Posted on 10/30/2014 4:22:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Well said, by the way (sincerely). Reckon I’m one ‘o them there Theignorostic optimists, too. Oh...Tyrsenian...see Etruscan.
The text says that God found His creation good. Does “good” include sickness and death in His eyes? We know it doesn’t.
Yep, it wasn't until Genesis 3, verse 21 that an animal death occurred.
Here is some context:
When we read in Genesis the account of Creation, we risk imagining God as a magus, with a magic wand able to make everything. But it is not so. He created beings and allowed them to develop according to the internal laws that He gave to each one, so that they were able to develop and to arrive [at] their fullness of being. He gave autonomy to the beings of the Universe at the same time at which he assured them of his continuous presence, giving being to every reality. And so creation continued for centuries and centuries, millennia and millennia, until it became which we know today, precisely because God is not a demiurge or a conjurer, but the Creator who gives being to all things. The beginning of the world is not the work of chaos that owes its origin to another, but derives directly from a supreme Origin that creates out of love. The Big Bang, which nowadays is posited as the origin of the world, does not contradict the divine act of creating, but rather requires it. The evolution of nature does not contrast with the notion of Creation, as evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve.With regard to man, instead, there is a change and something new. When, on the sixth day of the account in Genesis, man is created, God gives the human being another autonomy, an autonomy that is different to that of nature, which is freedom. And he tells man to name everything and to go ahead through history. This makes him responsible for creation, so that he might dominate it in order to develop it until the end of time. Therefore the scientist, and above all the Christian scientist, must adopt the approach of posing questions regarding the future of humanity and of the earth, and, of being free and responsible, helping to prepare it and preserve it, to eliminate risks to the environment of both a natural and human nature. But, at the same time, the scientist must be motivated by the confidence that nature hides, in her evolutionary mechanisms, potentialities for intelligence and freedom to discover and realise, to achieve the development that is in the plan of the Creator. So, while limited, the action of humanity is part of God’s power and is able to build a world suited to his dual corporal and spiritual life; to build a human world for all human beings and not for a group or a class of privileged persons. This hope and trust in God, the Creator of nature, and in the capacity of the human spirit can offer the researcher a new energy and profound serenity. But it is also true that the action of humanity – when freedom becomes autonomy – which is not freedom, but autonomy – destroys creation and man takes the place of the Creator. And this is the grave sin against God the Creator.
Did Pope Francis Actually Reject Genesis and Embrace Evolution?
I’m not suggesting anything. I don’t need to. I’m simply reading what the text plainly says. I’m not trying to twist some arcane meaning out of it so that a secular Godless theory will fit in.
I really am at a loss to understand this way of thinking. It seems you're just unable to read the words and take them for what they mean. Why? Because they upset a secular theory that atheists rejoice over? Because you think God isn't capable? It's a mystery to me.
As I posted earlier, the Bible contains many different literary styles. Genesis is written as a straightforward historical account. Jesus confirms this twice. Did He lie? Was He confused that day? Trying to trick us? What?
Throw out the creation account, and you can throw out the rest of the Bible, because it's all meaningless. The sin that man brought into the world in the garden never happened, so there's no need for Jesus's redemptive act on the Cross. Evolutionary teaching eliminates all of that.
Ever since Darwin came up with that mess, atheists have exulted over its negation (or so they think) of the foundations of Christianity. Doesn't that kind of hint to you that it's the wrong side for Christians to be on?
The beauty of it is, you don't have to try and wring torturous meanings out of Genesis. God gave it to us to bear witness to His majesty and His creative genius. His intention was not to trick us.
I'm not sure of the location---I'd have to do a search---but somewhere in the Bible is instruction to believe God's wisdom over that of man. I'm aware that refusal to accept evolutionary theory makes me a toothless hick snakehandler in the eyes of some "intellectuals." I couldn't care less.
Yep, exactly right.
“Genesis is written as a straightforward historical account. “
Yes. It is VERY clear that God made the animals AFTER he created Adam ...
The LORD God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him.
So the LORD God formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each living creature was then its name.
Well, I think Bohr was not saying God DID play dice, he was saying the evidence indicated to him that He did.
Einstein, OTOH, was saying God did NOT play dice.
That God does indeed play dice, or at least that He set up the universe in a way that we perceive him as doing so, is about as thoroughly proven as anything in science at this point.
This is, I submit, stretching a point. The only real Creation, of Something from Nothing, occurred at the Big Bang.
As Genesis 1:1 says, in the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. To my mind, at this point God created the Universe and set it in motion based on the Laws he had created for it to run by.
This does not, of course, mean that thereafter He could not interfere and modify the results of those laws when and where he saw fit. He pretty clearly did so when Christ was incarnated, and no doubt in many if not all of the Biblical miracles.
But these were not Creations, in the pure sense. In the examples you give, Christ did not Create healthy skin or eye from nothing, he simply healed the existing body parts that were diseased. In the case of Lazarus and his other raisings from the dead, he did not Create a live body from nothing, he restored life to an existing though dead body.
Humans themselves have developed capabilities to heal living but diseased bodies in ways that would at the time of Christ have been considered miraculous. Depending on your definition of Death, we have even brought deceased people back to life, and our abilities in this direction are likely to improve.
To my mind this shows that Man's abilities and potentials, he being made in the Image of God, overlap with those of God. As He intended.
That is an excellent point. Thank you. It’s really undeniable.
Here is the scripture that supports the idea that the animals were vegetarian prior to the fall and will be again after the final judgement.
Isaiah 65:25
The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain," says the LORD. (NASB)
However, only He can create health and life merely with a word (fiat). He proved this over and over again.
If He can do this with a word it is not a stretch to believe that he can create ex nihilo with the same. He said "let there be light" and there was light. The point of this scripture is to show that God's intended result happened directly as a result of His command. No mention of a lag in time.
Jesus Himself said "In the beginning God created them male and female". No mention of intermediate stages. God is mightier than any other force. He is able to do just what His Word says.
“Isaiah 65:25
The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain,” says the LORD. (NASB)”
In context ...
Isaiah 65 ...
17 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
Isaiah 65:25
The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain,” says the LORD. (NASB)
No. Isaiah is prophesying about the post-tribulation earth. There is another scripture which indicates the lion will lie down with the lamb, and a young boy will shepherd. THIS REFUTES THE LONGSTANDING MYTH THAT MOST OF THE RIGHTEOUS WILL GO TO HEAVEN. Next read Isaiah 65:21 - “My people will live in the houses they build; they will enjoy grapes from their own vineyards”. Guess what folks, the destiny of most of us righteous will be a similar setting to what Adam & Eve were in - a perfect place and a perfect body to go with it.
He actually said “God is not a divine being with a magic want”. So the pope is supposed to be divinely inspired and infallible. I think he just talked himself out of a job.
You don’t really like the bible as it is written do you?
“It doesn’t say it because there’s no reason to think it. When you start dreaming about intermediate forms, then ideas of other species may come into play which denigrate the dignity with which God created
You find a lack of dignity in evolution and it doesn’t square with how you read Genesis. The Catholic church doesn’t see it that way. Even if I weren’t Catholic, I wouldn’t either. Also the Church has long had a method for seeking understanding based on the kind of knowledge being sought, seeing Theology as a greater science and philosophy as a lesser one. Both are considered attempts to discern truth, the one looking at the first cause of all things being theology.
“I really am at a loss to understand this way of thinking. It seems you’re just unable to read the words and take them for what they mean”
It’s really simply a matter of believing authority. There are two here, the Catholic Church and the physical sciences, both different magisteriums.
The church doesn’t see Genesis as straight up history and even if it did that wouldn’t preclude evolution (the text just doesn’t say). Good thing too since it was written in an ancient time in a Afro-Asiatic language and in various styles some of which are no longer in use.
I could only read it the best I can anyway but like all one language speakers I impose inappropriate language axioms onto the text (the idea of precise meanings, grammar, syntax etc)
The ancient Christians (Origen, Jerome, Augustin etc) were vastly closer in time and culture and they proposed varying degrees of literal, spiritual and allegorical interpretations. The Church follows them. The older I get the more wise it shows itself.
Yes, that's your problem, then.
"The church doesn’t see Genesis as straight up history "
And yet it is, despite what your church teaches. To view Genesis as non-historical is, as I have shown more than once according to Scripture, is to call Jesus a liar. It also negates the need for redemption in the first place, making the Bible meaningless. It's notable that you decline to respond to those points, though.
Jesus cannot and does not lie. So you'll excuse me if I believe Him over any fallible human tradition. YMMV, of course.
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