A Universal Flood: No Other Option

Introduction

Was Noah’s flood local or universal? As this question is highly divisive between scientists and theologians, the answer to be defended will be presented up front. Universal. From a theological point of view, this must be the case. The questions then become, “Why must this be the case?” and “Why do scientists always disagree with this idea?” After answering these two questions, an attempt will be made to explain a moderately satisfactory answer to scientists as to why the theological point of view does not disagree with the most recent scientific investigation.

Who are the "Sons of God"?

Introduction

There is a controversial passage of the Bible in the book of Genesis. The passage is as follows, Genesis 6:1-4:

Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.  Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

            The controversy is a threefold question, best summarized as follows: Who are the “sons of God”, what are the “Nephilim” and what are the effects of the answers to these questions?

            There are many answers to this three-fold question and they fall roughly into three basic viewpoints. (1) The Angel View (2) The Seth Line View (3) The Sociology View.

The Angel View

Adherents to this view claim that the phrase “Sons of God” in these verses refers to fallen angels, or demons as they are often called. They arrive at this conclusion based mostly on the use of the phrase “sons of God” in Job 1:6 and 38:7. In the context of Job, the phrase clearly means angels and not men.  In Genesis, these demons took on a human form and slept with human women producing offspring of super human size and strength, due to their half demonic genetics. These offspring are what Genesis refers to as “The Nephilim,” which is also translated “giants.”

The question of motive on the parts of the Demons is often brought into play in this view. It says that throughout biblical history the devil or the head demon or serpent who originally tempted man into falling from fellowship with God, had been trying to eliminate the pure human line from which the messiah would come to destroy him as prophesied in Genesis 3:15. Proponents of the angel view often point to the demonic dilution of the human gene as one of those attempts to keep the messiah from being born.

This view also, then, informs its adherents about angels and some powers that they possess when it comes to taking a human form, and their ability to reproduce. These “facts” about angels are also the biggest deterrents of this view, as other passages clearly indicate that the opposite is true of angels. For example, angles are spirits, not material creatures (Heb 1:14) and Angels do not marry (Matt 22:30). The angel view's answers to the threefold question can be summarized: (1) The “sons of God” are fallen angels. (2) “The Nephilim” are the offspring of fallen angels mating with humans. (3) The effects of the angel view call into question what we know about angels, as well as Satan’s ultimate prompting motive behind huge events of evil in the OT. [1]

My Country Used to Have a Constitution

My country used to have a constitution, but sadly it no longer does. I say constitution by what the word used to mean, not in the way that it means nothing, as it does today. Let me explain.

            
Constitution comes from the root constitute. As in made of. Formed from. If a woman is pregnant, and the pregnancy weakens her constitution, then it took a lot out of her. It made what she was made of less durable. It made her less her. A constitution for a country is what the country is made of. The stuff it’s formed from. The principles it stands for. In the case of the United States of America, it was made of a set of principles. The document that we call The Declaration of Independence, the precursor to the “constitution” of the United States of America, says as much in its first few lines. “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” In modern language, “This is the stuff our country will be made of, formed from, stand for. The following principles will define our country.”

           

Creation... Yes, I said Creation

Introduction

It has been argued down through the ages that the world has had a number of different beginnings. Rather, there are a number of different arguments that attempt to explain the beginning of the world. In general these arguments can be divided into two main camps. Camp one: someone, somehow, created the world. Camp two: the world became this way by a complicated series of chances. These Two camps, according to C. S. Lewis, can be classified “the religious view,” and “the materialist view.”[1] In this paper, these two camps will loosely be titled “Creationism” and “Evolutionism.” The former being that camp which says someone created the world, the latter being that the world evolved this way. Within both camps there are a number of various views, too numerous to detail here, but in general they all boil down to one of these two views. There are also large groups of people who believe an odd hybrid of the two. There are a number of these hybrids. The point being made is that consensus on this subject is far, far away.