Well said, Howard. And thanks for reminding me of the proper term
(concordism). I appreciate your many thoughtful articles and notes, both
those in print and those sent via the internet like this. In particular,
you've made the theological case that we should expect God's creation to be
complete and not require "intervention" (you coined a good phrase for that,
but I can't recall it right now). I feel that's most likely true.
Since I'm not as theologically schooled as you, I don't criticize the view
that maybe God does intervene and create supernaturally sometimes (not just
in the theologically important, revelatory miracles in the Bible that we
all accept, but also, for example, in the creation of the first living
cell). I refrain from criticizing such a view because science itself can't
rule out the supernatural. Our ignorance of how the first living cell
arose logically allows for the possibility that it happened in a manner
that in principle could never be explained by natural science. But,
so-called *scientific* theories invoking "intelligent design" are flawed
for the simple reason that science also can't tell us when all possible
natural explanations have been exhausted. We should readily admit that we
can't even imagine a plausible natural explanation for some things. To
assert that no plausible natural explanation could ever exist in such
cases, however, would be presumptuous. How can we dismiss all natural
causes when we don't even know what we are dismissing? The lack of a
plausible natural explanation would constitute evidence for "intelligent
design" only if we could somehow know that we've imagined, analyzed, and
eliminated all of the "non-design" alternatives. In his Letter to the
Grand Duchess Christina Galileo articulated a perspective that remains as
valid today as it was in 1615:
Who will assert that everything in the universe capable of being perceived
is already discovered and known? Let us rather confess quite truly that
"Those truths which we do know are very few in comparison with those which
we do not know."
I know this foray into ID theory is a bit off the topic of Held and Rust's
article, but I also note that in that article they briefly attack
evolution, and seem to unquestioningly accept Behe's "irreducible
complexity" argument. The attraction (to others) of concordism and of
intelligent design theory must be the same to some degree.
I'm reading John Haught's "God after Darwin." I think you'd like it,
Howard. I'm curious what you think of it, and what others on the listserv
think of it.
Best wishes.
Chuck Austerberry
cfauster@creighton.edu
*************************************
>Chuck Austerberry gave the following as his response to the article "Genesis
>Reconsidered" by Held and Rust in the Dec, 1999, issue of PSCF:
>
>>Harmonization is an interesting approach to integrating science and
>>Biblical interpretation, especially of the early chapters of Genesis.
>>Personally I don't engage in harmonization, but I appreciate the respect
>>some harmonizers, like Glenn Morton and Dick Fischer, give to science.
>
>[skip a bit]
>
>> I'm interested in other's views, but here are mine. God indeed inspired
>> the Biblical authors, but the knowledge so transmitted was not "prophetic
>> narrative." Rather, it was knowledge of God's character and will. "Myth"
>> is used in an everyday sense to mean a fanciful, erroneous story, but in
>> religion it means something more valuable and significant than that, just
>> as what scientists mean by "theory is more valuable and significant than
>> the meaning of "theory" in its everday sense of hunch or guess. Yes,
>> historical criticism has gone too far sometimes, and yes, the Bible is not
>> like other old books, but the scholarly methods used to study ancient texts
>> can and should be applied to the Bible. The trend to disparage
>> harmonization did not result from "inadequate care" in interpretation, but
>> rather a lot of honest and careful hermeneutical scholarship.
>
>> How do others view Held and Raun's defense of harmonization?
>
>Chuck, I think I'm in (or at least near) your camp.
>
>To be candid, I find Held and Rust's style of harmonization (ordinarily
>called "concordism") to have little or no value for me in my reflections on
>the physical nature of the creation or the particulars of its formational
>history. I see no reasonable basis for the widespread expectation that there
>should be extensive correlation, or "concord," between the text of early
>Genesis and the outcome of modern scientific theorizing about what
>particular physical processes and events may have contributed to the
>formation of the various structures and forms in the universe to which God
>has given being.
>
>Early Genesis was written in the conceptual vocabulary of the Ancient Near
>East and, I believe, within the limits of human knowledge of the day. Modern
>scientific theorizing, on the other hand, is written in the conceptual
>vocabulary of contemporary Western culture and is, I believe, also limited
>by the human knowledge of the day.
>
>I do believe, of course, that scientific theorizing and biblical
>interpretation should each be done in the awareness of what the other can
>contribute to our comprehensive worldview, but I see no basis for the kind
>of concordism espoused by Held and Rust. Furthermore, there are as many
>different versions of concord as there are proponents of concordism.
>
>To continue on this provocative note, I would propose that the concordism
>that is so common in the conservative evangelical Christian community today
>is a major contributing factor in the continuing and increasingly
>dissipative shouting match known as the 'creation-evolution debate.' I pray
>for an end to this wasteful effort to force the biblical text to be
>something wholly different from what it is. Endless arguments on which
>particular version of "concord" is best has distracted Bible readers from
>the kind of inspired reflection that it stimulated in its hearers/readers 2
>or 3 millennia ago.
>
>Candidly yours,
>
>Howard Van Till
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