From: Walter Hicks (wallyshoes@mindspring.com)
Date: Tue Sep 16 2003 - 10:08:58 EDT
I appreciate the thinking, Howard. It sounds a lot
like Darwin's "descent of man" where the moral
sense just evolved. Could be, but I am inclined to
think that our moral sense is more than a social
evolution and that it is something fundamentally
given by God.
I tend to treat the story of Adam and Eve as more
than a total allegory and Ibelieve that "good and
evil" were placed in mankind via a direct
interaction with god. This, for no other reason
than it makes some sense to me. Of course Glenn
would argue that the timing is all wrong.
I believe that the RC church takes a position like
that with respect to evolution.
Walt
"Howard J. Van Till" wrote:
> >From: Walter Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>
>
> > I suspect that many resist the notion of
> evolution
> > and an old earth partially because it is
> difficult
> > to sort out just when "creatures" became
> mankind
> > and to whom does salvation by Jesus Christ
> apply,
> > historically? Evidently Abraham made the
> grade.
> > Who else prior to him?.
> >
> > I suspect that many theologians on this list
> have
> > tackled that question. Any suggestions?
>
> I cannot speak as a theologian, but....
>
> Yes, we do encounter some conceptual difficulty
> in specifying a hard boundary between not yet
> human and human along a continuous evolutionary
> parent/offspring line. At what particular point
> would the uniquely human qualities of God
> awareness, moral awareness, and moral
> responsibility become present at an "adequate"
> level? Some millions of years ago the creatures
> present on Earth had no awareness of God (The
> Sacred), no awareness of the moral difference
> between right and wrong, no sense of
> responsibility to do the right and to shun the
> wrong. Now there are such creatures -- us.
> Those uniquely human qualities may have been
> there potentially millions of years ago (to be
> actualized much later in time), but not yet
> actually. Furthermore, many persons find it
> impossible to think of these human qualities as
> something that could develop "naturally," that
> is, without some form of divine intervention.
>
> However, It seems to me that we encounter a
> similar difficulty in a phenomenon much closer
> to our own experience -- our own development
> from a fetus to an adult. Some years ago, as a
> fetus, each of us had no awareness of God (The
> Sacred), no awareness of the moral difference
> between right and wrong, no sense of
> responsibility to do the right and to shun the
> wrong. Now, as adults, we have all of those
> qualities. Those uniquely human qualities may
> have been there potentially in our fetal stage
> (to be actualized later in time), but not yet
> there actually. Uniquely human capabilities
> developed within us gradually. Furthermore, it
> seems that we are comfortable with the idea that
> we developed these capabilities naturally as
> part of normal human development (without divine
> intervention, using the developmental gifts of
> the created world).
>
> Question: If we are comfortable with this lack
> of discontinuity in our own gradual and natural
> developmental history from fetus to adult, why
> should we be uncomfortable envisioning a similar
> lack of discontinuity in the history of the
> species?
>
> Howard Van Till
-- =================================== Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>In any consistent theory, there must exist true but not provable statements. (Godel's Theorem)
You can only find the truth with logic If you have already found the truth without it. (G.K. Chesterton) ===================================
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