Re: [asa] a theological exercise

On 6/3/08, George Murphy <GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com> wrote (in part):
> Does the evolutionary reality flow naturally from your theology, does that theology require some modification in its secondary aspects, or is there just no way to make human evolution part of your theology without changing it (the theology) totally? A really serious effort should be made to accomplish the task . . . ."

Good exercise, George. And a formidable challenge.

There was a time when my theology was really challenged by the
evolutionary story. Studying about this issue did cause me some
uncomfortable moments.

In the end though, it really did not make a lot of difference. As you
know, I argue for a "Christ relationship" as a primary starting point.
That He has intersected both meaningfully and unmistakeably with my
life on a number of occasions cannot (by me) be called into question,
for if they are untrue, I might as well question my own sense of self
(maybe I am a butterfly dreaming I am a human being).

But -- (always a "but) -- some aspects of my theology did undergo
modification along the way. I found that "God" was just a name I used
to describe an ultimate mystery -- that God was so much bigger than my
early ideas. I discovered that my ideas of how sin/salvation "worked"
were inadequate, and that having a firm understanding of that part of
theology was a secondary issue (I once argued that the issue of
"eternal salvation" vs the Methodist view was primary -- now arguing
that stuff still might be interesting -- but definitely secondary.

All in all -- were I to travel back to the early 60s and engage my
younger self in dialog, I might have some fierce arguments to
confront! It would be an interesting exercise though!

Thanks, George

Burgy

New stuff on my website yesterday may be seen at

www.burgy.50megs.com/recent.htm

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Received on Tue Jun 3 14:31:42 2008