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|  scott_jorgenson Registered Member
 Date Joined Dec 2002 Total Posts : 271 | Posted 3/14/2003 1:00 PM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Scott: just a quick note: saying something is baloney doesn't make it so. Johnson is not the only one who makes the accusation. Dembski does as well, and I can quote several others.
I'm aware of this - its a common-enough theme throughout creationism, but has been most articulated by the intelligent design movement. This movement's unofficial "founder" is Phillip Johnson, as you know, who was the first to extensively argue mainly around the contention that science today is fundamentally atheistic. Thus to say the argument is Phillip-Johnson-inspired, as I did, is fair.
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The Lewotin quote isn't the only one from a major scientist with an such a view. Again, there are many that can be quoted.
I don't dispute that. Atheism is quite tempting to those who are in the thick of science and lack a well-rounded philosophical education (more on this below). Lewontin could be joined by Gould, Sagan, and Dawkins, for example. This is frustrating.
But the point is, none of them speaks for science as an institution. No-one does. Rather, their views are personal interpretations buttressed by the evidence and argumentation they present. And they are countered by others who put forward their own personal views of science, buttressed by (IMO) better and more thoughtful evidence and argumentation, which suggest that science is neutral from any metaphysical commitment. For example, Kenneth Miller, Howard Van Till, and Eugenie Scott. Even Gould tended to hem-and-haw in this direction.
If science as practiced today were inevitably atheistic, you'd find far less theological diversity in its ranks than you do. But instead, some 40-odd percent of American scientists affirm belief in a personal God, defined as one to whom they can pray in expectation of being heard and in some way responded. This figure is less than the American population as a whole, but not by many multiples, and has apparently remained stable over the 20th century (even as science has progressed during that time, in confirming the general broad-brush mainstream view of prehistory).
It is a curious truth that atheism soars amongst the mutually-elected "elite" of American science (I'm referring to the National Academy of Sciences poll here, that you may be familiar with). I feel this is because the "elite" tend to be those most famous among their peers (ie, both technically successful and well-self-marketed) - and those are the people who, due to the affirmation they receive from their peers in science, tend to especially magnify/deify its personal role in their lives. So when science adopts naturalism as its working methodology (as it does), these people (lacking philosophical sophistication and looking to science as the wellspring-of-meaning in their personal lives) tend to go overboard in concluding science to have all kinds of metaphysical implications.
Put another way: when you're great at football, and receive all kinds of praise and success for your prowess at it, you are especially tempted (more so than less-famous teammates) to put football - that wonderful source of affirmation - at the center of your life, and see everything else through it, irrespective of its own limitations. So too with the scientific elite, I'm afraid.
In any case, while this has much to say regarding personal psychology, it has nothing to say about science as a practice, method or institution. The elites got where they are because of their technical success and self-promotion, and that does not give their opinions on the True Nature And Meaning Ff Science any more merit on that basis alone. To be a scientist is to be trained in your field, not in the philosophical underpinnings of it; to be an elite scientist is to be extraordinarily successful in your field, not to necessarily have any special philosophical insight into The Meaning Of It All.
Thus the polling numbers across the elite do not detract from anything we can conclude from the polling numbers across all scientists. They're all equally good at helping us judge how necessarily-atheistic science is, and the polling numbers across the (much larger) population of all scientists rule on that count.
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Finally, perhaps for you the creation account of Adam isn't needed. But for many it is for various reasons. So while you may not think it important, many do.
Well, of course I feel the account is needed (it teaches us about the nature of sin, for example). There's nothing in scripture that isn't useful for instructing in righteousness, to paraphrase Paul. I just don't feel that insisting on its inerrant historicity is needed. But I know that's what you meant, so I say this just to clarify for others.
As for inerrantists who feel that the historicity of Genesis 2-3 is essential: I of course recognize they exist and feel this way. In fact, amongst evangelical Christians, they are a majority. I don't ever think I denied that - I only denied that they were necessarily right in this view.
Scott
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 |  SeanG Registered Member
 Date Joined Dec 2002 Total Posts : 278 | Posted 3/14/2003 3:56 PM (GMT -6) |   | Scott, you said, “Basically, science is akin to the process we all go through when investigating and fixing a burned-out light bulb.” You are correct, however, origin science is not working science.
You also said, “Let me ask you this. Why do you have confidence in anything that is endorsed by the longstanding consensus of many thousands of diverse, relevant experts applying these same, very basic, reasonable methodology and presuppositions?” I don’t question the fact of, or the methodology behind the atomic weight of something, or the like. What I don’t agree with is that the naturalistic processes attributed to the past (e.g., life coming to existence in a primordial soup, or that birds evolved from dinosaurs) reign supreme, a priori.
You also said, “As Christian Scientists have long noted, the Bible provides no endorsement for medicine, let alone the idea that illness and disability have proximately-natural causes that can be investigated and treated via the scientific method.” This simply is not true. The Bible has proven itself true wherever it mentions cleanliness, or quarantine, long before it was found that bacteria existed (there are other examples, circumcision on the eight day, etc.). There are other scientific statements made in the Bible that have been proven to be true (like springs on the bottom of the ocean, or the earth being round, and the like).
A reason I have mentioned already as to why scientists seem to be atheistic, is because when one does come out and say he or she is a creationist, he or she is routinely harassed and shunned by their fellow colleagues. Many times they are fired, or federal funds and grants for the research projects they were working on are pulled. Other times – thinking of a specific case – an already awarded doctorate degree was pulled by the university board. Again, the quote by Donald Gould I posted is just one of many statements I could post.
Another I wish to post, which I have already posted, is that of professor D. M. S. Watson, one of the leading biologists and science writers of his day, demonstrated the bias behind much of the evolutionary thinking when he wrote, “evolution [is] a theory universally accepted not because it can be proven by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.” When you mentioned that, “Second, the Lewontin quote is a favorite of creationists.”… Therefore?! Must it be wrong because it is a favorite among “creationists?”
I wish to quote you one more time, “Atheism is quite tempting to those who are in the thick of science and lack a well-rounded philosophical education (more on this below). Lewontin could be joined by Gould, Sagan, and Dawkins, for example. This is frustrating.” It isn’t frustrating; the human soul yearns for that “God shaped vacuum” inside us. When humans reject it, they fill it with other religious replacements, like naturalism. To quote someone who is philosophically well rounded and a renowned Canadian science philosopher. Dr Michael Ruse made astonishing admissions about the religious nature of evolution at a symposium titled “The New Antievolutionism” (during the 1993 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.) These statements shocked his colleagues because he has written a book, But is it Science?, denouncing creationism because it is religious… and was the last person expected to give the game away. He appeared to admit that evolution is based upon dogmatic exclusion of a miraculous creation/creator - in effect, a faith commitment to naturalism, the unprovable, religious belief that no supernatural element exists or is relevant. Ruse said this (emphasis added): "at some very basic level, evolution as a scientific theory makes a commitment to a kind of naturalism, namely that at some level one is going to exclude miracles and these sorts of things, COME THAT IT MAY."
He went on to defend this unprovable assumption by the fact that, in his view, it works. Nevertheless, said Ruse, "evolution, akin to religion, involves making certain a priori or metaphysical assumptions, which at some level cannot be proven empirically." Further on, he said that one can't just say that evolution is science, creation is religion, period. One has to have some other "coherence theory of truth, or something like that. I still think that one can certainly exclude creation science on those grounds."
I am sure you wish to lightly dismiss Ruse as well Scott?
SeanG!"I quote others only the better to express myself." Michel de Montaigne
Edited by - SeanG on 03/14/2003 9:01:31 PM | | Back to Top | | |
 |  scott_jorgenson Registered Member
 Date Joined Dec 2002 Total Posts : 271 | Posted 3/16/2003 7:33 AM (GMT -6) |   | FYI in the spirit of winding down this thread that has drifted from the original question, this'll be my last posting in this thread unless you or anyone else insist otherwise (I don't like to let people go feeling their questions have been unheard or ignored). If anyone wants further response from me, please specifically say so.
Sean, you try to make a distinction between "origin" science and "working" science. The distinction is artificial and rhetorical only. I could just as well say that science is akin to the process we all go through when investigating the reason for failure of a burned-out light bulb - or when investigating the origin of the light bulb in the first place. All the very reasonable and basic-to-living presuppositions involved (which I listed) are the same in such historical sciences (what you call "origin science") as in what you call "working science". From forensic science to archaeology (something looked favorably upon by inerrantists so long as it confirms the biblical record), the presuppositions are the same, are methodological only, and do not extend metaphysically except insomuch as some people choose to do so (to make it buttress their own atheism). And even then it is their philosophy speaking, not science.
Incidentally I've never read a reasoned creationist (or atheist, for that matter) rebuttal to this observation (ie that methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism are distinct from one another and that the latter only follows from the former by application of extra a-priori philosophy). Both sides by their silence or simple denial further show the likelihood of this observation, in my opinion.
On the alleged scientific accuracy of scripture:
quote:
You also said, “As Christian Scientists have long noted, the Bible provides no endorsement for medicine, let alone the idea that illness and disability have proximately-natural causes that can be investigated and treated via the scientific method.” This simply is not true. The Bible has proven itself true wherever it mentions cleanliness, or quarantine, long before it was found that bacteria existed (there are other examples, circumcision on the eight day, etc.). There are other scientific statements made in the Bible that have been proven to be true (like springs on the bottom of the ocean, or the earth being round, and the like).
I understand it is very tempting to think this. To the modernist (which most of us are), the truth of a thing, even scripture, is directly proportional to only one thing: the degree to which it is empirically confirmed. Thus the Bible must be shown to be in concord with empirically confirmed science and history, and when it is not, either the science or history must be challenged, or the Bible must be re-interpreted. Young-earth creationists tend to do the former, resulting in very strained science in order to preserve concord with a generally (though not completely - see below) plain reading of scripture. Old-earth creationists do the opposite, resulting in only a little strained science (relative to the young-earthers at least) but with much more strained interpretation of the Bible. I assert along with many scholars, however, that the plainest interpretation of scripture simply cannot always be concorded with the plainest science and history, and that furthermore (in broad-brush strokes) this does not matter when God's purpose and means of revelation are considered vis-a-vis the culture of the times. God doesn't care about relating accurate science and history in passing on revelation in faith and practice that he does care about, and so he uses the idioms of the time when they improve reception of such revelation, even when such idioms are scientifically or historically inaccurate.
Thus - in contrast to your statement about a round earth - there are no passages in the Bible which, most plainly and naturally understood, assert the indisputable scientific truth: Earth is a solid planetary globe or sphere, on the surface of which dry land (continents and islands) and oceans are embedded. Rather, most plainly and naturally understood, the Old Testament refers to (and the New Testament mostly defers to) an ancient Near-Eastern cosmology in which dry land is more-or-less one continental mass, suspended in an ocean which surrounds the dry land on all sides and undergirds it as well, and extends to the circular horizon where it meets the more-or-less solid sky. And the concept of the Earth, in the modern sense as a body undergirding both dry land and sky, has no parallel in the Bible.
It is only by creative interpretation that inerrantists like creationists are able to read into the Bible confirmation of, or even consistency with, certain indisputable facts of modern cosmology, geography, biology, etc. This goes for springs on the bottom of the ocean, naturalistic causes of disease, round earths, etc as you asserted. See Paul Seely's work for further information and support of this. Davis Young is another good resource.
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A reason I have mentioned already as to why scientists seem to be atheistic, is because when one does come out and say he or she is a creationist, he or she is routinely harassed and shunned by their fellow colleagues. Many times they are fired, or federal funds and grants for the research projects they were working on are pulled.
When this happens - and not to say I agree with such measures because generally I don't, especially in the university where academic freedom should be protected - it is a judgement on the methodological conclusions of the creationist, not on his or her faith. Creationists become pariahs not because they are Christians and science is inherently atheistic, but they become pariahs for the same reason as do, say, doctors who persevere in falsified medical views (such as HIV not being the cause of AIDS). The scientific community is harsh, and always has been, on those mavericks who buck the consensus on what has been verified and what has been falsified. Scientists' personal faith commitments have nothing to do with this.
Finally, on Michael Ruse, its ironic you cite him because I was going to do the same. Ruse simply observes that science, and especially evolution (because it deals with biological origins, something that our culture has traditionally reserved exclusively for religion), is often extended into support for religious viewpoints such as atheism. Ruse backs what I have been saying about the distinction between science as technical practice, and scientism as atheistic religious viewpoint. Ruse in no way supports the view that science is necessarily tainted by scientism. For a typical (and recent) Ruse essay, for example, see the March 7 issue of "Science" magazine: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/299/5612/1523
Best regards,
Scott | | Back to Top | | |
 |  Iconoclast Registered Member
 Date Joined Oct 2001 Total Posts : 1227 | Posted 3/16/2003 5:02 PM (GMT -6) |   | scott_jorgenson
Old-earth creationists do the opposite, resulting in only a little strained science (relative to the young-earthers at least) but with much more strained interpretation of the Bible.
Iconoclast
I am a little confused why you say "much more strained interpretation of the Bible." Don't young-earthers have to argue that the opening chapters of Genesis are literally true? And don't old-earthers simply say that the creation story is just that - a story meant to convey deep truths about the nature of the Creator, the creation, and the fall - and that it is using metaphorical language? Personally I find the literal interpretation to be much more strained than a metaphorical interpretation. For example, how many talking snakes have any of us come across? And what up with the trees that bear such magical fruit? Has anyone even heard of such a thing outside of the apple in the story of Snow White? And where did all those people come from who Cain was so afraid of? Were they the Neanderthals who died out in 50,000 B.C. - oops, nope, couldn't be them.
And, back to the topic of this thread, why in the world would we interpret "a day" to mean one rotation of the earth around its axis before the earth was even created? Why doesn't it make much more sense to say that the story is suggesting that "a day" has a much deeper meaning than simply one rotation of the earth? And once we accept this then it becomes clear that assigning the tag "a day" to "one rotation of the earth" is simply a metaphorical mapping where "one rotation of the earth" takes on a richer meaning than simply "one rotation of the earth." We could then come to understand that "a day" means something much richer like "a natural cycle or rhythm inherent to the corporeal creation." It seems to me that the literal interpretation gets this all backwards. It takes the word "a day" AS ONLY "one rotation of the earth on its axis" and then tries to map that simplistic meaning back to the original much deeper meaning. It is basically taking the surface structure meaning of "a day" (one rotation) as though that was its deep structure meaning and then using that to interpret a passage where the deep structure meaning is being used.
thanks, Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edited by - Iconoclast on 03/16/2003 10:15:52 PM | | Back to Top | | |
 |  scott_jorgenson Registered Member
 Date Joined Dec 2002 Total Posts : 271 | Posted 3/17/2003 6:35 AM (GMT -6) |   | "Iconoclast" (wish I knew your name :-),
I'll take it you want a response. I personally agree with everything you say about the theme of the creation accounts being the inspired point, eg:
quote:
And don't old-earthers simply say that the creation story is just that - a story meant to convey deep truths about the nature of the Creator, the creation, and the fall - and that it is using metaphorical language?
And I also agree with you that there are clues in the literary elements and structure of the accounts to suggest that they do not bear resemblance to modern standards of history, eg:
quote:
For example, how many talking snakes have any of us come across? And what up with the trees that bear such magical fruit?
Indeed, from the reading I've done, I've been persuaded that Genesis 2-11 fall into the category of legend - ie stories about origins and the deep past which entheme truths about the world. And I think Genesis 1 is polemic against ancient Near-Eastern cosmology and mythology. (Of course I believe these passages are not merely human creations, but inspired of God, but that need not eliminate those genres from his toolkit.)
But old-earth creationists do not, strictly speaking, believe simply those things. They believe that, though the creation accounts do not correspond literally to history, they do correspond at least figuratively or loosely to history. Ie, they believe that the historical-grammatical meaning of the accounts is loose enough that it can be "concorded" with a generally modern understanding of science and history; and indeed that such a concord was the intent of God and the author. They believe that, if you just read Genesis 1-11 right, decoding the metaphors as you go, you will find an affirmation of mostly modern science and history (I say "mostly", because old-earthers, to varying degrees of taste, reject such things as common descent of man, macro-evolution, and the sufficiency of natural selection and variation to drive those large-scale changes).
For example, old-earthers thus argue for loose interpretations of "day" in Genesis 1 and "whole earth" in the Flood and Babel narratives. They argue that the historical-grammatical meaning of those terms is loose enough that "days" can historically-grammatically mean indeterminate, overlapping periods of time; and that "whole earth" can historically-grammatically mean Mesopotamia or some-such local region.
Based on the reading I've done (eg Henri Blocher's In the Beginning and many other works), I think such interpretations are not historical-grammatical, thus are not the original meaning of the text, and thus are not the correct meaning for us today. For example, I've been persuaded that "day" means a 24-hour period of the ordinary variety that we experience today, and "whole earth" means all the land in the world. I agree with the young-earthers in this, but do not seek the concordance with science and history that they do. Rather I accept these as concessions to the time by a God who doesn't care to reveal accurate science and history to us, since such knowledge is not salvific.
So I say the old-earthers strain their interpretation more than the young-earthers, yet both camps strain other interpretations in their attempt to achieve concordance, thus showing the absurdity/impossibility of concordance. I'm referring to "firmament/sky", "seas", "waters above", and so forth.
But as far as the theological themes you point out, I and (I think) most other theistic evolutionists would certainly agree they are the inspired point of the accounts.
Scott
PS. Incidentally not all theistic evolutionists have given up on concordance and, by extension, total factual inerrancy. For example, former young-earther and geologist Glenn Morton thinks he has a way to read Genesis 1-11 loosely enough to concord with modern science and history including evolution, and thus preserve those chapters' historicity. See his Foundation, Fall and Flood. So I am speaking for some, but not all, theistic evolutionists in what I say.
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 |  Iconoclast Registered Member
 Date Joined Oct 2001 Total Posts : 1227 | Posted 3/17/2003 4:23 PM (GMT -6) |   | scott_jorgenson
So I say the old-earthers strain their interpretation more than the young-earthers, yet both camps strain other interpretations in their attempt to achieve concordance, thus showing the absurdity/impossibility of concordance. I'm referring to "firmament/sky", "seas", "waters above", and so forth.
But as far as the theological themes you point out, I and (I think) most other theistic evolutionists would certainly agree they are the inspired point of the accounts.
Iconoclast
Ah, I see. You are making the point about strained interpretation as evidence that a third view (theistic evolution) is a more reasonable approach than either old or young earth creation. No wonder I was so confused. I had not even conceptualized a third category. I just assumed that old-earth creationists were theistic evolutionists. What I assume from the conversation then is that old-earth creationists must not believe in evolution at all and therefore hang their hats on some sort of a strict scientific correspondence between the Genesis account and what actually happened.
I guess I can't communicate my current view by using the term "old-earth creationist" then. It seems pretty clear to me given the evidence that evolution is a fact. It also seems entirely unneccessary to try to make the Bible language somehow fit our current scientific understanding of how the universe evolved. I can certainly accept the notion that "a day" actually referred to the human-experienced cycle of a 24-hour period. In fact, I would positively affirm this interpretation. At the same time, I would also suggest that the very nature of abstract reasoning is to take body-based experiences and map them metaphorically to a target domain. In this case, a "cycle" of creation - and what a "cycle" of creation actually is in God's view may or may not correspond to any actual cycle of scientifically understood process. Any such conjecture is, I think, interesting to contemplate but I don't see any real way of verifying it without actually asking God what He meant. Which brings me back to Schroeder's "The Science of God" - it really is an interesting set of conjectures based on the latest scientific understandings about the processes of creation and evolution. And I really don't hear Schroeder going down the "concordism" path at all - although I may be filtering his view based on my lack of awareness of the whole concept of "concordism".
To me the most interesting thing that Schroeder brought up in his book was the two periods where life exploded on this earth - the period where single-celled sorts of algae and such appeared and then the pre-cambrian explosion of life. The reason this is so interesting to me is that I have been studying complex adaptive systems theory in order to build software systems that are more adaptive to their environment. A key concept in complex adaptive systems theory (CAS) is that new emergent properties of a system can suddenly (and explosively) arise when a certain set of (very, very specific) configurations are achieved in the underlying structure of the base system components. An example of this is a cellular automata, which is a very simple two dimensional grid of cells that have a very simple set of about 5 rules. It has been shown that if "programmed" with a certain configuration (1 out of umpteen trillion) then certain emergent properties arise which allow you to use it as a general purpose computer. In other words an unbelievably simple system that is capable of displaying emergent phenomenon given the right initial conditions can compute any computable number. The trick is finding the exact set of base configurations that allow the explosive growth of emergent phenomenon to arise. John Holland in his book "How Adaptation Builds Complexity" shows how genetic algorithms (DNA mechanism with mutation and recombination and of course some way to keep score) are the most efficient way to explore a "solution space". This mechanism strongly suggests why life exploded on the scene the way it did - the "solution space" was explored in the billions of years between the explosion of single-celled life forms and the explosion of higher life forms - and once the underlying basic building blocks were "evolved" (discovered and preserved in the solution space) then the next level of emergent phenomenon could take place. And once higher forms of life explored the "solution space" for some 350 million years then an even higher level of emergent phenomenon took place - human consciousness.
My view is that CAS theory even more powerfully demonstrates the awesome intelligence of our Creator. God designed a system capable of evolving wildly diverse life forms and ultimately (so far) human consciousness. It makes one wonder what the next major leap in emergent phenomenon might be. Perhaps this is what the "Kingdom of God" is referring to in some way - "thy Kingdom come they will be done - here on earth as it is in Heaven". Once we learn to love each other and therefore work together as a single "organism" who knows what sorts of interesting things that might lead to.
thanks, Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Edited by - Iconoclast on 03/17/2003 10:36:03 PM | | Back to Top | | |
 |  scott_jorgenson Registered Member
 Date Joined Dec 2002 Total Posts : 271 | Posted 3/18/2003 7:46 AM (GMT -6) |   | "Iconoclast",
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No wonder I was so confused. I had not even conceptualized a third category. I just assumed that old-earth creationists were theistic evolutionists.
I think you've got the hang of it now, but if you want to see a typical old-earth creationist "in the wild", visit Hugh Ross' Reasons to Believe Web site: http://www.reasons.org (I see they've given the site a face lift since I last visited).
Eugenie Scott's primer on the creation-evolution position spectrum may also be helpful. From the National Center for Science Education: http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/4550_antievolutionism_and_creationi_2_13_2001.asp
Thanks for the interesting summary on complex adaptive systems theory. The creation is indeed very cool. Howard Van Till, perhaps more than anyone else, has turned its very coolness into an apologetic for God, in fact. See his chapters in the Zondervan book, Three Views on Creation and Evolution, and the Intervarsity book, Science and Christianity: Four Views.
Scott
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 |  Magneton Registered Member
 Date Joined Aug 2001 Total Posts : 132 | Posted 3/18/2003 12:22 PM (GMT -6) |   | Scott, Thanks for the work you've put into this discussion. I've appreciated your perspectives and insights. I especially liked the following:quote: Concordism (whether of the young-earth or old-earth variety) is, in my opinion, a failure. And it is a failure because it is not what God intended from the Bible or from science. God's revelation in the Bible is for salvific benefit and thus deals with matters of faith and practice and has thus been communicated in a way that best allows unhindered, undiverted comprehension: by being accommodated/conformed to the scientific and historical precepts of the time. God's intent for science and history, meanwhile, is that - like other fields not of salvific benefit, from math and engineering to cooking - we learn them empirically ourselves.
Well said. My only hesitation concerns whether science and history are truly without salvific benefit (although I'm not sure what this term means). It seems that to better understand the world that God has made is in some way to know him better. This is reflected in the quote below.
I was quite impressed when I first read Hugh Ross, and in particular liked his observation that the Genesis account of creation was in the correct order when viewed from the perspective of a hypothetical observer on the surface of the earth. Thus light appeared after the earth, because what is being described is the clearing of interplanetary debris, allowing the sun's light to reach this hypothetical observer.
But I soon realized that such harmonization is unnecessary and hardly credible. To think that the authors of scripture were describing events that they didn't understand, and yet God guided their writing to incorporate cosmological truths that would only be appreciated in the 20th century is quite a stretch. Certainly God-given visions are possible, but as you have said, this seems inconsistent with God's intent.
Magneton
If the God of the Bible is the creator of the universe, then it is not possible to understand fully or even appropriately the processes of nature without any reference to that God. If, on the contrary, nature can be appropriately understood without reference to the God of the Bible, then that God cannot be the creator of the universe, and consequently, cannot be truly God and be trusted as a source of moral teaching either. - Wolfhart Pannenberg
Edited by - Magneton on 03/18/2003 5:29:54 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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