Marz Blak said:
Naturalism certainly doesn't have all the answers (yet--and there is always a yet implicit in science; all knowledge is provisional!); but believing a YEC-type theory would require me to completely discard or discount many, many things that I believe have been shown to be valid as far as we can tell to a very high degree of certitude.
Science is a very good thing. From where I stand what science is engaged in is
finding out how God did it. You are probably aware that there are some pretty serious scientists out there (I'm not just talking AIG or ICR either) who have come right out and said that naturalistic explanations are, at the very least, shaky. We'll see, won't we?
I am sorry, but I lack that sort of faith.
There is nothing to be sorry about. The faith necessary to believe what God said comes by the Holy Spirit.
Again, even assuming that Genesis is literally true, a supposition I find extremely dubious, this metaphysical balancing act you describe is something I simply am having a hard time understanding. How does it work? What are the mechanics of it?
O.K. Let's see if I can explain it better. I'll have to cite some scripture and commentary, so bear with me.
The best starting place is 1 Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
For as in Adam all die,.... "The apostle here shows who he meant in the former verse, by the one man the cause of death, and by the other the author of the resurrection of the dead, and that he intended Adam and Christ; all men were in Adam seminally, as the common parent of human nature, in such sense as Levi was in the loins of Abraham when Melchizedek met him, and in him paid tithes unto him; and they were all in him representatively, he being the federal head of all his posterity, and so a type and figure of Christ that was to come; and being in him, they all sinned in him, and so died in him, the sentence of death passed on them in him; they became subject to a corporeal death, which has ever since reigned over mankind, even over infants, such who have not sinned after the similitude of his transgression; this was the doctrine of the Jewish church; See Gill on Rom_5:12, to which may be added one testimony more; says (g) one of their writers,
"by the means of the first Adam נקנסה מיתה לכל, "death was inflicted by way of punishment on all":''
even so in Christ shall all be made alive: "Not made spiritually alive, for Christ quickens whom he will; not all in this sense, some die in their sins; nor are all entitled to an eternal life; for though Christ has a power to give it, yet only to those whom the Father has given to him; it is true indeed, that all that are in Christ, chosen in him and united to him, are made alive by him, and have the gift of eternal life through him; but the apostle is not speaking of such a life, but of a corporeal one: to be quickened or made alive, is with the Jews, and other eastern nations, a phrase of the same signification with being raised from the dead, and as the context here shows; and not to be understood of the resurrection of all men, for though there will be a resurrection of the just and unjust, yet the one will be the resurrection of life, and the other the resurrection of damnation; now it is of the former the apostle here speaks, and expresses by being made alive: and the sense is, that as all that were in Adam, all that belonged to him, all his natural seed and posterity, all to whom he was a federal head, died in him, became mortal, and subject to death through him; so all that are in Christ, that belong to him, who are his spiritual seed and offspring, to whom he is a covenant head, and representative, shall be raised to an immortal life by him; or as all the elect of God died in Adam, so shall they all be quickened, or raised to life in and by Christ.
(g) Baal Hatturim in Dent. iii. 26." (John Gill)
I see the distinction, but don't see the difference, I guess. Why, practically does it matter?
Let's introduce a new term
sui generis, meaning unique, or in a class by itself. Jesus, for example is one of a kind, and so was Adam. When he was created there was no fault in him. But he had something that no natural man has had since: the ability not to sin. That is what is meant by 'perfect'. He was a complete human being. Now do you see the difference between Adam and your grandfather?
And obviously, too, we are working from very different definitions of the word 'perfect.' Adam was 'perfect' in what sense (e.g., can a being lacking a moral sense be considered to be perfect?)? From God's perspective? If so, why did he disobey God? God being perfect, can anything that opposes His will be perfect? God being omnipotent, omniscient, the Creator of all reality, etc., is it even possible to oppose His will?
]
The ability to oppose God is required in perfect created beings because if they did not have the ability to veer off at a tangent then they would be mere automatons. God's people (and angels) serve Him because they
want to, not because they have to. We don't know how long Satan served God before his pride bit him, but bite him it did. In Adam's case he knew what God had commanded. He had instructed Eve about the tree, but when he saw what she had done it is very likely that he chose, because of his perfect love for her, to go with her rather than obey God and leave Eve to her fate alone. Perfection, in the sense used here simply means 'completness', and does not carry the idea of inability to err. When the term is used of God, however, it is as an absolute perfection, incapable of error of any kind.
I don't see how your description of how things played out between God and Adam gets around the argument that God, perfect, omnipotent, and omniscient, made Adam, so therefore Adam must have done God's will, whatever he did.
It is a major point of doctrine that nothing whatever ever has, or ever can, happen apart from the knowledge and consent of God. Certainly God knew what was going to happen, but He also knew what He was going to do about it before Adam drew his first breath. In other words, Gods plans, from before the foundation of the world, were laid out in detail. Adam was the man that kicked off, so to speak, the plan of redemption. We should be grateful.
Another poster has tried to point out how we see the implication of omnipotence and omniscience on any supposed free will and you guys just don't see it, apparently. We'll just have to agree to disagree, I guess.
Yes, but the other poster apparently thinks that man's free will trumps God's divine plan. If that were so, then who would be in the superior position?
And then again, I've read Genesis, and I come away from it with an apparently quite different reading than you do (e.g., did the serpent really lie? Can Adam, lacking a moral sense (not having eaten from the Tree), be blamed for believing him even if he did? What about that Tree of Everlasting life--God sure seemed in a hurry to get A&E out before they ate from that tree! Why did God put the trees there anyway?); but that's for another time.
Adam got his moral sense as a direct result of apple munching. Formerly he had no need of such because he was in perfect fellowship with God. But what Adam did have was a clear and full understanding of what God's command was, and what the consequences would be for transgression. he knew what was right, and failed to do it. That is the very definition of sin.
I would say that in order to understand the higher maths, the basic axioms would have to be sensible, acceptable and plausible; and so far I have not seen such a construction in any theology I've come across. But I will look further.
Anyway, this will probably be my last post on this thread, because I've seen enough to know that continuing it won't be particularly useful to us. I would like to thank you for the excellent explanation of your faith you have provided.
I have enjoyed it, and who knows how many others have gotten some food for thought?
Please do not take this as an attack, but accepting even the possiblity of its validity would require me to accept much that I find at the present time to be incredible. You seem to accept this and to chalk it up to my ignorance of your theology, and you are of course welcome to this view. At this point, I would hold that I understand it well enough to not find it remotely creditable, and would ascribe the adherence of you, an obviously (otherwise?
) rational and intelligent man to it as just another example of what I believe to be a common feature of human nature: a belief that any answer to the Great Question, even one with considerable problems, is better than no answer at all.
No doubt, but as I have before pointed out, you, as a natural man, do not have the ability to get more than an academic understanding of these things. That isn't an attack either, it is just what the scripture says.
"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Corinthians 2:12-14
Good luck to you, and best wishes.
