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."
Already answered earlier: Because it benefits everyone in ways nothing else can achieve.
Now you answer: Why is the Golden Rule not sufficient, on its own, to make moral decisions?
I’m not arguing against the golden rule, it’s a Christian rule also. And it’s taken as an absolute truth, not conditional. Absolute truths are not problematic in religious spheres.
What I am looking at is how it is derived for you.
Ok, then it does have a reason, a "because." We're still in logic with a because: to benefit everyone. Wouldn't you need to define "benefit" here? Is the benefit survival or is it happiness or material goods or evolutionary strength or cultural worth or my tribe survives to save the world...?
There can be differing ideas of what benefit means.
Whatever these benefits are defined to be, they become the greater value that the golden rule valuable as a means to achieve.
Unfavourable outcome? Death. Alternative? Act in your own self interest.
Yes, but my point was that when it comes to morality, it's the only tool required. No extra baggage.
What I am looking at is how it is derived for you.
How did Confucius "derive" it? Or did he just see it?
It can be acting in one's own selfish self-interest to steal. If a society tolerates this (thus tolerating the violation of the Golden Rule), what becomes of that society? Since the individual is also part of the society, what then happens to that individual? Is it now in his "self-interest" act in ways that damage the society that will sustain him and his progeny?
How did Confucius "derive" it? Or did he just see it?
I think you would not believe something because Confucius says so. Do you just see it?
It's survival AND happiness, which again is key to survival. It goes down to the root of existence itself - it sustains the want to be alive.
I asked you earlier, but got no direct answer: What's the benefit of 1 Samuel 15:3? What's the benefit of the killing of David's child? After all, it's part of your scriptures... is it better to ignore it as human addition, as you implied earlier, and therefore call the entire prophecy of Samuel from your god to commit genocide, as falsehood?
The Golden Rule is a tool - a tool to make moral decisions, the only tool required. Insofar as that is concerned, what it is operating on has greater value than the tool itself, but without the tool, that 'greater value' is lost.
Don't you, too? Didn't Confucius too?
WATCH AND REVIEW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgWUeI3AHrs
Ok, that would make the golden rule dependent on the value of survival and happiness.
Are these absolute values or are they valuable because…
I've answered the Samuel question at least twice and expounded copiously on how I view the OT in general. You're still looking to argue with a bible-thumper and you don't have one here. I can point you to another thread if you're just dying to. :)
Yeah, but you keep adding these becauses and kicking it down a level. What do you just see? That it's good for survival and happiness (which refers back again to survival)?
Survival is a pretty low moral value, perhaps the lowest, even lower than "feels good."
Isn't there something more to the golden rule's value?
Inter-dependent.
I've answered the Samuel question at least twice and expounded copiously on how I view the OT in general. You're still looking to argue with a bible-thumper and you don't have one here. I can point you to another thread if you're just dying to.
Even in your copious replies, you carefully skirted around to avoid providing your opinion of whether the prophet Samuel conveyed falsehood when Saul was asked to slaughter the infants (1 Samuel 15:3). In other words, Samuel, and many others, were false prophets. The thickness of the casing of the replies didn't matter much when the kernel itself was missing.
Really? The want to live, and let live, is a low moral value?
Society does tolerate the stealing of bread in the face of starvation, e.g., and this is a cliche. It's just a question of how far the idea can be stretched.
Then again, there are such as to consider it virtue to say, “virtue is necessary.” But at bottom they believe only that the police is necessary. —Friedrich Nietzsche
What can be more valuable than to be critical in sustaining life?
You said survival. Survival is a very low moral value. Killers want to survive. Crustaceans want to survive. Morality based on self-preservation is quite a low value system.
With the situation that caused the starvation to occur resulting from the prior violation of the Golden Rule itself?
If the "stealer" and "steal-ee" had their places switched, would they want the new owners to hoard their wares? Do not do unto others what you wouldn't want done unto you.
Give me liberty or give me death.
Humans will suffer greatly to see that their descendants are well-off. Is that selfish?
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