I have also added a pdf version and an Excel spreadsheet version of this same chart if you'd like a downloadable copy.
| < --- Bible only | Science only --- > | |||||
| Topic | Traditional | Diluvialist/ Flood Geology | Gap | Day-Age | Non-Concordist | Non-Christian |
| Views on the Bible | Bible is the inspired word of God and contains much science. | Bible is the inspired word of God and contains much science. | Bible is the inspired word of God and contains some science. | Bible is the inspired word of God and contains some science. | Bible is the inspired word of God and contains no science. | The Bible contains little or no science. |
| Views on Nature | All Nature is the creation of God, God's handiwork. | All Nature is the creation of God, God's handiwork. | All Nature is the creation of God, God's handiwork. | All Nature is the creation of God, God's handiwork. | All Nature is the creation of God, God's handiwork. | Nature originated by natural causes, not from God. |
| Views on the Age of the Earth | 6,000 years old (young Earth) | 6,000 years old (young Earth) | billions of years old (old Earth) | billions of years old (old Earth) | billions of years old (old Earth) | billions of years old (old Earth) |
| Interpretation of Genesis 1:1-3 | Earth was created about 6,000 years ago out of nothing in six literal days. | Earth was created about 6,000 years ago out of nothing in six literal days. | Original Creation -- Destruction -- Re-creation in 6 literal days | The days in the Bible correspond to geologic ages. | Bible gives a "theological" (not scientific) description of creation. | An ancient myth of creation. |
| "Day" in Genesis | 24 hours | 24 hours | 24 hours | geological eras | geological eras | 24 hours |
| Fossils | were never living things | animals that died in the flood | Fossils are remains of animals and plants that lived in the geologic past. | Fossils are remains of animals and plants that lived in the geologic past. | Fossils are remains of animals and plants that lived in the geologic past. | Fossils are remains of animals and plants that lived in the geologic past. |
| Sedimentary Rocks | created in the week of creation | the result of the flood | The sedimentary rocks were deposited in ancient seas during the geologic past (during gap). | The sedimentary rocks were deposited in ancient seas during the geologic past (during days). | The sedimentary rocks were deposited in ancient seas during the geologic past. | The sedimentary rocks were deposited in ancient seas during the geologic past. |
| Tries to link science and the Bible. | Tries to link science and the Bible. | Tries to link science and the Bible. | Doesn't link science and the Bible. |
hmmm, the text isn't so easy to read behind those colors. i'll try to fix that when i get a chance. it might take some fiddling.
ReplyDeleteoh, but it comes out quite nicely in panorama view.
ReplyDeleteOut of those I think I'm nearest to non-concordist, but then I think there's room for another view. I'm a christian but would be so bold as to say that from all scientific viewpoints the bible is "wrong" about creation, and that the only relevant meaning therein is metaphorical and non-literal. I think that this would fit immediately to the left of the rightmost column.
ReplyDeleteIn my view the day in Genesis is non-real and therefore does not link to a geological era. I would say that nature relates to God in some way which isn't understood but may not exactly be cause/effect in either direction.
I should add though, that I think this view is quite a recent development in progressive christian circles and not around to speak of several decades ago.
yes - that's definitely one of the pros of Panorama!
ReplyDeleteinteresting. in terms of my view of Genesis 1:1-3 I'm clearly in one of the first two columns (and also in terms of the day being a 24-hour day, and how old the earth is), but in terms of my view of the Bible I'm not, I wouldn't say the Bible "contains much science", just "some". And I haven't really looked into the different points of view about the origin of fossils and rocks and all that stuff.
ReplyDeleteDoc Rock wouldn't have said the Bible's descriptions were "wrong" so much as they simply weren't meant to be scientific statements. One of the things we talked about in class was how parts of the Bible are history, some are poetry, some are letters, some are biography and you could argue that Acts even rolls toward being a bit memoir-ish. (OK, so I can't imagine Doc Rock throwing an "ish" at the end of a word.) The point was that if you're reading poetry and you expect it to be a letter, you're going to wonder where all the "I greet you"s went. And if you read a history expecting poetry, you're going to wonder why the poet wasn't very poetic. You end up tearing your hair out over something that isn't the fault of the text but of the reader.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is how I believe. Although all scripture is inspired by God, He used poets and historians, and your average everyday chap to get the message across. If you're reading the Psalms then you need to read them as poetry with all the passion, hyperbole and metaphor that poetry carries. In the case of Genesis and it's creation story I read lots of metaphor. I don't think the world was created in 6 days and I don't think Adam and Eve were the first two people. I feel the writer of the creation story was using poetic and literary license and probably didn't expect it to be taken literally. I see no conflict in being a Christian and believing in evolution. I don't think it is an either-or situation. There is certainly some science in the Bible but it is limited to what they knew about science at the time. They were explaining as best they could with the knowledge they had.
ReplyDeleteI was reading a psalm a day to Nathan when he was in the hospital and we came across a few where David really told God what he should do to David's enemies. It wasn't nice. And it certainly wasn't turning the other cheek. I think if anyone were to read those psalms as directives, they'd be seriously missing both the point of the psalms and the point of the BIble as a whole. You have to pay attention not only to the words on the page, but to the intentions of the writer as well. Was the writer trying to express a theological truth, or was he just crying out to God with all the emotion and anger of a man being hunted like an animal by his best friends dad?
ReplyDeleteHave you read C.S. Lewis' book about the Psalms? It is very good and goes into that very topic.
ReplyDeleteno. i'm not a huge c.s. lewis fan, though i like a lot of narnia and i like him better as i read through the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, which includes him as a character. he's also an INTJ, so of course i like that about him. ;-) but his style of arguing makes my head itch. i know it really appeals to some people, but i think i would have appreciated it more if i was sitting around the dinner table with him having a chat than it does when i read his books.
ReplyDeleteHis style of apologetics can be a bit challenging. It is very dated and reflects the period during which he lived and wrote when that style was considered intellectually savvy. G.K Chesteron is very similar. I love stuff from that error including novels, history, and film so I guess I have a margin of tolerance built in.
ReplyDeletePS: If you like Narnia you would probably like his book The Great Divorce. It is like Narnia for adults. I was staggered by it.
is that the after death book where they're all on the bus till they get off? that's probably a horrible description of it, but that's what i remember. and the grass being very real.
ReplyDeleteThat's the one! That book grabbed me and swung me around over its head. I couldn't get enough of it.
ReplyDeleteum. yeah.
ReplyDeletei read it, but there wasn't any head swinging for me. :-\
lol. yes, i can admit that my personal taste are a bit... shall we say, esoteric. there are things that set my fireworks off that most other people look crosseyed at.
ReplyDeleteso how do you deal with places in the Bible where Paul talks about Adam being the first, or the genealogy of Jesus in Luke which starts from Adam, or... (I've got the feeling Jesus mentioned it somewhere too, but don't remember off the top of my head.) and how do you make that distinction, decide that a particular chunk of Genesis is just a metaphor (a metaphor for what?) but what happens later is stuff that really happened? how do you deal with God telling the Israelites to rest on the Sabbath day because he had made the world in six days and rested on the seventh?
ReplyDeleteI do understand that parts of the Bible are poetic, of course - but only those that are obviously and clearly poetic, those that are not presented in the format of a factual narrative with no clue in the text to say: hey, this is just a metaphor, ok, don't take it seriously.
*getting off soapbox* chocolate chip cookies, anyone?
according to the class on Genesis that i took, they think the first two chapters of genesis were originally written as poetry. the only parts that survives in that format are 1:27 and 2:23.
ReplyDeleteas far as what do you do about later mentions of adam,.... i don't know whether there was a specific adam or not. but even if there wasn't, adam is still an important piece of the story. he represents that creature which God made from the earth. and he sinned. what was meant to be sinless became the sinner. that doesn't change whether you view adam as one actual person or as a symbol of all of mankind.
when it comes to the sabbath i have no problem at all seeing a day of rest coming out of a period of rest. God chose not only days of rest but years of rest. even if it really was only a 24 hour period of creation, God still chose to tie that period to both days and years. he didn't feel a need for a one to one correlation in regard to sabbaths.
You see, that's the problem with only visiting Multiply sporadically. Other people give great answers before you get a chance. But seriously, I pretty much agree with Meg on that question. Adam is a corollary for humankind and how humankind's disobedience separates us from God. And when Paul and other writers refer to Adam and creation I don't think they are speaking from a literal belief. They are speaking in accordance with the scriptures of their culture, God inspired of course. As far as the day of rest, yes it is wise to rest, it is wise to set aside a particular time to rest. The early writers were still conveying spiritual truths but they didn't speak in exact, precise, letter-of-the-law detail to do it. And I've said all this without a cup of coffee so if it is a bit muddled I apologize.
ReplyDeletealthough they might have been.
ReplyDeletei think there's stuff that we just don't get. even now. and until we understand it more the way it really is, we need to grasp on to it the way the bible describes it to us, because it describes it to us in a way that God knows we'll get and that we can work with in understanding the bigger picture even when we don't really know all the details on that specific part yet.
moody bible institute used to have a great science series (from the 50s and 60s, i think) in which the scientist guy would take scientific occurrences (involving electricity or light or what have you) and he'd show you how it worked. then he'd point out that it worked beyond the way we usually think of things working. then he'd make the cross over to show that perhaps that's what the bible is talking about.
here's one of the videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWupjsG80Rs&p=680DED0629200BEB
I thought he was just listing the options rather than putting forward his own view.
ReplyDeleteI think in general what I'm getting at is that all the "Christian" options assume an inerrant scripture by some criteria. The only option that doesn't presuppose that is the "non-Christian" one. If the venerable doc was still around I'd be campaigning him for a liberal/progressive christian column.
in this chart, yes. in class he tried to get us to understand the underlying assumptions made by each group, which means understanding how they look at the bible. for those in the middle opinions you're looking at the bible from the point of view that poetry is different than history is different than....If the venerable doc was still around I'd be campaigning him for a liberal/progressive christian column.i don't think he was much of a liberal, though. he was willing to look at the data and draw conclusions from it without seeing the data only from the point of view of previous perspectives. that might be considered liberal, but it could just as often lead to conclusions that could be seen as conservative.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's a funny distinction, but I come across it often.
ReplyDeleteIt's one of those irregular verb conjugations:
I am an evanglical
You are a liberal
He is able to disemminate all the facts and form a rounded but very sound conservative opinion
They are a bunch of heathens and able to think the unthinkable!
In fact we all rely on our intellect to some degree, even if it's just the ability to read to read a bible, or maybe someone's ultra-simplified explanation of it, so we're (nearly at least) all theological liberals to the point that we believe our senses. The difference (IMHO) is how well we're prepared to accept dogma interfering with that.
My karma ran over my dogma!
ReplyDelete