I see the animals on the ark as animals local to the region of the land that was flooded and Noah and his family would have came into contact with others in time who would move into the land. On the numbers on how big the Arks is I really don’t know, that is an issue I’m still dealing with myself. God could have had Noah and his family move but I feel this flood wasn’t a normal flood but this flood covered a good chunk of the Chaldean lands and was in how I see it engulfed by a hurricane like flood but in mega portions and the water in time after 40 days receded back into the Indian Ocean. That’s just my view and for all I know there could have been a global flood.
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Hi @Lostnfound! I don’t have anything brilliant to add after reading through the responses you’ve received so far, but I just wanted to join in welcoming you to the forum. I assure you that your sincere questions are eagerly welcomed here. We’re all in this journey together, just at various stages. 
May God bless your efforts to seek and discern the truth in all areas of life!
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Good point, and I also like how 1 Peter 3 uses the flood waters in Noah’s story as a symbol of baptism:
when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
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For your consideration:
The Toba “mega-colossal” volcanic eruption happened around 70,000 years ago, covering the globe with ash. It was a global massive die-off event, bringing the human species population to the low thousands (even down to 40 “breeding pairs”). At the least it could have produced a regional scenario of mudslides or flooding, and the character we know as Noah was able to preserve his kin through God’s revelatory guidance. This doesn’t imply that all except the saved died, there would have been survivors scattered elsewhere that were able to eventually repopulate the devastated regions. Since this happened in prehistoric times, the account that was passed down is what we know as Noah’s flood in Genesis.
The event is associated with genetic bottleneck in human evolution, and the genetic differences among modern humans may reflect changes within the last 70,000 years.
Regarding the moral implications, the declining moral character of the sons of God (descendants of Adam) could have been “cleansed" by this bottleneck, as Noah exhibited a character attuned to God (Gen 6:9), was morally clean, materially resourceful and prepared. The resulting scarcity of resources due to ecological devastation would have favored less evil and violence among humans and more cooperation, fostering of habits and traits that kept them clean and healthy, and would have propagated as they became “fruitful and multiplied” thereafter (Gen 9). They might have had to resort and adapt to eating things that they were not used to eating before the flood, but stay away from things that made them really sick (v. 3-4).
A much smaller volcanic event in 1816 caused a “year without summer” in Tambora, Indonesia. The climatic consequence of the Toba event would have been much worse. After the flood, God promises:
“As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”Gen 8:22
Also, the remaining particulates in the atmosphere would have created vivid, spectacular sunrises, sunsets… and colorful, rainbow-like panorama.
So this quick illustration of the flood is one that preserves the significance and truth of the story while remaining consistent in the natural details of a prehistoric event.
Noah’s story might very well be a local account of a global catastrophe, which would be an answer to your questions above.
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I do too. One reason some here have accused me of holding ‘middle class apologetics’ lol is that I couldn’t deal with a genesis that was ahistorical. I no longer have the physical strength to debate, even at the pace I have been doing here but here is an outline of how I put it together.
I use the days of proclamation approach. Genesis 1, nothing was created, it was just the pre-temporal planning of the universe. Each proclamation says God said… and it was so. The human writer put ‘and it was so’ but doesn’t specify the time WHEN it was so.
This view is consistent with rabbinical beliefs that the torah was written in Heaven and handed to Moses:
“In either case it would have been proper for him to write at the beginning of the book of Genesis: ‘And G-d spoke to Moses all these words, saying,’ The reason it was written anonymously [without the above introductory phrase] is that Moses our teacher did not write the Torah in the first person like the prophets who did mention themselves.” Ramban (Nachmanides) Commentary on the Torah, Trans. by Dr. Charles B. Chavel, (New York: Shilo Publishing House, 1971), p. 8
“The reason for the Torah being written in this form [namely, the third person] is that it preceded the creation of the world, and needless to say, it preceded the birth of Moses our teacher.” Ramban (Nachmanides) Commentary on the Torah, Trans. by Dr. Charles B. Chavel, (New York: Shilo Publishing House, 1971), p. 8
Ramban cites Shabbath 88b which is part of the Babylonian Talmud. It says:
“R. Joshua b. Levi also said: When Moses ascended on high, the ministering angels spake before the Holy One, blessed be He, ‘Sovereign of the Universe! What business has one born of woman amongst us?’ ‘He has come to receive the Torah,’ answered He to them. Said they to Him, 'That secret treasure, which has been hidden by Thee for nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created.” Babylonian Talmud: Shabbath 88
Doing days of proclamation gets me out of all the silly ordering of events which in no way matches geological data. God can plan the universe in any order he wishes. Atheists love to point out that the order of creation doesn’t match the order of the geologic record. Days of Proclamation removes that objection
Genesis 2, I believe was billions of years later. Adam was either created de Novo or from an ape’s body (I chose the later for genetic reasons, pseudogenes we have match those of the great Apes.) So Adam is now conscious moral being but has no mate–surgery is real historical event.
No one likes these views but they worked for me in maintaining the historicity of scripture without violating what we see in geology and in evolution. Historicity is very important for me with regards to creation. ONLY the god who was there can tell us what happened, and if our account of creation can’t even have the possibility of being true–I. E. concording to historical fact, then it ipso facto has no input from the Creator.
Days of proclamation started with St. Basil and was expanded by Whiston.
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If the Bible is the Word of God, then it is truth. When I talk about the Word of God, I am talking about the original texts. We do not have the original texts at this time, other variables include translation and interpretation, which I cannot take as “inspired” as they are different form each other.
Graphically represented, if the Bible is truth, it is constant and represented by the orange lines. Given an infinite amount of time, science will reveal truth and it is represented by the gray line. A highly variable part is our interpretation of the Bible and it is represented by the yellow line. We are probably somewhere on the left side of the chart.
I feel a large part of perceived conflict with science is our interpretation of the Bible. For example, I feel that the two creation narratives in Genesis are not a retelling of the same story but are sequential events which eliminates the conflict with evolution.
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Yes. You see the same change in any historical account reaching that far back in time to before written history which means that any information from such times had to have been passed down in an oral tradition long before there was any specialization of human activities into such things as history, law, philosophy, entertainment, science, religion, and bedtime stories. So these oral traditions tend to fulfill all of these functions at the same time speaking on multiple levels to different people with different abilities to understand different things.
God may be the ultimate author, but if so then people and history are his writing instruments and thus all the properties of those writing instruments are going to effect the details of what is written if you look closely enough. Consider what happens when you look too closely at a photograph. You reach a point where what you see has more to do with the instruments used than the source.
People always find what they are looking for. Me? I tend to look for what maximizes the meaning of the text. I don’t see so much meaning in a story of taking snakes, golems of dust and bone, and magical fruit – i.e. what frankly looks like Walt Disney entertainment for children. I see much more meaning when I understand that these are symbolic of something else… like this talking snake being an angel transformed by the fall into our adversary the devil.
Genesis clearly has an historical intent but at the same time this is very very very far from the modern standards of historical documentation.
Not interested.
You got me on that one. I don’t see any reason there at all.
God is the creator of the universe not the devil, thus all the evidence from earth, sky, and in our own genetic code is sent to us from God. The only place I see the devil at work is in the behavior of human beings and that includes religious people most of all. Is it not a fact that this is exactly where Jesus saw the devil at work? In the behavior of the most religious people?
On the contrary… taking Genesis literally would only have you believe in talking snakes.
Some people prefer this. I do not. But neither do I think it is all that terribly important. I believe Satan exists but I do not believe in Satan. I think people give the devil too much credit and I think this is a bad habit central to their fallen nature.
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“Faith shifts” take time. Like years. Most people don’t deconstruct and reconstruct their hermeneutics in a weekend. For me it was about five years and there are still some things I am pretty ambivalent about and don’t know what I believe. It’s okay to give yourself time to try out new ways of approaching the Bible to see what fits and what sticks and what proves to be uncomfortable in the long run.
I think some people come at the task wanting to exchange one set of right answers for a different set of right answers, and it feels a little disorienting when the process of seeking answers to the questions you thought you were working on just pushes you to a space where you have a new set of questions, and the old set of answers doesn’t help and there is no ready-made new set to adopt. I just wanted to be encouraging and say it’s okay to hang out in a gray zone for a while in certain areas. You can keep doing the things that feed your soul, like serving, worshiping, praying, and meditating on the truths you know, even if you are currently holding some things in tension. It’s those things that keep you grounded in relationship with Christ and experiencing his love and faithfulness.
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When we read the OT stories, we need to keep in mind that the audience expectations and cultural conventions for making sense of the story were different then our own. Modern Western culture is fixated on facts and information and accuracy. ANE culture was not. Often narratives were framed as recapitulations of familiar stories or characters. Meaning and significance were found in fitting the characters and events into a specific “true” or meaningful plot line and the tellers had creative license to make that work. The point was to teach true things about God and people, not necessarily to accurately document historical fact.
So with Noah, you have a recapitulation of the creation story. God repents of all he has made and seeks to unmake and remake it. “In the beginning” in Genesis there is a watery chaos from which God brings forth dry land, vegetation, and animal life, and the animals and humans are sent out with a blessing to multiply and to fill the earth. The flood story repeats this motif. The flood story itself is recapitulated in the story of the cross. Like Noah, Jesus warns people of the coming judgment and calls people to repentance. Just as God provided the ark as a means of grace and redemption to save Noah and his family, God provides the cross to rescue everyone who turns to Christ for salvation. Just as the world was recreated after the Flood, Jesus’s resurrection ushers in the era of New Creation to be culminated in the Eschaton. You could even say that the dove being the symbol of hope and promise is recapitulated in the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus “like a dove,” and then later being the promised seal of the New Covenant of salvation.
It helped me a lot to start reading the Bible as literature with a lot of intertextuality going on, not just as a bunch of facts to be proven to give credibility to its divine authorship.The Bible Project videos are great for helping you tune into the literary aspects and structural nuances that you miss when you are used to reading it as something else.
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I need to consider this more but it sounds reasonable (-:
Nice. And to continue with the water theme you’re developing, those in my confession would say that baptism would be how the Cross gets applied (Rom 6:4 and 1 Pet 3:21-22), or put another way how God gets us into Christ. So yes, that chain tracks well. Creation to Flood to Basket (Moses) to Exodus to Jordan to Baptism, wherever God births his people he seems to do it through the water.
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Back to the topic of reconstruction, I found this blog offered good advice:
Basically, he states that we while doubt is normal, we should not wallow in it, but feed our souls and grow as well.
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There is truth in there jpm, but one famous guy I know said one thing I think is very true. “the heart cannot rejoice in what the mind says is false.” My period of wallowing in doubt was about 10-12 years long depending upon how I mark the start of it. But it led to my flood view that no one likes, and eventually led me to our arguments for the existence of the immaterial soul. Good did come out of that period, but I have lots of scars from the atheistic questions that still rattle around my mind–not of doubt but of wondering why Christians keep giving out apologetics that won’t answer those atheistic questions. Questions like LostnFound has in the opening post of this thread.
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Hi there, @Lostnfound. It is a pleasure to meet you. Like you, I am also new to these forums. (This might be my third post, I think?) But I came here for reasons that are a bit different from yours. I’m here because I enjoy having my ideas tested and refined through the fires of this layman’s version of peer-review. Exploring and explaining my beliefs to others forces me to really understand them, a level of familiarity and depth that breeds a highly developed perspicuity and intelligibility. As someone once said, “If you can’t explain it, you don’t understand it.” And my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ keep me on the straight and narrow with their intense critical scrutiny, ensuring that my beliefs remain consistent with a biblical faith and evangelical theology. (By the way, it’s really nice to meet a fellow skeptic and advocate of the scientific frame of mind.)
1. Jesus and the New Testament authors seem to believe in a literal account of Genesis.
I know that young-earth creationists make this argument routinely enough, but is it true? When their argument is examined closely, I cannot help noticing that they stretch the conclusion beyond the supporting evidence. As I understand it, what Jesus and the New Testament authors took literally was the existence of Adam (and Eve), as well as his federal headship over all mankind in covenant with God by which he plunged us all into sin when he fell. Does accepting those points commit someone to only a young-earth creationist interpretation of Genesis? Hardly. Somehow they believe that a literal Adam means that the universe is less than 10,000 years old, but that’s simply false. As others have pointed out, there are many evolutionary creationists who hold to a literal Adam and Eve. I am one of them.
“But,” someone objects, “the genealogies.” I know. More on that later.
2. If Genesis is not to be taken literally, the rest of the Bible is open to question.
I highly recommend John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis 1 (2009). [1] After studying Gregory K. Beale and his argument on temple imagery throughout the Bible, starting with Adam and Eve in the garden, [2] I was reading Walton’s book when their exegetical arguments coalesced into an epiphany that hit me hard. More on that later. But it was Walton and his exegesis of Genesis 1 that really brought it home for me, namely, that none of the young-earth creationist material I’ve read over the decades has ever interpreted Genesis literally. I’m quite serious. They say they do, of course, but look again at what their arguments involve. It’s always a plain or straight-forward reading of Genesis 1 from an English translation using modern categories of thought. All of that makes a literal interpretation impossible.
In order to take Genesis 1 literally, what is needed is a robust historical-grammatical exegesis of the text in its original language and ancient cultural context, to be immersed as much as possible in what the human author and his audience would have understood (which wasn’t English, for starters). We quite naturally think that to create is to bring something into existence, which is understood in material terms, but that is precisely the problem. “We” are the ones who think that way, and it’s so intuitive and ingrained that we’ve never thought to question it. Worse still, we simply imposed our modern categories on this ancient text without a second thought, taking it for granted that people over three thousand years ago thought in the same terms. But maybe there are some important questions we need to ask related to responsible and meaningful exegesis, important historical and grammatical questions. The ancient Israelites didn’t view the world (as we do) in terms of its material structure and properties, as if it was a vastly complex machine engineered by a transcendent designer. They viewed it in terms of its order and function, as if it was a sacred kingdom with a sovereign ruler.
“The most respectful reading we can give to the text,” Walton explained, “the reading most faithful to the face value of the text—and the most ‘literal’ understanding, if you will—is the one that comes from their world, not ours.” This goes far, far deeper than looking at the Hebrew word for “day.” And it is what Walton has done in the book that I (and others) have recommended to you. For the first time ever in my life, I was presented with an authentically literal interpretation of Genesis 1. And it threw open so many doors on numerous other scriptures, tying them together into a coherent temple image with a Sabbath rest awaiting the people of God. (Beale is indispensable here, too.) It also inspired within me a deep reverence for nature, for it became impossible to view any part of it in secular terms. As Walton said, we don’t have natural resources, we have sacred resources. All of creation, including everything in this world, belongs to God. We are stewards, not consumers. We must care for creation, not exploit it. And so on.
In fact, Genesis ought to be taken literally. But don’t be taken in by what young-earth creationists pretend is literal. It’s nothing of the sort.
3. Understanding different views in order to discuss them in a study group.
I don’t know what views you have been examining but I would nominate evolutionary creationism, and for several reasons. First, it is rapidly becoming popular within the Christian community of faith as an old-earth view that accepts the theory of evolution and its relevant sciences (viz. paleontology, population and developmental genetics, biogeography, evo-devo and so forth). There are a couple of different old-earth views on offer (such as progressive creationism) but none of them accept the theory of evolution. This is the only old-earth view that does. (There is theistic evolution, of course, but its inherent deism is contrary to the trinitarian creator God of the Bible. It also takes for granted that there are “purely natural processes,” but the Bible clearly teaches that there is no such thing.) Anyway, since it is rapidly becoming popular, it is worth taking seriously and learning about. For this I (very) highly recommend Denis Alexander, Creation or Evolution (2014). [3]
Second, it situates the science and history of evolution within a biblical world-view. Many evolutionary creationists, myself included, are evangelical Christians who have a firm commitment to the supreme authority of Scripture as the enscripturated Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and life. As a theological perspective on the science of evolution from a biblical world-view, evolutionary creationism does not subject the Bible to the authority of science; it is rather the other way around, science is subject to the authority of the Word of God revealed in Scripture. All things are under Christ’s authority, including science. This means a lot of different things, too much to get into in this thread, but it’s fleshed out really well in the apologetics of covenant theology. [4]
Third, it allows for Adam and Eve as historical figures. My own evolutionary creationist perspective doesn’t just allow for it but demands it. However, I am compelled by reality to acknowledge that there are evolutionary creationists who feel at liberty to dispense with a historical Adam. I don’t get it, I think that generates a host of profound theological problems, but that’s a different discussion for elsewhere. Nevertheless, for Christians like me who consider a historical Adam to be vitally important theologically, it is nice to have an evolutionary view that welcomes that doctrine.
4. If Adam, then young Earth, because genealogies.
Anyway, back to the epiphany that resulted in a massive, seismic paradigm shift for me. It was after reading Beale and Walton that it suddenly occurred to me:
- Natural history and redemptive history are not necessarily the same thing.
Theologians have been so clear that the Bible is not about science but about salvation. From start to finish, it’s about Christ and his redeeming work, his life, death, and resurrection. After he was raised from the dead, he encountered those two men on the road to Emmaus and “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things written about himself in all the scriptures” (Luke 24:27). In the theological circles I travel in, it’s referred to as redemptive history, that moment when God entered into covenant relationship with mankind through Adam as our federal head. In other words, what we find in Genesis is the dawn of redemptive history.
Does that mark also the dawn of natural history, the origin of the natural world? Young-earth creationists would say it does, but they’re relying on a plain or straight-forward reading of an English text using modern categories of thought. So what happens when you interpret it literally using a robust historical-grammatical exegesis of the text in its original language and ancient cultural context? Walton showed us. Genesis 1 is not an account of material origins but of functional origins as God established the cosmos as sacred space (temple) for his presence and rule, creating the functions and assigning functionaries over a six-day period and resting on the seventh. (On this view, that seventh day is no longer a footnote to creation week but arguably the most important day.)
“I understand that and it makes sense,” someone might say, “but couldn’t Gensis 1 be about material origins as well?” Yes, it certainly could. But is it? That’s the question. Such a conclusion must be drawn from the text responsibly, not imposed on it because that’s a view with which we are most familiar. And Walton observes an important point: “Viewing Genesis 1 as an account of functional origins of the cosmos as temple does not in any way suggest or imply that God was uninvolved in material origins—it only contends that Genesis 1 is not that story.”
So, on my view of evolutionary creationism, which consolidates the theological work of Beale and the exegetical analyses of Walton, the dawn of natural history occurred several billion years ago (i.e., the “construction phase” of the cosmic temple) whereas the dawn of redemptive history reaches back to the garden around seven or eight thousand years ago (i.e., the “inauguration phase” of the cosmic temple). The days in Genesis 1 were normal 24-hour periods, Adam and Eve actually existed as real people, the events in the garden actually happened and it was only a few thousand years ago, etc. Also, the earth is over four billion years old, dinosaurs went extinct around 65 million years ago, descent with modification from a common ancestor is a thing, the universe is roughly 13 billion years old, etc. Redemptive history on the one hand, natural history on the other. Both are true. The key is realizing they are not the same thing. Natural history is disclosed through general revelation, the meaning and purpose of which is unveiled in redemptive history disclosed through special revelation.
5. Additional questions.
(a) Yes, I think that there is a discernible shift from Genesis 1–11 to Genesis 12–50, but I will leave that argument in more capable hands.
(b) As you can see, on the view which I presented here there is no need to question “the precise stories, names, and timelines in the primeval chapters of Genesis.” As it turns out, Genesis does factually report history—but it is redemptive history, just as we find in the gospels and the rest of the New Testament.
© I have very little interest in prophecy. It has something to do with my personal life and a church that obsessed over that stuff.
(d) I think that Satan will make use of pretty much anything in order to undermine the faith. He can even use young-earth creationism to turn people away. That doesn’t make the things he uses evil or suspect, it just means that he is desperate and seizing upon whatever he can. But he is ultimately irrelevant, for we worship a sovereign God who has every authority over him.
Sincerely yours,
John Bauer
Footenotes:
[1] John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis 1: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009).
[2] Gregory K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004).
[3] Denis R. Alexander, Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose?, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Monarch, 2014).
[4] K. Scott Oliphint, The Battle Belongs to the Lord: The Power of Scripture for Defending Our Faith (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004).
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Welcome to the forum, John. We don’t usually get such nicely footnoted posts. You rock.
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I don’t agree with everything, but for once I’ll forego nitpicking. Well said. Beale is a treasure. That book also blew my mind when it first appeared. I highly recommend his shorter commentary on Revelation (all the substance without the technical details) in conjunction with Middleton’s treatment of eschatology in A New Heaven and a New Earth.
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Lostnfound and others in a similar state - I have a heart for folks sitting at the sharp edge, looking at what seems like a choice between Christian faith OR science. There is great material in these discussions and on the BioLogos web site, but it can be hard to pull all the pieces together into a coherent whole. At the risk of self-promotion, I have a new book coming out with Kregel Publications this Fall called _Friend of Science, Friend of Faith_that attempts to do just that. It walks readers through some history of how Christians negotiated apparent conflicts in the past, and how we can apply what was learned to navigate current conflicts. Spoiler alert - it affirms both conventional science and the truth of the Bible. If anyone wants to be put on a list to be notified when the book is released, send me a personal email to davidson@olemiss.edu.
(Ultra-short bio: I am professor & chair of geology & geological engineering at U. Mississippi, a BioLogos Voices speaker, author, …)
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John, this was the best thing I’ve read all week–and I’ve read a lot this week! Very clear and thorough, yet concise. Thank you for taking the time to write all this up (complete with footnotes, wow).
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Welcome to BL, @Lostnfound. I’m glad you landed here.
Your questions are on point and very important. Several people have already responded to some of them, I hope in helpful ways. I want to respond to the most basic thought you expressed in what I quoted above: why doesn’t a non-literal interpretation of [early] Genesis put everything else up for grabs?
I’ll make two points, then fade into the background.
(1) The first thing to do is to get the meaning of Genesis right. If we confine that simply to the first of the two creation stories, not the whole of Gen 1-11, then this is the single most important article I can recommend: D:\ASAWEB~1\PSCF\1984\JASA9-84Heyers.htm
The author (now deceased) argued that the TRUE meaning of that story is simply that everything we see (not to mention some things we don’t see) is a creation of the one, true, invisible Creator. In its original historical, literary, and cultural context, the Hebrew creation story was saying precisely that much. Full Stop. This is the most helpful article I’ve ever read on this topic, yet I hadn’t heard any of this until I read it–several months after finishing my academic doctorate. Let me emphasize that again. Here I am now, someone who’s spent nearly 40 years studying Christianity and science (in one way or another), and yet I never heard these things until after my graduate studies were completed. This just goes to show how so many Christians have never been taught how to read Genesis One properly. That’s where the problem begins: we need to educate our young adults about how to read it properly, and why that matters.
(2) We need to stress the importance of a crucial principle of biblical interpretation–namely, that God meets us where we actually are, as historically and culturally embedded, finite and ignorant creatures. To put it bluntly, God “dumbs down” his knowledge in order that we might understand and lovingly obey the good news. It wasn’t God’s purpose to instruct us about the finer details of nature in some scientifically accurate manner. This is called the principle of accommodation, and it’s been widely used since Augustine and perhaps earlier. Calvin practically baptized the notion, it was so important to him; and Galileo couldn’t have kept his faith without it. In my experience, YECs reject this idea almost entirely. For them, if the words of the Bible don’t mean exactly what the bare words signify, then God becomes a “liar.” IMO, there is no more dangerous teaching (in the realm of science and the Bible) than this particular attitude.
Many of the atheists I converse with, ironically, sound just like my YEC friends. A famous example (though I do not know him personally) is astrophysicist Sean Carroll. I remember reading somewhere that he thinks the Bible is all fables b/c God got the science wrong. I hope I have not misrepresented his view, but even if I have I do know lots of people who believe just this. Those who say this are really being sophomoric, frankly: how could God (if he exists) communicate with us in any other way? Galileo understood this full well, but my atheist friends just don’t get this. Could God possibly explain quarks to ancient Hebrews? I very much doubt it. Furthermore, in a few centuries maybe no one will believe in quarks anymore–all we really know confidently is that science will surely change dramatically over time, such that many things in textbooks today won’t be in those future textbooks, except in historical sidebars, such as where one might find (say) the idea of an ether filling all of space in a sidebar today. So, on the premise that God must tell us the true truth about nature, how would we ever be able to believe that he did? Or, if we take it as axiomatic that he must do that, then how could we ever be confident that our interpretation of those texts could possibly be true, since God must know many things about nature that no human will ever know, let alone comprehend. So, you see where I’m going here…
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