Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God is a good read.
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My dear friend, I feel that you had to explain the obvious to me, that we are actually in almost total agreement.
Almost!
As a species with behavioural variability peaking around 80,000 years ago from five times further back, as your link elsewhere on brain shape resonates, where did God join us? When did we walk in the Garden with Him? Our separation from Him is entirely down to Him. His ‘choice’. And He can obviously choose no other. Apart from choosing to join us once in the gutter we’ve crawled up to.
We are innocent in our moral development. As innocent as Putin. Evolution has left us helplessly evil.
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So, the fifth is not of bourbon (my Americana caught up, got me a US pint ‘n’ uh half) on @Kendel’s shelf.
- = 3.1
.5. Adam and Eve aren’t literal individuals. Rather, Genesis 2–3 is a stylized retelling of many myths compressed into a single archetypal story. Upon which Although God occasionally revealed his will to individuals or groups, people persisted in disobedience. This is the Jewish foundation myth on which Jesus built His life.
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Speaking of, I am currently reading Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son, which is a good read. And related, the artist featured on the latest podcast, Makoto Fujimura did the artwork on Keller’s book as I recall from looking at prints of his work.
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A number of fifths: rum, brandy, whiskey or bourbon (my husband bought that one). Mostly used for cooking.
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Well stocked Deacon’s cabinet! I keep a little bourbon for cooking and medicinal purposes.
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I was brought into this discussion in another thread by Jay313 and thought I should repost my comment here…
That looks like a different book to me, one by Loren Haarsma (I was speaking about a book by John Walton). And the focus of those options listed in the link by Christy is on the origin of sin though perhaps similar options are given for the origin of humanity. In which case, for the origin of sin I would be in category 2(culture), and for the origin of humanity it would be a combination of 1 and 2(culture): 2 because the actual change is brought by ideas communicated by God which would take time to spread, and 1 because our definition of humanity usually has more to do with potentiality rather than actual capabilities.
but to join more substantially into the discussion here…
So in that line… I would see Christ being the answer because of a cultural change as well. The Christian looks at the cross and is moved to repent of his sins and ask for the grace of God in changing them. At least that is how I understand it… though I am well aware that this doesn’t explain it for other Christians.
Don’t have the book so watching this video.
Definitely my sort of message!
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Thanks for the video! Hey, Nick @NickolaosPappas, watch it from at least 0:09:00 (it’s only 0:11:45, total).
Thank you. The sentiment is shared.
80,000 years ago, give or take, is the midpoint of globularity, which extends from 100 ka to 35 ka. The caveat is that future discoveries of may change those numbers toward an older spectrum.
Based on my understanding of Gen 1-3, humanity was “expelled” from the Garden of God’s presence and barred from re-entry. God “withdrew” from the scene and left us to our own devices, which was his choice as you say. Just a couple of points: God’s decision was a reaction to the human decision. We can propose all sorts of other choices, but all that comes down to thinking that we could’ve created a better world than the one we have.
Perhaps the sense of God’s presence prior to humanity’s premature “declaration of independence” isn’t much different than a child’s sense of God when they are young?
You know the story about the frog and the scorpion, right?
; )
The metaphor don’t work. When we were dumb enough, we walked with God? We were innocent? Morally unaccountable? Nobody had to die for our sins or we’d burn in Hell forever and ever?
Trying to make the historical-grammatical hermeneutic (which would be fine in itself, alone) work on top of any degree of literal, fundamentalist hermeneutic of an entirely subjective hermeneutic in the minds of the writers and characters of the Bible, is triply wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
We’re still innocent. As wolverines in the driven snow. As we have no choice. Look at Putin. Does he have any whatsoever? The man is colossally ignorant and stupid and bitter and twisted. Who’s fault is that fault? No one’s. Because Bush snr. and the Chicago Boys dumped on poor Russia, for sure, but they couldn’t help that either. Our brain shape still isn’t up to the job. It never will be.
Again, and again, and again, and again… there is no theism in human evolution, brain shaping and emergent cultural development, to be atheistic of. Except Jesus.
I can see your point here, too, and anticipate good discussion on this. Thanks.
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Thanks @Christy for sharing this review, and for all the valuable (and sometimes spirited) discussion that’s gone on about it, @Jay313, @Klax, @dale, @jpm & @mitchellmckain. While I’m in no hurry right now to frivolously settle on one thing or another, I need to start real investigation. “ThatstuffI’veutterlyrejected” will need to be replaced with fruits of serious study. This book seems like a good place for me to start.
Stepping away from a fundamentalist denomination (for more than just science reasons) that I have felt more and more out of place in (as it shifted in ways I could no longer tolerate), means starting to look for what I think fits-not having it handed to me. Some here would say I’m going from one thing to the same (fundamentalism to fundamentalism), but it seems Haarsma’s book indicates that even if that’s the case (which I don’t believe it to be), there is enough breadth to accommodate what I’m looking for.
Thanks for letting me hang out and listen (and throw in a silly pun now and again).
(Martin, I gorged myself on “Blood Music” on our trip to Indy and back. My head is still buzzing. Thanks for that title as well.)
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Haha. Innocence isn’t moral perfection; innocence is ignorance, as Kierkegaard pointed out. Humans (in the hominin sense) were never dumb. A toddler isn’t dumb, and neither is a child of 6 or 8 or 10. They’re different stages of development with different brain and language capacities and moral decision-making experience. I don’t think animals are morally accountable. Do you? I’d say the same about human infants and children. My personal opinion is that those who die in infancy or childhood aren’t subject to “judgment” or “hell,” however defined. I extend the same reasoning to the eons of humans who lived and died before humanity reached moral maturity. The didn’t have the same capacities as humanity post-100,000 years ago, but that’s not a moral failure. I trust they will, like children, inherit the kingdom. Maybe I’m wrong.
Putin is either a narcissist or a sociopath. I don’t know him well enough to say which, but both lack empathy and what we would call a “conscience” in any normal sense. He’s an abnormal psychology, but he understands “right” and “wrong” behavior. Narcissists and sociopaths understand the rules of society and can “play along” until an opportunity presents itself. They’re not without choice. I don’t subscribe to determinism.
Now now. You’re jumping on your hobby horse instead of hearing what I said. We can make educated guesses about authorial intent, and we can analyze the story by accepted literary conventions. None of that is wrong wrong wrong. It’s simply not definitive. I’m not saying God revealed the scientific story of evolution to the biblical authors. I’m also not saying that there’s some sort of one-to-one correspondence between early Genesis and evolution (concordism). What I am saying is that nothing in Genesis 1-3 rules out evolution, and I see some rough (not exact) parallels in the biblical and scientific accounts.
Yellow Card! You asked me a question about God’s presence, and then object that my answer included God. haha. The story that I tell about the coevolution of brain, language, and morality is consensus science. No miraculous intervention required. No surprise, that’s where we agree. Now, if you ask me about God’s involvement in evolution, I’m going to give you a religious answer based on my faith seeking understanding. I also connect it to Jesus. I just take a short detour through the Bible to get there.
I take the Spirit hovering over the waters at creation as an indication of God’s “presence” on Earth from the beginning. How that might have manifested itself, I have a bunch of guesses and spiritual-sounding answers, but who knows? The Garden harkens to temple imagery and YHWH’s “shekinah” glory, which was his localized presence on Earth in the Holy of Holies in the first temple. God removing his presence from the earth is comparable to Ezekiel’s vision of the presence of God departing the temple. All of that looks forward to Immanuel, God-with-Us. Jesus was the culminating presence of God on Earth.
None of my last paragraph can be proved by science. It’s the sort of harmony Haarsma talked about.
The sort of “harmony” Haarsma seeks isn’t a one-to-one correspondence between the details of Scripture and science. Instead, he advocates “a harmony reminiscent of J. S. Bach’s counterpoint,” which employs two melodies played simultaneously. Each can be enjoyed independently, but “played together, they form a richer whole.”
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Good thoughts. It’s getting late here. I’ll try to come back tomorrow. Before the Kansas game, of course! haha
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This is basically making a distinction between the bad behavior we can see in animals and the misuse of the gifts we have from God. Certainly it is not my claim that all violence and other bad behaviors comes from Adam and Eve.
I believe that I am morally accountable according to my personal morality, my personal kingdom in which I seek to do no harm, to be fair in all my dealings. The development of which is full of weakness, guilt, shame, ignorance, compulsion, failure, suffering in me and those who hurt me and whom I hurt. And no, you cannot be wrong. If there is transcendence all that suffers is balmed, restituted.
I do as I see no evidence whatsoever for any alternative. In Putin or anyone else. Lenin said that we have to kill compassion. Putin is no Lenin. And is less accountable for it. Lenin was, of course, historically determined.
Your opening rhetorical sally may actually be right, but I cannot hear it. I hear what you are saying louder than whatever it is you think you’re saying. I agree with youe saying say what you’re not saying. But why are you saying that ‘nothing in Genesis 1-3 rules out evolution’? The obvious rough parallels have nothing to do with it. Nothing in Genesis 1-3 rules out quantum mechanics, electro-magnetism, chemistry, relativity or gay rights.
This statement of yours puzzles me, Martin. In a totally determined life could it really be a failure of imagination which proves it? Put another way, must every aspect of our existence present evidence comprehensible to you in order for you to desist from insisting vehemently that it could not possibly exist to anyone who will listen? Since when did lack of evidence itself become conclusive evidence of non existence? I think your expectation that all of existence be comprehensible is unwarranted.
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I have no such expectation, including of determinism.