>"View of scripture" is an important topic. It's also very sensitive. I
>want to urge everyone to avoid the temptation to do nothing more than poke
>holes in other people's arguments. Try to offer something constructive
>along with your arguments.
Arthur C. Custance, in "Science and Faith: Volume VIII:The Doorway
Papers", Academie Books, 1978, writes something interesting...
"Now, by the use of logical argument based upon commonly accepted
assumptions, speculation may lead to strong opinions about things
otherwise unprovable. But these speculations have real limitations,
because they lack the factual basis to turn them into certainties. I
believe that it can be said that these limitations are most serious in
their consequences when they chiefly concern the matter of man's
"ends", both his origin and his destiny."
Custance goes on to further assert that since our knowledge of man's
"ends" comes from scripture, then divine revelation, as opposed to
logical argument, is decisive at understanding man's ends.
"It would be a matter of keen, though academic, interest to know how
the universe originated and what its fate will be. But it is a matter
of paramount importance for man to know with certainty his true origin
and his true destiny. Origin and destiny are closely related."
"..it is important to bear in mind that the record of Scripture which
deals with man's origin assumes the detailed form it does simply
because it is revelation. If reason could have supplied the details,
revelation would not have been necessary. Thus to understand man's
ends, faith has to be exercised both in the revelation concerning his
origin and in the revelation concerning his destiny. Both are beyond
reason. When we ignore or deny this fact, we easily confuse the issues
of life by appointing to man an inappropriate end, an end which might
be proper were he merely a superior animal but is not proper to a
special creation of God. Thus we wind up converting the means by which
the appropriate goals might have been achieved into goals themselves."
Several posts have reminded us to keep a focus on Christ and our
salvation from spiritual death. And rightly so! This is an expression
of our faith revealed to us through scripture. But by itself it is only
a partial and thus, as Custance points out, an inappropriate end.
Scripture goes further and emphatically reveals a destiny of salvation
from physical death, again a matter of revelation regarding the future
end of man. We have faith, by scriptural revelation, that we need and
will recieve salvation from physical death.
How do we then, by reason, convert this death into a needed mechanism
to satisfy origins? And if, by reason, we make it an essential,
ongoing, divine mechanism, do we not develop the antithesis of
revelation that shows the need for salvation from it?
Are we capable of developing a comprehensive and sound TE theology of
death that is consistent with scriptural revelation?
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"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." Proverbs 27:17"
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Paul Durham pdd@gcc.cc.md.us
Oakland, Maryland