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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 1/7/2005 3:04 AM (GMT -6) |   | I'm leaving in two hours for the airport to fly to Beirut, Lebanon for a week.
Anybody around here still believe in prayer for protection? Let's ask Mephi to lead us in such a prayer for my safe return! 
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/7/2005 4:11 AM (GMT -6) | | Now, Tom...you know I can pray...
Father,
First of all, we thank you just for being you. You truly are a wonderful God! Next, we ask that, according to your ability and your will, you protect Tom as he goes to Lebanon. We place our prayers towards your doing everything you can towards this. We realize that you are powerful enough to do what we ask, and we believe that you will...but if you don't, you are still God and we still love and reverence you.
[Daniel 3:16-18
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."
Lord Jesus,
Thanks for your consistent love and presence to Tom, according to your promise. Let him be aware of that presence while he's going home.
Holy Spirit,
We pray your constant empowerment and guidance of Tom as he goes home...that your fruit would be what he feels and manifests in his life today.
Holy Trinity,
Be glorified in everything that Tom says and does today.
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See, I can pray too.  | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 1/7/2005 4:52 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for the prayer ya'll!
I know Mephi can pray! Kata Baka Shandala!  If you pray in the Spirit, the Spirit prays, which means God has the headache of figuring out how best to pray in a fallen and broken world!
Mad love,
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/7/2005 5:00 AM (GMT -6) | | Jefscott:
quote:
I completely understand that our views on Genesis can look silly. And even make us feel silly saying them. The consolation I have with my OLD-universe, LITERAL-six-day creation belief is that, though it has problems, so does EVERY OTHER VIEW of Genesis - AND HISTORICAL SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM!!!
But at least I'm left with coherent scriptures for my FAITH and practice. Isn't faith required precisely because somethings we are to believe don't SEEM to be true? Isn't that why we have to take God's word for it?
Every view has problems, Jefscott, but SOME views have many more problems than others. Personally, I feel the literal six-day creation has MAD problems...definitely more than some of the others. And.. and makes one look horrible apologetically. Even Millard Erickson, evangelical of evangelicals, says that he feels the literal 7 day view (young or older) is beset with problems...and thinks that either theistic evolutionism or day-age theory is MORE VIABLE, all things considered. (Erickson himself takes day-age ala progressive creationism) But I can understand how, given certain commitments to a certain view of "believing the Bible", someone can nonetheless take this view.
Here's the thing, though, Jeff. A person can acknowledge that there may have been no Adamic couple...and still exercise faith in the Bible. Seriously. Do things get a little more hairy hermeneutically? Yes. Does it eliminate the ability to believe that it's the Word of God that testifies to redemptive history and Jesus Christ? Nope. It can still be a powerful, transforming love letter from God to us today.
Come on, man. Just give it a SHOT. 
****************
Jefscott:
quote:
I look forward to your final hermeneutical synthesis of the bible now that you "know" much of it is mythical. I'm betting good money it's going to be really silly and quite cafeteriological!!!!
Well, it's not like I'm the only person whose thought this way. As I've mentioned, there's other people (like Emil Brunner) who thought this way. I bet you this. It will be authoritative for my faith and practice and it will be within the bounds of orthodox Christianity as expressed in the ecumenical creeds. Can't get no better than that, huh? | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/7/2005 5:15 AM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
quote:
Let me ask you this: Why not believe that? Have you ever see a dying person? slow deterioration, pain, all that.
How do you see God in that process?
Have you ever taken a panoramic view of the "circle of life"? The majestic way our ecosystem operates? The way stars and solar systems form? How could I NOT see God in entropy and deterioration?
Again, the most I could go with is that Satan and his cohorts TRANSGRESSED God's allowed intentions for these things. All people like Doc want to explain is the EXTENT of the violence and decay. He completely agrees that the other views of natural evil, when taken together, are SUFFICIENT for violence, entropy, and death to exist. He just doesn't think the can justify the LEVEL of the stuff. To use the idea that Satan, in his stewardship, pushed God's ALLOWABLE standards too far...producing what we see...would be viable. And without a literal Adam and Eve. And I bet Doc would agree that it would be workable, from a cosmological standpoint.
But, the BIBLICAL standpoint would have mad issues...because the two axioms would be violated...and we'd have to say that Paul was wrong.
Just so you know. My problem has NOT been believing in a Satan. Not at all. My problem has been trying to hold on to the view that 1) Death, entropy, and carnivorousness were FUNDAMENTALLY UNINTENDED by God and 2) the re-emergence of death, entropy, and carnivorousness into the ENTIRE COSMOS was the fault of two naked human beings!
See what I mean?
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spenlake
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Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 1/7/2005 5:41 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph: Just so you know. My problem has NOT been believing in a Satan. Not at all. My problem has been trying to hold on to the view that 1) Death, entropy, and carnivorousness were FUNDAMENTALLY UNINTENDED by God and 2) the re-emergence of death, entropy, and carnivorousness into the ENTIRE COSMOS was the fault of two naked human beings!
Spen: We are not told in scriptures that man caused ALL to fall. It is certain, because Satan tempted Eve, that evil was found in Satan before the fall of man.
I don't see in the following passage that the evil in the creation is only being blamed upon Adam. I don't understand the passage well, but the obvious reading seems to indicate that it was God HImself who subjected it to futility. It was God who cursed the ground in Gen 3:17 and God who removed this curse in Gen 8:21, the LORD said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.
For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
Spen Lake
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 1/7/2005 6:23 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by MephEternal
Just so you know. My problem has NOT been believing in a Satan. Not at all. My problem has been trying to hold on to the view that 1) Death, entropy, and carnivorousness were FUNDAMENTALLY UNINTENDED by God and 2) the re-emergence of death, entropy, and carnivorousness into the ENTIRE COSMOS was the fault of two naked human beings!
I'm still feeling my way around, but I think we share the same motivation here. I agree completely with these points.
From an apologetics standpoint, I can't stomach the notion that the 2nd law has not always been in place as it is today. Feels like I'd be going to modern-day equivalent of denying that the earth revolves the sun.
Help me here, if you have the time, what's the problem with this idea that some regenerative or mitigating provision was originally in place but was removed at the fall (either ours or the angels)? Maybe that's a bit of what the angels were originally commissioned to do? When some abandoned their post, the natural (and good, I hold) processes of decay became unrestrained and went to unintended levels?
In our current case of the tsunami, maybe in an unfallen world the tsunami might have still happened (as a natural process of plate tectonics, whatever) but there would have been some (angelic?) provision to mitigate and protect against the catastropic destruction of human life? Just trying to play this out in my mind.... I hold this loosely. | | Back to Top | | |
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Violin for God
Luke, I am your father. --Nooooooooo!!!!!
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 690
| Posted 1/7/2005 6:30 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by MephEternal
I tell you what. I'll take it down...sure. But I'd really like for you to explain to me why it's a big deal. Not trying to be funny or anything. I'd just like to know. Why?
Thanks for taking it down. :) As for the reasons I asked for its removal, posting it does nothing to support your argument, nothing in your post explained why you had it there (so suppose someone who is visiting this Christian discussion board sees it? they'd be a bit confused), additionally it was just an artist's rendering of what might have been. Yes, it may be a cultural thing, and we may have seen hundreds of pictures like that, but it shows that we are becoming desensitized to thinking the body as something "artistic" than something to respect. Artists, writers, et al. in our culture are aiming to shock... just turn on the TV after 9pm. The more we see scantily clad women, the more we'll regard it as "normal", and the less we respect modesty.
Again, thanks Meph
"Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows." - C.S.Lewis, The Great Divorce | | Back to Top | | |
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spenlake
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 1/7/2005 6:32 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by CJF
quote:
Originally posted by MephEternal
Just so you know. My problem has NOT been believing in a Satan. Not at all. My problem has been trying to hold on to the view that 1) Death, entropy, and carnivorousness were FUNDAMENTALLY UNINTENDED by God and 2) the re-emergence of death, entropy, and carnivorousness into the ENTIRE COSMOS was the fault of two naked human beings!
I'm still feeling my way around, but I think we share the same motivation here. I agree completely with these points.
From an apologetics standpoint, I can't stomach the notion that the 2nd law has not always been in place as it is today. Feels like I'd be going to modern-day equivalent of denying that the earth revolves the sun.
Help me here, if you have the time, what's the problem with this idea that some regenerative provision was originally in place but was removed at the fall? Maybe that's a bit of what the angels were originally commissioned to do? When some abandoned their post, the natural (and good, I hold) processes of decay were unrestrained and went to unintended levels?
CJ,
It seems to me that we can speculate forever on "what ifs" and possiblities. What makes us different that normal men is that we have and believe that a book contains the very words of God. While no man was documenting the issues in discussion, God knows and some of our questions can be answered in His Word. I am very interested in your questions and answers as you can show them to me and explain them to be through the book. There may be passage that support that the angels held back the corruption. I am interested in these and other points you can raise. We may end up disagreeing or even agreeing but this seems more profiable than pure speculation.
Spen Lake
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 1/7/2005 6:44 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Moderators Second Cousin
[There seems to be two ideas:
1. entropy not part of original creation, the fall brought in entropy
2. entropy part of original creation but a restraining process existed that offset entropy, the fall removed the retraining process
ockham (and algorithmics) sez pick the simpler (more elegant) of the two solutions, imho
Agreed. So which do you pick? For me it seems simpler to not have to come up with some way to explain how the universe could function without the 2nd law in place. The most basic things like sunlight could not work without the 2nd law. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/7/2005 6:55 AM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
quote:
Help me here, if you have the time, what's the problem with this idea that some regenerative provision was originally in place but was removed at the fall? Maybe that's a bit of what the angels were originally commissioned to do? When some abandoned their post, the natural (and good, I hold) processes of decay were unrestrained and went to unintended levels?
For a short answer, I would agree with Moderator's Second Cousin...and choose 2. entropy part of original creation but a restraining process existed that offset entropy, the fall removed the retraining process.
If we are saying that the removal (or alteration) of the regenerative provision occurred at the ANGELIC fall, and had nothing to do with human beings, then I'd say that's doable. However, let's not forget that in so doing we are NEGATING Paul's thought about creation and the emergence of death and decay. What the restorationist view says in essence...from the "Serious Question" thread...http://www.christusvictorministries.org/gbfront/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3610
In brief,
1. God gave significant power over the creation process to angels
2. These angels fell into sin (separation from God)
3. These angels used their irrevocable freedom and authority to pervert the creation process at it's fundamental bases
4. Enter death, deterioration, carnivorousness, etc…
5. God wars against these evil angels, judges them and the world (note. All of this takes place before Gen 1:2)
6. God recreates the world from the "formless void" and creates human beings to act as guardians over creation.
7. This adamic couple messes up, falls into sin, and lets dominion fall back into the hands of Satan and his angels.
It's like a Pandora's box thing. God wars against all the evil, judges it, and forces it into a box called "Decision at the Garden of Eden" Then God tells the adamic couple to have dominion, but recognize their limits or they shall "surely die" They screw up and WHOOM, Pandora's box is open letting all the evil of the world back out again…including sin, death, and all that.
Though this would be consistent with the two biblical axioms, it MANDATES that human beings be responsible for the re-emergence of death, deterioration, and carnivorousness.
Exerpt from Satan and the Problem of Evil...all emphases mine
____________________
The Restoration Reading. While it is not incompatible with the trinitarian warfare view of "natural" evil, the creationist reading of Genesis 1 problematic. Among other things, this view contradicts the nearly unanimous consensus of geologists that the earth is bil-lions of years old, as well as the nearly unanimous consensus of paleontologists that animals were devouring one another millions of years before humans arrived on the scene. If creationists are right, one has to accept that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time and that the original Tyrannasurs Rex was vegetarian!
There is a third view that may avoid the difficulties of both the first and second readings of Genesis 1 and may be the most compatible with the warfare understanding of "natural" evil. It is called the "restoration" or "gap" theory of creation. In this view, Genesis 1:1 describes the original creation while Genesis 1:2 describes this creation after it had been corrupted by demonic influences, torn apart by a spiritual war and come under God’s judgment. Genesis 1:3–31 then describes (in literal or non-literal terms) God’s work of restoring the earth by refashioning it out of the materials of the previous creation.
In keeping with this reading, we may suppose that over billions of years the original creation came under bondage to destructive spirits, some of whom perhaps had been agents originally entrusted by the Creator with caring for it. These guardians joined Satan’s rebellion, however, and began exercising their domain of influence in an anti-creational manner. In this sense, the restoration view is similar to the previously discussed evolutionary warfare perspective. In so far as these fallen spirits were able (viz. in so far as they possessed irrevocable authority), they twisted the laws of nature which governed the cosmos in a destructive direction. They perverted earth’s animal inhabi-tants, perhaps infiltrating the evolutionary process (if such a process was indeed present). Perhaps in a manner remotely analogous to the way deformed hybrid creatures were produced by the mixture of demonic and human natures prior to the flood (Gen. 6:1–4), the mingling of demonic influences with the good creative "life-force" (N. P. Williams) of God produced hybrid crea-tures in this world which no longer perfectly reflected the glory of their original Creator. Nature became hostile, creatures became vicious, and the whole planet became subject to God’s enemy and was no longer fit for the purposes for which it was originally created.
Eventually God waged war against his foes who now significantly controlled the world. It is perhaps this battle that is echoed throughout the many creation-conflict passages of the Old Testament. Using mythological imagery familiar to Ancient Near Eastern people, inspired writers depicted and celebrated Yahweh’s battle with and victory over malevolent forces such as "the raging sea," "the deep," "Leviathan" the many headed dragon, and "Rahab" along with her cohorts. And, as each of these passages proclaim, it was out of this battle that the world we presently inhabit was created. It’s not that Satan was destroyed or the entire universe was permanently cleansed from demonic influences. But the forces that had seized this earth had been subdued, at least tem-porarily.
Similar to God’s decision to start over with humanity in the days of Noah, God judged and mostly destroyed the previous demon-inhabited war-torn world. As a result of this judgment, and perhaps as a result of the cosmic battle itself, the earth was reduced to the "formless void" we find in Genesis 1:2. Since the concept of "the deep" (tehom) was a way of expressing threatening chaos in the Ancient Near East, we may interpret the reference to the Spirit (or wind, ruach) of God brooding over this abyss in this verse as the author’s way of expressing God’s on-going control of his foes. He had set a guard against "the Sea" and "the Dragon" (Job 7:12). He had assigned the rebel waters "a boundary that they may not pass" (Ps. 104:9).
And then, as he did after Noah’s flood and as he shall do once again when he purges the earth at the end of this age (2 Pet 3:10, 12; Rev. 21:1), God began the process of restoring the earth by refashioning it out of the remains of the old one. Keeping the forces of evil at bay, and apparently working at a highly accelerated rate (if we take the Genesis 1 record more literally), God refashioned a new animal kingdom devoid of the meat-eating monsters (e.g. carnivorous dinosaurs) which had evolved in the previous one. In keeping with his universal design to exercise his sover-eign Lordship through morally responsible administrators, God created humans after his own image to be responsible stewards and guardians of this new world.
The primary responsibility of humans was to preserve and perhaps expand God’s "con-quest of an evil being who had penetrated into creation" as Franz Delizsch describes it. They were thus instructed and empow-ered to "subdue" the earth (Gen. 1:28) and to guard the garden (2:15). They were to exercise a loving lordship over the whole animal kingdom, as rep-resented by Adam’s charge to name all the animals (Gen. 2:19–20). They were to glorify God by being his viceroys* upon the earth.
Not only this, but judging from what later transpired through Christ (already foreshadowed in Gen. 3:15), it is possible that one of God’s original agendas in recreating the earth and establishing humanity as stewards over it was to ultimately employ these earthly guardians in a strategy for overthrowing the rival kingdom once and for all. This was accomplished by the God-man Jesus Christ allowing himself to be crucified by the spiritual "rulers of this age" and by rising victori-ous on the third day (Col. 2:13–15, cf. John 12:31; 1 Pet. 3:21–22). Empowered by the Spirit of our con-quering head, the Church is now to fulfill the role of original humanity: reclaiming the earth from the kingdom of darkness as the domain in which the Creator is King.
In any event, the refashioned paradise apparently did not last long. As soon as he was able, the enemy sought to recapture the earth by deceiving its human rulers and bringing them under his domain of influence. We of course don’t know how long Eden lasted, but we do know that at some point the enemy discovered a strategy that worked. The viceroys of God and intended stewards of the earth surrendered their authority over the earth to the enemy (Luke 4:6) and joined the satanic rebellion. In doing so they exposed the earth once again to the same corrupting forces of evil that had perverted it in the previous age.
As the refashioning of nature had been carried out by God at an acceler-ated speed, so was its re-corruption, it seems. With the lord of death and destruction enthroned once again (Heb. 2:14) humans began to die within a millennium. Within a few more thousand years they live for scarcely more than a century. In time, the global average would be less than a half a century.
We can imagine nature and the animal kingdom undergoing the same accelerated process of corruption. Having come once again under the influence of its previous evil anti-creator, the laws of nature once again became twisted, the animal kingdom once again became violent, and humans who were originally commissioned to rule the whole planet with the love and power of God became the subjects of the very forces they were supposed to control.
A number of things can be said in favor of this view. Its integration of the cre-ation-conflict accounts of the Old Testa-ment is a strong point in its favor which the other views lack. It explains why angels are not included in the list of things created in Genesis 1, though their existence seems to be presupposed in the first person plural of verse 26. It also explains how an evil serpent could appear out of nowhere in Genesis 3, and why the Lord commanded Adam and Eve to "subdue" the earth (1:28) and guard the garden (2:15) even though the world itself had been pronounced good. And it does not require us to reject the consensus of geologists and paleontologists regarding the duration and violent nature of the earth before humans arrived on the scene. It thus need not postulate vegetarian dinosaurs contemporary with humans, as does the creationist account. But neither is its coherence undermined if one decides on other grounds that evolutionary theory is implausible.
On these grounds I am inclined, however tentatively, to accept the restoration interpretation of Genesis.
__________________________
Okay. THIS is why I asked the questions that I did on this thread...
Is the 2nd law of thermodynamics ("bondage to decay") indeed essentially demonic? The food chain? The laws of physics heavily influenced by demons? Do venus fly traps come from the devil? Do tyrannosaurus rexes come from Baalzebuub?
Was there a "Pandora's Box" situation with two naked humans in some Garden of Eden?
Don't eat from the tree...or you will surely die. Don't press the big shiny button, you guys. You'll let the devil out!
Were Adam and Eve really supposed to outwit a BILLION year old being who literally orchestrated much of the natural laws and natural world?
Did God really expect Adam and Eve to be "viceroys" over all creation AGAINST Satan...even though it took God BILLIONS of years to fight against Satan supposedly?
When you say this stuff out loud, doesn't it SOUND stupid? But this is what has to be postulated...IF one wants to hold this taffy pull together.
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/7/2005 7:10 AM (GMT -6) | | From my stint on the "Serious Question" page...
If someone were to assert things like...
-Death is NOT the enemy of God, but a natural (in the true sense) state of affairs that accompanies temporal life.
-Death is NOT ultimately the product of sin, but planned into the life process by God
...then that person would be effectively saying that plain, clear theological axioms of Judeo-Christian thought are wrong.
_____________
Romans 5
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— 13 sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. 14 Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.
15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. 16 And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. 17 If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
1 Cor 15
20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. 21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.
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