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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Does Creation Science Give Comfort to the Enemy?
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Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
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Posted
Surely the Grand Canyon requires river erosion. A flood would not cause it. If anything, it would silt it up.
Fossils are often caused by animals drowned in a flood that preserves them. But these could be similar to the devastating silt laden floods which bury animals that we experience today.
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'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Without blinding me with science about which I am profoundly ignorant, how do you deal with 'the flood could have made the grand canyon' argument or the seemingly obvious idea that 'fossils need to be the result of the sudden immersion and compression created by sediment that is evidenced by floods.'?
To address the fossil question for a moment, a global flood would theoretically bury and fossilize everything together at the same time. Organisms would be buried and fossilized randomly, rather than in the cladistic order we see them in.
A rather clever creationist answer to this is that the more complex/intelligent animals sought higher ground during the Deluge and were thus burried last. Leaving aside the question of whether there couldn't have been a few older, slower mastodons that couldn't keep up with the velociraptors or why trilobites with more lenses in their eyes are faster than those with fewer, this does nothing to explain the sorting of fossilized plants, most of which were immobile in life. We are asked to believe that the Flood uprooted and then carefully sorted all plant matter by order of increasing complexity. Either that, or that prior to the Flood trees and flowering plants only grew above a certain elevation, which is the exact opposite of what we observe today.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Is this the wrong place to ask why creationists need to believe the Genesis myth to be literally true?
I am no scientist but I can't pretend that what I see all around me isn't there.
Faith doesn't mean we suspend disbelief as if listening to a fairy story.
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Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Is this the wrong place to ask why creationists need to believe the Genesis myth to be literally true?
I am no scientist but I can't pretend that what I see all around me isn't there.
Faith doesn't mean we suspend disbelief as if listening to a fairy story.
...
If it is a myth there is no fall there is no original sin and consequently no need for redemption. The whole gospel becomes unnecessary.
Christ believed in the Genesis 'myth'. "He that made them in the beginning made them male and female..."
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Is this the wrong place to ask why creationists need to believe the Genesis myth to be literally true?
If it is a myth there is no fall there is no original sin and consequently no need for redemption. The whole gospel becomes unnecessary.
You see no room for any third option? Do you really believe that the choice is limited to either a literal interpretation or no need for redemption?
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Without blinding me with science about which I am profoundly ignorant, how do you deal with 'the flood could have made the grand canyon' argument or the seemingly obvious idea that 'fossils need to be the result of the sudden immersion and compression created by sediment that is evidenced by floods.'?
Just jumping in as a new member of this ship of fools.
The argument that the grand canyon (and other sedimentary strata) were causes by a flood fails because the fossil record is shown by the progressive changes within the layers. "Descent with modification", meaning progressive adaptive change over time. "Adaptive" means better able to survive changing local conditions. Those which are better adapted survive and produce more babies/offspring. The bottom layers of rock show organisms that are the ancestors of the ones in higher layers. The way this is known is that it can be seen what the changes are subsequently in the organisms fossilized in higher layers. The whole thing resets periodically when the conditions that organisms were slowly adapting to change rather quickly, e.g., when there's an ice age, a comet hits the earth, or right now when humans mess up and warm the planet up.
Evolutionary theory has moved forward with molecular genetics. It has been shown, for example that there are genes that direct other genes, for example, to tell other genes to "make a finger here" or "make a vertebrae here", each time initiating the other genes that make the item (HOX genes). This is shown for other things, like eyes, teeth, and many other anatomical things across species. The changes in some of these genes that direct and are directed can be shown to have changed as species have differentiated by a "molecular clock", which has predictable time-based variation depending on whether the gene involved is involved in making something, or is silent (so-called junk DNA).
The bottom line for most people who do know about science is that the mechanisms are wondrous and wonderful, and they re-invigour the sense of wonder and mystery that simplistic and trite explanations of creationists and creation (non)science completely lack. If there is something in science that can tell me there is a mystery of faith, a magnificence in creation, it is this sort of thing.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
If it is a myth there is no fall there is no original sin and consequently no need for redemption. The whole gospel becomes unnecessary
So you see wo/man's need for redemption and this makes you unable to see that the creation stories could be ancient people's explanation of this need?
The fact that mankind is 'fallen' is due to our basic animal instincts imo
We become 'human' selfless Christlike etc when we work against natural, 'self seeking' animal instincts, I think.
no_prophet - I agree. The awe and wonder of creation is enhanced by science and discovery, not deminished by it.
[ 30. March 2010, 03:21: Message edited by: Boogie ]
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt :
If it is a myth there is no fall there is no original sin and consequently no need for redemption. The whole gospel becomes unnecessary
The idea of original sin and a need for redemption for the evil deeds of some people we never met, in the specifics of the 'myth' can be fully rejected as a factual story, and as a very bad idea. Imagine a parent punishing a child for deeds of another child who was alive doing bad things before the other was born!
The need for redemption can be fully accepted as a description of the general fallen nature of all of us humans. I.E. We have not loved others as ourselves, we have not done what we ought and have done what we should not. Redemption is an ongoing, daily process. Least ways it seems to be in my life. And with the present day focus on consumption, brand names, markets and money, while materially rich people are so spiritually empty, it shows how much deeper we are in need redemption I think.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
I find very little to disagree with in what you post, no_prophet, other than the apparent attribution of the quote to me, which I hope can be fully rejected as something I posted. ![[Smile]](smile.gif) I think you'll find that it was originally posted by Jamat, who I'm hoping will eventually stop by to elaborate.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I have plenty of sin to atone for without inheriting anybody else's.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
It may be worth having a seperate thread to discuss the Fall in relation to Creationism. To me, the argument is probably the strongest one there is for some form of special creation to be essential to a Biblically informed faith. Paul makes quite extensive use of the myth for developing a model for atonement - the death of one sinless man redeems us from the effects of the sin of one man.
I don't think it's an absolutely compelling argument, but it's the only one that keeps me contemplating whether historical accuracy of the Genesis narratives is a possibly valid approach.
The Fall myth serves several purposes. Probably the strongest is to address the question "why are we like this?" when contemplating the indisputable fact that we're all sinners. Why is it that we all fall short and we're all incapable of living sinless lives? One answer is that we in some sense 'inherit' sinfulness, that our natures inherited from our parents, and the society we live in (also 'inherited' from our ancestors as well as our peers), drives us towards being sinners. We simply can't help it. The Fall myth gives us an answer to the "when did this start?" question. Today, we're more likely to use a myth taken from evolution - we evolved from other animals, and inherit the drive to survive and reproduce. We might even use a myth of "selfish genes".
Another aspect of the Fall myth is that of an earlier Edenic innocence, from which we're now barred. With the promise that in Christ we will eventually reclaim our place in Paradise. I think that's an essential part of a myth that places the "when did this start?" question within human history. Modern myths would actually take that answer out of human history, and even put it as "it's always been this way", removing the need for any earlier perfect state from our mythology. Though we still tend to cling to the perfect future.
I believe it is entirely possible to describe the work of Christ in redeeming us within a modern mythological framework, where we're redeemed from our own personal sins that are in part a result of our inherited biological drives, in part the imperfect societies in which we live, in part our own stupidity and weakness.
What we need to do is answer the question of how the sacrifice of one man can redeem many. We can no longer rely on the argument Paul uses that if the sin of one man can condemn all, then the sacrifice of the one sinless man can redeem all. For Paul, addressing an audience for whom the Fall myth was a part of their worldview, it was a powerful argument. For us, where we no longer live in a world where the Fall myth makes sense, it's a much weaker argument. We need a new apologetic approach, rather than just regurgitating the approaches that worked in different circumstances.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Alan, would our 'animal nature' not explain all this?
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
Alan. You asked about the "Fall"/
How about this perspective?
The Genesis story of the “Fall” is the earliest Biblical attempt to answer the question, “How come evil?”. It was not intended as a once-for-all account of how evil came. It really answers the on-going question of how evil comes.
The basic insight of Gen 3 is that man’s pride will not allow him to be content with the status of creature (and therefore dependent on God). So man yields to the temptation to become god-like and seizes the opportunity to become like God. (The snake in the story is simply the personification of temptation; it is not to be identified with the Devil in later Hebrew thought.) This act of wilful disobedience had widespread consequences.
Does this ‘square’ with what science tells us today? Science uses the category of evolution to explain how things came to be and the Genesis story can be understood using this category of thought. However, it suggests that the “Fall” was not a declension from perfection to sinfulness; rather it is really a “failure to become”.
The argument in evolutionary terms suggests that, up to the point where man emerges as a self-conscious, moral being, all development is automatic and without moral content. When man emerges as a self-conscious being then an additional possibility is held out to him; he is called to attain to the image and likeness of God but this requires his response. The means by which he may do this is through “faith”. Insofar as man refuses to grasp, through faith, the opportunity open to him he is effectively choosing to live out his life at a purely biological level. It is at this level that the self-centeredness which characterises all sin predominates and so evil emerges.
Do these ‘scientific’ explanations square with the Bible? The answer is Yes. The NT uses two words for “life”. One is the word “bios”, from which we get biological. That describes the life we all share by virtue of creation. The other word used for “life” is “zoe” and it is the word used in St John’s gospel to denote “eternal life”. Eternal life is life of a different quality to biological life. Whereas we all have “bios” as a matter of inheritance “zoe” is a gift offered by God and it can only be appropriated by faith. We all have “bios”, like it or not. We do not all have “zoe”.
So Genesis 3 can be understood using scientific as well as Biblical categories of thought. Faithlessness is the common denominator in both accounts. In Hebrew thought faithlessness is shown in man’s refusal to accept the parameters God sets out. In evolutionary thought faithlessness is the rejection of that higher possibility on offer to us.
So the "Fall" is really a "failure to become" As paul says " all have sinned and fallen short" (Romans 3v23) John gives the solution. "to those who believed in His name He gave power to become children of God". How does this sound to you ?
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Alan, would our 'animal nature' not explain all this?
I doubt it. Most other animals don't seem to feel the need for a theological backstory.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Do these ‘scientific’ explanations square with the Bible? The answer is Yes. The NT uses two words for “life”. One is the word “bios”, from which we get biological. That describes the life we all share by virtue of creation. The other word used for “life” is “zoe” and it is the word used in St John’s gospel to denote “eternal life”. Eternal life is life of a different quality to biological life. Whereas we all have “bios” as a matter of inheritance “zoe” is a gift offered by God and it can only be appropriated by faith. We all have “bios”, like it or not. We do not all have “zoe”.
Why is the distinction between two different Greek words used in the New Testament relevant to the Genesis account? Wouldn't differences in the actual Hebrew words used there be more on point?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Alan, would our 'animal nature' not explain all this?
I doubt it. Most other animals don't seem to feel the need for a theological backstory.
Of course most other animals don't write creation myths either.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Alan, would our 'animal nature' not explain all this?
I doubt it. Most other animals don't seem to feel the need for a theological backstory.
Of course most other animals don't write creation myths either.
Indeed not, which is why I find appeals to our 'animal nature' as a reason for some theological necessity other animals do just fine without to be unconvincing.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
According to Christian understanding other animals don't have "souls." So requirements for us that the other animals don't share, while not necessarily part of our mythos, aren't totally unexpected either.
Or in other words, we're different from them why s shouldn't requirements and/or descriptions be different?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
You missed my point.
I am saying that because we evolved from animals we - necessarily - have an 'animal' instinctual side to our natures. We need to overcome or override this to 'become' fully human or Christlike.
Animals are 'raw in tooth and claw' - as we are sometimes. But we can go beyond this and be moral, spiritual creatures.
So our falleness is a failure to become - not a fall from a previous perfection.
[ 31. March 2010, 21:31: Message edited by: Boogie ]
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I am saying that because we evolved from animals we - necessarily - have an 'animal' instinctual side to our natures. We need to overcome or override this to 'become' fully human or Christlike.
I don't think this idea works. It looks much like the old body-soul dualism again. The old idea that evil stems from our bodies dragging down our souls is not that dissimilar from the idea that our animal nature is making us less Christlike. After all, our bodies are very much something we share with the animals.
I don't think that evil is at all the same thing as acting according to our animal nature. Caring for our children is something animal; spite and hatred and revenge seem to me peculiarly human.
Evil is I think specifically human; animals that can't make moral judgements can't be evil (or saintly either). Morality and evil seem to me bound up with language: the ability to refer to things that aren't present or to abstract concepts. And language and society are inherited. I don't think we can believe in a biological transmission of original sin, and the story of the apple is certainly not historical. But there must have been a point at which a group of apes turned their group cries and calls into a language - and with the linguistic ability we inherited from them we may well have inherited the twisted part of our social inheritance we call original sin.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
Mitrochondrial DNA apparentrly suggests a common ancestress. Eve is a better option than lucy.
I don't think it is a myth. (creation and fall story) I think though that its a shimmering historical haze..but not a myth. I think Genesis tells us what we need to know not what we want to know. I think we can only respect the branches if the roots hold to the ground. I think therefore that evolution has to be wrong as it lets us off the hook morally. I think the prologue to John is a restatement of creation, a backstory to Christ , again based on what we need to know rather than what we'd like to know.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Mitrochondrial DNA apparentrly suggests a common ancestress. Eve is a better option than lucy.
I don't think it is a myth. (creation and fall story) I think though that its a shimmering historical haze..but not a myth. I think Genesis tells us what we need to know not what we want to know. I think we can only respect the branches if the roots hold to the ground. I think therefore that evolution has to be wrong as it lets us off the hook morally. I think the prologue to John is a restatement of creation, a backstory to Christ , again based on what we need to know rather than what we'd like to know.
I'm not sure evolution "lets us off the hook" so much as it generates a different morality, at least for those who think it could be the basis for morality. The need for continued survival does create an ethos. In some ways, it's not unlike the OT one, which seems to include all kinds of ethical problems resolved by the need to survive and continue the family line.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Mitrochondrial DNA apparentrly suggests a common ancestress. Eve is a better option than lucy.
I don't think it is a myth. (creation and fall story) I think though that its a shimmering historical haze..but not a myth. I think Genesis tells us what we need to know not what we want to know. I think we can only respect the branches if the roots hold to the ground. I think therefore that evolution has to be wrong as it lets us off the hook morally. I think the prologue to John is a restatement of creation, a backstory to Christ , again based on what we need to know rather than what we'd like to know.
It's always dangerous to start revising your version of reality based on personal philosophical preferences instead of actual observations. Using the same logic one could argue that we live in a geocentric universe, since any other model detracts from the world as the stage on which God played out his greatest drama. Plus it would create difficulties with certain scriptural passages if it's really the Earth moving around the Sun instead of the other way around. Just because it would be inconvenient for something to be true is no reason to automatically believe it to be false. Discarding observation for personal preference is an invitation to error.
Going to the specifics of the mitochondrial Eve hypothesis (please read the "Common Fallacies" part of this wiki page), since one of the primary tenets of evolution is common descent the existence of a common female ancestor isn't a problem for evolutionary theory. In fact, it would be something of a problem if there weren't.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
I think therefore that evolution has to be wrong as it lets us off the hook morally.
I'm not sure evolution "lets us off the hook" so much as it generates a different morality, at least for those who think it could be the basis for morality. The need for continued survival does create an ethos.
But isn't the question why we needed Christ to redeem us? I wouldn't think the need for continued survival and any ethos it creates is sufficient to explain why we were so badly in need of redemption that it was necessary for the Word to become flesh and live among us. I have a different understanding of the fall from Jamat, but I think I understand his or her theological position. Do you have an idea of the fall that is compatible with evolution, or perhaps a way of reconciling the two?
[ 01. April 2010, 03:44: Message edited by: W Hyatt ]
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
If evil comes from language and the ability for abstract thought, then so does good. If an animal can't 'Love God and love neighbour' and we can then the failure to do so has been around ever since humans became human.
So in that sense the Genesis myth works. From (virtually) the start we have been self centred and trying not to be.
But why try?
People have often tried to produce selfish societies - but somehow good prevails - is this not the influence of God?
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Alan, would our 'animal nature' not explain all this?
Depending on exactly what is meant by 'animal nature' and how that is applied as an explanation, of course.
Which just illustrates one of the things I was saying. We've generally replaced one myth (based on Biblical narratives of the Fall) with another (based on biological evolution) to understand our less than perfect human nature.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Alan. You asked about the "Fall"/
How about this perspective?
The Genesis story of the “Fall” is the earliest Biblical attempt to answer the question, “How come evil?”. It was not intended as a once-for-all account of how evil came. It really answers the on-going question of how evil comes.
I generally agree. But, my main point was not so much with the Fall narrative in Genesis as the way that narrative is used by Paul in describing the redemption brought by Christ; that just as sin came through the disobedience of one man, so too redemption comes through the obedience of one man. As I said, it's about the only argument that comes close to implying a need to accept that the Fall is in some sense historical (and, therefore, the Genesis accounts themselves need to be more historical that I'd accept) ... though it doesn't quite get there for me.
If we take the Genesis accounts in a more metaphorical sense then we're left with a problem when we read Paul, or at least that particular apologetic Paul sets out. If there was no single man who because of his pride disobeyed God and so 'infected' the rest of humanity with sin, how then can the analogy that a single man who in humility obeys God 'cure' the whole of humanity work?
Of course, we could simply decide that the apologetic approach Paul adopted there worked in the context of a mythology of Creation and Fall, but doesn't work within the mythology that we have accepted based on biological evolution. And, we adopt apologetic approaches that do work in our mythological framework and ignore those that don't.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
If we take the Genesis accounts in a more metaphorical sense then we're left with a problem when we read Paul, or at least that particular apologetic Paul sets out. If there was no single man who because of his pride disobeyed God and so 'infected' the rest of humanity with sin, how then can the analogy that a single man who in humility obeys God 'cure' the whole of humanity work?
It seems to me that a fictional analogy works just as well as a historical analogy to explain how something works. I don't think Paul is saying that one man, Jesus, can redeem us only because sin came into the world because of Adam.
The point of Adam isn't really the historical individual, but the fact of humanity as a single entity having corporate responsibility.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
Dafyd said that evil is specifically human and I agree. But that sidesteps the argument which is being made.
Teilhard de Chardin argued for a series of "thresholds" to be crossed in the evolutionary process. Evil is associated with the last of his thresholds, the threshhold of self-consciousness and community.
Unless we postulate a total disconuity between them then there must be some carry-over from one threshold to the next.
The argument here is that what, at the animal level, has survival value, has a destructive capacity at the humn / community level.
And I question whether Christ came to "redeem" us from anything. In my view he came to reveal what is possible for humanity to become. In itself that is a saving revelation. Being truly human himself he revealed what a Spirit-possessed person can become. If that redeems us from what we were ( or are) then great.
My reading of Genesis indicates that humankind does have a dual nature. "Created from the dust of the ground" indicates that we are one with the rest of the creatures. Having "the breath of God breathed into us" (which is the 2nd half of the Genesis verse) indicates that we are something more. That 'something more' is also, like the rest of creation, in process of becoming.
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Lothiriel
Shipmate
# 15561
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
I think therefore that evolution has to be wrong as it lets us off the hook morally.
I'm not sure evolution "lets us off the hook" so much as it generates a different morality, at least for those who think it could be the basis for morality. The need for continued survival does create an ethos.
But isn't the question why we needed Christ to redeem us? I wouldn't think the need for continued survival and any ethos it creates is sufficient to explain why we were so badly in need of redemption that it was necessary for the Word to become flesh and live among us. I have a different understanding of the fall from Jamat, but I think I understand his or her theological position. Do you have an idea of the fall that is compatible with evolution, or perhaps a way of reconciling the two?
In The Problem of Pain, CS Lewis attempts to reconcile evolution with a fall, in the chapter 'The Fall of Man'. He describes how over millenia, God might have formed the beings who, when they reached a certain stage of physical and mental capacity, were endowed with the image of God. Of the fall specifically he says
quote:
We do not know how many of these creatures God made, nor how long they continued in the Paradisal state. But sooner or later they fell. Someone or something whispered that they could become as gods--that they could cease directing their lives to their Creator . . . . We have no idea in what particular act, or series of acts, the self-contradictory, impossible wish found expression. For all I can see, it might have concerned the literal eating of a fruit, but the question is of no consequence.
The chapter 'Animal Pain' has some interesting speculation on a fall of creation separate from the fall of humankind, also intended to try to reconcile biblical theology with what we know of the history of life on earth.
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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. St-Exupery
my blog
Posts: 538 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Mar 2010
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
I think therefore that evolution has to be wrong as it lets us off the hook morally.
I'm not sure evolution "lets us off the hook" so much as it generates a different morality, at least for those who think it could be the basis for morality. The need for continued survival does create an ethos.
But isn't the question why we needed Christ to redeem us? I wouldn't think the need for continued survival and any ethos it creates is sufficient to explain why we were so badly in need of redemption that it was necessary for the Word to become flesh and live among us. I have a different understanding of the fall from Jamat, but I think I understand his or her theological position. Do you have an idea of the fall that is compatible with evolution, or perhaps a way of reconciling the two?
I think you're assuming the problem in a way that most non-Christians (and more than a few Christians) wouldn't find reasonable. To an atheist (and someone correct me if this is off base) it's like telling a person they have to buy this cleaning product to get the invisible cooties out of their hair. It's absurd.
But since I am a Christian, I'll crawl out on a limb for a bit and see how long it takes someone else to break it down...
*starts crawling*
I tend to figure the fall has more to do with psychology than with biology. You could, I guess, examine the evolution of human self-consciousness and work from there, but that's not something I've fully worked out yet.
At some point, we developed (or was developed in us) a degree of self-awareness that separated us in a fundamental way from the rest of the world. This separation (for two things cannot be separated and remain truly equal) leads to a sense that the world is ours to possess and do with as we will (pride.) It's just an object to be manipulated for the maximization of our own personal well being. I figure a lot of the screwed-up-ness in the world comes of this, our overpopulation, exploitation of resources and each other, objectification of ourselves, etc. We fancy that we are like gods.
And I figure God is somehow complicit in this activity, too. Whether we can blame God or God can blame us...that could be a fun thread.
Anyway, this arrogating of authority is, I think, for most Christians, the origin of sin.
I suppose if there's a redemption it's when God enters the world in human form to both show and be the way for us to be in the world, consciousness and all. We should instead of objectifying the world as ours to manipulate, allow ourselves to become manipulated so that the world can fix itself and ourselves as well. It's realigning us, ideally, into a right relationship with the world in its ongoing perfection.
And why use the time and place that he did? One might as well ask why we evolved to exist at this time and not 3 million years before or 3 million years later (if it's possible to think in years once you're not thinking earth-time.) At this time, it is what it is. That could be another fun thread.
Those are some thoughts (not bad for before noon when I really should be wrapping up a sermon instead of being here, eh?)
*sits patiently and awaits the inevitable chainsaws*
ETA: FWIW, I hadn't read the post on CS Lewis or really any others before typing this.
[ 01. April 2010, 15:58: Message edited by: Bullfrog. ]
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
We should instead of objectifying the world as ours to manipulate, allow ourselves to become manipulated so that the world can fix itself and ourselves as well.
I like this Bullfrog. But I somehow think that it's the developed world which fails to do this. There are still a few tribes around who do live at one with creation - taking no more than they need. I doubt any are Chrsitian societies - the 'work ethic' seems to take over when society converts to Christianity.
I still don't think there was a fall to be explained. If our self awareness brought about our capacity for good and evil, then it's dealing with that 'advancement' which i the struggle - not a return to an imagined former 'perfection' Unless it's the primitive life I mentioned - living in harmony with creation, Early Native American style?
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[ 01. April 2010, 16:23: Message edited by: Boogie ]
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
We should instead of objectifying the world as ours to manipulate, allow ourselves to become manipulated so that the world can fix itself and ourselves as well.
I like this Bullfrog. But I somehow think that it's the developed world which fails to do this. There are still a few tribes around who do live at one with creation - taking no more than they need. I doubt any are Chrsitian societies - the 'work ethic' seems to take over when society converts to Christianity.
I still don't think there was a fall to be explained. If our self awareness brought about our capacity for good and evil, then it's dealing with that 'advancement' which i the struggle - not a return to an imagined former 'perfection' Unless it's the primitive life I mentioned - living in harmony with creation, Early Native American style?
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I'm not too keen on the protestant work ethic, myself. Like every Christian, there are bits I think are more necessary and bits I think are less necessary, the protestant work ethic and the whole European imperialism thing to me look more like temporary mutations rather than a necessary part of the DNA.
At the same time, I'm skeptical of the "noble savage" myth. Every human society bends the world around it, just like every animal society does. It's just that we tend to do it in a bigger way.
I'm not that attached to "the fall," especially as a discrete historical event, though I think there is something uniquely dysfunctional in or about humanity.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
I'm not sure evolution "lets us off the hook" so much as it generates a different morality, at least for those who think it could be the basis for morality. The need for continued survival does create an ethos.
I don't understand where this "need" comes from. There is no need for continued survival. Even if we accept the anthropomorphism, the "need" of an individual organism is to reproduce and (if possible) see that its progeny survives. But even there it's more "desire" than "need". Or say rather "hard-wired drive". But "continued survival" is a theoretical construct and certainly not the need of any animal. As such it's hard to see how it can create an ethos.
But I'm the skeptic who can't see how you can go from "this is" to "this should be". I've yet to see a good argument for that hat-trick.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
But I'm the skeptic who can't see how you can go from "this is" to "this should be". I've yet to see a good argument for that hat-trick.
I'm more concerned about what happens when you reverse that logic and insist "this should be, therefore it is", which seems to be the basis for most creationist arguments.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
Croesus: "the existence of a common female ancestor isn't a problem for evolutionary theory"
Not a problem for creation either
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Croesus: "the existence of a common female ancestor isn't a problem for evolutionary theory"
Not a problem for creation either
Not a problem for anyone who knows as much genetics as they teach 13-year-olds and can do simple arithmetic. It is exactly what we'd expect.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
But I'm the skeptic who can't see how you can go from "this is" to "this should be". I've yet to see a good argument for that hat-trick.
I'm more concerned about what happens when you reverse that logic and insist "this should be, therefore it is", which seems to be the basis for most creationist arguments.
Although that step is usually left unspoken, isn't it?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
I'm not sure evolution "lets us off the hook" so much as it generates a different morality, at least for those who think it could be the basis for morality. The need for continued survival does create an ethos.
I don't understand where this "need" comes from. There is no need for continued survival. Even if we accept the anthropomorphism, the "need" of an individual organism is to reproduce and (if possible) see that its progeny survives. But even there it's more "desire" than "need". Or say rather "hard-wired drive". But "continued survival" is a theoretical construct and certainly not the need of any animal. As such it's hard to see how it can create an ethos.
But I'm the skeptic who can't see how you can go from "this is" to "this should be". I've yet to see a good argument for that hat-trick.
I think for those outside of any religious tradition, "this is" dictates to an extent the limits of "what should be."
And I think you're right about the want verses need. In a humanist space, it's all wants. Nothing is absolutely necessary, for there is nothing that can safely be called "God."
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Unless we postulate a total disconuity between them then there must be some carry-over from one threshold to the next.
The argument here is that what, at the animal level, has survival value, has a destructive capacity at the humn / community level.
It depends on what the argument is.
There are four possibilities:
1) Has survival value at the animal level, and is destructive at the human level.
2) Has survival value at the animal level, and still has survival value and is creative at the human level.
3) Results from moving on from the animal level, and is creative at the human level.
4) Results from moving on from the animal level and is destructive at the human level.
So far your argument only recognises categories 1 and 3. And no doubt such categories are instantiated. I would say that all four categories are instantiated. What is more, I think more human evil falls into category 4 than category 1.
quote:
And I question whether Christ came to "redeem" us from anything. In my view he came to reveal what is possible for humanity to become. In itself that is a saving revelation. Being truly human himself he revealed what a Spirit-possessed person can become. If that redeems us from what we were ( or are) then great.
I have a number of difficulties with this scheme. It seems in an ahistorical way to detach Jesus from his human setting and project him into the future. Whatever Jesus was as a human being, he was as a first century Galilean Jew, not a twentieth century Jesuit, a twenty-first century writer of self-help books, or an anticipation of a Point Omega that has yet to arrive.
I'm not really impressed by claims that Jesus was so much morally better than Socrates or the Buddha, for instance, as to be in a completely different category. Our belief that Jesus was without sin follows from our belief that he is God incarnate come to redeem us. Not the other way around.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
But isn't the question why we needed Christ to redeem us? I wouldn't think the need for continued survival and any ethos it creates is sufficient to explain why we were so badly in need of redemption that it was necessary for the Word to become flesh and live among us.
I think you're assuming the problem in a way that most non-Christians (and more than a few Christians) wouldn't find reasonable.
Yes, I was making implicit assumptions based on reading many of your posts. Thank you for taking the time to go out on that limb and respond to my question - there's much that I can agree with in what you posted.
However, in response to part of your later post:
quote:
Every human society bends the world around it ....
I would suggest that human societies do it to varying degrees and the ones that have done it less are the ones we're likely to know less about.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
[QUOTE]
If we take the Genesis accounts in a more metaphorical sense then we're left with a problem when we read Paul, or at least that particular apologetic Paul sets out. If there was no single man who because of his pride disobeyed God and so 'infected' the rest of humanity with sin, how then can the analogy that a single man who in humility obeys God 'cure' the whole of humanity work?
Then why not take them literally?
I think the problem we have (and I have fought my own mind for many years over the universe, )is that we are proud beings. God's message is essentially simple. He did something to create us, we did something to mar that and he intervened to correct that marring. QED. Paul was no fool neither was the author of John (who I believe was John,) Christ himself is recorded as believing in the original couple. All suggest the problem of sin derives from the taint of the fall, all posit Christ as the remedy,
All the twists and turns taken by mankind are flawed in that we are not nor cannot ever be objective. There is no escape from contingency, no genuine objectivity in Science or anything else.
There was only one choice for me; to fight the pride of my thinking and the power of my conditioning in order to humble my mind to what the scripture teaches. AKA That there was a special creation, a special redemption and plenty of people and spiritual powers with an agenda to discredit the scriptural message.
[ 02. April 2010, 07:03: Message edited by: Jamat ]
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
[QUOTE]
If we take the Genesis accounts in a more metaphorical sense then we're left with a problem when we read Paul, or at least that particular apologetic Paul sets out. If there was no single man who because of his pride disobeyed God and so 'infected' the rest of humanity with sin, how then can the analogy that a single man who in humility obeys God 'cure' the whole of humanity work?
But that doesnt take into account the fact that Paul might also be using "man" in a generic way.
Just as sin entered via humans so it is overcome via a human.
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
There was only one choice for me; to fight the pride of my thinking and the power of my conditioning in order to humble my mind to what the scripture teaches. AKA That there was a special creation, a special redemption and plenty of people and spiritual powers with an agenda to discredit the scriptural message.
You sweep pride out by the front door and it comes in again at the back.
I don't see what is so humble about assuming that the interpretation of what the Scripture teaches that occurs to you as you first read the Bible is correct. If there's no objectivity in science, there won't be any objectivity in Biblical interpretation.
Nor do I think it's humble to assume that all the scientists and others who believe in evolution are misled by spiritual powers while you have successfully humbled yourself.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
The idea that the Christian need for salvation is only valid if there was a literal Fall has always struck me as akin to arguing that the Christian commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself" is only valid if there was a literal, real world Good Samaritan, and that if it could be shown that no such event took place along the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, then it's every Christian for himself.
You'd think that Christians, of all people, would appreciate the value of a good parable.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Christ himself is recorded as believing in the original couple.
I would rephrase this to say that Christ is recorded as speaking in a way that implies belief in the original couple, which I assume was valid for his audience. What strikes me when reading the Gospels is how thoroughly rooted in the one particular culture Jesus was - he was clearly speaking to his immediate audience, starting from where they were.
As Croesus suggests, there is no real evidence to suggest that JC himself believed in the actual existence of Adam and Eve any more than he believed in the actual existence of the Good Samaritan.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Christ himself is recorded as believing in the original couple.
I would rephrase this to say that Christ is recorded as speaking in a way that implies belief in the original couple, which I assume was valid for his audience. What strikes me when reading the Gospels is how thoroughly rooted in the one particular culture Jesus was - he was clearly speaking to his immediate audience, starting from where they were.
As Croesus suggests, there is no real evidence to suggest that JC himself believed in the actual existence of Adam and Eve any more than he believed in the actual existence of the Good Samaritan.
Total cop out. To spin it like that you have to say black is white.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
As Croesus suggests, there is no real evidence to suggest that JC himself believed in the actual existence of Adam and Eve any more than he believed in the actual existence of the Good Samaritan.
Total cop out. To spin it like that you have to say black is white.
Indeed. Jesus said (in NIV translation) "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho . . ." He could just as easily have said "Imagine a man going . . ." if He intended the story to be interpreted as fiction. He clearly believed in a literal Good Samaritan, which is the whole point his telling that story. Saying that the story is there to illustrate some larger point regardless of its fictional status is a 'cop out'
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
It doesn't matter whether he said 'imagine that' or not - he was telling a story to illustrate a point. The story of creation does exactly the same. It explains and illustrates the human condition beautifully and in wonderful poetry.
Is it literally true? - no way imo.
Jesus may have believed in a literal Adam(he was a man of his time) or he may not.
Science has moved on in 2000 years.
Jesus believed epilepsy was caused by demons - it doesn't mean that it was! - our understanding of many medical conditions has moved on a great deal in 2000 years.
...
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
He only believed in a real Good Samaritan because it was a scoop for the Jerusalem Sun on that particular day. It happened.
But Jesus used the story to make a point about the identity of "neighbour".
Whether it was fictional or not is beside the point.
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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