Vernon writes, in response to Dave:
>"2) You follow a well-worn trail when you refer to the self evident numero-geometrical features of Genesis 1:1 >as "numerology". This, I suppose, implies that you agree the phenomena to be of supernatural origin - but of >the _wrong kind_. But surely, a moment's thought must dismiss that notion as illogical, for it requires the >"powers of darkness" to be involved in glorifying God and His Son, Jesus Christ (whose name and title >are directly linked numerically with this first verse)!"
And in his earler response to Dave, Vernon writes:
>"The Bible - already a most remarkable Book - has recently been shown to begin in a highly remarkable >manner - in fact, so remarkable as to defy all natural understanding! Perhaps equally remarkable has been >the universally negative response to this news! I interpret this as proof of the biblical strictures concerning >man (viz "creature of evil imaginations from his youth, enemy of God, deceitful above all things and >desperately wicked" - appropriately sanitized and shrouded in the euphemism "original sin"), and thus of our >utter dependance on the truths He has revealed to us in the Scriptures. This 'standing miracle' (it is nothing >less, as you will know from the evidences and arguments presented on my websites) is clearly something >that is feared by evolutionists (and, strangely, also by creationists!) - otherwise it would be allowed as a valid >topic for reasoned debate in forums such as ASA. These being the hard facts, I suggest it is highly >reasonable that we look nowhere else for a true account of origins than the early chapters of the Bible."
Vernon,
As to the first comment, while I may not have read your piece on "the numero-geometrical features" of Genesis 1:1 as carefully as Dave, I have to say that I do not find these features "self-evident." If they were, they surely would have been discerned much sooner than "recently." If they were self-evident, then I would have expected the earliest Christian commentators on Gen. 1 to have been delighted to find this confirmation of their identification of Jesus Christ with the word that spoke the creation into being, which they arrived at by interpreting the OT in the light, first, of the Jesus experience, then, of the texts that became the NT. As far as I know, they did not.
But, more fundamentally, I think such claims of mathematical patterns or codes hidden in the text of Scripture ultimately fail to convince for two reasons. First, one can imagine competing cryptographic models, and then one has to ask, "Which one(s) are correct?" Second, and more importantly, because the meaning of texts is commonly, and correctly, understood to reside in the language of the texts (including grammar, style, context, word-play, etc.). While I respect your convictions about your interpretation, I have to say that such assertions as these about Scripture make no sense to me.
Finally, the assertion that these claims have been received negatively because of our sinfulness and evil is simply an old-fashioned ad hominem argument. I do not "fear" these assertions, "evolutionist" that I am; I simply find them unconvincing. And, believe me when I say that I am not an enemy of God. I love God and his Son, just as I believe you do. We have been reconciled, and I am an ambassador of this good news of reconciliation.
Grace and peace,
Bob Schneider
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