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To: old-ager
You don't need to assert that scripture is wrong to say that it doesn't correspond to a scientific description of history. This is just my opinion, but I see in people who demand literal inerrancy in the Bible the same kind of legalistic mind that Jesus preached against -- the demand for perfection in the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law. The notion that if we just do and say everything right, then we'll be saved.

Misses the point in my opinion.

304 posted on 02/05/2004 8:47:03 AM PST by js1138
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To: js1138
> The notion that if we just do and say everything right, then we'll be saved.

> Misses the point in my opinion.

I agree; that notion definitely misses the point. Christians believe that they are saved only by God's grace in Jesus Christ, though faith, which itself is a work of God.

The only source of salvation is Christ. The only source of totally objective knowledge about Christ is Scripture. Scripture says it is true. If we start thinking it has errors, we unravel it to where we have no objective reason to believe anything (I'd refer to monstrosities such as the Jesus Seminar here). So we hold the line on Biblical inerrancy.

Some truths in Scripture are literal and there is some science in Scripture. For each passage, we try a literal approach first. If that cannot be made to work against the remainder of Scripture, we try other approaches that still can transmit absolute truth. We don't descend into an ad-hoc and personal reduction of Scripture to a bunch of metaphors, but metaphors can be true, and Scripture does contain some metaphors.

When it looks like there's no way to escape seeing a text as making a scientific statement, Christians will accept the text.

There might be some kind of proof of evolution if scientists were to forcibly guide some organisms through a sequence of positive mutations. The unguided kind of evolution has no proof yet, since what we are to believe happened, happened some other distant time. So at this time, Christians do not have to prove much against "macro" evolution and the changing of inert chemicals to lively slime, slime to animals, animals to humans. The doctrine "with enough time, anything can happen" as espoused by people like Sally Ride is pretty naive and totally unprovable. It's a pure belief; a religion.
305 posted on 02/05/2004 9:20:06 AM PST by old-ager
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