Young Earth Creationists hold humanity responsible for the existence of death.
Most Christians now find this untenable, given modern science. But there's another reading consistent with both Christian tradition, and with modern science:
Humanity isn't responsible for death existing. But humanity 𝘪𝘴 responsible for death continuing to exist—because we were given the tools to eradicate it, and we chose not to do so.
In this reading, that's what is narrated to us in Genesis 1-3.
Humanity was given the capacity and the calling to grow into scientific and technological knowledge. Our earliest ancestors began to do so—and had this process continued, we would live in a world where humans had complete control over the ecosystem and the biological processes of death and decay.
Instead, our earliest ancestors pursued a different kind of knowledge—the knowledge of how to use violence to exert control—and embarked upon millennia of needless suffering.
In Christ, Christians believe that this process has begun to be reversed. The other path has been reopened, and just as at the beginning, we are called to take it.
Most Christians now find this untenable, given modern science. But there's another reading consistent with both Christian tradition, and with modern science:
Humanity isn't responsible for death existing. But humanity 𝘪𝘴 responsible for death continuing to exist—because we were given the tools to eradicate it, and we chose not to do so.
In this reading, that's what is narrated to us in Genesis 1-3.
Humanity was given the capacity and the calling to grow into scientific and technological knowledge. Our earliest ancestors began to do so—and had this process continued, we would live in a world where humans had complete control over the ecosystem and the biological processes of death and decay.
Instead, our earliest ancestors pursued a different kind of knowledge—the knowledge of how to use violence to exert control—and embarked upon millennia of needless suffering.
In Christ, Christians believe that this process has begun to be reversed. The other path has been reopened, and just as at the beginning, we are called to take it.
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Christianity, according to many prominent thinkers, created the modern world.
Sometimes people reduce this to a line here or there, where the Bible calls for impartiality, rule of law, etc.
The problem, of course, is that you can point to many other lines that seem to reflect values we would want to reject. Then you get into arguments about hermeneutics, etc—which ultimately points to the conclusion that you should never have started there in the first place.
To understand how Christianity created the modern world, you need to understand the perpetual dynamic of Christian faith. What Tom Holland describes as 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰—the ongoing, never-ending revolution of Christianity against the world, and against itself.
That revolution is fueled by the Hebrew Bible’s vision of humans as the image of God—a statement so radical, it can never be fully embodied in any society.
And that revolution is fueled by the Christian vision of Christ—the divine human, calling us to become what he is—rejected by all human power and authority, and yet not rejecting the world.
This profound combination cannot help but continually break and reform the world anew. Never stopping until the cosmos itself becomes new.
Sometimes people reduce this to a line here or there, where the Bible calls for impartiality, rule of law, etc.
The problem, of course, is that you can point to many other lines that seem to reflect values we would want to reject. Then you get into arguments about hermeneutics, etc—which ultimately points to the conclusion that you should never have started there in the first place.
To understand how Christianity created the modern world, you need to understand the perpetual dynamic of Christian faith. What Tom Holland describes as 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰—the ongoing, never-ending revolution of Christianity against the world, and against itself.
That revolution is fueled by the Hebrew Bible’s vision of humans as the image of God—a statement so radical, it can never be fully embodied in any society.
And that revolution is fueled by the Christian vision of Christ—the divine human, calling us to become what he is—rejected by all human power and authority, and yet not rejecting the world.
This profound combination cannot help but continually break and reform the world anew. Never stopping until the cosmos itself becomes new.
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👇
My husband has used AI agents to revive old fonts, ornaments, & cuts from 19th century newspapers. The agents even built an editor where you can create your own invitations/pamphlets/cards using old cuts & fonts. Have been using it for @Quillette invitations already
font-revival.com
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@IterIntellectus This one actually happened. In 1492 the abbot Johannes Trithemius wrote In Praise of Scribes, arguing that monks should keep copying books by hand despite the printing press. Two years later he had it printed in Mainz, so more people would read it.
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christian transhumanist retweeted
If we reduce Jesus to a blood sacrifice we lose the plot and so do our kids.
going thru diaries from when i was struggling with my Christian faith. It seems even from a very young age, I was confused that Jesus's sacrifice was supposed to be such a big deal. I find multiple entries across the years with variations on "Obviously any of us would do that for someone we loved, it kinda seems like Jesus just hitting the bare minimum"
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Here's the problem with studying the Antichrist and such (let the reader understand). It's easy to over-index on the negative forces in the world, and miss how the positive alternative actually works.
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Knowing what the Antichrist is up to isn't going to tell you what to do about it. For that, you need to be studying the other side.
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The missing element in most attempts to reconcile science and the Christian story—is the realization that the Christian story is itself a story about the loss and recovery of science.
“The Greek church fathers from Origen onward all say our fall hid our own past from us, so that we can now only see our beginnings in the future revealed to us through Jesus Christ.”
This is an interesting idea, considering that from our current perspective, the entirety of the ancient world did not know its own past. And why not? Presumably because they did not have a functioning science.
Only in Christ does the world discover a functioning science and begin to unveil its own past. An unveiling we are now the beneficiaries of.
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This loss is more in potential than in actuality. Ancient humanity never had a functional science at any scale. But they could have built one—but for the allure of purported epistemological shortcuts, and power over others. And so they built millennia of suffering instead.
That's the story we get in Genesis 2-4. A primordial science ("naming the animals") gets replaced by a science of human vulnerability (shame, fear, self-consciousness in the bad sense, violence). And we never escape the spiral unleashed by that latter science until Christ shows us how to tame vulnerability and turn it into humility and peace.
That's the story we get in Genesis 2-4. A primordial science ("naming the animals") gets replaced by a science of human vulnerability (shame, fear, self-consciousness in the bad sense, violence). And we never escape the spiral unleashed by that latter science until Christ shows us how to tame vulnerability and turn it into humility and peace.
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“The Greek church fathers from Origen onward all say our fall hid our own past from us, so that we can now only see our beginnings in the future revealed to us through Jesus Christ.”
This is an interesting idea, considering that from our current perspective, the entirety of the ancient world did not know its own past. And why not? Presumably because they did not have a functioning science.
Only in Christ does the world discover a functioning science and begin to unveil its own past. An unveiling we are now the beneficiaries of.
This is an interesting idea, considering that from our current perspective, the entirety of the ancient world did not know its own past. And why not? Presumably because they did not have a functioning science.
Only in Christ does the world discover a functioning science and begin to unveil its own past. An unveiling we are now the beneficiaries of.
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The dominance of this kind of vision recapitulates the doomerism of ancient paganism. As is evident in the title.
The problem with things like “Gods don’t give gifts” is pretty much everyone is aware of the possibility of a grotesque outcome. What we actually need is a hopeful & constructive vision for how to actually achieve a positive future. “Gods don’t give gifts” feels like indulgence.
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In an objective parallel to the logic of the Logos, the mechanics of the Logos is radically transformed by the Christian belief in the Word (Logos) "become flesh".
In Johannes Scottus Eriugena, we read of how God, in becoming flesh, made a world in which he could be made, such le, the making of Christ is the consummation of the making of the world.
For the incarnate Logos implies an unfolding of the principle of divinity from punctiliar concept to solid shapes, and, through the geometrical motion of their molecular composition, in mechanics.
From the Greek word mēkhanē, a machine is, in contrast to a tool (techne), way of 'tricking' nature by geometrically redirecting the flow of natural force. In redirecting natural force, it concentrates, repeats, and automates the power of the tool that effects a change.
Although the idea of mechanism had formerly been subordinated to Life and living organisms in the Porphyrean Scala Naturae, and the refusal to acknowledge machines are eternal ideas can be traced back to Xenocrates, the Incarnation both empties divinity from its unmixed purity and elevates matter to partake sacramentally of the glory of God.
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