Re: [asa] Keller on Evolution

In addition to this he shows the influence of Jonathan Edwards on his
thought. Edwards had a fondness for arguing Tu Quoque when addressing the
Enlightenment thought of his day. Many of the defenses of Christianity in
the book had this form: you doubt Christianity well your position is equally
or even weaker on the same basis. In this case, as David noted, Keller was
most likely focusing on the dominant YEC party in the PCA. You think TE has
issues well so does OEC and YEC. Likewise, the atheistic evolutionist has
issues. In general, Keller is calling for humility and comity from all
sides in resolving these difficult problems.

The other thing the First Things interview shows is Keller's attempt to have
a lower-case-c catholic apologetic work. In this case, the degrees of
freedom to address the issues will be greater than what is generally
accepted to approve an elder in the PCA. From all I can tell, Keller is
attempting to have a moderate EC view along with have an admirable humility
to not go beyond his particular expertise. Were it to be true for all of us
there would be more light and less heat in our respective debates.

Rich Blinne, Member ASA

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 12:35 PM, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I think he's trying to negotiate a difficult question given that Redeemer
> is a PCA church with a broad constituency, and given the importance of a
> historical Fall in Reformed theology. And he's speaking as a popular pastor
> and apologist, not as a scholar, so he's making distinctions in places where
> we might not make them.
>
> On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Jon Tandy <tandyland@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
> > Is he saying "there is no God", "theistic evolution", and "young-Earth
> > six-day creationism" are the three options with insurmountable
> > difficulties?
> >
> > It's unclear the way he's written it -- it sounds like he is instead
> > equating "theistic evolution" with the position that "there is no God"
> > (option #2), where his option #1 comes from the previous sentences regarding
> > the Catholic view on a Historical Fall. If this is what he meant, then he
> > has confused theistic evolution with atheistic evolution. But later, he
> > describes one particular variant of TE (or possibly OEC), as "I also think
> > that there also was a very long process probably, you know, that the earth
> > probably is very old, and there was some kind of process of natural
> > selection that God guided and used, and maybe intervened in."
> >
> > I can't quite tell what view he thinks DOESN'T have insurmountable
> > difficulties. Maybe he didn't try to answer that question.
> >
> >
> > Jon Tandy
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > *From:* asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] *On
> > Behalf Of *Steve Martin
> > *Sent:* Monday, February 25, 2008 12:51 PM
> > *To:* Ted Davis
> > *Cc:* asa; Rich Blinne
> > *Subject:* Re: [asa] Keller on Evolution
> >
> >
> > First Things published an interview with Keller this morning re: his
> > book. (See: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=981). Not sure
> > we should really call him TE (He personally disavows the term - includes TE
> > as one of the options with "insurmountable difficulties"). He says
> > (highlights added by myself):
> >
> > At the same time, if you say, "There is no God and everything happened
> > > by evolution," naturalistic evolution—*then you have "theistic
> > > evolution": God just started things years ago and everything has come into
> > > being through the process of evolution.* You have young-Earth six-day
> > > creationism, which is "God created everything in six 24-hour days." To me,
> > > all three of those positions have perhaps insurmountable difficulties.
> > >
> >
> > Looks like it is the whole divine action issue that is confusing him -
> > either God did it or evolution did it. This isn't surprising since many of
> > us that hold to a TE / EC view have difficulty articulating it clearly (I
> > do) even if we aren't confused ourselves (don't think I am :-) ).
> >
> > Again, the important point is that Keller reiterates that these "origins
> > issues" are red herrings & that he can accept those with TE / EC views as
> > orthodox believers. It's an important first step.
> >
> > thanks,
> >
> >
>

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Received on Mon Feb 25 17:58:33 2008