The Book of Beginnings:
Creation and the Promise of Redemption

(Review & Herald, 2006)

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL AND NOTES ...

• Week #1 - "In the Beginning"
• Week #2 - "Let There Be ... " (Genesis 1)
• Week #3 - The Creation of Humanity (Genesis 2)
• Week #4 - Senseless Suffering (Genesis 3-4)
• Week #5 - Catastrophe (Genesis 6-9)
• Week #6 - A Search for Certainty (Genesis 9-11)

CONTACT: info@grisda.org
    suggestions are appreciated

Inspired Writings

• Bible Gateway
• Ellen G. White Estate books, e.g.
  • Patriarchs and Prophets
  • Desire of Ages

Commentaries

• Back to the Present - Laurence Turner (Grantham, England: Autumn House, 2004)
• The Message of Creation: Encountering the Lord of the Universe - David Wilkinson (Intervarsity Press, 2002)
• Genesis - Laurence A. Turner (Continuum, 2000)
• The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Genesis-Deuteronomy - John H. Walton and Victor H. Matthews (InverVarsity Press, 1997) — see also Amazon
• A Handbook on Genesis - William D. Reyburn and Euan McG. Fry (United Bible Societies, 1997) — see also Amazon
• The Message of Genesis 1-11 - David Atkinson (InterVarsity Press, 1990) — see also Amazon
• Word Biblical Commentary #1: Genesis 1-15 - Gordon J. Wenham (Nelson Reference, 1987) — see also Amazon

Books (referenced several times)

• Rumors of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing? - Philip Yancey (Zondervan, 2003) — see also Amazon
• "Paradoxes of Free Will" - Gunther S. Stent (Trans. Amer. Philo. Soc., v.92, n.6, 2002)
• Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art - Madeleine L'Engle (WaterBrook, 2001) — see also Amazon
• The Jesus I Never Knew - Philip Yancey (Zondervan, 1995) — see also Amazon
• The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy - Nancy R. Pearcey and Charles B. Thaxton (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994) — see also Amazon
• The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind - Mark A. Noll (Eerdmans, 1994) — see also Amazon
  • review: (First Things, n.51, p.35-41, March 1995)
• Dreams of a Final Theory: The Scientists Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature - Steven Weinberg (Random House, 1994) — see also Amazon
• A Remnant in Crisis - Jack W. Provonsha (Review & Herald, 1993) — review
• Towards a Christian Poetics - Michael Edwards (Eerdmans, 1984) ...  review; see also Amazon
• God and the New Physics - Paul Davies (Touchstone, 1983) — see also Amazon
• East of Eden - John Steinbeck (1952) — | Spark Notes |
• Perelandra - C. S. Lewis (1944) — see also Amazon
• The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky (1879)
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (1865)
• Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley (1818) — also Amazon
• Paradise Lost: A Poem in Twelve Books - John Milton (1674) — | Spark Notes |
  • "A Comparative Study of the Fall of Man as Treated by John Milton and Ellen G. White" -  Elizabeth Burgeson (Pacific Union College: Master's Thesis, 1957) — CHAPTERS: Introduction; Nature of Lucifer; Rebellion in Heaven; Lucifer becomes Satan; Nature of Man; Fall of Man; Plan of Redemption; Freedom, Knowledge, Free Will; Conclusion
  • The White Lie - Walter T. Rea (M & R Pubs, 1982) — pp. 33, 66, 133, 200 ... ch.1 ... ch.5
  • Ellen White Research Project
  • The Truth About The White Lie / E. G. White Estates
• Pensιes - Blaise Pascal (1660)
• Confessions - Augustine (XII-XIII, AD398) — | Spark Notes |

Artwork

• Genesis: Lord of the World ... "Adon Olam"
• images  - | creation | Adam, Eve, Garden of Eden | Cain & Able | Noah, ark, flood, rainbow | Babel |

News

WEEK #1 - "In the Beginning"

• Sistine Chapel — | Vatican Museum | close up views | Michelangelo's ceiling |
  • Masterpieces of the Vatican - Enrico Bruschini (London: Scala Publishers, 2004) — see also Amazon
• philosophy
  • Philosophy for Dummies - Tom Morris (Wiley, 1999) — see also Amazon
  • The Story of Philosophy - Bryan Magee (Dorling Kindersley, 1998) — see also Amazon
  • Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy - Jostein Gaarder (Berkley Books, 1994) — see also Amazon
  • The Story of Philosophy - Will Durant (1933)
• "The church, enfeebled and defective though it be, is the only object on earth on which Christ bestows His supreme regard. He is constantly watching it with solicitude, and is strengthening it by his Holy Spirit. Will we, as members of His church, allow Him to impress our minds and to work through us to His glory?" --- Sons and Daughters of God, p.13
• Education - Ellen G. White
  • "Only through sympathy, faith, and love can men be reached and uplifted." - p.78
  • "Never man spake like this Man." John 7:46. This would have been true of Christ had He taught only in the realm of the physical and the intellectual, or in matters of theory and speculation solely. He might have unlocked mysteries that have required centuries of toil and study to penetrate. He might have made suggestions in scientific lines that, till the close of time, would have afforded food for thought and stimulus for invention. But He did not do this. He said nothing to gratify curiosity or to stimulate selfish ambition. - p.81

• Evil — the Moscow-Volga Canal
  • Volga-Baltic Canal
  • The Gulag
  • Gulag: A History - Anne Applebaum (Doubleday, 2003) — review; see also Amazon
  • forced labor

• Rational and Dependable
  • Plantinga
• Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Eternal
  • Your God Is Too Small - J. B. Phillips (Macmillan, 1961) — see also Amazon
  • "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." — The Weight of Glory (pdf) - C. S. Lewis (1942)
• Truthful and Just
  • The Battle of Beginnings: Why Neither Side Is Winning the Creation-Evolution Debate - Del Ratzsch  (InterVarsity Press, 1996) — see also Amazon
• Loving and Merciful
• story — comprehending the incomprehensible
  • "Sit down and tell me what kind of God you don't believe in. I probably don't believe in that God either." — The Jesus I Never Knew, p.264
  • Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art
    • 9 - "Christian art" ... to paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity
    • 15 - words mean even more than the writer knew they meant
    • 22 - impossible for an artist to attempt a graphic reproduction of Jesus in any way that is meant to be literal ... sympathetic with the Hassidic teaching that it is wrong to try in any way to make a picture of God or his prophets
    • 49 - religious art transcends its culture and reflects the eternal
    • 55 - telling a story ... telling a lie ... lie and story are incompatible
    • 88 - whole story of Jesus is confounding to the literal-minded ... White Queen: practiced believing six impossible things every morning before breakfast ... called on to believe what to may people is impossible
    • 95 - nonlinear space/time is more easily understood by poets and saints than by reasonable folk
    • 121 - in the act of creation our logical, prove-it-to-me minds relax
    • 155 - Each time an unexpected discovery is made in the world of knowledge, it shakes the religious establishment of the day ... not unfaithful to question traditional religious beliefs ... must question them continually---not God, not Christ who are at the center of our lives, but what human beings say about God and about Christ ... become God's frozen people ... Galileo's discoveries did nothing whatsoever to change the nature of God; they threatened only man's rigid ideas ... great artists keep us from frozenness, from smugness, from thinking that the truth is in us rather than in God, in Christ
    • 156 - If my religion is true, it will stand up to all my questioning; there is no need to fear. But if it is not true, if it is man imposing strictures on God, then I want to be open to God, not to what man says about God.
    • 173 - most difficult part of trying to show truth lies not only in believing in it oneself but in making it believable to the reader, viewer, listener ... credibility in creativity is a hard lesson to learn
    • 175 - sign and symbol, sacrament and myth, metaphor and simile, are essential to all art, regardless of the personal belief or lack of belief of the artist
    • 226 - a Christian cares what the children see. Yes, but I'd let them see lots more than is considered proper. I'd give them the whole Bible, uncut, taking out none of the sex, none of the violence, knowing that the Bible balances itself
  • My Name is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok (Random House, 1972) — Spark Notes
    • The main character tries to portray “truth” to a community most comfortable with a literal/concrete world, when that truth could not be described in literal language.
    • "Look where it's taken us, Asher. Your painting. It's taken us to Jesus." — p.171
    • "for all these I created this painting -- an observant Jew working on a crucifixion because there was no aesthetic mold in his own religious tradition into which he could pour a painting of ultimate anguish and torment." — p.330
    • "I turned away, terrified before such an act of creation. Master of the Universe, I did not mean to attempt to emulate Your power, Your ability to create out of nothing. I only wanted to make a few good paintings. Master of the Universe, forgive me. Please. Forgive me. I turned my back to the paintings and closed my eyes, for I could no longer endure seeing the works of my own hands and knowing the pain those works would soon inflict upon people I loved." — p.357
  • if a story is not about the hearer he will not listen ... great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last — East of Eden, p.310
  • "Storied Theory" - Roald Hoffmann (American Scientist, v.93, n.4, p.308, July-August 2005) — science and stories are not only compatible, they're inseparable, as shown by Einstein's classic 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect ... scientific theories: (1) inherently explanatory, (2) inventive, (3) how the world works, (4) natural ending
  • in what form shall we show ourselves ... tornado of sheer monstrosities ... pillars filled with eyes, lightning pulsations of flame ... rolling wheels ... two human figures ... burning white ... waterfalls or flames ... they are not in fact affecting our retina at all, but directly manipulating the relevant parts of our brain — Perelandra, p.197-199
  • "Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop." — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, p.121
  • Creation: Once Upon All Time / June-September 2005 / Crystal Cathedral (Garden Grove, California) — spectacular live stage production integrating spirituality and science, while taking the audience to the beginning of time

• When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth - Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber (Princeton University Press, 2004) — see also Amazon
• Genesis: The Movie - Robert Farrar Capon (Eerdmans, 2003) — see also Amazon
• Ancient Near Eastern myths
  • Gilgamesh — | summary | Wikipedia | study guide | tablets 1-11 | the epic - enhanced |
  • Eridu Genesis — | translation | Wikipedia |
  • Atrahasis — | translation | Wikipedia | introductory comments and excerpts | excerpts from Tablet 1 |
    • discussion and questions - (1) creation of humans, (2) disease, famine, and flood
  • Enuma elish — | Wikipedia | introductions and tablets 1-7 | translations on the web | the 7 tablets | tablets 1-7 | tablets 1-7 | ... van Wolde, p.189-194
  • Adapa — | translation | Wikipedia |
  • Berossus — | Wikipedia |
  • "A Comparison of Narrative Elements in Ancient Mesopotamian Creation-Flood Stories with Genesis 1-9" - William H. Shea (Origins, v.11, p.9-29, 1984) — ON: Eridu Genesis, Atrahasis
  • Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others - Stephanie Dalley, translator (Oxford University Press, 1998) — ON: Atrahasis, Gilgamesh, Adapa; see also Amazon
  • Ancient Texts and the Bible's Account of Creation (pdf) - Randall W. Younker (Shabbat Shalom, p.20-22; Spring 2000) — ON: Eridu Genesis, Atrahasis, Gilgamesh, Enuma elish
  • Objections to the Doctrine of Inspiration: Myths - Leon Stump — ON: Greek, Canaanite, and Assyrian/Babylonian myths; Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, Enuma Elish, Adapa
  • The Assyro-Babylonian Mythology - Christopher B. Siren (October 2003) — ON: the list of deities
  • A Biblical Theology of the Flood (outline) - Richard M. Davidson (Loma Linda, CA; July 19, 2000) — ON: Bible comparison with these stories
• Egyptian Mythology
  • Egyptian Mythology - Amen, Bastet, Horus, Ma'at, Nut, Ptah, Ra, Seth, Tawaret
    • Ptah = Egyptian god closest to Yahweh ... magic = supernatural power / careful what you make ... bird could walk off
  • Ancient Egypt - chart: Nun, Atum-Re, Tefnut & Shu, Nut & Geb, Isis, Osiris, Nephthys, Seth, Horus, Anubis
  • Ancient Egyptian Religion - description of many gods
  • Ancient Egypt's Creation - Atum-Re, Shu creates 8 ... Ptah
  • Creation Mythology - creators: Atum, Khepri
  • Ma'at = truth, law, universal order — #1, #2 ... + ancient mound
  • Memphis triad - Ptah, Sekhmet (sometimes Bast, the cat goddess), Nefertum/Imhotep ... also Ptah
• Greek myths
  • How the Hellenes were created - first man, Pandora
  • Zeus and Pandora
  • Prometheus, Pandora, and the flood
  • Hesiod's Theogony
    • Zeus Outwits Prometheus - The Creation of Women
• Latin mythology
  • Metamorphoses / Ovid — | 14 books in verse | latin |
    • introduction and commentary / Larry A. Brown (Nashville, TN)
• Flood stories from around the world
• Bible as great literature
  • The Bible as Literature (CT428-429) — As an educating power the Bible is of more value than the writings of all the philosophers of all ages. In its wide range of style and subjects there is something to interest and instruct every mind, to ennoble every interest. The light of revelation shines undimmed into the distant past, where human annals cast not a ray of light. There is poetry which has called forth the wonder and admiration of the world. In glowing beauty, in sublime and solemn majesty, in touching pathos, it is unequaled by the most brilliant productions of human genius. There is sound logic and impassioned eloquence. There are portrayed the noble deeds of noble men, examples of private virtue and public honor, lessons of piety and purity.
  • Poetry and Song (Ed 159) — The earliest as well as the most sublime of poetic utterances known to man are found in the Scriptures.

• quotes
  • "Lessons must be given to humanity in the language of humanity." (PK700)
  • "It is not the words of the Bible that are inspired, but the men that were inspired." (1SM21)
  • "The Lord speaks to human beings in imperfect speech, in order that the degenerate senses, the dull, earthly perception, of earthly beings may comprehend His words. Thus is shown God's condescension. He meets fallen human beings where they are. The Bible, perfect as it is in its simplicity, does not answer to the great ideas of God, for infinite ideas cannot be perfectly embodied in finite vehicles of thought." (1SM22)
• 1) metaphor and simile
• 2) language of appearance
• 3) lay audience ... not precise terms
  • "Do Rabbits Chew the Cud?" - Leonard R. Brand (Origins, v.4, p.102-104, 1977)
  • Did a state legislature once pass a law saying pi equals 3? - Cecil Adams (The Straight Dope; Chicago Reader)
• 4) not every cultural misunderstanding corrected
  • moons of Jupiter — Ellen G. White: The Early Years, v.1 (1827-1862) - Arthur L. White (Review & Herald, 1985), p.113-114
• 5) later confirmation
  • The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings - Edwin R. Thiele (1951) — doctoral research at the University of Chicago leading to a consistent chronology of the Hebrew kings ... outline of chronology ... problems
• A specific example may be of benefit. Mrs. White (3SG79-83; PP108-109) suggested that burning coal is the source of volcanic activity as was often done in the early 1800s, whereas today plate tectonics is the accepted explanation for volcanic activity. The question is often raised about how to deal with the discrepancy. Several categories of answers have been suggested:
  • Current Understanding Used - She used the 1800s explanation for volcanoes, although now outdated, to make a valid point. Although the scientific explanation has since change, the fact that God uses the elements of nature to do His bidding is still valid. If a non-standard explanation had been used in her writings, their validity may have been questioned.
  • Minor Effect - Burning coal caused some volcanism during the flood in a limited way. We do find underground coal seam fires today, as well. — "Coal and oil are generally to be found where there are no burning mountains or fiery issues." (3SG80)
  • Good Science - Most volcanoes are probably caused by burning coal, so creationist research should be done to verify this insight.
  • Supernatural - God supernaturally used a different method for causing volcanoes, so naturalistic research is not useful in trying to understand it. — "God causes large quantities of coal and oil to ignite and burn." (see 3SG79)
• Translating Inspiro - Karen Clausen (March 2005)

• evolution is the creation myth of our age — | Mary Midgley |
• Science from Christianity
  • The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science - E. A. Burtt (Dover, 2003) — see also Amazon
  • For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery - Rodney Stark (Princeton University Press, 2003) — see also Amazon
  • Christianity Aiding the Development of Science
• Scientists as Christians
  • | Nicolaus Steno (1638-1686) | William Buckland (1784-1856) | Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873) | Joseph Henry (1797-1878) | James Dwight Dana (1813-1895) | Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944) | C. Everett Koop (1916- ) | Arthur L. Schawlow (1921- ) | Ian Graeme Barbour (1923- ) | Allan Rex Sandage (1926- ) | Jane Goodall (1934- ) | Donald Ervin Knuth (1938- ) | Gerald L. Schroeder | Susan Jocelyn Bell-Burnell (1943- ) | Walter L. Bradley (1943- ) | John R. Baumgardner (1943- ) | Henry "Fritz" Schaefer III (1944- ) | Francis S. Collins (1950- ) |
  • Scientists of the Christian Faith / W. R. Miller — a presentation of the pioneers, practitioners and supporters of modern science

WEEK #2 - "Let There Be ... " (Genesis 1)

• Center for Science and Culture (Discovery Institute) — promoting intelligent design
• Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity - William Paley (1809) — see also Amazon
• The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design - Richard Dawkins (Norton, 1996) — see text; see also Amazon
• Secret Worlds: The Universe Within — interactive Java successive orders of magnitude = Milky Way, Earth, oak tree, leaf, cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA, electrons and protons
• pictures (Nathan Greene) - | The Introduction | The First Sabbath in Eden |

• light — | physics properties | student exercise |
  • Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind - Arthur Zajonc (Oxford University Press, 1995) — see also Amazon
  • Fiat Lux — Alexander Pope
    • movie ... New Scientist
    • MP3 - by Theodore Dubois
  • Jesus as the "Light of Life" (DA463ff)
• air — | properties: (NASA) |
• water — | properties: (USGS) (Environment Canada) | anomalies |
  • Iguazu Falls
  • water is as important for chemistry and biology as light is for physics
  • Jesus as the Water of Life (DA 187, 454)
• earth's properties
  • The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? - Paul Davies (Penguin, 2006) — see also Amazon
  • Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe - Peter Douglas Ward and Donald Brownlee / (Springer-Verlag, 2000) — contrary to popular thought, we just might be alone and Earth might be unique; see also Amazon
    • review: Science Daily
    • review: Is anybody out there? / July 28, 2000 / CNN
    • review: Tal Cohen's Bookshelf
  • geologists lifetime field list
• astronomy, solar system
  •  

• references
  • The Amateur Naturalist - Nick Baker (National Geographic, 2005) — see also Amazon
  • The Nature Handbook: A Guide to Observing the Great Outdoors - Ernest Herbert Williams (Oxford University Press, 2005) — see also Amazon
  • "Life's Greatest Inventions" - Claire Aisworth, et al. (New Scientist, n.2494, p.26, 9 April 2005) — multicellularity, the eye, the brain, language, photosynthesis, sex, death, parasitism, superorganisms, symbiosis
  • The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life - Paul Davies (Simon & Schuster, 1999) — see also Amazon
  • Neot Kedumim - The Biblical Landscape Reserve in Israel
• simple cell
  • "A memorable misunderstanding" / 6 August 2005 / Gert Korthof — Fred Hoyle's Boeing-story in the evolution/creation literature | Wikipedia |
• plants
  • Trees - Joyce Kilmer (1919)
• birds
  • common swift - | Birds of Britain | Lady Wildlife |
• land animals
  •  
• human body
  •  

• references
  • Chronos: How Time Shapes Our Universe - Ιtienne Klein (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2005)
  • Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps: Empires of Time - Peter Galison (W. W. Norton, 2004)
  • Time: Its Origin, Its Enigma, Its History - Alexander Waugh (Carroll & Graf, 1999)
  • About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution - Paul Davies (Simon and Schuster, 1995)
• quotes
  • Bible chapters: Psalms 90, Ecclesiastes 3
  • time = If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not — Confessions - Augustine (XI:14, AD398)
  • "This looking backward and forward along the line and seeing how a day has one appearance as it comes to you, and another when you are in it, and a third when it has gone past. Like the waves" ... "the waves of time will often change for us henceforward. We are coming to have it in our own choice whether we shall be above them and see many waves together or whether we shall reach them one by one as we used to." — Perelandra - C. S. Lewis, p.60, 220
  • "[In heaven] will be open to the student, history of infinite scope and of wealth inexpressible. ... Then will be opened before him the course of the great conflict that had its birth before time began, and that ends only when time shall cease." (Ed304)
• Beginnings for time
  • Big Bang — | PBS | NASA | Simon Singh |
  • second law of thermodynamics — | entropy |
• Directionality of Time
  • linear time
• Relative Time
  • "The Persistence of Memory" / Salvador Dali — also
• Space and Time
• God's Relation to Human Time
  • God and Time: Four Views - Gregory E. Ganssle, editor (InterVarsity Press, 2001)
  • Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot - Phillip Henry Gosse (1857) — classic work on the "appearance of age"; see also Amazon
  • Confessions - Augustine (XI:10-31, AD398)

Arguments for God

• cosmological - a beginner
• teleological - a designer
• anthropological
• moral law - conscience
• ontological - the very concept of God implies that God could not not exist ... Anselm
• goodness, beauty, pleasure - discussion on "Ethics of Elfland"
  • The Genesis of Animal Play: Testing the Limits - Gordon M. Burghardt (MIT Press, 2005) — see also Amazon
• Pascal's wager

WEEK #3 - The Creation of Humanity (Genesis 2)

• Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus
  • 116 - Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence ... come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous ... I was wretched, helpless, and alone ... Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition ... bitter gall of envy rose within me ... Hateful day when I received life! ... Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image ... I am solitary and abhorred

• God's image
  • Jesus reveals what being in the image of God should look like and exposed our failures as human beings ... Behold the man! — The Jesus I Never Knew, p.270
• SDA statements on
  • Christian Principles for Genetic Interventions - other
  • Considerations on Assisted Human Reproduction - other
  • Abortion - guidelines
  • Human Cloning - official statement
  • Gene Therapy - official statement
  • Care for the Dying [euthanasia] - official statement
• creative descriptions of the creation — Towards a Christian Poetics
  • literature
    • Psalm 104 — structure (Berrien Springs), Answers in Creation (anti-fundamentalist)
    • creation passages (Job 38-41 ... Ps 8; 33:6-9; 136:5-9; Prov 8:23-29) — | Lambert Dolphin |
    • The Magician's Nephew - C. S. Lewis (1955), p.98-140
  • poetry
    • God’s Grandeur - Gerard Manley Hopkins (1918)
    • The Creation - James Weldon Johnson (The Book of American Negro Poetry, 1922)
  • Creation Oratorio - Franz Joseph Haydn (first performance, March 1799)
    • audio CD - conductor: Herbert von Karajan (Deutsche Grammophon, 1998) — see Amazon
    • audio CD - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (Telarc, 1992) — see Amazon
    • Haydn: The Creation (Cambridge Music Handbooks) - Nicholas Temperley (Cambridge University Press, 1991) — see Amazon ... "a statement of warm optimism about the world and our place in it, clothed in some of the most gorgeous music of music's golden age"
    • description
  • art ... images  - | creation |
    • Raphael — | God Separates Light from Darkness | God Separates Land from Waters | Creation of the Sun and the Moon | The Creation of the Animals |
    • William Blake — | The Ancient of Days |
    • Maurits Cornelis Escher — | The Second Day of Creation | The Third Day of Creation | The Fourth Day of Creation |
    • Marc Chagall — | Creation | Creation of Man |
• Body and Mind
  • dualism — | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |
  • monism — | Wikipedia |
  • Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? - Nancey Murphy (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
    • review: Lynne Rudder Baker - (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, August 3, 2006)
  • Science and the Human Soul - Nancey Murphy (Adventist Forum Conference, October 20-22, 2006)
    • Church as a Scientific Experiment - Charles Scriven (August 4, 2006)
• A Good Body
  • The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind — questioning the goodness of matter led to some of the ancient heresies
    • 47 - Albigenses = commitment to morality excluded cultivation of the mind ... slide toward ancient heresy of Manichaeism = matter suspect, free spirit from body
    • 52 - Gnosticism = fear of matter as inherently evil ... ethical extremism (asceticism, licentiousness) ... secret rituals, esoteric code, privileged information about the creation of the natural world, historical events, the future ... BUT God created a good world, "two books", importance of natural realm (Gen 2:4-25 = naming animals, responsibility in agriculture, domestic, economic)
    • 54 - Docetism = Jesus only seemed to have a real body ... no importance to learn of world, society, human creativity, history ... BUT, Christianity takes bodily existence seriously (Jn 1:14)
    • 241 - scandal of the cross speaks of the seriousness with which God himself treated the realm of human existence ... devoted so much Himself to the created realm ... became flesh and dwelt among us
  • Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice - Stephanie Paulsell (Wiley, 2003) — see also Amazon
  • I Am My Body: A Theology of Embodiment - Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel (Continuum, 1995) — see also Amazon
    • Our Body - Our Self --- having a body, being a body ... mechanistic .vs. organism with New Age ... society and the body ... sick body ... growing old
    • The Body and Christianity --- crucified-bodily Jesus, Eucharist ... body and the church ... healing-of-the-body miracles by Jesus ... touch ... resurrection ... dust to dust
• Conscious Mind
  • Free will acts like a pilot steering a ship and is the exclusive property of conscious mind. ... Evidence for consciousness in other humans is only by inference from our own, and evidence for consciousness in animals and computers is only by analogy.
  • Alan Turing devised a test for computer consciousness. Questions are asked of both a human and a computer by some indirect method. The computer would be deemed as conscious if it could answer all conceivable questions as a human would, but this hasn't happened yet.
  • It is self-reference that catches our attention when we see ourselves in a set of mirrors that portray an infinite set of images.
  • Gφdel's Incompleteness Theorem — | summary | Wikipedia | quotes |
  • "Waterfall" - Maurits Cornelis Escher (1961) — | artchive | global gallery | eyetricks |

  references

  • B. F. Skinner, Revisited - David P. Barash (Chronicle of Higher Education, April 2005) — behaviorism, tabula rasa ... objective, mechanistic explanations for human behavior ... the more our actions are caused, the less are we credited for them (given dignity and worth) ... are people responsible for their actions? ... love an evolutionary mechanism, or because of who I am ... Hamlet's "How like a god!" to Pavlov's "How like a dog." ... Wizard of Oz hiding behind the curtains = metaphysical explanatory fictions ... Darwin's final paragraph = "there is grandeur in this view of life" ... Descartes wrong = no dualism
  • Are We Just Really Smart Robots? - Kenneth Silber (Reason Online, April 2005) — two books on the mind put the human back into human beings
  • On Intelligence - Jeff Hawkins, with Sandra Blakeslee (Times Books, 2004) — see also Amazon
  • Mind: A Brief Introduction - John R. Searle (Oxford University Press, 2004) — see also Amazon
  • Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe - Simon Conway Morris (Cambridge University Press, 2003)  — see also Amazon
    • review: Holmes Rolston III (Zygon, v.40, n.1, p.221, March 2005) --- that humans are both a continuum with other species and also utterly different remains a central puzzle in paleontology
  • The Human World in the Physical Universe: Consciousness, Free Will, and Evolution - Micholas Maxwell (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001) — see also Amazon
  • The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory - David J. Chalmers (Oxford University Press, 1997) — see also Amazon
  • Artificial Minds - Stan Franklin (MIT Press, 1995)
  • The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul - Francis Crick (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994)
  • Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness - Roger Penrose (Oxford University Press, 1994)
  • Conscious Mind in the Physical World - Euan Squires (New York: IOP Publishing, 1990)
  • Picard must defend Data against being disassembled - Startrek: The Next Generation (February 13, 1989) — a robot may be a machine, but he is owned by no one and has the right to make his own decisions regarding his life
  • The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics - Roger Penrose (Oxford University Press, 1989)
  • Gφdel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas R. Hofstadter (Random House, 1979)
• Purpose
  • A Free Man's Worship - Bertrand Russell (1903)
• Free Will — also see below under free choice
  • Free Will: A Very Short Introduction - Thomas Pink (Oxford University Press, 2004) — see also Amazon
  • Schroedinger's Cat — | humor |

• love
  • The Marriage Miracle - Karen & Ron Flowers (1997)
  • Rumors of Another World
    • 78 - sex: mystery to which reductionism doesn't apply, near sacred quality, act of worship ... looking for God at a brothel (Chesterton)
    • 79 - sexual impulses drive us to unite, to restore somehow the union that has been severed
    • 82 - personal intimacy: to be fully known and loved ... Lenin: sex no more sacred than food or water → sexual chaos
  • No man is an island
    • Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - John Donne (Meditation 17, 1624) — | Wikiquote | analysis |
    • composer/lyricist = Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer (1950, 1952)
    • purchase music
    • song lyrics
  • Believing, Behaving, Belonging: Finding New Love for the Church - Richard Rice (Association of Adventist Forums, 2002)
• Naturalistic Basis for Relationships
  • Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism - James Rachels (Oxford University Press, 1990) - review; see also Amazon
  • "Sociobiology: The Evolution Theory's Answer to Altruistic Behavior" - Leonard R. Brand and Ronald L. Carter (Origins, v.19, p.54-71, 1992)
  • Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, 25th Anniversary Edition - Edward Osborne Wilson (Harvard University Press, 2000; original in 1975) — see also Amazon
    • web links - | 4 pinnacles |
  • comment - C. George Boeree / Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
  • impact on psychology - see primer, Center for Evolutionary Psychology
  • on Peter Singer ... by Denyse O'Leary in Christianity.ca
  • Rumors of Another World
    • 196 - survival of fittest ... Nietzsche, Darwin ... Harriet McBryde Johnson confronted Peter Singer ... Descent of Man = check the process of natural selection
    • 197 - Christian's defy merciless scheme of evolutionary struggle ... divide between winners and losers
  • "Against Sociobiology" - Tom Bethell (First Things, n.109, p.18-24, January 2001)
• The Message of Genesis 1-11
  • 122,125 - The genealogies show the interconnectedness of humans, and that history has a meaning and direction.
  • 139 - Although Descartes was an individualist: "I think, therefore I am," the Velveteen Rabbit realized a need for relationship, "I am loved, therefore I am"
• Christian Basis for Relationships

• Naming
  • Walking on Water
    • 45 - all great works of art are icons of naming ... "Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos."
    • 125 - to write a story is an act of Naming
    • 130 - name ourselves by the choices we make ... to name is to love
  • name = reputation ... God's name ... no children named Judas today
  • symbols — onomatopoetic ... money represents gold, work, commodities ... don't forget the real behind the symbol ... is all an illusion?
  • when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, p.213
  • language makes possible: consciousness, empathy, mental time travel, symbolism, spirituality, morality, culture — (New Scientist, p.269, April 2005)
  • Towards a Christian Poetics
    • 2 - Christianity foregrounds language by its doctrine of the Word
    • 8 - language and literature = naming
    • 9 - Adam 'rightly named' because he 'understood the nature' of the animals ... Edenic naming being true to the nature
• Dominion — pollution ... doctrines and ecology
  • Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
  • Waste Isolation Pilot Plant - Carlsbad, NM
  • Caring for Creation -- A Statement on the Environment - (General Conference statement, October 12, 1992) ... Executive Committee at Annual Council
  • Environmental Studies - Walla Walla College
  • How to Rescue the Earth Without Worshiping Nature: A Christian's Call to Save Creation - Tony Campolo (Thomas Nelson, 1992) — see also Amazon

• Free Choice
  • free choice requires a dependable universe, determinism, cause-effect relations
  • 1984 - George Orwell (1949) — online version
  • The Giver - Lois Lowry (Houghton, 1993) — see also Amazon and Spark Notes ... People give up their humanity in order to create a world with no poverty, no crime, no sickness, no unemployment, and where every family is happy ... how costly is this ordered and pain-free society
  • Stent
    • 2 - moral responsibility so can be judged praiseworthy or blameworthy ... held responsible only if choose to act freely
    • 3 - free will of morally responsible persons & causation of all of the world's happenings by the inexorable forces of determinism - jointly exemplify a deep truth
    • 41ff - moral philosophy - Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, three east Asian teachings, Buddha, Confucius, Lao-Tzu, Immanuel Kant
    • 95ff - responsibility - causal and moral, criteria for, determinism, exculpations, coercion, brainwashing
    • 98ff - paradox of moral responsibility ... coercion, brainwashing, insanity
    • 109ff - natural law, Laplace ... behaviorists, immaterialists, libertarians, compatibilists ... determinism and predictability, chaos, prediction .vs. retrodiction in history ... true indeterminism of quantum physics
    • 125ff - meaning of freedom, constraints, principle of alternate possibilities, Martin Luther, Frankfurt's counterexample, blameworthiness, limitations of counterexamples
    • 161 - resolution of paradox of moral responsibility
  • "He takes no pleasure in a forced allegiance, and to all He grants freedom of will, that they may render Him voluntary service." (GC493)
• Decalogue
  • the ten words: (1) first allegiance, (2)  misrepresentation, (3) name as reputation, (4) worship in time, (5) honor for authority figures, (6) life, (7) intimacy, (8) ownership or dominion, (9) truth, (10) happiness or satisfaction
  • The Euthyphro Dilemma - dilemma of moral philosophy by Plato in his Dialogue ... is something good because God wills it, or does God will things because they are good?
    • divine command theory - | Wikipedia | commands are good because God made them, but then one wonders whether murder would have been good if God had commanded that ... one resolution to the dilemma suggests that God and goodness are synonymous and cannot be separated
  • "When Satan rebelled against the law of Jehovah, the thought that there was a law came to the angels almost as an awakening to something unthought of." (TMB109)

• space = sanctuary
  • The Temple Symbolism in Genesis - Ernest L. Martin (1977)
• time = weekly cycle
  • Mysterious 7-day Cycle - Barnabas Ministries
  • French Revolutionary/Republican Calendar - 10-day week, metric system
• Sabbath symbolism
  • The Sabbath - Abraham Joshua Heschel (1975) — see also Amazon
  • Shabbat — | Wikipedia |

WEEK #4 - Senseless Suffering (Genesis 3-4)

• Perelandra — psychology of temptation in Perelandra and Paradise Lost
  • 21 - they like drawing you into an interminable argument
  • 37 - There was an exuberance or prodigality of sweetness about the mere act of living which our race finds is difficult not to associate with forbidden and and extravagant actions.
  • 43 - Perhaps the experience had been so complete that repetition would be a vulgarity -- like asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day.
  • 48 - This itch to have things over again, as if life were a film that could be unrolled twice or even made to work backwards ... was it possibly the root of all evil? No: of course the love of money was called that. But money itself -- perhaps one valued it chiefly as a defense against chance, a security for being able to have things over again, a means of arresting the unrolling of the film.
  • 83 - Every joy is beyond all others. The fruit we are eating is always the best fruit of all.
  • 115 - The wrong kind of obeying itself can be a disobeying.
  • 116 - But could the taking away of your hand from His -- the full growing up -- the walking in your own way -- could that ever be perfect unless you had, if only once, seemed to disobey Him?
  • 117 - But the command against living on the Fixed Island is not so. ... And you cannot see where the goodness of it is. ... It is forbidding for the mere sake of forbidding. ... It stands between you and all settled life, all command of our own days ... it was set up as a test ... He longs to see His creature become fully itself, to stand up in its own reason and its own courage even against Him.
  • 118 - I think He made one law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all these other matters what you call obeying Him is but doing what seems good in our own eyes also. ... Where can you taste the joy of obeying unless He bids you do something for which His bidding is the only reason? ... He has given us a way to walk out of our will.
  • 119 - The falsehood which sprang to his mind died on his lips. In that air, even when truth seemed fatal, only truth would serve.
  • 133 - The idea that He might not really wish to be obeyed to the letter was the sluice through which the whole flood of suggestion had been admitted to her mind ... theatricality ... inclination to seize a grand role ... What the Un-man said was always very nearly true
  • 137 - That is what it means to be a man or a woman -- to walk alongside oneself as if one were a second person and to delight in one's own beauty. Mirrors were meant to teach this art.
  • 145 - He did not know whether Eve had resisted at all, or if so, for how long ... This stopping of a third-degree solicitation, already more than once refused, was a problem to which the terrestrial fall offered no clue ... In vain did his mind hark back, time after time, to the Book of Genesis, asking "What would have happened?"
  • 149 - as all men's hands have been, in the slaying before the foundation of the world
  • 152 - God can make good use of all that happens. But the loss is real.
  • 208 - The reason for not yet living on the Fixed Land is now so plain. How could I wish to live there except because it was Fixed? And why should I desire the Fixed except to make sure -- to be able on one day to command where I should be the next and what should happen to me?  ... to put in our own power what times should roll towards us ... as if you gathered fruits together to-day for to-morrow's eating instead of taking what came.
• Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus
  • 8 - supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world
  • 25 - seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been
  • 32 - smitten with the thirst for knowledge ... I delighted in investigating their causes ... hidden laws of nature
  • 33 - eager desire to learn ... secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn ... physical secrets of the world
  • 45 - enticements of science
  • 47 - I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter ... how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge
  • 147 - I was now about to form another being, of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant ... might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation ... children, and a race of devils would be propagated ... future ages might curse me as their pest
  • 185 - I endeavored to gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his creature's formation ... whither does your senseless curiosity lead you?
  • 186 - when younger I believed myself destined for some great enterprise ... the creation of a sensitive and rational animal, I could not rank myself with the herd of common projectors ... like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell ... executed the creation of a man ... exulting in my powers ... I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty ambition
  • 201 - Paradise Lost / The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - beings who are driven by ego and ambition to the point of self-destruction ... one who flies too high and "plays God" is destined to suffer grave consequences ... cannot begin life anew (Satan's as he watched Adam and Eve leave Eden)
  • 208 - Milton's Paradise Lost is quoted and referenced through out Frankenstein; the monster and Victor both sympathize closely with Milton's Satan, the over reacher and outcast
  • 218 - danger of scientific Promethianism ... go beyond the realm of man and into that of the divine
• Screwtape Letters - C. S. Lewis (1942) — see also Amazon
• The Jesus I Never Knew
  • 69 - could have devised some irrefutable proof to silence all skeptics ... achieve his goals by a dazzling, shortcut method
  • 72 - temptation to good parts of being human and not bad = #1 - taste of bread without hunger/agriculture, #2 - confront risk with no danger, #3 - enjoy fame with no rejection ... this happens in apocryphal gospels ... no miraculous powers to benefit himself
  • 74 - speeded-up way to accomplish His goals ... people want more than anything else to worship what is established beyond dispute ... surrendered his greatest advantage: the power to compel belief
  • 76 - Satan can coerce, dazzle, force, destroy ... God's power is internal and non-coercive, gentle, weak ... world uses fear, greed, promise of security
• The Serpent - trickster
  • adding to what God says
• Telling Lies for God: Reason vs Creationism - Ian Plimer (Random House, 1994) — review; see also Amazon
• "The Grand Inquisitor" IN The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky (1879) — see also Wikipedia and Amazon
  • 232 - in those 3 questions is the whole subsequent history of mankind ... #1 = promise of freedom from fear and dread
  • 233 - make us your slaves, but feed us ... most will not have the strength to forego the earthly bread for the sake of the heavenly
  • 235 - #2 = hope that men would cling to thee and not ask for miracle ... men seek miracle rather than God
  • 237 - #3 = Rome as sole ruler of the earth & plan the universal happiness of man ... all that man seeks on earth -- that is, some one to worship, some one to keep his conscience, and some means of uniting all in one unanimous and harmonious ant-heap
  • 238 - we shall have an answer for all ... glad to believe our answer, for it will save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present in making a free decision for themselves
  • 241 - Pope as guarder of the mystery, to guard it from the weak and the unhappy, so as to make them happy

• evil in nature
  • Xenos peckii
    • Cornell News
    • see also Singapore Science Center
  • cecidomyian gall midge
    • female flies begin to reproduce asexually by parthenogenesis at stages of their life so early that they are devoured from the inside out by their offspring — Joe Mason (S. Conn. St. Univ)
    • Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History - Stephen Jay Gould (W. W. Norton, 1992) — table of contents, ch.10; see also Amazon and Powell's
  • Candirϊ catfish,  Vandellia cirrhosa — Audobon Magazine ...  The Straight Dope ... angelfire - pictures
    • Candiru: Life and Legend of the Bloodsucking Catfishes - Stephen Spotte (Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Company, 2002) — review; see also Amazon
• The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - Erasmus Darwin (1803)
  • Air, earth, and ocean, to astonish'd day
    One scene of blood, one mighty tomb display
    From Hunger's arm the shafts of Death are hurl'd
    And one great Slaughterhouse the warring world!
• evil for Darwin
  • A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love - Richard Dawkins (Houghton Mifflin, 2003) — see also Amazon
    • a letter Darwin sent to his friend Hooker in 1856: "What a book a Devil's Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature." — John Mark Ministries, BeliefNet
    • Richard Dawkins wrote a book based on this quote entitled, The Devils Chaplain. (p.8)
  • Charles Darwin was also bothered by how God could design parasitism, allow the death of his child, or burn the wicked forever in hell
    • (ref) private autobiography on "Religious Belief"  — "I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine." (p. 87)
  • Ichneumonidae
    • “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.” — letter to Asa Gray by Charles Darwin on May 22, 1860 … printed in Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Vol. 2 — Wikiquote
  • Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, his Daughter and Human Evolution - Randal Keynes (London: Fourth Estate, 2001) — comments
  • Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution - Randal Keynes (Riverhead, 2002) — see also Amazon
    • his anguish over his 10-year-old daughter Annie's death sharpened his conviction that the operation of natural laws had nothing to do with divine intervention or morality. ... much of Darwin's intellectual struggle in writing On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man arose from his efforts to understand the role of suffering and death in the natural order of the world. Early in his career, Darwin saw the indifference of natural law as an answer to the era's religious doubts about how a benevolent god could permit human misery; cruelty and pain, he argued, should not be seen as moral issues, but as inevitable outcomes of nature. After Annie's death, however, Darwin's views darkened, and in a private letter he railed against the "clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature!"
• struggle for existence with survival of fittest, evolutionary ethics
  • In Memoriam - Alfred Lord Tennyson (1849) — see LV & LVI
• "The Cruelty of Nature" - Gerald Wheeler (Origins, v.2, p.32-41, 1975)
• Social Darwinism
  • From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany / May 2004 / Richard Weikart / Palgrave Macmillan — see also Amazon
    • response: Richard Weikart (Discovery Institute, October 10, 2004)
    • lecture: From Darwin to Hitler: Does Darwinism Devalue Human Life? (DVD) / Richard Weikart
  • Das Kapital - | Wikipedia |
  • eugenics - | Wikipedia |
    • Why Politicized Science is Dangerous — on eugenics; excerpted from
      • State of Fear - Michael Crichton (HarperCollins, 2004) — see also Amazon
• Death
  • Los Angeles County Coroner - store
  • programmed cell death = apoptosis ... between fingers, cancer, gut lining, skin's outer layer, redundant white blood cells — (New Scientist, 9 April 2005), p.26
  • On Death and Dying - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (Scribner, 1997) — see also Amazon
  • death forms the deepest divide between those who do and do not believe in 2 worlds ... 2 beliefs of cancer patients = personal specialness, ultimate rescuer — Rumors of Another World, p.218

• prescribe or describe results of sin — Back to the Present, p.53
• blessing becomes curse, complementarity becomes subordination, work becomes toil, fellowship becomes banishment, life becomes death — The Messages of Genesis 1-11, p.93ff
  • broken community, intimacy, mutuality, world, life, hope — The Message of Creation, p.70-77
  • man/woman suffer in their most fundamental roles: work and childbirth — Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 11-15, p.82-83
  • one of the great sorrows which came to human beings when Adam and Eve left the Garden was the loss of memory, memory of all that God's children are meant to be — Walking on Water, p.11
  • guilt, shame, lost self-esteem, fear, estrangement, excuses
• Towards a Christian Poetics
  • 10 - Babel and fall of language ... language of the serpent ... in contradicting God, language at odds with world ... beginning of semantic obscurity ... meaning is no longer evident ... abuse of language brings about the Fall
  • 11 - no longer coherence of expressive signs ... words and world disjoin
  • 137 - fall in Genesis happens precisely because of communication ... serpent perverts language ... evil inheres in all the first communicative acts = temptation, Cain/Abel, Lamech
  • 160 - writer sweating to work the cursed ground of language
  • 219 - serpent assaulted verbally belief, obedience, truth, 'heaven and earth', and the Word ... word still remains vital = man not live by bread alone, confession that leads to salvation is in the mouth (Rom 10:10), James inveighing against the tongue, every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account
• "An animal and a tree led to the pair realizing their nakedness, and a tree and animal were instrumental in covering them." — Genesis - Laurence A. Turner, p.34
• time — perhaps time has taken on special meaning because of sin
  • What makes time meaningful and why do we care so much about time? Possible answers include: the need to synchronize past time lines or future schedules, a limit to our endurance of pain or boredom, physiological changes with time causing hunger and tiredness, our limited life span to get done what we want to do before we die, being bound by time so we can’t move back and forth as in space
  • waiting — Abraham's son, Egypt deliverance, Babylonian captivity, Messiah's coming, the 1260 years ... our patience, God's mercy
  • second coming: soon versus delay - a human concept ... don't marry or have kids / can speed coming / how should we live ... II Pet 3
  • angels don't wait — They never have that experience. You and I are conscious of waiting, because we have a body that grows tired and restless, and therefore a sense of cumulative duration. Also we can distinguish duties and spare time and therefore have a conception of leisure. — Perelandra, p.29
• The Most Evil Men and Women in History - Miranda Twiss (Michael O'Mara Books, 2002) — see also Amazon
  • Caligula: The Schizophrenic Emperor, 12-41 — | Online Encyclopedia | Wikipedia |
  • Nero: Fifth Emperor of Rome, 37-68 — | Online Encyclopedia | BBC |
  • Attila the Hun: The 'Storm from the East", c.405-453 — | Catholic Encyclopedia | Wikipedia |
  • King John: A Cruel and Ruthless Monarch, 1167-1216 (England) — | BBC | Wikipedia |
  • Torquemada: The Spanish Inquisitor, 1420-1498 — | Catholic Encyclopedia | Wikipedia | Meyer |
  • Prince Vlad Dracula: The Impaler, 1431-1476 (Romania) — | AOL | tours |
  • Francisco Pizarro: 'Conqueror of the Incas', c.1476-1541 (Spain) — | Catholic Encyclopedia | infoplease |
  • 'Bloody' Mary I: 'A Catholic Queen in a Protestant Country', 1516-1558 (England) — | King's College | Britannia |
  • Ivan IV, 'The Terrible': Tsar of All the Russias, 1530-1584 — | Wikipedia |
  • Elizabeth, Countess Bathory: 'Countess Dracula', 1560-1614 (Hungary) — | Denmark | Krause |
  • Rasputin: The 'Mad Monk' Who Brought Down a Dynasty, 1869-1916 (Russia) — | Alexander Palace | Wikipedia |
  • Josef Stalin: A Twentieth-Century Tyrant, 1879-1953 (Russia) — | BBC | Spartacus |
  • Adolf Hitler: Father of the Final Soluton, 1889-1945 (Germany) — | Historical Museum | Spartacus |
  • Ilse Koch: The Bitch of Buchenwald, 1906-1967 (Germany) — | Encyclopedia Britannica | Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS |
  • Pol Pot: Architext of Genocide, 1925-1998 (Cambodia) — | Time Magazine | Wikipedia | BBC News | The Killing Fields |
  • Idi Amin: The Butcher of East Africa, c.1928-2003 (Uganda) — | Uganda Mission | brutality |
• Rumors of Another World
  • 23 - Hitler: nature is cruel so we can be cruel
  • 51 - Isaac Luria (Hasidic mystic of 1700s) - zimsum explains existence of evil - to make room for material world, God had to pull himself back and concede space ... God's voluntary withdrawal made possible emergence of evil
  • 119 - real evil — "Staring into the Heart of Darkness" - (New York Times Magazine, 1995)

• Theodicy — | Wikipedia | G. W. Leibniz | annotated bibliography |
  • Education - Ellen G. White
    • Few give thought to the suffering that sin has caused our Creator. All heaven suffered in Christ's agony; but that suffering did not begin or end with His manifestation in humanity. The cross is a revelation to our dull senses of the pain that, from its very inception, sin has brought to the heart of God. Every departure from the right, every deed of cruelty, every failure of humanity to reach His ideal, brings grief to Him. When there came upon Israel the calamities that were the sure result of separation from God,--subjugation by their enemies, cruelty, and death, --it is said that "His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel." "In all their affliction He was afflicted: . . . and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old." Judges 10:16; Isaiah 63:9.
          His Spirit "maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." As the "whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together" (Romans 8:26, 22), the heart of the infinite Father is pained in sympathy. Our world is a vast lazar house, a scene of misery that we dare not allow even our thoughts to dwell upon. Did we realize it as it is, the burden would be too terrible. -- Ed263-264
  • Darlington's Fall: A Novel in Verse - Brad Leithauser (Knopf, 2003) — see also Amazon
    • Love's paper wings - Ron Charles (Christian Science Monitor, April 4, 2002 ) — a butterfly scientist discovers he must fall to soar
    • Amazing Merger of Art and Science - Laura Purdom, Mt Holyoke College (Vista, v.7, n.2, Fall 2002)
  • Lord, I Have a Question - Dan Smith (Pacific Press, 2004), p.127ff — see also Amazon
    • all evil and suffering from Satan, not God
    • God committed to free choice ... Satan must have a fairly level playing field ... until we have learned the consequences of sin
    • God must maintain a predictability in the world
    • plan of salvation contains a "not yet"
    • dominion fully restored in new earth
    • God beyond our comprehension ... not a juke box
    • God often does miracles through other people (healing, sending money, psychological), less physically direct
    • God allows suffering in the generic sense, not the specific sense
  • For the Time Being - Annie Dillard (Vintage, 2000) — see also Amazon
  • on problem of pain; nature at its worst offers reasons for belief; wildness of nature in speech to Job; God as mysterious, incalculable, “wholly other”, worthy of worship … riddles of God proved more satisfying then the answers proposed without God — Soul Survivor, How My Faith Survived the Church - Philip Yancey (Doubleday, 2001), p.52
  • Disappointment With God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud - Philip Yancey (Zondervan, 1988)
  • Making Sense Out of Suffering - Peter Kreeft (Servant Books, 1986) — see also Amazon
    • As an example, the Buddhist religion solves the problem by the Four Noble Truths: life is suffering; the cause is desire; the solution is to end desire; the method is the eightfold path. Kreeft reasons that this is killing the patient to cure the disease. (p.4)
  • God, Freedom, and Evil - Alvin C. Plantinga (Harper & Row, 1974)
    • 34 - was it within God's power to create any possible world he pleased
    • 45 - could God have created a world containing moral good but no moral evil
    • 54 - the free will defense vindicated
    • 55 - is God's existence compatible with the amount of moral evil the world contains
    • 57 - is God's existence compatible with natural evil
    • 59 - does the existence of evil make it unlikely that God exists
  • The Problem of Pain - C. S. Lewis (1940) — discussion
  • A Grief Observed - C. S. Lewis (1960) — see also Amazon
    • video: Shadowlands (1993) — review; see also Amazon | LawBuzz |
  • Confessions - Augustine (VII, AD398)
  • Theodicy: Answering the Problem of Evil - CADRE: Christian Colligation of Apologetics Debate Research & Evangelism
  • Putting God on Trial: The Biblical Book of Job - Robert Sutherland (Trafford, 2006) — see also Amazon
• "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." — Walden (in chapter on "Economy") - Henry D. Thoreau
• Theresa of Avila - | feast | Episcopal church |
• "Protestant philosopher at Notre Dame carves out intellectual room for God and miracles" - Richard N. Ostling (Associated Press, March 23, 2005) — [Plantinga] — evil also poses a problem for atheism -- how can there be such a thing as evil if the cosmos lacks a moral structure
• Matrix - | website | Amazon | Wikipedia |
• Candide - Voltaire (1759) — | Spark Notes |
• human freedom in Star Trek, Matrix saves the day ... Alvin Plantinga (God, Evil and the Metaphysics of Freedom) = logically impossible for God to control the amount of evil in a world that also includes free will — Rumors of Another World, p.103
• The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real - Margery Williams (1922)

• Cain and Abel
  • East of Eden - John Steinbeck (1952) — | Spark Notes |
    • 53, 54 - like somebody marked me like a cow ... seems like I was marked
    • 310 - I think this [the Cain-Abel story] is the best-known story in the world because it is everybody's story. I think it is the symbol story of the human soul. ... rejection is the hell he fears
    • 349 - thou mayest rule over sin ... ASV orders men to triumph over sin ... KJV promises ... Hebrew timshel gives a choice
    • 350 - these old men believe a true story ... these sixteen verses are a history of humankind in any age or culture or race ... cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardice and laziness
  • Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (1937) — | Spark Notes | ... see also: Biblical Images in Literature - Roland Bartel, ed. (Abingdon Press, 1975), p.137-147
    • The best laid schemes o' mice and men
      Gang aft a-gley
      An' leave us nought but grief an' pain
      For promised joy.
    • 142 - fugitive and vagabond ... "A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody" ... punishment is more than I can bear ... homelessness, economic futility, and psychological soul-corruption
  • Confessions - Augustine (I:1, AD398) — "You made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in You." — | Christianity Today |
• technological innovation
  • Wikipedia!! — Amadeus was inspired by Mozart and Salieri, a short play by Aleksandr Pushkin (later adapted into an opera by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov).
    •  Amadeus | & Salieri |
  • The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, p.52
    • Manichaeism = two disjoint sections (children of light and darkness) ... fallacy = only children of light have truth
    • Israel used husbandry, music, crafting of precious metals (Gen 4 and descendents of Cain)
    • Paul used quotes from philosophers to present Christianity (Acts 17)
• "The Antediluvians" - William H. Shea (Origins, v.18, p.10-26, 1991)

• naturalistic hope — Soul Survivor, p.57
  • George Bernard Shaw
  • H. G. Wells
  • Sigmund Freud
• sanctuary – shows that God is doing something about evil, and how
  • pre-sanctuary (Cain/Abel, after flood) ... no explanation of origin, purpose of early sacrifices
  • a holy God in an unholy world ... easy to forget God’s greatness
• Genesis 3 to Revelation 22 tells the story of a God reckless with desire to get his family back — The Jesus I Never Knew - Yancey, p.268
• can trust God not to give us what we truly deserve ... didn't die immediately — Back to the Present - Laurence Turner, p.54
• creation-fall-restoration — Towards a Christian Poetics
  • 2 - Pascal in Pensιes = grandeur and misθre = greatness and wretchedness of the human condition
  • 3 - all that is great from 'first nature' & wretchedness from 'second nature' ... miseries of a dispossessed king ... paradox governs fundamental thinking of Pascal
  • 4 - Jesus is supreme paradox ... ternary process = positive is reversed by a negative, which is then reversed by a new positive ... creation/fall/re-creation
  • 5 - threefold pattern in Genesis to Revelation ... 2 Peter = mortality of heavens and earth to extreme destruction, appear in entirely new creation
  • 6 - ternary ... fruit eaten in New Earth ... God's dwelling = Jerusalem temple, destruction, church ... people of God = Israel, scattered, Church
  • 6 - triadic = unfallen man, sinner, Christian ... unfallen Adam, fallen Adam, Christ ... blesses, curses, Jesus
  • 7 - life, death, resurrection ... future is larger than the past ... O felix culpa! = reverses Adam's unhappy guilt into a source of happiness
    • felix culpa = fortunate fall
  • 8 - incomplete resolution = third term becoming the thesis of a further triad ... past, present, future
  • 13 - see this pattern continually in writing, literature and art
• Paradise Mislaid: How We Lost Heaven -- and How We Can Regain It - Jeffrey Burton Russell (Oxford University Press, 2006) — see also Amazon
  • Heaven, a metaphor pointing toward reality - Darrell Turner (National Catholic Reporter, September 8, 2006)

WEEK #5 - Catastrophe (Genesis 6-9)

• humor
• artwork
  • The Eve of the Deluge - William Bell Scott (1865)
  • 5 paintings of the Deluge
• flood stories from other cultures - Gilgamesh, Sumerian
  • Flood stories from around the world
• channeled scablands ... J. Harlen Bretz — | field course |
• Grand Banks, turbidites — | Marine Geology, 2004 |
• Hurricane Katrina - | Wikipedia |
• earthquake/tsunami
  • Lisbon 1755 --- | Wikipedia | Voltaire on Lisbon (pdf) | Enlightenment and Lisbon | relation to Enlightenment |
  • A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 / October 2005 / Simon Winchester / HarperCollins — see also Amazon
• volcano
  • Vesuvius/Pompeii ... Carcavallo Pub --- | pictures | Pliny account | NOVA | webcam | Wikipedia |
    • earthquake in 63AD ... eruption lasted 3 days
    • 24th - ash, pumice, blocks, scoriae ... 7 meters of ash buried Pompeii in just a few hours ... flows of finer ash and water devastated Herculaneum with 15-25m thick mudflows
    • 25th - after some returned to city ... pyroclastics and high energy steam with destructive speed ... suffocation and toxic fumes
  • Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 - Simon Winchester (Harper Collins, 2003) — see also Amazon