George Murphy wrote:
"Interpreting he ktisis Rom.8:18-25 as referring only to humans seems to me very forced...."
--Especially in view of v. 39 of the same chapter, where the word applies to inanimate things. A literal translation of the key words: "...neither height nor depth nor any other creation [ktisis] will be able...." ("Creation" here means "created thing.") These Romans 8 references seem to say that the whole creation, while good, has not yet achieved what God intended for it, and it "knows" it hasn't. I like this thought because I think the "fall" occurred at the big bang, and the world has always needed "saving." Note that Paul implies that God, not Adam's fall, subjected the creation to frailty (v. 20). Did Paul mean through Adam's fall? Possibly; but if he knew then what we know now about world history.... In any case, given our knowledge of many incidents of geophysical violence occurring more than 100,000 years ago, any claim that Adam's fall caused all of the geophysical violence since should not pass the laugh test.
Don
----- Original Message -----
From: George Murphy<mailto:gmurphy@raex.com>
To: jack syme<mailto:drsyme@cablespeed.com> ; Michael Roberts<mailto:michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> ; asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu> ; Steven M Smith<mailto:smsmith@usgs.gov>
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 4:43 PM
Subject: Re: appendix
Interpreting he ktisis Rom.8:18-25 as referring only to humans seems to me very forced - the same type of thing as trying to limit ta panta in Eph & Col, which in those cases violates the clear meaning of the texts. But whether the subjection of creation to decay refers to the effects of a primordial fall is another matter. In any case, I don't think the sin of the 1st humans - or an angelic fall - caused the 2d law of thermo.
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/<http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/>
----- Original Message -----
From: jack syme<mailto:drsyme@cablespeed.com>
To: Michael Roberts<mailto:michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> ; George Murphy<mailto:gmurphy@raex.com> ; asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu> ; Steven M Smith<mailto:smsmith@usgs.gov>
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 6:26 PM
Subject: Re: appendix
I agree that the personification in verses 19 and 22 suggest that ktisis is most likely referring to people. I also think, given the context, that it is specifically referring to Old Testament Saints.
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Roberts<mailto:michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>
To: jack syme<mailto:drsyme@cablespeed.com> ; George Murphy<mailto:gmurphy@raex.com> ; asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu> ; Steven M Smith<mailto:smsmith@usgs.gov>
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 5:58 PM
Subject: Re: appendix
The question is what does ktisis mean in these verses, where it is translated asCREATION, elsewhere the word clearly means humanity eg Col 1;23 Mk 16;15. Often it means creation but we must see the context.
I do ask whether the aphids and quartz crystals wait in eager expectation as in vs 19. and whether mosquitoes and Martians will be brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
Michael
From: jack syme<mailto:drsyme@cablespeed.com>
To: George Murphy<mailto:gmurphy@raex.com> ; asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu> ; Steven M Smith<mailto:smsmith@usgs.gov>
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 5:19 PM
Subject: Re: appendix
I think this view, that creation is "broken" as a result of the Fall, is often due to an erroneous interpretation of Romans 8:19-22
19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that[i<http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=52&chapter=8&version=31#fen-NIV-28123i>] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
----- Original Message -----
From: George Murphy<mailto:gmurphy@raex.com>
To: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu> ; Steven M Smith<mailto:smsmith@usgs.gov>
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 11:05 AM
Subject: appendix
In my earlier post I responded too quickly to the excerpt below. But on reading the full article I find that the argument that Mr. Hart makes is still far from satisfactory. E.g., he says:
"Perhaps no doctrine is more insufferably fabulous to non-Christians than the claim that we exist in the long melancholy aftermath of a primordial catastrophe, that this is a broken and wounded world, that cosmic time is the shadow of true time, and that the universe languishes in bondage to "powers" and "principalities"--spiritual and terrestrial--alien to God."
As applied to the present question, this seems to suggest that the geophysical processes which gave rise to the tsunamis are the result of some primordial sin (whether identified with a literal interpretation of Gen.3 or not) rather than of the fundamental interactions & their laws which God created in the beginning. Such a argument is highly problematic. It is "insufferably fabulous" not only to non-Christians but to a lot of Christians.
A more serious problem is that while Hart refers to the Incarnation, he makes no reference to the cross as God's participation in the suffering of the world. While that doesn't provide a neat solution to the theodicy question, I'm convinced that anything said about the problem of suffering that doesn't appeal to the cross is worth little.
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/<http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/>
----- Original Message -----
From: Steven M Smith<mailto:smsmith@usgs.gov>
To: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 10:13 AM
Subject: What kind of God would allow a deadly tsunami?
Here is an interesting article from the Opinion Journal in the WashPost On-line:
Link: http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006097<http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006097>
Tremors of Doubt
What kind of God would allow a deadly tsunami?
Quote from article ... "When confronted by the sheer savage immensity of worldly suffering--when we see the entire littoral rim of the Indian Ocean strewn with tens of thousands of corpses, a third of them children's--no Christian is licensed to utter odious banalities about God's inscrutable counsels or blasphemous suggestions that all this mysteriously serves God's good ends. We are permitted only to hate death and waste and the imbecile forces of chance that shatter living souls, to believe that creation is in agony in its bonds, to see this world as divided between two kingdoms--knowing all the while that it is only charity that can sustain us against "fate," and that must do so until the end of days."
_____________
Steven M. Smith, Geologist, U.S. Geological Survey
Box 25046, M.S. 973, DFC, Denver, CO 80225
Office: (303)236-1192, Fax: (303)236-3200
Email: smsmith@usgs.gov
-USGS Nat'l Geochem. Database NURE HSSR Web Site-
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/ofr-97-0492/
Received on Tue Jan 4 02:54:45 2005
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Tue Jan 04 2005 - 02:54:46 EST