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."
ping
Sure. It depends on the circumstances. Is it "good" to kill in self-defense?
If their is a god then he has the power to enforce his view of morality. He can also violate the rules he makes because he has the power to do so. For example if you are an inerrant believer in the bible you have to accept the fact that the Lord ordered the isrealites to commit what we would call genocide.(Numbers 31)
Now I can say that from my personal beliefs this is immoral though against god I have no power to enforce that view.
If there is no god then whatever group of people have the might, whether it is through the sword, majority opinion, or other means, they make what is right.
As a side note I have always thought the deity that the muslims worship is more similar to the deity portrayed in the old testament then the deity in christianty is. For complete disclosure I am a deist.
Thanks very much for your responses. I look forward to hearing James’s.
I wasn't skillful enough on the question. The thought experiment is to turn the golden rule upside down - if it "benefitted society." Would the opposite of the golden rule then be "good" in your personal view.
IOW is golden rule completely dependent on the value of "benefitting society"?
[If it "depends on the circumstances" then you're still applying some criteria of values to the circumstances. The statement "golden rule is paramount" would indicate it has the highest value (not to be confused with the only value).]
Thanks for the clarification. I'm still working on understanding what you're saying about "knowing." In your previous:
we don't know everything, and therefore can not know what truth is.
I don't think it's semantics to say to know something is to know that it is true. So, I can't reconcile the two: we can know something/we can not know what truth is.
Am I jumbling your meaning here? Would it be correct to restate your position as: We can know some things are true, but not all of what is true?
Literalism. Applying modern standards to ancient cultures and writers, anachronistic or lack of context. Not seeing the similarities in the questions that all human's face.
What do you mean? What lesson are we to derive from David's child being killed for being born a bastard? Are modern standards superior to Old Testament ones? What's the anachronism - that at one time, it was okay to commit divinely-sanctioned genocide (1 Samuel 15:3, Numbers, etc.)?
Is there any point to anything in creation? Is there any justice inherent in the universe or is it all completely capricious? Does the evil we do inexorably harm our children?
Not sure what it has to do with the point I raised:
I SAID: What’s the stereotype in seeing, say, for example, the failure of morality when David’s child is killed for only being born a bastard? Killed by the same entity that supposedly created it - why create it in the first place? Why was an innocent life taken away after it was made to suffer for a whole week? Why are your scriptures deathly silent on this serious contradiction?
YOU SAID: Why do innocents suffer? And what, then, is the value of being innocent?
This is for you, and all believers in the OT mythology to answer. One is forced to digest whole sections that condone genocide and the killing of innocent lives (Amalekite infants, David's bastard child), therein. I've seen four modes of "reasoning" that are made with regard to this. There may be more, but these are what I can remember for now:
1. Your god is supreme, and can do whatever it wants.
2. Humans cannot understand why your god does certain things - they are beyond normal comprehension.
3. Silence. Questioning is evil.
4. Combinations of the above three.
The problem is, neither is any effort spent by the same scriptures in explaining what are serious, serious moral flaws - absolute violations of the Golden Rule - and leaves to the human interpreter to infer whatever he or she pleases regarding the divinity-induced killings.
Are they? All of them?
If you think your scriptures reason the behaviour, please do share the same.
Because it is the basis vector upon which all morality is derived from.
Very simple to evaluate. Apply the Golden Rule, and also apply your proposed rule. See how they fare. Which one will have predictable detrimental effects? Try it out. Give me a scenario.
What do you mean? What lesson are we to derive from David's child being killed for being born a bastard?… What's the anachronism…
The OT is comprised of theology, history, myth, etc. that was composed, revised, orally transmitted and finally written over centuries. It is the record of a group of related people in the ancient world and reflects their view of events and their view of what the events mean. It was of great value to them as knowledge and for their identity.
We can start with this in order to keep the proper context. Our modern interpretation from outside this group is difficult, even more so if one takes the Christian view of the Jewish scripture. We can remember the first Christian martyr Stephen was killed in part for teaching God does not reside in the Temple. Supreme blasphemy in Judaism.
We can also remember that much of Jesus teaching was that the scriptures were being wrongly interpreted and applied by the Jews. There was debate early on in Christianity of whether God in the OT was the same or different God. The point here is that what meaning we take from the OT is not standard, not the same across even Judeo Christianity.
At the bottom line, we have in David's story some history and its context according to the writers of the time. If we assume the history is correct we have that David had a child out of wedlock who died and its death was attributed to God.
An anachronism, I think comes in when we don't realize that the people we are talking about, and the others in the region, had no concept of the "laws of nature." Everything in their experience was directly and personally ordered by God or gods. The very concept that God could enter into contracts, or covenants, with man was a novel concept.
I subscribe to the view that what we see in scripture is differences in man's understanding of God and his relationship to the cosmos. We see both contradictory views and a wide arc of progression. It is to these people's credit that they saw no need to exclude one view or the other or make all scripture conform to one view.
Boy I'm just explaining well enough here.
I'm not trying to evaluate whether the golden rule is of greater benefit to society than it's opposite. I am trying to see if, in your view, it is a subordinate value. In other words, if it's opposite was of greater benefit to society (assumed for the sake of argument) would the opposite then be the paramount value?
Another way of saying this is the golden rule, for you, good all on its own, or only because it benefits society?
If the latter, then for you the golden rule is a dependent value - deriving its value completely from another: "to benefit society."
What is the meaning of “something being good on its own”? Is it even meaningful?
The Golden Rule benefits morality because morality derives from it. Now the question arises - what according to you, is morality?
It appears to me that you’ve made a very personal choice of regarding the OT as a little more than glorified mythology.
Your reasoning also proves my point that the “modes of salvation”, and our knowledge of their availability rely on these severe shortcomings of prophet-based transmission. Why would any divinity rely on such a flawed, shady enterprise, so pathetically open to manipulation? The stakes are so “high”, and the means so untrustworthy...
That's a long time unresolved argument in philosophy. IMHO, if there is no such thing as inherent value, you have some other problems logically.
This is on the cusp between philosophy and religion. But we end up there in discussions of values, morality and conscience. We end up there when we examine and question our values - which is a major part of a basic discussion of religion, faith, and reason.
Regardless, asking why the golden rule is a paramount value is a valid question. Why do you hold this value as highest? On its own merits or because of some greater value? If there's a greater value, what is it and is its value dependent or independent?
what according to you, is morality?
Doing what is right as best I can discern it at the time. Its greatly furthered by examining my values and what they are based upon.
Then I'm sorry I didn't communicate well. We can learn from scripture, we too have an identity, a history, a cultural and personal struggle with who we are and what it all means. We see different views and we evolve and change our own views and relationships. My primary formal scripture study class is centered around how does what these people went through relate to my life. It turns out it relates a great deal.
It is also part of my identity, part of my spiritual and cultural history.
Why would any divinity rely on such a flawed, shady enterprise, so pathetically open to manipulation?
The infinite comes to us through the finite, creation, other people and ourselves. And, yeah, the finite is corruptible, imperfect.
You, and I, are free to choose fortunately. We can use our own judgement and experience to evaluate what another says - in fact we must do so if we live an examined life.
There is a constant, comparatively small, portion in all religions that seek to know through other means, through direct personal experience. These are found in various schools of spiritual practice which remain very much alive. Personally, this is my bent as well. It may be bias, but I think this is the wellspring of most revealed religion.
IIRC, the major branches of yoga in Hindu philosophy allow for different means for different folks, so it could just be a personality type thing.
Thanks for your reply.
This is for you, and all believers in the OT mythology to answer.
Only? What do you tell a child who's parents die? What do you say to a friend who just lost their child? And when such tragedy comes even closer, how do you deal with it personally?
What life means; what we make of it all - of the world we live in; how should we react when bad things happen to those we love; what is good, of what value is being good, how ought we relate to and judge others and ourselves; what is our goal in living and what is our standard, is life's purpose only what we decide it to be; what are we willing to sacrifice for others and why…
These kinds of questions are for everyone who lives to answer. And everyone who consciously examines their life, you included, has some "mode of reasoning" about such questions. This is an integral part of his or her religious beliefs - whether they even realize they have them or not.
This is particularly true of the scripture-based faiths such as Hindu, Judaism Christianity, Islam, as well as other "revealed" faiths (Manicheanism, Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, Egyptian religion, etc.), as well as the Greek, Roman, Scandinavia and other pagan religions.
Especially problematic for me are those religions which insist on the deity being known through divinely (s)elected "messengers" or prophets, because they require an absolute faith not only in the deity itself, but in the human storyteller as well.
I think a deist is not concerned with any of that, but rather presupposes a "force" that was somehow responsible for the creation of the world, and leaves it at that. I don;t necessarily subscribe to that, but I can live with that.
As for the might is right that has been the truth since time immemorial. The victors get to write the history and define the "official truth."
I also agree with the parallel you draw between the Muslim deity and that of the Old Testament. Item per item, their religion is much closer to Judaism than Christianity because Christianity lost its Middle Eastern "flavor" by mixing first with Zoroastrianism and ultimate being redefined in terms of neo-Platonism, because it was tailor-made to be near and dear to the Greeks, who, after all, inherited the faith.
It's not semantics. It was not about knowing some things to be true, but knowing the truth. The way I see it, the only way to know the truth, i.e. to know the way the world truly is, and why it is, is to know everything there is to know, and we can't know that.
You make good points, D, but you must remember that the idea that the OT God was not the same God as the one of the NT was only promoted by Marcion, whose teaching was condemned by the Church in his lifetime (mid second century).
Appealing to different interpretations is somewhat disingenuous because by the end of the second century (mostly through the work of Irenaeus of Lyons, c. AD 180, Against Heresies), the Old Testament was reintegrated theologically into the Christian doctrine. It is also worth mentioning that most if not all 2nd century Christian apologetics not only quote from the Old Testament (actually the Greek-language Septuagint which differs from the Hebrew Massoretic Text at times radically), and that, more importantly, the New Testament is full of Old Testament reference verses.
There is no instance where Jesus, for example dismisses or condemns the slaughter ordered by the OT God of any of the Canaanite settlements, or of David's bastard son, etc. The only instances where Jesus diverges from the commonly held practice of Judaism is in disputing the "eye for an eye", or washing of the hands before meals. His main thrust in accusing the Pharisees and the Sadducees of not knowing the scriptures have to do with him being the the "I AM" of whom Moses allegedly wrote (although no such verses sexist), and for them not believing that God sent him.
Most of these argument are somewhat manipulated by Christian authors, and easily debunked by Jewish scholars. But to the superstitious Greeks in search of mystery religions who knew nothing about Judaism, these stories made perfect sense. In fact, some of the things Jesus is quoted as saying are simply so outrageous that no Jew would ever said them!
So, the disagreement with the Old Testament was not over the morality of some of the stories in it, but mostly over the Jewish refusal to believe Jesus' claim that he is the Jewish messiah (he simply doesn't fulfill the OT prophesies what that messiah ought to be).
There is also evidence of blatant and scandalous alteration of Jewish scriptures by the Christian scribes, so as to make OT prophesies and stories appear as pointing to Jesus. I know some of the FR Bible believersTM crowd would take issue with this, but that's to be expected.
So, in summary, your post is a distinction without difference. The important thing to remember is that the Church accepts the OT as God-inspired and inerrant in terms of spiritual and moral truth, along with the NT, and that the moral and spiritual truth of the OT was never questioned or condemned by the Church or the NT writers.
Bingo!
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