Posted on 06/20/2007 5:24:39 AM PDT by spirited irish
I've heard this argument before, and this recreation centers around the second line of Genesis 1:
And the earth was without form, and void The argument goes, as it always does, that this is a mistranslation. What it should read, is that ....the earth became without form and void, thus indicating non contradiction of a very old earth, that we ere otherwise unaware of, and which we are just discovering now.
Here's the problem
Philosophers have known for some time now that all things have two fundamental qualities: Its shape or form, and it's substance, and the two are distinguishable. Distinct.
The second line of Genesis tells us that the earth was without both of these. It had neither form nor substance. Now, even if one interprets Genesis, and thus the earth, as having a pre history of sorts....it is entirely meaningless from our point of view or inquiry since between the two instantiations, God would have obliterated any evidence of it since it became without form or substance.
That means that all the evidence science has collected, must necessarily be from this second instantiation of the earth....and you're right back to where you started, without accomplishing anything....
That seems to present another dilemma. If the Earth had neither form nor substance, what exactly was it they were calling "the earth"?
I'm afraid you're making my point for me, that it is the rare person nowadays who understands the American founding period, and the intellectual currents that ultimately shaped the design of the Constitution and our rule of equal justice under law. The latter is essentially a Christian concept.
But then, it's not for nothing that this subject area is no longer taught in the public schools. I've recently learned that many standard American history textbooks used in the public schools nowadays start with the Civil War....
Thanks for writing, tpaine!
You've got to give dear 'pipe some slack, csense. Frequently he says the most outrageous things. I suspect he likes to shock people. :^)
As a matter of fact, I totally agree with you, that Genesis 1 refers to "eons," not to 24-hour days. You can't have 24-hour days before the creation of the sun (it is our earth's orbit around the sun that determines what a "day" is); and that doesn't happen until the fourth "day." In fact, I suspect that the events in Genesis 1 do not happen in time at all.
I'm sorry if I offended you, csense. Thank you for writing.
I think "void, and without form" might also better translate to something closer to "lifeless and featureless", than "without form or substance", which seems redundant.
I didn't say it was.
It is essentially the moral and ontological philosophy of the Framers, with a boost from classical Athens (e.g., Aristotle, Plato). And it is not "fanatical."
I quoted Koestler because I think our author above is 'excessively devoted' to her anti-Evolutionary Humanism cause.
I'm afraid you're making my point for me, that it is the rare person nowadays who understands the American founding period, and the intellectual currents that ultimately shaped the design of the Constitution and our rule of equal justice under law. The latter is essentially a Christian concept.
Cite your support that our rule of equal justice under law is essentially a Christian concept. I contend that concept is so old it's lost in prehistory. Everyone from American Indians to pre-christian nordic societies have used that, as essentially, it derives from mans near universal 'golden rule'.
Thanks for writing, Betty!
For what it’s worth, here’s my take on some of the issues you’ve been debating:
I believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God — who does not lie and whose will is perfect — and that all parts of His word are suitable for learning, for instruction, for exhortation, and for correction. Further, I believe the Bible is inerrant. Even though people may make an effort to distort it and repackage it in popular contemporary terms, God’s will cannot be frustrated by human effort and His will is that we should have His Word for our instruction and for our guidance and comfort.
I believe that some parts of the Bible were clearly given to us for instruction through parables, while others were given as song and poetry, and still other sections as a historic accounting or factual recording of events that transpired. While many parts of the bible are to be read and understood literally (e.g. “They melted their earrings and made a golden calf), they may still have extended application in contemporary terms (e.g.”Is there a golden calf in my life?”). This use of personal metaphor is not, however, the same thing as encountering a troublesome passage (e.g. “They abandoned the natural use of women”) and deciding to coyly avoid God’s intended meaning, call the verse “a metaphor” and then proceed to repackage His word in contemporary easily digestible terms.
On that same note, I believe that Adam and Eve were real people. There is no indication anywhere in the Old Testament that named figures should be understood as allegorical symbols simply because their stories are difficult for us to understand in contemporary terms. God doesn’t lie, and His message has come to us exactly as He intended it should.
And so I come back to evolution, and why I’ve taken such care in my posts and in my exchange with js1138 to caution against turning to science — and ESPECIALLY - to “evolution” to fill in what we believe are “gaps” in the Biblical account:
Scripture tells us that God exists outside of time and that His ways are not our ways. The God I know and love and worship is of such supernatural magnitude that He could easily have created the earth in a blink of His eye had it been His will to do so. He could easily have created an earth that looks billions of years old and yet is far younger - who knows what old and young look like in the hands of a supernatural Creator who also created the very laws by which we measure such things?
These things are not for us to spend our time picking apart. Jesus gave us the Great Commission, and once saved and adopted as heirs to God’s Kingdom we are — as Paul exhorts us — to “redeem the time” by “looking to heaven” and not to the things of the world.
Yet...
Many people...many, many people today just don’t trust God to be that great. We just can’t rest easy with the “Ours is not to wonder why, ours is but to do or die...” simplicity of trusting that God has told us all we need to know.
This includes many saved Christians. We love God, and we know He’s pretty awesome...but...we just aren’t sure — bombarded as we are by the culture around us, which HAS set up science as a false god — that God really is capable of Creation in the way that Genesis lays out.
We start wondering, and there is plenty in the world today to...bedevil us, if I might use a deliberately loaded terms...to encourage us to wonder and quietly doubt. Maybe Adam really wasn’t a real person...maybe a day was just the ancient Hebrews way of conveying an eon...maybe people evolved and Adam was just some downstream starting point for the allegory...maybe geologic time and the rise and fall of the dinosaurs does fit somewhere in there between “On the first day...” and “....then He rested”.
And, there’s the devil in it for those of us who are Christians. We should know better than that. We DO know better than that. When we start trying to add to His word to accommodate “evolution”, what we are really doing is doubting God’s ability to be who He is — that is, the Alpha and Omega...the one who exists outside of time...the one who can breathe life into dust and fill the oceans from the mists with just a thought.
We, the created, are simply trying to reach up and put the Creator in a man-made box of known dimensions so that we can better understand the world...but more than, so that we can validate our understanding of our place in it. Furthermore, we are doubting His perfection: Evolution is not about perfection; it is a notion that trades in chance, chaos, uncertainty, and has no interest in goals. When we suggest that perhaps God’s act of creation was carried out through evolution, we are suggesting that God operates through chance and chaos. Yet, while these are certainly under His authority, they are not His mode of operation and they are completely incompatible with His character, as revealed all throughout Scripture.
Again, from the perspective of one who has walked in the full embrace of secular humanism and come home again to trust in God and salvation in Jesus Christ...I pray that we will all consider carefully what we believe about evolution — and why we believe it — and make sure we understand what that says for what we believe about God.
Form and substance are philosophical terms, and they are definitely not "redundant." Aristotle identifies the form of a thing with its physical manifestation; its substance is its "essence," which in Platonic philosophical and Christian terms indicates a participation in divine being.
The idea behind this is the idea that all existent things are only such to the extent that they are participants in divine being. This is a two-way street: From God to physical existents (man), and from physical existents (man) to God.
Isaac Newton actually had a very interesting idea about a sort of mediating field that he called sensorium Dei that might serve as a bridge between physical nature and its source in divine Being, enabling "the Lord of Life" to be "with His creatures."
And then again, we have the proposal of a universal zero-point field -- at least such has been suggested -- out of which photons just spontaneously erupt, do their thing, and are "annihilated." Now photons are very special little buggers. :^) They are the particulate nature of light, as in "Let there be Light."
To say more would probably be gratuitous, especially since I sense a discussion like this wouldn't be your favorite cup of tea. If I'm wrong about that, please do come back!
Meanwhile, thanks for letting me rant.
And thank you so much for writing, tacticalogic!
Maybe I wasn't clear. If find it redundant to say that a physical entity ("the earth") is without form or substance, when being without substance seems to necessarily imply an absence of form.
The same earth that is mentioned in the first line of Genesis, which gives an immediate overview of who, what, and when....not in that order of course:
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Then it gives us the immediate status of the earth, among other things, relative to that point in creation:
Genesis 1:2
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Then of course, comes the first line of creation that everyone is familiar with.
The fact that they mention the non existent status of the earth in this way, does not mean exactly the opposite, that it did indeed exist at that point. Such a thing would be absurd and a contradiction of terms.
Because Christianity declares that all men are "equal" under and before God, Who one day will judge us "equally," according to His justice. Every person has dignity; every person has unalienable rights. This is so because we are all desired sons (and daughters) of God, and He gives us what we need to be fully human....
That is precisely why I question whether the description of "void and without form" might more accuratly translate as "lifeless and featureless".
That is precisely why I question whether the description of "void and without form" might more accuratly translate as "lifeless and featureless".
I'm not sure why you're agreeing to a position I don't hold. In principle, I'm not against such an interpretation....of eons....but as I've said, I've yet to hear an argument that has merit, when taken in context to Genesis as a whole.
Some of the arguments stand by themselves when taken out of context, but when you plug them in, they simply doesn't make sense.
That said, I'm not sure why you seem to think that God could not have established such a standard from the beginning, as I remarked on a few posts earlier.
Some would say so, tacticalogic. On such a view, Being is substance; and physical form is the result.
Well then, please forgive me for not paying better attention.
tpaine..I think the question posed; - “Can America Survive Evolutionary Humanism?” is divisive,
Irish-—The issue is not about you and your feelings. You only feel it is divisive because you’ve allowed yourself to dwell on your feelings.
tpaine-— and that the real issue we should all address is how to get government to obey our Constitution.
Irish...The Declaration and Constitution are founded squarely upon the core presupposition: God created man-—man is His creature, made in His image. Streaming forth from this core presupposition is this major assumption: man’s Creator has endowed man with inalienable (not from man) rights....” Expecting that an elected leadership comprised of evolutionary humanists who reject God, and who contemptuously call Him a superstitious belief to nonetheless “respect” a system grounded upon God, is to be disattached-from-reality.
tpaine-—Saying that ‘ evolutionary humanists’ are causing gov’t socialism is a ludicrous nonproductive generalization
Irish...Evolutionary Humanism is but the modern version of pre-Biblical naturalism. Naturalism, in its many permutations, has always been socialistic (collectivistic), with an aristocractic ruling class and a rigid class and/or caste system. Evolutionary Humanism leads to socialism as naturally as day follows night.
Study worldview and you’ll discover these things.
Both hands clapping for a beautifully expressed post.
I'm not sure I understand why you think this follows from my statement. I don't know how much simpler I can be in my explanations. God tells us right from the start that he is the one who created everything. That first line is not yet part of the chronology of creation, which Genesis one is.
The second line actually does begin the chronology, but only in the sense that he gives us the status of those things mentioned in the first line.
Then the actual chronology of creation begins.
I don't understand why that is so difficult to understand. Now, what exactly the "waters" were....that's an interesting question.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.