Okay, so it is a bit disturbing when the head transubstantiationist says that we need not believe in magic.
Now I grant that his subject was not the Lord’s Supper, but rather creation and evolution, but still. His subject was God’s relationship to the world, which is relevant in all things. We must keep in mind that the pontiff’s remarks were run through the interpretive grid of journalism, which has an enormous capacity to muddle things, but even so, we also have to admit that these comments, taken at face value, are what analytic logicians are wont to call a “dog’s breakfast.”
In their scramble to stay away from boo! words and phrases, respectable theologians can talk almost perfect nonsense about creation and intelligent design. “No, no, I am not a creationist. Well, yes, God did create everything . . .” “No, no, not intelligent design. All the designing occurred earlier.”
What it boils down to is that accomodationist Christians, who are in a state of low tension with the surrounding environment of unbelief, want to keep it that way. Low tension is the way to go, and you can still be in with the right crowd, you can still get invited to the right parties. This results in the constant efforts of accommodationist Christians to figure out ways of getting their unbelief to look like belief. The unbelievers outside can smell the aroma of a shared disbelief, and the believers inside can be fooled by the words — or, at any rate, not know how to respond to them. They know something is wrong, but are not quite sure how to take it apart.
And of course, the low tension johnnies are all about missional outreach — they say we have to lower barriers for unbelievers so that they are not “put off.” What they are really about is not being put off themselves. Because — when it comes to the growth of religious groups, and to speak as a sociologist would — high tension groups are the ones that grow.
So, to cut to the chase, God created the world, the heavens and the earth. He did it by the blam! method. First there wasn’t anything, and just a few days later, there were fruit trees all over the place. The fruit was just hanging there, like it had been ripening for months, and the tree growing for years, but it had actually been ripening for just a few minutes. A few days later, Adam and Eve, just like in the Sunday School coloring books, came walking through the Garden, hand in hand.
God did this thing. He had a design in it, and He is also intelligent. Put these things together — now follow me closely here — and the result can be called intelligent design. Since it was created, we can also say — unless we want to be intellectually respectable — that it was created.
God isn’t “a magician with a magic wand,” says the Pope. While he couldn’t create the world in 6 days, he could part the Red Sea, be born of a virgin, turn water to wine, walk on water, raise people from the dead, and raise himself from the dead. And for the Catholics, turn bread and wine to body and blood every Sunday. Those are all believable and don’t require “magic,” but creating everything like it says in the Bible is just too magical. No, this isn’t the Pope changing the way he reads the Bible because it makes more… Read more »
“groups … that grow”
Somewhere tagged on at the end of one of your CanonWired audios there’s you shouting the question of what we’re all about to a gaggle of kiddos.
The joyful answer echoed back immediately, loudly & bravely, something like:
“Kill the dragon!; Save the girl!”
Now that’s the heroic tension we need!
Thanks for the clarity as always. On the topic of accommodation, doesn’t it seem strange that even people who say they believe God created Adam and Eve as adults (i.e. created with the “appearance of age”) struggle so much to believe that things like trees, rocks, or even stars would also be created with the appearance of age? Why is God “lying” to make starlight that looks as though it has been in transit for millions of years, but it’s perfectly legit to make, say, a human that looks 25 years old?
“During the creation, the morning and evening are counted until, on the sixth day, all things which God then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely signalized. What kind of days these were is extremely difficult or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say.” -St. Augustine, setting the bar lower-
Dear St Augustine,
If the seventh creation day, the day that God blessed (Gen. 2:3), was the first earthly Sabbath, to be kept by us (Exod. 20:11), why are the previous six creation days inscrutable?
I have commented on this before and am doing so again. Some day, I will understand the argument well enough to teach it. Until then I will merely link to the argument. Dr. Sarah Salviander is a Christian and has a Phd in Astrophysics. She has/is doing work in reconciling the literal 6 days of Genesis with the literal 6 days of the Big-Bang using the Cosmic Background Radiation as a clock. The result is the typical ‘yes and’ nature of our God, matching both His truth and His sense of humor (remember when the CBR was discovered disproving the… Read more »
Also, when it comes to the current Pope, I am sympatico to Anne Barnhardt’s take on the matter. According to her, the current Pope is a judgement on the Catholic church. I find her reasoning convincing.
cheers.
t
John K.-
Haven’t the faintest. My point is that if we’re going to be bandying about accusations of infidelity to the Genesis creation account, we should at least be consistent in our choice of targets. Come to think of it, maybe someone should issue a retrospective anathema on the memory of C.S. Lewis. He certainly didn’t believe in a 6-day creation.
Regards,
Thomas Banks
Thomas Banks-
So far as I’m aware, nobody has ever successfully charged the creator of Narnia with being dubious of God’s ability to do magic. If you think he’s a good case study of accommodating the latest fads of the scientists, methinks you’re barking up the wrong tree, or at the very least have never read a word of the man.
Regards,
John R.
John R.-
“I have been suspected of being what is called a Fundamentalist…But this I do not hold, any more than St. Jerome did when he said that Moses described Creation “after the manner of a popular poet.”
-C.S. Lewis, “Reflections on the Psalms”-
Actually, my point was that neither Lewis, nor St. Augustine, nor the current pope should be dismissed as spineless accommadationists simply because they allowed for the possibility that the creation account in Genesis admits of interpretations other than the Fundamentalist one.
Pax tecum,
TB
Once again you have stated the simple truth simply. Thanks.
Hi Mr. Banks
“the creation account in Genesis admits of interpretations other than the Fundamentalist one”
But how about other than the magical one.
St. A & Lewis say no.
The popeage says yes, correct?
simply because they allowed for the possibility that the creation account in Genesis admits of interpretations other than the Fundamentalist one. Good thing that’s not the simple objection to the Pope’s words here, then. The objection at hand isn’t that he “allows for the possibility of” varying interpretations of Genesis. It’s that the head of a church ostensibly built on a series of ordinarily incredible supernatural events — and one that believes that its ministers effect a sort of magic millions of times a day — speaks disparagingly of a belief in “magic” in order to discredit certain views. That… Read more »
Now now. I saw the headline “God is not a divine being or a magician, but the Creator” and immediately thought, good, the Pope knows the difference between being and existing. R.C. Sproul Jr. put up a thingy about it today. Maybe the news inspired him.
Cutting to the chase: Reality has its being in God, not vice versa. The question of timing is nowhere near as important.
Ms. Dunsworth-
“…one that believes that its ministers effect a sort of magic millions of times a day…”
If you’re referring to the role of priests in the administration of the Sacraments, I can only say that the Catholic Church does not hold this to be a “magical” role. Priests are not wizards, nor do we pretend that they are. Likewise, the Catholic Church has never taught that God is a wizard. Again, how precisely Pope Francis has broken with magisterial tradition in his recent comments remains a mystery to me.
Thomas —
my point is that what the Catholic Church believes happens in the Mass is magical in the same sense as creation ex nihilo in six days. Either magic is the right word for both, or for neither. And if it’s the right word, then what’s the objection to believing in it?
And if it’s the wrong word, then applying the category “magical” to anything supernatural that cannot happen under normal physical laws is wrong in both cases, and not an appropriate way to talk about the power of an omnipotent God to create ex nihilo.
Also, Pope Francis is the one who introduced “magic” into this discussion. People who believing creation ex nihilo in six days are not in the habit of accusing God of being a “magician.” But if you’re going to call that “magic,” then lots of things could be called “magic.” You can’t have it both ways.
The phrasing was kind of daft, but I see what he was getting at. He is making a distinction between natural processes and miraculous subversion of those processes and considers creation to be part of the former. Transubstantiation would be part of the latter.
Matt,
How could creation ex nihilo be part of a natural process?
I heard Pastor Stoos frame the issue this way: what evidence, from the words of Scripture, compels or even invites us to consider long eons of creation? Of course the temptation for some would be to respond, quickly, that God has also given us the book of nature, in addition to Scripture. Fine, but I think it’s important to let the question sink in for a minute or two. Given that our hearts are slippery, and will tend to filter out facts and information that doesn’t conform to our appetites, shouldn’t we be all the more willing, as a matter… Read more »
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun
“the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow“
Do young-earthers universally hold that God made stuff look “old” (appearance of age &/or use) from the get-go?
Do they cite any Scriptures?
No fair with the “Adam as adult” or “full-growed tree” comments, because you can imagine a newly-created one second old Adam or tree.
But a tree with tree rings, or Adam with a belly-button or worn teeth — now that’d be quotable as evidence.
Samuel, Why is God “lying” to make starlight that looks as though it has been in transit for millions of years, but it’s perfectly legit to make, say, a human that looks 25 years old? It is not making light in transit (even light with the signature of the star it is from) that is the problem, it is the evidence of supernova that appear to have occurred greater than 6000 years that is the problem. But light is not a discriminating problem as both ancient and young earths/ universes have (effectively) the same problem. The various solutions are interesting… Read more »
bethyada — how is light a problem for ancient earthers?
Eric, the horizon problem
Eric, every story worth reading begins with a good “hook,” or thing that not only grips you but also carries meaning and foreshadowing. Scientifically, the rings on the tree are no harder to explain than the age of the singularity which exploded. Both “look” old simply by existing at all. But I’ll take the tree rings because, though they have the same problem as the singularity of looking older than they are, I’d much rather hear a story that starts with stuff I recognize than not. Creation in six days which is echoed through the pages of the Bible is… Read more »
katecho,
What “straightforward (if simplisitic) reading of Genesis” necessarily gives us a young creation? And if it is a simplistic reading doesn’t that somewhat contradict the straightforward part?
Why is an appeal to something necessarily outside of an account presented by Scripture a problem if it involves details that are not addressed in Scripture (like how long ago) and does not contradict the point that is addressed in Scripture?
timothy I find this promising because it reconciles the YEC and OEC/ID schools of thought. As I YECist I can inform you that this definitely does not reconcile the YEC and OEC schools. A clarification that while many IDers are OECists, ID itself is compatible with YEC. The slide show is accurate as far as the scientific facts go (light, time-dilation, etc). Some of the interpretative ideas can be questioned (YECists would dispute the explanation for background radiation for example). And the interface with Scripture has serious difficulties with a young earth: pre-Adamic hominids, death before Fall, order of creation… Read more »
JSO — gotcha, but some of the Christian movies or books are sappy and sentimental and shallow, don’t you think?
Young earth has that same feel.
Does middle earth not grab you?
bethyada — “death before Fall“:
Does your team say lions killing prey was a post fall phenom?
Did God recreate them to handle meat?
Theologically, why would / or did He?
Also — in this line — how do YECs understand “in that day” you shall surely die. Was that a literal day? A literal death?
In a young girl’s heart!
Eric, Middle Earth does grab me. It’s been awhile since I read The Silmarillion, but I remember Eru has the Ainar sing the world into existence. And the elves don’t evolve, they are formed, right? Some other stories perhaps we can agree on. Gravity-starts with a man and woman in space. No backstory, they just appear. Obviously way too sentimental and sappy–Why couldn’t they explain to us how those astronauts got up there and why they look so much like, well, astronauts? The Judge-Fantastic new film, perhaps you haven’t seen it yet. But it starts with two lawyers in the… Read more »
Does your team say lions killing prey was a post fall phenom? Yes. God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. Genesis 1Did God recreate them to handle meat? Lions can live on… Read more »
“In that day” is an idiom for “when”. Did it include literal death, yes; especially when we see the proximity of the tree of knowledge of good and evil to the tree of life, the necessity of the cherubim to guard the tree of life, and the fact that Adam physically died.
Time on the media have the pope wrong.
Why do we say that the Earth looks old? Why do we think that the way that the Earth looks is a you different than your run-of-the-mill 6-10,000 year-old planet?
There’s strange tactic I’ve noticed that may or may not have been involved here, but I’m pretty sure it’s been used against the current Roman pontiff.
If you know that someone holds a position that is unpopular with a portion of his supporters, just claim that he holds the opposite. This forces him to clearly state his position, causing disdain among those who, for a moment, thought he’d come around to their side.
I suppose Spurgeon was an accommodationist who coveted invitations to Upper West Side cocktail parties.
Why doesn’t anyone find the Big Bang Theory difficult to believe? Is it because it is claimed by some scientists? (and by the way, what makes one a scientist?) The very same scientists who have given us global cooling, I mean warming, I mean climate change, I mean give them your money and power? If ever the scientific community has had a black eye and near zero credibility with the average person, it’s today. Why do some Christians keep falling all over them?
Basically God created some initial matter and processes, then let it go. There was still a creative process there, but when we say “creationism” or increasingly even “creation” it almost always refers to a specific understanding thereof: YEC.
I’m no YEC, but I don’t really have any issue with anyone holding this position. However, if this is how it was, you can’t really fault people for seeing the tree rings, seeing how fruit develops, and concluding that it wasn’t just a few minutes ago.
Well they’re commenting on the “Pope breaks with tradition” angle. The Catholic Church has been friendlier to evolution than other churches. YEC is basically a North American phenomenon and barely registers outside of the US. But the gist of Francis’ comments vis-a-vis magicians and wands are accurately transcribed. I looked up the original comments just to make sure.
@eric – “Does your team say lions killing prey was a post fall phenom” to add to bethyada’s response: Isaiah 11:6-7 – “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. Isaiah 65:25 – The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, The lion shall eat straw like the ox,… So… Read more »
bethyada — thanks for those answers. Do I summarize you correctly:
Adam didn’t die in the very same day he ate the unlawful fruit?
David — you take those passages literally?
Who are those kiddos roaming about unsupervised?
That God could have made Adam with a navel must be allowed.
You have start a creation somewhere.
YECs say He started pretty much at the end.
But OECs have the navel problem too — how old would fresh & shiny original molecules appear under the scope? — way older than they were.
“David — you take those passages literally?”
Isaiah 11 is a prophetic passage speaking about the reign of Jesse’s Offspring, the Messiah. This chapter describes what that reign will be like. The wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the goat, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. Natural enemies, predator and prey, will no longer fear each other. The lamb will no longer be victim to the wolf. So I take this passage to literally mean that there will be peace, not only among nations and peoples, but within creation itself.
Eric Stampher wrote: “the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow” Presumably, Eric is quoting Hab 3:6 to suggest that Scripture contains an old-earth account of creation. Unfortunately, this is what I referred to as an attempt to search Scripture to merely accommodate an external theory. Notice how the passage does not offer a creation narrative at all, but represents a snippet that is supposed to suggest or imply something really old. Additionally, there are serious exegetical problems for Eric’s attempt. The words “everlasting” and “perpetual” can imply something about the infinite past, or about the infinite future,… Read more »