Re: Schaefer's Book

I also struggle between the boundaries here.

At one extreme is the creationist.
Creationist seem to ramrod an incoherent science
into a non-poetic reading of the Genesis text to
produce an incongruous "truth" between the Bible
and science. It involves similar reasoning as
1. the boss is always right:
2. If the boss is wrong, go to 1.

At the other extreme, are the views that seem to turn
the word "liberal theologian" into a pejorative.
At its most extreme, science and theology appear to
never intersect at any point, leaving one to wonder
if the Bible contains anything that can be called "true"
(even with a small "t").

I don't deny that one must cut the writers some slack.
In that sense, the views of Paul, Michael or Jan
strike me as reasonable. However, central to
Peter, Glenn, and Dick's view is the question "how much
slack should we cut the writers?" At the end of the
day, the theology must somehow connect with what we
know about the world.

Part of the problem is that theology and science are
both full time endeavors. One learns theology at the
expense of depth in science, or one learn science at
the expense of depth in theology. That leaves us with
communication gaps that are difficult to cross. Most
of us cannot read original sources, let alone cover
the range of literary styles of different periods
of history. I think this is partly the issue about
how one perceives something as "true," but somehow,
that "true" does need to connect coherently with what
we currently understand to be also "true" from the
standpoint of science.

I think that the connection point we are all struggling
with.

By Grace alone we proceed,
Wayne
Received on Tue Aug 17 21:40:19 2004