Re: [asa] Science as Christian vocation

Ted is right that Lutherans don't seem to have given a great deal of attention to science-theology issues in the perios in question. There were exceptions - Theodore Graebner of the Missouri Synod & Byron Nelson (I believe the current ID Paul Nelson's grandfather) of the old American Lutheran Church. Both were strongly anti-evolution. I don't know as much about the Pennsylvania variety of Lutherans at that period as I do of the more conservative midwestern ones. (Francis Pieper, the chief theologian of Missouri, argued for - though he didn't insist upon - geocentrism in his 1917 _Christliche Dogmatik_. He did insist upon 6 day creation.) I do have one book from the 1920s that deals mostly with cosmological questions by an eastern Lutheran but can't recall name or title now - I'll let you know when I'm home.

Even though Schmucker may have taken leave of orthodox Christianity, his views may still, as Karl suggests, have reflected some aspects of the Lutheran tradition such as the /finitum capax infiniti/. Lutheran influence certainly shows in Hegel, e.g., & even Feuerbach. Apostate Lutherans differ from apostate Calvinists or RCs.

Shalom,
George
http://home.roadrunner.com/~scitheologyglm

---- Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu> wrote:
> Karl asks two really good ones here:
>
> >>> <cmekve@aol.com> 2/10/2009 5:59 PM >>>
> Ted,
> No one else has taken the bait, so I'll give it a shot.? More questions
> than comments I'm afraid.
>
> 1.? Was Schmucker's theology influenced by the Mercersburg 'school' ??
> There's only one ridge separating the valleys containing Gettysburg and
> Mercersburg.? The Lutheran/Reformed divide may have been a bigger
> impediment.
>
> 2.? How much of SCS's view of God as/in nature is truly classical
> liberalism and how much reflects Luther's traditional view that God is in,
> with, and under nature.? Kurt Hendel's article in the same issue of Sem.
> Ridge Rev. indicates just how much Luther's view of "finitum est capax
> infiniti" differs from the Reformed view.? I'm not trying to say that SCS
> wasn't a classical liberal, just that this aspect of Lutheran theology is
> easily misinterpreted.? Luther avoided pantheism and panentheism, but?was
> SCS not so conscious of the theological difficulty?
>
> *******
>
> 1. I don't know, b/c I know virtually nothing about the Mercersburg
> school, and in general very little about the history of American
> Lutheranism. My sense is in any case that SCS was heavily influenced by his
> fellow liberal Protestant scientists and clergy. For example, he was close
> to Edwin Grant Conklin (a lapsed Methodist who advanced what he called "the
> religion of science") and he knew Shailer Mathews (the left-wing theologian
> from Chicago) pretty well, too. Everything he writes is consistent with
> their attitudes, not with any classical Christian view.
>
> 2. To be frank, I do not see where most Lutherans at the time really
> thought much about the issues you raise in this question. George Murphy can
> probably help me out here, but Lutherans in the 1920s were among the most
> conservative of all American denominations. A large percentage of their
> pastors believed in pretty literal approaches to Genesis, e.g. (I base this
> on a published survey of the views of American clergy at the time.)
>
> Ted
>
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Received on Wed Feb 11 12:30:03 2009