Terry had written:
TG: "In my opinion Del's chapter on TE accurately recognizes this
faulty understanding on the part of the Johnson crowd. These are
extremely important issues that to me undergird a Christian
perspective on science. I don't really understand why we keep
going round and round on this one--I suppose it ultimately comes
down to TE's willing to keep company with those atheistic
naturalists on some of the scientific claims."
We are "in the world, but not of the world". Keeping company
with atheistic naturalists is to be expected: the problem comes
(a) if we absorb their worldview in any way, and (b) if they will
not keep company with us because of our worldview.
One of the observations Del makes is that an "upper tier" of
creationists is emerging (page 84). What characterises them are
1. a competent philosophy of science
2. a willingness to explore/explain technical details
3. a proactive approach to providing alternatives to "mainstream
theory".
I think the same is true of TEs: there are upper tier TEs and
lower tier TEs. It is also true of PCs - although I will not
pursue that further here. This spectrum of opinion creates
immense problems for communication between Christians.
I will expand on some of the characteristics of lower tier TEs.
1. Some TEs have failed even to recognise that a Christian
philosophy of science is needed. Their approach has become so
compartmentalised that the Scriptures have no bearing on their
scientific work. They are Baconian in their approach to the
"Book of Nature".
2. Some TEs are extraordinarily blind to the problems of
developing a coherent understanding of origins. It has taken
Thaxton et al, Johnson and Denton (the upper tier authors cited
by Del) to point out that there are too many gaps in the
abiogenesis/evolutionary scenario for it to deserve its place as
"mainstream theory".
3. Whilst Del's third characteristic does not apply to TEs
(because a number of their leaders are contributors to mainstream
theory), the equivalent characteristic is "a proactive approach
to providing a coherent and satisfying understanding of Genesis
1-11". By and large, this has not been a TE strength.
Compartmentalisation reigns - and these problems are often left
to the theologians and biblical exegetes to resolve (who are
often similarly compartmentalised and take their lead from the
scientist Christians they regard as their peers in this area -
the TEs). The net effect is confusion among ordinary Christians
and a generation of church leaders who opt out of this issue and
justify themselves by saying that this is a controversy that was
resolved in the last Century.
These comments support, I think, what I indicated in my earlier
post: "it is my opinion that the "ultimate" reasons for these
differences relates to our presuppositions (regarding the nature
of science, the interrelationship between revealed truth and our
scientific activities, etc)".
But who are the upper tier creationists. In Del's book, despite
most of the discussion of creationism making reference to YEC,
none of the upper tier authors cited are in the YEC camp. Is
this really fair?
The 16th September 1996 issue of _Newsweek_ carried a short
article entitled "Heretics in the Laboratory" by Sharon Begley
(page 82). It makes reference to palaeontologist Kurt Wise,
physicist Russell Humphreys, geophysicist John Baumgardener, and
biologist Mike Behe. Behe is not a YEC and readily fits into
Del's upper tier category - but what of the three YECs? It seems
to me that they all satisfy Del's "requirements" for someone to
be an upper tier creationist.
We are in a great state of flux here. Is it time to stop using
TE/EC/PC/YEC labels? At least, we must be very careful. It
could be said that these tags convey very little about the
distinguishing features of serious participants to the origins
debate - and they often unjustly tar contributors with lower tier
characteristics.
Best wishes,
*** From David J. Tyler, CDT Department, Hollings Faculty,
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
Telephone: 0161-247-2636 ***