Steve Schimmrich asked " I was wondering if anyone could
recommend some books or articles..." He would like to defend
himself being " an evangelical Christian without being a
young-earth creationist." (post of Fri, 26 Jul 1996 09:07:08 -0500
(CDT)). It just so happens I was working on an annotation of
David Livingstone 1987 book entitled Darwin's Forgotten
Defenders: The Encounter Between Evangelical Theology and
Evolutionary Thought. Eerdmans. Even though I haven't read it,
I think I think I have a good feel for one of the book's trust.
One intention of this historian is to remind his intended
audience (evangelicals) that not all the stalwarts of the
Christian faith rejected evolutionary science. A number of folks
including BB Warfield, who were very orthodox in their theology,
saw evolutionary theory as a legitimate scientific theory. CS
Lewis is another figure that comes to my mind - see Mere
Christianity - (I don't know if Livingstone mentions him).
Livingstone will at least make it clear that historically the
only options have been more than either a young earth position or
a total acceptance of an evolutionary philosophy.
Still as a person that is neither a young earth flood model
geologists or a theistic evolutionist, I would add a caution.
While it is good to remind folks that there may be more option
than they have thought of and use Warfield as an example, I
hesitate to use Warfield's own position as a reason for accepting
the current evolutionary theory as explanation for how God
created. One reason for this caution is because the theory and
academic climate differ between his and our time. As I
understand it, from reading Marsden, academia (the University) at
that time (unlike now) was not hostile to a form of Christianity.
I believe it was becoming to be dominated by a liberal form of
Christianity that Warfield and others were fighting on the
theological side. Marsden also contents and - I think I buy -
that both the theological liberalism (that was accepting of many
positions) and a secularizing evolutionary science worked toward
destroying the Soul of the American University (title of his
book).
While it is good to find others who accept our position - we
also must be careful in accepting someone's position in a field
outside his own on the basis of his reputation elsewhere. Chaps
may not be right in all fields. I know Davis Young has done a lot
of work, digging into Warfield and some positions of some of the
other Princeton theologians. Yet my recollection from hearing
him give a seminar is that Young did a good historical job in
determining Warfield's position, but I don't recall Young talking
about the basis for Warfield's position. How much did he know
about biological evolution? We have a tendency (maybe not even
all wrong) of quoting chaps we like and discounting those we
don't sometimes without really judging their evidence. Perhaps a
classic example was in an earlier post in which Genn M. I thought
rather unfairly picked on David Wilcox. In spite of what Glenn
said (and I know something about paleontological literature)
David had gotten into some of the primary literature (maybe not
enough - but I sure would prefer folks to at least get that far
into the literature). The main thing is that Dave was taking a
position that Glenn did not like and with his greater command of
the literature he made him look bad for not quoting some the
literature. I don't take Wilcox's position but he was trying to
take a different paradigm in anthropology from his Christian
perspective and that is something that we should encourage.
To throw out another wrinkle. Those of us like Steve or me that
work in the earth sciences, may have to have more involved and
well thought out position than the laity. Sometimes I wonder is
the secular layman's evolutionary position is not as far from
science as the evangelical layman that buys into the flood model
theory. But because it is more in line with the established
paradigms it does not get categorized as poor science. From my
experience in paleontology, the stories weaved in texts at the
introductory level are quite different from those you find in the
professional literature. But enough, I must get to Dordt and
write up something on spore preservation in an Illinois coal.
Arghhh!
-- :James F. Mahaffy e-mail: mahaffy@dordt.eduBiology Department phone: 712 722-6279Dordt College FAX 712 722-1198Sioux Center, Iowa 51250