Justin Taylor, “Day” in Genesis 1-2, and Pre-Evolution Interpretation

Kirk E. Miller

In a recent post at The Gospel Coalition (also see this older post), Justin Taylor discusses “Biblical Reasons to Doubt the Creation Days Were 24-Hour Periods.”

I’ve written about the creation debates before. And if you’ve talked to me in person about these matters, you’ve probably heard make something like the following comment:

One of the reasons (it would seem to be the main reason) interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 and the nature of God’s creative work have become so stinking controversial is the arrival of evolutionary theories. Since Darwin, proposing anything besides a 24-hour-day-view of the “days” in Genesis 1 immediately became way more controversial than it was prior to Darwin. This is due to the fact that anti-macroevolution Christians view Genesis 1-2 as a battle ground. If you walk there now, you’re going to step on a land mine even if you were not the originally intended target.

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Some Thoughts on the Conclusion of Job

Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

The “non-conclusive conclusion” of the book of Job–no direct answer to Job’s complaint is provided; but rather, the conclusion is just to trust God–is not a cop-out after all, but an incredibly satisfying response if you understand the profundity and appropriateness of that conclusion. It’s appropriate because it’s consistent with the finiteness and humanness of humanity and recognizes the Godness of God. It may not be the most philosophically satisfying conclusion in that it does not explain suffering; but that is not the purpose of Job. Although it does not provide a philosophical answer to suffering, it does provide a legitimate answer nonetheless, and an answer I might say is even more satisfying than any philosophical answer–there is a purpose to suffering; and it is rooted in the wisdom of God even if access to or comprehension of that wisdom and purpose is beyond our reach. That it is beyond our reach, and that we are instead to reach to God for whom it is in reach, is the opposite of problematic. We don’t need to know the exact reason for suffering in order to know that there is a reason for suffering that is known, directed, and controlled by God.

Review of Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy by J. William Worden

Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

Summary

In Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner (4th ed.), J. William Worden provides an introduction to bereavement/loss, grief, mourning, and providing grief counseling or therapy. Worden defines grief to be the experience one goes through during a loss (and specifically for the purpose of this book, the loss of a loved one due to death). Mourning indicates the process one undergoes as he or she endeavors to adapt to a loss. And bereavement may be understood as referring to the specific loss to which the mourning individual is trying to adapt.[1]

Worden begins by addressing the concept of attachment. According to Worden, grief is rather incomprehensible or unexplainable a part from attachment. Attachment—“the tendency in human beings to create strong affectional bonds”— to someone (or something) is what makes the loss of that something (or someone) something that needs to be grieved.[2]

Worden distinguishes between normal (or uncomplicated) and abnormal (or complicated) grief. Normal grief may entail or be accompanied by a large variety of emotions, thoughts, and behaviors such as sadness, anger, guilt, depression-like symptoms, shock, preoccupation, various somatic sensations and distresses, insomnia, etc.[3] Worden stresses the importance of recognizing this broad range of experiences (including those that may seem rather odd or abnormal according to everyday experience) “so that they [counselors] do not pathologize behavior that should be recognized as normal.”[4] What makes abnormal grief abnormal, according to Worden, is not the presence of experiences that may seem bizarre compared to regular functional existence, but the intensity and duration of otherwise normal grief-reactions.[5] Thus, abnormal grief includes the following expressions: chronic grief—grief that is excessive in length or lacks resolution; delayed grief—postponed, inhibited, or suppressed grief reactions; exaggerated grief, which involves excessive intensification of the grief experience resulting in maladaptive behavior or feelings of being overwhelmed; and masked grief, where grief reactions are expressed in covert forms.

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