Re: [asa] Discovery Institute against harmonizing?

On Sat, 15 Dec 2007, SteamDoc@aol.com wrote:

> 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.

I believe that what I have appended below to this message is the science
section of the Chicago statement mentioned above. It came out of the 1982
Summit of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. The main
thrust of the invited lead paper on science at that meeting was that an
old earth is perfectly consistent with inerrancy. Henry Morris refused to
sign the statement.

Gordon Brown (ASA member)

                 ------------------------------------

We affirm that any preunderstandings which the interpreter brings to
Scripture should be in harmony with scriptural teaching and subject to
correction by it.

We deny that Scripture should be required to fit alien preunderstandings,
inconsistent with itself, such as naturalism, evolutionism, scientism,
secular humanism, and relativism.

We affirm that since God is the author of all truth, all truths, biblical
and extrabiblical, are consistent and cohere, and that the Bible speaks
truth when it touches on matters pertaining to nature, history, or
anything else. We further affirm that in some cases extrabiblical data
have value for clarifying what Scripture teaches, and for prompting
correction of faulty interpretations.

We deny that extrabiblical views ever disprove the teaching of Scripture
or hold priority over it.

We affirm the harmony of special with general revelation and therefore of
biblical teaching with the facts of nature.

We deny that any genuine scientific facts are inconsistent with the true
meaning of any passage of Scripture.

We affirm that Genesis 1-11 is factual, as is the rest of the book.

We deny that the teachings of Genesis 1-11 are mythical and that
scientific hypotheses about earth history or the origin of humanity can be
invoked to overthrow what Scripture teaches about creation.

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Received on Sat Dec 15 20:44:01 2007