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

At some point we have to say we know enough to take a firm stance. IIn
1632 Galileo believed the church MUST move past literal readings of
biblical references to a stationary earth. This was too early,
perhaps, but we are certainly at that point now, and have been for
quite some time. It is really hard to conjure a scenario for a
literal Adam and Eve with what we now know of natural history. Adam
and Eve, by the way, mean "Man" and "Woman" in Hebrew. Would we
assume a similar story in English was about a fellow literally called
"Man"?

2008/6/9 David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>:
> 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

-- 
Karl Giberson, Ph.D,
www.karlgiberson.com
Professor of Physics, Eastern Nazarene College, Quincy, MA
Director of the Forum on Faith & Science, Gordon College, Wenham, MA.
Phone: 781-801-2189
Fax: 617-847-5933
 "A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs --
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