I’m challenged in deciding how best to reply to you, @St.Roymond, and this entire conversation, how much of my limited time it’s worth to try to put together a coherent reply that will then be ignored or dismissed.
I’m also reticent to engage much more in this thread, or its near clones that largely currently populate the rest of the forum, where people are just lobbing theological hand grenades, accusing each other of weak or false faith, an insufficient God-concept, or an overall ignorance of the other’s favorite proof texts. It’s become a food fight.
This from the FAQ:
- Assume legitimate Christian faith on the part of other people, unless they identify otherwise. The purpose of discussions here is not to judge the legitimacy or efficacy of anyone’s faith or lack of faith.
To begin with: Weak Faith.
No. This does not remain on the table. It’s covered by the FAQ.
Weak faith is not necessarily tied to YEC, and YEC is not necessarily tied to Weak Faith. I mentioned in my earlier post @adamjedgar and @RichardG. In spite of all our theological, doctrinal, philosophical disagreements, neither of these men give any evidence of weak faith.
While there are many things, including YEC, that can weaken faith, a literal reading of Genesis and all that goes with it has been the longest standing view among Christians.
Additionally, denominations whose confessions were completed at least 200 years before Origin was published have been sources of strong Christian faith and fellowship ever since. You are hitting below the belt to make blanket statements about entire denominations, much less individual believers.
Likewise, theology related to the means of grace is out of place here as it is unrelated to YEC. Condemning denominations regarding these theological differences is, again, hitting below the belt.
Cultural Periods/Historic Eras
Regarding rational thought/rationalization/ratiocination: I believe you and I are taking about different things. I am talking about cultural periods/historic eras, particularly in regard to Premodern and Modern periods. The date ranges for the periods vary widely, depending on the discipline or writer. No matter in this context. The Bible, even the NT is a Premodern collection of texts, and we exist in a world of Modern demands on thought and epistemology (Sorry. I hate to use that word).
Paul was able to walk into a different forum and talk with pagan philosophers about an unknown god on fairly level ground. They all believe some sort of supernatural existed in which they lived and moved… To the Romans, a Christian was an atheist for failing to appease the proper local Roman god/s. It had nothing to do with belief in the supernatural vs no belief in the supernatural.
Click image to go to related article.
A few paragraphs from that article:
In broad terms we can see the historical premodern as a transition in social behavior from the sufficiency economy of nomadic gathering and hunting to the surplus economy of agrarian sedentism and urban life; in religious practices from animistic or pantheistic paganism into hierarchical polytheism and eventually monothesim; all in step with with a transition in political systems from poorly organized tribalism to areas ruled by petty thugs and gang leaders to city-states ruled by “god-kings” and more grandiose thugs, thugs committed to providing order and protecting you from other thugs on some minimal level. The sum of these developments is usually termed Civilization. At its height in the Classical Age this odd collection of societies ruled by kings, warlords, priests, oligarchs and demagogues produced much exquisite art, the beginnings of philosophy and scientific theorizing, and most of what we now consider organized religion, while upholding the solid existing traditions of slavery, continual warfare and skirmishing, massively unequal distribution of wealth, and urban populations subsisting on a deficiency diet of “mainly grain”.
In general we can see modernity as a rejection of mysticism in favor of materialism, of superstition in favor of science, of rulership by ecclesiastically supported divine right in favor of government based on contractual legal principles, of human inspiration and originality in favor of method and repeatability, of moral agency in favor of reflex and conditioning as the determinants of behavior, and of oral traditions in favor of the printed word. In addition modernity is closely associated with a secular faith in historical progress, in terms of scientific and technological advances, expanding economies, and the realization of utopian social possibilities. So it was indeed a fulfillment of the promise of the printing press and of earlier Protestant science and industry to put knowledge within the grasp of the “common man” and to make the acquisition of wealth a positive social objective for all. And in large measure it was able to maintain the myth of progress or rapid “upward” evolution thanks to the huge deposits of fossil fuels, primarily coal and oil, that modern societies were able to exploit.
All this to say:
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The assumptions our world makes today regarding what we assume to be true of the world, and how we understand things to be true has gone through an enormous change over many centuries. The Enlightenment is often pointed to as “the” point of that change, but it really is only one spot on a very long timeline. What we consider a rational process today follows mathematical and scientific types of reasoning based on observation and material proof.
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Because of this, there is an underlying sense that Christian or any other faith must also result from as well as be subject to this type scrutiny. This explains the intense desire for, insistence on apologetic “proof” of one kind or another. YECs are not alone in this desire. As I indicated by bringing up the apologetics industry.
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The tools we have to demonstrate the reasonableness of our faith are not the tools required of modernism. The texts we have to work with are under intense scrutiny and not charitably held by many, particularly academics of all stripes.
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A scientific understanding of the world brings all manner of interpretation of biblical texts into question, not only regarding origins. As a woman, I have a few particular passages in mind.
YECs as well as many others (check your local directory of apologists) are attempting to faithfully practice Christianity. They want to serve Jesus and follow him well. And they are attempting to reconcile their faith with a view of the world that helps them see that faith as reasonable. Which is reasonable. But the modern conditions are not favorable to an ancient faith.
An important question to keep in mind is one that Richard has repeatedly stated in different words: if you dismantle the theological underpinnings for someone’s faith, assuming that it really has been built on that, what supports are you providing them throughout the process to help support and even strengthen their faith. It’s a right and righteous stubbornness that continues to look out for the flock in this way.
A footnote to this post: