Re: Kansas munchkins (as Gould will call them)

Michael -

What's with the green background? It's no longer St. Patrick's Day.

You don't quite have the LC-MS history right. (Remember that I grew up there, though I don't claim infallible knowledge of it.) 1st, I'm not sure what you mean by "the proto-LCMS." The synod was formed in 1847, a few years after Saxon immigration to the US, & for the intervening time (& awhile thereafter) was primarily involved in issues of the nature of the church & ministry. I don't think LC-MS was ever officially geocentrist, though Pieper defended the legitimacy of that position citing (among other things) relativity theory. (& in fact general relativity does allow you to use a semi-Tychonic model.)

Missouri's 1932 "Brief Statement" affirmed YEC but the status of that statement is debated. In any case YEC wasn't a significant issue in the Missouri wars of the early 70s, though human evolution was. The "Statement of Scriptural and Confessional Principles" which represents the victorious conservative position in those wars & is official LC-MS teaching, rejects human evolution but says nothing about the age of the earth. In the midst of that conflict (in which I was an extremely minor player), I privately asked Jack Preus, the LC-MS President & principal author of "A Statement" about the age issue. He told me that human evolution was out but that he had no objection to the idea that the earth was millions of years old.

Missouri was tending steadily toward the right in the 90s under the presidency of Al Barry, who was widely believed to have restored fellowship with the Wisconsin Synod as a major goal. That would have required acceptance of YEC. Since Barry's death & with the presidency of Gerald Kieschnick, things have changed significantly. His conservative challengers were soundly beaten when he was re-elected this past summer and some of the ultra-conservatives revile him & other "liberals" unmercifully & wonder if Missouri is "lost." The fact that the synod tolerates "evolutionists" is a major complaint. In reality Kieschnick is quite conservative & in this convention speeches after his election & again his re-election he made a point of affirming his belief in, inter alia, 6 day creation. But it's clear that he's more sensible & more pragmatic than his predecessor & has no intention of making a big issue of that or of purging those who don't accept YEC views.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Michael Roberts
  To: D. F. Siemens, Jr.
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 5:44 PM
  Subject: Re: Kansas munchkins (as Gould will call them)

  Dave
  You will have to shave your beard off! This Concordia is in Mequon , Milwaukee and is an LCMS college where I gave a paper in the 2000 ID conference there. Also please remember that in the 19th century the proto-LCMS was geocentric and changed their mind 80 odd years ago, so they might do it again. Also in 1959 Paul Zimmermann a conservative Missouri Lutheran sat on the fence on the earth's age and that was pre the great split of the 70s. Later the LCMS opted for YEC.
  I am asking Angus Menuge, whom I know well, to argue his case and tell me where I am confused. If I am confused and have got things wrong then I am willing to change my mind. After all when I first came across ID in 1996 with Behe's book I thought it utterly wrong and called his view "godofthegapswrappedupinaminoacids". Come 2000 I was moving very close to some kind of ID, but then rejected ID totally by Icons by Wells and the refusal of ID to be clear on the age of the earth as well as Johnson's crude parodies of Darwinism. I also could not see how ID can help a geologist for example in any way. I also find that the fixation on the wrongness of Naturalism and the refusal to see that there is a difference between methodological and metaphysical naturalism completely misguided as without meth nat science is impossible. I prefer the term secondary causes from the early 19th century and I like B16 's use of the expression "the cause of causes". Some of these I explored in my chapter in Debating Design ed by Ruse and Dembski with a chapter by Angus.

  I consider the time question as the most important, far more so than the possibility of design (which often looks at things in a static way - time wise) or the possibility of evolution. Though it does not come out in The Origin of Species in his Notebooks Darwin first argues for evolution from the fossil succession and the conclusions (not assumptions Moorad) of vast (unspecified then) geological time based on the elucidation of the stratigraphical sequence which partly predated the use of fossils for dating purposes and the fact of extinction. In fact fossils are not necessary for relative age dating by geologists and I say that as I had to work out the geol column for a chunk of Precambrian strata years ago and I had no fossils to help me. By avoiding the question of time IDers in fact slew the argument in favour of ID because you don't see similar fossils whether horses elephants or anything else spread over 10s of millions of years and "could" all be a mere 10000 year old.

  In reference to Moorad's weblink for a timeline I looked it up and laughed at the inaccuracies eg claiming the earth is over 5 billion years old. Many of the dates are wrong and over-dogmatic. There is controversy on when life started and no sensible person would be precise about it - but 3 to 4 by ago seems reasonable and we can await fresh discoveries. Please note that geological ages given in years is the result of over 300 years of geological work and has undergone much modification in that time, because these dates are conclusions and not assumptions.

  Michael
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: D. F. Siemens, Jr.
    To: michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk
    Cc: asa@calvin.edu
    Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 7:24 PM
    Subject: Re: Kansas munchkins (as Gould will call them)

    Michael,
    You apparently don't understand that this Concordia is Wisconsin Synod, more extremely YEC than Missouri Synod. Since it is part of their doctrinal commitment, it is true, and anyone who does not agree is wrong and confused. The proof is straightforward. And you have no right to dispute premises that are beyond dispute. Ipse dixit!
    Dave

    On Thu, 19 May 2005 16:11:50 +0100 "Michael Roberts" <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> writes:
      One report says;
      He asked Angus Menuge, a professor of philosophy at Concordia University, "How do you explain the many theists, including evangelical Christians, who don't see [evolution through natural mechanisms] as a contradiction of faith?" Menuge didn't flinch: "Some of those people are just confused."

      Can Angus or anyone else please explain how we are confused?

      And also be clear on the age of the earth.

      Michael, who is confused about not being confused when he is supposed to be confused
Received on Thu May 19 20:50:17 2005