Re: Cross & ID

George is IMO completely correct on this one: "the doctrine of the
contingent rationality of the universe" (which he rightly attributes in this
language to Thomas Torrance, who *might* be the most important
theology/science writer of the past century, at least in the Protestant
tradition) is essential to a Christian doctrine of creation, unless one is
prepared to throw out both the letter and the spirit of creatio ex nihilo.
I can't make sense of the bodily resurrection without creatio ex nihilo, and
I can't make sense of Christianity without the bodily resurreciton;
therefore I say what comes before. I'm delighted that it's in the ASA
Statement of Faith.

****

Now on a related but different track, namely an historical track. Anyone
who thinks that such a view (the contingent nature of nature) is "new age,"
has a woefully inadequate understanding of the history of the doctrine of
creation--both as expressed by theologians and also as expressed by those
Christian scientists (such as Boyle) who knew/understood the doctrine of
creation very well. I do not mean this as a derogatory comment in a
personal way--there are so many things, more than I could name, about which
my own understanding of the subject would be woefully inadequate; let me be
the first to admit great igorance of many things. But this isn't one of
those things (for me), and it's a very important thing (when it comes to
faith and science), so I need to make the point.

Ted
Received on Tue Jan 3 14:07:29 2006