AC>So, bring on the Philip Johnsons. The only people who have
AC>anything to fear are those with a vested interest in
AC>evolutionary theory as a world view. In that case, Johnson is
AC>attacking your religion, and that is another issue altogether.
No, Art, it's NOT only the preachers of the worldview of evolutionary
naturalism that take offense at what Johnson says.
Many of us Christians also take offense at seeing Johnson's strident
anti-evolution rhetoric identified with the Christian faith. It's downright
embarrassing. It makes Christianity look as if it could be defeated by the
success of the *scientific* concept of the evolutionary development of
creaturely forms.
In particular, those of us Christians who see the possibility that the
Creation may have been so richly gifted by God with the requisite
formational capabilities to make viable something as remarkable as big-bang
cosmology and biotic evolution take deep offense at Johnson's labeling this
as nothing more than the wolf of naturalism in sheep's clothing of theism.
Yes, Art, Johnson IS thereby attacking my religion. But it is NOT the
religion of naturalism, it is the Christian religion, which leads me to
have high expectations of the giftedness of the Creation to which God has
given being. It is the Christian religion that leads me to look at the
robust formational economy of the Creation and see it as none other than a
vivid manifestation of God's creativity (in conceptualizing ro rich a menu
of formational capabilities) and God's generosity (in God's willingness to
give such full being to the Creation).
Sincerely,
Howard Van Till