Pahl:
Second, beliefs about exactly when and precisely how God created all things are neither central nor essential to an authentic Christian faith or a historically orthodox Christianity. Thus, it is not necessary for the sake of one's faith to hold to any beliefs about these matters with strong conviction; in fact, it may even be unwise to do so.
Thoughts:
Its interesting that people make this assertion just before they deny that Genesis 1, etc means anything in the real world. I always wonder about their information on this count and the rationale behind their claim. And it is always worth remembering that it is a mere claim. One made, I might add, that flies in the face of the biblical data, and is usually unsubstantiated (as per Pahl himself, of course).
But Pahl clouds the issue, just like Satan did in the garden, I might add, by inserting some concepts that aren't in the text, or in the Bible generally, then contradicting these concepts. An obvious 'straw man' manoeuvre.
Of course beliefs about EXACTLY when and PRECISELY how God created all things are neither central nor essential...etc. [And nor did God say
‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden']
No one says that they are; but what the Bible is quite clear about is GENERALLY when God created, and, in BASIC terms the method he used.
Well, its a bit more than 'basic' terms when it comes to method, as the method is quite clear. He spoke things into existence; or brought them into being by divine fiat: by willing them so.
What is contended for is that generally the biblical time scale is orders of magnitude smaller than the naturalist time scale. ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE! We are not talking about a small thing here. It's also worth noting that the biblical time scale has always been orders of magnitude less than the naturalist or pagan time scale; humanity seems to have a built in desire to push the genetic connection between God and itself as far away as it can.
While reading Bulfinch's Mythology I came across this, in Palmer Bovie's foward: "If our readers ask when all this took place, we must answer, in the first place, that mythology is not careful of dates...". Thus the placing of the creation in time is very important to its historicity. If it happened in time, it needs to be set in that time; which of course, places the events of creation in our history, and removes them from an idealist or fantasy (pagan) construction that has no real relationship with 'us and now'. This is also an important part of the specificity of the recount of events in the creation passage.
It is also contended that how God created differs radically from the naturalist/materialist formulation. It's not just a little different, different as to precise values; it is vastly different. Pahl might have gained some credibility if he'd recognised these matters rather than attempted to subvert them in yet another language game.
With the 'precise' means of God's creation in question, Pahl seems to think that the Biblical data has no real bearing on anything, and we can make of it what we like. But not so. Materialist/naturalist formulations are a world apart from the Bible's formulation and therefore mean entirely different things. Thus it is important that the creation account conveys real information, because it is about something that really happened. It would be odd (and irrelevant) if it were otherwise.
The basic issues I canvassed briefly in a
previous blog, but to go further (and I stoop to using 'bullets'):
- creation is the representation of God as he is: that he acted (in the terms used; there being no other reference in the biblical world-concept) is his credential for god-ness, how he acted is the representation of his nature
- creation underpins the conceptualisation of the world and the world thus represents God's action in creating, and does not obscure it, or if the world doesn't connect with God's statements about creation, then the representation is a vain one, and empties God of any claim on us.
- the naturalist 'method' is alien to God, it is impersonal and loveless; the creation account shows that is not so and, rather, has its source and unfolding in the personal and is embedded in love; it results from the action of one who cares, and cares above all for relationship; not one who sets up a machine, then lets it run.
The contrast could not be more stark; the natural method denies that mind is essential to the creation of complex order, of information, and that love is unnecessary for the creation of community and interdependence.
It overturns the counter-conceptualisation of the world as naturally explicable, and in relation to no mind or will that is over above it; rather all mind and will is contained within it: hardly god-like!
Another quote from Palmer Bovie's forward to Bulfinch: "...just as Darwin was reviving man's physical life history..." One thing the creation account does, and that the Bible hinges on, is that man's physical life history, is one with man's 'any other' life history. Action is bound up with both thought and meaning in the Biblical conception of the world. The creation account tells us that there is one unified world from the will of God; Pahl would separate our world into different and disconnected compartments; multiple worlds at work, with the world's physical history unlinked from the 'religious' history in a move that would do a pagan proud and destroys meaning.
Thus it IS important how and when things were created by God. This information establishes a number of important things about us, the world and who we are before God and in the world; about the world as setting for our relationship with God and for his redemption of us, and about the basic ontology of the world; which Pahl sets aside to make the way for an ontology that contemplates a different world, and entails a 'god' different from the one who reveals himself.
