Who? Me? Coherent? (was Re: [asa] Re: Reading Genesis theologically NOT historically)

Hi Merv,

I don't pretend that my position is entirely coherent so it doesn't surprise me that there might be some incongruity in some of my remarks.

I can only plead the fact that whilst the broad contours of my position are reasonably fixed, there is a bit of flux in the details which sometimes leads to me expressing things in ways I later think better of.

Thinking of evolution as the "worst case scenario" merely reflects the common perception that it is so. Clearly (to my mind) it's easier to do Christian theology if one simply ignores evolution. It's perhaps not so very difficult if one presumes a neat concordantist view. But if one takes a fully blown evolutionist position, then at first blush it seems that the Bible and science stand in irreconcilable conflict.

Historically, I initially started off exploring "Theistic Evolution" as a kind of "let's see how far we can push this thing" theological inquiry. Specifically, I was really interested to address the claim made by some YEC's to the effect that if one rejected a historical Genesis then one would have to reject a historical Jesus. Needless to say, I think TE shows itself rather more robust than some seem to suppose.

What this boils down to is that my position is not a static one - there's a rather constant re-jigging of the various parts as I encounter different problems and attempt to resolve some of the incoherence which I am well aware lurks in the details (e.g. if one considers the recent thread on "the first human" then we have to be careful to ask if our theological and scientific anthropologies are in agreement - I'm not currently sure that mine are).

Bottom line, really, is that one needs an ability to tolerate the mess of what is, in effect, a theological construction site.

Blessings,
Murray

Merv Bitikofer wrote:
> Murray Hogg wrote:
>>
>> 1) That evolution happened - here let me say that I adopt this not
>> because I have a blind devotion to scientific consensus but because it
>> provides a theologically challenging 'worst case' scenario.
>>
> Thanks for all your insights thus far, Murray. This particular remark,
> however, sounds incongruous with previous remarks (of yours?). If
> biological evolution and a proper Christo-centric theology fit each
> other so well or well enough, then what is so 'worst case' about it?
> Or were you just lapsing into an alternate popular-warfare perspective?
>
> --Merv
>
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Mon Oct 5 18:32:48 2009