grmorton said:
It is a terrible way to communicate. It is like trying to say something deep and meaningful by writing about the jabberwocky. While I will freely grant that God can do what you say, I will not grant that we will necessarily be able to understand what he is mumbling about. and in this case, God does fall into one of the categories I mention above===he is unwilling to communicate. If I communicate in riddles, then I am unwilling to communicate clearly. Pure and simple.
I believe that much of what God says is complicated, which simply needs to be teased out through interpretive processes. Look at you and KeyArch. You both read Genesis literally, but still argue vehemently over what that LITERAL reading is. So, it is incorrect to say that God must be communicating through literal narrative or it would become incomprehensibe for two reasons. First, figurative communication need not be incomprehensible and second, literal narrative is not really any more clear and direct. Consider the incredible debates among literalists throughout the history of the Church that were so irreconcilable in their own minds that they just went ahead and killed each other.
Further, not only did the Westminster confession admit that much of Scripture was not easily comprehensible to all, here is what I wrote recently about St. Augustine on this very issue:
"
"37. In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture [and remember, he IS speaking of Genesis here], different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture. "
I think this says it all perfectly. Let's see how it applies to the YEC position:
1. When Scriptures are not crystal clear (and he has already said Genesis in NOT), there are different interpretations which are possible.
2. We should NOT take a stand on one interpretation such that, if it was proved wrong, our faith would suffer (we have seen that some here on this forum and elsewhere DO think this way). And if we should not even privately hold to a particular interpretation in this fashion, we definitely should not be teaching it!
3. It points out that further search for truth CAN undermine a postion, which indicates, once again, that he believes we should factor in the evidence from nature to our interpretive process.
4. That holding tight to an interpretation in the face of the evidence is NOT to battle for the Holy Scripture, but for our personal interpretation. Rather, after taking all these interpretive factors into consideration (which includes evidence from nature), we should CONFORM our beliefs to that proper interpretation."
So, whether we like the idea that God often communicates in a manner that is not clear to all, we must consider what the Westminster Confession concluded: that all which is necessary for salvation IS presented clearly. True, some with the intent to distort Scripture will stubbornly refuse to see it that way, but the position of the Confession is that all those with a willing heart will find the salvation message clearly stated.
I would also like your thoughts on the rest of my Augustine analysis since it deals not only with the complexity of the communication, but also the specific issue of literalness.
Now, getting to the idea of whether the figurative presentation of the messages is Jabberwocky-like. First, let's consider the end result (proof in the pudding angle). Do we find Christians generally disputing the primary theological truths presented in Genesis 1 and 2, along the lines I set out earlier, or do they dispute whether the text is historically accurate or not? The latter, almost exclusively.
Also, you are entirely discounting the cultural aspect of the presentation style, which is the entires point where this all started. For all the communities who read these passages up until the most modern (and we can say specifically the Modern mind), had no problem at all with these types of truths being presented in that type of literary style. No confusion at all, they simply got it.
grmorton said:
Take those various nonliteral but literary framework interpretations of Genesis 2 I presented. You never have answered the question I asked. Which one is true? Which interp is the one God was trying to communicate? If you can't answer that, you can't know that what you think God is saying is actually what he is saying.
So, which of the 11 interps of genesis 2 is the correct one, Vance. Please answer the question.
Well, first of all I did answer the question by the simple statement that it does not matter and no Christian needs to come to a hard and fast belief on ANY of those options in order to believe the ultimate message. My real answer is "I don't know and I ultimately don't care". I find it fascinating, of course, and I have thought about it often, but it is to me a purely speculative matter. I believe that it possible that the Garden could have been a literal place in Mesopotamia into which a literal Adam was placed. I believe it is possible that it could refer to all of the earth during the paleolithic time, during which Man was in much greater balance with the rest of creation and did not need to "manipulate" his environment through farming or herding in order to live. I believe it is possible that it is entirely figurative and typological and refers to much broader notions of events and that there was not meant to be any particlar geographic place in mind. I honestly have no idea which of these is correct, or even which is most likely. And I don't need to know that any more than I need to know a whole bunch of things about God's creative process.
grmorton said:
Hugh's problem is not with the Scripture but with nature. There is no way to divide earth history into the days he says are there. That should falsify his interpretation but it doesn't. The same thing with the YEC. They say things that are obviously false when one looks at nature. But they don't give up on their view either. The problem you cite above is not that differences of interpretation can't occur, but the problem is that the people doing the interpretation don't want to allow falsification into their world view. In other words, they are arrogant and think they are right even when the data doesn't support them.
Agreed, but the point is that God choosing to write it in a literal style obviously would not do away with confusion or disagreement. It is still not so crystal-clear that all can agree, so there is still a communication problem in its end result. Obviously, God could have written even a literal account that all could agree upon if He chose. He is God, after all. But He didn't do that. So, ipso facto, communicating in a way that will eliminate all confusion and debate is not important to God. So, if we start from that point, we need not discount a figurative reading because it requires interpretation which will thus lead to competing interpretations (as there is with literalism in any case).
In fact, when you consider what I believe is being truly communicated (see earlier posts about the ultimate message) they are being received loud and clear by almost every Christian
whether they read it literally or figuratively, and have been so received by a wide variety of cultures over thousands of years! That is truly amazing, when you think about it. So, God is a pretty good communicator after all.
grmorton said:
As I said, all this falls into the category of unwillingness to communicate. It is incumbant upon the speaker, any speaker, to be clear and concise. If the speaker delibertately choses not to do that, then that is unwillingness and falls into the categories I outlined. So, what I see you saying is that God is unwilling to communicate the message in a fashion that is understandable, but you are unwilling to acknowledge that.
Not exactly, but close. God never communicates in a way that not understandable, but often in a way that requires deep study and dedication and will often lead to disagreements and disputes. The bottom line is that this IS what God does, whether we think He should be doing it or not. If God had chosen to communicate in a way which DOES, indeed, cause dispute, variation, schisms, disagreements, etc. Look at Romans 9 to 11 (or half the writings of Paul, for that matter). It is impossible to say that this Scripture is written in manner to designed to be clear to all readers at all times. I don't know why God did it this way, but we can't really deny the fact that He did.
grmorton said:
This is nonsense. What you are saying is that mutually exclusive intepretations can both be true at the same time. ridiculous! The only way you can say this is if you think you know what God's message is before you look at the texts.
No, they can not all be true. There is only one way that the Garden actually "happened", obviously. My point is that God did not make it clear because it is not important exactly how it happened. The message presented via this vehicle IS true, and believable and understandable, no matter which way you believe the Garden "happened". Something did happen, yes, and only one supposition is correct, and we will eventually find out which one it was. But simply consider that everyone does not seem to have any problem with the theological points God is telling us in this passage even though they fight like cats and dogs over the historical aspects.
grmorton said:
And precisely why is that to be taken literally? Is the rule that we take things literally except when it contradicts our theology?
No, we consider the point that is being made by the passage. What we take literally is the true point being made. It is a literal fact, for example, that God created everything. This comes through in either a figurative reading or a literal/historical reading. Too often, people equate a figurative reading with pure fiction, without any truth being presented. This is not what we mean by figurative at all.
grmorton said:
How does this differ from the assurances one receives from the YEC that it was God's intention to communicate literal 6 day 6,000 years ago creationism? The problem in all this area is that everyone does their own thing. There is no way to disprove one or the other things as long as one decides that observational evidence doesn't count. Both YEC and progressive creationists seem to think that comparison of their theories with nature shouldn't be used to falsify their view points. That leaves everyone free to do their own thing including what I think I see you doing.
But you are wanting to apply your "observational evidence" to the text by insisting that it can be analyzed as "cold, hard, factual presentation" which we then must puzzle out. This is actually doing YOUR own thing since it is choosing among the wide variety of literary styles we find in the Bible, insisting that Genesis 1 and 2 must be a particular one of those styles, then going from there. I approach the text with an openness to SEE what literary style God may be communicating with, based on the text itself, the cultural, historical and literary background, as well as the evidence from God's natural creation itself.
You are saying "among the possible literal interpretations, I choose the one which fits with the evidence from the natural creation." And you do this because you CAN find a way to read the text in a way that fits, so all is well.
I do the same, but one step further back. I say "among the possible literary styles God can be using to communicate with me, I choose the one which fits the text itself, the cultural and historical background, AND the evidence from God's creation itself."
grmorton said:
I am glad it is clear to you, but it simply isn't so clear that God wasn't mumbling simple nonsense. Your approach, however, can take any amount of nonsense and turn it into non-literal truth and thus it saves God from the problem of mumbling nonsense.
No, not at all. Consider the truths I am talking about. God created the universe, God did so with a plan and purpose, it was "good", God created Man in His image, etc, etc. Are these not accepted as factual statements from the text by basically ALL who read it (whether they believe these facts are true or not) even if they read it figuratively?
grmorton said:
an ad populum argument if I ever saw one. Billions are Buddhists and by your vote-counting argument above, maybe we should believe Buddhism is true.
No, I was not saying that the messages are TRUE because of all the Christians that believe it (although, of course, I believe them to be true). The point is that all of those millions have no problem believing it, and accepting the facts of the essential message to be true even though they read it figuratively. Your idea is that if God allowed the text to be written figuratively, then this would be bad communication. I disagree, I think that it is still very solid communication and the evidence for that fact is that so many people accept the facts being communicated even while reading it figuratively. It shows that the figurative method of communication IS effective to get the point across.
grmorton said:
The messages are beleivable only because you make them say something different than what they appear to say.
No, I am not doing that at all. Does the text not appear to say that God created the universe and all that is in it, for example? Yes, and all agree that this is a factual message being presented. I am not making it say this, the text presents this true fact.
grmorton said:
I am out of time, and we have probably covered this issue quite sufficiently. You can have the last word on this. I am out of this topic.
Yes, I was going to say that we have set out our relative positions fully and we will just likely have to agree to disagree on this point.