Re: The puzzle of Adam

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 20:33:56 -0500 RFaussette@aol.com writes:
<snip>
> You remind me of a quote of Ken Ham's:
> "If Christian leaders have told the next generation that one can
> accept the world's teachings in geology, biology, astronomy, etc.,
> and use these to (re)interpret God's Word, then the door has been
> opened for this to happen in every area, including morality."" Ken
> Ham, A Young Earth - It's not the Issue! (AiG-USA Newsletter)
> January 1998
>
> Now what you [Dick] wrote:
> "...Then on similar rationale we could call into question the
> legitimacy of any and every Bible character without exception."
>
> I share your concern and Ken Ham's concern. I believe in Christian
> morality and I've written about it. That is the topic of my next
> article which will be coming out in an anthology in March (I am
> told). I am not looking for scientific explanations to undermine
> Christianity. That is not the case at all. That is not what I am
> doing. I look for the science in the religion and I've found it.
<snip>

There is a major problem in Ham's statement. He confuses science with
philosophy and theology. Science has to be empirically checkable or tied
to that which is thus testable. Ham actually doesn't believe what he
says, for he should be geocentric, the biblical teaching. But there's no
consistency among YECs.

Morality is not determinable empirically. What a sociologist may
determine empirically is the moral values a society or group claims to
hold and the extent to which they deviate from their claimed values.
Should they hold these values is sometimes answered by the statement that
they should for these are the values of the herd. So, for those in the
South Pacific a couple centuries back the moral thing to do was to kill
any stranger and, usually, eat him. But don't kill a fellow tribesman,
and for the sake of whatever is holy don't kill anyone in the chief's
family. A few decades back logical empiricism dominated American
philosophy. They held that there is nothing rational in values, a
rational deduction from their fundamental commitments. Some held that the
only relevance in valuation was the intensity of the individual's (or
group's) feelings on the matter. So they organized demonstrations,
sometimes riotous.

Let me illustrate how this works for the individual. A intensely hates B,
so, when B is shot and robbed, A is delighted. "One of the best things
I've ever seen happen," A declares. "Why didn't you attack B?" someone
asks. "Because the group is strongly against attackers and murderers, and
I don't want to be injured because of their attitude." Had it not been
fear of consequences, B would never have been safe from A. Sounds like
Hobbes' state of nature. It's not the way any of us want to live--except
perhaps for the individual who has the power to control everyone else.
Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Idi Amin, Duvalier, Castro come to mind.

I am committed to the rationality of ethical studies. Among them I've
noted that, whatever the principle supposed to underlie morality (there
are many), the licensed and forbidden activities are close to identical.
This seems confirmation of Romans 1:32.
Dave
Received on Wed Dec 8 22:21:20 2004