John -
I don't dispute your experience in an SBC church & won't defend all aspects of the Lutheran tradition: We aren't, in practice, all that great at personal evangelism (though it's hardly true that all Lutherans are born into the church). But I will says that the "Central Dogma of the Evangelical Church" as you sketch is seriously defective.
1st, the idea that the Bible is "the literal truth" for Evangelicals runs aground on the fact that Evangelicals in general don't understand passages referring to Baptism & the Lord's Supper literally. water gets left out of "Born again of water and the Spirit" when new birth is considered & "This is my body" gets turned into something like "This will remind you of my body." Of course one can present various arguments (weak IMO) that these passages shouldn't be understood literally but they require appeal to some interpretive principle which is seldom if ever made explicit. (My purpose here isn't to debate baptismal regeneration or eucharistic real presence but just to point out this inconsistency.) While Lutherans do understand these texts "literally," there also have some fundamental theological reasons for holding a "high" view of the sacraments.
2d, the "Dogma" that "The Bible is the literal Word of God, which leads to Christ, which leads to Salvation" gets the emphasis wrong. While it is not perfect, the relevant statement in the ELCA's constitution gets it right:
"This church confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and the Gospel as the power of God for the salvation of all who believe.
a. Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate, through whom everything was made and through whose life, death and resurrection God fashions a new creation.
b. The proclamation of God's message to us as both Law and Gospel is the Word of God, revealing judgment and mercy through word and deed, beginning with the Word in creation, continuing in the history of Israel, and centering in its fullness in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
c. The canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the written Word of God. Inspired by God's Spirit speaking through their authors, they record and announce God's revelation centering in Jesus Christ. Through them God's Spirit speaks to us to create and sustain Christian faith and fellowship for service in the world."
I.e., Christ is the Word of God in the primary and fullest sense (a), the same Word who is proclaimed in Law and Gospel (b) on the basis of the same Word written (c). That ordering makes clear that, among other things, the Word of God is something living & active, not a static collection of propositions.
3d, you have it almost exactly wrong when you suggest that "natural revelation" provides some kind of protection against "liberal theology." Historically, "natural religion," which has been an almost inevitable consequence of emphasis on "natural revelation," has led to ignoring or abandoning large parts of what is distinctive about Christianity in favor of a general theism. I've quoted this before but it bears repeating - from Richard S. Westfall's Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England (Yale, 1958), pp.106-107:
"While the virtuosi [scientists in today's parlance] concentrated vigorously on the demonstrations of natural religion and proved to their own satisfaction that the cosmos reveals its Creator, they came to neglect their own contention that natural religion is only the foundation. The supernatural teachings of Christianity received little more than a perfunctory nod, expressing approval but indicating disinterest. Although the absorption in natural religion and the external manifestations of divine power did not dispute or deny any specific Christian doctrine, it did more to undermine Christianity than any conclusion of natural science."
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: John Walley
To: 'George Murphy' ; 'Dick Fischer' ; 'ASA'
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 6:49 PM
Subject: RE: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are overwhelming evidence for evolution...?
George,
I whole heartedly agree with you that "putting together some concordist scheme" is absolutely the wrong way to go about engaging our culture with the gospel. That has been what I was presented for all my life and now I am convinced that it just doesn't work and a disservice to believers. I now think a more allegorical approach to Genesis is what God intended with the scriptures.
However, Dick is right in pointing out that this issue of concordism is a "boulder" on the road to Christ. The reason why is that the Central Dogma of the Evangelical church is The Bible is the literal Word of God, which leads to Christ, which leads to Salvation. And of course Genesis and Adam are an integral part of Bible. And I agree that a too literal and fundamental interpretation of the Bible does lead to a skewed version of Christianity, not the least of which is their schizophrenic view of science.
But as opposed to some of the more thoughtful traditions like Lutheran, this concordism is all I have ever heard in any church that is considered evangelical and is doing anything proactively to increase its membership. And in fact as you saw from Michael's excerpt of the statement on Inerrancy yesterday, it is considered inseparable from the gospel. From my perspective there is a one to one correlation between literalism and evangelicalism, and it is not negotiable. So this is what gets perpetuated and why it is a problem. That may not be your perspective or experience in your community but it is mine. I attend a 6000 member Southern Baptist church and I think I am the only there who would say what I just did above and then there wouldn't even be me there if any of the staff ever read this email. In contrast, although they all may have better theology and better science as well, I have never met anyone from the Lutheran church that wasn't born into it.
That is why I have been arguing on this list from the beginning is that what is needed is an effort to get the true message of science into the evangelical church without them perceiving it as compromise and surrendering to liberal theology. This includes preserving the doctrine on natural revelation and also preserving a rational worldview that acknowledges the basic facts of science and coexists with them.
Thanks
John
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of George Murphy
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 9:26 PM
To: Dick Fischer; ASA
Subject: Re: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are overwhelming evidence for evolution...?
The idea that Gen.1-11 is "a boulder" on the road to Christ assumes precisely what I am challenging - that one must come to Christ by starting with the early chapters of Genesis, & Adam in particular, & work toward Christ. We don't. Of course if people have been previously bothered by, & have left the faith because of, the notion that they have to accept the historicity of Adam &c as essential to Christianity then that problems needs to be dealt with somehow. But IMO that's better done by pointing out the the historicity of Adam isn't essential to Christianity than by putting together some concordist scheme. Even if they're convinced of the truth of the latter they're still likely to be stuck with a skewed version of Christianity in which Adam is of more importance relative to Christ than he should be.
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: Dick Fischer
To: ASA
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 7:31 PM
Subject: RE: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are overwhelming evidence for evolution...?
Hi George, you wrote:
>People start with themes like "In search of the historical Adam" or "Who was Adam?" instead of viewing matters in light of what the NT says about Christ.<
Simply in terms of what is important and what isn't, accepting Christ ranks at the top without question. Whether there was an Adam or wasn't, or where and when he may have lived if there was such a fellow, for a believer, may be a matter of mere curiosity. So why stir the pot?
For one thing, truth matters. For another, there are untold millions of nonbelievers who feel they needn't bother with a book at all that starts with an unbelievable fairy tale. And for those who believe the Bible is supposed to be a reliable witness, the Bible can indeed be such witness if the first passages of the first book are shown to be reliable.
Why do millions fall for YEC when we, the intelligentsia, know with absolute certainty it can't possibly be true? It is because they believe the Bible is true and this is the only way it can be interpreted. An historical Adam in the context of human history they can believe in may persuade some to escape the clutches of the evil YECmeisters.
So I for one believe that lining up all the evidence both that which confirms the New Testament and that which confirms the Old Testament in the long run can have positive benefits. There are many road blocks in the way of potential believers. Genesis 1-11 can be one giant boulder in the middle of the narrow road leading to Christ. This is not to say there aren't others as well. But this is one I think can be removed, and why shouldn't we spend effort to remove it if we can?
Dick Fischer
Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of George Murphy
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 4:44 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are overwhelming evidence for evolution...?
One execllent theological reason to prefer a fully evolutionary view in which H. sapiens - & thus Jesus - really is related to chimps & other species is that this provides a way of understanding the biblical promises that "all things" are saved, reconciled to God &c through the Incarnation. I set out this argument a long time ago in a PSCF (then JASA) article available at http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1986/JASA3-86Murphy.html .
A major failure in many of these discussions is the failure to approach the issues christologically. The usual Evangelical approach is, if I can coin a term, adamological.
This is almost exactly 180 degrees wrong. People start with themes like "In search of the historical Adam" or "Who was Adam?" instead of viewing matters in light of what the NT says about Christ.
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: David Opderbeck
To: David Campbell
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are overwhelming evidence for evolution...?
Aside from the various other ways in which this particular question is causing me angst right now, here is something else that bothers me about it. It seems to me that this question presents a particularly thorny issue for how and to what extent "science" may be used to intepret scripture vs. how and to what extent we need to assert scripture over against a particular scientific data point.
When we consider the age of the earth / universe and the creation "days," it seems to me that it is easier to be flexible. There are any number of exegetical questions before we even get to the scientific ones. Moreover, messing with the age of the earth / universe involves basic physical constants like the speed of light that can't really be messed with under the anthropic principle. Finally, the theological issues seem somewhat less thorny -- though the question of death before the fall is not a small one.
When we consider the exegetical issues concerning Adam, IMHO at least, there seems to be significantly less flexibility, at least within even a moderate "inerrancy" framework. IMHO, without disrespect to those who think otherwise, it does too much damage to the doctrine of scripture and to the narrative framework of scripture to suggest that the accommodation principle -- which I think is a valid principle generally -- goes so far as to render these texts essentially non-historical. So for me, this seems to be a place in which it might be appropriate to say that, while scripture does not teach "science," it does to some extent bear on "history," such that it might be appropriate to question the naturalistic assumptions underlying particular scientific models.
In particular, it seems to me that the genetic continuity between humans and our presumed chimp ancestors, and population gentics studies based on presumed times of divergence and rates of mutation, do not render the traditional understanding of Adam impossible. They render it difficult, and perhaps unlikely, but not impossible. It is possible that God specially and miraculously created Adam using pre-existing hominid genes; and it is possible that God caused imago Dei man to be dispersed geographically in such a way that the histocompatibility diversity we observe today happened faster than the models assumed. This does not violate any fundamental physical constant such as the speed of light. It is a different kind, or at least a different degree, of question than the age of the earth.
At the same time, we can tentatively propose some other scenarios. But in my view, it's unfair to equate some push-back here with "YEC thinking." Perhaps, like the wine at Cana, this really is a place at which methodologial naturalism, without the illumination of scripture, does not really reflect the truth of history.
On Nov 12, 2007 3:03 PM, David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com> wrote:
Actually, evolution does not absolutely rule out a single couple as
ancestral to humanity. Glenn Morton's model develops this line of
thinking. It posits some rather long gaps in the genealogies and has
other difficulties, but then there are difficulties in any approach to
reconciling the scientific data and Genesis 1-11. It is much easier
to have rapid change in a small population. Any particular mutation
important to making humans human would have its origin in a single
individual. Many other variant scenarios with some sort of historical
Adam are also possible.
--
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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Received on Fri Nov 16 07:49:05 2007
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