On Mon, 5 Aug 1996 17:46:41 -0400, Terry M. Gray wrote:
[...]
TG>But it is my opinion, shared by such stalwarts of orthodoxy as
>B.B. Warfield, that an evolutionary viewpoint carefully qualified
>by a Biblical view of providence and an allowance for the
>miraculous, can be considered within an orthodox Christian viewpoint
>with very little difficulty.
[...]
Warfield's "evolutionary viewpoint" was that he believed in
supernatural divine intervention in an otherwise natural
"evolutionary" process. It is common-place for TEs to claim that
various 19th century theologians were evolutionists because they
sometimes used the word "evolution" in a favourable way. But it must
be remembered that they all lived before the Modern Synthesis and
before the 1970's micro-evolution/macro-evolution distinction. It
must be remembered that in the period between the 1860s and the
1930s, Darwin's Theory of Evolution fell on hard times, because of
the lack of a theory of genetic inheritance. Indeed, Darwin himself
was having doubts about natural selection and flirted with Lamarck's
"use and disuse of parts" theory and "pangenes". What "evolution"
meant to a theologian of the late 19th century and what it means to
us today, are two entirely different things. IMHO Warfield was what
today would be classed as a Progressive Creationist. Here are some
samples from his writings which illustrate this:
"The upshot of the whole matter is that there is no necessary
antagonism of Christianity to evolution, PROVIDED THAT WE DO NOT HOLD
TO TOO EXTREME A FORM OF EVOLUTION. To adopt any form that does not
permit God freely to work apart from law and WHICH DOES NOT ALLOW
MIRACULOUS INTERVENTION (in the giving of the soul, in creating Eve
&c) will entail a great reconstruction of Christian doctrine, and a
very great lowering of the detailed authority of the Bible. But if
we condition the theory by allowing the...constant oversight of God
in the whole process, and HIS OCCASIONAL SUPERNATURAL INTERFERENCE
FOR THE PRODUCTION OF NEW BEGINNINGS BY AN ACTUAL OUTPUT OF CREATIVE
FORCE, producing something new ie, something not included even in
posse in preceding conditions,- we may hold to the modified theory of
evolution and be Christians in the ordinary orthodox sense. I say we
may do this. Whether we ought to accept it, even in this modified
sense, is another matter, an I leave it purposely an open question.
31 (Warfield B.B., "Lectures on Anthropology, December 1888, Speer
Library, Princeton University, in Livingstone D.N., "Darwin's
Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter between Evangelical Theology and
Evolutionary Thought", Eerdmans: Grand Rapids MI, 1987, p118.
Abbreviations expanded)
"But let us not fancy, on the other hand, that the providence of God
any more than the immanence of God is a formula adequate to sum up
all His activities. God is the God of providence: but He is much
more than the God of providence. The universe is but a speck in His
sight: and its providential government is scarcely an incident in
the infinite fullness of His life. It is certain that He acts in
infinitely varied modes, otherwise and beyond providence, and there
is no reason we can give why He should not act otherwise and beyond
providence even in relation to the universe which He has made. In
our conception of a supernatural God, WE DARE NOT ERECT HIS
PROVIDENTIAL ACTIVITY INTO AN EXCLUSIVE LAW OF ACTION FOR HIM, AND
REFUSE TO ALLOW OF ANY OTHER MODE OF OPERATION.Who can say, for
example, whether CREATION ITSELF, in the purity and absoluteness of
that conception, MAY NOT BE PROGRESSIVE, and may not correlate itself
with and follow the process of the providential development of the
world, in the plan of such a God-so that the works of creation and
providence may interlace through all time in the production of this
completed universe? WHAT WARRANT, THEN, CAN THERE BE TO ASSUME
BEFOREHAND THAT SOME WAY MUST BE FOUND FOR "EVOLUTION" TO
SPRING THE CHASMS IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS OVER WHICH EVEN DIVINELY
LED SECOND CAUSES APPEAR INSUFFICIENT TO BUILD A BRIDGE? And if for
any reason-certainly not unforeseen by God, or in contradiction to
His ordering- there should a "rift appear in the lute," WHO DARE
ASSERT THAT THE SUPERNATURAL GOD MAY NOT DIRECTLY INTERVENE FOR
ITS MENDING, but must needs beat out His music on the broken strings
nor let their discord jar down the ages to all eternity? The laws of
nature are not bonds by which God is tied so that He cannot move save
within their limits: they are not in His sight such great and holy
things that it would be sacrilege for Him not to honor them in all
His activities. His real life is above and beyond them: there is no
reason why He may not at will act independently of them even in
dealing with nature itself: and if there be reason why He should act
apart from them we may be sure that the supernatural God will so act.
The frank recognition of THE POSSIBILITY OF THE SUPERNATURAL ACT,
AND OF ITS PROBABLE REALITY ON ADEQUATE OCCASION, is in any event
a part of the Christian man's heritage." (Warfield B.B., "Christian
Supernaturalism", Presbyterian and Reformed Review, viii. 1897,
pp58-74, in Craig S.G. (ed.), "Biblical and Theological Studies",
Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Co.: Philadelphia PA, 1968,
pp12-13. My emphasis).
Samuel G. Craig, who knew Warfield personally, wrote:
"His early tastes were strongly scientific He collected bird's eggs,
butterflies and moths, and geological specimens; studied the fauna
and flora of his neighborhood; read Darwin's newly published books
with enthusiasm; and counted Audubon's works on American birds
and mammals his chief treasure. He came to Princeton the same year
that James McCosh arrived from Scotland to become one of the most
famous of its presidents. That Dr. McCosh did not succeed in making
him a Darwinian, as in the case of so many of his fellow-students,
finds its explanation in the fact, as he himself has told us, 2 that
knowing his Origin of Species and the Variations of Animals and
Plants Under Domestication" almost from A to Izzard" HE WAS
ALREADY A "DARWINIAN OF THE PUREST WATER" before coming under
McCosh's influence-A POSITION WHICH HE LATER REPUDIATED...Though
WARFIELD EARLY "OUTGREW" DARWINISM, as he put it, he maintained to
the end a keen and informed interest in the theories of evolution
that from time to time made their appearance. He never denied that
evolution is a method that God has employed in bringing the world to
its present stage of development, BUT HE DID DENY WITH EMPHASIS THAT
IT IS THE ONLY METHOD HE HAS EMPLOYED. Its fatal weakness as an
all-sufficient explanation, he maintained, is its inability to
account not only for the origin of things but for the appearance of
anything specifically new since the creation of the original world
stuff, such as man and particularly the God-man and all the
redemptive deeds that have their center in Him. To account for the
specifically new we need, he ever alleged, an act of God analogous to
what we know as miracle-a "flash of the will that can. He did not
ignore the basic difference between creation and evolution. Since
creation is origination and evolution modification it will remain
forever true, he insisted, that what is created is not evolved and
what is evolved is not created." (Craig S.G. (ed.), "Benjamin B.
Warfield", in Warfield B.B., "Biblical and Theological Studies",
Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Co.: Philadelphia PA, 1968, pxii)
God bless.
Steve
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net |
| 3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au |
| Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 9 448 7439 (These are |
| Perth, West Australia v my opinions, not my employer's) |
-------------------------------------------------------------------