We Say Believing When We Mean to Say Saying

The underlying bizarre quality of a supposed dialog between theism and atheism has been dealt with by many people before, so I suppose I am not adding much to the matter.  For my part, I would state that theism--baldly described--is the belief in something that cannot be defined and is therefore neither falsifiable nor (perhaps more importantly) attached by necessity to any particular description.  Atheism is the denial of belief in something that cannot be defined and is therefore neither falsifiable nor (perhaps more importantly) attached by necessity to any particular description.

Inescapably, any argument between theism and atheism is an argument about the existence of a conceptualized deity, not an argument about the existence of deity itself.

We can call each other's statements about the ultimate of deity "sentiments" (and therefore not amenable to rational analysis) or we can call each other's statements about the ultimate of deity statements that describe the deity (and therefore arguments about each other's conceptions of deity) not addressing the core matter itself.

Or, as I would suggest, we can conceive of statements about the bare issue of theism versus atheism not as statements of sentiment or of belief, but rather as prefatory statements--they can bear no other burden.  "I am a theist" or "I am an atheist" are not statements of belief, but rather introductions.  "I am a theist" or "I am an atheist" are prefatory statements, no more useful in an argument than name tags at a convention--that is to say, perhaps very useful, but only as they presage a real dialectic.

A theist is a person who says "I am a theist."  An atheist is a person who says "I am an atheist."  And then we can begin.

Adam Found Wanting from the First

Adam was not fulfilled by communion with God in Eden.  "And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him" (Genesis 2:18, KJV).

Adam was surely found wanting; can any other reasonable conclusion be drawn from Adam's unfulfillment with God's company?  And so God forms from the soil--the same soil from which Adam was taken--"every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air" (v. 19).  And then the man is roused to the task of naming the creatures--a foretaste of humanity's dominion over Creation.

It was not good that the man was alone; it was not good that the man was unfulfilled in God's company; it was not good that animals and birds had to be created in an attempt to satisfy the man; it was not good that even this was not enough for the man.  The cycle of humanity's failure, joined to negative consequences of such failure, was established well before the supposed Fall.

Time is Like the Trees of Eden

The trees of Eden, as the King James would have it, were "pleasant to the sight, and good for food."  That is, the trees that might be said to have been given to Adam excited his anticipation, and sated him momentarily.  Thus also it is with time, to us.  We can anticipate a moment, and try to make use of it, as we might anticipate food and then destroy it in the eating, but we can never possess either.  Neither time, nor anything else, is ever really given to us, or is ever our possession.

Adam First Roused to a Test

God roused himself to the work of creation.  If we find that statement presumptuous, it can only be said that the notion of God himself "resting" after creation's work would in itself seem jarring to us except that it is presented in Genesis.  If God rested, then he worked.  If God worked, then he placed--roused--himself into such a process.

He also placed Adam into a process.  Here we will proceed with Genesis 2, and ignore the contention that the timing of the creation of plants differs in the two stories.  God in the narrative rouses Adam from the soil, and then God plants a garden for the man to live in and to tend.  God also places Adam in the proximity of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Adam is roused, and in his first experiences he is readied for his first great challenge.  Adam is primed to be reaped, and liable to be found wanting.  He has been placed in such a process by God, and as this blog will contend, that process describes humanity's predicament.

God Surveyed Before He Rested

God looked intermittently at Creation while he was making it.  If we are not to take the narrative lightly, then we must suppose there is a lesson for us in the description.  That is how we are to be; we are to be at work, and to be attentive to every aspect of every situation that surrounds us, and to be constantly reassessing our situation and our work.

So it must be with the followers of Jesus.  Jesus does not present his demands for us as illustrations, or as suggestions, or as undertakings for a certain, celebrated few.  In every conceivable way, we must rest sometimes, it is true, but such resting is regrettable, if ultimately necessary.  Resting is not to be enjoyed as part of a pleasurable rhythm of life.  Resting or working, we must constantly present ourselves to be roused by the unrelenting demands of Jesus.

God Labored in the Soil

Man was created out of the soil, as part of the process by which God created our world.  Either it cost something for God to create us, or the language about God resting is just intended as an instructive metaphor.  Either way, the implication of the earth as the fruit of God's labors is not to be taken lightly.

The ancients knew that soil was the result of a gradual process, unlike the mountains, which appear to have been made (though now in a state of erosion) in a single stroke.  The people of earth have always watched the stone be turned into a part of the soil, and (as in Luke 13) they have watched the organic matter of life become again an indispensable part of the soil.  The creation of soil for Adam's birth can be spoken of as abruptly as the creation of the mountains, or the creation of the soil can be seen as the result of labor, and care, and time.  The latter view would seem the most reverent.

Maybe Man Not So Good Under Heaven

Day One of Creation has a "good": the light.  Day Three has two: the land and the plants.  Day Four has one: the lights in the sky.  Day Five has one: the teeming fish and birds.  Day Six has one: the animals, BEFORE man.  And all of Creation at the end of Day Six is called by God "very good."  Creation was NOT called perfect, or spotless, or some such, although words in the Hebrew could have conveyed that.

Day Two, the separation of Earth from Heaven (and it is useless to contend that either the Hebrew or the Greek allows us to discriminate between "heaven" and "sky") is not called good.  Mankind is not in itself called good.  Absent any other theological considerations--just as a consideration in itself--it would follow that the creation of Man separate from Heaven was a condition of lack from the very beginning.

Going to Try to Improve My Presentation

 Going to try to improve my presentation.