The Quadralemma

I am going to explain why I think the quadralemma captures an important issue.To me, the non-triviality lies in the question of the trustworthiness of God. We Christians trust Christ's sacrifice to save us from our sins. That sacrifice is based upon Adam's sin. As H. G. Wells famously said,"It was only slowly that the general intelligence of the Western
world was awakened to two disconcerting facts: firstly, that the
succession of life in the geological record did not correspond to
the acts of the six days of creation; and, secondly, that the
record, in harmony with a mass of biological facts, pointed away
from the Bible assertion of a separate creation of each species,
straight towards a genetic relation between all forms of life, _in
which even man was included!_ The importance of this last issue to
the existing doctrinal system was manifest. If all the animals and
man had been evolved in this ascendant manner, then there had been
no first parents, no Eden, and no Fall. And if there had been no
fall, then the entire historical fabric of Christianity, the story
of the first sin and the reason for an atonement, upon which the
current teaching based Christian emotion and morality, collapsed
like a house of cards."The fall, H.G.Wells, in his _Outline of History_ Vol 2 (Doubleday, 1961). 776-777I want to narrowly focus the point of this for the present discussion. The point of citing Wells is not about evolution(which I accept), but about the dependence of Christian theology upon the Fall (thus, I am broadening this issue from the Flood thread because the same problem abounds elsewhere in Scripture). No Fall; no need for Christ. And notice that Wells cites the 'historical basis' of Christian belief. This collapse, of which Wells speaks is due to the loss of reality to the entire basis upon which Christian theology is built.Christ died in history, therefore the Fall must be historical.Modern atheists actually seem a bit deriding of the loss of historicity. Genie Scott, who, I am told, cited my web site favorable in her book, said this of attempts to do away with historicity.“The "accommodation" model, in which science and religion are more directly engaged; theological understanding is thought to be deepened through the understanding of science. Some Christians wrestling with the theological implications of Darwinism in the early twentieth century, for example, were willing to reinterpret basic concepts of the Fall, Atonement, and Original Sin in the light of evolutionary theory. These theologians were considering such problems as "If humans evolved from apes, there was no original state of grace and the concept of Original Sin must be reinterpreted" (Bowler 1999, 39). The accommodation seems to be largely a one-way street, with science acting as a source for theological reinterpretation rather than the reverse.” Eugenie C. Scott, “The Science And Religion Movement,” in Paul Kurtz, ed., Science and Religion, (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2003), p. 113The problem as I see it is this. Science is rightly perceived as telling us what is true and real about the world; Theology is widely perceived as telling us things which are not real and are totally unverifiable.All of this raises the question of why believe that which is false.Why trust a God who 'inspired' a false story?If I tell you that I am the prophet of the Great Green Slug, who created the universe by dropping feces which grew into our present universe and that the Great Green Slug wants you to send all your money to me, you would rightly think I am barking mad. What you wouldn't do is declare the Slug creation story a great theological lesson to be pondered and applied to our lives. But, when it comes to the Bible, too often I see people who claim that the Creation/Flood stories are total fabrication, but who then, turn around, and proclaim the great theology taught by these otherwise false stories. It makes absolutely no sense to me to believe anything good comes from a false story which otherwise would appear to be a historical account.Faith in a plan of salvation derived from a book which is utterly historically false reminds me what William James says.“...the faith you think of is the faith defined by the schoolboy when he said, "Faith is when you believe something that you know ain't true." I can only repeat that this is misapprehension.” William James, “The Will To Believe,” in Robert M. Hutchins, Mortimer J. Adler, and Clifton Fadiman, eds., Gateway to the Great Books, Vol. 10, (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1963), p 56Do we have faith in that which we know ain't true? That is the real question raised by the QuadralemmaEdited by grmorton, : clarificatinEdited by grmorton, : No reason given.

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Jar,
Ok, So, it is clear from your statement of your beliefs, that you do not hold to classical Christianity. I appreciate knowing where you are coming from because that makes things easier. If one assumes that all religious documents are cases of man communicating with man, then clearly the quadralemma can tell us nothing about the nature of God. What I can't figure out is why we needed a special thread to discuss this--it seems an extravagance. Depending upon the correctness or incorrectness of your assumption you will be correct or incorrect.Enjoyed the very short non-debate. Edited by grmorton, : No reason given.

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The creation is different than a parable. We believe the Big bang because the evidence indicates that it is real, that it actually happened. We believe the communication of the scientists because we trust that they are able and willing to communicate reality to us about what actually happened. My objection to having a creation account be historically false is that it treats religion as something special, it treats religion with kid gloves. A religion claiming to have the True God proclaiming the story of creation presupposes that the said God actually knows something about the events that actually took place. If the said God shows no evidence of knowing what actually happened, one can reasonably doubt the veracity of that God.Similarly, if a person, claiming to be a scientist says things about the Big Bang which shows that he really doesn't know what the data says, one can reasonably doubt the veracity of that person.Basically the quadralemma is raising the question of why we treat a god differently than we treat a scientist, giving God a pass for any nonsense he inspires and charging the scientist with fraud if he proclaims nonsense.Since jar's assumptions are incompatible with the quadralemma, this will be my last post to this thread. Got better things to do.Edited by AdminPhat, : spelling

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