And yet you have an example of someone who supports evolution and a soul. As I explained earlier, you don't need evolution to not believe in a soul. If we can scientifically explain how we are made directly from dust, you will still have atheists who will not believe we have a soul. Evolution matters very little really. Before the idea of evolution even appeared, the belief that man has no soul existed. Nothing new under the sun. As I have repeatedly said, evolution is not the problem. It's the materialistic philosophy that many atheists have adopted for centuries, and even millennia!
Yes, Mina, we agree. That is why I said "apparent disagreement". In reality, those who are examples of "excellence in virtues" are the prostitutes, the murders, the conniving, the liars, etc who repent because they are part of Christ's family (even direct family). Remember Luke 8:21.
Even science believes man is more than biological and chemical processes. Psychology for example deals with theories of the conscious, subconscious, and many other descriptors that have often been synonymous with the "soul". How evolution deals with a soul is a different science all together. But evolution cannot deny the existence of the "soul".
Forgive me Mina, but this is your interpretation of events, when if your the author of a book (the bible), then you target a audience. Then if you've left some mystery and had done so for a purpose (spiritual), then why put our own interpretations on it (and not drawing a long bow from our Holy Fathers)? The audience culminates to those who want to follow Christ and if we put our own interpretations on His mystery by something that even evolutionists can't be totally sure of, then why should we accept it.
While that is all well and good, my struggle here is to understand why it is that the Scriptures presents these things as history. For it specifically states that this communion in Paradise was to be found in a Garden in the Middle East. For this sets itself up to be either able to be confirmed or rejected by science. Why is that the case? We can allegorize it all we want, but how do we know what parts of the story are allegory and what parts are to be taken for their word? Because the mystery of the story is wrapped in history, it is often very difficult to unravel what parts of this history are merely allegorical (especially when earlier in history Church Fathers claimed many parts to be true that are now disproven by science).
Scientists can easily state the first humans to exhibit spirituality and rationality (imprints not of an animal nature, but a divine imprint) as we know humans today, are found to originate in Africa.
Moreover, the genealogies themselves are presented in such a literary historical way, and some of the ages of these men are shown to be scientifically untenable (as those who lived beyond nine centuries). This is my problem. For while a few Church Fathers did not stick to a literal interpretation, many did because the story itself is presented this way such that science can disprove it.
For example, what can we say if it becomes proven that the genealogy of Christ did not descend from David? Do we come up with a spiritual allegorization of what it really means to be Son of David? I believe the words of Scripture as divinely inspired, but this is where my problem comes: Scripture often presents itself in a historical manner by which it opens itself to the scope of science.
Now compound this that if we use science to help us understand things, even science changes. So where does that leave us?
Just wondering what your guys' input on this is.
I just want to clarify that I do not see this as a conflict with salvation as God can work through any natural means. But it definitely does conflict with the reliability of the book of Genesis, or how we are to interpret it.
Forgive me Mina, but this is your interpretation of events, when if your the author of a book (the bible), then you target a audience. Then if you've left some mystery and had done so for a purpose (spiritual), then why put our own interpretations on it (and not drawing a long bow from our Holy Fathers)? The audience culminates to those who want to follow Christ and if we put our own interpretations on His mystery by something that even evolutionists can't be totally sure of, then why should we accept it.
Joshuaa,
I have demonstrated ample evidence from the Church fathers in important dogmatic issues. I await for you to address them. My interpretations are nothing more than keeping in line with Church Orthodox teachings.
St. Irenaeus also explains the Fall in an interesting manner. I will quote two parts of his "Against the Heresies:"
And thus in all things God has the pre-eminence, who alone is uncreated, the first of all things, and the primary cause of the existence of all, while all other things remain under God's subjection. But being in subjection to God is continuance in immortality, and immortality is the glory of the uncreated One. By this arrangement, therefore, and these harmonies, and a sequence of this nature, man, a created and organized being, is rendered after the image and likeness of the uncreated God—the Father planning everything well and giving His commands, the Son carrying these into execution and performing the work of creating, and the Spirit nourishing and increasing, but man making progress day by day, and ascending towards the perfect, that is, approximating to the uncreated One. For the Uncreated is perfect, that is, God. Now it was necessary that man should in the first instance be created; and having been created, should receive growth; and having received growth, should be strengthened; and having been strengthened, should abound; and having abounded, should recover; and having recovered, should be glorified; and being glorified, should see his Lord. For God is He who is yet to be seen, and the beholding of God is productive of immortality, but immortality renders one near unto God.
and another part:
How, then, shall he be a God, who has not as yet been made a man? Or how can he be perfect who was but lately created? How, again, can he be immortal, who in his mortal nature did not obey his Maker? For it must be that you, at the outset, should hold the rank of a man, and then afterwards partake of the glory of God. For you did not make God, but God you.
When using words like created here, St Irenaeus means Adam and to have it be seen as something before Adam isn't by the Holy Spirit interpreted by St Irenaeus.
There is nothing in St. Irenaeus' words which contradicts what I believe and has nothing to do with evolution. In fact, I quoted them earlier. My point is to show man is not by nature immortal. That's perfectly consistent with my beliefs and does not contradict my acceptance of evolution.
Do the Holy Fathers say anything about why they lived up to great ages in the beginning? And if it was the Holy Spirit, then why couldn't't He just left them in their natural state?
"One can also ask, if we can assume that Moses wrote Genesis, what was Moses' intention in writing the way he wrote about some of these stories? I think the first few chapters of Genesis are of a drastically different literal genre than the rest of Genesis. It is filled with mystery and a certain prose that seem to point to a way of interpretation non-literally. Philo the first century Alexandrian Jew even recognized it as such and did not take it literally as well, and he was not a Christian. So one also has to consider the literary genre and the historical context of what was written."
Not everything in Genesis is written as "history" as you put it. If many Church fathers took some parts literally, it is only because there is no reason not to in their time period. Genesis was very clear that the world was created in six literal days because it was on this basis that they have a Sabbath. Later on, even the earliest Church fathers looked at each "day" as time periods, which is the prevalent understanding today. There are still some Christians who take the Bible so literally, they truly believe the universe was created about the fifth to sixth century BC. This is not heresy, and they may agree with some Church fathers, but it indicates a loss of reality of our understanding today.
If you do research on the Nephilim for example, you will find that the first four centuries at least, an overwhelming majority (if not all the Church fathers) believed that the Nephilim was a cross-breed of angels and humans because the LXX original of the "sons of God" was "angelos", the "angels of God". The Church fathers believed these were fallen angels who lusted after human women. It wasn't until after the fourth century when someone started a different interpretation. Ask yourself this question. Are the Church fathers teaching this story as a dogma or as a story to convey a lesson and an understanding of the gospel? It is always the latter, not the former. St. Athanasius, if you read his writings carefully, actually believed in a flat earth. Does that mean that "flat earth" is dogma? No! He is presenting a scientific idea of his time to talk about the glory of God in creation.
That is why we need to learn discernment. Discernment is very important when studying the Scriptures and studying the Fathers. The Fathers are very clear what the dogma and the faith of the Church is. To toil and despair over which parts of the Old Testament you should take literally and which you shouldn't is not one of them, even if the Bible presented it as "history". The fact is the Holy Spirit inspired the writer to write for a specific purpose, to give us a shadow of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That trumps importance over literality. If there are places that can be confirmed to take literally, great! As we said, we now have enough historical evidence that King David existed, and in this sense, we can also take it by faith that Christ is a descendant of David, because his family traveled to Bethlehem to register themselves in the census. So the hypothetical that Christ may not have descended from David is a question that does not need to be considered. If the prophecies say that the Messiah is to be a descendant of David, then that is of a truth, and David's existence is truth. Allegory does not mean I would hypothetically remove certain historical persons from being literally believed. The question may be asked however is everything written about David true? Maybe most of it is true and some have been added to convey a lesson and a complete picture of the shadow of the gospel. In that case, the hypothetical that perhaps Goliath was not 10 feet tall, but maybe 6 to 7 feet tall, or just a big muscular and scary man is a possible hypothetical that has NOTHING to do with essential dogmatic truth.
So the idea that this questions the "reliability" of the book of Genesis is a Protestant idea, not something of the Church fathers. When Genesis talks about four rivers, is it dogmatically necessary to pinpoint where on earth this is located? Not only is this unnecessary, since this is the same Paradise we believe the saints enjoy now, but it is also a waste of theological energy and misses the point. Under the lens of discernment, this particular passage is not to be taken literally. This was written with a certain prose to be considered not in a literal sense, but to teach that God did take care of man and gave him His many riches and blessings, which man later forfeits.
I forgot to touch on one more thing you mentioned. You wrote: "Scientists can easily state the first humans to exhibit spirituality and rationality (imprints not of an animal nature, but a divine imprint) as we know humans today, are found to originate in Africa."
I disagree. There's a certain nuance. We know they had certain rituals where we can identify with as "spiritual", but there is no proof that they had the same level of understanding that someone like what we suppose Adam to have. Elephants also have ritualistic way of mourning for their dead as well, and can engage in some sort of "burial" activity.
Now, is there a certain rationality? Perhaps, but not again in the same way as Adam I would argue. Making tools was prevalent among other hominids, not just homo sapiens. That alone is not proof of the level of spirituality humanity would later have.
The image of God imprinted in us looks for something far more transcendent than this. These descriptions from the fossil record are based on a shadow of the fullness of spiritual behavior of what the Adamic man will later have and appreciate. Other non-human hominids had a certain respect and mourning for the dead. Even dogs and chimps and cows mourn for their dead. One time, when I lived in the Caribbean, I woke up at 6am because a mother cow was bawling at her dead calf. I know of a dog who refused to eat for a long time because her pup died. What about language? Well, we know today that we can teach some gorillas and chimps sign language, and we can communicate with them to a very limited sense. They do not have enough intelligence to grasp our spirituality or advanced mastery of things, but this indicates that whatever little brain power they have, there is still a certain form of communication that can occur. This is behavior that does not indicate the image of God is in them, but it may indicate God has allowed them develop a certain sense of feeling and behavior that is quite natural in the animal world.
Homo sapiens may have been the most advanced species of their time to express their mourning in a more sophisticated manner like the elephants today, and showed continued advancement generation after generation in other areas (and the wiping out and extinction of other hominid species as well), but it still does not prove the fullness of spirituality began yet. This is my personal opinion. I may be wrong. Maybe the image of God was implanted 2.5 million years ago, or even 100 thousand years ago. All I am saying is pure speculation on my part, but I can scientifically deduce that this does not prove much more than a simple advancement of a species, both in hunting capabilities and in behavior that I believed sowed the seeds for God to fulfill His goal of having maybe one of them become made in His image and likeness, to finally achieve a beginning of being deified into God's bosom in a full and rational sense.
However, how do you come to conclusion as to whether something becomes dogmatic or not? For example, the historicity of Christ is absolutely crucial to our dogma and salvation. The Paradaisical state of man and his fall are dogma. These things do come within the grips of science. What if historians (not saying it would) come to the conclusion that Christ never existed. Would this not take away from our faith? In this way it seems that a science has come to contradict our belief. In this way part of the Bible really does depend on history for its truth.
Thanks for helping clarify some of these questions, it is a good mental exercise.
This is a good question. First let me address what I think is the easier question, the proof that Jesus existed. It is true there are some atheists that question the existence of Christ. However, they do so as a desperate move in attack of Christian beliefs, and not out of a genuine intellectual spirit. Bart Ehrman, famous atheist who was a former fundamentalist Evangelical (the root cause of many atheists today) attacked his fellow atheists for such idiocy to try to disprove Christ's existence, and devoted a whole book to it. In a twist of irony, he came to be on the side of Christians on this point. He does not believe Jesus is God, but he does not doubt he existed.
The only thing that would make me lose my faith completely is if a dead body of Jesus, the Christ, is to be found. If Christ is not risen from the dead, my whole belief in God would fail. I would instantly be an atheist. I would not even give any other religion a chance, and here's why.
Christianity falls on a unique spectrum among the world's religions. I described earlier four belief systems in the world: Belief in no God, belief in all things including self as God, Belief in God who only created and not involved with us (variations of this belief include a God who only created some things and not involved in all things, or a God who created but cannot communicate directly with us), Belief in God who is creator and puppetmaster of the world. True Christian belief rejects all those beliefs, which is quite an astounding thing. Let me break this down:
God exists
God is Love
God as Love is eternal within Himself, manifest in the Trinity
God as Love is also external, manifest in creation
God as Love wishes creation to share in His eternity
God as Love does not impose on creation, but neither does He forsake creation. All things are created by Him, refuting the idea that God is not involved in all things of creation, and yet all things are not imposed by Him, refuting the idea that God is puppetmaster of creation. This is the perfection of Love beyond incomprehensible for our minds.
God as Love planned to allow creation to be fertile that He may manifest His fullness through created form gradually first, then fully. The seed of this fertility is the production of man, and His creation in His divine and incorruptible image and likeness.
God as Love allowed man to choose disobedience (whatever that disobedience may have been, typified in the story of the Fall from Eden), even though God as Love is grieved by the choice.
God as Love still planned to manifest Himself fully through any means of creation, irrational or rational. He send Adam skins of alleviation, Cain a sign of protection, Noah an ark of salvation, Abraham a son of promise and ram of sacrifice, Jacob the blessing and reconciliation of families. He gave the people of Israel Moses and His law through Him. He provided angels, and even showed Himself as an man to Abraham, as an angel to Jacob, as the Son of God to the three youth in the fiery furnace. He gave Israel a land to settle and worship, and the nations around to witness the blessings of God. He gave Israel priests, judges, kings, prophets. He was for Israel the burning bush, the Shekinah glory, the dwelling in Temple, the finger of condemnation. He chastised them for their disobedience, exalted them for their repentance, and punished them yet again afterwards. I do not stress the trees of history to be exactly and word-for-word historically or literally true, as you know, but that the forest of the reality of Israel is there, so that the eternal truth of who God is with His chosen nation best reflects His love, His mercy, and His indwelling, even though this nation may not be perfect in all things.
After centuries of all these manifestations, He finally kept His promise, became as one us, fully, the pinnacle of all creation, in a lowly human form. His fullness became as nothing, that we as nothing may partake and have His fullness dwell in us. This was the promise given to us even if we have not fallen. His incarnation not only lifts us from our sinful lives, but lifts us up into His uncreated greatness.
Therefore: what is dogma is the gospel. We must know who we are, which is nothing, out of nothing, and liable to nothingness. Only God, the uncreated is "something". Therefore, one way to tell what is dogma:
1. correct belief of who we are
2. correct belief of who God is
3. correct belief of our salvation
We are nothing. God is everything. We are created, God is uncreated. Christ is both, uniting both. Throughout history, God shows He is not only able to dwell fully in creation and be involved in all of creation's doing, but He shows also how much better we do when we are realistic about who we are and how we depend on Him.
Some religions find it blasphemous to even think that the fullness of God can "dwell" in created things. This is Islamic belief, and it is a form of deism, where God creates, but is not involved in us in all things. Or He may be involved, but as a puppetmaster, not as one who wants to have a relationship with us, and gives us the freedom to choose to have an intimate relationship with Him.
Some religions say that we are God. Each one of us possesses divinity. If that is true, if we are the uncreated, either there's no need to believe in spirituality, in which case we might as well be atheists, or we can also save ourselves and possess control of the world, in which case, we have not achieved this. We would be in control of our lives and possess immortality, which is blatantly false. Some people say that the universe is divine, and our spirituality depends on realizing it. But if one has to "realize" it, then we who are created out of the "stuff" of the universe are not divine, and thus the universe is not divine.
Christianity teaches that all things we can sense are created, and needs the Creator's grace. Christ is the Creator in created form, and not just in any created form, but in FULL humanity, not partial humanity, so as to show we are not far removed from God's indwelling in us and His granting His divine blessings to us, but neither are we to think that we can possess divinity, since it is only through God's incarnation we can receive God in a full and intimate way, in all parts of our humanity as He had all parts of our humanity in Him.
Christ also established His Church, as an extension of His incarnation, as His body, and the Eucharist as the expression of the Church, and the clerical system as the maintainers of His Church, the sacraments and liturgy as the shadow of the fulfillment of our dwelling in the eternal Kingdom after the second coming of Christ, and the saints who are the par excellence extension of the body of Christ as an example of living as Christs in the world.
All of this is dogma. From this, I am able to discern and not be afraid of what history and science (true history and true science) teaches us. I am confident that God sent His only begotten Son, the Son of His eternal Love, to manifest His love in full humanity born from the seed of David, from a righteous and obedient Virgin, a second Eve, of whose history and stories and prophecies we receive from the blessed and holy Scriptures of the Old Testament. He, who is true God from true God, not only became fully human, but also partook even all of humanity's experiences, including temptation, hunger, suffering, mental anguish, physical pain, and death, but all that without any sin, little or great, and I believe He rose from the dead, ascended to the right hand of God, His full humanity in the very divine right hand of the Father, that we through His Holy Spirit who He sent to us, the same Holy Spirit that eternally dwells in the divine Son before all ages and manifested this full indwelling in the baptism of Christ at the River Jordan by the hand of the all Holy Baptist and Forerunner, this same Holy Spirit fully dwells in us that we too may experience the presence of the right hand of the Father and the fullness of the Kingdom in all our lives, even unto our death, that we may rise up from the dead in the second coming. I believe that our liturgical and sacramental life in the Church is the means by which we experience the shadow of the eternal second coming, and that no Church can be Church without the liturgy and sacraments, and especially without the Eucharist, and no Church can be Church without the communion of the saints, both the living and the departed.
I am simply stating that a fundamental part of our faith does depend on a science, specifically historical science as far as the existence of Jesus is concerned (I know it is a well established fact). I understand that this is only a starting point and that one needs to enter into the communion and experience of the Trinity to have Christ revealed to us personally.
I guess what I am trying to say is that science is not irrelevant to our dogma. And if that is the case, someone may somehow disprove the existence of Jesus of Nazareth and this would undermine our faith. Big Bang came along, we were fine with allegorization. Evolution came along, we were fine with allegorization. Historicity of Jesus of Nazareth comes along, and we are not fine if that is disproved.
Therefore we cannot say that science is irrelevant to our dogma. What do you say to that?
I just want to say I am playing devil's advocate here. I am merely trying to engage in a mental exercise.
I will grant you the hypothetical that if historical science proves to me without a shadow of a doubt (which is impossible and silly, but I will suppose with you) that Jesus never existed, then that too would be a cause for me to lose belief. With that said, I wonder what example of other parts of science you find necessary for our faith. You only mentioned history, and with that I think I have consistently held to historical science without contradiction in any of my statements.
But just because we have a specific scientific teaching does not mean that everything Christ and God did was in accordance with rules of nature strictly. Christ also performed miracles which transcended natural means, at the very least at His time. There has never been any science in the history of mankind that gave any possibility or credence to a virgin birth in human nature. At the time of Christ and beforehand, woman carried no seed on her own. She was a soil for which a seed from man would be implanted in her to grow into a human baby. And considering today's scientific knowledge of embryology and genetics, it is still impossible to think of a MAN with a Y Chromosome being born from a woman without the sperm of man. Even if the scientific understanding is different, the same thought process exists: it is impossible under scientific standards that a woman would give birth without a human male involved. And yet, this does not prevent me from believing in the Virgin birth. I think that is dogma as well!
If you want a mental exercise, consider this. Another interpretation is that many people do not reject the science of evolution, but can still also believe in some sort of miracle of creation in the past, and they do so by faith without any real physical evidence necessary. That is why I tell you all my speculations that hardly has anything to do with necessary dogma can be wrong. Even science may change, and I am perfectly fine with that. Maybe one day, there will come a scientist who will disprove evolution. It's very unlikely, but you cannot say it is impossible. One of the foundations and pillars of scientific reasoning is statistics, and with statistics we measure the validity of a theory. Usually most theories that are unquestionable by scientists have to pass a p value of at the most 5. That means that there is a five percent probability that the theory is not true, called the null hypothesis. Anything more than 5% is rejected and excludes them from being considered as absolute fact. Most parts of evolution, embryology, historical science, medicine, etc. all are within this p value requirement, which is less than or equal to 5. That is not to say it is impossible to be disproven, but it is at least 95% unlikely to be untrue, which shows how powerful something is, and proves that science is not lax with its standards. If it is 94% possible, the p value is large enough that the null hypothesis can not be rejected. Some scientific studies, particularly pharmaceuticals, might try to increase its standards to a p value less than or equal to 1, to prove even further without a doubt the efficacy of a particular drug.
So at the very least science is science. We use it, and it is helpful, but we do not completely depend on it for our faith and dogmas, and like the grass on the field, it will one day wither. Yes, maybe our sense of touch and sight and smell and taste and our historical acumen are all necessary, and as I have shown you, if we invent a time machine that shows Jesus did not exist or never rose from the dead, I will lose my faith. But I do not see the same importance given for Adam or for various small historical areas of other prophets and ancestors of Christ. There is a lot of grey area to which I am unable to give a full answer, but to the best of my ability, this is what I am confident in, that the literal virgin birth, existence, death, and resurrection of Christ be held. And Christ has not left us in the dark to just believe in Him without some assurance of His existence and His continued work in and through the Church. The saints continually prove to us Christ's existence to this day, and once we have the faith, our job also is to prove His existence by our saintly works. We cannot be lights to the world unless this light comes from the true and uncreated light of Christ dwelling in us.
Of course I do not for a moment presume to believe that our faith is grounded in science. My point was that it it is not irrelevant to some of our dogma.
Thank you, you helped put things into perspective.
If Jesus' existence was disproved, I would look for the real Jesus, He is the necessary Truth of Life: the Dying Incarnate God who raises up creation with Him, whose Resurrection has been demonstrated by the witness of millions of saints throughout history till this very day.
I think that best proves the existence of Jesus. His existence can NEVER be disproven. That is my point, and I take it not only by science, but also by faith.
As Paul says: "Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." (2 Corinthians 5:16-17)
Key words: "no longer". I think a huge number of witnesses to Him as well as some extra-Biblical records attest to the fact that we can have confidence in taking their word for it and begin to develop a spiritual relationship where He dwells in us. You need to believe He existed as well as believe He rose from the dead. The former can be taken through historical records and witnessing, the latter can be understood through the spiritual witnessing of the Church and to be immersed in the life of the Church.
Having watched these videos, Dr Hany states clearly that dying was part of God's economy of mercy for us so we don't consistently live in this sinful corrupt world. Would you agree to that??
Having watched these videos, Dr Hany states clearly that dying was part of God's economy of mercy for us so we don't consistently live in this sinful corrupt world. Would you agree to that??
The idea is the same: God created us to physically die. Apparently, we only died spiritually (eternally). We were always destined, no matter what, for WHATEVER reason, created to die physically.
Comments
I have demonstrated ample evidence from the Church fathers in important dogmatic issues. I await for you to address them. My interpretations are nothing more than keeping in line with Church Orthodox teachings.
St. Irenaeus also explains the Fall in an interesting manner. I will quote two parts of his "Against the Heresies:"
And thus in all things God has the pre-eminence, who alone is uncreated, the first of all things, and the primary cause of the existence of all, while all other things remain under God's subjection. But being in subjection to God is continuance in immortality, and immortality is the glory of the uncreated One. By this arrangement, therefore, and these harmonies, and a sequence of this nature, man, a created and organized being, is rendered after the image and likeness of the uncreated God—the Father planning everything well and giving His commands, the Son carrying these into execution and performing the work of creating, and the Spirit nourishing and increasing, but man making progress day by day, and ascending towards the perfect, that is, approximating to the uncreated One. For the Uncreated is perfect, that is, God. Now it was necessary that man should in the first instance be created; and having been created, should receive growth; and having received growth, should be strengthened; and having been strengthened, should abound; and having abounded, should recover; and having recovered, should be glorified; and being glorified, should see his Lord. For God is He who is yet to be seen, and the beholding of God is productive of immortality, but immortality renders one near unto God.
and another part:
How, then, shall he be a God, who has not as yet been made a man? Or how can he be perfect who was but lately created? How, again, can he be immortal, who in his mortal nature did not obey his Maker? For it must be that you, at the outset, should hold the rank of a man, and then afterwards partake of the glory of God. For you did not make God, but God you.
When using words like created here, St Irenaeus means Adam and to have it be seen as something before Adam isn't by the Holy Spirit interpreted by St Irenaeus.
I guess what I am trying to say is that science is not irrelevant to our dogma. And if that is the case, someone may somehow disprove the existence of Jesus of Nazareth and this would undermine our faith. Big Bang came along, we were fine with allegorization. Evolution came along, we were fine with allegorization. Historicity of Jesus of Nazareth comes along, and we are not fine if that is disproved.