Well Mark, that meaning's implicit in my (rather poetical -- sorry!) reference to Abraham's Holy Rainbow, isn't it? The Holy Rainbow was the sign affirming the covenant between God and Abraham, made at God's behest, with Abraham's totally confirming response, a surrender in love to the glorious love of the Lord. Thus the history of direct divine-human relations and communications begins in human historical time.
Mark, this leads me to another issue I've been thinking about lately, and I wondered if you would share your thoughts with me. It's the kind of problem for which there is no easy answer.
Here's the question: Ought the Holy Scriptures to be read as divine information, or as divine poetry?
I think the question is legitimate. For consider how removed in sheer dimension and scale is the mind of God from the human mind. This suggests that if God wants to communicate with us (and obviously He does) then in a certain sense He speaks to us in symbols, not in rationalist language. Which is to say He speaks to us in the language of poetry.
It seems to me this need not be an "either/or" proposition. But as Alamo-Girl justly says, we must not confuse doctrine with personal witness.
Yet poetry is a form that naturally makes one a "witness," in the sense of felt, mutual participation with its author with subsequent reflection, in a way that rationalist language never does. I have in mind John 14 here.
And yet humans also need the information. Indeed, there is a critical need.
How do we find the balance?
I think you've begun to answer your question.
How do we find the balance?
How about this? I think maybe we don't worry quite so face-on about the balance between what we conceptualize as poetry or prose and engage two old fashioned, intuitive techniques (lead by the Holy Spirit as He pleases with a willing heart) --really two techniques in one, called contextual criticism.
First, to read as the writing asks to be read (within its immediate context)...
and,
Second, to read by "comparing Scripture with Scripture" (as the Logos also asks us to read itself) granting God His place and that He has given us words of which we may come to a sufficient understanding, in the place He gives us, even if that understanding is grossly deferred to the regenerate's completed understanding.
Why read the Logos the way the Logos asks us and not assume any higher or much more pithy point of view? Because "In the beginning," the Logos intiates all of our true knowledge.
As poetry or prose? As one very, very humble.
And what about all that other knowledge we all have, especially by 2/20/2004? Well, let Logos and His sent servant Rhema interpret that, too.
There -- hope I'm not too much of a spoil sport for you, Lady Jean. ;-`
I think you have put your finger on something. The words are intended to describe real events, real people, real ideas. So we really aren't free to read just anything into the words. But the words are intended to describe something, they aren't the thing itself obviously. In our efforts to boil everything down into an easily codified doctrine we sometimes squeeze the life out of the words.
The work of building doctrines is how we make sense of things, and if it weren't for our tendency to freeze the doctrine, and to place the doctrine above the thing it is meant to describe, we wouldn't have a problem. Doctrines are tools, and tools can be modified. Truth can't, but doctrine is merely a means of getting at it.
Furthermore, scripture was never intended to be a biology text, or an astronomy text, or any kind of textbook at all. It is what it is, the history of the Hebrews, followed by several accounts of Christ and the early church. This is why some of the evolution threads mystify me... the evolutionists believe that proving the theory disproves God, and the creationists, at least some of them, seem to agree, so they fight back desperately to save God's life from this mortal attack... whereas I just see a discussion about tools. What tools did God use? You seem to be on my wave-length, I think, the IC debate for you is just digging into the details of the design, which is great fun. God is not at risk here, he built it. We're just trying to figure out how. We can afford to turn on the microscope and have a look, he is not going to vanish when we flip on the light.
Or, thats the way I see it.
I believe that God deals with every human, and every race of people, which means that every human chooses and has chosen again and again whether he will or will not serve God. Which is why it does not disturb me to see that Plato and the Greeks happened on to certain truths 300 or 400 years before Christ.
You said it very well, they are not competing with John the Baptist, its apples and oranges. John had his job to do, and Plato had his. Plato is obviously not part of scripture, but he had his earthly mission to carry out just like the rest of us do.
We have talked here about the need to build a purely Christian cosmology... (although I actually think you just did that with your essay Cosmology, Ancient and Modern ). I know some of us are uncomfortable at using metaphors or elements derived from non-Christian sources whether they be classical or modern. Within limits this does not worry me. You wouldn't try to build a bridge based on scripture, and you wouldn't try to fix your plumbing that way either. You develop the technology for the task at hand, gaining the knowledge and experience where you find it.
I think new advances in ontology are going to come from the AI people, the information sciences, at least in the short term. Developing "smart" technologies, and complex software teaches us a lot about how we are designed. Its odd but perhaps not surprising that we are starting to understand DNA better as a result of our familiarity with software, meaning we see information we have seen for a long time, but we now understand it differently as a result of our own efforts at creating intelligence.
Scriptural truth is not threatened by truth found outside of scripture. I used to know a preacher who would challenge people to close their Bibles and open their eyes to what God was doing, right now, all around them. That if there were no Bible, it would be possible to recreate it from simply observing, and participating, in what God is doing, now, in the streets, and in history. Because God is still God, and he is still forging the world. We humans are part of the tool set, and would be witnesses if we just opened our eyes.
The Hebrews and the Church are, respectively, a particular priesthood with a particular mission. But God is at work on all sides of us, and its a much bigger game than just us. Its fine for us to kick around the fine points of doctrine, its important in fact, as long as we remember that we are just the priests. The folks are out there doing God's will, we're just keeping the altar polished.
I think of us sometimes as being like the cooks at a lumber camp. We have to keep the guys fed, but they are the ones out there felling the trees. We are a key part of the operation for sure, but someone still has to fire up the chain saw.
My metaphors could use some work, I know...
Somewhere you quoted Voegelin: “Christianity is not concerned with belief in a literary text, but with man’s confrontation with God through faith.” So while certainly someone has to broadcast God's word out into the culture, and keep doing it, that is not the whole game. There are also trees to fell, and dragons to slay.
I never know if I make any sense at all... Work with me here...