>I agree completely with the comment on the two-book approach.
>However, I can't reconcile the sentiment expressed here with the
>closing sentences in your post:
>"Genesis 1 can not be understood as miraculous if one believes in an
>old universe. Plants simply did not appear before the sun appeared."
>
>Whilst it is legitimate to use our studies of earth history to
>illuminate the Bible, we must operate on the principle that God is
>the author of all truth. Glenn - you give the appearance here of
>reinterpreting the Bible on the basis of what you believe from
>science. I would suggest it more appropriate to say: "Based on the
>interpretation of Genesis 1 as "days of proclamation", it is not
>appropriate to view the account as historical."
>
I knew I was going to get in trouble for that one. :-( I wrote it very
poorly. Look at what I wrote to Joe Faurote tonight. Let's say this. If a
religion requires me to believe that there were medieval type cities
spread all over the North American continent then I am going to have hard
times believing that because there is no evidence for it and much evidence
against such a view. If the religion requires me to believe that there
were chariots here, then I am going to have trouble because the indians
never invented the wheel.
Now as I look at what Christian apologists tell me the Bible requires me
to believe and I look at the geological data, I feel very similar to the
position the above religion places me in. The apologetic requires me to
believe what can not be true.
As to using science to interpret the Bible, we all do that. Look at this:
"To all of them this idea seemed dangerous; to most of them
it seemed damnable. St. Basil and St. Ambrose were tolerant
enough to allow that a man might be saved who thought the earth
inhabited on its opposite sides; but the great majority of the
fathers doubted the possibility of salvation to such
misbelievers.
"The great champion of the orthodox view was St. Augustine.
Though he seemed inclined to yield a little in regard to the
sphericity of the earth, he fought the idea that men exist on the
other side of it saying that 'Scripture speaks of no such
descendants of Adam.' He insists that men could not be allowed
by the almighty to live there, since if they did they could not
see Christ at his second coming descending through the air. But
his most cogent appeal, one which we find echoed from theologian
to theologian during a thousand years afterward, is to the
nineteenth Psalm, and to its confirmation in the Epistle to the
Romans; to the words, 'Their line is gone out through all the
earth, and their words to the end of the world.' He dwells with
great force on the fact that St. Paul based one of his most
powerful arguments upon his declaration regarding the preachers
of the gospel, and that he declared even more explicitly that
'Verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words to
the ends of the world.' Thenceforth we find it constantly
declared that, as those preachers did not go to the antipodes, no
antipodes can exist; and hence that the supporters of this
geographical doctrine 'give the lie direct to King David and to
St. Paul, and therefore to the Holy Ghost.' Thus the great
Bishop of Hippo taught the whole world for over a thousand years
that, as there was no preaching the gospel on the opposite side
of the earth, there could be no human beings there."~Andrew D.
White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in
Christendom,1, (New York: George Braziller, 1955), p.103-104
When the voyages of discovery found people at the antipodes, Christians
were forced to use their observations to re-interpret the Bible. The same
with the flat earth, the same with the earth revolving around the sun. I
am in a long tradition of using science to interpret the Bible. Unless
you believe in geocentrism you have departed from the beliefs of the early
Christians (who believed Ptolemy's astronomy).
>I think we are using "mediate" in different senses. In my
>understanding, mediate creation refers to creative acts of God using
>materials that had a prior existence. Thus the man was formed from
>the dust of the ground (pre-existing materials) and his origin can be
>categorised as mediate creation. Am I using the term in the commonly-
>accepted sense? I'd appreciate feedback on this.
>
I had never seen the word 'mediate' so I looked it up. It meant using a
secondary agent. God was the immediate creator of Man; the mediate
creator of plants and animals.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm