An anti-Transubstantiation argument for Geocentrism? (John Edwards)

[Charles Johnson]

I think he was getting at the difference between accommodating to truth versus accommodating to error.

Joshua 10:12-13 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed,....

The text seems to indicate that everyone involved thought that the sun was actually moving and that it actually stood still in response to Joshua's command.

It's one thing to accommodate to people's perceptions in a way that upholds the truth. It's another to mislead people into thinking one thing happened when it didn't really happen at all. (Before Copernicus, would people have read heliocentricity into the text?).

As Rev. Winzer put it in comment #48 of the first thread linked above,

I accept the Calvinian, not the Cartesian, teaching of accommodation. I suggest participants in this thread do some reading on this subject in order to discover the difference. Your advocacy of Cartesian accommodation equally justifies liberal explanations of Bible miracles.​

Liberal explainings-away of Christ's miracles don't rely upon linguistically valid exegesis. I'm not aware of any language, much less Koine Greek, where the expressions used to explain biblical miracles - turning water to wine, casting out demons, raising the dead, etc - are commonly used to express non-miraculous phenomena. Therefore, liberals, in denying miracles, consistently deny the natural, linguistically valid reading of the text.
However, plenty of societies, whether geocentric or helio-centric in their outlook, speak about the relative movement of the sun in relative terms - the sun rises, the sun sets, etc. In fact, I'm not aware of any language that does not speak that way. So this consistutes a fundamental difference between the exegetical approach of the orthodox heliocentrists on the one hand, and liberals on the other.
Moreover, plenty of orthodox folks have noted that, in the Scriptures, God accommodates human modes of expression. For many topics, this is necessarily the case - for example, when we speak of the nature of God, our statements are true analogically, since God is by nature incomprehensible. This was the teaching of Aquinas and all the reformers.
Augustine, in his commentary on Genesis 1, speaks often about God's accommodation to human modes of speech.
"[The Manichaeans] look at the shape of our body and ask so infelicitously whether God has a nose and teeth and a beard and also inner organs and the other things we need. However, it is ridiculous, even wicked, to believe that there are such things in God, and so they deny that man was made to the image and likeness of God. We answer them that the Scriptures generally mention these members in presenting God to an audience of the little ones, and this is true, not only of the books of the Old Testament, but also of the New Testament.... Let them know, nonetheless, that the spiritual believers in the Catholic teaching do not believe that God is limited by a bodily shape."
Could God be accused of misleading those by his manner of speech who thought that he, like men, had a physical body? After all, the pagans worshipped as gods images of men, and fish, and birds, and other created things. But, of course, that would be a baseless accusation, because the fault would be in the hearers who were blinded to the truth, not in God who had spoken.

 

[Taylor]

I think he was getting at the difference between accommodating to truth versus accommodating to error.

Joshua 10:12-13 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed,....

The text seems to indicate that everyone involved thought that the sun was actually moving and that it actually stood still in response to Joshua's command.

It's one thing to accommodate to people's perceptions in a way that upholds the truth. It's another to mislead people into thinking one thing happened when it didn't really happen at all. (Before Copernicus, would people have read heliocentricity into the text?).

As Rev. Winzer put it in comment #48 of the first thread linked above,

I accept the Calvinian, not the Cartesian, teaching of accommodation. I suggest participants in this thread do some reading on this subject in order to discover the difference. Your advocacy of Cartesian accommodation equally justifies liberal explanations of Bible miracles.​

Is that the entire argument is based on several assumed and unargued premises:

1) ...that accomodation in this particular instance, given the ancient astrological understanding, is deception;

2) ...that the Spirit's utilization of language that might give credence to one particular astrological perspective is an actual endorsement of said perspective; again, nobody even now does this in day-to-day conversation;

3) ...and that, given any misunderstanding on the ancient audience's part, the Spirit would have taken such a misunderstanding and given a different description of events; this is pure speculation.

If these premises could be proven rather than asserted, then the argument would be more compelling. But until then, the geocentric conclusion is just not a logical entailment of the language used in Joshua, no matter how many times it may be asserted to be so. I'm not saying it doesn't work; I am merely saying the text does not demand it.

And, I just want to point out that the use of the word "liberal" in this discussion is simply poisoning the well. A liberal agenda is the farthest thing from anyone's mind here. I think we can all grant that. Again, whether or not one takes the geo- or heliocentric view, what happened in Joshua still makes perfect sense, and it is still an amazing act of God that only he could have done.

 

[Jeri Tanner]

Taylor and others, can you think of any other passage of Scripture where the Bible states something as historical fact, yet most Christians claim it’s phenomenological? I don’t mean passages where God speaks of himself as having arms, or of himself repenting. We know from other Scripture that God is a Spirit, and we know from other Scriptures that he does not change.

I haven’t been able to come up with one.

 

[JennyGeddes]

What about Isaiah 38:8?
Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down.
And 2 Kings 20:11
And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the LORD: and he brought the shadow ten degrees.
Sorry if this has already been mentioned or is irrelevant.

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

It is important to state the question properly or else everyone will be talking past each other: The issue in relation to Joshua 10 is not one of the historicity of the passage or the fact that a miracle occurred. Both sides agree on these points. The real issue at stake is whether or not the passage is making a precise scientific statement regarding whether or not the sun circles the globe.

Given that the proponents for both views are now largely repeating themselves, it is probably best to move on from the discussion of this text (or else start a new thread in one of the exegetical forums) and return to the subject of the OP, which relates more specifically to geo/heliocentrism in relation to Common Sense Realism.

 

[Jeri Tanner]

The real issue at stake is whether or not the passage is making a precise scientific statement regarding whether or not the sun circles the globe.

The passage is certainly making a precise and true statement. But I concede that the thread has strayed from your OP— so I’ll cease and desist.

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

The passage is certainly making a precise and true statement.

No one disputes that it is a true statement according to its authorial intent. The question is what is its authorial intent: To describe a miracle in phenomenological terms or to make an exact statement in terms of modern science? (I only add this comment to try and help the disputants not to talk past each other should another thread begin.)

 

[Taylor]

It is important to state the question properly or else everyone will be talking past each other: The issue in relation to Joshua 10 is not one of the historicity of the passage or the fact that a miracle occurred. Both sides agree on these points. The real issue at stake is whether or not the passage is making a precise scientific statement regarding whether or not the sun circles the globe.

Given that the proponents for both views are now largely repeating themselves, it is probably best to move on from the discussion of this text (or else start a new thread in one of the exegetical forums) and return to the subject of the OP, which relates more specifically to geo/heliocentrism in relation to Common Sense Realism.

Good correction, brother. With that, I will bow out. Besides, the last time I was involved in a conversation around this topic on this board, another member implied that I denied the gospel because I’m not a geocentrist, leading to quite a long hiatus for me from this board. Although thankfully nobody here has stooped so low, the topic does not have a pleasant memory for me. It illustrates the tendency some of us have to major on things that are not even minors, but are really things to wonderful for us to know at this point.

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

It illustrates the tendency some of us have to major on things that are not even minors, but are really things to wonderful for us to know at this point.

Sadly, the tendency on Reformed discussion groups is not to seek mutual understanding and promote reasonable agreement where possible but nearly always to exaggerate disagreements to the point that every lesser matter becomes a major. There are certain subjects that come up for discussion every now and then which I no longer bother to discuss anymore, as I just know what everyone is going to say - to the point that I could almost write their posts for them.

You have to ask yourself whether the amount of internet ink being spilt over certain topics is really profitable either for yourself or for those reading. That is not to say that lesser matters should never be discussed - we are, after all, to be faithful in what is least as well as to be faithful in much - but the emphasis put on some issues is not healthy.

 

[Taylor]

Sadly, the tendency on Reformed discussion groups is not to seek mutual understanding and promote reasonable agreement where possible but nearly always to exaggerate disagreements to the point that every lesser matter becomes a major. There are certain subjects that come up for discussion every now and then which I no longer bother to discuss anymore, as I just know what everyone is going to say - to the point that I could almost write their posts for them.

You have to ask yourself whether the amount of internet ink being spilt over certain topics is really profitable either for yourself or for those reading. That is not to say that lesser matters should never be discussed - we are, after all, to be faithful in what is least as well as to be faithful in much - but the emphasis put on some issues is not healthy.

That’s a healthy perspective. Sorry for contributing to running your thread astray, brother.

To everyone else here, I really do appreciate this discussion. My desire here was not to convince anyone of the heliocentric view, but rather simply to say that those of us who see the language of this Joshua miracle to be phenomenological are not liberals, questioning God’s word, or bowing the knee to scientism.

 

[Jeri Tanner]

...but rather simply to say that those of us who see the language of this Joshua miracle to be phenomenological are not liberals...

By posting the quote I did not mean to imply that you are. Sorry if it seemed so.

 

[Taylor]

By posting the quote I did not mean to imply that you are. Sorry if it seemed so.

No apology needed! Seriously, I didn’t think you or anyone else was implying that. This conversation has been pleasant. No worries on my part, sister!

 

[lynnie]

Huh? They measured the light coming from a star at different times of the year. Maybe this was a different experiment from the one you are thinking of?

“Always the speed of light was precisely the same…Thus, failure [of Michelson-Morley] to observe different speeds of light at different times of the year suggested that the Earth must be ‘at rest’…It was therefore the ‘preferred’ frame for measuring absolute motion in space. Yet we have known since Galileo that the Earth is not the center of the universe. Why should it be at rest in space?”

- Adolf Baker, Modern Physics & Antiphysics, pp. 53-54 (Addison-Wesley, 1972).

“The data were almost unbelievable… There was only one other possible conclusion to draw — that the Earth was at rest....“This, of course, was preposterous”

- Bernard Jaffe, Michelson and the Speed of Light, 1960, p. 76

Significant quote here...are you going to argue with Hawking's comments? ( underlines mine)

"...to the question whether or not the motion of the Earth in space can be made perceptible in terrestrial experiments. We have already remarked... that all attempts of this nature led to a negative result. Before the theory of relativity was put forward, it was difficult to become reconciled to this negative result."

- 'Relativity — The Special and General Theory', cited in Stephen Hawking's, 'A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion', 2007, p. 169.

"Soon I came to the conclusion that our idea about the motion of the Earth with respect to the ether is incorrect, if we admit Michelson’s null result as a fact. This was the first path which led me to the special theory of relativity....[...]...I have come to believe that the motion of the Earth cannot be detected by any optical experiment, though the Earth is revolving around the Sun.”

- Albert Einstein, in a speech titled: “How I Created the Theory of Relativity,” delivered at Kyoto University, Japan, Dec. 14, 1922, as cited in Physics Today, August, 35 (8), 45, 1982, by Yoshimasa A. Ono.

“The Earth is indeed the center of the Universe. The arrangement of quasars on certain spherical shells is only with respect to the Earth. These shells would disappear if viewed from another galaxy or quasar. This means that the cosmological principle will have to go. Also it implies that a coordinate system fixed to the Earth will be a preferred frame of reference in the Universe. Consequently, both the Special and General Theory of Relativity must be abandoned for cosmological purposes.”

- Y. P. Varshni, “The Red Shift Hypothesis for Quasars: Is the Earth the Center of the Universe?” Astrophysics and Space Science 43 (1): 3 (1976).

A few words about the gravitational ether, and the ether concept in general may be in place here. The ether hypothesis was thought to be buried by the Michelson-Morley experiment, but today it is more alive than ever, in the form of the CBR [Cosmic Background Radiation]: experiments capable of finding the ether were not possible in the 1880s, but were possible in the 1960s. In a sense, the electromagnetic ether has always been observed – as the heat of the Sun (since as pointed out, CBR is reprocessed photons)…. All the main cosmological, astrophysical and physical facts: the gravity and Olbers paradoxes, redshift effects and CBR, gravitation and radiation, and the existence of particles can be conceived in the framework of this ether concept."

- “Action-at-a-Distance and Local Action in Gravitation,” in Pushing Gravity, ed., Matthew Edwards, pp. 157-159.

https://christian-wilderness.forumvi.com/t569-geocentricity-ordered-quotes

You really ought to read this list, go look up Megs list posted before, look up anything you can find by Sungenis, maybe Malcolm Bowden. Plenty of physics guys out there...Gerhardus Bouw is one. I don't mind posting quotes because I love love love this subject...but in truth, its been beaten to death before here so I will give it a rest lol.