Re: [asa] RE: Conrad Hyers essay [WAS: (much better than) Jonathan Wells essay

I've said something like this before, but the question I entertain with
respect to 5 is, "What exactly did this 'coming from dust' look like?"
Did it look like a whirlwind that consolidated into a living person? Or
was it a flash/bang now-its-absent, now-its-not event? Did it rise up in
form and function from the dust of the ground? Where did water come into
play? What exactly did those transformations of substance and form look
like? In the absence of a good answer to these sorts of questions, there
would seem to be at least a semblance of an argument that one cannot
then say with certainty how it DID NOT occur. Oddly enough, I seldom get
any response to this line of thought. The line just sort of goes dead.
JimA

Ted Davis wrote:

>My comments inserted below.
>
>ted
>
>
>
>>>>"Freeman, Louise Margaret" <lfreeman@mbc.edu> 01/31/07 10:41 AM >>>
>>>>
>>>>
>Thanks Ted. Based on my admitedly limited experience, here are the
>scientific issues associated with a theistic evolutionary POV that seem
>hardest to stomach for my literalist friends, even the ones who can kinda
>sorta maybe visualize an old Earth and common descent of organisms (except
>
>maybe humans). In no particular order
>
>1. Death before the Fall (I'd say this was #1 among the 2005 summer course
>
>particiapnts, Ted)
>
>T: Exactly. Anyone who pays attention to my posts here knows this is my
>view. For a great rejoinder from the early 19th century, check out Edward
>Hitchcock on my webpage. http://home.messiah.edu/~tdavis/texts.htm
>
>Several nerdy friends of mine (it takes one to know one) are planning a
>book on just this issue. I hope it comes to be.
>
>2. Women not literally being made from men (hence students coming to
>college
>wanting to believe they have different numbers of ribs)
>
>Yeah, I've heard stories like this rib thing. Pretty funny, when you think
>about it. Not much more to say on that one.
>
>3. No literal world-covering, most-life-wiping-out flood (people around
>here
>enthusiastically embrace flood-geology related arguements like dinosaurs on
>
>the ark, [& possibly still in Africa today!] and the flood carving the
>Grand
>Canyon.
>
>A very serious objection, unless one is prepared to put all or most of
>pre-Abrahamic Genesis in the same boat (to throw in a pun), as I probably
>am. The Dinosaurs in Africa thing is another hoot, generally, though we do
>know of course that some really old animals are out there, like coelocanth
>and crocodiles and some other stuff.
>
>4. Jesus with his perfect knowledge (and Paul, supernaturally protected
>from
>error) speaking as though they believe the NT is literal history.
>
>A very serious objection, until/unless one realizes the degree to which
>Jesus borrows from/alludes to a big parcel of Hebrew literature, which many
>modern readers wrongly interpret all on the same level. e.g., he calls
>himself "Son of Man," almost certainly a reference to First Enoch (I think
>that's the correct extra-canonical book), where that phrase is used to mean
>a special servant of God, instead of humankind generally as it typically did
>in the OT. We don't take Jesus' use of this metaphor, indeed his use of it
>to refer to himself, as an endorsement of the divine authority of First
>Enoch. But this type of thing -- the relation between canonical and
>non-canonical literature -- is also likely to bother many YECs. It's
>extraordiniarly rare, IMO, for conservative churches to talk about this type
>of thing in a serious way. It's as though the decisions made about
>canonicity were given to the Pope on stone tablets.
>
>5. No special creation of Adam from dust.
>
>The deepest, rock-bottom objection, I think. A bright student once told a
>colleague in one of our humanities departments, "I refuse to believe I'm
>nothing but pond scum." ie, if evolution is true then I'm just a bunch of
>worthless (or nearly worthless) chemicals. Harry Emerson Fosdick, whom I
>don't always agree with (to put it delicately), hit the nail on the head
>with this one. "Origins prove nothing in the realm of values."
>Fosdick, Evolution and Mr. Bryan (1922), 14
>
>But it can be very tough to convince people of this, even though the Bible
>expressly says that we came from "dust," which isn't exactly an auspicious
>beginning. I'm fine with my students all believing in special creation of
>humans (as most of them do, if not all), since it's a lot easier for them to
>see value in that, and value is more important than scientiifc truth in any
>case. But I do try to get them to see Fosdick's point. Nature hardly
>teaches us that "all men are created equal," to borrow Mr Jefferson's
>enlightened white male language; indeed, if anything it says just the
>opposite, both in terms of genetics (we don't all start on the same page)
>and common descent, which has often encouraged evolutionary racism (as
>Bertrand Russell once observed, evolution and democracy don't mix very
>well). Jefferson needed a creator to get equality (even if a limited notion
>of it), and I don't think we've improved on that subsequently.
>
>ted
>
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Received on Wed Jan 31 12:11:44 2007