March 8, 2007

  • I found a book by Francis Schaeffer that might shed some more light on Adam and Eve, and will try to summarize what I find there.  I am also not entirely finished with Perelandra.  (This is a fictional account of what might have happened had the "Adam and Eve" of the planet Venus had not chosen to succumb to Satan's temptation.) Sorry to keep harping on this, but I am on a roll.  I will eventually move onto something else when I feel that I have explored the topic to my own satisfaction.  Bear with me folks.  K, I realize that it may appear that I have already formed an opinion and am only reading what I think will provide support.

    Saved comments:

    RYC: I understand everything you wrote now, looking back at the comment you left for me, but to me, it sounds like you're creating (or interpreting) a god in the way you want to based on texts you have read or experiences you've had.

    I noticed this at a very early age in the people around me. Whatever they thought "God" was like was a lot like how they were. It always intrigued me how each person I knew who was a self-proclaimed, educated Christian or Jew had an interpretation of their respective god concepts that was a bit different from another's, but different in a way that was just like each of them.

    I don't think I'm making sense. I think I'm making this more complicated than it has to be! I'm saying people create a god concept to fit their worldview, not the other way around. No, wait, maybe that's not what I'm saying. Oh, now my brain fell out of my head. I gotta go get it!

    RRYC: I prefer to stick with "interpreting."  "Creating" implies something that I do in my own head, something that I invent myself.  "Interpreting" at least includes the possibility that I am not the creator of the original idea.  Maybe "interpreting" is creating my own view based on something outside of myself that I did not actually create.  If I interpret God based on a text, then I am not really creating.  Or am I?  Perhaps I had best abandon even the term "interpretation."

    This is a real danger, because if God is really the supreme, sovereign creator, then I am not free to interpret or define him.  That would be impossible and absurd to even imagine.  There are simply not places in my mind that are capable of  dealing with all that God is.  It would be attempting to understand color without ever having experienced sight.  If I EVER find myself interpreting God different from a way that He reveals Himself in the Bible I am in gravest error. 

    Can I as a finite person ever interpret (can I change to the word "understand?") God properly?  What you said about "different in a way that was like each of them" was interesting.  The Bible says that God's goal is to eventually mold us all into the image of Christ.  Any Christian is in this process, and it is a process.  We are not perfect, only forgiven.  We all have our cultural and experiential baggage which influence our understanding of God.  Perhaps this is where the "creating and interpreting" come in.  When we choose to trust what He says as true and take baby steps to obey His will as He reveals it, He works to help us put it all down and become a more accurate mirror of who He is. 

    I know that God has been taking me apart and putting me back together for some time.  Some of the things that I thought made me a "good Christian" were shown to me as stubborn pride and self righteousness.  I still don't know it all.  I don't even know what I don't know.  That's why I always have to look to God and to what He has revealed of Himself in the Bible to try to make sure that I am not in error.  Even these efforts are imperfect, but God is patient with me.  Have you seen people wearing PBPGINFWMY buttons?  "Please be patient. God is not finished with me yet." 

    "...based on texts...or experiences..."  Yes, that is true.  I believe that the Bible is true enough to believe in totally.  Like I said, believing in anything else is a "lesser deal."  (digression alert) The Hindu faith promises me that I can do my best to attain a higher life forms and spend thousands of years escaping the circle of life and become a god.  Buddhism promises me that if I withdraw into myself and throw away all desire I can become an enlightened god.  And then again if I just die I can have my family worship my spirit so I don't come back to haunt them.  (I recently read "Siddartha" - in the original German - haha!  I didn't care for the outcome much.  At the end the poor fellow who deserted his wife had nothing but a rag to cover his nether parts and a son who hated him.  Ah, but he was happy to be one with it all.) Dunno what Shinto promises me.  Well, maybe I can become god there, too, like the Emperor Meiji or the military officer Togo, who have their own shrines.  Yep, even stones and fish heads are gods.  ...become as a god...  Where have I heard all this before?  Genesis 3!

    Back on track:  I must accept the interpretation that God gives of Himself in the Bible.  I am not free to define or redefine.  My experiences...  Can I say that God gives us all experiences that are designed to lead us to Him?  It is so marvelous the way God attains His will and purposes but at the same time violates no one's free will.  I was amazed when I was "studying Christmas to find that both Herod and Ceasar had worked to bring about the birth of Christ in Bethlehem, just as had been prophesied.  Neither of them would have had the least interest in attempting to have anything to do with the birth of a Messiah, yet that is what happened.

    Well, my experiences are my experiences, my history.  I cannot push them on another as proof of anything.  God has His own customized plans to deal with each person as He sees fit.  His plan to reach me is different from His plan to reach you.  He knows the paths along which each of us struggle and goes to meet us where we are.  Where my base must be is in the Bible.  God does not ask each of us to reinvent the wheel and try to define him.  He prefers that with our limited abilities that we would not do this, because anything we could come up with would of necessity be limited.

    Idols are really limit our vision of God. (going off the rails again?)  How would it be if I took a video of you, selected a frame, printed it out, and turned the paper so that it was perpendicular to my eye?  All I would see is a two-dimensional line, which is nothing at all like what you are.  It would be insulting.  Yet that is what idols do to God.  They help us understand nothing.  (further derailment)  Why do Japanese worship a Buddhist statue when it is placed in a temple yet not when it is on display in a museum?

    I am in the process of condensing something that may or may not be interesting to you, from John MacArthur's book "The Battle for the Beginning."  I know that I should think about all this for myself, but right now I don't have time to reinvent the wheel. =)  I will put it up when I have finished, which I hope will be today.

    You are very right that people create a concept of god that fits their world view.  I think you would also agree that this is unsatisfactory because it doesn't work.  You are right there, too.  You have truly hit on a vital human dilemma!  Please correct me if I am putting words in your mouth.

    I suppose it boils down to the question of whether or not there really is a Creator, and how He defines His personal attributes.  If there is no Creator, we are free to come up with any meaningless system that we can dream up for ourselves.  If there is a Creator, we must accept the world and the system that He defined, designed and created and fall at His feet in worship.

usalapinhazzer