Questions for TE's (was Re: [asa] Vernon's other bible code)

Hi Vernon,

I notice you've asked for some response to the following a few times without result. So let me offer a few brief remarks.

You asked;
>
> But let me turn now to question you briefly as a Christian evolutionist,
> and ask how you resolve the following - yet retaining a clear conscience:
>
> (1) While one might interpret the _content_ of the Creation Narrative to
> meet the demands of Darwinism, the _order_ in which events are said to
> have occurred is surely sacrosanct. We learn that birds were created
> before land animals. But this not the evolutionist's view, is it?

With the caveat that there really isn't such a thing as "THE evolutionist's view" I think that one can make the glaringly obvious point that there are other ways to read Genesis other than as a chronological account of the order of creation.

Specifically, I think that TE's read Genesis as primarily (perhaps even exclusively) a theological (rather than historical) narrative. And as such the order of the narrative is seen as having a theological (rather than historical) significance.

The obvious response you'll make is that Genesis CAN'T have theological significance UNLESS the text is historical. To which I would offer the blunt observation that a TE wouldn't agree with you. I'd also offer the equally blunt suggestion that you'll simply have to get over the two-fold fact that TEs take a different exegetical approach to Genesis than you do, Vernon, AND that they do so without troubled conscience. Live with it.

> (2) We are informed "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and
> all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work..."
> (Gen.2:1,2). How does this square with an evolving creation?

This is basically the argument that a finished creation negates posibility of change - on which logic everything from the explosion of stars to form super-novae to the formation of volcanic islands (http://tinyurl.com/y9zn6n) to the breading of new domestic species simply can't happen because "the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them."

Here I think one needs to ask what is involved in this claim that creation is "finished";

(1) it could mean that NO change is possible - which I would consider to be a recklessly brave step to take given its obvious falsity.

(2) it could mean SOME change is possible - which would require a rather nuanced argument as what sort of change is permitted and which is not. In particular one would have to explain why the idea of a "finished creation" specifically negates the possibility of evolutionary changes. I'm really not sure how one could argue this without being guilty of a rather extreme form of special pleading.

(3) it could mean that the "nature" of the universe is fixed - that God set in place unalterable laws and properties which result in a degree of predictability. This seems to me the best way to understand the text in question. And I think a TE could reasonably assert that what is "finished" are these laws and properties which give rise to a universe which displays a consistent set of behaviors. And these in turn allow a process of evolution to start and carry forward. What this would lead one to would be the view that whilst new species can evolve (and stars explode and volcanic islands form) it would be the rules (or mechanisms or whatever) that govern the process which would be "finished."

Blessings,
Murray

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Received on Tue Nov 18 20:54:49 2008