On Thu, 19 Feb 1998 19:14:43 -0500, Jim Bell wrote:
>SJ>To me the major problem with uniformitarianism (especialy among
>theists) is that it implicitly denies that God could have intervened
>in geological history and assumes in a strong sense that "the
>present is the key to the past."
JB>Hi, Steve. Yes, I agree with you here. My point was about a
>particular moment in time when Scripture says God performed a
>miracle vis-a-vis the flood waters. That seems to be a wild card
>that frustrates uniformitarians like Glenn, but I've been trying to
>explain that the frustration is caused by their own, faulty
>premise, viz., that God should have provided a certain kind of
>evidence, and because he did not he is "deceitful."
I agree that God is not obligated to provide all the evidence that
we want, but only what we need. Indeed, the Bible actually says that
God deliberately hides things:
Isa 45:15 "Truly you are a God who hides himself, O God and Savior
of Israel"; Ps 18:26 "to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the
crooked you show yourself shrewd." [the original "shrewd" here has
the idea of a wrestler who ducks and weaves so the enemy cannot grab
him); Jn 12:40 "He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts,
so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their
hearts, nor turn--and I would heal them"; Mt 11:25 "At that time
Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed
them to little children.'
No doubt an anti-theist can claim this is decitful, but there is no
deceit here because God clearly says up front what His policy is.
SJ>...Genesis 8:1 ascribes the cause of the floodwaters receding to
>a "wind". The word for "wind" [Heb. ruach] here is the same word
>translated "Spirit" in Genesis Gn 1:2. There is a strong but
>subtle parallelism between the Creation story in Genesis 1-3 and
>the post-Flood re-establishment story in Genesis 8-9. If the
>"wind" in Genesis 8:1 was the Spirit of Genesis 1:2, then there
>should be no difficulty at all for theists in assuming that God
>supernaturally removed all the water, along with the sediment and
>the dead human and animal bodies.
JB>Interesting! And also recall that God made the ground dry by
>"wind" when the Israelites were escaping from Yul Brynner.
Yes. And the Spirit sounded like "the blowing of a violent wind"
when He came upon the disciples at Pentecost:
"When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one
place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came
from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came
to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy
Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled
them." (Acts 2:1-4)
SJ>Normally I don't like postulating miracles as an escape from
>Biblical a difficulty, but here such a miracle is well supported by
>both the Biblical text and the practical realities of re-
>establishing the post-Flood environment in pristine condition so
>life could return to normal.
JB>I agree. Scripture is explicit about a miraculous clean up of
>the flood. I just noticed that a couple of days ago, and it's been
>fascinating to follow that up. I may be missing something very
>important, and if so, I'd like to find out what it is.
Agreed. There is good evidence, both textual and practical that
suggests that there was no thick layer of stinking, disease-laden,
corpse-filled, mud all over the post-Flood land that Noah, his family
and the animals disembarked onto. For a theist to just apriori rule
out God's acting supernaturally in such a case, when the Bible
suggests it, practical reason demands it, and the evidence supports
it, is difficult to understand.
Steve
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Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au
Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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