Dear George,
You use the term that we act "bestial" not to indicate a kinship of man to
animals or beasts, but as humans knowing a sort of sin nature in man. Such
inner knowledge must be for the evolutionist some sort of illusion since the
notion of sin conveys no scientific meaning. But the notion of sin in man
is all important in understanding who Christ is and what He did on the
cross. Take away sin, and there is no need of Christ. Of course, one can
patch up evolutionary theory and take account of sin. I find such patch ups
unconvincing.
Take care,
Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
To: David Campbell <bivalve@email.unc.edu>
Cc: asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
Date: Monday, March 13, 2000 4:53 PM
Subject: Re: ID:philosophy or scientific theory?
>David Campbell wrote:
>>
>> > It should perhaps be noted that some Evangelicals who place a
heavy
>> >emphasis on original sin as a reason for questioning evolution are
either
>> >inconsistent or have watered down the doctrine.
>>
>> Could you explain how these views connect with evolution?
>>
>> My impression is that the purported opposition of original sin and
>> evolution usually reflects misunderstanding of evolution.
>
> I didn't say that the putative connection shows either good science or
good
>biology but it does get made. Witness, e.g., the James Kennedy quote cited
earlier
>or the Wells one which Glenn just posted.
> I'm not sure what the logic is & suspect that often it's just an idea that
>if the traditional recent Adam & Eve view goes then all of Christianity
crumbles. If
>it's more carefully thought out it's probably something like this:
Evolution says
>that we act "bestial" because of our evolutionary background & therefore
can't really be
>blamed for it. I think that evolution does raise such questions, but not
so much about
>the idea of original sin as of original _righteousness_ - i.e., of the
teaching that
>humanity was created in a state in which people could _avoid_ sin.
> Given what we know about the evolutionary process & the behavior of our
closest
>surviving relatives (& here's where Glenn's long excursus on bad chimp
behavior is
>instructive) it's hard to see how to understand such a "state of integrity"
as a
>condition which persisted for any period of time in the history of real
humans. It has
>to be understood rather as an expression of the principle that sin is not
intrinsic to
>proper humanity. But to see what that [proper humanity is we have to
consider Christ,
>not the first humans.
> Shalom,
> George
>
>
>George L. Murphy
>gmurphy@raex.com
>http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Mar 14 2000 - 08:37:58 EST