I had forgotten about this thread and was content to let it go until I read this:
Byblos wrote:The moment of "human" creation so-to-speak is then shifted from an evolutionary standpoint to a theistic standpoint when God gave Adam anf Eve the gift of soul, conscience, reason (hence the first humans are born in the image of God at that time 30, 20, 10, whatever thousand years ago). That is what I consider to be the moment of special creation.
Appeals to Catholic doctrine aside, it has been well demonstrated, I believe on the main page, that both humans and animals have "souls"--they both are described as having a
nephesh. We have no biblical basis, then, on which to say that we have souls and animals don't. Thus, the mythical "endowment of the soul" cannot be used as a basis on which to try to reconcile TE with the Bible.
As to your other question to me from some time ago . . .
I don't disagree with you at all Jac. I'm well aware that dust most likely is dirt and dirt from the surface of the earth at that. What I'm trying to say is the ENTIRE planet earth is the stuff of stars Jac. At least that's what astrophysics tells us. Now I've been reading a lot lately on star and planet formations and as it turns out, planets are the leftover stuff when new stars are born. This leftover stuff coallesce and forms into rotating planets around their mother stars. As it also turns out, it takes 3 cycles of star/planet births and deaths for enough life-capable material is produced but that's enough on that for now.
The point again is that the planet earth, including its surface dirt, is star dust by origin so there's no contradiction with Genesis. And another important point to mention is that astrophysics is not a theoretical science nor is is experimental but it is observational by definition. That's what we observe happening (or happened a few billion years ago).
The entire planet may be made of out star-stuff, but the entire planet is not made out of dirt. The Bible says that man was made out of dirt. It does not say that man was made out of the stuff that dirt was made of. It takes a
rejection of the plain meaning of the word to hold to TE.
Now, you can certainly do that, but you cannot, then, tell me that you take Genesis 2 literally. And hey, that's fine, too. That just means you have a different method of interpretation. Of course, if you are allowed to take one part non-literally, why not the rest, too?
I'm not disagreeing that it could have been instantaneous (physically). I'm disagreeing that text clearly implies instantaneous pertaining to the physical part. It could just as well pertain to the spiritual part, the instance God made us into his image.
If taken literally, it doesn't imply it. It states it explicitly.
Yes, I do know that but you also know I'm no ordinary evolutionist.
I'd prefer you not to be an evolutionist at all, Darwinian or otherwise.
Well I have communicated with you on many occasions with back-and-forth clarificationns and counter-arguments to refine our respective positions to one another. How many times have you done that with Moses?
Have you ever spoken to a person once and never talked to them again? Perhaps you ordered a cheeseburger once from a fastfood joint and have never been back. Now, without getting to know that person and they you, how could you possibly know what the other was saying?
Answer: no relationship is necessary to find out what a person means. Words, in context, have meanings. Objective meanings. The fact that we can debate on what Moses meant proves that to be the case. If it is true that I can't
really know what Moses meant, we ought to walk away now and give up ALL of biblical study, including the part that relates to salvation. We can't know what words REALLY mean. You will, of course, appeal to your Church Authority, but that does you no good either. How do you know what THEY mean? You can sit down and have a direct conversation with the Pope for all I care. You can be present when he speaks ex cathedra. It doesn't matter if we can't know what words mean.
If, though, we CAN know what words mean, then my point stands vindicated. Moses' words have meaning in context. We can know precisely what was on his mind my looking at his words. If you deny that, you deny the very basis on which you try to know the Catholic Church's interpretations as well.
I reject that solely on the basis that we cannot possibly know exactly what Moses meant simply because we cannot ask him. Anything short of that is private interpretation (the evidence of that is abundant).
See above. What is the difference in the written and spoken word? Even if he were to explain himself in different words, the assumption that we can't know what words mean still stands. If we can't know what words mean, then MORE words aren't going to help, no matter how many there are.
The problem here is that Moses made a very clear statement. Man was made from dirt. That is as clear as anything else in Scripture. The fact that people have a hard time believing that does not justify them in saying, "Well maybe that's not what he REALLY meant here, and since I cant' ask him, I declare that we cannot know!" If that is the case, then we are just as justified in taking EVERY clear statement that we don't like and rejecting it as unintelligible. I don't like the Resurrection? Fine. I say it never happened, and the Apostles had something in mind that we can't possibly know about.
Since we can't take that view, we are left with the obvious way. Take Moses to mean exactly what he wrote. Man was made from dirt. Plain old dirt--the kind you find on the ground. That is what he said. That is what he meant. That is what he thought. That is what was on his mind. That is what was in God's mind. That is what really happened.
Why is that? And more importantly, who decides? (oh no, back to that dreaded subject of authority? I hope not).
It doesn't matter who decides if we can't know what words mean. Let's concede that someone in your church gets to decide. Fine. We can't know what words mean, though, so there is no way to know what THEY really mean.
Question, Byblos: who decides what your Church means? You? Uh oh . . . looks like we still have that blasted private interpretation after all.
edit: Keep in my that you accept as authoritive something the majority of us do not--the Church. If the Church were to come out tomorrow and declare ex cathedra that God created using TE, you would be required to believe it (whether you would or not is another issue). It wouldn't matter if I said, "But you are allegorizing the text!" You would say, "Fine. That's their right."
The difference in us, then, is one of heremeneutics. For you, interpretation is NOT rooted in the objective meaning of words. It does not MATTER what the Bible literally says. None of that matters. All that matters is what the Church says that it means, regardless of the hermeneutic implied. Now, that's fine. There is nothing wrong with that. It's a method just like the literal-historical-gramamtical method is a method, and one, or both, of our methods must be wrong.
I'm just saying that let's not fudge here and try to talk about what Moses did or did not mean. Language and words matter no more to you than science matters to me. My authority is in the objective meaning of words. Nothing else outside of that ultimately matters. Yours is in the Church. Nothing else outside of that ultimately matters.
