Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

Glenn wrote:

"...Either the Bible is to be interpreted differently (as I have tried) or it is false and God don't know diddly about how the world was created."

OR scriptural inspiration isn't what you think it is. We've gone over this before, and I don't expect any better outcome this time, but maybe it's still worth a stab:

Men wrote the Bible, not God. Men were inspired by God to put down in words what they considered to be important aspects and consequences of their relationship with God. Thousands of years ago, the creation story said meaningful things to people at that time about God's relationship to humans. The relationship was the important thing, and the scriptures promoted that relationship at that time and for many centuries to come. It still promotes such relationship for us if we can put ourselves in those ancient shoes.

The relationship with God did not teach science to the inspired writers.

The purpose of scriptures is to promote and enhance relationship with God. The Bible is a record of God's interactions with humans, and from that record we can infer that we also may interact with God.

About 50 years ago I was "converted" by reading Jeremiah's prophecies. What was it about those prophecies that converted me? Was I perhaps particularly impressed with how the prophet dealt with King Zedekiah? No way. The history bored me at the time. What impressed me was the way Jeremiah's writings conveyed the unmistakable impression that he was in a close relationship with God, a relationship that involved frequent poignant interaction. Much to my surprise, Jeremiah's accounts of his interactions with God led immediately to my own interaction with God--as if it had been contagious. The experience was life-changing. Big time.

This personal history, I think, largely explains why my view of inspiration is orthogonal to yours. You seem to think God dictated the content, so that if anything is inconsistent with science, it reflects poorly on God. I see the content rather as a human witness to the reality of God's love, a witness that suggests to us that we as humans can also know that love.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: glennmorton@entouch.net<mailto:glennmorton@entouch.net>
  To: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Monday, May 29, 2006 6:09 PM
  Subject: Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

  Bill, I am going to respond to your apology here in this thread.

  First off, I don't think you do owe me an apology because I took no offence. Heaven knows I probably owe everyone on this list an apology for my attitude, so I can't cast stones.

  When I wrote:

>>>Bill, I disagree here. When I have asked about some observational evidence, what I read is that it isn't important and that only the theology taught is important. <<<<

  you replied:

>>>This is the response I don't understand. I respond to the others below.<<

  There is a widespread view here that if there is a conflict between observation and the scripture, we can avoid the conflict by having God accommodate his message to the lousy scientific knowledge of his listeners. That the point of God's communication was theology, not natural science. While that is on the face of it a fine sounding idea, it falls apart when one views the details.

  1. If we can do that for our theology, what is to stop a member of another religion who believes the earth is on the back of an elephant standing on a turtle swimming in a sea of clarified butter to do the same thing with his religion? We think a guy is nuts to believe such a cosmology but he, can't he say God is accommodating the true theology (which is his religion) to the lousy scientific knowledge of the day? (One guy I tried very hard to get to answer this question simply refused to answer it)

  2. If God tells white lies about natural science, how can I be sure he isn't telling even bigger white lies about theology? After all, If I can't trust trust God on what I can verify, how do I trust him on things I can't verify (the true theology whatever that is).

  The whole approach becomes a big game in which by sleight of hand we hide the problem.

  Bill: >>> Yet I expect that most participants would agree with Phil's answer (I certainly do, and I believe I have stated so on the list before -- if I haven't I should be chastised) In a way you are making the same error the YEC's do when they try to use creationism for evangelistic purposes: they seem to believe that if they present objective evidence for Christ, then the listener will automatically believe. <<<<

>>>>Glenn:

  I have said for years that this is not an evangelistic issue. This is a discipleship issue. We have young people who go into science and decide that nothing about Christianity is observationally true. Then they leave the faith.

  What I find is that no matter how many times I say this is not an evangelistic issue, people continue to tell me that that is what I am wanting to do. They also claim I am looking for proof, when I know no proof can be found. What I am looking for is confirmatory evidence of a nature that is not merely subjective (i.e., the Bible in not meant as a science book but merely teaches true theology--of course, how does one know that it teaches true theology without assuming it so?)

  [examples snipped -- I'll review them later, but I accept your point and apologize for not listening]<<<

  No apology necessary, no one should be required to be a student of my thoughts--golly what an awful fate that would be.

>>>The discipleship issue is one that concerns me as well. I believe the answer (in part) is better teaching in church and Sunday school (and Christian schools and colleges). Teach kids that the foundation of Christianity is Jesus Christ, not Genesis. Teach them about the archaeological discoveries that have been made with the aid of the Bible, but don't teach them that the Bible is historically accurate in every detail. Teach them that Hebrew means of narration and use of numbers make literal translation highly problematic. I could go on, but David and George and others can tackle this better than I can.<<<

  I agree but so long as the laity in the churchs see the same problem I see (make the Bible true by having it teach only theology but nothing whatsoever true about nature), the laity will reject the accommodationalist approach so widely advocated on this list, and this rejection is what makes the ASA so laughably irrelevant to the church today. We are over here spouting on about how great our solution is, when no one is eating our cooking!

  I actually am hoping George and I won't go another round. I like George.

>>>However, I can still respond that for the Christian (remember, we are talking about Christians remaining in the faith, not evangelism) a relationship with Jesus Christ _is_ the evidence he needs. A Christian should not be looking for external (be it Biblical or otherwise) evidence to bolster or sustain his faith. Christians will see such evidence and that's OK. It's just not what sustains Christian faith. A relationship with Jesus Christ is what sustains it.<<<<

  Here is the problem I find. I watched a Shinto man in Japan, deep in prayer. He is internally convinced that he is correct. I go to buddhist temples in Beijing and find the same thing. People burning incense to Buddha absolutely convinced internally that they are on to the truth. Now here we come, absolutely convinced that we are the ones with the truth. What is one to think??

  One reason this question may bother me more than others is that having been a yec and having been very convinced that I was onto the truth, only to find myself utterly wrong, I KNOW how easy it is to fool oneself or to construct self-referential/tautological systems and then beleive that they are metaphysically true! Maybe others, not having had that experience don't understand the ease we fall into these mental traps.

>>> It's not a matter of evidence, it's a matter of having a relationship with Jesus Christ. If other religions make similar claims, I can live with that -- I know what my experiuence teaches me.<<

  At the end of the day, that may be all we have,but some form of evidence would be nice. If a religion says that we were created from cricket guts, I could dismiss that god as not knowing diddly. One could do the same for a religion which says God created in 6 days, 6000 years ago. Therefore, either the Bible is to be interpreted differently (as I have tried) or it is false and God don't know diddly about how the world was created. To save the 'theology' by making it accomodationalist, means losing the ability to actually know if God speaks truth rather than with a forked tongue.

  Bill, thanks for this, but I want to re-iterate, you don't owe me an apology. If I can't defend my views, then I shouldn't try to play in the big leagues.
Received on Tue May 30 04:54:45 2006