Re: Time
dfsiemensjr@juno.com
Mon, 20 Dec 1999 11:41:32 -0700
On Sat, 18 Dec 1999 16:45:57 +0000 glenn morton <mortongr@flash.net>
writes:
>
> A couple of corrections. I don't claim as Bert does that God is
> speaking
> to us of time. Nor do I claim, like Bert, that there is an
> 'absolute' time.
> I believe that the days in Genesis 1 are the best way mankind has
> to speak
> of the unspeakable--that which occurred PRIOR to time. How do we
> describe
> what God did and the sequence in which he did it prior to time?
> Obviously
> we must use some imagery that is familiar to us. Does that make the
> days
> imaginary? No, they represent real events in the pre-temporal
> universe--of
> course they are a poor description of such time.
>
> Second correction, Chapter 2 is NOT the sequence of creation it is
> only of
> the creation of Man! The details of the creation of the other
> animals
> simply isn't given in Scripture--only the planning of them outlined
> in
> Genesis 1.
>
> It would be best if you didn't conflate two different views as if
> they are
> one--mine and Bert's. I can assure you that the two views are quite
> separate! And it is a bit frustrating to have the views of others
> ascribed
> to me!
>
> glenn
>
Sorry to have not represented your view correctly. However, I am totally
at a loss to understand, in your correctlion, how the days of Genesis 1
can refer to God's planning. I could understand a listing of all of God's
acts/plan (which cannot be separated, in his being, in any temporal way),
since we can only understand matters sequentially. To represent the
divine plan otherwise would be akin to what happens when my printer gets
jammed up and prints line after line of what I intended on top of each
other, rendering the whole totally incoherent. To put evening, morning,
day, numerals and beginning into the timeless purpose of the deity seems
to me nonsensical. If I can represent God's eternal creative purpose in
more coherent language, I submit that the omniscient and omnipotent One
could have done it better, were that his purpose. The more limited
vocabulary and syntax of Hebrew compared to contemporary languages would
be no problem for him. If he revealed his eternal plan in such a
confusing manner, would he not also produce the universe in a way that
would mislead us? How, then, does your interpretation support OEC rather
than YEC?
Dave