Posted on 07/04/2006 9:58:54 AM PDT by aculeus
Christ refered to the createdness of Man as male and female, and drew from it the permanence of marriage. Now that conclusion is hardly there in a literal surface reading of the text, so it is odd that you bring up His use of that text as a support for literalism.
Indeed, Christ's use of the Old Covenant Scriptures elsewhere very much highlights the impossibility of taking them at literal face value in places: His citation of "I have said ye are gods" plainly points to some level of meaning other than the obvious. (We Orthodox regard it as an indication of the true doctrine of salvation--theosis--also pointed to by St. Peter's comments on becoming "partakers of the divine nature" through grace. But the text cited hardly has the obvious meaning that those to whom it is addressed are gods.)
I agree that if Genesis is only a story then nothing in the Bible can be taken seriously. But there is a very large gap between "literally true" (whatever that means, since all texts require interpretation) and "only a story". In that gap sits "history told in part in poetic and metaphorical language" and--the description given of Genesis 1 and 2 by St. Gregory of Nyssa--"doctrine in the guise of a narrative".
Genesis 1 and 2 themselves have features which strongly suggest accepting their account as being at least partly poetic and metaphorical, and not to be read entirely literally. Jewish commentators have stressed the oddness of the grammatical structure in the opening verses so that Maimonides held that only Genesis 1:1 discusses creation at all (!). Likewise the double account of the creation of Man--first plural and commanded to multiply and be fruitful, and given every green plant for food in Genesis 1, then singular, placed in Paradise, and commanded not to eat of a particular tree "for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die" in Genesis 2, then when Adam (Hebrew for Man) eats of it, he does not die in that day. (Unless death is spiritual death, or becoming mortal, which isn't the same as 'dying' in the obvious meaning of the word.) Of course, maybe day isn't literal here. In which case why should it be literal in Chapter 1?
Nothing in the need for salvation, in Man being subject not merely to physical death but to the spiritual death of ultimate separation from God, and this because of Man's disobedience to God, is overthrown if the molding of clay is taken as a metaphor for physical processes which by God's will in the end produced a being He would describe as 'in Our image and likeness', not even if those processes are best modeled as material processes by a model with stochastic elements as the neo-Darwinists propose. ("My ways are not thy ways," saith the Lord.)
Those of us in the original Christian Church (I'll stake that claim for the Orthodox--I even happen to serve under the omophorion of the Partiarch of Antioch, where the disciples were first called 'Christians') are familiar with the patristic tradition that all of human history lies within the seventh day of creation, with the world-that-is-to-come refered to as "the Eighth and Eternal Day". St. Basil the Great in his mostly literalistic commentary on Genesis 1, The Hexameron, wrote "It matters not whether you say 'day' or 'aeon', the thought is the same.
I assure you, neither St. Basil, nor St. Gregory, nor I, nor my Patriarch, take the Bible anything but seriously. But none of us read it as if it were written to be read on a surface level with modern post-'Enlightenment' preconceptions.
The task of 'rightly dividing the word of truth' is not so light and trivial as many would make it, since the Scriptures are a very rich text, composed under the influence of the radically transcendant God, and neither originally, nor primarily, addressed to 'modern' men, whatever our vanity might tell us.
Jesus was known to use allegory as a teaching method. Doesn't make Genesis anything but a story.
My bad. Sometimes (more often than I like), my fingers outrun my brain. I meant to say Darwinists rejected Creationists.
>>There are a lot of Muslims at my university passing out anti-evolution literature, so it is pleasing to me at least to see someone think for a change.<<
Time will tell. If they are thinking, they will not be muslim for long.
I tried to be gentle.
I am not surprised by that, nor do I argue against the possibility. However, most scientists today are somewhat less doctrinaire, allowing for the possibility of something unusual at the beginning, followed by the regular course of infinitesimal changes acting over extraordinarily long time periods.
That is a sufficient explanation for me, and likely, for most of the so-called "evolutionists" responding here. The honest among us admit we do not know how life began, whether through an external agent, by bacterial sporification, or by the mathematically challenging spontaneous generation.
It should also be noted that "Creationists" of the day were perhaps even more adamant than they are now, if that can be believed. I would imagine the debates were rather acrimonious.
Keep in mind, the philosophy of the Evolutionist is not necessarily hostile to Creationism, it is simply a searching for the simplest explanation that fits all the data.
I'm not saying that evolutionism and creationism are mutually exclusive. I'm saying that Darwinism and Creationism are. This was done on purpose by the Darwinists 100+ years ago. In some of the great debates between theologians (who were suprisingly pro-evolution at the time) and Darwinism, the Darwinists took a marxist line concerning evolution which was unacceptable to theologians. Not so surprisingly, the theologians generally won the debates at the time - even Darwin supporters admitted it.
I've followed the debate for a long time, and I have never come across a single person who accepts the evidence for evolution and also takes up the position that you describe. Even hardcore materialist religion rejectors like Dawkins and Dennett wouldn't agree with your statement.
Actually there is one group of people (many on FR) who loudly and consistently assert that to accept evolution is to reject God. They consistently refer to those who accept evolution as atheists, and they don't appear to even acknowledge the existence of those who accept both. I have even seen the Pope called an atheist by members of that group. I am of course referring to a large and vocal section of the Freeper creationists, but I doubt that you are attaching the label "Darwinist" to them. Who are the Darwinists that you refer to?
In fact, further to my previous post, the first person in this thread to introduce the false dichotomy between evolution and religious belief appears to have been Frumious Bandersnatch, in post #8.
Is FB a "Darwinist" perhaps? According to FB it is Darwinists that promote that false dichotomy. ;)
I've never had an evolutionist tell me that if Darwinian evolution is true, then their is no God. Anyone that does this is setting up a false test. The reason I posted to you is that you appear to be setting up the same false test by saying that anyone that accepts evolution rejects God. Was this your intent?
If Jesus were mistaken or outright lying, would He or could He be God? The Bible references are there that He believed the OT books, and explained them to His followers. Why doesn't Peter, or any others, come out and say, "Jesus explained to us that Adam and Eve were just allegory and we are all just "pond scum",". It's the same story today with Sodom. We try to ignore that God hated Sodom's sin so much, He destroyed the whole city. You never hear that there really was a Sodom and Gomorrah and Jesus mentioned it several times. That would make Jesus a liar, if not true, and not a perfect sacrifice for my sin.
There are many who call His name, but they will not enter into His presence. One of the points of Judas being a disciple was to show THE CHURCH, (as opposed to pagans) had non believers in it. The Bible is a "love letter", from God to His(underlined in bold print for emphasis added), people. It isn't for non believers. Calling yourself "Christian" doesn't make you, "His people". They will consist of believers. It will depend on what God thinks about you and what He thinks about you depends on what you BELIEVE about Him. You are saved by faith, not by sight.
Scientists change what they believe almost daily. Hardly anybody believes in Darwin's theory anymore. It has "evolved" into whatever it has to to explain what they can't explain. Google "hopeful monster" for a good laugh to see what I mean.
The point is, just because you believe something doesn't make it true. What matters is what God says about it. If Jesus lied, we are not saved and there is no "Christian". Trying to ride some mythical fence and say you are a believer, but the Bible lied, means you really want to believe, but you just can't. The Bible talks about such people and they don't make it. Believing and failing is no problem, but failing to believe is death.
Jesus said "The sprit of anti christ is is here now". Trying to mold your beliefs into something "more scientific" and rejecting God's Word, is folly. You are either with Him or against Him. The Bible is either true or a fairy tale. There can be no middle ground if Jesus taught the OT as true. It is between you and God what you believe. It's not up to me or anyone else to "save" you. God has drawn clear, unmistakable lines to cross. If you kill your baby, you are a murderer, no question about it to God. If you are a sodomite, you are an abomination to Him, He makes that absolutely clear. Why then would He make some sort of exception if you think Adam was a monkey and the flood was a local rainstorm?
What you "do" was taken care of on the cross. What you "believe" is what saves or condemns you.
Your statement that "scientists change what they believe daily" is just wishful thinking, I am afraid. You wishing it won't make it so. Scientific theories do get revised, but the new theories have to encompass the observations and reasoning that gave rise to the old theories. Darwin would easily recognise the modern theory of neo-Darwinism as derivative of his original ideas. Reading Origin of Species today it is striking how many of the modern developments in biology Darwin actually managed to anticipate and predict. Above 95% of scientists (and 99% of biologists) of every religious faith consider the theory of evolution to be amongst the most sound scientific theories that there is, backed up as it is by millions of data points and a veritable avalanche of confirming evidence, including utterly conclusive modern molecular evidence based on genome sequences. There is literally no serious dispute within science that evolution has occurred, and no dispute within science that the theory of evolution (as first suggested by Darwin) represents the best scientific explanation that we have for the fact of evolution. Sure there is dispute (and progress) about details. That kind of progress is the purpose of science.
Interesting, but not surprising.
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