I am humbled and encouraged when readers take the time to respond to my posts. And the 4 men who have written me about my last 2 have pressed me to:
- clarify my beliefs, thus articulating for myself the reasoning behind them
- ponder their understanding from the book of Genesis of how God created the universe
Two of these writers are pastors by education and profession and the other two are well-educated and thinking Christians.
Here’s a summary of their comments:
- I made a careless error by referring to the earth rotating around the sun in 24 hours when in my head I was picturing the earth revolving on its axis. This is not the first time a disconnect between mind and typing fingers has surfaced.
- Both pastors reminded me that one should employ the correct hermeneutic. The different windows or contexts for interpretation are historical, grammatical, literal and contextual. Pastor Dave’s comment was: “We view the Bible as literal unless there are some indicators not to do so, such as the use of ‘like or as’.”
- God can do whatever he wants. He’s not confined to a certain human order or way of thinking. Exceptions/ adjustments are His prerogative.
- Regarding the creation week, we need to address the implication of Exodus 20:11: For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. This verse strengthens the interpretation that each creation ‘day’ be viewed as a literal 24 hour period.
- Several mentioned the fact that the Hebrew word YOM for day when used with a cardinal or ordinal number always refers to a 24-hour period.
- Jesus refers to creation and the flood – Luke 17:27 – People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. And in Mark 10:6-9 But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.
- Implication from Jesus’ using creation and the flood in His teaching is significant since He is the creator of the universe.
- One commenter mentioned that assuming a consistent length of time for canyons, stalactites and islands to emerge or form is evidence of uniformitarian thinking. That was a new term for me, but it refers to the ‘a priori’ presupposition (i.e. not proven) that the emergence of geological features is consistent over time.
- Another commenter brought up the problem of death if one takes YOM to mean a long period of many years by quoting Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. In accepting the OEC view of time passed, he saw a conflict between death, a change that came about AFTER the Fall, and God calling creation ‘good’. Death is NOT good.
- This same reader wanted to know whether I took as literally true God’s fashioning of Eve starting with Adam’s rib if I did not take YOM to mean a 24-hour period.
- Finally, and probably most interesting to me, was what to do about Day 1’s ‘Let there be light’ and Day 4’s ‘ And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years,
Just addressing the distinction between the Day 1 light and the Day 4 lights, some questions emerge in my mind:
- What was the nature of the light on Day 1?
- We measure ‘evening and morning’ according to our spot on our planet rotating away from (aka sunset) and toward the sun (aka sunrise). But that’s because the sun is a bounded, focused, concentrated container of light. It’s ‘fixed’ so to speak relative to the earth. But for the earlier, Day 1 light, we don’t have enough information to say how wide-spread and diffused this light was. From the text it apparently was enough to support the growth of vegetation.
Voilà what I have gleaned from these generous and kind lengthy posted comments and personal emails.
Today’s post is an example of what Logical Joes and Janes do when confront by meaty opposing arguments. They take the time to understand what their interlocutor presents. It is unreasonable (not based on sound reason) to proceed further with one’s own argument without first understanding the other point of view.
I’ve been eager to ‘muck around’ with the pushback and the way I best do that is:
- to print out and take notes by hand from each person’s comments.
- next to see any repetition among the views.
- then to summarize them in my own words
- finally to check back with the originators for confirmation in the form of a question like
Did I accurately describe your arguments? If not, please edit and help me to understand your point of view.
So, fellow thinkers, have I done your case justice?
By the way, prioritizing this kind of clarification has given ME time to ponder and think more deeply. And that is always worthwhile.
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