- Then there’s the Jewish professor who began his class on the Tanakh by opening his on the lectern and staring at the page until the students became restless, and then said something like: “For those who were wondering, I was letting the Tanakh speak for itself.”
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I definitely appreciate the Jewish sense of humor, especially those rabbis.
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Hi, I’m a 60 something Christian, and a new contributor. First of all, the OP is a great question to reflect on, but my answer depends on the focus of this question. Are we talking about the core fact of God being the creator of the universe? Or are we talking about the mechanics of that creation?
If the first, the creation doctrine is one of my core beliefs. God’s laws include examples where the rationale for a particular rule is creation-based. The psalms show God’s creation worshipping him. In the gospel story Jesus is the word who was in the beginning with God, which points back to the Genesis story and shows him as intimately involved in the creation event. Paul gives us a fantastic creedal statement in Colossians 1, where Jesus is central to both creation (“all things were created through him”) and the church. Finally Revelation completes the story of salvation by its promise of God restoring the heavens and the earth to their former and perfect glory.
If the first question is about mechanics, I have nothing to offer! All of the above is true for me irrespective of the creative tools God may have up his sleeve…
On question 2 - I’m at category 4. In my early years I had reservations about evolution that I no longer have, but even then it wasn’t an issue for me. The first chapters of Genesis never made sense to me as a science handbook.
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I’m not finding it.
Actually that’s reading into the text what isn’t there. The only thing we know from the text is that they were blown away by the fact that a pre-teen could give coherent answers – it says nothing about His answers being “better”.
That and nothing more than that.
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It’s a silly idea, the sort of thing someone who hasn’t actually studied the scriptures might come up with.
What “enlightened founders of science” are you referring to? Some of us here have science degrees and I’d bet none have ever heard of this.
Yeah, this–
It took nearly 2000 years for the physical sciences to return to the level of knowledge of the physical world known to the Ionians
sounds like the basis for a bad science fiction novel.
I’ve read many of the Greek philosophers in the original language and never found that. “philo sophia” means “love of wisdom” – there’s nothing about God in there.
Plato was a self-contradictory hypocrite, as evidenced by his so-called “Republic” where he recommends founding a society on principles guaranteed, by his own teachings, to result in disaster.
Have you actually read Aristotle? I’ve done so in the Greek and there’s nothing of his that should be “thrown away”. The real problems from Aristotle were from people not following his methods but enshrining his conclusions.
I agree. One of my grad school profs regarded Aquinas as the “last gasp of Aristotle” because the West had gone so thoroughly with Plato.
As a formerly 60 something non Christian welcome to the forums.
I’m responding because I didn’t want your post to get buried. Hopefully others might see and respond to you as well, especially some of your fellow Christians which I’m sure would be more to your liking.
I’m glad the questions were of interest to you. When I wrote the OP I probably had in mind more the mechanics. I didn’t think then and do not think now that there is any fact of the matter where God is concerned - meaning it is beyond our means to hold such knowledge as a simple fact. Then I would simply have been inclined not to think any sort of being was behind creation. Now I still don’t think of it as something to be held as a fact, but I do believe the universe has displayed teleological intent for a long time. For that reason I now use the word “God” to speak of what brought that about.
I’m still wary of thinking of what that was as anything like a person, but not because I think of it as a brute force like gravity. Rather I just think imputing personhood while quite natural to do is not the high sign of respect many assume. Whatever Godhood may actually be like, it is something we cannot possibly determine or understand in detail. It seems more suitably humble on our part to acknowledge that than to fashion an idol in human form.
My thoughts on all this come from many sources by way of one book, but not from the Bible. I conceive of God as being entwined with everything, ourselves included. That part entwined with us can be thought of as person-like as it is that which bestows dignity on our humanity and provides it greatest depths. When we look out into the depths of the universe we see what God has done. When we look into our own depths we also see what God has done. There are limits to our seeing in both directions but our best sense of the transcendent is the immanent.
Again welcome. This thread is pretty old so if people don’t look to see why it has resurrected to discover you here perhaps you could start a new one to introduce yourself by way of topic of interest to you? I do wish we had an introductions thread.
Thanks Mark for your kind words and welcome. I agree that a separate introductions thread would be helpful.
Actually no. I’m intrigued that you should think that way. I’m comfortable having conversations on life and faith issues with people of all stripes. How else do we encourage one another and discover and grow and learn? How could anyone fail to enjoy a dialogue with someone who brilliantly calls himself a Whateverist 
As to the age of the thread, you’re right. I only looked at the OP because it was top of my list due to the current replies. A 5 year long thread is a sign of a good question!
Your comments on the personhood of God are interesting. I think it’s true to say that natural theology might lead to ideas of God but is limited in what it can tell us about the nature of that God. God as personal comes more from religious texts, for me particularly the biblical story line.
But that doesn’t mean the idea of God as personal is something “fashioned as an idol in human form”, as you put it. A simple, but hopefully not simplistic, analogy: When the psalmist sings that “God is the rock of my salvation,” surely he’s not saying God is an inanimate object. The metaphor points to qualities such as permanence and a strong foundation. God is not like the rock. The rock is like God, who has those qualities but infinitely more so.
In the same way, if God created this world which includes consciousness and personality, it makes sense to me that God himself has at least those qualities. God is not less than his creation.
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Hey, Peter - and yes! I’ll add my welcome to Mark’s; we’re glad you’re here.
Amen to that.
After listening to some linked Robin Parry videos from the universalism thread, that provokes a response from me here too about the ‘centrality of our origins understandings’. He helpfully made the metaphor of the different strands of our theologies as being like a giant web. One doesn’t pull or pluck on any strand of that without the shockwaves or effects being felt throughout the entire web. Hence one can’t (in that context) have some “theology about conscious eternal torment” without that theology affecting the entire rest of your theology about who God is and what is he like … or vice versa, one doesn’t have a theology of God without that informing what one thinks about how things end. And he explicitly mentions our theologies of creation as being part of this. What were we created for?
So for all the noise we may make around here about “de-centralizing” the creation narratives (by which we usually mean all the objectionably imported mechanics of it all) from the most important bits or at least ‘starting points’ of our theologies, we can’t forget (and I don’t think people here do) how important the whole creation narrative is to everything else. In fact (I would say, along with many here I suspect) that it is too important to let it be reduced to the mechanical meanings that so much of modernism has reduced it to - as manifest in YECism. They would no-doubt respond that, of course we think it is important too, but this means it is more than that - and therefore not less than that (i.e. must at least include that bare initial truth of mechanical historicity before we can take it seriously). And that is where we differ to be sure.
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Origen wasn’t African in any reasonable sense, he was Greek although his mother might have had Egyptianblood. Alexandria was a Greek city with districts of other people including Jews. Tertuallian could have been Berber. Athanasius may have had Egyptian blood; we don’t really know, though his icons tend to suggest he was Greek. Augustine had Berber blood but might have had some Italian. So “North African” can include two of them ethnically but probably not the others – don’t forget that Carthage at that point was a Roman colony and so would have had a heavy Latin/Italian mix.
So it’s probably not inaccurate to call Origen a Greek.
I can’t see why Greeks would have been considered divine. Besides that, if we look at Jewish mythology we find that the divine beings mentioned really were divine. Dr. Michael Heiser has some good work on the topic.
Though it’s possible that the Philistines were Greek in origin – that’s something I’d like to pursue if I ever have some copious free time.
The measuring of the curvature of space is one of those things I understand while reading but not once Iook away. If a cosmologist could explain it in a way I could make sense of and remember that would be awesome!
Infinite age does not necessitate infinite extent, or the other way around. Infinite extent is quite possible with a beginning.
The jury seems to be undecided; there’s now some mathematical work suggesting that the universe has always been infinite and that the big bang was a state the universe happened to be in and there wasn’t actually a singularity.
Explaining that is beyond me, so don’t ask!
Yes – “Alpha and Omega” merely makes God’s infinity bounded.
But it doesn’t really fit the question of infinity; “Alpha and Omega” is more about destiny than about such speculation.
True. The same applies for Greek. It took crossing into Latin to give birth to eternity as infinity.
No, he didn’t – his atoms had no structure, they were indivisible and indestructable objects, and were all the same. Further, his atoms were not merely material but spiritual!
For that matter it seems that the idea of atoms came from his teacher.
I’m not aware of any evidence that Democritus even wrote about the solar system.
For what it’s worth, Aristotle regarded Democritus highly.
Aristotle also made a variety of observations about geology that were accurate enough that Lyell and others cited him.
For that matter, Aristotle gives the first description of the water cycle, and in his study of weather employed empirical methods that qualify as following what we call the scientific method.
Additionally, Aristotle effectively founded the disciplines of logic and persuasive speech.
Not if Aristotle’s work is the foundation! His rhetoric emphasized sound reasoning.
No, it wasn’t – that Tree had nothing to do with rhetoric.
I don’t know where you’re getting your stuff, but this is just one piece of nonsense it puts forth. Mervin puts it mildly:
Just wow–
God gave Moses three divine gifts during his forty days on Mount Sinai. The first one, the Ten Commandments, has formed the basis for social justice throughout the world. We take them for granted today, but they were given to Moses at a time when no social law existed.
(emphasis mine)
Nothing like starting off a paper with a total falsehood!
You follow up quickly with another one:
At this point in history the only form of written communication available was picture based.
That’s incorrect – paleo-Canaanitic existed. Then:
. . . asset when it came time for him to learn the new alphabet that God would give him on Mount Sinai.
God didn’t give Moses a “new alphabet”. Moses didn’t need one, either. Then another error:
The first signs of an alphabet-based writing discovered by archeologists have been dated to 1231 BC.
Sorry, but proto-Canaanitic goes back to 1900 B.C.
Four factual errors in the first page of your paper does not provide any optimism about the rest of it.
Given the rate of factual errors on just the first page, I vote for “making things up”.
By the record online, most Christians reject what you have to say because you are incorrect on point after point.
He’s following Democritus who held that all things, including spirit, are made of atoms.
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Im late in on this thread and 392 posts have preceeded my return to the question…sorry about that i dont mean to detract from where things are right now.
To question 1:
Creation is at the heart of my belief system…and that is because it is the foundational doctrine of the entire Christian bible. Without it, what the heck are we being restored to?
Restoration by definition is "to return something to its former state, place, position…that is the point of Christs second coming and the new heavens and new earth in Revelation 21. It concludes the corruption of the earth outlined in Genesis chapter 3!
there is no denying the above biblical theology…it is fundamental to the gospel. Those who claim to follow the bible and do not believe the above are kidding themselves in my opinion.
To Question 2:
Whilst the least well defined option the OP provided…and i feel it unfortunately is missing vital theological information very specific to YEC (Creation of a perfect heavens and Earth, the fall, Gods plan of redemption, The Sanctuary, the Law, Incarnation, The Gospel, and Second Coming, Restoration in a new heavens and a new earth) I am a strong 1.
I am deeply troubled by quite a number of responses i manage to read in the first few pages of this thread…i now understand why some of the senior members of this forum respond in the way they do and why their theology is so wide of the mark and devoid of cross referencing using inbuilt bible concordances. An illustration of my point there is found in the idea that one should quote Aristotle in order to obtain doctrine …this is just plainly absurd. We obtain bible doctrine from the bible…one does not need to go outside of that place for doctrine. I only use early writers for their historicity…not developing doctrine.
Anyway, sorry for the late entry…but the question was asked and im now answering according to the recorded biblical view. I trust that God inspired his writers to accurately record his words…if i did not place that trust in Gods word and his writers, then its pointless claiming to be a follower of the Christian bible and i feel that unless i am willing to accept Gods ability to control the writing of his word, i am submitting to the corruption and trickery that befell Eve in the garden of Eden. Whether or not any christian is willing to accept this…there is a devil who can physically inlfuence and interract in this world and He is responsible for the inaccuracy of evidence and in particular the interpretation that follows the secular naturalistic world view. God did not lie and His word can be trusted as written without modification or modern twisting of interpretation.
You sound like one of those in John chapter 6 who abandoned Jesus when they realized Jesus wasn’t interested in practical applications.
That is not the experience of millions of Christians.
That isn’t what heaven and hell are about at all despite how those using religion for power might employ the concepts. It is about the choice between letting your sins devour you or being willing to change.
As Jesus said repeatedly, “Your sins are forgiven, so go and sin no more.”
The fetus must live in the womb and accomplish the work of growing before it will be ready for the life outside it. To be sure, it has value in its own right, suitable to that of which it is capable.
? So they can use their brains as long as it for what you dictate to them.
“Practical Christianity” sounds a bit to me like Christianity and God made useful. It sounds like religion as a tool of power. I have an opposite approach – pulling the fangs from Christianity so it cannot be used as a tool of power – making it is useless and not so facile for harm to other people. I don’t think usefulness is what Christianity is about. I think the spiritual is exactly what it is all about, for relationship with a spiritual God.
Nor do I think Christianity (or religion in general) is about the tangible proof of objective reality – that is a task for the observations of science. Instead I think it is about the subjective participation aspect of our existence and all about making choices about who we are and how we impose our own order upon the world in the ideals we choose to pursue.
I’ve actually dreamed about God from time to time, and for the most part I have to say that I prefer the dreams!
I could use moments like that.
Did you know that most preaching on the second one gets it backwards?
WE are the “pearl of great value”.
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Amen!
Though I would say that for me Jesus is the only figure Who tells us that God even really gives a crap about our sin, then that He came to do something about it. I don’t think I would be a Christian if it wasn’t plain that God was and is as pissed at the mess in our lives at least as much as we are!
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If it helps, I still remember the moment when I recognized what the opening Creation story in Genesis is about: it was a seminar on ancient literature, and the speaker was describing a type of literature found in the ancient near east and as he kept going it suddenly struck me that he was describing the structure and pattern of Genesis 1! The story suddenly became deeper and richer because I recognized what kind of message it was, and I kind of bounced around with joy for a few days. Only later did I realize that given the type of literature it was, then the details weren’t meant to be taken literally. After that when I looked at it literally it was like wrestling with one hand tied to one foot – crippled!
But when it’s read as the types – it’s at least two – of literature it is and in its context, it’s a powerful message, much more than just an account of what God did.
Yeah, the Creation story isn’t metaphorical or allegorical’ despite what some here say those aren’t the only choices.
In brief, the opening Creation story is a proclamation of a mighty accomplishment of a great king, and the king is God; it’s also a temple inauguration with the entire world as God’s Temple where He intended to live with His human family. It’s also polemical against the Egyptian gods, but that’s another aspect for later.
Fauth without works is dead.
Likewise spirituality without practicality.
It has nothing to do with power. I don’t know who hurt you but you have something seriously against organised religion.
The church has to be more than an aid to worship. 50% of the Decalogue and over half of Christ’s teachings are social and practical.
Being a spiritual guru is not enough. Without social interaction it becomes selfish and self-righteous.
Richard
Hi Adam, I too trust God’s word. I can even say that I trust it “as written”. But in my experience the real issue is not about trusting that the Bible is true. It’s determining what the Bible says. This is a question of interpretation, not authority.
Interpretation is a human activity, and it’s impossible for us to avoid it. To take a simple example, when the bible describes a creation event happening “in six days”, I believe that’s a true statement. It’s in the Bible, therefore it’s true. I am 100 percent comfortable saying that.
But what does it mean? I can see that it could be a precise 24 hour period of time; or it could be an undefined period of time. I find as I read the bible that both of these meanings occur elsewhere, therefore I need to decide which meaning is being used here - as do you, and everyone else who comes to that passage. Now, maybe you and I agree on the interpretation; maybe we don’t. What’s important here is for both of us to understand that we are in fact interpreting the text and we can’t avoid it.
For this reason, we all need to show respect and humility. I personally take the days of creation as undefined in length. For me, that makes best sense of Genesis 1. I’m comfortable with that interpretation, but I acknowledge that there are other points of view, and I wouldn’t label them as twisted. We are all doing our best to understand correctly what God has truthfully said.
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At a Lutheran church where I attended occasionally the pastor’s Bible class was always after worship and the take-off point was the sermon. The discussion was always lively enough that people were still talking about the sermon on Wednesday.
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