Re: [asa] Discovery Institute against harmonizing?

 
 
John Walley (staring by quoting David Campbell) writes:

> As advocated within the ASA, TE/EC typically asserts that evolution has
> little philosophical or theological significance and so is already
> explicitly in disagreement with those who claim that we need to radically
> modify our theological or philosophical views in light of evolution.

David,

I find the above curious and revealing about the church community you belong
too. A friend of mine also from AL just recently spoke this week at our RTB
Christmas party here and referred to presentation as his "TE Coming Out
Party". I mentioned this earlier when I submitted the "7 Words You Can't Say
in Church".

My experience has been quite the opposite of your statement above. I for one
have been saying all week that the church needs a radically new theology in
order to process TE. Ever since the party I have been in email and in-person
debates with members who are struggling with theological implications of TE.
I have received numerous questions like the historical Adam, original sin,
common descent, inerrancy, ad nauseam, simply because this concept is so
foreign to them theologically. In fact, my observation is that it is the
theological filter than prevents them from receiving the scientific evidence
of TE when you present it to them.
<SNIP additional description of obstacles>

----------------------------
Allan replies:
In fairness to David, he was talking about what is typically asserted by
most who affirm a Theistic Evolution (Evolving Creation) perspective, not
claiming that such assertions are generally met with agreement in the church.

 
In looking at the degree to which acceptance of evolution (in case a certain
person is reading, I am only talking about *biological evolution* here)
requires theological and/or doctrinal rethinking for evangelical Christians, I
think we can (with inevitable oversimplification) divide things into two groups.
 
The first group is those with a fundamentalist approach to Scripture (such
as the Chicago statement and other hardline versions of the "inerrancy"
doctrine), who insist that any Scripture that seems to touch on science must be
scientifically perfect, who do not allow Scripture to use figurative language
and the vehicle of story to communicate truth, who do not allow God to
accommodate his revelation to the limitations and conceptual framework of the
original audience. For this group, reconciling with evolution is pretty much
impossible. Even an Old Earth is difficult for this group, since to fit it into
their approach to Scripture tends to require major interpretational
contortions. Of course such an approach has many more problems than just its
interaction with evolution (including the way it can border on idolatry) -- and I think
there is really no hope for constructive progress here (not just for
science/faith issues but for the overall health of the church) unless people can be
convinced to stop trying to make God's Word conform to human-invented
standards of "perfection" arising from modern Western rationalism, standards that
would have been foreign to the Biblical writers themselves.
 
The second group is those with a more "moderate" approach to Scripture, who
still affirm the Bible as trustworthy but who allow God to accommodate his
revelation, communicate truth with story and figurative language, etc. In my
opinion, with a more moderate view of Scripture, the conflict between
biological evolution and theology/doctrine is reduced to *almost* zero, especially if
one recognizes that God is sovereign over nature so that natural
explanations like evolution are not in conflict with affirming that "God did it." Many
Christians in this group may well *think* that evolution creates significant
conflict, but usually this is just a knee-jerk reaction because they have
been conditioned to think of evolution as inimical to faith, not due to any
actual theological conflict that can be articulated.
 
I said the conflict was reduced to *almost* zero above, because I think
there is still one legitimate area of tension, namely issues surrounding Adam,
sin, and the Fall. That is one area where a TE/EC position may require some
rethinking of theology and doctrine. Even there, one has at least two options
that, while not common in conservative tradition, are within the bounds of
orthodoxy:
1) A representative Adam as "federal" head of the human race.
2) Viewing Genesis 3 (which clearly has *some* figurative elements like the
talking snake and God walking in the garden) as entirely figurative, conveying
 in story form the truth about how all humans follow our own selfish ways
rather than following God.
Many Evangelicals find #2 unacceptable -- if they base that on Paul's
mentions of Adam I think that is a very weak argument (if I say "we should love our
neighbors like the Good Samaritan did" does that mean I am claiming the Good
Samaritan was a real individual?), but if it is based on a more systematic
view of fall and atonement and redemption and their relationship then I at
least respect the argument.
 
So, in summary, I think Christian acceptance of biological evolution (as
science, of course we must reject the philosophical baggage that people like
Dawkins and Johnson attach to it) often only requires minor theological
adjustment. It only requires "radically new theology" if one's existing theology is
centered around a book that must be "perfect" by the human-invented criteria
of modernism.
 
Allan (ASA Member)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Allan H. Harvey, Boulder, Colorado | SteamDoc@aol.com
"Any opinions expressed here are mine, and should not be
attributed to my employer, my wife, or my cat"

**************************************See AOL's top rated recipes
(http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sat Dec 15 14:05:57 2007