>I think that Christian theology is not a geological theory alongside other
>geological theories. This is quite a shift from what is usually taken to
>be the point of the Christian faith, and I have criticized those who haved
>moved in this direction. However much inspiration the consideration of
>earth's ancient history may give us, it seems to me to be a very broad
>(when even present) constraint on theological options.
>
I agree with you that the point of Christianity is the salvation of man
through Jesus Christ. But there are other considerations.
>Since I don't think the Bible (or any other book) offers God's version of
>historical events, I don't think we have access to some divine relation of
>what has happened to the Earth in the past--what I think we *do* have are
>more-and-less valuable attempts by people to try and fit what they can
>determine about Earth's past into their theology. This is typically a
>mythological enterprise, however, not a scientific one, although in my
>opinion the best science tends to contribute to the best myth.
This is a question I have asked before to those with your viewpoint. If
everything in Scripture were not historically verified. There were no
Egyptians, not Romans, not Hittites, no evidence of the Jews, etcs. Would
you still believe that the resurrection happened?
Christianity is a stongly based on historical events. Those events are
related to us in a series of intertwined documents. In order to believe the
Resurrection (which we read of in the Scripture) we must believe that those
documents are telling us something real. Your view, it seems to me, says "It
doesn't matter that it is not real, I will believe it anyway".
Given that epistemology, how do you tell a Mormon, whose book describes a
story for which there is absolutely no evidence, that he is wrong and you
are right? He can claim that history is not the point of the Christian
faith and he believes his story the same way you believe yours.
Under your view, what separates mainstream Christianity from the Mormon
version of Christianity?
glenn
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man
and
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm