Adam and Eve
My problem with all the alternatives regarding how long it took God to create the world is that they can't fit Adam in. Help me here, please.
If Paul bases his argument [see Romans 5] about how sin first came into the world and how through the last Adam [Christ] sin is now dealt with, then the best explanation of Genesis 1-3 is that there was a first man called Adam made on the sixth day as it says. One man, the first man, a literal man, a real man who brought sin into the world and then [thank God] Jesus, a real man, a literal man who took that sin away.
It all makes sense to me anyway. I think we are only creating difficulties for ourselves if we try and explain a literal Adam away.
posted by Paul Reid at 3:35 PM
21 Comments:
None of it makes 'sense' to me...creation, evolution, original sin, noah's ark, jonah in the whale etc.
That doesn't take away from it. My faith is built on the mystery.
4:03 PM
I agree with j-mac - I can't get my head around a lot of it either. I can sit easier with accepting that I can't begin to understand God's ways and perspective. It IS a mystery and I think that's the way it's meant to be.
We are so simplistic, we find it easier to take a literal interpretation of the text and not move an inch. Surely it's bigger, wider, deeper, wilder than this. We don't really 'do' mystery in the Protestant tradition. We want it to be straightforward, black and white, no room for movement- not an inch. This way of looking at things suffocates me.
I'm always going to have questions and struggle with some of the stories in the bible (isn't that normal?), it doesn't mean it damages my faith. Let God be as awesome and mysterious as he's meant to be and stop trying to tie ourselves (and others) up with the difficulties that a strictly literal interpretaion of the text presents.
12:03 PM
J-Mac/Anon: As Paul (the NT one) said, God's foolishness is better than man's wisdom!
I suppose that there is a "mystery" element involved in the Christian faith but more in terms of awe and majesty - we'll never be able to fully comprehend the extent of God. However, I also believe that, through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, we will be guided into all truth concerning our salvation and the gospel and, indeed, be set free by it! After all, Jesus himself talked about the Holy Spirit's role in our lives in these terms. I think that understanding the role of the 1st Adam versus the 2nd Adam (Christ) is a basic aspect of born-again Christianity. I don't think that there is any mystery in that [he said, deliberately avoiding the use of the word "fundamental" since I will put off the liberal po-mos and that pop singer "Bobo"]. Jesus came and revealed the nature of God the Father and in doing so, provided the framework for understanding the whole of the OT in its proper context. (See 1 Cor 2 for more on the understanding that God reveals to us.)
Also, in Ephesians, NT Paul explains that God has made known to us the "mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in Christ.." he goes on in the letter to say that he writes so that we will undertand his insight into the mystery of Christ and that he (Paul) will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel!
The bottom line is that CFC Paul is not saying that there is "only" a literal reading of scriptures, but that (unless it is clearly allegorical, e.g. book of revelation and in some other places) we must not deny the literal reading to support some other intellectual notion.
Questions are good, we all have them! But too many deliberately unanswered questions introduces a sort of terminal-illness for the born-again Christian called intellectualism. At the end of the day it is just rebellion. God gave you the tools for understanding - the Holy Spirit, the bible and the mind of Christ! As I said, God's foolishness is better than man's wisdom!
Peace to you.
1:19 PM
Help! - I'm suffocating
signed: A 'rebellious liberal' , who happens to like Bono
(I'm doomed)
2:27 PM
Poor anonymous, he/she thinks that "We are so simplistic, we find it easier to take a literal interpretation of the text and not move an inch." but suffocates once the conversation starts to take off.
signed: 'just simply rebellious'
3:09 PM
Not much mystery or 'terminal intellectualism' in that last comment anyway!
4:57 PM
Hi again,
here's another perspective. Check it out at:
http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2007/03/epistemological-humility.html.
I hadn't seen this one until after I made my earlier comment - it is not quite on topic (Adam/Eve) but does address the general area of believing the bible.
Peace (I mean that) to you all.
7:14 PM
IMHO, something doesn't have to be factual to be true.
We have to ask, was this meant as a factual account, or was this meant as story. If, as I think, it is the latter, then to insist on its literal accuracy is to do injustice to the truth of the story.
CA
12:07 AM
What about when Jesus said to sell all our possessionsand give to the poor - anyone out ther taking that literally ??
5:51 PM
In all these posts about creation of the Universe, the creation of the Earth, and finally the creation of Adam I think each one should be considered in its own right, but finally, brought together in one overall understanding.
For Adam, there was a clear chasm between the whole of creation and Adam himself. God directly interacted with Adam, “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being”, breathing into him a living soul and an eternal spirit.
How the ‘dust of the earth’ became ‘a man shaped being’ is an interesting question. (Is this where Evolution fits?)
Clearly there was a further step, unique to man, God breathing into him the ‘breath of life’.
So the Adam that was God breathed became living in a whole new way. Is it possible to have a billions of years old Universe, a millions of years old planet, and a unique real live actual one-off God breathed man called Adam. I think so.
Finally, to appropriately misquote – “By this shall all bloggers know that you are my disciples . . . that you blog love, one for another (i.e. treat each other with respect & deference & humility & integrity)”
BTW one of my favourite jokes . . .
A group of biologists, physicists, chemists, and mathematicians come to God and say, ‘Actually God, humanity has developed so much that we can now create our own humans, we can work with them genetically, and make our own people – so we don’t need you any more.’
Ok says God. Let’s have a competition. We’ll get some dust and make a human. Whoever makes the best human wins?
OK says the scientists, at which point one of them bends down and picks up a handful of dust.
Listen, says God, no cheating – go get your own dust.
Peace
10:14 PM
Would you Adam and Eve it. As a mystic, a believer and a thinker - I'll let other judge whether I can carry the name of Christian or not - the idea that our world exploded out of nothing, that amino acids clustered together in space to form organisms and that from those organisms came life itself, sits more easily with me than a Giant God with his cosmic wand, generating mini giraffes, beetles and crocodiles.
God has given us great brains with which to investigate our beginnings, let's do Him justice.
12:29 PM
How big a boy are ya?! Ever had an ass wuppin?!!
5:11 AM
Paul, I fully agree. Furthermore, if there was no death before Adam first sinned, then how on earth can you fit evolution, with billions of years of death, before Adam?
It is time that we should stop believing scientist and start believing the Word of God!
10:47 AM
God gave us great brains to investigate our current situation and to create and build today - not to put extreme efforts into "philosophising" about the past and our beginnings. What is past is past - there is no recycle bin for life's moments. What matters is how we invest time today to develop tomorrow and shape our spirits for eternity, and hopefully being incorporated with God's creative nature for whatever future He has planned. God is no mystic, wand-waving being: only our simple minds could conjure up that sort of image. God is a Spirit. God is the Word. God just "is" and we are the products of His thoughts, just like Adam and Eve were initially. He creates things that can create. The dEvil is also a spirit that thinks; we have to be careful whose thoughts we tune-in to. God is the creator, the dEvil is the destructor. Scientists that tune-in to God's thoughts find the truth; those that tune-in to the dEvil's hide the truth and in doing so lead us to destroying ourselves and our nature...
8:45 AM
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7:04 PM
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5:42 AM
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12:56 PM
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1:45 PM
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11:42 AM
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5:45 PM
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12:25 PM
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