At 04:00 AM 11/27/98 PST, you wrote:
>Thanks for all your replies to my questions.
>
>However I think we have missed the point. Epistemological issues still
>hound all who are serious about truth, Jesus and the Bible. We can
>develop ever more elaborate systems of exegesis that speak what we want
>- and so become eisegesis - but there's no analogue of the scientific
>method to provide some level of "reality comparison" [I was going to say
>verification, but that's philosophically suspect.]
>Our interpretations remain just that and there's no way of knowing...
[snip]
>Perhaps my discussion is straying away from ASA's mandate - however
>science is a way of knowing that as Christians we MUST believe is only
>one way of knowing, NOT the only way. We must examine all aspects of
>what we face. I am an evolutionist, even a Darwinist, and I don't see
>any reason to doubt that research programme's validity - but I am
>becoming increasingly aware of its incompleteness. And the willingness
>of Darwinism's Apostles to cast an ever wider net of explanation over
>phenomena. Take Edward Wilson's book "Consilience" which is an attempt
>at, and apologetic for, a universal system of knowledge based on
>Darwinism and physicalism. What's missing is any sense of encounter with
>something truly Other. Something unexpected and alien.
>
>The Other challenges any sense of completeness that I might feel about a
>theory or theoretical system, and it's barely addressed. Any thoughts?
>
>Adam
>
>
>
I agree with you and I believe that there is no solution to the problem we
have given ourselves, as we are in fact struggling with two incompatible
systems. In one we set up the rules to "truth" and find that the result
only approximates "reality." In the other system, we are given only a
partial glimpse of reality and our sinful nature rebels at the rules God
imposes and the Truth He reveals. We want absolutes, but we cannot accept
those we are given and we find those we impose unsatisfying incomplete. We
are caught on the horns of the dichotomy and there is no way off in this
life, because the two systems have nothing in common and cannot interact
with each other.
I believe that the ASA list is about the only place we can discuss this
issue, and until it is in the open and addressed, nothing else is worth
discussing here or anywhere else.
John