History
Perspectivalism
08/27/08 11:20 Categories: Theology
We need to read the Scriptures in a way that answers the questions that those Scriptures raise. For example, the purpose of Genesis 1, in terms of the questions that it is seeking to answer, has very little (nothing?) to do with the questions that we bring to the text, i.e., the modern scientific conflict of creation opposed to evolution. This text is premodern, and without any understanding of the scientific method, and so how can we import our scientific needs onto a text that has no understanding of that. I suppose the justification roots on Scripture being God’s Word, but that fully usurps the human level of Scripture. So, even if Gen 1 does correspond with the order of sciences’ understanding of creation (light made first, planets next, etc.) - though this is a tenuous correspondence with a necessary ad hoc component - we cannot and should not understand that the author if intended this seeming coincidence. I have only used Genesis 1 as an example of something that we do throughout Scripture.
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