On Wed, 28 Aug 1996 12:53:30 -0800, Tim Ikeda wrote:
TI>...I don't think that people check their brains at the doors of a
>church. But I do know that one's preferred interpretation of the
>Bible can colors one's approach to the origins questions. This is
>not inherently bad but I feel that it could potentially limit the
>types of model developed (The same has been said for preferring
>methodological materialism)...
Indeed. Whatever one's brand of creationism, whether TE, EC, PC, YE,
in the end if there really is a God who "In the begining created the
heaven and the earth", then in the "approach to the origins
questions", the creationists are on the right track metaphysically,
if not (yet) scientifically.
Remember Jastrow's bad dream:
"A sound explanation may exist for the explosive birth of our
Universe; but if it does, science cannot find out what the
explanation is. The scientist's pursuit of the past ends in the
moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development,
unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the
word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and earth...
At this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise
the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has
lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad
dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to
conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he
is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for
centuries." (Jastrow R., "God and the Astronomers", 1978, W.W.
Norton, NY, pp115-116, in Moreland J.P. ed., "The Creation
Hypothesis", 1994, pp292-293).
Maybe it's not such a strange thing after all that an "origins
conference...ended with a Sunday worship service"? Maybe the
really strange thing is that they normally don't? :-)
God bless.
Steve
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