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."
What does it say happened next?
Why not?
Doesn't that seem bizarre to you?
Scientific theories of one type or another address everything from A to Z, but we hear repeatedly that science does not address what is arguably the most important question posed by mankind. Why the gap? Why the one question that's off-limits?
There’s a forum called Democratic Underground. It’s chock full of leftists, progressives, atheists, evolutionists, etc. Perhaps you would feel more at home there.
biopoesis is the study of how life on Earth arose from inanimate matter
different theory.
Your FReeper page indicates that you’re a Christian. Does it bother you that your Lord is descended from a fictional character?
>>What does it say happened next?<<
He started re-creating and reforming the “world that then was” that had been destroyed.
They don’t like me there, either. Good thing I’m not thin-skinned.
Albert Mohler is right!
>> “Giants do not exist.” <<
.
Anynore.
Grunthor - Ditto!
I’m not sure where spontaneous generation fits in a discussion of evolutionary theory, but I wonder how he would have felt about parthenogenesis in humans?
Good examples, but creation is the only science on this issue. Naturalism disregards all the evidence.
exquisite theory, Dr. Kreb.
I don’t like plants.
Not so. Answer the question, please.
Yes I am, but I understand the difference between Science and Religion
>> “What does the Second Law of Thermodynamics have to do with your assertion that ‘life cannot come from non-life’?” <<
.
The second law prohibits an increase in order. Logic also prohibits such for those with higher cognition, but for the back slope of the curve, hope springs eternal.
.
OK, let’s say that’s true.
Does it reflect well on eveolutionists that they play such word games? When someone says “Eveolution doesn’t address the origins of life” they know the listener is going to assume that means that modern biology doesn’t address it, and will never be aware there is another branch of theory.
Sounds like the word games Democrats play.
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