Concordism: was Re: New Rudwick book

Comment by Don at end of message.
Jim Armstrong wrote:

> Karl - I wasn't going anywhere with this other than to note the
> boomerang effect, the here-and-there pattern of a faith-derived
> motivation for exploring some aspect of nature, only to find the
> resultant discoveries distastful because the exploration did not
> provide the expected (hoped for) result. Indeed, the boomeranged
> sometimes unexpectedly raised a knot instead on the faith orthodoxy of
> the day.
>
> If I had thought twice, I'd have hit the delete key as it didn't add
> much of anything of substance to the usually informative discourse.
> JimA
>
> cmekve@aol.com wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jim Armstrong <jarmstro@qwest.net>
>> To: asa@calvin.edu
>> Sent: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 11:43:07 -0700
>> Subject: Re: New Rudwick book
>>
>> Just another reminder of the peculiarly repeated process wherein
>> faith motivates exploration, then is troubled by having to deal with
>> the results...
>> Let's verify that the celestial bodies trace perfect circles, as it
>> should be. Wait! They're ellipses?! Parabolas!?! Must be wrong!
>> Let's go find geologic confirmation of the flood. Uh oh, the ages
>> and sequences are not quite what we expected. Must be somethin' wrong!
>> Perhaps there is cosmological evidence of a creative beginning. Aha!
>> There was a big bang! But wait a minute, the time scales are wrong!
>> Oh dear!
>> Let's look at the substance of life. A wonderful, even awesome
>> DNA/natural selection process emerges. But wait.....
>> And so it goes. There must be a lesson here somewhere. Seems
>> somewhat akin to kicking against the goads.
>> The sad part of this to me is that the testimony of the "natural
>> world" - a Creation once declared "good" - can be so cavalierly
>> discounted as an unreliable voice as from a corrupted creation.
>> OK, 'nuff of that!
>>
>> This book looks like a good offering. Thanks!
>> JimA
>>
>> Karl replies:
>> I'm not exactly sure where you're going with this, but just because
>> something such as the Flood was a legitimate scientific [sic] pursuit
>> in the 18th century doesn't necessarily mean that it still should
>> be. The intertwining of religious, social, scientific, etc. thought
>> produces a much more interesting tapestry than any idealogical
>> approach, be it an apologia for religion or atheism. All the while
>> keeping in mind that there is no "view from nowhere" -- at least not
>> for us mortals.
>>
>> Karl
>> *************************
>> cmekve@aol.com wrote:
>>
>>> When was the last time you finished a 700 page book and were sorry
>>> to see it end? For me it was yesterday. Fortunately a sequel is
>>> promised.
>>>
>>> Martin Rudwick, the dean of earth science historians (and also a
>>> paleontologist by training), has published a magnificent work
>>> entitled Bursting the Limits of Time (Univ. Chicago Press, 2005).
>>> Unlike most histories of geology, this one includes the center of
>>> research at the time (Paris) and other work on the Continent --
>>> thanks to Rudwick's facility with languages other than English.
>>> It's a history of ideas (which should please Ted D.!) while also
>>> including them in the social settings of the time (sort of a "weak"
>>> Strong Programme approach). The era covered is approximately from
>>> de Saussure's ascent of Mont Blanc in 1787 to Cuvier and Buckland in
>>> the early decades of the 1800's, thus spanning the Terror in France.
>>>
>>> Of special interest to this list is the way Rudwick adds yet another
>>> nail in the coffin of the "Conflict of Science and Religion". The
>>> actual history is so much more complicated (and interesting!) than
>>> that tired old cliche. As one aspect of the development of a sense
>>> of "geohistory" (i.e., an actual history recorded in the rocks of
>>> the earth), he emphasizes the important roll of Judeo-Christian
>>> thought. For example:
>>>
>>> "Far from "retarding the Progress of Science", a lively concern to
>>> understand Genesis in scientific terms, and more particularly an
>>> interest in identifying the physical traces of the Flood,
>>> facilitated just the kind of thinking that was needed in order to
>>> develop a distinctively geohistorical practice within the sciences
>>> of the Earth." [p.236]
>>>
>>> Also this footnote regarding his rejection of the idea that religion
>>> had retarded the progress of science:
>>> "I should put it on record that the conclusion summarized in this
>>> paragraph came to seem compelling only at a late stage in the
>>> writing of this book, as a result of my detailed research; it was
>>> not a guiding feature of my interpretation from the start. My own
>>> personal [Christian] beliefs may have made me more open to the
>>> evidence in its favor than I might otherwise have been--I did not
>>> approach the sources with the usual knee-jerk hostility to all
>>> things religious--but I did not expect this conclusion, still less
>>> strive to demonstrate it." [p. 7]
>>>
>>> I can't recommend this book too highly!! Buy it or borrow it if you
>>> have the slightest interest in the history of the earth sciences.
>>> (Besides, he prominently references our own Michael R.'s article in
>>> the Churchman, "Geology and Genesis Unearthed" !)
>>>
>>> Karl
>>> *****************
>>> Karl V. Evans
>>> cmekve@aol.com <javascript:parent.ComposeTo('cmekve@aol.com');>
>>>
>>
       

Jim -- you need not be apologetic -- I think that you have raised an
important point. We all need to reconcile what we read in God's two
books, of scripture and nature, and how best to do that depends on the
knowledge that we have at this present time. The danger lies in taking a
particular concordance and treating is as absolute -- something that I
am calling concordism. To my mind a prime example of a concordist is
Hugh Ross, who bases his apologetics on a close concordance between a
particular reading of the Bible and a particular reading of modern
cosmology. There may be some short term gain in such an approach, but in
the long term it leads to disaster -- as history has repeatedly shown.
Don
Received on Thu Jan 26 18:37:34 2006