Since this crept up into another thread, that know have fully broken into camps. One is a bunch of crazy Baptists(?) and the other side unchristian liberals(?) I am starting a thread here. First rule no attacking other views, no attacking other people. Feel free to attack people’s ideas, but please use scripture, tradition or reason. So that being said. So creation a literal six day, a Theistic Creationism view (ie Genesis is allegory) or other. Second part. Does the fact that some might certain parts of the bible are allegory undermine the parts of the bible dealing with morals? So me I have always been taught that Genesis was an allegory for creation. That we need to say what is allegory and what is not. Things like morals are not, they make it very clear this is how we are supposed to live.
My views on this are already on record. Nothing in the context of the Genesis story, other than that some find it hard to believe, leads me to believe that it should be read in any way other than in its literal sense. For me it is much harder to take the Christian gospel seriously without it.
Which makes sense. Jesus believed it, never corrected so it is true and the fact that every word of scripture is breathed by God. If you start chosing what not to believe in and what to believe in there is a sense insenerity there. If Genesis is not true, what about the sin of homosexulity or adultry. Soon enough you can toss out everything and make your own Jesus of the church of nice.
I am game.... I believe Genesis is allegory, along with some of the other stories in the Bible. I don't believe that the underlying guidance given by these stories is undermined because they are stories. I don't necessarily agree that the way people lived many years ago must drive how we live today our cultures are vastly different to 500 years little alone ancient times in Israel and Judah. Jesus showed us that many times in his dealings with the leaders of Temple in his time. I believe what Jesus did teach us about our dealings with others and God are all held within the two Great Commandments and that is what drives our morals and dealings with others. For example a man who loves his neighbour as he loves himself is not going to go out after work and cheat on his wife, and them come home and physically or mentally abuse her or his children. A woman loves herself as much as she loves God is not going to abuse her own body by giving herself to who ever comes along or take money for sexual favours. A man who puts himself out there as a good Christian man and goes to Church every Sunday and asks God for forgiveness of his sins, only to turn around on Monday and overcharge an elderly couple for fixing their leaking tap in the bathroom, because that is not loving your neighbour or your enemy. One of our Franciscan Theologians John Dun Scotus talks about the 'univocity of being' which in medieval philosophy means that however we describe God we describe all living things in the same way and what makes us all different yet the same he referred to as 'haecceitas' which translates to thisness not essence. So if we look at another and say that there is something wrong with them then you are really saying that there is something wrong with you with everyone else including God. I believe that is why Jesus tried so hard to take us our of the dualistic thinking by passing judgement on others.
So how do you feel about the old testament moral code or paul? I also think Jesus is more about judgement too. Ya I think morals and the questions of how much allegory is in the bible are two seperate things. I am not for sure also how we read the bible(with in a certain context) is one of those things that are salavation hinges on.
While I do not think the Earth is thousands of years old, or that we were created from mear dust or that Eve was plucked from a rib of Adam. that doesn't mean that it means the same Devine creation still exists. That the universe was created when God created the "heavens and the earth". The big Bang started out of...nothing. so what created that spark of creation BUT God? As for mankind...okay so if the creation of mankind is allegorical, what does it mean by created us in His Own Image. Well, God has no form,gender really, or anything we could consider "human" except for the soul. So we are created in His Image with our souls. The garden may not have existed as an actual place, but the garden doesn't matter but for the explanation of the fall, and the fall is our human nature. We are created in his image but we still make mistakes, we still turn from the face of god. The fall explains our sinful natures, not that Adam bit into an real apple that the devil told him would give him awareness, but our tendency as mankind to do things that God would wish we did not do.
Rev... If you mean how do I feel about the old testament moral code then I say I believe the 10 commandments should be at the centre of our lives and I try to adhere with all them. Do I believe a donkey should never be yoked with an ox for ploughing? yes I do. Do I believe an adulteress or a homosexual should be stoned to death? no I don't. I won't get into a discussion about Paul other then to say I believe he was one of the most influential and hardworking Apostle the young Church had and I believe he said some really great things. I will also say that sometimes I think he could get a little carried away, so where I see tension between what Paul said and what I believe Christ taught us then I will go with what Christ taught us. This may or may not cost me my eternal soul but if that is what love of God and love of Christs teaching costs me then so be it.
I don't believe Jesus was really that interested in correcting how people interpreted what was written Jewish scripture - he was interested in teaching us how to be human and to love one another. I don't think it is matter of throwing everything out because one piece is a story - I think what matters is that we can live with the tension and with the paradox that is the Bible and use it as a finger which points to God.
You have to remember the jewish books are broken into three types of things, Moral, sacerficial and civil. The early church only obeyed the moral for clear reasons. Jesus never once said stop obeying the law. So that is why I lean on the Orthodox views on a lot of things like pre martial sex, homosexulity and other issues that draw from them. I do personally struggled a lot with creationism and hold more of Theistic big bang. Try to reckon science with faith as best as I can. I do not think that something Christ will judge me on. If I do not repent and live against his law that is what i think i will be judged on. I firmly believe in death, judgement, heaven and hell.
Rev, no, Jesus never said to stop obeying the law, I agree there. I do feel he redefined it to it's core principles however. And we redefine civil laws all the time. Now I do feel that not all of our civil redefining of laws have brought about better things, but some laws have been made better and more relevant and protect or uplift or support more people then laws had in the past. It doesn't mean that the spirit of the law is not being observed throughout that reevaluation. While I may feel that idea applies to Scripture and digging to find the moral and spiritual truth contained within Scriptural books that I may find that on it's literal value seems to be contrary to the Spirit of it it doesn't mean a tossing out of Scripture or it significance at all.
Well I disagree with at this point. Thou it is worth thinking about. I really do not want nothing hostile here. I am happy to hear other peoples views.
I know it well... Where I disagree with your comments is that I don't believe God really gives a toss about what goes on in peoples bedrooms or sex lives and I wonder why the Church spends so much time wondering what the person next door is doing. What God cares about is how we treat each other and we show that uncondtitional love with each other.
But God himself doesn't have unconditional love. He hates sin, was bloody crucified (instead of just flicking his finger to forgive it), and has an awful limitless end for all those who reject him when they die. Which according to scripture itself Only a few will ever escape. In other words most of humanity will be condemned (that's stated right in scriptures). The chances of me or anyone else making it to our salvation are not too high. Where do people get this gooey newage vision of our religion?
I have to agree with Spherelink here. If God did not care so much about personal conduct and all he cared about was loving one another, that why did God not flatly state that when he walked the earth. I mean it sounds almost like universalism when you reduce it to that. All God want is for us to love one another. Than there no need for church, since that is how a lot of christians feel the church has dried up.
The idea that god doesn't care about personal conduct just cause we've redefined what proper conduct would be doesn't mean that moral direction isn't there. Like Genesis, our knowledge of the scope of how God created the universe has been redefined and yet still has that spiritual truth, same applies to other redefinment. And "universalism" may be a dirty word somewhat but the term catholic means universal, thus as a worshiper of the catholic persuasion I feel that I'm called to reevaluate and reapply Scripture in light of certain things.
I am a universalist in the way the ancient church was in the earliest part of its history, not in the sense condemned by 39 articles (see article 18). I hope, and with good reason I believe, that the god who wills that none should be lost but that all should come to salvation will have his sovereign way and that, through Jesus' Christ's all-sufficient work, all will look to the cross and be saved.
Lowly Layman, There are simply too many places in the New Testament which insist that there are human beings who join Satan and his angels in the everlasting perdition of the Lake of Fire. God does make sovereign choices about the eternal destiny of humans. He's the one who said "Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated."
We shall see. In the meantime, I will find comfort in the words of William Law: " Love, goodness, and communication of good, is the immutable glory and perfection of the divine nature, and nothing can have union with God, but that which partakes of this goodness. The love that brought forth the existence of all things, changes not through the fall of its creatures, but is continually at work, to bring back all fallen nature and creature to their first state of goodness. All that passes for a time between God and his fallen creature, is but one and the same thing, working for one and the same end; and though this is called wrath, that called punishment, curse, and death, it is all from the beginning to the end, nothing but the work of the first creating love, and means nothing else, does nothing else, but those works of purifying fire, which must, and alone can burn away all that dark evil, which separates the creature from its first created union with God. God's providence, from the fall to the restitution of all things, is doing the same thing, as when he said to the dark chaos of fallen nature, "Let there be light"; he still says, and will continue saying the same thing, till there is no evil of darkness left in all that is nature and creature. God creating, God illuminating, God sanctifying, God threatening and punishing, God forgiving and redeeming, is but one and the same essential, immutable, never ceasing working of the divine nature. That in God which illuminates and glorifies saints and angels in heaven, is that very same working of the divine nature, which wounds, pains, punishes, and purifies sinners upon earth. And (N.B.) every number of destroyed sinners, whether thrown by Noah's flood, or Sodom's brimstone, into the terrible furnace of a life, insensible of anything but new forms of raging misery till judgment's day, must through the all -working, all-redeeming love of God, which never ceases, come at last to know that they had lost, and have found again such a God of love as this....And if long and long ages of fiery pain, and tormenting darkness, fall to the share of many, or most of God's apostate creatures, they will last no longer, than till the great fire of God has melted all arrogance into humility, and all that is SELF has died in the long agonies and bloody sweat of a lost God, which is that all-saving cross of Christ, which will never give up its redeeming power, till sin and sinners have no more a name among the creatures of God."