Re: [asa] Question for all the theistic evolutionists

David Opderbeck wrote:
> /The atheists are the ones who are setting
> the cultural agenda--they are the men and women of action.
> /
> I think there are areas in which this is true, but it is not true of
> everything everywhere. Look at important things like addressing
> genocide in Darfur. Christians are at the forefront of many such efforts.
>
> /Thus, I will submit again, that unless we put real history and real
> > empiricism into the Bible (to use Burgy's phrase when we had lunch),our
> > religion will be not worth a bucket of warm spit. Everyone will look at
> > that bucket we offer and go 'YUCK!", rejecting what we offer them-- a
> > chance, like us, to be men and women of inaction./
> //
> This may be true for people who are committed to the religion of
> positivist empiricism. It isn't true, I would submit, for the vast
> majority of people most of us interact with every day. There are
> hundreds of new believers in the church I attend, and I doubt even one
> of them came to faith because of some "empirical" argument. Most of
> them came because someone loved them enough to show them some kindness
> and to introduce them to Jesus -- a person, not a proposition. And as a
> whole the folks I fellowship with are by no stretch "men and women of
> inaction." There's more "action" in that fellowship than anyone can
> handle -- from youth skate parks, to homes for unwed mothers, to
> sponsoring an entire village in Africa.
>
> Read a little deeper on philosophy, history and hermeneutics. This kind
> of "empiricism" always fails because it just isn't true to our human
> condition, to the relational nature of faith, or to the sort of
> revelation God gave us in scripture. In seeking a true foundation for
> faith, it provides instead a false faith system of its own.
>

But God's revelation is given to us in a historical context. If the
historical context is not recorded correctly then why should we think
that the theology is right? Not that if the history were correct it
would prove the theology right or anything like that.

How far are people willing to go? If the Adam and Eve story is not
historically true then what about Abraham, Moses, The Judges, Kings,
Prophets and even Christ himself?

I am asking a serious question here, how far would the TEs on this list
go before deciding their was nothing to Christianity?

We attended one church where the birth, death, burial and resurrection
of Christ was considered an accommodation or so it seemed to me. That
denies what I at least, see as the essence of the Gospel, ie is an
extremely good approximation to strong heresy. Since that particular
church had a high degree of Orthopraxy we moved on in sorrow.

I'm not saying that a literal reading is necessary. For example I see
no problem with a local flood. Language describing what the
participants saw is being used, not scientific/modern reporting kind of
language. Further as someone who grew up speaking a Semitic language
when playing with my friends, I have some understanding of the great
difficulties of accurate translation including connotations to and from
a living language let alone one in the ANE. For example the word
translated brother often included not just male siblings but male
cousins or even a close friend. Getting meanings like that across was
often difficult especially for people newly arrived from the English
speaking world. At times there were even suggestions that people were
lying when claiming someone was a brother when in our terms he was a
cousin. Thus I have considerable sympathy for the modified translation
Glenn provided a while back. I have little doubt that some of our
problems are due to mis-translations.

I do not by any means think that if the Creation story is not completly
factual that the whole of revelation falls apart. However I would like
to see either Glenn or Dick be correct but am not convinced to date.

Dave W

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Received on Sun Mar 11 20:22:14 2007