Well, we may have to agree to disagree on what I have pointed out concerning options, our knowledge etc but that is an incredibly important and obvious point in my view. You and I can cite numerous examples in our own lives and experience where we would be unwilling to hazard a guess less draw a conclusion about matters that we know nothing about.
While I could not at the moment hazard a guess about astrophysics, there is something that can be done about that. While I am not an astrophysicist, I can very well begin studies in that area so that I can partially understand arguments from one. Just as a man can never fully understand what it is like to give birth, he can still grasp 95% of it just by education, attending births, attending to the women, etc. I would say that we can begin to have rudimentary understandings of things through education and sharing of ideas, and therefore to say that we can never understand something, not to any degree, is a faulty statement. It is shades of gray, not black and white - this is key to my understanding and is incredibly important and obvious in my point of view, (as you state the opposite is to you).
Anyway, I think that it is reasonable for me to assume that you have no additional problems with the passage from Isaiah so we should move on.
I do have problems with Isaiah, but agree to move on to get to more important issues.
I think that your selection of Noah and the deluge is perhaps your best chance of challenging the judgment of God from the position you are defending. Would you agree with this? If you do agree, and if I can present a reasonable case for my position using Noah and the flood will you agree that my overall defense of scripture is satisfied? I think that you will find that my presentation will be satisfactory in terms of our making a determination without depending on allegory or the position that I hold concerning Godās sovereignty.
I donāt think I expressed a problem with godās sovereignty in the past, only abuse of that power. And where you keep stating allegory, you realize that when I say it I am including literary nuances, spiritual, cultural, etc, right?
I am concerned that we are headed in the same direction as the last bunch of posts. You see the issue that we can not know or understand god as a central premise - however, an ideal discussion would have basic premises agreed on first. In our earlier posts, not agreeing on this premise has brought it forth several times.
I am trying to step carefully along in this discussion so as to satisfy your inquiry without compromising my views. I think they can be reconciled, but you may not. When I address the issue of Noah and the flood, I will address the killing of children by the deluge.
I will wait for your answer to my questions above.
Which views are you trying to not compromise? That you say god can not be judged/understood? Besides not agreeing on premises yet, there is an additional problem with the flood, if I understand that you think it was a real, global, not local, event. There are severe scientific problems with this. So anyways, I think in order to be on the same page, weād have to agree on the premises first, and then agree on the science surrounding it, before we can productively discuss the deluge. This is no small feat. Is there another portion in the Bible that you can think of that would be more productive to discuss? Weād still have to come to an agreement on the premise though for us to begin to get anywhere. I am having a lot of trouble thinking of how best we can use this discussion time.
Thanks for the thoughtful repliesā¦we are keeping each other on track in the discussion.
Thanks to you as well, I am hopeful we can
