Re: ASA as a Christian forum.....

Terry M. Gray (grayt@calvin.edu)
Tue, 25 Feb 1997 17:17:36 -0500

I am all for free discussion, pursuit of truth, etc. but the crux of the
matter is that Phil Johnson believes that the theistic
evolutionist/evolutionary creationist position is vacuous and not worthy of
serious discussion. Phil's refers to TE/EC as the backwaters of the
discussion and that we are being / have been marginalized. He is not
interested in conducting the discussion at this level. One of the reasons
he gave up the original evolution reflector was because it was becoming
dominated by TE/EC types who were always throwing up their objects to the
ID agenda. (I know this having been sent a copy of some correspondence that
I don't think I was supposed to see.)

When he refers to 1997 being the critical year, he means that in his mind
the TE/EC types will be sufficiently marginalized that they won't need to
be listened to in the discussion. Already at the Biola meeting, only half
of the spectrum of views held by Christians was represented. It was very
interesting in the World magazine article to see Del Ratzsch as
representing the extreme viewpoint in contrast with the YEC viewpoint, the
other extreme.

Here's my prediction. Fifty years from now evolution will still be true
and ID theorists will be proposing TE/EC type design theories that see
design at the level of fabric of creation rather than at the level of some
sort of specified complexity. Some of us are just ahead of our time. And
it pains us to have to go through this setback. [Hope that doesn't sound
too arrogant--of course, we may be wrong, but I'm not even close to
thinking that we are.]

TG

_____________________________________________________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 49546
Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt

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