Board index ‹ Creation and Evolution

[Sean Flowers]

Okay, I have a question! ...In the Ancient Near East (ANE), were the gods' actions the explanation given for what we call "natural law"?

I've asked myself: "If Judaism, and subsequently Christianity, arose from ANE thought, how does one also account for the dissimilarities (e.g., God being separate from the natural order)?"

In both cases, ANE and Judaism, god(s) are used as an explanation for natural law. It's just that in Judaism God is seen to be separate from the natural world. So, in the ANE, the gods were the natural laws, whereas in Judaism, God spoke into existence and upheld the natural laws.

Finally, although science doesn't rule out the possibility of God, it goes a step further than ANE and Jewish beliefs and suggests that the natural world and its laws are autonomous (a perspective that would seem to have given rise to the belief in deism). Yet, interestingly, if I'm correct about the ANE belief that "gods were the natural laws," then there is a similarity between ANE thought and modern science (i.e., autonomy; although, it must be said that science doesn't personify these laws -- at least literally!).

Is this somewhat accurate? These are my thoughts in their rough draft. And, this is really the first time I'm thinking through this... What are your thoughts on this?

[jimwalton]

Sean, Great questions. I try to deal with them thoroughly, but if I miss something, just let me know.

I think your premise, “If Judaism, and subsequently Christianity, arose from ANE thought…” is an incorrect presupposition. As far as I know, no one is quite sure about the evolution of ancient religious thought and practice. We know that the Bible is written to an ANE world, addressing ANE worldviews and conceptions, but highlighting points of opposition and differentiation to this worldview. Thus it is reactionary in scope, not an evolutionary product out of ANE religion. What the Bible says is that the accurate worship of YHWH was what was at the beginning. To be fair and honest, many scholars believe and teach that ANE religion does not seem to develop as a by-product of a misunderstanding of the Bible. It is believed to be a development in religious view that happens along with, but on a separate path than ancient Yahwism. (It wouldn’t have been called Judaism until much later, but I know why you’re using the term.) I’m left thinking that if Yahwism was originally all there was, then other religions had to have developed out of it, or possibly there was no teaching of YHWH in enough places for a long enough time that they developed their own systems. Obviously the Bible highlights the Babylon (Sumerian) culture in Gn .11, but that doesn’t give us any “evolutionary” clues, or even those of cause and effect. As far as cultures such as ancient Hinduism, Wikipedia says the first evidences of it are about 5500 BC. Genesis 10 records the distribution of peoples, but dates are hard to come by. Genesis 11, the Babel story, is generally thought to have taken place at the end of the 4th millennium BC. Northern Shinar had not been settled, as far as anyone knows, before 5000 BC. So maybe all this stuff doesn’t help, but I think your premise is the first problem with the line of thought.

A-N-Y-W-A-Y, Romans 1 would corroborate the thought that ANE religion rose as a corruption from Yahwism. It says in verses 21-25 that the early peoples exchanged God for an image of something in nature (23), and worshipped and served creatures rather than the Creator (25).

With the other part of your question, I think you’re making an anachronism, thinking like WE do and projecting that backwards to them. To best understand what was going on we have to try to put ourselves back there and think like them. There is no such word as “religion” in the ANE. Likewise, there is no dichotomy between sacred and secular, or even between natural and supernatural. To them there was nothing like natural laws. There was “Cause,” and “effect.” There were two possible causes: deity, or human. Both of those were personal causes. And so their only dichotomies were spiritual and physical, though even those would have a less meaningful distinction to them than to us. It’s not so much that that gods’ actions were their explanation for what we call natural law, as you have suggested; they just didn’t have any thought for an impersonal world. In their worldview deity was so integrated into the cosmos that there was no such thing as “natural.” So saying, though, they did recognize “cosmic” laws, and the gods were subject to those laws, not an explanation for them. Maybe to pull that a little closer, the gods of the ANE were INSIDE the cosmos, subject to its laws, but identified with its elements (which are part of what we call natural law). Am I making sense?

The difference between that and Yahwism, which might be obvious to you, is that, as you said, in the Bible God is outside the cosmos rather than inside it. He created the world as distinct from himself, but involves himself in the world by choice, and he orders the elements by giving them function, rather than identifying with them. Phew—I hope I’m addressing your question!

And you’re right that science sees the natural laws as more or less autonomous, although I again wouldn’t go with your premise that there was similarity between ANE mythologies and modern science, for the reasons given above.

Now, it’s your turn. Did I address your question? And, What new questions did I raise?

[Sean Flowers]

Dear Mr. Walton,

I appreciate your response and helpful feedback. Let's just say that we have no way of knowing which ultimately came first (Yahwism vs. other ANE beliefs), and that Gen 1 was written to counter other ANE creation accounts that were already in place.

Regarding your fourth paragraph... So, just like human beings, the ANE gods were subject to "cosmic laws" and likewise had causal power. From our perspective, they were an explanation for natural phenomena outside human causes. So, basically the world was anthropomorphized (as we'd put it), and the various characters that emerged from this anthropomorphism were the ANE gods. Is this correct? (By the way, would the animals also have causal power in the ANE view? For instance, if a bird craps on you, then it had causal power... Or, was this also anthropomorphized?? )

Regarding your fifth paragraph... Unlike human beings and the ANE gods, Yahweh was not subject to "cosmic laws," but had causal power which effected and upheld those laws. And, what we call "natural phenomena" were the elements behaving in accordance with the cosmic laws God effected and upheld, not various gods. Is this correct?

Regarding your sixth paragraph... Yes, science does believe that the natural laws are autonomous. This perspective doesn't rule out the possibility of God's existence, but it does make it possible to believe that God isn't necessary for the maintenance of natural laws (e.g., deism), or their existence (e.g., agnosticism and atheism). An interesting progression from ANE accounts, to Judeo-Christian beliefs, to secularism.

What do you think?

[jimwalton]

I'm lovin' the conversation, Sean, but am wondering where we're going with it.

Every aspect of what we call the natural world was associated with some deity in the ANE. The result is that the term "natural world" would be both meaningless and nonsensical to them. There was nothing in the world that was natural. There was no purely natural cause and effect, no natural laws, no natural occurrences—everything was imbued with the supernatural.

The cosmic deities were manifest in that element of the cosmos with which they were associated, and had some jurisdiction there. Sun gods were active in and through the sun, but they did not create the sun. (That's where they're INSIDE the cosmos, not OUTSIDE of it.) The sun and the sun god function together. Though the god controls the sun, he has no existence separate from, outside of, or above the sun. The sun is the manifestation of the god and the expression of the god's attributes. The god is the power behind the sun.

So again I guess I would disagree with your statements. I may be reading them wrong, but you almost seem to see their world as more animistic, hence "anthropomorphized," rather than what I have described. The sun existed outside the god; he was not the explanation for the natural phenomena.

Your "fifth paragraph" statement. YHWH is the originator the control attributes of the universe. Hebrews 1.3 says God "sustains" all things (similar to Col. 1.17 says he holds all things together). I'm trying to read your statement carefully, and at this point I'll say I agree with what you said.

As far as your "sixth paragraph" statement, science believes that the natural laws are autonomous, but the Scripture teaches what is called "providence," meaning that even though God is not running the universe robotically and mechanistically (what philosophers call determinism), God is certainly necessary for the maintenance of natural laws, as Heb. 1.3 and Col. 1.17 would contend.

I don't see your progression at all: ANE — Jud/Chr — secularism.

I guess I'm curious where we're going with all this. What's really on your mind?

[Sean Flowers]

Thank you for writing back, Mr. Walton!

I think I now understand the function of ANE gods. To apply an analogy to the sun god: the sun is the car, and the sun god is the driver. ...Does that work?

And, to answer your question: My point is to say how our knowledge of the natural world makes "supernatural" explanations unnecessary. That is, we no longer need to believe that the gods are behind the functioning of the world. I see a completely naturalistic explanation to be the polar opposite of that belief, as well as a sufficient explanation in itself, and thus ideal. And, the Judeo-Christian explanation would be somewhere in the middle and itself a step in the right direction, but not totally "there" yet. That is, it rightly rejected the existence of these other deities. But, it failed to finish the job and decided to keep one. So, the continuum between "complete superstition" and "reality" would contain the labels sequentially: (1) ANE polytheism; (2) Judeo-Christian monotheism, and (3) naturalism.

I'd like to see the look on your face after your reading that... But, in all seriousness, that is my belief. HOWEVER, from this correspondence alone I've come to realize how much I don't know! So, that's to say that I could be wrong. But, you wanted an honest answer and I gave you one! I'd be very interested to know what your thoughts and suggestions might be, given that you have my thoughts in the raw right in front of you!

Thank you again for your time, sir! I think this could be a very interesting dialogue!

Sean

[jimwalton]

The ANE gods sitting as drivers in their cars. They didn't make the cars, but they are now inside them, associated with them, and controlling. I LIKE that. I think that's a pretty good analogy. Of course, the Bible says YHWH created the car with all its systems, he sits outside of it but can take the wheel as he sees fit, but he endowed the car to run, with all its features. But the Bible goes further: He is the force holding it all together. Let me try to attack it this way:

There are lots of mysterious and funky forces at work in this universe, and most of them are poorly understood. For instance, astrophysicists theorize about negative mass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_mass),one of the forces that helps to hold the universe together. Contrary to your rules, it can't be known by the 5 senses, but is hypothesized. The article says, "This behavior is completely inconsistent with a common-sense approach and the expected behaviour of 'normal' matter; but is completely mathematically consistent and introduces no violation of conservation of momentum or energy." The article says later on, "Virtually every modern physicist suspects that antimatter has positive mass and should be affected by gravity just like normal matter, although it is thought that this view has not yet been conclusively empirically observed."

Another force at work in the universe is dark matter. Again, from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter): "In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is a type of matter hypothesized to account for a large part of the total mass in the universe. Dark matter cannot be seen directly with telescopes; evidently it neither emits nor absorbs light or other electromagnetic radiation at any significant level. Instead, its existence and properties are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation, and the large scale structure of the universe. Dark matter is estimated to constitute 84% of the matter in the universe and 23% of the mass-energy."

Then there are always black holes, whose gravitational pulls even pull light in. Again, outside of the grasp of the 5 senses (though I guess the holes have been seen, or we DON'T see anything there), all we know about black holes is inferred through its interaction with other matter and with light and other electromagnetic radiation.

Besides those exotic examples, we here on earth are aware of other forces that hold things together, such as centripetal force, gravity, and friction.

In the same way, outside of the reaches of your 5 senses, the Bible postulates a spiritual force holding the universe together: the providence of God. God didn't just wind the world up and walk away (deism) to watch TV. Instead, he has a continuing relationship with everything he made. The contention is that not any part of creation is truly self-sufficient, as it might seem. Much like gravity, it's an invisible force that actually holds things together. This speaks against the deistic idea that the world functions on its own. All of the concepts I have discussed—dark matter, negative mass, black holes, and even quantum theory—make all of this more within reach for our understanding of how a spiritual force (granted, allowing certain spiritual presuppositions) might also be at work holding all things together, as the Bible teaches.

As to what you wrote, I'll always be honest with you. I would say that God has created the world in such a way that you can't even see Him, and it works so throughly well that we can actually imagine that it can take care of itself, and He is there and/or isn't needed. You're right that we no longer need to believe that the gods are behind the functioning of the world. To make a simplistic analogy, I no longer need to be believe in electricity generating plants. The electricity just seems to be at my house, and it's always there, and my house functions SO well. I know, I know—it's a little cheap, but you get the idea. It seems to do it all by itself. I turn on switches, I use my computer, and my wife bakes in the oven. It's close to miraculous. I don't need to believe that God is behind everything. My car, for instance, works like a dream. My car is awesome. But there was an intelligence behind it that makes it that way. I never see that, though. I just know my car is awesome.

I know. That's the way I see the world, and it's different from the way you see the same world. It's interesting: you see the complexity, interwoven balances, grandeur, and precision of the universe, and you conclude it's good enough to run by itself. I see the same thing and conclude there was an amazing intelligence behind it. It's all in what you choose to have faith in based on the evidence.

[Sean Flowers]

Mr. Walton,

That was an exceptional reply! I believe I agree with everything you wrote. Thank you for taking time to write it!

Sean

[jimwalton]

It's been a pleasure talking with you. Tap back in ANYTIME.