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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 2/10/2005 7:38 AM (GMT -6) |   |
Mark said...
would be cool to have some more discussion on this death stuff guys, I think it's an important issue to get sussed out.
I agree, Mark. Would you want to do it from the scientific perspective AND philosophical/hermeneutic perspective, or just scientific? I'm game. I'm sure others will jump in if you continue.
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 2/10/2005 7:53 AM (GMT -6) | | | I'm definitely interested in the hermeneutical side, I guess it might also be quite cool to discuss it from a more scientific/philosophical perspective too, particularly in relation to how we might fit an evolutionary picture together with any supernatural acts of God which might occur within that context. | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 2/15/2005 3:17 PM (GMT -6) | | May I just say that at the conclusion of any (concept of an) evolutionary stage, I am drawn back to the same question: are not even the theories supporting evolution (e.g., natural selection) nothing more at root than pure chance in and of themselves? No element of evolution, including natual selection, addresses the coherency and purpose for, much less the knowledge and need of, all the components that comprise any entity displaying elements that appear designed for a specific use and function. There simply is no way to account for how any process or theory of evolution gets away arriving at what looks like, smells like and acts like something that knew it was supposed to do this, that and the other. Apart from divine intervention, no matter how one slices it, the evolutionary pieces all reflect the same essence of chance when all is said and done.
Theists who see the need for intelligent intervention in the evolutionary process can more readily approach an interpretation of Genesis, having narrowed the field of outcomes; God (in the case of the Bible) was involved with the process to some extent. This I think affords the start or foundation, at least, on which one may build upon ANE and Pauline commentary. The logic of divine intervention, then, structures the evolution process with a skeleton and reason for a skeleton.
Starkman
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 2/18/2005 9:35 AM (GMT -6) | | | Does this mean I'm gonna have to think up some kind of provocative post for everyone to respond to? I've never been very good at that sort of thing | | Back to Top | | |
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JET
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Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 2/18/2005 10:42 AM (GMT -6) | | |
I'm' interested in a comment posted by Tom a while back (in this thread?) that perhaps the enemy is not physical death itself, but rather the fear of death.
Heb. 2:14-16 (NIV):
14Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death–that is, the devil– 15and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants.
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 2/18/2005 3:30 PM (GMT -6) | |
markporter said...
OK, found it....the essay's at http://nakedchurch.blogs.com/nakedchurch/files/final_darwin_paper.doc and stuff about the author's at http://nakedchurch.blogs.com/about .html Have a look and see what you all think.
Thanks for the reference, Mark. I read and liked this paper. I think Ken Ham would keel over once the author started referencing Paul Tillich, however :-) Good for him - liberals have some good insights, I think especially into the mythic/legendary nature of the Genesis genre.
I especially liked the author's reference to physical death being an always-existing factor of this world which is invested by sin with the reminder and curse of finality, in rather the same way that the rainbow is an always-existing factor of nature which is invested by God with the reminder and promise of covenant, in the Noah story. I hadn't thought of this connection before - interesting.
On the subject of death and fall myself, however, I don't have much more to say beyond what I've already posted in this thread.
Scott
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JET
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Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 2/18/2005 4:24 PM (GMT -6) | |
scott_jorgenson said...
markporter said...
OK, found it....the essay's at http://nakedchurch.blogs.com/nakedchurch/files/final_darwin_paper.doc and stuff about the author's at http://nakedchurch.blogs.com/about .html Have a look and see what you all think.
Thanks for the reference, Mark. I read and liked this paper. I think Ken Ham would keel over once the author started referencing Paul Tillich, however :-) Good for him - liberals have some good insights, I think especially into the mythic/legendary nature of the Genesis genre.
I especially liked the author's reference to physical death being an always-existing factor of this world which is invested by sin with the reminder and curse of finality, in rather the same way that the rainbow is an always-existing factor of nature which is invested by God with the reminder and promise of covenant, in the Noah story. I hadn't thought of this connection before - interesting.
On the subject of death and fall myself, however, I don't have much more to say beyond what I've already posted in this thread.
Scott
I, too, read and enjoyed the article, particularly the part to which Scott referred.
So . . .
1. Physical death has always existed (as long as physical life has existed) on this planet.
2. Humans evolved to a point where they received the imago dei (intelligence and creative free will, hence moral responsibility and the ability to love and enter into a love relationship with God and others)
3. Once human's received the imago dei, humans have the possibility of eternal life (granted by God's grace - the Tree of Life). This possibility does not eliminate physical death, only the finality of physical death.
4. Intelligence + revelation + freedom make humans responsible for sin. The Adamic Fall is a metaphor for the fact that everyone sins.
5. Sin separates us from the Tree of Life.
6. Apart from the Tree of Life, physical death is final. Thus, apart from the Tree of Life, physical death is something to be feared.
7. Thus, physical death -- that is physical death as finality -- does in fact result from the Fall (which is what separates us from the Tree of Life).
8. Thus, Paul says that death (both spiritual and physical) came through a man (Adam, being a symbolic "every man"), and life came through a man (Jesus - the Tree of Life).
????????????
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 2/18/2005 4:51 PM (GMT -6) | |
JET said...
I, too, read and enjoyed the article, particularly the part to which Scott referred. So . . .
[nice summarization deleted]
I basically agree with this. Which should come as no surprise to anyone who has been reading upstream from here, or has read my views on this in the past. Just wanted John (JET) to know that I read and appreciated his summary.
Scott
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Starkman
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Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 2/18/2005 7:12 PM (GMT -6) | | It'd be really tough to demonstrate that "Humans evolved to a point where they received the imago dei (intelligence and creative free will, hence moral responsibility and the ability to love and enter into a love relationship with God and others."
There simply wouldn't be a specific time when it could be said, "There, they just arrived. Ok, give 'em the image of God," as if just moments ago this wasn't the case, but that's exactly what it would have to be: moments ago, not years, much less hundreds of thousands, or millions of years ago. That just doesn't work.
I tend to told to something specific and distinct with regard to the creation of mankind as we are today. I think that is the point of the creation story of Adam (mankind) and Eve (living) given in the manner it is presented; that something unique and different was going on, and not necessarily plain, old fashioned evolution. I don't take the creation account as generic.
For the monkeys who never made it!
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 2/18/2005 8:07 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Scott,
As you claim to hold a view of scripture held by the majority of academe, I want to make sure I accurately understand that view. My understanding as of now is this:
The ANE peoples had their own legends and pre-scientific written accounts of the world and it's history. THEY did not deem those accounts to be non-literal or un-true. But God wishes us to understand those accounts differently (even to the point of contradiction) than they were understood by their original writers and audiences.
Is that an accurate understanding? Thanks!
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 2/18/2005 8:27 PM (GMT -6) | | Starkman said...
It'd be really tough to demonstrate that "Humans evolved to a point where they received the imago dei (intelligence and creative free will, hence moral responsibility and the ability to love and enter into a love relationship with God and others."
There simply wouldn't be a specific time when it could be said, "There, they just arrived. Ok, give 'em the image of God," as if just moments ago this wasn't the case, but that's exactly what it would have to be: moments ago, not years, much less hundreds of thousands, or millions of years ago. That just doesn't work.
I tend to told to something specific and distinct with regard to the creation of mankind as we are today. I think that is the point of the creation story of Adam (mankind) and Eve (living) given in the manner it is presented; that something unique and different was going on, and not necessarily plain, old fashioned evolution. I don't take the creation account as generic.
For the monkeys who never made it!
Starkman
There are a number of ways around this
1) is to deny that there ever really was a moment when anything much happened and God always intended it to be this way as has already been suggested
2) is something like Glenn Morton's ideas about God very early on in human evolution doing something special with a unique individual
3) is something like the views espoused by Kenny on TWeb which I think is quite a cool idea and notes the social factor in the development of a human life - he argues that the Spirit of God at one pointed stirred up humanity in such a way so that a generation of humans would become a responsible society | | Back to Top | | |
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 2/18/2005 8:39 PM (GMT -6) | |
jefscott said...
Scott,
As you claim to hold a view of scripture held by the majority of academe, I want to make sure I accurately understand that view. My understanding as of now is this:
The ANE peoples had their own legends and pre-scientific written accounts of the world and it's history. THEY did not deem those accounts to be non-literal or un-true. But God wishes us to understand those accounts differently (even to the point of contradiction) than they were understood by their original writers and audiences.
Is that an accurate understanding? Thanks!
Hmmm. No. How about:
The ANE peoples, like all pre-modern peoples everywhere, had their own pre-modern accounts of the world's structure, formation and history. For example, they were no different from native California Indians, with their Coyote stories, in this regard. The degree to which they held to their accounts literally as fact is hard to discern today. Did the ancient Greeks really believe that the Milky Way was literally the expressed human-like breast milk of a goddess? For that matter, did the ancient Sumerians/Babylonians really believe that the earth was the upper half of another goddess' giant, human-like body - head, eyes, breasts and all (see Enuma Elish which I quoted earlier in this thread)? No - the mountains are clearly not simply oversized human or human-like breasts, a fact that would be as plain to them as to us. So there is no evidence to suggest they took their tales completely literally.
But neither do the ANE peoples seem to have completely distanced themselves from their worldview accounts, and regarded them as fiction, in the way that we do with fiction today. The fact is that we don't have a category for describing exactly how they regarded their pre-modern worldview accounts, because they were pre-modern and we are modern and our epistemologies are different. The closest we can come today to describing how the ancients regarded their worldview accounts is as 'mythic' or 'legendary' in the best, non-derogatory sense of those words.
In any case, God doesn't care. He appropriated the accounts of one such people to begin revealing himself - his true nature and ours - to all mankind. Whether we additionally and incidentally believe that the physical and historical trappings of the accounts are factual or not, is not something he cares about, or has ever cared about, then or now. So its not that he wishes us to understand the accounts differently from the way the ancients did, so much as that he wishes us - as much as them - to extract the teaching from the account, and do what we will with the rest of it. It is the same with Jesus' use of the parable of the Good Samaritan; his teaching point was what concerned him, and whether his listeners additionally and incidentally thought the story was recounting actual events, whether literally or loosely (for scripture nowhere states one way or another whether it is "just" a story), seems to have been of no concern.
Scott
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 2/18/2005 9:16 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Scott,
Thanks for the reply. I think we're saying pretty much the same thing.
Scott said...
The fact is that we don't have a category for describing exactly how they regarded their pre-modern worldview accounts, because they were pre-modern and we are modern and our epistemologies are different.
Are there any books that provide evidence for the claim that their epistemologies were different than ours? Or is the claim merely that the ANE epistemology was different than ours as is the epistemology of modern primitives? In which case, it is not a different intellectual epistemology, but a different world-view.
Scott said...
In any case, God doesn't care. He appropriated the accounts of one such people to begin revealing himself - his true nature and ours - to all mankind. Whether we additionally and incidentally believe that the physical and historical trappings of the accounts are factual or not, is not something he cares about, or has ever cared about, then or now. So its not that he wishes us to understand the accounts differently from the way the ancients did, so much as that he wishes us - as much as them - to extract the teaching from the account, and do what we will with the rest of it.
If their epistemologies were different than ours, how can we be sure that they could or would have extracted the same "teaching from the account?" Moreover, does academe consider the "historical trappings" of the NT gospels to be important (i.e., does God care?), or do they deem it sufficient to "extract" a teaching from them independent of those "trappings?"
wjsPost Edited (jefscott) : 2/18/2005 8:20:07 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 2/19/2005 1:24 AM (GMT -6) | |
jefscott said...
...
Are there any books that provide evidence for the claim that their epistemologies were different than ours? Or is the claim merely that the ANE epistemology was different than ours as is the epistemology of modern primitives? In which case, it is not a different intellectual epistemology, but a different world-view.
...
If their epistemologies were different than ours, how can we be sure that they could or would have extracted the same "teaching from the account?" Moreover, does academe consider the "historical trappings" of the NT gospels to be important (i.e., does God care?), or do they deem it sufficient to "extract" a teaching from them independent of those "trappings?"
By epistemology I mean a way people within a culture come to know that which is of value to them. Maybe that isn't how you'd define it, in which case we can use whatever term you'd care to use for that definition. Anyway, what I'm saying is that pre-modern peoples, whether in ancient times or not-so-ancient (even contemporary) times, don't seem to value or understand critical realism and method as a way of coming to know the big things about the world. The little things, like how to survive through the winter, defend against one's enemies, and so forth - yes. But the big things, like what is the world made of, where did it come from, what happened long ago, and so forth - no. What we think comes so easily and readily - science and historiography, for example - are actually products of rather unique inventions - critical method and an underpinning philosophy of realism and methodological naturalism - that stem from the late first millenium B.C. Greece and later Rome, and which are repeated to the same degree nowhere else in the world: not India, not China. So it is not surprising to find that ANE thought bears more in common with contemporary pre-moderns in, say, New Guinea, than it does with us.
For a reference for all this, see - for example - anything by Joseph Campbell (at a popular level), or, I would bet, most modern cultural anthropology texts. I can't think of a particular title. In any case, the evidence is based on current observation of pre-modern cultures, as well as observation of preserved ANE literature (like Enuma Elish) and other archaeological artifacts (like Egyptian iconography). The best way to make sense of these evidences, without concluding that the ANE and all other pre-modern peoples were (and are) simply mad as a march hare, is something along the lines of what I've been talking about.
Turning to your second paragraph, it would seem that ancient Israel, at least, extracted basically the same teaching point from the vessel that we do. For there is nothing in the Deuteronomist history, the Chronicles, or the prophets (pre- or post-exile) which violently disagrees with what we extract from Genesis today: namely that there is one God sovereign over all, that everything else in the world is created and ordered by and subject to him, that mankind is called to morality and obedience, that God judges our failure to heed this call, and etc. This suggests that what we see in Genesis today closely aligns with what they saw then. Of couse this isn't to say that Genesis contains the fully-developed Christian revelation by any means! But that isn't the point; the point is merely that what it does contain seems largely consistent or compatible with later revelation, and from their later writings the Israelites seem to have agreed.
Finally, as for whether some might take the mythologizing of scripture (or de-mythologizing, as they would call it) to points you and I would consider too far: yes, absolutely, as I'm sure you're aware (was that a loaded question?). Speaking of Paul Tillich, I believe he and others (eg certainly Rudolf Bultmann) did this, denying any historicity to the resurrection or factuality to the incarnation, by appealing to myth (eg themes of divine incarnation, miracle working, and messiahship common to the Mediterraean mythos at the time). I don't feel that this slippery slope is totally necessitated, however. The world of Jesus and the apostles was quite a bit more modern than ANE times (only relatively speaking, of course) due to the Greek and Roman influence; you can see this in Paul's writing (it being a kind of logical abstract discourse, a modern genre unlike anything in the Old Testament). If God meets people where they are at, then this means he meets the ANE world with the thought-patterns that they are accustomed to, but he meets the Greco-Roman world with the thought-patterns that it is becoming accustomed to. And so when that Hellenized witness insists repeatedly on the actuality of the resurrection, I do not think that a skeptic can appeal to genre and culture to totally escape it in the same way that we can appeal to genre and culture in understanding Genesis.
This is not to say that the Gospels can in no way contain any legendary embellishment whatsoever. While more modern than the ANE world, the Greco-Roman Mediterranean retained pre-modern influences. It is to say that the whole thing cannot be seen as ahistorical in the same way that Genesis can. There is a core of history, in the modern sense, claimed by the New Testament to the story of Jesus, including around the incarnation and resurrection, such that Christianity is falsified (in my opinion) if these things didn't basically happen.
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 2/19/2005 10:01 AM (GMT -6) | |
markporter said...
Starkman said...
It'd be really tough to demonstrate that "Humans evolved to a point where they received the imago dei (intelligence and creative free will, hence moral responsibility and the ability to love and enter into a love relationship with God and others."
There simply wouldn't be a specific time when it could be said, "There, they just arrived. Ok, give 'em the image of God," as if just moments ago this wasn't the case, but that's exactly what it would have to be: moments ago, not years, much less hundreds of thousands, or millions of years ago. That just doesn't work.
I tend to told to something specific and distinct with regard to the creation of mankind as we are today. I think that is the point of the creation story of Adam (mankind) and Eve (living) given in the manner it is presented; that something unique and different was going on, and not necessarily plain, old fashioned evolution. I don't take the creation account as generic.
For the monkeys who never made it!
Starkman There are a number of ways around this 1) is to deny that there ever really was a moment when anything much happened and God always intended it to be this way as has already been suggested 2) is something like Glenn Morton's ideas about God very early on in human evolution doing something special with a unique individual 3) is something like the views espoused by Kenny on TWeb which I think is quite a cool idea and notes the social factor in the development of a human life - he argues that the Spirit of God at one pointed stirred up humanity in such a way so that a generation of humans would become a responsible society Hey Mark,
with regard to your three notations:
1) to deny that there was ever really a moment when anything happened leaves us without explanation of how man ever came to bear the image of God. What constitutes the image of God from the non-image of God in previous humanity?
2) This is my point. Without divine intervention, we are left without explanation. I've chatted with Morton on theologyweb.com, but I haven't had a chance to read his stuff. But he's more along the lines of what I'm saying; without God doing something to make the distinction between evolving man and man made with the image of God, how is man to arrive at that point where God then says, "They've arrived; they now bear my image." Exactly how is one going to posit this process in a context of hundreds of thousands (or millions) of years in an evolutionary context? Glen's point deals with this, but I don't know his position well enough to comment more about it.
3) I've not read Kenny's posts (that I can remember), but what was this generation of humans like prior to God stirring them up? Where they not "responsible"? Did they not bear the image of God? And where's the evidence for this? This doesn't deal with the issue.
For those same darned monkeys trying desperately to make it...
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JET
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Total Posts : 397
| Posted 2/19/2005 8:08 PM (GMT -6) | | Starkman: It'd be really tough to demonstrate that "Humans evolved to a point where they received the imago dei (intelligence and creative free will, hence moral responsibility and the ability to love and enter into a love relationship with God and others."
JET: Its abductive reasoning, right? If we believe evolution is likely to be true and we also believe humans were created in God's image, then we simply use our imagination and our reasoning abilities to arrive at the best explanation as to how these fit together. My thought is that human intelligence has probably been increasing over time. (We can see how knowledge in many areas has been increasing rapidly in recent times.) Not that we are necessarily "smarter" than Socrates, but in general over long periods of time human intelligence (however defined) has increased. I also see divine revelation as a progressive thing. God's dealing with people in history occurs over time and builds upon the past. The more knowledge, intelligence, and revelation we possess, the more we are held morally responsible for what we know we should do. All this fits an evolutionary model. At some point (only God knows) humans begain to have the requisite intelligence, etc., to be considered free, morally responsible beings capable of love.
Starkman: There simply wouldn't be a specific time when it could be said, "There, they just arrived. Ok, give 'em the image of God," as if just moments ago this wasn't the case, but that's exactly what it would have to be: moments ago, not years, much less hundreds of thousands, or millions of years ago. That just doesn't work.
JET: What's wrong with just saying that, over time, more and more humans evolved to the point where they could become divine image bearers. God would know the details. Why do we need to know about specifics? How COULD we know about the specifics?
Starkman: To deny that there was ever really a moment when anything happened leaves us without explanation of how man ever came to bear the image of God.
JET: Again, how much explanation should we really expect to have as to EXACTLY HOW man came to bear the image of God? Isn't it enough to know THAT we are created in the image of God without knowing HOW we were created in the image of God? The metaphysics of how a being is created in the image of God is simply beyond what our natural experience allows us to comprehend and God hasn't given us the details by way of revelation.
Starkman: Without divine intervention, we are left without explanation. . . . without God doing something to make the distinction between evolving man and man made with the image of God, how is man to arrive at that point where God then says, "They've arrived; they now bear my image." Exactly how is one going to posit this process in a context of hundreds of thousands (or millions) of years in an evolutionary context?
JET: I don't have a problem with attributing the imago dei to "divine intervention". However, I conceive of this happening primarily on a metaphysical level. (I know next to nothing about what might have been going on at a physical, biological level.) In any event, I personally don't feel the need to understand all the details about what the metaphysical process of creating in the image of God would look like.
Starkman: . . . what was this generation of humans like prior to God stirring them up? Where they not "responsible"? Did they not bear the image of God?
JET: We don't need to know the exact point in the evolutionary process at which humans began to bear the image of God--what they looked like before and after. God knows. We only need to know that humans are now image bearers.
Starkman: And where's the evidence for this?
JET: The evidence consists of: (1) whatever reasons we have to believe that evolution is true; plus (2) whatever reasons we have to believe that "imago dei" is true.
Hey, Starkman, I'm obviously no expert on any of this and I haven't thought all this through. I'm just trying on these ideas to see if they fit. Know what I mean?
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 2/19/2005 9:43 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Scott,
Thanks again for the reply and comments!
Scott said...
Turning to your second paragraph, it would seem that ancient Israel, at least, extracted basically the same teaching point from the vessel that we do. For there is nothing in the Deuteronomist history, the Chronicles, or the prophets (pre- or post-exile) which violently disagrees with what we extract from Genesis today: namely that there is one God sovereign over all, that everything else in the world is created and ordered by and subject to him, that mankind is called to morality and obedience, that God judges our failure to heed this call, and etc. This suggests that what we see in Genesis today closely aligns with what they saw then. Of couse this isn't to say that Genesis contains the fully-developed Christian revelation by any means! But that isn't the point; the point is merely that what it does contain seems largely consistent or compatible with later revelation, and from their later writings the Israelites seem to have agreed.
What gives me pause is that the later prophets (including Christ) seemed to affirm those very parts of Genesis that many would deny on scientific grounds. Indeed, the whole theodicy and history of Genesis seems to be basically affirmed directly or indirectly by Christ and the apostles.
Scott said...
Finally, as for whether some might take the mythologizing of scripture (or de-mythologizing, as they would call it) to points you and I would consider too far: yes, absolutely, as I'm sure you're aware (was that a loaded question?). Speaking of Paul Tillich, I believe he and others (eg certainly Rudolf Bultmann) did this, denying any historicity to the resurrection or factuality to the incarnation, by appealing to myth (eg themes of divine incarnation, miracle working, and messiahship common to the Mediterraean mythos at the time).
I, of course, agree that Christianity is falsified if Christ is not risen from the dead. But my question was not loaded; I live close to a Methodist college where professors reportedly teach the allegorical view of the ressurection. And having been completely surprised by your claim that the majority of academe sees Genesis as non-historical, I was truly curious as to whether they thought similarly of the NT.
Though some may have interpreted some of my previous comments to be too all-or-nothing, they are meant to be descriptive of my own mind, only. When I have taken tests for cognitive style, I'm assessed to be one who seeks to explain by rational principles. The non-historical approach is one that I find difficult to understand in terms of principles - especially since the NT prophets (including Christ) seemed to believe that Genesis was historical. The ahistorical view seems to require a kind of creativity that I do not have. Indeed, I am such a staunch believer in the inductive principles (parsimony, analogy, etc.) that I tend to be skeptical of creative scenarios that are not grounded in those principles when such scenarios cannot be tested.
But I'm in no danger of abandoning Christianity even IF I become convinced that the historiocity of Genesis is indefensible. Where else is there to go?? All other world views are even more irrational!! I would still hold to Christianity in a very confused state, but I WOULD cease to be an apologist for it to OTHERS (though I would, obviously, still confess to believe it personally).
Paul says God is not the author of confusion, but I find the whole non-historical Genesis view VERY confusing. Heck, even Meph, who holds to the non-historical view, has inquired of you to get a better understanding of how to "tease" the correct meaning OUT OF the text. James says be not many teachers knowing that they shall receive the greather judgement. When you compare that with Christ saying the Saducees erred, not knowing the scriptures, and that the Pharisees searched the scriptures but knew not the TRUTH, it just seems like there is a real scriptURAL truth that needs to be defended. One that we will be judged by if we mislead people from it. I would NOT know how to discover that truth, much less defend it, if Genesis is not historical. I wouldn't have the rational principles to understand it. So it is this apologetic mission that I would be too fearful to pursue in that case. I guess the only apologetics I could do rationally would be to argue AGAINST all alternate world-views.
But for now, I just want to make sure I accurately understand the view of academe so I can properly discuss it with friends. Thanks for your time & patience in detailing it for me.
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scott_jorgenson
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Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 2/19/2005 11:39 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Hi Jeff,
Just to address only one of the concerns you brought up:
I disagree that we can tell that Jesus and the apostles taught that Genesis was specifically historical, and that even if they thought so (but not taught so) themselves, that it matters. When a speaker refers in ancillary fashion to some conventional wisdom of the time, using it to bolster his otherwise-unrelated point (eg as Jesus does with Genesis when raising the bar on divorce - eg Mark 10:5-9), it is hard to tell whether the speaker is actually affirming belief in such wisdom's factuality, or is merely going along with it for greater pedagogical purposes.
Whether Genesis 2-3 is historical or not does not matter at all to Jesus' teaching on divorce - no more than the historicity of The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf' matters to a teacher's point that it is unwise to raise false alarm. And the ahistoricity of Genesis 2-3 does not weaken Jesus' case when making his teaching on divorce - no more than the ahistoricity of the The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf' compromises the teaching point of a teacher who employs it to make his case. In each case, it is the pre-existing prevalence and plausibility of the narrative among the audience that makes the narrative useful pedagogically to the speaker. In each case, the speaker's adoption of the narrative for his broader teaching purpose does not say anything about whether the speaker himself affirms its historicity. Whether he does or not, in neither case is he false or untrue or mistaken to adopt the story to support his point. And in any event, in each case it certainly can't be said that the narrative's historicity is part of the speaker's teaching point, since the teaching point is about morals and not history.
It is the same when Jesus refers to other factually-untrue concepts, such as the mustard seed's being the smallest of seeds (Mark 4:31), or the queen of Sheba having come from the ends of the earth (which in that day seems to have meant literally that) (eg Matthew 12:42). It is by the same light with which we see that Jesus is neither false nor compromised in making these statements, that we see he (and Paul and Peter) are neither false nor compromised in making their recorded references to Genesis 2-3 or the flood. Jesus was not expressly teaching that the mustard seed was the smallest of seeds, but employing that conventional wisdom pedagogically to teach about the kingdom; and neither was he expressly teaching that Genesis 2-3 is a historical account, but employing that conventional wisdom to teach about divorce.
Now, of course, Jesus and the apostles may very well have agreed themselves with the conventional wisdom on the factuality of those points. Some Christians see Jesus as sort of God's omniscient mind cloaked in human skin; I and others do not. We find plenty of indication in scripture of God's kenotic activity in the incarnation, including the laying aside of his conscious omniscience; just as Jesus truly thirsted (John 19:28) and died as a man, so too he truly had the worldly knowledge of a man, acquired from his culture as he grew (eg Luke 2:52), just as it is with any other person.
In any event, whether or not Jesus and the apostles actually thought Genesis was historical or not doesn't matter to my point, since they never actually taught on its historicity, just used it pedagogically for other purposes. One can reject my above paragraph about the extent of the kenosis, and still accept the argument I'm representing here.
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scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 2/20/2005 12:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Oh, one more thing, Jeff:
I respect that you're a rationalist, a critical realist - so am I, and its certainly proven to be the most fruitful way to get around in this world. But is it really appropriate to assume that same fully-worked-out worldview has universally been held throughout history, and judge pre-modern cultures on its basis? Isn't that highly anachronistic and myopic? And do the only conclusions we can then reach about pre-modern cultures - namely, that they were stupid or insane - really pass the smell test?
Pre-modern cultures everywhere have accepted, as part of their tradition, accounts of world structure, formation and history that simply seem preposterous to us on the face of it. In Enuma Elish, Tiamat's head and breasts form the mountains of the world; her eyes are the source of the Tigris and Euphrates. What are we to think of such things, and the peoples who held to them, if we assume that critical realism is the standard by which they strove to live and make sense of their own lives? Only that they sought to constuct good, rational, empirically-supported theories about the structure of the earth, just like we do; and were either too unintelligent or crazy to notice that the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates bore no resemblance to a woman's eyes, and that the stuff of which mountains are made bears no resemblance to a woman's flesh. This is absurd. We must conclude that, rather, they didn't know or care about critical method; that they lived their lives in their own way, and so it would be improper of us to project on them. And likewise it would improper of us to project on God, for that matter - project on him the idea that he himself would insist on critical realism in all matters when interacting with pre-moderns, even matters of science and history that he elsewhere seems in scripture to have no particular interest in.
I know this is all rather postmodern thinking. And certainly there are excesses in postmodernism. But some of the basic insights are valid, and I think especially helpful when it comes to viewing the ANE. See Brian McLaren for some good popular writing on this subject; his "A New Kind of Christian" trilogy is especially engaging.
Scott
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 2/20/2005 8:43 AM (GMT -6) | | | Hey there, Jet,
JET: Its abductive reasoning, right? If we believe evolution is likely to be true and we also believe humans were created in God's image, then we simply use our imagination and our reasoning abilities to arrive at the best explanation as to how these fit together. My thought is that human intelligence has probably been increasing over time. (We can see how knowledge in many areas has been increasing rapidly in recent times.) Not that we are necessarily "smarter" than Socrates, but in general over long periods of time human intelligence (however defined) has increased. I also see divine revelation as a progressive thing. God's dealing with people in history occurs over time and builds upon the past. The more knowledge, intelligence, and revelation we possess, the more we are held morally responsible for what we know we should do. All this fits an evolutionary model. At some point (only God knows) humans begain to have the requisite intelligence, etc., to be considered free, morally responsible beings capable of love.
Starkman: Staying with the Creation account, we are not led to believe that either intelligence or revelation was evolutionary progressive. We are not led to believe that man didn't evolve (if we put a gap of time between his creation and the breath of God put in him), but the creative event itself is specific: there is a distinguishing move of God upon man at some time bringing about the image of God via the breath of His Spirit ("Let us make man in Our image")
JET: What's wrong with just saying that, over time, more and more humans evolved to the point where they could become divine image bearers. God would know the details. Why do we need to know about specifics? How COULD we know about the specifics?
Starkman: You asked, "How COULD we know about the specifics?" I think that's the whole point. The Genesis account is there to give not the details but that something specific did happen. The details may be known by God, but that there were details is known to us. Plain, jane evolution cannot offer these details; there is simply no specific point where it can be said, "They now bear the image of God," or "Ok, they're are now man as they need to be." What would possible be any difference then and say, a few thousand, or even a hundred thousand years before? That's not what the Genesis account leads us to believe, so no, it isn't purely abductive reasoning.
JET: The metaphysics of how a being is created in the image of God is simply beyond what our natural experience allows us to comprehend and God hasn't given us the details by way of revelation.
Starkman: I agree. I'm just saying that those metaphysics are not an evolutionary development, according to Genesis.
JET: I don't have a problem with attributing the imago dei to "divine intervention". However, I conceive of this happening primarily on a metaphysical level. (I know next to nothing about what might have been going on at a physical, biological level.) In any event, I personally don't feel the need to understand all the details about what the metaphysical process of creating in the image of God would look like.
Starkman: Not a problem with that. I'm not interested in the metaphysical details or process either. Just the fact that it happened distinctively.
JET: Hey, Starkman, I'm obviously no expert on any of this and I haven't thought all this through. I'm just trying on these ideas to see if they fit. Know what I mean? Starkman:  | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 2/20/2005 11:51 AM (GMT -6) | | Scott,
Let me clarify a bit, too:
Scott said...
When a speaker refers in ancillary fashion to some conventional wisdom of the time, using it to bolster his otherwise-unrelated point (eg as Jesus does with Genesis when raising the bar on divorce - eg Mark 10:5-9), it is hard to tell whether the speaker is actually affirming belief in such wisdom's factuality, or is merely going along with it for greater pedagogical purposes.
...Now, of course, Jesus and the apostles may very well have agreed themselves with the conventional wisdom on the factuality of those points.
The text above that I have boldened address the point that concerns me, personally. Since there are scriptures that seem to me to clearly warn us about teaching falsehood, these boldened concessions give me pause. I have no hermeneutical principle to decide WHETHER the historiocity of any text is relevant to God's teaching once I assume God "appropriated" non-inspired text, expecting me to make sense of it independent of generally-accepted hermeneutical principles. IOW, the warnings about misrepresenting scripture become paralyzing. Why risk being judged?
Scott said...
And in any event, in each case it certainly can't be said that the narrative's historicity is part of the speaker's teaching point, since the teaching point is about morals and not history.
But that doesn't prove the irrelevance of the history. I can make points about what the constitution means independent of it's history, but it's AUTHORITY is only rooted in it's actual history - for the authority of contractual government is rooted in real ratification events of that document in the past. How can I be sure the same is not true of scripture? IOW, how can I know that the truth about divorce is independent of whether or not "God hath said" at some point in history? It didn't SEEM to be about experience, because the apostles concluded that it was not profitable to marry after hearing Christ's account of divorce!! Moreover, divorce IS controversial to this day even WITH Christ's pronouncements about it.
Scott said...
Now, of course, Jesus and the apostles may very well have agreed themselves with the conventional wisdom on the factuality of those points. Some Christians see Jesus as sort of God's omniscient mind cloaked in human skin; I and others do not. We find plenty of indication in scripture of God's kenotic activity in the incarnation, including the laying aside of his conscious omniscience; just as Jesus truly thirsted (John 19:28) and died as a man, so too he truly had the worldly knowledge of a man, acquired from his culture as he grew (eg Luke 2:52), just as it is with any other person.
But this does not answer WHETHER Christ knew history from scripture or not. If he believed the scripture was historically true, then he may have believed that the historical FACT of God's having SAID "the two shall become one flesh" has authoritative value for us.
Scott said...
In any event, whether or not Jesus and the apostles actually thought Genesis was historical or not doesn't matter to my point, since they never actually taught on its historicity, just used it pedagogically for other purposes. One can reject my above paragraph about the extent of the kenosis, and still accept the argument I'm representing here.
I can, indeed, accept your argument that it MIGHT mean what you're saying. But it doesn't seem that we're any closer to consensus on any of those moral views on account of the views of academe. Moreover, I can't imagine those views being the make-or-break cause of one being a Christian. It would seem to me that it is a weak view of scripture. So if one can be a Christian with that view, there never was much danger of the person rejecting Christianity anyway. So, why risk the judgement of being wrong about it ala James's warning? What's at stake? Nothing as far as I can tell. That's what gives me pause. That's what makes me cease to worry about apologetics if scripture is significantly non-historical.
Scott said...
I respect that you're a rationalist, a critical realist - so am I, and its certainly proven to be the most fruitful way to get around in this world. But is it really appropriate to assume that same fully-worked-out worldview has universally been held throughout history, and judge pre-modern cultures on its basis? Isn't that highly anachronistic and myopic? And do the only conclusions we can then reach about pre-modern cultures - namely, that they were stupid or insane - really pass the smell test?
I don't think other views are stupid or insane. I think in some sense, most of our problems are rooted in laziness - even we modern folks. That's why you can take an Aborigine of Australia and make a rocket scientist out of him. Because you are essentially causing him to discipline his mind to pay attention to evidence of a kind that he would normally be uninterested in. All people are inductive; they just differ to what extent they are willing to pay attention and analyze - hence Christ's warning to the Pharisees for saying lazy/idle words.
Open-mindedness requires an amount of discipline to do justice to one's opponents arguments. But I don't know how we can get rid of the axioms of analogy and parsimony for hypothesis formation and still make progress. And that's what I see academe doing. They are, if I understand you correctly, ASSUMING that the prophets did not see scripture as being historical - and this assumption is, in turn, based on the ASSUMPTION that God appropriated myths with the expectation of future persons treating them as parables and allegories, all the while knowing which incidental parts of the myths are relevant to the teaching point. These assumptions seem like a simple violation of parsimony and analogy until one can find evidence for them. Because the historical view of scripture makes perfectly good sense without these assumptions.
Indeed, the ONLY reason I can imagine one would violate parsimony here is because of the apparent contradiction of the history of Genesis and modern science/archaeology. But if God doesn't CARE about whether folks believe the Genesis accounts historically (as you said previously) so long as they get the moral message right, wouldn't that have significant implications for the role of apologetics? Wouldn't that imply that most of what passes for apologetics today is competely misguided and irrelevant?
Finally, if we abandon parsimony and analogy (even plausibility seems to be grounded in parsimony and analogy) and only hold to logical consistency as a criterion of truth, why would we argue against Paul Tillich. As long as he is consistent, we have no basis to convince him otherwise.
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