In his post dated 5th November, Kevin presented many controversial
statements in response to Glenn. Glenn has replied, and I am fully
behind most of what Glenn has to say. My contribution is to suggest
that we need to work harder at understanding where each person is
coming from.
Kevin wrote:
> >Two things need to be understood to accept Genesis as allegory without
> >loosing faith in Christ. The first is that the Old and New Testaments do
> >not represent prophecy and its fulfillment, but two separate religious
> >accounts that have been artificially forced together because the followers
> >of the new religion were converts from the old, a situation unique in
> >religious history.
Where is this "understanding" coming from? Not from Jesus Christ -
for he said that everything in the Old Covenant foreshadowed and
prepared the way for him. He taught that he is the fulfillment of
the law and of the promises of God. There is no artificial forcing
together of the Old and New. I regard this as fundamental for
understanding the Bible's message.
Kevin continues:
> >This realization should allow you to separate your
> >Christian faith from your scholastic curiosity, because it allows you to
> >treat the historical and theological accounts of the New Testament as
> >separate from the accounts in the Old Testament, though not necessarily as
> >independent.
Such compartmentalisation is alien to the Christian mind: because
Christianity is concerned with objective truth. Faith and
scholarship are complementary to each other. I would suggest that it
is bad scholarship to "treat the historical and theological accounts
of the New Testament as separate from the accounts in the Old
Testament". Such an approach can be defended only by a gross
distortion of the documents before us.
Glenn replied to Kevin:
> If they are 2 separate religious accounts artificially put together, then
> they don't really belong together and they probably were inspired by
> different gods/people. And I am not interested in worshipping in a
> religion inspired by people alone.
This is a valid comment. If The Old Testament and New Testament
writings are not collectively God's written revelation to us, then
they must be placed alongside the rest of the world's literature and
we can indulge ourselves if we feel so inclined. But if they are
God's written revelation to us, it is our duty to read them as
Scripture, to pray for understanding and to put into practise what
we learn.
The debates about origins can appear to be purely technical - but
this is not possible for any of us. This is because God has spoken
into our lives and has revealed truth to us - no matter what
response we make. The issues then can be no longer purely technical.
The debate among Christians should address the question "What has
God revealed about origins" - that is legitimate and necessary. But
questions about the authority of the Bible, or "understandings" that
drive a wedge between the Old and New Testaments go far beyond this.
I recognise that there is an enormous diversity of views on this
list: but we do not assist debate if we do not understand one
another. This is not a forum for challenging the premises of
traditional Christianity, but for exploring differing views about
evolution and origins. Christians are obviously not of one mind on
these issues - but Christians should be expected to be of one mind in
their having a spirit of discipleship and a willingness to be subject
to God's written revelation (according to their understanding of it).
Kevin wrote:
> This realization
> >should allow you to separate your appreciation of the Bible as a source of
> >religious doctrine from your appreciation of scientific natural history,
> >because it allows you to treat each as separate domains independent of the
> >other, such that revelation in one cannot contradict revelations in the
> >other.
Kevin - I have heard this so many times but I am genuinely amazed
that anyone should hold to it. IF they are separate domains
independent from each other, we would not have any issues to debate!
There are all sorts of genuinely complementary concepts which we
happily live with without differing - but it is a mistake to force
the origins issues into this mould. The differences come because
there is revelation about origins that has not been adequately
addressed by the scientific community. Despite all the talk about
resolving the differences, they have not gone away. Perhaps it is
time to rethink some of these proposed resolutions - and one of
the first that will have to go is the idea that the Bible and science
address two mutually exclusive domains of knowledge.
Best regards,
David J. Tyler.