From: Robert Schneider (rjschn39@bellsouth.net)
Date: Wed Oct 15 2003 - 09:47:14 EDT
Re: Phillip Johnson (and Methodological Naturalism)Jonathan Wells writes:
> He [Fr. Moon] also spoke out against the evils in the world; among them, he frequently
> criticized Darwin's theory that living things originated without God's
> purposeful, creative activity. My studies included modern theologians who
> took Darwinism for granted and thus saw no room for God's involvement in
> nature or history; in the process, they re- interpreted the fall, the
> incarnation, and even God as products of human imagination.
Howard Van Till asks:
A question for Darwin scholars:
Did Darwin, as Wells here states, actually say that "living things originated without God's purposeful, creative activity"?
Michael Roberts and others can answer Howard's question with more confidence than I, but I do not recall Darwin ever claiming what Fr. Moon says says he claimed. But the rest of Well's statement draws my curiosity. I am curious as to which "modern theologians" Wells read. Having read the writings of a number of modern theologians, I do not find a single one who accepts evolution (not that loaded word "Darwinism") who finds "no room for God in nature and history." To the contrary. As for "re-interpreting" theology, heavens, theologians have been doing that for 2000 years! The doctrines of the incarnation and the fall have been the subjects of recent discussions on this list, that illustrate not only the fact that different models and purposes of each have been articulated throughout the history of Christian theology (something Wells should have learned at Yale), but also how believers today have been revisiting these doctrines as a result of their being convinced that the present scientific model of a evolving world is compelling enough to understand God's creation as an evolving one. Wells ought to know that all theological doctrine is a product of the human mind, the articulation of a belief in response to revelation that involves both reason and imagination. I would also challenge Wells to name a theologian who accepts evolution who thinks that God is a product of human imagination. Certainly our images of God are in part of the work of human imagination--how could it be otherwise?--but I know of no theologian among the many well known who write on theology of an evolving creation who denys the *reality* of God.
Bob Schneider
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