Wheaton scholars pen textbook bridging the Bible to ‘mainline science’

Romans 1:18ff For the WRATH OF GOD is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness & unrighteousness of men who SUPPRESS THE TRUTH in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is EVIDENT WITHIN THEM BECAUSE GOD MADE IT EVIDENT TO THEM. For SINCE the creation of the world His INVISIBLE attributes, His eternal power & Divine nature, have been CLEARLY SEEN, BEING UNDERSTOOD THROUGH WHAT HAS BEEN MADE, SO THAT THEY ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE.

For even though they knew God, they did NOT HONOR HIM AS GOD OR GIVE HIM THANKS, but they became futile in their SPECULATIONS & their FOOLISH HEART WAS DARKENED.

Professing to be wise, they became fools & exchanged the GLORY of the incorruptible God for an image IN THE FORM OF CORRUPTIBLE MAN & of birds & four-footed animals & crawling creatures.

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. FOR THEY EXCHANGED THE TRUTH OF GOD FOR A LIE & WORSHIPED & SERVED THE CREATION RATHER THAN THE CREATOR, WHO IS BLESSED FOREVER. AMEN.

This is God's wrath & condemnation to those who have chosen to worship & serve the creation rather than the Creator. God created all things & continues to sustain His creation. But man's foolish heart has been darkened by his speculations that nature is more to be believed than the One who created all things. Those who do so will stand before God at judgment day with no excuse. God made it known within them & all around them in His creation.

May God have mercy & grant repentance & an acknowledging of the truth rather than believing a lie & not honoring God as the Creator & His Word as the truth.

Brightmoon said:

The Bible has been edited a lot, it’s not pristine. Corrupted is a decent description of what was done to the Bible. Nature is nature and humans are damaging it and natural phenomena is responding to that damage. Nature is not corrupt that’s just what it does and how it’s supposed to act

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Do you say that on the basis of research or some org. like talk origins that hasn't researched it either!

Yes there are bibles that are corrupt. And no the bible has not been edited alot. It has been translated many times form language to language and that while not diluting doctrine or keeps a person from a sasving relationship with Jesus, weakens impact of some passages from the original languages.

Brightmoon said:

. TL;DR. Michael Denton’s book is full of errors and no one in the science community took it seriously when it was written over a decade ago and certainly don’t take it seriously now

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Well seeing as you say his book "is FULL of errors, why don't yoou pick two that have been empirically shopwn to be error, not info made irrelevant by newer research, (then almost all of evolution is error), but just two!

mcarans said:

I think you may be missing the point. Rather than engaging in the usual science vs religion argument and inventing pseudoscientific explanations to explain where science disagrees with a literal reading of the Bible, instead they propose to read the Bible in light of mainstream understandings of science, which for a conservative college, that as I understand it once required faculty to sign some sort of theological statement that included statements against evolution, is quite a change.

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I think its good they are trying to reconcile science with religion.

Personally, I am more inclined towards Langdon Gilckey's understanding of the matter, that we cannot understand creation or fall in an historical sense, and in many ways this moves Christianity closer to eastern religions that are not based on affirming the goodness of finite existence in a positivistic sense.

hedrick said:

They're not entirely non-overlapping. Based on the best scientific and historical information, there was never an actual first pair of humans.

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We didn't even come from the same types of hominids, not just Homo sapiens but also Denisovans and Neanderthals, which aren't even the same species of human. Modern humanity is not actually uniform varying in genetic makeup to a small degree. This doesn't play out necessarily in antiquated racial theories, but it does raise the question if we can speak of an absolutely common humanity shared by everyone, if we don't have a uniform common ancestry. Perhaps it will force Christians to think of humanity as part of creation rather than distinct from it.

That doesn't mean that the idea that we're all morally imperfect is wrong, but I think it impacts theology to some extent.

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I think alot has to do with the legacy of Platonism and our notions of perfection.

I also think Christianity must grapple with the reality that our origins are found "beyond Good and Evil". The very things we see as bad, selfishness, for instance, contributed to our survival, and in many ways, preference for negativity and suffering are built into our biology (see the book Buddha's Brain for a discussion of this https://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Brai...uddha's+brain&qid=1560943429&s=gateway&sr=8-1 ).

Older dualisms don't help to understand this, necessarily.

Furthermore, as soon as you start looking at mainstream science, you're likely to look at mainstream archaeology and history as well, and find that many other stories in the OT, up to and including the Exodus, are not fully historical.

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Which has even more significant consequences than debates about Creationism vs. Evolution. Christianity looks very different once you realize that Old Testament religion just didn't fall down from the sky but was, like many other religions, the result of human culture. Old Testament religion isn't necessarily transcendent. And that actually puts much of the Bible on potentially equal footing with other religious traditions that don't claim a particularly special, unique revelation (such as Hinduism or Buddhism). So it's easier to understand why Protestant mainline liberalism is not such a great leap and is more of a logical conclusion- to focus on the universal aspects of religion rather than the particular (I actually think a huge problem is that many Christians have far too transcendent a notion of God- "God outside of man", instead of "God in man", and this creates alot of conflict in evangelical religion with developments in science and culture).

Tone said:

Romans 8
"21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time. 23Not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."

True.


*And this is the message that scientists should be getting...

**Whatever they believe they are seeing, it is not true unless they are seeing a "nature" that is suffering in an unnatural state.

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The universe is in a "decaying state" because mankind is intended to practice stewardship to maintain it, but abandoned that stewardship. Yet, God created the universe so perfectly that it has continued to glide on this long.

However, what the universe says is true, and what can be seen of the universe is true, because otherwise Romans 2 would be a lie and a crime.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Thus, creation tells the truth because it is the universal witness of God's existence and virtue, and the only witness most of humanity has had.

RDKirk said:

The universe is in a "decaying state" because mankind is intended to practice stewardship to maintain it, but abandoned that stewardship. Yet, God created the universe so perfectly that it has continued to glide on this long.

However, what the universe says is true, and what can be seen of the universe is true, because otherwise Romans 2 would be a lie and a crime.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Thus, creation tells the truth because it is the universal witness of God's existence and virtue, and the only witness most of humanity has had.

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I agree...it tells the truth about our need for restoration...does evolution agree?

mcarans said:

Mankind seems incapable of looking after the earth let alone the entire universe!

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My theory is that will be our eternal occupation--which is why the universe is so big.

RDKirk said:

My theory is that will be our eternal occupation--which is why the universe is so big.

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I've thought along these lines too...they say the universe is infinite. Maybe, this earth was made to be like a seed...to seed the entire cosmos with life. C.S. Lewis includes similar ideas in his series, The Space Trilogy - Wikipedia.

mcarans said:

Wheaton College (a conservative evangelical college) professors have penned what is believed to be the first college-level textbook outlining mainstream scientific theories on origins of life and how they fit within a biblical framework, something they say has been lacking in Christian higher education for decades.

“God created nature, He also gave Scripture...So theology is really designed to look at the data of Scripture, right? And science is designed to listen to the data of nature. Well, nature and scriptures shouldn't conflict because they’re both from God.”

Wheaton scholars pen first 'Origins' college textbook bridging the Bible to ‘mainline science’

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Unless I was able to read the textbook in question, I really cannot form a well-informed judgment. But one thing is for sure: Scripture and nature do not conflict despite well-crafted elaborate lies that have deceived many into thinking they do, thereby overthrowing the faith of many who once claimed to have followed Christ.