Right. But how does ‘mythologized’ = reality/history was totally different? The whole idea of true myth is that it describes reality, but not in an objectively historical way.
A photograph of St. Mark’s in Venice
An impressionist painting of St. Mark’s
Is one more true than the other?
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Is this a trick question?
The Bible frowns on myths.
Godless ones. No one is saying Adam and Eve is an old wive’s tale.
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Paraphrased: “But I have a really good reason for making an artificial and arbitrary distinction!”
If you have to bruise the Bible to preserve its health…
See above.
No problem.
Couldn’t it also be called fiction, non-factual, myth, legend, fable, fabrication? (Not trying to be rhetorical or pejorative; please note the ones you’d accept from this group. I think you previously told me you wouldn’t accept “parable.”)
No, but I do always look for Christ in any passage I study.
Using an interpretive scheme in the way you are - which is to achieve a certain interpretive outcome rather than to find the truth. You say “I go where the evidence leads me,” but you also say that you want interpretive outcomes that do not conflict with modern scientific or historical consensus. The former will only inevitably lead you to the latter if you privilege evidence from the latter.
I know two people can only get so close in an internet forum, but do you really know me no better than this by now?
All the more reason to subject your method to scrutiny…which I commend you for doing.
Not sure what button I pushed to generate that. I was just saying that people have been interpreting this or that from Gen 1-11 as figurative for a long time; I was trying to get a sense from you of how much more of it was going to be considered figurative under your wholesale approach.
How is “A great age for the earth” not a thing “other people consider to be a reality”?
No I have a very good reason to believe what I do. To me ad hoc means to make up something just to fit. I am certainly not making up Scripture and I am not making up nature. I am letting each speak to the other. In fact I could say your current view of nature is ad hoc to make it fit your interpretation of Genesis.
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The beginning doesn’t mean time t = 0. Adam and Eve had no parents so the verse in Genesis would apply to their kids and onward. Or can you explain how that verse would fit Adam and Eve literally?
Quick answer, what I meant was if someone says the reality is people are not raised from the dead I would not accept that. Yes other people, including you, would share many of the things I consider reality.
I think we may have reached the point where we’re beginning to talk past one another. You wanted to know the problems I had with your view. I’ve done that. And we’ve gone back and forth a time or two. I’m happy to keep going if you think it’s a productive “iron sharpens iron” dynamic, but not if you feel we’re passing out, of have passed out, of that stage.
“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.” For what reason? “He who created them from the beginning made them male and female.” Who is them - that is, who is the male and the female? Adam and Eve. Thus God commanded Adam’s and Eve’s offspring to mate because God had mated Adam and Eve to start the process.
You said you came to your conclusion about Gen 1-11 based on your own study, that you were not adopting a school of thought you’d read in a book or found in some other source. Did you come to your conclusion about the age of the earth in the same way? It’s impossible for me to think you did because the grand consensus of geologists, astronomers, biologists and others could not have been unknown to you.
I can’t find the Bible verse that smiles on godly myths.
Let me ask this.
I don’t think the majority of geologists, astronomers, biologists aren’t in cahoots to fight faith in the Bible. I think they come to their conclusions, for the most part, in good faith.
What do you think about the YEC geologists, YEC astronomers, YEC biologists? Do you think they come to their conclusions in good faith, too? I recognize they are a minority, but it’s not like they consist of only three unshaven guys living out of a van down by the river. They are some respectable people in some respectable numbers.
I do not think of the majority as fools or liars or a conspiracy. They give me pause. What then do you think of the minority? How do you explain them? Do they give you no pause?
I know this is addressed to Bill, but I hope you’ll tolerate my intrusion.
Some of us (okay – me, I’ll speak for myself) may have some difficulty pointing to “just one” formal work or treatise that captures all of where I am now at. There are important works, of course from diverse authors and editors like Wright, Walton, Lewis, Polkinghorne, McGrath, Keith B. Miller, not to mention Collins! … and many others who will all have contributed (but never single-handedly) to much of what many here have come over time to believe. Even our interactions in this very forum with its many anonymous “authors” have had considerably influence on many of us. There is a growing corpus of all this work, and if it as yet lacks one neatly summative label or author or work that we can neatly point people toward; well, – that might be a sign of healthy and diverse growth still in process.
I can’t speak for Bill, but I know my conclusions (such as they are thus far) about early Genesis passages are the result of much reading from many points of view (and reading Scriptures themselves most of all). I don’t know Hebrew or Greek and am no where near smart enough to have arrived at any conclusions at all without the input of many scholars (many, but not all of them God-fearing). And ditto for the age of the earth question. My own views (as I suspect is true of many here) have messily evolved over decades (in my case). And again, because of the inputs of many who are much more knowledgeable than me in their respective areas of expertise. So when Bill challenged you that he thinks it’s actually your approach to the study of creation that seems more ad-hoc than his own, I have a very sympathetic ear toward his notion without knowing either of you well enough to know for sure. All I know is if Bill’s is anything like mine, then there is very little that is ad-hoc about it. I have encountered a lot of ad-hoc looking arguments or equivocations from those, however, who want to maintain certain fences around certain kinds of science or theological understandings or both. My impression thus far is that the latter group are the more agile contortionists.
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No intrusion. Anyone is more than welcome to answer.
They come right out and say they are committed to certain conclusions and they are committed to rejecting any evidence that conflicts with the conclusions they believe must be upheld. So I don’t think they are scientists in the true sense of the word. If you already know the conclusion you are arguing for, and you are conscripting evidence to prove only one conclusion and squelching evidence that throws that conclusion into question, you are more a lawyer than a scientist.
[quote]Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation, spanning approximately 4,000 years from creation to Christ.
The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of creation.
The Noachian Flood was a significant geological event and much (but not all) fossiliferous sediment originated at that time.
The gap theory has no basis in Scripture.
The view, commonly used to evade the implications or the authority of biblical teaching, that knowledge and/or truth may be divided into secular and religious, is rejected.
By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record. Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.[/quote] Statement of Faith | Answers in Genesis
Todd Wood: The truth about evolution
Oh, I don’t know about that, Mike. That seems like an “easy shot” to fire off… but there are some intensely faithful people who support the BioLogos effort. You could say, for example, that “they don’t share your approach to a conviction that Scripture is the word of God!”
As you well know, different premises lead to different conclusions.
You appear to start with the Bible, and only change your position on the Bible when you find reasons within the Bible to accept those changes.
Others start with their eyes and ears as witnesses to what they see happen in the Universe, having the confidence that God wants them to rely on their perception of what is true in order to make conclusions and expectations of what else must thus be true.
If you start with eye-witness testimony about what is real … and then hold that up to a book that was written thousands of years earlier - - during a time when knowledge was limited, superstitions were as common as field mice, and rival philosophies took precedence over actual experimentation - - it’s hard to arrive at the same conclusions you arrive at.
"It seems that a number of those here at BioLogos
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If Reality is “ad hoc”, then you can write the above sentence with confidence.
But for many centuries Christian natural philosophers saw Reality as a way to see how God works in the Universe. That seems every bit as principled as your approach - - with the added benefit that Reality doesn’t have to be set aside.
Excellent comments, Christy. Let me add one more thought to this observation of YEC science. I have heard multiple individuals say something to the effect of “No amount of scientific evidence could convince me of anything other than a young earth.” Christy’s quotes from AiG and Todd Wood, specifically, show that mindset. But let’s look at that AiG quote one more time…
Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.
I really don’t understand how it has escaped their attention, but theology is also “subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.”
I believe that both God’s word and God’s works should taken into consideration when searching for answers. Sometimes it is appropriate to give primary importance to one over the other. Since God’s word is devoid of detail on the origins of life, I feel it is entirely appropriate to give heed to God’s works.
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My experience with YEC advocates is that at some point in their discussions they stop using evidence from Science, and start saying things like:
“It makes no sense to me that one species can turn into another species …”
or
“How can randomness (which may not have even been discussed up to then) can lead to the creation of something like Humanity…”
“Evolution is impossible because any change in genetics leads to a loss of information…”
In short: they stop processing evidence and facts, and start fixating on their feelings and their beliefs about facts and evidence.
To answer your question:
“What do you think about the YEC geologists, YEC astronomers, YEC biologists? Do you think they come to their conclusions in good faith, too?”
My answer is a two part answer.
Part 1: Many YEC scientists, without question, think “winning the debate for Jesus” is more important than having the correct scientific answer.
Part 2: The remainder of YEC scientists appear to rely on the limits of human knowledge to find solace for why they do not have the knowledge to refute scientific findings.
This second part merits just a few more words of explanation:
I am prone to say to a YEC at one point or another, that there isn’t a single Creationist theory or scenario that explains how air-breathing mammals like whales are never found in the same sedimentary vicinity (in a stack of fossilized rock) as air-breathing reptiles like marine dinosaurs, and what’s more, the whales are always in the newer layers of rock.
Rather than accept the inevitable conclusions that such universally consistent observations like these lead to, they simply state that someday he/she/they will have the answer to that riddle.
What would you say about someone who insists that the inner core of the Moon is made of cheese? You can use all the logic and evidence one might think of … but at the end of the day, that person insists that the cheese will be discovered.
Shall we praise his devotion to his faith?
In the post right above this one, @cwhenderson makes an excellent observation:
Why should the “cheese”, or the “Vatican’s invisible plains covering the visible mountains of the Moon”, be awarded primary Truth in the face of the intelligent minds, granted by God, that provides the insights and facts to conclude otherwise?
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God commanded humans to marry because before A&E were even created He had designed us for marriage. Or so says a preacher I heard once. A&E don’t have to be historical persons for the verse to be true. You could say God had a plan for marriage before the first couple even met. And there is actually some biology that backs this up.
My interest in geology started when I was young. I lived in an area that is literally covered with fossils. I remember writing, yes a letter on paper using a pen and sent with probably a 10 cent stamp, the USGS for some information and they sent me some booklets that I couldn’t understand. In 8th grade science we had to do a fossil collection which was a piece of cake and I started to learn the names of a few. Which incidentally when walking around the building at work I found some more of the same fossils I found then. When I started reading about geology at the library I found the work of the early geologists that were trying to work out the age of the earth as opposed to the deluge geologists that still believed in a global flood. So yes I did come to my conclusion being unaware of the “grand consensus” of which you speak. Of course over time I have found many sources that have provided further evidence for me and as they say I have never looked back. To me the evidence is so simple and clear that there should be no question of is it true only exactly how old is the earth.
And is it telling that you included biologists in your list as they have nothing to say about the age of the earth. Are you still conflating the age of the earth and evolution?