Re: [asa] Re: Cosmological vs. Biological Design

*This is a false polarisation and a mis-reading of Genesis.*
**
I agree. It would be interesting to find out who wrote the notes for
this
portion of the NIV Archeology Study Bible. In some other respects it
seems
to be a decent resouce, though it seems to gloss over some other
areas of
difficulty.

Here's what I'm trying to get at with this though: Francis Collins
seems
like the kind of public intellectual who as a self-identified
evangelical could lend credibility to alternatives to this kind of
simplistic view. So I found it supremely frustrating that his book
brushes
all this off with something like, "when I read Genesis 1 and 2, it seems
like an allegory to me." He should know that's equally simplistic, and
worse. In the evangelical mind, "allegorical" with regard to scripture
means "a story without any historical foundation whatsoever" -- just
like
Alice in Wonderland -- and that in turn signals that evangelicalism's
resistance to higher criticism and liberal theology were for naught. It
means that if the story "seems like an allegory to me," I can ignore its
grammatical and historical context in favor of my subjective
impressions.
It means, essentially, giving up on evangelical distinctives.

It would be great if Collins could team up with folks like John Stott,
Alister McGrath, C. John Collins, Henri Blocher, John Walton, Peter
Enns,
etc., to produce a book that is readable on a popular level but with
more
exegetical heft.

On 10/10/06, Michael Roberts <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> David
>
> This is a false polarisation and a mis-reading of Genesis. I t
> tries to
make Genesis describe God's mode of creation and not that he was the
Creator. It allows no accommodation to the thought of the day ,
assumes that
there is precision to the word "kind", overstates the distinctness of
the
creation of man and woman. No wonder some think men have fewer ribs than
women!
> To follow this type of interpretation one cannot do science in any
> form.
> Of course it is appealing to evangelicals as it appears more
> biblical than
the average TE who sees Genesis in broad brush impressionism and not
as a
detailed photograph.
> Kinds must be seen as a general popular term used 3000years ago and
totally pre-scientific.
> This is part of the woeful inheritance of popular evangelicalism which
adopts a default literalistic hermeneutic which results in either YEC or
various unsatisfactory harmonisations
>
> Michael
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: David Opderbeck
> To: SteamDoc@aol.com
> Cc: asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 2:25 AM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Re: Cosmological vs. Biological Design
>
>
> An important thing to realize in making this distinction is that,
> whatever
reasonable things might be said in some ID publications or by people
like
Dembski, *in actual practice* the ID movement is dominated by "God of
the
gaps" theology in this second sense.
> Excellent points, I think. Here's why I think this is so: it has
> little
to do with any theological problems with TE. All the theological
problems
could be overcome. The core issue is hermeneutical: do the "kinds" in
Genesis 1 refer to a fixity of species, and do Gen. 1 and 2 require that
Adam and Eve were separate creations? The NIV Archeological Study
Bible,
for example, in the note to Gen. 1:2, states
>
>
> If ['evolution' is] taken in a historical sense (the theory that
everything now existing has come into its present condition as a
result of
natural development, all of it having proceeded by natural causes
from one
rudimentary beginning), such a theory is sharply contradicted by the
divine
facts revealed in Genesis 1 and 2. It is explicitly stated several
times
that plants and animals are to reproduce 'according to their kinds....
Moreover, the creation of Adam is sharply distinguished from other
aspects
of creation, and the creation of Eve is descriged as a distinct act
of God.
Gen 2:7 (in the Hebrew) clearly teaches that Adam did not exist as an
animate being before he was a man, created after the image of God."
>
> Setting aside why an "archeological" study Bible would contain such a
footnote, this is the crux of why ID is so compelling to most
evangelicals.
If TE proponents want to gain traction among evangelicals, general
theological arguments, straw man ID knock-downs, and vague references to
"allegory" won't do it. They need to present a solid, compelling
exegesis
of Gen. 1 and 2 that accounts for the references to "kinds" and for the
creation of Adam and Eve within an evolutionary framework.
>
>
>

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Received on Tue Oct 17 16:55:41 2006