Comments on The BioLogos Statement on Adam and Eve

[Jonathan_Burke]

@dga471

Josh’s work isn’t purely scientific, nor theological - the originality lies in integrating the two, which is what PSCF articles are about.

But people had integrated the two. People have been integrating the two for a while.

[quote=“dga471, post:152, topic:5848”]
The point is that Josh is the one who has propelled GAE from merely being a reasonable suggestion, occasionally put forward, to one which interacts with the latest biblical, theological, and scientific data and is discussed as a “fifth option” in the debate.[/quote]

I think this is true within a narrow North American theological spectrum. There’s a whole planet out there in which other Christians have been way ahead on this issue for a very long time. This is why GAE wasn’t any surprise to me when I first heard it mentioned on Biologos. What really amazed me was that it took so long to appear there. Remember, North American evangelicals in general are still catching up to nineteenth century theologians on the matter of evolution. Even the original famous “Fundamentalists” were ahead of most North American Christian fundamentalists today.

@dga471

Epistemology is a matter of choice.

I didn’t say it wasn’t a matter of choice, I said it shouldn’t be a matter of preference. As I said, you shouldn’t think that you can just arbitrarily choose an epistemology, and then change it from one day to the next, as if every epistemology is equally valid. They aren’t equally valid.

@dga471

To start with, what are facts? Can you give a definition of what that word means?

Can you give a definition of what “what” means? I am really not into word games.

@dga471

That’s presupposing an all-encompassing Popperian methodology which is far from being obviously the only choice one can make, and certainly not one which most theologians would make

I don’t care what choice most theologians would make. I don’t look to most theologians in order to gain information about reality. What would they know?

@dga471

(To start with, many atheists would completely dispose of the idea of God based on precisely your statement here.)

Sure. Why not? I can’t make them believe in something that’s unfalsifiable. My belief in God is a matter of faith; based on evidence, but ultimately a matter of faith. I don’t claim it’s a scientific fact, or claim that it’s scientifically testable.

@dga471

Your statement could be completely reasonable to fellow scientists who commonly adopt that methodology, but it will fall on many deaf ears in the world of theology.

Suits me. I am more interested in actual reality than in deaf ears in the world of theology.

@dga471

Certainly if your wish is to continue using Biologos’ strategy, that is your choice.

This is the strategy which led medieval Christianity ex tenebris lux. It’s the strategy which helped differentiate Christianity from superstition during the most ignorant of times. It’s the strategy which gave us a host of shining stars, such as John Philoponus, Jean Buridan, Roger Bacon, the Oxford Calculators, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. It built the Scientific Revolution, and laid the foundation of the Enlightenment (I just realized you might think both of those were shockingly bad ideas).

This is a central thread in historic Christianity. And you dismiss it as “a naive, scientistic approach to theology” (!). I guess you do think the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment were bad thing. How dare Copernicus and Galileo contradict the Holy Church!

@dga471

PS is trying to do different things.

Yes indeed it is. Thank you for confirming their approach is not the Biologos approach.