Learning From Poetry

I agree with the sentiments of Eric's earlier blog and Warwick's comments about poetry. Genesis 1 is not poetry but even if it was there is no case to reject it as expressing the detail of the author's belief in the order and structure of Creation Week.

Charles Darwin was not the first evolutionist. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, preceded him in this belief. In fact, Charles derived much of his foundational beliefs from the writings of his grandfather.

Erasmus Darwin is testament to the point I am making about poetry. In his 1792 publication The Economy of Vegetation he wrote of his belief in the formation of the earth from a cosmological explosion. He said:

"When high in ether, with explosion directions
From the deep craters of his realms of life,
The Whirling Sun this ponderous planet hurl'd,
And gave the astonish'd void another world."(see: www.rochester.edu/College/ENG/eng529/aeza/darwin.htm)

In another of his publications, The Botanic Garden, he revealed his evolutionary belief. He said:

"Organic Life beneath the shoreless waves
Was born and nurs'd in Oceans pearly caves;
First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass,
Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass;
These, as successive generations bloom,
New powers acquire and larger limbs assume;
Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,
And, breathing realms of fin, and feet and wing."
(see: King-Hele, D., Erasmus Darwin, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1963)

Clearly, a person can express the detail of an historical event by use of poetry.
Only if you want to love the world and its view of origins (at the snubbing of God) would you say Genesis 1 is poetry and ought not therefore be accepted as describing actual events.

No, for these idolaters, who we oppose, it's acceptable for Erasmus Darwin to write his account of an historical event in poetic form but not acceptable for God. They are a stench in the nostrils!

Neil Moore