RELG 340 - Science and Religion
Course Notes for Module 11
The Language of God : chapters 6, 7 & 8
- Genesis 2:2-3 and p.150
- The King James' Version of the Bible says "God rested from His work". This translation was made in 1604-1611, and some words have changed their meaning since then. To "rest from" originally meant to stop doing something - later on it came to mean that one stopped because one was tired. God did not stop because He was tired, but because he had accomplished all He wished at that time.
- p.152 - the Day of the Lord
- To my mind, the Days at the beginning of the world are probably like the Days at the end of the world, and may represent some period "out of time as we know it" or some epoch. At the end of time, at the "Day of the Lord" or "Judgment Day" there is not likely to be someone with a stop-watch, saying "Come on, Jesus, You've got 24 hours to get this lot judged."
- My ideas on Genesis chapters 1 & 2
- The accounts were given by God to the emerging Israelite nation, at the time of or shortly after, the Exodus. They were intended to be comprehensible to all generations at all times. If God had given them an account which included the structure of matter, atoms, electrons, quarks, the uncertainty principle, galaxies, planets, the solar system, DNA, RNA, protein structure, the whole bit - they would have been unable to comprehend it and would not have passed it on to succeeding generations. Instead, it was more important that they learned the essential facts - one of which was that God was the Creator of the universe. Notice that the sequence given in Genesis chapter 1 describes the sequence discovered by evolutionary theory : Energy (light) - matter - earth and water (a planet) - plant life - then the sun and moon appear because plant life clears the cloud envelope covering the earth - animal life in the sea - animal life on dry land - human beings. Also laid down in those first chapters was the fact that human beings were to be the stewards of God's creation - to take care of it, rather than to despoil and pillage it for their own gratification.
- p.162 - rise of atheism
- Note that there were strong political reasons for the rise of atheism. One of the main causes of the French revolution (and also of the later Russian revolution) was an unbalanced and unjust society, where the extremely poor were brought to starvation by an uncaring and ignorant aristocracy. The leaders of the church were members of the aristocracy, and had become similarly uncaring. Hence organized religion was seen as part of the oppression which had to be destroyed. If the church had to be destroyed, then the concept of God also had to go.
- p.163 - Alistair McGrath
- See the Biographies page for information
- p.165 - Richard Dawkin's claim about altruism
- To say that altruism has "no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world" is patently untrue.
One only has to think of Mother Teresa, Francis of Assissi, Albert Schweitzer, Oskar Schindler; the Moravian missionaries who sold themselves into slavery so that they could bring the Gospel to African slaves in America; the many missionaries who gave up secure, comfortable lives to take the Gospel to other nations - often giving up their own lives; the doctors, nurses, and nuns who went to places where there was plague or other deadly illness, and often caught the infection themselves and died. Note that all these examples are people of faith. What does that say to Dawkins?
Of course, the supreme example of altruism is Jesus Christ, who emptied himself of the attributes of God and died for us, as one of us. But Dawkins is running from that possibility. - p.167 - gnosis
- "gnosis" (pronounced (g)NO-siss with a slight glottal stop for the "g-") is the Greek word for knowledge. Gnostics are those who claim to have some special knowledge. Agnostics say that they just do not know. The Greek prefix "a-" negates something.
Copyright © 1999 Shirley J. Rollinson, all Rights Reserved
