Evidence for God from Science

God is the sustainer of all that exists.
Nothing can exist apart from Him.
He doesn't need to run everything since He sustains all.

Thank you for reminding me to get back to this thread!

*Begins reading the book again . . .*

Well it’s been a long time, but I wanted to take some time and start responding to your arguments, K. I’ll ask for the same general indulgence as did you. I won’t take as many pages or posts—at least, I don’t think I will—but I do want to take this chance to offer a substantive response. You’ve said a lot I agree with, and, of course, a lot that I don’t, and I think it’s for everyone’s benefit (certainly yours and mine) if we can see what those agreements ought to entail and the basis for disagreement.

So much for introductory pleasantries. Let’s get right into things, shall we?

First, on the issue of single meaning. I know that you state early on that you intend “to accept it based upon authority (ICBI’s) because I have not fully explored the reasoning behind it. Therefore, I accept this principle to the degree that ICBI have defined it.” I think the further you get into your posts,^* the more it becomes apparent that you aren’t as accepting of it as you’d like to be—or, at least, as you say you intend to be. There’s nothing wrong with that in principle. The ICBI could be wrong. But as it is a basic issue of methodology and how we come to our conclusions, I think it’s important that we have a fuller understanding of it. I won’t try to discuss the historical reasons behind the argument. I don’t think that would be helpful and, frankly, I have neither the time nor energy to look up all the references that would require. But I do want to briefly lay out my understanding as to why the issue of single meaning is so important.

Put simply, I claim that any idea that undermines the nature of the Scriptures themselves as objectively revelatory, both for the modern reader and the original reader must be rejected as false. That is why I reject allegory as a proper method of interpretation. Take Pope Gregory the Great’s interpretation of Job, in which he claimed that Job’s seven refer to the twelve apostles! (Morals 1.19) It should go without saying that if that is what the Holy Spirit had in mind, then we’re all up a creek without a paddle when it comes to biblical interpretation. Who knows what any text means? Don’t even bother appealing to tradition or the teaching of men like Gregory, because if he can interpret the text that way, why can’t I interpret his texts in the same way and so make it mean anything I want it to mean?!?

That’s low-hanging fruit, though. My real concern isn’t with allegory, which robs the text of its revelatory nature to any and all readers—but this more conservative idea that the text has a deeper, hidden meaning that is only revealed later on. It seems like this is fine, because the text still means what it meant, so to speak, which allows it to retain objectivity. On this view, Job’s seven sons really represented his seven sons. But perhaps later Scripture might reveal that Job’s seven sons also represented something else (say, the twelve apostles). The problem is that the only way for that meaning to be objectively revelatory is if there is some later text that explicitly makes such a connection (otherwise, we’re just back to useless allegory)—that is, some later, inspired text has to say and mean explicitly by the normal rules of grammar that there was a hidden meaning in Job’s story. Fine, but I then come to this point: that meaning could not, in principle, be discovered in the text it was written by the original inspired writer, not to us, and certainly not to the original reader. In practice, then, the “second meaning” isn’t really found in the original text, but rather in the later text assigning that meaning to the former. In reality, the only passages that come close to anything like that are the NT passages that find Christ in the OT, and even those instances are sparse and I think all of them can be understood in other, better, ways.

But, anyway, to stay on track, my concerns is that if we think there is a second meaning in the text itself that the author is unaware of, then what we are actually saying is that the meaning of those words has become divorced from those words as they are written. Meaning, then, resides in something other than the words (certainly not in the author’s intention). And what would that something other be? Tradition? Reader response? Subjective experience? Even future Scripture? If the last of these, then what about that Scripture itself? How do we know that it doesn’t have a future meaning?

Now, having said all of that, it seems to me the easiest and most obvious move is just to reject as unwarranted this whole idea of second meaning. The obvious principle in this case is the best one: we take the words to mean exactly what they say, no more and no less. As you point out, we don’t have the authors here to tell us if they meant something other than what they wrote, so the best we can do is take the words at face value and not look for hidden meanings.

Taking this back to the original issue that started all this, one obvious application of this debate is the meaning of the word yom. Now, we can look at it in one of the following ways:

• 1. It means exactly what it says, no more and no less
  • 1a. What it means, in its context, and by authorial intent is a normal day (the “ordinary” use of the term)
    1b. What it means, in its context, and by authorial intent is an unspecified period of time (a “literal” but less common use of the term); OR
  2. It means something other than what it says
  • 2a. It refers metaphorically or allegorically to a literal age
    2b. It is a literary device with no literal referent (e.g., Augustine’s interpretation of creation as an instantaneous event)
    2c. It is a literary device with only an internal referent (e.g., Walton’s Temple Dedication interpretation or the more classical Framework interpretation)

I think that is pretty much every conceivable possibility here. I reject all forms of 2 for reasons stated above. And even if I were to take a weaker position and allow that there is a second meaning not literally in this text but found in another text (and ignore the problems with such a view), it still follows that we have to choose between 1a or 1b, because Genesis 1 still has to mean something as it is written. And what that means—and this is important—is that no later text can impose a meaning of Genesis 1 that is not present in the text, in its context, by authorial intent that contradicts what is present in the text, in its context, by authorial intent. In other words, if we discovery upon examination of Genesis 1 and Genesis 1 alone that the word yom clearly means (and so should be translated!) “unspecified period of time,” then no text later can find the meaning “normal day” in the same text, since that would create a contradiction of meanings. The same is true if the original meaning is “normal day” and a later text finds the word to mean “a long period of time.” Again, we would have an irreconcilable contradiction in meaning.

The upshot to all of this is that, when trying to decide what Genesis 1 means—specifically how long the yomim were—we simply cannot appeal to outside texts unless we have an ambiguous meaning that permits both interpretations such that the original readers would have had access to that meaning. Anything less and we, at best, deny the original text of its revelatory value (since we are now saying the text meant something that the original audience could not have known, and therefore, the text was non-revelatory to its original audience); or at worst, we have created a contradiction between the earlier and later texts.

I want, then, my reasoning above to be clear, because I will use it and defend it for the remainder of my responses. Anything that requires, implies, or is based on a second “deeper” meaning must be rejected as out of step with good hermeneutical practices insofar as it robs the text as it was written of its revelatory value, which would mean that the text was not divine revelation but only became divine revelation when the later text was revealed. And if we permit that, then we must be consistent and acknowledge that the later text also cannot be regarded as divine revelation, since the principle established means that a future text could come along and render our present (modified) understanding of the text as well as our understanding of this later text has some hidden meaning that we were not capable of seeing.

In other words, the whole notion of second meanings makes all revelation, indeed all communication, impossible. Revelation has to be reduced to some Barthian neo-orthodoxy in which the Bible becomes the Word of God when you experience God in it for yourself, and in that case, nothing has any meaning, anyway. The Bible may as well say, “lalala lla lalalal la lalla alal allala alala.” What you get out of it is revelation to you and what I get out of it is revelation to me. But as that is absurd, so is the whole concept of multiple meanings in a text.

I hope that’s a fair start to my overall response to your arguments!


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*. A part of me would like to offer several examples here to illustrate my charge, but I’m going to pass on that for the simple reason that I don’t want our discussion to become a debate about what you did or didn’t mean. Suffice it to say that I’ll try to point out the examples as I see them as we go along. You are, of course, free to dispute my assessment that you are tending to violate the principle at these given points or even in general.

Jac,

Reading your response as an OEC, I think you're being fair in what you wrote thus far. And I've been waiting for your response to K on this. I'm really interested in this topic.

Fair is good! I hope it stays that way.

So let’s continue by talking about some of the above with reference to my paper.

I want to start by quoting myself:

I wrote: You said, "it seems you’ve actually failed to justify the prophecies in Psalm, especially in regard to a dying Messiah, using the Historical-Grammatical method." But my paper didn't argue that that David foretold a dying Messiah. I am presently of the view that we can get that out of Isaiah 53 (and as you know, there were Jews in Jesus' day who expected two Messiahs--one suffering and dying, and the other a conqueror); but Ps 16 and Ps 22 make no such predictions. In fact, I say in the conclusion, " the general principle of Psalm 16 is that is that God will preserve His chosen vessels—especially the Davidic King—a truth that cannot be more greatly fulfilled that in the resurrection of Christ. Likewise, Psalm 22 promises vindication to those who are mocked and suffer for their faith. Again, Christ’s resurrection fulfills this is a truth in the grandest possible sense." Now, perhaps my argument does fail. That remains to be seen. But since I'm actually denying that David is predicting a dying Messiah, you can't use that failure to demonstrate that he did believe in a dying Messiah as evidence against my argument!

So your point was that you think I “have assumed that David and his hearers would have known the Messiah as the one Christians believed in (Jesus), rather than being the one they themselves actually expected.” The Jews didn’t expect a dying Messiah. But I’m afraid my point isn’t being accurately represented with this line of thought. As I note above, I do not believe that the Psalms (and David in particular) predicted a dying Messiah. I don’t think that there is some second, deeper meaning of a dying Messiah in the Psalms. For the reader interested in what I think the NT is doing in quoting the Psalms as being fulfilled, I refer them to the paper in question for the details, but the gist of it is this: the Psalms teach that “that is that God will preserve His chosen vessels—especially the Davidic King—a truth that cannot be more greatly fulfilled that in the resurrection of Christ. Likewise, Psalm 22 promises vindication to those who are mocked and suffer for their faith. Again, Christ’s resurrection fulfills this is a truth in the grandest possible sense.”

As such, we do not need to find secondary meanings or typological fulfillments in the OT psalms (or, I would submit, anywhere else!). And this goes to your point. We need to distinguish between people’s expectations and the contents of the text itself. Regarding the text itself, I simply deny that the Psalms predict a suffering and dying Messiah and that the NT reads the Psalms in affirming such a prediction. Therefore, it doesn’t matter whether or not the people expected a dying Messiah. Such is entirely immaterial to the interpretation of the Messianic psalms. What they should have expected was the Messiah to be preserved, to be a Davidic King, and to be vindicated. We, of course, can see how that plays out in Jesus’ death and resurrection, but just because we can see how the death and resurrection fit in with that scheme, it doesn’t mean that those ideas are hidden in the texts themselves.

And that takes us to people’s expectations. Put bluntly, we can just ignore that all the way around. It frankly doesn’t matter what people expected, because people can be wrong. My claim in looking for a single meaning of Genesis 1 or any other passage is not that we must affirm tradition (which is the public expectation/understanding of a passage). My claim is that we must affirm exactly what the text says and nothing else. If people have been wrong about their expectation when the text clearly contradicts their expectation, then the problem is with them, not the text, and not with us!

As it relates to Genesis 1, you make the following claim:

Maybe I'm missing something, but it does look like a double-standard is being applied here. That is, you assume it is alright for David and his immediate audience to have particular knowledge about the Messiah, but then turn around and declare what Moses could or could not have known or intended regarding the Genesis creation.

I don’t see a double-standard. First, I’ve already denied that David is predicting a dying Messiah, but even if he were, in rejecting double meanings I am not rejecting predictive prophecy. Psalm 110 is explicitly predictive! How could David have known that the Messiah would be from his own line? To use your words, “Some divine intention needed to be communicated, such that David’s own intentions are aligned to God’s and ‘single meaning’ justified.” To this I say, “Of course!” Yes, God communicated His intention to David, and David wrote that down, and that is the single meaning of the text. Likewise, if God intended to tell Moses that He created in seven successive ages as the Day-Age interpretation would have us believe, then God was more than capable of communicating that intention to Moses. And if God did, in fact, communicate that intention to Moses, then we must see that in the text that he wrote down. That is, the yomim must refer to ages, and that would be in the text itself—not in some later text showing a deeper, hidden, second meaning of yom.

And all of this constitutes the first example of where I think you are moving away from the historical-grammatical method (hereafter, HGM). To quote you again, you state:

Furthermore, if the original author (David) and hearers have a different conception of the Messiah compared to us Christians (as appears to be the case), then it seems you’ve actually failed to justify the prophecies in Psalm, especially in regard to a dying Messiah, using the Historical-Grammatical method.

Therefore, to claim that the NT authors adhered to a Historical-Grammatical hermeneutic appears to be begging the question. THAT SAID, I don’t think it is entirely your fault. Rather it is actually a weakness to the Historical-Grammatical method that I mentioned earlier.

Having dealt with the substance of the charge, it seems to me that you are implicitly suggesting (if not explicitly given your italicized part) that the HGM is simply insufficient on some level to lead us to a proper, biblical interpretation. Of course, I think the HGM does lead us to such an interpretation, but ignore that and suppose you are right. Suppose the HGM fails us. Suppose we are left with deeper, secondary, hidden meanings, both in the Psalms with reference to Christ and, presumably, with the days of Genesis 1. Fine. Then per my first post above, I submit to you that we cannot know what any text means. We are either thoroughgoing single-meaning adherents or we must reject all objective revelation. In doing that, we must all either becomes Barthians, for whom the only revelation is 100% subjective, or else Catholics, for at least they have a magisterium to tell them what the text actually means (although I fail to see how on such a few that the magisterium’s own words aren’t subject to the same sort of scrutiny as applied to the biblical text, but that’s another debate for another time).

SO . . . if I’m right, we do have the problem of understanding the author’s meaning, as you point out. So that’ll be up next!

Jac3510 wrote:... or else Catholics, for at least they have a magisterium to tell them what the text actually means (although I fail to see how on such a few that the magisterium’s own words aren’t subject to the same sort of scrutiny as applied to the biblical text, but that’s another debate for another time).

Experientially, historically, it boils down to either subjectivism or deference. But as you said, another debate indeed.

P.S. Great discussion.

Byblos wrote:

Jac3510 wrote:... or else Catholics, for at least they have a magisterium to tell them what the text actually means (although I fail to see how on such a few that the magisterium’s own words aren’t subject to the same sort of scrutiny as applied to the biblical text, but that’s another debate for another time).

Experientially, historically, it boils down to either subjectivism or deference. But as you said, another debate indeed.

P.S. Great discussion.

I don't think so, Tim.
It's not subjectivism or deference. In one case, Protestantism, it's subjectivism and possibly deference, if we take someone else's word. And in the other case, Catholicism, it's deference AND subjectivism. Whoever you are deferring to, has their subjective interpretation.

Ok, last post for the night (and for a few days, I imagine ). This is by far the longest of the responses so far, but I think we are taking on a very deep issue that is fundamental in every sense of the word, so please forgive the dissertation . . .

Before dealing with the problems with authorial intent, I want to make one more comment about the two posts above. Some of this was covered early on. I want to highlight something you said back on the first page, K:

If that is all you are arguing for [my claim that "Psalm 16 is that is that God will preserve His chosen vessels—especially the Davidic King; . . . Psalm 22 promises vindication to those who are mocked and suffer for their faith"], and not in any way a prophecy of a suffering and crucified Messiah... then what I saw as a main flaw in your paper (assuming what David knew) is largely diminished.

Many just accept de facto that this is a prophecy dual-meaning in nature that refers to the crucifixion and all that goes with it. I don't really see any problem with this . . . Clearly you take the Historical-Critical approach to greater levels. Ones I've not before considered. There is merit to that. Seeing how far the matters can be pushed without resorting to a Higher Level view. Just be careful that the boulder you are pushing doesn't blind you to a cliff's edge lest you fall over with it.

Honestly, I had forgotten about your remark there before I said all the above, but I still think the above is helpful insofar as it further clarifies my thinking. I think this is also very important, because one of my complaints even with dispensationalists is that they often do not adhere to the HGM (I mean, to take an easy example, the seven churches of Revelation representing seven ages of church history . . . REALLY?!?). The treatment of Psalm 22 is a perfect demonstration of this. If we just accept, as you point out, that David was predicting a crucified Messiah, then we implicitly accept a two-meaning theory and therefore have to go beyond the HGM.

And that is my chief complaint. We should NEVER go beyond the HGM. EVER. When anyone does that, even me, it needs to be pointed out so that person who has overstepped the bounds of Scripture can retract their statement.

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Ok, fine, so my position ought to be as clear as humanly possible. But what about its weaknesses? The biggest one is the one Waltke raises. Namely, how do we know that we are getting at authorial intent? How do we know the author's thoughts? The obvious (indeed, the only) answer is through his words--the text on the page. But how do we know that we are understanding the words as he intended them to be understood? It seems circular to claim that we use his words to make sure that we know what he intended the words to mean!

On this point, we need to distinguish between the meaning of any given author and the meaning of any given text. In a perfect world, people would communicate perfectly, and the two would have perfect overlap. But this is not a perfect world, and people sometimes fail to communicate perfectly; or, more often, they communicate in words/phrases that can legitimately have more than one meaning. Consider the following example (and suppose, for the sake of illustration, this exchange happened in writing):

• Boss: Did you get the email I sent?
  Employee: Yes sir, the list of supplies?
  Boss: Yes. Please pay special attention to #4 as it is very bulky and takes up a lot of storage space. Be sure you accept it when receiving the shipment!
  Employee: Will do, sir!

That afternoon, the shipment comes, and the employee does what the boss says, and is dismayed to find he doesn't have room for everything. He calls his boss and realizes that boss wanted him to except the item from the list, not accept it. A silly example, but it demonstrates the difference in meaning residing in a text and meaning residing in intent. The boss meant he wanted the employee to reject the one item. His words, though, meant that he wanted the employee to receive that one item.

Now, consider a second example, this one from Scripture:

• But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

I'm interested in the underlined part. I'm going to offer two renderings that point out two ways this could be taken:

• 1. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does his love for God really abide in him?
  2. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love that God gives really abide in him?

So did John mean 1 or 2? It seems to me he had to mean one of the other! And, of course, per the HGM, what he meant is what the text really means. But here's the issue: what do the words themselves mean? The words themselves could mean either one. So, again, we see a potential distinction between meaning as residing in the author and meaning as residing in the text.

So I go back to Waltke's question. How do we know that we've gotten to the author's meaning if all we have are his words; for to be honest, we can only say we know the author's meaning to the extent that we know the words' meaning and we know that those words accurately convey his meaning. (As an aside, this is another reason to reject allegory as a proper hermeneutic, for on that view, meaning resides in neither the author's meaning nor in the text's meaning, but in the authority of the interpreter!) And here, while Waltke raises some important points, I don't think it is all that hopeless or that this is a weakness of the HGM. It might be a weakness of communication itself, but not of the HGM!

I'd start by making this statement: by and large, there is a significant overlap between the meaning of the text and the meaning of the author. Barring a mistake by the author, we can be confident that if we are able to understand what the words themselves objectively mean, we have arrived at the author's meaning. The only difficulty is where there is ambiguity, as in the second example. And even there, I would submit to you that while traditional grammar may not be helpful, linguistics and discourse grammar in particular can be. In other words, good exegesis can account for the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of these types of problems. Now, it seems that good exegesis cannot account for mistakes in authorial intent, but this is where I take it on faith that the biblical authors made no such mistakes in recording their thoughts. That just goes hand in hand with my belief in inspiration and inerrancy.

So, Waltke's objections notwithstanding, the fact is that the author's words are exactly the means by which we discover his meaning. But here we have to raise the important points he raises about what we bring into the text. He is, of course, correct that we all start with presuppositions and theologies. So how can we be sure that we're reading the author's theology out of the text and not our own?

The answer is simply good hermeneutics and a huge dose of humility. Look, I'll be honest here. If you want to see an interpretation in a text, it is going to be next to impossible for you not to see it. But that, I submit, is not a problem with the HGM. It is a problem with the interpreter. It's a human problem. The HGM says I should not hold any interpretation of a text that is not warranted by the text and the text alone. The moment I start appealing to other stuff, I'm toast, even if I don't want to admit it. The real weakness in the HGM here is its inability to persuade people of truth who don't want to be persuaded by it. But, again, is that really a problem with the HGM or with people in general? So the fact of the matter is that if I do my homework and I learn a thing or two about what the underlying words mean in their context, about the culture in which those words were written, about the historical framework of the passage, about the genre of the document, and so on, then I can know whether or not my view interpretation is warranted. Some views just are not. I mean, we have a very avid defender of the Gap Theory on this site. He insists that his interpretation of Genesis 1 is warranted, but you and I and pretty much everyone else knows that it just isn't (sorry, ACB, for using you as an unflattering example! ). The grammar just doesn't allow for it. It doesn't matter what other passages say. Genesis 1, as written, permits no such gap. Other people on this board think that theistic evolution is a permissible reading of the text (including Waltke, by the way). But you know what? They are just wrong. It is not. As neo-x has admitted (to use you as an example, my friend!), if evolution is true, then Genesis 1 is incorrect as it is written. He thinks the HGM leads us to something like YEC but that is a wrong position. So fine, at least he's honest!

So how do we know when we are making bad assumptions? Here (get ready to cheer, Byblos!), I think we need each other, or in more traditional language, we need tradition. We need the church. If I propose a reading of the text and everyone else tells me I'm wrong, that's a very good indicator that I should step back and honestly and humbly reconsider my position. How did I get there? What assumptions am I making that they aren't? In my field of chaplaincy, we have a tool we call the JoHari window. It's a really neat thing that helps us see that there are some things that others see about us that we do not see in ourselves. So we need others to show us our ignorance on these matters. So take an example you raised from my own paper. You wrote, "Of Psalm 16 Tom writes: "Evidently David had received a special revelation from the Lord that he would not die…" Evidently, influencing Tom's interpretation is that David received a special revelation that "he would not die." Did God tell David this directly? Or is Tom projecting his own meaning into the text? And interestingly, you (Jac) did not think that Tom's interpretation of the text was as evident as he would believe."

Notice what Tom is doing. He is reading something into the text. I submit to you that he should have known better. He is not practicing the HGM at this moment. And I gave the evidence for my reasoning as follows:

• A simple solution may lie in the fact that with exception to the first verse, there is no indication that David fears any particular danger at all. The word for “preserve” is שָמַר and simply means “be careful about” or “protect.” Rather than asking God to save him from a particular danger, David could simply be committing himself to God generally. If this is correct, then as David is not seeking deliverance from some particular danger, there is no reason to see verse 10 as God's promising deliverance from any particular danger.

Tom should have stepped back and asked if his idea was so "evident" after all. I am suggesting it is not, that the evidence in the text itself is against his position. He may not have thought of it, but he should have. And if he reads my paper, then he will, and he will have a chance to correct his thinking to what the HGM does warrant!

So all of this goes to a very general point: I am actually and truly suggesting that we cannot and must not use systematic theology or even what seems intuitive to us and read that into the text. That is always wrong! And let me tell you how far I take that. We are not permitted to read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. Go back to my posts above. The HGM forbids it. More generally, we are not permitted to take ANY later revelation and use it as a lens for interpreting an earlier one. The HGM forbids it. We interpret later texts in light of the former, not the other way around. I know that is contrary to much popular teaching, especially when it comes to seeing Jesus in the OT, but it is what we must do if we are to be honest with the text and with our interpretations. I'm not saying I never do this. I am saying that when I do it, that you and everyone else should call me out on it so that I can retract my statements.

Let me make a final note about ambiguity (per the quote from John above), as it relates to the Gen 1 debate. Words may have legitimately different meanings that can seem equally warranted by the text. In that case, I think it is fair and appropriate to consider how later Scripture interprets those words--especially if the later Scripture was written by the same or a related author. Here is an active example of tradition informing our exegesis and doing so validly. If the tradition is extra-biblical, I say it is non-binding, but depending on the pedigree of the interpretation, it may have more or less force. If the tradition is biblical, it is binding. But note that this situation only applies if we are talking about vague terms in which later revelation definitely rules out one view! How this might apply to Gen 1 would be to argue that, in its context, the yomim could refer legitimately to either days or long periods of time, and that other passages in their own contexts obviously assume one particular reading. So there you would have two distinct arguments to make, each based on their own contexts. That would be valid, but I think this overall approach avoids Waltke's basic objections.

None of this, by the way, is to say that we should not take his concerns seriously. We should! We--and this includes me!--all to often assume that our interpretations of Scripture are identical with Scripture. More often than not, that isn't the case. But I refuse to accept the notion that because we can be wrong and because we are often wrong that therefore we cannot be sure when we are right. And when we are sure--when we have moral certainty that we have followed the HGM fully and appropriately--and when we settle on an interpretation of the words of a given text, we can be equally certain that we have ascertained the mind and intention of the author.

Appreciate your thought and logic Jac.

I know you just wrote out quite a bit, but looking forward to the next few posts too.

It's good you approach it from start to end. Probably the best way to do it.

We are not permitted to read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. Go back to my posts above. The HGM forbids it. More generally, we are not permitted to take ANY later revelation and use it as a lens for interpreting an earlier one. The HGM forbids it. We interpret later texts in light of the former, not the other way around.

This is a big reason why YEC's have the wrong interpretation and why they believe the earth is young.It is a lazy way of reading and examining the biblical text and it even effects bible prophecy and all to interpret the bible and believe the earth is young despite what nature that God created reveals,now Jac this is not an attack on you but it just better helps me understand how we have the wrong young earth interpretation and must contradict and teach things contrary to what other parts of the bible say in both the OT and NT.

This makes me glad that I found out about the true interpretation the gap theory because it is the only biblical interpretation that does not go against what Peter tells us in 2nd Peter 3.All of the other interpretations do whether they are old earth or young earth.A person cannot be biblically true and accept uniformitarianism and yet all others do,including YEC even though they know we came from Adam and Eve,they still go against the bible for dogma.

C.H.Surgeon calls Ken Ham to repentance.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ThORe07rA-g

It's fine that you think I'm wrong, ACB. What I appreciate from your comment is that you demonstrate very clearly what we've all been saying and a constant theme of mine: the GT, like theistic evolution, the framework hypothesis, and good old allegorization, is based on a rejection of the HGM.

In other words, your problem is not theological. It is methodological, and because you read the Bible in the wrong way, you come to the wrong conclusions. Granted, you'll say the same thing about me, and I'm okay with that. It is a huge, huge thing to get people to see that the differences in interpretations of Genesis 1 (and all of Scripture, I would submit) are, at bottom, far less theological and far more hermeneutical.

So to my DA/PC friends, the point I want you to keep that in mind is that the beauty of the day-age theory is that it purports adhere to the HGM. I simply challenge those who hold to DA/PC to make sure that their interpretation actually does follow the HGM. My concern is that it doesn't, for reasons I'll get into in the coming days. Bottom line: I'd much rather be able to look at the implications of any given methodology and let that be the arbiter of the debate between this or that position than I would try to muddle our way through the relative value of this or that interpretation apart from objective interpretive standards. That latter approach, which to my mind is the way the YEC/OEC debate has historically been held, almost requires us to put systematics before exegesis. An example is the standard line from the YEC camp that OEC must be wrong because it means there was death before the Fall, which they get from passages like Rom 5. Sure, it's a way to have the debate, but it seems to me to be pretty ineffective (given a century of history trying to have it) and possibly if not likely creates serious methodological problems that will manifest in other passages of Scripture.

Jac3510 wrote:It's fine that you think I'm wrong, ACB. What I appreciate from your comment is that you demonstrate very clearly what we've all been saying and a constant theme of mine: the GT, like theistic evolution, the framework hypothesis, and good old allegorization, is based on a rejection of the HGM.

In other words, your problem is not theological. It is methodological, and because you read the Bible in the wrong way, you come to the wrong conclusions. Granted, you'll say the same thing about me, and I'm okay with that. It is a huge, huge thing to get people to see that the differences in interpretations of Genesis 1 (and all of Scripture, I would submit) are, at bottom, far less theological and far more hermeneutical.

So to my DA/PC friends, the point I want you to keep that in mind is that the beauty of the day-age theory is that it purports adhere to the HGM. I simply challenge those who hold to DA/PC to make sure that their interpretation actually does follow the HGM. My concern is that it doesn't, for reasons I'll get into in the coming days. Bottom line: I'd much rather be able to look at the implications of any given methodology and let that be the arbiter of the debate between this or that position than I would try to muddle our way through the relative value of this or that interpretation apart from objective interpretive standards. That latter approach, which to my mind is the way the YEC/OEC debate has historically been held, almost requires us to put systematics before exegesis. An example is the standard line from the YEC camp that OEC must be wrong because it means there was death before the Fall, which they get from passages like Rom 5. Sure, it's a way to have the debate, but it seems to me to be pretty ineffective (given a century of history trying to have it) and possibly if not likely creates serious methodological problems that will manifest in other passages of Scripture.

When I think of God's word I think of it living and I know we'll disagree but I believe reading it by the HGM makes God's word dead,that it cannot really reveal anything new as time goes on,even though I believe it does.It really seems to me that it restricts God's word,but I'm just me and don't go by the HGM and have never read or studied the bible like that,it seems foreign to me and it would be hard to change after all of this time.

We all know where you stand ACB.
I'm not sure even God telling you you're wrong could sway you.
@Jac, don't let ACB distract you.