Posted on 01/16/2011 4:09:10 PM PST by balch3
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- A Southern Baptist seminary president and evolution opponent has turned sights on "theistic evolution," the idea that evolutionary forces are somehow guided by God. Albert Mohler
Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote an article in the Winter 2011 issue of the seminary magazine labeling attempts by Christians to accommodate Darwinism "a biblical and theological disaster."
Mohler said being able to find middle ground between a young-earth creationism that believes God created the world in six 24-hour days and naturalism that regards evolution the product of random chance "would resolve a great cultural and intellectual conflict."
The problem, however, is that it is not evolutionary theory that gives way, but rather the Bible and Christian theology.
Mohler said acceptance of evolutionary theory requires reading the first two chapters of Genesis as a literary rendering and not historical fact, but it doesn't end there. It also requires rethinking the claim that sin and death entered the human race through the Fall of Adam. That in turn, Mohler contended, raises questions about New Testament passages like First Corinthians 15:22, "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive."
"The New Testament clearly establishes the Gospel of Jesus Christ upon the foundation of the Bible's account of creation," Mohler wrote. "If there was no historical Adam and no historical Fall, the Gospel is no longer understood in biblical terms."
Mohler said that after trying to reconcile their reading of Genesis with science, proponents of theistic evolution are now publicly rejecting biblical inerrancy, the doctrine that the Bible is totally free from error.
"We now face the undeniable truth that the most basic and fundamental questions of biblical authority and Gospel integrity are at stake," Mohler concluded. "Are you ready for this debate?"
In a separate article in the same issue, Gregory Wills, professor of church history at Southern Seminary, said attempts to affirm both creation and evolution in the 19th and 20th century produced Christian liberalism, which attracted large numbers of Americans, including the clerical and academic leadership of most denominations.
After establishing the concept that Genesis is true from a religious but not a historical standpoint, Wills said, liberalism went on to apply naturalistic criteria to accounts of miracles and prophecy as well. The result, he says, was a Bible "with little functional authority."
"Liberalism in America began with the rejection of the Bible's creation account," Wills wrote. "It culminated with a broad rejection of the beliefs of historic Christianity. Yet many Christians today wish to repeat the experiment. We should not expect different results."
Mohler, who in the last year became involved in public debate about evolution with the BioLogos Foundation, a conservative evangelical group that promotes integrating faith and science, has long maintained the most natural reading of the Bible is that God created the world in six 24-hour days just a few thousand years ago.
Writing in Time magazine in 2005, Mohler rejected the idea of human "descent."
"Evangelicals must absolutely affirm the special creation of humans in God's image, with no physical evolution from any nonhuman species," he wrote. "Just as important, the Bible clearly teaches that God is involved in every aspect and moment in the life of His creation and the universe. That rules out the image of a kind of divine watchmaker."
Giants do not exist.
The argument that Darwin is right and that evolution is how we became thinking, feeling humans is unimaginative, unproven hocum.
Young earth theory...ditto.
My Pastor believes in theistic evolution ... it seems to be a popular PCA heresy these days
“My Pastor believes in theistic evolution ... it seems to be a popular PCA heresy these days”
Chalk it up to intellectualism in the denomination.
This has the potential to be a ‘Five Figure’ thread !!!
Some helpful resources:
thanks!
So we have observations of monkeys becoming people?
I don’t think so, but what has that got to do with evolution?
Sorry Ben, you’ve got to know the pedantic trap that being set here.
Stormy here will say that we didn’t come from monkeys; instead, we and monkeys come from a common ancestor.
Which for all intents and purposes was a monkey, but to the pedant it wasn’t a monkey because hey, monkeys didn’t exist yet. Some bugaboo ancestor existed that has bones lying in a tarpit somewhere waiting to be found. And it looks strangely like a monkey.
The scientific theory of evolution has shown that modern humans and “monkeys” share a common ancestor, it does not state that monkeys became people.
Your misrepresentation of science only makes you look foolish. Doesn’t the 9th commandment say something about bearing false witness?
We have come to realize that only adult species can produce offspring of its kind. Recently scientists in England ‘discovered’ that the chicken came first - the egg just cannot appear. Biblical Christians knew that from Genesis 1 - thousands of years ago.
All scientists know the first and second Laws of Thermodynamics; thus, they realize that life CANNOT come from non-life. They also realize that things move from order to disorder not the other way around.
EXCEPT in their theory of evolution - which they have not been able to repeat in the lab. So much for science.
Also, in the Greek language there are at least three words for life - one refers to the body, one to the mind, and one to the spirit/soul of man.
Evolutionists only speak of ‘bios’ the body. They don’t even have answers as to how we acquired our minds and the ability to think abstractly. They don’t have answers to the heart (conscience or enthusiasm and vitality in life.)
I believe that takes a much bigger leap of faith to believe in evolution than it does to belive in God and special creation.
Recently scientists in England ‘discovered’ that the chicken came first - the egg just cannot appear.
It only takes common sense. If the egg came first, how could it hatch without a chicken having incubated it? You don't need mythology to figure that one out.
So then there’s no observations of monkeys becoming people.
Thank you.
Evolution isn’t a scientific theory. Scientific theories are based around observational evidence.
Faith, however doesn’t require observational evidence. So the faith of Darwinism trumps the science of speciation.
“it seems to be a popular PCA heresy these days”
It seems to be making some inroads into the OPC also, via “Framework Theory.”
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