Re: Assurance of faith

I wonder why eschatology is off - limits for scientists but not
creation? Doesn't science try to discover things to make the world
better and is there not a strong future inclination in the doing of
science? An example of a scientist talking about the future is John
Polkinghorne's little volume on "The God of Hope and the End of the
World." Or have I completely missed your intention, Peter?

Respectfully,
Graham

Peter Ruest wrote:

>Samantha, you wrote: "...I'm afraid I still feel that the materials here
>focus on the creation end of the story and not the eschatological end..."
>
>>From what you wrote before, I got the impression that assurance of faith was
>your problem, not (theoretical) eschatology. Eschatology has two aspects, a
>practical and a theoretical one. The practical one revolves around the
>assurance of faith and the joy of our "blessed hope" for our future after
>Christ's return, based on the few clear promises Scripture gives us for our
>practical life of faith today.
>
>Theoretical eschatology, on the other hand, deals with the question of what
>we can know about what will happen, in what sequence, etc. As biblical
>evidence for these topics is notoriously difficult to interpret, theologians
>have come up with various different, often incompatible views about this.
>And various sects or groups have settled on particular speculations, which
>we better ignore. Jesus said (Matthew 25:13) "Therefore keep watch, because
>you do not know the day or the hour."
>
>As far as science is concerned, we can know and learn lots of things about
>the past, but only tentative extrapolations about the future. And
>eschatology, (teaching about the last things) is completely off-limits.
>Therefore it's quite natural that the ASA list focuses, among other topics,
>on creation, but hardly, if at all, on eschatology.
>
>Peter
>
>
>
Received on Thu Mar 25 06:58:18 2004