An often overlooked point in the following passage is the underlying Hebrew words, “muwth muwth” which are translated “surely die” but literally mean “die die.”
Blessed and holy [is] he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. – Revelation 20:6
There is one Wind (pneuma) blowing through existence, though, which can. "The wind blows where it wants to, but you can't tell where it comes from or where it's going. The same with everyone born of God's Pneuma."
The life that we have with Christ in God is not subject to physical death or the second death. It can never die, because He lives. His Name is I AM.
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. - Colossians 3:3
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:38-39
For instance, as she and allmendream have noted, what is called random (really meaning, unpredictable ) in nature does not stand as proof that God does not exist.
However, the insistence that there is no purpose to the physical creation – especially the physical life of men – denies of the power and Person of God. And for that reason, such a claim is an affront to all of us who know Him and love Him.
Whereas science may exclude purpose on the principle of “methodological naturalism” to do its work, it is just as far out its league to suggest there is no purpose as it is to suggest there is no God or indeed anything supernatural. The scientific method does not apply to such questions, science does not have the right toolset to address such questions.
And truly many scientists know this and stay away. But of course there are a few – like Dawkins – who do theology under the color of science. So naturally the reaction from the Judeo/Christian community is swift and severe.
Conversely, there are some who do theology under the color of science. In my opinion, that glorifies the creature, not the Creator, and therefore is ill conceived. And predictably, the reaction from the science community is swift and severe.
If it were up to me, I would center the debate on the principles, like betty boop and metmom and xzins have tried to do on this thread.
metmom for instance raised the principle that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. And truly, that is an important principle in what I would call the “hard” sciences like physics, chemistry, astronomy and microbiology.
The “historical” sciences like paleontology, archeology, anthropology and Egyptology hold to the opposite principle: the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Obviously, their physical evidence is spotty at best because not every thing that once lived left a physical record of itself. So they fit the evidence they uncover “into” a theory of a continuum, a blueprint, a paradigm. It is only when the evidence cannot fit (e.g. if they were to find the fossil of a man in the same place as a T-Rex) that the theory is falsified.
With the hard sciences, the theory itself is subjected to rigorous and continuing tests – any one of which could falsify the theory.
The theory of evolution has a foot on each side. In the microbiologist’s lab, mutations can be provoked and/or observed. In the paleontologist’s dig, the fossil is fit “into” the paradigm “tree of life.”
And the principle betty boop and I keep trying to drive home is not to overstate any of it, not to project the one onto the other. That the paleontologist observes different species in different strata does not ipso facto mean that each variation was brought about strictly by naturalistic means such as observed in the microbiologist’s lab. Nor can it say that therefore God does not exist. Nor can it say that it was not purposeful.
It may be true that every atheist believes in evolution. But not everyone who believes in evolution is atheist. To make such a condemnation is equally an overstatement.
And moreover, is the language still used by some of the most eminent biologists of recent times. For instance, the Nobel prize-winning biologist Jacques Monod, who insists that everything we see all around us in nature, biological and otherwise, is the product of "sheer, blind chance."
I dunno, xzins. Seems to me if a claim like that were true, it would refer to a process nothing short of the miraculous. For a chain of accidents is to be credited with the order of the natural world. On this principle, order rises, spontaneously you see, from disorder.
But jeepers, when exactly did Darwinists start believing in miracles like this?
Order cannot rise from chaos in an unguided physical system. Period.
Even the atheist must admit to space, time, physical laws and constants as “guides” to the system. And science has no materialistic explanation for the origin of space, time, physical laws and physical constants.
Moreover, science has no effective materialistic explanation for the origin of life, inertia, information (successful communication), autonomy, semiosis, consciousness or conscience.
So when some scientists like Dawkins – using the reductionist “methodological naturalism” and the scientific method – look over the upper rim of their glasses at us Christians and declare that the spirit and soul do not exist or that the mind is just an epiphenomenon of the physical brain or that there is no ghost in the machine or that God is a delusion – we understandably shake our heads. Conversely, it is just as annoying to them when we do theology under the color of science.
Exactly correct, thus those that try to shoe horn theology into the scientific method are rather daft. Science doesn't have the right tool set to address such issues.
Higher purpose, higher morality, higher love, higher hope....all disappear or morph under chaos or situationism.
You wrote:
If an eyewitness were present at creation, and then relayed observations, that would have bearing on the discussion. Our Bible states just that. An eyewitness has descibed significant details of creation.
It's wrong to go beyond those details, but it's equally wrong to ignore them.
Likewise, it's wrong for me to deny the skeleton of a T-Rex. It does exist, and its existence has a proper explanation. I must not go beyond the facts, nor should I ignore them. Natural revelation also has its message to me from God.
So true.. so many concepts so little time..
Who is the most correct or partially correct?..
All of us I would say..
The message of John ch 10 about the sheep pens is pregnant..
There seems to be qualia of mental figments of thought..
Groups of thought that forms groups of people..
Whats "silly" to some is deep thought to others..
And whats deep to some is silly to others..
ANd with degrees of dfference in between..
How brilliant of Jesus to NOT forbid sheep pens..
He didnt even use the word or concept of heretic..
Without the Holy Spirit we all are mentally wandering around like a blind smart aleck thats pretty deaf too.. It is so easy to discredit others.. Jesus said you MUST be born again NOT become smarter than other religious people.. You know the smart ones with all their spiritual eggs dyed and decorated..
After all the original error was eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of GOOD AND EVIL.. and probably metaphorically climbing around in it and throwing the fruit.. Yes..... like an APE.