Ahh, Spendo, we meet once again.

To be honest, I think both theories are equally viable, and neither proven. However, I get ticked off when I hear clergyman discrediting the Bible- particularly if they do so in ignorance.

Your last three questions would be the type those ignorant of Creationism would pose. From an atheist/agnostic, that's fine, but from a Christian? Unacceptable.

If you're going to believe the Bible, believe the Bible. If not, don't. Don't dilute it just because others have rejected it. And then, after all of that, do not have the audacity to say the book has some relevance to everyday life. If it can't stand the test of time, questioning, science, etc. what right does it have to speak of ethics, morality, faith, etc.?

I'm sure you would agree with me on that? We disagree, in that you believe evolution is proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and I believe there are reasonable doubts.

But we agree in another way: You were annoyed with me in the other forum because you thought me ignorant of the theory I discarded. I share that same annoyance with Sellick.

Peace.
YnLI

Dear Peter,

Part 1

I have had a closer look at your article and note that you basically argue against ID on theological grounds. I note that you are a scientist and office bearer in the Anglican Church.

Thank you for a very well written and thoughtful article bringing the insights of Karl Barth to the subject matter.

I would like to offer you some observations from the viewpoint of a christian in the reformed tradition.

1. Reading your piece, I was left wondering exactly to what extent you have read and understood the main ID protagonists – Johnson, Dembski, Behe, and people associated with the Discovery Institute?

2. I think your assertion that ID’s sole basis lies in a negative does not do justice to their position, and possibly even uncharitably so,

3. whilst at the same time I think your comment about the inadequacies of the fossil record a trifle disingenuous – a subject about which the best that can be said is that the extremely extensive fossil record that we now have has a rather embarrassingly large number of gaps in it if we are trying to argue in favour of evolution.

4. And again, whilst modern biology no doubt is going “from strength to strength”, that growth I suggest has little if anything at all to do with the application of the theory of evolution in any practical sense.

5. ID theory is still very much a theory in its infancy, a fact readily acknowledged by its proponents.

6. You assert ‘creationism… would have it that the universe was created in 7 days (6 actually) a few thousand years ago”. Better to say that there are creationists who so assert (frequently and loudly if you like), but equally there are creationists taking the Genesis accounts seriously who nevertheless see no difficulty in a universe billions of years old (see for instance Henri Blocher, “In the Beginning).

Part 2

7. my main disquiet with your article is your attempt to disengage God from his creation. You know Psalm 19 &104 as well as I do:

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world", and so on

8. I can understand an atheist pouring scorn on such a notion, but not a christian. God certainly does create a “cosmos”, and a world which he has inhabited with a vast array of life forms demonstrating incredible diversity, complexity and complementarities.

9. And then that created world, as you say, becomes, “the setting for the covenant between Him and his people”. I liked that bit.

10. No theology I know of “narrows the creative act of God to the first 2 chapters of the Bible”. Certainly all those creative acts you list follow on from this first creative activity of God.

11. I would like to suggest the christian is a person who looks at God’s revelation in nature through the spectacles of God’s revelation in Scripture, and when we do, we indeed see God’s handiwork, even if marred by the outworking of man’s rebellion against God (Romans 8:18f)

Hopefully, tomorrow night I might have a chance to comment on the remainder of your article.

Cheers for now

YngNLuvnIt,
Funny that you would use that link as a reference to what Creationism is not about. Looking at the article shows that it is in fact a direction to creationists about what arguments not to use. Each of those 40 odd arguments have all been used at some point and been successful enough to become well known and have been debunked.

Sells is not your ordinary Xian, he doesn't believe in the resurrection or other miracles. He sees truth in the narrative rather than the truth of the narrative. What's more interesting to me is the inerrant view vs. the liberal view of the Bible.

"And then, after all of that, do not have the audacity to say the book has some relevance to everyday life."
I'm an atheist and I say it has some relevance to everyday life, not all of it of course, but it has some; the same is true for most narratives.

"If it can't stand the test of time, questioning, science, etc. what right does it have to speak of ethics, morality, faith, etc.?"
Goodbye Bible. How about the hopefully inarguable fact that the Bible wasn't ever meant to be a scientific work? That it was meant to be about the laws, morals and traditions of a particular group?

To me, it seems that more faith is required to accept an inerrant view of the Bible, since it involves taking a view contrary to evidence and reason(eg. The age of the universe & world, the fossil record (not to mention evolution)) and being morally selective (that's gonna get me roasted). But a liberal, purposive and historically aware view can accept the Bible as a poetic work containing the culture and stories of the Jews and early Christians that has been written, edited and compiled by man, but inspired by God and the authors' understanding of God. One has to have faith in the general accuracy of the thing and faith in one own's understanding of God, but that is true for either view. The inerrant view provides certainty and a hand to hold.

David Palmer.
I appreciate your comments though I will not try to answer all of your points. The center of my problem is to do with the god we end up with when we begin our talk about God in terms of him being the creation of a thing, the cosmos. This is particularly dangerous for us who breath the air of natural science with its understanding of cause and effect and with our objectification of nature. When we begin thus it is too easy for us to arrive at a god who has to be an object in the universe like other objects. This god has to be a force or intelligence apart from human beings. It is then very difficult for us to know if this is a god of our own creation as the atheists quite rightly point out. If this is the case then this god becomes a factor in our equations and is at our disposal as an explanation. God loses his sovereignty. However, the bible tells us rather than us looking for god and finding him in nature God has turned towards us as one for whom no room was to be found and who was finally pushed out of the world by the lie that we tell about god. This radically changes our language about God. God can no longer be other in a supernatural way as in Greek religion but God meets us in the human as the other, indeed the other who is true man. This is the one who went into the far country of human estrangement and who suffered the full extent of that. You can see that we are already far from the kind of language that we would use if god were a factor in the big bang or in the evolutionary process. The meaningless of evolution is an aspect of human estrangement and cannot be covered by positing a god who is active in it.

My arguments against god being an active agent in evolution do not rely on the truth of the theory of evolution but on how the Christian tradition talks about its God. The new creation that comes about in Jesus is not a new creation of rocks and mountains and seas it is the new creation formed in those who have been raised from the death of the human lie, that very same lie that framed and murdered Jesus. We are dealing here not with a cosmogony that explains the coming into being of stars and planets but with the coming into being of the children of God, of the kingdom, of the end of history as the struggle for pre-eminence of one over the other in which the lion will lay down with the lamb etc. We may of course say that we believe that God is creator in both ways, of the thing and of human salvation but the importance of the former will inevitably suck the life out of the latter, especially in our time when natural science is so much in the ascendant.

I must modify one thing that I said. The creation is not ambivalent. While it is not a mind that can be conscious of our presence, it is good. Thus it is not demonic, it does not consciously marshal forces of evil against humankind, neither good. The rain falls on the good and on the evil. As the good creation it praises God.