RE: [asa] Humanity and the Fall: Questions and a Survey (imagination)

Just guessing- if Augustine is against a 6 day creation, it may be
because it makes God look wimpy. Working 6 days, the poor guy is tired,
so needs to take a break on the 7th. Conversely, maybe God is all
powerful and "poofed" it all into existence in a faction of a second.

Back to understanding God, and getting a mental construct of Him. I
think of string theory that is supposed to have something like 11
dimensions. We only live in 4 dimensions, per our senses. Someone
living in three dimensions (x,y,z) would have no clue how the fourth
(time) worked. Likewise, we have no clue what a 5th is like, let alone
a 6,7,8,9,10, etc. dimension. Can you explain sight to a person born
with no eyes? Or smell to a person with no capability for it?

I suppose 'understanding God' and getting to know Him is what Jesus was
trying to teach us.

________________________________

From: Bethany Sollereder [mailto:bsollereder@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 2:23 PM
To: Dehler, Bernie
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Humanity and the Fall: Questions and a Survey
(imagination)

Bernie,

I think your idea of the "6th sense" is right on. In a sense, that is
even what I was trying to get at. Our imagination is how we probe
things beyond what we can sense. Imagination, as David points out,
helps us liken things like solar systems to atoms, to help us get a
firmer grasp on both, though the model is not perfect.

God is beyond our senses. Therefore, we use our brains (or our
imaginations) to help us get a grasp on who he is and what he is like.
If we then find ourselves unable to imagine God being a certain way
(i.e. eternal) it behooves us to create a mental model that better
represents how we understand God.

Which brings us back to Phil's question: Does an eternal God mean a
static (and I would add, impassible) God? Or is there a mental model we
can use to understand an eternal, but dynamic God?

Dave: From my reading of Augustine, he seems to be saying that anything
that was a process (seven-day creation or evolutionary creation) would
be inappropriate for God because that would mean he in some sense would
'stoop' to enter time. Therefore, creation had to be instantaneous
because an eternal God could only interact instantaneously without
compromising his 'eternality'. When you speak of the mistranslation,
where are you talking about? I'm not sure that I'm familiar with the
passage you are referring to, could you let me know so I can read up on
it?

Thanks!

Bethany Sollereder

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Received on Thu May 1 18:55:11 2008