"Where is this 'understanding' coming from?"
The Holy Spirit, guiding me over 25 years of personal research and
reflection.
"Not from Jesus Christ - for he said that everything in the Old Covenant
foreshadowed and prepared the way for him."
Did He really say that, or did some over zealous gospel editor who wanted
written proof of Christ as Messiah attribute to Him an unknown saying that
sounded good?
"Such compartmentalisation is alien to the Christian mind:..."
On the contrary, a number of early church fathers and later many unorthodox
theologians argued that the Gospels, Acts, the Letters and Revelations as a
whole represented a message so fundamentally different from that of the
Hebrew scripture that they should be kept separate. It was only because the
more conservative bishops were able to acquire the power from the Roman
state to declare all those they disagreed with as heretics that their
minority view became the dominant view.
"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."
Unless of course this is the correct way to interpret these documents, the
way that the early church fathers themselves believed they should be
interpreted.
"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."
This is the "the Bible must be 100% right or it is 100% wrong" fallacy.
Unfortunately, it is an occaptional hazard if you believe that the Bible
could only have been written by God, because one verified error means that
you must admit that God had made a mistake, which in turn causes you to
question Christianity. Either that, or you deny any possibility of error,
no matter how obvious it is, and thus abandon reason for blind faith.
That's why it's better to abandon the idea of Divine Authorship in favor of
Inspired Human Authorship, which allows for the possiblities of error
without questioning the promise of salvation.
"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."
Yes, exactly, and the truth that God has told me is that His natural
creation is a better source for understanding natural history than the
Bible. People as diverse as St. Augustine and Galileo have believed this as
well, so this is not a particularly radical or unspiritual belief.
"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."
If in fact the Bible is wrong about origins, might it not also be wrong
about other things, including the necessity of the link between Old and New
Testament? If you question the Bible about one thing, you allow for the
possibility of questioning it about anyhthing.
"This is not a forum for challenging the premises of traditional
Christianity, but for exploring differing views about evolution and
origins."
When you become moderator, you may dictate what are appropriate topics for
discussion. Until then, please allow the rest of us to discuss what we are
interested in discussing.
"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)."
Exactly, and my understanding, as revealed to me by the Holy Spirit, is that
the Bible is not God's written revelation to man, but man's written
revelation of the message of God. As such, as long as we do not question
the basic message, we nonetheless may challenge the Bible when it makes
demands of us that are no longer appropriate or are simply plain wrong. It
is the Lord Jesus Christ to whom we should subject ourselves, not a book; to
suggest otherwise is to suggest idolatry.
"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!"
Of course we would, because there would always be people in one domain or
the other who would try to impose their will on all. Just as creationists
and anti-theists try to do today. Besides, as I have already pointed out in
this post, and in others, this view is has been held by many theologians and
many scientists for the last two thousand years. So despite your
incredulity it can't be that unusual a belief.
"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."
Revelations that Christian scientists like Galileo and Robert Boyle
considered to be irrelevant when compared to the one thing that indesputably
was authored by by God: His created universe. Both have said that when
Scripture and Creation conflict, Creation is more accurate than Scripture
and should be preferentually believed.
"Despite all the talk about resolving the differences, they have not gone
away."
Mostly because creations refuse to allow them to go away. If they ever did,
creationism would loose its power.
"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."
When you can provide me with sworn affidavits from St. Augustine, Galileo,
Calvin and Boyle, among many others, recanting their own beliefs, then I
will obey your command. Until then I suggest you follow your own advice and
rethink your position.
PS -- I've finished looking into your website essay on the possibility of an
early reducing atmosphere. Your conclusions are all wrong, as I will show
in an essay I hope to post soon.
Kevin L. O'Brien