Re: Cobb County

Ed wrote of Dick's statement "Clearly, this has been what has
gotten us into trouble. Nature needs to stand on its own two
feet unimpeded by what we think the Scriptures say.":

>Well at least after a few weeks of asking questions I get what I was
>asking for, a statement of where the loyalty of scientists on this list
>lies.  If nature must stand on its own without scripture, we have a
>functional atheism that places science above scripture.  Nothing can
>stand on its own two feet apart from scripture for the Christian since
>God's revelation is two-fold, the general which leads to many erred
>results according to scripture (nature), and the specific which is God's
>very word to man (scripture).  Scripture teaches us what nature says
>about God, not the other way around.

Of all the years I've known Dick, I've never heard him or others
called "functional atheists". This term is used in moral
situations where people pay lip service to God but do immoral
and wicked deeds the rest of the time. Psalm 94 comes to mind.
I may differ with Dick on his interpretations, but I have no
reason to doubt his moral integrity.

I am sure you have been in the world long enough to see that the
wicked do prosper, the unjust get away squeaky clean, and the
good fearing are crushed in their wake. This would be consistent
with a world made by accidents and probably tempts all of us at
some point in our lives to give up and join in. It is here that
we are called to keep our faith and not break from doing good.
To walk in the light and praise God even in the darkness we endure.

Even yourself, you would not be arguing these matters if you didn't
feel that science had a say on things. You seem to desire a coherent
world where things at least make sense.

Although scientist may labor for years without a clear answer,
scientific questions actually have answers and even you cannot
argue with that. So if the answers AT LEAST APPEAR to be strongly
pointing in the direction of "evolution", what does one who fears
God do? Do they pretend that it doesn't. Do they declare that
Satin is deceived them? Do they go off on their own like the YEC
seems to have done? Or, do they reflectively look at scripture
again and try to understand God's working in this world and accepting
that God does not always do things the way we like to think of
ourselves as? And I take the preacher's word here too: "God tests
them so that they may see that they are like the animals" (Ecc. 318).
Surely that man had seen enough to know that the world does not
always turn with God's eyes watching. Perhaps in the new heaven and
the new earth, you will have a world you like, but here, we have to
live on doing good in spite of the realities around us.

Science, although it has the capacity to say how we came about
(in the sense of physical processes, chemical reactions, etc.),
it can say nothing about why we came about. Science can observe
that certain moral behaviors may have evolved, but it can say
nothing about why we should be moral or even what is actually
right. Science cannot say why we should do good, and
it cannot say whether God exists. These all require a
different reasoning that is far out of the reach of science.
It cannot say whether Jesus did the right thing or not.
These require faith, and it is these things we must struggle
to adhere to, not the trivial issues of whether we came as
a product evolution, or a 6x24 hour day creation with all
it incoherent strangeness.

In the end, we _could_ be wrong
about evolution, but it is certainly not a conspiracy of
the scientific establishment. One thing is for sure, if
someone really found a solid coherent model that fit YEC
and outdid the evolutionary model, you can bet it would
eventually win, because science goes on what works. Geologist
find oil because they use an old earth model and uses the
information about fossils to help find it. Astronomers
use the age of the universe to help understand distances
and gravitation. Biologists can use evolution to understand
how to fight disease. Even if the models are wrong, they
make a lot of progress in the right direction. If a YEC
paradigm did better, science would use it. It seems that
it just doesn't.

God gave us the power of reason so we could survive and prosper.
To insist that only a YEC world is acceptable is to conflate
the very difficult moral issues of life, with the comparatively
prosaic (and in principle answerable) scientific ones.

When we reach the pearly gates, I think God would care
more about how we went about doing science: were we
honest, were we truthful, did we try to show respect to
others, did we consider things honestly, or did we hide
behind sheilds of intellectual obfuscation, were partial
to particular whims and pet theories, did we try to
get rid of people we didn't like or did we try to
reason or reconcile with them, and were we moral about
the research we tried to do, and did we ever think of
God when we were doing it and priase him for the life
and toil we were given? These are more likely the
things God would care about. Hell is for the immoral
and wicked, not those who care and depend on God for
every breath and each new day: YEC and theistic
evolutionist alike.

by Grace alone we proceed,
Wayne

 
Received on Thu Jan 20 19:52:03 2005