Constant supervision of the words we use in our language is the price we have to pay for using them meaningfully. In this spirit, let us consider the creation narratives in the Book of Genesis of the Old Testament to bring out the meaning of the word 'God'. According to our principles mentioned above, what meaning has been assigned to the word 'God' in those narratives especially because they were dependent on the mythologies of the times? Now that we have better alternatives of explanation of the origins of the entire Universe with the help of empirical sciences, what need do we have of keeping those outdated ideas of creation in six days? If so, what is the role of God who seems to be suddenly unemployed? As a result of the development of empirical sciences and consequent progress achieved by mankind, the word 'God' seems to have become superfluous without fulfilling any useful role in the workings of our language and has become meaningless. Is God dead as proclaimed by Nietzsche, the Philosopher?
The above objection to the presence of God in our affairs would seem to be unassailable to anyone, the scientists included, who does not have a proper grasp of the roles of God, man, science and mythology in the language we use. As a result, they tend to mix up and confuse the different roles played by various agencies in our life within a paradigm of uniformity in place of unity in diversity that is proper to life in its richness and variety. In the creation narratives, the action of God is narrated in mythological terms as no one could have been a witness to the creation of everything at the beginning. The writer or writers through centuries assembled those elements of the narratives making use of the myths believed in and practiced by the peoples of the ancient times to express their own belief in God. Those myths were taken over by the biblical authors merely as means of expression, while they were part of the substance of belief for those from whom they were acquired. This is why the biblical narratives cannot be dubbed as merely mythological as the substance of what they want to say does not originate from mythology. Here comes the role of the inspiration from God since Bible is taken as the Word of God. Faith in a living God Who revealed Himself to selected people has played an important role in the substance of the biblical narratives. We have seen in the previous Posts that one need not be allergic to revelation and faith thinking that their entry in the discourse make it meaningless as even scientific language has to be supported by ordinary and everyday language for its meaningfulness.
Here we see a special characteristic of language in allowing the use of one and the same thing in different ways on different occasions. If a myth is the substance of what a group of people believed in , this substance may be turned into a mode of expression in another context as we see in the biblical narratives of creation. The same strategy is used even in the New Testament, for example, in the Infancy narratives of Matthew's Gospel where the baby Jesus is presented as the king of kings through the visit of the Magi from the East. What the Genesis author wanted to assert was that God was the one and only source of everything we see around us and anything that exists. In philosophical terms we might say the same thing thus: Since God's Essence is His Existence, nothing that exists can fall outside of God In God's scheme of things man had a special place and He took care of man's well-being not only for the beginning but also throughout the history of the Universe till the end of times. Because the situation of the world has turned out to be far from God's original intentions due to man's folly God initiated His plan of salvation of which we see the culmination in Jesus Christ. Besides this substance of what the author wanted to say, everything else was his mode of expression compiled in mythology by him that may be expressed scientifically now taking the place of mythology of the biblical period.
Thus we see that the word 'God' is assigned meaning as it is employed as irreplaceable, whatever be the means or modes of expression in which it is couched according to the spirit of the times. Explanation of the origins of everything through evolution does not abrogate the essential role of God as the language games played in the two cases are not the same. They operate on two levels like the physical and the metaphysical, the material and the spiritual although they also interpenetrate each other. Therefore, both the scientific explanation of the origins of the Universe and the theological one of creation by God are legitimate since the former uses the language game of science and the latter that of religion. Although truth is one and absolute, the ways of seeking the same and expressing it vary depending on the plurality and multiplicity of the contexts involved.
The above objection to the presence of God in our affairs would seem to be unassailable to anyone, the scientists included, who does not have a proper grasp of the roles of God, man, science and mythology in the language we use. As a result, they tend to mix up and confuse the different roles played by various agencies in our life within a paradigm of uniformity in place of unity in diversity that is proper to life in its richness and variety. In the creation narratives, the action of God is narrated in mythological terms as no one could have been a witness to the creation of everything at the beginning. The writer or writers through centuries assembled those elements of the narratives making use of the myths believed in and practiced by the peoples of the ancient times to express their own belief in God. Those myths were taken over by the biblical authors merely as means of expression, while they were part of the substance of belief for those from whom they were acquired. This is why the biblical narratives cannot be dubbed as merely mythological as the substance of what they want to say does not originate from mythology. Here comes the role of the inspiration from God since Bible is taken as the Word of God. Faith in a living God Who revealed Himself to selected people has played an important role in the substance of the biblical narratives. We have seen in the previous Posts that one need not be allergic to revelation and faith thinking that their entry in the discourse make it meaningless as even scientific language has to be supported by ordinary and everyday language for its meaningfulness.
Here we see a special characteristic of language in allowing the use of one and the same thing in different ways on different occasions. If a myth is the substance of what a group of people believed in , this substance may be turned into a mode of expression in another context as we see in the biblical narratives of creation. The same strategy is used even in the New Testament, for example, in the Infancy narratives of Matthew's Gospel where the baby Jesus is presented as the king of kings through the visit of the Magi from the East. What the Genesis author wanted to assert was that God was the one and only source of everything we see around us and anything that exists. In philosophical terms we might say the same thing thus: Since God's Essence is His Existence, nothing that exists can fall outside of God In God's scheme of things man had a special place and He took care of man's well-being not only for the beginning but also throughout the history of the Universe till the end of times. Because the situation of the world has turned out to be far from God's original intentions due to man's folly God initiated His plan of salvation of which we see the culmination in Jesus Christ. Besides this substance of what the author wanted to say, everything else was his mode of expression compiled in mythology by him that may be expressed scientifically now taking the place of mythology of the biblical period.
Thus we see that the word 'God' is assigned meaning as it is employed as irreplaceable, whatever be the means or modes of expression in which it is couched according to the spirit of the times. Explanation of the origins of everything through evolution does not abrogate the essential role of God as the language games played in the two cases are not the same. They operate on two levels like the physical and the metaphysical, the material and the spiritual although they also interpenetrate each other. Therefore, both the scientific explanation of the origins of the Universe and the theological one of creation by God are legitimate since the former uses the language game of science and the latter that of religion. Although truth is one and absolute, the ways of seeking the same and expressing it vary depending on the plurality and multiplicity of the contexts involved.
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