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."
I forgot to tell you: the cow and the human were anesthetized - unconscious.
Then what is the Christian view on Isaiah 13:16?
What makes your view correct and theirs not?
Convenient, why not just dead? Same thing. I wouldn't want to be in their predicament.
Because they're mine, of course.
You are pulling terms and conditions out of a hat as you go along and hardly ever answer anything concretely. I can't take your questions seriously if you are going to continue this. There is too much fog in the air.
Good night.
Cause you couldn't choose to kill them if they were already dead.
I wouldn't want to be in their predicament.
Turns out that with you at the buttons, they lucked out and lived. Chicago? Not so much - thirty seconds are up.
:)
I forgot to tell you: the cow and the human were anesthetized - unconscious.
Would a human being following the Golden Rule want another to have the weight be dropped unto him, when the places are switched? Do not do unto others what you don't want done unto you.
"Here certainly is the golden maxim: Do not do to others that which we do not want them to do to us." - Confucius
In your part of the universe, you get to decide.
Way oversimplified. Have you studied the OT much? I don't mean that pejoratively, but it's a huge work - it's not just metaphor or just history or just myth or just literature or just songs or just theology or...
Would a human being following the Golden Rule want another to have the weight be dropped unto him…
How about the cow? Seriously, I got no problem with the golden rule being applied here. My questions to you are about why you think it's a good rule.
Is it because Confucius said so?
:)
Because of its simple truth, the Golden Rule (Do Not Do Unto Others What You Wouldn’t Want Done Unto You), rules.
It’s older than all religions; not unique to any; is not unique amongst humans alone; it does not require the selective self-categorisation of the scriptures you call your own into myth, allegory, mumbo-jumbo, truth / half-truth, metaphor and what-nots; it can fish out the moral choice from a wild array of circumstances; and is the basis upon which social cooperation and amity rests.
It’s a single, simple rule that replaces any scripture with their wild contradictions that are conveniently ignored, and hence, is superior.
Ok, it's simple, it's old, it's not unique, it replaces scripture, it ain't myth or allegory or metaphor… All these things you like about it.
Because of its simple truth
Why is it true?
When you have tools A, B, C, D... and so on, but find that only tool C has helped you and everyone else in overcoming every single moral conundrum ever come across, it would be safe to say that tool C is the only tool of relevance in solving problems pertaining to morality.
That tool, is the Golden Rule.
The rest, like the child slaughter-mandating 1 Samuel 15:3 that you choose to ignore as if it weren’t even part of the entire cafeteria you’ve called your own (even when you cannot explain what that verse, and others that were pointed to you, earlier, are in your scriptures for), are what tool C isn’t, when compared to the other tools. If tool C suffices, it is the truth. The rest, are garbs thrown around some truth. If you have tool C, you can throw out the other tools, as they aren’t of any use when it pertains to morality.
helped you and everyone else in overcoming every single moral conundrum
It's a useful tool in making moral decisions.
If I'm understanding so far... The value of the tool is it helps you make morally right decisions.
Wouldn't you still have to have some other measure of "morally right" in order to judge the value and effectiveness of the tool in achieving it??
helped you and everyone else in overcoming every single moral conundrum
It's a useful tool in making moral decisions.
If I'm understanding so far... The value of the tool is it helps you make morally right decisions.
Wouldn't you still have to have some other measure of "morally right" in order to judge the value and effectiveness of the tool in achieving it??
whatever the results of using the tool are, they morally right because you used the tool to make them.
Nope.
The Golden Rule suffices. It cannot be reduced further.
If another was needed, that would supersede the Golden Rule.
Main point: No "side-features" that need to be ignored so as to use, a-la 1 Samuel 15:3
Give me an unfavourable outcome arising out of using the Golden Rule, AND provide your alternative that somehow fixes that issue.
>>>The Golden Rule suffices
So if the question is:
Why is the golden rule morally right, the answer is: It just is.
No reason required.
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