Re: Death to Theistic Evolution?

Steve Clark (ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu)
Tue, 14 May 1996 10:42:14 -0500

>At 05:44 PM 5/13/96 -0500, Steve Clark wrote:
>>>Death to Theistic Evolution?
>>
>>First: This is the same argument used against Galileo--If the Psalms and
>>the passage in Jeremiah that refer to movement of the earth and heavenly
>>bodies cannot be taken at face value, then what confidence do we have in the
>>rest of the text? Well, Galileo was right and the churhc was wrong--the
>>earth does, in fact, move. Yet, Christianity flourishes.
>
> My take on this one is that we interpret scripture literally unless we
> have a VERY GOOD REASON not to.

This was, in fact, the way that the Catholic Church justified holding to
geocentrism. So, the problem becomes this--different individuals (in this
case Galileo and Bellarmine) drew the line of VERY GOOD REASON differently.
This is what is behind the differences in the evolution creation debate.
Christians on both sides equally believe in salvation through Christ's
death, while holding drastically different interpretations of Genesis 1.
Thus, a particular interpretation of Genesis is not a pre-requisite to
belief in Christs birth death and resurrection.

steve
__________________________________________________________________________
Steven S. Clark, Ph.D. Phone: (608) 263-9137
Associate Professor FAX: (608) 263-4226
Dept. of Human Oncology and email: ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu
UW Comprehensive Cancer Ctr
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI 53792

"I had a great deal of respect for that preacher and I was saddened when
he was called to a bigger church. He was a Baptist, but he was still a
loss to the community". Ferrol Sams in EPIPHANY
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