--On 14, Aug 1998 9:44 AM "Howard J. Van Till" <110661.1365@compuserve.com>
wrote:
> Ryan Rassmussen (in "The original vegetarian movement?") asked a couple
of
> questions of the form: "How does one reconcile some particular portion of
> the Genesis text with our modern scientific understanding regarding the
> character and history of the universe?"
>
> Questions of this sort have a long history of generating puzzles,
problems,
> conflicts, debates, shouting matches, denominational splits, and other
> forms of both pain and nonsense.
>
> I submit that it's high time that we Christians admit that the
fundamental
> problem here is generated by a concept of the biblical text--concerning
its
> character and appropriate use--that is profoundly misguided. In the
> extreme, communities of faith have crafted numerous claims about the text
> that are at best unrealistic, and often downright ridiculous.
>
> Forcing the biblical text to do things for which it was never intended is
> sure to generate nonsense.
>
> The promotion of nonsense in the name of Christianity will do nothing but
> alienate thinking persons from the faith.
>
> The biblical text was not _written_ by God, it was _inspired_ by God. It
> was written by human beings in the conceptual vocabularies of their day
and
> culture, and within the limits of the writers' knowledge base. It is very
> valuable as a record of how particular persons and communities
experienced
> the authentic presence of God, but expecting or demanding that it provide
> us now with an epistemological shortcut to information about the
> particulars of the universe's formational history is, I submit,
profoundly
> misguided.
>
> Those outside the faith know that, and all of our attempts to deny it
will
> serve only to make us appear not only stupid, but dishonest as well.
>
> The Christian community must get out of this rut of biblicism bordering
on
> bibliolatry. We must stop lusting after the kind of certitude that leads
to
> making impossible demands on the biblical text and closing our eyes to
what
> can be learned by the competent scholarship and sound judgment that, by
> God's generous gifting, we are capable.
>
> Howard Van Till
Kenneth Piers, Professor Telephone:(616)-957-6491 (W)
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (616)-676-2056 (H)
Calvin College Fax: (616)-957-6501
GRAND RAPIDS, MI 49546 E-mail: pier@calvin.edu
"Meaning is the being of all that has been created...it has a religious
root and a divine origin." H. Dooyeweerd