From: callum@bain3.bain.oz.au (Callum Gibson)
Subject: Re: Creation & Evolution - the great side issue.
Organization: Bain & Company, Sydney, AUSTRALIA
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 23:59:29 GMT

r.kerr (kerr@redgum.ucnv.edu.au) wrote:
> In article <1992Aug25.232806.16414@bain3.bain.oz.au> callum@bain3.bain.oz.au (Callum Gibson) writes:
> >Greg Restall (gar@cltr.uq.oz.au) wrote:
> >> science.  That's scientism: the belief that once we have
> >> a scientific explanation for something, it's the only 
> >> explanation that counts.  This view is simply crazy, and
> >> it is our real opponent, IMHO.
> >I agree.  If CSF are engaged in scientism then they are just as much our
> >opponent as anyone.
> **BULLS EYE**
> 
> Let's hypothesise that natural selection accumulated over time actually
> _is_ how speciation occurs.
> 
> If God _had_ wanted that to be the point of Gen 1-3 how would He have
> described it to the prehistoric inhabitants of Palestine?
> 
> It wouldn't have looked anything like it does, would it?
> 
> So either we're barking up the wrong tree with Darwinian evolution or
> it's not the point of the story.

Or both?  I don't think the Genesis account was intended to be a scientific
record, but I do think it makes important points about man's original
relationship with God.  It is hard to understand original sin and the fall
without it, don't you think?  Because Gen 1-3 is not a scientific record
I don't have problems with it scientifically.  However, there may be
other claims that evolution makes, maybe not even part of the theory itself
but rather associated with it, that clash with our ideas of why we're here.
Those are things we have to be careful of.

> What is the point of the story?  If you'd asked Moses I suspect he would
> have said something like:
> 	"Well... We disobeyed God and now we find it hard to
> 	 know what He's like..."
> 
> Remember that the important bit of an oral tradition always comes at
> the end.  For instance, the parable of the Prodigal Son is not actually
> _about_ the prodigal.  It's about his older brother (read it in context,
> it was told to the Pharisees).  Now we can, if we like, draw some
> conclusions about God's treatment of us as prodigals but the first part
> of the story is not the point that Christ was trying to make.  It is, in
> some ways, irrelevant.  The detail of the first part (prostitutes and
> pig's swill) is doubly irrelevant.  If I were to force a major
> theological point from the detail in those verses I would be justly howled
> down.

So should we howl Paul down when he writes in Romans that sin entered the
world through one man, Adam, and likewise one Man, Christ, paid the price
for sin?  Paul makes some pretty major theological points in Romans, I'd
say.  Now, perhaps you exaggerate a bit in your illustration above, but while
we can't pick pieces out of stories, we can't ignore all that they say and
only take any notice of the end.

regards,
    Callum
-- 
Callum Gibson                           callum@bain3.bain.oz.au
Eyeball Temporary Analyst/Programmer    BH : +61 2 258 1620
Fixed Income Division                   Fax: +61 2 258 1128
Bain & CO, Sydney, Australia.           AH : :-)
Newsgroups: aus.religion