RE: Hal's Reply to RE: Hal's Reply

Hal's in red I'm in blue. Well, I am not finished, but I will make a couple of observations. First, it is, to me, obvious, that the singularity and heaven are NOT synonymous, but that the incomplete description that we are presented by mankind's limited understanding of true science, of the singularity postulated as the beginning of the chaotic universe, indicates that the bohuw and tohuw mentioned in Gen.1, are the Hebrew words describing the effect of the fall, while entropy is the so-called, (no offense meant to science), scientific terminology. Genisis speaks of an entropic state AFTER CREATION, not before. The idea that I am claiming the word which is translated creation, is one that indicates building from previously existing material, is not what I said, nor is indicated by my arguement. It is stated before the statement about the chaos and ruin, not after. A large parft of what I am doing, in my arguement, is an attempt to show that the evidence we see in observation of the natural universe, actually coincides with scripture. If you would re-assess the statements I make, in that context, it might be helpful to both of us. I will get back to this, later, in a more complete address, INCLUDING the part I have not yet attempted to address. (Oh, your comment about my lack of understanding was not meant to insult, just poorly phrased humor & a comment that the explanation was not as lucid as I am used to getting from you. Phrasing is sometimes the key to comprehension. Sorry I am not equipped to draw perfect correlaries from you. Sometimes, I think I am more suited for rock-&-roll. I don't think you can argue this way. First off the "and the" at the start of Gen 1:2 is an addition for the English it does not appear in the Hebrew. The Hebrew reads beginning God created the Heaven the Earth. The Earth to be(was) tohuw bohuw. I think what you see here is not a this then that structure, but a general statement, "God created the universe" followed by specificity of how such creation took place. Moses uses this sort of structure many times and you need look no further than to the end of Ch 1 to find and example Gen 1:27 God creates man male and female, Gen 2:7 God creates man, Gen 2:22 God creates woman. So how many times did God create man and woman? Once. This is repetition. I realize that you will say that I am forcing an exegetical style which you do not intend, but you are demandng that the text read this then this when the language does not demand it, and disallowing that it is repetition with a greater degree of specificity. Therefore if we are to take your understanding seriously then we must apply it to all examples as such. For example the Gospels say that Judas hanged himself and Acts says he fell headlong and his guts spilled out, but he didn't die twice. How many times does God promise the Messiah, but there is only one. How many times does God promise an heir to Abraham, but there is only one. Moses many times in the Torah gives the people instruction, "You shall be holy," and then gives long explanations of it is to be done. Moses tells the people that they will build the tabernacle, and then goes into long detailed explanations of how it is to be done. I think what is seen here is the same thing. In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. <--- Blanket statement. The Earth was without form and void and the Spirit of the Lord brooded over the face of the waters... <---Beginning of explanation of how the creation took place. Moses proclaims that God created from nothing the universe and then shaped it. You could argue that the shaping is a result of the ruination of Creation, but you do not answer how Satan could have fallen to an Earth which did not exist. I think that Satan's fall took place in the time of Jesus Earthly ministry. Jesus tells the disciples that he saw Satan fall (Luke 10:13-23) and that he is now bound (Luke 11:16-26). The reason I say this is that Job tells us plainly that Satan has access to Throne of God, but the New Testament speaks of him as a defeated foe who can no longer make accusations against the Saints (Romans 8:28-38, Rev 12:10). Revelation 12 tells us that Satan swept down the stars after he had stood against the woman and her child, and that the taking of the third is what began the war in heaven after which no place was found for him. Well, since Satan (Job) has a place in Heaven before the cross, and no place after I think the war might well have taken place as Christ hung on the cross. When Satan tempted Eve he lost his position before the Throne, but he still had access predicated on his being the rightful owner of the Earth as God had given it to Adam and Adam ceded his authority to Satan, an authority which Jesus took for His own when He defeated Satan. The Bible is replete with references to Satan being the possessor of the world (not the least of which is his uncontradicted claim before Christ during the temptations in the wilderness), but after the cross he is referred to as the god of this world and the master of the spirits of the air, but never again the rightful title holder of the earth. I don't offer this as I know for certain this is true, I am really bad at prophecy you know that, but I am offering it with textual backing because I think the full sense of the Scripture does not support a fall for Satan before Genesis 1:2.

RE: Hal's Reply

Your first point is that the big bang jives nicely with a notion of ruined creation but it fails on this point. The Big Bang Theory postulates that there was a singularity which contained all of the matter in the current universe as it is currently constructed but in a primal and infinitely dense and stable state. The problem with your theory is that the Bible tells us that the war between Satan an God happened in Heaven, so if you are right then the singularity is Heaven and said singularity no longer exists ipso facto Heaven no longer exists. It also says that Satan was cast to the Earth after the war which indicates an Earth which existed when Satan fell. Therefore if you are right then there must have been a fully created earth into which Satan was cast which was then destroyed and remade. It makes no sense to say that the war in heaven occurred in the primal universe and that Satan fell to an earth which did not yet exist.

Also you cannot invoke entropy as the natural state of the universe because in Romans 8 Paul tells us that the Creation has been subjected to futility by God and that it and we await the revealing of the Sons of God. That is, the fallen state of the universe is tied to our situation not the other way around. Also Paul tells us in 1Cor:15 that it was by a man that death came and in that man, all die. In other words before Adam's fall death did not exist. If death did not exist then Adam's body was not breaking down and therefore entropy did not exist. The universe was in a perfect fixed state which changed and fell when Adam sinned which we know for sure because Gen 3 tells us that God cursed the ground because of Adam.

So what is the nature of Adam's fall? You say that he fell because he was tempted by Satan, but Adam was not tempted by Satan. Adam chose to listen to his wife instead of God. And you cannot say that, "Well Eve was tempted by Satan and Adam was around so..." because God very specifically tells Adam that he is cursed for having listen to his wife and not heeding God's word. God never says anything about Adam being tempted by Satan and the reason why is that he was not. Furthermore if being deceived by Satan was the cause of the Fall then why do not all die in Eve? Since, after all, it was she who heeded the words of the Serpent and ate before Adam did. Adam's fall had nothing whatever to do with being tricked but rather the deliberate choosing to ignore God because he wanted to be as God choosing for himself right and wrong.

You also cannot argue that they were naked and unashamed means that they were blind to their nakedness because the implied assumption here is that nakedness is shameful which is an idea which foreign utterly to the Bible and if you don't believe me read Song of Songs.

Also your idea fails the test because you assert that God created the universe from pre-existing materials. First a language study and then an historical one.

Two words for create in Hebrew. One is qanah which means to erect or create and carries with it the idea of making something from pre-existing materials. As in the create a table from lumber. The other is barah (which is the word used in Gen 1:1) and this word also means to create but it carries some very special connotations. One, this type of creating is only ever done by God in the Hebrew. Men never barah men only qanah. Only God barah. Also the idea of the word carries the implication of having created out of nothing and that is really important, and here is why.

Now the historical study. At the time Moses compiled the Torah the prevailing world views of creation were that of a primordial disorderly state over which the gods of order and the gods of chaos warred with the gods of order conquering and thus the universe was... well a universe instead of chaos. It is also important to know that this idea was believed by the Egyptians who thought that the great Celestial Cow had given birth to the order in the universe. It is not coincidence that Aaron fashioned a golden calf. The Israelites had been told this God was the One who created all things and Aaron declared that God to be the celestial cow. That is why God was offended because the notion of the Israelites was that Moses' God was one of the Egyptian gods. So when Moses wrote the first line of the Torah he very specifically picked out a word for create which sets aside the notion of a primal universe which existed before God fashioned it as it is now.

So your baseline assumption, which I admit is internally consistent, is not Biblical. And while of course you are free to believe this, my assertion was that you could not make this argument in defense of Orthodox Christianity. And the reason why I said it was Platonic was because it is, and I did not want to call you a neo-Platonist or a neo-Gnostic as the names are offensive to the Christian ear. And if you choose to say it comes from elsewhere that is fine too, but the point is that it does not come from the text of Holy Scripture.

My point is I think your entire argument is annulled because your first point is invalid.

Also, I am quite surprised that you would say that an argument did not make sense because you didn't pick it out. That is a little insulting... if not worse.

The argument I made was, since Adam did not exist in an already fallen body, then we had to understand the nature of the fall being one of absolute free will disobedience and outright rebellion to God. And the reason why I said Satan offered them a legitimate thing in an illegitimate way is because that is what the text says. Gen 3:4&5 "But the Serpent said to the woman you shall not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil." and Gen 3:22 "Then the Lord God said, 'Behold the man has become like one of us in knowing good from evil...' ". The plain reading of the Text is that what Satan told Eve was true, but she was not meant to have it. As far as God eventually leading them to the Tree, that is supposition on my part based on the Nature of the Son being fully submitted to God the Father, but that supposition is not in any way to be taken as Scripture.

One more thing, the word used which is translated 'know' in the text is the Hebrew yada, which means, to know, to perceicve, to discern, to discriminate. That is why I said that the knowing in the case of Gen 3 is one of discriminating. That is to decide for themselves what is and is not good. Which is exactly what Adam did when he listened to his wife and ignored God. He deliberately chose to decide for himself that the fruit was better than God's command. And I think the unveiling is that they both saw what they had done, not as children afraid of being caught, but as adults who do thus and so and then immediately regret what they have done. That is why they were ashamed.

One more thing and this just because I'm a dork. Entropy does not bother the universe at all, and in and of itself does not argue for a fallen state. Since I think the universe is energy, entropy is nothing more than massed up coagulated systems of energy becoming simpler smaller systems of energy, and because of Newton's Laws of Thermodynamics we know that said energy is not lost so the universe doesn't care in the least about entropy. It is not a bad thing based strictly on surface observation.

Hal's reply

First, it would be good to clarify one point. Regardless of when(?) we are talking about, before{?) or after(?) the fall of Satan and the 1/3 of the heavenly host, contingency is still a factor. The angelic host and the material from which they were made, are as contingent as we and our fallen material are. It would seem, however, that free will was as present, in a pre-fall universe, as it is, here, but it also seems that the majority (2/3) of the population of heaven was able to make good decisions. I must scratch my head somewhat, concerning this. Unfallen contingency has better material to work with. Wow! Recently, I had a conversation with someone about the 'big bang.' As I have heard, before, his postulate was that the big bang was the moment of creation. Having heard some of the postulated original state of the singularity that exploded, in that big bang, and the description of the disordered state of the original material which came out of it, it has always seemed to me that the big bang was the moment of the fall, not the moment of creation, for all of the material described by most nuclear physicists, was in a disordered state, immediately after the big bang, not ordered, in a heat death that was at millions of degrees. Why do I mention this? Primarily because the state of the universe, just after the 'big bang' seems to be indicative of the tohuw and bohuw, the formlessness and chaos, and in particular, the ruin of the simple order of the singularity that existed, until the 'big bang' or the fall, which ever way you want to see it.

I really dislike the notion that God "did His best" to restore the universe. I think it indicates that some things are beyond God's ability. Understand I am not arguing for the omni-competence of God but rather that those things which God purposes to do He does so in total and without anything lacking. I think Genesis also supports this idea because God declares Creation "Very Good". If Creation were a patchwork of something which had been better before then I have a hard time grasping how it could be "Very good" in the eyes of the Almighty. Also I think the idea of the universe being constructed of "naturally corrupted elements" is not a Christian-Jewish idea at all. The Bible unashamedly declares that everything God did in creation is good and not lacking in anything at all. Why would God curse creation because of man's sin if it were already cursed. Rather such a notion is Platonic in its nature. The idea that the universe is basically evil is to say that all physical matter is evil and therefore you fall into the Neo-Platonist heresy of "Spirit good/ physical bad" not so not at all. God created man good period and declared him to be so. Also the idea that the universe was cobbled together with wicked elements is a gnostic heresy which has nothing whatever to do with Christian orthodoxy.

That the big bang has coalesced into order, galaxies and stars and planets, black holes and quasars, stellar systems, asteroids, etc., is evidence that the glorious simplicity of singularity, fallen from perfect order, is having to be re-ordered, but NOW is being ordered in a new complexity, showing God's way of bringing chaos into order, and greater complexity of order than singularity could manifest. “Glory to glory,” as it has been said, in scripture. Naturally, seeing as chaos and entropy have been conquered and made, against their nature, into glorious order, would have to be said to be “Very Good.”

It is my ascertation, that at the same time, we must recognize that nature is still subject to what is usually called Newton's third law of thermodynamics, an internal tendency to disorder, the heat-death of entropy, It would seem to me that entropy is the proof of my admittedly poorly worded description of the patchwork universe. I see God as having used the fallen matter, left-over from the big bang, to build an even more glorious and magnificent universe, but one that is still built of a material that is less than desirable, a material that will eventually be dispensed with, after which the New Heavens and the New Earth will be created, for God's greater glory, and for us. That Plato was the origin of the idea that matter is inherently corrupt, and evil, is not necessarily true, nor even is it necessarily a completely accurate perception, from Plato's point of view. However, that the universe is inherently entropic, cannot be denied. (It, however, is true that in the New Testament, [Gal. 4:8,9], scripture speaks of us, that we were subject to those “who were not gods,” and that we should not return to being subject to the “weak and beggarly elements.” What is meant here, should be carefully analyzed. Does it mean elemental spirits or not?)

But, what I am saying here, is that the text and the words used, especially in the Hebrew, indicate what science actually describes, (though the time frame is obviously in debate), when it describes the big bang. Look into the scientific material, and you will find what I relate, above.

Also, the idea of tohuw and bohuw being repititions, do not sound valid to me. Yes, I agree that “alas, alas,” “fallen, fallen,” “truly, truly,” Abraham, Abraham,” are all emphasis constructions, not only present in ancient Hebrew, but still present in modern language. Tohuw & bohuw, however, are absolutely different words, containing connotations and denotations that are definitely meant to express different aspects of the disorder present in the universe. God is not a God of confusion, OR of disorder, so the source of the disorder has to be accounted for. We must look elsewhere in scripture. “It is the glory of God to conceal things. It is the glory of kings to search things out.”

Regardless of the quality of the material used to rebuild the universe, the fact is, that the contingent nature of the universe was always there. The free-will choice of Lucifer and his 1/3 of the heavenly host, as contingent beings, was misused to choose to make a choice undirected by the will of God, from within, (now), Satan's own internal will. Mankind's temptation was, though his own fault, from outside his will. He was tempted from an outside source. That made him redeemable, BUT, true moral guilt, (as mentioned before), required a repair job on his will, which though his body is still made of fallen matter, causing the occasional poor decision, allows better decision-making capability. This has some bearing on some of the doctrines of the church, dealing with ongoing need for repentance and admission of sin, since we are still NATURALLY prone to sin.

This argument cannot be made in defense of Christian orthodoxy. Of course Lucifer was a contingent being, but apart from the ability to sin he also had the ability to not sin (which is an ability which we post-fall lack.) The same is true of Adam. There is a sense in which we can never grasp what temptation meant to Adam, but we can be certain that it must have come from within and the reason why is simple. If Adam fell because he was tempted outside of himself then how did Lucifer fall? As the angel who rebelled, Lucifer must have been tempted from within since the only other being who could tempt him was God. So if the only way Adam could fall was because he was tempted form outside of himself then the only way which Lucifer could have fallen was the same. Unless of course Adam was not morally perfect in which case the fall is not a fall at all. However Ezekiel tells us that Lucifer fell because of the lust in his own heart which welled up from within himself. And James tells us that we sin because temptation wells up from within ourselves. Remember that Scripture holds Adam responsible for the fall, but he did not sin first. Eve sinned first but was deceived Adam chose to sin in full knowledge of what he was doing.

And you can't say that it was because he had a natural proclivity to sin because he was in a fallen body. He was not and Scripture tells us so quite plainly. God gave Law to our parents and they transgressed it. They did so because they wanted to and yes God had to allow it to happen. One could argue that the fall was inevitable since it happened, but it need not be so. That Adam was made good and given free will and Law indicates that he could have done differently. If he could not but fall the God's cursing of him is unjust. If God fashions Adam from fallen matter and gives him Law knowing He can't obey and then holds him responsible for his sin then God is unjust. And you can't argue that we have a sin proclivity and God holds us responsible so... because we are not Adam and neither are we as Adam was. We have a sin nature, he did not. We live in a fallen world, he was in the Garden of God. Our situation is nothing like Adam's and yet when we sin we do so because we choose to and God holds us responsible for it. So for Adam to have sinned given the beatific existence which he enjoyed which we have never known is all the more shocking. God not only made him good, He stacked the deck in his favor. And Adam still fell.

I cannot see the argument in Bogey's last exchange. I know his writing is usually lucid, so assume that some brain gas was released.

My point is that scripture says, Lucifer was created “perfect in all his ways, until iniquity was found in him.” This indicates that Satan, (his new name, meaning adversary or enemy, after his fall), fell due to his own self-contained pride. Other scriptures indicate this. Adam was tempted and fell due to the temptation which came from Satan, outside Adam. Was Adam still truly morally guilty? YES ! As the Federal head of the entire human race, he fell, and all mankind fell through him. However, he did not tempt himself, as did Lucifer/Satan. It came from outside him.

I believe that both Adam and Eve were kept innocent, until their fall, of the nature of their own bodies. Scripture says that their “eyes were opened” as a result of eating of “the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil,” which means that in SOME way, their eyes were previously covered, or blinded to SOMETHING. It looks like, to me, that their eyes were closed, or they were kept unaware, of the nature of their own bodies, for it is said that they were already naked, but not ashamed. Why did they suddenly feel ashamed about something that was already a fact in existence? (It has been postulated that their disobedience was what made them ashamed, and this is a valid point, however, that previously existing nakedness was the only physical manifestation of the issue, mentioned.) Interestingly, the word that is used, for naked, (transliterated 'awram'), while it's denotation is simply “naked” or “nude,” it has other connotations, which are “cunning, (usually in a bad sense), smooth, be prudent, deal subtly, take crafty [counsel].” Is there something here, being expressed, in this particular form, of a natural tendency which has been exposed?, which could not have been allowed to be made known? (Seeing as I, personally, do not hold to the doctrine that sees sex as the cause of original sin, as did the Shakers, I must postulate that there was something inherently present, more fundamental than just sex.) Later, it is said that the serpent, (in which form Satan came), was the most subtle of all creatures. Hmm. Regardless, there was something that was hidden from them, for a reason that God felt necessary, that Satan wanted them to be aware of, and NOT for their own good, for immediately upon becoming aware, they were ashamed. Seeing as that knowledge CAME from the “tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good AND evil,” it seems reasonable that an awareness of their own nature was the point of the knowledge gained from the fruit, that fruit which Satan wished them to partake of, and caused their own fall.

This possibility would fit in well with the chaotic, anarchistic, nature of an entropic body. It seems to me, that if Adam and Eve had known about the way their bodies were fashioned from the chaotic matter of an exploded singularity, inherently entropic, they would no longer have been innocent of their built-in tendency to physical corruption, which became exactly the case. Their innocence gave them the state that was needed to be able to have a clean conscience & at least innocent free will, but they still fell into the contingent inevitability of the fall, from a temptation from Satan, outside themselves. (That, at a later date, Moses encountered God in a bush which burned, but was not consumed, [unlike entropic matter], may be a literal expression of where, in eternity, we are headed, only if in Christ.) In the meantime, we absolutely ARE made of matter which is subject to the third law of thermodynamics, or entropy. My thoughts are, that Adam and Eve's blindness/innocence was God's way of dealing with the issue, when giving them their free will choice.

One last mention, concerning contingency and the inevitability of the fall. The contingency of creation made the fall inevitable. Only God is non-contingent. The contingency of creations given free will make their fall inevitable. Tying this to the previous paragraph is that mankind was created in an innocent state, blinded to his nature.

Concerning Bogey's dislike of the phraseology I used about God doing His best to deal with fallen matter, I must, once again, apologize for using poor phrasing. My point was, actually, that God decided to use fallen matter, left over from the fall, to remake a shattered universe, even though He does not intend to leave things that way, (as His intended destruction of this heavens and earth, before He remakes a new heavens and earth, would indicate, otherwise, he wouldn't be destroying it). That the earth was cursed by the fall of man does not negate that matter was cursed by the fall of Satan....(hmm. I am not sure whether Adam's fall or Lucifer's fall subsumed the other. Entropy is entropy.) Look at it, not only in the earth, but in thermodynamic law, everywhere in the universe. I see a breathtakingly beautiful indication of agreement between astrophysics, physics, and, in particular, thermodynamics, and, on the other hand, scripture. However, in the end, entropy will be no more, as sin and death will be no more.

(More later.)

Texas Till I Die

I don't believe in moral victories. Congrats to Alabama you are the better team and the scoreboard proves it. This morning a lot of folks are apologizing for Texas because McCoy got hurt, but injuries are part of football and no one ever stops the game and reschedules because someone gets hurt so we can what both teams are like at full strength.

However, I am still very impressed by what Texas did. To have lost their unquestioned leader and one of their top offensive stars one series into the game and then to fall behind 24-6 at halftime were two terrible blows. In the past the knock on the Horns was that they were soft as warm butter and would roll over as soon as anything went wrong (see the five game losing streak to OU as proof). But last night in the face of terrible opposition Texas hung tough with a team that was just better than they were and managed to make a game of it, and that is not something they would always have done in the past. There are many things to criticize about last nights loss from very little playing time for the backup through out the year to a really questionable time out and pass right before halftime to a bad drop in the end zone in the second quarter, but in the end what happened last night was Alabama took advantage of their opportunities and Texas did not. And that is why Alabama is better.

But I am proud of the way that Texas hung in out manned and out gunned and made a game of what should have been a blow out. Next year will be tough with the graduation of Shipley and McCoy but I am very hopeful given the performance of Gilbert against very long odds and I think next year holds great promise.

BTW for those of you who don't know this one is about my true mental illness... college football.

Hook 'Em

Not much thought to this one

Bogey

People suck... Happy new year

I have a friend who is having trouble right now but he can't tell what about.

I have a friend who recently found out that people he thought were his friends are not.

I have a friend who is struggling with his demons and won't be honest about it.

And I am such a good friend I write about it here instead of confronting them.

Why?

Because people are small minded self serving turds. For this reason those who might be able to help us are avoided because there is a better than even chance that if we were to our bare our souls those secrets would wind up... oh I don't know posted on someone's blog. Just an example yours truly would not do that. Or those to whom we might turn to for help are avoided out of carelessness and are slighted because, not because we don't trust them, but because we don't trust anybody. And they, being somebody, fall into said category of anybody and therefore find themselves fogging the glass of the peoples lives whom they would most like to help.

In short we don't trust each other. And we do this because long experience has taught us that trust is for suckers and for people who don't have any embarrassing things to deal with. Sure we could share our pain, but to do so opens us to risk and we are so risk averse that we would rather leave our spouses than be honest and God forbid find out some truth about ourselves in the process.

I do include myself in this.

So what we wind up with is a mountain of acquaintances and no friends and people go to functions that each other are throwing to be part of the crowd and they stand around in large groups islands leagues apart with no hope of ever touching each other.

And so sometimes people we love and trust get hurt and we can't help because those who do the hurting don't know or don't care that they are. Because sometimes the ones who are hurting our friends are ourselves, and they love us too much to tell us so. After all if we can't handle the truth from ourselves we certainly will not tolerate it from someone else.

ah look at all the lonely people...

Thank God for true friends.

I hope some of mine read this.

Just thinking...

about you all.

Nature of Nature and the Fall

Hal is in blue I am in red.

And on... As Ray and I have discussed, at length, in the past, from gradual, time to time, my own limited (necessarily), understanding of the nature of "nature" and the fall of creation, is one based on contingency. All creation is contingent, whether we are speaking of mankind's world, as we presently know it, or the world which seems to be indicated, in that time just after," In the beginning," (The words after that, "God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void," are better translated, "were chaos and a ruin." It has been widely thought about, that chaos and a ruin connotate that there was order and NON-ruin, (non-ruin meaning structural integrity).

The two words in question here which Hal translates chaos and ruin are tohuw and bohuw. Tohuw means formlessness confusion and emptiness and is most often used to mean a wilderness and vanity. Bohuw means emptiness void and waste. The idea here is one of repetition as in when the Lord says, "Abraham Abraham," or "Samuel Samuel," or "Simon Simon" this sort of language when used by Hebrew people is one of emphasis. When Jesus says, "truly truly I say to you..." He is not stuttering but is saying, "Listen up, this is really important." In the case of Genesis 1 I think the usage here is an emphasizing of the idea that when God created He created from nothing and that nothing was absolute. The emphasis works in this case to mean, I think, that though God has created the Heavens and the Earth, the work is not finished there is still a filling up to be finished in His creation.

A word here, the phrase Heavens and the Earth does not mean flat earth with sky over head and neither does it mean that this act of creation created the Earth specifically. Rather it is a Hebraism meaning basically, "All that is, everything, the universe." The wording could just as easily have read, "In the beginning God created the universe, and the universe was empty and without things as we see them now."

However, there are other places that the text uses the same phraseology to indicate a ruin due to God's wrath (Jeremiah) and while I do not think that the text supports that idea in this case, I also agree that it does not specifically rule it out, therefore I think those who say this is an indication of the Fall are not without argument I just don't personally agree with this idea.

The point, however, is that nature, as it is seen, is a restored patchwork, with God having done His best to use ruins to rebuild a universe that fell with the angelic host, using naturally corrupted elements, whose best use still contains the elemental spirits that are contained within the material God has used to rebuild the fallen universe.

I really dislike the notion that God "did His best" to restore the universe. I think it indicates that some things are beyond God's ability. Understand I am not arguing for the omni-competence of God but rather that those things which God purposes to do He does so in total and without anything lacking. I think Genesis also supports this idea because God declares Creation "Very Good". If Creation were a patchwork of something which had been better before then I have a hard time grasping how it could be "Very good" in the eyes of the Almighty. Also I think the idea of the universe being constructed of "naturally corrupted elements" is not a Christian-Jewish idea at all. The Bible unashamedly declares that everything God did in creation is good and not lacking in anything at all. Why would God curse creation because of man's sin if it were already cursed. Rather such a notion is Platonic in its nature. The idea that the universe is basically evil is to say that all physical matter is evil and therefore you fall into the Neo-Platonist heresy of "Spirit good/ physical bad" not so not at all. God created man good period and declared him to be so. Also the idea that the universe was cobbled together with wicked elements is a gnostic heresy which has nothing whatever to do with Christian orthodoxy.

Regardless of the quality of the material used to rebuild the universe, the fact is, that the contingent nature of the universe was always there. The free-will choice of Lucifer and his 1/3 of the heavenly host, as contingent beings, was misused to choose to make a choice undirected by the will of God, from within, (now), Satan's own internal will. Mankind's temptation was, though his own fault, from outside his will. He was tempted from an outside source. That made him redeemable, BUT, true moral guilt, (as mentioned before), required a repair job on his will, which though his body is still made of fallen matter, causing the occasional poor decision, allows better decision-making capability. This has some bearing on some of the doctrines of the church, dealing with ongoing need for repentance and admission of sin, since we are still NATURALLY prone to sin.

This argument cannot be made in defense of Christian orthodoxy. Of course Lucifer was a contingent being, but apart from the ability to sin he also had the ability to not sin (which is an ability which we post-fall lack.) The same is true of Adam. There is a sense in which we can never grasp what temptation meant to Adam, but we can be certain that it must have come from within and the reason why is simple. If Adam fell because he was tempted outside of himself then how did Lucifer fall? As the angel who rebelled, Lucifer must have been tempted from within since the only other being who could tempt him was God. So if the only way Adam could fall was because he was tempted form outside of himself then the only way which Lucifer could have fallen was the same. Unless of course Adam was not morally perfect in which case the fall is not a fall at all. However Ezekiel tells us that Lucifer fell because of the lust in his own heart which welled up from within himself. And James tells us that we sin because temptation wells up from within ourselves. Remember that Scripture holds Adam responsible for the fall, but he did not sin first. Eve sinned first but was deceived Adam chose to sin in full knowledge of what he was doing.

And you can't say that it was because he had a natural proclivity to sin because he was in a fallen body. He was not and Scripture tells us so quite plainly. God gave Law to our parents and they transgressed it. They did so because they wanted to and yes God had to allow it to happen. One could argue that the fall was inevitable since it happened, but it need not be so. That Adam was made good and given free will and Law indicates that he could have done differently. If he could not but fall the God's cursing of him is unjust. If God fashions Adam from fallen matter and gives him Law knowing He can't obey and then holds him responsible for his sin then God is unjust. And you can't argue that we have a sin proclivity and God holds us responsible so... because we are not Adam and neither are we as Adam was. We have a sin nature, he did not. We live in a fallen world, he was in the Garden of God. Our situation is nothing like Adam's and yet when we sin we do so because we choose to and God holds us responsible for it. So for Adam to have sinned given the beatific existence which he enjoyed which we have never known is all the more shocking. God not only made him good, He stacked the deck in his favor. And Adam still fell.

That having been said, it is now necessary to touch on the issue of the inevitability of the fall of man, & as a matter of fact, the issue of the necessity of the destruction of Satan & the heavenly host, & yet again, the point of view that the three periods of earth's and mankind's history being the dramatic proof that the destruction of Satan and the heavenly host is necessary, for true redemption to be effective. (Those periods are (1), the creation of Adam and Eve to the Deluge, (2), the Deluge through the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the history of the world until the future ascension of Satan to power, in this world, and the return of Messiah to stop the destruction of the world, and holding him powerless to affect the history of the world, until the end of the last period,(3), the thousand year reign. i will do that next.

I am not a dispensationalist and I do not believe that history is carved up into different eras. Of course the covenant under which Adam existed is different than ours because he existed in the presence of God whereas the covenant of grace which God gave to Israel through Moses in the Law and then in its fulfillment in Christ Jesus is that God will be with us, but that is very different because the final Messianic age is the fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, given to Moses the People of Israel, brought forth in Christ and for that which we now wait. We wait for the presence of God; Adam lived in that presence. But the promise and the Law giver and the laws given do not change because God relates to us only through His covenant which is now and has always been one of absolute grace.

But back to why the fall was not inevitable. I said earlier that God stacked the deck in Adam's favor and he still fell but did not answer the obvious question, Why? Why did Adam fall? If he did not have to then why did he?

The answer is, I think, because he wanted to. It is the same reason we sin. Had Adam not wanted to eat of the fruit he would not have. Yes the temptation of the Serpent was very powerful I am sure, but people cannot be compelled to moral evil against their will. A man is told to rob a bank or he will be killed, he has choice. Commit a crime or death. He can choose death, and if he does not he does so because he thinks his life is more valuable than the damage caused by the moral evil of his act. He wants to rob the bank so he does.

Adam had choice. He could have not eaten. If the fall was inevitable then he could not not have eaten and therefore God is unjust is punishing him. I am really surprised to hear my friend say this when he stands so strongly against hyper-Calvinsim (and rightly so). Adam sinned because Satan told them they would be as God. God then says that they must be cast because they have become as God. So Satan told them a legitimate truth in an illegitimate way. Adam is in Paradise with a command to obey and if he does he will be found just before a holy God. I think eventually God would have brought them to the tree and gave it to them, but they reached for it before God intended them to have it. We see the same thing in the wilderness temptation when Satan tells Jesus he will give Him the kingdoms of the world. Well God has purposed that Christ will rule the kingdoms of the earth and Satan does have them so he was offering Jesus a legitimate thing. But the way which God purposed Christ to have the kingdoms was by the Cross, so Satan was offering this to Jesus in an illegitimate way.

So how did Adam become as God?

The idea given in Genesis is "discerning good from evil", but what does that mean? I think it means that they would decide what is good and evil for themselves. That they would now make up their own minds what is good and what is bad. I think this is the very nature of Satan's sin. He decided that he had the right to take a higher place than he had been given. That he would decide for himself where he should be rather than being in submission to God. Adam, I think, had he obeyed would have communed with God to such an extent that, even though he is not God, he would have become fully submitted to God and then would have had the tree given to him. We can't say that they did not know to eat was sin, they did. They knew they were sinning and they did so because they wanted to decide for themselves what their station should be. They wanted to be God. And when they had eaten they were immediately ashamed. I think what they now saw which they had not before was not the difference between good and evil, but that to have obeyed would have been far far better than to have sinned.

The fall is a great and terrible tragedy. Adam and Eve, having now eaten, suddenly feel for the first time separation from God and shame for their own sin. They remember what it is to obey and suddenly wonder why they thought it was a good idea to do otherwise. So far from the freedom which they thought they would have, they rather now have the responsibility to decide what is good and evil, and they will do so without the immediate help of God. And so we now spend each day in a suffering dying world surrounded by suffering dying people whose eyes are opened only to their own blindness which they seeing do not see as they try and fumble their way to righteousness and God.

And it need not have been so, and thus God's wrath is just.

God Bless

Just Thinking

Little Ahmed Paper Loved That Rascal....

OK, so let me set the scene.

My family and I are out at a restaurant eating dinner (as opposed to ya know... wrapping ourselves in saran wrap and running about screaming "The Ghost of Stephen Foster") and on the TV there is a story about the snow storms in the northeast.

When suddenly from one table over an educational moment broke out as a curmudgeonly elder gentlemen spoke up about the snow saying, "Wish all 'em muzlims wood luke at that so they'd stay in ther own cuntry seein az they like sand so much."

If you don't speak Texan he said, "I wish all of the Muslims on Planet Earth would get the chance to watch this news story on the television so that they, seeing the snow, would be dissuaded from coming to this country because they like the sand in their own country so much."

OK translation time is over.

Now this struck me because this thoughtful well informed gentleman had presented the room with information which we did not previously possess. For example...

1. All Muslims like sand.

2. All Muslims hate snow.

3. All Muslims are coming to this country.

4. All Muslims come from one country.

Now this struck me as odd because I am fairly certain that Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, etc., are all separate and sovereign nations, and are all "Muslim" Countries.

But our friend seemed so sure that I now feel obliged to rethink my prior position.

So from this day forward we the people declare that all Muslims come from one country... Talibania. It is a wonderful place with deserts and mountains where children are taught religion in school, intolerance for other races, religions and ethnic groups is sternly encouraged. The only religious intolerance more smiled upon than dislike of other religions is that for other Muslims of a different Islamic Tradition than your own, and pretty much all of the problems in the world are the fault of Jews and minorities.

Wait....

I know why he's worried now. Talibania sounds just like Texas... and it never snows here.