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How can Christians justify this?
- Thread starter alexiscurious
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oi_antz
Opposed to Untruth.
How do you picture this happening? Do you picture God standing in front of Adam and Eve with a sewing kit, making clothes from animal hydes? Do you picture Adam and Eve having one last look at the Cherubim before wandering into the wild? Do you picture God standing beside the Cherubim watching them? If so, what makes you believe this story to be a literally physical description of this event taking place?
The reason I ask is because I don't know whether this story is historically accurate, and because of that I don't make the assumption that it is a literally physical description of events. Because of this doubt, I look to see instead how the conclusions I draw from the story might be true, and how that truth might give me an understanding of what has happened, that has caused the human on earth to decide not to fill the earth and subdue it, but instead to eat by the sweat of his brow. We always have that decision (some more than others), so the story is one that has an ongoing relevance to human relationship with God.
Think of it this way: our perception is how we see the world. If we have a positive outlook on the world, it will appear to be rosy and colourful. If we have a negative outlook on the world, it will appear to be nasty and depressing. When Adam and Eve realized that they had sinned against God, they lost the life they had which gave them a view of the world as paradise, where they could just walk around and eat fruit from any tree they desired. In the world that they now found themselves, they are forced to toil and labour against thorns and thistles to gather the wheat for sustenance. What is interesting to me, is that I understand the problem with humankind can be remedied if we are to serve each other instead of serving ourselves. The resources of earth can (I have calculated) support hundreds of times more than the current population, comfortably without suffering, and we do have the technological potential to sustain our lives for hundreds of years. The reason I find this interesting, is because God has specifically stated that He has placed angels in our way of achiving all this.
Anyhow, what I really want to know, is why do you as an atheist choose to read this story as a literally physical description of events that have happened at a time in the past? Do you have evidence that suggests it is factual? If you do, I would be very keen to see it, because I have not yet found any evidence to that effect.
But getting back to your initial point of being separated from God. Can you verify for me that you think a baby has to at some point in their life (so, probably not as a baby) decide whether to accept or reject forming a relationship with God? Can you remember whether you have ever been in the situation where you have had to accept or reject the idea of forming a relationship with God? If you accept this assertion, I don't know why you think that a baby born before Adam and Eve's fall would not also have to make that choice. Can you please explain to me why you believe the situation has been altered, and what specific attributes of the situation actually make it different?
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If we can't even determine if stories in the Bible are historically accurate or not, then why should I even bother reading it? Genesis has a clear timeline of creation and other books of the Bible clearly make references to Adam's existence and his familial line repeatedly. How can this be taken anything but literally? I don't understand.
Because this is what the majority of Christians believe and what is taught in Christian schools?
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ViaCrucis
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Because the Bible isn't a monolithic tome, it's not a book. It's a library of books. The Bible needs to be approached as a library, not as a book. Do you immediately assume that if your local library carries a work of fantasy fiction such as The Hobbit it therefore cannot have any historically accurate material, say a biography about Thomas Edison?
If you think it's a little silly to assume that your local library must either have all literal texts or all non-literal texts, then you can see why it might seem a little silly to some of us for people to approach the Bible (a library of books) that way.
Genesis is first and foremost a book of the Torah. The Torah being the five books also known as the Pentateuch. As Torah the chief purpose of the text of Genesis is, like Exodus or Leviticus, instruction. And one will find precisely that within the stories it presents. Consider the stories about the angelic visitors to Abraham, and Abraham welcomes them and presents them with a feast; this story is followed immediately by angelic visitors going to Sodom, where they receive the stark opposite of hospitality, they encounter a violent, rapacious mob. Think it's a coincidence that these two stories exist right next to each other, no that was done intentionally. The Israelite who reads of Abraham's hospitality would understand that this is what God required of him (or her), and Sodom's cruelty stood as a stark contrast to Abraham's hospitality. And that's exactly how ancient people read this text.
So the chief purpose of Genesis isn't history. The chief purpose of Genesis is instruction. It contains mythology and stories (some of those stories may or may not be entirely historical--but that is fundamentally unimportant) framed as they are to provide lessons, teachings. So, for example, in Genesis 1 the teaching is that God--not the natural powers--are to be revered as Divine; indeed, the celestial powers--the sun, moon, and stars--are downplayed, they are not divine, and they are created not on the first, but the fourth day.
Secondly, Genesis, as the name itself (and in Hebrew Bereshit means the same) is the book of beginnings. It is Israel's prologue, the religious and cultural prologue that leads toward the culminating moment in Israelite history--the giving of the Torah on Sinai to the nation by which the people were made God's covenant people, the covenant nation. By which Israel had its religious, cultural, and national identity. Genesis narrows the scope of the story down from everything "the heavens and the earth" down through generations to Abraham, then Isaac, and finally to Jacob and his sons.
My own reading of Genesis doesn't have Genesis start becoming "historical" (in the way we moderns understand history) until we get to Abraham. The pre-Abrahamic narratives are mythology. Myths. Not falsehoods (that's a poor understanding of what a "myth" is); but rather they are profound teaching-stories filled with important archetypes.
That Noah and his boat is a myth, and something that did not happen in real history, doesn't make the story unimportant. Neither does that mean nothing else in Genesis (let alone the whole of the Bible) non-historical.
What is the "majority" seems to be an entirely subjective opinion. There are around 2 billion Christians on this planet, so when someone says a "majority of Christians" then that has to mean approximating upward to that 2 billion point. At the very least "majority" would require 51% of all Christians, and thus approximately over a billion.
You may be correct that a "majority" holds to a view that approximates something as you present it--but I sincerely doubt you have the actual statistics to back that up.
Most Christians aren't American Fundamentalists.
Most Christians belong to either the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches. The majority of Protestants aren't Fundamentalists either, but belong to various mainline Protestant denominations--Lutheran, Presbyterian, Anglican/Episcopalian, etc.
So if your entire premise is to say the word "Christian" and mean only "American Fundamentalist" then it's a bit like saying the word "green" and meaning only Dictyota friabilis (a kind of green algae). Sure it's green, but it's not the only green thing around, and it isn't the most representative of all green things.
-CryptoLutheran
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oi_antz
Opposed to Untruth.
I don't know about you, but I expect you will ultimately exercise your prerogative. For me, I did tell you in the part you quoted:
".. to see instead how the conclusions I draw from the story might be true, and how that truth might give me an understanding of what has happened, that has.. "
I think that should answer your question, but if it doesn't, make sure to explain why.
You are right, I too read it and understand it literally. I just don't know how accurate it is as historical fact. I don't doubt that the intended context is to state literal, physical, actual fact and that the reader is expected to believe it that way. All I am saying is that I don't know where this information came from, whether it is handed down from Adam and Eve personally, or whether someone made a story at the campfire one day which came to be taken very seriously. As such, I can only draw conclusions from the stories, and look to apply the truths of those conclusions to further my understanding of the human relationship with God. But, I cannot expect someone to believe that the story did actually happen the way it is said to have happened.
Unless I am given evidence of it's reliability.
But why believe what others believe just because they all believe it? I asked for evidence of it's factuality. Do you have a reason to not do the same?
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ViaCrucis
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Those sorts of discussions didn't arise until later. Though we see in the New Testament Christ and His apostles using Scripture in various ways, an example would be St. Paul drawing from Sarah and Hagar an allegory--this is a deliberate act by Paul for the purpose of teaching. It doesn't actually demonstrate an exegesis, but rather a utilization.
Questions of complex exegesis typically didn't start to show up in Christian discussion until later on; likely because it wasn't the sort of thing that really started to matter until later on. St. Augustine addresses how to exegete Genesis in his De Genesi ad litteram, wherein he argues that the literal meaning of the first chapter of Genesis is, in fact, an allegory. But then Augustine is working there at a far more academic level; that sort of academic approach with matters of religion was a luxury that earlier generations of Christians likely couldn't afford--on account of being turned into lion food whenever Rome so fancied. That doesn't mean they didn't at all, only that wide-scale Christian academia largely was able to exist because not only were Christians allowed to practice their religion publicly without fear, but also because by Augustine's time Christianity was not only the State-sponsored religion, but was the official religion of the Empire through the edict of Emperor Theodosius I.
So I wouldn't expect the Apostles to be concerning themselves too much with finer details of exegetical minutia. Whether Paul believed the first chapter in Genesis was a literal accounting of material origins or not is simply an unknown--Scripture is silent on the issue. And there is no reason to assume "literal" from silence. Silence means silence.
-CryptoLutheran
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