Proposition #11
“Functional Cosmic Temple Offers Face-Value Exegesis”
This proposition itself is fairly self-explanatory, but it carries
a good deal of weight: being able to read the text at face-value, hearing it in
much the same manner as the original audience would have heard (and the
original author would have intended it be heard) allows us to read the text a
new and unique light that takes into account various factors. People have tried
to read Genesis 1 as a number of things: myth (but it’s told as factual, not
mythical), poetry (but the text simply is not near Eastern poetry at all),
polemic (but the author’s intent is not notable polemic), theology (but it
makes far more than theological points), literary (it belongs in a certain time
and place—and must stay there) or other variations on such themes as these.
What all of these lack is the fact that the author wrote the text as an
Israelite and for Israelites, so it had a unique purpose for the Israelites
Being able to read the text at face value:
1) recognizes Genesis 1 for the ancient document that it is;
2) finds no reason to impose a material ontology onto the text;
3) finds no reason to require the finding of scientific information
between the lines;
4) avoids reducing Genesis 1 to merely literary or theological
expressions;
5) poses no conflict with scientific thinking to the extent that it
recognizes that the text does not offer scientific explanations.
Propsition #12
“Other Theories of Genesis 1 Either Go Too Far or Not Far Enough”
Here Walton treats a few of the most popular positions on reading
Genesis 1 in light of his findings:
Young Earth Creationism (YEC):
This is the view that the earth was created in all its form in
consecutive 24-hour days as recorded in Genesis 1. This view, says Walton,
holds the distinction of being willing to take the text at (perceived)
face-value and stick by that straightforward interpretation, no matter how much
ridicule you may face for doing so, and he has deep respect for those who are
able to stick by their Christian guns. His critique is that, while they have a
correct reading for yom, which is a 24-hour day, their reading of bara
has been to narrow and as a result, they still subscribe to a material
understanding, thereby having the wrong face-value reading.
Old Earth Creationism (OEC):
OEC often reads into the text of Genesis 1 scientific theory
fitting behind the scenes and between the lines, and so they understand the 6
days of creation to be 6 undetermined periods of time. As previously mentioned,
this view does not at all understand the true meaning of the word yom
and it is still wholly a material understanding. It also has a tendency to
attempt to read modern science (which as noted is a changing filed with mutable
‘conclusions’) into an ancient text, which is not out of the realm of God’s
ability but doesn’t seem to be the point of Genesis 1.
Framework Hypothesis:
This view sees the literary and theological truths expounded in
Genesis 1 and concludes that those findings are the purpose, a reading of the
text that Walton claims is too narrow, not taking into account the fullness of
the text.
Proposition #13
“The Difference Between Origin Accounts in Science and Scripture is
Metaphysical in Nature”
Before anyone gets scared off by the word ‘metaphysical,’ let me
explain this simply: many people in their understanding of creation have
relegated anything knowledgeable to natural causes of the God-designed universe
and anything unexplainable to the supernatural work of God. But as we get to
know more and more of the way the world works, more and more is attributed to
God, until we (theoretically) just need God to set off some Big Bang and then
things go merrily on from there. However, this distinction between the natural
and supernatural parts is a modern, not a Biblical distinction. In Scripture,
we see that the natural and supernatural run together in different layers, even
interacting in ways at times, running simultaneously. We can see this in 1
Chronicles 14:15, where David is told by God that when he goes to battle and
hears marching in the treetops (of the supernatural forces of God’s army) then
he can go to battle for God is with him.
A more correct understanding is that the natural and supernatural
form two layers, with the lower layer being the realm of the material, the
realm in which we see and understand how the world works—the realm where
science operates and can only operate, given its current design. The upper
layer is the supernatural layer of the work of God, which covers the whole
lower layer, since God is the ultimate cause and the material outworking as we
see and understand it is the second cause. Our knowledge of the lower layer in
no way decreases God’s work but simply gives us glimpses into how God made it
happen.
The really important stuff in this proposition and chapter is the
claim that science is unable to study the top layer: science has taken it upon
itself to concern itself with the matter of the functions of the material world
and the understanding thereof. In their intent to study sequences of causes and
what causes what, they are missing something—purpose. Science can tell you what
something is made of, how the parts interact, the laws the govern the
interaction and making of parts, and even how something can be used, but it
cannot tell you what the purpose of something is. The reason for this is
that the purpose is not provable. Science demands that something be provable in
repeatable, controlled, tests, and the purpose of something, at least the
ultimate purpose in the greatest scheme, is not provable. For instance, science
can determine the purpose of a part within a cell, a cell with an organ, an
organ within an animal, an animal with an ecosystem, an ecosystem within a
planet, and can determine the causes which that planet has within its solar
system, etc. But it cannot answer why it all exists. It simply is not
set up to do that. The why of everything existing—the grand purpose
which everything feeds into, no matter where it falls in the sequence of causes
and effects, is called teleology, a word meaning the study of the telos,
a Greek word for end or goal which has come to mean final and ultimate purpose.
Science cannot prove that there is no telos to the cosmos. It also
cannot prove that there is a telos to the cosmos. In this way, science is
telos-neutral. However, science has in the past tended to emphasize the one and
not the other—they have tended to emphasize that it cannot be proved that there
is a telos, so there must not be telos. What science has failed to recognize is
that they are unable to prove that there is not a telos to the cosmos.
Why this is important to Genesis 1 is this: Genesis 1 cannot be a
viable scientific account of creation because it affirms, without a doubt, that
there is a telos to the cosmos. In fact, Walton would contend that, because of
the functional nature of the account of Genesis 1, the text is concerned only
with the upper level—the level of the telos and how all things fit together
into God’s grand plan, and it is not at all concerned with the material
mechanisms. In fact, it is the extreme teleology of the Biblical understanding
of all created things (that all things were created with a very specific
purpose in God’s plan) that bolsters the idea that the account of creation
would be far more concerned with how things serve to further that great plan,
rather than with how they were made.
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