[RD] Ask a Theologian V
- Thread starter Plotinus
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I would guess the assumption that their version of Christianity is the only version of Christianity. Everyone does this to some degree but I think it's more prevalent among the more evangelical wings of Christianity. A secondary but related misconception is the belief that Christianity has never changed (except to become corrupted sometimes).
Berzerker
Deity
Bible aint wrong, just the interpretation that heaven and earth were created twice - before and after the Light of the 1st day
timtofly
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Actually what you are interpreting is that they were not even created once. You claim that the heaven and earth were formed twice from existing matter. Heaven in verse 1 was not the sky. The sky is called a dome that we would call atmosphere. According to the narrative, there was even water above the sky. God did not place the matter we know that makes up the sun, moon, and stars in the dome. He said that their light would appear in the dome. I am accused of being a literal YEC and yet I do not take the Bible to literally say that the stars, sun, and moon are in the dome which is earth's atmosphere. Until humans were shown that the earth was a circle; which a dome should prove even in the first chapter, humans were confused that the dome only covered half the earth, and that it was flat. The dome was actually a circle surrounding the earth. The earth did not change shape later on after humans figured out it was round. It was always that way with a dome around the whole earth. And by that definition there was a layer of water encircling the earth on the other side of the dome. Unless of course one tosses verses 6 and 7 out in the unneeded interpretation file. There was no concept of matter revealed when Moses wrote the words and he used what was available at the time. Moses even explained that the lights and the canopy would give reason to the situation that happened during Noah's time.
The claim is that Genesis 1:1 is the creation of all matter which includes a water world and all matter through out the heavens/space. From that point God added light to that matter. He did not re-create anything. He infused the chain reaction that brought that matter into the state of interacting with the rest of the matter throughout the universe. On the forth day he was not creating lights, but continuing the process of infusing light into the matter through out the universe. Some say that he is still doing that as an ongoing process.
@ Plotinus
I have read a lot of the patristic writings that you have linked in your threads. I have read a couple of books on the side, but the online reading is by far where I have learned a lot about the early thought processes of church history. Thank you for all of the labor that you have put into this endeavor, even if we do not see eye to eye on the details.
No problem - I'm very glad you've found it useful.
Do you think Christianity has entered an intellectual 'dark age?' That the range of thought and ideas is dying? Certainly philosophers and scientists have drifted away from it. (I know this is rather vague, but you know what I mean.)
I don't know that I'd say so. When you say "philosophers and scientists" you really mean "analytic philosophers and western scientists". Christianity is resurgent in eastern Europe and parts of Asia and throughout the southern hemisphere, and those cultures bring their own ideas and new developments to it. There are thoughts and ideas beyond analytic philosophy and western science.
Berzerker
Deity
Heaven was created once, on the 2nd Day. The Earth wasn't really created, it was revealed by gravity gathering the waters into Seas. But yes, Heaven was made from pre-existing material - in many myths Heaven and Earth were separated from each other. Heaven is the firmament, something "firm" or solid somewhere in the sky. According to mesopotamian myth Heaven (rakia) is the hammered-out bracelet that divided the waters, an apt description of the asteroid belt.
Heaven in Gen 1:1 isn't defined until the 2nd Day when God made the Heaven to separate the waters. Now, if Heaven is the universe, how do you explain the waters appearing before Heaven and the purpose of Heaven - to separate the waters?
God did not create the sun, moon and stars - God "appointed" them to serve as lights in our sky. They aren't relevant to the story if there is no "Earth" from which to see them. Genesis is describing how our sky came to be, not the universe. We cant even see most stars much less galaxies and other universes.
Again, Heaven and Earth have definitions and those definitions do not include "matter" or the universe or the waters of Gen 1:2. You're ignoring the definitions and the chronology of events, a dark water covered world awaited God's arrival and "let there be light". And you're ignoring God's definition of the light, it is called "Day" and the darkness is called "Night". Thats a spinning world close to a star.
timtofly
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First off: The definition of the Hebrew word Shamayim only has two meanings heaven and sky.
I think that you are saying that since it only means heaven or sky that it does not include the cosmos. However as per the wiki article it came to mean a lot more than just heaven and sky. How are we ever going to interpret that?
According to you, God did not create anything, yet the first verse clearly says that he did. The fact is that every one since Moses did understand that verse 1 did say God created everything; until humans found a way to declare that statement not true.
You mentioned above that the asteroid belt was the waters separated by the heaven. Does that mean that the heaven would be your term for the solar system? If that is the case then the stars would not be stars but the planets. This leads to confusion about the firmament, which was a Greek addition that came after the Hebrew usage of a dome was supplanted by the motion of the planets.
However a dome was understood and it only included the earth's atmosphere and Peter knew the difference in the first century.
Heaven in the first verse is the cosmos. Heaven in the second verse is the sky. God does not define what heaven is in neither verse. It is the context of the word that defines the word and how it is used. If anything, Genesis could be interpreted as God formed just the solar system. But did the Jews actually think that God was only limited to this solar system? How could God tell Abraham that his offspring would be uncountable like the stars in the sky and the sand on the sea shore? Why would one amount be only the sun, planets, moons, and asteroids?
There is nothing relevant to the story and the rest of the universe, technically. The word stars was a footnote to the moon, as lights shining at night and it probably was referring to the planets.
You cannot use the concept of spinning world because the ancients saw the world as a flat disk with a dome and above the dome was Heaven, and below the earth was sheol (hell). Remember, that if matter is ruled out, so is a spinning world.
I am not saying that your interpretation does not make sense nor is wrong. You have all the elements (no pun intended), but you can only get to where you are by ignoring verse 1. I cannot create ideas in your head, but I can make the ideas you do have change form. Is there a difference between the word create and make? The word in the first verse is not the same word in the rest of the verses. The word in the first verse means to form or create.
As mentioned there was a heresy which means that someone objected to the thought that was already there that God created the universe out of nothing. God could have created and formed the earth as a water world at the same time he created the matter in the rest of the universe and it would not contradict the definition of the word at all. The word to make or made in the rest of the verses is how he changed that matter and produced all life from the matter he created. Now humans can come along and make a statement that God did not do that, but they cannot go back and re-create the thought that was around for over 3000 years.
William Lane Craig often uses an argument from morality to argue his case for God. For instance:
There doesn't seem to be a problem with this other than that Craig never offers an argument for why objective moral values exist. He just takes it as self-evident, and seems to concede this. Shouldn't you first have to offer a proper metaethical theory and then attempt to prove it valid before accepting (2)? The fact that his opponents don't bring this up at all seem to suggest that I'm just missing something. It seems incredibly obvious. Can you clear this up for me?
And, also, how have theologians (historically) regarded the importance or truth of the Old Testament?
There doesn't seem to be a problem with this other than that Craig never offers an argument for why objective moral values exist. He just takes it as self-evident, and seems to concede this. Shouldn't you first have to offer a proper metaethical theory and then attempt to prove it valid before accepting (2)? The fact that his opponents don't bring this up at all seem to suggest that I'm just missing something. It seems incredibly obvious. Can you clear this up for me?
And, also, how have theologians (historically) regarded the importance or truth of the Old Testament?
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I wouldn't even consider that the weakest part of his argument. Divine Command Theory does nothing to help establish Objective Moral Values. If actions are right or wrong merely because they adhere to or deviate from God's commands and/or will, then morality is a purely subjective affair where it just so happens that one (almighty) entity gets to impose his opinions over all others by force. If we take the other side of the Euthyphro Dilemma, then Objective Moral Values exist separate from God and we should follow his commands merely because they are presumably made with a fuller understanding of this morality than we have.
ParkCungHee
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Has anyone linked you to this yet and what do you think of it:
http://orthodoxyandheterodoxy.org/2013/12/31/coffeedoxy-and-heterodoxy/
http://orthodoxyandheterodoxy.org/2013/12/31/coffeedoxy-and-heterodoxy/
I think you're quite right that this is an assumption and it's a major flaw in the argument. I would guess that Craig (and others who use this argument, which can also be found in C.S. Lewis) think that denying the objectivity of morality is either obviously absurd or ultimately inconsistent. But you're right that this is something that has to be argued for.
However, I disagree with your claim that this is the only weak point in the argument; I think MagisterCultuum is right to reject the first premise too. In fact I would say it's a weaker premise. The claim that there are objective moral truths is at least something that's widely believed; the claim that there can't be objective moral truths without God is just an arbitrary assertion which also requires substantial work to support.
Well - ever since Marcionism was rejected, Christianity has held that the Old Testament is essential, as are Christianity's Jewish roots. I'm not sure what else I can say!
You are quite right, though be aware that Divine Command Theory is not the only way of grounding moral truths in God. There are other ways too.
I'd say that the problem with Craig's premise (1) is that it assumes two things. And both of these things need to be demonstrated in order for the argument to work:
(a) Theism provides an adequate explanation of how there can be moral truths.
(b) Atheism cannot provide an adequate explanation of how there can be moral truths.
Even if we accept that Divine Command Theory (or a similar theory) works (which we shouldn't), that only gives us (a). But Craig needs (b) as well.
Just giving a bunch of links to someone else's argument without any commentary isn't a very effective (or polite) way of responding to a comment. And there are two problems in this particular case.
The first problem is that Flannagan's posts, to which you link, don't really rebut the Euthyphro problem. (They're only targeted at Peter Singer's formulation of the problem, for one thing.) At the heart of Singer's argument is the claim that, if Divine Command Theory were true, then it would follow that, if God were to command us to torture people, torture would be the right thing to do. (Which seems absurd.) Flannagan responds:
Matt Flannagan said:
But this response doesn't work. If you're defending DCT you can't claim that torture is "morally abhorrent" apart from God's commands. If God were to command it, it wouldn't be morally abhorrent, because moral abhorrence depends entirely on God's commands. And if you're going to say that moral abhorrence is independent of God's commands, and that God makes his commands on the basis of what's morally abhorrent or not, then you've abandoned DCT altogether, because you're saying that what makes something wrong is really the fact that it's morally abhorrent.
So Flannagan's counter-argument fails. I think that Singer's objection to DCT - at least this part of his objection - is effective. If you believe in DCT then you must believe that there's nothing inherently bad about torture and nothing inherently good about self-giving love, and that it's just the whim of God that makes one bad and the other good, and he could have chosen otherwise.
Here is the second reason why these posts are inadequate as a defence of DCT. The Euthyphro problem is not the only problem with DCT, although it's the most famous. Here are some other problems which have nothing to do with Euthyphro:
(1) The knowledge problem. It's all very well to say that murder is wrong because God commands that we don't do it; but how can we know what God's commands are? Someone might say that they're revealed in the Bible (or similar). But people seem to be aware that murder is wrong even without that. As Christopher Hitchens put it, it's not like Moses came down from Mt Sinai and suddenly everyone realised that murder was a bad thing. So how do you explain this? Are we all somehow aware of God's commands?
(2) A more serious objection: the explanation problem. DCT says that murder is wrong because God commands us not to do it. But why do God's commands have this effect? Why does his commanding us not to murder make murder actually wrong? You can express this as the problem of deriving an ought from an is. It's commonly accepted that normative statements ("You should...") can't be derived from descriptive ones. This is because descriptive statements tell us how the world actually is, while normative ones tell us how it ought to be; and these two things are completely distinct. But DCT does attempt to derive an ought from an is. It asks to suppose that "God forbids murder" is true (a descriptive statement) and that, consequently, "You ought not to murder" is true (a normative statement). But how could this be? The only plausible answer is that there's a general normative state of affairs such as "You ought to obey God's commands" or, more generally, "You ought to obey the commands of your creator" or something like that. But what makes that true? God's commands? But that would obviously be circular. So it must be true independent of God's commands. But in that case there's at least one normative injunction - one moral rule - that doesn't depend on God. In which case DCT is inadequate as an explanation of morality. It might be able to explain why murder is wrong and charity is good, but it can't explain the ultimate principles of morality.
(3) The gratitude problem. (This is Leibniz's argument.) If what God does is by definition good, then anything God did would have been good. He could have chosen to damn us all or never create us in the first place, and not only would he have had the right to choose that, by choosing it he would have made it the morally superior thing to do. In which case there is no point thanking God for creating us or for saving us or for anything whatsoever. But religious people do in fact think it makes sense to praise God for his actions.
Yes, I've seen that before... I think it confuses Monophysitism with Eutycheanism, though!
Yes, but it seems glaringly obvious. How can a philosopher be ignorant of the entire field of metaethics? And why do his opponents seem to not take him to task on this? I smell refried beans.
Well, it appears (and this is just based on an article from Tabletmag) that certain Christians regarded the OT as primitive and inferior to the NT. That's why biblical higher criticism came about from protestant scholars.
Well, I didn't try to come off as rude. He wasn't so much making an argument as just repeating the EU dilemma. So I gave a few rebuttals that I'd seen around the internet before.
ParkCungHee
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Couldn't the argument be made that, as God is the creator of everything, reasons can only be indirectly connected to God's commands and design of the universe, rather then independent of it?
I mean, I think it's fair to say that independent of God's commands torture can't be thought of as immoral, because independent of God's commands torture couldn't be thought of.
But couldn't you also say that because any sort of argument "independent" of God's commands would still be drawing on God's design and God's will? We may observe things and the nature of man and the nature of torture and draw from that that torture is immoral, but that is because god has designed man in such a way, according to his will.
So it seems to me that when someone says under DCT theory, God "could make" torture moral, it seems that argument requires a clear explanation of what God making toture moral would entail, because it seems to me that as it's usually phrased, it's a matter of God's will trumping God's will. "Can God will things to be immoral in conflict with his design" starts sounding like "Can God make a boulder so big he can't lift it?"
Berzerker
Deity
The word "firmament" is used to translate raqia, or raqiya` ( רקיע
, a word used in Biblical Hebrew. The connotation of firmness conveyed by the Vulgate's firmamentum is consistent with that of stereoma, the Greek word used in the Septuagint, an earlier translation. The notion of solidity is advanced explicitly in several biblical passages.[4]The original word raqia is derived from the root raqa ( רקע
, meaning "to beat or spread out", e.g., the process of making a dish by hammering thin a lump of metal.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raqiya
God didn't create Heaven and Earth ex nihilo. When we read how the Earth was created its clear it was revealed from under the water.
God didn't create the dark, water covered world of Gen 1:2 - its neither Heaven nor Earth. Now, Heaven wasn't created until the 2nd day and the Earth was revealed on the 3rd day. Heaven is something dividing water and Earth is the dry land - neither is defined as water. Where did Moses say God made the water in Gen 1:2?
More or less, but Heaven came to mean many things usually associated with both the seen sky and the unseen abode of God. There are said to be multiple heavens, from 7 in Jewish lore to 13 for the Toltecs. But the Heaven from the 2nd day used to divide the waters is the hammered bracelet raqiya - the firmament.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehom
The planets were seen as wandering sheep or meandering rivers - and gods. They were disguised somewhat in Genesis for the sake of monotheism, but thats where the numbers become relevant. Earth is the 7th planet, the asteroid belt was the 6th planet. Thats not based on how we define planets (Pluto was demoted) but how the planetary gods appear in the Enuma Elish.
Between the Sun (Abzu) and primordial Earth (Tiamat) were 3 planets, beyond Earth were 2 pairs and a 5th serving as Saturn's emissary. As Marduk arrives from the depth of space and becomes "supreme" he is clothed with the halo of 10 gods.
If God didn't define the word, how do you know what it means? God did define Heaven, we just dont get that definition in Gen 1:1. Its something solid separating the pre-existing waters and it was made on the 2nd day. Does God define "Earth"? Yes, thats the name he gave to the dry land as it appeared from under the water on the 3rd day.
Stars were made in Genesis to serve for signs and seasons
I thought sheol meant the grave and if I create a spinning world it doesn't mean I created the universe and matter. As for what the ancients said and knew, I doubt they believed the world was flat. I live in a flat state, not really - its just a figure of speech. Nevertheless, a dark water covered world becomes one with seas and dry land near a star and the "light" of God's creation is defined as Day as opposed to the darkness of night. Day and night result from our world spinning near a star.
I dont ignore Gen 1:1, I use Young's literal translation - in the beginning of God's preparation of Heaven and Earth..... But even without that translation I still wouldn't say God made Heaven and Earth in Gen 1:1 and again on the 2nd and 3rd days - that makes no sense. Going by your interpretation God created everything twice.
Forming is not creating ex nihilo
Sure it would, by definition Earth means "dry land" and Heaven is not the waters, it divides the waters.
Perhaps a silly question, but who was it that claimed that the path to faith was through pretending to be a believer?
Ugh, I find William Lane Craig as frustrating as Sam Harris. The guy is a paid speaker. He never updates his arguments or improves his thinking. He just keeps on trying to impress the crowd. He doesn't need to update his arguments, he just tries to impress the majority.
timtofly
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Berzerker
Are we trying to figure out what God did? You accept God was involved, but you deny that God created anything. I do not see the point in defending that God was just the Hebrew way of doing things. It is more than that. Any human from any where on earth who can read the Bible today; upon reading the first verse would get the impression that God did create the heavens and the earth. Where one goes from there is subjective.
My thoughts:
On the question "Is God the originator of evil" and how it relates to morality.
I reject the notion that one must be moral because God says so. It would seem to me that it would be confusing. Do as I say and not as I do, or even command on occasion. The commands where not even an expectation of how to even live. It was the way God wanted a certain people group to live. I am pretty sure that many people even those in such a group do not find it pleasing to live such a lifestyle. Yet the Psalmist said that doing so brings pleasure.
So the pleasure would not be in keeping the law, but in giving up the reality that it is not the human that is keeping the law, but God doing it. So there is the need to separate the law from morality. That would nullify DCT. We are not moral because God tells us to be. We are moral because we align our will with God.
The only way "evil" would be "moral" is if it was God's will and the human was the instrument of that will. However, it would well be nigh difficult for human's on their own to determine if that "evil" was from God or not.
I reject the notion that "evil" is of God. Evil is God removing himself from the equation, unless it was for the punishment of evil. We constantly find ways to eradicate suffering and evil, and yet even the basis of such an endeavor could be considered evil by the mere definition of the word "eradicate". Existence itself is the creation and destruction of life.
Humans can be moral and align their will's with God, even if they deny that God exist. They are willfully being divine, even if the term is meaningless to them. God's existence does not rely on their will being aligned with his. He either exist or not regardless of morality.
Are we trying to figure out what God did? You accept God was involved, but you deny that God created anything. I do not see the point in defending that God was just the Hebrew way of doing things. It is more than that. Any human from any where on earth who can read the Bible today; upon reading the first verse would get the impression that God did create the heavens and the earth. Where one goes from there is subjective.
My thoughts:
Spoiler :
On the question "Is God the originator of evil" and how it relates to morality.
I reject the notion that one must be moral because God says so. It would seem to me that it would be confusing. Do as I say and not as I do, or even command on occasion. The commands where not even an expectation of how to even live. It was the way God wanted a certain people group to live. I am pretty sure that many people even those in such a group do not find it pleasing to live such a lifestyle. Yet the Psalmist said that doing so brings pleasure.
So the pleasure would not be in keeping the law, but in giving up the reality that it is not the human that is keeping the law, but God doing it. So there is the need to separate the law from morality. That would nullify DCT. We are not moral because God tells us to be. We are moral because we align our will with God.
The only way "evil" would be "moral" is if it was God's will and the human was the instrument of that will. However, it would well be nigh difficult for human's on their own to determine if that "evil" was from God or not.
I reject the notion that "evil" is of God. Evil is God removing himself from the equation, unless it was for the punishment of evil. We constantly find ways to eradicate suffering and evil, and yet even the basis of such an endeavor could be considered evil by the mere definition of the word "eradicate". Existence itself is the creation and destruction of life.
Humans can be moral and align their will's with God, even if they deny that God exist. They are willfully being divine, even if the term is meaningless to them. God's existence does not rely on their will being aligned with his. He either exist or not regardless of morality.
