Re: [asa] Question for all the theistic evolutionists

On Mar 18, 2007, at 7:06 PM, David Opderbeck wrote:

> I'd like to just for now dump a link for a Roman Catholic
> perspective on all this (my wife is starting to get annoyed,
> rightly, that I'm getting obsessed with this discussion again).
> I'm not Catholic, but I teach at a Catholic institution, and there
> are times I think I might be likely to become Catholic if I weren't
> so evangelical and Reformed (for me, converting to something like
> Catholicism would have the social and family effect of, say, a
> Muslim converting to Christianity :-) )
>
> Anyway, here's a wonderful essay on original sin by Edward Oakes in
> First Things, which doesn't use the term "accomodation," but shows
> I think a deeply historically sensitive and well-rounded
> heremeneutic relating to how to understand that doctrine, Gen. 1-2,
> etc. today:
> http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?
> id_article=3598&var_recherche=original+sin
>

David, maybe with your background being Reformed in a Catholic
institution could explain the Wikipedia article on Biblical
Accommodation. It appears to have come from from the Catholic
Encyclopedia of 1913. From my own Reformed perspective I do not
recognize anything that remotely approaches accomodation in a
Reformed context. What are the differences and similarities when
Refomed and Catholics use the term because we appear to be talking a
different language?

As for Glenn's question, I'll use an extreme example. If Christ's
resurrection is ahistorical, it's time to pack it up regardless of
whether you come from the accommodationist or concordist camps, cf.
the Apostle Paul's argument in 1 Cor. 15:12-14 that we Christians
would be great fools for us to continue in our faith if this is
true. I think Glenn's misunderstanding is because concordism is
often used as a universal hammer for every Biblical problem. I
realize this is an oversimplification because even concordists
accommodate from time to time. Concordists use their exegetical
"tool" in a more limited fashion. We recognize that most of Scripture
falls more under a concordist methodology, e.g. the resurrection
example above. Reformed accommodation is more genre-based than it
appears the Catholic approach. [As I don't really understand the
Catholic position anyone from that background or understands please
feel extremely free to correct me here.] The other thing the Reformed
perspective brings to this is the concept of the "analogy of faith"
where Scripture interprets Scripture with the clear interpreting the
obscure. Gen. 1-11 is clearly in the latter category.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sun Mar 18 22:24:18 2007