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

From: Jim Armstrong <jarmstro@qwest.net>
Date: Tue Jun 10 2008 - 00:39:11 EDT

But David, from all appearances, "real and meaningful dialogue" really translates to "real and meaningful (but endless) dialogue". Most of the information and various perspectives is in play. In my former life, there was a tendency for the designers and scientists to endlessly twink and optimize new designs. At some point, they had to (as they put it) "shoot the engineer" and move it into production. What does it take to bring this discussion to a common consensus? What's still missing in the way of evidence or perspective? Or, who do we shoot?

I am dubious that there is any real driving force toward a consensus unless perhaps it is a challenge like that offered by Karl G. But even that may not suffice because the data is (and always will be, to some extent) by nature incomplete (we do not have access to much of the historical record). Playing against that is a diversity of opinion which seems to derive (at least in part) from an orthogonal axis of different sensibilities about Scripture, and not the disciplinary data. Adding to that is another diversity of opinion as to how much this Adam business even matters in considering the heart of Christianity. So, I would expect the state of federated opinion to continue, with the extended discussion happily benefitting at least those not yet enlisted in one camp or another. 

Do you see any active force that is likely to move the discussion toward consensus? The only one I see that might be in play is one of default, generational change accompanying the pragmatism of that interesting 16-29 age group as characterized in the book "unchristian" by Kinnaman and Lyons.

Finally, "must" is much more provocative than "suggest", a good thing I think, so that language seems quite OK to me, especially since it is clear that in this context no one has power to command anything. Even science per se doesn't really demand anything here, other than continuing to add bits to an already fairly pronounced pile of data and insight, the only thing in apparent motion. The tipping point will likely arrive on "little cats feet", unobserved and unbidden by this sort of half-hearted jousting.

It must be getting late. I'm beginning to sound tacky and unconstructive.   Good evening, all.   JimA  [Friend of ASA]

David Opderbeck wrote:

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

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message. Received on Tue Jun 10 00:39:35 2008