Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Genesis 1:28
And here, surely, is where creation is leading:
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Marriage has a purpose; to fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion.
The earlier post was:
Genesis 1
It has a beginning, a daily rhythm and a pattern, and a climax that is reached with the creation of the man and the woman, or really I think with the seventh day, a day of rest.
Now, I'm not quite sure why he would post this. Gordon, ol' son, you could have just linked over to us!
But no, that's beyond the pale for the oddly self-labelled 'evil genius' (peculiar nick-name for a paid christian!)
I guess it all come about from the earlier posts on marital relationships in local press articles. And Gordon, if you read this, I must support your conclusions about Arndt's completely destructive views.
Now, to my regular readers, I note a SADist making a reference to Genesis 1, as though it has anything to do with the real world! The problem the SADs face is that at once they remove Genesis 1 (etc.) from having a real world reference, then selectively apply it to the real world; but having evacuated it of contextual contact with the real world, it becomes a long shot, and one that is arbitrarily made, to say that there is an intersection between Gen 1 and the world we are standing in on any particular point.
Along similar lines, a friend asked me about the view of the Bible held by theistic evolutionists (a category that overlaps with SADs, sadly!).
He said, in discussion about a particular minister's views:
Maybe you should ask your minister whether he can find anything in the Bible that supports old age/evolution. If he can't find anything unambiguous, then to me it seems a surprise that the Bible has nothing, zilch, to say about how life came about. After all, the atheists spend an inordinate amount of time trying to prove there was lots of time in order to get God out of the picture yet the Bible, according to the TE view, doesn't discuss it. Now that is a strange state of affairs we have here.
I suggested the following:
I think the answer for the TE-ers would be that the whole question is not in the purview of the Bible; and they must say that because they are, at least incipient neo-Platonists, or some other brand of idealist: that is, they have mixed a paganised view of the world with the Bible, which makes the Bible float above the real world, only connecting at the incarnation (and this only for orthodox Christians, as this is also denied by large numbers of theologians, as we know). But, as the incarnation relies upon the world being as God said it is in Gen 1, and that the Bible structures a realist rather than idealist approach to the world of experience, their scheme will fall apart. In practical terms it has fallen apart already, with the belief widespread, at least in the intelligencia, that the world really is the result of material inevitabilities, and that the idea 'god' is produced from within that world. The whole unravelling that substitutes man for God is before our eyes.
In theoretical terms, the scheme falls apart because it must garner a basis outside the Bible, whereupon the question arises as to the source of that basis, if it does not have its authorship in God. A dilemma for the TE either way.
Similarly I remarked in a related context:
The problem a lot of paid christians have is that they've been trained within a philosophical framework that puts the matters of faith, including the Bible, in a different ontological boundary (or a different type of reality) from the one we occupy, which is a little perplexing, as throughout the Bible the whole point of the creation and incarnation is God's making a setting for covenant and its related communications, prior to the grand communication, which recognises and endorses the ontological credentials of the world we are in (because it is the one He created), the incarnation. I don't think this penny drops easily, or is necessarily easily communicated.
::end of quotes.
The world we are in, and our knowledge of it is referred to by God on numerous occasions as establishing the dimensions of our relationship: God is creator, as he reminds us throughout the prophets, telling us who we are, who God is and why we should trust, worship and seek him.
It seems that the SADs effectively set this aside and go for a 'god' of the philosophers whose link with his creation is basically non-communicable and finally non-credible. Connect09 you go!
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5 comments:
Having graduated from the John Dickson College of Literary Interpretation I am able to shed a little light on what Gordon is really on about in his writing.
I might add that the style of literary interpretation encouraged at the College is similar to psyche analysis employed by the Sigmund Freud School of InnerWellBeing so there are a lot of positives to be derived with this approach.
So here is the interpretation.
Words and phrases such as:
man and the woman
Marriage has a purpose
daily rhythm
climax
fill the earth
used by Gordon are code for an emphasis on sex in the life of humanity for the population of the world but, to ensure that there is some regulation against the consequences of over-pursuit of climaxes, only the Catholic rhythm method of birth control is to be observed.
It is helpful for us to know what is occupying Gordon's mind when he writes and I thank those who have gone before us and who have shown us how to interpret a passage of literature. John Dickson take a bow!
Gwen
Eric it seems to me that SAD theology hangs upon redefinition of words. Years ago I coined 'AngloSpeak' to define the evasive use of language within this community. To explain one example: simple soul that I am I believe 'truth' to mean 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
Upon the witness stand we swear to tell the facts, the reality of the situation- did he dun it or didn't he dun it!
However when mixing with certain Anglos I came to understand they had imbued 'truth' with a new and quite evasive meaning. Truth in AngloSpeak came to mean something in Scripture which has value (whatever that means) but was not truth, that truth we swear to tell in the hot-seat. However listeners were not told what the new AngloMeaning was, being left to believe it was good old everyday historical fact!
Consider; I met up with a friend of the past and discovered he was now a Christian attending an Anglican church. In the discussion he made allusions to Genesis creation so I asked if he believed the days of creation to be 24hrs, to which he replied yes I do, that's what our minister teaches. Obviously I was pleased to hear this but suggested he ask his minister this question: Do you believe that God created all there is in 6 days? Then ask how long were the days?
He came to see me about a week later, quite annoyed. His minister had confirmed that Genesis 1 was truth, that God indeed created in six days. However when asked how long the days were the ministers visage changed and he became somewhat evasive, but ultimately admitted the days were long periods of time, maybe a billion years each.
The point is the minister appeared to be saying one thing while meaning something very different. My friend persisted saying-but you taught Genesis 1 is truth! Now you say it isn't! The minister replied that he had said it was truth, but not 'true truth! True truth meaning historical reality as per I swear to tell the truth....
When speaking with many ministers (of various denominations, here and overseas) I often enquired as to their beliefs about Genesis 1. Some were very straight-forward in their 6 24hr day beliefs etc. Others were just as straight-forward in their rejection of this. The third group (which included quite a few Anglos) also said they believed in 6-day creation, but when pressed upon the length of the days, their demeanour changed and they did what I came to call the AngloShuffle. They were embarrassed to be caught in their deceit.
It is so sad that so many ministers now have such a low opinion of Genesis. And sadder stil when they give life-lessons from it, applying it to reality, while at the same time rejecting its reality, its 'true truth!'
Sadder still that the basis of their rejection of Genesis 1, as true truth, comes not from Scripture, but from the unproven, unproveable, changing ideas of falible sinful man. How the mighty have fallen.
Interestingly members of the SAD have often been scathing in their crtiicism of the Anglican church outside of Sydney, calling them liberals. Now they are chasing after them, towards liberalism, gaining rapidly.
Eric & Warwick, it's an astounding experience to see the knots SADism ties itself into with the Word of God and in discussion once they choose to go the way of the world on origins.
You can imagine the same complications in the life of Israel when they adopted the false gods of the nations around them yet tried to maintain the belief that YHWY was the God of Israel.
aah, syncretism, a coat of many colours and source of much discomfort.
Gwen, thanks for your advice on interpreting the recent writings of Gordon. I would like to hear from Gordon to see if he affirms the correctness of your interpretation. After all, there is a danger in standing at a distance in space/time and looking for something beyond a straightforward reading of simple language.
Neil
I began to think of Gordons 'Evil Genius' title thinking-how bizarre! And knowing how creative some of the minds associated with this blog are I propose the idea that Evil Genius is a rearrangement of letters. Now Evil backwards is live but Live Suineg just doesn't do it for me.
Does anyone have any ideas?
It does make sense (thinking his/their way) that the 'true message' is hidden in Evil Genius, as nothing (in Scripture at least) can be taken at face value according to these guys.
Go for it!
A suggestion: you can also make vile from evil. You can also construct senile with ivug left over!
Warwick, snap out of it. You'll go mad trying to work those guys out.
There are Psychiatrists earning a decent sized fee ironing out creases in other people who display the same type of irrationality demonstrated by those who twist clear utterances of God.
Neil
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