Re: Peer review and ID

This is what I have held for a long time and I see no need to even attempt a
concordist approach between Bible and science because though they may be
speaking of the same things there is a different perspective.

Ironically though Calvin spoke of accommodation he got it wrong on Gen 1 4-6
where he used it to describes clouds etc and not the solid dome of the
firmament.

Once you see that the basic theological message of the bible is clothed in
the thought forms of that day and not this day, and all is according to
appearances all this concern over 3.14 , 6 days, a flat earth etc become
irrelevant.

One thing never discussed on this list is the vast numbers of Exodus. If
there were that many and they walked two by two then as the last crossed the
reed sea (aka wrong the Red Sea) the first pair would have read Jerusalem!
So much for the 40 years in the wilderness.

Ouch I have just twisted my ankle as I tripped over my coat tails

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
To: <mrb22667@kansas.net>
Cc: "Jim Armstrong" <jarmstro@qwest.net>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2005 12:32 PM
Subject: Re: Peer review and ID

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <mrb22667@kansas.net>
> To: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
> Cc: "Jim Armstrong" <jarmstro@qwest.net>; <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 10:37 AM
> Subject: Re: Peer review and ID
>
>
>> This is my first post as a new member, so let me know if any of this is
>> out of
>> line, or if clicking "reply to all" is not the correct way to post into
>> this thread.
>>
>> George Murphy states it well. There is an absurdity in our preoccupation
>> with
>> this. But it is an archetypal concern touching on the surface of
>> increasingly
>> significant questions. E.g. how far are Christian scholars willing to
>> go to
>> maintain concordance - or at least a non-contradictory relationship
>> between
>> Biblical understanding and modern scientific sensibility? The pi
>> question is
>> probably a "safe" place to gently play this argument out since it is such
>> a
>> minor detail with no large theological ramifications. Other questions
>> would
>> encroach in a more threatening way -- "Did the sun really 'stop' in the
>> sky for
>> 24 hours for Joshua?" This is a much more challenging whopper to the
>> physicist
>> than the pi dilemma would be to the mathematician (which is easily
>> answered
>> anyway - and Mr. Murphy answers well.) If we entertain this doubt of
>> an
>> incredible miracle (the sun), then we are beginning to go down what many
>> see as
>> the slippery slope thinking of increasingly larger sections of the Bible
>> as
>> benevolent mythology. This threatens some Christians, and perhaps
>> rightly so -
>> because taken to its logical extreme we would end up like Jefferson and
>> the
>> deists (or the current Jesus Seminar folks) who stab right at the heart
>> of the
>> whole enterprise by denying all miracles including the resurrection. But
>> I
>> don't think that those extremes necessarily invalidate the need to
>> entertain
>> doubts regarding our western Biblical analysis with its scientific
>> mindset. I
>> think a lot of what C.S. Lewis wrote on these issues ("Reflections on the
>> Psalms") gives good insight in how the Bible as literature delivers
>> truth.
>> Since literature (and not science) was Lewis' area of expertise, he was,
>> perhaps, better equipped to see the Bible for what it is, than we with
>> our
>> scientific eyes are. -When all you have is a hammer, everything looks
>> like a
>> nail (which applies to the literary scholar as much as the scientist --
>> but the
>> literary tool is probably the more appropriate one for Biblical
>> exegesis). But
>> we certainly can't escape our own worldview and what it brings to our
>> understanding. I think Lewis recognized this as he didn't run from the
>> scientific questions, but applied his curiosity on this front as well
>> with an
>> intriguing "outsider's" perspective.
>
> As Paul Seely has pointed out, Calvin (e.g.) speaks of the "accomodation"
> of the biblical text to the state of knowledge of people of its time.
> This, IMO, is the key to dealing with the fact that scripture in some
> places describes things in ways that are, from the standpoint of modern
> science, incorrect, without at the same time having to doubt that the
> Bible is of any theological value.
>
> But Calvin's concept of accomodation has to be deepened in a couple of
> ways. 1st, it is the Holy Spirit, not the human writers of scripture, who
> should be seen as accomodating a message to cultural limitations. There
> is no reason to think, e.g., that the writer of Genesis 1 really knew
> about big bang cosmology & Darwinian evolution but put his creation
> account in another form because the common people didn't know the more
> accurate scientific theories. & 2d, this willingness of God to accomodate
> revelation to the human condition should be seen as the same type of
> condescension displayed in the Incarnation, & ultimately understood in
> terms of a theology of the cross.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
>
>
Received on Tue Oct 25 15:59:36 2005