Having seen far better from vossler over the years, I find it hard to reconcile his recent post with his older ones. I will criticize the beliefs and try my best to avoid the motives: that's all I should say.
As most of you here know TEs are all over the map on their theology and doctrine. As a group its actually rather difficult to pin them down on much. This got me to thinking (to the point I couldn't sleep, hence this thread 
) what single thing, theologically speaking, binds them together.
Where is the link or thread that provides the fabric of the TE belief? This is something I've given a lot of thought to over the past few years and my theory came together while studying Genesis and reading a commentary.
You make it sound like diversity is a bad thing, vossler. If you come to my church (or any other healthy church) you will find people all over the map on their theology and doctrine. Some are hardboiled Calvinists, some are Arminian, some don't quite know and don't quite care. Some think it's alright to go to pubs and drink, socializing with non-Christians, and even think it's a little good; some say avoid beer like the devil (and not just because it tastes awful). Just two weeks ago my pastor preached a sermon on how Jesus was identifyable with us to the point where he said "Jesus was just an ordinary man like any of us." He was only saying something that has been in the Chalcedonian creed since the 4th century AD (sans, of course, a tremendous amount of clarification, for which I'd take him to task), but he said it in a very provocative way which would have left many scratching their heads.
Our church is diverse. As a group it's hard to pin them down on much. What could possibly be holding us together? What have all of us gotten so fundamentally wrong that we can't agree together on other stuff?
Hmm. I daresay perhaps, perchance, maybe, there's a one in a million possibility that Christians are held together by
Christ?
As you ruminate about the epistemological foundations of TEism (and I don't doubt that what you've said should provoke self-examination, as always), I hope you'll have the grace to leave room for thinking of us as fellow Christians. Our common faith is Christ-ianity, not creationianity, and I hope you will recognize that we forcefully hold on to the centrality of Christ as God incarnate and Christ as our Lord and Savior crucified for our sins. Maybe that's what holds us together as TEs; it's certainly what holds me together with you, despite our frequent, strident criticisms of each other's beliefs.
I came to the realization that almost without exception everything that is visible or scientifically explainable has more value to a TE than what is not. If there is any chance of something being scientifically explainable or viable, they as a general rule believe it. In other words, for the TE, seeing is believing.
This way of thinking works quite well within their belief system. Jesus, who isn't easily proven or disproven scientifically, is much easier to ascent to and believe in' because His deity and claims cannot be scientifically challenged. At least not without stepping out into an area where science doesn't play well, therefore their faith in Him cannot be easily empirically contested. However, Gods own Word, wherever possible is open to scientific interpretation and validation.
Consider carefully what you are saying. You say in the former paragraph that:
- "everything that is visible or scientifically explainable has more value to a TE than not"
and in the latter that:
- "Jesus, who isn't easily proven or disproven scientifically, is much easier to assent to and 'believe in' because His deity and claims can't be scientifically challenged"
But I think you may have misunderstood the nature of scientifically explicable things. Things that are scientifically explicable come with
falsifiable explanations; if Jesus can't be easily proven or disproven scientifically, then He is not scientifically explicable. Your theories disembowel themselves. Why do we bother believing in Jesus, then? If our game is really all about keeping to the straight road of the scientific and falsifiable, what on earth are we doing on the Christian detour? Paul said that Christ crucified is a stumbling block to Greek and Jew alike - to both scientific and superstitious, both the intellectual and the mystical.
If science is not our reason for believing in Jesus (and should, indeed, work
against us believing in Jesus), then what is? There are a few alternatives for you:
- We are simply "cultural Christians" or "second-generation Christians": we participate in the cultural trappings of Christianity but are not fundamentally convinced that Christ, God incarnate, died and rose from the dead for our sins and will return to judge us.
- We believe Jesus Christ for non-scientific reasons. In which case the most important and pivotal decision of our lives has been one conducted on entirely non-scientific reasons, and your thesis is in quite a bad shape of disrepair.
- We don't actually believe in Jesus Christ; we're just merciless pretenders who have countless hours free every day and choose to use them to masquerade as theologically complex TEs on CF.com to bedevil helpless Christians.
You do, of course, seem to grasp a little of the TE position, or else you wouldn't be employing the logical structure you employ. But still - have a think about what you think we believe, and maybe when you're convinced that you aren't quite sure you're right, I'll help correct things.
With that as my introduction, Genesis 3:6 becomes the basis for my theory on evolution.And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Here we have the first humans, Adam and Eve, failing their test of faith. They trusted in what they "saw" rather than believing what God saidHis wordsand became the first example of man choosing to walk by sight rather than by faith.
Humanity has had no problem since then following their example, thereby proving that Adam and Eve's faithlessness was not an aberration but a trait of every human heart, including ours. Were constantly, each and every one of us, looking for ways or things that either put us in control or promote the idea we are knowledgeable. Rather than submitting ourselves to our Creator and putting our faith in Him, were always looking for ways to gain control over our lives and our surroundings. I myself can attest to that.
So Adam and Eve chose to follow the faithless Satan rather than the faithful God. Satan was able to persuade them to focus on what they could see rather than what God said. This strategy was so successful that Satan has consistently used it on humanity ever since, with evolution being one of his best examples.
The problem TEs have however is what to do with Adam and Eve. If they were created as God said then everything else they believe about Genesis falls apart. So by making these first humans mythological figures or allegorical TEs are then able to side step this obvious problem and justify their disobedience.
I hope you had at least some qualms about postulating that the fundamental motivation of TEism is essentially the desire to dodge God's laws; I dare not speculate about your own motives. I can only answer:
If TEism is a logical system constructed to justify sin, why do so many TEs here remain utterly convinced of their thorough sinfulness?
Meet a few TEs, shake their hands, listen to what they have to say instead of declaring their beliefs for them. Again and again we have insisted, in relation to the issue of original sin, that "We don't need a literal Adam and Eve to know that we are sinful". In other words, TEs do not do away with Adam and Eve to expunge their guilt;
TEs feel justified to do away with Adam and Eve (wherever they feel compelled to) because it is unnecessary for their guilt. And even if allegorizing or mythologizing Adam and Eve seems, in your view, to marginalize them, it doesn't
to us. If you truly are trying to understand our motivations, then you need to try to see things through our eyes. Time and time again TEs have said that an allegorical, mythical or non-literal Adam and Eve are
more real to us, not
less: and if we're really trying to marginalize Adam and Eve, why on earth would we do it by making them
more, not
less real, to us? I hope you don't actually think us so hopelessly deluded!
vossler tries in some way to equate the seeing of Eve with the human quest for knowledge - "
Were constantly, each and every one of us, looking for ways or things that either put us in control or promote the idea we are knowledgeable." seems to equate the two, to identify the quest for knowledge with the hubristic desire for control. But is this really what the text states? The text merely tells us that Eve "saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes" - that's hardly a scientific judgment. Why, that seems like an
aesthetic judgment to me. It's like going down to the supermarket and choosing fruit: if you systematically draw up a list of possible things to measure about a fruit (firmness, size, color, texture, etc.) and over months of shopping build up a set of correlations between those measurements and the ripeness of a fruit, that's scientific. But that's certainly not what Eve did, and that's certainly not what I do: I go down to the store and look at a piece of fruit and think "hmm, that looks ok" based entirely on some silly internal standard of ok-ness for a fruit, and go back, and do whatever I want with it, and promptly forget all about how it turned out the next time I go down. (For Eve, of course, there wasn't a next time.)
But within the creationist belief matrix one has to ask:
why was the fruit "good for food and pleasant to the eyes"? After all, all things in the garden were very good, were they not? Why did the fruit stand out to Eve? Did it
really look better than all the others? The text does not say that the fruit actually
was good, merely that
the woman saw it as such; and we are given the key when we are told that she saw that it was "desired to make one wise". Now, how could she possibly know that? She'd never eaten of it before, and God hadn't told her that about it before. She'd been told it by the serpent. This is not, in other words, a conflict between
science and faith. It is a conflict between
faith in false authority and faith in true authority. Eve
believed the serpent that it was wise to possess the knowledge of good and evil, and she
believed the serpent that eating this fruit would grant her this knowledge: none of these were things she could scientifically know, but only believe if she had faith in the serpent instead of God.
And is the scientific quest for knowledge really nothing but this Promethean desire for control? Is the passion to know the universe really nothing more than a mission to overthrow God? Anyone who believes this has thrown his lot in with Dawkins and the rest of the militant atheists, and I have no sympathy for such epistemological sloppiness. What am
I doing then, on my path to becoming a scientist: am I interested in unraveling the mysteries of chemistry only because I want to exorcise God?
For heavens' sake (quite literally), no! The God of Christianity is bigger than that! If God created a good universe: and if God created the human mind to be capable of physically comprehending the physical universe: then utilizing the human mind to physically comprehend the physical universe is nothing more than doing what God intended for us all along. Indeed we see Scriptural indication that God intended that humans (with the guidance and aid of His special revelation) should be capable of discerning something of Him from creation; and if creation is qualified to say something of God "Creator of the rolling spheres / ineffably sublime", how can it not be infinitely more qualified to say something about itself?
You have welcomed dialogue with me in the past; I hope you will consider my input.
