Re: [asa] legitimate parallel to explain death before Adam?

On Sat, 1 Sep 2007, Merv wrote:

> The essay at this link was an excellent one, Greg, thank you!
>
> One item of particular interest to me was this (excerpted here)
> In addition, the origin of physical death poses a
> particularly acute problem for conservative Christians who accept biological
> evolution. The Scriptures clearly state that death came after the creation of
> humanity and that it was a Divine judgment on the world for Adam's original
> sin. However, according to evolutionary biology death existed for billions of
> years prior to the appearance of the first humans.

In arguments like this I particularly react to the use of the word
"clearly". The assertion seems to be based on a couple of verses taken out
of context.

I am reminded of a story that goes something like this: A preacher's
sermon notes had AWSL in the margin. That stood for "Argument weak. Shout
loudly."

When I was in graduate school, I took a mathematics course that used a
text written by an author of many texts who was rumored to be in the habit
of dashing off a text in an extremely short time. We found several
instances where he would use the word "clearly" in a proof when the
statement was not clear to any one of us including the instructor. Our
theory was that he used this word when he couldn't think of the
justification for the statement right away. This is what we call proof by
intimidation.

I see this sort of strategy in YEC arguments. Claim that something is
clear from Scripture, and so you are challenging Scripture if you
challenge the statement.

Gordon Brown (ASA member)

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Received on Mon Sep 3 12:13:00 2007