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."
This is a very good opportunity to refer to the work of
Gary Habermas, who did a comprehensive study demonstrating that most scholars accept the things I mentioned.
Why should I believe him? He is not really what could be called unbiased. Let me see corroboration of his results by an independent or even agnostic/atheist course and then we can talk.
I didn’t say most scholars accept the truth of the Resurrection. I said they recognize as historical fact that the disciples sincerely believed in it based on their experience. This in itself is highly significant.
So does every Christian in the long chain of almost 2000 years. How do you know? You hears it form someone else. How do they know? They heard it from someone else, etc. all the way back to the authors of the New Testament books (as well as those that didn't make it into the canon).
Of the four Gospels, only Matthew and John would have been "eyewitnesses" to a risen Jesus (not the Resurrection itself; that was not witnessed by anyone). Of those, Matthew basically copies most of Mark's account who was not a witness!
The Church cleverly (but inexplicably) placed Matthew's account first, while biblical scholarship places Mark's account first. Which begs the question, why would an "eyewitness" copy the work of a non-eyewitness!?! And then the account by John differs like night and day from the Mark's account. Can two eyewitness accounts, both supposedly guided by the Holy Spirit, differ that much? Makes you wonder if someone was napping...
For example Luke’s writings stands up to the strictest standards of accuracy as regards geographical detail, as well as details about particular people
How can that be when there are two Gospels of Luke, one short and one long? That fact itself throws sufficient down to dismiss such a claim. besides, what does your statement say about those biblical references that are geographically, or otherwise incorrect?
These things have been tested, for all the New Testament authors, by comparing them to the recordings of non Christian writers of the time.
Like the account of the Roman census and Herod's death, a gap of 4 years?...or Peter's reference to enduring persecutions when there were none? Makes you wander why would someone born in Bethlehem be called the Nazarene...
The error here is to establish certain claims as true in themselves—that they are true in an a priori sense.
You have more than an a priori belief when it comes to Genesis?!
Like the claim that no particular miracle could have really happened because miracles in general cannot happen.
When there are no other instances in all of human history of such events, chances are they are, especially since neither snakes nor donkeys have human brains and human vocal cords, or at least science has not been able to find any vestigial evidence of such organs in either snakes or donkeys.
Rather than saying, “I refuse to believe this because such a thing is impossible,” it’s much more rational to investigate particular events in question based on what actually happened during that time.
The problem is that some people come out with something (I.Ed. talking pink unicorns on Jupiter) and expect others to believe them! Not only that, they expect others to "justify' their doubt. If you think about it, it's the people who make make fantastic claims who should be providing some reasonable evidence to back up their fantastic claims, not the people who express doubt about them!
Facts can be established according to standards we all accept, and as more pieces are added to the puzzle the truth becomes more visible.
I agree. So what do you have to offer to explain why a major world religion depends on a "talking" snake?
Thanks JCB.
Talking animals and living inside fish are core, undeniable aspects of the belief, as is with other beliefs, that a subscriber to these simply cannot wish away as mere “symbolism” or “analogy”
The largest religion on earth rests on the story of a "talking" snake! Without the blabbering snake, there is no Fall, without the Fall of humanity there is no need for the Savior! Without the talking snake Christianity would have no reason to exist! Amazing!
If they are in denial of such uncomfortable aspects, all they are are cafeteria believers, picking and choosing the rational / philosophical parts while ignoring the nonsensical (in blissful ignorance of the fact that the said religions require belief in those “facts”).
That's the hypocrisy that seems to be the evil twin of any self-rigtheous human endavor: cafeteria, chest-thumping, etc. But in reality, they carefully pick an choose what they like and what they dislike (and will change things accordingly).
That's why I ask them if they seek someone who will drive demons out of them when they are sick (biblical medicine) or if they submit to the despicable, godless, medical science instead! And the reaction is predictable: offense, anger, insults. Why? Because they have been exposed. They can't say they seek someone to chase the demons out because they know they'd be laughed at in this day and age. They have no proofs, they have no evidence, they have no excuse. They have nothing but their wounded pride.
Man's "understanding" of God: God is perfect, complete, finished, knows everything, forgets nothing, immortal, eternal, uncirucumscribed (unlimited), cannot be improved on, ideal, superior to evreytrhting and anything, without fault, needs nothing, lacks nothing, etc. How is that "anthropomorphic"?
Anthropomorphic would be insisting God must be a 'person' like us, casting God in human image...etc.
...six of these; half dozen of those
Another way of saying "I have no answer, but I have to put something down..." No substance.
The Father and Son are one Person and their commonality is the singular and unique Person of the Holy Spirit
In a religion called Spunketism. Not in Christianity.
You are the modalist per your insistance on describing God as "Theotes" the greek you claim means persona and mask. ... Oh, divine mask of course
The nature of God in man's mind is that he is divine, as human are "human". Thoetes is a Greek word for godliness or divinity. There is no mask in an adjective. Calling the Father and the Son "one Person" is saying there is a God behind them; they just appear as Father and Son...for the Father cannot be his own Son.
I don't know what sect or cult your belong to, but what you describe as "Trinity" is as far from Christianity as it gets. That much is obvious.
All these new terms for you are confusing, even though some of them are commonly used and universally understood. Theotes was never called a mask, hypostasis was. That's another "cryptic" term in your world which you somehow conflate and confuse with Theotes...because it's all Greek to you!
Isaiah [sic] 37:4-6
That would be Ezekiel 37:4-6...
Reaching for desperate measures? Paul said he was raised on the third day according to the sciprtures. Three is no such verse in the Old Testament. His body was not reduced to dry bones. Ez. 37 is about bringing bakc to life the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and the Davidic rule.
It's all a list of stuff that's made up purely and arbitrarily by referencing "the ideal man".
"Anthropomorphic would be insisting God must be a 'person' like us, casting God in human image."
God did that as per the parable of Gen., in Gen. 1:26,27. He created man in His Image. Your claim is that God was being anthropomorphic before He created man.
Re: "You are the modalist per your insistance on describing God as "Theotes" the greek you claim means persona and mask. ... Oh, divine mask of course
"The nature of God in man's mind is that he is divine, as human are "human". Thoetes is a Greek word for godliness or divinity. There is no mask in an adjective.
You're right, I mixed up the words Theotes and hypostasis. What I said still applies with the word theotes replaced with hypostsis. Nothing you said, or presented indicates the 3 Persons that are God equate to any adjective. He's a Person.
"Calling the Father and the Son "one Person" is saying there is a God behind them; they just appear as Father and Son...for the Father cannot be his own Son."
Gen 1:26,27, "Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
"Paul said he was raised on the third day according to the sciprtures. Three is no such verse in the Old Testament.
According to Scripture(Ezekiel 37) He was raised. I doesn't matter what day He was raised other than that's the day Paul noted from the testimony of the Apostles.
"Ez. 37 is about bringing bakc to life the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and the Davidic rule."
Only from the reference point of a pious Jew.
No, it's actually everything man is not. (aka apophathic thinking). But calling God a "person' is anthropomorphism.
God did that as per the parable of Gen., in Gen. 1:26,27. He created man in His Image. Your claim is that God was being anthropomorphic before He created man
There is no being a "person" in any of that. Image and likeness refer to man's role and capacity in this world: image is the sovereignty (kingship) on earth and likeness is man's ability to be merciful, compassionate, i.e. Christlike (animals don't have it); the latter aspect of humanity was lost in the Fall. Salvation is re-acquiring the likeness of God, i.e. becoming Christ-like, or divined, perfected, etc., according to Christian theologians.
Nothing you said, or presented indicates the 3 Persons that are God equate to any adjective. He's a Person
Stubbornly repeating that he "is" a Peron doesn't mean he is. You can say you believe it, but that's not Chritainity. Christianity believes the three are hypostatic—that is, self-existing realities of the same divine essence (or nature), that is Theotes.
27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
The Hebrew word tselem mean semblance. Obviously an image is not the thing it represents. Man is like a god on earth. The word semblance has nothing to do with being a "person." It has to do with the dignity and man's role in the world.
According to Scripture(Ezekiel 37) He was raised. I doesn't matter what day He was raised other than that's the day Paul noted from the testimony of the Apostles.
There were no bones. There was no resurrection of the two Jewish kingdoms or Davidic rule. The context and the implication of Jesus' Resurrection is night and day from Ez. 37. A real stretch.
Only from the reference point of a pious Jew
No, just from the alleged experience of an OT "inspired" writer.
Let’s boil this thing down to the essentials.
First—yes I depend on faith before reason in spiritual matters (and these two phenomena are distinct in a subjective sense; that is, as they are used within an academic context). But a priori reasoning is not the same as faith.
Now, back to our discussion. Standards of truth are used across the spectrum of academic disciplines. In science we use observation, measurement and repetition. In a courtroom we use evidence and rules. Knowledge theory uses particular rigorous standards of objectivity and logic. Historians have their version of assuring the validity of their own work. The common thread is woven from the concepts of objectivity, sense perception, accuracy and reliability. These are found in all standards of truth. Let’s call this set of standards T.
I have made an assertion to you. We’ll call the assertion p. The assertion is that particular events surrounding Jesus and his resurrection from death are accepted as true by mainstream scholars of history (and these scholars include a broad range, from believers to atheists), who use T to verify and validate their work.
You protest to me that p must false because it doesn’t meet your standards of verification, which we will call k. It is very clear that k is congruent with T above. Your protest is based on the fact that I have not presented clear evidence of k (or T) for p, all I’ve done is claim it exists.
The important thing here is that your protest is tantamount to admitting that if T for p is present, then you will accept p as true.
But there is another problem. It’s the same problem we see in courtrooms, where objective truth falls prey to the lawyer’s tongue. Lawyers are victims of their training, which teaches them that real truth doesn’t matter—what matters is whether you can manipulate language so that your language seems to represent truth. Appearance alone is sufficient, not the actual truth. And an attempt is made to justify this claim with the assumption that objective truth doesn’t exist. That’s right. Our old friend relativism. Relativism tells us that something can be true today but false tomorrow, depending on subjective volition.
As for our conversation, I’m convinced that when T validates p but p is contrary to your volition V, you will inject standards of relativism, which we will call R. But if I show you T for p, you throw R on top of T and claim T doesn’t exist.
So the difference between you and me is R. What you need to learn is that R doesn’t make things right—it makes them wrong. R brings chaos. It’s the worm in a once good apple. R is the nail that flattens your tire. The red light, the traffic jam, the lost wallet, the misplaced keys. The girlfriend who rejected you in high school, the jock who bullied you, the social group that ostracized you, the mother who gave you up for adoption. R is that impulse she doesn’t understand that drives Anita Dunne to follow Mao Tse Tung; the murderer of wisdom in the soul of Van Jones that shows him goodness when he looks evil in the face. It’s that which denies Obama and Hillary the same spirit of allegiance enjoyed between Palin and DeMint, instead making them mortal enemies. R is the leftist troll on an otherwise perfectly good conservative website. It’s a blanket of darkness covering the light—like a cloud of death. R is the initial cancer cell. R is the master of Charles Manson, Bill Ayers and Joseph Stalin. It whispers into the ear of the liberal telling him he’s tilling soil, when in truth he’s digging his own grave.
Relativism excludes the leftist, ultimately, from rational discourse. So let’s exclude relativism from our discourse.
The starting point now is that you agree if I show you that universal truth standards have been met, you will agree with me that my original assertion p is factual.
No, matter is not energy. It is the speed of light squared, divided by energy. But we’re focused on the law of conservation of energy. I propose no changes to this law.
To do so would make no sense and would be a very significant error—the same error you are making when you try to change it.
The law of conservation of energy states: “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.”
You have changed this law to the following: “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, and this status has always been true.”
Your version of the law of conservation of energy is not valid. You can’t just change the wording of scientific laws. Science doesn’t work this way.
It's divided by what energy and what does that division obtain?
"The law of conservation of energy states: “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.”
Yes.
"You have changed this law to the following: “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, and this status has always been true.”
No. The "status" of the law is true always, else the law would violate itself.
"Your version of the law of conservation of energy is not valid. You can’t just change the wording of scientific laws."
You're trying to change the meaning of the law, not only the words. No energy was created at in the BB event, nor will it be destroyed at a later date.
Without splitting hairs, I think that is a fair objection. What if "being" were not part of the descriptor?
>>>What other relative category could exist?
Eternal energy, laws of physics, etc.
The question was about categories of dependent or independent, I'm not sure if you're saying the above are neither; but...
What if it were "first cause principle" or just "first cause" or...?
Would that make the first cause argument work for you?
So long as the conclusion is not contradicted by observation (and the logic is correct) it stands as a viable argument.
In fact, there are observational discoveries driven by just such arguments: If we observe A, B must exist...
It is true that "B" in the first cause argument has not been observed, but that does not in itself negate the conclusion.
I would call that a leap of faith as well as consistency.
No, again, it's not fancy, not a leap of faith, it's a logical argument.
If the source of our knowledge is observation then we certainly don't know that there is an uncaused being, do we?
Observation is one source of knowledge, but not the exclusive one.
He postulates that such naturally occurring quantum events are exceptions to this premise, like the Casimir effect
This effect has always fascinated me. (As I said earlier, the Broken Symmetry theory is my favorite.)
However...
If we take Kosta's laws of physics as a category example, then the argument can be made that sub-atomic particles arising through the Casimir Effect are not independent. The laws of physics can be viewed as causing them.
“It’s divided by what energy and what does that division obtain?”
What it obtains depends on the particular value for E. This concept is very basic.
“The ‘status’ of the law is true always, else the law would violate itself.”
The law cannot violate itself, because it doesn’t validate itself. It’s not self evident. The law is only validated by experiment. This is a point of logic, and the major stumbling block for your entire argument.
It's divided by what energy? What does the energy represent?
I disagree. Objective reasoning is a posteriori; subjective is a priori. The former is phenomenological, and the latter ontological. Thye are antonyms of eahc other, and cnanot be conflated.
Relativism excludes the leftist, ultimately, from rational discourse
Man, and all of the known world, operates on relativity. Your attempt to slip in absolutism (which is the opposite of relativism) as the acceptable criterion is unacceptable to me. And so is your attempt to silence anything you arbitrarily choose to label "leftist."
As for hsitoricity of the story of Jesus, outside of the text selected by the Church, which is a biased source, there is no objective, or direct historical evidence about Jesus; what is out there is scarce and unwittnessed, superficial mention of a couple of individuals, utilizing hearsay (i.e. not listing sources). The fact is, people have believed the Jesus story and the Resurrection not through personal witness but by word of mouth for the last 1900 years.
If a vast majority of historians—according to a very partial Evangelical professor in Lynchburg, Va—accept the historicity of Jesus and his resurrection, it is more likely because of the sheer weight (and sensitivity) of the Christian tradition in the western civilization than any standard, verifiable, historical evidence.
How many of these professors are of non-Christian background, such as Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, etc.? I would like to see the arguments of that professor and how many independent sources corroborate his findings.
His conclusion is not valid because it violates his axiom that no object (no thing) can cause itself.
Observation is one source of knowledge, but not the exclusive one.
Observation is the only form of objective (phenomenological) knowledge and it's method of discovery is a posteri reasoning. On the other hand, a priori approach leads to ontological arguments and subjective knowledge. The two cannot be conflated.
"No, it's actually everything man is not. (aka apophathic thinking).
In order to know what man is not, one must have an idea of what man is. Only then can the transcendent BS be contrived to differentiate man from his transcendent creator and overlord.
That stuff contradicts Gen 1:26,27 that says man is an Image of God.
"But calling God a "person' is anthropomorphism."
No. If Gen1:26,27 is to hold, there must be an inverse image which obtains the original. That means that the creation event must be a function that provides for the appearence of a set of sentient rational beings that all have in common the same set of functional capacities Y, that has a one to one correspondence with, and has identically one functional capacity for each capacity in the set X. So the creation function f and set X; X:f(x)->Y has an inverse Y:f(y)->X. That is what an Image is and it is a fundamental concept in Christianity.
"compassionate, i.e. Christlike (animals don't have it)
They shure do. Here's a video of a stray dog rescuing another stray dog from an expressway somewhere in S. America. I've seen while hunting, emotional connection in animals which indicates they have the feelings of love between them.
"the latter aspect of humanity was lost in the Fall. Salvation is re-acquiring the likeness of God,
There was no fall. Gen 3 is a parable. Each man is Adam and Eve and each woman is Adam and Eve, male and female they are. God never recinded the original gift of life, or corrupted the set Y which would destroy the inverse function. John 9 shows where the doctrine of original sin comes from and Ezekiel 18 refutes the doctrine entirely.
"Salvation is re-acquiring the likeness of God, i.e. becoming Christ-like, or divined, perfected, etc., according to Christian theologians."
Salvation is eternal life in Heaven. It is not reaquiring the likeness of God, because that was never lost, or taken away. The likeness of God is the image, which is function. The relevant functions regarding salvation are involved in Free Will.
It is by Free Will that folks determine if they live in Heaven. Matthew 12:32, "Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."
"You can say you believe it, but that's not Chritainity."
Thre's only one truth, not many. You previously listed more than one "Christian" groups as mainline. They all have contradictory teachings which contradict even the Bible. Christianity must hold the correct identity of the Person of God and the true identical values of the Holy Spirit. Doctrinal decisions made by past councils do not determine truth. The opinion of Jewish scholars regarding OT passages that Christians believe refer to Jesus is likely to be irrelevant. for instance in Psalm 110 that I mentioned above, I capitalized the word lord, which was a translation of the Hebrew adonee, because Jesus was counted among the wicked and God's day of vengeance and salvation is given in Isaiah 63. That day was Good Friday.
"There were no bones. There was no resurrection of the two Jewish kingdoms or Davidic rule. The context and the implication of Jesus' Resurrection is night and day from Ez. 37.
Christians don't believe the passage refers to some future Davidic rule. The passage refers to the resurrection of the dead. Jesus raised some others, then Himself and the rest would follow. The rule comes in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Again, it's UNcaused.
Observation is the only form of objective…
I was referring in this case to reason/logic as a source of knowledge.
An image is not the thing it represent. An image is a representation of the thing. Thus man, as an image of God, represents God on earth.
Likewise, man cannot become God any more than your picture can become you.
They shure do. Here's a video of a stray dog rescuing another stray dog from an expressway somewhere in S. America
Dogs learn behavior just like we do. They in particular are responsive to humans and pretty much adopt their ways within their capacities. But mentally they are on a 2-year-old level, and a 2-year-old doe snot relaly know what comparison is, at least not intrinsically.
There was no fall. Gen 3 is a parable
Oh, so Gen 1"26-27 is literal and Gen 3 is a parable. More Spnuketism.
It is by Free Will that folks determine if they live in Heaven. Matthew 12:32,
And there are many other instances in the Bible where the authors declare that God has decided before the world was even created on the fate of each and every soul.
Thre's only one truth, not many. You previously listed more than one "Christian" groups as mainline.
Yes, they are Christian because they all share what Christian establishment declared in the 4th century to be Christian faith, namely Three Hypostases (Persons) in one Nature (Godhead). You will just have to declare your own Spunketism variety of Christain following.
Doctrinal decisions made by past councils do not determine truth.
But you do? LOL.
I capitalized the word lord [in Ps 1101:1], which was a translation of the Hebrew adonee
Biblical Hebrew doesn't have capitals, so I don;t know why you capitalized it. Adonee simply applies to a secular master, in this case the master of the psalmist, which would be King David.
Jesus was counted among the wicked and God's day of vengeance and salvation is given in Isaiah 63. That day was Good Friday.
Again, that's Spunketism.
Christians don't believe the passage refers to some future Davidic rule.
You are right. Christianity took a little form Judaism, a lot form paganism and made a new religion, stealing much of the words and making their own concepts the way you are doing, and calling it the truth. Nothing new.
Jesus raised some others, then Himself and the rest would follow.
He (suppsedly) raised some because the NT insists he was given the power to do so. Just as the apostles supposedly raised people form the dead after Jesus. That doens;t make them gods.
The NT, however, states unequivocally that Jesus was raised by God. No writer claims, after the event, that he raised himself.
Then the first cause "is" nothing.
I was referring in this case to reason/logic as a source of knowledge
Reason/logic has to conform to observable reality. Otherwise it's not knowledge but imagination.
No, you logic is flawed here. You're going from nothing can be it's own cause to the first cause is it's own cause to therefore it is no thing.
The first cause is UNcaused. The second part of your argument is a misstatement.
Reason/logic has to conform to observable reality.
More correctly, it has to not be falsified by observable reality - and follow the rules of reason/logic. Theoretical and experimental science does this constantly.
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