Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: BVAUGHAN@pucc.princeton.edu (Barbara Vaughan) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Human ==> imperfection? Message-ID: Date: 15 Jul 89 08:07:24 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 29 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , hall@vice.ico.tek.com >[In article >sjreeves@eedsp.gatech.edu (Stan Reeves) responded to a comment by >tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Ts'o). Theodore was talking about the >Bible, like other human creations, being imperfect. Steve was >concerned that this implied an imperfection on the part of Christ. >--clh] > >Most of us believe in a perfect God who created men who became >imperfect... >...he allows freedom among his creations which allow them to be >imperfect. I agree with this, and would go even further: the whole of ceation is by design imperfect by virtue of the fact that it is finite. Our finite knowledge cannot comprehend the whole of divine knowledge; our imperfect human language cannot express perfectly the Divine Word. It is obvious that at the time the New Testament was written, it was perf- ectly acceptable to interpret Old Testament scriptures allegorically. There are frequent examples of allegorical interpretations given to scripture by Christ and the apostles. I think it is a particularly 20th century delusion to think that everthing can be resolved to im- mutable facts. Speaking of allegory, we could profit from an allegorical inter- pretation of the story of the Tower of Babel. Any human attempt to attain perfect knowledge of the Mind of God results in confusion and division. Barbara Vaughan