Surely you don't think Glenn is saying these pre-modern-humans are humans in
the Biblical sense simply or primarily for morphological reasons, do you?
That seems a rather blatant straw man.
Rather, if I understand Glenn, he's talking about the things Henry talks
about elsewhere: the imago Dei having to do with rational understanding,
morality, and religious communion. Henry's "definition" (if that's what he
meant it to be) is easily precise enough to point out that (at least some)
modern humans have the imago Dei (at least to a high degree), and all
insects, dogs, and chimps don't, but is fairly vague in this homo sapiens v.
immediate predecessor context, when one is comparing apparently
commensurable degrees of rationality, religious interest, and (most
obscurely) morality (for which you demand the existence of explicitly coded
laws, apparently, but that seems neither necessary nor sufficient, unless we
know those laws to be moral laws [in which case they'd be sufficient, but
still not necessary]).
An illustration to clarify what I've apparently had a very hard time making
clear: suppose instead Henry said "Get the red book in the study" -- a
simple, easily understood phrase. If there's only one book near red in the
color spectrum, this is a very precise phrase. But in a context in which
there are several books with different shades of red, it's a very vague
phrase.
Something like this seems to be the case here, when comparing homo sapiens
with their immediate predecessors. Or at least so Glenn is arguing.
Hence, I'm not sure I'm following your counterarguments. (1) Sometimes you
seem to be setting up a bit of a straw man, caricaturing what Glenn is
saying (as here, since you're misdirecting Stephen's Henry quote toward
Glenn). (2) Other times you seem to understand Glenn's arguments, but don't
see Glenn's data offering any serious evidence at all to support his actual
claims. And (3) at still other times (as when you demand an explicitly
written moral code before you'll accept his arguments wrt morality) you seem
to be arguing that while there's -suggestive- evidence for Glenn's points,
it isn't nearly enough to give you the -proof- you demand (and presumably
even Glenn agrees with that).
If we just leave out (1), which of the other two approaches is more truly
yours? (It may help to pretend you're talking not to a jury, but to a
judge. ;^> )
--John
-----Original Message-----
From: evolution-owner@udomo2.calvin.edu
[mailto:evolution-owner@udomo2.calvin.edu]On Behalf Of Jim Bell
Sent: Friday, May 29, 1998 6:47 PM
To: evolution@calvin.edu; Stephen Jones
Subject: Re: After Fundamentalism (was Destructive criticism of
Christian apologists (was Denigrating...
Stephen Jones quotes Carl Henry:
"Be that as it may, it is the ethico-religious fact about man which
marks him off most conspicuously from the animals. Only an age
secular in spirit could concentrate its interest in Homo on
morphological structure seeking to understand man's origin and
nature by focusing solely on prehuman and sub-human forms, then
naming man for the brute, and finding his imago at last among the
beasts. From the Hebrew-Christian viewpoint this course, by which
man in a scientific age makes bestiality self-respecting, is but another
chapter in his sophisticated revolt against God. If the cleft between
Christianity and science is to be repaired, the theology of revelation
will not ascribe to nature and nature's God any course disputed by the
assured results of science, nor will science find man's dignity, and its
own renown also, in anything inferior to thinking the Creator's
thoughts after Him."
Wow. Is this from a letter that Henry sent to Glenn?
Best,
Jim
-------------------- End Original Message --------------------