Re: 2001's gospel message

Allan Harvey (aharvey@boulder.nist.gov)
Mon, 08 Nov 1999 08:30:43 -0700

At 07:59 PM 11/5/99 +0000, mortongr@flash.net wrote:
>At 09:07 AM 11/05/1999 -0700, Allan Harvey wrote:
>>As an aside, I'd recommend Joel Cannon's review of Contact:
>>http://alpha.centenary.edu/joel/contact.html
>>
>>He points out what also struck me, which is that for Jodie Foster's
>>character (and presumably also Sagan) the only way for God to be
>>meaningful is if he "leaves his fingerprints all over the evidence."
>>
>
>In some fashion I agree with Sagan. A God who leaves NO fingerprints just
>might be an imaginary figure like a leprechaun. Belief in a God with no
>fingerprints becomes unsubstantiated belief. And maybe that was the appeal
>of Contact (the book) to me. We Christians need to remember that the
>resurrection IS a BIG fingerprint.

In some fashion I agree with Glenn (hey, it happens sometimes). Of
course most fundamentally God's "fingerprint" is Jesus Christ.

The problem comes when people look not at that revealed fingerprint but
insist on their own ideas of what they think God's fingerprints are
supposed to look like. When they require that "fingerprint" (be it
Sagan's orbiting crucifix or "gaps" in the evolution of life) as a
necessary condition for the truth of Christianity, we must teach them
that they have no right to tell God how he must reveal himself or how he
must do his creative work.

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| Dr. Allan H. Harvey | aharvey@boulder.nist.gov |
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