Mainly for the joy of crafting figures of speech, I’ve …

Comment on Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation by Wesley Kime.

Mainly for the joy of crafting figures of speech, I’ve wanted to drop a couple onto this thread dealing with re-re-rewording our FB#6 – #6 got fritzed and our ever-bigger tent guy-wired – but that wouldn’t go over too well with anybody, even, I don’t suppose, Sean. And rightly so. I’d be rather lonely. Anyway, it isn’t what needs to be said.

What I needed to say is that, Like Sean, I have been a tad surprised, at least upon first reading, at the lack of enthusiasm, by EduTruth’s sympathizers, for rewriting #6. Sean seems to be rather alone around here. So I wanted to assure him he isn’t. I for one stand with him, no ifs, ands, buts, or synecdoches. Rewrite #6 (even if that sounds like a bumper stocker).

That said, I’ll have to say that, upon second reading, I can understand the loyal objections, and sympathize. (I can also apprehend instantly the expected disloyal objections and shall dismiss them without ado.) Rewriting #6 to the same degree of granite-hard certainty as the tables of stone upon which God’s own finger etched His commandments as clearly as anything ever written on anything, or even as clearly as LSU’s new construction bonds constructed of concrete, would hardly slow down those hellbent upon hermeneuticizing the starch out of it, or for that matter all the rest, 27 I believe, so why bother?

It should be rewritten anyway. Sean’s reasons as presented in his lead essay and his rejoinders, and those of the GC resolution mandating the rewriting, are already diamond hard and crystal clear, gems that can stand alone, warranting only admiration and affirmation, not anticlimactic and necessarily inferior recapitulation.

I need but add my amen – amen! – and, if I may, an appendix, to wit: So why FB#6 in the first place? Paul has the answer, again: Gal 3:19 ESV (one word paraphrased): “Why then the FB#6? It was added because of transgression.” And then of course Paul can’t resist a figure of speech (love his figures of speech): It is our teacher.

Plus this: it wasn’t necessary, certainly not God’s ideal, that Israel have a king, but He agreed, and Israel got Saul, who had to be rewritten, and David, who wrote psalms replete with figures of speech (the Lord is my shepherd), whom God loved. In that spirit let the church rewrite #6, this time not as an toy balloon that can be blown big and let loose phritz-z-zing into the big tent, but as settled matter, like a rock, written correctly and accurately and unmistakably and purposefully, just as Dr. Pitman writes his pathology reports. No figures of speech but a lot of prayers, much praying and fasting (a figure of speech, if you must), praying and pleading for the Holy Spirit, more necessary than any committee’s re-word processor, and without which any rewriting, however solid, is a house built upon sand.

But all this rewriting won’t be for my benefit. I didn’t even know FBs existed or that there was a moot #6, or how it had been rewritten, or why, until I learned of it here. I’m not an FB man (either Fundamental Belief or FaceBook). (I’ve never gone ballistically catechistic, may I say.) I’ve always gone to the source, to Genesis 1, or the Commandments, the KJV or (as I currently favor) the ESV, and EGW, which are clear enough and good enough for me, thanks not a little to their exquisite figures of speech.

Wesley Kime Also Commented

Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Bill Sorensen: “I don’t know if anyone has really been able to follow your thinking…”

A tad, a smidgeon, just slightly overstated maybe? Just a tad, just a smidgeon, at the cost of not a few dislikes? Well, I for one do follow it. And with great admiration. Great.


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
FB 6 must be reworded forthwith, rightly, and tightly. And to achieve that degree of certainty, look no further than the proven team of California lawyers that crafted those religious stipulations for LSU’s construction bonds, iron-clad against all ifs, ands, or rebuts. But then Phillip Brantley would need to explain to Chuck Scriven that it’s only boilerplate, no cause for raised hackles, please.


Recent Comments by Wesley Kime

Dr. Walter Veith and the anti-vaccine arguments of Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche
Informative and stimulating, but proceeding into more confusion. A veteran of Moderna vaccinations, I trust, hope, they are effective, at least until otherwise. The whole business, being part of End Times, is in the hands of God, not humans expert and as degreed as they may be.


Brilliant and Beautiful, but Wrong
Brilliant, beautiful, and so right! Speaking of your presentation at LLU recently. Great to see you and your family (especially my namesake, Wes. God bless! WK


Complex Organisms are Degenerating – Rapidly
@Bob Helm: Dr. Sanford is very familiar to most of us. He was invited to speak at LLU several years ago and I and a great many were privileged to hear him.


Evolution from Space?
Hats off yet again to Sean for pursuing this topic as a scientist should, no nonsense, and in it’s proper setting — as a revival of one of the ancient ideas recently upgraded as a desperate alternative to the increasingly compelling intelligent design data. I had occasion to review panspermia a few years ago and as is my wont I found it more amusing than scientific. If you would like what was intended to be a satirical response to panspermia and other related curiosities you could check out: http://www.iessaythere.com/black-hole-humor.html
Meantime, Sean’s article is of far more cogent worth.


The Sabbath and the Covenants (Old vs. New)
As he has done on this site many times, Sean in his line-by-line-item response to C. White (not EG or EB) has, to my mind, clearly enunciated the issue and resolution.

When all the hermeneutics, quoting, and arguing and inordinately judgmental riposte are over, it comes down, as I understand it, to two things: 1) Whether the 7th day Sabbath (whether enunciated in the famous 10 commandments or otherwise) is still valid, and 2) Does the grace obtained by the vicarious sacrifice by the shedding of Christ’s blood or other divine process too deep for us to understand in this life, cover every sin automatically and without ado, altogether passively on our part, or is it only on condition that we first totally and deeply accept it? Other details always hassled forever are distractions.

I accept that I must accept it, wholly, actively, even with agony, with my whole being.