How would you say it?

[gluadys]

I think I see your strategy. You want to prove that a literal interpretation of Genesis is not possible, so you refuse to concede any definition of “day” other than 24 hours.

No, I am using definition 2 which states a day is the period of axial rotation. If the axial rotation of the earth were 96 hours then a day would equal 96 hours, not 24 hours. And Genesis 1 would still be saying 6 of these days.

Nor am I stating that a literal interpretation of Gen. 1 is impossible. Of course it is possible. It is just impossible to reconcile a literal interpretation with modern scientific theories on the origin of the cosmos, the earth and life on earth.

Are you suggesting that 24 hours is inherent to the word “day”?

No, it is only inherent to a day on earth, which is the only day relevant to the writer of Genesis since he had no concept of days on any other planet. And, as you note below, it is not even strictly speaking inherent to a day on earth, but rather to a day on earth in its current historical phase. For as the axial rotation of the earth is slowing, days in the far past were shorter and days in the far future will be longer. However, none of that is relevant to Genesis, as the writer had no knowledge of any of this either. So his "day" is 24 hours.

This would imply that planets and suns of other solar systems cannot have days and nights. This seems absurd.

Yes, that would indeed be absurd. But I see in your next post on the topic that you have realized I am not insisting on 24 hour days. So we can skip futher discussion on that point.

Genesis 1 begins with its own definition of day. Verses 4 and 5 state: “

And God saw the light, that it was good and God divided the light from the darkness.

Yes, this feeds into my later argument on "which literalism"?

 

[JAL]

You use the following quote to discredit my claim that Genesis literally has God’s light shining to produce day and night (and here again you are patronizing, even though I can cite some modern scholarship that agrees with me). Paul seems to have so affirmed at 2Cor 4:4-6, but in the following statement you contend that Paul was merely using an analogy/simile:

Why is it people have such a hard time understanding that scripture is literature, even if it is also more than literature. All the biblical writers use literary techniques for effect. This is a gross distortion of what the text says. Had you given an answer like this in my English class, you would have failed in comprehension. Rev. 1:16 uses a simile to describe Christ as he appeared in John's vision. By definition, a simile is a literary not a literal description. Paul is using an analogy, and an analogy, again by definition, is not literal.

Your reading is superficial. Maybe YOU need to practice reading English, for the following reasons. Paul’s references to the term “glory” do not begin at the verse I mentioned (2 Cor 4:4-6). Paul was discussing “glory” throughout chapter 3. You might be interested to know that the glory he refers to is the glory shining in Moses’ face (look at verse 3:13 for instance). Now was that Light physical, or non-physical? Paul recalls the fact that Moses had to put a PHYSICAL VEIL over his face to restrain the light from physically blinding Israel’s eyes. Was this a real danger? I don’t know, why don’t we ask Paul? Here’s what Paul would say, “Remember when I was on the road to Damascus and saw a brilliant flash of light? Remember how I was physically blinded? Remember how it seared my eyes to the point that scales formed in my eyes? And remember how Annanias had to lay hands on me to give me a miraculous healing, whence the scales fell off my eyes?” (If Moses wrote the passage about his face shining, and if he wrote the passage about God’s Light lighting the whole nation of Israel at night, and if he wrote Genesis, is it reasonable that the Light of Genesis is God’s Light? Yes. You’ve done nothing to discredit this argument). Now in your next patronizing statement, this one concerning physics, you go on to suggest that small particles or waves including light are non-tangible.

You need to read a bit more physics before you try applying concepts from physics. "Physical" indeed, is not restricted to those three sub-atomic particles; it includes all the other sub-atomic particles (leptons, bosons, mesons, neutrinos, etc.) as well. "Big Bang" scientists are properly called physicists, or more precisely cosmologists. But you are right in saying they would not so describe matter prior to the Big Bang. They don't describe anything prior to the Big Bang as that is the origin point of time and you can't view anything "prior" to the existence of time. And if "physical" = "tangible" then sub-atomic particles are not physical.Since you have already said (correctly) that your concept of the physical includes, but goes beyond, protons, neutrons and electrons, you need to develop a definition of the physical which does not depend on being tangible.
Gravity, electro-magnetism and light are other physical realities which are not tangible.

Light isn’t tangible? Small particles aren’t tangible? Tell it to Paul, whose eyes were physically blinded, that light isn’t tangible. Also tell it to ophthalmologists who use laser surgery on human eyes. And tell it to the makers of the atomic bomb, who used tiny particles to ignite larger explosions. This is the type of thing I was talking about. You nitpick at my position instead of focusing on the real meat of my arguments. In this case, the obvious sense in which are you nitpicking is that you are taking my use of the word “tangible” to mean “sensible to the hands.” Obviously, that’s NOT what I mean, since I can’t, for instance, touch God at whim and will. You patronizingly insinuate that I can’t comprehend English, and then you write as though you cannot understand simple statements of mine easily comprehended by many of my friends and family. Look, let me spell it out for you since you can’t seem to understand me (more likely REFUSE to understand, so that you can keep dodging my arguments). By “tangible reality” I simply mean a sphere of reality capable of colliding with (i.e. impacting) physical objects and/or particles as to overcome their inertial mass. A tangible reality can even be defined as a field of immaterial force of some kind, as long as this re-definition can satisfy the criteria of impact/collision.

 

[gluadys]

You use the following quote to discredit my claim that Genesis literally has God’s light shining to produce day and night (and here again you are patronizing, even though I can cite some modern scholarship that agrees with me). Paul seems to have so affirmed at 2Cor 4:4-6, but in the following statement you contend that Paul was merely using an analogy/simile:

Use of a simile does not mean the item in the simile is not real. When we speak of something being "as white as snow" does that mean snow is not a physical reality? Of course not.

But it doesn't mean the white thing we are referring to is made of snow either.

An analogy is an extended comparison. What Paul is saying is that just as light shone out of darkness at the beginning of creation, so the light of God's glory has shone in our hearts. Both the created light and the light of God's glory are real. And they both have the effect of dispelling darkness. That does not make them one and the same light.

A tangible reality can even be defined as a field of immaterial force of some kind, as long as this re-definition can satisfy the criteria of impact/collision. [/color]

You see how being clear on your definitions helps? "tangible" is a word derived from the Latin for "touch" and its ordinary meaning is "sensible to the hand, or to similar receptors in other parts of the skin".

And the way you were speaking of "particle" suggested you thought sub-atomic particles were extremely small but tangible spheres of matter. As if you had no conception of quantum physics.

But now that you have clarified that you are including the impact of energy (force) within "tangible" reality, there is no problem. For that is what sub-atomic particles really are: immaterial fields of quantum energy. And they do collide. That is the principle way of studying them---by using particle accelerators to force collisions and tracing the results of the impacts.

 

[JAL]

Your statement here addresses my accusation that it is hermeneutically inconsistent to accept 8 invisible realities of Scripture (such as angels, demons, souls, and eternal life) while dismissing certain people (who are visible) such as Adam and Eve as mere myths. You write:

Visible? You mean like Captain Ahab and Ishmael? or Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern? Maybe Lady Bovary or Jane Eyre? Are these men and women visible?

You are pointing out that Adam and Eve, if they existed, are NO LONGER visible. You take this lack of PRESENT-DAY visibility as a basis for mythologizing them. Ok, by that logic, I have every right to mythologize the so-called common ancestor of evolutionary theory, which is no longer visible. I can’t see it, right? So why should I believe it? Here’s a good answer. I should believe if the evidence points to that conclusion. That is to say, I need to be consistent in how I evaluate the possible evidence. In this case we are talking about hermeneutical evidence. Let’s suppose Scripture mentions two types of objects, the one type visible, the other type apparently invisible. Which type is easier to believe? I think most people would agree, especially atheists for starters, that the visible is easier to believe. Yet here we have 8 invisible realities believed by most Christians, for instance Satan. Why? Because books of Scripture mention them – but those same books mention Adam and Eve. That’s my point. Your next statements merely repeats the argument that Adam and Eve are, if they existed, NO LONGER visible.

I don't think the relevant contrast is between visible and invisible, but between physical and spiritual. And yes, I understand that you take all things to be physical. Nevertheless, you have to be aware that science counts as physical that which can be sensed physically. Either by our own bodily senses, or by an instrument which can detect in some way what our bodily senses cannot. Or, at the outermost reach, an instrument which can detect a physically measurable result of a flow of energy (as particle accelerators do).

The invisible elements you mention cannot be detected by bodily sense, nor by physical instrumentation. But, as far as we know, Adam and Eve cannot be so detected either. How do you physically, visibly detect characters in a story?

Your next statement is not an argument, it merely asserts what is yet to be proven (namely that it is hermeneutically consistent to mythologize Adam and Eve).

And that, I think, answers your hermeneutical question. When people say Adam and Eve are literal, they not only mean that Adam and Eve are not characters in a story; they mean they were visible, tangible human beings whose genes we have inherited. But no such claim of physicality or visibility is made for God, angels, the soul, etc. So it is not hermeuntically inconsistent to affirm a non-literal existence for Adam & Eve and yet affirm a literal existence of the soul, since the latter does not make the same claim to physicality or visibility as the former.

But you don’t provide any prima facie evidence in the text for denying Adam and Eve. The same NT writers who speak of Adam and Eve also speak of the 8 invisible realities. You believe them for the 8, why should we not believe them for Adam and Eve? What signs in the text warrant such a hermeneutical about-face? Do we get to just pick and choose what we want to believe? Ok, I guess I’m allowed to conclude that Christ was just a myth! Or, at least, He was just a man, not literally God? Look, hermeneutics is used as a basis for churches. Would you follow a pastor that could not demonstrate hermeneutical evidence/consistency for what he believed? I doubt it. Therefore I cannot take your claims seriously if you fail to do so on this forum. It verges on irresponsible behavior to propagate doctrines on this forum in a matter-of-fact manner if you can’t back them up. That’s what I was getting at – Vance has been so matter-of-fact about it. And so are you.

So, if you were to ask me if I believe Adam & Eve are real in the same non-physical, intangible, invisible way the angels are, I would happily agree. In fact, one branch of science today is exploring the existence of such realities which pass, not from body to body, but from mind to mind. They call them "memes". And the origin, dispersion and evolution of memes is just as fascinating, though very different in character than the evolution of genes.

I really don’t see the relevance of these speculations to our discussion.

BTW, I should also point out, that it is not hermeneutically inconsistent to hold that Adam & Eve were in fact, literal, physical, tangible, visible people and still hold that the biblical story about them is not literal.

Perhaps, but it weakens the argument considerably.

Julius Caesar, for example, is a real historical figure. He and all his contemporaries believed literally that his family line was begun when the goddess Venus gave birth to one of his ancestors. Obviously, we would consider that story mythological. And although it refers to Caesar and many other real people and some actual events, we would still consider Shakespeare's play about Julius Caesar to be fiction, not history.

Vance fed me the same stories about Caesar’s paganistic insanities. Is this your model for hermeneutics? Obviously not. So why mention him here? I don’t have time for these peripheral discussions. That’s why I think that virtually all your responses involve dodging and stalling.

Some possible biblical instances of fictional stories about real people are the book of Job and the book of Jonah.

I don’t take Jonah’s story fictionally, although I haven’t studied it. I’m not sure about Job. But that’s a moot point, because I am not debating these books. At the outset, I indicated which books I presume to be always literal except where prima facie evidence in the text signals otherwise. You proceed to quote my own statement:

(2) There are three testaments, namely the Old Testament, the New Testament, and all of Nature. Many YECists say that Nature could be a metaphor for the Ancient of Days. This is called “the appearance of age” argument. Theistic evolutionists object that such a metaphor, if actual, has distorted history in the eyes of many - yet postulate a metaphorical Genesis which, if actual, has distorted history in the eyes of many. This is trying to have one’s cake and eat it too.

That’s my argument. And then here is your response:

Again, the natural world is tangible to our senses. It could still be a metaphor for the Ancient of Days, but that is a matter for literary study, not science. If you have read enough on these boards, you will be aware that it is not appearance of age that theistic evolutionists object to, but appearance of history. To have physical evidence of a history that did not occur in time makes no scientific sense. Nor, for that matter, any theological sense in light of Christian doctrine on the nature of God and the nature of creation.

But that’s what Adam and Eve would be, if created whole, on evolutionary assumptions. And that’s what Genesis, taken as a piece of inspired literature, would also be (i.e. more physical evidence of a history that never occurred), if we mythologize it. So the parallel stands. You see, the YECist (who advances the appearance of age argument), says that you scientists are misreading Nature (the third testament). You are finding a history there that NEVER OCCURRED. You should be reading it as a metaphor for the age of the Ancient of Days. Similarly, you non-literalists are telling YECs the following. “You are misreading Genesis. You are finding there a history that NEVER OCCURRED. You should be reading it as a metaphor for creation.” To me, these are VERY similar statements. It is inconsistent for the pot to call the kettle black. You haven’t demonstrated the consistency, as far as I can see.

 

[JAL]

Use of a simile does not mean the item in the simile is not real. When we speak of something being "as white as snow" does that mean snow is not a physical reality? Of course not.

But it doesn't mean the white thing we are referring to is made of snow either.

An analogy is an extended comparison. What Paul is saying is that just as light shone out of darkness at the beginning of creation, so the light of God's glory has shone in our hearts. Both the created light and the light of God's glory are real. And they both have the effect of dispelling darkness. That does not make them one and the same light.

This is another case of missing (or dodging?) the force of my argument. My argument is this. Hermeneutics is not supposed to be a matter of personal preference. That is to say, a theologian who prefers "spiritual light" to "physical light" has no right to impose his definition upon the text. What light is Paul talking about in that context (2Cor 4:4-6)? There are no chapter divisisions in the original Greek. The whole of chapter three is dealing with the light in Moses' face sufficiently tangible to be restrained by a physical veil. What "glory" is Paul referring to? Again, the glory in Moses face. You want more contextual evidence? Here's some. At verse 3:18 Paul says that this Glory (this Light) has the effect of transforming our faces (remember Stephen's face radiant with light?). See the parallel? Moses' face was transformed. But here's the clincher. The Greek word for transformed at verse 3:18 is the SAME word used in the gospels to describe Christ's Transfiguration. Christ's face became visibly bright just as Moses' did. Paul says that we too are Transfigured (the same Greek word) – and he had every right to say that, because God’s Light physically lasered his eyes blind on the road to Damascus. The fact that God usually hides this brightness from the eyes of men, even in the incarnate Christ's case most of the time, does not discount the biblical facticity of it. Christ's face currently lights the entire heavenly city (Rev 1:16; 21:23-24; 22:4-5). Since ALL the biblical evidence suggests that God’s Light is physical (and I could give you more), the burden of proof falls on those who would disagree. And here’s the rub, namely that words such as “immaterial” and “non-physical” don’t exist in Scripture. These terms originate in Plato, not in Scripture. As a result, immaterialists appeal to the biblical term “spirit.” But “spirit” is an English word, obviously, and the whole question is whether this term, taken in an immaterial sense, is a valid biblical translation. ALL scholars agree that breath/wind is a valid translation for the Greek term (and its Hebrew counterpart). ALL scholars agree that Scripture, at least 100 times, uses these terms for breath/wind. And now we have a problem. Now according to orthodoxy, God’s nature is unchanging, and that nature is immaterial. Therefore He cannot be physical breath on one day and non-physical spirit on the next. Most scholars agree (probably all), that in at least some passages, the strictest translation for Holy Spirit is actually Holy Breath. John 20:22 is a good example. You might be familiar with Thomas Oden’s Systematic Theology. Just another theology textbook? Hardly. As is well known, Oden’s goal was to report only “classical consensus,” that is to say, areas were ALL of orthodox Christian scholarship stood in agreement. Note what he has to say on John 20:22, “Jesus himself chose the expression Holy Breath to designate the Comforter to follow Him (John 20:22)” (see Thomas C. Oden, Life in the Spirit: Systematic Theology Volume Three (Peabody: Prince Press, 2001, reprint), p. 16.



Thus the burden of proof falls on immaterialists, but they don’t have any substantive evidence. The main word they appeal to (“spirit”) is actually used in Scripture as Christ’s physical breath (John 20:22). The same word occurs here: “And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth” (2Th 2:8; ASV). Moses said that a breath from God’s nostrils parted the sea. It was a wind that blew the waters apart slowly, over the course of an entire night. Moses used the same Hebrew word elsewhere translated Holy Spirit. Tell me, how can an intangible wind push water? Remember how I defined “tangible reality” as a sphere of reality capable of colliding with/impacting a physical object as to overcome its inertial mass, thus setting it in motion? This is a good example. Here God’s Holy Breath pushed apart the waters. So from cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation, the hermeneutical evidence overwhelmingly favors a tangible Godhead. It’s too bad that theologians prefer Plato to Scripture. And it’s little wonder that the church father Tertullian, a staunch materialist, labored to refute everything that Plato had taught.

 

[JAL]

To support your 24-hour insistence, you write:

A day on earth..is the only day relevant to the writer of Genesis since he had no concept of days on any other planet.

But as I have said repeatedly, Genesis features real days and nights BEFORE there was an earth and sun as such! How can I lend credence to your claim if the textual evidence flatly contradicts it? Am I supposed to just believe whatever I want, or whatever you want, regardless of what the text says? I don't get it. Hermeneutics, as I see it, is believing what the text says, not believing whatever I would prefer to believe.

 

[JAL]

Gluadys, you seem to have argued that Paul's claim that "all sinned" does not include infants. Perhaps I could debate that, but more to the point, this is hardly a complete response to my discussion of Romans 5, as far as I can see. The fact is that Paul blames Adam for death being imposed upon mankind. This death, both in Romans 5 and in Rom 6:23, is contrasted with eternal life. Thus you have to show, if justice is to be served, how it is that Adam's sin justiifiably gave death to the human race, where death is understood to be a loss of eternal life (eternal fellowship with the Father). And you won't succeed in this effort (theologians have failed for 2000 years) unless you define Adam in the same way as I do. I challenge you to prove me wrong. I suspect you'll resort to the traditional route, as Charles Hodge did, by stating that, "God's justice is beyond our understanding." Anyone can take that route. When faced with an apparent contradiction, anyone can say, "It's beyond our understanding." But atheists aren't so easily fooled, they would like (and have asked for) a non-contradictory theodicy. According to Scripture (Eze 18:20), children are not to suffer for the sins of their parents. Therefore I should not suffer for Adam's sin (unless I am Adam, as my peculiar definition of Adam implies).

 

[JAL]

You asked me for proof that infants are born in sin. I gave you Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” You replied:

1. According to the introductory inscription, this was a prayer of David after Nathan reproved him in regard to Bathsheba. It is a personal prayer of deep, heart-felt repentance. David thoroughly condemns himself. Is there any reason this personal self-condemnation should be considered universally applicable to all people? Is there not adequate reason to consider that the circumstances led David into using hyperbole?

I’m not sure how you would justify calling this hyperbole (an exaggeration). Hyperbole exaggerates the magnitude of the data but does not give us a history that is totally false. It might be hyperbole to say, “I am the worst sinner on the planet” – but I am still a sinner. But if I say something totally untrue, it’s not just hyperbolic but a lie. Here David says that he was sinful from birth. That’s a statement of fact. If he had said, “I was the worst possible sinner from birth,” this might be a hyperbole. I’m not saying you don’t have a case for hyperbole here, Gluady’s, but I don’t think it’s a very strong case. You continue:

2. Universal sin, yes. But born sinners? No

It’s hard to see why sin is universal if we are not born sinners. If every person has a choice, surely SOMEONE, at least temporarily, would not have chosen sin. Many of the angels, for instance, never sinned. For Paul to say that all have sinned means that everyone alive in his day, no matter how young or old, had ALREADY sinned. (He’s not just saying that they would EVENTUALLY sin). Surely at least one person, if all are born innocent, had recently reached the age of accountability, at the moment of Paul’s writing, and thus had not YET sinned. Nonetheless Paul says that all have ALREADY sinned. That’s pretty hard to believe, unless they have already sinned in Adam – which is precisely what Paul asserts! How many times does Paul need to say it? Look at verse 19, “By one man's disobedience many were made sinners.” If you try to tell me that a person can be a sinner without having sinned, I would reply both that (a) this is a contradiction in terms and (b) it is fundamentally unjust. You can call it justice, but surely a third party mediating between us in this debate (i.e. an atheist) would never agree with you. He would be more inclined to say that a sinner is ONE WHO HAS SINNED. How then did we all sin in Adam? The ONLY solution is that we are Adam, which is possible only in the way that my model defines Adam.

T

hat is just bad theology on your part. Life is a blessing even in the face of death.

Ah, but the question at issue is not whether life is a blessing in the face of death. There are two other questions. (1) Is it justice for us to die for Adam’s sin if we are not Adam? Of course not. That’s why so many theologians admit that they never solved the Problem of Evil. (2) Is it justice, if we are not Adam, for this death to be so severe, that is, a loss of eternal life, as Rom 6:23 (and all of Rom 5) implies?

 

[JAL]

Not only does Romans blame everything on Adam, “By one man's disobedience many were made sinners" (5:19) but to reinforce the point, it adduces Christ as a parallel. That is to say, just as Adam is one man who gave death to many, so Christ is one man who gave eternal life to many. This parallel makes it even more clear that Paul blamed everything on the one man Adam. As if this point needed further reinforcement, Paul elsewhere refers to the two men as the First Adam and the Last Adam (1Cor 15:45).

 

[gluadys]

Genesis was originally written for readers who had no clear knowledge of distant galaxies. They couldn’t SEE distant galaxies.

They couldn't see ANY galaxies. They could see the Milky Way but they saw it only as many stars. They did not know it was a galaxy. Other than the visible stars, they only had knowledge of the solar system. But then they didn't know it was a solar system either. They had no conception whatever of the distances between the heavenly objects they observed. They considered stars and planets the sun and the moon to be all within the same magnitude of distance and thought of the planets as a type of stars. (Which is why the study of planetary motion was called "astrology" --- study of the stars)

So, for the writer of Genesis, the earth, the sun, moon, and visible stars, IS the universe. And, according to that writer, the first of these to be created was the earth.

However, I will grant that verse 1 possibly alludes to the universe and, if so, has the universe existing BEFORE the earth, which is the correct order according to science.

It only refers to the universe in the restricted sense outlined above, and it specifically includes the earth. V.2 names the earth as already existing, while the heavens are not created until day 2. (vv. 6-8)

- Your point #2 is that Genesis has the sun and moon simultaneous. That’s necessarily so only on the assumption of 24 hour days.

The day is 24 hours because it is a day on earth and that is how long a day on earth is. By 'simultaneous' I meant "on the same day".

Your point #3 also seems to hinge on 24-hour days.

Not really. Points 3-9 are all about sequence. It doesn't matter how long a time period we are looking at. The sequence is just not the same in Gen. 1 and in the fossil record. So even a Day-Age interpretation (which is not a literal interpretation) does not reconcile Gen. 1 with the fossil record if you stick to the Gen. 1 sequence.

Yesterday I looked briefly at a couple of geologic time charts. I found it very interesting that the end of the dinosaurs (a likely starting point for Moses) was ALSO the beginning of terrestrial plants (which is where Moses seems to start!).

This is an error. Terrestrial plants existed long before dinosaurs did---in fact before any terrestrial animals did. What may have confused you is that the last Mesozoic period (Cretaceous) which ended with the extinction of the dinosaurs, also marks the first appearance of flowering plants. Since nearly 90% of plant species known to us today are flowering plants, they are the most familiar plants to us.

Thus on day 3 of 6, Moses’ mentions terrestrial plants as his first life form, apparently starting just before, or somewhere within, the Paleocene period and probably reaching partway into the next period at least (the Eocene period). Now Moses next speaks of day 4 as the origin of large sea creatures – again, he is probably not dealing here with the FIRST large sea creatures but with the first ones anatomically close to what his readership saw and conceived. Interestingly enough, whales seems to have appeared early in this Eocene period. Then Moses speaks of day 5 as the origin of land mammals – again, not dinosaurs, but modern mammals (the kinds visible to his readership), and not nececessarly all modern mammals, but probably certain ones such as cattle. This sounds to me somewhat like the Oligocene period, which immediately follows the Eocene period. And thus day 5 could include some of the Eocene, all of the Oligocene, and then all subsequent periods until Day 6 when Adam and Eve appeared.

That's not a bad attempt to reconcile Genesis 1 with Day-Age Creationism. But please don't call this a literal interpretation of Genesis. It is just as figurative as any TE interpretation.

The literal meaning of day is either a single period of light between two periods of darkness or one period of light + one period of darkness. In either case, the length of time involved is set by the axial rotation of the earth, no matter what the light source is. The writer of Genesis uses the second definition (an evening and a morning one day). So he has defined "day" as 24 hours.

Since most modern scientists look upon the theory of evolution as virtual fact, there still may be a tendency to interpret the data somewhat in favor of preconceived theory.

But remember they came to that conclusion by looking at data available earlier. Since the data scientists already looked at convinced them of the fact of evolution, naturally new data will be integrated into the same framework. Sometimes, this will necessitate some re-jigging of the details of the theory. But if one has to do too much adjusting, or change one of the major components of the theory, that will require a re-evaluation of the basics.

(2) The few charts that I looked at on the web seemed to disagree on the exact dates when certain things appeared. A related point is the admission that some plant life such as grasses do not lend themselves very well to fossilization. So I’m not entirely convinced that my proposed dates for plant life have to be EXACTLY the same dates as most evolutionists allege (if they even concur on the issue).

Welcome to the world of historical science. Most dates are not exact, but ranges of probable dates. In professional papers you will generally find dates expressed either as a range (10-12 thousand years ago) or as a date with an error bar attached (11,000 years ago +/- 1,000 years). At this point there are simply no tools for more precise measurement.

And generally, plants don't fossilize well. Spores and pollen seem to fossilize best, so dates of flowering plants are generally based on the presence of their pollen.

So, no, your proposed dates don't have to be exact, but the closer the better.

(3) In many cases, historically, evolutionists have asked the community to abide by the theory of evolution even despite apparent discrepancies and a shortage of data, in the hope that the verificational data would be found at some point. Creationists deserve the same consideration in any discussion of Genesis. Examples of discrepancies include (1) the fact that few transitional fossils have been found that Darwin would have hoped for and (2) the major period of life-emergence (the Cambrian) seems sparse in fossil evidence of predecessors/ancestors (this is sort of the “transitional fossil” problem again), although perhaps this evidence is now abundant today (I don’t know) True, evolutionists gave reasons for this fossil paucity (specifically the soft-bodied organism problem). But the Pre-Cambrian, one website said, produced soft-bodied fossilization whence this is a weak excuse (it alleged).

The basic point here is that theories are built on positive evidence (what we have found) not on absence of evidence. We will never have a totally complete record of every evolutionary sequence because
a) the vast majority of organisms are never fossilized,
b) the vast majority of fossilized organisms are destroyed before they are found.

Furthermore, even of those that could be found, probably less than 1% have been found.

Even with these limitations, most paleontologists consider that we have more than sufficient fossil evidence of evolution. Transitionals are few and will always be few only in relation to the total potential of the fossil record. They are quite numerous in absolute numbers---thousand upon thousands upon thousands. And with good potential for finding many more. Even the fine details of species-to-species transitions have been found in some marine invertebrates such as trilobites and snails. And some terrestrial vertebrate families have well-marked transitions from genus to genus (i.e. horse, elephant). There is a very complete record of early reptile to mammal transition via a whole order of therapsids. And almost no break in transitionals from aquatic tetrapods to amphibians to reptiles.

So hopefully this theory of mine addresses most of what you said in points 4 though 9. However, you often used the word “simultaneously” in this argumentation, as though Genesis has this these species appearing simultaneously. Again, you are presuming 24 hour days. You’re entitled to that opinion, but I’ve provided enough dictionary and encyclopedia sources to support MY opinion. Secondly, your points 4 through 9 suggest that any ipso facto speciation is unacceptable. For instance, you suggest that if the fish are created on day 4, any new species of fish on day 5 is a contradiction. That’s a good argument, but I don’t think the text has to be read so strictly. Moses seems to be giving us a one-page snapshot of the emergence of major species. Thirdly, your claims as to when “man” appeared do not impeach my position. In my view, Adam was the first man in the biblical sense of the term. All preceding humanoids were merely manlike.

Since you are using a Day-Age instead of a literal interpretation, the wholesale appearance of large groups of species on the same day is not a problem. My remarks were addressed at a literal interpretation, not at a figurative one that allows for days to be long ages.

 

[gluadys]

Honestly, Gluadys, so many of your comments are so peripheral that this conversation is becoming a waste of words.

Oh, I know the feeling. So often I get responses which deal with what I think is a side-issue. Sometimes it is obvious the person is just pulling my chain or evading the issue. But in other cases, it appears the side issue is the one that is important to that person.

I am really not trying to avoid your principle issues. But I am responding to those that are my principle concerns. They are important to me. So even if they don't seem important to you, please bear with me. And if I have overlooked what is important to you, draw me back to it again.

Thank you for at least conceding here that a day isn't necessarily 24 hours. The 24-hour rule obviously applies to our earth and sun.

Actually, it applies to the earth alone. The length of day is set by the axial rotation of the earth. If the light came from a source other than the sun, that period of rotation still defines the length of the day. So arguments based on the non-existence of the sun don't deal with the issue.

Is Webster’s dictionary insufficiently literal for your taste?

1 a : the time of light between one night and the next b : DAYLIGHT 1, 2
2 : the period of rotation of a planet (as earth) or a moon on its axis

Not at all. These are the two literal definitions of "day". Note that neither refer to the sun. Length of day (on earth) is set by the earth, not by the sun or any other source of light. And length of day on earth is the only one Genesis deals with. Hence, the literal meaning of "day" in Genesis is 24 hours, no matter where the light is coming from.

 

[gluadys]

[

Your statement here addresses my accusation that it is hermeneutically inconsistent to accept 8 invisible realities of Scripture (such as angels, demons, souls, and eternal life) while dismissing certain people (who are visible) such as Adam and Eve as mere myths. You write:



You are pointing out that Adam and Eve, if they existed, are NO LONGER visible.

Oh, JAL, JAL, JAL, JAL, JAL. You break my heart!
Has your cultural education been so sadly lacking that you honestly did not recognize those names?

Captain Ahab and Ishmael---chief characters in the novel Moby Dick
Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern---minor characters in Shakespeare's play Hamlet
Lady Bovary and Jane Eyre---title characters in the novels of the same names.

It is not that these people are NO LONGER visible. They were never visible in the first place.

But you don’t provide any prima facie evidence in the text for denying Adam and Eve. The same NT writers who speak of Adam and Eve also speak of the 8 invisible realities. You believe them for the 8, why should we not believe them for Adam and Eve?

Clearly you have not understood the argument. Probably because you mistook the nature of the preceding one. Go back to that first, then re-read my argument, and if you still don't get it, I will see if I can be clearer.

I really don’t see the relevance of these speculations to our discussion.

No relevance to memes? Actually they are very relevant, but it would take us off on a long tangent. So we can skip it for now.

Vance fed me the same stories about Caesar’s paganistic insanities. Is this your model for hermeneutics? Obviously not. So why mention him here? I don’t have time for these peripheral discussions. That’s why I think that virtually all your responses involve dodging and stalling.

No, you miss the point again. The previous examples (Captain Ahab, etc.) hold if the scriptural story of Adam and Eve is fictional. But not all TEs agree they were fictional. The point of the Caesar reference is that real people can be, and have been, connected to mythology and to fiction as well. So it is not inconsistent to hold that Adam and Eve were real, but that the account in Gen. 2 which includes them is, or includes, fiction.

At the outset, I indicated which books I presume to be always literal except where prima facie evidence in the text signals otherwise. You proceed to quote my own statement:

Why would you presume any book is always literal? I never presume any book is always non-literal. It seems to me that prejudging the character of a book is bad hermeneutics.

But that’s what Adam and Eve would be, if created whole, on evolutionary assumptions.

No, simple maturity is appearance of age, not appearance of history. But did Adam and Eve have navels? Did they have memories of being children? Did Adam have a broken tooth from a teenage accident? These are things that indicate a history. And if that history never occurred, that is deceptive.

Most natural phenomena indicate history. Light from distant stars tells us about those stars in their historical past. Tree rings give us information, not only about the tree, but about the climate and soil conditions at various times in the past. Rock and ice cores provide datable samples of life lived in the past, as well as historic events. (Recently volcanic ash from Pompei was identified in a Greenland ice core). There are thousands of such events detailed in the geologic history of earth.

If a mountain contained no fossils, no evidence of past volcanic activity, no indication of erosion---then it could simply appear fully formed, but without history. But with those indicators it does not just appear mature, it appears to tell a story about a history that, according to YEC, never happened.

And that’s what Genesis, taken as a piece of inspired literature, would also be (i.e. more physical evidence of a history that never occurred), if we mythologize it. So the parallel stands.

There is no parallel. The history of the physical earth is objectively ascertainable by anyone who chooses to study it. The "history" of Genesis 2 is confined to the literary work it is in as surely as the "history" of Middle Earth is confined to Tolkien's literary compositions. Literature can be myth; physical reality cannot be.

 

[gluadys]

I see several other posts to respond to, but I have to get some sleep now.

 

[JAL]

Historical or not, Adam is not a minor detail. And that is one of the things I was getting at when I spoke of your equation of non-literal interpretations as equivalent to discarding or demoting teaching relating to Adam.

Why should it be a problem to say Paul might have been in error? He was a human being, living in a particular time, place and culture that limited his knowledge and directed his thinking. Any of us can err because of our contingent particularity. Why not Paul?

One of the particularities of our time is that we draw a sharp distinction between metaphorical and literal realities. To us, "metaphorical" excludes "literal" and vice versa. One of the particularities of Paul's time (and most ancient thinking) is that this line is not drawn. No distinction is made between metaphor and literal reality.

Please. So it really didn't matter to Paul, or perhaps he didn't know the difference, whether Christ was a historical fact or a metaphor? This is what I'm talking about - saying anything on this forum to save face, that is, to dodge an argument. If that boldfaced statement weren't bad enough, your next one really takes the cake:

Paul, no doubt, considered Adam to be literal. But he also considered Adam to be metaphorical and mystical.

So Paul considered Adam both literal and non-literal? Aren't you contradicting yourself? Look, YOU were the one stating that the Bible needs to be inerrant in major theological matters. Adam is central to Paul's doctrine of sin, if Romans 5 is allowed to speak for itself. And yet you want me to believe that it really doesn't matter what Paul believed about the first Adam, or whether Paul erred? Paul speaks in the same passage of the second Adam. Maybe Paul erred there too? It really doesn't matter, right? You continue:

(Check out the Jewish mystical tradition of Adam Kadmon) In fact, much of all Paul's argument in Romans is clarified by some acquaintance with Jewish mysticism in the first century. Paul also considers Christ in mystical as well as literal perspective, e.g as the cosmic Christ of Colossians 1: 15-20, and considers the mystical knowledge of Christ to be superior to literal knowledge (2 Corinthians 5:16)

So you bring up the term mystical to support a non-literal view of Adam, and then apply the same adjective to Christ? Does this mean He's a metaphor as well? If not, why apply the same term to them? This is precisely the type of pitfall that causes literalists to avoid non-literalism. It leads to hermeneutical inconsistencies and implausibilities, such as having Paul speak literally in one half of a verse and metaphorically in the other half. Paul's argument then loses its force, because he is using one half of the verse as an evidentiary claim to defend the other half. This is bad hermeneutics. Next, you use the same self-contradictory language again, having Adam both as literal and non-literal (either that, or being deliberately obscure, which amounts to more dodging, since you use the term mystical in a seemingly self-contradictory manner without bothering to define it as to alleviate the apparent contradiction).

Paul would assume Adam to be literal, but he also clearly asserts a mystical view of Adam when he speaks of him as a type or figure of Christ. Since his argument, throughout Romans is based on Adam (and Christ) in their mystical rather than their literal reality, I do not consider that it loses any force if Adam was not literal. The mystical Adam is just as real as any literal Adam would be and more relevant to what Paul is saying.

I give up. I can't make any sense of this last statement. It just seems like a bunch of contradictions.

I gave you my reasons and a way to become more familiar with the evidential support for them. Since you are not interested in exploring that evidence, this aspect of the conversation ends here.

You are asking me to go buy some book that apparently rejects the unanimous testimony of at least 25 NT verses. I'm not going on some wild goose chase. If you can't give me a clue as to how this book is going to circumvent all these NT verses, I am simply not motivated to go buy it. That's not a very practical request.

The two creation accounts differ in chronology if interpreted literally, as I described in my fifth post in the series above. Since the literal interpretation of the chronology leads to an irreconcilable contradiction, one or the other or both must be interpreted non-literally in order to maintain consistency.

Three times I begged you to read my treatment of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. This is what I asked you, three times, to read:

See the posts # 87-88, 90-94, and 102 on the following thread: http://www.christianforums.com/t114...and.html&page=2

I give up. Since you aren’t going to read it, I am just going to defuse your argument. You say that the chronology of Genesis 1 contradicts the chronology of Genesis 2. Here is a summary statement of my rebuttle. There is definitely a six day chronology in Genesis 1. There is definitely NOT a chronology in Genesis 2 because it’s instead a topical treatment. I not only assert this, I provide REASONS for this assertion, not to mention the fact that a considerable amount of scholarship supports it. Let me remind you Gluadys, for the umpteenth time, that a debate is not a matter of asserting your opinions. It is a matter of give REASONS for your opinions. If you’re not going to do that, then stop pretending to have “responded” to my posts. I’d rather you remained silent than put up a false show to save face.

Now, since you have already asserted that you do not subscribe to the literal chronology of either Gen. 1 or Gen. 2…

Genesis 2 doesn’t have a chronology. You have tried to show that I don’t take Genesis 1 literally, but your only basis is an insistence on 24-hours that I have refuted time and again. A literal day in Genesis is a morning and evening, daylight and darkness (verse 5 so defines “day”), and 24 hours is simply not inherent to the definition, and in fact is contradicted by the context.

 

[JAL]

[

Oh, JAL, JAL, JAL, JAL, JAL. You break my heart!

Has your cultural education been so sadly lacking that you honestly did not recognize those names?



Captain Ahab and Ishmael---chief characters in the novel Moby Dick

Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern---minor characters in Shakespeare's play Hamlet

Lady Bovary and Jane Eyre---title characters in the novels of the same names.



It is not that these people are NO LONGER visible. They were never visible in the first place.

As usual, more patronization. I didn't say these characters where previously visible. What I said is that it is obvious where your argument was headed, namely to a conclusion predicated on the fact that Adam and Eve are not currently seen.

Why would you presume any book is always literal? I never presume any book is always non-literal. It seems to me that prejudging the character of a book is bad hermeneutics.

Ever heard of a methodological assumption? A scientist assumes that (a) matter exists (b) that his experiments need not worry about immaterial realities. He can't PROVE this. But sometimes a methodological assumption makes the most sense. It's not necessarily bad science - nor bad hermeneutics. And I can substantiate it quite easily as follows. In every case in the NT where Jesus gives a parable, as far as I know, the text has indicators such as the word "parable" or the the word "like." (e.g. "The kingdom of heaven is LIKE a mustard seed"). Hence the assumption that the gospels can be taken literally, except for when such prima facie indicators appear, has been found to be a fairly reliable assumption. Hermeneutics is not a perfect science. That's precisely why we need some ground rules. This is not to say that these rules will never fail us. All we can do, since hermeneutics is not a perfect science, is establish rules, follow them, and live with the consequences. Such is life. Which is only to say that we can’t be arbitrary in our approach to the Bible. Would you follow a pastor who was arbitrary? A pastor who said, “You can mythologize any passage you like. No prima facie evidence is needed. No rules. It’s all a matter of personal opinion.” I don’t think you’d follow a religious leader of that sort – so I won’t accept that kind of nonsense from you on this forum either. If you draw a conclusion, show me the work. Show me the logic, the hermeneutics, and the consistency. And it’s the third area, in particular, where I see a problem. You accept Scripture literally where it speaks of invisible things like angels, but question the literalism of Scripture where it mentions Adam and Eve – with no explanation as to how this is hermeneutically consistent. Show me the logic, the hermeneutics, and the consistency.

No, simple maturity is appearance of age, not appearance of history. But did Adam and Eve have navels? Did they have memories of being children? Did Adam have a broken tooth from a teenage accident? These are things that indicate a history. And if that history never occurred, that is deceptive.

What about gray hair? Was the Ancient of Days being deceptive when He appeared to Daniel with hair white as wool? The whole issue is interpretation. If you jump to a conclusion, misintepreting the data as a real history, that's "YOUR bad." It's not God's fault. That's the YEC's argument, and you can't refute it because you make the same argument. You tell the YEC, "If you misintepret the data (Genesis) as a real history, that's YOUR bad. It's not God's fault." So if you can use that argument, so can the YEC. The pot shouldn't be calling the kettle black.

Most natural phenomena indicate history. Light from distant stars tells us about those stars in their historical past. Tree rings give us information, not only about the tree, but about the climate and soil conditions at various times in the past. Rock and ice cores provide datable samples of life lived in the past, as well as historic events. (Recently volcanic ash from Pompei was identified in a Greenland ice core). There are thousands of such events detailed in the geologic history of earth.

If a mountain contained no fossils, no evidence of past volcanic activity, no indication of erosion---then it could simply appear fully formed, but without history. But with those indicators it does not just appear mature, it appears to tell a story about a history that...never happened.

And you say that would be deception on God's part. And yet you have God doing the same "deception" as you call it, in Genesis where God, according to you, "appears to tell a story about a history that...never happened." So based on your own assertions, God is a deceiver. Of course you will deny that God is a deceiver. In that case, withdraw the statement. Withdraw the accusation that the "appearance of age" is divine deception, because your position on Genesis construes God in the same (deceptive) way. You go on to deny this parallel.

There is no parallel. The history of the physical earth is objectively ascertainable by anyone who chooses to study it. The "history" of Genesis 2 is confined to the literary work it is in as surely as the "history" of Middle Earth is confined to Tolkien's literary compositions. Literature can be myth; physical reality cannot be.

Suppose God appeared to me with gray hair, and left a strand on the kitchen table, and having analyzed it using HUMAN TOOLS, I concluded it was only seventy years old (the age of an old man). Is it God’s fault that my tools are reporting false information about Him? Is it His fault that my tools can’t tell the difference between a metaphor and a reality? Does that make God deceptive – or does it make me ignorant? You say that physical history is objectively verifiable. I just showed you it’s not. What we call objectivity is actually a questionable intepretation of data that MIGHT be, if God so intended, a mere metaphor. You say, God would never give us data that might lead to such false conclusions, but then you contradict this when you say, “The data of Genesis leads to false conclusions about the age of universe if taken literally.” You say I’m drawing a false parallel. I’m beginning to think that it’s a flawless parallel. If the Old Testament (i.e. Genesis) can be a metaphor, then the third testament (Nature) can ALSO be a metaphor. The pot shouldn’t call the kettle black.

 

[JAL]

They couldn't see ANY galaxies. They could see the Milky Way but they saw it only as many stars. They did not know it was a galaxy….So, for the writer of Genesis, the earth, the sun, moon, and visible stars, IS the universe. And, according to that writer, the first of these to be created was the earth.

I used the words “our galaxy” to describe Genesis’ purview whereas you want to use the words “our universe.” This sounds like more peripheralism. How does changing my terminology, if the meaning is kept the same, alter my argument? Or reduce it’s force? What does this have to do with the meat of my argument? Ok, let’s use your terminology. Let’s refer to “our galaxy” as “the universe.” Moses is dealing with the origin of the universe, then. Now what are we going to call the collection of other galaxies? You didn’t provide a term, so I will. Let’s call it “the cosmos.” Moses deals with our universe, then, not with the cosmos. So he doesn’t seem to be commenting on whether our universe preceded or followed the cosmos. Thus your assumption that he has our universe preceding the cosmos chronologically seems unfounded. (That being said, can we go back to the usual terminology to avoid confusion?).



Now perhaps what you were really getting at is that Genesis creates the earth before the visible stars. Why would that be a problem? Of course scientific data is not going to support it, because the data is probably formulated and interpreted from the standpoint of non-creationist assumptions (or at least non-Genesis assumptions). But would an objective view of the data change the picture? If not, why not?

This is an error. Terrestrial plants existed long before dinosaurs did---in fact before any terrestrial animals did. What may have confused you is that the last Mesozoic period (Cretaceous) which ended with the extinction of the dinosaurs, also marks the first appearance of flowering plants. Since nearly 90% of plant species known to us today are flowering plants, they are the most familiar plants to us.

No, this wasn’t an error on my part. (Funny how every one of your patronizations turns out to be an error on YOUR part, that is, in inability to understand me). I was speaking of terrestrial plants as APPARENTLY CONCEIVED BY MOSES AND HIS READERSHIP, which would be flowering plants. I’m well aware that terrestrial plants existed as much as 400 million years ago. That’s why, when I first looked at Genesis, I privately hypothesized that Moses was starting at this point in time. But since Moses seems to be speaking of flowering plants, I quickly abandoned that notion (rather than, as Hugh Ross apparently does, try to fudge the Hebrew to fit Moses’ plants into this 400 million year old period).



And it seems that every time you accuse me of an error, it has little to do with the meat of my arguments. This shows me that you are just trying to save face by making me look bad. I would be more impressed if you actually addressed my arguments.



In this post, as you continue, to bring up the same tired old 24-hour argument again, and STILL fail to address my arguments! You are trying to force our 24-hour earth and sun into the definition of day, but the text of Genesis contradicts you as follows:

[

A

[24-hour] day on earth..is the only day relevant to the writer of Genesis since he had no concept of days on any other planet.

But as I have said repeatedly, Genesis 1:5 features real days and nights BEFORE there was an earth and sun as such! How can I lend credence to your claim if the textual evidence flatly contradicts it? Am I supposed to just believe whatever I want, or whatever you want, regardless of what the text says? I don't get it. Hermeneutics, as I see it, is believing what the text says, not believing whatever I would prefer to believe.

As I said, it was the consensus of ALL Jews and ALL Christians until the Renaissance that the visible heavens including earth were originally water (2Pet 3:5). Read my lips. THE LITERAL READING OF GENESIS HAS NO EARTH AND NO SUN AS SUCH WHEN THE DAYLIGHTS AND NIGHTS BEGIN AT VERSES 4 AND 5. Yet no matter how many times I point this out, you say that the earth’s rotation on it’s axis defines “day” in Genesis. All that existed in this region was a uniform body of water. There was no earth as such. The earth existed only in the sense that the water serving as its raw material existed. There was no land, and no sun, and no moon, and no evidence of rotation on an axis. Yet you say,

In either case, the length of time involved [in a day] is set by the axial rotation of the earth, no matter what the light source is.

Here you want to define “day” by axial rotation, as though it’s biblical. Biblical? Show me evidence that this is how Moses and the ancients conceived day! What did they know about axial rotation! No, Moses defines day as morning and evening, daylight and darkness – whatever the cause, and WHATEVER THE TIME INTERVAL. And he is clearly not thinking of sunrises and sunsets since there is no sun when he mentions it at 1:4-5. So the text doesn’t support your 24 hour assumption. I’m not saying your 24 hour assumption has no merit, but the merit is to be found in later references to day. As for Genesis 1:4-5, your view is unsupported. And that’s the passage in debate. My reading of day is literal – yours is unfounded. Yet I’m sure you’ll keep harping on this issue (which will further convince me that you are quite frequently a shallow debater), and I’ll probably not reply.

 

[gluadys]

Here David says that he was sinful from birth. That’s a statement of fact. If he had said, “I was the worst possible sinner from birth,” this might be a hyperbole. I’m not saying you don’t have a case for hyperbole here, Gluady’s, but I don’t think it’s a very strong case. You continue:

Actually, he says he was sinful from conception. I think that qualifies as hyperbole in the context.

But the question of hyperbole is peripheral. The main argument is that David is speaking personally. He is speaking of himself. Even if he is speaking the plain unvarnished truth about himself, there is insufficient reason to apply David's self-accusation to all of humanity.

It’s hard to see why sin is universal if we are not born sinners. If every person has a choice, surely SOMEONE, at least temporarily, would not have chosen sin.

Are you familiar with Augustine's "four states of being"? Also taken up, very notably, by Calvin.
#1 innocence---the state of Adam and Eve in the garden. They enjoy complete freedom of will to choose either the good or the evil.
#2 depravity---the state of Adam and Eve, and of all humanity after the fall. They do not enjoy the freedom of will to choose the good, and are incapable of not choosing evil.
#3 grace--the state of redeemed humanity in this world. The will is released from bondage to sin and, though still tempted to sin, is free to resist and to choose the good. But is also free to choose evil as well.
#4 glory--the state of eternal life. In the kingdom of heaven the redeemed know full release from the bondage of sin. They are no longer even tempted. They are only capable of choosing the good.

So, the answer to your question is: No, even though we have a choice, no one, even temporarily, chooses not to sin. Because our capacity to choose is depraved. It is not a fully free choice, it is the choice of a will in bondage to sin. None of our choices, not even the first truly voluntary choice we make is wholly innocent, because we are limited to those choices available in the state of depravity.

It is this state of depravity which Augustine and Calvin were referring to when they spoke of original sin. It exists prior to any actual commission of sin and is the root cause of sin.
As I once heard it put (by C.S. Lewis IIRC): we are not sinners because we commit sin; we commit sin because we are sinners.

How then did we all sin in Adam? The ONLY solution is that we are Adam, which is possible only in the way that my model defines Adam.

Precisely. And that takes us back to Adam as mystical reality; as not just an individual being, but as Adam Kadmon, the human race as a whole. And no, your model is not the only possible model. Jewish Kabbala is a much older model and very different.

Ah, but the question at issue is not whether life is a blessing in the face of death. There are two other questions. (1) Is it justice for us to die for Adam’s sin if we are not Adam? Of course not. That’s why so many theologians admit that they never solved the Problem of Evil. (2) Is it justice, if we are not Adam, for this death to be so severe, that is, a loss of eternal life, as Rom 6:23 (and all of Rom 5) implies?

The theologians are right. We have not solved the problem of evil. There is no consensus on theodicy.

The question of justice arises most strongly in substitutionary models of atonement. This is not to say it is lacking in other models, but it is not as intense a question.

As far as I am concerned, the best exploration of the whole question is still the book of Job. Have you ever read Kushner's When Bad Things Happen to Good People?

Any extension of this conversation would be best moved to Apologetics or Hamartiology. It has little to do with evolution.

 

[gluadys]

Not only does Romans blame everything on Adam, “By one man's disobedience many were made sinners" (5:19) but to reinforce the point, it adduces Christ as a parallel. That is to say, just as Adam is one man who gave death to many, so Christ is one man who gave eternal life to many. This parallel makes it even more clear that Paul blamed everything on the one man Adam. As if this point needed further reinforcement, Paul elsewhere refers to the two men as the First Adam and the Last Adam (1Cor 15:45).

Paul makes this same contrast in many ways. Adam/Christ, first Adam/last Adam, natural man/spiritual man, flesh/spirit. They all mean the same thing. That is another reason I take the whole contrast to be mystical.

 

[gluadys]

[/b]

I give up. I can't make any sense of this last statement. It just seems like a bunch of contradictions.

Well, that is the first true thing you have said in this diatribe. I know that to a person who has never looked into such things, and never questioned the mutual exclusiveness of the concepts "literal" and "metaphorical", any presentation of "literal" and "metaphorical" as a unified reality seems contradictory.

But historically, that conceptual dividing line did not exist until the Enlightenment, about 300 years ago. Any time you are dealing with human thought from an earlier age, the identity of literal fact and metaphor as a single reality has to be taken for granted.

It is not that Paul didn't know or didn't care or that it doesn't matter. It is that in his time, the separation of literal from metaphor was not an existing category of thought. He could not distinguish what no human had thought to distinguish. The consequence for us, is that we cannot assume that Paul was speaking either literally or metaphorically of Adam in any given situation. He slides easily and naturally from what we would consider literal to what we would consider mysticism because, for him, there is no difference between these and so he makes no attempt to mark any difference. For him, as for all thinkers of his time, and right through the Middle Ages, the mystical and metaphorical were just as "literally" true as any literal fact.

It might be easier to understand this if we look at another instance. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus, at the Last Supper, breaks bread and distributes it to the disciples with the words "This is my Body". Any modern person reading this statement will identify it as a metaphor---and it is. But when we say "metaphor" we exclude the possibility that the bread really is the body of Christ.

In Jesus time, this exclusion did not occur. Yes, the disciples could see that Jesus was physically present in his body in the room. And they could see the physical bread passing from hand to hand. But it would not occur to them that this meant the bread could not be his body. And the fact is that for one & a half millennia all Christians assumed as a matter of course that the bread they received in communion was truly the body of Christ. Only the Protestant churches (which were the modernizing churches of their day) called into question the literal reality of the metaphor and said it was only metaphor. The Catholic church has tried to bridge the pre- and post-Enlightenment perspective with the mechanistic "explanation" of transubstantiation which does not do justice at all to the biblical approach, but is a sop to modern scientific thinking. The Eastern churches have simply maintained the mystic reality in which metaphor and literal fact are blended into a unified truth.

You are asking me to go buy some book that apparently rejects the unanimous testimony of at least 25 NT verses. I'm not going on some wild goose chase. If you can't give me a clue as to how this book is going to circumvent all these NT verses, I am simply not motivated to go buy it. That's not a very practical request.

Your choice. As I said, I consider the matter closed.

Three times I begged you to read my treatment of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. This is what I asked you, three times, to read:

And three times I have read it and found it overwhelmingly naive. To understand any answer I could possibly give, you need to be familiar with why theologians and biblical scholars came to suspect and then verify the composite, non-Mosiac authorship of the Torah. You choose not to acquire that knowledge. Case closed.

You say that the chronology of Genesis 1 contradicts the chronology of Genesis 2. Here is a summary statement of my rebuttle. There is definitely a six day chronology in Genesis 1. There is definitely NOT a chronology in Genesis 2 because it’s instead a topical treatment.[/quote]

Read literally, there is a chronology in Genesis 2 just as there is in Genesis 1. You choose to interpret that chronology topically. Great. I have no problem with that. I interpret both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 topically. I don't try to pretend that I am still interpreting either story literally. You shouldn't either.

I not only assert this, I provide REASONS for this assertion, not to mention the fact that a considerable amount of scholarship supports it.

I don't doubt it. As far as I am concerned, any non-literal interpretation of Genesis 1 & 2 is preferable to a literal interpretation. What I am objecting to is that you choose to interpret these passages non-literally, at least in some respects, and still want credit for interpreting them literally.

You might want to take up with Micaiah whether your topical interpretation of Genesis 2 or your day-age interpretation of Genesis 1 is a valid literal interpretaion. According to my understanding of what constitutes a literal interpretation, they are not. Obviously, that doesn't mean I think they are wrong. I think they are better than a literal interpretation.

A literal day in Genesis is a morning and evening, daylight and darkness (verse 5 so defines “day”), and 24 hours is simply not inherent to the definition, and in fact is contradicted by the context.

That fact is affirmed by the context on two grounds. 1. The place is earth, so we are speaking of a day on earth and not anywhere else. 2. It is not possible that the author could be referring to any other time period than an ordinary day on earth as experienced by humanity. No alternative was conceptually available to him, since even the existence of other planets was unknown at the time. As far as the author knew, the only place in the cosmos that morning and evening occurred was on earth. You said somewhere that part of literalism is the freedom of the author to define his/her terms. The author has done so, in terms of the common human experience of morning and evening, daylight and darkness, on earth. That is what defines it as literal 24 hour day, not my opinion on the matter.

 

[gluadys]

As usual, more patronization. I didn't say these characters where previously visible. What I said is that it is obvious where your argument was headed, namely to a conclusion predicated on the fact that Adam and Eve are not currently seen.

Which is the wrong conclusion. The correct conclusion is that Adam and Eve, like those characters, were NEVER visible in the first place.

Ever heard of a methodological assumption? A scientist assumes that (a) matter exists (b) that his experiments need not worry about immaterial realities. He can't PROVE this. But sometimes a methodological assumption makes the most sense. ... Hermeneutics is not a perfect science. That's precisely why we need some ground rules.

Yes, I have heard of a methodological assumption, and I agree with the need for ground rules. I still say it is bad hermeutics if the assumption or ground rules includes a potential conclusion. The pre-assumption that a literal interpretation can be unquestioned while a non-literal interpretation requires hermeneutical justification includes a potential conclusion. And there is no reason why it should not be the other way around. But that would be bad hermeneutics too. What you actually need are principles for distinguishing when to use a literal interpretation alone, when to use a literal interpretation along with a non-literal interpretation, and when to use a non-literal interpretation alone.

The methodology of the scientist does not assume a conclusion. It does not assume that immaterial realities do not exist. It only recognizes that an experiment is not a means of determining their impact.

What about gray hair? Was the Ancient of Days being deceptive when He appeared to Daniel with hair white as wool?

He appeared to Daniel in a vision. A vision is intended to be symbolic. Symbolism, properly used, is not deceptive. But it is not literal either.

in Genesis where God, according to you, "appears to tell a story about a history that...never happened."

I do not claim that God told the story in Genesis. Nor do I claim that inspiring an author to write a poetic hymn about creation or a folkloric tale about alleged first parents is deceit. Fiction is not falsehood. It is fiction.

But to say that a process of limestone formation which took millions of years actually occurred only 4000 years ago is a denial of fact. (I know that is a YEC statement, not yours.)

Suppose God appeared to me with gray hair, and left a strand on the kitchen table, and having analyzed it using HUMAN TOOLS, I concluded it was only seventy years old (the age of an old man). Is it God’s fault that my tools are reporting false information about Him? Is it His fault that my tools can’t tell the difference between a metaphor and a reality? Does that make God deceptive – or does it make me ignorant? You say that physical history is objectively verifiable. I just showed you it’s not.

LOL. Since God is timeless and has no age, the age of any physical hair he leaves lying around never relates to God's age in the first place. Every indication of any age in any hair would be false in relation to God's agelessness. It is an example of getting a false result because the test is not designed to give a true result in this circumstance.

We see this sometimes when people pick up on "false" results from radiometry. A K-Ar test showed that recent deposits of Mt. St. Helen's volcanic ash was 1,000s of years old, we are told. Is the test faulty? No. The tester was at fault for using a K-Ar test on recent deposits whose age falls within the error-bar of K-Ar testing. The minimum age a K-Ar test can give is in the range of several thousands of years. Use it on something less than a hundred years old, and it will tell you that the age is approximately X thousand years +/- Y thousand years. And, given the limitation of the test, that is a perfectly correct answer, since it includes the actual age.

“The data of Genesis leads to false conclusions about the age of universe if taken literally.” You say I’m drawing a false parallel. I’m beginning to think that it’s a flawless parallel. If the Old Testament (i.e. Genesis) can be a metaphor, then the third testament (Nature) can ALSO be a metaphor. The pot shouldn’t call the kettle black.

But, JAL, you are the one who thinks it is bad for scripture (and nature?) to be a metaphor. To me it's just analysis with no name-calling implied.

However, your parallel is still false, because Genesis, as a written account, contains no verifiable data. It is, at best, testimony, not evidence. And it is certainly not evidence of its own testimony. To determine whether or not its testimony is correct, we need to go to an actual source of data. Data that can be objectively observed and verified many times by many different people. And the source of that data is nature.

Now this doesn't mean nature (or Nature) cannot be related to as a metaphor as well. The very word implies personification even when we do not preface it with "Mother", and scientists and theologians as well as poets and artists and lovers of all ages have used metaphors from nature and described nature in metaphors. But that metaphorical/metaphysical/mystical relationship does not change the hard data. The data is not metaphorical.