Calling all TE's: Symposium on TE Strategy

[Didaskomenos]

I have really enjoyed learning from you all. This has been a great experience, with me starting off a few years ago a timid post-Creationist to someone who really knows what I believe and why. I credit you all with contributing to my understanding. Every post brings home something new or in a different way. I'm sure that every one of us has benefited from reading what the others are sharing and how they are sharing it.

That's why I'd like to get your take on something that's been bugging me. Let me just spill it: I have a problem with people talking about literal vs. non-literal. Ok, you caught me, because I have myself resorted to this terminology on occasion for convenience. But I predicted that we would see some problems with that terminology, and lately I've seen that come to pass. Juxtaposing literal and non-literal implies literal vs. metaphor, or worse, literal vs. allegory. I could be wrong, but none of the regulars here actually believe that the Genesis Creation Accounts (GCA) are allegories. We believe there may be some metaphorical truth, but that the stories do not attempt to bear a Pilgrim's Progress type of allegory, which was a genre not even developed until much later, except perhaps in short parabolic fashion. Hence talking about "literal vs. non-literal" gets a lot of YEC's thinking we're talking about whether yom was a 24-hour day, or what the forbidden fruit represents, or the like.

Let me just tell you what I think would help. Sure, it's easier to lump their beliefs together by calling them "literalists," even though not all believe everything is to be taken as literal. But instead, can we somehow avoid making them think that we believe it's an allegory or poetry? That's not true, and it undermines what I think our common belief is: that the Bible was written down as literature, and must be interpreted in that way. The way we interpret each passage is not a simple switch - literal or non-literal. Such binary distinctions are handy, but sloppy. And they lend to the criticism, "So how do we know what's literal and what's not?! Maybe Jesus is a non-literal character!"

I know some of you have objected to my use of the terms "myth" and "mythology" as overly divisive. I regret that those important terms have taken on the connotation of "falsehood, lie". If I can come up with a better (but roughly synonymous) term for what genre the GCA are, I would definitely use it, so that they don't immediately tune me out. But my rule of thumb has been that it's better to start off swinging away at their assumptions about non-scientific and non-historical accounts, since that's the basis of their problem. If we can do this, the good name of "mythology" can hopefully be restored. This is another reason I often quote Lewis, a hero apologist to most evangelicals, who adored mythology. Please understand, too, that the term "myth" consists of a broad range of story types, containing various amounts of legendary, historical, and symbolic information. I'm not asking everyone to rally around my particular understanding of the GCA. It's just that, from what I've been able to see, every one of us TE's that reguarly posts has a view of the GCA that fits under the broad term of "myth".

I'm not preaching. I'm expressing an opinion, and I'd love to hear every one's reaction to it. Thanks for reading!

Stephen

 

[Vance]

True, myth has a layman's definition that is misleading, but the fact is that it does call to most minds complete fiction. I have most often tried to use the combination of allegorical, poetic, symbolic and figurative (or metaphorical on occasion) since I believe all of these seem to get more to the "feel" in layman's terms of what I believe Genesis is telling us, great truths using non-historical and, yes, non-literal literary styles. When God breathed, that was not literal breath, the language is symbolic or figurative for something that actually happened. The Adam and Eve story, however, could contain some symbolism (the trees, the fruit, the snake, etc) which stands in for very real aspects of our human experience. The poetic comes in with the overall structure of the creation days as well as the sheer power of the language and its repetition. So, it is a mix of a variety of non-literal literary elements and styles used to describe very real events and actions.

So, yes, non-literal is not the best way to say it. Maybe non-historical would be better. I am not sure the word "myth", though, will ever avoid the impression of falsity. And that is a shame, indeed.

 

[United]

True, myth has a layman's definition that is misleading, but the fact is that it does call to most minds complete fiction. I have most often tried to use the combination of allegorical, poetic, symbolic and figurative (or metaphorical on occasion) since I believe all of these seem to get more to the "feel" in layman's terms of what I believe Genesis is telling us, great truths using non-historical and, yes, non-literal literary styles. When God breathed, that was not literal breath, the language is symbolic or figurative for something that actually happened. The Adam and Eve story, however, could contain some symbolism (the trees, the fruit, the snake, etc) which stands in for very real aspects of our human experience. The poetic comes in with the overall structure of the creation days as well as the sheer power of the language and its repetition. So, it is a mix of a variety of non-literal literary elements and styles used to describe very real events and actions.

So, yes, non-literal is not the best way to say it. Maybe non-historical would be better. I am not sure the word "myth", though, will ever avoid the impression of falsity. And that is a shame, indeed.

I agree with Vance on this one - I cannot think of a worse description than "myth".

YEC's come to this forum with very strong preconceived ideas. Even regulars on the forum still consider "YEC = christian", "evolution=anti God" (take for example recent comments where YEC's say they would cease to be christians if they were convinced evolution was true). Christianity is important to them, so it is little wonder why they hold so passionately to YECism. It is a big challange indeed to open peoples minds.

Most YEC's have had it drumed into their heads for years that evolution is anti-christian. The closest thing they have had to TE teaching is "some christians have dismissed Genesis as a lie and decide to believe in mans teachings of evolution instead". They are waiting for TE's to say something that confirms this - anything you say after that will be dismissed. The use of the word "myth" will only create a stumbling block for those who otherwise may be willing to think for themselves.

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

I'm not convinced the problem is semantic. Finding a better word will not solve the problem.

The problem is in how we view the concept of truth.

IME, YECs cannot actually conceive of something being true without the details being literally true.

You can offer up Jesus' parables as examples, but apparently they're different because the text says "This is a parable". Unless it has that disclaimer, then its truth claims are literal.

Ironically, this way of thinking is a product of the very same scientific modernism that is so decried by the fundamentalist. Atheism and fundamentalism are two sides of the same coin - extreme liberal theology is a third side to the coin - metaphorical coins can have an arbitary number of sides. All see the claims of the Bible as valid only if they are historically true. The only difference is in the acceptance or otherwise of the historicity of the claims. It's the same mindset that makes appalling fallacies of equivocation such as:

The Bible = The Word

The Word = Jesus

Therefore The Bible = Jesus.

mistakenly applying mathematical laws to imagery, metaphor and semantics.

It is not surprising, therefore, that post-modernism (not the extreme "everything is true" version) is viewed with intense suspicion in the fundamentalist camp. It strikes at the very heart of this approach to examining truth claims. But, ironically, in doing so it to a certain extent rediscovers the pre-modern worldview, under which Christianity spent its formative centuries. Is it any surprise, therefore, that the supporting statements of theistic evolution come either from the modern age, from people who can see a non scientifically modern approach to truth, or from the church fathers, such as Augustine, who lived in a pre-modern age?

Because of the primacy of historical truth in this modernist fundamentalist mindset, any other truth is seen at best as second rate. Hence we have in recent threads the use of the term "downgrade" to refer to non-historical readings of Genesis. "Casting doubt" is another popular phrase from the creationist side. Until we can break through this particular world view, I think we will make little progress in even having our viewpoint properly understood, much less actually convincing the other side.

I think there is a second problem, which builds directly upon the first. Because historical is seen as the "best" - if not the only - way of being true, it follows that anything that contradicts the historicity of Genesis 1-3 is seen as to an extent contradicting Genesis 1-3 itself. This, allied with a lack of understanding of the strength, comprehensiveness, and significance of the scientific evidence for evolution, means that the creationist reduces the issue in his mind as "do I believe the Bible, or the scientists?". To him, the answer is obvious.

But this is a phantom choice. It isn't the choice that is being made. Because the creationist machine (and any look at some of the more ludicrous attempts to disprove evolution on both the CO and open Evolution fora will demonstrate that this is the case) does its best to insulate the rank and file from real exposure to the strength of the scientific case, the creationist doesn't realise that he is not against "what the scientists say", but he is actually up against reality itself, as surely as if he were trying to deny heliocentricity, atomic theory or the electron transport chain. Then the choice becomes rather different, and yet it is the same for the scientist as it is for the theologian - "Do I re-examine my position in order to match reality, or do I not?"

It seems to me that stated that way, the choice is also clear. And this is why the creationist machine works so hard not to prove creationism, but rather to misrepresent, discredit and generally obfuscate the strength of the scientific evidence.

Given this, there has to be two aspects to our approach. One is to counter the misinformation and obfuscation of the creationist machine - and by the by also exposing the dishonesty inherent within it - and at the same time to work heavily at confronting a modernist, scientific worldview with regard to theological truth that cannot cope with non-historical truth being on a theologically sound footing.

 

[Vance]

What he said.

 

[Didaskomenos]

I'm having a hard time finding anything to disagree with in Karl's post, myself.

 

[gluadys]

I am really torn on this. On the one hand the teacher in me says: if people don't understand the proper meaning of "myth" the solution is not to avoid the word but to teach the proper meaning.

But given that there are so many other issues involved in this debate, and given that "false" or "fable" IS one of the legitimate current meanings of "myth" and the best known meaning, I have tried to avoid the term. At the same time, I have also tried to avoid "allegory" for the reasons stated by Didaskomenos. Almost the only place allegory appears in scripture is in the interpretations of some dreams and parables.

So this has left me fumbling for proper terms that don't suggest falsehood.

Another facet of this is that often fundamentalists have so fixated on the equation "literal"="true" that they think anything that is true is literal even when it is not. Attempts to show that the OT does not assume geo-centricity but "literally" teaches helio-centricity are a case in point. Or day-age theories which claim the creative days were "literally" thousands of years or many ages.

It is one thing to say "yom", like the English "day" doesn't necessarily refer to a literal day. It is another to say that the literal meaning of "day" is something other than a literal day. Yet this sort of thing crops up again and again when dealing with passages that are actually or potentially figurative.

So I think one approach is to sort out the difference in meaning between "literal" and "true" or "real". A work of fiction can be very prosaic, using basic literal meanings of words, yet it remains fiction not reality. Poetry, legend, folklore and other genres of literature can be powerfully true, though the discourse is not at all literal.

I agree with what Karl said about fundamentalism and atheism both using the same basic criteria for "truth" i.e. literal, observable, concrete fact. Ironically, this means that on the basis of a "scientific" definition of truth fundamentalists reject science, while TEs accept science as a real but partial truth and so are open to truth in other guises.

For me, one of the things we tend to forget is the old truism that the pen is mightier than the sword. It is no accident that scripture speaks of God's word as creative, of Christ as the Word, living incarnate among us, and that the Church has come to call scriptures the word of God. In human history ideas have a far more powerful grip on the human psyche than facts. Maybe the real contrast is not literal vs non-literal but history vs story. Yet history is also story. Even science is story. Story is the way humans make the world comprehensible to themselves. And the bible is a compendium of stories God has given us as guide to understanding the world he has given us. As I have heard it said: all of them are true and some of them actually happened.

 

[Didaskomenos]

I'm glad someone understands where I'm coming from. As I was trying to convey in my first post, the biggest problem seems to be not science but bibliology. What is the Bible? What was it meant to do? Unless their thinking is corrected on those points, they will dismiss all scientific data that contradicts creationism as anti-Bible and as a conspiracy with atheists and devil-worshippers. Their problem with the Bible is that they think it's so otherworldly that it loses all human character such as its literary nature. Genres are dismissed because of a preoccupation with history and (paradoxically) science, as Karl and I are fond of pointing out. As I stated a few days ago:

This is the irony: these literalists have accepted the Enlightenment's rationalistic way of throwing out whatever is not perceived as empirical, scientific, and objective. But in order to do this, they must reject not only the scientific understanding of origins, but also any faith- or experiential-based knowledge. The former they do (it's the source of YECism), but the second they most emphatically do not, and instead exalt such knowledge as premium, over science.

This is why no matter if we use "allegory" or "myth," they're still going to say that historiography is better, so that's the genre God chose. It often appears bleak and hopeless. But every now and then there are some people who are reading and they finally get it. And even if they don't accept it, at least they can stop misrepresenting us. It's something worth working for.

 

[createdtoworship]

Exodus 20:11 makes one of the most unbelievable statements of the Bible: "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day." It is hard to imagine a clearer statement defining how long God took in creating the entire universe. However, this simple statement has presented a seemingly impossible dilemma for Christians. On one hand, modern cosmology teaches that the universe has taken billions of years to form. On the other hand, if this clear and straightforward statement of the Bible can not be trusted to mean what it says, how can we know that any statement of the Bible can be trusted to mean what it says?

This was the dilemma which Dr. Russell Humphreys (physicist at Sandia National Laboratory) set out to solve as he studied what the Bible had to say about the formation of our universe. Most people have been taught that the universe is the result of a gigantic explosion called the "Big Bang". During this explosive expansion, all the matter of the universe supposedly expanded outward from a tiny pinpoint. All modern cosmological models start with the assumption that the universe has neither a center nor an edge. When these assumptions are plugged into Einstein's general theory of relativity, the result is an expanding universe which is billions of years old at every location.


Rather than start with these arbitrary assumptions (a universe having no center and no edge), Dr. Humphreys decided to take the most apparent meaning of the Biblical text and see what model of the universe developed. He reasoned that if the Bible was inspired by God, as it claims to be, it should not have to be twisted to be understood. It should have the same straight forward meaning for a "man on the street", a brilliant physicist, or a theologian.

The Bible clearly indicates three things about God's formation of the universe. First, the earth is the center of God's attention in the universe. By implication, the earth may also be located near the center - perhaps so man can see the glory of God's creation in every direction. Second, the universe (both matter and space itself) has been "stretched out"(1) Third, the universe has a boundary, and therefore it must have a center. If these three assumptions are plugged into the currently accepted formulas of physics, and the mathematical crank is turned, we find that we live in a universe in which clocks tick at different rates depending on your location.

Furthermore, the time dilation effect would be magnified tremendously as the universe was originally expanding. As the universe expanded, there was a point at which time was moving very rapidly at the outer edge and essentially stopped near the center. At this point in the expansion of the universe, only days were passing near the center, while billions of years were passing in the heavens. This is the inevitable conclusion based on our current knowledge of physics and starting with Biblical assumptions instead of arbitrary ones.

Albert Einstein rejected the idea that Bible could be literally true. He wrote that, "Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that many of the stories in the Bible could not be true."(2) How ironic that the most ridiculed Biblical story (about a recent, literal, six day creation of the universe) is exactly the story which Albert Einstein's work has shown to be entirely possible. A comprehensive explanation of Dr. Humphreys work, can be found in his book.(3)

1. Job 9:8, Psalm 104:2, Isaiah 40:22, Jeremiah 10:12, Zechariah 12:1, 2 Sam. 22:10, Psalm 144:5, Ezekiel 1:22, Isaiah 48:13, Job 26:7, Isaiah 42:5, Isaiah 51:13, Job 37:18, Isaiah 44:24, Jer. 51:15, Psalm 18:9, Isaiah 45:12.

2. Joseph Schwartz, Einstein for Beginners, Pantheon Books, New York, p.31.

3. Russell Humphreys, Starlight and Time, Master Books, 1994.

 

[Didaskomenos]

I hope artybloke doesn't mind my reposting this here, but I thought this quote was relevant and well said.

Personally, I look at Genesis 1 and see poetic construction, use of rhetorical tropes such as anaphora, numerology, refrain and paralellism, and see poetry, not a literal account.

Although, actually, the term 'literal' itself is problematic; because in a sense, I suspect that the writers were writing 'literally' about how they thought the universe was created. I don't think they were using some complex chain of symbols and were 'really' writing about something else. However, they lived in a non-scientific age where knowledge of the world was passed on not through the careful consideration of facts using scientific method, but by telling stories and writing poetry. I don't believe it's possible to go back and think exactly like they did about the world; we don't live in the same symbolic universe. 'Literal' for the writers of the Bible did not mean what it means to us (see St. Augustine on Genesis, for instance.)

 

[artybloke]

Gluadys's post brought attention to another form of literalism: and that's to do with words.

Literalists assume that words only mean one thing: thus, "yom" always means "day" etc. They always rush off to the dictionary to say, look, this is what it says. But a dictionary doesn't tell you what a word means, so much as gives a record of what a word has meant up to the printing of the dictionary. And it doesn't always include every possible meaning of a word.

Words don't have meaning without context: they are signifiers that point to a signified. So what the Bible means when it says, "the first day..." etc is actually several things: a period of time, a poetic refrain, a symbolic meaning in the context of the Hebrew numerological system (gemetria?) etc...

Only very technical words, like polyvinylchloride, only have single meanings; words like "day" tend to have several.

Hebrew, from what I understand, is also a relatively monosylabic language like Anglo-Saxon; therefore, it's full of puns: Adam = soil, for instance; "it was evening and morning" I think can also be read as "there was a sifting and grading" or something like that. Words don't mean "either this or that" but "both and." That adds to the possible meanings of a text, and makes the interpreter's task even more difficult, because there's no way of knowing whether the writer intended there to be double meanings or not.

One of the problems with literalists, though, is their aversion to uncertainty and complication; they'd rather have neat little simplicities, language as a relatively transparent medium for gaining meaning, and everything nicely black and white and comfortable.

It might be interesting to study the Bible not just for what it might say to us now, but actually as literature. Or at least to bear in mind that the Biblical writers were writers, not scientists or historians. On the whole, they were pretty skilled writers, too. I think we should avoid pinning ourselves down to one meaning (eg it's an allegory) but look at the ways in which the writers drew from and used - and transformed - the writing genres and forms of the world around them. It might well add to our admiration of them as well.

 

[Vance]

Artybloke, I agree completely, both with your analysis of the motivations and desires of literalists, and with how viewing the Bible as literature can help us reach the truth(s) God wanted us to reach. I think it is rwilliams that pointed out that Biblical literalists are, ironically, the strongest positivists going!