Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

Glenn,
    I believe you have articulated a most pervasive tendency in our Christian community, namely the arbitrary re-interpretation of any passage, or even of any circumstance in our lives, to fit our preferred theology of the moment. This has bothered me for many many years and still does. Many of the explanations and meanings that we hear from Christians would have dire consequences if we dared take them to their logical consequences. It's sometimes hard to stick to the core beliefs.

    I'd like to comment on two aspects, at the risk of making the dilemma you stated even more difficult.

    1) accommodationism and concordism. You pointed out that if an "accommodationist" interpretation is applied to a passage for no other reason than to avoid a contradictory observation, then the validity of such an interpretation is suspect and one would have no reason to deny any religion such a re-interpretation. Good point (although in some cases there may be other objective reasons for such an interpretation) but I think the same argument would have to apply to concordism. If a passage is reinterpreted for no other reason than to match an observation, then such a reinterpretation is as suspect as the "accommodationist" approach. For example, reinterpreting the date of the Flood to 5 million years ago and moving it to another locale for no other reason than to match an observed flood is essentially the same as your example of accommodationism. Of course, if there are textual reasons for such a date change or for accommodationism, that would make a big difference.

    2) verification vs falsification. You've said several times that you aren't looking for "proof." Verification, at least of a text in the scientific sense, would entail an unambiguous and unique prediction which would be later confirmed by observation. That's not likely in this case. Falsification, on the other hand, would require proof that all possible interpretations, be it accommodationism or a redefined concordism or whatever, that bring consistency with observation are wrong. You repeatedly stated that if the text is wrong about something in history, then how can you believe anything else in the text. Fair enough, but showing that a text is wrong requires proof that that particular interpretation is absolutely correct and other interpretations are wrong, whether or not they were derived for the right reasons. That's not easily done either. This means that neither verification nor falsification is possible from a comparison of these texts with observations in nature. Rather discouraging. But perhaps it brings us around to what a number of people have stated in the dialog--the validity of and belief in the Word of God lies elsewhere. And we seek understanding in these texts, not a validation.

Randy
Received on Tue May 30 22:13:37 2006