A related issue : Science and Religion: A View from an Evolutionary Creationist: Musings On Death and The Garden of Eden
Restrictions against procreation would have to be draconian. No more welcoming babies into the world.
Nice to see you back, Jimpithecus.
From Origen:
“For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally”
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Please… please … the citation for that quote! Perhaps it should be enshrined in its own page?
@BradKramer, can we archive this language until such time as its value can be truly appreciated?
The original post that I put up had the source for that quote. The source is Origen.
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I was hoping for a more precise citation…
Maybe even a link … I’ll see what I can do …
Origen of Alexandria, in a passage that was later chosen by Gregory of Nazianzus for inclusion in the Philocalia, an anthology of some of his most important texts, made the following very modern-sounding remarks:
“For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky?”
" And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life?"
“And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally.”
Footnote 14:
“De Principiis IV, 16”. [Translated from the Latin of Rufinus]
Newadvent.org. Retrieved 2011-10-01.
CHURCH FATHERS: De Principiis, Book IV (Origen)
Excellent. Thanks for running down the source of that. I should have, but couldn’t seem to locate it at the time. I knew that Origen had said it, because I have seen that quote many different places.
Lots of BioLogos columnists have written about Origen, if you are interested. http://biologos.org/search-results?q=origen
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You can see my take on this question at the following response to cfkeller:
https://discourse.biologos.org/t/evolution-and-the-historical-fall-what-does-genesis-3-tell-us-about-the-origin-of-evil
The authors of Genesis tried their level best to see our World as God sees it. But, even if they were inspired, that is pretty hard to do. We should do our best to use our additional knowledge (including science) to clarify the picture–“to know the Mind of God”, as Einstein and Stephen Hawking put it–but we will always fall woefully short.
Al Leo
Thanks for the heads up on that Section of great writings! I was particularly struck by this section, written way back in the “middle ages”: October 2012 !!!
Pre-modern Readings of Genesis 1, Part 2
By Sujin Pak (guest author)
October 10, 2012
“Aquinas wrote that a kind of primitive light was created on that first day that was then adorned on the fourth day with the sun, moon, and stars.”
"Similarly, Luther insisted that, “the crude light of the first day was perfected by the addition of new creatures on the 4th day—the sun, moon and stars.”
"Calvin used this mystery as a point of instruction about God’s sovereignty: that God in God’s sovereignty can impart to us light without the sun and moon and stars . . . "
[END OF EXCERPTS]
- See more at: http://biologos.org/blogs/archive/pre-modern-readings-of-genesis-1-part-2#sthash.UV4aiFyV.dpuf
What can we glean from these writings, composed by some of the most important religious thinkers in history of all Christianity?
One thing we can comment on is that Aquinas, Martin Luther and Calvin (the latter being 2 heroes of Protestantism!) were writing in a pre-scientific age. This can be a curse, but it can also be a blessing! All 3 of them did their best to use Genesis as a book of natural history … a book of science one might suppose, before there really was anything we would recognize as Science.
But what do our modern-day Creationists think of the ideas presented by these three? I’m sure there must be some who accept these conjured up ideas at face value … and say, “Yes, that sounds about right!”
But for most anyone else, I think the reason these ideas are not paraded around in your typical Creationist fraternity parties is because of how off-the-mark they sound! What else can we rightly say?
Not knowing anything about Cosmology, or Physics, or Astronomy - - these fine men were doing the best they could to explain the unexplainable - - unexplainable in two ways:
[1] nobody knew how suns and planets were formed anywhere; and
[2] nobody knew how to explain the Genesis presentation of what seemed to be an odd sequence of events… but which probably didn’t seem too odd to pre-literate, non-scientific audiences.
Today, the unexplainable [1] above is virtually gone. We have lots of explanations for how a solar system is formed, how the sun is formed, and how individual planets are formed. Findings in our own Sun-centered system are compared to what we see in our own Galaxy, and common features are identified and correlated to form pretty solid conclusions about how the Galaxy works.
Which leaves Creationists with the orphan of the Unexplainable - - why would Genesis describe things that would only make sense to a pre-literate and non-scientific audience?
The sage explanations of our 3 heroes of Christianity were doing the best they could. But it was, frankly, all baloney. We can look throughout the whole Universe and find nothing like what the Genesis writer (and his latter-day apologists) thought could happen.
We should not let the premises of a pre-literate civilization confine us to poor conclusions, wrested from superstitious insights, about a Divine Person who has enthusiastically demonstrated to us how he really works for more than a century now.
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