1963 Geloof en Wetenschap : Orgaan van de Christelijke vereeniging van natuur- en geneeskundigen in Nederland - pagina 164

H M. KUITERT

130

b Reading Gen 1,31 m the context of the platonic harmony-concept, has prevented the church from reading what was really meant by this text. It is part of the (first) creation-story of Gen 1, and this connection makes it clear, that we may not read these words as if they were a kind of commentary delivered by a reporter, who was standing at the craddle of the new born world (just as Gen 1 as a whole cannot be read as a statement of a reporter) From scientific point of view, Israel did not know anything more about the creation of the world than we do — m fact it knew less By means of tracing the "genealogy" of Israels creationstory, the author tries to make clear that Gen 1,31 should be read as a (doxological) confession m which Israel expressed Its belief m Jahwehs beneficent superiority above man and his world Jahweh is good, therefoie the world he created is good The goodness of the created world is not a conclusion drawn from nature, but from history, that is to say from Israels history with Jahweh c. Theology throughout the ages has tried to give this confession some transparence from reality Even the traditional view that Gen 1—3 is a description of a status mtegritatis as a historical period, going over into a status lapsus via the historical incident of the fall of man, IS according to the author, such an attempt — though by no means the worst, putting all blame on man Nevertheless, this view becomes also speculative theology (saying more than the text wants to say), as far as it suggests that Gen 1—3 is something like a reportersstatement For the author the conclusion is that Gen 1—3 (including the sequence of these chapters) do not offer any scientific data on which geology, biologv etc could build their hypotheses These chapters (also m their order from 1—3') should be seen as a confession (often challenged by reality) and not as the canonical presentation of the beginning of the world. With regard to the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, the author states. a In Scripture we deal with the Self-revelation of God "wrapped up" m Israels knowledge of that Self-revelation This makes clear that it IS of the highest importance for us, not to overlook the israelitic character of the Scriptures b The confession of the inspiration of Scripture, therefore, does not exclude but include historical and literary investigations, m order to discover the skopus of any text or passage. Faithfulness to the Scriptures is (even up till the letter') faithfulness to the text in its function AANTEKENINGEN 1) Dit artikel is de vrijwel onveranderde voordracht (vandaar de spreektaal) die ik op verzoek van de Christelijke Vereniging van natuur- en geneeskundigen gehouden heb op haar Landdag d d 20 april 1963 te Amsterdam Het sedertdien verschenen artikel van prof. dr J. L Koole onder de titel „Het literair genre van Gen. 1—3 (G.TT mei 1963, no 2) heb ik voor deze voordracht niet kunnen raadplegen 2) Titel van het speciale Wendmgnummer (17e Jaarg. no 5/6) dat de diskussie opnieuw m beweging bracht 3) Voorbeelden m genoemd Wendmgnummer, vooral m de artikelen van J. P Bakker en N. H. Swellengrebel 4) Inst. II, 1, 5 5) Geref. Dogm. III, 2

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