Faith Struggling with Evolution
January 8th, 2007 by 
soulster
I stumbled upon a Nova program entitled “What About God?” on Google Video which details students from conservative Christian backgrounds encountering evolutionary theory at Wheaton College, a conservative Christian university in the Midwest: watch it here [PBS/Nova | 54 min]. If you watch this program with very human eyes, it will give some keen insight into the issues at stake for Christians concerning evolutionary theory.
One of the most telling scenes, in my opinion, occurs when Nathan, a Geology major, attempts to broach the topic at a family cook-out. He’s been learning about evolution in his course work, and you can tell its taking its grip on him. While the conversation between Nathan and his Father isn’t the chaos I’ve experienced before, it is clearly uncomfortable. There is more at stake for Nathan than just giving up one theory in favor of another. He may alienate himself for his family, his culture, his heritage, and maybe more. Anyone with a sliver of compassion will know that is no easy or safe thing.
I have become a believer that the journey is as important as the destination. With such in mind, it would be my objective to encourage people (faithful and nonbeliever alike) to hold in gentle reverense each of our human journeys, wherever they may be taking us. While we should hope it is to some better, more truthful place, we will do ourselves and others no service by clumsy interference or judgementalism. But, through learning the art of nurture, we might just have some hope in a better ending.
More on Evolution and Faith
On Public Radio…
>Evolution and Wonder: Understanding Charles Darwin
>Quarks and Creation
Posted in belief, current issues, evolutionary theory, naturalism, philosophical issues, why believers believe | 
January 8th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
On a side note, it looks like neurology is going to be the next evolutionary biology.
On another side note, dt&soulster, do you have plans to talk about the Shoah anytime soon? For me, Auschwitz is always the elephant in the room.
January 8th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Just as a straw poll, of the believers here, do any of you have a problem with evolutionary theory, in whole or in part?
One interesting thing I notice when talking to people who do have a problem with it is that they think that evolution necessarily implies atheism. They see pop-scientists using evolution as a “proof” of the non-existance of God, and so they (the believers) think, “Well, these scientist guys seem pretty smart, so if they say that evolution means no God, then I guess they’re right. But I know there is a God, so, therefore, evolution must be wrong.”
One of my personal projects is to try to disengage the question of evolution from the question of God.
January 8th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
ben,
If the Earth is 4.55 billion years (+/- 1%), and evolution as a process is a fact, then the Bible is wrong on cosmology and evolutionary biology. That does not necessitate that the age of the Earth and the fact of evolution negate the existence of a god.
January 8th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Matthew,
I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but since it is so emotionally painful, I’m not sure I could ‘use’ it in something as trivial as an ‘argument’.
January 8th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
“the Bible is wrong on cosmology and evolutionary biology.”
Only for those who hold that Genesis is 100% literal.
“That does not necessitate that the age of the Earth and the fact of evolution negate the existence of a god. ”
I’m glad you recognize this.
January 8th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
ben,
I have two questions:
If the origins of the universe and man presented in the Bible are not to be taken literally, then I don’t see the Bible to be reliable. When I read Genesis, I think it’s pretty clear that it is to be taken literally. Should Genesis not be taken at face value?
How can we tell which parts of the Bible are literal?
January 8th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
First: You don’t see the Bible to be reliable anyway. So, it’s kinda humorous that you’re putting conditions on its reliability. What is or is not literal in the Bible is an internal debate within Christianity. To outsiders we may as well be arguing about what color saddle is best for our flying unicorns. In other words: How could the Bible’s level of literalness matter to someone who thinks it’s all false anyway?
Second: You think it’s clear that Genesis is to be taken literally, but you also think that it’s clear that there is no God, so maybe you’re not the best person to define the interpretational hermenutics of Genesis. That’s not a potshot at your atheism, what I’m saying is that your experience of reading Genesis is radically different than mine, and that your atheism can cause you to miss out on what is being said. Read the first few chapters of Leon Kass’ “The Beginning of Wisdom” for further information and an approach to Genesis that an atheist might be able to find comprehensible.
Third: To attempt to answer your question anyway: Most Christians throughout history have not believed in sola scriptura. I get the Bible from the Church, not the other way around. The Bible does not interpret itself. What this means is that I read the Bible through the lens of centuries of Church teachings. The literalness or non-literalness of any given passage is a matter of Church teaching. The Church, being a living institution, interprets itself, just as you interpret yourself: If you write something I find obscure, I can ask you to clarify, we then enter into a conversation. Similarly, if I have a question about a passage, I can read the old commentaries about the passage, ask the living teachers about the old commentaries and the passage etc, in a conversation.
January 8th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
ben,
I think that’s a poor analogy. I’ve heard it before, and I think a better one would be: is the Bible talking about dragons (Isaiah 34:13; Psalm 91:13; Psalm 74:13, Deuteronomy 32:33; Micah 1:8 KJV), or serpents (NIV)?
Is a ‘dragon’ a dragon?
Is a ‘flying serpent’ (Isaiah 30:6) a flying serpent?
Because it matters to me if you believe that the text must be taken literally or not, and why you do not take Genesis to be literal other than looking to the Church’s teachings. I can inquire on why you reject parts of the Bible and accept others while still thinking that the Bible is not reliable.
I read Genesis, and while I dismiss it as a myth, I can attempt to understand what was written, and when it says in Genesis 1:5, 1:8, 1:13 ‘And the evening and the morning,’ I can only see a progression of 24-hour days.
January 8th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
“poor analogy“: No, it’s pretty good. Dragons or serpents, who cares. The Bible as a whole is about God, which, to you, is like flying unicorns.
“Because it matters to me if you believe that the text must be taken literally or not”
Why does it matter to you? One way or another, I still believe in God, which is already something you find unreal.
“other than looking to the Church’s teachings”
What “other” are you wanting?
“I can only see a progression of 24-hour days.”
Well, then that certainly makes it easier to paint us with the broad-brush of ridicule, but it’s not what we believe.
To be clear: I believe that evolution happened and is-happening.
January 8th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
ben,
I don’t dispute that, and I’m glad that you believe evolution occurs; but, as soulster’s post shows, there’s plenty of Christians that agree with my interpretation of Genesis. I’m not painting anyone with a broad brush; I think, after citing scripture, that Genesis says 24-hour days. Genesis 1:5, 1:8, and 1:13 support this. There is also historical precedent for the Church’s rejection of evolution and modern cosmology in favor of a biblical narrative (Vatican II not withstanding).
True, but the Bible claims to explain cosmology and the origins of man. If I were to accept the god of the Bible, I couldn’t possibly reconcile the facts and the creation myth. If the minutiae are scrubbed clean, what do we have left besides a big-picture god and no Bible?
I can argue with a friend over the plot and message of a fictional book, say The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami, even though I know it’s not real.
January 8th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
“there’s plenty of Christians that agree with my interpretation of Genesis”
Well, I can’t really speak for what those types believe, I think they went wrong about 500 years ago.
“There is also historical precedent for the Church’s rejection of evolution and modern cosmology in favor of a biblical narrative (Vatican II not withstanding).”
There is historical precedent for the Church’s ministers being resistant to new theories with limited proof, but so too will you find scientists with the same resistance.
Once an incontrovertable proof has been made of a theory the Church has typically been willing (though slow like she is with everything) to accept the theory and incorporate it into her internal discussion.
January 8th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
RE “Once an incontrovertable proof has been made of a theory the Church has typically been willing (though slow like she is with everything) to accept the theory and incorporate it into her internal discussion.”
Why do people consider “the church” as a she when obviously “shes” play little part in its formation, process and direction?
Please call the church a “he” - I am offended as a “she” when “hes” suggest that any intelligent woman could see the machinations of the church as essentially “female.”
Yeah, ok - I will chasten myself now. Gets out the cilice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortification_of_the_flesh
January 8th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
“If the minutiae are scrubbed clean, what do we have left besides a big-picture god and no Bible?”
By the way, drunkentune, this is actually a good point and an interesting question. I think that my answer above (Bible through the lens of the Church) covers the answer here as well, but I will need to rephrase to make the connection more clear. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to do this right now, but I will get to it tomorrow. I just wanted to mark a note here to remind myself.
January 8th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
I am sorry if such a reference is offensive. I would say that women, while often oppressed, have played a major role in the faith. Read Walker or Peterson’s church history, or any of the excellent books on the topic for more information (see also the women is Jesus’ life). However, I would question how you could be offended for something you think is a cult, farse, etc. Not being a butt, but is the offense because you apply the implication in reverse, like it taints females in general by the usage?
However, this termonology comes not from typifying the life of the church as “female”, but from Christian theology in which the church is called the “Bride of Christ” — the people of God who will be united with him at the culmination of history. The church is also called an ‘it’ in scripture, so the gender is not intrinsic in nature, but just according to a certain metaphor extending from the Jewish Prophets, thourgh the Gospels, to Revelation.
January 8th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
Matthew and drunkentune:
I think based on my post “Faith in the West” it might be appropriate to talk about the problem of pain soon, but we may not want to bring the the Shoah (Holocaust) into the discussion, as per drunkentune (and presumably other readers) requests. Perhaps we can talk about the problem of pain in general, leaving the readers to apply the implications as they will.
January 9th, 2007 at 12:48 am
RE soulster
“However, I would question how you could be offended for something you think is a cult, farse, etc. Not being a butt, but is the offense because you apply the implication in reverse, like it taints females in general by the usage?”
Interesting notion isn’t it? That one can be offended by something one doesn’t have faith in. But then, I suppose one can be offended by things regardless of whether they adher to the tenets of the organization or not.
I do have my own pet theories as to why religions have become the male dominated, but then, this might not be the time or the place to express them.
Do traditional monotheistic religions such as christianity, islam and judaism reflect the patriarchy cultures in which they originated, and what circumstances led to the development of these patriarchial cultures?
If you are interested in considering these questions, I have written an article in which I suggest a possible origin of patriarchial culture and the subsequent patriarchial religions.
As a woman, the obvious dominance of religion by men has always been fascinating to me, and that women today would want to be a part of what I consider to be misogynistic power structures, leaves me perplexed.
I can hear the comments now. “Oh no! Not only is she an atheist she is a femininazi as well! Release the hounds!”
The Gods Must Be Crazy And The Gods Must Be Male
http://beepbeepitsme.blogspot.com/2006/11/gods-must-be-crazy-and-gods-must-be.html
January 9th, 2007 at 2:46 am
To me, as a Christian, it seems odd that so many believers are fixated on a rear guard action against evolutionary theory. It is not surprising that simple minded people of the pre-Enlightenment might have taken the narrative stories in Genesis as a written history, but it is odd that so many people today look for some way to preserve a partial or complete Creationist view. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I find the evidence for evolution more solid and convincing than that for Christianity. True, I’m about 99% free of doubt about Christianity, but I’m 99.99% free of doubt about evolution. But think about evolutionary theory: there are aspects of the theory that will be tossed out and new elements introduced over time. In the same way, it should not be surprising that Christianity would develop as an understanding by people over time. The difference is that in Christianity there is a basic starting revelation that one must accept by faith. In practice, many Christians would do poorly on a quiz about theology, but many people would also do poorly on a quiz about evolution.
By the way, at Sunday service, our church inducted 3 women and 3 men as new elders, and a luncheon was held to honor a woman who served 4 years, doing an outstanding job as a pastor. It was wonderful, with many people of all ages given a chance to let her know how much she helped them through good times and bad. Christianity has offered opportunities for women in many diverse places and times compared to what they could have hoped for otherwise. For example, the Irish abbesses of the Dark Ages where instrumental in preserving the literature of western Europe and the cultures of that time among other things.
January 9th, 2007 at 6:24 am
But, the primary gods are male and the monotheistic gods are male and the powerful religious positions are male dominated.
That slight changes have occured within the religious power structures in the last 30 or so years, is an indication of how secular values have influenced patriarchial religious values.
January 9th, 2007 at 6:51 am
I have been following the comments on this post because this subject matter hits home right now in the evolution of my own faith. I am a lifelong Christian (and currently serving on the mission field), but I have also become a kind of born-again evolutionist, seeing the fruits of science and the material world to be a more accurate reflection of what’s going on down here. Several years ago this put my faith in a bit of a crisis, but several years spent in seminary and reading through several books helped me realize that the two commitments aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, I find them to reinforce each another in a more dynamic way. But it took me coming to terms with what the Bible actually says and what it’s trying to do. On this specific thread I haven’t seen much of an alternative given to a literal reading of Genesis (besides the ongoing conversation of church doctrines), and I would like to put out for consideration a perspective that seems to encompass more and more the current Christian theological starting point. Maybe this will help address your initial questions on the Bible’s literality, drunkentune.
First, we have to situate the writing of the Genesis accounts (and the other 4 books of Torah) in their respective context. These 5 books were mostly solidified during the time of Israel’s exile to Assyria and Babylon, sometime between 700s and 500s BCE. During this time of captivity, a degree of social conditioning was inevitable, such that the Israelites began to forget their divine call and their priestly legacy in the Promised Land. They needed a way to remember who they were, and thus historians in the community inaugurated the project of reconstructing their origins as a people and their place in the cosmos. Multiple hands and multiple voices went into the compilation of such a history because the entire spectrum of Israelite life needed to be accounted for, and each group of authors set about the task of expertly weaving these various emphases throughout the growing narrative. In short, the Israelites needed a story, something epic with moments of great specificity so that they would never forget who they were, how they had been chosen by God, and what was to be expected of them as a community. (We should not make the mistake of thinking Moses actually wrote any of the Torah; after all, it becomes exceedingly difficult to ascribe his authorship to the Torah when he himself dies in the narrative….)
And so to kick off such a story, the compilation needed a monumental celebration of origin, something to show at the outset that Israel was special. And so the Creation accounts emerged (there are actually 2 intertwined if you read carefully), giving an anchor to natural and genealogical history. But their labors were not immune from the mythological world in which they lived. Much of the history these authors sought to transcribe came by way of oral histories and communal folklore, which may or may not have suffered the lapses in memory that older stories tend to accumulate. For instance, the description of the heavens as a dome over the earth, with windows that would open to allow in the rains (Gen. 1:6-8) is a notably Babylonian invention which the Israelites appear to have lifted almost verbatim. The Noah story shares a striking resemblance with the Gilgamesh tale, and the lives of the patriarchs follow without apology the same cycles and caricatures of other mythological personages. Many centuries removed from any ‘actual’ primordial beginnings, these Israelite authors did what they could with the material they had to work with, and interpolated borrowed styles and typologies where it gave a more suitable rendering to the narrative.
So, in the end, does this discount the veracity of traditional Creationist origins? Yes and no. Personally, I find it a good bit intellectually irresponsible to simply swallow the Genesis accounts as literal blueprints for the assembly of the universe and life on earth, but as I stated above, I think the Torah is trying to do something different. By using the rhetoric and plotlines of preexisting frameworks the authors were trying to make a statement about who the Israelites were in relation to God, and what set them apart from the nations that lived around them. God had distinguished them as God’s holy people and so they needed to act that way. This meant that Middle Eastern history had to be reworked in order to show in what ways they were to be different: where the Israelite story drifted from more ‘traditional’ mythologies made clear statements as to the moral and ethical responsibilities of the community of God. And seeing what was expected of them, this helped explain better why they were currently in exile – they’d made some grievous departures from God’s original intentions!
So, this whole Torah project never sought to capture the scientific events of the material universe and plot them along a timeline; this never even crossed their minds! What was important was recasting history as a didactic device as a means by which the people might find a common identity and a restored sense of purpose in the world. That’s all. And with this intention in mind, it doesn’t raise too many complications for me to then underwrite this kind of narratival history with the claims of evolution. It’s just not that large a jump.
And beyond the Torah, the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) literally teems with the mixture of literary styles and poetic nuance. You raised the question, drunkentune, of what’s to be taken literally in the Bible and what’s more figurative. I think in the end this just takes you becoming more familiar with the different genres of the text itself, but I feel like all of the Hebrew Bible ought to be taken with a grain of salt. ‘Dragons’ or ‘flying serpents’ becomes an irrelevant question when we consider that these ancient authors were using an enormous poetical vocabulary to express the world around them. There is absolutely beautiful imagery employed for the simple purpose of making points about theology and orthodox living, NOT making taxonomical assertions about the biological world. The reader must simply take all of the Hebrew Bible’s texts as vehicles for drawing out some kind of imaginative reflection on God, without always appealing to that burdensome overlay of literality.
So, this comment got lengthy, but I hope it does help clarify things a little bit more in regard to Genesis, the Bible, and evolution.
Oh yeah, and I think the Church denoted as a ‘she’ has a lot to do with the bride metaphor soulster mentioned, but also with the more linguistic reason that ‘church’ (ekklesia in the Greek) is a feminine noun. By its nature as a word it is feminine and would be a ‘she.’
January 9th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Graham:
Excellent overview. Glad you got to it before I did. I’ve been thinking about a post on my view of Bible interpretation and textual reliability, but I’m not sure it would fit the blog readers to dedicate too much space to it (as it is very difficult for me to be concise on the topic). Thanks for the contribution. Since you are thinking about these issues, did you read the post, Is Naturalistic Religion Biblical? were I take the view of divine revelation in the context of socio-cultural evolution?
One point I would like to make is that modernism has an unreasonable bias for all things novel and current and a suspicion of all things ancient. I do not share this optimism or this arrogance. Ancient documents have tremendous truth to offer if you know, as you suggest, what they are doing. But you must view them in context to see the truth. If you judge them by the standards of modern documents, you are missing the point as much as if you failed to take into account culture and experience in conversation. The documents appear to have no truth because the idea of truth is too narrow and the apparatus lacking. To place the Creation account into modern scientific rigours is silly. The text is not meant for that. It is theological at its core as you pointed out, and is encoding the truth found by a people on a long journey and their conversation with the past which provides the bearing for their future.
But then again, if we wish to force it into scientific molds, the Creations accounts of Mesopotamia are amazing compared to other origin myths. If you sat a premodern person down in front of a discovery channel presentation of origins of man via Big Bang, evolution of life, and development of humans, you might just get an oral history resembling that which you find in the Bible. Strange compared to the world coming from the slain body of a primordial cow or the vomit of the gods after a wild party.
Good point on the gender of ekklesia. The lack of gender endings in English has tainted our understanding of gender in language and has lead to the error of equating it with gender in biology.
January 9th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Soulster, I’m fully on board with you when you confess the difficulty in reconciling our modern educations to premodern methodologies. There is truthfulness in these earlier forms, but it’s not the empirical or plottable data that we’re accustomed to; it’s a more normative truth of moral and ethical direction. And somewhere in there, amidst the exodus and the conquest of Canaan and the voices of the prophets the ‘real’ history of empirical study floats up to the textual surface to sit more comfortably on modernistic ground. But I don’t feel like this automatically disqualifies the narrative before that from shedding a great deal of ‘truth’ on the divine intention.
It took me a while to wrap my head around the idea that the Bible WASN’T a straightforward accounting of humanity, but once I did it really freed me up from a lot of conflicting doctrinal debris that was getting in the way. Not that we can ever presume to really understand God, but we can certainly get a heck of a lot closer to the truth with a little openmindedness. (And it’s amazing what taking this more poetic/theologized reading of the Torah and allowing it to complement more scientific claims can do for the perennially sticky issues like theodicy and the omnis-. But that’d probably be a post in itself…)
And I hadn’t seen your previous post - I’ll get on it very soon, but it’s actually a bit ironic that you bring up theological matters as a sociocultural project. I have just finished a three part series on my own blog (I’ll not link them here, just name the series ‘The Backside of the Curtain’ - you’ll see them all in my sidebar) that explores reality as a social construction as a means of rethinking the church and evangelism.
Thanks for both your and drunkentune’s explorations here.
January 9th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Graham:
Thanks for the modesty, but feel free to link to relevant content when you comment here. There are shameless plugs and then just simply informative plugs. We welcome the latter and tolerate the former. To keep your modesty intact, I present to our readers three posts by Graham that dive into the heart of one believer’s epistomology — not quite on topic with the post, but consistent with where the comments are rambling:
The Backside of the Curtain 1, 2, and 3.
January 9th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
A good book I’ve read that is excellent in helping to understand this reconciliation that is possible between faith and science (especially evolution and Christianity) is:
“Coming to Peace with Science: Bridging the Worlds between Faith and Science” by Darrell Falk and Francis Collins. Graham’s post above is an excellent summary of my understanding as well.
I do not tend to think of God as male, and Jesus’ maleness is really not of much importance in terms of his overall message. An interesting attribute of Christianity is that it is so adaptable that it can appeal to a patriarchal society, a superstitious tribal society, or a group of professors at a leading modern university. Or, to women seeking spiritual growth.
January 9th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
RE ed
In reality, it matters a great deal. Not many people are condusive to calling god, she - regardless how often someone says the geneder of god is irrelevant. In fact, most believers I have met are quite offended if I call god, she or it.
January 9th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
RE graham
“Oh yeah, and I think the Church denoted as a ‘she’ has a lot to do with the bride metaphor soulster mentioned, but also with the more linguistic reason that ‘church’ (ekklesia in the Greek) is a feminine noun. By its nature as a word it is feminine and would be a ‘she.’”
And the origins prior to Greek lingusitic reasons?
I will desist from my inclination at this point to come on all freudian.
Ok, I can’t resist. Perhaps the church, a large vessel of enclosed space has represented the womb, and the male leaders of the church have represented the seed. By preaching in the church, temple, synagogue - they are sowing the seeds of their religious beliefs.
January 9th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Beep, remember I’m a psychiatrist. In my own experience with thousands of people in clinical settings over the years, I concur with the research findings that there is more variability among people that is totally unrelated to gender than any small trends some researcher tries to show to get her name in the paper. For example, see http://www.capt.org/mbti-assessment/estimated-frequencies.htm which shows a pretty even distribution of personality traits between the genders. The historical patriarchal society stems from the evolution derived division of labor among homo sapiens that allowed for the first step toward specialization, which we have now taken to some pretty dramatic levels. Freud’s gender hypotheses are way out of date in psychiatry/psychology.
January 9th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
RE ed
Thank you for your comments. I am aware that freud has found disfavour. Even so, I think it might be all about sex, baby..
Patriarchy may have arisen with the shift from a hunter/gatherer culture to an agrarian one. Certainly, it has been suggested that this huge shift in human behaviour and the resultant shift in the emerging cultures, societies and religions may have been the catalyst towards strongly patriarchial systems.
The major monotheistic religions as we know them, evolved in agrarian societies, not in hunter/gatherer ones, if my chronology is correct.
So, why is it “all about sex?” I think that the female gods and female power structures continued to disintergrate during the agrarian revolutions because men were able to evidence that they were “creators of life.”
Prior to male dominated religions, the creation of life was always viewed as something mystical, supernatural, mysterious AND female. Afterall, women gave birth - they were the “creators of life” , therefore fertility and the creation of life may have been viewed as essentially female. (I admit that I am speculating here, but it makes sense to me, and perhaps to some anthropologists.)
With the advent of agrarian cultures and the increased knowledge of natural biological processes, the idea of who was responsible for the creation of new life shifted from a female origin to a male one.
People became aware that females, (humans and animals), did not give birth and create life without a cause. Mankind (males) began to see themselves as the cause of life as evidenced by sex and male ejaculation. It didn’t take rhodes scholars to work out that women did NOT give create new life unless they had been with a man. Female animals did not create new life unless they had been with a male.
So, I think a few misconceptions were made. Firstly there was the misconception that the male was responsible for the creation of life and that the female was merely the vessel. She did not contribute matter to the creation of new life, she merely provided “the soil” in which the “male seed” was planted.
Many biological and religious misconceptions arose from this. Women were supposedly responsible for the lack of conception as she must be barren as soil is barren. It would never considered that the male seed may be non-productive, because it was assumed that all the elements for the creation of life were contained within his seed.
Best to remember at this juncture, that the ovum (female egg) wasn’t discovered until 1827 by Prussian-Estonian embryologist Dr. Karl Ernst von Baer. Prior to that, there was no evidence that females contributed any matter to the creation of life.
Perhaps man took the credit for the creation of life a few thousand years ago based on insufficient information about natural biological processes. The agrarian cultures only enforced this belief as the sowing of crops, was probably seen as the sowing of male seed into the female earth.
We still refer to the earth as female. We refer to churches, ships, houses, planes as females. Many objects which can be symbolic of the female womb is refered to as a “she”.
Whereas objects which are symbolic of action, acts of creation, sowing seed, shooting missiles, etc are generally refered to as “he.”
Just my thoughts on the subject.
January 9th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
PS
Oh, Therefore god must be male as males are the creators of life.
January 10th, 2007 at 9:12 am
beepbeep:
Interesting theory. When studying anthropolory, it seemed that the involvemet of sexuality in religion and mythology was most often overt not covert, so I doubt that this applies much to Christianity. Likewise, in the first few centuries of Christian history, ekklesia refered exclusively to a group of people gathered (see bleow), and had no ‘container’ concept, so it would be hard to argue some connection to womb. The current ‘container’, ‘building’, and ‘place’ motif came about after the formalizing of Christianity 500 years later and is reflected in the English ‘church’ from the German ‘kirk’ meaning a chapel.
But according the such a theory about male god concepts and sexuality, Christianity gets a real boost. For example, Paul treats the Jewish cultural gender distinctions according to tradition in cultural practice, but seems to hold the ideal of the faith and the will of God as interdependent/egalatarian: men and women have interdependent origins [1 Cor. 11:11-12], but the reality of the faith is genderless and classless [Gal 3:28]. Strange that this would be coming from someone in a pre-industrial, male-dominated, agrarian, monotheistic society.
As for the origins of church (ekklesia) in the Greek (and it is not seen anywhere previous), it had no relation to religion as the word means “called out” and was used for town meetings, councils, etc. and never applied to religious gatherings previous to its use in the Bible.
January 10th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
I can’t belive this thread has gone this far afield.
“sexuality in religion and mythology was most often overt not covert, so I doubt that this applies much to Christianity.”
It applies deeply to Christianity.
“so it would be hard to argue some connection to womb.”
Actually, historically and biblically speaking that is the precise conception.
The Church is a “she” because biblically speaking she is the Bride of Christ and is a type of Mary as well, being a place for “New Men” (ie. Christs, i.e. Christians) to be born in baptism, in the womb of the baptismal font.
Christ, being God, comes into the life of humanity from the outside to impregnate it with his life. Like, penetrate. Like, male.
Typologically speaking, the Church is the Bride of Christ as well as typologically being the Body of Christ (marriage makes one of two, so, Bride->Body) and recieves God into herself. Like, female.
For a full discussion of human sexuality and its relation to theology, see John Paul II’s Theology of the Body work, especially “Male and Female He Created Them” and “Love and Responsibility.“
January 10th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Sorry, I must have missed a comment. Who suggested that the Shoah would be “used” in an “argument”?
For me, discussion of Nazi atrocities is kind of a worldview litmus test. If a person can say reasonable things about the Shoah, then we can talk. Otherwise, we’re wasting our time.
Sure, we can try. And looking at the problem of evil more broadly is certainly a good idea. But I suspect that the Shoah will come up regardless - I mean, it’s been the central event in Western ethics for the last 50 years. At least if you agree to talk about it, you can make your rules up front.
January 10th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I’m disappointed that no one took the neurology bait. =)
January 10th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
“I’m disappointed that no one took the neurology bait”
Are you refering to the recent research that states that all of our concious actions are really just an illusion, and that our actions are decided upon several milliseconds before we’re really concious of it?
January 10th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
In a weak attept to bring this thread back to the point before it was infected by rant, I offer a perhaps interesting quote from Pope Benedict XVI, before he became pope:
“…we cannot say: creation or evolution. The exact formula is creation and evolution, because both respond to two different questions. The story of the dust of the earth and the breath of God does not tell us how man originated. It tells us what he is. It talks about his most profound origin, it illustrates the plan that is behind him. Vice versa, the theory of evolution attempts to specify and describe biological processes. It does not succeed in explaining, however, the origin of the ‘project’ man, his interior derivation and his essence. Therefore, we are before two questions that integrate one another but do not exclude each other.”
January 10th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Matthew,
I’m currently writing on the Shoah, as per your suggestion. There are numerous topics I could take, but I”ll give a brief exerpt: the first sentence. It’s going slowly.
To argue, using the Shoah, would put the mass murder in a diminished light. I won’t be addressing it directly now, merely its results.
The history of the world does not begin until the Shoah.
January 10th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
ben,
How can we tell that parts of the Bible are not myths, other than the Pope’s word? There was Limbo, and then Limbo was no more. Are we to follow the word of a man - even if (we assume) he communicated with a god - when we cannot tell if he is passing god’s commandments or taking time to reflect, think, and then abolishing Limbo as a gesture to Africa? I’m not intending to offend or insult, only ask pointed questions. They’re difficult, it’s true, but I find them interesting. How can we trust the Church’s teachings when they’ve been wrong on numerous occasions relating to science?
You seem to look to the authority of the Pope, so I’ll respond to his words and direct my response to you:
If it is solely a story with a moral origin of man, is Benedict willing to accept that the story of Genesis is a myth or fable? If that’s so, where do we say the myth of Genesis breaks off and the narrative of truth begins? If we can’t find a point where fiction ends and nonfiction begins, what can Benedict do to reconcile this?
A ‘plan that is behind [man]’ is neither affirmable nor refutable. To presume the Christian god’s existence is merely that - a presumption. It may be a correct presumption, but there is no evidence for or against it.
Benedict is correct. Evolution does not attempt to answer any of these questions for they are outside the scope of evolutionary theory. However, abiogenesis explains the origin of life; evolutionary biology explains the origins of man; human biology explains our ‘essence’; and psychology explains our ‘interior derivation.’
January 11th, 2007 at 12:59 am
RE soulster
I have decided to write a little bit more concerning my thoughts on gender roles and their possible formation within initially judaism and then christianity.
And also how the limited biological knowledge of the time may have resulted not only in the shift towards a more overt form of patriarchy, but also how this patriarchy itself may have created the concept of a “supreme male god” as a result of this process.
This isn’t perhaps the forum for this, so I will be posting it on my blog. Anyone who is interested is welcome to comment on the article at my blog.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that I will cease to be unavoidably controversial here.
But, I will be giving you all a reprieve from my “meanderings” concerning this topic.
January 11th, 2007 at 10:32 am
The link is here, for anyone who is interested.
It’s All About Sex Baby…
http://beepbeepitsme.blogspot.com/2007/01/its-all-about-sex-baby.html
January 11th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Indeed.
Thanks. Please forgive my incessant badgering.
January 11th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Matthew,
The badgering is fine with me, but it will take some time.
January 11th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
RE: the badgering link
The snake should have bitten them - those badgers would have annoyed the pleasantness out of anyone.
January 11th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Matthew–
I don’t know if you’ve had the opportunity to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC or not, but it’s an extremely emotional exhibit and well worth the time it takes to see it all.
January 11th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Living close to D.C., I’ve been to the museum before. Has anyone else?
January 12th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
So I’ve been thinking about the value of organic conversation on a blog vs. ’sticking to the topic’. I’ve been thinking that a blog’s durability as a resource and accessibility to lurkers and newcomers is probably better if the comments stay on topic. On the other hand, organic conversation produces a dynamic that is more life-like. Well, I’ll think about it some more….
Yes, I’ve been to the museum. I went with a friend. Neither of us spoke all the way home to South-central PA.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
I know this is a late entry to the discussion, but if the head Republican in the Texas Legislature isn’t an authority, who is? http://www.burntorangereport.com/upload/Chisum.pdf
These Republican TheoCons are just way too wacked out. Not only are they anti-Darwin, they are anti-Copernicus? The only way they can be elected is via utter lack of education, which they seem determined to perfect in the next generation.
February 17th, 2007 at 2:47 am
Oddly enough, I should point out, I didn’t go to your link at first. I first pulled up this story I found a few days ago and wrote a bit on both the anti-evolution and implicit Jewish/secular conspiracy. And lo and behold, I check out the link, and it’s the same thing! Thanks so much for the copy of the memo. It’s just weird.