From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Thu Nov 14 2002 - 14:43:16 EST
Michael Roberts wrote:
>
> >
> > The question is, do we take the Bible at its word or do we accept
> > evolutionary assumptions first and then interpret the Bible within them?
>
> Excuse my ignorance and stupidity but what are evolutionary assumptions? I
> have heard about them but cant find out what they are.
I think I understand Michael's point here, that "evolutionary
assumptions"
here is simply a vague pejorative phrase. But there is something
worth pursuing. While
a lot of further distinctions can be made, there are 2 basic ways in
which we can
understand the universe which God has created.
1) God created everything perfect in the beginning, with no
death, suffering,
&c. If sin had never occurred then the world & living things would
have remained in
this perfect state. Sin, however, caused a precipitous fall from
this condition,
introducing suffering and death. Divine incarnation, cross and
resurrection is the way
in which God repairs this damage so that, in the eschaton, the world
will be returned to
its primordial perfect condition.
2) God created a universe which was capable of development
toward the condition
which God intended. Physical suffering and death would be part of
the process by which
creation would develop toward its ultimate union with God. Sin got
the human race and
the world going in the wrong direction, away from the state which God
wanted creation to
reach. The incarnation, cross & resurrection are the way in which
God gets the world
back on track to reach the intended goal. The eschatological state
of the world will
not simply be the same as the primordial state but will be fuller and better.
While the is not strictly necessary, the incarnation in view
1 is likely to be
seen _only_ as a solution to the problem of sin. It would not have
occurred if sin had
not happened. View 2, on the other hand, is open to the idea that
the incarnation was
God's purpose for creation even had sin not occurred.
Now the common assumption of many western Christians - & I
think Allen's post
points to this - has been that 1 is the obvious or natural way to
interpret the biblical
story. If this were the case then evolution could be put together with our
understanding of creation only in a rather awkward fashion.
But there is little justification for reading Genesis or the
rest of scripture
as telling about a state of perfection or golden age in the
beginning. Moreover, there
is reason within scripture & in the Christian tradition for giving
serious consideration
to 2.
Of course this does not mean that the Bible or the church
fathers talk about the
big bang or neo-darwinian evolution. But if 2 is a live theological
option, we are free
to consider the scientific data without feeling compelled to force it
to fit 1. The
consequences are, I think, fairly obvious.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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