Re: on Eastern Orthodoxy and science

Dick -

My article that will appear in PSCF will deal with these matters in some detail. I won't time now tossing around childish insults about cowpies.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Dick Fischer
  To: ASA
  Sent: Friday, April 07, 2006 1:39 PM
  Subject: Re: on Eastern Orthodoxy and science

  Hi George, you wrote:

  Irenaeus understanding of recapitulation is concerned primarily with

  humanity. Humans were created in an immature state ("The man was a young

  child, not yet having reached a perfect deliberation" and "It was necessary

  for him to reach full-development by growing in this way" - both from On the

  Apostolic Preaching (Crestwood NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary, 1997), 47.) The

  sin of Adam (& Eve) meant that humanity failed to develop in the way God

  intended, toward full maturity and union with God. Christ redoes that

  history of humanity with God, succeeding where humanity had failed.

  As Peter and I have both articulated, it is this tendency to mix humanity and the origins thereof with the biblical account of Adam and Eve which gets everybody into trouble - including Irenaeus and you George.

  No issue such as Original Sin or Imago Dei can be reasoned out theologically unless the necessary first step is taken to reconcile the biological origins of mankind in Africa a few million years ago with the origins of the Jews commencing in Southern Mesopotamia about 7,000 years ago articulated in Genesis. One is entirely biological, the other is entirely historical.

  If the biblical account as to the time and location in present-day Iraq at the junction of the specified rivers is incorrect, then there is good reason to believe the entire account is likewise incorrect. A mythological Garden of Eden occupied by a mythological Adam has about as much value as Batman in Gotham City. A purely fictional Adam can't sin any more than Mickey Mouse can sin.

  Irenaeus and you are playing in the same sandbox, only you have been exposed to the folly of this obvious mistake but remain blind to it. There is no learning curve. Irenaeus and Augustine have excuses. Your theology remains insulated to facts they never knew. If they had the benefit of the same information you have been exposed to do you think their theology would have remained the same?

  The strength of the EO view in connection with evolution is that it does not

  have the exaggerated view of original _righteousness_ that has generally

  been held in the western church. I.e., they don't picture Adam & Eve

  originally as intellectually brilliant, having amazing physical abilities,

  freedom from sickness &c. Thus this view is more open to the picture of

  early humans that evolution gives us. OTOH the Orthodox view of original

  sin is correspondingly weak & IMNHO inadequate.

  No matter how much whipping cream you put on top cow pie won't taste like key lime pie.

  Attempts to factor in somehow a "fictional" Adam and Eve with mankind's sinful nature, or mankind's special relationship to our Creator, or our hopes of salvation are flawed from the outset because you can't dovetail fiction into fact. It won't work in theology any more than it would in a science lab.

  Dick Fischer

  Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association

  Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History

  www.genesisproclaimed.org

   
Received on Fri Apr 7 17:53:05 2006