Robert Schneider wrote:
> Dear Shuan, I agree that a theology of creation that is explicitly
> biblical in expression is needed, but I would add to that the fact
> that many good theological expositions are not larded with references
> to passages of Scripture, and this is true of recent creation
> theologies; I would include Howard Van Till's among them. Outside of
> ASA members, quite a few people are working on theologies of
> creation. One of the interesting developments to my mind is the
> recovery of a Trinitarian theology of creation. Among evangelicals
> Jurgen Moltmann has done this, in _God in Creation_ and other
> writings; among Roman Catholics Denis Edwards, a disciple of Karl
> Rahner, in _The God of Evolution: A Trinitarian Theology. Others
> working in or writing on theology of creation and evolution include
> Nancey Murphy, Arthur Peacocke, Ted Peters, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Ian
> Barbour, and there are several others. There are quite a few people
> representating a variety of Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant
> (including evangelical) perspectives. I'm aware of how important
> it is for Christians to see the Bible in their theologies, and
> especially for those Christians who want you to "show me where it is
> in the Bible." But theology is rational reflection on the content of
> revelation, and it always goes beyond the biblical text to develop its
> implications in the light of nature and human experience. Part of the
> task is not only to help Christian learn how to read and interpret the
> Bible intelligently, but to learn and understand what role theology
> plays in the articulation of faith. I think there are many Christians
> who love and depend on the Bible but have hardly even a rudimentary
> knowledge and understanding of theology. That vacuum can lead to
> great misunderstandings or ignorances of basic Christian doctrine. I
> was astonished, for example, to discover how many of the conservative
> and fundamentalist college students in my "Science and Faith" course,
> most of whom would have classified themselves as YECs, were Gnostics
> (though they didn't know it). I had to introduce them to the doctrine
> of the Incarnation and its implications for understanding Christ and
> creation, because it was clear many of them had no real grasp of
> it. I think YEC flourishes because its proponents are very
> effective at marketing their product and putting down the product they
> are trying to outsell. There are a lot of voices who speak a
> different language of God and creation, and we who speak this language
> need to find ways to get the message out without playing their game.
It seems to me that the problems represented by YECs arise not
simply from the use of scripture but from an overemphasis on Gen.1-3
and, in particular, insistence on starting with those chapters. If we
start there, especially in a cultural climate so heavily influenced by
naive ideas about the Bible, then our ideas about creation will congeal
around all the old familiar notions. At best we'll become concordists &
at worst YECs. If we read other texts that are relevant to creation
first, and if we become aware from the whole of scripture of the variety
of literary types that the Bible contains, then we can go back to the
Genesis accounts and avoid those pitfalls. This is why in _The
Trademark of God_ I started with the exodus & Second Isaiah & then moved
to Genesis.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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