Hi George
Thank for starting us off on a most interesting tangent. I for one never
knew that RCs placed particular emphasis on Matthew. In terms of C.I.C.'s I
know of some who regard only the epistles as fully authoritative, the OT and
even the gospels are Jewish and therefore not fully relevant to the Church
or gentiles.
On developing a theology of creation based on the NT I came across an
interesting example the other night. The speaker tried to define a theology
of creation based entirely on the NT, no OT references at all. Furthermore
he centred it all on the resurrection and all proceeded from there. I
believe that in incarnation, cross and new creation are key to a full
theology of creation, but I am not sure if his way was the right way to go
about it. Certainly it did not address the issues that people wanted to
hear. Fortunately they were, but it took and hour of question and answer.
Some additional suggestions for important (NT) scriptures.
Romans 8:18-26
1 Corthinians 15:1-28
Hebrews 11:3
Rev 4:11, 21:1-22:5
I must rush on a sailing course but I will think about the implications of a
NT centred theology of creation in between falling overboard.
GB
Jonathan
george murphy wrote:
> By way of trying to provoke some fresh discussion -
>
> While there are some differences which aren't important for the
> present discussion (i.e., concerning the OT Apocrypha), all Christians
> accept (or are supposed to accept!) the well-known 66 books of
> protestant Bibles as authoritative canonical scripture. However,
> different parts of the church, and different individuals, see different
> parts of the canon as central to Christian faith and life, and tend to
> read the rest of the Bible through the lens of those central parts.
> They have, as it's sometimes said, a "canon within the canon" (CIC).
> E.g., Lutherans have traditionally given a central place to Romans and
> Galatians, while Roman Catholics have emphasized Matthew. Other parts
> of the church have given some priority to other books. These are
> _unofficial_ CICs - no RC would say that only Matthew is
> authoritative. OTOH, no one with any theological sense is going to
> argue seriously that Jude is as important as the Gospel of John.
> As these examples indicate, a Christian's CIC pretty much has to
> be from the NT simply because of the centrality of Christ. Isaiah or
> Exodus (as, e.g., for liberation theologians) may be strongly
> emphasized, but you just can't get a Christian theology from the OT
> alone. While the OT is important, Christians read it in the light of
> the NT, not the other way around. We may say that while different parts
> of the church sharpen the focus further, the NT is our CIC.
> In view of this, a great deal of discussion of creation and of
> science-theology relationships in general, is rather strange. One would
> get the impression from much of the discussion of creation & evolution
> &c that Genesis is the CIC of fundamentalism and much of
> Evangelicalism. Of course that is not the case when other topics are
> being considered, but when this one comes on stage, Genesis is pushed to
> the forefront.
> Might it not be a good idea to try to develop some understanding
> of issues related to creation and evolution (including theological
> anthropology and providence) from the NT? I am certainly not suggesting
> that we drop Genesis (or for that matter Psalms or Isaiah or the rest of
> the OT) in developing a full understanding of these issues. But it
> would be good discipline for us to put a moratorium on debates about
> Genesis 1-11 & focus on relevant NT texts (reflecting, of course, on
> related OT passages when necessary for interpretation). For starters I
> would suggest:
> John 1:1-18
> Romans 4 & 5:6-21
> I Corinthians 8:6
> Ephesians 1 & 4:1-16
> Philippians 2:1-11
> Colossians 1:15-20
> Hebrews 2:5-18
> The list is by no means exhaustive.
>
> Shalom,
>
> George
>
> George L. Murphy
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
> "The Science-Theology Interface"
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