>In my opinion, David Tyler said it exactly right:
>
>> I look forward to the time when harmonisers use Biblical data to
>> GUIDE our understanding of the archaeological data. Do we
>> really believe that the Bible brings light to our scholarship? Much
>> of what passes for harmonisation today seems to lose sight of a
>> positive view of the Bible as a resource.
>>
Then he wrote
>
>When some paleontologists maintain that the Bible does indeed put limits
>on our scholarship, and they assume that those limits must be fit into
>their conclusions, we will be on our way to better conclusions and
>better thinking on many origins problems.
>
This may be a quibble, but I think it's important. It seems to me that the
correct statement is that our human finiteness puts limits on our
scholarship. The Bible tells us we are finite and reminds us that God's
ways are higher than ours. But _is_ it specific enough about the exact
nature of our limitations to be a definitive source of known constraints on
our scholarship? I'm not so sure.
It seems to me that we are in a sense in the same position as the
inhabitants of Edwin A. Abott's _Flatland_ (you can get it on the web at
http://wiretap.spies.com/ftp.items/Library/Classic/flatland.txt). There is
a dimension or dimensions in which God and his agents act that we cannot
see. But it's more than that: we cannot, in our natural mekeup, even
conceive that such dimensions may exist. What we know of them is revealed
to us by the Scriptures and by the Holy Spirit.
Bill Hamilton | Vehicle Systems Research
GM R&D Center | Warren, MI 48090-9055
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX)
hamilton@gmr.com (office) | whamilto@mich.com (home)