Against the Cosmic Temple Nonsense

The "New Party Line" about the creation account in Genesis among some theological circles is the "Cosmic Temple" (CT) view. The CT view has a giant sales advantage in reaching scientifically oriented Christians who cringe at the ongoing conflict that many views of the text have with mainstream science. Many such Christians will leap at the chance for a view of the text which resolves this conflict on acceptable terms. The competition for the creation theology of scientifically oriented people is "Concordism". This is the idea that nature and scripture when properly understood will not be in conflict. But concordism just leads right to the, in the view of some unnecessary, battle between mainstream science and the veracity of the text. They reject concordism because they don't see reconciling the text to modern science as necessary, possible, reasonable, or even desireable. Many concordist views of the text do seem awkward and forced. The CT position says that's because concordism is nonsense.

The Christ-centered (CC) model I advocate says that that its not nonsense, but concordists err by making the story smaller than it really is. The Christ-centered model has a sort of "secondary concordism". That is, the text is aligned with nature to the extent it speaks of nature, but its mostly talking about something more important- the work of Christ and the eternal supernatural realm. And after all, aren't Christians supposed to believe that "this earth is not our home" and that the eternal realm is more important than this temporal one? Why then would we think that the creation account ignores the greater realm, much less He who rules there?

I believe the point of commonality people see in CT and CC is that both views consider that the text of Genesis chapter one is talking about something other than the creation of the natural universe. In the case of the CT view it isn't at all talking about creating or making material things. Instead, the text is talking solely about assigning function to already existing things in the natural universe according to the dictates of religious practices of antiquity. It isn't saying anything about the formation of material things. God is "transforming" the universe into His "Cosmic Temple" (circa 2000 B.C.) by assigning function.

In the case of the Christ-Centered Model the text is talking about God actively working on the natural universe, but not just the natural universe, and not even firstly that. Instead, the language of chapter one is talking firstly about both the formation and assigning of function to the eternal realm of which our natural universe is only a shadow. God is working in both realms and the same words are being used to describe what is happening in both. So in CT it isn't speaking of the formation of the physical world at all. In CC it is, but not just that. It is talking about more than that and firstly something other than that.

I have no doubt that the CT view does a better job of providing relief to Christians who cringe at the thought of a continued battle over the veracity of the text in light of the claims of current mainstream science. It will also be of more use to non-believers who wish Christians would quit taking the scriptures as something so relevant to our world today. Both groups can relieve their discomfort by assigning all meaning in the text to the remote past, in a distant culture, with very limited application in some broad spiritual sense. They can join hands and praise it as beautiful prose from an ancient day. A magnificent relic. Relief, if not true peace, is thereby achieved.

There is just one small problem with the CT view. It's not true. It truncates truth out of existence. Those whose focus is on its wonderful utility in their present situation might express some exasperation with those like me. This is because when evaluating CT I show little concern for its usefulness in addressing their felt needs and instead dwell on its veracity. If you don't care whether its true so long as it meets these other needs then you should stop reading now. You'd be happier blue-pilling.

There is a post here from a young theologian which describes (and advocates) the "Cosmic Temple" view of early Genesis. It also gives the most common points of support for the idea. I'm going to use his piece to "compare and contrast" the CT view with the Christ-centered model (CC) which I advocate.

The fellow does in his piece what I do in my book- talk about what early Genesis is and use that as a guide as to how to interpret it. Context is the start of understanding. I think we would agree on that. He, speaking for advocates of CT, says:

When looking at any passage of scripture, we need to ask “Is this how an ancient would understand this phrase?” If not, we can dismiss that as an accurate interpretation.

In other words the understanding of a passage should be limited to that of the author and the original audience. Dr. Hugh Ross is a prominent concordist, which takes the opposite view, and as such the earnest young theologian uses him as a foil when he writes:

The only way we could extend the meaning is if The Holy Spirit gave us additional revelation to tell us “Yep. That reference to place of Darkness in Job is a subtle allusion on my part to the presence of dark energy.”5 Perhaps if we had good reasons to believe that Ross’ books should be canonical books of scripture, we could accept his interpretation. However, in light of such evidence, in light of a “New New Testament”, we should go no further than the original author and audience’s understanding. I would not be confident in a concordist reading of the text in the absence of such a revelation.

He quotes John Walton on the problem:

“Such extended meanings can claim no authority since they do not derive from inspired sources.They cannot justifiably represent claims to perceive meanings that God intended, because they are not meanings that are independent of our own imagination. Both our organizations (editor's note, Walton means Biologos and Reasons to Believe) affirm that the “two books” can and should be read together. Yet we do not undertake such reading in the same way because at BioLogos we recognize a weakness of concordism that is found in the very flexibility that it exploits. No matter what the modern scientific consensus might be, concordists can feasibly find Scripture to support it."

Sure they are speaking of the narrow issue of concordism, but in imposing their rule of interpretation (any meaning we take from the text must be within the meaning which we ascribe to the original author and audience of the day) to combat concordism, they run into a number of problems. The first problem with their rule of interpretation is that Jesus Christ explicitly rejects it as it applies to Him. He said in John 5:46 that Moses wrote about Him. Luke further informs us that on the road to Emmaus a resurrected Christ showed them, starting with Moses, all the things in the Old Testament scriptures concerning Himself. Other passages from the gospels and the epistles verify that this is the meaning and view that the apostles brought to the text- that it pointed to Christ.

I should probably "drop the mic" right here, but I've noticed that once a belief system meets some felt need that a person has, we humans are highly reluctant to let go of it just because something else is true. In the context of Young Earth Creationism, even if you show people how a Christ-centered view of the Seventh day gloriously points to the Atonement, it is maddening how many will reject believing the text is about Christ in favor of making it about twenty-four hour days. Their "felt need" for which they will sacrifice the focus on Christ is simplicity. They want scripture to be something they can wrap their head around with little thought or effort or need for expert help. They'd rather it be simple than it point to Christ! Before advocates of CT look down on YECs for doing so, they should look to themselves. The study of scripture should be about finding God's truth, not meeting our felt needs.

But this brings us to another problem with this interpretive approach (hermeneutic). They can't really know the limitations of the original authors, or their audience. They can't even be sure who the original author or audience was. They are in effect trying to impose limits on meaning based on what they imagine the limitations of the original audience might be. That's putting their imagination in charge, which is exactly the accusation they level against concordists.

Let's say for a moment that the original author of Genesis was Moses. He was "God's friend". Moses spent much more time in the actual manifested presence of the LORD than even the Apostles. Imposing some arbitrary rule about what information could have been revealed to Moses looks like nothing more than an attempt to impose the philosophy of naturalism on the interpretation of sacred texts. Scripture says that the messages which Moses wrote were actually a testimony of things to be spoken of afterwards (Hebrews 3:5), and that those who fell in the wilderness with Moses had the gospel preached to them (Hebrews 4:2). It is written in Amos 3:7 says. "Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets." Any scholar who makes the assumption that a prophet of God could only know what a man of his day knew is full of hubris. They are in effect trying to take God out of the equation of what could or could not be known.

Advocates of CT insist that these hermeneutics are the only valid way to interpret religious texts even though the logic of their two requirements is effectively self-refuting. The human author and the audience of the day considered much of the text to be prophetic utterances from God. They would have been completely comfortable with the idea that God would also be laying groundwork for some progressive revelation of His nature and majesty with these words. It was even expected that God could speak through someone who was not even aware that they were speaking by inspiration (John 11:50-51). So in effect these artificially imposed man-made rules claim that the text of scripture can only have a meaning that the audience of the day would understand, but that they were in fact dead wrong about what they understood!

But beyond all this, they can't even assume that they know who the original author and audience was. If they can't be sure of who the audience even was, how can they ascribe limitations in understanding to them? I hold to a modified version of the Tablet Theory for early Genesis. If some of the same scholars who try to shoe-horn these naturalistic hermeneutics unto the text scoff at the Tablet Theory, it only further verifies their need of faith, humility, and knowledge of the scriptures- a need common to us all. The tablet theory as originally proposed was too rigid, but a modified version of it such as what I propose addresses the issues raised by the critics. So far as I know it has never been evaluated by experts (and therefore should not be dismissed).

The Tablet Theory notes that there is a "tolodoth" phrase which occurs at least eleven times in early Genesis, "these are the generations of". Sometimes it is associated with a genealogy, and sometimes not. But in the ANE, the phrase is associated with "accounts". As in "these are the accounts of", and it served to identify narratives from clay tablets back in the time of Abraham, or before. So then early Genesis would be a series of accounts from the patriarchs of scripture which were preserved on tablets and translated/edited into early Genesis by Moses.

If that's so, then these accounts are from well before Moses. Some before Noah! These accounts would therefore be older than the ANE stories which have similar elements. The implication is that early Genesis wasn't a "polemic" against the other accounts which inspired Moses, rather the other ANE accounts were distorted versions of early Genesis. The parallels with the "Cosmic Temple" stuff would then be the other way around. The creation account was ancient and ANE cultures mimicked elements of it into their religious practices. The creation account in Genesis wasn't based on their religious practices, but if anything the reverse!

The second account is from "Adam", and the first is said to be that of the Heavens and the Earth, as if Creation was giving an account of how it got here! That the account is from creation itself may be strange to us as modern readers, but aren't the CT folks telling us to see the text with ANE eyes? Whether they choose to follow their admonitions even when its inconvenient for them is a separate issue, but the fact is from ANE eyes early Genesis is written as a series of prior accounts strung together, a sort of Anthology. Even if it isn't, whoever wrote it made it seem like that.

But what if it was just what it seemed to be from ANE eyes? How do you apply the CT hermeneutics to that? It would be unbridled hubris to imagine that we can go back and decide what limitations in understanding that "the heavens and the earth" may have had in giving an account of themselves to Adam, who walked with the LORD God Himself in an unfallen state for who knows how long. We have no context to even comprehend what Adam might have known or not have known. The CT hermeneutic is therefore marked by an extreme lack of faith that the text can say anything more the average person of some place and time that these scholars select could have intended to say, while embracing an unshakable faith in their own ability to select the correct place and time.

So if the tablet theory is correct, the original meaning of the first chapters of Genesis could have been lost knowledge from the distant past even on the very first day that Moses wrote them into the first scroll. Perhaps for generations thereafter, the Israelites preserved words whose true meaning was obscure to them from the start. They weren't the original audience. Advocates for the CT hermeneutic need to first demonstrate that they can even know with any confidence who the original author and audience was, and beyond that how they can know what their limitations in intent and understanding might be. That's before they can even make a reasonable claim to be certain that God couldn't inspire men beyond their human limitations.

I consider the complaint of the young theologian (which is hinted at by Walton) that men like Hugh Ross should be writing canon before their teachings have any credibility to be more of a rhetorical trick rather than a legitimate argument. For example, YECs call their interpretative framework "biblical" creationism as a tactic to control the debate. By accepting the label it is implied that any interpretative framework other than theirs is "un-biblical". This is the same tactic being employed by CTs against Ross. By implying that the way they interpret the bible is just the proper way to do it, they imply that any other interpretative framework isn't a competing viewpoint, it's an attempt to write new scripture! I have difficulty respecting such rhetorical tricks when YECs do it, and I have the same attitude when CT advocates try it. And I write that knowing that I have and will take some heat for calling what I believe "The Christ Centered Model". Hey, I will make the same offer to you that I made to the first guy who complained to me about it- find another model that is just as Christ-centered and I will quit calling it that. If you can't and it still bothers you, maybe you should fix your discomfort by adopting a view that does focus on Christ more than the one you now have.

The text is the text. There are different ways to interpret the text, and we should have a vigorous debate as to which is best on the merits. But that the text is true should be the assumption of the theologian. Our interpretation of the text- or the rules by which we interpret, should always be up for scrutiny no matter who we think we are. This is where I call for theology to be more like a Science, which it originally was.

And that of course answers another objection sometimes raised - that concordist views will change from time to time. Yes, that's how the scientific method works as applied to theology. We propose a meaning, the proposal is tested, and if it is confirmed we are more sure and if it is not we look for better answers. That's how we get closer to truth, both in the natural universe and in the understanding of scripture. The universe and scripture both contain truth for us to find. We should not expect the natural sciences to get an idea and then never refine or change it, nor should we expect that in our understanding of scripture, aside from the basics like the Apostle's creed. There is the paradigm, which we assume, and then there is the way that works itself out, which we test. For more exploration of my call to return theology to more of a science see here. 

Look, if you think early Genesis was composed from the 9th to the 6th century B.C. by some priests who adapted stories they heard in captivity based on the obsession ANE cultures had with temples, then the CT view seems reasonable. I think it was composed by Moses, from older material. and that it points to Christ and His work from the start because the prophets of God were not limited to what the average person of their day knew. Your premises determine your outlook.

Fact is, God doesn't think much of temples. I won't go into all the details here. but read 2nd Samuel chapter seven. The temple wasn't God's idea. He only wrote it into the story because David wanted to do it. He promised that He would destroy it if they strayed and write it out of the story, read 2 Chron. chapter 7.  Even Solomon acknowledge that the Temple would be a place where God's name was, not a place for God to dwell ("the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?"). That doesn't fit with the idea that man the vizier is dwelling on earth and God is dwelling in heaven, as CT proposes. Almost as soon as it was built the priests went one way but God kept speaking to Israel through prophets which were outside the temple system.

God was happy with the tabernacle. And it was the tabernacle that was said to be a copy of the original in heaven. And again, this points to Him. The best translations of John 1:14 say He "tabernacled among us", because that is the intent of the Greek in the word usually translated "dwelt". When God would again come to dwell with His people, He would take a temporary home of flesh like ours, it wasn't His permanent dwelling place. The tabernacle was God's idea and pointed to the Incarnation.

In Rev. 21:21 it specifically says that there is no temple in the New Jerusalem. God and His Lamb are the temple. Look, temples were a big deal in the ANE culture that these scholars want to use to bound the meaning of early Genesis, but throughout scripture, God isn't big on temples, except for the temple of our bodies. That's what He wants His house to be. He wants to live in us and through us. Very little about the CT view makes sense if you believe the scriptures are inspired by God, and I do. My view of Genesis one that agrees with Jesus Christ when He said that Moses wrote about Him.

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