BobRyan said:
Where did Moses get the idea of a 7 day creation week according to scripture?
This is the Bible answer to that question
2 Tim 3:16
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and
is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
I think there's another thing scripture is given for. I think it's given for blindly nodding along to only the face value of it like it's a wikipedia page.
Something is very stark in the way you handle information. And I have to question - is this how you handle all information? Is this what truth is to you? Flat facts, logical structure, proof? Arguments that end in an iron conclusion, and no possibility of anything deeper? No possibility of deeper revelation?
Because it seems to me that this is entirely how you interact with truth. Honestly, it seems that you do nothing more than literally accept only those provable facts you can find at total face-value, never looking deeper, and anything other than this you entirely discard as worth nothing.
This is a total severing of your relationship with the real. And a replacing it with your own understanding. And we know from Proverbs how good an idea that is.
This - honestly is the deeper problem I have with creationism. Not that it's just a shallow view of Genesis (although it is), but that it demonstrates that a person has a shallow interest in the depths of truth itself, across the full range of their life.
And in some cases, zero interest. Zero interest in the truth of God. Zero interest in the truth of the Bible, zero interest in the truth of Jesus, zero interest in any truth whatsoever - the truth of a wife, the truth of friends, the truth of human beings, anything, anything at all. That's just absent as a concern. What replaces it is a desire for facts and certainties, so you can construct a world in which you are perfectly right, and love yourself for your own rightness.
It is genuinely, truly as if you do not comprehend that truth exists at all. That is truly what it is like talking to you.
Is the parable of the sower no more than agricultural advice? Or the parable of the virgins and the oil lamps merely a course in effective home economics? Or that Jesus's exhortation to building your house on rock instead of sand is merely his foray into architecture?
The idea that a flat, literal interpretation of ANY part of the Bible is the 'best' interpretation is absurd to the point of clownishness.
True clownishness. I genuinely don't know how to take anyone who does this seriously as a person.
I don't know how to respect them, and I don't know how to respect anyone who does respect them.
How can I? How?
I genuinely do not know how. It is a life howlingly bereft of any basic curiosity into the depths of God's word. To such an extreme that I cannot see it as a mistake, even a very serious mistake.
It seems to me flagrantly Satanic. Brazenly so. It gives the superficial appearance of really, really intense belief, especially when chapter and verse is deployed. But the real argument here is your case that this facile, atom-shallow denial of the depth of God's truth is the 'only true Christianity'.
That is Satanic subversion. Raw Satanic subversion. Demonic evil of the most profound possible kind, because it seduces people with its superficial appearance of holiness into shutting the door on the depths of God to be found in the Bible. To severing their desire for deeper truth, and in doing so, turning their salvation into as much of a sham as their hollow faith.
It is insane to me that you would quote the verse you just quoted believing that it in some way buttresses your flat, literal take on the Bible.
The deeper profundities of the Bible are EXACTLY what the inspiration of God is all about. The Biblical doctrines that are good, are good because they root us in that deep truth. The reproofs and corrections we bring to each other are more than anything, reproofs for being shallow and arrogant - such as the shallow, arrogant assumption that an incurious, face-value engagement with scripture is as deep as humanity's devotion to God can or should ever go.
And if all 'instruction in righteousness' means to you is to attack the very possibility of deeper meaning in scripture, I have to ask myself what lessons in righteousness you have ever taken the smallest interest in learning, save in how you can construct iron-hard logical arguments about how right you are, and then admire yourself for being so beautifully right.
Moses' is writing under direct inspiration from God on the topic of origins and the time frame for it - Even you admit that he specifically teaches a literal 7 day creation week for the origin of all life on Earth
His is a monotheistic view of the one true God (no polytheism) and a literal 7 day Creation week. Where after that creation, mankind fall's into sin and the protoevangelium is given in Gen 3 predicting the saving of mankind.
Yes.. I have read it, mate. You seem to think that spouting this stuff you've memorised from other people somehow demonstrates you a servant of God. I cannot see how it does. It just means you can parrot things.
And there's only one emotion I have to someone who has thrown their entire life into memorising elements of theology without ever even attempting to seek any deeper truth in any of it, or any of the Bible verses they delight in quoting.
Pity.
You have free will of course - and can say anything you wish.
But I can never step back from my love of God's depths and the glorious power of His revelations. My desire for them is too great. It is that love which burns in me for the deeper truth of Him, the deeper revelations of God that are always there to find in anything, anywhere.
That swirling, glorious, eternal horizon of possibility and power that is right there to find in anything we do, anything we touch. The glory of God Himself, His power.
A power that is utterly absent from the life, heart, and soul of anyone who cares more about arguing their own rightness than they do about seeking the as-yet-undiscovered glories of God.
Where is your comprehension that any of these glories even exist?
Nowhere. Because they do not exist to you. Because you have abandoned God's glory for the sake of your own glory.
Think of it like this. I desire to be wrong. I hunger for it. I love it. Because when I am wrong, I then discover - I discover the deeper truth that makes me wrong, the deeper insight into His coherence, His elegance, His power. And with that insight, my power grows, because I see things deeper than I ever did before. And so God's power runs through me because - and only because - I have found that I am wrong.
You have abandoned your desire to be wrong for your desire to be right.
You care nothing for the power of God. You care for your own arguments, your own facts, so you can construct an idea of yourself from elements that cannot be criticised, and lord it over others.
How can anyone comprehend you as a Christian?
Honestly how?
But to the rest of us- your conclusion appears to lack a logical argument.
My logical argument is this. If you do not care about the deeper truth of scripture, you are not a Christian.
And you do not care about the deeper truth of scripture.
God can say "I did xyz in 7 days" clearly enough for you to get the point - without having to first turn you into infinite God.
And God can speak in metaphors.
And God can speak in metaphors.
And God can speak in metaphors.
Indeed, when you look at how Jesus actually spoke, He spoke ENTIRELY in metaphors to anyone who was not his close disciple. He says it Himself - and He also says why. His disciples asked Him - why do you only ever speak in parables? And He said - so those who do not understand them will not turn to me and repent.
Think about that. Jesus is saying - He does not give literal accounts of what is going on, because He wants arrogant people who never look deeper MISUNDERSTAND Him and be damned.
But of course, this doesn't worry you at all. This is something you can just shrug off like it's nothing. Someone who cared even a whisper for the truth would be terrified here, would humble themselves -would repent of their pride in how right they were about their flat, fact-obsessed interpretation of scripture.
But here's my prophecy. You won't care at all.
Not even for a moment.
Because truth means nothing to you.
If you love proof so much, prove me wrong.
What is more - when I point out to you that your entire effort to align scripture with your view - consists of entirely ignoring and dismissing the text you claim to have some higher/better view of.
Again - a transparent detail in your posts so far.
"Sanctify them in Thy TRUTH - Thy WORD is Truth" John 17:17.
Bam. And that quote, that's it right there. Thy word is truth.
We both believe that.
The difference is, to you truth is a set of facts. Flat, hard, non-negotiable facts.
To me, truth is an eternally expanding horizon of possibility and revelation. This is the heart of what we disagree on. And we do disagree. We disagree profoundly.
To reduce God's word to a collection of facts, and then create cold logical structures which argue for a set, specific conclusion that we must all agree with and therefore be Christians - this is literally autistic. It is a view of God which has no comprehension of the existence of the entire dimension of deep truth.
And it's not to say that I have X, Y or Z higher/better insights that I then have to argue you into or they mean nothing. It's to say that the entire possibility of deeper insight of any kind is something you literally demonstrate no capacity to comprehend. And that is terrifying. And it says you have made a very dark decision in your heart about what you truly value, because that is the only way truth itself could be banished from a human life to the degree it is banished from yours.
To say that God told Moses about the 6 day creation so it must therefore.... BE LITERALLY TRUE.... where's the logic in that?
If you think that Jesus is God (which you say you do) then the fact - and it is a fact - that Jesus exclusively speaks in metaphor to any but His closest disciples? How is it that this means nothing to you? How is it that the entire character of God, including His entire way of speaking, means nothing to you? How is it that this is not worth factoring in to any of your logical arguments?
How can I understand that as anything other than a damning indictment of you denial of the depth of truth? On your denial of the majesty of God?
On your abandonment of the entire journey into all the deep revelations of God Himself, so you can build a flint-hard structure of rightness and admire yourself for your impeccable logic.
I honestly, and please understand this - I honestly cannot see any other way of comprehending how you are handling this.
This goes way beyond a mere lack of faith. This is something much darker. You seem to be a person who has shut God's Spirit out of their life entirely. Has made a deep decision to banish the Spirit of Truth from your life so you can keep your perfect structure of facts untouched.
The essence of truth, the depth of truth, the Spirit of Truth itself - this is entirely absent from your thinking. There is only one way to account for this, which is that at some point you have personally chosen to banish any concern for deep truth from your own life, and replace it with a love of your own rightness, of flat logic and set arguments, chapter and verse references, and your reflection as a glorious Christian in the mirror of your own self-regard.
If you have done that, you are damned.
How can I understand your way of engaging with any of this in any other fashion?
Even being as generous as possible? Even giving all you say and all you are the best benefit of every possible doubt, where is the wiggle room to have any other interpretation about what's really going on with your heart?
Your argument seems to put this as "thy teaching on evolutionism not at all found in Gods Word - is truth".
But here you merely "assume" that point. you need to prove it.
No. No I don't. I don't need to prove it.
Proof is what you demand when only facts matter to you. Flat facts, pieces of iron certainty. And the reason they matter is that as long as you have a world made of flat facts, nobody can criticise you. You are safe in your little fortress of certainties.
A love of proof means your life is all about you. Having all your beliefs be things that are utterly certain, absolutely beyond all doubt so you can never be criticised.
That flagrantly contradicts the explicit words of Jesus. Jesus Himself said when He appeared to Thomas that we are blessed who believe and do not see. Blessed if we believe - without proof.
Because the depths of God's truth will always be far greater than anything we could ever prove. If we stick inside only that tiny sliver of understanding we can absolutely prove at all times, how can we say we are even curuious about God?
Seeking God - the profound depths of God's revelation - is scary. And it's scary exactly because it stands to open up vast reaches of possibility that will totally upend all our certainties about Him, ourselves and life. Not by contradicting them, but by showing vast new dimensions of meaning which blow apart our pitiful, shallow understandings and welcome us into glorious new realms of hope and power.
And so it takes courage. It takes great courage. The courage to step beyond all the facts that make you look so righteous to yourself in a mirror. And open yourself to the possibilities of revelations that will totally unmake your comprehension of everything, and rebuild it from incredible new profundities you never knew existed.
If you sit there with arms folded, demanding someone argue you into absolute certainty before you will even consider anything deeper, what does that say of how much you believe in the power of truth? The power of God?
What does it say about your courage?
What does it say about you as a man?
Are these just words to you? Does this mean nothing? It seems as if you are entirely unaware of anything like this kind of level. That all you have ever cared for are these flat, shallow interpretations, where the truth of God's word means no more than a collection of facts to agree with - and anyone who does not share that shallowness is a worse Christian than you.
What seem to have already happened to you is thousands of times darker and more horrifying than your most pessimistic nightmares of what is going on.
I do not say that as an exaggeration. And no, I am not going to argue you into believing it with flat, flint-hard pieces of iron certainty.
I would just caution that in the end, we all serve God in one of two ways. We either serve as object lessons of His mercy and goodness IF we submit to the depth and majesty of his glorious and eternally compounding revelations.....
Or we serve as object lessons in his rage if we turtle up inside little castles of our own rightness and belittle those who truly seek Him.
So... how's your life going, Bob?
The reason I ask is this. That if you take the view you take of scripture - that only the flat, flint-hard facts of what is literally written are truth, and there is nothing deeper to see, no deeper profundities to desire or discover - what are you like as a friend? As a husband? A father?
What does love mean to you, if depth does not exist in your world? If you will deny and ignore the depths of God Himself, how will you even begin to care about the depths of your own child? Or your own wife? Or your closest ally?
What is the harvest of a life spent sowing seeds this shallow? What can you ever offer as a man if the best any woman can do is never to question you? That she agrees entirely with all your facts, and has the same facts of her own? That she, like you, never seeks deeper, never hopes for deeper? Merely sees the entirety of the Bible's message as "Believe all this literally and be superior to all who do not."
Or are you going to tell me you take a different approach in your personal life?
That this wilful denial of depth is something you save only for the God you claim to praise?
How can anyone desire anyone like this? How can anyone even respect anyone like this?
How?
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