Probably I wouldn't qualify as a TE then, because I don't believe that the
world we live in -- including the universe which surrounds it -- would even
exist, much less continue to exist without God having created it in the
first place and without His continuous moment-by-moment oversight. Hebrews
1:3 and Col 1:17 come to mind.
>
>
>>The greatest miracle of all -- the
>>creation of man -- is something science can't address or "demiracleize" at
>>all, because man is a spiritual as well as a physical being.
>
>Ok, if you're claiming that TEs aren't excising the supernatural from
>creation, let's formulate a list of supernatural events associated with
>origins that most TEs would agree to? You've just alluded to the first
>candidate - the de novo creation of man's soul. (Although, I think I've seen
>even this questioned in this forum). What else?
The creation itself, which could be subdivided into a fairly extensive list
of miracles..
>
>I wrote:
>>>Are there any other case studies where the church has really had to invent
>>>new interpretations of Scripture, because the observable facts just didn't
>>>line up with the existing ones?
>
>and Bill Hamilton replied:
>>I hope we never have to invent new interpretations of Scripture.
>
>Well, I think you're rightly skeptical of new interpretations. However,
>they're around in abundance. I've recently seen two new interpretations of
>Scripture of substantial magnitude given here. Glenn's flood, and Stephen's
>two Adam model (although he admits it wasn't original with him). Also, as
>far as I can tell, the idea that Adam had animal ancestors is of fairly
>recent origin. I'm interested in gathering a list of Biblical
>interpretations, widely held to be true nowadays, that were not thought of -
>say - before 500 AD.
Okay, you caught me. I am willing to accept accept new interpretations
_if_ they meet certain criteria:
1) They are the result of new scientific knowledge which indicates we may
have misinterpreted the Scriptures in the past
2) They don't affect the central doctrines of Christianity (e.g. as
expressed in the historic creeds of Christianity)
If someone tries to tell me Jesus only appeared to be a man, that's a new
(well actually not so new -- dates back to the first few centuries)
interpretation (or maybe doctrine) I won't accept. But we eventually
dropped geocentrism -- even though some people thought it was taught by
Scripture -- because it was contradicted by astronomical evidence and it
didn't affect fundamental doctrine. I think the age of the earth is in the
same category.
Bill Hamilton | Vehicle Systems Research
GM R&D Center | Warren, MI 48090-9055
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX)
hamilton@gmr.com (office) | whamilto@mich.com (home)