My lateness in responding to this is due to my being away for a week teaching
a science-theology graduate course for clergy & others who already have some theological
education. That is germane as more than just an excuse for my tardiness, for it points
up the fact that what is involved is not simply a matter of placating YECs. If I had
told these primarily ELCA, Episcopal, Roman Catholic & Presbyterian clergy in our
discussions of cosmology & evolution that Genesis had to be interpreted in concordist
fashion they would have disagreed strongly - & would have been quite correct in doing
so.
A few specific points about Glenn's comments:
1) Others will have to speak for themselves but the idea that I am arguing that
Genesis contains "some fuzzy theological lesson only with no historical content" is
incorrect. I have said all along that the Genesis texts refer to the real world & have
insisted that they make not "fuzzy" theological statements but very important
theological assertions. & of course I have never said that they are "only" theological
polemic against polytheism.
2) The type & amount of "historical content" that Glenn & some other
concordists find acceptable reminds me a bit of Lincoln's reference to "the homeopathic
soup made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death." Glenn's "days
of proclamation view" of Genesis 1, e.g., is, I think, an acceptable though
unnecessarily convoluted way of speaking about divine origination but to call it an
historical reading of the account stretches the term "history" beyond the breaking
point. I do not object to the interpretation itself but to the notion that one has to
pretend that it fits in the box of historical narrative because otherwise it couldn't be
true. & YECs are just fooling themselves if they think that by accepting this they
haven't made a serious break with their previous understanding of Genesis as history.
3) Glenn is unimpressed with my oft-repeated example of the Good Samaritan but
my experience is that thinking about that & related examples actually can broaden the
thinking of Christians who have an overly simple idea of "the Bible as history" _if that
can be dome in a small group setting or one-on-one discussion_.
4) Changing the thinking of YECs is important but in the last analysis is
secondary to reaching scientifically literate _& also literarily literate_
non-Christians with the gospel. Explicit recognition that truth can be conveyed by
types of literature other than historical narrative can be important in that effort. Of
course the last sentence is what Glenn & I have debated at length several times & I
don't know that either of us has anything new to say about it now.
> (I am NOT trying to start the debate again. This post is merely my
> observation from my YEC past which neither George nor Howard ever went
> through to the best of my knowledge).
Well, I grew up with a pretty strict Missouri Synod Lutheran theology, did
a high school science project entitled "A Refutation of the Theory of Evolution" (No,
it will never again see the light of day!) and trust that I've been forgiven for having
reconciled this with my scientific interests by means of "apparent age." I suspect that
some, though not all, of our differences stem from different attitudes toward
literature.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/