RE: Cross & ID

George wrote:
. Or is it possible - this idea has just occurred to me recently & I
haven't checked it thoroughly - that Paul's language in vv.21-23 refers
to the distant past? I.e., is he possibly talking here about the first
humans getting off track, the beginning of a process which would result
in ignorance of the true God by the whole human race?
I think the clues to that lie in Romans 1:32: "Although they know full
well God's just sentence--that those who practice such things deserve to
die--they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them."
 
Who would know "God's just sentence"? Certainly not prehistoric man.
This has to refer to Israelites or Jews. Paul would know of this
behavior. And "images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed
animals" (Rom 1:23) can be seen to this day at Ninevah. Ninevites were
Semites, Jonah was sent to redeem them.
 
So I would conclude that this message to the Romans included examples of
vile behavior by those who should have known better - the Jews. Later
in Romans the Jews are singled out for Paul's wrath, and after all, they
were rejecting the gospel message that Paul was preaching in the
synagogues:
 
"Now if you call yourself a Jew, and rest in the law, and boast in God,
and know His will, and approve the things that are superior, being
instructed from the law, and are convinced that you are a guide for the
blind, a light to those in darkness, an instructor of the ignorant, a
teacher of the immature, having in the law the full expression of
knowledge and truth -- you then, who teach another, do you not teach
yourself? You who preach, "You must not steal"--do you steal? You who
say, "You must not commit adultery"--do you commit adultery? You who
detest idols, do you rob their temples? You who boast in the law, do you
dishonor God by breaking the law? For, as it is written: The name of God
is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" (Rom 2:17-24).
 
~Dick Fischer~ Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/>
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of George Murphy
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 4:12 PM
To: ASA list
Subject: Cross & ID
 
Bundling several response:
 
***********************
 
Bill Hamilton wrote -
 
> --- George Murphy < <mailto:gmurphy@raex.com> gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
>
> (snip)
> OTOH the message of the cross, that God & God's saving work
>> are revealed under the form of their opposite suggests that God's
action in
>> the world should be hidden.
>>
> I'm glad to see you're spending _some_ time on the list, George. By
"opposite"
> above do you mean death?
>
> I'd like to see you expand on this theme. I think I see what you're
driving at,
> but I and perhaps others could benefit by a few more words.
Suffering & death are part of it, for our normal human concepts won't
allow God to be touched by such things. God makes us righteous through
one who is decalred unrighteous. ("God made him to be sin who knew no
sin.") The one who is forsaken by God is God, whose revealation takes
place in the apparent absence of God.
**********************
 
Mervin Bitkofer wrote -
 
>George Murphy wrote:
>David -
 
>3d, grant for the sake of argument that we can know God from natural
phenomena apart from faith. Those phenomena must be ones that Paul &
his >readers in the 1st century Mediterranean world knew about.
Needless to say, they knew nothing about the blood clotting cascade or
information theory.
 
>> Are you suggesting that there is (or should be) some fundamental
difference in our natural theology today because we understand these
things and they didn't? >> Your other points which I didn't include
above, made it clear that natural theology by itself is incomplete and
even dangerous. That assessment seems sound >> enough. But regarding
natural theology such as it is, I have trouble seeing any distinction
between earlier epochs and ours. We are further along a
>>technological road, and so we have a different horizon of the unknown
in view. They weren't as far along and so their mysteries, like ours,
were just in front of >> them. The 'God of the Gaps' straw man has
always posited something that Christian/Hebrew thinking should never
grant (has it ever?): that God is limited to >> our gaps in knowledge.
Meanwhile if some find the gaps, whatever they be relative to this epoch
or that, to be a stimulus for praise, more power to them! If >> new
psalms were written by Spirit-filled people today, they would no doubt
incorporate our current horizons of knowledge and the veiled mysteries
just >>beyond. Whether or not we anticipate learning more about those
things so as to retract their status as "mysterious" should be entirely
irrelevant. God is a God >> of all truth, understood or not, right?
My point was simply that Paul can't have had in mind any of the things
that current ID people point to. It must have been something much more
basic. & if such basic phenomena that were known 2000 years ago doesn't
serve to prove the existence of a creator then maybe the whole argument
is off track. & I think it is because, as I said, Paul's argument is
solely that "they are without excuse."
It's one thing to say that we should praise God for the wonders of the
bacterial flagellum even though we don't understand how they've come to
be. It's quite another thing to say that we should praise God because
we don't understand how they've come to be.
***************************
David Opderbeck wrote -
> George, I'll have to read your links when I have time. However, it
strikes me initially that you're taking a very strongly Calvinistic
stance on faith and >knowledge. Is that right? I would take a more
moderated stance on the the first chapters of Romans, to say the people
do in fact know of God through general > revelation, but that they
willfully refuse to obey him. I'm not a fideist a la Van Til. Is that
the framework from which you're operating?
I am not a Calvinist at all but a Lutheran & have never read van Til.
The main Reformed influences on my theology have been Barth, Torrance &
Moltmann. The 1st 2 have been helpful in developing the type of
critique of independent natural theology to which I referred, while the
last has furthered my understanding of a theology of the Crucified. But
Luther & the Lutherans Bonhoeffer & Juengel have been the primary
influences. My book The Cosmos in the Light of the Cross (Trinity Press
International, 2003) sets out my approach in greater detail.
I certainly think that theology is fides quaerens intellectum but I
wouldn't classify that as "fideism."
In what sense do Steven Weinberg or Richard Dawkins "in fact know of God
through general revelation" but then "willfully refuse to obey them"?
Of course I think that their anti-religious views are quite wrong, but
have enough respect for their intellectual integrity that I can't
convince myself that in any conscious way they know that there is a God.
If there is such a knowledge of God it - & its repression - must be
deeply subconscious. Or is it possible - this idea has just occurred to
me recently & I haven't checked it thoroughly - that Paul's language in
vv.21-23 refers to the distant past? I.e., is he possibly talking here
about the first humans getting off track, the beginning of a process
which would result in ignorance of the true God by the whole human race?
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Tue Jan 3 13:22:27 2006