[asa] Keller on Evolution

I got my copy of the Reason for God in today. The quotes from the
blogs are accurate. But before I start I would like to put what Keller
has to say in its proper context. Keller is answering the question of
doesn't science contradict Scripture and Christianity. Above all else,
Keller is a pastor and notes conversations he has had with enquirers
who are scientists who believe that science and Christianity
contradict. Since they hold to evolution they don't even give
Christianity any consideration. The section gives Keller response.

First of all Keller approves of McGrath's rejection of the warfare
model. In his footnotes, Keller quotes R.A. Torrey (editor of the
Fundamentals where we got the word fundamentalist) and B.B. Warfield
(the father of modern inerrancy theory) who stated that some kinds of
evolution are compatible with Scripture. Keller mentions with
approval of Francis Collins in the main text. He also responds to
Dawkins' citation of a survey where 7% of the NAS are believers with
the survey published in Nature showing a much greater number of
scientists who are believers.

Keller then turns his focus directly on evolution. I'll start with a
couple paragraphs that precedes the ones Steve quoted off the
blogosphere:

"[Finding the original meaning of a Bible text] has always meant
interpreting a text according to its literary genre. For example, when
Christians read the Psalms they read it as poetry. When they read
Luke, which claimes to be an an eyewitness account (see Luke 1;1-4),
they take it as history. Any reader can see that the historical
narrative should be read as history and the the poetic imagery is to
be read as metaphorical.

The difficulty comes in the few places in the Bible where the genre is
not easily identifiable, and we aren't completely sure how the author
expects to be read. Genesis 1 is a passage whose interpretation is up
for debate among Christians, even those with a "high" view of inspired
Scripture. I personally take the view that Genesis 1 and 2 relate to
each other the way Judges 4 and 5 and Exodus 14 and 15 do. In each
couplet one chapter describes a historical event and the other is a
song or poem about the theological meaning of the event. When reading
Judges 4 it is obvious that it is a sober recouting of what happened
in the battle, but when we read Judges 5, Deborah's Song about the
battle, the language is poetic and metaphorical. ... [ellipsis mine] I
think Genesis 1 has the earmarks of poetry and is therefore a "song"
about the wonder and meaning of God's creation. Genesis 2 is an
account of how it happened including Genesis 1. But it is false logic
to argue that if one part of Scripture can't be taken literally then
none of it can be. That isn't true of any human communication.

What can we conclude? Since Christian believers occupy different
positions on both the meaning of Genesis 1 and on the nature of
evolution, those who are considering Christianity as a whole should
not allow themselves to be distracted by this intramural debate. The
skeptical inquirer does not need to accept any one these positions in
order to embrace the Christian faith. Rather, he or she should
concentrate on and weigh the central claims of Christianity. Only
after drawing conclusions about the person of Christ, the
resurrection, and the central tenets of the Christian message should
one think through the various options with regard to creation and
evolution.

Representatives of these different views often imply that their
approach is the One True Christian Position on Evolution. Indeed, I'm
sure that many reading this will be irritated that I don't take time
here to adjudicate between the competing views. For the record I think
God guided some kind of process of natural selection, and yet I reject
the concept of evolution as All-Encompassing Theory. [Keller shows he
means this in a later chapter by taking apart so-called evolutionary
psychology much like Francis Collins did.] One commentator [David
Atkinson] captures this balance well:

If "evolution" is ... [ellipsis in the original] elevated to the
status of a world-view of the way things are, then there is direct
conflict with biblical faith. But if "evolution" remains at the level
of scientific biological hypothesis, it would seem that there is
little reason for conflict between the implications of Christian
belief in the Creator and the scientific explorations of the way which
-- at the level of biology -- God has gone about his creating process."

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Received on Thu Feb 21 21:57:55 2008