Re: Sin & Evolution

George is absolutely right. The danger of the scientific apologetic we
remain with creation and ignore redemption. If you consider Peacocke he is
weak on redemption but covers that up with some kind of sacramentalism which
is rather vague.

What type of God do we have if we ignore Christ - simply the God of the
philosophers

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "george murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
To: <bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2004 12:33 PM
Subject: Re: Sin & Evolution

> bivalve wrote:
>
> > >Thanks for the replies. I can understand and accept all the information
about evolution. Bottom line is I want someone to tell me that I am
forgiven, and saved. That I will have peace in this life and rest in the
next. And that there is the hope of justice for everyone who's ever suffered
at the hands of other people in this life. I've spent some time today
looking on Google for articles to help me but there is virtually nothing -
the combination "Evolution Redeemer" eventually turned up one article by
George here on the ASA site. Everyone is busy defending the science of
evolution, which is valid and valuable, but I think it would be helpful if
someone could spend more time defending the gospel (not just theism) in the
light of your scientific understanding. No wonder the Creationists are so
influential.<
> > >Perhaps I shouldn't say that. I just want someone to tell me my faith
in Christ is certain. Perhaps I should have known better than to watch your
debates - I should know my limitations and keep away. Too late now. Sorry!
S.<
> >
> > Part of the difficulty is that scientific understanding does not tell us
much about the gospel. Rather, the gospel provides a foundation for
scientific understanding. Knowing that the creation is the product of an
orderly God Who cares about us, we can have confidence that its study is a
worthwhile and productive endeavor that will help us learn how to care for
it.
> >
> > Science can't tell us about being forgiven or saved. This cuts both
ways-neither disproof nor proof. There is excellent historical evidence
regarding the basic reliability of the New Testament (plenty of details are
not too testable, but many are and hold up well, as do the main historic
points). One might make some psychological arguments, using scientific
evidence about normal human behavior, but these could only go so far as to
support the idea that something rather unusual happened. The important
implications are theological, understood by faith rather than trying to
experiment on God.
> >
> > Christianity makes better sense philosophically than anything else that
I know of, but science can't measure that.
>
> One of the big mistakes in much of the science-theology dialogue is
focusing exclusively on the doctrine of creation. This _seems_ to have the
advantage of dealing with religious beliefs that are held in common by
people from a variety of religious traditions that have some concept of
creation. But it means that all of them then ignore their distinctive
understandings of creation, divine action, etc. At least for Christianity,
this makes literally all the difference in the world.
>
> It is fundamental to Christian faith that the redeemer is the creator,
and that God's fullest self-revelation is in the redeemer - i.e., Christ.
It is essential then to talk about the latter in order to know who the
creator is supposed to be. In particular, the idea of God's self-limitation
or kenosis which is crucial to some (& in particular, my!) understanding of
God's action in the world originates in Phil.2:5-11 which is about the
Incarnation & Passion of Christ.
>
> This doesn't mean that inter-religious dialogue & even cooperation in
the area of faith & science should be abandoned. But people from different
faith traditions have to get their own understandings of the relationships
between science & their religious beliefs clear before any worthwhile
dialogue can take place.
>
> Folks like AiG are right in saying that there are essential
connections between creation and redemption, but they get the relationships
backwards by imagining that that means that Genesis - & a naive reading of
Genesis at that - is the foundation of Christian faith.
>
>
Shalom,
>
George
>
>
>
Received on Sat Mar 20 11:11:23 2004