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."
Only in your dreams.
Why is asking a believer to follow biblical medicine as "punch?" If you believe something wholeheartedly, then I would would expect you to follow it. If Protestants claim they believe the Bible 100% as the inerrant word of God, then my question should not be taken as an insult or ridicule.
So, which is it? Do you believe in scientific medicine or biblical medicine?
Thomas Aquinas threw in an uncaused being after stating that not a single thing can be his own cause.
I would call that a leap of faith as well as consistency.
Moreover, he uses observation as evidence for his opening premise, but not for his conclusion. If the source of our knowledge is observation then we certainly don't know that there is an uncaused being, do we?
The leap of faith is the self-existent "being".
What other relative category could exist?
Eternal energy, laws of physics, etc.
Yup.
Kalam cosmological argument:
- Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.
- The universe has a beginning of its existence.
- Thus the universe has a cause of its existence.
- This first uncaused cause must transcend physical reality.
- This uncaused cause that transcends physical reality is the description of God.
- Therefore God exists.
The argument has been widely criticized by such philosophers as J. L. Mackie, Graham Oppy, and Quentin Smith, and physicists Paul Davies and Victor Stenger.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument#SEP
Stenger has argued that quantum mechanics disconfirms the first premise of the argument, that is, that something can not come into being from nothing. He postulates that such naturally occurring quantum events are exceptions to this premise, like the Casimir effect and radioactive decay.
Ghazali thought that it is at least theoretically possible for there to be an infinite regress, and that there is nothing that necessitates a first-cause simply by pure deductive reason. He thus disputes one of the essential premises of the first-cause argument.
Muhammad Iqbal also rejects the argument stating, “Logically speaking, then, the movement from the finite to the infinite as embodied in the cosmological argument is quite illegitimate; and the argument fails in toto.”
For Iqbal the concept of the first uncaused cause is absurd, he continues: “It is, however, obvious that a finite effect can give only a finite cause, or at most an infinite series of such causes. To finish the series at a certain point, and to elevate one member of the series to the dignity of an un-caused first cause, is to set at naught the very law of causation on which the whole argument proceeds.”
- Iqbal, Muhammad The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam Lahore: Institute of Islamic Culture, 1986
Kant for example also rejects any cosmological proof on the grounds that it is nothing more than an ontological proof in disguise. He argued that any necessary object’s essence must involve existence, hence reason alone can define such a being, and the argument becomes quite similar to the ontological one in form, devoid of any empirical premises.
“Intelligent design says the laws of physics are incomplete and insufficient to govern the world”
The period of time in which known laws of physics were nonexistent is defined by empirical evidence, not Intelligent Design. Forget Intelligent Design. You still have to deal with the Big Bang.
“The Energy Conservation Law doesn’t come from the Big Bang. It preceded realization of that event.”
Yes—realization.
Conservation of energy applies to current status. Nothing in the law states that it has always been a law. This is where your argument fails.
"The period of time in which known laws of physics were nonexistent is defined by empirical evidence"
What evidence?
Re:"The Energy Conservation Law doesn’t come from the Big Bang. It preceded realization of that event."
"Conservation of energy applies to current status. Nothing in the law states that it has always been a law. This is where your argument fails."
There is nothing in particular about any single energy transformation that allows energy to either increase, or to diminish. It's always conserved. That means any that any energy that's observed existed infinitely in the past and will continue to do so into the infinite future, else there would be a point where it was not consistent with it's own essence.
Keep in mind that time is an inverse measure of the energy concerned. If energy can be created, or destroyed then it would not be what it once was through a reflection of itself(inverse time)through the transformation. IOWs, A≠A on some arbitrary basis.
Your claim is that A=0, then A=A. All the scientific evidence supports A=A always. You're free to promote your belief, but it contradicts the scientific evidence.
"This demonstrates your profound lack of understanding of what "science" does and does not versus can and cannot show, as well as the implications of materialistic determinism for the possibility of anything to be known as "truth.""
Sure it does.
...whatever.
'God did it' isn't an answer for anything.
They'll throw out a ton of meaningless, memorized propaganda mentally copied from the same predictable sources.
Then at the end, you get a ridiculous attempt at QED:
9/11 Truther: "Do you just believe everything you're told? Fire can't melt steel! It's impossible!"
Moon Landing Conspiracy Guy: "How did we get through the Van Allen Belts? Explain that! It's impossible! And there's no wind on the moon, so how was the flag waving?"
Creationist: "How can something come from nothing? Explain that! No one's ever observed a chimp turning into a man before their eyes, therefore evolution is false. Get over it Mr. Materialist. I am not a monkey!"
I do enjoy reading a thread full of so much hokum though.
I wonder if they were aware of the concept of plagiarism?
"The author claims he is the beloved disciples but he does not identify himself by name. The Church did that based on legend."
From my last post: "Bishop Papias of Hierapolis in Phrygia, an immediate disciple of the Apostle John, included in his great exegetical work an account of the composition of the Gospel by St. John during which he had been employed as scribe by the Apostle." Doesn't look like "legend" is involved at all.
" Then he leaves out the crucial verse Ps 78:3 out because that verse immediately tells us that these are not secrets since the foundaiton of the world, but things we have "known" because our Father "have told us". The deceptive and manipulative character of Matthew's presentation couldn't be any clearer.
As I pointed out, there is no real deception. It's irrelevant that the "sayings, or riddles were known, because their fathers told them. They didn't understand them, hence the meaning was hidden. "Days of old" is open ended and it's entirely reasonable that God would have considered and chosen to "speak in parables" "from the foundation of the world". Given that Matthew knew God personally and wrote the Gospel in Hebrew(so he knew Hebrew) I don't see any problem with it. The meaning stands, particularly since Matt 13 also includes "Isaiah 6:9,10 And He said: 'Go, and tell this people: hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they, seeing with their eyes, and hearing with their ears, and understanding with their heart, return, and be healed."
Re: All that matters is what John wrote, in particular the quotes, because those are the words of the Person that claimed to be God. Those words take precedence over the words of anyone else.
"Bit that's only because you are willing to believe it.
No. If the work is to be examined there is no prior belief, that's just the logical structure and ordering that must be in place in order to learn about and understand the person(s) involved. The central figure is Jesus. That's the person who claiming to be God and that's who I want to know and understand. After all, the entire book and universe was supposedly authored by Him.
Once I learn who Jesus is, then I'll examine all of what's been said about Him and attributed to Him by others and use what I know about Him to decide whether or not it's God's word, or theirs.
"But I would like to know why you accept some ordinary mortal's words as sacred. It makes no sense.
If by sacred you mean respected and revered, it's because I've judged the person quoted in the Gospels to be remarkable, I value the things He does and knowing Him provides for a clear logically consistent understanding of the entire Bible. Yes, He's an ordinary mortal, but I believe He is God, just as He said, because of what He said, not because of what someone else said.
Re: "Now if Jesus announces that before Abraham was, I AM", or "from now on, you do know him and have seen him.", it means God is a Person. Since man is the image of God and man is a person, it means God is a person.
The "I am" part is a mistranslation form Hebrew. It means something slightly different (I will be who I shall be).
The Jews don;t think so. Here it is from a Hebrew Bible. You're welcome to inform them of their mistranslation.
"The second part of your argument is silly, imo, because the Father cannot be seen. No pious Jew would have said that."
God said it. God said that from now on, He can be seen. I guess that means He wouldn't be considered a pious Jew.
"Theotes in Greek does not mean a person but a quality of being divine, a nature, or essence of something."
I prefer person. Theotes is at best cryptic. As I previously pointed out God is a person that has been seen and known. Since you don't like John, how about Moses? Man was made in the image and likeness of God, as per Gen 1:26,27. Since man is the image of God and man is a person, it means God is a person.
"Isa 63 is about God;s vengeance on the nations. There is no mention of any "Son" or what not."
God's vengeance on the nations was taken out on the cross. Ironic isn't it? He stained all His clothing. His own wrath sustained Him. No one was there to help. His own arm achieved salvation. Of course that wasn't Jesus, that was the OT god that never showed up in person to teach who he was.
However I'll note that where Jesus was said to be mistaken about Elijah having come already, they left out Matt 11. In particular Matt 11:14 "And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come."
Also, Jesus death was not a human sacrifice. That's a ridiculous claim. God came to teach who He was knowing full well He would be killed. He pointed out to Pilate, that if this was His Kingdom, His angels would laid waste to Pilate's goons. God was simply refusing to interfere with, or recind His original gifts and plan. The rest is symbolism with such events as the passover.
No, I never stated that time equals zero.
Of note—our disagreement is about logic, not about science.
The law of conservation of energy (like the evidence for the Big Bang, which we don’t really need to establish unless your argument includes an assertion that the Big Bang never occurred) is a posteriori knowledge. It is not a priori knowledge. You have proceeded on the assumption that it is a priori, and this is an error.
The inverse relationship between time and energy is known only in an a posteriori sense. And very important—it is not a complete definition of time.
To say “it’s always conserved” is true regarding current observation—that is, no matter how many times we try, we “always” see that energy is conserved. But again, the law of energy conservation is not a priori, so we cannot state that it was true prior to the Big Bang.
As much as they knew about copyright: nada, zilch. Copying, altering and plagiarizing was rampant. Origen writes about it superficially, saying that basically everyone changed and added to extant texts as they pleased. Thus, you have numerous versions of everything. The most famous one is the short and long version of Luke's Gospel. And this does not include the variants found with the same versions...
By the 17th century, the number of variants found in different manuscripts and codices exceeded then number of words contained in both Testaments. Add to this the fact that most, if not all "original" sources are copies of copies of copies...sometimes centuries removed from the alleged original.
In an atmosphere of lawless plagiarism and alterations of texts (not to mention destruction of undesirable ones), one needs to remember that every copy was made by hand which most likely contained unintentional errors, as is to be expected, and that people were copying already corrupted copies and then "correcting" them accordiong to their own disposition and doctrinal prejudice, as they saw fit.
Thus, for instance, we "know" about Papias to be the disciple of John the Apostle and Polycarp from Irenaeus (late 2nd century), but only of Polycar according to Ignatius. We "know" that he was a "bishop" from Eusebius (late 3rd and early 4th century), the first church historian of dubious quality.
We know that the earliest copy of Irenaeus (who wrote in Greek) is a Latin translation made 200 years after Irenaeus. In it, we find that Irenaeus calls Mary the "Holy Spirit" (advocata in Latin, which retro-translates into koine Greek as parakletos).
How reliable is Irenaeus? He says, for example, that Jesus was at least 50 years old when he died (Against Heresis, II, 22). So, you be the judge.
How reliable is Eusebius (who also referred to Papias as somewhat feeble-minded), if you consider that he refers to Philo (of Alexandria, a 1st century Jewish philosopher) as "St. Philo"? You be the judge.
Then there are linguistic and translational issues to be considered, the use and mastery of language of various scribes (most of whom in the early Church were not professional), dialectical variations of the languages across regions, the level of literacy of the author, etc.
So, the first thing every honest and half-intelligent student of church and bible history learns (hopefully) is to be skeptical and very cautious not to jump to conclusions as some gullible fool when it comes to anything ancient because it was the world of hearsay and very few standards. That's my good will advice, fwiw.
Also in good will, I would ask you to name some examples of what you consider to be historical facts—whether of ancient Greece or Rome, or of the Far East, Africa or anywhere else—that doesn’t come with exactly the same sort of problems such as “alterations of texts,” “unintentional errors,” and “linguistic and translational issues.”
And would you please explain why, when it comes to such historical information, Bible skeptics refuse to be “skeptical and very cautious not to jump to conclusions as some gullible fool?”
You said energy is zero, then it was some other huge quantity.
"Of note—our disagreement is about logic, not about science."
It's about science. Logic is a necessary tool used in science.
"(like the evidence for the Big Bang, which we don’t really need to establish "It's critical, because you have to know what the BB is in order to understand it. It's not an explosion. It can be seen as a phase transformation of energy from the vacuum.
"The law of conservation of energy... is a posteriori knowledge. It is not a priori knowledge. You have proceeded on the assumption that it is a priori, and this is an error."
Irrelevant what does matter is that energy is always conserved, or Noether's theorm would be invalid and A≠A is the rule during arbitrary and miraculous phase transformations, or any other process where some men desire to order nature as they see fit too.
Historical texts suffer from the same ills that befall biblical sources, but there is a world of difference.
The difference is that no one is required to accept historical sources as "divinely inspired" or as "words of God." Historical science neither requires, nor appeals to, nor relies upon such dubious "evidence" as "miracles," or "revealed truth" that is "inerrant" which must be believed.
I listened to a lecture by Lawrence Krauss about 'a universe from nothing', and he explained that scientists are 99% sure that we live in flat universe from observations of general relativity and quantum mechanics. In a flat universe the total energy of the universe is zero (with gravity being negative energy).
So quantum fluctuations can create 'something from nothing' in a flat universe.
Even if you were take a block of nothing between the galaxies and suck out all of the photons and radiation, there are still quantum particles popping in and out of existence.
The best example as to why the two cases are different would be Socrates.
I have no idea whether or not he existed, and there's arguments for and against. But it makes no difference to me whether he was a real man or not; someone constructed the Socratic method and his writings. I don't need him to be a real person to use his method or learn from his writings.
The same is not true of the Bible. It makes claims that are quite different, and the discussion of Christ, Moses, or Adam not being real people have a greater effect on the information claimed in the Bible that are not present in historical texts.
Historical texts don't make supernatural claims that have repurcussions on the individual soul and its fate, or the fate of mankind.
Historical texts as far as I know don't require you to believe them based on anything that approaches faith, nor is there any celestial punishment or reward for not believing whether or not something like the Battle of Thermopylae or the Battle of Tours actually took place.
Machon-mamre, for some mysterious reason, uses standard English translation. Hebrew grammar and other sources disagree:
God said to Moses, "Ehyeh asher ehyeh (I will be what I will be)," and He said, "So shall you say to the children of Israel, 'Ehyeh (I will be) has sent me to you.'" — Exodus 3:14
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.