Re: Cross & ID

The *certainty* in classical Calvinism (see the website Janice references
for a nice example) is almost always in my experience certainty on the part
of those who hold classical Calvinism, not certainty in the position itself,
according to which (as Luther put it, and we mustn't forget that Calvin was
essentially systematizing Luther's position on many points) James is a
gospel of straw. Certainty is a word I hesitate to use in most
conversations, incl theological ones where it can tend more to "puff a man
up," as Boyle once put it about science (not theology). The sovereignty of
God as Calvinists define/understand it might be true, but the sovereignty of
Calvinism is something I am not prepared to concede.

This is as I said a position I respect; I also understand it from the
inside out, having belonged for many years to Calvinist churches and having
attended regularly years ago the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed
Theology, which I believe still continues to this day. I've heard many of
the great Calvinist preachers of an earlier generation--RC Sproul (before he
lost his good sense and endorsed YECism), John Gerstner, JI Packer, Roger
Nicole, James M Boice (I attended his church for a few years), and some
superb preachers from the Reformed Baptist tradition whose names (sadly) I
can no longer remember, even though two of them are among the very finest
preachers I've ever heard (one man, nearly blind, from the seminary in
Denver, was also a wonderfully warm person with whom I had a couple of short
conversations and I really regret not recalling his name now some 30 years
later).

Much of my own theology of creation continues to draw on insights stressed
by Calvinists, incl Calvin himself (whom I have actually read at some
length), so these are not empty words. I have no wish to debate Janice or
anyone else concerning the fine points of Calvinist theology, some of which
I probably accept anyway. There is much beauty in that tradition, and much
truth as well. It's relevant to understanding science/religion issues also,
and many of those issues I do view in a Calvinistic way, such as God's
relationship to the creation, I simply do not think that it embraces the
whole of the truth in an adequate way. It remains a human model of God's
knowledge, which we do not possess.

I plan to leave aside now any further discussion of the open theism thing,
which Janice picked up on from my post that was mainly about contingency and
creation; I gather she agreed with those other parts?

ted
Received on Tue Jan 3 15:44:10 2006