Genesis and Christian Apologetics

Alice C. Linsley


In a recent conversation with a pastor who is not seminary educated, I discovered that my research is irrelevant because it has to do with an historical approach to the Bible. That is, I trace the Horite rulers from Genesis 4 and 5 to the Jesus and his ruler-priest kinsman Joseph of Hara-mathea using the tools of kinship analysis. This pastor is bi-vocational.  He serves a small Baptist congregation and also teaches history in a public school. He recognizes that the Bible tells us about historical events and peoples. However, he sees little value in an anthropological understanding of who those peoples were, and like so many, is skeptical that the King Lists of Genesis 4, 5 and 11 are authentic history. What matters most to him is what the Bible tells us today in our time.

C.S. Lewis encountered a similar attitude in his conversations.  He wrote:

"I find that the uneducated Englishman is an almost total sceptic about history. I had expected he would disbelieve the Gospels because they contain miracles; but he really disbelieves them because they deal with things that happened two thousand years ago. He would disbelieve equally in the battle of Actium if he heard of it. To those who have had our kind of education, his state of mind is very difficult to realize. To us the present has always appeared as one section in a huge continuous process. In his mind the present occupies almost the whole field of vision. Beyond it, isolated from it, and quite unimportant, is something called “the old days”-- a small, comic jungle in which highwaymen, Queen Elizabeth, knights-in-armour, etc. wander about. Then (strangest of all) beyond the old days come a picture of “primitive man.” He is “science,” not “history,” and is therefore felt to be much more real than the old days. In other words, the prehistoric is much more believed in than the historic." (From Lewis' Christian Apologetics)

At least this Christian pastor believes that the Bible is the Word of God and that it is reliable in all that it reveals about God and the salvation of repentant sinners.  He didn't question how the King Lists could have been preserved or whether or not the texts were authentic or corrupt. That is more likely the criticism of people who have never read the Bible.

C. S. Lewis encountered this also. He continues in Christian Apologetics:

He has a distrust (very rational in the state of his knowledge) of ancient texts. Thus a man has sometimes said to me, “These records were written in the days before printing, weren’t they? And you haven’t got the original bit of paper, have you? So what it comes to is that someone wrote something and someone else copied it and someone else copied that and so on. Well, by the time it comes it us, it won’t be in the least like the original” This is a difficult objection to deal with because one cannot, there and then, start teaching the whole science of textual criticism. But at this point their real religion (i.e. faith in “science”) has come to my aid. The assurance that there is a “science” called “textual criticism” and that its results (not only as regard the New Testament, but as regards ancient texts in general) are generally accepted, will usually be received without objection. 

I didn't raise the matter of textual criticism with this pastor because even the term is enough to raise eyebrows among his ilk. In his Baptist tradition, there have been some excellent textual critics (Bernard Ramm and Carl F.H. Henry come to mind), but textual criticism is still regarded as the work of people who seem intent on debunking the Bible.

In the end, my Christian apologetic hangs on the belief that each person is responsible for testing the evidence of the truth of Christianity, wherever that evidence may be found and however it may be investigated. As the great biologist St. George Jackson Mivart wrote:

Assuming, for argument's sake, the truth of Christianity, it evidently has not been the intention of its author to make the evidence for it so plain that its rejection would be the mark of intellectual incapacity. Conviction is not forced upon men in the way that the knowledge that the government of England is constitutional, or that Paris is the capital of France, is forced upon all who choose to inquire into those subjects. The Christian system is one which puts the strain, as it were, on every faculty of man's nature and the intellect is not exempted from taking part in the probationary trial. A moral element enters into the acceptance of that system.

Some individuals rise to the challenge of understanding the Christian Gospel, as much as it can be apprehended by the intellect. Some will engage only when their ears are tickled, and here the supernatural aspects can be used as bait. However, there is an inherent danger in this approach. Often those who seek drama and excitement are not seeking the Lord of Life and these may wander into obsession with Spiritualism.

The work of Christian apologetics also presents some danger to the apologist, as C. S. Lewis wrote:

I have found that nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologist. No doctrine of that faith seems to me so spectral, so unreal as the one that I have just successfully defended in a public debate. For a moment, you see, it has seemed to rest on oneself: as a result when you go away from the debate, it seems no stronger than that weak pillar. That is why we apologists take our lives in our hands and can be saved only by falling back continually from the web of our own arguments, as from our intellectual counters, into the reality--from Christian apologetics into Christ Himself. That also is why we need one another’s continual help--oremus pro invicem. (Let us pray for each other.)

Related reading: C.S. Lewis' Christian Apologetics (1949), C.S. Lewis' Quotes

C.S. Lewis, Evolution, and Atonement

Peter Barnes

There would be a strong case for the assertion that C.S. Lewis (1898–1963) has been the most celebrated Christian apologist of the second half of the twentieth century. Even into the twenty-first century Lewis’s popularity shows no sign of diminishing. His war-time radio broadcasts, which aired in 1942–1944, were published in book form as Mere Christianity, which has proved enormously influential. His other books have also found themselves onto the bookshelves of many Christians, notably The Problem of Pain, The Screwtape Letters, Miracles, The Four Loves, The Abolition of Man, and Letters to Malcolm, as well as the seven Chronicles of Narnia and his science fiction trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength). Even The Pilgrim’s Regress, which Lewis later came to regret somewhat, is applauded by J. I. Packer as ‘the freshest and liveliest of all his books’, and the one that Packer has reread more often than any other.1 For logic, beauty of expression, command of the English language, honesty, earthy wit, and imagination, few writers can equal Lewis—or come near him.

C.S. Lewis as theologian

Theologically, Lewis described himself as an Anglican who was ‘not especially “high,” nor especially “low,” nor especially anything else.’ He is often regarded as suspect in his views, especially regarding the doctrines of revelation and the atonement. Certainly, Lewis retained some liberal elements in his thinking. For example, he was open on the possibility of persons of other religions belonging to Christ without knowing it. Regarding revelation, he declared in an interview conducted in 1944 that ‘The Old Testament contains fabulous elements.’ He considered that the accounts of Jonah and of Noah were ‘fabulous’, whereas the court history of King David was probably as reliable as the court history of King Louis XIV. ‘Then, in the New Testament the thing really happens.’ It is the sort of view that rightly needs to be criticized by evangelical believers. Lewis held quite a high view of Scripture, but it remained somewhat vague and elusive in places. Not long before his death, he commented that as Christians ‘we still believe (as I do) that all Holy Scripture is in some sense—though not all parts of it in the same sense—the Word of God.’

Regarding the atonement, Lewis was equally as vague and disappointing. He declared that what matters is that it works, not how it works: ‘The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter. A good many different theories have been held as to how it works; what all Christians are agreed on is that it does work.’

Read it all here.

Related reading: C.S.Lewis on Women Priests; C.S. Lewis and the Road to Orthodoxy

C. S. Lewis on Genesis

Alice C. Linsley


C. S. Lewis was a prolific writer whose works are not easily classified. Were he writing today he might have a difficult time finding a publisher since the scope of his work is broad, not easily classified, politically incorrect and definitely Christian. The poor fellow would be relegated to Christian bookstores where his writings would outshine the ego-gratifying, life-improvement-through-Jesus junk, but be read by too few. What a loss to the world! Fortunately, he wrote at a time when people still appreciated literary excellence, though they didn’t always agree with what he wrote.

The C. S. Lewis worldview, if we can speak of such a thing, is complex in that he was willing to entertain the possibility of evolution in Mere Christianity, but portrays the end of the age in The Last Battle much as it is described in the New Testament: the heavens and the earth curl up like a parchment placed in a roaring fire. To escape destruction, Aslan urges his followers to move “higher up and farther in.” This is an echo of words from the Magician’s Nephew, the story in which Narnia was created. This could be Lewis’ motto for the Christian life, a motto that points us to the great mystery of Life. We find it expressed in these words from his essay on women priests: “With the Church, we are farther in: for there we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. Or rather, we are not dealing with them but (as we shall soon learn if we meddle) they are dealing with us.”

Lewis on the Generative Word
Aslan, the Great Lion, creates by singing. Once his generative song accomplishes its purpose, the order of creation is fixed. The magic of the Song lasts only so long. Once it ceases, Aslan's handiwork is complete and humans can't add or detract from the original pattern. Uncle Andrew, the personification of the modern materialist, hopes to profit from the generative power of the Song, but he is so intimidated by the Singer that he moves lower down and farther out. This is the fate of all materialists. They think of themselves as great innovators and yet they block metaphysical discussion by insisting that religion and science don’t mix.

Uncle Andrew’s attraction to Jadis (of the "Deplorable Word") is natural since she too is a materialist, only with an ego as great as Satan’s. Jadis is stirred into action after a period of dormancy when Digory rings a golden bell that sounds “like the crash of a falling tree” (Magician’s Nephew, Chapter 4). As the ringing grows louder, the vibrations bring further destruction to the wicked queen’s kingdom. Digory and Polly are barely able to escape that dark world, but they are not able to escape the evil which now pursues them. Here Lewis casts Digory and Polly in the roles Adam and Eve at the Fall. Interestingly, Lewis portrays Eve in a more compassionate light than Genesis 3 because Polly tries to prevent Digory from ringing the bell and is physically abused for doing so.


Lewis on Adam and Eve
Lewis never lets Adam off the hook as the one who, by virtue of being the first created and the strongest, is the ruler responsible for the welfare of others. Prince Rilian’s mother is bitten by a serpent and dies. Rilian daily seeks the creature to avenge his mother’s death. When the encounter comes, he doesn’t recognize the creature because it appears as “the most beautiful thing that was ever made” (The Silver Chair, Chapter 4). He is seduced by her beauty. This is not Eve who seduces Adam into eating the forbidden fruit. This is the serpent which seeks to enslave him.


Lewis on the Tree of Life
The Tree of Life appears in different forms in Lewis' tales; sometimes as an apple tree and sometimes as a lantern. Lewis places the tree and lantern "in the midst of the garden" (Gen. 3:3) or in the midst of the wood.  Here he is building on an significant detail in Genesis which places the Cross at the sacred center of the cosmos. The tree and lantern are symbols of the Cross of Jesus Christ. He, like the lantern in the Narnian wood, comes from another place (heaven) and He gives light by His Cross to all worlds.
 
Since Digory (Adam) is responsible for bringing evil into Narnia, Aslan holds him responsible for correcting the wrong.  To do so, Digory must bring an apple from the tree that is in the midst of the garden. This apple is used to protect Narnia and fruit from the Narnian apple tree brings healing to Digory's dying mother.  The doctor is baffled by her sudden improvement.
 
After their adventures in Narnia, Digory and Polly bury the rings (symbols of Uncle Andrew's false beliefs) in the back yard. A great tree grows in this place and when that tree is felled in a windstorm, the wood is used to construct a wardrobe. The wardrobe, like the Cross, brings the children to Aslan and opens the way to the Kingdom of the Emperor Beyond the Sea.

C.S. Lewis on Women Priests

Priestesses in the Church?

C.S. Lewis


'I should like Balls infinitely better', said Caroline Bingley, 'if they were carried on in a different manner... It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day.' 'Much more rational, I dare say,' replied her brother, 'but it would not be near so much like a Ball.' We are told that the lady was silenced: yet it could be maintained that Jane Austin has not allowed Bingley to put forward the full strength of his position. He ought to have replied with a distinguo. In one sense conversation is more rational for conversation may exercise the reason alone, dancing does not. But there is nothing irrational in exercising other powers than our reason. On certain occasions and for certain purposes the real irrationality is with those who will not do so. The man who would try to break a horse or write a poem or beget a child by pure syllogizing would be an irrational man; though at the same time syllogizing is in itself a more rational activity than the activities demanded by these achievements. It is rational not to reason, or not to limit oneself to reason, in the wrong place; and the more rational a man is the better he knows this.

These remarks are not intended as a contribution to the criticism of Pride and Prejudice. They came into my head when I heard that the Church of England was being advised to declare women capable of Priests' Orders. I am, indeed, informed that such a proposal is very unlikely to be seriously considered by the authorities. To take such a revolutionary step at the present moment, to cut ourselves off from the Christian past and to widen the divisions between ourselves and other Churches by establishing an order of priestesses in our midst, would be an almost wanton degree of imprudence. And the Church of England herself would be torn in shreds by the operation. My concern with the proposal is of a more theoretical kind. The question involves something even deeper than a revolution in order.

I have every respect for those who wish women to be priestesses. I think they are sincere and pious and sensible people. Indeed, in a way they are too sensible. That is where my dissent from them resembles Bingley's dissent from his sister. I am tempted to say that the proposed arrangement would make us much more rational 'but not near so much like a Church'.

For at first sight all the rationality (in Caroline Bingley's sense) is on the side of the innovators. We are short of priests. We have discovered in one profession after another that women can do very well all sorts of things which were once supposed to be in the power of men alone. No one among those who dislike the proposal is maintaining that women are less capable than men of piety, zeal, learning and whatever else seems necessary for the pastoral office. What, then, except prejudice begotten by tradition, forbids us to draw on the huge reserves which could pour into the priesthood if women were here, as in so many other professions, put on the same footing as men? And against this flood of common sense, the opposers (many of them women) can produce at first nothing but an inarticulate distaste, a sense of discomfort which they themselves find it hard to analyse.

That this reaction does not spring from any contempt for women is, I think, plain from history. The Middle Ages carried their reverence for one Woman to the point at which the charge could be plausibly made that the Blessed Virgin became in their eyes almost 'a fourth Person of the Trinity.' But never, so far as I know, in all those ages was anything remotely resembling a sacerdotal office attributed to her. All salvation depends on the decision which she made in the words Ecce ancilla [Behold the handmaid of the Lord]; she is united in nine months' inconceivable intimacy with the eternal Word; she stands at the foot of the cross. But she is absent both from the Last Supper and from the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost. Such is the record of Scripture. Nor can you daff it aside by saying that local and temporary conditions condemned women to silence and private life. There were female preachers. One man had four daughters who all 'prophesied', i.e. preached. There were prophetesses even in the Old Testament times. Prophetesses, not priestesses.

At this point the common sensible reformer is apt to ask why, if women can preach, they cannot do all the rest of a priest's work. This question deepens the discomfort of my side. We begin to feel that what really divides us from our opponents is a difference between the meaning which they and we give to the word 'priest'. The more we speak (and truly speak) about the competence of women in administration, their tact and sympathy as advisers, their national talent for 'visiting', the more we feel that the central thing is being forgotten. To us a priest is primarily a representative, a double representative, who represents us to God and God to us. Our very eyes teach us this in church. Sometimes the priest turns his back on us and faces the East - he speaks to God for us: sometimes he faces us and speaks to us for God. We have no objection to a woman doing the first: the whole difficulty is the second. But why? Why should a woman not in this sense represent God? Certainly not because she is necessarily, or even probably, less holy or less charitable or stupider than a man. In that sense she may be as 'God-like' as a man; and a given woman much more so than a given man. The sense in which she cannot represent God will perhaps be plainer if we look at the thing the other way round.

Suppose the reformer stops saying that a good woman may be like God and begins saying that God is like a good woman. Suppose he says that we might just as well pray to 'Our Mother which art in heaven' as to 'Our Father'. Suppose he suggests that the Incarnation might just as well have taken a female as a male form, and the Second Person of the Trinity be as well called the Daughter as the Son. Suppose, finally, that the mystical marriage were reversed, that the Church were the Bridegroom and Christ the Bride. All this, as it seems to me, in involved in the claim that a woman can represent God as a priest does.

Now it is surely the case that if all these supposals were ever carried into effect we should be embarked on a different religion. Goddesses have, of course, been worshipped: many religions have priestesses. But they are religions quite different in character from Christianity. Common sense, disregarding the discomfort, or even the horror, which the idea of turning all our theological language into the feminine gender arouses in most Christians, will ask 'Why not? Since God is in fact not a biological being and has no sex, what can it matter whether we say He or She, Father or Mother, Son or Daughter?'

But Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument not in favour of Christian priestesses but against Christianity. It is also surely based on a shallow view of imagery. Without drawing upon religion, we know from our poetical experience that image and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit; that a child who has been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child. And as image and apprehension are in an organic unity, so, for a Christian, are human body and human soul.

The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life. To say that men and women are equally eligible for a certain profession is to say that for the purposes of that profession their sex is irrelevant. We are, within that context, treating both as neuters. As the State grows more like a hive or an ant-hill it needs an increasing number of workers who can be treated as neuters. This may be inevitable for our secular life. But in our Christian life we must return to reality. There we are not homogeneous units, but different and complimentary organs of a mystical body. Lady Nunburnholme has claimed that the equality of men and women is a Christian principle. I do not remember the text in scripture nor the Fathers, nor Hooker, nor the Prayer Book which asserts it; but that is not here my point. The point is that unless 'equal' means 'interchangeable', equality makes nothing of the priesthood for women. And the kind of equality which implies that the equals are interchangeable (like counters or identical machines) is, among humans, a legal fiction. It may be a useful legal fiction. But in church we turn our back on fictions. One of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and sensitive figures which God painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures.

This is what common sense will call 'mystical'. Exactly. The Church claims to be the bearer of a revelation. If that claim is false then we want not to make priestesses but to abolish priests. If it is true, then we should expect to find in the Church an element which unbelievers will call irrational and which believers will call supra-natural. There ought to be something in it opaque to our reason though not contrary to it - as the facts of sex and sense on the natural level are opaque. And that is the real issue. The Church of England can remain a church only if she retains this opaque element. If we abandon that, if we retain only what can be justified by standards of prudence and convenience at the bar of enlightened common sense, then we exchange revelation for the old wraith Natural Religion.

It is painful, being a man, to have to assert the privilege, or the burden, which Christianity lays upon my own sex. I am crushingly aware how inadequate most of us are, in our actual and historical individualities, to fill the place prepared for us. But it is an old saying in the army that you salute the uniform not the wearer. Only one wearing the masculine uniform can (provisionally, and till the Parousia) represent the Lord to the Church: for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all. A given man may make a very bad husband; you cannot mend matters by trying to reverse roles. He may make a bad male partner in a dance. The cure for that is that men should more diligently attend dancing classes; not that the ballroom should henceforth ignore distinctions of sex and treat all dancers as neuter. That would, of course be eminently sensible, civilized, and enlightened, but, once more, 'not near so much like a Ball'.

And this parallel between the Church and the ball is not so fanciful as some would think. The Church ought to be more like a Ball than it is like a factory or a political party. Or, to speak more strictly, they are at the circumference and the Church at the Centre and the Ball comes in between. The factory and the political party are artificial creations - 'a breath can make them as a breath has made'. In them we are not dealing with human beings in their concrete entirety - only with 'hands' or voters. I am not of course using 'artificial' in any derogatory sense. Such artifices are necessary: but because they are artifices we are free to shuffle, scrap and experiment as we please. But the Ball exists to stylize something which is natural and which concerns human beings in their entirety - namely courtship. We cannot shuffle or tamper so much. With the Church, we are farther in: for there we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. Or rather, we are not dealing with them but (as we shall soon learn if we meddle) they are dealing with us.

END


Related reading: Women Priests and the Anglican Church of North America; Why Women Were Never Priests; God as Male Priest; Blood and Binary Distinctions; More Thoughts on the Priesthood; What's Lost When Women Serve as Priests?

Conversation with Philip Latimer

These past 2 days I've enjoyed conversation with Just Genesis reader, Philip Latimer from Washington. I am posting that conversation with his permission.

Dear Jandy,

As I’ve read your work on your website, I’ve started to take another look at Genesis and have some thoughts I wanted to share.

Reading the creation account in chapters 1 and 2, I believe the story could not have been written without revelation from God. I do not think that creation can be comprehended by an observation of nature without the accompanying explanatory revelation from God. The revelation explains the observations of man. Relying on observation only can lead to a false understanding of creation and does not reveal the true nature and purpose of creation.

I have come to understand the binary or polar nature of creation and how this in itself is a revelation of God. The very first line in Genesis shows this. Creation is revealed in opposites. Heaven and earth, light and dark, wet and dry, up and down, left and right, male and female, hot and cold. It is revealed in physics. In magnets, opposites attract and likes repel. In chemistry, there is base and acid, sweet and sour. Theoretical physics proposes anti-matter that opposes matter. Of course, scripture reinforces this by revelation.

Deuteronomy 30:15: See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil…

Romans 1:20: For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.

Revelation 3:15-16: I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.

And, of course, the great revelation of Christ as the Author of creation - Revelation 1:8: I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Referring back to Revelation 3, the Lord accuses the church at Laodicea of being lukewarm. One of the lies of satan is to deny the revealed nature of creation, blind people to this distinction and lead them to a lukewarm, muddled “middle way” that leads to nowhere. You hear this in the popular “world views” of today: There is no sin. There is no distinction between male and female. There is no Creator. God is within ourselves and we are God. It’s all good, it all leads to God.

I’m not really sure what Eden was or was really like but I do believe it was a pre-fall communion with God in a form that we, in our present fallen state, cannot fathom. I think that in the post edenic world, man lost that communion with God and for a while lost the revelation that came with it. The post edenic generations mentioned in Genesis up to Noah began to try and reestablish that link. I think this is what is meant in Genesis 4:26: …then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.

Those early generations were trying to reestablish that link to God that had been lost. They believed there was supposed to be some sort of communion with God and the early religions of man were attempts to establish that communion. The different religions that evolved show that the revelation from God was true but men, due to their fallen nature, either received it in error or were deceived by communing with things other than God. Some, like Enoch and Noah, got it right. Because he was faithful to God, Noah became the focal point to continue the revelation of God to the post flood generations up to when God established the covenant with Abram.

According to your accounts of Noah being in Africa, it must have been quite a long period of eastward migration till we end up with Abram in Iraq.

I am also interested in something you posted about Buddhism growing out of the earlier stories and beliefs of the groups that migrated eastward into India from Africa. So, these are my thought and ramblings. I enjoy your site and I still go back and re-read many of the postings. I find it all very interesting and look forward to reading more.

Regards,
Phil


Dear Philip,

Thank you for your insightful letter. I'm humbled that you have found something of help at Just Genesis.

The ancients noted the binary structure of reality, but many weren't fooled into thinking that the opposites are equals. Most Afro-Asiatics weren't dualists, like the Zoroastrians. The darkness of Gen. 1 isn't the opposite of light, but the absence of the Uncreated Light of God. The light of the heavenly bodies wasn't created until the 4th day. The light of Gen. 1:2 is the Uncreated Light associated with Divinity. So the darkness, as a spiritual and metaphysical reality, existed before God breathed the generative Word.

C.S. Lewis plays with this theme toward the end of his novel "The Last Battle," one of the Chronicles of Narnia. If you haven't read it, please do. One of these days I want to do a series on C.S. Lewis and Genesis.

I entirely agree that it is only by divine revelation that we know anything that can be said to be True. Genesis is no ordinary book! It has been divinely superintended through centuries and it is such that, were we to lose all of the rest of the Bible, but still have Genesis, we would be able to find God's Messiah, the Son of the Woman who crushes the head of Satan and triumphs over death, restoring us to eternal Paradise (His kindgom which has no end.)

As an anthropologist, I do rely on observations, ethnographic studies, etc, but many of these studies, being interpreted by non-Believers, present false conclusions. Usually the data by itself points to the reality of a loving God at work in the world. I try simply to present the facts.

As to migration from central Africa to Iraq taking a long time, that is not necessarily the case when one considers how the chiefs established their territories with wives on a north-south axis. The first-born assumed the territory of the deceased father and all other sons had to move away to establish their own territories. This happened with Abraham, Terah's youngest son. Nahor inherited Terah's territory and Abraham had to move away. The interesting part of that story is that his move was against the flow of migration! He was called to go southwestward, toward the land that would become the kingdom of David.

More specifically to your question, if a man has 5 sons and their territories are contiguous, we find a natural northeastward movement from west central Africa to Iraq, and even to the Indus River Valley, the far eastern boundary of the old Afro-Asiatic Dominion. I present this as a theory, not a fact. Still, it is based on the biblical data more than on anything else.

I enjoyed reading what you have written here. Terrific references from Scripture to illustrate the binary structure of reality. I'd be very pleased if you'd allow me to publish your email at Just Genesis and comment as I have here. Let me know.

Thanks for writing. God is good.

Jandy


Dear Jandy,

I'm an old Lewisite from way back. I think I know which scene you mean in The Last Battle. Are you referring to the scene between Emeth and Aslan? I love that scene. I think that's John 10:16.

I know about his cautions on dualism and I certainly don't subscribe to opposites being equal. I think the error of dualism is that it attempts to ascribe to the nature of the Creator the binary aspects observed in creation. It limits God and makes Him only half the equation. Creation in it's binary form is an object lesson from God. It shows us the choices that we have in life. We can be with God or not. We can live or die. We can obey or disobey. We can be with Him in Light or separate ourselves into darkness. We can be inside or outside. We can be sheep or goats. We can be wheat or chaff. In other words, free will. Creation demonstrates that free will has only two choices.

Jesus constantly used examples of this in His teachings. Some people, though, want to have it both ways; hold onto their sins AND have heaven. Kind of like that character in The Great Divorce who had the whispering lizard on his shoulder.

The other scene I love in the Narnia books is the one with Eustice & Aslan when Eustice can't remove the skin of his sins and Aslan must do it for him.

I think I understand your example of the chief and his five sons. The territory would expand like cells in a bee hive, if that's an apt analogy.

Onward & Upward!

Phil


Dear Phil,

I was thinking more of the scene involving the dwarfs who Aslan attempts to save through the intercession of Lucy, but the dwarfs' spiritual darkness is such that they can't see that the Great Lion has served them a feast of the richest fare. In their self-made confinement, the gifts taste like mud and straw.

You wrote: "The different religions that evolved show that the revelation from God was true but men, due to their fallen nature, either received it in error or were deceived by communing with things other than God." Isn't this exactly what Aslan explains to Emeth after the destruction of Narnia? Emeth confesses to Aslan that he has served Tash and Aslan explains that He takes as service to HIM, the service of a God-fearing heart.

Your bee hive analogy is a good one.

May this day be blessed.

Jandy