Mythos of Creation
Nov. 29th, 2004 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
velvetpageOne of the great theologians of the twentieth century, C.S. Lewis, defined a myth as a story told in such a way that all people could understand it, regardless of age, religion, or education. This definition has shaped my Christian worldview more than any other single factor.
When Darwin first published his world-changing book, "The Origin of Species", the Christian establishment responded with a combination of horror and ridicule. It was not long before the ridicule gave way before the primal fear that a more reasonable explanation had just supplanted the one in which they had a vested interest. Not surprisingly, they began to defend their worldview, which was so tied up in their egos that it really was about self-defense. Fundamentalism was born.
The basic premise of fundamentalism is that the Bible is the true and literal word of God, and that therefore, everything in it happened exactly as related. This view had, of course, existed before, but it wasn't until fundamentalism became a force to be reckoned with that anyone tried to justify it scientifically. The Christian community bought into the scientific demand for proof, but they held on to their previous handed-down-from-on-high view of Scripture. The result was an attempt by Christians to find proof that the Bible was the literal truth.
The problem is that it is very difficult to prove something when all you have as evidence is the end result of an open system. Christian scientists have been using the argument of the open system vs. the closed experiment for decades as a weapon against the evolutionist science. However, they fell into their own trap. If it is impossible to prove with absolute certainty that an evolution happened as scientists said it did, it is equally impossible to prove the opposite - that God created it as is. Their argument has taken many branches and forms over the years, of which the silliest IMO was the one that said, "If God could create the whole world, he could also create it with evidence already in it for a history that never happened." I won't go into the logical faults of this argument. It's just not worth the byte storage.
C.S. Lewis postulated that the anti-Darwin Christians of the nineteenth century and since had shot themselves in the foot by placing the burden of proof on Christianity - indeed, on God. He took a diametrically opposing view to that of fundamentalist science. He saw the entire creation story, and many others in the Old Testament, as myths. They were stories told in such a way that a small child or a learned adult of any time or culture in history would be able to understand the salient points. The important distinction he made was between truth and literal truth. The first is the point of the stories; the second is the niggling little details.
If God had wanted to explain exactly what happened during creation, I have no doubt he could have done so, scientifically. The problem is, whose science would he use to explain it? Ours? In that case, only a few very well-educated people right now would be able to understand it, leaving the rest of history and the less-learned in the dark. Nineteenth-century science? We know what kind of holes were inherent in that. The science of two centuries from now? Again, that would leave most of history in the dark. Essentially, God chose the format of the myth because of its universality. The specifics were not important. The big message of the creation story soars above the scientific details.
The salient points, then:
1) God created everything that is.
2) He did so in his own time, in his own way, with an ultimate plan in mind.
3) Each and every creature has a role to play in his creation, especially humankind.
If these points are the basis for one's worldview, there is no need to argue scientific details. The questions and arguments can be narrowed down to one: who or what started the ball rolling? Was it a single God? Was it many Gods? Was it pure chance, as the true evolutionists have postulated? The fact is, there is no hard evidence for or against any of these possibilities. Each is just as likely as the next. It comes down to a choice. Which one do you want to believe?
I have chosen, consciously, to believe in a God who created a vast universe and the vast variations in it. I have more recently chosen to believe that there is more than one path back to God, though I do believe in the concept of sin, even original sin. I have made these choices because the idea that it all happened by chance is too dark for me. I can't handle being an accident. Therefore, I've chosen to believe that I am here for a reason, that I was planned, that all of us were planned and have a purpose on this earth.
All of my other deep-seated beliefs stem from this one. I believe that the aborted fetus had a destiny and a right to live it out. I believe that a large part of my purpose for being here is to help the people within my sphere of influence achieve whatever purpose God has for them. I believe that striving towards that purpose will make me a better person and will make the society I live in better, bringing all of us closer to God.
As for the science - I praise God that he was so far beyond our concept of him that we can learn, and explore, and experiment with his creation for as long as we walk this earth, and never discover all of it.
I have faith, first in a great God, and then in humanity to fulfill his purpose for it. I'm a deist and a humanist.
*Disclaimer: I have used the masculine pronoun out of simplicity and an understanding that language, a human invention, cannot hope to really capture all that God is. For those of you who feel the term "goddess" might be more appropriate, or whatever other term you'd prefer, go right ahead. What we call him does not change him.
When Darwin first published his world-changing book, "The Origin of Species", the Christian establishment responded with a combination of horror and ridicule. It was not long before the ridicule gave way before the primal fear that a more reasonable explanation had just supplanted the one in which they had a vested interest. Not surprisingly, they began to defend their worldview, which was so tied up in their egos that it really was about self-defense. Fundamentalism was born.
The basic premise of fundamentalism is that the Bible is the true and literal word of God, and that therefore, everything in it happened exactly as related. This view had, of course, existed before, but it wasn't until fundamentalism became a force to be reckoned with that anyone tried to justify it scientifically. The Christian community bought into the scientific demand for proof, but they held on to their previous handed-down-from-on-high view of Scripture. The result was an attempt by Christians to find proof that the Bible was the literal truth.
The problem is that it is very difficult to prove something when all you have as evidence is the end result of an open system. Christian scientists have been using the argument of the open system vs. the closed experiment for decades as a weapon against the evolutionist science. However, they fell into their own trap. If it is impossible to prove with absolute certainty that an evolution happened as scientists said it did, it is equally impossible to prove the opposite - that God created it as is. Their argument has taken many branches and forms over the years, of which the silliest IMO was the one that said, "If God could create the whole world, he could also create it with evidence already in it for a history that never happened." I won't go into the logical faults of this argument. It's just not worth the byte storage.
C.S. Lewis postulated that the anti-Darwin Christians of the nineteenth century and since had shot themselves in the foot by placing the burden of proof on Christianity - indeed, on God. He took a diametrically opposing view to that of fundamentalist science. He saw the entire creation story, and many others in the Old Testament, as myths. They were stories told in such a way that a small child or a learned adult of any time or culture in history would be able to understand the salient points. The important distinction he made was between truth and literal truth. The first is the point of the stories; the second is the niggling little details.
If God had wanted to explain exactly what happened during creation, I have no doubt he could have done so, scientifically. The problem is, whose science would he use to explain it? Ours? In that case, only a few very well-educated people right now would be able to understand it, leaving the rest of history and the less-learned in the dark. Nineteenth-century science? We know what kind of holes were inherent in that. The science of two centuries from now? Again, that would leave most of history in the dark. Essentially, God chose the format of the myth because of its universality. The specifics were not important. The big message of the creation story soars above the scientific details.
The salient points, then:
1) God created everything that is.
2) He did so in his own time, in his own way, with an ultimate plan in mind.
3) Each and every creature has a role to play in his creation, especially humankind.
If these points are the basis for one's worldview, there is no need to argue scientific details. The questions and arguments can be narrowed down to one: who or what started the ball rolling? Was it a single God? Was it many Gods? Was it pure chance, as the true evolutionists have postulated? The fact is, there is no hard evidence for or against any of these possibilities. Each is just as likely as the next. It comes down to a choice. Which one do you want to believe?
I have chosen, consciously, to believe in a God who created a vast universe and the vast variations in it. I have more recently chosen to believe that there is more than one path back to God, though I do believe in the concept of sin, even original sin. I have made these choices because the idea that it all happened by chance is too dark for me. I can't handle being an accident. Therefore, I've chosen to believe that I am here for a reason, that I was planned, that all of us were planned and have a purpose on this earth.
All of my other deep-seated beliefs stem from this one. I believe that the aborted fetus had a destiny and a right to live it out. I believe that a large part of my purpose for being here is to help the people within my sphere of influence achieve whatever purpose God has for them. I believe that striving towards that purpose will make me a better person and will make the society I live in better, bringing all of us closer to God.
As for the science - I praise God that he was so far beyond our concept of him that we can learn, and explore, and experiment with his creation for as long as we walk this earth, and never discover all of it.
I have faith, first in a great God, and then in humanity to fulfill his purpose for it. I'm a deist and a humanist.
*Disclaimer: I have used the masculine pronoun out of simplicity and an understanding that language, a human invention, cannot hope to really capture all that God is. For those of you who feel the term "goddess" might be more appropriate, or whatever other term you'd prefer, go right ahead. What we call him does not change him.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-30 10:18 am (UTC)What I find fascinating is your hangup on creation itself (that is, a diety-derived existence) as key to justifying and making meaningful your existence. If I recall correctly, this idea is called Intelligent Design in religious circles; sort of a halfway point betweeen evolution and creation. That is, you accept evolution and an old universe, but think the domioes were laid out by God, knowing where they'd lead.
My friend and I used to get into arguments about "free will" -- the je ne sais qua that all humans supposedly have, the spontanaity, the soul, the concept of being able to make one's choices without having them predestined in the physical realm. Without free will, he argued, what was human existence but biological, chemical, and quantum clockwork? The same can be said about your feelings regarding ID -- both are issues which stem from the same root concern, seeking out a higher meaning and purpose regarding one's existence.
Both these concepts, we've concluded, are more or less red herrings. Is it of such great concern whether "free will" exists, if on some quantum level there is a true, immeasurable soul from which we derive our whims? My friend and I have come to realize that even if all of existence is just clockwork, if our brains are as they appear -- complex biological machines responding to internal and external stimuli in predictable ways -- it doesn't change our existence. The sheer complexity of the chaotic physical realm in which we live is so beyond our ability to predict that for our purposes it sure seems like we have free will, whether we technically do or not.
And so it goes with ID. Does it really matter for our purposes whether someone was there to tip the first domino?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-30 01:03 pm (UTC)The only way in which it matters is that for me, at least, the view of the beginning is formative to the view of the whole. If we're just random molecules and DNA, then that aborted fetus was nothing important - just another casualty of the cycle of life. If life has a purpose and a plan granted it by a creator God, then it follows that the fetus also had a purpose and a plan which has been denied it by human free will. (Yes, I believe in free will, but that's a post for another day.)
I recognize that my desire to hold onto creationism is a hang-up, and an egotistical one at that. There's no really good reason for me not to be an accident, except that I don't want to be. I don't want to be an atheist, or even an agnostic. I need something to believe in. I've chosen to believe in this.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-02 03:38 am (UTC)The problem here is that if "God had a plan for the fetus" then the fetus was predestined to be born. However, that fixes the destiny of the would-be parents and denies them free will, because they had to meet, had to like each other, had to have sex as a precondition to the pregnancy (assuming things go normally). It seems to me there are other alternatives to choose from given your assumption (A): (C) the parents have free will and are not directly fullfilling a plan and thus there is no specific plan for them or any children they may or may not have, or (D) they don't have free will and thus the abortion is a part of the plan.
I think (C) may be difficult for many people to understand, because how could God have a plan for humanity without knowing how every one is going to act. I've got two examples that I think may show how that works:
1) Economics doesn't dictate how individuals will act, but does accuractly predict how groups act, God's plan may not be based directly on the actions of individuals but on the aggregate actions of all people. If you've read Asimov's Foundation novels this would be a divine form of Psychohistory.
2) When you drink a cup of water, you move the water into your mouth and into your stomach without determine the path of an individual water molecule. You determine where the group of molecules are going and they have a lot of lee way to move around in there. Some of them actually escape from the cup of water while it's on the way to your mouth, but enough of them get there that it doesn't matter.
Of course, taking this view might be seen as a challenge to God's omniscience, but that's always a problem when dealing with God and free will.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-02 12:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-30 03:57 pm (UTC)