Comments on: My View: Genesis 1

By: OK, You Asked… | internetmonk.com

OK, You Asked… | internetmonk.com — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 21:50:49 +0000

[...] of you asked me about my own views. I have already written a post explaining my understanding of Genesis 1, but I thought today I would wrap up this conversation for now by letting you know what I [...]

By: John Warren

John Warren — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 03:29:44 +0000

Problem is they were wrong and were so loaded with traditions they didn’t see the Truth when He was among them.

By: A Mind At Play — Links of the Week – 02 Apr 2010

A Mind At Play — Links of the Week – 02 Apr 2010 — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:34:44 +0000

[...] My View: Genesis 1 – Internet Monk [...]

By: JeffB

JeffB — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:32:57 +0000

Someone mentioned in a later post that they enjoyed the artwork for the stations–I like this particular painting with this essay and wanted to ask what it was and by whom. If you posted it and I missed it, I apologize. Very nice—reminds me of Franz Marc who I enjoy.

By: links for 2010-03-30 | The 'K' is not silent

links for 2010-03-30 | The 'K' is not silent — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 06:03:28 +0000

[...] My View: Genesis 1 (tags: article genesis hermeneutics theology internetmonk) [...]

By: Kaci

Kaci — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:15:19 +0000

“He is my sun and shield.”

By: Kaci

Kaci — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:14:27 +0000

That’s a very stark image, HUG. I think people forget, faith is evidence and substance. The further along in this journey I get, the more I’m convinced faith is not blind, but rather sees quite clearly. Faith is a matter of trust based on the past, not vague ideals.

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:28:56 +0000

I’m not arguing for or against evolution, theistic or otherwise. I’m just pointing out that the model of the universe one finds with a literal interpretation of Scripture is one of a flat earth, supported on pillars above a primieval ocean, with a ‘firmament’ overhead that keeps the waters above from coming down until God opens the windows of heaven so it can pour out. Are you saying that when I look at a picture of eath taken from space I’m supposed to filter that evidence through the picture of the earth we find in Scripture? In essense, that is what you are saying.

I’m suggesting (here and elsewhere) that God has always conveyed spiritual truth in light of the worldview (scientific and otherwise) of the original hearers, not 21st-century science. I think the model of the universe found in Scripture clearly supports that idea. If that is the case, what is wrong with allowing for the possibility that an omnipotent creator might have chosen to put in place and guide a process whereby life did evolve, under his sovereign hand, over long periods of time? Is God any less omnipotent to bring about humankind that way than if he made him of dust on the 6th day?

To treat the Genesis account as a literal description of the time and method of creation (though you acknowledge that we aren’t told how God did it) and force it into a very small box (and God as well) is to ignore what Genesis actually says. I realize that this can be a ‘slippery slope’, and heaven knows universities (and some seminaries) are filled with liberal professors who started out as staunch fundamentalists (there might be a link there), but we have to read God’s Word for what it says, and what he intended it to say to the original hearers. From there, we see what it says to us and how that applies to our day. This is a basic principle of hermeneutics.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:12:28 +0000

What exactly is it that convinces you that molecules-to-man evolution is true? The odds of it happening are so infintessimally remote, even if we were to, say, double–no, make that 10x–the 4.3B year supposed age of the universe. What leads you to place more faith in THAT-pure random chance of something starting from nothing (ex nihilo) and ending up with what we experience today? I am sorry, but, you doubt an omnipotent God. We haven’t been told how, “scientifically,” God did it in the Genesis account. He’s told us all that we need to know about how he did it. Any other interpretation of the evidence we have before us needs to be filtered through that, not through the lens that says, no God but random chance processes. Micro-evolution–adaptation, variation, speciation, natural selection–all perfectly fit within the design parameters God put in his creation. But a frog’s always been a frog and always will be, just as a monkey’s always been a monkey and always will be. I feel so sorry for these men of God whose faith in God’s infallible word has been so shaken by what–evolutionary “theory”? They ought to resign their commissions to teach God’s word.

By: Richard Hershberger

Richard Hershberger — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:40:40 +0000

I think it is worth explicitly emphasizing the “genre” part of this discussion. One of the first steps to reading any text is to understand what genre it is. (As an undergraduate I read, on my own, Edmund Spenser’s sonnet cycle. I thought it trite and wondered why Spenser was no highly regarded. Then I read the introduction and learned that it was a parody of the fad for sonnet cycles. Reading the poems a second time, they were hilarious.)

Genre gets lost in the shouting about “literal” readings, but even those who claim to read scripture literally don’t really mean it. Don’t believe me? Consider the first clause of Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd”. What does this mean? By a literal reading, the Lord is a literal shepherd. What does it mean to say that he is the Psalmist’s shepherd? The Psalmist was not a literal sheep, so this only makes sense if the Lord is in the Psalmist’s employ: a hired hand to watch the Psalmist’s sheep.

Of course no one reads this Psalm anything like this. We all understand that this is a poem, following conventions of poetry, and that “shepherd” is a metaphor, implying a further metaphor of the Psalmist as a sheep. But allow the word “metaphor” into a discussion of Genesis 1 and watch the shouting begin! Why is this? Because many people mistake the genre of Genesis 1.

The reading Chaplain Mike puts forward here is not the only possible one, but it is honest. It is far more true to the text and respectful of God’s word than the mindless invocations of “literal!” we so often see.