Does God have Opposable Thumbs?

I mean, what does it mean that we were made in the image of God? Does God look like a man, if we were made in his image? What about gender? A Spirit surely doesn't have a penis, so how is it to be considered a male god?

Does male imply something other than physical gender? Berbs once noted that this Spirit got Mary pregnant, but does a spirit have sperm, or eggs?

Is taking the bible in a literal context literally forcing a total breakdown of logical coherence? Is the total capitulation to faith an effort to reduce or eliminate the cognitive dissonance of holding contradicting thoughts as all true?

Silly Ace! We weren't made in the physical image of God -- just the "spiritual", whatever that means.

Aces, When the Bible refers to body parts such as God's "hand," that is usually explained as an anthropomorphism, that is, the Biblical writers were using a common reference point to describe the activity in God within history. Most theologians don't refer to the God of the Bible as necessarily a male god. This being as far as we understand transcends gender. "He" is not limited that way. Nevertheless, both male and female traits are sometimes attributed to God metaphysically. For example, one of God's titles in the Old Testament is the Lord our Suckler, or the Lord our Breast, or the Lord our Nurse. I own the book, Names of God, by Nathan Stone which has a more detailed analysis of this title. As to the Holy Spirit impregnating Mary, I am aware of the theological need to explain Jesus's birth without the introduction of original sin but I do not have a "ready-made" answer for this particular problem. Now, when you refer to contradicting thoughts, I assume that you would be making reference to something with the property A and non-A at the same time and in the same fashion. I don't think that the problem of the Holy Spirit's impregnation of Mary has that sort of issue going on unless you are presupposing naturalism as a world-view. As a skeptic, no doubt you would want to be just as skeptical of naturalism as supernaturalism. No? That's just my "two cents." Blessings, Adam

Hi Adam,

You wrote:

"As a skeptic, no doubt you would want to be just as skeptical of naturalism as supernaturalism. No?"

No. Naturalism can be demonstrated; supernaturalism cannot.

Aces,

Regarding your statement:

No. Naturalism can be demonstrated; supernaturalism cannot.

I would encourage you to study this matter

further. Neither naturalism or supernaturalism

are validatable empirically. They are assumptions

made about the world in order to make sense

of the world. Neither one is testable strictly

speaking. The further you get into philosophy,

the more you will realize this.

Blessings,

Adam

Adam,

You wrote: "Neither naturalism or supernaturalism are validatable empirically. They are assumptions made about the world in order to make sense of the world. Neither one is testable strictly speaking."

Naturalism is. It's how facts and proofs and scientific theories are supported. For example, I can prove to you beyond a shadow of a doubt that gravity exists!

All it requires is for you to find a large rock or brick that you can hold high DIRECTLY up over your head (or foot). Drop it.

Repeat. Repeat again.

I assure you my friend your philosophy will give way to reality in due time.

Yes, we can and do test the real world of Naturalism. It's why your computer works and it's why you know better than to stick your finger into a live light socket, or stick a paper clip into an electrical outlet.

It's how you know not to put your hand into the fire or bathe your newborn in scalding hot water. REALITY, my friend, is the Naturalism that does not change at the whim of a new philosophical fancy.

On the other hand, I challenge you to offer a demonstration of any supernatural phenomena (and I can show you where to get a million dollars should you succeed).

I'm all ears.

Aces, I wrote that neither naturalism or supernaturalism are validatable empirically. They are assumptions made about the world in order to make sense of the world. Neither is testable. You responded by talking about an experiment using our senses to confirm the law of gravity and associated that experiment with naturalism. I think that you may have some confusion in this area. First, let's distinguish between first-order and second-order statements. A first-order statement would be an observation sentence about what happens when you drop a rock on your head. A second-order statement might be a philosophical interpretation of what that experiment means to you or ought to be interpreted. These second-order statements are part of your world-view. They are not subject to experimental confirmation or disconfirmation. A second-order statement might relate to construing these laws of gravity and their origin. If you were to assert: "Illustrating the effects of gravity by dropping a rock on my head demonstrates or lends evidence to the idea that the law of gravity spontaneously evolved after the big-bang occurred billions of years ago," that would be a second-order statement that would be neither provable or disprovable. You are importing other assumptions which are not subject to experimental confirmation. The assumption about gravity somehow having natural origins would not be lent any more empirical credibility by the experiment dropping a brick on your head. The experiment may show something about "how" gravity work, not "why" it works. Thus, when you write, "Yes, we can and do test the real world of Naturalism," I think that you are confused about the difference between the first-order and second-order sentences. In fact, the very phrase "world of Naturalism" may be demonstrating a sort of self-refutation, or an undermining of your own thesis. By using the word "world" you seem to refer to something physical, yet "naturalism" is a reference to series of second-order sentences which attempts to rule out supernatural influences or interpretation of events. It would undermine the coherence of the phrase "world of naturalism" since the world cannot tell us anything about second-order statements and their viability. Take care, Adam

WOW...that's all I can say. Once again, Adam, you amaze me with awesome stuff

Adam,

1. Through perfectly "natural" means, we can increase gravity, nullify gravity, and decrease gravity. Would you please describe how we can do any of these through "supernatural" means. Thank you.

2. That a second order statement can be made (i.e., the Invisible Pink Unicorn created the universe through supernatural means) does not constitute a reason to believe it.

Your friend,
AcesLucky

Nor does your billions of years theory

Aces, A couple of things: I noticed that you are now switching terms a bit. Originally, you appeared to be conflating the term "natural world" and "naturalism." Now it would appear that you are correctly distinguishing between these terms. Thank you. So if you acknowledge the force of my objection regarding the distinction between first- and second-order statements, then you will clearly agree that when we make an observational statement about using "natural" means to alter gravity or its effects, we are neither proving nor disproving any second-order statements or anything about the validity or invalidity of our world-views. Thus, by changing gravity or watching you change gravity (through artificial, not "natural" means) I could conclude nothing about the existence or non-existence of a god. As to your point "2. That a second order statement can be made (i.e., the Invisible Pink Unicorn created the universe through supernatural means) does not constitute a reason to believe it" I was never arguing that we have good reason to believe in a second-order statement because we simply can make second-order statements. That we can make second-order statements at all may be tribute to an amazing Creator who endows us with these reflective capacities and sets us apart from other animals, but I would never argue that the mere presence of the reflective capacity and the ability to construct meaningful sentences based on that capacity entail that whatever 2nd-order entities may be stipulated are reasonable to believe. Blessings, Adam

@Karl

You do not seem to be aware that scientific theory is testable through experiment. Thus, observable phenomena can be examined and expressed as quantifiable data.

In other words, if I make a statement, you can TEST it to verify its truthfulness. The "billions of years theory" spans several disciplines of testing for its verifiability and truthfulness.

By what method shall I test and verify a that a supernatural Being created the universe and earth 6,000 years ago? (Which, by the way, would contradict all other testable data.)

Further, I would like to know why you believe in a story that cannot be tested for truthfulness over a story that can.

Karl,

Why, thank you! I was really bogged down in confusion

in my late 20s about all of this and I came across the work

of Michael Sudduth who's written a bit about Reformed

Epistemology. We were discussing the implications of the

Christian Philosopher, Cornelius Van Til, who is primarily

responsible for the school of apologetics known as

"presuppositionalism." (As an aside, my father obtained

his M.Div. at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia

where both Van Til and John Frame taught).

Many of us on the Van Til list were a bit confused when

Van Til would talk about the limitations of knowledge for

the unbelieving mind. Was Van Til referring to a lot of what

we would call "empirical knowledge"?

Sudduth really helped out in this regard and brought clarity

to a difficult discussion by pointing out the distinctions that

occur in non-believer's mind and that first-order statements

may have validity when both believers and non-believers are

making them. Due to the fundamental compatibility between

the makeup of the human mind and the makeup of reality

and the ability to construct sentences based on sensory

perception (which, by the way, is scarcely explicable on the

theory that we all somehow "evolved"), God has given to

all, even graciously to non-believers, the ability to construct

intelligible sentence based on sensory input from the natural

world. This is where Van Til might be misread and where

Sudduth played a key role for me. (Initially, I sort of dismissed

Sudduth or thought ill of his contribution; after several years,

though, it started making more sense to me.)

The problem is that Sudduth's work is very pricey on

Amazon (even on the Kindle, one of his books is over $70).

You are better off just "googling" him and finding some of

his contributions to the old Van Til list.

Blessings,



Adam

Adam, are you saying that the " limitations of knowledge for the unbelieving mind." causes us non-believers to make false conclusions based on empirical data? For example, the idiots at NASA tell us the universe is about 14 billion years old based on observable evidence (Hubble's constant). What does Van Til say about this? Or more to the point, what part don't you believe?

@ Adam

Originally, you appeared to be conflating the term "natural world" and "naturalism."

Right. I started to have you define the term "supernatural" or "supernaturalism" just to avoid talking around each other like this but I didn't sense a need to at that point.

(In my opinion, there is no such thing as supernatural because it would imply something "beyond" the natural; but what does that mean? Even if there was a god, it would be perfectly natural. The term supernatural has no meaning to me so I didn't want to distinguish difference between Naturalism and the Natural world -- ALL worlds, if they exist, are inherently natural.)

Supernatural is "inherently" second order! You can make up anything you want and call it supernatural. Here's why (from Wikipedia, a description of supernatural: "The supernatural or supranatural is anything above or beyond what one holds to be natural or exists outside natural law and the observable universe."

Notice beyond... the OBSERVABLE universe. Thus if you can't observe it, by what TRUTH or verification method can you attest to its veracity? NOTHING! Because you can't observe it!!! In short, you made it up! And for that reason ANYTHING claimed supernatural is B.S.

You wrote:

"So if you acknowledge the force of my objection regarding the distinction between first- and second-order statements, then you will clearly agree that when we make an observational statement about using "natural" means to alter gravity or its effects, we are neither proving nor disproving any second-order statements or anything about the validity or invalidity of our world-views."

No, no. You wrote that "neither naturalism or supernaturalism are validatable empirically." I said that Naturalism IS. (I am also stating now that "supernaturalism" is NOT. -- because it is not observable and thus not "validatable".)

That was where my examples applied, after which I promptly asked for an example of a supernatural demonstration. In your absence of supplying one, I shall conclude that any supernatural statement must necessarily be "second-order" and thereby moot as a means of verifying reality (supernatural or otherwise).

You wrote:

"Thus, by changing gravity or watching you change gravity (through artificial, not "natural" means)..."

Centrifugal force, i.e. is perfectly natural...

"...I could conclude nothing about the existence or non-existence of a god."

Agreed. So why the assumption of one?


You ironically wrote:

"That we can make second-order statements at all may be tribute to an amazing Creator..."

Whoops! The very thing you cautioned could not be validated, you just erred in doing!

Your statement, and: "That we can make second-order statements at all may be tribute to an amazing Invisible Pink Unicorn..." is equally without merit.

Can you now see this, right?

Aces, Here in your remarks presuming the testability of "billions of years" to Karl...while I hate to say it, and it will sound dogmatic, you are just plain wrong. The big-bang is a one-time historical event, is not testable, like an hypothesis, to which we can construct an experiment to attempt to establish or defeat it. There is a fundamental distinction between historical science and empirical science and the "big bang" has to do with the former, not the latter. One-time events cannot be repeated and/or reconstructed in a laboratory or other artificial environment where variables can be monitored and controlled. --Adam

Bo, Well, now in our enlightened age, you guys aren't thinking as improperly as we had once thought. It would tend to be your second-order thoughts and conclusions which would be the most disordered of all. Most of your first-order observations would ring true, even in our minds. For example, "Bo takes out the trash" would function in about the same fashion and with the same truth-value in both of our mind-sets. However, when we try to draw interpretive conclusions from the act of your taking out the trash, "Bo takes out the trash because he loves his wife and doesn't want her to suffer" or "Bo takes out the trash so that he can selfishly gain a sense of superiority over his wife who works harder than he does." Statements like these are definitely second- order and do not follow as empirically based. They are "world-view" statements. These statements, according to Van Til, would often be more distorted in the unbeliever's mind-set. That is, you might tend to make construals to be more consistent with the assertion of your own authority or autonomy apart from God; whereas the believer would tend to do the converse. Sudduth, I think, helps to clarify areas of Van Til which are ambiguous. Take care, Adam

I must say. Adam, I like you man Aces I think Adam gave you my answer of ( if I've got this right) testing with empirical science the big bang. ( Adam, this is a whole new level of Apologetics, great. ) --- Now Aces said;"By what method shall I test and verify a that a supernatural Being created the universe and earth 6,000 years ago?"--- like Bo mentioned that NASA gives you " observable evidence " for 14 billion years ago, and I have written documents for 6000 years. And I believe in This story because God saved me, and everything points me toward this answer. --- Adam I get what you were talking about and I've already saved this message to look into all whom you've told me about. And I think that if this is you I can only imagine how great you dad think. It really feels like the Bible teaches we united as brothers in Christ know each other, almost like we speak the same language LOL.--- Bo, I think to ask " what part don't you believe " is difficult to answer. Billions of years, going from bacteria to a bug then a fish and a bird finally a man and all bigger and stronger and better! ( No disrespect) I trust in God rather than mans understanding and believe He did what He said and His Word is true. How can science ever test how we, us awesome humans came to what we are? Without God I think it is impossible.

Hi Adam (and also to Karl),

So if I am understanding you correctly, it is not our observations that are faulty; it is the conclusions we draw from those observations. Is that correct? So let's say there was a really old book that told a story about a god who made people from dirt and ribs, and blew life in their noses. Although we have empirical evidence that this story exists, it might be a faulty conclusion to insist that story represents a factual event?

But let's say we observe the universe by looking at the oldest stars and measuring the expansion of the universe. Through literally dozens of non-related empirical testing methods, we can conclude with close to 100% accuracy and assurance that the universe is roughly 13.7 billion years old. Based on these results, is it unreasonable or illogical in any way to NOT accept the conclusion?

This is what makes no sense (to me, at least) -- you don't seem to be putting your own beliefs under the same critical eye when you compare the alternatives (6,000 year old universe vs 13.7 billion year-old universe). It is literally embarrassing for me as an American to be lumped in with a national average of about 50% who think the universe is 6000 years old. If you are offended by that, well so am I.

Karl sums it up best (yes, I am putting some words in his mouth) -- 98.5% of the scientists MUST be wrong, these observations MUST be misleading, and/or Satan MUST be deceiving us because there is NO way that GOD's WORD can be wrong. However BILLIONS of VERY FAITHFUL Christians do not feel they must deny science, logic, or reason by simply accepting that every word in the Bible does NOT have to represent historical fact. Jesus himself said he teaches in parables -- that should be a clue.

Again I ask the question to anyone who denies the approximate 13.7 billion year age of the universe, what specifically do you deny? If you cannot answer the question, you don't know the dozens of ways we test and confirm this age. Do you deny that we have observable evidence that the universe is expanding? Do you deny the speed of light? Do you deny the validity of Hubble's constant? The general theory of relativity? And do you have any such data that supports a 6000 year-old universe, besides "God said so"?

Let's see if this example will work here; Let's say you have a candle burning that is 3 inches tall. You observe it for half a hour and now it is 2 inches in length. QUESTION: what is the original size of the candle before it started burning and at what rate is it burning? --- To answer this you will never know unless you make a few assumptions. You have to assume that all candles are exactly the same size and also that it has always been burning at the same rate. Other than this you may never know. Maybe this is how we get our world view

Sorry Karl, that is a bad example that in no way reflects cosmology or the universe. First of all, your candle is decreasing in size. If we lived in an shrinking universe, then you might have a point because we could not determine the starting point. Our universe is the exact opposite -- it is expanding at a predictable rate, this means working backward allows us to make predictions about what the universe looked like in the past. But this is still wild speculation, right? I mean, nobody can see back in time, that is CRAZY talk! Well, actually, we can. And you can. When you look at the sun, you are seeing the sun as it was 8 minutes in the past. When you look at the stars, depending on where you are looking, you can be are seeing 2.5 million years in the past (Andromeda galaxy). And thanks to the Hubble telescope, we can see, much, much, much farther.

So let's assume that God created the world "as is" and put the stars where they are -- fast forwarded the photons (made them move faster than light) so they make it earth (so we can see the objects). He could have made everything appear as if it has been here for 13.7 million years. He could have created the mathematics that verify this timeframe, he could be responsible for every single piece of data that confirms a 13.7 billion year-old universe. But let me ask you this, Karl, why would he do this? Why would create the illusion of an old universe when he clearly told us how and when he created everything?

The answer leads to more theological problems then simple acceptance that the creation myth in the Bible is not an historical fact. Remember Karl, to our ancestors just a couple hundred years, this was all they had to explain their world. They did not know any better -- we do.

Bo, You have some very enlightening points here. I was originally contending that there are two different orders of statements and that what we typically think of as "truths" or "foundational convictions" fall into that 2nd, non-empirical sort of statement about reality. All of the mustered 1st order statements in the world cannot really demonstrate a metaphysical truth. As to the Big Bang Cosmology, I would argue that no amount of 1st order observations about the expansion of the universe would justify 2nd order statements about what the universe has been like all along or whether the rate of expansion has been the same from the "get-go." So I do not believe that one can conclude correctly that the rate of the expansion of the universe has always been uniform. This assumption of uniformatarianism which was popularized by James Hutton and Charles Lyell was used in geology, not astronomy (DeWitt, p. 165). But I think that the bigger problem that you face here is philosophical. In attempting to justify 2nd order statements on empirical, first-order statements, you are actually refuting yourself. The sentence, "I see a particular rate of expansion right now and that is convertible to the proposition that the rate has held true through the universe's history" is itself non-empirical and is not subject to verification. On the other hand, if you were to change the sentence to: "My world-view-level assumptions dictate that rates of expansion ought to be orderly and uniform and this assumption will act as rule for determining which first-level statement I accept" that would be less self-refuting and more honest. Blessings,

Adam

Hi Adam and Karl,
Why would you argue this? Because you feel you have to? What you are saying is that you are incapable (or unwilling) of drawing conclusions from evidence.

Karl attempted to refute Big Bang Cosmology by using the candle example. But here is a MUCH better one.

Imagine a glass, with water dripping into it once every second. Our glass is half full of water. Can we make "second order statement" that our glass was once empty, if we never observed it empty? With the evidence we have, probably not. It could have started with the water already in it -- we don't know.


Now imagine our glass among BILLIONS of other glasses. Each glass is anywhere from completely empty to over flowing. Can we reasonably conclude that our glass was once like the glasses with less water, and will some day be like the glasses over flowing? Or is it more reasonable to conclude that the way we see it is the way it all started?

If you have not figured it out, each glass represents a star in our universe. We can predict with freakish accuracy the age and distance of stars. The idea that God made everything like it is with the illusion that it is billions of years old is the same as the idea that God made us all yesterday and implanted our memories to give us the illusion of a history.

The 6000 year old universe is a fine idea for a science-fiction movie, not one for a educated adult to hold as a true believe in the twenty-first century.

Again, why would God try to deceive us and contradict his own "revelation" in the Bible? Satan certainly could not have created the heavens and earth.

Aces,



You just don't seem to be getting it and I'm

sure that I bear my share of responsibility in

not explaining it concisely. Alternatively, maybe

you just disagree with my distinction between

first-order and second-order sentences. In that

case, I would like you to put forward an argument

challenging it.



You wrote:

(In my opinion, there is no such thing as supernatural because it would imply something "beyond" the natural; but what does that mean? Even if there was a god, it would be perfectly natural. The term supernatural has no meaning to me so I didn't want to distinguish difference between Naturalism and the Natural world -- ALL worlds, if they exist, are inherently natural.)



And I'm arguing that simply based on first-order empirical

sentences, you cannot conclude that there "is no such thing

as supernatural." There is no way for you to empirically

demonstrate that if there were a god, he would be perfectly

natural. I'm not sure why you go on to say that "supernatural"

has no meaning since you then cite a definition of just that.



You write:



Supernatural is "inherently" second order! You can make up anything you want and call it supernatural. Here's why (from Wikipedia, a description of supernatural: "The supernatural or supranatural is anything above or beyond what one holds to be natural or exists outside natural law and the observable universe."



I'm arguing that the attempt to demonstrate that

the supernatural or the natural is all that exists

are 2nd order statements. Just so we're clear. I don't

think that you can make up just "anything" and

call it supernatural without coming up for reasons

for that belief.



I think that you may be missing the "bigger picture"

here. All of our statements here since we are discussing

philosophical implications would belong to the 2nd

order. That does not entail the truth of either naturalism

or supernaturalism.



You write:



Notice beyond... the OBSERVABLE universe. Thus if you can't observe it, by what TRUTH or verification method can you attest to its veracity? NOTHING! Because you can't observe it!!! In short, you made it up! And for that reason ANYTHING claimed supernatural is B.S.



That is your assumption or 2nd order statement

that if you cannot observe it, it does not exist.

Some would say that you cannot observe gravity

but the effects of gravity. Does that mean that

gravity does not exist? C'mon, Aces, that is fairly

childish.



Another of your assumptions is that if I made it

up "anything claimed supernatural is B.S." That is

plain and simple a non-sequitur.



Later:



No, no. You wrote that "neither naturalism or supernaturalism are validatable empirically." I said that Naturalism IS. (I am also stating now that "supernaturalism" is NOT. -- because it is not observable and thus not "validatable".)


I think that we've already covered this ground.

When you said that "naturalism is" validatable

I pointed out that you were refuting yourself,

to which you have yet to present a compelling

argument that you have not.



Then you write:



That was where my examples applied, after which I promptly asked for an example of a supernatural demonstration. In your absence of supplying one, I shall conclude that any supernatural statement must necessarily be "second-order" and thereby moot as a means of verifying reality (supernatural or otherwise).



OK, as I hinted at later in our dialogue, the

process by which our minds can grasp

immaterial realities, even though we are

material beings is evidence of a supernatural

demonstration. Even the fact of our communication

on such important topics about whether the

natural is all there is itself points beyond the

natural to something where our reasoning and

intuition plays a great role. I don't have to "verify"

that we are having a conversation (it would be

very difficult to do, in fact) but I trust that it

is really you there communicating and not your

significant other writing under your pen name.





Then:

You wrote:

"Thus, by changing gravity or watching you change gravity (through artificial, not "natural" means)..."

Centrifugal force, i.e. is perfectly natural...

"...I could conclude nothing about the existence or non-existence of a god."

Agreed. So why the assumption of one? Centrifugal force being controlled by a human in a laboratory or another environment where variables can be controlled would be artificial. As far as I know, I was arguing (at least up until this point in our conversation) for the inability of humans to use strictly first-order statements to verify either naturalism or supernaturalism. If I'm mistaken in that, please correct me. Then: You ironically wrote:

"That we can make second-order statements at all may be tribute to an amazing Creator..."

Whoops! The very thing you cautioned could not be validated, you just erred in doing!

Your statement, and: "That we can make second-order statements at all may be tribute to an amazing Invisible Pink Unicorn..." is equally without merit.

Can you now see this, right? Yes and no. I think that you may have caught me in affirming a supernatural agent. However, you would be wrong if you are asserting that I did so strictly based on first-order observational statements. I do not think that it's quite fair to assert the equality of the Christian God to the Invisible Pink Unicorn. That would definitely fall into the category of second-order or world-view level assertion. Blessings, Adam

Bo, That is a very valid question about why not go where the evidence seems to lead. I think that one can sometimes draw multiple conclusions from the same evidence. That is why I believe that evidence is always interpreted. With Van Til, I do not believe in a "bare, uninterpreted fact." I do think that you need to remember that when uniformitarianism was first proposed by Hutton and popularized by Lyell in the field of geology, it was proposed in connection with the earth being eternal. Hutton did not believe that the universe had a beginning (and neither did Lyell as far as I understand). So according to their world-view level assumptions, the evidence did not lead to a beginning. Were they just "following the evidence"? You would agree that they probably were not. If their "eternality of the universe" perspective is not correct, why assume that about uniformitarianism? That glass analogy is very interesting, as well as the candle analogy. I think that I understand your glass analogy. Are you suggesting that God would have put them there and started with all of them empty? Would it necessarily be wrong if God would have started with some of the glasses half full? Would we be able to empirically verify that the same rate of dripping was occurring in all of the billions of glasses? Are you familiar with the criticism that creationists make about the rotation of celestial bodies? If the big bang (and of course, "big bang" is a misnomer since scientists agree it was not an explosion, but expansion) were true, we should find the same pattern of rotation. But we do not find that this is the case. It is an unrepeatable event, so it is not subject to empirical verification. If scientists could set up a controlled experiment where an infinitely small point begins expanding into something that resembles a mini-universe, I think that you would have a better case. (Now there's some good material for a sci-fi flick!) In the Gospel of John, when we read about Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana, the wine would at least seem to have the appearance of age (that it was significantly fermented). The server noted how strong the wine was. I think that we can relate to this today. Have you ever tasted light beer? It does not quite taste like the real thing. I think that wine that Jesus created had the full flavor of an aged wine, so it was created with the appearance of age. Blessings, Adam