How do we explain Neanderthals?

[prodromos]

Because you have already determined in your heart that you've no interest in listening to a fool.

Not true, but when you write a short essay to frame whatever evidence you might have to present as only understandable in the way you want it to be understood, I get suspicious.

 

[Cappadocious]

It is a state of perfection and glory with no decay or death. It totally contradicts evolution.

God can establish a habitus of created order while choosing to disrupt it as he wills. Even the Muslims were down with that. Besides, would God give a vision of reality to a member of the new covenant that wasn't through the lens of the raised and enthroned and second coming'd Christ? Was the vision accompanied by the following proposition or similar: "that the vision in question is from year such-and-such in the past and is not a vision of how things would be in their glorified state, or some other"?

I mean it's amazing how clear visions get when their interpreter needs them clear.

 

[stephen583]

I've always been fascinated by the story of Cain and Able. After Cain slew Able, he was banished and received a mark in his forehead which God placed there. Cain was also cursed by God, so that nothing he planted in the earth would grow henceforth. So the curse was actually two fold, banishment plus the loss of the ability to grow food with which to sustain himself.

The Bible says, Cain then went to the "Land of Nod" where he settled and found a wife, (Genesis 4:16). Who were the people of Nod ? Where did they come from ? Most theologians contend they must have been other descendants of Adam. However this popular theory falls apart under serious scrutiny.

Upon reflection, the people of Nod who took Cain in could not possibly have descended from Adam. No matter how remote, or removed they were, any descendants of Adam would have been compelled to abide by God's banishment and judgment against Cain. There's no way they could have offered Cain a home, or provided him with a wife. So from a biblical standpoint, the popular explanation is patently absurd.

Clearly, there must have been other humans not related to Adam with whom Cain found sanctuary. No other interpretation of Genesis 4:16 makes any sense.

 

[jckstraw72]

Clearly, there must have been other humans not related to Adam with whom Cain found sanctuary. No other interpretation of Genesis 4:16 makes any sense.

The same ancestral curse and condemnation poured out on all of us from our single forefather, as if it had sprung from the root of the human race and was the common lot of our nature. -- St. Gregory Palamas, Homily 5.1

we all are born with the fallen nature because we all descend from he who fell, as opposed to the angels where only those who fell, fell, because they are not descended one from another.

 

[jckstraw72]

Upon reflection, the people of Nod who took Cain in could not possibly have descended from Adam. No matter how remote, or removed they were, any descendants of Adam would have been compelled to abide by God's banishment and judgment against Cain. There's no way they could have offered Cain a home, or provided him with a wife. So from a biblical standpoint, the popular explanation is patently absurd.

Clearly, there must have been other humans not related to Adam with whom Cain found sanctuary. No other interpretation of Genesis 4:16 makes any sense.

proposing other unrelated people doesn't solve your supposed problem. why should other people not have been compelled by God's banishment? there's nothing in the Scriptures that specify that this banishment was to be upheld only by his kin. his parents were kicked out of Paradise but still dwelt by it, being able to see it up on a hill, and Cain was banished yet further away.

 

[jckstraw72]

I mean it's amazing how clear visions get when their interpreter needs them clear.

when all those who the Church recognizes as holy, many having had visions, are in agreement, it really is clear. it's amazing how murky things get when peeps need it to be

 

[ArmyMatt]

God can establish a habitus of created order while choosing to disrupt it as he wills. Even the Muslims were down with that. Besides, would God give a vision of reality to a member of the new covenant that wasn't through the lens of the raised and enthroned and second coming'd Christ? Was the vision accompanied by the following proposition or similar: "that the vision in question is from year such-and-such in the past and is not a vision of how things would be in their glorified state, or some other"?

I mean it's amazing how clear visions get when their interpreter needs them clear.

well, considering Elder Joseph says it's how Adam experienced creation before the Fall, I think that is pretty clear that it is not a vision of creation after the Second Coming.

 

[jckstraw72]

St. Isaac the Syrian specifically says that saints see visions of the creation of the world.

 

[rusmeister]

To TF:
Right. I get that. You're saying logic doesn't exist in the garden, consequences don't exist, nothing can be understood, or even desired - we don't even know what we want.

You use the idea of Mystery to say we can't know or understand anything. That's nonsense. It is clear that Adam knew right from wrong when he chose. It is precisely that choice that is within "the reach of our thought mechanisms".
And once Adam was cast out, what happened to him? Certainly, even by your logic, such as it is, he was not in trancendent time after the Fall, but must have been in a definite chronology, had children who committed definite acts; he is depicted in iconography as an old man with a beard, a definite age is ascribed to him. It is clear to me when I contemplate icons of him that he ruined everything for everyone, one son murders another and then flees for his life, and he has to live and live and live with that, far longer than we do with our sins. And yet, in your confused story that admittedly understands nothing, I can only draw that some person outside of any existence we can comprehend sins, Falls, and disappears, as a completely different and separate narrative of evolution and death unfolds in which he is irrelevant. And where any Biblical account actually becomes historical is totally unclear. Was Abraham historical? Noah? Joseph? Seth? You offer no coherent historical narrative. For all I know, they are all mystical allegories with no historical reality to you.

I'm sure glad I read Chesterton's "Orthodoxy". I'd especially recommend the chapter "The Ethics of Elfland" as both consistent with Orthodox Tradition and antidotal to thinking that makes mysteries out of things never held as mysterious. Logic and reason are of God, and exist even in the Kingdom of Heaven.
http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/orthodoxy/

 

[Steve Petersen]

No! We don't ignore it, I'm saying the other people are ignoring it. Which is bad.



I encourage you to read the resources at biologos, but a short summary of a couple of the purposes of the Genesis narrative:

1. it retold the pagan mythology of other nations about some kind of cosmic theogony (battle of the gods) that ended in bringing order out of chaos into a non-mythic, non-pagan system with one transcendent God who orders the world

I was watching a science program recently and they pointed out something interesting: at the quantum level, chaos rules. But, at some higher level the laws of physics take over and things become more orderly and predictable.

 

[truefiction1]

Not true, but when you write a short essay to frame whatever evidence you might have to present as only understandable in the way you want it to be understood, I get suspicious.

I was unable to locate the patristic material I was looking for. At this point I could only begin with the Book of Genesis and showing how many things in there are about Jesus Christ. I would love to do this. Unfortunately today, and for I don't know how long, I will be having to do a lot of other things. Maybe at some other time we can all look at these things in Scripture and look at some things that some fathers wrote. Til then, thanks for the good discussions.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

 

[truefiction1]

To TF:
Right. I get that. You're saying logic doesn't exist in the garden, consequences don't exist, nothing can be understood, or even desired - we don't even know what we want.

You use the idea of Mystery to say we can't know or understand anything. That's nonsense. It is clear that Adam knew right from wrong when he chose. It is precisely that choice that is within "the reach of our thought mechanisms".
And once Adam was cast out, what happened to him? Certainly, even by your logic, such as it is, he was not in trancendent time after the Fall, but must have been in a definite chronology, had children who committed definite acts; he is depicted in iconography as an old man with a beard, a definite age is ascribed to him. It is clear to me when I contemplate icons of him that he ruined everything for everyone, one son murders another and then flees for his life, and he has to live and live and live with that, far longer than we do with our sins. And yet, in your confused story that admittedly understands nothing, I can only draw that some person outside of any existence we can comprehend sins, Falls, and disappears, as a completely different and separate narrative of evolution and death unfolds in which he is irrelevant. And where any Biblical account actually becomes historical is totally unclear. Was Abraham historical? Noah? Joseph? Seth? You offer no coherent historical narrative. For all I know, they are all mystical allegories with no historical reality to you.

I'm sure glad I read Chesterton's "Orthodoxy". I'd especially recommend the chapter "The Ethics of Elfland" as both consistent with Orthodox Tradition and antidotal to thinking that makes mysteries out of things never held as mysterious. Logic and reason are of God, and exist even in the Kingdom of Heaven.
http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/orthodoxy/

Not a bad argument. However, I still don't think you are quite getting it, as you repeatedly state things that I did not say or mean as things that I said and meant. The Garden is not of this world. That does not mean that human logic is not active there, in heaven, only that it exists outside of time, so that any connection between this timeless dimension and God's creation is an ineffable mystery. What happens in Heaven, outside of time, can determine the nature of existence of God's creation, spanning from beginning to end in both time and space. And so, while it is inconceivable to us, the world outside of the Garden was a world made by God because of Adam's sin. The creation accounts of Genesis point to this. I may illustrate this at some later time when I don't have so much other work to do. Til then, thank you for the good discourse.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

 

[YCGP]

I was watching a science program recently and they pointed out something interesting: at the quantum level, chaos rules. But, at some higher level the laws of physics take over and things become more orderly and predictable.

I see. That is interesting.
On a quantum level, chaos makes up reality. On another level higher than that, we have a predictable kind of science that rests on laws (of physics). Who knows if one makes sense for the other.

So...What would it be like on God's level?

 

[stephen583]

there's nothing in the Scriptures that specify that this banishment was to be upheld only by his kin.

Exactly my point. Who were the "other" unspecified people you allude to ? Where did they come from ?

 

[rusmeister]

Not a bad argument. However, I still don't think you are quite getting it, as you repeatedly state things that I did not say or mean as things that I said and meant. The Garden is not of this world. That does not mean that human logic is not active there, in heaven, only that it exists outside of time, so that any connection between this timeless dimension and God's creation is an ineffable mystery. What happens in Heaven, outside of time, can determine the nature of existence of God's creation, spanning from beginning to end in both time and space. And so, while it is inconceivable to us, the world outside of the Garden was a world made by God because of Adam's sin. The creation accounts of Genesis point to this. I may illustrate this at some later time when I don't have so much other work to do. Til then, thank you for the good discourse.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

But you speak as if being outside of time resolved contradiction with evolution. It doesn't. The moment the first people experienced time as we do, in being expelled from the Garden, I could say "THE moment", you have chronology as we know it, and that demands immediate chronological accountability. And then what do we say happened to them? Scripture tells it in a straight-forward manner. There is no cancellation of their very existence in favor of amoebas that struggle, fight and die in an effort to evolve and develop to produce the very mankind that had already been produced and already existed in time. Fallen Creation already existed in a fairly complete form, however it was formed prior to any movement of time. This does not prove a young earth, and I see no necessary theological contradiction with an old earth, but in time as we know it, things, human beings, animals and plants, already existed when death burst into the world. That must necessarily contradict the evolutionary narrative. The narratives are mutually exclusive. Which, then, do you choose?

 

[ArmyMatt]

St. Isaac the Syrian specifically says that saints see visions of the creation of the world.

and St Silouan of Mt Athos says that the saints never give an opinion on this stuff, but it is the Holy Spirit Who speaks through them. twas one of the big things that he told Fr Sophrony.

 

[Petros2015]

I think the problem of having anyone who prays to Adam as a patron saint

Hmm. Thank you for that, it helped to make Adam more real to me and I think he needed to be. I didn't consider that he could be prayed to like a saint, but he could. And he'd be part of the spiritual communion of the Church at the Liturgy, wouldn't he? I never considered that.

Is he regarded formally as a Saint, i.e. "St. Adam the First" or similar by the Church? I didn't see a definitive answer when I looked other than references where Jesus resurrects him from the tomb and similar. 'now is Adam dancing, now is Eve rejoicing'. I was always glad to hear that and I don't think I heard it before Orthodoxy and I needed to. It let me know that He who was faithful to the first things will be faithful to the last.

 

[rusmeister]

Hmm. Thank you for that, it helped to make Adam more real to me and I think he needed to be. I didn't consider that he could be prayed to like a saint, but he could. And he'd be part of the spiritual communion of the Church at the Liturgy, wouldn't he? I never considered that.

Is he regarded formally as a Saint, i.e. "St. Adam the First" or similar by the Church? I didn't see a definitive answer when I looked other than references where Jesus resurrects him from the tomb and similar. 'now is Adam dancing, now is Eve rejoicing'. I was always glad to hear that and I don't think I heard it before Orthodoxy and I needed to. It let me know that He who was faithful to the first things will be faithful to the last.

Adam is one of the Holy Forefathers of Christ, equal to the saints, and a person in the Church can bear his name, receive the Eucharist under it, and pray for his intercession, and in the face of that, calling Adam a mere allegory and not an actual person is absurd, and more than that, heresy.

There are icons, of Adam, of Adam and Eve, and of the Holy Forefathers, as well as of Christ's Descent into Hell, and Adam is generally portrayed as a bearded old man. When I contemplate his icon, I see a man who, as I said, ruined everything for everybody, starting with his own family, and had to live and live and live with that. I think his own holiness came through repentance.

 

[rusmeister]

Not a bad argument. However, I still don't think you are quite getting it, as you repeatedly state things that I did not say or mean as things that I said and meant. The Garden is not of this world. That does not mean that human logic is not active there, in heaven, only that it exists outside of time, so that any connection between this timeless dimension and God's creation is an ineffable mystery. What happens in Heaven, outside of time, can determine the nature of existence of God's creation, spanning from beginning to end in both time and space. And so, while it is inconceivable to us, the world outside of the Garden was a world made by God because of Adam's sin. The creation accounts of Genesis point to this. I may illustrate this at some later time when I don't have so much other work to do. Til then, thank you for the good discourse.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Please let me add, in addition to my comments above, that I do understand you don't mean what I say. I get that you are a sincere and intelligent Orthodox Christian that sees the value of mysticism. When I say that the attempt to hold on to belief in both evolution and the Fall means thus-and-so, I mean what it logically and objectively means, NOT what you intend or consciously hold. I hold that we all come into the Church with ideas and beliefs that are in some way or other not compatible with our Faith, and that the Church can cure us, little by little, over time, if we let it. The main thing is to gather the courage to grant that it, as a whole, is more right than we are, that when we find conflict it is we who are wrong.

 

[YCGP]

There are icons, of Adam, of Adam and Eve, and of the Holy Forefathers, as well as of Christ's Descent into Hell...

I am unaware of this (new to the faith). When and why did Christ descend into hell?