RE: The wee people

Hi Glenn,
 
This discovery is no doubt one of the most incredible in the last
decade, or more. I agree with your views that H. sapiens is probably
not the only species that should be considered to be made in the image
of God. But there is a great amount of difficulty in deciding when the
first "human" (Adam) existed, precisely because evolutionary change is a
gradual process.
 
But I fail to see what this has to do with the historical vs.
non-historical views of Genesis. Objections to Christianity of "I can't
believe it because it isn't historically true" are only worthy of
consideration IF the portions of scripture in question were intended to
be historical in nature. To me, this is kind of like saying "I don't
believe in Aesop's fables because they aren't historically true." That
completely misses the point - whether or not Aesop's Fables are
historically true means zilch to the truth and the messages behind the
stories. No one believes Greek mythology to be historically true, but
it is still read and cherished as valuable literature because there are
truths in there about human behavior that can still be seen in our world
today.
 
I would say that in the case of a story about a man named "Dust" and
his wife named "Mother-of-all-the-Living", which also involves a walking
talking serpent, whether or not it is historically "true" is missing the
point of it. There is still a wealth of Truth within it (and that Truth
being given by God), beyond whether or not it is "factual".
 
Best,
Charles
 
 
<><<><<><<><<><<><<><<><<><<><<><<><
Charles W. Carrigan
Olivet Nazarene University
Dept. of Geology
One University Ave.
Bourbonnais, IL 60914
PH: (815) 939-5346
FX: (815) 939-5071

>>> "Glenn Morton" <glennmorton@entouch.net> 10/29/2004 11:09:36 AM
>>>

It is taking a bit for me to get my mind around this discovery. There
is an amazing implication for the theological views when it comes to
fossil man. H. floresiensis
appears to be a direct descendant of H. erecutus. While H. sapiens is
also a direct descendant of H. erectus, we are both sister species.
Yet, it appears that both species engage in the same kind of
behavior--making fire, making stone tools, and even speech. The
implication of this for apologetics and the way we Christians treat the
hominids must change. Here is why.
 
Alan Turing presented his Turing test to determine whether or not an
artificially intelligent computer had been created. The test is this:.
If normal humans interacting with the computer can't tell the difference
between the responses of a computer and the responses of another human,
then the computer must be considered to be intelligent. This is a
behavioral definition of AI. But this type of test also applies to the
current situation. The only way we have of determining who is
spiritually aware and who isn't is based upon their behavior. While we
can't definitely claim that the Liang Bua people had a religion, in all
other respects they seem to have behaved like us. And there in lies the
problem.
 
We have a four choices as I see it (there may be others).
 
1. Acknowledge that since both us and the Liang Bua people do the same
thing, that our common ancestor (H. erectus) was also spiritually aware
and thus move Adam way back in time.
2. Claim that the Liang Bua people are just fancy animals, which means
that we ignore their tool making, their means of hunting, the hafting of
stone points on wooden spears, use of fire and the likelihood of
language
3. Take Dick Fischer's view
4. Claim that the Scripture simply isn't historically valuable (which
seems to be a popular view on this list).
 
Number 1 goes against the tide of Christian apologetical thought where
it comes to humanity being recent and allows in human evolution. But
the data seems, to me at least, to support this viewpoint.
 
Number 2 seems almost racist. There is probably a very very small
possibility that we actually might find these people someday in some
isolated jungle valley. Surely we can't treat them as animals should
that day arrive.
 
Number 3 now would have to be modified to allow a Neolithic Adam
represent an entirely different genetic line.
 
Number 4 seems to me to border on driving one away from Christianity.
I know lots of atheists who simply say they don't beleive the Bible
because it isn't historically true. It is hard to argue against their
logic, imo.
 
The problems and issues raised by these fossils could easily have been
anticipated (indeed was at least within the framework of my views). But
too many Christians, want to have nice compact little answers that
ignore huge amounts of observational data. Until Christians begin to
deal with the data, and then build theories which can be tested against
observation, we will always be the south end of a north bound bull when
it comes to dealing with reality.
Received on Fri Oct 29 13:25:32 2004