Replies

Arghh! Sorry friend, I thought I HAD replied to you! Let me do so now. (EnglishCon, Post 77)

Referring to Post 52, it does not make sense to me:

You posted several links that I had to read, digest and, in a couple of cases, pray on. I thank you for the links. (EnglishCon,Post 62)

What links?

“Your entire note makes Genesis verse 1 a lie.
If Genesis verse 1 is a lie, the account of creation is a lie.” (imardmd1, Post 33)

Could you expand on this please? I THINK I know what you mean, but want to be 100% sure. I am not quite sure how my post makes Genesis 1 a lie. (EnglishCon, Post 77)

Look, there is too much going on in my little world. Writing at great length is neither optional nor needed for a summary response. I am not going to be drawn into an epistemological doldrums and morass the size of the Sargasso Sea.

Even your first paragraph reveals a rejection of the basic underlying presupposition of foundation of the whole Bible:

My contention vis-a-vis a literal historically reported claim in the text is that:

The Uniplural Infinite, Ageless, Timeless, Omniscient, Omnipotent God created the heaven and the earth, ex nihilo, and all that is in it, in six diurnal evening-morning successive literal days (=yoms).

The clock started when the beginning began, and dimensions were concurrently declared. Pursuant to the introduction of time and dimensions, the conditions described by the Schrodinger Wave equations are met and enabled by the interruption of stasis, thus further permitting electro-magnetic spectrum, mass/gravity, and acoustics. But this is a distraction.

So then you say Genesis 1:3 and 'light' is the crux. I say, "No! The God is the crux, and in/of Him everything consists!" What light are you talking about? God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all!

Your talk is of '13.7 billion years." Roughly? Whose unproveable opinion, of someone else's surmise, of yet another prognostication, born of still more speculation, are you blindly (and blandly?) echoing? 13.7? What light was it that came into being when as yet no sun, moon planets, or stars existed? How many of those '13.7 billion' x 365.25 days (under theistic evolution) elapsed before the cytoplasts of grass (?) received light such that photosynthesis of carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates could be performed? Come on!

The intellectual and spiritual light that is bestowed by the Words given to Moses was recorded for us to read and trust. This 'light' is of no use to one who is spiritually dead, who can only find relief in intellectual imaginations that somehow seem to be 'logical' and stepwise, but not satisfying.

Now, look, here's a parable:

For a dog standing near a cyclotron -- its theory, conceptualization, construction, operation, results, and basis for a linear accelerator -- is eons beyond the reach of a dog's mentation. At best, he can only lift his leg and pee on the apparatus to demonstrate his utter ignorance and disdain of the cyclotron's purpose, though he is intellectually aware of its existence. Yet, he might be deliberately made aware of its presence by, and its significance to, his mentor. The dog may even be highly trained to guard and defend its security with his very life, though never able to know WHY! The 'why' would require the insertion and awakening of a completely new faculty for perceiving and understanding the abstraction of the instrument's existence. That capability would have to be somehow inserted and brought to life miraculously for purposeful function by some external agency. Think about this.

In a similar fashion, you stand aware of the existence of a historically perpetuated 'fable' that we call 'the account of Creation,' by which everything you see and sense was purportedly brought into being. The account given says that literally, beyond the shadow of any possible doubt as to the literal sense, the entire furnishing of the universe was accomplished in 6 diurnal cycles. The length of the cardinal Day One was established by the first single evening-morning before our Sun (and perhaps even its existence) was established. The appearance of grass on Day Three preceded the making of the Sun and the Moon on Day Four. Thus the Day-Age (1 day = 1,000 years) Theory is summarily dismissed.

Your personal intellectual-only framework cannot permit this, therefore you have constructed your own fable to somehow, through rationalizations, imaginations, and reasonings, to assemble specially chosen 'facts' (while excluding others) and thus provide an excuse for preserving 'sanity' through denying the literal sense of the Bible text, and allegorizing the account to fit the shaky framework of time and chance and serendipity you have gratuitously supplied. My job here is to thoroughly disabuse you of these factors by casting down these imaginations and every 'high' thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of The God.

Similar to the dog exemplified above, and without an investment -- a birth -- of an internal faculty of seeing and acting on Spiritual Light, one is without a sense of need, purpose, direction, or motive to find an anchor for the soul. The God has provided the revelation, communication, transmission, preservation, translation, and interpretation, and with examples of illustrated successful applications of the thoughts in His Mind. His intention is toward that part of His Creation which is susceptible to redemption by His Generative Seed, The Word, from the damages of The Fall. He thus supplies the needed and immutable anchor through the veil that separates intellect and spirit.

To wit: A 'carnal' person only lives like a dog, with little planning, toward the next meal and avoidance of painful events. Greeks called this 'sarkikos' -- 'fleshly' -- pursuits.

An advancement over such a dog-like existence calls into play intellectual effort that anticipates the future and produces planning for better successes, as well as sometimes fruitful logical exercises. This level is intellectual in character, called by the Hellenic culture 'psuchikos' -- soulish. In the Bible, this kind of human is termed a 'natural man.' His activities may be exciting, creative, and absorbing, but really fail to provide a meaning that supersedes its termination by the stillness of death. It fails, though logical, to conquer Sin, which is humanly ineradicable.

But neither the 'carnal' nor the 'natural' human has any faculty by means of which one can understand The God's wisdom, will, or ways. He cannot know and appreciate The God's wonder. He may practice a religionistic effort, but can have no personal relational fellowship in/with His Son. He can pray all he wants, but only the god of this world will hear and answer. That is, until confession of sinfulness and the cry for rescue through The Christ's blood-letting is pled. It is no condition a human can achieve by oneself, no matter how much one desires or labors in ones own efforts or intellect. In fact, the only way that communication can take place is if and when The God, The Great Mentor and Creator, chooses to impart into a human that faculty of perceiving and understanding Him. Though His Word is couched in human language, until a new God-friendly spiritual being is born through the blood, no rapport with Him can take place.

But when this has taken place, a person beginning to function in this sphere is becoming spiritual -- to the early Hellenic Christian 'pneumatikos' -- and starting to learn spiritual Truths! This is a knowledge apart from intellectual gymnastics, and beyond "science," and may be diametrically opposed to what we call 'common sense.' How did the great Apostle and Prophet Paul express this in his second letter to the Corinthians?

"Now we (=Paul and Sosthenes, the writers) have received (=obtained), not the spirit of the world (=that of the world's culture), but the spirit which is of The God; that we might perceive things of The God that are freely given (=grace-imparted) to us. Which things also we speak, not in the words which humans' wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But natural (=psuchikos, soulish, intellectual) human does not receive (=willingly endorse and wilfully accept) the (profound) things of the Spirit of God (see v. 10); for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual (=pneumatikos, spiritually mature) forensically investigates all things,yet he himself is not interrogated by anybody. For who has known the Lord's mind, that he may instruct (=direct Him, teach Him how to think)? But we have the mind of Christ (=see Phil. 2:5). And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual (=pneumatikoi, spiritually mature), but as unto carnal ones(=sarkikoi, some were unregenerated 'believers'), as unto babes (=nepioi, diapered infants spiritually; some were very recently reborn of the Spirit or stunted in spiritual growth) in Christ." (passage from 1 Corinthians 2:12-3:1)

I am relating this, because your discourse is entirely soulish, "scientific," 'psukikos,' of the origins of the world's culture, and not as of spiritual, of trust in The God and His legally correct literal testimony in Genesis 1 (and by extension throughout the canon of Scripture) to the human race, as summarized by Moses. The purpose here is to correct you without regret or malice, and perhaps give you a saving advice. You may be saved, but your writing here does not show a persistent committed trust in the truthfulness of The God's gracious, undeserved, redeeming communication to mankind. And your seeming erudition may distract immature saved ones, or prevent gestating souls from breing born anew.

So, what is The God's serious recommendation to yourself and myself? Here it is, plainly and forthright:

"Trust (=place your persistent, invariant, 100% total committed reliance) in The LORD with all thine heart; and lean not on thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear The LORD, and depart from (=abandon) evil. It shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones." (Proverbs 3:5-8)

My friend, there is a former Marine and lifelong truck driver, a man whom I have been privileged to disciple through many stages of spiritual maturity. Not long ago, he gave an address on Genesis 1:1 to the final session of a Christian men's breakfast Bible study which brought their accolade. Friend, I have the recording, and all your post on this theme can't compare to his presentation.

Your writing on this subject seems to me to parallel to the level of the dog above, were he lecturing to others on the purpose of a cyclotron, by barking. Though he barks well, he shows no understanding of the deeper import. It is without any love for the cyclotron-builder. In the Scripture, it is symbolized (pun) as would be a sounding brass or tinkling cymbal -- it is without meaning.

The story you have invented just doesn't hang together as a source of spiritual knowledge, and it has no directed purpose of dealing with sin, righteousness, and judgment.

I'm not writing to attack you, but your ideas simply are not exegetically supportable. This is the expansion you requested.

(Much longer than expected, but finished now.)
With sincere regard for your person and value ---
The spiritually mature person will accept Genesis 1:1 without further adaptation or allegorizing. Receive it as is, as a scientifically inexplainable (but true) miracle; as one would receive the parting of the Red Sea, or the reunificatiom of Jesus' soul and spirit with his body in the resurrection, ascension into The Heaven as The Eternal Redeemer, High Priest, and as the Coming King.