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This looks like a good place to start a discussion.... What we are going to discuss in this thread are the failings of creationism as Christianity. And, also, the danger creationism poses to Christianity.
....Francis Bacon.....and comments from statements made by creationists during the 1982 McClean vs Arkansas trial. The conclusion from both is the same: creationism is heresy.
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First thing to say is I agree that the theological discussion is more important than the scientific one in discussing creationism. But I am not sure that your choice of Francis Bacon and McLean v Arkansas did much for your case here. Francis Bacon was no theologian - he was an empiricist and materialist in his philosophy who left the religious all the more a profound a mystery for having debunked with scientific method the shallower myths that people used to buttress false faith. But as to what he had to say theologically - well very little that was profound really. Similarly the McLean v Arkansas is really about the view of the American constitution that religion and secular matters e.g education in a state funded school should be kept separate. This was a view that Bacon believed and a view many americans hold today but is hardly a distinctively global Christian view. The conclusion of the case was that the real reasons that creationists argued the scientific positions that they did were religious ones. As a Creationist I might be happy to concede that point and still consider the courts judgment a distinctively american cultural phenomena rather than a judgment that has any bearing on the ultimate validity of the Creationist position. The supreme court does not have the authority to rule on whether a religious position is heresy or not.
But more seriously I think you do Creationists an injustice in your argument and fail to consider that many Creationist like myself once held positions like your own and came in time to reject these views for profound theological reasons.
Also I think its a mistake to place TEs and Biblical Creationists in opposite camps.
We share a considerable amountof common ground.
1) God Created
2) God Created ex nihilo
3) God sustains all life.
We disagree on the details e.g
1) The age of the universe
2) The processes by which God created mankind and life generally.
3) Whether or not there was a literal Adam and Eve and the theological necessity of that.
Also to argue Creationism was heresy on a par with Gnosticism or Marcionism is stretching it a bit far. The historical churches and Orthodox Jews also all believed the universe was young, in special creation, original sin and a literal Adam and Eve and dated their calendars from a time in the last 6-10,000 years.
Some of the most serious theological issues with TEs are the following:
1) The nature and origin of sin
2) The apparent brutality and numbers of errors in the creation process over what seems an inordinant period of time. The questions that raises about evil and suffering.
3) The origin and progress of the different races relative to one another and their relative dignity
4) The apparent errors of New Testament commentators on OT realities while divinely inspired including the words of Jesus.
5) The nature of man in the Old Earth macroevolutionary timescale as an apparent late after thought rather than one made in the image of God.
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