Posted on 06/13/2005 6:23:59 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
This isn't a story of deceit, it's a story of God testing Abraham.
Two organisms that do not reproduce viable offspring are generally considered to be separate species. Speciation of this type has been observed both in lab experiments and in the wild. This is somewhat of a gray area, as would be expected if evolution is true, in the sense that this definition is not necessarily transitive. That is, there are examples of "ring species" where organisms of group A can breed with organisms of group B, organisms of group B can breed with organisms of group C, but organisms of groups A and C cannot interbreed. By the given definition, we would consider A and B to be the same species, B and C to be the same species, but A and C to be different species. Obviously in such cases, this definition is faulty. However this is to be expected if small variations in the genome can lead to new species formation. The "ring species" represents speciation in progress.
As far as different "kinds" not really being different, that's what evolution is really all about, namely the interrelationships of "kinds." For example, you would probably consider birds and reptiles to be different "kinds." However, if you look back far enough in the fossil record, you will find organisms that have features of both of these "kinds." This may have been an ancestral organism of the birds, and is a link showing that birds and reptiles are actually interrelated. This is the type of thing we expect to find if evolution is true, and it is simply one example, many others are out there. The whole focus of the theory of evolution is that it is possible to go from one "kind" to another via a series of many small changes, changes that are so small as to be practically unnoticeable to a lay observer. Kinds are not distinct, but rather form a continuous spectrum. The fact that they appear to be distinct to us is a consequence of the fact that most of the organisms that have ever lived are now extinct. If no organisms had ever gone extinct, then there would be no talk of distinct "kinds." Biodiversity would be seen to be a continuous, rather than a distinct phenomenon.
Did God tell Abraham it was a test? Or did God let Abraham think God really intended him to kill his son?
How much of a test would it have been had not God let Abraham falsely believe he must sacrifice his son?
Ok, I think I'll call it assuming what is to be proved.
God doesn't expect one to blindly accept anything. He expects that His scriptures will be put to the test to insure that they are error-free. So either assume that it is true and go about proving that it is not or conversely, assume that it is false and set about to prove that it is true.
You are well on your way to commiting the fallacy of the excluded middle. There is another choice: one may suppose that neither conclusion is demonstrable, and will remain unknown.
If you take the latter approach, you will find that there are many things you can't prove but many that you can - and of the things you can prove, these will be error-free.
And...how will you know that you aren't making mistakes collecting and interpreting this data? Do you claim humans who follow the bible are also infallible?
At any rate, this not a deductive proof, it is an example of inductive reasoning. You can only increase your confidence in this manner. Let me show you with a similar example:
Assume that Darwinian evolutionary theory is correct, and lets send out grad students to dig up more rocks, using evolutionary theory and the known data to predict what they will find, and we'll see if what they find confirms or refutes Darwinian theory.
I submit to you that this works for science, because science isn't presenting a claim of infallibility--just of being able to tell stories that might be a good bet. It does not work for you, because you are.
So,...I've been mulling this over. Do you mean to suggest that God is limited by the Law of Identity, which He created? Do you consider the Law of Identity superior to God's will?
If God doesn't take unnecessary steps, why bother with a diameter measurement? You know the thickness of the pot, after all, so you could have calculated the diameter.
If your answer is that humans were doing it, and humans do take unnecessary steps, than I am back to my original question: which parts of the bible are, actually, infallble moral guides, and which are just describing fallible human behavior? And if we're going back to that, than I'll remind you that I still don't seem to have an answer to the question of whether the Golden Rule prevails over a Commandment or vice versa?
Well, luckily, since science doesn't make any such supposition, I'll assume that a narrative history of Galileo's, and Leewinhook's accomplishments with lenses is reasonable fare for elementary science texts.
I think the Law of Identity only refers to aspects in the physical realm, doesn't it? God doesn't exist in the physical world. He exists in the spiritual world and we haven't a clue what all the 'laws' are there. However, God can't do something that contradicts His own character as described in scripture. If you want to call that a limitation, go ahead. I don't think He'd mind. Mind you, if God lied or had to lie to achieve a specific end, wouldn't that mean that He had to resort to a tactic that would demonstrate that He was less than all-powerful?/p
Of course He didn't. It wouldn't be much of a test if Abraham had it all laid out for him. As far as he was concerned, Abraham was just obeying something that God commanded him to do.
Or did God let Abraham think God really intended him to kill his son?
It certainly is a valid question and one for which one can only speculate as to what was going through Abraham's mind. No doubt God's request threw Abraham for a loop because so many ends of the questions running in his mind must have seemed that they just wouldn't come together and make sense. For example, Abraham had repeatedly received a promise directly from God concerning his descendents and because he and Sarah were quite old by the time Isaac was born, it seemed to them to be physically unlikely they would have any more children i.e. He was getting on to 75 when the promise was first made and 100 when Isaac was finally born.
Genesis 12:2 'And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:'
Genesis 17: 4 'As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. 5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.'
Genesis 18:10 'And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son....... 17 And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; 18 Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?'
Throughout this entire period, Abraham may have been impatient but it does not appear that he ever lost his faith that God would do what he was going to do - and that includes what went on after the request was made by God to sacrifice his son. This is borne out in the account where Abraham finally was heading off to the mountain to sacrifice Isaac.
Genesis 22: 5 'And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.'
Why would Abraham say this to his servants if he thought that Isaac would not be returning with him from the mountain? Even at this point in the narrative, it appears that Abraham was showing that he had total faith in God and whatever the plan was that God was about to unfold. My guess is that Abraham was thinking that he would sacrifice Isaac but God would miraculously raise his son up again.... but since we don't know anything beyond what is written, it is just speculation. One thing that is apparent is that Abraham passed the test.
True, he didn't need to bother to include it ..... unless God considered it a necessary step to provide enough information such that skeptics could confirm the veracity of the text.
I haven't forgotten your question - as I said earlier, it's complicated because I don't think the question can be answered without making it a long essay that adequately provides the background and justification for the answer. Time is a problem for me right now as I'm taking a few days of vacation with out of town visitors but sometime when I get a chance I'll tackle it.
So they wouldn't quite naturally, try to interfere.
What this demonstrates, is that God really did have Abraham thinking that God's intention was that he murder his own son.
One thing that is apparent is that Abraham passed the test.
Another thing that is apparent, is that God deceptively convinced Abraham God's intention was that he murder his son. Otherwise, there is no test of faith.
So...generalizing a bit--God takes no unnecessary steps, and if you think you see any, well, of course, that's because you don't know what God found necessary, or for what reason. What a decisive, all-encompassing demonstration of God's efficiency that is.
...in other words, so you can fuss and fiddle with the common meaning of words, by plucking irrelevant passages from the bible into a Rube Goldberg contraption of an argument that beats the obvious truth into a quivering lump of meaningless jello, like a good jesuit.
I would have thought questions concerning the approximately dozen fundamental guidelines for moral behavior provided by the bible wouldn't require a gaggle of lawyers to understand, unless God is the sort of mischievious, malicious prankster who would order a father to kill a son.
Well, no, actually. Most QM physicists would take issue with the Law of identity in their own realm of inquiry. Like Newton's Law vs. Einstein's Law, it appears that the law of identity is only a loose approximation of the behavior it describes that seems to be useful in some local circumstances--not a tangible restriction on behavior that permiates the universe.
The Law of Identity's usual manifestation is as a law one may include in a formal mathematical system as an axiom, or fundamental assumption. Do you think formal mathematics is "an aspect of the physical realm"?
God doesn't exist in the physical world. He exists in the spiritual world and we haven't a clue what all the 'laws' are there. However, God can't do something that contradicts His own character as described in scripture. If you want to call that a limitation, go ahead. I don't think He'd mind.
So God can create the heavens and earth, but he can't do something out of character. Something any human can do, at the drop of a hat.
Mind you, if God lied or had to lie to achieve a specific end, wouldn't that mean that He had to resort to a tactic that would demonstrate that He was less than all-powerful?
How can you claim he is all powerful, when you claim he can't even do something that is "uncharacteristic"?, and seem to be in a muddle about whether or not God is subject to the Law of Identity. If God is all-powerful, why did he need to mislead Abraham into thinking He wanted Abraham to kill his own son? Is God all-powerful, but kinda sadistic?
At this point, I guess I don't even know which side of this argument you are on. Are you arguing that God's power is limited, or not?
"God can't do something that contradicts His own character as described in scripture."
Oh? I would think the opposite. The fallible contributors to the Bible cannot fully appreciate God's character.
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