Faith vs. Truth

[John]

If there was NO death, there would have been NO SOIL, NO OIL, NO fossils that PREDATE MAN by immeasurable time.

Wrong assumptions yield wrong conclusions ;)

 

[Alfonso]

There is no conflict between Faith and Reason, on the contrary, both compliment each other. Truth cannot contradict Truth.

 

[stranger]

Imagican wrote: (partof the response to John).

My offering that it's stated in the NT that a day is like 1x000 years was NOT meant to be taken LITERAL. I believe that the REASON that this statement was offered was NOT to STATE that 'a day is THE SAME AS' but to plainly SHOW that Time of NO ESSENCE to God. One that is NOT mortal is NOT confined by TIME.

Allow me to suggest that the default or norm for language, irrespective of what is read, is the the LITERAL interpretation. When I meet people who don't believe eg in the resurrection INVARIABLY the comment follows --- you don't take that literally do you? So I am beginning to suspect that not taking things literally (in general) is nothing more than an excuse for unbelief.

There is a correspondence built into language eg. the word apple corresponds to a particular type of fruit. A day corresponds, not surprising to a period of time between sunrise and sunset ( or the other way around in the OT), a thousand years corresponds to a thousand years. None would agrue that these things represent or are symbolic of something else. So how language is literally used adequately conveys its corressponding meaning.

While i appreciate that your comments were only in passing ( and not a full treatment of the passage in Peter), it was the word LITERAL that I am defusing. I suggest that 'literal interpretations' are a norm and default of language itself. So much so that symbols and metaphors themselves would lose their significance if they were not literally symbols or literally metaphors. It is regretable that the word LITERAL has become the red flag that it is today.

blessings