Bottom issue of creationism

[lucaspa]

This article is very interesting and contains a lot of truth. I think Berry's prognosis of the bottom issue of creationism needs a practical context to be understood fully.

The problem is the Bible. That's it. The bottom issue is authority. So many Christians value the idea that they just open a book and within it is found literally everything God says about everything. This "whole truth" is immediately understandable, and requires really no critical thinking.

I don't think the problem is the Bible in and of itself. After all, TEs also read the Bible and believe in it.

The problem is in how creationist read the Bible. And, in reading the Bible, they do equate the mechanism of creation with the existence of God. As Berry said, if God didn't create as a literal reading of Genesis 1 says, then God didn't create and doesn't exist. We see this in tying the Adam and Eve story to Jesus and salvation. How many times have we seen a variant on "If Adam didn't exist, then there was no original sin, no need of Jesus dying on the cross, and no salvation". Or "if you don't believe the Bible in Genesis, you don't believe that Jesus was resurrected."

a methodology for hermeneutics they foolishly and arrogantly consider "spiritual". It's just so much easier to accept the Bible as a homogenous whole than it is to use the mind to contextualize each portion and rely on the Spirit to illuminate the truth contained in its various parts.

True they do this. So, is the false connection between the how of creation and the existence of God a result of the literalism or is the literalism a result of the connection?

I think the connection is a result of the literalism. First creationism decides that only a literalistic interpretation will do, then creationism makes the false connection. However, the reason creationism can't back away from the false connection is that literalism has taken the next step: it has turned literalism itself into a god. To question literalism then means blasphemy -- attacking the god. This explains why we so often see literalists claiming that non-literalists don't believe in God. In a sense, they are correct. Non-literalists don't believe in the literalist god -- a literal interpretation of the Bible.

And this is why they feel that the spiritual truth underlying Scripture is assaulted when silly, superficial, non-contexual interpretations are debunked. They have them inextricably intertwined.

I would go farther. The interpretation has become the god.

Looking at the history of Fundamentalism -- and most literalists are fundamentalists -- I see that it did arise as a reaction to Higher Criticism and hermeneutics. The opposition to evolution was almost an afterthought. If you read the chapter titles of The Fundamentals, you find that most of them are against hermeneutics.
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/6528/fundcont.htm

 

[lucaspa]

God's Word is esteemed by Him higher than Himself,

Where did you get this? You can't possibly mean the Bible when you say "God's Word" here. None of you Biblical quotes will support this statement.

It looks to me that you are setting the Bible up as above God!

and anything that we can not with the understanding figure out The Holy Spirit will reveal to us when He knows we are ready for it and need it.

anything?

Every thing we need to know about creation is written in The Bible, it took God 6 days, and He confiremed that fact in other parts of The Scriptures when He gave the people the 6 work day's 7th day rest law. No man by any method or amount of intellectual reasoning is ever going to change that fact.

How about God when the Bible says in Genesis 2:4 that the heavens and the earth were created in a single day?

This is turning your back on God and worshipping a literal interpreation of Genesis 1. Remember, WHO CREATED? God. Therefore, the heaven's and the earth are God's Creation. We can learn from it also.

The fact is He told us His method for forming all of our doctrines,

And what was that? What was the method for forming all our doctrines?

You do realize, don't you, that Trinity is not in the Bible. We have passages equating God and Jesus, and God and the Holy Spirit. But there are no passages equating Jesus and the Holy Spirit and none that spell out Trinity.

 

[Didaskomenos]

I don't think the problem is the Bible in and of itself. After all, TEs also read the Bible and believe in it.

Of course. Perhaps I should have said that the point of contention is the Bible and its nature.

I would go farther. The interpretation has become the god.

And I would go farther still. The Bible itself, which has become indistinguishable in Fundamentalist thought from their interpretation of it, has become the god.

The literalist principle is but a corollary of the most important doctrine of Fundamentalists: biblical inerrancy. For them, God's Word, the true Son of God, is the Bible. It is not a testimony of saints gone before of how God has dealt with the human race, but the ipsissima verba of God, and hence some kind of "God for Dummies". If they did not believe the Bible was inerrant, they could read Genesis as a literal but inaccurate account of the world's beginning. So it's an idolatrous view of the nature of the Bible, not the misunderstanding of how to interpret it, that I consider the most egregious.

 

[gluadys]

The literalist principle is but a corollary of the most important doctrine of Fundamentalists: biblical inerrancy. For them, God's Word, the true Son of God, is the Bible.

I recently heard a variation of this from a creationist. In the course of our conversation he basically affirmed that in his perception Jesus was an incarnation of the bible since the bible is the Word of God.

I generally find that fundmentalists have adopted an Islamic theology of the Word. In Islam, the prophet Mohammad is never considered even a demi-god. It is the Qur'an which is deemed to be the Word of God and to have been the Word of God in eternity. That includes the very sound of the Arabic speech in which it was given and the very form of the Arabic script in which it is written.

Both Christian and Muslim Arabs agree that in any comparison of the two faiths, the correct correlation is not Jesus to Mohammad, but Jesus to the Qur'an. For the Qur'an is to the Muslim what Jesus is to the Christian--the eternal and embodied Word of God.

Fundamentalism has begun to confer on the bible the eternity and divinity which Muslims attribute to the Qur'an. What then becomes of Christ?

 

[lucaspa]

Of course. Perhaps I should have said that the point of contention is the Bible and its nature.

And I would go farther still. The Bible itself, which has become indistinguishable in Fundamentalist thought from their interpretation of it, has become the god.

You and I are saying the same thing. I'm emphasizing the interpretation because I want to separate the Bible from the interpretation. I realize that fundamentalists have erroneously identified their interpretation as the Bible itself. However, since that is an error, I want to show that error whenever possible.

The literalist principle is but a corollary of the most important doctrine of Fundamentalists: biblical inerrancy. For them, God's Word, the true Son of God, is the Bible. It is not a testimony of saints gone before of how God has dealt with the human race, but the ipsissima verba of God, and hence some kind of "God for Dummies". If they did not believe the Bible was inerrant, they could read Genesis as a literal but inaccurate account of the world's beginning. So it's an idolatrous view of the nature of the Bible, not the misunderstanding of how to interpret it, that I consider the most egregious.

The evolution vs creationism debate comes from the logical mistake. However, yes, the idolatry that keeps them from recognizig the mistake is by far the most serious error. The first is just a human mistake. The second violates the First Commandment and keeps them from salvation.

A question is where the idolatry comes from. Was the idolatry there first and the inerrant view made to justify it? Or did the inerrant view and interpretation come first and it led to idolatry? I think the historical data supports the second.

Yeah, they sometimes go way too far and have the Bible actually dictated by God. But that may be a side effect of idolatry. If the Bible is god, a way to justify its inerrancy is have it dictated.

 

[lucaspa]

I recently heard a variation of this from a creationist. In the course of our conversation he basically affirmed that in his perception Jesus was an incarnation of the bible since the bible is the Word of God.

Wow! And this creationist hadn't realized that he'd fallen over the theological cliff? Amazing.

I generally find that fundmentalists have adopted an Islamic theology of the Word. In Islam, the prophet Mohammad is never considered even a demi-god. It is the Qur'an which is deemed to be the Word of God and to have been the Word of God in eternity. That includes the very sound of the Arabic speech in which it was given and the very form of the Arabic script in which it is written.

Now, that's an interesting comparison! Yes, the more I think about it the more accurate it is. They have converted the Bible into the equivalent of the Quran!

A corollary of this is that the fundamentalist lacks a personal relationship with Jesus. If they had that personal relationship -- which they say Christians have -- they wouldn't need the "God for dummies" inerrant Bible. They could simply check with the Risen Christ -- the Word. So, it seems to me that fundamentalism is a confession that fundamentalists really don't have what they should have: a personal relationship with Jesus.

Fundamentalism has begun to confer on the bible the eternity and divinity which Muslims attribute to the Qur'an. What then becomes of Christ?

Interesting question. Whatever it is, it can't be good.

I have seen recently that fundamentalism is partly the Manichean heresy reborn.
http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/fund.html
"they embrace some form of Manicheanism (dualism);" We've seen this most recently with LilAngelheart and her having dinosaurs created by the evil angels.