Re: Two kinds of theistic science?
David Campbell (bivalve@isis.unc.edu)
Fri, 18 Apr 1997 15:19:43 -0500Bill Frix wrote
>There is a BIG difference between the Christian faith in the death
>and resurrection of Jesus and the creation/evolution debate. The
>death and resurrection of Jesus is a verifiable, historical fact
>while the creation/evolution debate is a debate of the
>_interpretation_ of verifiable facts.
>
I would consider both to have some interpretation to them, at least for us
(as opposed to eyewitnesses). We have a record of events in the Bible, the
failure of hostile authorities to disprove the claims, historical accounts
of the actions of Christians, our own experience, etc. Together, these
lines of evidence cause us to conclude that the Biblical accounts are true.
Even the eyewitnesses had to discount alternative interpretations (e.g., a
ghost). Similarly, the presence of many sequences of transitional forms in
the fossil records, with one form lower in the sequence and others higher,
is a more basic observation than the conclusion that descent with change
has taken place.
Although the role of interpretation is grossly exaggerated in
most postmodern thought, it is present in any fact. Studying the fossil
record to see if evolution has occured requires interpreting fossils as
remains of organisms rather than inorganic mineral formations,
hallucinations, or of other nonliving origin. Likewise, the historical
evidence, to tell of the resurrection, must not be forgery or fraudulent.
Certainly, the resurrection is a much more important issue than
evolution. It also differs in occuring over a much briefer time interval,
so that the human documentation is better but geological evidence does not
exist.
David C.