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."
Here’s the evolutionists method.
What facts can we invent to support it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeoraptor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_Man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Iceman
Haeckel’s Embryos
Lemur? I thought it was a monkey?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2256937/posts
No wait, you were right, a lemur:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2256335/posts
Oops, I meant to say monkey:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2256998/posts
Did I say monkey? Meant to say lemur:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2254732/posts
MONKEY!!!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2253963/posts
LEMUR!!!!!!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2254719/posts
Bah, let’s just go with lemur-monkey:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2254888/posts
Studies examine withholding of scientific data among researchers, trainees
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1565120/posts
It May Look Authentic; Here’s How to Tell It Isn’t
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1563746/posts
Most scientific papers are probably wrong
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1473528/posts
Most Science Studies Appear to Be Tainted By Sloppy Analysis
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1896333/posts
Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
Are you a Christian?
Water was the initial creation; then the water was divided.
The terms used in the Masoretic text speak of expansion of that water into the entire creation. It was definitely not a flood, but a birth.
You make a good point, but I’ve learned that when people need to play games to get folks to believe something, there isn’t anything there to believe in. See Warming, Global.
great links, really exposes exposes the evolutionists.
There was no “world that was destroyed.”
The text says nothing of destruction, but of the expansion of the water into the entire universe. The Hebrew word ‘raqia’ means to expand. It was the birth of the universe.
But not spontaneously. Work must be done for that to be accomplished.
What is the mechanism that initiated and maintains the work?
Some might say you are an argument for the reverse... ‘-)
>>There was no “world that was destroyed.<<
Oh yes there was.
Used to be.
Interesting. Where do false accusations on your part fit into the 9th Commandment? Is there an exception for false accusations based on unwarranted assumptions?
In Luke 3, the genealogy of Jesus Christ is presented, and Adam is featured in it as His earliest human ancestor. If the first three chapters of Genesis are an allegory or some other literary device, then Adam is a fictional character. So you see, what I said was true.
That's sort of like a guy campaigning for President and saying we should elect him because he's a descendant of Yankee Doodle.
So, we are left with the question: Does it bother you that your Lord is descended from a fictional character?
The Second Law kicks in quickly enough when something dies. And it's at work while it's still alive as evidenced in the process of aging.
The second law is working against life even now when it's established.
It's unreasonable to assume that whatever chemical reactions were necessary to become life could overcome that second law and develop to the level of complexity necessary to explain the variety of life here on earth today could overcome that second law in the first place.
You already know the answer, but here it goes any way. Science only deals with natural explanations because the results can be supported by empirical evidence that can be independently repeated, and falsified. That is not possible with the supernatural.
With science it is not a weakness to state that we do not know the answer to a question, or to modify or change a theory based on new evidence, But to continue to cling to a belief that is clearly not supported by the empirical evidence only serves to make one look foolish.
I noted you found my question about a fictional character was amusing. You do realize it's true, right? See Luke 3. If Genesis is a literary construct such as an allegory, a historical book (Luke) is saying Jesus is descended from a fictional character. If Genesis is a historical book, there's no problem because both men are real people.
IL: “You are incorrect the Evolutionary theory does not address the origin of life.”
The guys are Berkeley disagree with you on that...
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIE2aOriginoflife.shtml
And don't ever expect to hear a *We were wrong* out of them either. They just let it fade into oblivion and hope everyone forgot about it.
What is there about the appearance of the first cells that is supernatural?
How do you know it was natural or supernatural if science is withholding comment?
Why would an atheist scientist like Jay Gould or Carl Sagan, who didn't believe in the supernatural, refrain from looking into this issue?
If science is staying out of this issue because it's religion, what were the guys described in this section and those below it doing?
It's all part of one continuum of chemical reaction.
The break is an artificial, man-made one for the convenience of the evolutionists who can't quite explain how life got from non-life to life with it in there. So they pretend that it's a different topic so they don't have to admit or address it. Or admit that it would blow their theory of evolution out of the water.
Are prions alive or not? Are viruses alive or not? Why or why not?
What is the connecting agent between the most complex non-living chemical agent and the first fully functioning one celled bacteria. What is ITS ancestor? What did IT evolve from? It didn't just pop into existence. It came from somewhere or some thing.
You can't go from black to white without going through gray first. You can't go from non-living to living without going through the intermediate.
Origins are a legitimate part of evolution, albeit embarrassing for evolutionists because they then are forced into the position of contradicting spontaneous generation.
Much better to ignore it.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God (Elohim, pl.) created the heaven and the earth.
This does not say which part of heaven and earth came first. Genesis 1:2 continues... AND the earth was (should be the word 'became') without form, and void; and 'darkness' *was* upon the face of the deep.
AND the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
We know it 'was' a flood because of what Peter says in IIPeter 3, that heaven/earth age that WAS perished ...
IIPeter 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of,
that by the word of God the heavens were of OLD, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then WAS, being overflowed with water, perished:
Genesis 1:2 is talking about the first rebel of Isaiah 14:12-- and Ezekiel 28:12-- when he was overthrown/cast down. Paul and Christ both reference this 'event' and it got translated in the form of 'the foundation' as seen in Ephesians 1:4 by Paul and Christ used the verb form in Matthew 13:35 Matthew 25:34, Luke 11:50
IF you are interested do a study of the Greek word 'foundation' as used in the above verses.
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