Or could not have. Or two couples could have. Or could not have. Or two people could have in 500 BC or 30,000 BC. Or could not have. Or God could have set apart a homosexual couple that the later authors suppresses. Or could not have. All completely arbitrary and made up speculations. What we have is a text and it’s clearly fiction. If you want to list every event or interpretation that is “logically possible” and could have led to this fictional story, we will be here for a long time. When you actually have some evidence, I’m game.
Or I could just do what I did. Huh……
Yes. It’s common to say that things lose something in translation, but the truth is that they may also gain something that isn’t there in the original. It’s why the Amplified Bible isn’t very amplified at all; it quite selectively adds bits here and there that rarely really add any insight as to the original meaning.
Three generation ago that was the opposite; up until Hubble and LeMaitre reality didn’t fit the idea of a beginning. How things change!
I think even back in the Second Temple period there was speculation that there was always material existence, not anything separate from God but dependent on Him, the argument being that if God does not change then He must have always been Creator, and thus there was always something created.
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The process is a fact. The extapolation is pure fantasy. This not an all or nothng argument. Proof that creatures evolve does not prove that we were created via microbes.
Theistic Evolution means God using Evolution and still creating… It does not mean God lighting the prooverbial blue touch paper and retiring (watching it happen)
Richard
It is instructive to consider how the early Church and Patristic writings discussed Genesis. I paste a short section by Gregory of Nissa, the making of man, which addresses the ‘fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. I take this to be a literal reading as opposed to a scientific one.
Now since the majority of men judge the good to lie in that which gratifies the senses,
and there is a certain identity of name between that which is, and that which appears to be
“good,”—for this reason that desire which arises towards what is evil, as though towards
good, is called by Scripture “the knowledge of good and evil;” “knowledge,” as we have said,
expressing a certain mixed disposition. It speaks of the fruit of the forbidden tree not as a
thing absolutely evil (because it is decked with good), nor as a thing purely good (because
evil is latent in it), but as compounded of both, and declares that the tasting of it brings to
death those who touch it; almost proclaiming aloud the doctrine that the very actual good
is in its nature simple and uniform, alien from all duplicity or conjunction with its opposite,
while evil is many-coloured and fairly adorned, being esteemed to be one thing and revealed
by experience as another, the knowledge of which (that is, its reception by experience) is
the beginning and antecedent of death and destruction.
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Yes, reading the texts written during the first centuries can be illuminating and fascinating, especially if we connect the texts to the historical context. I am not sure if we can call all explanations as ‘literal reading’ because there seemed to be much allegorical interpretation but at least the explanations were not ‘scientific’ in the sense we use that word.
Sometimes these texts reveal interesting points in the biblical scriptures that have been missed by the majority of modern readers. More often, the texts reveal how the people of that time period understood and handled the questions that they saw in the biblical scriptures or in the society around them. The historical context can reveal what kind of challenges the early Church faced during that time period and the texts reveal how the writers tried to tackle these problems and questions in their thinking, words and actions.
Although I have read only a small part of what Gregory of Nyssa wrote, he seemed to be a man who honestly tried to understand and explain what he observed, using the knowledge that the early Christians had. His explanations are not perfect or the only correct ones but certainly worth reading.
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By literal, I understand it to mean literature written to deal with our experiences and beliefs - the knowledge of the times was erroneous within a scientific context, but this should not diminish our appreciation of the insights they bring on biblical themes; I constantly find a richer and faith strengthening outcome from reading such writings, while I am aware of the limited aspects of scientific matters.
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That is one caveat in trying to force the creation story to match the current scientific understanding of past history. The scientific understanding has been dynamic, with minor and even major changes in how the reality has been explained. We now know more than humans ever did but there is no quarantee that the current understanding is somehow final. There are still crucial fields that are not understood well, especially matters happening at the quantum level, and the Big Bang theory may need modifications before it fits to the observations. If we think how much the scientific understanding has increased during the last century, who knows what will be revealed during the next century?
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I do not accept the phrase ‘God using Evolution’ for the simple fact that the ToE is by no means a complete and absolutely true matter, admitted by even the most strident evolutionist. We make the mistake of coupling our understanding of God as Truth, with an incomplete and error prone notion; this results in believing in a god who lacks an understanding and is inadequate. The statement would be valid for other phrases, such as God uses gravity, or chemistry, and so on.
Our discussions would be just as valid by considering the creation unfolding in time and space.
I never said ToE.That is the extrapolation. The process of Evolution is the diversification and adjustment within species. That is proven. But, there is no evidence that Evolution can go beyond that. Evolution is just one of the tools of creation. It is not the be all and end all.
Richard
Gregory is using allegorical interpretation here, equating “that desire” with “the knowledge of good and evil” and going on to write of “the fruit of the forbidden tree” as something that people face in life.
It’s worth noting that he defines the knowledge as “reception by experience”, in accord with the meaning of the Hebrew word in Genesis.
So he may or may not be treating the passage as literal, since allegory can rest on actual events (as Paul demonstrates in the New Testament).
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Could have - certainly. But seeing that they appear in Genesis in full theological role, the importance of actual fact is moot.
I understand you asserting that evolution cannot lead to speciation.
My friend, we are not on the same page. Speciation is a known phenomenon, and traceable step by step through examination of DNA. Evolution is the single most heavily documented fact known to man.
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Fiction is such an ugly word. Story is better: story uses bright examples that are easy to recall, encapsulates clear theological concepts, and eschews literary subtleties like character arc.
Genesis is loaded with story. Genesis conveys profound theological ideas to six-year-olds in Sunday School, equally as it did to pre-literate survivalists a.k.a. ancient Hebrews.
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The statement “Water boils at 100°C (212°F) at sea level” is a fact. The theory of relativity (or any theory of science) is not a fact, as it requires data and observations to support it.
Statements of theToE that purport it as fact are not helpful.
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Point taken. The implications of a material infinite past are well and good when one is not troubled by linear thinking. The discovery that the universe self-declares to have an origin, i.e. that time as a material construct is unidirectional and (so far) finite removes the conceivability of an infinite past.
We know to well beyond a reasonable doubt that the universe began; that includes time also beginning as a limit that obtains within the rules of this universe. Considering “time” and “prior to this universe” is logically false.
Change implies the passage of time. An origin of time itself makes moot the foregoing cavil about an infinite past.
Having attained the ability to read the wisdom of the skies night by night (Psalm 19:1-4a) we are able to see that the mistranslation “In the beginning God created” is factual, hence not contrary to the work of the Spirit.
Tautology. All facts only become so when observed.
No one has observed speciation, despite watching millions of microbes. The connection seen in DNA may not be a sign of heredity. It is only speculation. It cannot be proven, If DNA is basically a blueprint then you would see the same specifications for similar elements. All Mott and Bailey castles have the same basic design but they were not all built by the same person. The heredity theory was derived from the belief that evolution exists. it is a theory to prove rather than a proof of a theory. IOW you are /were looking for the connection rather than discovering them. The eye sees what it needs to make it logical. But Optical illusions look very real.
TOE can never be proven, And God.'s hand is not always obvious. Science cannot see or believe in God so no scientific theory will ever include Him. ToE is aetheistic. I am a Christian . .I will believe that God created the Heavens and the earth. ToE says nature created itself. My god is not a spectator. My God is not resting, or worse dead.
Richard
By the same token no one has ever observed a photon or an electron. I fail to connect your point to any reality.
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Actually it has been observed in plants, if by speciation you mean new plants that are unable to reproduce with existing plants but can reproduce with each other.
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