That would be moot, wouldn’t it.
But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic— “Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”
Matthew 9:6
In neither case was it coincidence.
Jesus explained this.
Jesus said he had magical powers from God in order to make things appear out of thin air and make the weather obey his commands… (sarcasm font)
Uh… no… Jesus said no such thing. Quite the contrary. What Jesus said was…
John 5:19 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing;
So that would mean Jesus saw the Father calming storm… and that is why He ordered the air and water to behave themselves… or saw the Father changing people’s heart and thus knew people would give of the food they had… That is not coincidence.
So… Jesus had no magical powers??? Nope.
John 14:12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do,
I ain’ gonna squabble witcha, Mitch. I know you eschew the word, but there is mystery in God’s workings.
I like your talk of providential timing though.
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Thanks. It is definitely a thing!
that is not the way God is working however though He could if He wanted to. He is working with our free will instead of suppressing them.
According to OT scholar Denis Lamoureux, who writes for BioLogos, nobody know exactly how to translate Genesis 1:1. It certainly does not imply creation out of nothing.
I don’t think so because There existed a singularity before the big bang.
No, out of nothing means just that, out of nothing,
I think my take on the issue, which has changed several times over the years… is that it is a mistake to try and delve too deeply into this topic. The discussion about bara or asah (is it?) seems to be mainly about force fitting one’s preconceptions into the text and also involves presuming the Bible contains secret knowledge about modern cosmology.
I think my main goal in doing a word study on such creation verbs is mainly to get some insight into how the ancient Israelites thought about the natural world, but beyond that, I think it shoehorns too much modern knowledge into those particular verbs. I mostly see people using such arguments in an apologetic way, “wow, look at how this bronze age writer used a particular word which could potentially have a meaning that makes this text line up with modern science when you interpret it in this way. Voila, God!” To me, I’m perfectly fine with the idea that God revealed his truth through an ancient understanding and don’t bother arguing about what this or that “creation verb” means since again, I believe it does not contain modern science.
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I didn’t say He changed their heart by magic.
And I don’t think He hardened the heart of Pharaoh by magic either.
That comes under the category of claiming God can do what you say by whatever means you dictate. That works for the dreamer god who doesn’t do squat but dream, but does not work for a God who creates something real and has a real relationship with people. Transforming people into robots under His control is not the same as changing their hearts.
do you think that 5000 people who gathered had a changed of heart voluntarily and then later abandoned Jesus when He gave a hard teaching about Himself?
What was the point of the miracle that Jesus did? It was to show them who he was. He was the Son of God who had the authority over matter, over nature, over diseases and even over death itself.
I was not saying He did, just that if He wanted robots, He could have it.
I am not sure about force fitting of one’s preconceptions. I had no such preconceptions until I read the work of Gerald Schoeder which challenged me to think deeply about this issue. Perhaps our problem is that we don’t think deeply enough and we have this preconception that concordism is not possible and therefore anything that sound like one is written off without looking at the data or information available.
My point is this :
We have 2 books from the same author (God)
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The book of nature that tell us how things happen.
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Special revelation (bible) that tell us why things happen.
Does it mean that these two books have nothing to do with each other? Not necessarily.
Is it possible that these two books might have a cross reference for the same event? (Evolution & Genesis) could be and possibly though no certainty.
Gen 1:11-13 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
Look at the command of God carefully, "Let the earth sprout vegetation … " And the result of that command, "The earth brought forth vegetation,… "
God give the command for earth to sprout. God is using the potential that was already on earth to produce all kind of plants.
And the earth did. This is not a creation event. This might not be evolution event, but this does give space for cross reference between what Moses saw with our modern understanding of evolution. I personally find it compelling.
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Yep. It happens all the time. People are certainly like that. They hear things they like and they follow a person like puppies. They see him do a miracle like feeding 5000 and they want to make him king. But then they hear something they don’t like and they turn against him. You see this a hundred times a year in the news.
Food. People need that. Same point as the miracle of mana in the desert. God provides. Jesus could have sent them home, of course, but he had more to teach them, didn’t he?
dumb question, maybe?
But like I said. Transforming people into robots is not the same as changing their hearts. The end is NOT independent of the means. So NO, God’s omnipotence does not mean He can do whatever you say by whatever means you care to dictate.
No I don’t because there are good reasons why we shouldn’t expect concordism. That was not a part of the special revelation. What each of the two books do provide is guard rails for the other.
The Bible says God created despite what we might think nature says.
Nature says the earth wasn’t created in six literal days so we have to understand special revelation isn’t literal when it comes to Genesis 1.
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Absolutely certainly not. What event? They both attempt to explain the human condition from cultures three thousand years apart. There is no evolution in Genesis and no Genesis in evolution.
Well, then we have no common ground to talk from. I always thought biologist is the place where science and faith has something to talk about.
and neither the bible says that. It is based on our interpretation of Gen.
My conclusion then Bill is that we have to agree to disagree since we can’t start from any common ground. (concordism is a possibility).
obviously, the event in Gen 1.
obviously, we also have no common ground to talk about. That is fine since I am not trying to force my view on anyone. We just have to agree to disagree.
Again, I thought this is biologos forum where faith and science can converse intelligently.
Some people say it does.
And you just agreed with me. Nature can tell us when we get an interpretation wrong.
Serious question. Why?
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The creation accounts in Genesis are theological statements made using poetic language and imagery from the culture of the time. They were not attempts to accurately describe the precise process of the origin or formation of the universe, but to indicate much about God’s character and relationship to and with the universe.
The precise meaning of the word “bara” or any other word in these accounts is irrelevant.
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