Mr Brooks,
Please pardon me if I have offended you and the Forum. I have no intention of stepping on anybody’s toes or forcing people to use the word Everlasting instead of Eternal. As I noted at the beginning of the post that I was trying to figure these things out, and posting it so I can get some feedback. Obviously the feedback I am getting from you is that I have somehow violated the traditions or customs of the Biologos Forum. If I have stated something that somebody else said and not quoted it, I am ignorant of that fact and apologize for it. All of these thoughts have come from my reading of different books, and only now am I able to express what I am processing in a forum of people who can intelligently respond to me.
Your challenge to me is way over my head at this time. I believe the header on these forums is “gracious dialog”. As a former BioLogos member and having been gone for a while, I am somewhat familiar with the forum’s customs, but perhaps they have changed in three or four years.
My apologies to you if I have offended you.
Perhaps I need to be more specific when I write that I am trying to discuss things I think.
I will seriously think about what you have said. Saying that, I wonder about your motives in slamming me so hard.
Oh, and I agree that Evolution has perfect timing. But it is God’s timing too.I thought I made that clear. No luck involved.
And I do not represent The Forum. It’s just little ol’ me. (Though my wife was quick to jab me in the ribs … saying she couldn’t actually feel any ribs…)
My response was purely self-defense … the thought of having even more excruciatingly detailed debates in the near future caused all the blood to drain out of my head … letting my fingers wander aimlessly over the key board …
Whoah there !!! I think you just don’t know me yet. I owe you the apology if I so misgauged my comments as to create such a bad feeling in your mind. I promise … I don’t bite… but I do tend to yammer.
I deeply and humbly apologize for not finding a better way to offer my thoughts … and I apologize to the rest of The Forum for yesterday’s yammering…
I loved that part… God’s timing is everything - - and I mean that in a couple of different ways!
I do hope you will forgive me for making such a bad impression on you. I was very sincere about willing to engage in your favorite topic or discussion!
Thank you George, (I may call you George, my new friend…)
Thank you for the apology. I was taken aback a bit by your post. I wasn’t expecting it on my second day back in the forum. Now I know to take you as you are. I was hoping I didn’t do so badly on my first outings on the forum,…he he…
A bit of Bio so you know me a bit better to respond.
I am 63 and semi-retired. I have a M-Div from Azusa Pacific University (95) and planned to be a pastor. That part fell through and I ended up retiring as a senior Network Admin for an electronics company that is being currently snapped up by a Global conglomerate (hence I can’t say the name - non-disclosure).
I have done much work in Technology and the church, and finding my way through rethinking my established Chirstian Theology. I have ended up (on my own) being a Sabbath Keeper and Yahwist, though I firmly reject Seventh-day Adventists and Yahwist groups because of their cultist ways beyond the basic belief I share. I am a solid Evangelical that has serious doubts about our established theology based on the English translations of the bible.I have been learning Hebrew (again) and brushing up on my Greek, though I have to use the English Transliterations _ I have trouble with non-roman alphabets.
I am an avid reader of Science of all kinds, and avid Science Fiction Fan from way back, and trying to be well read in theology too. Keeps me busy! I am looking to establish my own Wiki site to store my work and eventually share with others. BioLogos is part of my plan in that direction.
I am interested in how our theology has to be rethought concerning issues that are affected by the change from the YEC-centric view to the EC view (I did get that right?).
Death in the pre-Adamic evolutionary world. I changes the whole chain of theological building blocks leading to final judgement and — he he–Eternal life.
The next is the creation narrative al la John W. The function versus the material affects another chain including the words we use to describe ourselves as Human, Man, and Woman. So much of the Study Bible Materials and Interpretations of the English Bible would need to change.
I can go one, but that is where I am at now. Let me think on it more and respond tomorrow. I worked all day at the local county fair and got home to read your post. I’ll have nore time in the morning.
Theology[quote=“RLBailey, post:1, topic:36214”]
Since this came from George, I’ll let him have the first shot. And it is 1:00 in the morning I can’t get to sleep until I posted this.
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George, I put up a new forum topic. If we have alrteady hashed out the Ethernal thing, then suggest something that surprises me. You never know.
We are all taken aback a bit by George, so you are in good company.
While I have not followed this topic closely, one thing I try to keep in mind regarding death in creation is that evolution is really concerned with populations. To the individual animal, they live their lives pretty much independent of evolutionary forces, and the day to day life of a rabbit is the same regardless of whether its linage is an evolutionary dead end or whether it is the ancestor of Peter Cottontail. So, I see the argument of “Why would God use so much death as the mechanism for evolution?” as really not an issue.
I agree wholeheartedly. My point that the use of the word catastrophe is unwarranted because there is no warrant to describe a die-off as being something that only applies to humans (as in Post-adamic humans). near-humans of Adam’s generation outside the garden are not included as they did not have “the Spirit” breathed into them, no fear of death to the same degree as Eve and Adam.
Another possibility is that rather than differing on the question of “fear” (which is not a mutually exclusive factor in either case), it was Adam & Eve who were first “judged to be” (or “provided the moral capacity”) to be “Moral Agents” - - capable of having guilt for wrong-doing assignable to them. Humans outside the garden may not, as of yet, felt or known guilt.
As I have written before I don’t see Adam and Eve as historical persons. I suppose if we do hang onto the bilblcal story in some historical sense then A and E only knew fear when they became ashamed after eating the forbidden fruit.
if we take a more evolutionary view humanity probably had a sense of fear from their animal ancestory and had it as survival mechanism. We do need a sense of fear to run away from danger.and still possess it. But fear can become negative when linked to shame and worry about status, guilt and being found out etc.
As to other intelligent pre-humans we still have noi way of knowing in what sense they may have possessed “spirit”. The whole point of the bibilcal emphasis on endownment of the spirit is I think to highlight their (our) special intended nature in respect of having something of God in us that other life only has in a lesser form of existence. God has breathed a special measure of the divine nature into us so we may come to share more fully in that nature and divine communion.
The OT word for Spirit = ruach , which also means “breath”. Psalm 104 mentions that when God takes away the “breath” (spirit) of any living creature, it dies. When God’s "spirit"goes forth into creation again there is more life and the earth is renewed with new life and creatures.
The implication is that all life in some way has something of God’s life/spirit/breath in them. Its just that humanity has some extra quality of “life” that other creatures do not have.
For someone who doesn’t see Adam & Eve as historical (which I think is a good observation) … I think it’s a little unexpected that you are trying to literally assign a Hebrew term for the non-Adamite population…
I would think once you dump Adam … it would be relatively easy to carve out whatever terminology you need…
Oh, I agree completely with that. But I keep getting stuck on the mortality part. I keep looking at the possibility that the awareness of mortality–at the level of A & E after they eat the fruit–is somehow lacking in the “almost” humans outside the garden.
As @cosmicscotus says above, we have no way of what sense of “spirit” they have. To me the breathing the breath of life is not just morality or even “spiritual awareness” (whatever that means). But whatever it means, it is what drives us to choose or reject Elohim. It has to at least a sense of personal involvement with life, such that the desires of the fruit was enough to risk mortality.
Yes, they would have. What I am getting at is what level of understanding mortality is pre-adamic genealogy people versus A&E and their offspring. IE Adam before he entered the garden, and after he had the breath of Life, but before he ate the fruit?.
Anthropology has shown awareness of death for tens of thousands of years, with flowers and trinkets in graves. If we are presuming that the “Breath of Life” conferred something different in quantity or quality of that awareness then can scripture give us any indication of what that was.
Some feel it is the moral awareness, which I agree scripture speaks to. But where is the mortality part in this? Where A&E aware of the difference in their mortality that helped make the decision to eat of the Tree of Knowledge instead of the Tree of Life?
All this is interesting discussion but its a long way from my original question which was about how we are to see the work of God in creation, through process of evolution in respect of the epochs of catastophic extinctionn followed by process of “renewal” in which thousands of new life forms and species occurred.
in what respct may we see God in the mass extinctions of life and the subseqent repopulation of the earth with new life forms. Does God care about this mass loss of life? If God “loves” the world, surely God loves all life that is “good” and that must include innocent life in all its kinds.Did God cause the loss of life in deliberate way or is it just a consequence of some sort of freedom of the operation of natural laws that means tghat such things will occur?
Do we see any future “saving” of all that past life that has suffered? Or is “heaven” only going to be populated by “Good” and Saved human beings?
Actually I tend to follow Jurgen Moltman in the idea of the futue Sabbath kingdom having some sort of representation of all life that has ever existed because it is part of the divine glory. I’d like to think I might see T Rex face to face but without fear of being eaten. Plus as a lover of bird life I may get to see all the birds and their ancestors that existed.
When the “world” is referred to in scripture, it is seldom speaking of the physical “cosmos” earth. It is usually speaking of "the world of mankind. Of course Elohim cherishes his creation. But do you cherish a bateria, a worm, a raccoon, a dog, an ape, a man? See the progression? Where is the dividing line?
I am back to the premise that the Bible is about relationships and not about material origins. You are anthropomorphizing the the “love” we have of animals. Yet that love is not (or should not) be at the same level of love for one person to another. “Greater love has no man…”
When John 3:16 SAYS “GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD” HE WASN’T TALKING ABOUT THE EARTH!" and all that is in it. Salvation is for MANKIND.
(There is a Topic over in Homeschooling I read yesterday about this issue. I credit it for it being at the top of my mind this morning. Any have a link to it? It was discussed on the Open Forum.)
The use of the word “good” is also a constraint. Obviously I am coming from a belief system that death in the pre-adamic earth was part and parcel of the existence of life. There is no way life could exist without death unless you premising a YEC 24/7 creation, where nothing existed long enough to die before A&E.
If the death of animals is “good” it means that the mechanism of death, in the support of the food chain, and the recycling of organic materials was operating efficiently and properly. No morality was attached to death. We are back-reading that morality into history.
Yes, "I believe the “Fall” did change things. There is an abuse of death. Creation does “groan” (metaphorically) awaiting “the new creation”. The death of humans by other humans is an abuse, and animals that suffer for humans in the food chain (and for covenantal sacrifice, both coming from the same source) are innocent via “the Fall”. But prior? No!
Think about that in light of your presuppositions.
Trying to fit in The Fall with the the origin of humans as the first moral creatures presents many more problems than it solves–at least that is my conclusion. Deciding just what in Gen. 2-4 is literal and what is figurative is just too difficult. I am more comfortable with accepting the evidence for the Great Leap Forward where the brain(s) of one or a few Homo sapiens was/were programmed to become Mind and language was invented by which this 'saltation’ could be spread throughout the rest of the species. It was during this spread of Mind that the full impact of being mortal dawned upon us. The bright side of the coin was the realization that greater capacity for love that our Minds allowed us to express for our fellow beings, and the realization that we have a role in fulfilling the purpose of our Creator–this allowed us to imagine some sort of spiritual life beyond this earth’s material realm. Quite a bit of unwritten history occurred after the GLF but before the Jewish covenant was reduced to writing.
Al Leo
