Re: [asa] The apostle warns of evolution

Incredible. The really pernicious thing about this is that it contains a
grain of truth. Peter does refer here to philosophies that make God (or the
gods) aloof or unable / unwilling to intervene in the creation and
particularly in the affairs of humans. These "scoffers" derided the
Christian community's hope that Christ would return, judge unbelief, and
establish his kingdom. I wonder if Peter is responding here to Hellenists
or secular Romans who understood Roman society and government to be
something that would forever endure? Peter contrasts this with the God who
intervened at the Noahic Flood and who will again intervene decisively at
the second coming of Christ.

Materialist philosophy says something similar, although the laws of nature
are substituted for Roman rule, and the teleology is universal heat death or
something along those lines. But the underlying lie is the same: the
universe will continue on as they always have, so don't expect (or fear)
that God ever will or could intervene.

That's the grain of truth. The horrid thing AIG does with this is to tie
these false teleologies -- the triumph of Roman rule, or the grim march of
materialism -- to the historic Christian understanding of natural laws.
Christians historically have held that natural laws are regular and
discernible because they reflect God's unchanging rational nature. When we
see change in nature, that change occurs according to regular natural laws.
Obviously, Peter isn't rebuking anyone who believes God is a rational and
orderly being or that the universe God created reflects God's rational and
orderly character.

So this "exegesis" of 2 Peter not only misses the point of the passage (and
really the point of the whole letter), it also leads to a pagan
understanding of God and the cosmos -- an arbitrary god who is unable to
establish consistent rules for creation and a cosmos that is utterly beyond
rational comprehension, rather than a sovereign creator whose works reflect
his orderly nature but who remains free to act decisively in history.

On 9/3/06, burgytwo@juno.com <burgytwo@juno.com> wrote:
>
> From that paragon of rational thinking, AIG, come this admonition
> this week:
>
> Q: Did the Apostle Peter warn about evolution?
>
> A: Most of us think that evolution was an idea started by Darwin
> around 150 years ago. So how could Peter have warned us about
> evolution nearly 2,000 years ago?
>
> Well, first of all, Darwin didn't come up with the idea of evolution—
> he just popularized a particular version of it.
>
> In 2 Peter 3, Peter warns us that in the last days, "scoffers" will
> come, saying that all things continue as they did from the beginning
> of creation. Evolutionists teach this when they say that the
> processes of nature have virtually been the same from the supposed
> beginning billions of years ago.
>
> An excellent example to illustrate this can be found when you visit
> the Grand Canyon. The park rangers will tell you that the layers of
> rock in the Canyon are the result of slow processes that have been
> going on for millions of years.
>
> But the evidence from the rock layers fits with what the Bible tells
> us concerning the judgment of the Flood. It is obvious these layers
> were laid down catastrophically, not slowly. But evolutionists
> deliberately choose to ignore the obvious—why? They have been blinded
> by the god of this world and don't want to submit to the God of the
> Bible!
>
> Burgy
>
>
>
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Received on Sun Sep 3 14:31:17 2006