Replies

[[have no right to appeal to them against the Church.]]

wow- ok-

[[Heretics like Luther]]

Again, wow-

[[have not refuted the teachings of the Fathers of the Church, but presented specious (usually rationalistic) arguments against them]]

Oh ,that’s right, they appealed to Go’ds word- excuse me, the ‘books’ for their arguments-

[[Christianity is not an ideology founded on a text, but a way of Life founded on a Person. Again, if you won’t read an essay that begins with that as its starting point, it is you who are impoverished.]]

so let me see if I udnerstand htis right- If I chose to bleeive that the word of God is the word of God as described by God Hismelf, and that He gave His word through the writers of the bible by divine inspiration directly from Him, and IF I choose to ignore the word of man, ie: Certain folsk in church history who apparently eschewed the word of God- then I’m impoverished?

[[Now this is a strange thing: you are willing to read and engage, for or against, all manner of argumentation that is not “Biblical” when supporting ID, ]]

I am? Funny thing indeed- becasue I’ve given scripture which supports the idea of ID, and referred to biblical records which refute macroevoltuion- not sure where you’re comign uop with htis stuff? And quite frankly there is no rule agaisnt usign science along with God’s word to support What God’s word states- not sure where you get the idea it must be ‘all or nothing’ so to speak? God CLEARLY states in His word that He has given enough proof all around us that He exists and that things are just as He states so that noone iwll have the excuse that there wasn’t proof-

[[but won’t read an essay of Scriptural exegesis that starts from something other than your own preconception of how the Scriptures should be read]]

you’ve given absolutely no reason to- I’ve asked you several times now whether there was sin and death BEFORE the fall of man or not- You’ve thus far refused to address thsi issue- IF trhere was no sin and death before the fall of man- then the precepts laid out by the paper you’re pushign are simply not biblical- period- Why woudl I wish to take man’s word over God’s word ESPECIALLY WHEN mans’ word contradicts God’s word and won’t even answer basic important questions that are detrimental to their word?

My loss? I think not sir-

You can "wow" all you want. The Scriptures must be interpreted. We Orthodox pray regularly that our bishops, "rightly divide the word of truth", harking back to when the first step in interpreting was getting the word and sentence breaks right. You (like Luther before you) seem to fancy that they don't, that you can just read them and get their meaning right.

It is very, very strange, you will research Kolmorgorov complexity, look up various folks' views on the relationship of mathematics and science, but won't read a commentary on the Scriptures unless you are assured in advance that it fits your pre-conceived notion of how they are to be interpreted. Why? What are you afraid of? That you might realize Christ's promise that the Spirit would lead His followers into all truth applied to the Fathers of the Church, and they got the interpretation right on some point, while you had heretofore gotten it wrong on that point?

Here is a little extract from page 19 of Kalomiros's essay:

All of creation fell into corruptibility and death in the person of one man, the first Adam. The same creation in its entirety rose up to eternal life and incorruptibility in the person of the second Adam, Christ.

I am curious, though in talking about death and days. How do you read the divine commandment Adam and Eve transgressed, "In the day you eat of it you will surely die," in light of the fact that after breaking the commandment Adam lived some portion of the 130 years before the birth of Seth and another 800 years after that?

Which word or words are meant in some non-obvious non-literal sense here: day? die? years? If "day", why is "day" to be taken literally earlier? If "die", why the fascination with whether death (of say grasshoppers and mice) existed before Adam's transgression? If "years", again, if one time-span can be meant non-literally, why are the "days" of creation literal? None of this poses a problem for the way Fathers of the Church (and in these latter days Kalomiros) approach the account, but it certainly seems to pose a challenge to your favored hermeneutic method.

And now, I am curious: do you believe the Eucharist to be in truth the Body and Blood of Christ? If so, why the "wow" at the accusation that Luther was a heretic? if not, why is "this is my body" and "this is my blood" not to be read literally, while "there was evening and there was morning [fill in "one" or an ordinal from second to sixth here] day" to be taken literally?