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ORIGINAL: Jhud


The problem is really with your first point.

We should never “understand/interpret scripture in a way that does not conflict with our understanding/ interpretation of nature” because our understanding of nature is ever changing. What you are in reality is saying is that we should subject Scripture to the prevailing notions of a consensus of the scientific community – in doing so you would commit the same sin the Catholic Church did by elevating Aristotle’s idea of the centricity of earth to the level of Scriptural truth – though in this case you would do this with evolutionary theory. Science is by nature always a temporary proposition, Scripture never is, and so we can never subject one to the other.

We can however humbly admit that our interpretation of Scripture may be lacking, or consider that the science has simply not arrived at an a point of agreement – but attempting to reconcile them by re-interpretation is a wheel that leads us in a never ending cycle of interpreting Scripture to suit our own limited understanding.

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There is absolutely nothing wrong allowing what you know about scripture to change and evolve along side science just as you describe. There are certain central truths in scripture that will never change... scripture's 'scientific' statements about the creation of the world arent among them.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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Understanding scripture and interpreting scripture (as with any verbal or written communication) amounts to the same thing. We understand by interpreting the communication. Without interpretation there is only meaningless sound or drawn squiggles. Interpretation is what changes them into comprehensible communication.

Yes, but you are really using a different sense of ‘interpretation’ than has been used up until now.

Obviously we have to comprehend the language being used; but that doesn’t necessarily mean applying an extra-ordinary filter of ‘allegory’ or ‘literalism’ as has been suggested here – the best reading of the Bible begins with a plain reading of the text which allows the text to lead us, not to come to the text with a certain presumption about how to understand it.

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I think you are reading too much into the term ‘plain reading’. ;)

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It would seem a pretty safe assumption for a text which appears to have been written simply in a simple language for a simple people.

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This doesn’t mean one doesn’t ever consider other ways to understand the text, that metaphor and poetry play no part, but Scripture does a pretty good job of indicating when this happens, so we have no reason to impose such readings simply because we find the plain reading disagreeable to our modern sensibilities.

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Well that is just muddling two different matters. If the enemy is atheism, the attack should be directly on atheism not on science. The only thing we need to determine about science is whether or not it is providing reasonably accurate models of created nature and its operations.

No, I’m not ‘muddling’ the case, but a rather it is materialists who are doing so – I agree the standard should be otherwise, but I am not the person to complain to.

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If the answer is "no, science is not providing an accurate model of nature", nature itself will tell us that because the science will no longer "work". On this basis we can certainly eliminate YEC as scientific since it clearly does not work in real terms with real data. ID is a more open question scientifically, since it has not yet produced the sort of scientific basis on which it could be tested.

If the answer is "yes, science is providing as accurate a model of created nature as current data allows", then we have two obligations:

1. to understand/interpret scripture in a way that does not conflict with our understanding/ interpretation of nature, and
2. to protest and oppose any misuse of science to support atheism.

The problem is really with your first point.

We should never “understand/interpret scripture in a way that does not conflict with our understanding/ interpretation of nature” because our understanding of nature is ever changing.

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What you are in reality is saying is that we should subject Scripture to the prevailing notions of a consensus of the scientific community –

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I just want to make it clear, I don’t ‘attack science’ nor do I think do most Creationists – I do however continue to assert the very limited nature of science, and to resist attempts to turn it into a belief system.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
Better that we understand that science can speak to the realities of nature in a empirically limited and transitory way, and that Scripture can speak to the realities of nature (among other things) in a permanent and spiritual way; and not subject one to the other.

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It is good to see that literalism is recognized as an extra-ordinary filter. Too often it is considered to be the plain reading as such. Yes, I agree we have to begin with the text and let the text lead us, not come to the text with a certain presumption about how to understand it. That includes not coming to the text with the presumption that it is a historical narrative or that the literal meaning is the only allowable meaning in the absence of explicit indications within the text to the contrary.

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Is Hebrew a simple language? Are illiterate people necessarily simple people? Is it a safe assumption that the text was written simply? I detect some chronological arrogance here. You are assuming that just because they were desert nomads they were incapable of linguistic and conceptual sophistication

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Certainly one would need far more than modern sensibilities to deviate from the plain reading. In fact, it helps immensely to have ancient sensibilities to bring out the original meaning of a text which can be strikingly different from what a modern would think to be the plain reading.

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Exactly. They are muddling science and scientism, and you are going along with them instead of clarifying the situation. You yield ground to them too easily, without resistance.

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It is the muddling of science and scientism/materialism/naturalism that you should be attacking instead of letting the science be owned by the materialists.

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The problem is that you didn't take account of the conditional framework within which it is operative. Yes our understanding of nature is ever changing. But we also need to consider how it is changing. It is becoming more detailed and more accurate. If our understanding of nature is better than it once was, does that mean it must now contradict scripture? Does it mean that the truths of scripture were only truths for when our information about the natural world was vague and piecemeal and grossly distorted by our technological inability to see beyond the horizon or measure the distance to the stars?

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If the truth of scripture is genuinely for all ages, it must be compatible with the best of our information about nature in every age. Otherwise we should have chucked the bible out at least 400 years ago, if not 2000 years ago because of its apparent contradictions with the latest in cosmological knowledge. Or we should have chucked it out when we accepted the Linnaean taxonomy in which bats are definitely not birds and insects always have six, never four legs.

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Insofar as the prevailing consensus is an accurate model of nature.

It is nature that is the created reality, not science. Science is our best grasp of that reality within the current level of our understanding.

If the prevailing consensus is not an accurate model of nature, the onus is on the objector to show how it deviates from reality. If it is an accurate model of nature, the subjection is not to scientific consensus per se, but to the reality created and sustained in being by the Word of God.

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If you were really resisting attempts to turn science into a belief system you would not be rejecting science simply because it is claimed by materialists to support a naturalistic, materialistic philosophy. Instead you persistently cast doubt on the science because of the way it is handled philosophically by anti-theists.

Only when you can separate the science from the philosophical misuse of science can you truly claim to be resisting attempts to turn it into a belief system.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

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It is good to see that literalism is recognized as an extra-ordinary filter. Too often it is considered to be the plain reading as such. Yes, I agree we have to begin with the text and let the text lead us, not come to the text with a certain presumption about how to understand it. That includes not coming to the text with the presumption that it is a historical narrative or that the literal meaning is the only allowable meaning in the absence of explicit indications within the text to the contrary.

It simply means that generally speaking, the meaning is the meaning absent definitive indicators to the contrary.

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I wasn’t disparaging any desert nomads, actually attempting to do the opposite; they don’t seem to have been burdened with the modern proclivity to not be able to read what is actually written –simple is a good thing.

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Certainly one would need far more than modern sensibilities to deviate from the plain reading. In fact, it helps immensely to have ancient sensibilities to bring out the original meaning of a text which can be strikingly different from what a modern would think to be the plain reading.

Perhaps in some cases, but that is not what materialist here are supposing – they want to interpret Scripture in light of the latest scientific findings.

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It is the muddling of science and scientism/materialism/naturalism that you should be attacking instead of letting the science be owned by the materialists.

I have never done otherwise. You really shouldn’t confuse me with every other person you have talked to.

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Well, while I agree certain aspects are becoming, “more detailed and more accurate”, the reality is, many aspects are only leading to more questions, and a deeper understanding of how little we actually know.

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We were much more settled in our knowledge about the universe previous to quantum mechanics and string theory. Scripture isn’t required to comport with the latest scientific supposition.

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Well, there you are really talking about a language and purpose difference rather than a scientific one. Leviticus wasn’t an attempt to ‘classify’ organisms, and so shouldn’t be expected to comport with such an attempt (which Linnaeus even failed to accurately do so in every instance)

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The prevailing census is simply our current understanding of natural phenomena, nothing more, nothing less. It is as subject to the proclivities of human nature as any other human derived attempt to understand our universe, and while extremely useful, it will never be what Scripture is.

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Science is simply a tool, I don’t venerate it, and I am not afraid to question it – unlike many of my materialist and spiritual detractors, I am a true skeptic, and I am not beholden to an irrational adherence to any form of knowledge.

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There are definitive indicators to the contrary in many cases, but they are not accepted by so-called literalists because they are not spelled out in the text itself. The requirement that definitive indicators be part of the text itself is a hermeneutical principle adopted for the sake of excluding certain kinds of indicators from consideration.

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If you think that what they read when they read "what is actually written" is the same as what you read when you read "what is actually written" you are probably mistaken. No one comes to a text without a lot of cultural baggage that impacts on what they think is actually written. Not them, not you.

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Well, it is not just materialists who want to do that. Creationists do the same thing when they consider the latest scientific findings to be acceptable. Sometimes they even distort the plain sense of the reading in order to accommodate "acceptable" science. So in fact, they acknowledge that science is an important parameter to understanding scripture. They just apply that parameter whimsically instead of consistently.

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I am not. That comment was based entirely on what I have seen you post. You very consistently conflate science with philosophical atheism, and have consistently countered a point about science with a reference to how atheists interpret it to their benefit. You never say that the atheist interpretation is wrong or that the science is actually compatible with Christian belief and the scriptures.

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And what's wrong with that? Have not the wise and knowledgeable always had more questions than answers? Is it not the mark of foolish ignorance to think one knows and need not learn anymore? Certainty is widely over-rated.

The important thing is that the questions, scientifically, are more and more about the details.

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And you will notice that no one is saying we should ask that. Scientific supposition and conjecture at the fringes of scientific speculation is not the centre of the Christian controversy over science. It is the things long settled as far as science is concerned; the age of the earth, the local extent of the flood, the origin and age of the universe as we know it; and the scope of evolution (i.e. universal common descent). These are the hot issues. Not multi-universes.

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Actually multi-universes are quite simple to handle, theologically . If they exist, God made them too. End of story.

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Exactly. The contradictions are only apparent because of the differing nature of scientific and biblical literature. Now if we could only get all Christians to apply the same logic to evolution, we would have no problem.

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Not asking it to be what scripture is. It is not scripture that we want to change, but limited and/or erroneous understanding of scripture. Theology and hermeneutics are also subject to the proclivities of human nature. Would you not agree that the Chicago Statements on Inerrancy and Hermeneutics are also a current understanding of scripture in one segment of the Church, nothing more, nothing less?

Remember to compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges. Scripture is not the theological counterpart of science. It is the theological counterpart of creation. The theological counterpart of science is the current understanding/interpretation of scripture.

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Unfortunately, when it comes to science, you don't apply your skepticism often enough to atheist interpretations of science. You challenge the science instead of the atheism.

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Be skeptical about science, but don't base that skepticism on accepting the atheist claims that current science is a philosophical buttress of atheism. Science can take skepticism. It requires skepticism.

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And remember that hermeneutics is also a tool. Learn to be as skeptical of interpretations of scripture are you are about interpretations of nature.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
I think there can be other indicators; but I think that many so called ‘inidcators’ are simply pc garbage that happens to correspond with the latest inclinations of those who have little regard for Scripture, and nothing to do with why Scripture was written to begin with.

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If you think that what they read when they read "what is actually written" is the same as what you read when you read "what is actually written" you are probably mistaken. No one comes to a text without a lot of cultural baggage that impacts on what they think is actually written. Not them, not you.

I never claimed they read is the same as what I read; I just don’t think it is the same as what an atheists reads.

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I am not sure what use there is in answering my claim with a tu quoque.

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Well, I frequently draw connections between atheism and evolution because, as you have pointed out repeatedly, that is what atheists have done with evolution. I never do so with ‘science’.

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I don’t have a problem with more questions; I just don’t like the pretense that somehow there is deeper wisdom in science than in Scripture.

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I don’t see all these things as equally well settled, nor well explained,

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Actually multi-universes are quite simple to handle, theologically . If they exist, God made them too. End of story.

Sure, just like fairies.

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Not asking it to be what scripture is. It is not scripture that we want to change, but limited and/or erroneous understanding of scripture. Theology and hermeneutics are also subject to the proclivities of human nature. Would you not agree that the Chicago Statements on Inerrancy and Hermeneutics are also a current understanding of scripture in one segment of the Church, nothing more, nothing less?

Remember to compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges. Scripture is not the theological counterpart of science. It is the theological counterpart of creation. The theological counterpart of science is the current understanding/interpretation of scripture.

Sometimes I think you just repeat what I say in slightly different words because you can’t think of anything to say yourself. Do you do this in real life?

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It is good to see that literalism is recognized as an extra-ordinary filter.

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ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

ORIGINAL:gluadys

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It is good to see that literalism is recognized as an extra-ordinary filter.

Do you believe that:
1) Jesus was literally born of a Virgin?

2) Jesus literally lived a sinless life?

3) Jesus was literally crucified?

4) Jesus was literally resurrected on the third day?

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5) The Earth does not move?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
If we can simply pick and choose what is allegory and what isn’t in Scripture, who is to say the whole of the life of Christ simply isn’t an allegorical myth?

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Jhud, do you believe the six days of creation (and the ordering thereof: fruit before fish, birds before land animals) are allegorical, literal or something else? What about a 6000-ish year old earth [though never stated, implied by a plain reading of the genealogies]?

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Was picking and choosing involved in your determination of these answers, or some better method?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
I think this perfectly exemplifies what happens when one moves away from a plain reading of Scripture. Though it may have been made tongue in cheek, Method’s equating of geocentric ideas with the resurrection of Christ demonstrates how, when we begin to suppose that Scripture is best interpreted allegorically, the primary historical events that form our faith are eroded away.

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If we can simply pick and choose what is allegory and what isn’t in Scripture, who is to say the whole of the life of Christ simply isn’t an allegorical myth?

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Just echoing the arguments made by biblical literalists where it concerns evolution.

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So it is better to hold on to an interpretation of scripture which directly contradicts all of the evidence in hand than to grant that some scripture is allegorical?

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
And exemplifying how your view of Scripture would undermine the realities of the Christian faith; this may of course not be your intention.

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You are basically proposing making up a new interpretation every time some atheist claims there is a contradiction, so as to cling to some form of faith; there is no reason to do this.

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ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

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ORIGINAL:gluadys It is good to see that literalism is recognized as an extra-ordinary filter.

Do you believe that:
1) Jesus was literally born of a Virgin?

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ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes

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ORIGINAL: DanJames
The work that God did to set the create the earth and set it in its path is one that will not be changed. The earth will not be destroyed and in the sense of Physics, the friction of the earth is enough that no force will cause a change in its path.

Again I don't know how literal 'literal' is, but the Earth's orbit is changed (slightly) by the gravitational effects of the other planets.

OTOH, I would really hate to definitively prove you wrong if it meant a giant asteroid hitting the earth in the next, oh, century or so.

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ORIGINAL: DanJames

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ORIGINAL: essentialsaltes

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ORIGINAL: DanJames
The work that God did to set the create the earth and set it in its path is one that will not be changed. The earth will not be destroyed and in the sense of Physics, the friction of the earth is enough that no force will cause a change in its path.

Again I don't know how literal 'literal' is, but the Earth's orbit is changed (slightly) by the gravitational effects of the other planets.

OTOH, I would really hate to definitively prove you wrong if it meant a giant asteroid hitting the earth in the next, oh, century or so.

An unfortunate response because what I said was not addressed. The influence of planets on the orbit of the earth doesn't address the fact that the Bible might not actually say that the earth is fixed and/or motionless. The word we translate as "move" doesn't say that the earth is not moving, but that it won't be destroyed or perturbed.

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ORIGINAL: DanJames
The word we translate as "move" doesn't say that the earth is not moving,

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but that it won't be destroyed or perturbed.

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I suppose, an asteroid impact such that the earth does become uninhabitable would prove this verse, or at least what I think it means, is wrong.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud

So where are we? Geocentrism has been proved a pretty poor way to view this issue as it was the 'scientific consensus' for quite some time, rather than the Biblical imperative.

And the primary people who are arguing for bizarre interpretations are those who don't think the Bible is particularly true to begin with.

So I would say this thread has pretty much failed it's purpose; can we move on now?

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Or we should have chucked it out when we accepted the Linnaean taxonomy in which bats are definitely not birds and insects always have six, never four legs.

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ORIGINAL: Jhud
And the primary people who are arguing for bizarre interpretations are those who don't think the Bible is particularly true to begin with.

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So I would say this thread has pretty much failed it's purpose; can we move on now?

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ORIGINAL: unclemonkey

ORIGINAL:glaudys

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Or we should have chucked it out when we accepted the Linnaean taxonomy in which bats are definitely not birds and insects always have six, never four legs.

I want to make sure I get what you are saying here straight before commenting. Are you claiming that according to a literal interpretation of Scripture bats are birds and not all insects have six legs?