RE: Schaefer's Book.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Roberts
> Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2004 3:23 PM

> I do have grave problems and doubts about the attempts you,
> Glenn and others make trying to find some CONCORD between
> modern science and Genesis one. The writer had no knowledge
> or concern about science and beyond the fact that God is
> creator of all that is and a very superficial concord (which
> breaks down if we attempt any detailed harmony) there are no
> links between Gen 1 and science.

And if the account is only the work of the human writer, I would agree
with you and then decide that Genesis isn't worthy of being considered
for any serious use at all. The fact is, the Bible is supposed to be
divinely inspired, what ever that means in practice. If God inspired it,
but he inspired stupidity, then how do we have any confidence in
anything he wrote.

I have grave concerns about your view that there is no concord. In my
book, it makes the Bible false. Simply false and our atheist critics
are correct.

I see Gen 1 as a hymn to god
> the creator put in the cosmology of its day, and am close to
> Paul Seely on this..

Paul Seely's views nearly convinced me that Christianity and Judaism are
false. I like Paul a lot. I help him any time I can. I consider him a
friend. But I find his views apalling. Jesus teaching a different
religion from Judaism? Isn't that what David Koresh did?

It disturbs me that we don't find it worrisome that every succeeding
religious leader claims to supplant the previous religion. And Paul
Seely says Jesus did that.

        "Now, it seems to us that what is manifested here is the
built-in obsolescence of the Mosaic law (cf. Hebrews 8:13). Its
legalities were appropriate to the age in which and for which they were
given (cf. Galatians 3:23-25; Matthew 19:8) but, with the progress of
revelation and in particular with the coming of the King and inbreaking
kingdom, the Lord of the Sabbath redefines the law in terms of God's
ultimacies rather than His temporalities." Paul Seely, Inerrant Wisdom,
(Portland: Evangelical Reform, 1989), p. 77

What of Islam? What of Mormonism? What of Sun Myung Moon? All of whom
say that they superceded Christianity. Whom are we to believe? Why
believe that Jesus taught truth and superceded entirely Judaism, and not
believe Mohammed's claim? Or Moon's claims? If Jesus represented
progress in revelation why doesn't Mohammed? It is so illogical to me.
But then, I am hopelessly concordistic.

I won't make a big issue about this as
> there are more important things to worry about e.g. whether
> there is a God, whether the earth is ancient and whether we
> are running out of oil, etc.

I do, because if Genesis is false and God doesn't really know what
happened when he created the world and is incapable of communicating
that knowledge to humanity, then either:

1. God is Plato's demiurge who doesn't even know we were created
2. God is bumbling and inept and can't do anything right (i.e.
communication)
3. God is not the god of creation because he wasn't there.
4. God isn't there.
Received on Sat Aug 14 19:00:25 2004