Not exactly birds of a feather, clearly enough! I don't know Arthur's wife,
but I've spoken with Arthur a few times and wish to add a background comment
on creationism, as he might view it.
Arthur regards me, many ASAers, and some significant modern writers on
sci/faith (whom I will not name publicly) as fundamentalists. I am
confident about his view of me and of some others, because we've discussed
this; I'm inferring his view of ASAers generally. My intepretation of
Arthur (please read that again before continuing, nothing the "i" word) is
as follows. Having rejected utterly the type of evangelical faith of his
youth as "unscientific," Arthur has implicitly accepted the "warfare" view
of religion and science, according to which science is the final arbiter of
truth on matters of faith--ie, science determines the character as well as
the content of our belief on matters involving nature, which he continues to
call the "creation" though not in terms that I find adequate. Theology
ought to be purged of most traditional notions. This might best be done by
redefining traditional terms, yet again, in favor of science--hence his
frequent use of scare quotes when referencing things such as "resurrection
of the body." I could go on.
The main point of my impression is, that Arthur seems simply unable to
acknowledge a genuine intellectual contribution from anyone somewhat to his
right, theologically, because anyone who does not accept the fundamental
premise of the warfare thesis is just not modern enough to have a
contribution worth considering--a scientist's attitude if there ever was
one, nothing older than last month's data is any good. Fill in the name(s)
of some of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century, let alone
those of the fifth or the sixteenth centuries (my knowledge of the latter
group, though I am hardly a theologian, seems wider and deeper than his,
judging from informal conversations), and the situation becomes almost
ludicrous, if it weren't so deadly serious.
Thus, I really do doubt that Arthur is discriminating enough to separate
the wheat from the chaff, on an issue like creationism. (Some might say
that Phillip Johnson suffers from a similar disorder.) Like many British
intellectuals, he'd like to think that creationism is a purely American
phenomenon, and then ask what we would expect from evangelicals anyway.
People who believe in the literal resurrection, or the actual temporality of
the universe, or the virgin birth, qualify as fundamentalists in his book;
they haven't made the necessary theological adjustments to count as having
something worth saying. Perhaps Polkinghorne can actually persuade Arthur
to the contrary, but I think this remains to be seen.
To an historian such as myself, this is more than just a little
frustrating--I've spent my professional life mining the Christian tradition
for insights helpful to the contemporary conversation--so I apologize if my
impression seems unfair. But I do think it accurate.
Ted Davis
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