Re: human explosion (fwd)
Bill Hamilton (hamilton@predator.cs.gmr.com)
Thu, 2 Nov 1995 10:33:55 -0500>Russ Maatman wrote
>
>(I apologize for taking so long to respond to this. I've been rather busy
>lately...)
>
>>But we really cannot have two independent starting points to develop ideas
>>and, in general, our worldview.
>
>Ideally, we cannot. May I suggest though, that our ability to maintain a
>single perspective for viewing all phenomena -- spiritual, physical,
>biological,...
>was badly damaged or destroyed with the fall. That leaves man divided from
>God, from nature and -- really -- from himself. God has announced his plan to
>redeem believers and ultimately, all of nature. But maintaining a single
>perspective for all phenomena may not (I suspect _is_ not) possible until the
>time of that redemption. It's something we as Christians look forward to, and
>we catch glimpses of it from time to time. But pretending it has arrived is
>likely to lead to misleading conclusions, IMO.
>
>>So I suggest that we Christians begin with
>>the idea that God redeems/transforms his people and, in fact, since there
>>will be a new heaven and a new earth, the whole creation.
>
>Agreed.
>>
>>
>>Doesn't the Bible link Christ, the redeemer, to Adam? And so, is not our
>>entire Christian faith linked to both Christ and his relation to Adam?
>>Wasn't Eve the mother of all living?
>
>Agreed, although we might disagree about the precise nature of the linkage. I
>would not claim that a Scriptural linkage between Adam and Christ gives me
>license to claim that Adam lived at a specific time and place. That's a
>mttter of interpretation and depends on how we try to reconcile Scripture and
>archaeological data, and our reconciliation can easily be incorrect. I'm
>quite content to believe that Adam was a real individual who lived at a time
>in the past that has probably been lost to us -- maybe not far all time.
>>
>>Surely many parts of the Bible are a polemic against then-current heathen
>>ideas, ideas which included the evolution of man from gods or something
>>in creation. If we say that yes, it is indeed true that man evolved from
>>animals, aren't we giving in to ancient errors and saying that the Bible
>>was not always correct in its polemics?
>
>If we claim that man evolved from animals as an inevitable result of
>unsupervised natural processes, then I agree that we would be falling into the
>ancient errors. If on the other hand we recognize that God is sovereign and
>totally in control, so that if evolution has played a role in the development
>of life, including human life, it did so because God ordained that it should
>and governed the entire process, then I think we have avoided the ancient
>errors. The Hebrews of Old Testament times had no science to oppose what the
>pagans around them believed. All they had was the word of the living God
>which contradicted what was "obvious" to the surrounding cultures. But they
>believed Him and it was accounted to [them] as righteousness. I think we're
>in the same position.
>>
>>So, I reiterate: let's pray for paleontologists who start out with the
>>idea that that man is unique and that Adam and Eve were indeed
>>the father and mother of all living. It seems to me that that is a
>>better place to start out than to hold that scientific discoveries
>>are to be considered first. The latter approach, even when Christians
>>use it, is the approach of methodological naturalism.
>
>I certainly agree, although we would probably disagree over the details of
>what this statement means. Suppose I begin my career as a paleontologist
>convinced that "man is unique and that Adam and Eve were indeed the father
>and mother of all living". Later I'm confronted with data that seems to
>contradict my understanding of the above. I can adopt one of several
>approaches to resolve the dilemma: 1) I can ignore the data; 2) I can try to
>reinterpret the data to fit my understanding of Scripture; 3) I can reexamine
>my understanding of Scripture to see whether I have been too restrictive in my
>interpretation, so that I have included something that the Author may not be
>claiming in what I believe; 4) I can reject Scripture on the basis that it
>failed me and therefore it cannot be correct. I hope everyone on the
>reflector would reject 1 and 4. 2 is potentially problematic, if it is taken
>to mean that we understand Scripture so well that the problem _must_ be in our
>interpretation of the data. It seems to me that the only viable approach for
>the Christian is to recognize that his understanding of the data, the
>Scriptures, or both may be (probably are) imperfect. So I would claim that a
>Christian practitioner in the sciences should be marked not only by where he
>starts from, but by how he handles the inevitable incongruities resulting from
>our imperfect knowledge and faculties.
>>
>>Thanks for responding to my earlier remark! It's good when brothers
>>and sisters in the Lord can discuss these things.
>>
>Thank _you_ for responding.
>
>
Bill Hamilton | Vehicle Systems Research
GM R&D Center | Warren, MI 48090-9055
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX)
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