@Sean Pitman: I believe this thread started out as …

Comment on GC Delegates Vote to Tighten Language of Fundamental #6 on Creation by wesley kime.

@Sean Pitman: I believe this thread started out as a report on the revision of our creation doctrine (#6) by the GC2015, but it has evolved into original sin, again. I just don’t understand evolution.

wesley kime Also Commented

GC Delegates Vote to Tighten Language of Fundamental #6 on Creation
@Sean Pitman: No, what it comes down to is this: If God, by some failure of memory, had not informed Adam and Eve of the consequences of not eating the apple, and they ate it, would it have been the original Sean or the Sean of ignorance? You may not want to publish this. Which would be a un-venial Sean. Now then, and meanwhile, back to doctrine 6.


GC Delegates Vote to Tighten Language of Fundamental #6 on Creation
But seriously, whether by original-mindless-sin or by mindful-sin — the matter is everlastingly discussed and so familiar but I always forget the latest technical terms employed — is this truly THE “overriding” endtime issue? Is it not true that in “Adam all have sinned,” knowingly or unknowingly? And anyway is it not true that every last person reading THIS blog and hearing this issue, again, is among those who indeed have known the law and the prophets and the gospel and the Word, plus some proprietary embellishments, having heard and having grown up knowing and being taught all that? Can anybody reading this really claim “ignorant sin”? (There are ignorant sinners on this planet, but they don’t read this blog, do they?) And is it not true that the redeemer is Christ, through the Holy Spirit, through the Father? And does it not follow that the proof of His office is creation, which is what He did in the beginning, as well as in what He did when incarnated? And therefore would it not follow that how our belief in creation is worded – to represent the true Word of God – be an overriding issue? An overriding endtime issue? When that gospel, the gospel of redemption and only Christ as redeemer, is given to all the world, then, and only then – is it not true? Is not that an issue? – the end shall come. And maybe even the end of this particular back-and-forth. Well, what IS true is that it’s tough for me to write this without resorting to italics or (not knowing HTML) caps.


Recent Comments by wesley kime

Beyond the Creation Story – Why the Controversy Matters
@Ken: Ken, re. yours of May 31, 15 12:42 pm: … those standing up for FB28 have every right to do so…until they [presumably the FBs, not the communicants, although either could be changed in a twinkling of any eye] are democratically changed.”

FB28? What’s that? You probably know better than I. Genesis 1 I can quote; FB28 I can’t. And won’t bother to check. I couldn’t even tell you where to find those FBs. I read what you say more assiduously than the FBs. (What’s FB? FaceBook?)

In the first place I think you’ve got Adventism wrong, or at least Adventism as I know it. Well, maybe you haven’t, the postmodernist kind anyway. I’m pre-catechistic, ergo prehistoric, alas. I’m that old.

FB28 or whatever it is, if it WERE changed, democratically or otherwise, dramatically or creepingly, by evolution or edict, even if expunged and expurgated in the interest of big-tent accord, which seemed on the verge of happening pre-T. Wilson, and may yet, I wouldn’t even know it until I saw it here. You’d know before I would.

With or without and despite FB28 or whatever, or EduTruth, I’d still honor Genesis 1. I’d honor it, A, by faith, because the Bible, i.e. God, says so. A validated faith validated by B, The evidence, good scientific falsifiable evidence. And C, the consummate cosmic multi-vectored syllogism. Everything fits.

Seriously, though, discussion has to start somewhere and be referenced by something, for convenience if not citizenship. But I’d prefer to start, if granted “every right,” with Genesis 1, at the beginning.


Dr. Ariel Roth’s Creation Lectures for Teachers
@Ken: “something Dr. Kime said struck a very strange chord in me: that a Chair in ID at Harvard would be a quantum leap (forward – my edit) while such a Chair would be a step backward at LSU. I’ m very sorry Wes, but for me to honestly investigate reality, such double standard is not acceptable. …[therefore] I think I’m coming to the end of my Adventist journey.”

I can, of course, dear friend, understand why, and respect that, you would see the two directions of leaping, forward and backward, by Harvard and LSU, as a double standard.

But might it also be seen as simple Einsteinian Relativity? It all depends on from whence you’re starting or observing. Two venues, Harvard vs. LSU, two vectors, not two standards. At any rate, a parting of our ways. The Chair did it. A very unlucky ill-omened Chair, from the start.

Parting — that indeed is sad, especially this parting. I grieve too. In sadness we are agreed. That’s not double speak; only you could I say that to.

For these several years you, and your courteous ways, even your questions, have been most fascinating, even endearing, inspiring to both poetic and, I now regret, rasping response. I’ve so much enjoyed your postings, always looked for them first, and appreciated your uncommon patience and politeness, and our camaraderie in the bomb shelter and on the grandstand. Too bad the Chair, our double bed, didn’t work out.

As benediction, maybe we can all get together again, somewhere. Meanwhile, the Mizpah, which I think I should be the one to deliver, seeing it was, you say, my one-liner that was the last straw, for which I’ll get heck all around, and rightly so: “The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” Genesis 31:49.

What the heck, have some popcorn for the road. And don’t forget your cyber plaque. You will be remembered, appreciated, thought about, prayed for. Do come back soon.

Until then, your jousting friend, W


Strumming the Attached Strings
@Phillip Brantley: Excellent! I shall quote you: “learn something from Sean Pitman.” Indeed, indeed — there’s so much to learn from that man.


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.


What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
@Ervin Taylor: Out of purely poetic symmetry of rhetoric, Ervin, your trademark whimsical “…I guess someone who rejects…” is asking for — I was waiting for it! — a Pitman’s “I guess someone who accepts…” Lovely diptych, ping and pong.