Posted on 01/15/2005 3:57:44 PM PST by Catholic54321
Was the world created exactly as it says in the book of Genesis, or is the theory of evolution a more accurate account? Not every faith that includes Genesis among its Scriptures feels compelled to debate the matter. For the vast majority of Jews, any discrepancy between science and faith was pretty much settled 1,100 years ago, said Rabbi Steve Vale of Congregation Ha-Makom (The Jewish Community of Solano County).
Saadia Gaon, a Babylonian rabbi who helped codify Rabbinic Judaism, resolved the conflict, Vale said.
"Saaida Gaon said that if there is scientific evidence of something and it contradicts what Torah (Scripture) says, the Torah can't be wrong and science can't be wrong. I'm wrong. I'm interpreting it wrong," the rabbi explained.
Genesis, for instance, says the world was created in seven days. "There's no compelling reason for us to say a day is 24 hours," Vale said. "There's no reason to say God could not create the world through evolution."
Nor do Jews necessarily hold that Genesis is the start of the story. "'In the beginning' really means, 'when God was beginning the world,' " Vale said. "The Bible starts the story with the beginning of life and human beings, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it was the beginning of God or his creation."
It is impossible to know whether the world evolved or was created as Genesis describes it, Vale said, but that's not the point of Scripture.
"For Jews, the Bible is a book about why we are here and how we're supposed to act, not how we're created. People are welcome to read that into it, but it's not for us," Vale said. "I'm more interested in how I'm supposed to act, how I'm supposed to treat people on the streeet, how am I supposed to connect to God through the acts in my life."
A similar philosophy guides Roman Catholic teaching.
"We say that the lessons of the Bible are lessons about God's relationship with the human race and our relationship with God - that all the stories are calculated, if you will, to elucidate something of the relationship between God and the universe and his people," said the Rev. Vincent O'Reilly of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Vacaville. "So the Bible tells us who made the world and what the responsibility of creation is to the one who created it, but we rely on science to teach us how the world developed."
In the Catholic church, science and faith collided in the 17th century, when astronomers Johannes Kepler and Galileo upended the church's teaching that the Earth was the center of the universe. In the intervening 400 years, Catholic theologians and scientists have come to a truce.
"All truth has to come from God," O'Reilly explained. "If science is telling us some truth about the development or evolution of the universe, then that's the truth as we know it today. Five hundred years from now, some scientist may come up with a slightly different version. But that won't change our position that a creator designed the universe and we're striving to understand how."
Besides, he added, how God created the world isn't the point of the creation story. "The story is ultimately that human beings are the highpoint of God's creation. And God has charged humans with responsibility for the rest of creation."
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints also doesn't spend a lot of time debating the fine points of evolution or creationism. Its official teaching lies between the two points.
"We believe that God created the world, but not necessarily in seven days," said Dayton Call, a spokeman for the church in Solano County. "When it comes to evolution, we don't believe human beings evolved. We believe we were descended from Adam and Eve. But that's as far as the church's position goes on the subject. If there's evolution involved as far as the creative process, we would not argue that there's not."
Orthodox Christians also steer clear of the creation vs. evolution debate, said the Rev. Silas Ruark of St. Timothy Orthodox Church (Antiochan) in Cordelia.
"Orthodoxy basically accepts the fact that there is very much we don't know about the beginning and the end," Ruark said. "We know that in the beginning God created. And we know that in the end he will bring it to a close. But to venture into a great deal of speculation about the how or even the when is for us to assume that we can understand the mind of God."
Most Orthodox Christians accept the Genesis account as being a "true revelation of God's creation and God's interaction with humankind," Ruark said. Orthodox Christianity also teaches that the world has "gone haywire" through the disobedience of humankind.
"But the exact hows of the creation, the hows of his incarnation and the hows of his second coming are known only to God," Ruark said.
Sorry, I'm not a minister - I just play one on the Internet... ;-)
"Saaida Gaon said that if there is scientific evidence of something and it contradicts what Torah (Scripture) says, the Torah can't be wrong and science can't be wrong. I'm wrong. I'm interpreting it wrong,' the rabbi explained."
It's muddled thinking like this which has allowed Amoral relativists to set the agenda in this country. "I'm interpreting it wrong", lets everyone decide what to pick and choose. A straightforward reading has no significance. No wonder the Constitution has been so adulterated.
Genesis, for instance, says the world was created in seven days. "There's no compelling reason for us to say a day is 24 hours," Vale said. "There's no reason to say God could not create the world through evolution."
The fact that Genesis explains that God created a male and a female at the beginning (Adam & Eve) excludes the "evolution" interpretation.
It is comments like these that let Barbara Streisand's develope.
Do you believe there is a true spiritual interpretation - the one known in Heaven - to the Word of God? (see my other posts on this thread and respond, please)
I thought it was a great article... people of faith can differ without name calling though. Where I come from, calling someone 'Barbara Streisand' is fighting words ;-)
*sigh.*
I don't say you are calling God a liar, can you at least do the same courtesy for me? Can't we have a rational discussion without such ionflammatory, hysterical language?
The Exodus parallel is pointing out the precedent that even God rested after one of his days. It does not establish that one of God's days equals twenty-four hours, as you claim it does. In fact, the bible makes quite plain that one of God's days is as a thousand of man's, and in quite a way that the use of "thousand" is figurative: It was used to mean what children now call "a zillion." Plus, you literal reading of "evening" and "morning" is impossible, since the Earth has not been formed yet! The sun always shines, so what causes darkness?
If your concept were true, God would have to limit himself to a locale on the Earth, in order that he might experience Evening.
Now you are correct in pointing out that the sequence of events in Genesis 1 do not follow the sequence of events in evolution. Please note that in this very thread I explained that what is presented in Genesis 1-11 is NOT historical, but mythical.
No, I'm not saying it's "mere" myth, like the Greek and Roman myths. Those myths aren't "mere" myths, they are false myths. There is true myth. Greco-Roman myths teach falsities or limited truths about the world. The creation myth is true myth: it's truth is complete, with no falseness.
Why does this matter? Because fundamentalism is driving a wedge between science and religion which is destructive to both. Science has gotten defensive from attack by religion, turning nihilistic in a way which would have been totally alien to Einstein, Keppler, or Mendel. And religion is becoming Luddite, segregated to the powerless corridors of society, because those with recourse to reason are forced to reject it.
There is a tempting argument that religion should be powerless in this way, but that notion would be calamitous to our society, which is built on religion having influence through democratic action to create the prevening grace of justice. For the sake of democracy, we cannot allow religion to become irrational, but the evidence against the 7000-year-old Earth is so preponderous, your literalism is fatal.
I've seen science flamed as the source of every problem in society. I reject that; it is the divorce of science from religion-informed values that is the problem. You are handing science, technology, and all their power over to the exclusive domain of evil!
Are you and I the only two people on this thread who're familiar with Genesis' two creation accounts?
Creating the Earth in 6 days, feeding 5,000 men (besides women and children) from one lad's lunch, water (h2o) into wine (water and numerous other elements), or turning dead flesh into living flesh, what is the difference? He either did all of it (I say yes), or he did none of it.
Here's a question for the Evos. If you believe you have a soul, how did it evolve?
Emmanuel Swedonborg?? (sp?)
I have heard of him, he is some mystic dreamer, some occultist.
Surely you dont want to drag HIM into this, do you?>?:
There is nothing hysterical about telling someone who is openly denying the accuracy of the Bible as saying they are calling God a liar.
Either it means what it says or it doesn't.
And the Bible clearly says those were literal days.
And It is obvious, all you have to do is just believe what it says.
In order to believe what you are trying to say, that those days were indeterminate time periods but surely not a 24 hour day, I have to ignore the text entirely, ignore the modifiers which accompany the text, and ignore the parallel passages which refer back to the text confirming that the text says literal days.
In other words, I would have to call God a liar.
Jesus took these passages to mean what they say. If He was to allegorize, you might have a point. However the Holy Spirit was cautious enough to include the following Word's of Christ to avoid the "loose canon" of spiritualization of the Creation event. Notice the indicting language (in bold) Christ has for those who handle the text loosely.
Jesus said:
Mat 19:4-5
4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made [them] at the beginning made them male and female,
5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Quoting from the supposed mythological story in the Book of Genesis:
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And:
Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
This is not an overly "literal" reading. Jesus Christ's confirmation assures us of the truth and accuracy of the Genesis account. Who better to make such a confirmation. Or who worse to disregard.
Review RaceBannon's post #13 for a straightforward interpretation. The Holy Spirit always rewards the diligent student.
Angles are not human. Angles are either fallen or unfallen; they have seen God in his glory; Unlike Man, who cannot see God, There is no new information angels could gain which could change their decision: they have chosen their lot to be fallen or unfallen.
To call Angels celestial Man is to deny that the Earthen component, the clay, is essential to what Man is. Mankind, because he cannot know God, is lower than Angels for now, but he shall become "like God" when the chosen Man is exalted through the intercession of Christ. Angles will not ascend to anything other than what they are now.
Angels are only spirit. Man is both body and spirit.
Relativists don't "interpret worng[ly]." They discard what they are uncomfortable with, or make unreasonable interpretations. To copy form my previous post:
You need not fear a slippery slope leading from a recognition of how to read a myth to the apostasy of the modernists who read everything as myth and deny the resurrection of Christ: There are passages of the bible to assert what is not only myth, but what is also history: Luke 1:1-4; John 20:30-31 and 21:24-25; 1st John 1:1-4; 1 Cor 15: 15-29; 2 Tim 2:18.
Passages such as those guide us away from discounting all of the bible as being myth, as modernists do.
>>There is nothing hysterical about telling someone who is openly denying the accuracy of the Bible as saying they are calling God a liar.<<
OK, RB, you obviously have not read a thing I have written if you say that I am denying the accuracy of the bible.
Let me put it to you simply:
There is (at least) one portion of the gospel which is myth. Read Matthew's geneaology. Matthew says Joram begat Uzziah, who begat Jotham. The problem is Chronicles teaches us that Joram did not beget Uzziah, he begat Ahaziah, who begat Joash, who begat Amaziah, who begat Azariah (who probably is Uzziah), who begat Joash.
Further, Matthew tells us that Shealtiel (Salathiel) begat Zorobabel (Zerubabbel). But he did not. Pedaiah, Shealtiel's brother begat Zorobabel.
In fact, Luke tells us that Joseph was descended from David's son, Nathan, while Matthew tells us he was descended from David's son, Solomon. From that point, Matthew and Luke's geneaologies differ completely, right up to Matthew.
Matthew has traced a patrilineage of eldest sons, directly contradicting Luke. Unlike Luke's gospel, Matthew's shows a direct lineage of royal heirs, straight back to David, even though the Old Testament shows the lineage broken at Zerubabel. Matthew says Mary's father-in-law was Jacob, Luke says he was Heli.
Is God lying?
From the simplistic way of reading the bible, I would have to conclude that either Luke and Chronicles or Matthew is a liar or is wrong. Since that is not so, I must conclude that I am misunderstanding one of them.
Whoops!
right up to Matthew = right up to Joseph
There are distinctions that can be made as you assert. In my study of Biblical interpretation, I find the lion share of mistakes are made on the side of disregarding a straightforward reading. The majority of cults are founded by people who are both not grounded in scripture, and they fail to compare Scripture with Scripture as Isaiah admonishes.
Isa 28:9-10
Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? [them that are] weaned from the milk, [and] drawn from the breasts.
10 For precept [must be] upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, [and] there a little:
As the enemy of God flourishes through his wolves taking Scripture out of context:
Mat 4:6-7
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in [their] hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
So, if we compare scripture we find:
1. Jesus stated in uncertain terms that Adam and Eve were created at the beginning consistant with all revealed genealogies throughout scripture. (Mat 19:4-5)
2. Paul bases death on the original sin. (Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;)
3. When Christ reigns on earth there will once again be no death. (Isa 11:7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.)
4. Jesus Christ has abolished death. (2Ti 1:10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:)
Disregarding the Creation story representing Adam as the first man that brought death into the world, we no longer need a Savior, for death would be a natural event created by God's use of Evolution. Cains murder is justified in the animal kingdom because it would override the evil committed by his non-evolved soul.
The curse brought on by Adam's sin has made the entire creation groan.
Rom 8:21-23
21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
23 And not only [they], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, [to wit], the redemption of our body.
(By the way, Yes I am aware of the hypothesis that Luke actually recounts MARY'S lineage, supposing that since Mary was an only child, according to Catholic tradition, Joseph was LEGAL heir to Heli, although biological son of Jacob. But this does not account for Matthew's numerous errors tracing the line of kings.
The historical fact is that the royal lineage of David was broken, and a curse placed on it by God. One theory is that Matthew uses myth to create a lineage which shows the transfer of inherited blessing according to a lineage of "spiritually annointed" successors.)
>> Disregarding the Creation story representing Adam as the first man that brought death into the world, we no longer need a Savior, for death would be a natural event created by God's use of Evolution.<<
I am not disregarding the creation story! I am saying it is myth, not history, but I am asserting it is true myth! God have mercy on the soul of anyone who would disregard it. The entirety of the Pope's "theology of the body" is based on the creation story, even while the Catholic Church does not cling to the notion that the Earth is only 7000 years old. What the creation story teaches us about our relationship to God, to evil, to each other, and to our spouses is absolutely central to the Christian life.
I recognize that your intentions are good. I also believe the discussion of the creation is not an essential in regard to Salvation.
Consider the possibility that in creating the universe God stretched the stars across the millions of light years instantaneously. The Bible describes it in that way. Light can be stretched like a scroll by God. The billions of years predicted by scientists is a materialistic view of a supernatural event. They have it wrong.
For the same reason the geology we examine is more consistent with a world wide flood than with any model science posits. As God created the matter that makes up our universe, who can say that in the process the atomic makeup was unbelievably accelerated. Scientists force themselves to disregard what we know to be valid data. Supernatural data.
Walking on water, raising the dead, transporting Phillip to the desert, appearing in a locked room, the virgin birth... All of these truths can play no part in science, because science must reject the unprovable. Science is good for some things, but inept at understanding our origins or our originator. We are forced to trust God's eyewitness description of what He did, and that He could accurately convey it to a human being for our admonition.
There is no reason to twist the revelation to line up with science. Science is limited in it's truth seeking apparatus.
I would suppose it's possible that God made a universe that *looked* billions of years old when it really is a young universe.
But a look at mitochondrial DNA poses a problem. You see, Darwin's evolution is just a theory in some ways, but GENETIC evolution is a proven law. We can actually measure how many generations human beings are removed from each other. With a big enough computer and a concerted effort, we could create a family tree of every single human being.
On one hand, the results are fairly amazing: We are actually all descended from a single mother, not all that long ago! This discovery is so shocking, the universal mother was actually dubbed "EVE" by scientists. On the other hand, whereas the bible records about 70 generations (plus 2000 years), the data shows about 1000 generations: tantalizing close, but significantly and inescapably distant from biblical projections.
I do agree with you that the discussion of creation is not essential in regards to Salvation. The problem is the widespread perception that science is antithetical to Christianity. Some of us must hold the door open for the salvation of scientists, and to allow Christians to study science.
The thread is on interpretations of the creation story and Swedenborg offers a very rational one. I'm a member of the New Church so I offer it... without name calling.
When you say that words that clearly say literal day do not mean literal day, then you are saying the Bible is not accurate.
And there needs to be no more said on that.
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