Re: Days of Proclamation

DW:>My relationship with God has nothing to do with
> whether or not he can perform certain tricks.

GRM:Does it have anything to do with him being able to tell the truth????? From
what you said above about the bible could be a fairy tale, I would not
deduce from that that a truth telling god is very important in your theology

My theology says that the number one thing God is interested in is the personal relationship. Truth, then, is whatever in the way of communication contributes to such relationship. Many facts, which we tend to call truths, are of little consequence in terms of God's objectives.

Having an account or myth of origins is essential for humans, but having one that's scientifically and historically accurate is not essential. Having an account of origins that's compatible with God is essential. The early chapters of Genesis have satisfied that requirement for centuries.

Many people including me can no longer accept Genesis' statements on origins as historically accurate. If I were standing outside of faith and contemplating my options, I could see how the apparent inaccuracies would set up a barrier. I suspect you're putting yourself in the position of just such an outsider looking in and concluding on the basis of shoddy packaging that the goods offered inside aren't worthy of you. So I agree that having a questionable myth of origins is a serious liability and no doubt keeps some from taking that first step towards a relationship with God. The account of origins diminishes in or loses importance once the relationship with God is established; but if the account appears defective in some way to outsiders, it may preclude any progress towards initiating the relationship.

So God has screwed up big time, it seems. He wants personal relationships, but he's allowed this barrier to get in the way. YECs see no barrier, but not everyone can be a YEC. Or is God satisfied with just YECs and those few others who torture the text to make it confess to our science? (No offense intended.) It's not like God to be that way.

Well, I think I have an answer; but so do you, so does George Murphy, so does Dick Fischer, etc., etc. But it's not enough to have an answer. What is necessary is an answer that comes with the power of God. The alternative is endless bickering over details and an incoherent witness to the world.

George's version is the best I've seen on this forum. He basically says that you blow right past Genesis as an account of origins (i.e., don't take it as historical) and proceed right away to the more valuable stuff. Whether people can do this or not is a question. Many seem to get hung up there right at the start. But George says the start is at the cross. It's as if the Pentateuch belongs in an appendix, not at the beginning, as something that's primarily only of historical interest.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Glenn Morton<mailto:glennmorton@entouch.net>
  To: Don Winterstein<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com> ; asa<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2004 8:10 AM
  Subject: RE: Days of Proclamation

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu<mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
> Behalf Of Don Winterstein
> Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2004 5:40 AM
>
  snip

> It has become impossible for me to seriously entertain YEC
> views, and
> to argue against them seems mostly like a waste of breath. (But I'm glad
> that you and others are making the effort, and I strongly encourage you to
> continue as long as you are moved to do so. This is partly because I
> recognize that I'm likely to be irrelevant to any YEC.)
>

  They are winning the battle and we are losing. Somebody has to try.

> Now, unlike you, I can't not believe in God. For me to discover that the
> Bible was largely fairytale would have little effect on my faith in God.

  That is exactly what I could not do. The best apologetic any religion could
  have is that it told the true story of creation, not in scientific language
  but in a simplified version. And that could be done regardless of what
  anyone thinks. But if one can say that the documents upon which a given
  faith is based could be totally false and still there would be a belief in
  God, then the faith is not based upon anything inside those documents.

  It is only in the area of religion that we humans decide that concordism
  isn't important. If we did that in Geophysics or physics, we would be
  considered cranks. If we claimed that there really weren't seismic waves
  but that they were a metaphor for man's struggle for existence, we would be
  dismissed as an idiot. But we make claims like that about the Bible when
  it speaks to areas of reality about which we think it speaks falsely. I
  suspect we do this so that we can have a heads I win; tails you lose
  situation. We don't want verification because we fear it won't be verified.

> Your relationship to the Bible now is very different from mine. You make
> strong demands of it. I don't demand much of the Bible, although I highly
> value the gems it contains.

  Of course I do. And I don't understand why people don't make strong demands
  of it. There are lots of mutually incompatible religions out there. They
  all can't be correct at the same time. Given the importance of the
  religious claims, Pascal's wager would remind us that the wrong choice could
  be costly. So making strong demands is a way to tell if the claims are from
  God or from David Koresh. Remember, there are lots of people claiming to
  know what God thinks out there who clearly have no idea. So, yes, making
  strong demands, to me, seems to be the only reasonable course of action.

  I don't know whether God is able to give us a
> scientific description of the creation or not; and even if he
> could not, I'd
> not respect him less.

  I have a variation on Lactantius' argument (attributed to Epicurus) for
  atheism. He argued from the problem of evil. I alter this to God giving us
  a true message.

  Would God convey to us a true message in Genesis 1-11? There are only 4
  possibilities.
  1. He is willing and able. Then it is a true/historical message.

  2. He is unwilling and able. God lies. He is telling us something He knows
  is untrue. Very unGodlike; very scary.

  3. He is willing and unable. Very unGodlike. He is impotent

  4. He is unwilling and unable. -really bad option. He wants us to not have
  the true story and he is impotent

  Of course this argument can be applied to any issue in which God is
  communicating to us. Most powerfully it is used with the problem of evil.
  Are god and evil incompatible? Only 1 of 4 options leaves me feeling like
  we have a powerful and truthful god.

>My relationship with God has nothing to do with
> whether or not he can perform certain tricks.

  Does it have anything to do with him being able to tell the truth????? From
  what you said above about the bible could be a fairy tale, I would not
  deduce from that that a truth telling god is very important in your theology

  What I'm confident
> of is that
> a scientific description of creation does not appear in the Bible.

  I am to, but I do think the bible teaches or to satisfy George, allows
  evolution. God let the land and water create the life.

>
> Your comment on "delusion" is interesting. I think history would have
> judged Jesus to be delusional had it not been for his miracles.

  That wasn't the context. All sorts of people from David Koresh to Joseph
  Smith, to the Siyyid 'Ali-Muhammad have proclaimed their views of god. But
  the real question is whether or not their followers have been sold a
  delusion.
Received on Mon Feb 16 06:50:46 2004