How many different species were on Noah's Ark

[gluadys]

Why? If these scenarios are in line with what is already given in the text, what's the problem? It's like Star Trek: the live action stuff gives the backbone, and the novelizations flesh it out (though they are not considered canon). Likewise, though the scenarios envisioned by Creationists to explain away the Flood are not explicitly given in the Bible, they are compatible with it.

Not good enough. Creationists use the same sort of reasoning to say that evidence for evolution is compatible with creationism.

Once again, I do not see the problem with this.


The problem with those kinds of scenarios are that they cannot have occurred without divine intervention: more often than not, they lead to the poaching of the entire Earth. And if they all require divine intervention, why not run the full gauntlet?

But again, I don't see any exegetical dilemma.

The problem is that one is arguing from the silence of the text. This is like arguing a scientific point from the absence of evidence.

The logic is:
God could do X.
The text does not say that God did not do X.
Therefore God did do X.

That is bad logic, poor exegesis.

Exegesis is supposed to help us understand what the text DOES say, not interpret its silences.

In short, in order to affirm that God did X you need positive textual testimony to that effect, not textual silence, just as in science you need positive evidence to support a theory, not just an absence of contrary evidence.

 

[Chesterton]

The negative point for me, when I was a Christian and TE, was that there is no point in trying to worry about how anything happened. The positive point was to discover why the story was included in the text at all. Why did God intend this text? The answer was that the text exists to convey truths about Man's relationship with God -- not necessarily to relay scientific or historical truth. The story may be true (say historical) but it isn't there because it is historical, it is there because the story tells us something about what we can expect of God and what God expects of us.

As such, it is somewhat silly to wrangle over the historicity of it. It was irrelevant.

I think Tinker expressed a very important idea exceptionally well. I've come across many Christians who could benefit by better understanding this as he does (or once did).

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Not good enough. Creationists use the same sort of reasoning to say that evidence for evolution is compatible with creationism.

Well, it is... but only with certain flavours of Creationism (Theistic Evolution comes to mind). But I take it that by 'Creationism', you're referring the belief that all life on Earth was poofed into existence in pre-defined 'kinds'.

The problem is that one is arguing from the silence of the text. This is like arguing a scientific point from the absence of evidence.

The logic is:
God could do X.
The text does not say that God did not do X.
Therefore God did do X.

That is bad logic, poor exegesis.

Well yes, that is terrible logic. At best, one could conclude that God possibly did X.

Exegesis is supposed to help us understand what the text DOES say, not interpret its silences.

In short, in order to affirm that God did X you need positive textual testimony to that effect, not textual silence, just as in science you need positive evidence to support a theory, not just an absence of contrary evidence.

Pretty much, yeah.

 

[vossler]

Sorry about the delay, gone all week.

OK. I've never seen before the distinction you are drawing between "supernatural" and "miraculous". Do you see these as different from each other?

I would equate them and then distinguish between the natural things God does and the supernatural (miraculous) things God does.

For me the supernatural are things that happen naturally ie; floods, but become super by the extent of the event. Miraculous events are things that don't happen naturally, ie; Jesus healing a blind man. They have no natural explanation.

 

[gluadys]

Sorry about the delay, gone all week.
For me the supernatural are things that happen naturally ie; floods, but become super by the extent of the event. Miraculous events are things that don't happen naturally, ie; Jesus healing a blind man. They have no natural explanation.

Ok, then obviously we are defining "supernatural" differently, and so would describe different things as "supernatural".

To me, "supernatural" is not just a natural event super-sized. It is what you described as miraculous i.e.it doesn't happen naturally and it has no natural explanation.