An honest answer. Thanks.
Not much to say with so much agreement. I pray you'd see past the planters and waterers to the God behind it all.
It's curious that no other Calvinists have posted a refutation of this thread.
There are a LOT of 'ask a Calvinist' threads and have been many of them in the past. Try a 'bump' post in a few weeks or in a month or two. Don't be discouraged.
Thanks.
It is certainly possible that polygamy was permitted as the least worst solution to a problem of an excess of women (due wars killing more men and higher birth rate of women) who were vulnerable and uneducated.
And yet it amounts to adultery...Romans 7:1ff
They didn't have Romans. Remember the OT is the low-bar (imho and estimation) and the NT is the high-bar.
Love covers a multitude of sin. I think monogamy the best model and polygamy would overtly stress love's intent.
I'm not meaning to say it is utilitarian, but rather that all the Law and Prophets are about either/and loving God and loving man.
Most of the time, this is how I reconcile all of Scriptures. If Jesus said it is all about Love of God and man, it seems that must be the reconciliation of all points of Scripture. I admittedly have a hard time reading all the OT being able to personally reconcile according to that model, but I don't doubt the Lord Jesus Christ. I chalk it up to just not being the know-it-all I sometimes think I am.
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The evidence from the rock layers is completely at odds with a world wide Noachian flood. Many Christian geologist...Woodward, Cuviert etc felt they could not uphold the catastrophism that scripture implies.
I question science as much as I question my understanding of scripture. In both, we are at the mercies of deduction and interpretation. On this one, plate tectonic theory doesn't seem to play as an important of a role either in science denying a flood, or Biblical scholars not including it in their understanding of scriptural considerations. Sorry, rambling, the point is we are left at the mercies of interpretation both from science and bible reading deductions. At one time, I'd have tentatively held to a flat earth, likely. Bad? No, I don't 'think' it either hindered science nor spirituality. In a nutshell, I think we 'can' afford to be wrong on some things without dire consequences. If it really does ruin your faith, I could be wrong, but I don't think it has to end up there. To me, this isn't a deal-breaker. For others, perhaps it is, but I'm not understanding why it becomes an essential issue of spirituality at that point. Many today 'try' to make it that, but I'm still not quite grasping the connection. It seems 'hype' to me (not at all pointed at any one in particular nor you).
I do not, however, deny the possibility that the flood took place as described in Genesis 6ff
My response to skeptics: "Look, the epic of Gilgamesh contains things we find incredulous along with other cultures that recorded a global flood among harder to imagine story-lines. Though that looks like a deal-breaker, it actually substantiates the flood story archeologically.
We have every reason to think that a commonality of a recorded flood, is in fact observation by these cultures of a cataclysmic event, not doubt it." Again, we are ever at the mercies of other's interpretations. Just because a scientist, or even a few of them think that a global flood is impossible, it doesn't make historical sense to deny that ancient peoples separate from one another, 1) Made it a matter of great import to record something of it, but 2) that they corroborate something. Scientists aren't really that broad in their focus, but I'd think they should be, more often than not. Science is a job, not a narrow-focused way of life. They shouldn't even read the paper if they truly believed science was the
only source of reliable information (they don't, but sometimes, like denying historical record, a few of them go 'beyond' their area of expertise. Like religion as a subject, especially Christianity, science too can get myopic, at least from my observation and summation.
-Lon
