Are you suggesting that the statements are fallible?
Either way, don’t forget that these statements were made by someone who already believed in God and thus say nothing about what unbelievers will see.
1 Like
In connection with this I think my opening post in another thread is appropriate:
Those students, and the others who concluded there must be a Designer due to study of astronomy and cosmology, were looking at processes of nature, not at the things, finding those processes elegant and sublime. Indeed as more than one agreed, looking at the “things” of nature doesn’t give all that much in the way of being impressive – especially in biology, where the arrangement of DNA and physiology doesn’t indicate a very good designer – but looking at the processes leads to awe.
2 Likes
" How about being actively involved, but not detectably involved."
A major semantic issue is defining detection. Scientifically detectable (which is what the quote seemed to refer to) is not the full range of detection.
For example, Psalm 19 states that the heavens declare the glory of God. Science tells us that the heavens are big, they have a lot in them, etc. But science alone can’t detect God’s glory in that. If we believe that God created the heavens, and that God is wise and good, then we see His glory in the wisdom and power behind it, even if we don’t understand why certain aspects are they way that they are. But someone else might see the vastness of the heavens as evidence that we are meaningless specks of dust, or, given that most of the heavens are quite inhospitable for human life, might even see them as malevolent. In all cases, a philosophical interpretation is being imposed on the same basic data. Based on the Bible, we may reasonably expect humans to have both correct and incorrect spiritual responses to things.
A more succinct response is that God is seen clearly in nature to the eye of faith. Romans 1 gives the conscience as the example of how God can be seen in creation, not the complexity of bacterial flagella.
4 Likes
He is the source of His own being as well.
He is definitely supreme in being, as He is the only one whose being depends solely on Himself.
= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =
That’s always been a question about the content of the Psalms: are they pious opinion, or sanctified teaching?
I have no idea what the ending clause there means, but as for the first, I find it interesting that the post to which you replied skipped the first verse of the section being quoted, so it’s worth taking note of that verse:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
I bolded what is a key – perhaps the key – to this section: Paul isn’t talking about everyone, he’s talking specifically about people who suppress the truth. The implication is that these are people who know the truth; the Greek is a participial clause that literally says “the truth by unrighteousness suppressing ones”. This is confirmed in the first phrase in verse 21:
For even though they knew God
Paul uses a unique structure in verse 20 which tends to get poorly translated; the key word is νοούμενα (noh-OO-meh-na), translated as “being understood”, and its placement in the clause indicates that thought is involved, indeed required, for the preceding clause –
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived
– to be the case. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (single volume edition) clarifies the situation:
The context seems to make it plain that true perception of these is not a possibility that is naturally available to sinners [but] depends on the divine action in self-revelation.
in accord with the final clause of verse 19:
for God has revealed it to them.
So this claim:
asserts more than the text is saying. Paul is talking about people to whom God had revealed Himself yet they rejected Him; as people to whom God had revealed Himself all the things He made clearly inform them about Him – so people to whom God hadn’t or hasn’t revealed Himself are not in view here.
trivia: for what it’s worth, Paul uses the term ἀΐδιος (ai-EE-dee-ohss) in verse 20 for “eternal”, which is interesting because it is not the regular or expected word; it’s actually the term that Stoics use and should better be translated “everlasting”, i.e. lasting as long as what it’s attributed to – so John the Baptist’s imprisonment was “everlasting” because it lasted as long as John himself did, while God’s attributes are eternal because they last as long as He does. I find this interesting because Paul would have known it was a term used by Stoics and probably expected at least a few of the Christians in Rome to recognize that.
3 Likes
This made me think of something that YECists studiously ignore: that reproducing “according to their kind” is exactly what the theory of evolution states! The Hebrew gives no warrant for taking “kind” as meaning more than that offspring will be like their parents; it doesn’t mean anything about generations far down the line.
Of course the obscenely rapid evolution that YEC requires starting the moment the animals got off the Ark necessarily violates the scripture’s statement; to get, for instance, domestic cats and cheetahs and lions and cougars all from one ‘cat’ pair would mean that the offspring would hardly resemble their parents if the types of cats were to evolve from a single pair rapidly enough to find cats in Egypt and cheetahs in central Africa and cougars in North America such that humans would not be marveling at how different each generation was from the previous one!
It’s ironic that YEC necessitates that “according to their kind” fails but for evolution it’s essential.
2 Likes
That fits with what Paul wrote in Romans 1, that revelation from God and then understanding are required to recognize God’s attributes in Creation. It also fits in that Paul is writing what we would call a sociological argument, talking about peoples and civilizations, in fact writing what described how the condition of Rome where his audience lived had come about.
Definitely; also not in fossils (something residents of Rome had probably never seen, but were known) nor in mosquitoes (something residents of Rome were likely all too familiar with!).
edit – trivia: in the ancient near east huge fossil bones were taken as remains of the sea monsters in the original world-ocean.
2 Likes
Well, the meaning of Romans 1:18-20 and Psalm 19:1 has generated a lot of discussion, as well it should.
Wow! Your claim is that God has not revealed himself to everyone through his creation, only some. That is much less, not much more than the text says. The text makes no such limitation. Creation is God’s universal witness as all have access to it. And as such, those who suppress the truth are without excuse.
Many of the comments in this thread are a distortion or misunderstanding of biblical creationists–an argument from ignorance. It is as if you are in an echo chamber listening to other evolutionists and cheering on those beating up straw men.
Of course, biblical creationists see God working through the processes of nature.
Of course it is pretty hard to see God’s power manifested in whale evolution when that is an evolving tale rather than based on any solid evidence. I know, I know, when it is shown to be a weak narrative, there is a pile on of evolutionists making contrary claims And when those claims are refuted, the bench is emptied by more evolutionists again piling on–ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
No this comment I find fascinating. What is this “designed system?” Oh yeah, now for theistic evolution, we are back to evolution being a system designed by God. Actually, God designed creatures with sensors able to detect the environment they are in and engineered them with the ability internally to adapt. So absolutely, God is able to design a system that generates diversity. But he does not deceive us by hiding those processes though evolution. Rather, as we study more about creatures, we are finding more evidence for these sensors and the engineered features that allow organisms to both sense and adapt. This is not natural selection, the evolutionist’s substitute agent, working on the organism, but rather the engineered and designed organism responding to the enviornment.
Why don’t you advance a legitimate argument rather than using an ad hominem attack? Wow, “smuggle,” “horrid science,” “bad theology.” Terrible people. Imagine people who believe that God created would believe that the creator, designer and engineer could be seen in what he created, designed and engineered.
The point is that unbelievers do see the witness of creation. And the point of Romans 1 is that they suppress it in unrighteousness. There is no excuse, such as in “I just don’t believe; I can’t make myself believe.”
Of course, creationists balk at nearly every process of nature known to science. Uniformitarianism is by definition a simple process of nature, but YEC twists it into something sinister. The do not even like gravity. Gas cloud collapse is a process of nature we can see happening, but YEC insist stars cannot form naturally, The belief of YEC is that essentially everything was created de novo, and the idea that our world could arise in accordance with the processes of nature threatens that dogma.
So there is not any distortion, misunderstanding, or beating up straw men here. YEC do deny that God’s creative power exhibits by natural processes - they just don’t like how that sounds when plainly stated. There is no having it both ways.
The fossil record has not been refuted away.
4 Likes
Did you even bother to follow my analysis? It is in fact the text that is making that limitation, at least in the original Greek.
Why do you dodge by claiming ad hominem attacks that aren’t there?
And yes, smuggle, because textbooks saying “creation science” were changed by cut-and-paste replacement of “creation science” with “intelligent design”, which was deceptive and also changed what “intelligent design” referred to.
Also yes, “horrid science” by the testimony of the major YEC sites which state that no science is acceptable unless it fits YEC concepts – which is a declaration that they refuse to do real science.
Lastly, yes, “bad theology” because YEC turns God into a deceiver who throws miracles around like a fantasy-novel wizard trying to patch together an unworkable system.
Except Romans 1 doesn’t actually make that case – it plainly says it’s talking about people who knew God.
2 Likes
It is also the logical conclusion from God’s faithfulness, in fact i would say it’s inherent in the Hebrew word אֵמוּן (eh-moon), from which we get the word “Amen!” and can be translated “steadfastness”, which indicates doing things in an orderly fashion that can be depended on.
Whoa – I never thought about that before. Not liking gravity figures into how they ignore the evidence for the Himalayas being at the very least many hundreds of thousands of years old.
That applies not just to biology and astronomy but to geology.
2 Likes
What do you mean detectable? I put this quote in another thread based on a new book I am reading:
**Baglow also writes: *The second Person of the Trinity, the Son, is given a special name in Scripture—he is called the Logos, a Greek word which literally means “Mind” or “Reason.” From this we see that the Christian faith begins with placing faith in the Reason of God—no wonder St. John Paul II calls upon believers to use their minds! Of the Divine Logos we are told that “all things were made through him,” (Jn 1:3) and “in him all things hold together” (Col 1:17). Like the scientific perspective then, the perspective of faith turned towards the universe begins with a vision of orderliness. Faith reveals that from all eternity the Son is God’s perfect wisdom, and so the universe is lawful, full of patterns that are intelligible. Scientists like Murray Gell-Mann marvel at the effectiveness of mathematics for describing the universe; but why should mathematical order be the foundational characteristic of reality? The Christian might respond, “because God is Truth, and so the universe reflects his wisdom”; in the words of Psalm 104: “Oh Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all . . . “(v. 24)
Here is the important part:
“Faith, then, reflects upon the orderliness of the universe just as science does. The more science understands the universe and its laws, the more the certainty of faith in the Son-Logos as the very source of reality is reconfirmed.”
Some want to be able to put God and his activity in a test tube. God is not like created beings or things. God is the source of all being. The minute we try to treat God like some aspect of creation is the minute we have abandoned Christianity and conceded to atheism. We must also see God from the perspective of spirit and faith, not just reason and science. Baglow writes:
But because our capacity for reason is limited, we know that “the meaning of it all” is not accessible to our minds alone. Reason leads us to pose questions we could never use reason to answer. And it Is here that a whole new kind of knowledge, the knowledge brought about by entrusting one’s whole self to God, can give us answers beyond the capacity of the human mind left merely to its own natural abilities. This entrusting of one’s whole self to God, and the new path of knowing it make possible, is called faith.
Vinnie
3 Likes
C. S. Lewis uses that to make a point somewhere in his writings, IIRC to the effect that it points to a reality beyond what we presently perceive.
Ipsum esse.
Haven’t followed all the posts in this thread … but just to continue (and perhaps essentially echo) Vinnie’s line of thought in the last few posts …
If any created thing or event could be demonstrated as a special action or presence of God’s work, then immediately everything else outside that set is assigned a “2nd class” status of being “not God’s special work”. And Lessing’s ugly Ditch remains unchallenged.
And yet, I do not have an easy answer or explanation for my own puzzle there. Because Jesus is recorded as (on occassion) seeing this world as the Devil’s playground that is being invaded by God. In fact, when the devil offers him all the kingdoms of the world - I am at loss for why Jesus let it stand that any of the world should belong to Satan in the first place. Or - I guess maybe the only answer I do have is to surmise that while the world is certainly God’s, yet our hearts (and the hearts of many powerful people who seem to ‘run the world’) are not given to God - who will not take anybody’s heart coercively. So perhaps it is in that way that worldly kingdoms are given over to Satan (by all of us), while God wants us to repent and turn toward His Love. Jesus refused to play the world’s game by its rules to make “success” happen. He could have. And “success” would certainly follow … but then also be revealed as the Satanic success that it really is (as Jesus tells anybody - even Peter - who tempts him in those directions to : “Get behind me Satan.”) So maybe I just did answer my own question.
But this is all a different way of distinguishing between God’s modus operandi and our natural one than the more scientific orientation going on here. Or is it all that different? Maybe it is here where we should be paying attention to the differences? At least it is certainly Peter’s initial error that we see so many church leaders repeating today - having banished Christ from being anywhere near their inner sanctums so that they need not fear any true Messianic warnings about putting away their Satanic ways.
3 Likes
It all goes to Genesis, especially the Tower of Babel, though you have to step briefly into Jewish mythology to see it. In essence, God put certain ‘angels’ in charge of the various nations, but every one of those beings left aside faithfulness to YHWH, so those nations passed from YHWH’s “portion” – which is why He started over with Abraham to build one for Himself. But Satan is the ruler of those rebel beings, and with them caged – as is hinted at in the New Testament, cf. Peter – he ends up holding them all.
There’s another explanation that I never really bought but is worth mentioning, and that’s that when Adam sinned he abdicated and the Deceiver/Serpent ‘inherited’ Adam’s dominion.
In the temptations Jesus is being rather cagey. Satan is on a fishing expedition trying to find out just what Jesus was up to, and Jesus wasn’t playing that game. He knew that a big part of the plan was Yahweh reclaiming all the nations, but He wasn’t about to let Satan know that because it would have revealed far too much. He had to let Satan continue thinking that Jesus, even though God, would die like any other man and thus come under his power.
1 Like
I’ve been thinking on this. Isn’t Paul using an ancient science, just as the rest of the OT and NT do? It seems that miracles are not clearly seen any more, because we know that phenomena such as demon possession and much of creation that was erstwhile considered directly supernatural, is not.
I choose to believe for other reasons. I don’t honestly see nebulous evidence–in fact, I struggle a lot to believe, often, as most of us do, I think. That is one of the questions I’ll have for God–but I am confident that He does not grade us on our knowledge of th world, but on what we do with what we know.
Thanks.
3 Likes
I’m kind of in the boat. Except I think that demons use to exist and no longer do. I’m not certain if any of the disorders mentioned were actually mental disorders or not. It’s like if they did not exist, who was Jesus arguing against in the garden or was that story just symbolic and so on. Plus if they don’t exist does that also mean the hosts of heaven never existed and if not, did any supernatural being actually visit Mary and Joseph or Zechariah and so on. If angels were real it’s not hard for me to imagine evil angels to be real also.
But since I think the evil ones died already, including Satan and that the other experiences have ceased, it means I just have to extend my faith in them as much as I extend my faith into El still existing.
Ironically for me what made my faith more bearable was omnism. It helped validate the experiences of others from various faiths to me and made God seem way less selective and more universal in accommodating everyone around the world throughout history in ways that made sense to them.
I think God most likely does not exist. I’ve had 1-2 experiences that though could be explained naturally as just highly unlikely coincidences, I choose to just have faith. Faith is a choice. I have faith that these events and these pulls are of the Holy Spirit. Even if I also am aware it’s illogical.
1 Like
So do you not think Jesus was an actual exorcist? We now understand medical illnesses and such but does that actually preclude demon possession?
Did Jesus just inaccurately believe he was expelling demons? Did he deceptively pretend demons were possessing people while healing them of other medical illnesses instead of just telling people the truth? Or is there just a whole bunch of made up stuff in the gospels?
Yes. I agree with all that. . Countless places seem to indicate we will be judged by our “works” (not of the law) and faith, not our intellect beliefs or knowledge about God. One can drive down a street and be guided by it without knowing its name: I think some modern formulations of Christianity undervalue the need to do good. It’s not some secondary part of being a Christian. I think it’s essential to our identity.
Vinnie
2 Likes
I know this is addressed to you, @Randy, and I don’t want to foreclose on hearing your own reply still. I just can’t restrain myself from butting in here since I want to wrestle with this too - and maybe have something of an answer to it of my own now.
Jesus refers to ‘mammon’ as a ‘master’ (or a ‘god’). If I fail to think of that (or other) particular idols as being sentient supernatural beings sitting on their own respective fallen thrones somewhere, am I then thinking that Jesus was some sort of backward “pre-science” peasant that didn’t really have a clue? Or might he instead be using spiritual language to perhaps reveal some deeper dimension of some very worldly - very physical things - like money? I don’t think Jesus (or his audience of that day) would have been unaware of the worldly/physical aspect of these things (principalities and powers quite as visible to them then as to us now), even as they heard teachings about the demonic nature of those same things. We today are aware of yet more of the physical details of the world, but how would that affect our fundamental posture in all this as having any real difference from theirs other than in quantity of physical knowledge?
[What I don’t have an answer for, then, - if I follow the above, is the very conversational interactions that Jesus goes on to have with particular demons. E.g. the legion - who, with apparent and inexplicable stupidity beg to be released into a bunch of swine - who are then shortly going to die anyway - and now where will these hapless ‘spirits’ be other than in the same ‘abyss’ they didn’t want in the first place?! - (and now with some community deprived of their substantial herd wealth). That whole story just strikes me as odd. If supernatural demons were really that laughably idiotic, then how fearsome could any of them be? Well - I guess it should be obvious to me that evil power isn’t necessarily coupled with intelligence. But anyway - all this bolsters my suspision that there is much here that eludes our modern understandings - or mine in particular.]
3 Likes