0118 Now, to close this examination of Walton’s chapter two, on methodology, I present the general sign that takes shape within the confounding of the Lost World Project.

0119 This will serve as a model for the results section of Walton’s book.

0120 Walton’s book is structured like a scientific presentation.  There are five sections: introduction (chapter 1), methods (2), results (3-8), discussion (9) and conclusion (10).

So far, this examination has looked at the introduction and methods.

These are crucial to the Lost World of Genesis Project.  The book is about new explorations within this project.

0121 Chapter three presents the first result.  The Creation Story (Genesis 1-2.3) concerns function and order, instead of physical and material things.

The claim stands under the label of “functional ontology”.  Of course, “function” is a modern term that covers final causes₁, that is, intentions₁.  “Ontology” is the logos (“the word”) of being (“ontos”).  Being is relational.  Matter is material.  When it comes to mediation₃, being and material both belong with matter₁.

Further explorations add the idea of order.  “Order” describes the formal design₁ of God’s creative activity.

0122 Here is a picture of Walton’s view of the Creation Story as a sequence of mediations.  Four terms stand out, the rest fall into the background.  Well, the rest are precisely what Walton regards as given for his Lost World approach.

Here is a picture.

Note how all the elements in secondness are emphasized in the Lost World approach.  The efficient cause₂ includes the cultural river of the ANE₂.  The formal requirement₂ is that a human author₂ composes the script as an instrument of God.  The form₂ is the text for each Genesis day.

The Lost World goal is to lock down mediation₃, matter₁, formal design₁ and final causes₁.

0123 From Walton’s point of view, the mediation₃ is the author₃ writing the Genesis script₃ or envisioning the narrative₃ or witnessing a vision₃.

0124 What is this author-visionary witnessing for the Creation Story?

For each day, the author witnesses something that is not formed or functional (matter) transforming into something that is (form).

The efficient cause₂ for narrating the vision includes the cultural river₂ of the ANE and the formal requirement₂ is that the author is a human₂ working as an instrument of God.

Given the efficient causes₂, formal requirements₂ and form₂, the mediation₃ must be a visionary narrating₃ what he has witnessed (matter₁).

Matter₁ is the contents of the vision.  Matter₁ is mediated into the current text for each Genesis day (form₂).

Here is a picture.

0125 Walton’s inquiries into the Biblical text and the literature of the ANE demonstrate that the formal design₁ of the Creation Story operates to formalize the origins of order in the minds of the audience₁.

The audience is the Israelites, returning from Babylonian exile.

0126 Also, the final cause for this story is to impress the lesson that God creates order.  Order and function go together.  Walton calls it the “order spectrum”.  A thing that is properly ordered is completely functional.  A thing that is not properly ordered can range from sort of functional to dysfunctional to broken.

Needless to say, Judah being carried off to captivity goes into the bin labeled, “broken”.

0127 What does the author’s mediation imply?

The Lost World approach seems to impose its own language of meaning, presence and message onto the Genesis 1 text.

How so?

It regards the author’s mediation₃ as authoritative.

On one hand, the above mediation does not consider “matter” as the modern scientific equivalent to “physical”.  So, straightforward or direct concordist approaches are… well… not “authoritative”.  Only fools need apply.

0128 On the other hand, the sign in the entangled Lost World approach cannot avoid the significance of what the visionary appears to be seeing, which ends up as a description of some type of process where matter that is not formends up as the day’s form.

Here is a picture of the substantiation and the entanglement.

How confounding.

Each Genesis day (SV) depicts the creation of a form (SO) that entangles a natural-sign relation (SI), where the form (SV_SI) stands for matter (SV_SI) in regards to a corresponding epoch in the Earth’s evolutionary record (SI_SI).

What does this imply?

Are concordists back in business?

0129 Let me take day one as an example.

Here is a picture of the Lost World confounding.

0130 The matter consists of something witnessed by a visionary’ on the first day of six days of visions.

The form is what comes into existence during each day.  These forms are listed by Walton on pages 98-99, in response to a frequently asked question.  Why cannot the Creation Story portray both the origination of the material world, as well as an establishment of order?

0131 [Stands for] is the substance.

[In regards to] is the entanglement.

The entangled matter is a sign-relation, where the form (of day and night, SV_SI) stands for what is portrayed in day one (matter, such as a wind moving over waters and so on, SO_SI) in regards to an indication of the unseen elements of a corresponding mediation (the normal context₃ of divine creation₃ and the potentials₁ of time-based order₁ and the functionality of darkness and light in a solar system₁, SI_SI).

0132 Let me recap.

The Lost World hylomorphe of {the matter of the Genesis verses in each day [substantiates] an observable form} entangles semiotic matters, because the Genesis verses in each day (SV) stand for an observable form (SO).  So, there must be a sign-interpretant (SI)

0133 Entangled matter embodies that sign-interpretant (SI).

The sign-interpretant (SI) as matter consists of a natural sign-relation (icon, index and symbol) where an observable form (SV_SI) stands for what is portrayed in the Genesis verses in each day (SO_SI) on the basis of imaging, pointing to or representing the off-screen elements of a mediation serving as the normal context₃ and potentials₁ for that particular day₂ (SI_SI).

0133 In other words, the Lost World confounding takes the shape of a sign-relation.  Matter is the SV. Form is the SO.  Entangled matter is the SI.

Plus, the sign-interpretant (SI) of that sign-relation is itself a natural sign-relation that keys into, not a human mediation, but a divine mediation.

0134 Note how the elements in secondness₂ for the human and divine mediation remain the same.

The mediation₃ differs between human actor₃ (for the Lost World) and divine actor₃ (for… what the Lost World approach entangles).

For the human actor, the visionary narrates₃.

For the divine action, the vision proceeds₃.

0135 The matter₁, for both, are the contents of the vision.

0136 The formal design₁ for the human mediation₃ is the establishment (or maybe, rationalization) of order₁… I mean… origins₁.

The formal design₁ for the divine mediation₃ is the creation (or maybe, the manifestation) of the order that everyone can witness₁.

Including scientists?

0137 The final attributes₁ for the human mediation₃ includes God’s intention for humans to co-participate in His divine order₁.

The final attributes₁ for the divine mediation₃ includes God’s intention to… um… establish our world as functional₁.

0138 Overall, when Walton adds the cultural river to revealed matter in his Lost World interpretation of the Genesis text, he ends up with a human “thing” composed of the hylomorphe of {items in the text as matter [substantiates] whatever comes to exist as form}.  Walton’s objective is to comprehend what the “whatever” must be in terms of ancient Near East civilization.

0139 The Lost World thing (matter and form) entangles semiotic matter that makes it seem that [substantiates] takes the shape of [stands for] in a sign-relation.  Correspondingly, [entanglement] takes the shape of [in regards to].  So, the confounding becomes structured as a sign-relation where items in the text as matter (SV) stands for whatever comes to exist as form (SO) in regards to a sign-relation that images, indicates or symbolizes God’s mediation (SI).  Plus, mediation (as a triadic relation) gets reconfigured into a category-based nested form.

The sign-interpretant (SI) is a natural sign relation where the form of whatever comes to exist (SV_SI) stands for the matter that is portrayed in the verses of a particular Genesis day (SO_SI) in regards to picturing, pointing or representing the off-screen elements of the category-based nested form (that is, God as mediator₃, divine design₁ and divine intentions₁) (SI_SI).

0140 Let me try the argument again.

The Lost World hylomorphe appears in the following figure.  The entanglement appears as a wisp.

0141 Then a sequence of mumbo-jumbo operations follows.

The confounding takes the shape of a sign-relation whose sign-interpretant (SI) is a natural sign-relation that appears to reverse the SV and SO elements of the confounding-shaped sign-relation in the process of imaging, indicating and representing the normal context₃ and the potentials₁ of divine mediation.

After the mumbo-jumbo, if I resolve the confounding in favor of entanglement, then I get the following hylomorphe.

0142 What am I to make of these two figures?

Well, to me, it looks like the resolution of the semiotic incorporation in favor of entanglement is a mirror image of the Lost World hylomorphe.

0143 On the originating side of the mirror is the human as author in the cultural milieu of the ANE, the subject of inquiry for the Lost World approach.

On the entangled side of the mirror is a semiotic expression of God creating₃ according to His design₁ and intentions₁producing the object that the human author is trying to um... what is the correct word?… how about… “communicate”.

0144 If I were a medieval scholastic, I might use the technical terms, “ens rationis” for the originating side of the mirror and “ens reale” as the entangled side.

0145 Here is a picture.

0146 Walton’s Lost World approach emphasizes ens rationis.  In particular, Walton is interested in elucidating the author’s intentions within the civilizational milieu of the ANE.

0147 The Lost World thing is an actuality₂ where {descriptions from each Genesis day as matter [substantiate] something that comes into existence as a form in ens rationis (mind-dependent being)}₂.  This is typical for interpretation of a text.  The text is foundational.  The interpretation is derivative.

In sum, the Lost World thing₂ is contextualized by human mediation₃ operating on the author’s (culturally influenced) designs₁ and intentions₁.   The results are listed under ens rationis in the above figure.

0148 The irony is that this actuality₂ has the character of a dyad, {a sign-vehicle [stands for] a sign-object}, that expresses only two elements of a triadic relation.  A third element, a sign-interpretant, is bound to be entangled.

That is to say, “Descriptions from each Genesis day (as matter) (SV) stand for something that comes into existence (as form) (SO) on the basis, not necessarily of the modern Lost World interpretation (SI), but another SI that embodies the character of a natural sign.

0149 The sign-interpretant (SI) turns out to be a natural sign, where the sign-vehicle (SV_SI) is not the originating matter (descriptions from the Genesis day), but the interpreted form (the thing that apparently comes into existence as um… ens reale (mind-independent being)).

The interpreted form₂ (SV_SI) stands for the originating matter₂ (SO_SI) in regards to an image, an indication or a symbolization of a divine mediation₃ operating on divine design₁ and intentions₁ (SI_SI).

The implications are listed under ens reale in the above figure.

0150 What does this imply?

0151 Walton’s Lost World approach emphasizes the mind-dependent features (or ens rationis) of the Genesis text.  However, his approach entangles a sign-relation (that reshapes the ens rationis by acting as a sign-interpretant) that points to the mediation₃, formal causes₁ and final attributes₁ which stand off-stage of the Lost World actuality₂ of {Biblical textual matter [substantiating] interpreted form, informed by the cultural milieu of the ancient Near East}₂.

0152 Once the confounding takes hold, the Lost World approach faces reversal as the sign-interpretant that images, indicates or represents God’s mediation₃, designs₁ and intentions₁ transforms into matter that substantiates what is portrayed in each day (as form).

0153 Okay, let me say this all again, while looking at day two of the Creation Story.

0154 To start, here is the Lost World confounding.  

The hylomorphe is what the Lost World approach regards as the object of inquiry.  The form of the object of inquiryentangles a natural sign-relation.

0155 Once one realizes that what is formed in each Genesis day stands for the matter that is being portrayed from a God’s eye point of view, then Walton’s insistence that each Genesis day pertains to the generation of (human) order and not the material cosmion becomes problematic.

Why?

The day’s form (SV_SI) stands for what is being portrayed (SO_SI) in regards to a natural sign of that day’s divine mediation₃ (SI_SI).

This explains why, in the history of Christianity, the Latin concepts of creatio ex nihilo and creatio continua are subject to intense debates.

0156 This also explains why Christians in the modern world intuitively suspect that the Creation Story is a sign of the evolutionary record.

This examination presents the first explicit semiotic framework for such an implicit abstraction.

0157 If the confounding resolves in favor of the entanglement, then inquiry into how Genesis One is a sign of the evolutionary record is empowered.

0158 See Razie Mah’s e-book, Exercises in Artistic Concordism, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0159 Walton’s Lost World Project offers many advantages, but one of them is not an excuse to avoid the potential dangers of a comparison of the Creation Story and the Earth’s evolutionary record.  All confoundings are dangerous.  Yet, some of them are as wondrous as miracles.

Here is a picture comparing Walton’s and Mah’s results.

0160 Chapter three covers topics in the Creation Story (Genesis 1-2.3).  This examination has covered only portions of this chapter.  This is enough, I suppose, to establish that the Lost World approach cannot avoid entanglements.

Any time there is a thing, composed of matter and form, there is the possibility that the form will entangle apparently unrelated matter.  While this application of substantiation and entanglement is a tad long-winded, it shows the relevance and the reach of one of the significant discoveries of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics.

A confounding can take the shape of a sign-relation.

0161 In chapter four, Walton considers God resting in His temple of creation on the seventh day.

0162 In ancient southern Mesopotamia, when a god “rests” in a temple, its presence invisibly radiates order, in the same way that the sun radiates light.  The divine radiation empowers an unspoken agreement shared by all participants in the civilization, despite labor and social specializations.  The divine sustenance operates, despite wars among Sumerian cities and intra-urban conflicts.

0163 Note that the agreement is unspoken because, if one goes to temple, one may look upon the icon of the god and hear its voice, in a synaesthesia sort of way.  The god’s proclamation does not contain words like “order” or “social stability” or “anything that a modern intellectual might be willing to proclaim”.  The god’s visage tells the person what he or she already knows must be done.  In short, the presence of the god activates the human’s sensorium of transcendence.

That is Eric Voegelin’s term, by the way.

See his book, The New Science of Politics, published in the 1950s.

0164 Walton does not acknowledge this type of encounter, which greets the modern mind as hypotheses from… well… the frame of mind that one does not want to entangle.  Remember that the Creation Story is not about physical creation, it is about metaphysical creation.  Take a look at photos of Sumerian statuettes gazing upon the divine icon of their god.  The enormous eyes say it all.  Look and taste the wisdom of the Lord.

See Razie Mah’s e-book, Synaesthesia and the Bicameral Mind in Human Evolution, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0162 Now, let me see whether the last Genesis day fits the pattern of confounding and resolution proposed in this examination.

First, the Lost World confounding looks like this.

The mediation is in green.   The entanglement is in red.

0163 This confounding takes the shape of a sign-relation, where the sign-interpretant (the entangled matter) manifests as a sign-relation.  It’s almost as if the entangled matter offers an image, indication or representation of the mediation that contextualizes and potentiates the originating substantiation.

0164 Then, the confounding resolves in favor of entanglement, resulting in the following figure.

0165 Matter constellates the normal context of divine mediation₃, as well as its formal design₁ (not physical, but metaphysical) and its final attributes₁ (God intends to create a living image capable of sensing His Meaning, Presence and Message).

0166 On day seven, God rests in his temple of the cosmion of the world.

And…. Walton immediately shrinks that temple to the size of a ziggurat, which is large, but not as expansive as what the Christian imagines.

0167 After a bumbling transition, Genesis starts anew with verse 2.4, describing God’s formation of something that seems like an ancient Mesopotamian royal garden, located right next to the temple, where an icon of god radiates authority.

I wonder, what do authorities do?

Oh, they tell people not to do things.

0168 This is sort of confusing.  Are Adam and Eve fashioned to work the royal gardens as priests or to work the royal gardens as wardens, appointed by someone in charge of the icon of an ANE god?

In chapter five, Walton notes that Ephrem the Syrian (in the 300s AD) regards the Garden of Eden as a tabernacle and Adam and Eve as priests.  He goes on to say a whole lot more.  Yes, that is the Christian imagination at work.  Sometimes, the entanglement is dangerous.  Sometimes, the entanglement works like a miracle.  It is for the Body of Christ to decide, one way or another.  Danger leads to ruin.  Miracles lead to salvation.

0169 So, Walton originally agrees that Adam and Eve are (something like) priests in the sacred space of a divine garden.  The strongest evidence for Eden’s sacred status is the four rivers flowing from it.  At the same time, the strongest suggestion for the location of Eden is at the mouth of four rivers emptying into the infilling Persian Gulf, around 8800 years ago.

Oh, well.  I am going with the sacred space concept.

0170 Remember the structure of mediation and how it fits into a category-based nested form?

The question as to the nature of the divine garden arises when humans are placed in a realm (Eden) that expresses divine order.  In the second excursus, authored by the author’s son, J. Harvey Walton, order is located where God lives and manifests when God’s will is carried out.

Now, it seems that the order that radiates from the divine presence would be a place where humans would want to live.  However, in our current Lebenswelt, humans experience anthropocentric order, where some specialized authority tells them not to do this or that.  They no longer seem to respond to the radiance of the icon of god who is locked up in the city temple.

0171 There are good reasons why the icon of a god is locked in its temple.  First, when one gazes upon the god, the visual impact of the idol is heard by the supplicant.  Through synaesthesia, the god tells the supplicant what to do.  Second, the establishment cannot tolerate synaesthetic messaging willy-nilly.  For the safety of everyone concerned, the icon of the god is sequestered in a holy space, which, because it has been set-aside from regular human life, increases the power of the icon to register messages in other sensory modalities.

0172 Surely, this argument seems counter-intuitive.

I wonder whether the garden of Eden (like a holy space within the guarded temple in the city-states of ancient Mesopotamia) could be dangerous.

0173 For this reason, maybe a subtle shift in the imagery of a royal garden is called for.  Eden is not a place where God dwells in a human realm.  It is a place where humans dwell in a divine realm.  But, humans in the cultures of the ANE experience order in the human realm.  So, an audience hearing the opening of the Story of the Fall would envision Adam and Eve living in a royal order and a royal realm (rather than in a dangerous divine zone).

The royal realm is divine in a modest sort of way.

So, God telling Adam what not to do is sensible.

Royalty tells their subjects what not to do.

0174 Here is a picture of the mediation as a category-based nested form.

The normal context of human perceptions within a mediating divine order₃ brings the dyadic actuality of {Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden_1(?) [cultural river₂ as efficient cause & human as author₂ as formal design] wardens in royal garden}₂ into relation with the potential of ‘divine order perceived as royal order and divine intentions operating as functions in a royal realm’₁.

0175 Walton’s adjustment in the roles of Adam and Eve, from priests to wardens, cements the concept that Adam and Eve are archetypal figures.  They represent every man and every woman, rather than the first man and the first woman of humankind.  They are custodians, not parents.  They are placed in a divine space, oriented to divine order, but they experience the place as a royal garden, in which they are supposed to function as servants to the deity.

0176 All royal gardens have exotic flora and exotic fauna.

The two notable botanical specimens are the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (in the center of the garden) and the Tree of Life (not in the center).

Walton (the older author) originally considered the former to be a tree of wisdom.  Walton (the younger contributor) notes that when Eve imagines that the fruit will make one “wise”, the selected term might also be translated as intelligence, awareness or cleverness.  

0177 At this point, I would like to proceed through the semiotic steps of substantiation, entanglement, a confounding taking the shape of a sign-relation, and reversal within the sign-interpretant that resolves the confounding in favor of entanglement.

0178 The first three lines in the following figure depict Walton’s thing in regards to Genesis 2.4-3.

The hylomorphe is {the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the text as matter [substantiates] Walton’s tree of wisdom, now “cleverness”, in his ANE informed language of meaning}₂.

The form entangles something that acts like a sign-interpretant, thereby transforming the confounding into the shape of a sign-relation.

0179 When the sign-interpretant (SI) (as entangled matter) is rendered as a sign-relation, the substantiated form becomes the sign-vehicle (SV_SI).  The originating matter occupies the sign-object (SO_SI).  Also, the sign-interpretant within the sign-interpretant (SI_SI) images, indicates and represents the mediation, human perception₃, operating on the perceived design of royal (human, not divine) order₁ and our ability to perform explicit abstractions₁.

0180 Now, the dangerous confounding resolves in favor of the entanglement.

0181 With this resolution, the Waltons arrive at an incredible thing.

Remember that, according to Aristotle, a thing is a hylomorphe (matter [substantiates] form).

Let me go through four points.

0182 One, Adam and Eve perceive divine mediation₃ within a human construct₃.  God constructs a garden.  God manufactures humans to tend the divine garden.  The divine garden is a sacred space, but the manufactured humans perceive the space in terms of an authority who does not tell them what to do (like the icons of gods in the city temples in ancient Mesopotamia), but tells them what not to do (like the political elites of the city).

0183 Two, humans evolved to respond to divine signification.  When a person in an ancient Near East city attends temple, and gazes upon the icon of the temple’s god, their bicameral mind issues an injunction and the person hears that injunction.  The temple god tells the supplicant what to do.

See Synaesthesia and the Bicameral Mind in Human Evolution, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0184 Three, humans respond to signification from other humans.  For example, humans talk.  Talk engages specifying and exemplar sign-relations.  A command not to do something should be classified as a specifying sign-relation.  The command specifies what not to do.  The explanation associates to the exemplar sign-relation.

See Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) Semiotic Animal, in Razie Mah’s blog for October 2023.

0185 Four, there seems to be a disconnect.

Human awareness of divine signification yields a social construction, which is not necessarily sensible, but often offers missions that must be accomplished through sensible construction.  This is precisely what Julian Jaynes observes in the literature of early civilizations.  The gods don’t reason with people.  They just tell them what to do.  Yahweh tells Noah what to do.  Yahweh tells Abraham what to do.  Yahweh tells Moses what to do.

In concert with points one and three, in Eden, God tells Adam what he must not do, lest he die.  God acts as a royal administer, who tells His servant what not to do.  Plus, God offers a reason for the command.

0186 What about points two and four?

Early civilizations retain a certain mindset, that associates to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  Before the first singularity, humans practice sensible and social signification through hand-speech talk, which promotes implicit abstractions.  The icon of a god causes a person to hear its commands.  This may be classified as an implicit abstraction.

0187 The Story of the Fall of Adam and Eve, from the very start, pictures, points to and symbolizes our current Lebenswelt.  Speech-alone talk is practiced in our current Lebenswelt.  In hand-speech talk, one cannot distinguish between what is royal and what is divine because the terms, “royal” and “divine” are spoken labels.  They are explicit abstractions.

0188 So, is the disconnect (point four) between implicit and explicit abstraction?

The theodrama of the temptation of Eve portrays the fact that speech-alone talk allows a person to attach labels that alter the meaning, presence and the message of what is being labeled.  The serpent has no arms.  It cannot practice hand-speech talk.  It can only perform speech-alone talk.  Eve apparently does not have any training in the arts of speech-alone talk.  If she did, she would appreciate the serpent’s sales pitch for what it is.  A sales pitch.

Instead, she naively takes the bait.

0189  To me, one of the marvelous features of this book is the author’s grasp that the Garden of Eden, from the onset, seems out of kilter, as if it is founded on civilized human perceptions of divine mediation₃, rather than on a precivilized spontaneous oneness with divine mediation₃.  The former belongs to our current Lebenswelt (German for “living world”).  The latter belongs to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

In short, our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

The transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt is embodied in the Garden of Eden.

0190 In chapter six, Walton asks (more or less), “If Adam and Eve are archetypes, not necessarily real historical people, then what is their significance?”

The answer is implicit to the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics’ treatment of Walton’s thing, Genesis 2.4-4.

Adam and Eve are fairy tale figures that mark the cultural transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt.

0191 A brief re-articulation of this examination is in order.

The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics studies Slavic languages and literature during the 1960s through the 1980s,under a sovereign mandate to promulgate scientific understanding.  After all, the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics is socialist and socialism (by definition) is more scientific than Christianity (superstition) or capitalism (greed and manipulation).  The official doctrine is Marxism, which constellates the Aristotle-friendly hylomorphe, {material arrangements as matter [substantiate] human conditions as form}.

Of course, the topic of this school is Slavic civilization, which manifests, as a narod, before 1000 AD.  The self-awareness of the narod stems from political imposition (the Vikings claim sovereignty, at first) and religious conversion (to Byzantine (or Orthodox) Christianity).

0192 In the course of their godless inquiries, the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics excavates an insight from deep within the Slavic imagination.  Aristotle’s hylomorphe is foundational.  But, once a thing exists, its form can entangle matter.  Originating matter substantiates.  Entangled matter… well… would not be there, if not for the form.  In a way, the entangled matter tends to alter the form so that the entangled matter becomes more… um… substantial.

0193 Here is a picture of Aristotle’s hylomorphe and the Orthodox’s entanglement.

0194 The technical label for the above figure is “confounding”.

Applied to the early stories of Genesis, the following Christian confounding proceeds (more or less) unhindered from the start of the Church until the modern era.

0195 Indeed, Christian theological speculation on the Creation Story and Primeval History influences (to some degree) the development of doctrine.

Before the modern era, Christians only have the Bible as a reference.  No one thinks to challenge interpretations based on the Old Testament, even though this reference is very hard to sort out in a sensible fashion.  After all, humans are created twice.  First, humans appear as images of God in a grand world-building narrative (Genesis 1-2.3).  Second, two humans are fashioned by God, acting as an artisan, in order for them to serve as wardens over His royal gardens (Genesis 2.4-4).

Or, something like that.

0196 Science is successfully born in the 1600s, as mechanical philosophers argue against Aristotle’s four causes, in favor of material and efficient causes shorn of formal and final causalities.  Truncated material and efficient causalitiespermit mathematical models of observations and measurements of phenomena.  Phenomena are the observable and measurable facets of a noumenon (a thing itself).

Rather than the hylomorphe, {matter [substantiates] form}, the mechanical philosophers propose that a noumenon (a thing itself) [manifests] its phenomena (observable and measurable facets of the thing itself).  The scientific intent is to build mathematical or mechanical models of observations of phenomena using a precisely defined disciplinary language… er… terminology.

0197 I suspect that is good enough to produce a very awkward confounding, where phenomena (rather than their noumenon) occupy the position for form.

0198 This is important in so far as triumphalist scientists will strive to replace the noumenon with a successful model.  In that way, a model (acting as the noumenon) [appears to substantiate] the phenomena that are observed and measured.  Appearance is important, since phenomena are only observable and measurable facets of a noumenon.  Of course, they are only appearances.  But their mathematical and mechanical models seem so real that they may substitute in for the thing itself.  Triumphantly!

0199 Of course, my argument is circular.  But, once the model replaces the noumenon, which should be a form, but is relegated to the matter that manifests as phenomena, then all is well, since the model (replacing the noumenon) is obviously matter that manifests as the stuff that will be observed and measured.  Just ask anyone who has completed a laboratory course in physics, chemistry and biology.   The model is the matter that is revealed.

0200 With that confusing argument in mind, consider the modern confoundingn that contrasts with the Christian confounding, in regards to the text of Genesis 1-11 as form.

0201 For the Creation Story, the entangled matter consists of discoveries in the natural historical and genetic sciences.  Natural history includes cosmology, planetary science, geology and biology.  Walton wants to rule out this entanglement.  How does he plan to do that?  He will take the discoveries in archaeology, which are enough to model the cultural rivers of ancient Near East civilizations, and use them as a supplement to revealed matter.

As noted earlier, this plan only serves as a temporary restraint.

0202 The recap continues.

Here is another picture of confounding.

0203 Resolving the confounding in favor of the entanglement, results in the following hylomorphe.

0204 Now, the application, once again.

Before the advent of the mechanical philosophers in the 1600s, here is a diagram of the Christian thing.

0205 Once science is successfully born in the Christian West, questions arise.

In particular, the natural history of the Earth and excavations of ancient civilizations in the Near East and in Egypt suggest that Genesis 1-11 is well… not exactly what we imagined it to be.

What matter is entangled?

Modern discoveries in natural history and archaeology yield two types of insights.

One type of insight pertains to the Creation Story (primarily). This insight is the evolutionary record, including human evolution.  To date,  few evolutionary scientists theorize that human evolution comes with a twist.  Perhaps, one day, theory will change due to the hypothesis of the first singularity.

The other type of insight pertains (in different ways) to both the Creation Story (Genesis 1-2.3) and the Primeval History (Genesis 1-11).  The archaeology of the ancient Near East (ANE) shows that the five books of Moses are written in the milieu of the ANE.

0206 Can the confounding resolve in favor of entangled matter?

0207 If I were to label any element in the above figure as “the Lost World”, what would it be?

Of course, “the Lost World” labels the long forgotten civilizations of the ANE.  They are lost long before the kingdom of David.  Okay, make that the exile to Babylon.  Okay, one more adjustment.  They are lost before the return of Judah to build the second temple.

0208 What about the discoveries in natural history, geology and biology?  Do they constitute a lost world?

Well, the author basically says to anyone interested in that entanglement, “Get lost!”

From the point of view of someone in the ANE, the Creation Story (Genesis 1-2.3) depicts God establishing functionality… no, scratch that… order to nonorder.  The Creation Story is all about God bringing order out of nonorder through various stages.  God establishes the cosmion as His temple.  We are images of God because of our sensorium of transcendence, which no other creature has.  We sense God.  We witness signs of God.

0209 On the seventh day, God rests in his temple, which is the cosmion, perfused with signs of a Creator.

0210 And, then in Genesis 2.4, He orders a royal temple garden, so He can take walks.  The garden is a paradise of exotic flora and fauna.  The only things missing are those happy and hilarious images, with their sensoria of transcendence.  So, God repeats the script of intention, creation, blessing, plants for food, naming the animals, with a few changes in the recipe.  God fashions Adam and Eve according to His intention… to… you know… have someone to tend the royal gardens.

Adam is earthman.  Eve is his knockout helper.

0211 As it so happens, the most glorious botanical specimen in the garden gets planted right in the middle.  God issues a warning to Adam, “Do not eat the fruit of this tree, lest you die.”

Adam tells his helper, who immediately takes him literally and concludes that the fruit is poisonous.  It is so poisonous that if either Adam or she touches it…

“But you will not die.  Take a look.  The squirrels and birds eat the fruit.  They are not dying.  Obviously, God’s commandment does not make sense.”

0212 Indeed, God’s command sounds like so many proscriptive decrees currently on the law books.  They say, “Do not do this or that.”  Explanations are rarely given.  When they are, they don’t make sense.

0213 So, I ask, “What does die when Adam and Eve disobey God by eating the fruit from… the tree of wisdom… er… ‘cleverness’?”

0214 The scholastic, Thomas Aquinas, offers a reasonable guess.

Original justice dies.

Does that sound like Walton’s term, “order”?

Make a note of that.

0215 If Adam and Eve join the talking serpent in becoming clever little chaos agents, then what?  They take a bite from the fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Does that allow them to make good choices, even when they are evil?

Let me ask that again.

0216 Can they explicitly label their evil choices, “good”?

Doesn’t that resonate with the late modern civilizational milieu of corporate media, political hacks and oligarchs galore?

Corporate media proclaims that the evil deeds of their benefactors are “good”.

0217 The serpent may now crawl on his belly.  Humans may strike at its head.  But, it can bite our heel, our “Achilles heel”, and inject a label that destroys order and introduces chaos.

We are now empowered to call evil, “good”.