Re: Let's start with the assumption that I am right!

On Sat Jun 3 20:12 , "George Murphy" sent:

>
>
>I'm going to focus on just the most important (right now) of the 3 points I
>made & your response.

>1st, you completely ignore the point that the accomodation of scripture can
>be based on a more fundamental theological claim. I know that you have
>little respect for theology & theologians but unfortunately that's what
>we're talking about right now - theology. You're simply in the wrong
>classroom.

What I admittedly have is little respect for circular logic, contradictory assumptions,
ignoring contradictory observational evidence and tautological reasoning. I also don't
like it when obviously logical deductions from the theologians OWN assumptions are
ignored, you know, A=B, B=C, but A is not admitted to be equal to C. I think when modern
theology engages in this type of behavior, they will end up being the death of anything
real in religion. And as far as I am concerned both YEC and the standard OEC view do
similar things--both believe in floods for which there is no evidence)

I often try to point out that if, on their scientific jobs, the members of this list
engaged in the same kind of logical reasoning used here, their colleagues would crucify
them.

We accept scientific statements because they CONCORD with reality. We don't accept other
statements (like YEC statements concering the age of the earth) because THEY DON'T
concord with reality. Science gave up on the YEC interpretation because it doesn't
CONCORD to reality, yet theologians today don't want anything to CONCORD with reality
because it might have to be tested and found wrong. I don't jump off cliffs because I
beleive that the laws of physics (not to mention the molecular forces holding together
the rocks below) will kill me. In other words, I live my life as if it concords to
reality. Modern theology doesn't seem to care if anything concords to reality.

But with theology, we dump all that and decide that things which don't concord to reality
can still be true and deeply meaningful. That only works if one is dealing ONLY within
the particular religion. If one looks up and see that there are other religions who do
the very same thing and think we are nuts for believing that men rise from the dead, it
become problematical to insist that things are true which don't concord to reality.

Now, as to your first sentence, I read your article before replying. I simply don't
think you have a persuasive case. If that is to be called ignoring your point, so be it.
While you think I have little respect for theologians, maybe you have too much faith in
the assumptions you use in that article. I disagree that there has been

1. any progress in the science/religion area over the past 25 years because relgion keeps
saying the same thing. There has, however, been scientific progress.

2. I disagree that anyone will mistake you for 'a naive inerrantist'

3. I disagree that God is limited to acting 'within the limits of human knowledge'. After
all, I don't know how a human dead 3 days can get up and walk around. I don't know how a
man can walk on water, or through solid walls or water be turned into wine. The
assummption that God limits himself to work within human understanding is falsified by
events depicted the Bible itself.

>
>2d, "accomodation" simply means that in the process of inspiration God
>allowed the biblical writers to use the contemporary understandings of
>science, history &c to the extent that it didn't obscure important aspects
>of revelation. That's the case regardless of the degree of accuracy of that
>history.

To take a Wittgensteinian view of your statement, you are using the word 'accommodation'
in a really odd way. What does it mean to accommodate a message when the message doesn't
have to be changed at all? What is accommodated? Nothing.

In the case where no change in the message is used, we normally say 'communicated' rather
than 'accommodated'. This is why I don't like much of modern theology--it does things
like this and acts as if something significant has been accomplished.

I would also like to know how you verify the part of the above paragraph which reads:

"to the extent that it didn't obscure important aspects of revelation.'

I would contend that this is an ad hoc theological self-protection conjecture. Why?
Because if human understanding did obscure the important aspects of revelation we would
be wrong. This is the location of your theological assumption that we are always right.
If we aren't right, then that ad hoc assumption can't be true. If we are wrong, then God
DID let the contemporary understanding obscure the important theological message. But we
could not possibly KNOW that God didn't let human understanding mess up the revelation.
I would also say you have no evidence to back up this assertion. You have no way to
verify the truth or falsity of that phrase.

Please tell me how you know that God didn't let human understanding interfere with
theology when he clearly DID let it interfere in other ways.

I chose concordism and the use of verification of the biblical interpretation to avoid
such ad hoc epistemological fixes.

>> When the contemporary understandings of history &c were pretty
>accurate then the biblical accounts of the history &c were pretty accurate.
>The succession narrative (II Samuel 9-20 & I Kings 1-2) is "accomodated" to
>the knowledge of the events in questions of some (as is widely thought)
>eyewitnesses of the events in question & is probably quite accurate.
>Whether or not people usually call this "accomodation" is irrelevant.
>

>I'm afraid I don't know what your sentence about Roman history means.

To say that God accommodates his message to the knowledge of the day, when the knowledge
of the day is quite accurate has little meaning for me and that is why I used the Romans.
Accommodation is not a term one uses when the cultural knowledge is correct. Using the
word in that way is an equivocation--changing the meaning in the middle of the argument
and that is a logical fallacy.

I guess we are going for another go-round, huh?
Received on Sat Jun 3 21:22:21 2006