Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Two views of Genesis

There are professing Christians who view Genesis as an embarrassment. An impediment to the faith. Indeed, an enemy of the faith. Genesis is intellectually disreputable. It is driving our best young minds away from the faith. Forcing conscientious men and women to make an intolerable choice between faith and reason. That’s the “scandal” of the evangelical mind.

If only we could edit out the offending parts of Genesis, that would clear the way for an intellectually respectable faith. That would free us from the constant psychological strain of having to defend the indefensible.

So they take their drills and dynamite, sledgehammers and pickaxes, and chip away at Genesis. Try to break through this onerous obstacle to Christian faith in the modern world.

But what if Genesis is a dam which God has graciously put between us and the floodwaters of nihilism. What if Genesis is all that’s holding back the floodwaters of nihilism. What if we’re living in riverside communities downstream.

Suppose these professing Christians succeed in poking holes in the dam. Succeeding in breaching the dam. What awaits them? What will they find on the other side?

Cracks emerge in the dam. The dam begins to leak. Then, all at once, the dam gives way, and a wall of water comes thundering down, washing away the towns below. A raging torrent of nihilism.

And this isn’t just hypothetical. We have live-birth abortion. Sex-selective abortion. Legal measures to euthanize minors, the elderly, disabled, mentally ill. Involuntary organ harvesting. Embryonic stem cell research.

6 comments:

  1. Orwell was an optimist...
    Nietzsche was on point here, although his leap of faith in the ubermensch played out badly - but if you remove God, if you sponge away the sky, then we truly are free - and in one of his honest moments Sartre admitted that thought made him sick. What is interesting is watching the pagans bemoaning the living out of their own mindset. As if the jungle teaches you to love your neighbor - the jungle teaches to eat your neighbor - especially if they are old and slow. Embracing the nihil can't be done in bite size chunks.
    It seems like one might remember those days of old when it was a time of self made men and all was paradise - And each man did what was right in his own eyes. Not a pretty picture.

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  2. How important is the belief in a literal Adam and Eve?

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    1. It's essential to Biblical anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology.

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  3. Yes I am embarrassed by Genesis 1. It convicts me of sin... It shows me how liberal I still am. I still am a person of the 20th century, grasping for my intellectual legs. I quickly capitulated to OEC. I listen to you guys and others who make YEC arguments. I confessed to my bible study friend that it seems that God has made Creation that "seems" to hide the evidence for His active hand. God has made the physical evidence that seems to lie to me. I know that God does not lie. It just is that my puny mind cannot know how these facts fit together.

    Those facts of physics, background radiation of a proposed big bang, the light sent from the far reaches of the universe that cohere in a sensible cosmology, the seeming decent and slowly progressing of all chemical, thermal, and physical processes in Geology (sedimentary rock science; igneous crystal formation) All of this is sustained by the continual will and might of God. God makes all of creation extant, and His mind is hinted at in the laws of this creation.

    I realize philosophically that "God created it" can be in any method, and is far above me.. I am a worm below it all. It does embarrass me.

    I could just give in to these conservatives and repeat YEC words. I believe it would not be honorable. I do not want to say silly things about empirical measurements of the universe, and bring dishonor to the transcendent Creator.

    None of this puts any concern in my trust in Jesus Christ, my Savior and God. I am a sinner, and look to God for my rescue, and to satisfy my blood debt in front of a Just God.
    Just a guy, Rob.

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    1. If the world is younger than our dating techniques suggest, that wouldn't make God a liar. God is not the author of our dating techniques. God didn't put dates of manufacture on natural objects. That's just an inference that we draw, which assumes the uniformity of nature.

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    2. Yes, I agree that He is not lying. God is the Measure, the Truth. In salvation He as set me free of death, opened my eyes to the truth of Jesus the Sacrifice, who loves His people that the Father has called! In cosmology, I trust that He is the Creator, and Author of Logic. Job 9:4-10 and Psalm 104:1-5 seem appropriate. Even though my darkened mind might infer such an evil idea, I am a fool that hopes that the uniformity of nature's processes may hold to be true up to a point--- and then paradigm shift--- Threre was another part of God's plan.
      Rob.

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