Introduction to the form and function of this blog

Evolutionary Eschatology / Introduction

This is a theological, philosophical, and practical exploration that has helped me think through various issues related to our purpose/function on Earth.

I look to reconcile modern science (as well as a lay-enthusiast can), including biological evolution, with the most reliable biblical scholarship (where my training is). Then to make applicable sense of it for me as a human (all of us).

I don’t claim originality in anything I put down here. I did however start with my own concerns and questions. I followed the answers in academics, trying to reconcile them with MA work in theology, ancient near east, and linguistics & semantics. I’ve continued learning and attempting to reconcile my concerns over the years. I’ve purposefully waited to find like minded people to see if the logic, science, and biblical hermeneutics would reconcile themselves when reliably done. I wanted to see if it could lead to coherent, practical conclusions in a semi-vacuum. But I didn’t want to overthink anything. It made sense to me that if reconciliations do exist, they should be pretty simple and obvious when seen from the proper perspective. The intellectualizing of theology is a grave danger. The foot is supposedly level at the foot of the cross. The Truth damn well better be clear and obvious to the under-educated.

Turns out, it seems most of my conclusions are part of a sort of collective conscious around mankind’s relationship to the Earth. Evolution has brought more questions to the forefront about our place as participants in a mutually beneficial ecosystem. These are things some activist and spiritual groups have been pushing for decades (centuries?), while more and more people are coming to these same kinds of conclusions from an increasing number of starting points. Sciences of all kinds, new age philosophy, buddhism, critics of destruction of all kinds, atheists, and now Christians. We all have something in common with these conclusions: we all seem to agree that this is something we all ‘once knew’. That it’s knowledge we humans once had that we lost at some point. Knowledge we need to return to.

Christians have had text that teaches just this all along, yet we are some of the last to recognize it.

-

My particular writings are not vetted scholarly theological statements. I’ve applied my trained sets of hermeneutic principles, filters, logic / rhetoric, and study, to come to these theories and questions. Now I submit them to others who are interested, to develop with me, thoughtfully validate, or thoughtfully invalidate.

I’ve been working this stuff out in my notes app for about 10 years through various seasons of interest. They address lifelong questions, but 10 years of more focused work on it. I have a couple hundred notes — some are small thoughts, others ramblings and rants. Some ideas are more developed than others. I’ll clean them up and try and piece it all out before posting, but what I post, I still consider to be of draft quality. Because of this, I’ll be posting content out of rhetorical order. I’ll do my best to use tags and a table of contents to organize the ideas into a rhetorical structure.

This is a working document, though still perhaps a personal manifesto. I want to dialogue and input from anyone who’s interested, and then edit as I go. I’ll see if there are ways to include new edits to RSS notifications.

I’ve foregone a lot of citation opportunities and didn’t take the time to produce a scholarly effort here. I use a lot of biblical, scientific, and literary allusion. If you see something and know its citation, comment with it for me with quoted text if you know what I’m referencing. It’d be nice to have everything well cited.

-

I disavow the responsibility of ‘teacher’ in this context. These are my explorations, open for others to share their own exploration of similar territory. I believe James that teachers will be judged more harshly. I don’t accept that designation until or unless it’s delegated to me by suitably accountable authorities.

Much of the theory here will be stated as if fact. I think this is normal for theoretical works. I’ll try to signal my level of conviction so the reader can discern what is a posit and what I think is exclusively true. It might move in and out of these registers fluidly. I hope it doesn’t cause issues. If places are unclear I’m happy to clarify.

Some sections are thought experiments. For these I let my imagination go. These should be clearly marked according to their purpose. Some suggest far out realities that could still be biblically plausible. Others are not attempts to present a theologically consistent theory, but look at something purely hypothetically in order to explore an idea / concept.

Forgive a good amount of repetition and verbosity:

First, I’ve been in awe as I’ve explored the ins and outs of all this. So surprised at how many approaches circle back to the same conclusions about Genesis and our God-ordained function, and purpose here on Earth. So each time a train of thought arrives back here, we have a new opportunity to consider it in a different light.

Second, this stuff is new for me, and difficult to consider carefully when it challenges the worldview I was raised to have. Being concise doesn’t serve this process well. It makes sense that it would take a lot of plodding effort to untangle millennia of peppered-in false beliefs and assumptions mistaken as doctrine.

Related posts:

Teknologi Blockchain memiliki potensi untuk memperkuat metode ilmiah dengan menyediakan sistem buku besar abadi dan transparan yang dapat digunakan untuk para ilmuwan dalam menyimpan data eksperimen…

We all know age gates. For those who are not familiar with it, they are also known as “Adult Verification Systems’’ these are computing systems used by websites to confirm that users attempting to…

Stories lie at the cusp of real and unreal. The point of the story is real, and the hyperbole is unreal. Without the exaggeration and the mythical component, we might not have read it. The unreal is…