to physically/historically real?)

This is the nub of the problem. Creationists are essentially logical positivists with a side-order of divinity.

According to that definition of real, God doesn't exist either, because God is not physical but spiritual.

Events, things etc (brute facts), do not have meanings inherent in them. They only mean something because we ascribe meaning to them.

 

[busterdog]

This is the nub of the problem. Creationists are essentially logical positivists with a side-order of divinity.

Get The Lion King video, some Barry Manilow CDs, a book of poetry by Ginsburg and a collection of the greatest speeches of Al Gore and John Edwards. Once driven out of your mind by the words of people who think they have something to say and pretend to be able to articulate it, you will become a logical positivists too.

 

[Deamiter]

Get The Lion King video, some Barry Manilow CDs, a book of poetry by Ginsburg and a collection of the greatest speeches of Al Gore and John Edwards. Once driven out of your mind by the words of people who think they have something to say and pretend to be able to articulate it, you will become a logical positivists too.

*best Adam Savage (from mythbusters) impression* Well there's your problem...

 

[artybloke]

You are aware of what logical positivism is, aren't you?

It's the idea that the only "real" truth is "factual truth"; that is, truth is only and exclusively something that can be observed empirically (using the 5 senses only.)

God cannot be observed empirically, therefore by this philosophy, God can't exist either.

In privilaging "factual, historical" truth over (for want of a better term) symbolic truth, you're falling right into the hands of secularists who want to deny the spiritual altogether.

 

[busterdog]

You are aware of what logical positivism is, aren't you?

It's the idea that the only "real" truth is "factual truth"; that is, truth is only and exclusively something that can be observed empirically (using the 5 senses only.)

God cannot be observed empirically, therefore by this philosophy, God can't exist either.

In privilaging "factual, historical" truth over (for want of a better term) symbolic truth, you're falling right into the hands of secularists who want to deny the spiritual altogether.

And truth must be able to be articulated or it is not truth.

So, mumbling about "spiritual" transit of the Red Sea would be without content, for example.

As it is most often used, the word "spiritual" doesn't mean anything.

 

[artybloke]

And truth must be able to be articulated or it is not truth.

And truth can be articulated through poetry, story, drama, music, pictures, myth and any other number of uses of the imagination. Fact is not the only, or even the main, vehicle of truth.

So, mumbling about "spiritual" transit of the Red Sea would be without content, for example.

Considering that I can think of at least three different responses to the exodus from Egypt (Christian, Jewish & Rastafarian), I would say that the lack of content lies in the event, not its meaning (if it actually happened, that is.)

 

[laptoppop]

This is the nub of the problem. Creationists are essentially logical positivists with a side-order of divinity.

According to that definition of real, God doesn't exist either, because God is not physical but spiritual.

Ummmm, no. Most YECs see one single reality, with physical components and spiritual components, both the seen and the unseen. We are perfectly fine with God working both according to normal natural processes as well as God working in a supernatural way. Science limits reality to the seen - YEC does not. We recognize the reality of an unseen God reaching into history and interacting with His creation.

Events, things etc (brute facts), do not have meanings inherent in them. They only mean something because we ascribe meaning to them.

I completely reject this modern style of philosophy. There are particular meanings for various things - and God can lead us into all truth. The truth does not vary from one person to another.

 

[artybloke]

There are particular meanings for various things -

Nonsense. Physical objects do not have meanings. A stone is a stone is a stone, a rose is a rose is a rose.

Until we ascribe meaning to it, in which case it becomes a symbol of something other than itself.

God may ascribe a meaning to an event, or to a story, but that doesn't stop a stone from being a stone and only a stone.

Science limits reality to the seen

This is a lie. Science restricts its investigation of reality to the seen, it neither denies nor affirms the unseen. As you've been told umpteen times.

 

[HypnoToad]

the stories themselves are "not real"

Then case closed.

We do not reject the redemptive history behind the stories,

Seriously now, how many times do we have to go over the fact that I'm NOT arguing this point?

 

[Deamiter]

Then case closed.


Seriously now, how many times do we have to go over the fact that I'm NOT arguing this point?

So getting back to the OP, would you then disagree with mark that evolution contradicts redemptive history? Perhaps shernen worded his question in the OP poorly, but surely you can comment on the quote about how evolution and redemptive history are incompatable.

 

[shernren]

So getting back to the OP, would you then disagree with mark that evolution contradicts redemptive history? Perhaps shernen worded his question in the OP poorly, but surely you can comment on the quote about how evolution and redemptive history are incompatable.

You can take the "perhaps" out, Deamiter.

The reason this thread was created was precisely to look at the relation of "redemptive history" to the stories used to communicate it in the Bible (and in wording it such I betray my position). Are the stories themselves the redemptive history of which Christians speak, or is the truth behind them redemptive history? Because before one can accuse TEs of rejecting "redemptive history" one must first quantify what is this history of which they speak.

To me redemptive history is real. Scripture communicates real events like creation and sin and God's wrath - they just speak of these events mythically.