I regret and apologize for using the word "non-traditionalists" since it misrepresents what and who we're talking about.
I almost posted an immediate retraction, but then thought, well, let's just see what response it gets.
Your response, MHGinTN, is pretty mild...
I absolutely despise that word "fundamentalist".
It drives me crazy when I hear news reporter-idiots talking about suicide bombers as "Muslim fundamentalists", and then in the next sentence about "Christian fundamentalists" opposing abortion, or evolution.
So I was looking for another word, and "traditionalists" works pretty well, I think, as being both accurate and non-pejorative.
So, now, if "traditionalists" deny, say, evolution, what does that make those who agree with it, non-traditionalists?
So that was the word I chose, and now regret.
The reason is that in one sense not one of us is a real traditionalist, but in another sense all of us are.
Genuine traditionalists, people who seriously live their tradition 24/7-365 from birth to death are my wonderful Pennsylvania Dutch neighbors -- old order Amish and Mennonites.
For them, tradition is reality, and all the rest of us are modern, in their word: English.
So, if you're sitting at a computer or smart-phone reading this, then you are not "traditional" in their sense.
In another sense, we are all traditionalists, since we refuse to buy into the Madonna anthem: "we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl."
So I have to conclude that it's not a matter of "traditionalist" versus "non-traditionalist", but rather of more-traditional versus less-traditional.
Or, you might even think of it the way I do my Amish neighbors, among whom there are no "new order" Amish.
There are, however, what I call Old-Order, Older-Order and Oldest-Order, who do, by the way, get along well with each other, and amongst whom families sometimes move and change identification.
Bottom line: "non-traditional" in today's usage means Madonna's "material girl", and that's not who I intended.
I intended to mean "less-traditional", or perhaps even Older-Order as opposed to our Oldest-Order Young Earth Creationists.
And no, they don't mock each other.
;-)
I really don't care if someone wants to call me "fundamentalist" for loving God, believing Him and trusting Him. If that's how they meant it, I take it as a badge of honor.
As to my personal understanding of God's words in Genesis, I see that God is the only observer of Creation and is speaking from the inception perspective. For that reason, I very strongly agree with Jewish Physicist Gerald Schroeder in pointing out that - when one considers the big bang and inflationary theory (General Relativity) - that approximately 15 billion years from our space/time perspective is equal to approximately one week in equivalent earth days from the inception space/time perspective.
There is, of course, much more that I could/would say on the subject - the only part relevant to this discussion is that the observer perspective of Scripture changes to Adamic time (space/time coordinates) at the top of Genesis 4 when Adam is banished to mortality.
“So, now, if “traditionalists” deny, say, evolution, what does that make those who agree with it, non-traditionalists?”
Spirited: As the Catholic Kolbe Center for the study of creation argued so well, natural science and evolutionary thinking create a mindset within priests who accept this way of thinking that becomes incrementally averse to the Biblical view of total reality. Obviously this is because methodological naturalism/natural science bespeak a closed system, a box with its’ top sealed tight against the supernatural dimension while Darwinism presents an inverted anti-creation account (everything begins at the bottom) that is the antithesis of the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo where everything begins at the top before falling.
Whereas the view of reality posited by naturalism consists of one dimension, the natural or sensory dimension, according to the biblical view there are two dimensions, that which we can see and that which we normally cannot.
The natural or blood and soil man faces what he believes is the total reality of the universe and interprets what he believes to be true against this one half. So everything must be matter, chemicals, grey matter, and instincts. The Christian man faces both the seen and unseen and interprets truth against these two interacting halves of reality. Thus Paul declares that we are made,
“...a spectacle unto the world, and to angels and men.” (1 Cor. 4:9)
The blood and soil man cannot understand Paul’s seemingly fantastic claim because his view of reality is a major barrier for the blood and soil man who claims to ‘see’ but is really blind to total reality.
What Paul is affirming in 1 Cor. 4:9 is that reality consists of two halves, hence this earth is really a theater and men are on its stage being observed by both the seen (men) and the unseen—Angels and fallen Angels, as betty pointed out.
Men cannot see them but they can see and hear us. Fallen Angels are all around us, watching, listening, leading men astray, corrupting minds, and speaking persuasive thoughts into the minds of men. One of their most popular suggestions is that all that exists is one substance (monism) that is either physical matter (Atomists, Secular Humanists) or spiritualized matter (Cosmic Humanists).
Now either the blood and soil view of reality (closed system) is true or the Biblical view consisting of the seen and unseen is true. If the closed system is true then adherents of the Biblical view are deluded. If however there really are two halves of reality, then the blood and soil view is extremely naïve and blind to the total reality of the universe. From the Christian viewpoint, no man has ever been so naïve, nor so ignorant of reality as modern blood and soil man with his natural science and evolutionary thinking.