Re: [asa] Saving Darwin: What theological changes are required?

Ted said: Both Mike Behe and Francis Collins have recently argued that the
genetic evidence is a slam dunk (and please note, ID critics, that Behe has
been saying this for a long time). If so, then maybe the time is now for a
rethinking. But "must" seems a stretch, at least to many.

I respond: we "must" rethink and address this clear evidence is different
than saying we "must" give up on Adam as any sort of historical person,
IMHO, and this is where I just don't get the "must." We perhaps (I think,
clearly) "must" rethink biological mongenesis. That is different than
suggesting that science now *demands* what amounts to the even more massive
theological, doctrinal, and hermeneutical paradigm shift that, it seemeth to
me, goes along with no historicity *at all* to Adam and the fall.

Instead of demanding, why not humbly but firmly suggest a real and
meaningful dialogue? (The theologians seem for the most part as guilty of
using "must" as the scientists on this issue).

On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 7:41 PM, Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu> wrote:

> My turn now to vote and to comment on this question, which I've been
> thinking about for a long time. I'll keep my response short, however, or
> I'd never have time to write it.
>
> I know Karl Giberson quite well, and have known him for many years.
>
> Overall, as should be well known here, my approach to religion/science
> interaction is probably closer to the "complementarity" model than to any
> other specific model, including concordism, conflict, confirmation, and
> some
> others I won't label. I don't necessarily think that Karl's use of the word
> "must" is improper, in this context, though I would not use that word here
> myself. In some historically famous instances, such as the controversy
> about heliocentrism, I do believe that the church "must" respond by giving
> up cherished interpretations of certain passages of scripture. But when,
> how, and why should all be in our minds. In the Copernican case, for
> example, there was no direct "proof" of the earth's motion before the
> discovery of the aberration of starlight in the early 18th century, but by
> that point many Protestants had already accepted heliocentrism and the
> debates about the Bible and the earth's motion were mostly already over--I
> ignore here the fact that even today, one can still find believers in
> geocentricity. Catholics weren't yet allowed officially to believe it, but
> I find it hard to believe that numerous Catholic scientists did not believe
> it at that point. When, then, did heliocentrism become pretty obvious to
> those with working knowledge of astronomy? When did it become pretty
> obvious to theologians and biblical scholars that something had to be done?
> By the early 19th century, to be sure, the logic that Galileo employed
> against his own opponents concerning the interpretation of scripture was
> being used widely to support the acceptance of a similar logic concerning
> the age of the earth. Modern creationists mostly accept Galileo's logic in
> astronomy, but deny its validity on the earth's age. "Must" they accept
> the
> latter, esp if they accept the former? "Must" thoughtful Christians now
> accept common descent? Is the evidence for it now comparable in strength
> to
> the evidence that the earth moves or that the earth is billions of years
> old? Both Mike Behe and Francis Collins have recently argued that the
> genetic evidence is a slam dunk (and please note, ID critics, that Behe has
> been saying this for a long time). If so, then maybe the time is now for a
> rethinking. But "must" seems a stretch, at least to many.
>
> If the time is now, then what about the "how"? How should the evangelical
> church do this rethinking? IMO, this has to come mostly from the inside,
> and be done mostly by theologians and pastors and biblical scholars who
> decide on their own that maybe the scientists are right about this.
> Historically, it's sometimes been the scientists who take the lead on this,
> and then the others follow along. The key point here now is that we have
> today a group of scientists who accept the divinity of Jesus and the bodily
> resurrection -- that is, their christology is orthodox on crucial
> points--but who then also accept common descent driven by natural
> selection.
> That's new territory in the past 100 years, and reason to think/hope that
> the theologians will indeed take positive notice. Time will tell, and
> historians aren't in the business of predictions. At least this one isn't.
>
> At the same time, I agree strongly with Polkinghorne's affirmation (Belief
> in God in an Age of Science, p. 87) that "theology is as entitled as
> science
> to retain those categories which its experience has demanded that it shall
> use, however counterintuitive they may be. [for example] Jesus Christ
> will
> continue to be understood in the incarnational terms discussed [above]."
> There are some non-negotiables here, IMO, although my judgment of what
> those
> are may differ from the judgments of others. Jesus isn't a bad place to
> start looking for those non-negotiables: unlike some of the leading
> science/theology people (fill in Barbour, Peacocke, and Haught, e.g.), I
> think that the full divinity and bodily resurrection of Jesus (the former
> indeed partly an inference from the latter) are absolutely crucial to any
> dialogue with science that is to go by the adjective "Christian." On the
> other hand, a theory of the fall (if I may call it that), like a theory of
> the atonement, is not the same thing IMO as the fact of the fall and the
> fact of the atonement. We are sinful creatures, responsible for what we
> choose to do and capable of great moral depravity (if I keep going with
> that
> I'll start to sound like Calvin, who IMO had this part mainly right),
> whether or not there was a first couple who "fell" from innocence; and we
> needed and still need the sacrifice of the crucified God to redeem us,
> whether or not the details of that transaction are precisely as Anselm
> conceived them to be. The dangers of denying the fall and atonement, in
> the
> factual sense I am referring to, are not merely theological--though
> "merely"
> here is not meant to suggest that theology isn't very important. Rather,
> they are also deeply cultural, social, and intellectual. We tend to start
> believing in salvation by our own works, or even that salvation is not
> necessary because we are not really sinful to begin with. Eugenics was so
> widely popular with liberal Protestants 80 years ago in no small part b/c
> of
> this fundamental heresy.
>
> Now my votes.
>
> 1. We must abandon thinking of Adam and Eve as real people or even
> surrogates for groups of real people
>
> PROBABLY, though this may depend on how we conceive of them. There are two
> main empirical problems with an historical, separately created Adam & Eve
> ca. 6000 years ago (note please I am talking about the antiquity of
> humanity, not the antiquity of the earth). One, the genetic evidence
> (above) makes it really, really hard to support their separate creation.
> Two, the biblical context of cities and agriculture makes it really, really
> hard to push the first couple back as far as hominids seem to go--some tens
> of thousands of years, at least. They painted the walls of caves, made
> tools, and buried their dead long before cities and agriculture, when Adam
> &
> Eve show up in Genesis. I know there might be clever ways to work all of
> that out, but I find them quite unpersuasive myself.
>
> 2. The Fall must disappear from history as an event and become, instead, a
> partial insight into the morally ambiguous character with which evolution
> endowed our species
>
> SEE ABOVE. The fall must be a fact, a crucial and non-negotiable fact,
> about who we are and what we are capable of doing. Regardless of how we
> got
> here, here we are and here we find ourselves. I'm starting here to sound
> like Harry Emerson Fosdick, of all people (I'm not usually so friendly to
> his ideas), and as he once said, "Origins prove nothing in the realm of
> values." Amen. Otherwise, mentally and physically handicapped persons
> really are not worth as much as the rest of us. This is profoundly
> important.
>
> 3. We must consider extending the imago dei, in some sense, beyond our
> species.
>
> WHY? For starters, let's define as clearly as we can what the "imago dei"
> is, and what it is not. Is it the gift of creating, as the Renaissance
> artists and writers surely believed? Is it rationality? Dignity (itself
> pretty vague)? All of these things? None of them? Whatever it is, only
> humans have it, according to Genesis, and I believe that the theological
> content of Genesis *is* its revelational content, so I could be very hard
> to
> persuade on this one. (But, don't ask me precisely what the imago dei is,
> b/c the Bible doesn't say and I don't know either.)
>
> Ted
>
>
>
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-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
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