At 08:15 PM 3/9/00 -0500, George Murphy wrote:
>
>> But when you get into theology, there is no grand arbitor of which
>> interpretation is correct, at least not one that we all agree to.
>
> As scientists we agree that observations are important but we aren't all
agreed
>on the observational data or interpretation of them. As Christians we
agree on the
>centrality of Christ but not on specific ways of understanding his person
& work. I
>think the parallel is closer than you suggest.
There are parallels, you are correct. We probably differ on the distance
though.
>
>> And while you may not see a relationship to Christ in our discussions, I
>> certainly do. As you and I have debated before, if there was not fall, then
>> Christianity is a myth and Christ was unnecessary.
>> And I for one, AM
>> uncomfortable making that event a myth with little connection to reality
>> and by that, I mean HISTORY. While lots of people have no problem taking
>> that approach, I for one, can't and won't go that direction. If I became
>> convinced that there is no possible way for the primeval story to have any
>> relationship to what aactually happened in the space-time manifold of our
>> universe, then I for one, would do what Provine did--leave the faith. so,
>> you may not see this as important at least one member of this group does
>> see it as important and related to Christ.
>
> Note that I said there is "little" - not no - attempt to relate issues to
>the christological center. The type of argument you suggest here is one
of the
>relatively few attempts to make such connections.
> Having said that, it may seem churlish to say that I disagree with the
way you
>try to make the connection.
I am shocked that you would disagree with me, absolutely shocked. What is
the world coming to? :-)
But briefly, what necessitates the saving work of Christ is
>the pervasiveness of human sin & the inability of people to solve that
problem
>themselves. Lack of an historical account of how that condition came
about doesn't make
>Christ unnecessary. (I do not mean that it is therefore of no value to
try to
>understand the origins of human sinfulness in the evolutionary process.
But actually
>what's harder is to make sense of the idea of original righteousness.)
Of course you will be 'shocked' if I were to disagree. Vedic sin or evil is
likened to an illness which can be cured by means of ritual. If the story
of the Fall is false, then there are more possibilities than merely that
Christ had to pay the penalty for sin regardless of how it came about. One
possibility is to view sin as the Hindu's do. Christ is unnecessary in
their theology for the remission of sin. Part of the problem I see with the
approach you take is that it is provincial only seeing solutions within the
Christian paradigm. There are lots of other possible solutions that the
rational person should not rule out apriori. Evidence is one of the best
discriminators between what is true and what is false. That is why I like
to take a concordist approach.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution
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