From: george murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Fri Nov 22 2002 - 11:13:07 EST
Ted Davis wrote:
> Sondra is not a "blithering idiot," indeed her comments about certain views
> aired on the ASA listserve only underscore the dilemma faced by many
> Christians who want to listen to modern science and modern biblical
> scholarship (I think these apparently separate fields of inquiry raise
> equally disconcerting questions. It isn't an accident that conservative
> Protestants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the scientists and
> the biblical scholars as the two faces of Satan.
>
> The most fundamental problem, in my view, is the large gap that separates a
> typical ASA member from a typical American Protestant. This has been noted
> often by ASAers ourselves, and by the secular historian James Gilbert in the
> chapter on the early ASA in his book, Redeeming Culture. It's dogged our
> identity and our effectiveness since the beginning, and I doubt it will go
> away any time soon.
>
> The gap has several relevant features, let me mention just a few. First,
> many ASAers have genuine professional knowledge of one or more sciences;
> others have genuine professional knowledge of the Bible or important related
> aspects of the ancient world. Most non-ASAers have neither. So, there is a
> fundamental knowledge gap that is not easily crossed, even though we have to
> keep trying.
>
> Second, many ASAers understand and appreciated subtle distinctions, often
> involving philosophy/metaphysics or theology, which are not appreciated by
> non-ASAers. In some cases, those folks are simply unable to appreciate such
> distinctions by limits of their ability to reason (I'm not trying to be
> "elitist" or insulting here, I'm simply stating what I believe to be true;
> those folks are as important to God as everyone else, and ought to be
> respected as such). In other cases, folks can learn to make such
> distinctions themselves, but won't always come to the same conclusions for
> lots of possible reasons I won't enumerate, including a basic difference in
> beliefs about God, nature, and human knowledge. A third group is capable of
> doing this type of thinking, but refuses to do it. Either they're too lazy,
> too hostile (they think that reason and faith are contradictory poles), or
> barking up the wrong tree (that is, they fail to see the importance of doing
> really hard thinking about these kinds of questions, whereas they don't
> hesitate to think really hard about lots of other questions).
>
> Probably the "hostility" group is the hardest to deal with. Many YECs (I
> am convinced) fit into this category. They're usually hostile b/c they have
> a very simple notion of truth and a very simple notion of literary genre
> when applied to the Bible. They can accept propositional truth and simple
> truth (such as the fact that this message ended up in their mailbox), but
> often can't accept really big truths that can't be adequately expressed as
> propositions or easily demonstrated from simple truths. They tend to
> believe things like this: if you can show that the creation story in Genesis
> One can't be historically/scientifically true, then the whole Bible is a
> pack of lies, or at least fables. They have a very serious point, but they
> often dismiss very serious answers directed at this very point.
>
> This is why I tell my students, as we begin to consider very interesting
> but speculative notions about science and faith, the following little word
> of advice: "Never go anywhere you can't take your faith with you."
>
> I try to show students what some of the paths are, but I'd rather see them
> own a genuine faith on a simpler path, than lose their faith on a harder
> one. I mean that completely, it's not a gratuitious disclaimer.
>
> Early in the process, I tried to get Jim to read some really good and
> thoughtful stuff about science and faith. I don't know if he did, nor can I
> say whether it would have been helpful if he had. But my level of
> frustration went up pretty quickly, b/c it was pretty clear that he didn't
> want to engage these important questions on the same plane that many people
> on this list do engage them.
>
> So he yelped about it.
>
> And lost his faith.
>
> At least for the time being... If you're ready to reopen that conversation
> somewhere down the line, Jim, please let us know. In the meantime, I do
> wish you well.
I agree with a good deal of what Ted says, but want to add a comment from
the standpoint of a non-typical ("Evangelical Catholic" Lutheran clergy serving
at an Episcopal parish) ASA member.
Since the ASA's membership comes primarily from the Evangelical
tradition (&
I use the word "Evangelical" in its common American sense), it has some of the
strengths of that tradition. In particular, the average ASA member
probably has
a good deal better knowledge of biblical content than does the average
non-member, including those from other parts of the Christian tradition. & the
average ASA member probably has more respect for the _authority_ of scripture
than do many Christians from more liberal traditions.
At the same time, the ASA shares what I see as some of the weaknesses of
evangelicalism. Primary among these is a frequent failure to connect well with
the larger catholic tradition. Those who consciously understand themselves to
be within that catholic tradition can, I think, use historical-critical
interpretation of scripture with less tension, and more safely, than can most
Evangelicals because the former understand that the Bible has to be read as a
document of the church, within the community of faith and in
continuity with the
way Christians of the past have read it.
To put it in another - & perhaps clearer - way. The principle
that doctrine
is to be based upon the Bible alone (_sola scriptura_) is taken by some
Evangelicals to mean that revelation can be understood, and theology can be
done, by reading the Bible without any attention to the way it has been read by
Christians of the past and without reference to statements like the
Nicene Creed
by which the church has intended to provide definitive guidelines for the
interpretation of scripture. It is quite a different thing to say, "Yes, the
Bible is the final 'source and norm for Christian doctrine', but in our reading
of the Bible we must take seriously (which is not to say slavishly)
the church's
tradition of reading it."
The Trinity provides a good example of this. The dogma of the Trinity -
that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the one God - cannot simply be read out of
the New Testament texts in a straightforward way. It took the church
~300 years
of reflection on scripture and its implications for faith and life to arrive at
a definitive belief that God is the Holy Trinity. A Christian who ignores this
development and insists on _sola scriptura_ in the first sense I noted above
will either try to force NT texts to say more than they actually do or conclude
that the doctrine of the Trinity is unimportant or even wrong. Those who take
the church's interpretive tradition seriously can recognize that the NT writers
had no
fully formed doctrine of the Trinity, but will not think that this invalidates
the trinitarian belief that the church eventually arrived at.
Please note that I refer here to "some Evangelicals" &c. I certainly don't
suggest that _all_ Evangelicals are theologically naive. Nor do I
mean that all
Lutherans, RCs &c are theologically sophisticated.
Shalom,
George
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