From: Josh Bembenek (jbembe@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Oct 06 2003 - 09:54:25 EDT
"The foremost problem I sense is that these people have become very
comfortable over many years with a traditional theological package that they
learned in a conservative church environment, and an old Earth poses a
threat to the package in ways they don't fully understand but are basically
unwilling even to contemplate. None of these people in this category has
had scientific training, and when someone who has scientific training (e.g.,
an ICR spokesperson) claims the science is wrong, they're eager to believe.
If a scientist counters that the science is right, then it just boils down
to a disagreement between two informed people, and they're going to side
with the informed person who leaves their beliefs intact. Many of these
people seem predisposed to accept that science is unchristian and likely to
be wrong."
-Having just attended several talks by Ken Ham in one day, I am starting to
understand this issue a bit more clearly. Ken Ham spent a good length of
time explaining how science taught at the schools (i.e. the World, or Satan
influenced thinking...) clearly refutes the science of the bible. With this
being the case, we must retreat to what we know the bible speaks clearly to.
It isn't simply a phenomena of science, it is an issue of adhering
strictly to a complete picture of what the scripture says. Thus, being
convinced of what the bible says, the rest of the world should fall in line
with that. If it does not, we keep our view of scripture and try to
understand what it is in our understanding of the world that prevents us
from accurately seeing the world correctly. The fundamental issue is
questioning the integrity and authority of the bible, and being convinced of
its message in a particular sense they build everything around that. Howard
takes an extreme in the opposite, expressing here the willingness to hold
the truths derived from the bible in perhaps equivalent skepticism as YECs
take truths from science, perhaps even saying the bible could be wrong. I
think an important thing to remember is that at one time during each of our
lives, none of us believed Christ nor any of the rest of the Christian
doctrine. Once we accept the authority of scripture to convey the truth of
Christ, we cannot rest very easy on our faith if we cannot be crystal clear
on what the truth of scripture is. I personally do not place the highest
premium on being as comfortable as possible with my faith, so I am willing
to see that science or something about the world could inform my view of
biblical truth, and cause me to accept an old earth. I am also willing to
believe that issues that we feel the scripture make clear to us as True may
turn out to be false (this does not mean that God intended us to be
confused, but that we have perhaps processed the bible with too much of our
modern culture when it was written for the Jews.) The real question is "how
fallible is man's interpretation of the bible?" Many who have devoted time
and effort to closely examining Genesis are convinced that their
interpretation is just about as solid as all the evidence Glenn offers as
proof for an old earth. The difference is that they are studying God's Word
which to them should take priority over the information we can derive from a
fallen world. Just my perspective.
Josh
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