So are you saying before Adam humans didn’t have free will? Could you please define what you mean by “free will”? And what would you expect to see in human behavior if they didn’t have free will? BTW, I identify free will with the truly selfish behavior that only humans seem to exhibit.
As to the beginning of humanity, I believe it can be dated to roughly 50K years ago when there was the sudden appearance of modern human behavior in Africa which then spread out over the rest of the earth. Some of this behavior could be considered enhanced behaviors that are seen in other animals. However the one thing the strikes me as different from other animals is in a sense of an afterlife. I believe this is the indication that humans were now created in the image of God. This belief in an afterlife would impact the development of a moral sense (or sense of law) and also the awareness of what would come to be known as God. As of yet there is no indication of how this happened in a biological sense but even if science does finally come up with the cause I still believe it was due to God.
That basis would be only humans can response to the Holy Spirit when he reveals God’s truth to each of us.
By human free will I mean the capability of accepting or rejecting the law of God, which is the same as the capability of accepting or rejecting the foundation of human law, that is: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow” (see Galatians 5:14 and 1 Peter 2:13-14).
As I have argued in my Essay, the beginning of humanity cannot be established by biological means: “There was never a first Homo sapiens”. This means that the category of ‘Homo sapiens’ itself is arbitrary and not well-defined from a biological point of view. So the beginning of humanity cannot be defined other than by the moment when God endows some living creatures with free will. If one defines Adam as “the first Homo sapiens endowed with free will”, then by definition Adam is the first human person (that is the first living being on earth sharing free will) and consequently before Adam there were no human persons.[quote=“Bill_II, post:144, topic:35366”]
And what would you expect to see in human behavior if they didn’t have free will?
[/quote]
As said, if “they didn’t have free will” they were no human persons. They could develop smart tools and techniques for farming and fishing, make cave paintings, and exhibit a certain degree of social behavior. However they could not enact laws and be guilty of sin.
I apologize for insisting: this holds for hominins before Adam. After Adam any human person has to acknowledge that any other member of humanity shares personal rights, first of all the right to life.
Notwithstanding, at the time of Adam there were several millions of Homo sapiens spread all over the earth and one can assume (as I do) that God may have had reasons for not endowing these hominins with free will and sense of law all at once. As I have already stressed in other postings, such an assumption must obviously be based on Scripture, and this basis is Genesis 9:3-6: In this pericope God clearly proclaims that since this moment there is a radical distinction between humanity and the animal kingdom [Wenham, G.J. p. 263-264] and all humans on earth are accountable to God for killing other humans.
In my opinion “selfish behavior” is the core of Darwinian evolution and is mainly characteristic for nonhuman animals. By contrast humanity is capable of overcoming Darwinian principles and acknowledging moral rules and law: only humans exhibit awareness of responsibility to law, although proto-morality or in-group morality can be found in chimps and other animals.
If by “sense of an afterlife” you mean something that tombs and burials may reveal, then you should also discuss the following possible objections:
Such signs appear already 300,000 years ago (see Timeline), and not only among “Homo sapiens populations”.
Burials can also be done for keeping the memory of the dead alive, as famadihana ceremonies show (“the departed—and their corpses—remain a part of the family”).
What is more: Materialist and atheist regimes entomb their leaders in pompous mausoleums; the burials of Lenin and Stalin were probably among the most pompous funeral ceremonies in History. The reason for this is not “sense of an eternal life” but simply a way to reinforce the political power of the regime after the leaders passed away.
So I think the suitable view is that burials reveal at most a proto-religious stage previous to “the development of a moral sense (or sense of law) and also the awareness of what would come to be known as God”, as you very well state.[quote=“Bill_II, post:144, topic:35366”]
[From AntoineSuarez:
What is at stake is to have a clear basis for distinguishing humans from animals.]
That basis would be only humans can response to the Holy Spirit when he reveals God’s truth to each of us.
[/quote]
I agree. However the action of the Holy Spirit is invisible. If you don’t give some additional basis that anyone can observe, then you get into troubles: How would you refute someone who says that “the Holy Spirit also reveals God’s truth to non-human animals”?
So we need unambiguous visible signs allowing us to ascertain when “the Holy Spirit reveals God’s truth”, and this means determine when the first human persons with free will and capable of sinning appeared on earth. Since the Big-Bang to our days such signs seem to go along with the appearance of writing and law.
Once again, I am ready to accept other signs if convincing arguments are given. However the discussion is this blog confirms more and more that for the time being such “other signs” are lacking.
I agree, my claim is a bit provoking. And yet: Will we be able of giving a sound account for God’s Incarnation and Redemption by Jesus Christ, if we don’t have a clear basis to differentiate humans from animals? Atheists like Jerry A. Coyne, Richard Dawkins, Peter Singer detect this lack of coherence on the part of Christian believers and take advantage of it to question our faith.
So based on a story which is not meant to be taken literally since it ignores the millions of people outside the regional flood you are taking what God said personally to Noah to mean it applied to the millions of not mentioned people? Do you have any other basis for this belief?
Sorry but you are trying to come up with some proof that anyone could believe. That is where your trouble lies. The only proof we can offer is our testimony as to what Jesus has done for each one of us. You refute that “someone” by simply saying that God says in the Bible that the Holy Spirit only enters humans who have believed on Jesus. Animals can not believe.
Not a problem. Even you said our morality was evolved.
Animals may exhibit instinctive behavior that humans might call rituals, but until we learn to speak elephant we will never really know what they are thinking. On the other hand, humans that bury a child with their mother or include personal items, tools, or food in the grave are clearly thinking of something beyond here.
Even materialists and atheists are religious, just not in the same way as us. And how does having proof that the former leader is dead and buried help to “reinforce the political power”? Forcing the people to build such a mausoleum is what reinforces the political power.
So why would a proto-religious stage not indicate an awareness of God? What is religion but the worship of a god.
You interpret me right: In my thinking the person “Adam” appears at the moment when a hominin is endowed by God with free-will and awareness of responsibility to law, and therefore is capable of being guilty of sin. This is the moment referred to in Genesis 2:16-17:
"And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Actually before this moment it is not appropriate to use “Adam” as personal name.
If “God is indivisible from the growth of Creation”, this seems to imply that:
On the one hand there cannot be any personal sin on the part of humans, and God is responsible for all the amount of evil that infects the whole world.
On the other hand there is no spiritual difference between human persons and animals: both are equally personal or non-personal beings.
In such a case there is no need of a particular intervention of God to endow hominins with free-will and sense of law. However I would be thankful to know your opinion about the two challenging implications above.
By contrast if one accepts (as I do) that such an intervention on the part of God was necessary to transform Homo sapiens creatures into human persons with free-will, and additionally one assumes (by contrast to Intelligent Design) that such an intervention does not imply any biologically detectable change, then one must logically conclude that before God’s creative intervention the Homo sapiens creatures were not persons.
If you believe that the beginning of humanity can be dated 50 Kyears ago, you accept that God endowed the modern humans living at this time with free will and sense of law. This means that God created in His image a population of likely 100,000 individuals, or even more if you include Neanderthals, Denisovans and Flores ‘Hobbits’. Thus you are assuming the existence of hundreds of thousands of people, created in the image of God, who are not mentioned in Genesis 1-3. For discussion it would be useful to know whether you think God did this at once or in a sequence at different times.
My theory amounts to state that God did the same as in your account, although He did it later, from 3,500 BC till the end of the Flood at 3,000 BC. That the involved “population” in my account was larger than in yours does not change substantially the argument.
So I would like to propose that you develop more in detail your theory so we can decide whether it fits or not to the available data and Scripture, in particular to the narrative of the Flood as interpreted in the New Testament.
In any case my theory fits well to Scripture and to all the available scientific and anthropological evidence. And I dare to note that so far it has not been falsified by any of the data advanced in this ongoing debate.
If you succeed with your theory of “Beginning of humanity at 50 Kyears ago” I will be very glad. And for the time being we can both be glad with my theory.
My argument is based in what Jesus Christ himself (Matthew 24:37–39; Luke 17:26–27) and the Peter’s Epistles (2 Peter 2:5; 1 Peter 3:20) tell us about Noah and the Flood. As already said, the millions of creatures outside the flooded region were not endowed with free will and sense of law, and hence were not “people” capable of being guilty of sin and are outside the perspective of Salvation of the New Testamentary pericopes.
You seem to object:
If at the end of the Flood millions of creatures were endowed by God with free will and sense of law, and became humans created in God’s image, why are these people “not mentioned” in Genesis?
As noted above, your theory of the beginning of humanity at about 50 Kyears ago, implies hundreds of thousands of people who are not mentioned in Genesis either.
Furthermore, as I have already argued in other postings, Genesis 9:3-6 implicitly refers to these people. That God speaks to Noah personally “is not meant to be taken literally” (as you yourself claim): Genesis 9:3-6 makes it clear that God proclaims a covenant with the whole human kind.
And last but not least, I have other basis in Scripture for my explanation, as for instance the pericope regarding the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:2-4; see my posting:
Even in a population of 100,000 hominids, there is still the First Person who is deemed ahead of his peers by God. . . or one made to be such by God.
And even this “First Moral Human/Image of God” still has to experience his first moral event sometime between infancy and an “age of reason” or rational moral thinking.
There is already a seemingly significant number of people that we must conclude exists … even though they are not explicitly mentioned: the population that Cain joins and fathers a different branch of humanity, right?
First I would only include homo sapiens.
Second you also include the existence of people not mentioned in Genesis in your idea.
It was a gradual process with no fixed date. Think of a child. At what exact age does a child become morally responsible? It varies correct? Just like the development of the modern human.
So it is OK for you to limit what Jesus and Peter said about the flood as those passages clearly indicate they believe in a global flood?
No I object to taking Genesis 1-11 as historical when it is not. The age of the earth requires you to not consider it a literal history. Jesus and Peter spoke of it as history because that is what the people at that time thought it was. How well do you think it would have gone over if Jesus had said, “Well you know Genesis isn’t really history and here is what it was trying to say”?
You appear to be trying to save as much of Genesis as you can to be history when in reality you shouldn’t even try.
What I find interesting is Genesis 1-11 covers a period of time before recorded history. That means when the Holy Spirit inspired the writer/editor of Genesis all He had to work with was the person’s memory of the oral traditions that had been passed down over many, many years. I believe this is why so much of Genesis matches the stories told in other ANE cultures. The author was not just a scribe taking down dictation. If those traditions don’t match reality so be it. The paleo-Hebrew alphabet was developed around the time of Abraham which explains why the history becomes much more complete, but still not perfect, at this point in time.
Question for you. Given the age of the earth is 4.543 billion years, plus or minus a few, what does this say about the way you should treat Genesis 1-11? I know Ken Ham would say this is a slippery slope and he is right, but it is the only slope we have. So how do you keep from sliding down to the bottom?
Bill, I highly appreciate that you don’t simply object to my theory but try to develop a consistent alternative. This is very useful to evaluate pros and cons and decide which description fits the scientific data and Scripture. In this spirit of collaboration I would like to submit to your further consideration the following arguments:
Homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Are Modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans different species or varieties of the same species? The controversy will never end, and illustrates well how arbitrary the concept of species is for describing archaic times.
If you claim that only Homo sapiens was created in God’s image you can as well claim that certain races today are not in God’s image.
This is clearly a worse consequence of dating the beginning of Humanity at about 50,000 years ago.
If you wish to avoid it, you should postpone the beginning of humanity to after disappearance of Neanderthals and Denisovans.
By contrast, if one assumes that humans endowed with free will and in God’s image were created at 3,500 BC, then one has no troubles with the aftermath of racism.
Whether we date the beginning of humanity at 50,000 BC or at 3,500 BC we cannot help assuming that the Creation of the first human persons with free will and sense of law did happen amidst a large Homo sapiens population, and therefore all these creatures had to be transformed into persons endowed with free will and made in God’s image at some point.
In this line of thinking I claim that the pericope of “the sons of God” in Genesis 6:2-4 clearly supports the idea that this transformation was still happening in the age around the Flood.
In my view, the comparison with “a child” is not fitting. We acknowledge that a child deserves the moral status of a person and is capable of becoming morally responsible on the basis of the following two reasons:
We can unambiguously establish that the child belongs to humanity.
We acknowledge humanity as a living form that ought to be ruled by moral rules and law and not by Darwinian principles.
As long as we have not established the beginning of humanity as such a living form, we are not allowed to claim that a creature shares free will and is capable of becoming morally responsible “because it belongs to humanity”.
As we know, this beginning cannot be established by biological means alone because the beginning of Homo sapiens is biologically arbitrary. So we need some non-biological criteria:
You propose burials and date the beginning at 50,000 BC, with the problem of excluding then Neanderthals and Denisovans.
I propose writing and vestiges revealing sense of law, and date the beginning at 3,500 BC.
Having said this I fully acknowledge that the transformation of Homo sapiens into a species endowed with free will and sense of law (Homo sapiens personalis) was a gradual process:
The process started with the creation of “Adam and Eve” (or a little population of humans endowed with free will).
It continued after the first sin with the creation of the “sons of God” (Genesis 6:2-4). Notice that this also explains:
The gradual process was concluded at the end of the Flood.
Notice that the Genesis episode of the “sons of God” clearly highlights that there was no interbreed between humans endowed with free will and creatures without free-will at any moment. Before the latter joined the former God took care to endow them with free will, and they became morally responsible persons and capable of sinning: These were the “sons of God”.
Finally: If the appearance of humanity with awareness of moral responsibility and sense of law is a gradual process, there must be in Scripture a pericope which allow us to establish the moment when this process finishes. I think this pericope is Genesis 9:3-6, which also backs the claim that from the perspective of Salvation and eternal life:
there is a radical difference between human beings and non-human animals, and
all humans on earth deserve personal rights, are capable of being guilty of sin and are in need of Redemption.
Differing species does not require an inability to interbred. Think horses and donkeys.
No I claim that in the past a point was reached where homo sapiens could be considered as created in God’s image. Before then nobody, after then everybody. I place the general time frame to be the great leap forward. No problem with trying to apply it to certain races today.
I also don’t have that problem, but my date is 50,000 BCE.
But it is very fitting.
We can unambiguously establish that the homo sapiens born after the GLF belong to humanity.
We acknowledge homo sapiens as a living form that are ruled by moral rules and law and not by Darwinian principles.
And we have it in the evidence left after the GLF. Burial of the dead, primitive forms of worship, etc, etc.
You have never answered my question about the evidence left of religious activity way before 3,500 BCE.
I think it is interesting that it seems likely that a comet or some other terrestrial object hit the North America ice sheets around 10800 BC and likely resulted in a global catastrophe that resulted in the younger dryas ice age and dramatic change of life for mankind. This extraterrestrial event likely led to to mass extinction of large fauna in North America and wiping out the Clovis culture. This event would have substantially changed the environment and may have forced humans to change from a hunter gatherer to domestic life style. Also of particular interest is that there were likely massive floods and ocean level rise associated with the end of the younger dryas around 9600 bc that could perhaps be related to the floods of the Bible. Around the same time of the floods a relatively advanced culture is found in gobekli tekli in turkey that had an advanced stone working culture but still hunter gather lifestyle however shortly after this humans changed to a domesticated life style where wheat was likely first domesticated nearby in Karaca dag. This seems to me to be the Great Leap Forward for mankind that was set off by the comet and resulting floods that altered the planet.
If you aren’t looking for a global flood … Any regional flood would have been sufficient to inspire the the Biblical flood story … especially since there are older flood stories than the Biblical version…
10800 BC is kind of late for the GLF. Much of the evidence for changes in behavior date to 50000 BC. In fact there is another model of the development of modern human behavior that stretches back every further than that. Like 250,000 BC.
I think that the human race had developed the genetic hardware for behavioral advancement but that even with ice ages and warming periods it was not forced into behavioral adaptations that we associate with the Neolithic age until this comet catastrophe occurred around 12800 bp that forced some populations to adapt to a domestic lifestyle. This changed everything. The adaptive behavior since the last ice age is significantly greater than that the humans achieved in the prior 250,000 years. Humans had gone through multiple glacial and interglacials with only limited behavioral adaptations. I think it was this comet event that led to the our biggest adaptation defining our species.
If we have favorite forms of planetary destruction, my favorite is still the Dinosaur-Killer asteroid. Without it, we would be running into our gardens to stop the small rodents, and then running back out of our gardens to avoid the Terror Birds (who probably noticed that if they follow the rodents, they find people)!
The problem I am referring to is not interbreeding between differing species: Hybridization is pervasive in evolution.
The problem is that according to your assumption there was interbreeding between humans created in God’s image (Homo sapiens) and humans NOT created in God’s image (Homo neanderthalensis, Homo denisova). This is quite different from interbreeding between “horses and donkeys”: Neither horses nor donkeys are supposed to be in God’s image, are they?
Whichever way you look at it such an assumption bears problems:
If you consider sapiens, neanderthals and denisova different species, your assumption means that when God says: “Be fruitful and multiply” He is also promoting and blessing marriage between species as for instance between humans and chimps.
If you consider sapiens, neanderthals and denisova to be varieties of the same species (this controversy is still going on), then your assumption suggests that certain races today may NOT be in God’s image.
I fully agree to your claim that “in the past a point was reached where homo sapiens could be considered in God’s image. Before then nobody”. Whether the point is 50,000 BCE or it is 3,500 BCE, we both advocate that creation in God’s image happens at a clear-cut moment and, although just before this moment the Homo sapiens individuals were biologically not distinguishable from us, they were not in God’s image.
You further claim: “after then everybody”.
If I understand well you claim that all the hundreds of thousands Homo sapiens living at 50,000 BCE became in God’s image at once.
However, the pericope of the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:2-4 clearly suggests that in the days before the Flood there were still Homo sapiens creatures becoming in God’s image.
On the basis of this pericope I assume that:
One couple or a little population of Homo sapiens became in God’s image at about 3,500 BCE.
Hundreds of thousands became in God’s image before the Flood: This was part of the population living together with Noah in Sumer (other human persons living with Noah were obviously descended from Adam and Eve through biological reproduction, and were in God’s image as well).
All the rest (several millions) living outside Mesopotamia far away from Noah became in God’s image at the End of the Flood.
During this gradual process there was no interbreeding between people in God’s image and creatures NOT in God’s image.
In summary, as far as I can see the only really relevant difference between our accounts is that my account fits better to Scripture and avoids having marriage between humans in God’s image and creatures NOT in God’s image.
I apologize. The question you address has been raised by George in the thread about “Original sin’s transmission”. This was my answer:
For posting a reply to this answer I would like to suggest you use the thread about “Original sin’s transmission” where the question is already being discussed to some extent.
Actually, I think you should reconsider that sentence.
If we use the definition first formulated by Dr. Ernst Mayr (see Wiki below), successful reproductive compatibility really is the Gold Standard of speciation.
Horses and Donkeys can produce offspring, but the offspring are infertile.
For the use of the discussion you had in mind, a better example would have been Lions and Tigers, since they are able to produce fertile offspring (Wiki has an article on Ligers too!).
But conundrum posed by Lions mating with Tigers should not be dismissed. As we know, one of the easiest ways to prepare a population for speciation is if there is a physical barrier that comes between two groups. Over time, the genetic variation becomes sufficient that successful mating is no longer possible.
But sometimes the “physical barrier” is really just a “virtual barrier” - - as when one branch of the feline genus gravitated into the open plains of Africa (the lions) while another branch gravitated into the jungles of lower Asia (the tigers). In this peculiar case, the behaviors and appearance of the two cat populations changed more than there DNA did!
Lions became social, and females took the lead in hunting in the presence of a distinctive and larger Alpha male. Tigers became solitary (I wonder whether the common ancestral population was social or solitary?), and they developed those distinctive stripes.
But if we were to discover Lions and Tigers today, in a post-Ernst-Mayr world, would we be so quick to call them distinct species? I think not. For they are still reproductively compatible!
I think the two increasingly “famous” verses in Genesis go a long way to resolving the issue of Biblical “kind” vs. biological “species”:
Gen 1:24-25
"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing,
and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. "
“And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and
every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind:
and God saw that it was good.”
In Biblical terminology, Lions and Tigers (while looking very different, say, like
very different breeds of dogs), are able to bring forth new generations,
“after their kind”, that are able to continue to bring forth more generations.
Compare this to the even more complex situation of the Rabbit “ring species”
that exists in North America: Florida rabbits can breed with Minnesota rabbits,
but not with Alaska rabbits.
Taken as a whole, then, these 3 populations represent a single kind. But should God,
in his terrible wrath smite the Minnesota rabbits for their profligate ways (those dang
Fargo Rabbits!) - - that would be yet another way God helped create two kinds out
of one: for the Alaska and Florida rabbits would never be able to bring forth anything.
If you haven’t watched this video on this topic, including footage from a rather
clever Creationist instructor, you really should take a moment to do so now.
I think it’s a great video, less than 20 minutes!
**- YEC ALERT - YEC ALERT - YEC ALERT - YEC ALERT - ** This is Post 159 in the thread currently titled: “My Theory About the Flood” DISAVOWAL - - DISAVOWAL - - DISAVOWAL - - DISAVOWAL
I, George Brooks, have been compelled to conclude that all this analysis about Alaska or “Northern” Rabbits vs. Florida Rabbits (in reference to them being 1 “Kind” or 2 “Kinds” is all spurious. I am publishing a separate thread today (June 3, 2017) discussing the matter, but as far as I can tell, with the crucial help and observations of another BioLogos writer, Evangelical , Kent Hovind,
was told something that either wasn’t true or that he misunderstood, regarding the breeding of rabbits in North America. It triggered the further analysis of anti-Creationist blogger “PotHoler” which is presented in detail in the video below. It’s only real value is that it treats a fictional case study with some good Evolutionary principles, and would be, on the whole, helpful - - if in fact Hovind’s original exposition of the facts had been based in reality.
The irony is, even if his Rabbit study had been based on factual material, it still would not have supported Hovind’s analysis of the Biblical view of “kinds”.
DISAVOWAL - - DISAVOWAL - - DISAVOWAL - - DISAVOWAL
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Post # 84, from the thread: “The mathematical probability of Evolution?”
. . . watch the video below, about Alaska and Florida Rabbits you will learn about one of the examples of common descent that even many Evangelicals accept.
"As introduced by Socratic Fanatic: "Youtube’s Potholer54 . . . [‘Potholer54’ is the name of the YouTube user/channel who has a strong interest in debating with YEC’s] . . . has a great video were he explains how even Kent Hovind had come to agree with the idea of evolution—as long the word is avoided . . . . I sometimes use that video as an example of directly observing macroevolution today, because a North American rabbit species has diversified to where Florida rabbits of that species can’t/won’t breed with [Alaska] rabbits . . . . but rabbits living in the Midwest can breed with both. "
.
.
The leading cause for common descent leading to 2 populations that cannot breed with each other is through “independent mutation” of the populations (usually when separated by significant barriers or distance). In Birds, such failures to breed can be triggered by “innovations in song”, making mates from the other population treat the candidate like a completely different animal.
But I don’t think too many people have heard rabbits sing…"
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[End of Excerpt from a second thread]
Everything points to God-Guided Evolution. Don’t be misled by untrained amateur scientists!
No I said that there came a time in the evolution of homo sapiens, well after the time when we aquired neaderthal genes, when we could be considered finally created in God’s image.
I thought I had made it quite clear that they are different species. I haven’t seen anything that would suggest this is controversal.
I don’t know about “at once”. It is a grey area of time with no line drawn in the sand.
I would say yours does a better job of forcing Scripture to fit history instead of just saying the Scripture wasn’t intended to convey history, just truth. I think I do a better job of showing the truth of Scripture fits history. You are dependent on assuming the absence of the evidence of a sense of law is proof of the absence of a sense of law. As they say, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” when it comes to history.
My response to the first point would be that God is, of course, ultimately responsible for everything. But this does not exclude people from responsibility for their own poor decisions, or from the fallout of others’.
For the second, all differences I have seen between humans and animals have been matters of degree, not flat black-or-white boxes into which you can pigeonhole people and animals. To the extent spirituality may correlate with brainpower, you could say humans are significantly more spiritual than any other creatures; but I would not rely upon it as an article of faith that, say, orcas couldn’t be just as spiritual. How would we know?
Finally, I suppose you are right that my worldview holds “no need of a particular intervention of God” as you describe. Hope that is helpful, and sorry again for being busy for so long before I could reply!
My interpretation of Genesis relies on three principles:
The teaching of Jesus Christ as contained in the New Testament.
The established scientific observations and data.
Logical coherence.
Accordingly I am by no means “forcing Scripture to fit history”, and wonder how one could define the “truth of Scripture” otherwise.
In particular I rely on these principles to interpret the pericope of the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:2-4, and would be thankful to know what you mean by “truth of Scripture” in case of this episode.
But you are. Peter makes it clear Noah’s flood was global. Now either he got it right and history is wrong or he got it wrong and history got it right. Since you come down on the side of “let’s just make the flood regional” you are in effect forcing Scripture to fit history.
I don’t define truth in Scripture to mean it always contains literal history, in the sense that Westerners think of history. Genesis 1-11 are stories that contain truth, such as God created the universe, man was created to worship God, man has free will to chose NOT to worship God, God provides a plan for when we chose not to worship Him, etc. No where is history required to be true for these to be true.
As to Genesis 6:2-4, the Nephilim were just a detail in a story that isn’t history so it really doesn’t matter what we think it really means. I have heard/read several versions of what it means and while each version makes sense, none agree with the others. What do you think of the Job 38:22 and the armory of hail. Does this pericope mean that hail is actually stored somewhere and is not created in a storm?
