You wrote to Glenn:
> We can start at the point we always seem to start at, Glenn, namely,
> misrepresenting my position. Why does this keep happening? May I gently
> suggest that the thought forms you have set up for yourself are keeping you
> from what we used to call an "open mind"?
I doubt the problem is `thought forms.' It seems to me that you have yet
to clearly articulate your position. You seem to want to keep enough
ambiguity to allow wiggle room, or so it seems. I liked Glenn's diagram
because is was a simple characterization. If you yourself could give a
simple *succint* characterization of your view, that would likely help...
Particularly if you could do it without reference to some author few
of us are likely to read. For all I have read of what you have written
(plus some of the recommended Bloesch) I would have thought Glenn's
characterization of your position was a good one.
Most of us try to understand things in simple terms first, so if you are
unwilling to give us a simple characterization then we are forced to
try and construct one on our own, as Glenn has done. I don't think it
is reasonable to expect anything else.
> I say this because, as I have point out before, your "either/or" (a
> very non-Hebraic thought form, by the way) limits you when approaching
> Scripture. I took great pains (I can still feel them!) to explain to
> you the dominant evangelical view of Genesis 1, most potently
> explicated by Bloesch (have your read that book yet?). Most of the pain
> was in trying to get you to see that poetic does NOT mean
> non-historical! Yet you still write things like this:
Speaking of pain, at your suggestion I got ahold of some of Bloesch's works
and have started trying to wade through the first one. I cannot yet tell
if he is a `potent explicator,' but I know for sure he doesn't aim for
clear exposition of his ideas. He seems to think that the best offense
is creating confusion in the mind of the opponent. I haven't gotten far
enough to see why his ideas require so much wiggle room.
It may take me a year to make it through the first volume. Perhaps in the
end I will gain some understanding of why his style is so thick. At
present my guess is that the field of theological ideas is so crowded that
he must craft a unique position with a pen knife. If so, I don't see how
his can be the `dominant evangelical view'. Rather he is just one tree
in a forest.
Perhaps you could explain how you arrived at the conclusion that his is
the `dominant evangelical view'? Even apart from Bloesch in particular,
I am curious how one decides that a particular theological position in this
area could be `dominant'.
Also, are you using `evangelical' to exclude anything but mainline
protestant denominations? If I don't happen to belong to such a
denomination, then perhaps I have already decided that the theology of
the mainline denominations is incorrect, so such an appellation is
hardly an endorsement to me.
Sorry to be so harsh about Bloesch, but I had much higher expectations.
Perhaps my impressions will soften as I read on.
--DaveBut know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is {a matter}of one's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act ofhuman will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. [2 Pet 1:20-21]