Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sphinx.UChicago.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!lll-crg!dual!qantel!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!cjdb
From: cjdb@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Charles Blair)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: The game continues ...
Message-ID: <968@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Aug-85 21:27:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.968
Posted: Mon Aug 12 21:27:27 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 21:53:42 EDT
References: <906@oddjob.UUCP>
Organization: U. Chicago - Computation Center
Lines: 170

> Taking my tongue out of my cheek momentarily, let me ask some questions.
> None of us are paleontologists or theologians, are we?  So what we
> are doing here is arguing about our opinions on a subject to which
> we have given a greater or a lesser degree of casual study, right?
> (Yes, I can see that some seem to have amassed large reading lists,
> so let's not argue about the word "casual", OK?)  Do any of us really
> hope to convince others of the correctness of our opinions?  Are
> there some silent readers who are forming their opinions on the
> subject of creationism v. evolution on the basis of what they read
> here?  I would like to see some contributions from them.

To echo Mr. T, pity the fool who would form an opinion "on the subject
of creationism v. evolution on the basis of what [is read] here." I am
sure opinions are being formed, but in my case it is about the
methodology (or lack of it) in the approach to both the "problem" and
the discussion itself. (Let me say right now that I subscribe to this
newsgroup in preference to net.jokes--great humor here sometimes.)
Since there might be some who feel as I do, and since contributions
were solicited (see the quote above, though I don't fit the description
of the hoped-for contributor), let me address the problems I perceive
under the following rubrics: (1) creationists don't represent
mainstream Christian thinking on this topic; (2) creationists don't
read their Bibles; (3) both the creationists and the non-creationists
on this net are discussing this subject "monodimensionally."

(1) Creationists don't represent mainstream Christian thinking on this
topic.

In 1983 a book was published (New York, Scribner's; Roland Frye,
editor) entitled _Is_God_a_Creationist?_The_Religious_Case_Against_Creation
_Science. I have only had time to skim this book (it is a collection of
articles), but the following is worth quoting:

     The persistent attempts of the members of the creationist movement
     to get their points of view established in educational institutions
     can only damage both the Christian cause and education. This 
     forcing of creationism on the public will simply lend credence to
     the idea already entertained by many intellectual leaders that
     Christianity, at least in its modern form, is sheer
     anti-intellectual obscurantism.

(p.93)

In other words, creationism is not only embarrassing but also
potentially damaging to mainstream Christianity. For a brief theological 
critique of creationism, as well as a synopsis of the scientific
rebuttals, I would recommend the article by Langdon Gilkey in the
collection just cited (pp. 56-67). Gilkey was called in as an expert
witness in the creationism case in Arkansas (his expertise is in
theology.) I won't excerpt the article because, as I implied, I find
the argument as conducted so far to be ludicrous. However, since there isn't a
net.origins.d (discussions on the content of net.origins
articles)--there is a net.jokes.d--I am forced to make my contribution,
such as it is, here.

(2) Creationists don't read their Bibles.

Since creationism is about creation, an appropriate question would be,
Which creation story does one use? There are three that come to mind:
the one beginning Gen. 1.1, the one beginning, Gen. 2.4 (read the
footnotes in the Revised Standard Version at this point), and the one
traces of which are found in Is. 51.9 and Job 26.12, for example. This
one has God or Yahweh doing battle with a primeval chaos-monster, which
echoes other ancient Near Eastern creation myths. So to be a
creationist already involves some decisions, some choices, some ambiguity 
insofar as the Bible itself is concerned. Let's see what else it involves.

Gen. 1.27 states: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of
God he created him; male and female he created them" (RSV). This
implies that God is an androgyne since both male *AND* female were
created in "his" image. That's what the text plainly states. But it says
"*he* created *him*." Yeah, I know. "God" here is in Hebrew "'elohim,"
which morphologically looks like a plural but acts like a masculine
singular. "Man" in this passage is not the same as "male," which also
occurs in the passage--two different Hebrew words are being translated.
The word translated "man" is in Hebrew "'adam;" it might more properly
be translated "humankind;" it refers to all of us, male and female.
(In the Brown, Driver and Briggs Hebrew dictionary it is translated
"man, mankind." For "man" read "human"--the first edition was in 1907.)
Grammatically, however, it too is masculine and singular, hence the
pronouns used in referring to it. Let's not rely on grammar and
morphology alone. That is not only bad method it is dangerous: in Hebrew, the
word for "woman" has a masculine plural, and the word for "father" has a
feminine plural. Try concluding something from that. Let's just
conclude something from the plain text of the passage: if God created
humankind in "his" image, and humankind is both male and female, which the
text takes pains to state explicitly, isn't the logical implication that God,
too, is both male and female? This is what a *literal* reading of the
text demands, and isn't taking the text of the Bible literally what the
creationist demands? If the creationist responds, "Yes, but ...", and
superimposes some extra-textual presuppositions onto the text, it seems to 
me that by the creationist's own criteria, "he" has just "butted" himself 
out of business. 

Lest I be accused of complete squirreliness, let me add that Rashi (a
medieval Jewish commentator) reports in his commentary on Genesis that
according to the Midrash Aggadah, God created "man" with "two faces in
the first act of creation, and after that he divided them"
(_The_Pentateuch_and_Rashi's_Commentary, Brooklyn, N.Y.: S.S. & R.
Publishing Company (1949), p.15; see also the Soncino Chumash, p.7).
"Two faces" may not imply a complete androgyne, but that
conclusion is sometimes drawn. Now, if "man" is an androgyne, and "he"
is created in God's image, again I ask, Isn't God logically an
androgyne too? 

What's the point of all this? This: if you're going to take the text
literally, then go all the way with it. Any takers?

(3) This discussion is too "monodimensional."

By this I mean that by "origins" are meant either the big bang way back
when, or the six days of creation several thousand years B.C.E. (or whatever
the current dating is). These are probably appropriate parameters for a
"scientific" discussion of creation, but not really so for a discussion
of origins per se, and especially not for the people who claim to be
religious.  Consider the following commentary on Gen. 1.26-27 by Nachmanides 
(Ramban):

     ... in the case of man He said, _Let_us_make_, that is, I and the
     aforementioned earth, let us make man, the earth to bring forth the
     body from its elements as it did with cattle and beasts, as it is
     written,  _And_the_Eternal_G-d_formed_man_of_the_dust_of_the_ground
     [Gen. 2.7] ... And He said, _In_our_image,_and_after_our_likeness,
     as man will then be similar to both. In the capacity of his body,
     he will be similar to the earth from which he was taken, and in
     spirit he will be similar to the higher beings, because it [the 
     spirit] is not a body and will not die.

Ramban (Nachmanides): Commentary on the Torah. New York, Shilo
Publishing House, 1971, pp. 52-53. Nachmanides attributes this view to 
"Rabbi Joseph the Kimchite," the father of the famous commentator David
Kimchi.

I am not a theologian, but it doesn't require a great exercise of
imagination to see that Nachmanides, in the thirteenth century, has
already made it possible to divorce the physical origins of man from
the origins of, in this case, man's spirit, by travelling only a short
distance. Creation is viewed as a cooperative effort by God and the
earth and its elements. Why not let the scientist tells us the precise
role of "the earth" (the primordial slime was after all part of the
earth, since even water is part of the planet) in creation, and those
so inclined figure out the spirit part? If you say, But there is no
scientific proof for the existence of the spirit, I will still accuse
you of monodimensionalism--there is more to existence than can be held
in a test tube, or looked at through a microscope or telescope, or the
like. If you *choose* to ignore the spirit, fine, but that is a
metaphysical decision you have made. Please take responsibility for it
as such. (Ignoring metaphysics doesn't make it go away.) By the way, 
I am not saying that I necessarily believe in a spirit (for example, even
if one posits a spirit, questions remain, such as, What phenomenologically 
verifiable entity are you trying to describe or intimate when you use
the word "spirit?" What do you mean by 'spirit'?" and so on). Rather, I am 
questioning what I am calling "monodimensionalism," and using this particular
approach as an example to the multidimensionality of the problem. I could 
also have expressed myself like this.

Science is the best means we have of inquiring *how* something came to
be the case. It is not a good means at all of asking why. How I came to
be here does not explain *why* I am here. I view religion as attempting
to come to grips in part with the why's of existence. In other words,
the important point is not how the hell we got here, but what in hell
we're doing here. (This is street metaphysics.) There are those
for whom a "why" answer is meaningless; they would reduce all their
"why's" to "how's." Fine, but that is a metaphysical decision, and I
think that everyone does metaphysics, whether consciously or by default.
I object, however, to everyone following everyone else's metaphysical
ignorance or cowardice, and putting the causes of our being here all
in the same plane, or dimension. It doesn't require a theologian, only
a bold, imaginative layman, to render unto big bang what is big bang's,
and unto God (Yahweh, Allah, the Force, whatever) what is God's.