I try not to assume too much (I generally burn a whole lot of calories jumping to conclusions like I do… one way to keep fit) which is why I asked if you were somebody who takes parables and such all as historical truth. Sorry if even having to ask comes off as condescending. I’m not trying to imply that you or any general group of people is dumb. I fellowship with (and look up to) people who actually fit this category of “fundamentalist literalists” and so I try to write with at least half-a-mind as if they themselves were reading. It isn’t a matter of intelligence for most of us I shouldn’t think but more a matter of where we’ve decided to dig in with our convictions.
You are correct that we don’t know each other very well and shouldn’t presume too much.[quote=“Frank, post:112, topic:35009”]
Whoa! Let’s set the record straight on this issue. The nineteenth century atheist/agnostic Darwin who lost his faith and his bulldog Huxley who promoted the notion of evolutionary naturalism did precisely the opposite of what you assert.
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You say I’ve misunderstood you. So would it be true then that you do accept that scriptural Truth can be expressed in story form – even in stories that aren’t explicitly labeled as “parables”? I’m not here arguing that everything in the Bible that sounds incredible must suddenly be considered as a parable – I realize that many see this as a can of worms and want to leave it completely closed. I’m just suggesting that some things can be understood as “pre-scientific narratives”, including, for instance the Genesis creation teachings. (I’ll introduce the term “pre-scientific” here to be a more applicable expression instead of “parable” which may involve genre-typing that is over-specific for my more general point.) So when I say “empirical in principle”, I mean something like: if we could take a time machine back and film it, we would actually see all these things happening in their literal senses over the short times described (sort of like being there to watch Aslan sing Narnia into being.)
If you had a friend that you had known for life, but you in fact could not recall the circumstances of your first meeting of this person (because it was a recollection back into your fading childhood years --and nobody else still alive is able to recall either), would you then inform this life-long friend that you were sorry, but you could no longer consider this friendship as valid because its origins cannot be documented? Of course we all give this rhetorical question a resounding negative response! So why is it that anybody should think our awareness of our very real and present sin would suddenly evaporate if we were to reject the notion of biologically inherited sin? Our enslavement to sin is a solid tower of pride, not one whit touched (or bolstered either one) by any doubt or belief respectively regarding the inheritance of an original sin. Take away the entire Adamic story, and I’m still 100% acutely aware of my sin and need for God by the law alone, and that among other things even! Now I’m not arguing here that Adam should not be taken historically. I’m just saying that even if he wasn’t, how would this persuade anybody could think that sin just never even existed? It is one of the few solidly empirical observations we can make about our spiritual selves and the world.[quote=“Frank, post:112, topic:35009”]
When you say “some of the OT narratives” which ones are you referring to? How do you know this? What’s your basis for saying so?
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I had primarily the Genesis 1 -3 creation and sin accounts in mind per our discussions of it. There are other passages (like the entire book of Job or Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones) and retain their full power even if they turn out to not have literally happened. There will be others where it may not be so clear to us how important it is to think about it as like a modern historical account. The New Testament gets clearer about this on the important things (like the Resurrection as you pointed out from I Corinthians 15).
You seemed alarmed that I appear to be placing myself (or us) “above Paul” by thinking we know more than he did. I can understand and even register some of your same alarm if I or anybody was to speak of Jesus in these terms --we can argue as to whether or how much omniscience Jesus had while he walked this vale in the flesh. I’m not totally settled on that myself and won’t argue too hard on what is beyond us. But Paul? Nobody can make any case whatsoever that he was omniscient – which is what he’d have to be if he knew everything we all knew now and was just “holding it back”. Are you saying that Paul was privy to all modern scientific discovery? knew that the earth moves? knew that there was a New World on some soon-to-be American continents? I trust that you will agree with me that this is just a bit silly, lest I be seen as being condescending to you again. I bet we’re both convinced that Paul knew exactly what he needed to know in order to accomplish his God-given mission of spreading the gospel news to the gentiles. Since there was no need for Paul to know anything related to deep-time or any other modern scientific discoveries that would only anachronistically confuse his contemporaries, why should we think that God would just plop all this extra, unnecessary truth into his head?
We are privileged to know a lot now (much of it actual truth I’m convinced) that they just wouldn’t have known about then. It doesn’t make us better or more virtuous than they. We’re just living in a different time.
Not always. Sometimes things are complicated and messy and our simple mental version of them may exist only in our minds. Imagine if I asked you whether or not the people of France are correct? It isn’t a binary question, even if we narrowed it down to just one person we still have the absurd generality to which we must further inquire: “correct about what?”.
The moderators have been extra gracious to let all this go on underneath an entirely unrelated heading --it feels presumptuous to me to be the one that would shuffle all this over to some new thread. But I’m glad this blog space isn’t a zero-sum situation where on-topic posts get squeezed out by ours – at least I trust and hope that isn’t happening.
In any case, thanks for your continued conversation, Frank.
. The brain of a newborn baby has many, many more neural connections than that of an adult. So much to be redundant and “useless”. During a child’s early years, most of these connections are being pruned away for specific neural pathways to specialize for certain tasks (“use it or lose it”). Also those specialized pathways are becoming isolated with myelin to allow for faster transmission of signals. This is why the newborn’s brain starts out as consisting mainly of “grey matter” and develops more “white matter” (due to myelination) along the way.