Re: Blurring Creation & Providence?

Denis Lamoureux (dlamoure@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca)
Mon, 8 Apr 1996 14:31:32 -0600 (MDT)

Hello Stephen,

On Sat, 6 Apr 1996, Stephen Jones wrote:

> This is interesting. Hodge published his Systematic Theology in 1892
> - that's 33 years after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species
> and yet you admit that there was still insufficient evidence for such
> an acute and scientifically aware theological mind as Hodge to be
> "convinced of evolution". You are just confirming one of Johnson's
> main points, that Darwinism was first believed without sufficient
> evdience and then evidence was then sought to try to confirm it:

Well, I must admit your arithmetic is good: 1859 + 33 = 1892 . . . but
your use of PRIMARY SOURCES, though to be commended, shows you are
new to the scholarly world and "fresh off the boat" . . .

For starters, Stephen, Hodge died in 1878 so there is no way he published
in 1892 as you state above.

Second, Hodge's three volume "Systematic Theology" was published between
1872-1873 near the beginning of the PostDarwinian Controversies.

1892 is probably the date of a reprint of his work. Why don't you go back
and check, and report back to us.

Now that I have staighten out the dates for you, do you want to try again?
Kinda blows your "argument" out of the water, eh?

> Well, I am not "open to a non-interventionist account" for the origin
> of life. If scientists prove that life can originate spontaneously,
> without even human intervention, from non-living chemicals, then I
> think I would give up Christianity and probably theism (although I
> might become a pantheist). And I think that there would be hundreds
> of millions of Christians who would agree with me. The effect would
> be *devastating* and would far surpass anything Copernicus or Darwin
> did. It would be the crowning achievement of materialistic-
> naturalism. You wouldn't have a job Terry, because there would be no
> Calvin College.

But much more seriously, it is indeed sad to see that the reality of Jesus
Christ and the Transforming Power of His Blood is dependent on one's
science . . . especially, one who is not a scientist, and by what I have
read over the last year, one who has probably never darken the door
of a laboratory.

Only a Fundamentalist thinks the way you do, Stephen.

Sadden,
Denis

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Denis O. Lamoureux DDS PhD PhD (cand)
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"In all debates, let truth be thy aim, and endeavor to gain
rather than expose thy opponent."

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