Foundation

[shernren]

What 'folks' are these who think Adam is a figure of speech? You used to keep claiming I said that, though I told you again and again that I didn't. You accused GratiaCorpusChristi of the same thing and he told you in no uncertain terms that he didn't. Now it is a vague 'some folks' who think it. Who are they Mark? As far as I can tell this whole 'Adam is a figure of speech' claim is a figment of your imagination.

Well gluadys believes something rather like this, but mark has (and I quote) "no problem" with her theology (right down to the "Adam was not a historical person" bit, I suppose), so I'm as perplexed as you are.

 

[vossler]

Whether there was any theological significance attached to Luther's geocentrist interpretation is besides the point. The fact is that, for a long time, the Church interpreted the Bible to mean that the sun revolves around the earth, and this was only overturned in light of new findings about God's creation. Just saying "well, that's of no theological significance to me" doesn't change the fact that erroneous interpretations of the Bible can be and have been overturned with respect to evidence from God's creation. Surely, you must admit that.

If you want me to admit that erroneous interpretations of the Bible can be and have been overturned with respect to evidence from God's Creation, from what I know this is probably true. Having said that, I once again emphasize this has no spiritual significance and just highlights the lack of wisdom and arrogance of man.

No spiritually significant biblical teaching has ever been refuted by man's 'scientific' discoveries. That, my friend, is the main point of all of this.

And by the way, there was major theological significance attached to geocentrism. The people of Luther's day (and before) believed that, if man was the pinnacle of Creation, God ought to have placed us at the centre of the universe He created. One of the reasons why some people had such a hard time letting go of geocentrism was its theological implications for man's place in God's creation. We were no longer at the centre of it all.

Man was the pinnacle of Creation, geocentric or heliocentric thought doesn't change that, therefore it had no spiritual/theological significance.

I didn't ask you to comment on the pattern; I asked if you even knew what it was.

It is difficult to comment on a subject that isn't identified, I am sorry but I just don't play those kind of games.

I figured that for someone to say that no evidence exists for common descent, you would at least be familiar with what the claimed evidence is and have good reason to reject it. I think it's fair to say that isn't the case.

Well I see you found some justification to support what appears to have been a preconceived conclusion.

 

[Mallon]

If you want me to admit that erroneous interpretations of the Bible can be and have been overturned with respect to evidence from God's Creation, from what I know this is probably true. Having said that, I once again emphasize this has no spiritual significance and just highlights the lack of wisdom and arrogance of man.

No spiritually significant biblical teaching has ever been refuted by man's 'scientific' discoveries. That, my friend, is the main point of all of this.

I can agree with you there. I guess the point is that we need to take heed of the lessons learned in the past and be careful not to tie the spiritually significant messages of the Bible too tightly to the ancient science used to deliver them. Biblical geocentrism has been proven false with respect to God's creation, yet we still hold that humans are the pinnacle of God's creation. Likewise, YECism has been proven false with respect to God's creation, yet we still hold that we are a sinful people in desperate need of salvation.

Well I see you found some justification to support what appears to have been a preconceived conclusion.

Yeah, I had my suspicions.

 

[vossler]

You brought up the idea that evolution “has provided a safe escape from the truth” are you now saying your argument is of no spiritual significance? Or are you just using ‘spiritual significance’ to stick you fingers in your ears and ignore the problem?

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. Just so we're clear,helio/geocentrism has no spiritual/theological significance and therefore they are not worthy of discussion. If that is interpreted as sticking my fingers in my ears and ignoring a problem, then yes I am guilty.

People have thought scripture contradicted a round earth, the existence of a southern continent and heliocentrism but they were still wrong.

Maybe, but what's the significance of their error?

I looked at the argument against common ancestry back in post 77 but you sidestepped it. Here is what I said again.

Yet very little in the bible to contradict it, and only if you think it is literal. Main thing I can think of is the really common biblical metaphor of God the potter making people from clay. Isaiah 64:8 But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Job 33:6 Behold, I am toward God as you are; I too was pinched off from a piece of clay. Now if you take that literally in Genesis, then of course it does contradict common ancestry. But why should we want to take a common biblical metaphor literally when science shows us that is mistaken? This is of course the church father's approach that there can be different interpretations of a passage but if one is shown to be wrong by science is wasn't what scripture meant.
​

OK I will state it without the word if. Creationists claim the natural process of evolution exclude God. We are not looking at the creationist view of how God created life here, but rather the creationist view of how God operates in the universe, and how this is at odds with the traditional Christian understanding that God operates both through supernatural miracles and through natural processes. Honestly vossler, you seem to spend most of your time avoiding the discussion.

You are looking at this entire discussion first through the eyes of man and then you conform your view of scripture to it, I am looking at it first through the Word of God, how God Himself stated he created, and then applying it to my eyes to that truth. So this isn't about a Creationists view of how God operates, it is a view of how God Himself said He operates. If you believe this supports your claim that I am avoiding the discussion, you are more than free to do so.

Like creationists see spiritual significance in their literal interpretation of Genesis? That is what I said to you earlier, if you think you see spiritual significance in a misinterpretation of scripture, that simply means the spiritual significance is as mistaken as your misinterpretation.

Let's see, I believe that when God said 6 days He was telling the truth, you and other TEs believe something far different, yet I am the one misinterpreting scripture...interesting, very interesting.

It also means you cannot hide behind spiritual significance to try to distance yourself from the heliocentric controversy, because there is no spiritual significance in a misinterpretation. It also empties any meaning from your claim.

Hiding am I now... So for you there is spiritual significance to the helio/geo centric argument. Fine, present your case help me to see how it is spiritually significant.

And it tells us this claim is true but meaningless, because by definition there isn't real significance in a wrong interpretation. What is true is that science has shown widely held interpretation to be wrong.

So the fact that "Science has never shown us that a widely held interpretation of scripture, one that held any spiritual significance, has ever been changed in order to align with the scientific finding" is true but meaningless to you. It certainly should be important to the common everyday man, plus the fact that a TE admits this claim to be true, now that is significant!

So if it wasn't the rise of science telling us if bread still looks and tastes like bread it really is bread not Jesus' real flesh, what do you think led protestants to reject the literal interpretation of Jesus' words that had been unchallenged for 15 centuries?

How about the Holy Spirit!

So do you rely on the Holy Spirit or on Cooper's approach to interpretation? The reason I am interested in Cooper's rule is that man made rules like this stops Creationists from really searching the scripture. If you have this Rule telling you that you have to interpret Genesis literally, you are not going look and see if God can speak to us differently in his word.

lol, as I said, just to be sure, here it is again. I don't ever give it (Cooper's quote) a second thought as I read Scripture, it is the Holy Spirit working through the words and into my own spirit that I lean on, certainly not a man-made phrase. The phrase is just a simple and succinct way of summarizing an approach to interpretation.

What does that mean? Scripture interpreted with Cooper's rule lines up with you literal interpretation of scripture? Or that we can study scripture and find that it teaches us "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." Because scripture teaches us no such thing.

Yes when we study scripture we find that it shows this general summation of scripture interpretation to be true. Scripture is the self evident source of the idea.

 

[vossler]

I can agree with you there. I guess the point is that we need to take heed of the lessons learned in the past and be careful not to tie the spiritually significant messages of the Bible too tightly to the ancient science used to deliver them. Biblical geocentrism has been proven false with respect to God's creation, yet we still hold that humans are the pinnacle of God's creation. Likewise, YECism has been proven false with respect to God's creation, yet we still hold that we are a sinful people in desperate need of salvation.

So you can agree with "No spiritually significant biblical teaching has ever been refuted by man's 'scientific' discoveries." and then state that creationism (6 days w/fully mature animals/humans and the physical world/heavens) has been proven false. Is this double talk or just a sinister plan to lure me into a 'deeper' discussion.

 

[Mallon]

So you can agree with "No spiritually significant biblical teaching has ever been refuted by man's 'scientific' discoveries." and then state that creationism (6 days w/fully mature animals/humans and the physical world/heavens) has been proven false. Is this double talk or just a sinister plan to lure me into a 'deeper' discussion.

What spiritual significance do you think hinges on the idea that man and the animals were created as-is in a magical garden 6,000 years ago?

 

[vossler]

What spiritual significance do you think hinges on the idea that man and the animals were created as-is in a magical garden 6,000 years ago?

How about the chronology of man, God not being omnipotent and needing something outside Himself and how does sin enter the world through a mythical being? Those are just a few that come off the top of my head.

 

[Mallon]

How about the chronology of man

Of what spiritual significance is that?

God not being omnipotent and needing something outside Himself

How does that hinge on YECism? Evolutionary creationists still believe that God is omnipotent and created the universe from nothing.

and how does sin enter the world through a mythical being?

Many evolutionary creationists accept an historical Adam. Accepting evolution does not mean one must reject an historical Adam.

So I ask again: What spiritual significance do you think hinges on the idea that man and the animals were created as-is in a magical garden 6,000 years ago?

 

[BrendanMark]

For Original Sin, there was more than Augustine's thought on the matter (the default in Western Christendom). For instance, St Gregory of Nyssa maintained that since everything that is not God is by definition not directly part of the divine life, we all need God's grace for inclusion in the divine life.

Sin does not enter the world through a mythical being, but by the nature of the essential difference between infinite Creator and His finite creations.

Many things people consider directly Scriptural are interpretations of Scripture entrenched for centuries.

“That which is without quality cannot be measured, the invisible cannot be examined, the incorporeal cannot be weighed, the limitless cannot be compared, the incomprehensible does not admit of more or less.” Everything that exists outside of God is like nothing before his eyes. “Not absolutely nothing”, like a spider’s web, “he who looks at it sees nothing.” All of this is suspended in God, and, in order to be able to subsist, it participates in the inexhaustible source of being. But if it turns away from this source with a desire to belong to itself, it no longer merits the name of being. This profoundly ontological privation of being is sin, which is veritably an annihilation (έξουδένωσι&#962.

The first essential characteristic of the creature is therefore negative. It consists of the very fact that the creature is not God. In taking its referential bearings entirely from him, the creature distinguishes itself from him by this self-same referential relationship: “it is precisely through its comparison and union with the Creator that it is other than him.” This abyss that separates the two forms of being is the fact of creation, which in and of itself surrounds that which is created with a magic circle, which it will never escape. There is no stratagem by which the creature will ever understand its own origins.
von Balthasar, Hans Urs – Presence and Thought – An Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa [1988, 1995 Ignatius Press, Sebanc, Mark trans. p 27-28]

 

[vossler]

Of what spiritual significance is that?

Lineage back to Adam links each of us to original sin and the overwhelming need each of us has for His forgiveness. Common descent and millions of years diminishes the connection.

How does that hinge on YECism? Evolutionary creationists still believe that God is omnipotent and created the universe from nothing.

Maybe but now He isn't quite as strong as He stated He was, in essence He lied.

Many evolutionary creationists accept an historical Adam. Accepting evolution does not mean one must reject an historical Adam.

However there are many who don't as well. It certainly opens the door.

 

[shernren]

However there are many who don't as well. It certainly opens the door.

I get confused by this kind of talk.

If the doctrine of grace opens the door to licentious living, do we jettison grace as a result?

If the discipline of obeying commands opens the door to legalism, do we jettison obedience as a result?

And if creationism opens the door to black supremacism, and the polygenist white supremacist claim that only Caucasians have souls, do we jettison creationism as a result?

Surely truth must be truth no matter where it leads us!

 

[vossler]

I get confused by this kind of talk.

If the doctrine of grace opens the door to licentious living, do we jettison grace as a result?

If the discipline of obeying commands opens the door to legalism, do we jettison obedience as a result?

And if creationism opens the door to black supremacism, and the polygenist white supremacist claim that only Caucasians have souls, do we jettison creationism as a result?

Surely truth must be truth no matter where it leads us!

Not an equal comparison. It's one thing to jettison a man-made unscriptural idea, it's quite another to do so with a Godly one.

Of course truth is the ultimate destination and only scripture will bring us there.

 

[Assyrian]

For Original Sin, there was more than Augustine's thought on the matter (the default in Western Christendom). For instance, St Gregory of Nyssa maintained that since everything that is not God is by definition not directly part of the divine life, we all need God's grace for inclusion in the divine life.

Sin does not enter the world through a mythical being, but by the nature of the essential difference between infinite Creator and His finite creations.

Many things people consider directly Scriptural are interpretations of Scripture entrenched for centuries.

“That which is without quality cannot be measured, the invisible cannot be examined, the incorporeal cannot be weighed, the limitless cannot be compared, the incomprehensible does not admit of more or less.” Everything that exists outside of God is like nothing before his eyes. “Not absolutely nothing”, like a spider’s web, “he who looks at it sees nothing.” All of this is suspended in God, and, in order to be able to subsist, it participates in the inexhaustible source of being. But if it turns away from this source with a desire to belong to itself, it no longer merits the name of being. This profoundly ontological privation of being is sin, which is veritably an annihilation (έξουδένωσι&#962.

The first essential characteristic of the creature is therefore negative. It consists of the very fact that the creature is not God. In taking its referential bearings entirely from him, the creature distinguishes itself from him by this self-same referential relationship: “it is precisely through its comparison and union with the Creator that it is other than him.” This abyss that separates the two forms of being is the fact of creation, which in and of itself surrounds that which is created with a magic circle, which it will never escape. There is no stratagem by which the creature will ever understand its own origins.
von Balthasar, Hans Urs – Presence and Thought – An Essay on the Religious Philosophy of Gregory of Nyssa [1988, 1995 Ignatius Press, Sebanc, Mark trans. p 27-28]

That is really interesting, Do you have references for Gregory of Nyssa?

 

[Assyrian]

Maybe but now He isn't quite as strong as He stated He was, in essence He lied.

Not an equal comparison. It's one thing to jettison a man-made unscriptural idea, it's quite another to do so with a Godly one.

Of course truth is the ultimate destination and only scripture will bring us there.

You seem happy to jettison God speaking in metaphor, and that is a scriptural idea.

 

[Jazer]

What spiritual significance do you think hinges on the idea that man and the animals were created as-is in a magical garden 6,000 years ago?

The Bible and science both talk about the same thing, the transformation of man from a hunter gather to a food producer. What we have 6,000 years ago in a "magical" place is the domestication of animals perhaps through the art of husbandry and breeding. Before Adam and Eve we have male and female. Then we have a man and a women, a husband and a wife. If you do not know the difference between a female and a true women, then you never listened to country music.

 

[Mallon]

Lineage back to Adam links each of us to original sin and the overwhelming need each of us has for His forgiveness. Common descent and millions of years diminishes the connection.

I don't see how. We're still all descended from a common human ancestor, are we not? I don't see how the number of generations between us and that first human ancestor changes anything unless you believe that the effects of sin somehow wane with time. Is that what you believe?

Maybe but now He isn't quite as strong as He stated He was, in essence He lied.

Now you're starting to sound like the post-Copernican geocentrists who felt that our non-centrality in the universe means that God's love for us "isn't quite as strong". GOD CREATED THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!! Is that not strong enough for you???

However there are many who don't as well. It certainly opens the door.

That in no way negates the fact that believing in an historical Adam is completely in line with accepting evolution.

I'm sorry vossler, my friend, but I just don't think you've done a good job at demonstrating how accepting evolutionary creationism in any way diminishes the spiritual significance of the Bible.

 

[vossler]

I don't see how. We're still all descended from a common human ancestor, are we not? I don't see how the number of generations between us and that first human ancestor changes anything unless you believe that the effects of sin somehow wane with time. Is that what you believe?

Yet if what the Bible teaches doesn't line up with the man-made idea brought in to supplement the Bible...

Now you're starting to sound like the post-Copernican geocentrists who felt that our non-centrality in the universe means that God's love for us "isn't quite as strong". GOD CREATED THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!! Is that not strong enough for you???

That is the same question I have, instead of creating, God as you see it, put things in motion in order for them to be created.

That in no way negates the fact that believing in an historical Adam is completely in line with accepting evolution.

There are a number of TEs who would disagree with you on that.

I'm sorry vossler, my friend, but I just don't think you've done a good job at demonstrating how accepting evolutionary creationism in any way diminishes the spiritual significance of the Bible.

Of course, I didn't expect you to agree with me.

 

[Mallon]

Yet if what the Bible teaches doesn't line up with the man-made idea brought in to supplement the Bible...

You mean like heliocentrism?

That is the same question I have, instead of creating, God as you see it, put things in motion in order for them to be created.

Ah, I see. You don't believe that God is capable of creating through the natural processes which He ordained and sustains. I do.

There are a number of TEs who would disagree with you on that.

And what argument would they use to support themselves?

Of course, I didn't expect you to agree with me.

I just don't see any difference between the arguments you're making to support the idea that evolution somehow diminishes the spiritual significance of the Bible and the arguments that the post-Copernican geocentrists made to support the idea that heliocentrism somehow diminishes the same.

 

[vossler]

You mean like heliocentrism?

Is it a teaching that is of spiritual significance?

Ah, I see. You don't believe that God is capable of creating through the natural processes which He ordained and sustains. I do.

God is capable of almost anything, excepting I know lying isn't one of them.

And what argument would they use to support themselves?

I don't remember but you can ask gluadys yourself.

I just don't see any difference between the arguments you're making to support the idea that evolution somehow diminishes the spiritual significance of the Bible and the arguments that the post-Copernican geocentrists made to support the idea that heliocentrism somehow diminishes the same.

Obviously we see this very differently.

 

[Mallon]

Is it a teaching that is of spiritual significance?

It was for some, as I explained. And just as you would assure them that one can hold to heliocentrism without compromising the spiritual message of the Bible, I'm assuring you that one can hold to evolution without compromising the spiritual message of the Bible (evolution has nothing to do with spirituality!).

God is capable of almost anything, excepting I know lying isn't one of them.

I would argue that speaking in metaphor isn't lying. If it was, then Jesus was among the worst liars of all!

I don't remember but you can ask gluadys yourself.

Gluadys actually agrees that one can be an evolutionist and still accept an historical Adam. Her reasons for rejecting an historical Adam have to do with exegesis and theology, not evolution.

Obviously we see this very differently.

Clearly. I think we'll leave it at that, brother.