What does it mean to be created from the dust of the ground?

User Posts : 364 Join date : 2010-05-02

Hi all,
Do you believe this Genesis text should be taken literally?
Regards
Derek

Hi Derek,

This might be a leap too far and too fast, but I watching an episode of How The Universe Works a few days ago and in it, it said (I think) that Einstein stated that:

Matter is energy that has infused itself into atoms.

This seems to match the scientific idea of living matter with the Genesis account of matter taking on life through spirit.

However, I wanted to find something online that might support what I think was said on the programme. This is about the closest I got:

Matter consists of atoms held together by electromagnetic forces.

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast122/lectures/lec03.html

Curiously, the webpage also says this:

The law of the conservation of energy means that energy can neither be created or destroyed, only transformed from one form to another.

If we substitute ‘spirit’ for ‘energy’ here, I sense the idea of the spirit going back to God after death.

The articles also states that:

energy is a measure of the ability of a physical system to perform work (i.e. to change the system) and is measured in ergs.

Below this definition there is a picture of a machine but I wonder could the principle be applied to human beings and our expenditure of energy measured in ergs?

Regards,
Brendan.

User Posts : 364 Join date : 2010-05-02

Hi Brendan,
We certainly convert food into energy to drive our organ systems and muscles. When we do work we also expend energy in the form of heat, as you quoted, no energy is created or destroyed, but there is a change of state.

Regarding Spirit and matter; I used to think the Holy Spirit operated throughout the universe at the quantum level. I suspect now that man has not even got a toe in the ocean of knowledge of the First Causes' universe/multiverse or whatever it is, and however many dimension there are.

I suspect the subatomic particles making up the atom, may have a 'universe' within them and, perhaps, the whole universe is a sub, sub, something else, much bigger.

With the wider view, science and faith can peacefully coexist and we do not endlessly have keep thinking a scientist may explode our creationist assertions of intelligent design. We do not worry if intermediate forms of life are found, because we know God did not have to populate a planet with life made according to our own, or anyone else's, limited knowledge or paradigm.

I think our size must be irrelevant to God, all he wants is for us is to come to love as he loves and his love transcends, time, space and matter. We may be made of matter (earth stuff), but God does not need modulated electromagnetic radiation to communicate with us. Smile

Regards
Derek

User Posts : 8 Join date : 2010-08-01

I think our Father was using it to explain our orgin. I think your term "earth matter" seems good. We are a creation, and our creation was tied to the earth. He then placed that creation in an 'eden'. Which was an elevated position in constant communion with Father and Jesus, and in a position of Authority over other 'Earth matter" creation.

When men 'fell' from the position God had granted them, because they wanted their own power and authority, he gave them what they were created with, and they were now in subject to other creation. Man being of the earth does not have power over death, for God is the giver of life, and they turned away from him in favor of themselves.

User Posts : 339 Join date : 2010-05-12

Derek wrote:: Hi all,
Do you believe this Genesis text should be taken literally?
Regards
Derek

More appropriately, IF NOT, then when or where and by what criteria do we seperate that which is literal from that which is not.

Was Abraham a real man? All the Jews believed so.

How about Enoch? Yep, real.

SO, then, if Adam was NOT, why not, and again, under what criteria do the names in genesis become 'real people'.

?

sunny

What does it mean to be created from the dust of the ground?

Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (RV)

Gen 3:19 in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (RV)

I conclude that this tells us what happened in a literal manner. I think it corresponds well to the scientific view of how energy and matter are related.

Much of the story of Genesis is allegorical, a picture story to give us a simple version of supernatural phenomenon (e.g. the tree of life) and supernatural events (the cherubim blocking re-entry to the garden). Some phenomena and some events seem to be literal. Eden is described in a way that seems to locate it around the source of the four rivers mentioned in the account. Human bodies do really return to the ground to become earth again, so I’m inclined to believe they really were made from the soil.

I wrote an essay some time ago that tries to compare the symbolism of Genesis and Relevation at:

https://brendan.forumotion.com/e-f9/eden-literal-or-allegorical-t11.htm#38

User Posts : 364 Join date : 2010-05-02

Hi Brendan,
I read what you wrote and I thought it a very balanced approach.

Because of the way the Genesis creation account is written it is timeless. The YEC, like the flat Earther, is hung up on a very literal restrictive interpretation of what the text says.
It is basically about God reaching out to man and how his purpose is to do so in the future and give us life in abundance.

It also about our need to be dependent on God, rather than ourselves.

To me, its speaks of the God that prepared the Earth and 'made' life, also intelligent life, and caused the comprehension of a loving God to be possible. It does not restrict God from allowing this world to develop in diverse ways, it does not make the existence of other men, including Neanderthals outside of Eden, impossible. Neither does it make the cycle of nature a consequence of human sin.

God allowed a world and universe of change and decay to develop and exist.

It is his future promises which we know will liberate us from oblivion and staying as dust.

'Made' is such a little word in connection with God's work, but no one really knows the answer as to how Biologos occurred.

God bless
Derek

brendan wrote:: What does it mean to be created from the dust of the ground?

Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (RV)

Gen 3:19 in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (RV)

I conclude that this tells us what happened in a literal manner. I think it corresponds well to the scientific view of how energy and matter are related.

Much of the story of Genesis is allegorical, a picture story to give us a simple version of supernatural phenomenon (e.g. the tree of life) and supernatural events (the cherubim blocking re-entry to the garden). Some phenomena and some events seem to be literal. Eden is described in a way that seems to locate it around the source of the four rivers mentioned in the account. Human bodies do really return to the ground to become earth again, so I’m inclined to believe they really were made from the soil.

I wrote an essay some time ago that tries to compare the symbolism of Genesis and Relevation at:

https://brendan.forumotion.com/e-f9/eden-literal-or-allegorical-t11.htm#38