Dear Phil,
Thanks for yours but ….
God does not declare the eating of plants ‘very good’. 
‘He saw all that he had made and behold it was very good’.  2.31
The 'very good' is a summary of the whole creation passage not a reference to how good the food is in it.
My point is that if vegetation is given for food then biological death is present in the world that is ‘good’. I still think you need to clarify on what basis this is different from creaturely death.

I still don’t think you have understood the point I am making about literary genre. Or maybe I am missing something?

You say – ‘I was trying to press the point that whatever genre you consider Genesis 1-3 to be you have to give an exegesis of the passage, or say "I don’t know what that means". 
Yes of course. But I am trying to seek common ground with you on what kind of literature we are reading here. You have still not told me what kind of literature you think this is, though you are clearly working from certain assumptions about the literary style (historic fact, poetic or parable etc). If you take the reference to seed and vegetation as 'fact' why not talking snakes and the tree of knowledge and a literal eating of fruit? Perhaps you do?

Yes ‘disobedience’, yes ‘alientation’. Rest assured we are agreed.

My comment on the effect of the fall being progressive …
I do not think Scripture or science reveals a catastophic ‘fall’ moment in history –eg   the fruit is eaten and suddenly everyone eats meat, turns violent and the cosmos is dis-eased. Rather when world war breaks out. It has ‘happened’ and will effect everywhere but the impact and consequence takes time to spread across the world. It is accumuative. That’s what I meant.
You ask: 'Are you prepared to say at what point in the Bible’s history we can definitely say that all human beings needed salvation?'
How can anyone possibly know that? We are not told.  I suggested a possible scenario in my last post based on Denis Alexander’s book - but we simply don't know.
In any case Paul says all have sinned.  So what do we need a starting date for anyway?

Re: Romans 8:19-23. I do not have to believe in a cosmic fall to make sense of the idea that creation at all levels is deeply vulnerable to and suffers under the hands of fallen humanity. Does that answer you?  To answer your question needs one sentence or a very large book. Can I stick with one sentence for now?

Colossians 1:20 and ta panta.
I have gone back to your earlier post on this to remind myself  of what you are arguing,
You wrote  ‘ "All things” probably includes the whole of sub-human nature, which, being reconciled through the blood of the cross must at some point have been alienated from God.
Therefore at some point the whole of sub-human nature has been subject to vanity, enslaved to corruption, alienated from God.
Two questions: when? And, with what if any observable result?’

Sorry Phil - I find all this highly speculative – based on a ‘probably’ that needs a big jump of interpretative imagination.

Plants or insects be ‘alienated from God’? Nettles and daffodils ‘subject to vanity’?
We are back again to the question of what kind of language is being used here. And once again I have to say I find you looking for very literal, factual information in passages that are at very least mysterious, allusive and poetic.

I have no trouble – and glory in – the understanding that through the cross the world itself is restored to God … and that one day all creation will be transformed by Christ. Ta panta! For me that is simply what it says on the tin.

David

To answer your last question first:

(‘But one question back to you …. on what biblical basis do you separate organic death – vegetation (given for food) – from organic death – animal?’)

On the basis that the Bible says that eating of plants and fruit is ‘very good’. We have to bow before God’s wisdom.

Another quick answer: I invite Graham Kings to give a view as a representative of the Fulcrum leadership.

I said in my March 11 post (in reply to your assertion that I am regularly assuming a “literal reading (and thus finding ‘facts’)” ‘If you examine my 21 and 23 February postings I think you will see that the only facts I am finding are that that Gen 1:29-30 and 9:3 must mean something whatever the genre….’. In other words I was trying to press the point that whatever genre you consider Genesis 1-3 to be you have to give an exegesis of the passage, or say ‘I don’t know what that means’. Similarly with the question of the fall. By mentioning a talking snake and a forbidden tree you are not taking on board the very general way I put my question as to whether you agree that ‘at some point the human race disobeyed God and that from that point on the whole human race became alienated from God and in need of salvation? And that this disobedience and this alienation was a historical event?’. I find your reply unclear in that it does not mention ‘disobedience’ or ‘alienation’ and you seem to be implying that the fall was in some sense progressive. Have I understood you correctly on this point? Are you prepared to say at what point in the Bible’s history we can definitely say that all human beings needed salvation?

I also asked you to comment on my assertions about the right understanding of Romans 8:19-23. I take it that your observation ‘Nor do I think scripture teaches some kind of cosmic fall – the OT alone is innocent of any such notion’ means that you disagree. So what do you think these verses mean? And what in your view are the ta panta which according to Colossians 1:20 is reconciled through the blood of the cross?

Phil Almond

Phil
Thanks you for your post …..
But  you have not actually engaged with my point about what kind of literature we are reading and therefore how it is to be understood and interpreted. Your post of 11 March to me does not ‘answer your assertion’ at all.  Instead you press your question as to whether I (and, for some reason Graham Kings) agree that the world is in need of salvation and that this need  is traceable to an event at a certain moment in history.
Well – puzzled you need to ask - I for one am in no doubt that this world is deeply lost and disordered – and that if anything we underestimate the depths from which we need redeeming. I also believe this comes through Christ.
 But to ask if I believe it happened in a precise moment in history? That assumes we are agreed what kind of literature it is. If it is history, what kind of history is it?
But my response is ...  yes and no
Do I believe that at a certain, unmeasured and unwitnessed moment in time in a ‘good’ garden the first previously two faithful and obedient human beings (created uniquely, without history – either on the first or the last day of God’s creating of the world – choose your passage), spoke with a talking snake and then picked and ate fruit from a certain forbidden tree ….. at which point the whole cosmos fell into violent disorder, including eating meat instead of just veg ….
No I don’t.
I don’t believe it is that kind of literature. And for what its worth many early church theologians mocked people for taking Genesis literally – including Augustine – who could never be accused of being soft on sin and our need for salvation.
Do I believe that at a certain evolutionary point in history, a couple and/or community of (perhaps) Neolithic farmers grew into some awakening and revelation of God – a gift of God to be a means of witness to the world around (rather like the call of Israel) … but that this calling went tragically wrong ….  We do not know how – but Genesis and other places in scripture reflect  in story and parable on what human impulse lay behind it.
Yes – something like that seems to make sense to me – but we have to say we just don’t know. (I have found Denis Alexander ‘Creation or Evolution’ so helpful on this).  The Genesis story speaks of the deep catastrophe of sin – but I suspect the impact was accumulative in its effect.
But even having tried to trace beginnings, Paul makes clear that all have sinned. We are all responsible. We have not traced it back to lay blame or pass the buck.

I find no reason in scripture or scientific research to believe other than that death, in a natural,  organic sense, has always been part of life from the beginning.  Apart from anything else the world would have surely been hopelessly overpopulated within a matter of decades without death. I realise this throws up a whole host of other questions - but I simply do not think Genesis is interested in answering them! The bible as a whole is not good at giving us the information we feel we need. It does not follow our agenda.

Nor do I think scripture teaches some kind of cosmic fall – the OT alone is innocent of any such notion. Though global warming alone makes clear that creation is intensely vulnerable to human disorder.

Must stop there for now ….
But one question back to you …. on what biblical basis do you separate organic death – vegetation (given for food) – from organic death – animal?

Thanks David, that does clarify things, and it all falls into place.

David

1    Your core issue about the kind of literature:

I refer you to my 11 March 2009 20.45 post where I attempt to answer your assertion that I am regularly assuming a literal reading and thus finding facts. It might helpfully clarify our positions if you responded to my invitations in my 23 February post:

‘In this debate about literal and figurative, historical and non-historical, I would like to ask you what view you have about the fall. Whatever the mix of history and symbol (or whatever words you want to use) in the Genesis 3 account, whether Adam and Eve were two individuals or whether they represent the human race in some sense, whether the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a real tree or symbolises something else, do you agree (does Graham Kings agree) that, to put it in a very general way, at some point the human race disobeyed God and that from that point on the whole human race became alienated from God and in need of salvation? And that this disobedience and this alienation was a historical event?’

And in my 11 March post:

‘On Paul’s letter to the Romans: In my view written by Paul to the Christians at Rome. Having not visited them but being eager to preach the gospel to them, he writes. From 1:16 to at least 8:39 the argument he sets out is a continuous connected one, with subordinate clauses so to speak. Is this common ground? If so, what do you make of my assertions about the right understanding of 8: 19-23?’

2        Jesus and the law and ‘vegetarianism’. In Genesis 9:3 God gives explicit permission to the human race to eat meat. There is therefore no problem in Jesus so doing before his death and resurrection. The fact that he did so does not weaken my argument at all. For the same reason there is no problem about Christians eating meat. My line of thought about Genesis 1:29-30 and 9:3 leads me to the conclusion that animal predation is something that has gone wrong or been made wrong with the original creation. That is the focus, not human vegetarianism. And it is that which is rectified in the new heavens and the new earth if we take Isaiah 11:6-9 literally. And even if that passage is figurative its force, as I pointed out earlier, depends on animal predation being something gone/made wrong. Though I do agree, as I have already said, that Jesus eating fish after the resurrection is one of the serious issues my view has to meet. We are faced here with what often faces us when there appear to be Biblical points on both sides of an issue; we have to weigh the strength of the arguments on either side. It is clear, as I see it, from the Isaiah, Romans and Colossians passages that sub-human nature has been subjected to vanity, enslaved to corruption and alienated from God. GAU cannot find a place for such a discontinuity unless the fall of satan is invoked or the view is taken that sub-human nature has been like that from the beginning. As I recall, Spanner has no problem with the latter option. Does anyone agree with him? And even then, for both options, there are very serious obstacles in the ‘good’ and ‘very good’ of Genesis 1. OK, ‘Do not cling on to me’ may be irrelevant. But clearly the Ascension is significant. It is at that point that Christ began to reign until all enemies are put under his feet.

Phil Almond

L Roberts

You need to trace the discussion Phil and I have been having - which starts from interpreting Genesis.  Phil is trying to argue that before the 'Fall' the world was vegetarian and that meat eating is a consequence of the fall.

I have been arguing that neither the OT nor the NT communities show any sign of eating meat with any regret (and nor does God)  and mainstream church history too has never promoted vege diets as a key sign of creation redeemed. Why not? So I asked Phil why Jesus - before or after Easter was not vege.

Hope that clarifies ....

Did Phil say our Lord was vegetarian ? I missed it. And would be very interested.

I am sure  a meat free diet is an important witness for those called to it.  But I hadnt been basing it on any notion of Jesus' abstaining from meat- though I could easily imagine it.  I reget not having caught on to meat free living sooner than I did.

Minimising suffering is part of how many of us would want to seek to live our spiritual-physical lives, I imagine.

Phil,

This has to brief ...  my core issue remains what kind of literature we are reading here. I raised this in an earlier response to you. The current Bible Society magazine is an extended reflection on this issue and very helpful. This is key to how we read and interpret scripture. My position is that  simply don't have to justify the 'proof texts' you focus on because I don't think they are intended to be taken as fact in the way that you insist. Van Till writes 'twentieth century western culture seems to me to be partiuclarly inept at understanding and using figurative or symbolic literature. We are so accustomed to to straightforward, matter of fact descriptive prose that we expect nearly all writing to be in that form ....' I think you are making precisely that mistake.

As to the points you raise ...   I remain unconvinced and frankly you sound far more hesitant than your usual self on these threads. ....

Jesus and the Law. Jesus was clearly not uncritically  'under the law'. On certain issues he 'broke' the Law - cf the sabbath or the woman taken in adultery.  Something as core as this would surely be raised in his teaching wouldn't it? Why does the second Adam give no shred of a lead or vision on this one if it so central to what redemption and salvation means for us all? It just isn't there. And are you asking us to assume he only pretended to enjoy chicken or fish at all those parties he went to - or that he secretly stuck vegetables whenever he could?

'Do not cling to me' - your use of this text to argue your case is entirely novel I'm afraid. I see no connection whatsoever.

Early church and vege diets? 

It just isn't an issue there either Phil. You won't find it. And there is no hiding behind the idea that it will be part of the life to come and we are not there yet ...   It has simply never been part of maintream teaching of the church in history - even about the life to come actually. This fatally weakens your case. And aren't we supposed to be living now as  signs and anticipation of the world to come? Peace making, justice, morality, ecology, community life, love, forgiveness, worship - but lets leave the vegetables until after the eschaton?

Easter greetings - we're eating roast lamb.

David

22 and 24 February: Your points about vegetarianism, Jesus before and after resurrection eating meat/fish, early Church, Paul’s teaching:

Jesus before resurrection: no issue: Jesus was born under the law and since Gen 9:3 eating meat/fish is part of the law.

Jesus after resurrection: I don’t know yet how to handle this; I accept it is one of the serious issues my view has to meet; but my present opinion is that it is not sufficient to overthrow my view. Of significance may be Jesus words to Mary in John 20:17 translated variously as ‘Touch me not….’ ‘Do not hold on to me…’ ‘Do not cling to me….’ indicating perhaps that all of ‘risen, ascended, glorified’ are necessary to complete Christ’s mission of redemption.

Early Church practice etc. I would take the same general view here as I take of death and marriage: we are redeemed but we still suffer disease and die. We are not given in marriage in heaven but marriage is good in this life. These transformations, like the Isaiah passage, take place at the consummation of the work of salvation.

Phil Almond

I suppose I have an interest in Darwin’s beliefs as well as his geology.

I have never been convinced by Jim Moore’s claim that the death of Annie in 1851 finished off Darwin’s religious faith. There is no evidence for it, though it is a nice sentimental story. Her death shattered him but nowhere have I found anything referring to religion in anyway.

I have yet to do more than flip through Spencer’s book but will make some comments on Alison’s review.

Her first stage on 1809 to 1836 makes some useful points about his “formal” faith. Again I ask where was the evidence for his belief in “Paley’s vision of an ordered and happy cosmos”? It is not in his letters or in his notes (and the notes labelled as on Paley in 1828 are in fact on Sumner). To say that “BUT – reading Lyell on geology and witnessing volcanoes and earthquakes in Chile cast shadows over his neat, stable, Paleyan faith” is simply not the case. BEFORE Darwin went on the Beagle he was a competent geologist having been trained up by Sedgwick and Henslow as I recently presented at a Darwin conference in Cardiff. He knew his volcanic rocks well and convinced of the vast age of the world. The evangelical Sedgwick was not a Paleyean anyway. (see my recent article on Religion and Geology published by the Geol Soc of London). He was looking at volcanic rocks on the voyage using other writings as well as Lyell and some argument needs to be produced for this assertion.

On the second stage it is not mentioned that Emma was a Unitarian of a liberal hue- i.e typically Wedgwood. To claim she was an orthodox Christian will not do.

The last section on the response to the Origin is satisfactory

The weakness of the review is that it is not based on historical evidence and operates from a bit of a straw man of formal “Paleyan” Anglicanism of the early 19th century. Perhaps it would be good to look at the religious influence of his sisters and the good evangelical Sedgwick, but documentation is very sparse. I cannot see what dear Lyell has got to do with Darwin’s demise of faith.

For once I tend to agree with Pluralist!!
.


Michael

Your review does not allow for the Unitarian background of both Charles and Emma Darwin, that she turned the family around at the creed for example. He and his brother were baptised into the Church of England with its understanding of its educational privilege and social role, and indeed he retained an active role in the village regarding his local church throughout. It was only the final and stable curate of the village that had strained relations with him and Emma, over their background, and then they showed increasing sympathy with a non-conformist of the area and his social impact.

The piece mentions some sort of commitment to the cross, etc. to maintain belief. This is just an add-on regarding this matter, and has little to do with the Darwins and Emma in particular had a frame of reference of some of the leading Unitarians and people associated: James Martineau, Francis Newman (brother of John, went in a Unitarian and agnostic direction) and other preachers. And this business that Charles lost his faith through his daughter: rather more, his daughter's death and the weakness of the children led to his reflection on the necessity of sexual selection among the further-other, that is away from immediate sources of reproduction. His own Wedgwood-Darwin intermarried family was a source of weakness in reproductive terms, and this gave rise to much experiment among his plants.

Do look at the Cambridge site that uses the correspondence by which we see what they did and what they thought. I had my blog entry a while back with these links.

Had there been a Unitarian chapel near to the Darwins' home the history of affiliations would have been more obviously different, though even then they may still have played an important church-village social role. Such was the way of Victorian religion.

We have just published a Fulcrum review of Nick Spencer's, 'Darwin and God' (SPCK, 2009), by Alison Morgan.