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."
Define order.
How is it accurate to refer to nuclear fusion as nuclear decay?
"I didn't say anything about evolution. You're the one making that ASSumption."
Actually not. It was the premise of that part of PastorJim's post that you were responding to. Remember?
"His assertion is refuted by the fact that plants move from disorder to order, and do so via a gain of energy at the Sun's expense - all obedient to the laws of Thermodynamics."
No, his assertion is not refuted. Plants themselves don't move from disorder to order unless you ASSume evolution.
"Another refutation of his assertion is the cyclical transformation of water between vapor, and liquid, and ice - all driven by the Sun's decay (and all without DNA)."
Not a refutation at all if you don't quote the man out-of-context. That seems to be your main focus, however.
Well apparently it was YOU who was not paying attention.
He thinks he knows more than he can know.
Paging Captain Obvious...
"Meanwhile the image you project, regardless of c, is that of an arrogant religionist twit who jumps to conclusions about the faith of others in the process of pompously assuming dominion over it."
I must have been directly over the target on that comment.
Paging Captain Obvious...
"Meanwhile the image you project, regardless of c, is that of an arrogant religionist twit who jumps to conclusions about the faith of others in the process of pompously assuming dominion over it."
I must have been directly over the target on that comment.
I tell my kids to watch for the, "We used to think but now we know" mentality.
They don't 'know' any more now than when they thought they 'knew' before. It's all inference, fallacies and assumptions. Certainly nothing to use to interpret Scripture.
2 Timothy 3:7
....always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
BEErock = monkeys becoming people
Those that vote for BEErock = people becoming monkeys
It isn’t that totally simple. Particularly in the OT there are numerous instances where a story is clearly realistic but the religious interpretation is questionable. The most obvious case is the story of Uzzah and the “ark of the covenant”. The construction of the thing reads 100% identically to the instructions for building a Leyden bottle or primitive capacitor and Uzzah obviously electrocuted himself when he tried to steady the thing on the wagon. Nonetheless the ancient author wrote down that God slew him for a transgression. God himself would never make such a mistake i.e. the story was clearly written down by men, who are fallable.
Genesis 1:3
And God said, “Let there be electromagnetic radiation” ...
better translation of Hebrew than “light” here. Maybe.
(yehiy ‘or)?
Yes.
Are you asking for the meaning of ‘order’ in the context that I used it? As in ‘in order to... ‘? Or are you asking for a general meaning of what ‘order’ is in contrast with chaos? In the case of the latter, the definition is highly subjective, depending on what extent you’ve chosen to define the system in context.
Subjective = intelligent designer.
Much more accurately, 'the circle of the Earth' refers to the circular horizon one sees around oneself, especially in the Middle East, on Earth.
Explain further. Also, why then can it not be "intelligent designers"?
'God of the Gaps' isn't an acceptable answer.
Tohu wa bohu is a Biblical Hebrew phrase found in the Book of Genesis 1:2. It is usually translated "formless and empty," or some variation of the same, and describes the condition of the earth before God said, "Let there be light." Precise translation of the phrase is difficult, as only the first word, "tohu," appears to have any independent meaning. "Tohu," is used 20 times in the Hebrew bible, and is used to mean "vain" or "waste."
The answer to your question is that a tree was not “vain” or “waste”. It specifically states that the world between verse 1 and verse 2 was a wasteland not the very good that the rest of Genesis describes each creation.
Every new element and compound that forms in a particular corner of the Universe, due to the interactions of gravity, heat and other phenomena, proves of the nature of open systems to create varied products. In other words, your conclusion is not only illogical, it is wrong as well.
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