Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. (Colossians 2:8)
Thanks for posting this, Joe. While I do not dismiss the OT as mythology (completely), I personally believe that Adam and Eve are archetypes of the humans that lived through the ice age. Gobekli Tepe in Turkey was a thriving city more than 10,000 years ago.
As far as the OT goes as a history book, I wish the authors (I don't believe Moses wrote it all any more than I think Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the gospels) had been more specific about time frames. There are so many characters with the same name in this long book with the same name, it gets confusing - at least for me.
The story of the Ark and the story of the Earth stopping its spinning belong in a science fiction fantasy. If the Ark is ever found, I'm happy to change my mind about that one.
For me, the book of Ecclesiastes is the best part of the OT and I used to read Psalms and get inspiration and hope.
When YHWH told the Elohim that he was making man in their (common) image, I do not believe it has anything to do with physical appearance. God is a spirit and he made us spiritual beings. He also gave Adam and Eve free will and, since God is omniscient, he knew they would disobey.
And I've always wondered where Cain found all the other women when he was cursed and sent away.
Starting from the end of your comments (it seems easier), Cain must have married his sister. His son Enoch would also have had to marry his sister, unless he some how got hold of one of his aunts. This would not cause genetic problems because in a very short time people would be marrying cousins, then second cousins. And, since people would be deliberately trying to have as many children as possible, large families would be the norm. Mathematically that expands with great speed.
Continuing from the bottom, I believe the image of God means our ability to feel and reason. We love, hate, think, paint, and so one because of this. So, we are spiritual beings in essence, yet housed in a physical body, which Christ says will be glorified in heaven in the next life. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."
I agree God gave Adam and Eve free will, and, yes, he knew they would disobey. And more, God could have prevented it but did not. He could have kept Satan away, or given Adam and Eve more strength to resist. I believe it was God's purpose that human beings in the end would have to come to him through the struggles and hardships of a sinful world before reaching their final destination in the kingdom of God.
I am glad you get something out of Ecclesiastes and Psalms. That is a good place to start, but there is much more beyond that.
About the Ark, it is not science fiction fantasy at all. You are leaving the power of God out of the picture. The God who made the heavens and the earth could put all of the creatures of the world inside of a walnut and bring them out again multiplied by a thousand if he chose to do so. It says in Genesis 6:20 that the animals would come to him, so he did not have to go out and gather them. Also, we read in Genesis that 2:19 that God made a special creation to bring the animals before Adam. He could easily have done the same thing for Noah. After a few months of hibernation in a box, they are released.
People dismiss that is impossible, and then claim that there was some sort of explosion that led to a perfectly formed sphere with a delicate and beautiful biosphere positioned at exactly the right distance from the sun; or that all of the laws of mathematics and science just appeared somehow out of nothing; or that the human capacity for love and hate, creativity and feeling emerged out of some blind struggle for survival. Modern secularism and atheism seem ridiculous to me, and not merely ridiculous, but ugly and destructive also.
About the earth stopping spinning, that is child's play for the God who created the entire cosmos by his spoken word alone. He can intervene in his creation at any time. Plus, since it is Jesus Christ who sustains the creation by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3), he could easily maintain the earth in a stationary position, or even so move it that the sun would make figure-eights in the sky if he chose.
As to the confusing characters in the Bible, the main characters are not confusing at all. As to the minor figures, if someone with a special interest in that sort of thing wants to study them, it takes time and effort. Things that seem confusing at first in any field become more clear as we study them.
As to the authorship of the Bible, you don't believe those men wrote it, I believe they do. This cannot be proven or disproven in a court of law.
You believe that Adam and Eve were archetypes from before the ice age, I believe they were created by God in the manner described by Moses. This also cannot be proven or disproven definitively by human intelligence.
About a city thriving more than 10,000 years ago, what if the archaeologists are mistaken? What if trying to calculate backwards from known conditions into unknown conditions some subtle factor or point is missed? What if in the first instants of divine creation all sorts of things totally unknown to science were happening, that would completely nullify all calculations based on currently known factors. You cannot always extrapolate from the known back into the unknown.
I suspect that, outside the artificial world of the Internet, we'd be best of friends. Friends do not always agree. That's fine. Your explanation of Cain's adventures makes a lot of sense.
I agree that humans are spiritual beings. I also accept the so-called New Age thinking that believes in personal magnetism, synchronicity, and the not-so-new ideas of C.G. Jung.
I'd say Happy Belated Memorial Day, but that seems crass and stupid; so I'll just say God bless those brave men and women who died in wars.
You could very well be right Charles. Friendship does not requite complete agreement. It has more to do with personality and attitude.
I know little about Jung, but did read in one place that he had some very eccentric ideas and has lost credibility over time, but don’t know enough to say.
The New Age movement is interesting. There is a recognition that life has a spiritual dimension - I have heard materialists dismissed as “flat earth people.” But the idea that we can just pick the spiritual reality that is agreeable to us personally is not reasonable.
I have never celebrated memorial day, unless I was going along with someone else, but the idea is very important. I have been reading a book about D Day. Countless incidents of real heroism.
I've seen the term Flat Earth People, but never was curious enough to find out what it meant.
Thanks for informing me.
Here's an interesting thought that might be considered New Age: In light of recent discoveries in the quantum world a Serbian monk named Ivan Antic has written a series of books explaining his belief that CONSCIOUSNESS = REALITY. He goes a step beyond most people that think "fake it until you make it". He believes each of us creates our own reality. I've been reading his book SAMADHI for months. The ideas are so complex and alien that I can't read more than five pages at a time. But now I'm just meandering.
I took a look at the Amazon sample of Ivan Antic's book The Physics of Consciousness: In the Quantum Field, Minerals, Plants, Animals and Human Souls (Existence - Consciousness - Bliss)
From the book description: "Consciousness is of singular importance today. Understanding the true nature of consciousness is our prime responsibility."
Human consciousness is a key question. It seems to me secular materialists who try to explain it all in terms of biology and chemistry are completely out to lunch, or, to put it another way, out of touch with reality.
Human consciousness comes from God, and God has revealed himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ, God temporarily in the flesh (not to be confused with your average Sunday morning church service).
I have only read one of b'rer Antic's books (SAMADHI). He may go off in some wacky direction or another; but I'd be surprised. I think the monk (Christian? Hindu? Buddhist?) is an extremely knowledgeable person whose beliefs support modern science and, to my knowledge, do not contradict any teaching by Jesus Christ.
Yes, human consciousness comes from God, but that's not the issue. Antic writes that everyone creates his/her reality with his/her consciousness. That is to say, a person that follows the teaching of Norman Vincent Peale will be a kind and loving person. Someone who admires Hitler is evil and, because of the Law of Attraction, he will attract evil people to himself and increase in deviltry. We create our own future with our thoughts and actions. It all seems very sane and logical to me.
I misread this part: "Genesis is not only a Ancient myth but the myth that corrects all the other ancient creation myths and tells us what actually happened at the beginning." That seems clear enough in retrospect, but some of the modernists I have been quoting say that Genesis tells us the truth of what happens as far as God creating the universe, and man having received higher spiritual awareness from God, but the specific facts are inaccurate and mythological.
Your view is a very common one. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C. S. Lewis and William Lane Craig and many others subscribe in different ways to your view that the creation account in Genesis is truth expressed in mythological terms.
You say that the Genesis myth “tells us what actually happened at the beginning” and presents these basic truths (in contrast to other more primitive myths):
• All humanity has a common origin with the same parents.
• We all share in some way in a “common fall against the same Creator. We are all cut from the same corrupted cloth and no one is free from this.
If all humanity has its same origins from a common humanity, but differently than what was described in Genesis, then how, in your view, did that come about?
Similarly with the fall. If the Genesis account does not tell us what actually happened, then how do you think it came about?
For your answers to both questions, do other people share your ideas or is it something you just made up? Unless, of course, you want to say that those things did happen, only you don’t have the faintest idea how.
Also, you believe a God exists who created the world and the human race. Would not a God of such incredible power be able to work things out in a way that might seem strange to us with our shallow and weak little human brains?
And what do you think of the New Testament? Did the miracles that occur there really happen? Or are those only myths also?
And what would you say to a materialist who said the entire Genesis account has no truth whatever as God does not even exist?
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that ancient myths can reflect real history but in a garbled fashion. The fact that Genesis deals with those same events does not mean that it is inherently mythical, as some think.
Imagine if in 1900 a dozen people from the old South wrote glowing accounts of the idyllic lives they lived before the Civil War (mythology). Then someone else writes a seriously factual account of what it was really like. It is the same subject matter, but from a completely different perspective.
That Moses was divinely inspired to write a true account of mysteries revealed to him used to be essential to Scriptural Christianity. So I agree with your comment “The OT I believe is true in every detail( I believe the Scriptures are inerrant and infallible) and I don't pretend to fully understand it though)." Naturally, there are some areas of ambiguity, but the main points are clear and meant for us to understand literally.
I also agree with your statements about Genesis being a true account of what elsewhere are garbled myths. About your view on “the relationship between the pagan myths and the OT” I think you have made it clear and I am in full agreement.
About the occult / Hindu phase, many people have come to an awareness of the truth of God in Christ and in Scripture in various ways. I never got involved in Hinduism and the occult, but was interested in philosophy and in trying to work my way up to a deeper understanding by my own virtue and merits, all of which I found to be dust and ashes relative to the Christ of Scripture. But I never found a church I wanted to join, and did a lot of seeking in these things outside of the church, which I think was helpful to me.
I had not heard of Guenon and the Traditionalists. A quick look seems to link him to Islam. I was involved with English literature for a years, and studied a lot of poetry, published a few things in obscure poetry mags and self-published a book of poems, but gave it up. I no longer have any interest in poetry at all and haven’t written any in years.
But, if Guenon writes about the errors of modern materialistic thinking that is something I still read about here and there, it is an important subject. How foolish, that to think with scientific knowledge they could find the ultimate basis of reality and organize human life and society on a rational basis.
I liked your characterization of Islam, though you could have included Judaism and Zoroastrianism as part of the mishmash.
Also, Christianity was a very powerful and rapidly growing religion and had many imitators (which has confused some atheists who see similarities but get the relationship backwards).
I haven’t read much of the early Christian writers, more Augustine than anything else. It is common to call them “Fathers,” but they came along centuries after Christianity was founded and growing and are not really fathers in any real sense.
Some more modern authors are also good, such as Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, the Wesley’s, Luther at his best. The only 20th century author I have found helpful is Francis Schaeffer and find some of his books very profound – for example True Spirituality, and He is There and He is Not Silent. The first of these shows much of what is missing in so much contemporary Christianity, though it does this not as an attack or as an indictment, but rather as an attempt to describe what it really means to live by the teachings and the Spirit of Christ.
As to believing the NT as the basis of your faith, for some that is an intellectual philosophical commitment, yet seems to lack the presence of Christ enter into it. And, as Paul wrote, if we do not have love our Christianity is empty noise.
As to 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, that is a profound and beautiful passage that entirely nullifies the futile secularist enterprise that lies behind so many of the evils of our backward, primitive and increasingly ugly modern age. Secularism has failed utterly.
I don’t deny that someone who is not a Christian can have some valid and even deep insights into the modern condition. I have no doubt Guenon makes true comments about our current sad state of affairs. However, I believe Hindu cosmology is completely wrong, as is Islam, and on the deepest spiritual level Guenon cannot provide the real answer, which is found only in Christ – which is not to say “only in the Christian churches,” for Christ and the Christian churches are too very different things.
Ultimately the modern problems derive from rebellion against God, the creator of the universe who is the source of all truth. Atheism and materialism have been particularly destructive.
About the early Christian writers – I do not call them “fathers” as most do because they came along 1 -5 centuries after the church was founded by God, who is the only Father of the church – I have read some of them and they have excellent insights, many of them living in a time where death as martyrs was a real possibility. At the same time, I believe that later writers, such as John and Charles Wesley, John Bunyan, Luther, Melanchthon, and many others also had the Spirit and the mind of Christ, and have written many profound and insightful things – though it seems the more modern someone is the weaker they are (One exception is Francis Schaeffer. I wonder if you are familiar with any of his books).
I don’t think that the church is as it is today is because of the debates of those early writers. Of course they were influential, especially Augustine, whose writings I have read some of. They are very impressive. But Augustine has weight and truth only insofar as he writes in the tradition of the New Testament. That is the real source and standard, even though we have deviated very far from it.
In the Protestant Reformation, I believe Luther – in spite of his faults – as used of God, and derived his insights first from the written Word of Scripture, and from the Holy Spirit, and only secondarily from other writers. I believe the same is true of the Wesleys, though they too had their errors, the Scripture alone being free from error.
About the Reformation being the "debate between Augustine's doctrine of Grace and Augustine's doctrine of the Church," that is partly true, but only in part. Much of the Reformation had to do with the false doctrines of the papacy, which over the Middle Ages had developed into something unknown in Augustine’s day. And Augustine’s views were valid only insofar as they followed Scripture. To the extent that Calvin and Luther were Augustinians, it is to the extent that their interpretations of Scripture and especially of Paul coincided with Augustine.
About earlier writers having know the apostles personally, that is no guarantee of spiritual insight or authority. Many Christians knew the apostles personally and write nothing at all. Those who did know them were not necessarily more spiritual on that account than someone who lived in the 16th century.
I don't deny the importance of Athanasius in his day, but the chief assaults of the world against the church in the past few centuries have been of a completely different order. I do not need to study Athanasius to be confirmed of the Deity of Christ which is so clearly stated in Colossians and elsewhere.
To look at it another way, there is a huge amount of excellent Christian books written by genuine representatives of Christ from many different periods of history. It is impossible to read and study them all – especially for those who have to work and are not called to read deeply in church history. You obviously have a deeper interest in church history than many. I have read some general histories and have read some of the earlier writers, but not in depth.
About The Reformation as Renewal I listened to a podcast – or maybe it was a video – where Matthew Barrett spoke about this. It wasn't the one linked here, I see a number of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Raz62QBhomg I agreed with what he said, that the Reformers saw themselves as continuing ancient traditions, and not starting something wholly new (in a nutshell). I have read some of the Reformation and know the Reformers had a deep knowledge of church history and doctrine.
But above all there is the reality of Christ, and the presence of the Spirit. All reading should be subordinate to this.
I looked at the church history link and what I watched seemed very sound to me, I have bookmarked the site.
If I am not mistaken, all religions with the exceptions of Satanism and Islam teach basically the same moral lessons. Buddhism does not worship any god or any group of Gods. Siddhartha achieved enlightenment on his own.
Ancient Egypt had Ra, Amun, and Isis. Greece had Zeus, Hera, and Athena. Isn't it strange that all of these cults (including Christianity) believed in a Holy Trinity? It seems like all three societies worshipped the same gods - but used other names.
I don’t agree that all religions with the exception of Satanism and Islam teach basically the same moral lessons. There are some cases of overlap, where they agree on some basic principles of ethics, but still great differences.
You say that Buddhism does not worship any Gods – but Christianity and Judaism say that there is one God who created us and not to acknowledge his existence and furthermore to defy and deny his commands is sin.
Also, Christianity and Judaism preach there will be a resurrection from the dead and we will be judged by God for what we have done, and then accepted into paradise or rejected and sent to hell.
Also, there is the deity of Christ – that God came to earth in human form is radically different from any other religion, as are the teachings of his sacrificial death and resurrection.
Moreover, Christianity is unique in teaching that all of our good deeds and virtuous qualities are inadequate in the presence of God, we are all under condemnation, there are none righteous of themselves, not one, and forgiveness is available through Christ alone.
And, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions have concepts of the universe and our place in it that are wrong according to the teachings of Christ.
The enlightenment that Siddharta achieved on his own may have had some truth in it, but insofar as it included reincarnation he was in error. No doubt he was in error in other areas as well. How can he show the way to freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth when there is no such cycle? The Bible teaches “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” Hebrews 9
I am not trying to be argumentative, but that is what I believe.
About the Trinity in other religions,
“Ancient Egyptians worshipped over 1,400 gods and goddesses in their homes, temples, and shrines. These deities were central to a religion that lasted for more than 3,000 years. Each god or goddess was responsible for a specific aspect of daily life or the world, and many were anthropomorphic, meaning they were depicted as part human and part animal.”
That’s no Trinity. But about Ra and Isis, “In an ancient Egyptian myth, Isis, the goddess of healing, childbirth, and the throne, schemes to learn the secret name of Ra, the sun god and creator, in order to gain equal power and rule the earth with him.” No Trinity there.
About Amun, “Myths say he was one of the eight original primordial gods of Egypt, who controlled the cosmos and oversaw the creation of humanity.”
Just selecting three gods out of many does not a trinity make. Same with the Greeks. You mentioned Zeus, Hera and Athena. What about Apollo, Poseidon, Ares, Haephestus, and others?
The biblical Trinity is unique. It allows God to dwell in the hearts on individual believers, come to earth in the form of Christ, and still reign over the creation simultaneously.
Have you read much about Christ? Who or what do you think he was?
I cannot help but admire your scholarship and the time it must have taken to prepare your manifesto. But "we are all under condemnation, there are none righteous of themselves, not one, and forgiveness is available through Christ alone "
Sorry, but I'm not buying it. Why am I under condemnation? Because I was born? Do you support 100% abortions in order to perfect the world?
I would be surprised if you are well versed in Hindu beliefs, but pleasantly surprised.
As far as the afterlife is concerned, all I can say is that I've not yet experienced death, so I have no valid religious or scientific belief beyond my confidence that YHWH would never torture his spiritual children for eternity because of their confusion or misunderstanding.
I have read a great deal about Christ; but my only source has been the Bible. Can you recommend other books? I assure you that I've read the KJV, the Living Bible, the New World translation, the Rotherham Emphasized Bible, and the NSRV. Most of the men in my father's family, going back to 1706 were Mennonite preachers in the New World and my great-grandfather on my mother's side was a Free Methodist circuit rider.
I am very familiar with the book. I'm pretty sure I already told you that I think Jesus became an Essene when his cousin baptized him and, there in the Jordan River, Jesus gained enlightenment.
Once again, sorry about the delay. I am making more of an effort to keep on top of comments.
You say you do not buy the teaching that "we are all under condemnation." You say "Why am I under condemnation? Because I was born?" No, you are under condemnation for your own sins, the things you have said and thought and done that are against the laws of God. That is not a personal criticism of you, since "There is none righteous, no, not one," and "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
No, I do not support 100% abortions. God's remedy for sin is not to kill everybody but to forgive, heal and change those that will respond to his invitation.
I am not well versed in Hindu beliefs, but have read they have a multitude of deities, and believe in reincarnation, which is contrary to biblical teaching. So, who is right? No one can come to Christ except God draws him.
You asked me to recommend some other books. First, I would recommend sticking with the KJV. Its 18th-century English puts some people off (the spelling and grammar of the 1611 KJV was updated in the 1700s), but it is not that hard to read, and the translators tried to follow the text as closely as possible. Modern translators take more liberties and feel free to leave things out as long as the general meaning is intact. But something is lost, and much is lost with many changes.
I would like to recommend some other books. In fact I made a little list. Some books I like more than others, and I don't fully agree with all authors, but I won't say which as I don't want to prejudice you in any way. I did like Keller's comment that God does not give us proofs - he gives us hints, suggestions, clues. "Seek, and you will find. Ask, and it shall be given. Knock, and it will be opened.
Seneca. Moral Epistles (= Letters from A Stoic)
Timothy Keller. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
Francis Schaeffer. Escape From Reason . . . The Great Evangelical Disaster . . . He is There and He is Not Silent . . . The God Who Is There
Colin Brown. Philosophy and the Christian Faith
C. Stephen Evans. A History of Western Philosophy: From the Pre-Socratics to Postmodernism (this was written from a Christian viewpoint)
Will Buckingham. The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained (a secular book, includes Oriental philosophies)
John G. West. Darwin Day In America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science
Cornelius Plantinga. Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living
Alister McGrath. The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World
John Bunyan. Pilgrim’s Progress
Thomas H. Greer. A Brief History of the Western World
You agree that there are two portions of reality, so those who say physical and matter and energy are the only realities are wrong.
I agree the two realities are not entirely separate, and said this in the essay:
“If there is indeed a spiritual reality, unseen, invisible to us now, yet nevertheless the source of all that it is, may it not contain many unexpected elements, and involve many surprises? But what might this non-material, supra-natural spirituality be? People who agree that it exists have so many different ideas about it. How can it be known? . . . we find evidence of it very close to us, even in our own souls. Our emotions, for example – love and hate, hope and fear, like and dislike, understanding and confusion – these are undeniably real, and extend out into the physical world.”
What you said about the number 4 finding expression in the physical plane is like what I said about the non-material emotion of anger finding expression in the physical plane when I punch someone in the nose.
About your statement: “The existence of both the seen and the unseen depend on each other for their existence, are complementary, and don't contradict each other.”
(1) The material reality depends on God for its very existence, but God does not depend on the material world in any way.
(2) Our non-physical emotions do depend on a material body in this life, but in the next life the relationship of soul to body is unclear.
(3) The contradiction comes from those who assert that the physical reality is the only reality and deny the existence of the spiritual. It is not because of any inherent contradiction, but because of the blindness of those who see only matter – and those are the ones whose views on the creation of reality we must reject. They have nothing to say about how the cosmos might have come into being – at least nothing we have to make our faith agree to.
No one is saying that the conclusions we draw from the natural world are anathema. No one has ever said that Newton’s laws or Einstein’s theories or medical knowledge or knowledge of biology are anathema. The problem is not with physical reality and knowledge, it is with those who assert that those are the ONLY REALITY and then foolishly apply their blind and ignorant standards to the spiritual / biblical – and then Christians bow down to them and defer to them and feel that we must live up to their false epistemological demands.
But, we can declare revealed knowledge from the Bible to be correct: that God exists, that there will be a resurrection from the dead, that Christ on earth was God in the flesh, that we are guilty of sin and need salvation – these by faith we declare to be eternally correct. The fact that some or many reject them does not make them any less true. But this does not mean ALL spiritual wisdom is true. There is a lot of false spirituality, and even misinterpretations of the Bible.
Is our task to reconcile them? Our task as Christians is to help reconcile men with God by the salvation available in Christ. It is not to reconcile the Bible with many unscientific statements that are completely false. And why do we have to reconcile the knowledge of God’s existence and revelation through Christ with earthly knowledge like architecture or medicine? There is no reconciliation between Christ and ordinary human knowledge because there is no conflict.
The conflict comes from the unbelieving world that denies God and makes false statements that contradict God. We cannot reconcile the knowledge of God with assertions of his non-existence and denials of his truth.
Also, Christ is fully divine and fully human, but the task of evangelizing people who are blind in dead in sin and alienated from God by their sinful minds is very different from disagreeing with worldly secular theories. For us to take part in evangelization we have to have the mind of Christ and the Spirit of Christ and walk in the straight and narrow way of Christ and declare the truths of Christ in a gracious, loving and suitable way.
About the standard secular scientific account of the world, that it arose purely as the result of natural causes with no higher purpose, I deny it is true. I believe it is a falsehood and a deceptive lie. God created the heavens and the earth and Christians do not have to allow the scientists to define the parameters within which we have to accept parts of Genesis and reject others.
Christians can accept all authentically scientific truths and facts concerning the present creation. But when it comes to the question of how things came into being in the first place, that is a mystery hidden from reason which has been revealed to us in the Word of God.
This has nothing whatever to do with the full implications of Christ’s humanity. What do the false theories of materialists who are blind and dead in sin have to do with us? If they come up with some true theory about the speed of light or the workings of the heart and the circulatory system or a new cure for disease that does not conflict in any way with biblical truth or with Christ.
I think you need to distinguish more clearly between true science, which presents facts about the material world on the one hand, with the materialistic philosophy that often lies behind modern science on the other. If a scientist tells me the speed of light is such and such or the atomic structure of radium is so and so, I see no reason to doubt it. But if he says the Genesis account is false, he is basing that on materialistic philosophy and a denial of God.
How can Genesis account for the spiritual origins of the human condition if its narrative of the fall never occurred? How can it account for the reality of the spiritual origins of the human condition with a false myth?
I do not believe that any of the early church writers believed in Craig’s and Lewis’ totally fictional fairy story about some hominin or hominid creatures that were somehow elevated by God to a higher human level. Such a thing was never advocated by any early Christian writers. All of them accepted the story of Adam and Eve as literal if they believed in the Bible at all.
Also, I think that a literal interpretation of Genesis has nothing whatever to do with Christ’s humanity, nothing at all. The full implications of Christ’s humanity have to do with his incarnation on earth, his death as a sacrifice for sin, his being able to sympathize with us in our infirmities, his willingness to succor us in our trials, cleanse us with his blood, revive us with his Spirit, guide us by his truth, and receive us into glory – “for he is not ashamed to call them brethren” Hebrews 2:11.
The humanity of Christ has nothing whatever to do with modern scientific theories about how the world came into being that are based on trying to apply known scientific principles to a totally unknown situation. But the attitude that denies the reality of Old Testament biblical truth is very often – not always but often – the exact same attitude that denies the deity of Christ, and his miracles, and his life, death and resurrection and return. Many of the people who deny the Old Testament deny the New for exactly the same reason. This is the result of a conflict between belief and unbelief, between truth and falsehood, between sin and righteousness, between light and darkness, wisdom and folly, good and evil.
I don’t see the connection between accepting the literal truth of Genesis and denying medical care to children. In fact, I think there is no connection at all. Where does it say in the bible “Do not go to see a doctor,” or “Thou shalt not take thy children to the doctor”?
Also, if the beliefs of a very tiny number of people in a small sect lead to the deaths of a few children, and this is evil, what shall we say of the humanistic ideology which says life in the womb is not sacred, an unborn baby is not really human, that nothing is more important for a woman than to be free of the burden of motherhood, and so leads to the deaths of dozens of millions of children? Why are a few deaths because of religion so terrible while millions of deaths because of irreligion acceptable?
Those people at the Guardian care nothing about human life, they are only looking for an excuse to attack religion. I have looked at the Guardian a few times and think it is a worthless magazine (which is not to deny they might accidentally have a good article once in a great while). On the other hand, I haven't read it in years so maybe they changed, though I doubt it.
Finally, at no time have I suggested that we can disregard the world around us. But the unique circumstances of the creation are not “the world around us.” That was an event or a series of events seen once, and never seen again. What we see around us now are regular patters of behavior that we call scientific law as part of the creation that God has made – but that creation came into being when God spoke it into being by his word in a manner completely beyond the scope of science. God spoke, and said “Let there be light,” and the light appeared. He spoke, and the sun, moon and stars appeared. This we know by faith – and the wisdom of God is foolishness with the world, while the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God.
This does not mean that architecture or mechanics or medicine or biology or mathematics are foolish. They are factual and anyone can see the utility of them. But those things are not “wisdom.” We do not say a good mechanic or doctor or architect are “wise.” Wisdom has more to do with a deeper understanding of life, and all such wisdom that is in opposition to God is foolish and blind.
Real wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ – “in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid.” So the most important thing is, what is our understanding of and attitude toward and relationship to Christ? Have we experienced that birth by water and the Spirit without which it is not possible to see the kingdom of God? Have we crossed over from death to life by the Spirit of Christ given by faith? Are we walking in the straight and narrow way? Do we know him, and the power of his resurrection? Does he know us, and will he receive us in the end? Or will he say “I never knew you. Depart from me into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels?”
I hope to get to your comments tomorrow. In the meantime, if you can give me a brief overview of maybe a couple of pages about how truth can be presented as mythology in the context of Genesis - just to get a general idea. I couldn't get through 20 or 30 pages, at least not for a while.
Also, I have been reminded that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a real hero to some evangelicals, also found the Genesis account impossible to take literally (his book Creation and Fall is available on Amazon). He also applies his critical skills to the New Testament and says some parts of it have been shown by scholarship to be inaccurate, including some of the sayings of Christ. That is in Christ the Center.
I am not sure if this is the first post chronologically, but here it is in my file so I will start here. I am trying to catch up with various comments and hope to do so in a few days.
About someone claiming the sayings of Christ were inaccurate, it was a common belief in liberal theological criticism a long time ago (late 19th and early 20th century) that the four gospels and the New Testament were written a long time after the fact and were not eyewitness accounts. Some people still claim that today. Scholarship now generally accepts a much earlier writing, but in 1933 Bonhoeffer’s comment about historical research proving the gospels were not reliable was much more credible.
And even today people who are not scholars still assert the New Testament was written a long time after the fact and is not reliable history. Maybe they will accept scholarly evidence to the contrary if shown it, maybe not.
I have never been interested in unprovable speculations about lost manuscripts. I believe the New Testament authors were divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit of God to give true and accurate records. I came to that position not by scholarship but by the Spirit of God bearing witness to the authenticity of Scripture in my spirit.
Thus, if someone took notes while Jesus spoke, and those notes were used, or no notes were taken and people had fantastic powers of recall, the book would still need to be divinely inspired to prevent human error from creeping in – and why should anyone have a problem with divine, literal inspiration? Cannot God speak to us in that way if he chooses? Is that offensive to human reason, or even a denial of God’s activity in the human realm?
Even if various records did exist, in the New Testament we have something unique, and completely different from humanly recorded history. I imagine a good biography of George Washington is accurate and generally credible, based on human reason and research, but the Bible is unique, different from all other books.
About your allegorical interpretation of Genesis and the fall, Paul says by one man sin came into the world, and death by sin. He not only takes the Genesis account literally, he bases important teachings on Christ as the second Adam on it. If we cannot take his account of how sin came into the world seriously, how can we accept his proposed cure?
About scholars relating the fall to the change of man from hunter-gatherer to agriculturalist, what does that have to do with sin? A hunter gatherer can be sinful or righteous, same for an agriculturalist. To me that comparison does not even seem plausible – and I think too much respect is given to “scholars.” There is a time and a place for scholarship, but scholars also need to have faith and belief in God, otherwise their merely human wisdom is inadequate. Scholars are mere mortals and as such can be deceived and wrong, especially in spiritual matters of divine revelation. ““The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts.” Here in Malachi we have a reference to false scholars.
About accepting the evolution of humans, I do not accept it. I think Darwinism is a false theory, and that the first man and the first woman were created in the manner indicated by Genesis – and this does not involve any denial of real science, since Darwinism is riddled with errors, false logic, and scientific implausibilities. It is based on a philosophy of scientific naturalism, which denies from the outset any possibility of divine intervention – at least many Darwinists today use that theory to justify atheism. As to theistic evolutionists who say God created humans by evolution, why would God present an allegory instead of just stating how the creation occurred in a plain, straightforward manner?
True, animals do things all the time and no one blames them – this is because out of all the creatures man alone was created in the image of God. And the belief that people descended from the animals and are in essence nothing but animals is directly related to the release of violent criminals because their moral agency is denied, they are just poor victims of society. Denying the reality of the divine origin of soul robs us of individuality and responsibility.
Why does the statement about Adam and Eve being naked and unashamed have to be allegory? Why may it not be just a simple statement of fact in a plain historical narrative? Secular human science should not be the yardstick by which we measure Scripture. We are dealing here with the actions of a God that is far beyond human comprehension.
True, early man after the fall and the expulsion from Eden may have had very healthy lives, but they were still liable to illness and death due to the fall. About there being no property and hence no greed, that sounds vaguely like some account by Engels or Marx, about how before private property there were no problems of extreme wealth and poverty, that it was with the agricultural revolution that the evils of private property entered in – which I can see does relate to the Fall in some way, that I did not see in an earlier paragraph. But the Bible teaches that sin came from disobedience to God, not from any social arrangement. And if sin were caused by social arrangements, then the right social reforms will bring back the lost paradise, which is totally unbiblical and the huge flaw underlying all socialist dreams of utopia through social change.
I don’t think the 6,000 year old earth is nonsense when you consider that all scientific calculations of the totally unknown factors are null and void when it comes to the first creation, which has never been observed in a laboratory or replicated in any experiment. Now that the creation is in place, with scientific or natural laws as part of that creation, we can speak of science proper, but reading science backwards into the unknown is not science at all, it is philosophical materialism, which denies anything other than ordinary material causality.
Once again, greed and lust do not come from agricultural social structures, they come from sin in the human heart caused by the separation from communion with God described in the fall. This does sound vaguely like a Marxist, atheistic, humanistic attempt to explain human sin by natural social causes - but the Bible teaches differently and I believe in the Bible as the true and divinely inspired word of God.
You refer to this verse “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” and explain it allegorically. So what was the serpent, allegorically? Agricultural society? What about Satan? I assume you believe there is such a being as he is plainly presented in the New Testament – or is that allegory as well? Is it reasonable to believe there was a Satan in the 1st century AD but not in the 6th millenium BC (or whenever the fall occurred)?
Thanks for posting this, Joe. While I do not dismiss the OT as mythology (completely), I personally believe that Adam and Eve are archetypes of the humans that lived through the ice age. Gobekli Tepe in Turkey was a thriving city more than 10,000 years ago.
As far as the OT goes as a history book, I wish the authors (I don't believe Moses wrote it all any more than I think Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the gospels) had been more specific about time frames. There are so many characters with the same name in this long book with the same name, it gets confusing - at least for me.
The story of the Ark and the story of the Earth stopping its spinning belong in a science fiction fantasy. If the Ark is ever found, I'm happy to change my mind about that one.
For me, the book of Ecclesiastes is the best part of the OT and I used to read Psalms and get inspiration and hope.
When YHWH told the Elohim that he was making man in their (common) image, I do not believe it has anything to do with physical appearance. God is a spirit and he made us spiritual beings. He also gave Adam and Eve free will and, since God is omniscient, he knew they would disobey.
And I've always wondered where Cain found all the other women when he was cursed and sent away.
Starting from the end of your comments (it seems easier), Cain must have married his sister. His son Enoch would also have had to marry his sister, unless he some how got hold of one of his aunts. This would not cause genetic problems because in a very short time people would be marrying cousins, then second cousins. And, since people would be deliberately trying to have as many children as possible, large families would be the norm. Mathematically that expands with great speed.
Continuing from the bottom, I believe the image of God means our ability to feel and reason. We love, hate, think, paint, and so one because of this. So, we are spiritual beings in essence, yet housed in a physical body, which Christ says will be glorified in heaven in the next life. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."
I agree God gave Adam and Eve free will, and, yes, he knew they would disobey. And more, God could have prevented it but did not. He could have kept Satan away, or given Adam and Eve more strength to resist. I believe it was God's purpose that human beings in the end would have to come to him through the struggles and hardships of a sinful world before reaching their final destination in the kingdom of God.
I am glad you get something out of Ecclesiastes and Psalms. That is a good place to start, but there is much more beyond that.
About the Ark, it is not science fiction fantasy at all. You are leaving the power of God out of the picture. The God who made the heavens and the earth could put all of the creatures of the world inside of a walnut and bring them out again multiplied by a thousand if he chose to do so. It says in Genesis 6:20 that the animals would come to him, so he did not have to go out and gather them. Also, we read in Genesis that 2:19 that God made a special creation to bring the animals before Adam. He could easily have done the same thing for Noah. After a few months of hibernation in a box, they are released.
People dismiss that is impossible, and then claim that there was some sort of explosion that led to a perfectly formed sphere with a delicate and beautiful biosphere positioned at exactly the right distance from the sun; or that all of the laws of mathematics and science just appeared somehow out of nothing; or that the human capacity for love and hate, creativity and feeling emerged out of some blind struggle for survival. Modern secularism and atheism seem ridiculous to me, and not merely ridiculous, but ugly and destructive also.
About the earth stopping spinning, that is child's play for the God who created the entire cosmos by his spoken word alone. He can intervene in his creation at any time. Plus, since it is Jesus Christ who sustains the creation by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3), he could easily maintain the earth in a stationary position, or even so move it that the sun would make figure-eights in the sky if he chose.
As to the confusing characters in the Bible, the main characters are not confusing at all. As to the minor figures, if someone with a special interest in that sort of thing wants to study them, it takes time and effort. Things that seem confusing at first in any field become more clear as we study them.
As to the authorship of the Bible, you don't believe those men wrote it, I believe they do. This cannot be proven or disproven in a court of law.
You believe that Adam and Eve were archetypes from before the ice age, I believe they were created by God in the manner described by Moses. This also cannot be proven or disproven definitively by human intelligence.
About a city thriving more than 10,000 years ago, what if the archaeologists are mistaken? What if trying to calculate backwards from known conditions into unknown conditions some subtle factor or point is missed? What if in the first instants of divine creation all sorts of things totally unknown to science were happening, that would completely nullify all calculations based on currently known factors. You cannot always extrapolate from the known back into the unknown.
I suspect that, outside the artificial world of the Internet, we'd be best of friends. Friends do not always agree. That's fine. Your explanation of Cain's adventures makes a lot of sense.
I agree that humans are spiritual beings. I also accept the so-called New Age thinking that believes in personal magnetism, synchronicity, and the not-so-new ideas of C.G. Jung.
I'd say Happy Belated Memorial Day, but that seems crass and stupid; so I'll just say God bless those brave men and women who died in wars.
You could very well be right Charles. Friendship does not requite complete agreement. It has more to do with personality and attitude.
I know little about Jung, but did read in one place that he had some very eccentric ideas and has lost credibility over time, but don’t know enough to say.
The New Age movement is interesting. There is a recognition that life has a spiritual dimension - I have heard materialists dismissed as “flat earth people.” But the idea that we can just pick the spiritual reality that is agreeable to us personally is not reasonable.
I have never celebrated memorial day, unless I was going along with someone else, but the idea is very important. I have been reading a book about D Day. Countless incidents of real heroism.
I've seen the term Flat Earth People, but never was curious enough to find out what it meant.
Thanks for informing me.
Here's an interesting thought that might be considered New Age: In light of recent discoveries in the quantum world a Serbian monk named Ivan Antic has written a series of books explaining his belief that CONSCIOUSNESS = REALITY. He goes a step beyond most people that think "fake it until you make it". He believes each of us creates our own reality. I've been reading his book SAMADHI for months. The ideas are so complex and alien that I can't read more than five pages at a time. But now I'm just meandering.
Have a great day!
I took a look at the Amazon sample of Ivan Antic's book The Physics of Consciousness: In the Quantum Field, Minerals, Plants, Animals and Human Souls (Existence - Consciousness - Bliss)
From the book description: "Consciousness is of singular importance today. Understanding the true nature of consciousness is our prime responsibility."
Human consciousness is a key question. It seems to me secular materialists who try to explain it all in terms of biology and chemistry are completely out to lunch, or, to put it another way, out of touch with reality.
Human consciousness comes from God, and God has revealed himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ, God temporarily in the flesh (not to be confused with your average Sunday morning church service).
I have only read one of b'rer Antic's books (SAMADHI). He may go off in some wacky direction or another; but I'd be surprised. I think the monk (Christian? Hindu? Buddhist?) is an extremely knowledgeable person whose beliefs support modern science and, to my knowledge, do not contradict any teaching by Jesus Christ.
Yes, human consciousness comes from God, but that's not the issue. Antic writes that everyone creates his/her reality with his/her consciousness. That is to say, a person that follows the teaching of Norman Vincent Peale will be a kind and loving person. Someone who admires Hitler is evil and, because of the Law of Attraction, he will attract evil people to himself and increase in deviltry. We create our own future with our thoughts and actions. It all seems very sane and logical to me.
I misread this part: "Genesis is not only a Ancient myth but the myth that corrects all the other ancient creation myths and tells us what actually happened at the beginning." That seems clear enough in retrospect, but some of the modernists I have been quoting say that Genesis tells us the truth of what happens as far as God creating the universe, and man having received higher spiritual awareness from God, but the specific facts are inaccurate and mythological.
Your view is a very common one. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C. S. Lewis and William Lane Craig and many others subscribe in different ways to your view that the creation account in Genesis is truth expressed in mythological terms.
You say that the Genesis myth “tells us what actually happened at the beginning” and presents these basic truths (in contrast to other more primitive myths):
• All humanity has a common origin with the same parents.
• We all share in some way in a “common fall against the same Creator. We are all cut from the same corrupted cloth and no one is free from this.
If all humanity has its same origins from a common humanity, but differently than what was described in Genesis, then how, in your view, did that come about?
Similarly with the fall. If the Genesis account does not tell us what actually happened, then how do you think it came about?
For your answers to both questions, do other people share your ideas or is it something you just made up? Unless, of course, you want to say that those things did happen, only you don’t have the faintest idea how.
Also, you believe a God exists who created the world and the human race. Would not a God of such incredible power be able to work things out in a way that might seem strange to us with our shallow and weak little human brains?
And what do you think of the New Testament? Did the miracles that occur there really happen? Or are those only myths also?
And what would you say to a materialist who said the entire Genesis account has no truth whatever as God does not even exist?
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that ancient myths can reflect real history but in a garbled fashion. The fact that Genesis deals with those same events does not mean that it is inherently mythical, as some think.
Imagine if in 1900 a dozen people from the old South wrote glowing accounts of the idyllic lives they lived before the Civil War (mythology). Then someone else writes a seriously factual account of what it was really like. It is the same subject matter, but from a completely different perspective.
That Moses was divinely inspired to write a true account of mysteries revealed to him used to be essential to Scriptural Christianity. So I agree with your comment “The OT I believe is true in every detail( I believe the Scriptures are inerrant and infallible) and I don't pretend to fully understand it though)." Naturally, there are some areas of ambiguity, but the main points are clear and meant for us to understand literally.
I also agree with your statements about Genesis being a true account of what elsewhere are garbled myths. About your view on “the relationship between the pagan myths and the OT” I think you have made it clear and I am in full agreement.
About the occult / Hindu phase, many people have come to an awareness of the truth of God in Christ and in Scripture in various ways. I never got involved in Hinduism and the occult, but was interested in philosophy and in trying to work my way up to a deeper understanding by my own virtue and merits, all of which I found to be dust and ashes relative to the Christ of Scripture. But I never found a church I wanted to join, and did a lot of seeking in these things outside of the church, which I think was helpful to me.
I had not heard of Guenon and the Traditionalists. A quick look seems to link him to Islam. I was involved with English literature for a years, and studied a lot of poetry, published a few things in obscure poetry mags and self-published a book of poems, but gave it up. I no longer have any interest in poetry at all and haven’t written any in years.
But, if Guenon writes about the errors of modern materialistic thinking that is something I still read about here and there, it is an important subject. How foolish, that to think with scientific knowledge they could find the ultimate basis of reality and organize human life and society on a rational basis.
I liked your characterization of Islam, though you could have included Judaism and Zoroastrianism as part of the mishmash.
Also, Christianity was a very powerful and rapidly growing religion and had many imitators (which has confused some atheists who see similarities but get the relationship backwards).
I haven’t read much of the early Christian writers, more Augustine than anything else. It is common to call them “Fathers,” but they came along centuries after Christianity was founded and growing and are not really fathers in any real sense.
Some more modern authors are also good, such as Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, the Wesley’s, Luther at his best. The only 20th century author I have found helpful is Francis Schaeffer and find some of his books very profound – for example True Spirituality, and He is There and He is Not Silent. The first of these shows much of what is missing in so much contemporary Christianity, though it does this not as an attack or as an indictment, but rather as an attempt to describe what it really means to live by the teachings and the Spirit of Christ.
As to believing the NT as the basis of your faith, for some that is an intellectual philosophical commitment, yet seems to lack the presence of Christ enter into it. And, as Paul wrote, if we do not have love our Christianity is empty noise.
As to 1 Corinthians 2:6-16, that is a profound and beautiful passage that entirely nullifies the futile secularist enterprise that lies behind so many of the evils of our backward, primitive and increasingly ugly modern age. Secularism has failed utterly.
I don’t deny that someone who is not a Christian can have some valid and even deep insights into the modern condition. I have no doubt Guenon makes true comments about our current sad state of affairs. However, I believe Hindu cosmology is completely wrong, as is Islam, and on the deepest spiritual level Guenon cannot provide the real answer, which is found only in Christ – which is not to say “only in the Christian churches,” for Christ and the Christian churches are too very different things.
Ultimately the modern problems derive from rebellion against God, the creator of the universe who is the source of all truth. Atheism and materialism have been particularly destructive.
About the early Christian writers – I do not call them “fathers” as most do because they came along 1 -5 centuries after the church was founded by God, who is the only Father of the church – I have read some of them and they have excellent insights, many of them living in a time where death as martyrs was a real possibility. At the same time, I believe that later writers, such as John and Charles Wesley, John Bunyan, Luther, Melanchthon, and many others also had the Spirit and the mind of Christ, and have written many profound and insightful things – though it seems the more modern someone is the weaker they are (One exception is Francis Schaeffer. I wonder if you are familiar with any of his books).
I don’t think that the church is as it is today is because of the debates of those early writers. Of course they were influential, especially Augustine, whose writings I have read some of. They are very impressive. But Augustine has weight and truth only insofar as he writes in the tradition of the New Testament. That is the real source and standard, even though we have deviated very far from it.
In the Protestant Reformation, I believe Luther – in spite of his faults – as used of God, and derived his insights first from the written Word of Scripture, and from the Holy Spirit, and only secondarily from other writers. I believe the same is true of the Wesleys, though they too had their errors, the Scripture alone being free from error.
About the Reformation being the "debate between Augustine's doctrine of Grace and Augustine's doctrine of the Church," that is partly true, but only in part. Much of the Reformation had to do with the false doctrines of the papacy, which over the Middle Ages had developed into something unknown in Augustine’s day. And Augustine’s views were valid only insofar as they followed Scripture. To the extent that Calvin and Luther were Augustinians, it is to the extent that their interpretations of Scripture and especially of Paul coincided with Augustine.
About earlier writers having know the apostles personally, that is no guarantee of spiritual insight or authority. Many Christians knew the apostles personally and write nothing at all. Those who did know them were not necessarily more spiritual on that account than someone who lived in the 16th century.
I don't deny the importance of Athanasius in his day, but the chief assaults of the world against the church in the past few centuries have been of a completely different order. I do not need to study Athanasius to be confirmed of the Deity of Christ which is so clearly stated in Colossians and elsewhere.
To look at it another way, there is a huge amount of excellent Christian books written by genuine representatives of Christ from many different periods of history. It is impossible to read and study them all – especially for those who have to work and are not called to read deeply in church history. You obviously have a deeper interest in church history than many. I have read some general histories and have read some of the earlier writers, but not in depth.
I wonder if you have heard of someone called Pseudo-Macarius. I have been reading his Fifty Spiritual Homilies and am deeply impressed by his knowledge of holiness and the spiritual life. https://www.amazon.com/Pseudo-Macarius-Spiritual-Homilies-Classics-Spirituality/dp/0809133121
About The Reformation as Renewal I listened to a podcast – or maybe it was a video – where Matthew Barrett spoke about this. It wasn't the one linked here, I see a number of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Raz62QBhomg I agreed with what he said, that the Reformers saw themselves as continuing ancient traditions, and not starting something wholly new (in a nutshell). I have read some of the Reformation and know the Reformers had a deep knowledge of church history and doctrine.
But above all there is the reality of Christ, and the presence of the Spirit. All reading should be subordinate to this.
I looked at the church history link and what I watched seemed very sound to me, I have bookmarked the site.
If I am not mistaken, all religions with the exceptions of Satanism and Islam teach basically the same moral lessons. Buddhism does not worship any god or any group of Gods. Siddhartha achieved enlightenment on his own.
Ancient Egypt had Ra, Amun, and Isis. Greece had Zeus, Hera, and Athena. Isn't it strange that all of these cults (including Christianity) believed in a Holy Trinity? It seems like all three societies worshipped the same gods - but used other names.
I don’t agree that all religions with the exception of Satanism and Islam teach basically the same moral lessons. There are some cases of overlap, where they agree on some basic principles of ethics, but still great differences.
You say that Buddhism does not worship any Gods – but Christianity and Judaism say that there is one God who created us and not to acknowledge his existence and furthermore to defy and deny his commands is sin.
Also, Christianity and Judaism preach there will be a resurrection from the dead and we will be judged by God for what we have done, and then accepted into paradise or rejected and sent to hell.
Also, there is the deity of Christ – that God came to earth in human form is radically different from any other religion, as are the teachings of his sacrificial death and resurrection.
Moreover, Christianity is unique in teaching that all of our good deeds and virtuous qualities are inadequate in the presence of God, we are all under condemnation, there are none righteous of themselves, not one, and forgiveness is available through Christ alone.
And, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions have concepts of the universe and our place in it that are wrong according to the teachings of Christ.
The enlightenment that Siddharta achieved on his own may have had some truth in it, but insofar as it included reincarnation he was in error. No doubt he was in error in other areas as well. How can he show the way to freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth when there is no such cycle? The Bible teaches “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” Hebrews 9
I am not trying to be argumentative, but that is what I believe.
About the Trinity in other religions,
“Ancient Egyptians worshipped over 1,400 gods and goddesses in their homes, temples, and shrines. These deities were central to a religion that lasted for more than 3,000 years. Each god or goddess was responsible for a specific aspect of daily life or the world, and many were anthropomorphic, meaning they were depicted as part human and part animal.”
That’s no Trinity. But about Ra and Isis, “In an ancient Egyptian myth, Isis, the goddess of healing, childbirth, and the throne, schemes to learn the secret name of Ra, the sun god and creator, in order to gain equal power and rule the earth with him.” No Trinity there.
About Amun, “Myths say he was one of the eight original primordial gods of Egypt, who controlled the cosmos and oversaw the creation of humanity.”
Just selecting three gods out of many does not a trinity make. Same with the Greeks. You mentioned Zeus, Hera and Athena. What about Apollo, Poseidon, Ares, Haephestus, and others?
The biblical Trinity is unique. It allows God to dwell in the hearts on individual believers, come to earth in the form of Christ, and still reign over the creation simultaneously.
Have you read much about Christ? Who or what do you think he was?
I cannot help but admire your scholarship and the time it must have taken to prepare your manifesto. But "we are all under condemnation, there are none righteous of themselves, not one, and forgiveness is available through Christ alone "
Sorry, but I'm not buying it. Why am I under condemnation? Because I was born? Do you support 100% abortions in order to perfect the world?
I would be surprised if you are well versed in Hindu beliefs, but pleasantly surprised.
As far as the afterlife is concerned, all I can say is that I've not yet experienced death, so I have no valid religious or scientific belief beyond my confidence that YHWH would never torture his spiritual children for eternity because of their confusion or misunderstanding.
I have read a great deal about Christ; but my only source has been the Bible. Can you recommend other books? I assure you that I've read the KJV, the Living Bible, the New World translation, the Rotherham Emphasized Bible, and the NSRV. Most of the men in my father's family, going back to 1706 were Mennonite preachers in the New World and my great-grandfather on my mother's side was a Free Methodist circuit rider.
I am very familiar with the book. I'm pretty sure I already told you that I think Jesus became an Essene when his cousin baptized him and, there in the Jordan River, Jesus gained enlightenment.
Once again, sorry about the delay. I am making more of an effort to keep on top of comments.
You say you do not buy the teaching that "we are all under condemnation." You say "Why am I under condemnation? Because I was born?" No, you are under condemnation for your own sins, the things you have said and thought and done that are against the laws of God. That is not a personal criticism of you, since "There is none righteous, no, not one," and "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
No, I do not support 100% abortions. God's remedy for sin is not to kill everybody but to forgive, heal and change those that will respond to his invitation.
I am not well versed in Hindu beliefs, but have read they have a multitude of deities, and believe in reincarnation, which is contrary to biblical teaching. So, who is right? No one can come to Christ except God draws him.
You asked me to recommend some other books. First, I would recommend sticking with the KJV. Its 18th-century English puts some people off (the spelling and grammar of the 1611 KJV was updated in the 1700s), but it is not that hard to read, and the translators tried to follow the text as closely as possible. Modern translators take more liberties and feel free to leave things out as long as the general meaning is intact. But something is lost, and much is lost with many changes.
I would like to recommend some other books. In fact I made a little list. Some books I like more than others, and I don't fully agree with all authors, but I won't say which as I don't want to prejudice you in any way. I did like Keller's comment that God does not give us proofs - he gives us hints, suggestions, clues. "Seek, and you will find. Ask, and it shall be given. Knock, and it will be opened.
Seneca. Moral Epistles (= Letters from A Stoic)
Timothy Keller. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism
Francis Schaeffer. Escape From Reason . . . The Great Evangelical Disaster . . . He is There and He is Not Silent . . . The God Who Is There
Colin Brown. Philosophy and the Christian Faith
C. Stephen Evans. A History of Western Philosophy: From the Pre-Socratics to Postmodernism (this was written from a Christian viewpoint)
Will Buckingham. The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained (a secular book, includes Oriental philosophies)
John G. West. Darwin Day In America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science
Cornelius Plantinga. Engaging God's World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living
Alister McGrath. The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World
John Bunyan. Pilgrim’s Progress
Thomas H. Greer. A Brief History of the Western World
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You agree that there are two portions of reality, so those who say physical and matter and energy are the only realities are wrong.
I agree the two realities are not entirely separate, and said this in the essay:
“If there is indeed a spiritual reality, unseen, invisible to us now, yet nevertheless the source of all that it is, may it not contain many unexpected elements, and involve many surprises? But what might this non-material, supra-natural spirituality be? People who agree that it exists have so many different ideas about it. How can it be known? . . . we find evidence of it very close to us, even in our own souls. Our emotions, for example – love and hate, hope and fear, like and dislike, understanding and confusion – these are undeniably real, and extend out into the physical world.”
What you said about the number 4 finding expression in the physical plane is like what I said about the non-material emotion of anger finding expression in the physical plane when I punch someone in the nose.
About your statement: “The existence of both the seen and the unseen depend on each other for their existence, are complementary, and don't contradict each other.”
(1) The material reality depends on God for its very existence, but God does not depend on the material world in any way.
(2) Our non-physical emotions do depend on a material body in this life, but in the next life the relationship of soul to body is unclear.
(3) The contradiction comes from those who assert that the physical reality is the only reality and deny the existence of the spiritual. It is not because of any inherent contradiction, but because of the blindness of those who see only matter – and those are the ones whose views on the creation of reality we must reject. They have nothing to say about how the cosmos might have come into being – at least nothing we have to make our faith agree to.
No one is saying that the conclusions we draw from the natural world are anathema. No one has ever said that Newton’s laws or Einstein’s theories or medical knowledge or knowledge of biology are anathema. The problem is not with physical reality and knowledge, it is with those who assert that those are the ONLY REALITY and then foolishly apply their blind and ignorant standards to the spiritual / biblical – and then Christians bow down to them and defer to them and feel that we must live up to their false epistemological demands.
But, we can declare revealed knowledge from the Bible to be correct: that God exists, that there will be a resurrection from the dead, that Christ on earth was God in the flesh, that we are guilty of sin and need salvation – these by faith we declare to be eternally correct. The fact that some or many reject them does not make them any less true. But this does not mean ALL spiritual wisdom is true. There is a lot of false spirituality, and even misinterpretations of the Bible.
Is our task to reconcile them? Our task as Christians is to help reconcile men with God by the salvation available in Christ. It is not to reconcile the Bible with many unscientific statements that are completely false. And why do we have to reconcile the knowledge of God’s existence and revelation through Christ with earthly knowledge like architecture or medicine? There is no reconciliation between Christ and ordinary human knowledge because there is no conflict.
The conflict comes from the unbelieving world that denies God and makes false statements that contradict God. We cannot reconcile the knowledge of God with assertions of his non-existence and denials of his truth.
Also, Christ is fully divine and fully human, but the task of evangelizing people who are blind in dead in sin and alienated from God by their sinful minds is very different from disagreeing with worldly secular theories. For us to take part in evangelization we have to have the mind of Christ and the Spirit of Christ and walk in the straight and narrow way of Christ and declare the truths of Christ in a gracious, loving and suitable way.
About the standard secular scientific account of the world, that it arose purely as the result of natural causes with no higher purpose, I deny it is true. I believe it is a falsehood and a deceptive lie. God created the heavens and the earth and Christians do not have to allow the scientists to define the parameters within which we have to accept parts of Genesis and reject others.
Christians can accept all authentically scientific truths and facts concerning the present creation. But when it comes to the question of how things came into being in the first place, that is a mystery hidden from reason which has been revealed to us in the Word of God.
This has nothing whatever to do with the full implications of Christ’s humanity. What do the false theories of materialists who are blind and dead in sin have to do with us? If they come up with some true theory about the speed of light or the workings of the heart and the circulatory system or a new cure for disease that does not conflict in any way with biblical truth or with Christ.
I think you need to distinguish more clearly between true science, which presents facts about the material world on the one hand, with the materialistic philosophy that often lies behind modern science on the other. If a scientist tells me the speed of light is such and such or the atomic structure of radium is so and so, I see no reason to doubt it. But if he says the Genesis account is false, he is basing that on materialistic philosophy and a denial of God.
2/2
How can Genesis account for the spiritual origins of the human condition if its narrative of the fall never occurred? How can it account for the reality of the spiritual origins of the human condition with a false myth?
I do not believe that any of the early church writers believed in Craig’s and Lewis’ totally fictional fairy story about some hominin or hominid creatures that were somehow elevated by God to a higher human level. Such a thing was never advocated by any early Christian writers. All of them accepted the story of Adam and Eve as literal if they believed in the Bible at all.
Also, I think that a literal interpretation of Genesis has nothing whatever to do with Christ’s humanity, nothing at all. The full implications of Christ’s humanity have to do with his incarnation on earth, his death as a sacrifice for sin, his being able to sympathize with us in our infirmities, his willingness to succor us in our trials, cleanse us with his blood, revive us with his Spirit, guide us by his truth, and receive us into glory – “for he is not ashamed to call them brethren” Hebrews 2:11.
The humanity of Christ has nothing whatever to do with modern scientific theories about how the world came into being that are based on trying to apply known scientific principles to a totally unknown situation. But the attitude that denies the reality of Old Testament biblical truth is very often – not always but often – the exact same attitude that denies the deity of Christ, and his miracles, and his life, death and resurrection and return. Many of the people who deny the Old Testament deny the New for exactly the same reason. This is the result of a conflict between belief and unbelief, between truth and falsehood, between sin and righteousness, between light and darkness, wisdom and folly, good and evil.
I don’t see the connection between accepting the literal truth of Genesis and denying medical care to children. In fact, I think there is no connection at all. Where does it say in the bible “Do not go to see a doctor,” or “Thou shalt not take thy children to the doctor”?
Also, if the beliefs of a very tiny number of people in a small sect lead to the deaths of a few children, and this is evil, what shall we say of the humanistic ideology which says life in the womb is not sacred, an unborn baby is not really human, that nothing is more important for a woman than to be free of the burden of motherhood, and so leads to the deaths of dozens of millions of children? Why are a few deaths because of religion so terrible while millions of deaths because of irreligion acceptable?
Those people at the Guardian care nothing about human life, they are only looking for an excuse to attack religion. I have looked at the Guardian a few times and think it is a worthless magazine (which is not to deny they might accidentally have a good article once in a great while). On the other hand, I haven't read it in years so maybe they changed, though I doubt it.
Finally, at no time have I suggested that we can disregard the world around us. But the unique circumstances of the creation are not “the world around us.” That was an event or a series of events seen once, and never seen again. What we see around us now are regular patters of behavior that we call scientific law as part of the creation that God has made – but that creation came into being when God spoke it into being by his word in a manner completely beyond the scope of science. God spoke, and said “Let there be light,” and the light appeared. He spoke, and the sun, moon and stars appeared. This we know by faith – and the wisdom of God is foolishness with the world, while the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God.
This does not mean that architecture or mechanics or medicine or biology or mathematics are foolish. They are factual and anyone can see the utility of them. But those things are not “wisdom.” We do not say a good mechanic or doctor or architect are “wise.” Wisdom has more to do with a deeper understanding of life, and all such wisdom that is in opposition to God is foolish and blind.
Real wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ – “in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid.” So the most important thing is, what is our understanding of and attitude toward and relationship to Christ? Have we experienced that birth by water and the Spirit without which it is not possible to see the kingdom of God? Have we crossed over from death to life by the Spirit of Christ given by faith? Are we walking in the straight and narrow way? Do we know him, and the power of his resurrection? Does he know us, and will he receive us in the end? Or will he say “I never knew you. Depart from me into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels?”
I hope to get to your comments tomorrow. In the meantime, if you can give me a brief overview of maybe a couple of pages about how truth can be presented as mythology in the context of Genesis - just to get a general idea. I couldn't get through 20 or 30 pages, at least not for a while.
Also, I have been reminded that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a real hero to some evangelicals, also found the Genesis account impossible to take literally (his book Creation and Fall is available on Amazon). He also applies his critical skills to the New Testament and says some parts of it have been shown by scholarship to be inaccurate, including some of the sayings of Christ. That is in Christ the Center.
1/2
I am not sure if this is the first post chronologically, but here it is in my file so I will start here. I am trying to catch up with various comments and hope to do so in a few days.
About someone claiming the sayings of Christ were inaccurate, it was a common belief in liberal theological criticism a long time ago (late 19th and early 20th century) that the four gospels and the New Testament were written a long time after the fact and were not eyewitness accounts. Some people still claim that today. Scholarship now generally accepts a much earlier writing, but in 1933 Bonhoeffer’s comment about historical research proving the gospels were not reliable was much more credible.
And even today people who are not scholars still assert the New Testament was written a long time after the fact and is not reliable history. Maybe they will accept scholarly evidence to the contrary if shown it, maybe not.
I have never been interested in unprovable speculations about lost manuscripts. I believe the New Testament authors were divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit of God to give true and accurate records. I came to that position not by scholarship but by the Spirit of God bearing witness to the authenticity of Scripture in my spirit.
Thus, if someone took notes while Jesus spoke, and those notes were used, or no notes were taken and people had fantastic powers of recall, the book would still need to be divinely inspired to prevent human error from creeping in – and why should anyone have a problem with divine, literal inspiration? Cannot God speak to us in that way if he chooses? Is that offensive to human reason, or even a denial of God’s activity in the human realm?
Even if various records did exist, in the New Testament we have something unique, and completely different from humanly recorded history. I imagine a good biography of George Washington is accurate and generally credible, based on human reason and research, but the Bible is unique, different from all other books.
About your allegorical interpretation of Genesis and the fall, Paul says by one man sin came into the world, and death by sin. He not only takes the Genesis account literally, he bases important teachings on Christ as the second Adam on it. If we cannot take his account of how sin came into the world seriously, how can we accept his proposed cure?
About scholars relating the fall to the change of man from hunter-gatherer to agriculturalist, what does that have to do with sin? A hunter gatherer can be sinful or righteous, same for an agriculturalist. To me that comparison does not even seem plausible – and I think too much respect is given to “scholars.” There is a time and a place for scholarship, but scholars also need to have faith and belief in God, otherwise their merely human wisdom is inadequate. Scholars are mere mortals and as such can be deceived and wrong, especially in spiritual matters of divine revelation. ““The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts.” Here in Malachi we have a reference to false scholars.
About accepting the evolution of humans, I do not accept it. I think Darwinism is a false theory, and that the first man and the first woman were created in the manner indicated by Genesis – and this does not involve any denial of real science, since Darwinism is riddled with errors, false logic, and scientific implausibilities. It is based on a philosophy of scientific naturalism, which denies from the outset any possibility of divine intervention – at least many Darwinists today use that theory to justify atheism. As to theistic evolutionists who say God created humans by evolution, why would God present an allegory instead of just stating how the creation occurred in a plain, straightforward manner?
True, animals do things all the time and no one blames them – this is because out of all the creatures man alone was created in the image of God. And the belief that people descended from the animals and are in essence nothing but animals is directly related to the release of violent criminals because their moral agency is denied, they are just poor victims of society. Denying the reality of the divine origin of soul robs us of individuality and responsibility.
Why does the statement about Adam and Eve being naked and unashamed have to be allegory? Why may it not be just a simple statement of fact in a plain historical narrative? Secular human science should not be the yardstick by which we measure Scripture. We are dealing here with the actions of a God that is far beyond human comprehension.
True, early man after the fall and the expulsion from Eden may have had very healthy lives, but they were still liable to illness and death due to the fall. About there being no property and hence no greed, that sounds vaguely like some account by Engels or Marx, about how before private property there were no problems of extreme wealth and poverty, that it was with the agricultural revolution that the evils of private property entered in – which I can see does relate to the Fall in some way, that I did not see in an earlier paragraph. But the Bible teaches that sin came from disobedience to God, not from any social arrangement. And if sin were caused by social arrangements, then the right social reforms will bring back the lost paradise, which is totally unbiblical and the huge flaw underlying all socialist dreams of utopia through social change.
I don’t think the 6,000 year old earth is nonsense when you consider that all scientific calculations of the totally unknown factors are null and void when it comes to the first creation, which has never been observed in a laboratory or replicated in any experiment. Now that the creation is in place, with scientific or natural laws as part of that creation, we can speak of science proper, but reading science backwards into the unknown is not science at all, it is philosophical materialism, which denies anything other than ordinary material causality.
Once again, greed and lust do not come from agricultural social structures, they come from sin in the human heart caused by the separation from communion with God described in the fall. This does sound vaguely like a Marxist, atheistic, humanistic attempt to explain human sin by natural social causes - but the Bible teaches differently and I believe in the Bible as the true and divinely inspired word of God.
You refer to this verse “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” and explain it allegorically. So what was the serpent, allegorically? Agricultural society? What about Satan? I assume you believe there is such a being as he is plainly presented in the New Testament – or is that allegory as well? Is it reasonable to believe there was a Satan in the 1st century AD but not in the 6th millenium BC (or whenever the fall occurred)?