You are quite right. And I certainly think that simply playing around with words makes an all too easily defeated argument. But arguments aside, many people do use it the way I do in theoretical circles and theological circles,(though probably few of those who created the museum do, which you are quite justified to point out. And for me , that is the problem.) but primarily it gets used to mean the relative opposite of that. I actually had a discussion about this with my prof, Paul Fry, who informed me that there are many problems in theoretical writing where people conflate the two types of literal. What Thomas was calling attention to, I think, would be helpful if many people, not just on this site, had a chance to think about. The term//literal// can be confusing, and often in several post-modern discussions the term seems entirely useless since what it refers to may not actually exist. But what the discussion at hand boils down to is exactly how one does interpret the question you laid out.
But the question is simple: Do you believe that the bible retells, in specific detail, the actual events of 6000 years ago? And for the museum creationists, the answer is an emphatic yes.
The creators of the museum would say, apparently, yes. But they first made the assumption that the Bible's account of creation speaks of, and specifically tells of, events 6000 years ago. Last I read the passages, there's a long chronology of people and their children which count up the years from Adam's birth/beginning of existence. And a passage which places Adam's creation in a particular day. But the assumption that his beginning occurred in a time less than seven 24 hour periods after the creation of the world I have a hard time with. That's a rather large assumption for me. (So I'm one of those people who question what//day// means in Genesis before the sun existed, which makes me think//day// has a figurative use.) And indeed for those who say that the passages are figurative but refer to a literal truth which is possibly obscured it is such assumptions which seem to cloud our understanding. Finally, I'm not even sure the question above actually frames a literal interpretation of the Bible, even given the more common definition of literal.
Further, the assumption that Adam was exactly a lone man in a total wilderness of nothing like himself also seems a little dubious. But if we were to think that the whole process was describing something only like what its talking about, which I and many would argue is always the precondition for language, (Though Thomas might not have agreed, I think Augustine would have.) the whole story becomes its own linguistic figure revealing and maybe concealing its intended meaning. Is no language literal? Is any language literal? Well, that's a problem that's far too worn-out for any interesting discussion. But as for theology, and this discussion, to keep it on topic, I find that most people who say they take it literally in the way you defined it here, actually take it more like what I defined, but would never say so. Or more accurately, when confronted with poetry in the Bible they would side with the "literal sense," the way I outlined above, when confronted with what doesn't seem so literary they would side with literal language, the way you defined it. For me, such a practice may be too selective. And the Bible may be far more literary than often thought of. Such is not a problem for me, though for some it could be.
I do think it would be fun to continue discussing conceptions of literality and figurative language, I'm not sure there is a good consensus on what these things are or are not, and thought I would bring up something which does just that. Thomas questions what exactly is literal, though often never goes so far as to doubt literal truth somewhere in the whole mix of things.
To bring it back to science, I think it would be immensely helpful to get a greater consensu
Enter a post-modern leaning, conservative/liberal often unsure about a lot of things, but deeply grounded, some may say stuck in his beliefs, humanist who studies medieval literature, Christian.
Ok, that might scare a few people a way or attract a few, but you should know where I come from. I've just been studying Thomas Aquinas's views on literal and metaphorical language, themselves taken from Dioyniuis' Celestial Hierarchies, which means what I'm going to talk about is pretty close to the birth of Christianity, though Aquinas articulated the version I have somewhere in the scholastic movement.
Basically, Aquinas almost argues that literal and metaphorical language can look really similar, too similar for good in talking theology, but he knows its all over the Bible. What does he do? He says figurative language is good because it can make us see that it is figurative, lest we accidentally take it for literal. Which means that the problem is not writing in figurative language, even though that means some sort of circumlocution, but rather that what we think is literal language may not be. That's pretty cool from my literary theory point-of-view.
But once we take this, then we find a newer, better problem to deal with, in Prima Pars, Question 1, article 10, he articulates a difference which we seldom, and problematically, often fail to make clear today. There is a literal sense to his interpretation of Scripture which is vastly different from the literal language he has just been talking about. Literal sense of Scripture he describes like this. We come across the figurative language of "God's Arm" in the Bible. Aquinas takes this as figurative language, the literal sense of which is to say God's operative power. Now that's just the opposite of what we normally think is literal. And this is just the point we can easily forget.Just because something isn't literal on the language level doesn't mean their isn't a actually a thing which it is still describing. When we conflate these two, we end up not communicating too well. When people say they take the bible literally we should think about which literal they mean. When we complain that someone is taking literal what doesn't seem like it is, we should again think about this distinction.I myself take Scripture as literally true, but I may not think it means the same thing as others, who might say the same thing and mean something totally different, as well as believe something totally different. Because this "literal sense" which I refer to is often not exposed, even in many theoretical writings today, it's left wide open, at least so my lit theory prof told me; and so we get into a confusing mess. All I'm really trying to say here is that someone can take things literally but still not take the language as literal.
So, here's the two problems all mixed together: people take metaphorical language as literal and totally miss the point. So, according to Thomas, they might think that God literally had an arm, which in his theology, maybe not mine, was a total contradiction. It wouldn't work at all, since God is not substance... no need to get into all that here. The thing is one can take the Bible literally as in the way Thomas did, but not take it literally at the same time. That is the language itself can be layered in metaphor while the truth it reveals, or seems to conceal, is only accessible if we make a bit of a leap.
I'm not saying this is the best way to deal with all this, but does provide a helpful distinction between taking the creation story literaly (language level), versus historically (whatever things actually did happen, be it a big bang or something else) which is the literal sense (which may be different that what seemed like the story, when we read the language as literal language). I, myself, am still dubious of such a position, since it seems a little arduous to get through and like a bit more random pseudo philosophy to explain what really pretty much anybody lacks the language to really talk about, since none
I'll take you up on your comment, though I won't claim that I'm intelligent. I won't say I'm a follower of Intelligent Design, but I will say that I believe in God, as creator of this universe, and all other universes whatever they may be. No, the thing I want to understand (or just argue about for a bit) is your last comment. As a Christian, I tend to look at my faith not as the "how" of the universe but the "why", that nagging question in the back of everybody's mind, mine at least, which wants to know "for what purpose."
Science, by my mind, seeks the mechanisms of our universe. It wants to know how things came to be and, when applied, how we can make them be something to our liking.
Maybe I am one of the "weak minded simpleton cattle" if true, I'll try my best to live with it. There'd be little else I could do. For now, though, I'm seeking to understand why so many people wish to oppose science and religion. I understand how, in some cases, the answer of religion is not the one that science seeks, and in that category, I wonder why people confuse the two questions, "why" and "how".
There's a part of me, it's true, which wants to say that Science and Religion are entirely separable. But in the end, I can't bring myself to actually believe it. I think this is the problem that is so often encountered. To people who believe as I do, everything is religion. If it weren't I would tend to think that my faith was rather short sighted. If there is something that science has found, that is, which the quest of "how" has revealed, it serves also the purpose to describe God. I have to admit, that's not a very easy thing to get at, describing God. And I don't claim that I have the answer for how to get there with every scientific claim that's made. I just believe that its possible to get there.
So the question becomes. when when we're seeking this "how" in our classrooms, does any point of that "why" belong there as well. I can't answer that fully. But I tend to think when we push our own answer for "why" on other people, which is what classroom instruction can easily become, we risk linking that answer with a myriad of other agendas some quite contrary to what a lot of Christians would hope. And still, when a state tries to enforce it's own version of "why" we find ourselves approaching a certain form of tyranny.
Now when it comes to my beliefs, I believe that everyone has a choice in what they believe. But a state enforcement of that belief, comes quite close to a form of terror.
Now when it comes to your final statement "so it of course much easier to just say 'god did it'." I tend to think, maybe as yourself, that such an answer is not an escape from scientific search, discovery, and method. No, it's actually just the invitation. Consider it like this: As a Christian, if God did something, I, perhaps, ought to understand it in ever greater detail, so as to understand what I seek as an end, God. Now to put that in perspective, if this universe is infinite, (i'm not totally sure about that, but it wouldn't bother me if it were) then there's quite possibly an infinite amount of exploration out there just waiting for us to try to understand, whether it concerns our past or our present or our future. And if so, my end, understanding more of God, has infinite room as well for exploration. But even if our universe isn't infinite, I'm at least pretty sure that I'll never run out of things to explore in my quest to understand more of God. (I do believe that God is what we would consider infinite, in at least a great number of way of defining that word).
Now perhaps, one should have a discussion that seeks to understand the consequences of various methods of teaching both the "why" and the "how." Some methods seem obviously to have a place in a state designed curriculum, and to that end, a large majority sees the consequences as helpful to all students, no matter what their religious beliefs. And at the other end of the perspective there are those which many peopl
You should take a look at C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy. While I really wouldn't call them great works of sci-fi, (some of his first novels after all) they do concern themselves with the question you ask. The first work, namely, and the second in the series as well, Out of the Silent Planet, and Perelandra, question the consequences on a spiritual level. One which holds pretty well with the Bible -C.S. Lewis was something of an apolagist for Christianity.
His idea was along the lines of creating something that didn't contradict scripture, but tries to question what the ramifications would be. To summarise a bit, he basically says that earth is the excecption, the one planet that messed everything up, therefore we ought to question if we even have the right to explore other planets, corrupting them in the same way that we, being corrupt, continue to corrupt others and our own planet earth. But there's alot more to the space trilogy than this.
Slashdot Mirror
You are quite right. And I certainly think that simply playing around with words makes an all too easily defeated argument. But arguments aside, many people do use it the way I do in theoretical circles and theological circles,(though probably few of those who created the museum do, which you are quite justified to point out. And for me , that is the problem.) but primarily it gets used to mean the relative opposite of that. I actually had a discussion about this with my prof, Paul Fry, who informed me that there are many problems in theoretical writing where people conflate the two types of literal. What Thomas was calling attention to, I think, would be helpful if many people, not just on this site, had a chance to think about. The term //literal// can be confusing, and often in several post-modern discussions the term seems entirely useless since what it refers to may not actually exist. But what the discussion at hand boils down to is exactly how one does interpret the question you laid out.
But the question is simple: Do you believe that the bible retells, in specific detail, the actual events of 6000 years ago? And for the museum creationists, the answer is an emphatic yes.
The creators of the museum would say, apparently, yes. But they first made the assumption that the Bible's account of creation speaks of, and specifically tells of, events 6000 years ago. Last I read the passages, there's a long chronology of people and their children which count up the years from Adam's birth/beginning of existence. And a passage which places Adam's creation in a particular day. But the assumption that his beginning occurred in a time less than seven 24 hour periods after the creation of the world I have a hard time with. That's a rather large assumption for me. (So I'm one of those people who question what //day// means in Genesis before the sun existed, which makes me think //day// has a figurative use.) And indeed for those who say that the passages are figurative but refer to a literal truth which is possibly obscured it is such assumptions which seem to cloud our understanding. Finally, I'm not even sure the question above actually frames a literal interpretation of the Bible, even given the more common definition of literal.
Further, the assumption that Adam was exactly a lone man in a total wilderness of nothing like himself also seems a little dubious. But if we were to think that the whole process was describing something only like what its talking about, which I and many would argue is always the precondition for language, (Though Thomas might not have agreed, I think Augustine would have.) the whole story becomes its own linguistic figure revealing and maybe concealing its intended meaning. Is no language literal? Is any language literal? Well, that's a problem that's far too worn-out for any interesting discussion. But as for theology, and this discussion, to keep it on topic, I find that most people who say they take it literally in the way you defined it here, actually take it more like what I defined, but would never say so. Or more accurately, when confronted with poetry in the Bible they would side with the "literal sense," the way I outlined above, when confronted with what doesn't seem so literary they would side with literal language, the way you defined it. For me, such a practice may be too selective. And the Bible may be far more literary than often thought of. Such is not a problem for me, though for some it could be.
I do think it would be fun to continue discussing conceptions of literality and figurative language, I'm not sure there is a good consensus on what these things are or are not, and thought I would bring up something which does just that. Thomas questions what exactly is literal, though often never goes so far as to doubt literal truth somewhere in the whole mix of things.
To bring it back to science, I think it would be immensely helpful to get a greater consensu
Enter a post-modern leaning, conservative/liberal often unsure about a lot of things, but deeply grounded, some may say stuck in his beliefs, humanist who studies medieval literature, Christian.
Ok, that might scare a few people a way or attract a few, but you should know where I come from. I've just been studying Thomas Aquinas's views on literal and metaphorical language, themselves taken from Dioyniuis' Celestial Hierarchies, which means what I'm going to talk about is pretty close to the birth of Christianity, though Aquinas articulated the version I have somewhere in the scholastic movement.
Basically, Aquinas almost argues that literal and metaphorical language can look really similar, too similar for good in talking theology, but he knows its all over the Bible. What does he do? He says figurative language is good because it can make us see that it is figurative, lest we accidentally take it for literal. Which means that the problem is not writing in figurative language, even though that means some sort of circumlocution, but rather that what we think is literal language may not be. That's pretty cool from my literary theory point-of-view.
But once we take this, then we find a newer, better problem to deal with, in Prima Pars, Question 1, article 10, he articulates a difference which we seldom, and problematically, often fail to make clear today. There is a literal sense to his interpretation of Scripture which is vastly different from the literal language he has just been talking about. Literal sense of Scripture he describes like this. We come across the figurative language of "God's Arm" in the Bible. Aquinas takes this as figurative language, the literal sense of which is to say God's operative power. Now that's just the opposite of what we normally think is literal. And this is just the point we can easily forget.Just because something isn't literal on the language level doesn't mean their isn't a actually a thing which it is still describing. When we conflate these two, we end up not communicating too well. When people say they take the bible literally we should think about which literal they mean. When we complain that someone is taking literal what doesn't seem like it is, we should again think about this distinction.I myself take Scripture as literally true, but I may not think it means the same thing as others, who might say the same thing and mean something totally different, as well as believe something totally different. Because this "literal sense" which I refer to is often not exposed, even in many theoretical writings today, it's left wide open, at least so my lit theory prof told me; and so we get into a confusing mess. All I'm really trying to say here is that someone can take things literally but still not take the language as literal.
So, here's the two problems all mixed together: people take metaphorical language as literal and totally miss the point. So, according to Thomas, they might think that God literally had an arm, which in his theology, maybe not mine, was a total contradiction. It wouldn't work at all, since God is not substance... no need to get into all that here. The thing is one can take the Bible literally as in the way Thomas did, but not take it literally at the same time. That is the language itself can be layered in metaphor while the truth it reveals, or seems to conceal, is only accessible if we make a bit of a leap.
I'm not saying this is the best way to deal with all this, but does provide a helpful distinction between taking the creation story literaly (language level), versus historically (whatever things actually did happen, be it a big bang or something else) which is the literal sense (which may be different that what seemed like the story, when we read the language as literal language). I, myself, am still dubious of such a position, since it seems a little arduous to get through and like a bit more random pseudo philosophy to explain what really pretty much anybody lacks the language to really talk about, since none
I'm always cautious when an action needs to be vindicated in order to seem right.
I'll take you up on your comment, though I won't claim that I'm intelligent. I won't say I'm a follower of Intelligent Design, but I will say that I believe in God, as creator of this universe, and all other universes whatever they may be. No, the thing I want to understand (or just argue about for a bit) is your last comment. As a Christian, I tend to look at my faith not as the "how" of the universe but the "why", that nagging question in the back of everybody's mind, mine at least, which wants to know "for what purpose."
Science, by my mind, seeks the mechanisms of our universe. It wants to know how things came to be and, when applied, how we can make them be something to our liking.
Maybe I am one of the "weak minded simpleton cattle" if true, I'll try my best to live with it. There'd be little else I could do. For now, though, I'm seeking to understand why so many people wish to oppose science and religion. I understand how, in some cases, the answer of religion is not the one that science seeks, and in that category, I wonder why people confuse the two questions, "why" and "how".
There's a part of me, it's true, which wants to say that Science and Religion are entirely separable. But in the end, I can't bring myself to actually believe it. I think this is the problem that is so often encountered. To people who believe as I do, everything is religion. If it weren't I would tend to think that my faith was rather short sighted. If there is something that science has found, that is, which the quest of "how" has revealed, it serves also the purpose to describe God. I have to admit, that's not a very easy thing to get at, describing God. And I don't claim that I have the answer for how to get there with every scientific claim that's made. I just believe that its possible to get there.
So the question becomes. when when we're seeking this "how" in our classrooms, does any point of that "why" belong there as well. I can't answer that fully. But I tend to think when we push our own answer for "why" on other people, which is what classroom instruction can easily become, we risk linking that answer with a myriad of other agendas some quite contrary to what a lot of Christians would hope. And still, when a state tries to enforce it's own version of "why" we find ourselves approaching a certain form of tyranny.
Now when it comes to my beliefs, I believe that everyone has a choice in what they believe. But a state enforcement of that belief, comes quite close to a form of terror.
Now when it comes to your final statement "so it of course much easier to just say 'god did it'." I tend to think, maybe as yourself, that such an answer is not an escape from scientific search, discovery, and method. No, it's actually just the invitation. Consider it like this: As a Christian, if God did something, I, perhaps, ought to understand it in ever greater detail, so as to understand what I seek as an end, God. Now to put that in perspective, if this universe is infinite, (i'm not totally sure about that, but it wouldn't bother me if it were) then there's quite possibly an infinite amount of exploration out there just waiting for us to try to understand, whether it concerns our past or our present or our future. And if so, my end, understanding more of God, has infinite room as well for exploration. But even if our universe isn't infinite, I'm at least pretty sure that I'll never run out of things to explore in my quest to understand more of God. (I do believe that God is what we would consider infinite, in at least a great number of way of defining that word).
Now perhaps, one should have a discussion that seeks to understand the consequences of various methods of teaching both the "why" and the "how." Some methods seem obviously to have a place in a state designed curriculum, and to that end, a large majority sees the consequences as helpful to all students, no matter what their religious beliefs. And at the other end of the perspective there are those which many peopl
You should take a look at C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy. While I really wouldn't call them great works of sci-fi, (some of his first novels after all) they do concern themselves with the question you ask. The first work, namely, and the second in the series as well, Out of the Silent Planet, and Perelandra, question the consequences on a spiritual level. One which holds pretty well with the Bible -C.S. Lewis was something of an apolagist for Christianity.
His idea was along the lines of creating something that didn't contradict scripture, but tries to question what the ramifications would be. To summarise a bit, he basically says that earth is the excecption, the one planet that messed everything up, therefore we ought to question if we even have the right to explore other planets, corrupting them in the same way that we, being corrupt, continue to corrupt others and our own planet earth. But there's alot more to the space trilogy than this.