On Thu, 27 Aug 1998 20:47:34 -0500, Glenn R. Morton wrote:
>>GM>It is funny then that Cardinal Bellarmine was the one who tried
>>>Galileo and he was a churchman who believed in miracles, hardly
>>>a naturalist.
>AC>You mean "theistic naturlaist?"
GM>Considering that Bellarmine believed that Jesus miraculously rose
>from the dead which NO naturalist believes, Bellarmine couldn't have
>been a naturalist. You need to study history.
As Johnson points out, Theistic Naturalists either: 1) interpret the
resurrection of Jesus symbolically, or 2) they make a special exception
for the Biblical miracles:
"There are two schools of thought among theistic naturalists about how to
deal with this problem. One approach, characteristic of the liberal theology
that culminated in Tillich and Bultmann, is to interpret the miracles as
mythology. This is at least consistently naturalistic, but it relegates
Christianity to the role of a human ethical system or existential choice. The
other approach is to treat the miracles as real events, but to restrict them to
a "salvation history" that is walled off from the natural history over which
science claims exclusive authority. Diogenes Allen takes this latter
approach:
`In general we may say that God creates a consistent set of lawlike
behaviors. As part of that set there are the known physical laws. These
laws apply to a wide variety of situations. But in certain unusual situations
such as creating a chosen people, revealing divine intentions in Jesus, and
revealing the nature of the kingdom of God, higher laws come into play
that give a different outcome than normal physical laws which concern
different situations. The normal physical laws do not apply because we are
in a domain that extends beyond their competence.' (Allen D., "Christian
Belief in a Postmodern World: The Full Weight of Conviction," Louisville:
Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989, p53)
(Johnson P.E., "Creator or Blind Watchmaker?", First Things, January
1993, p11)
Steve
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Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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