Many people are fond of saying that the genesis creation account is a metaphor for something else.
I submit that is is at best ignorance of what a metaphor is
What is a metaphor? I will put it like this. A simile is when you say something is LIKE something else and you use the word "like" . A metaphor, by contrast, is where you say something is LIKE something else but you leave out the word LIKE and simply say that something IS something else.
For example Jesus said he is like a vine by saying he is one, a classic use of metaphor. And it is a metaphor for to take it literally and say he is one is clearly absurd
So the biblical creation account is a metaphor? what is it a metaphor for ? what in evolutionary theory does creation resemble, or is like? What is the literal truth that a metaphor is expressing in non literal language?
I submit that they, Biblical creation and evolution, are totally different, that one is not like the other,
Therefore is evolution is true THE BIBLE IS WRONG and that it violates the very meaning of the concept "metaphor" to call the genesis account a metaphor - unless the proponent of the theory that it is metaphor can demonstrate HOW it is a metaphor. But can they ?
All too often people call a biblical concept a metaphor because they simply do not want to believe what it says when it speaks plainly, but they lack the courage or consistency to reject it outright. Or they do not know what a metaphor actually is
Yes, there are metaphors in the bible. cultures of the ancient near east, and the modern near east for that matter, speak in metaphors far more than we modern rationalist westerners.
To declare that a bible passage is metaphor because modern science is a benchmark of truth is not rational. A bible passage is a metaphor if the style of the passage or plain common sense context requires it.
And i submit that style and context of genesis 1-3 is plain literal history.
Or it is wrong.
I do not hold that old earth creationism is an error of salvific significance, ie a heresy. But to a mind like mine such a view violates the logic of scripture as a whole and i could not be a Christian if I really believed that the earth is billions of years old for the Bible plainly says and logically requires that it be not so.
I know Christians who believe this but it is of no real concern for me, for though error it is not damnable heresy
