Henry Stirs the Pot
March 31, 2006
Our own Henry Neufeld has placed himself in the thick of the fray in the ongoing Intelligent Design debate, this time arguing from a Christian theological perspective that ID is bad theology.
Henry's full article can be found on Threads from Henry's Web .
Why is ID bad theology and why is this assessment shared among even conservative Christian scholars? Neufeld explains:
"If you are wondering why there is a split amongst conservative Christians over ID, it is simply that many conservative Christians are saying either that this does not prove or that it is not even trying to prove anything that actually works within their theology."
Going further, he asserts, "I don’t accept ID precisely because I believe that the universe is designed."
I'm not going to do all your work for you; you'll have to read the article and come back and comment here and on his blog and well as on the Religion Forum. There is a lively discussion of the article there. In it, I responded to my friend:
Henry,
>>
I would say that while Paul
does say that one can find God through creation, he doesn't offer any
guarantee that we'll all find out everything, or that we'll get
everything right. I think "clear enough" would be a good equivalent
there.<<
My theology professor, Bill Hendricks, in his lecture on revelation,
said that God has not revealed everything about Himself, but what He
has revealed is true to who He is and adequate for us to know Him and
relate to Him.
All Paul really guaranteed in Romans 1 was that nature offered enough
revelation to point us toward "awe" "wonder" and that in human
rebellion, we rejected even that.
Psalm 19 is a two-parter in my view - the revelation through creation
which is adequate as a "call to worship," refined by the spoken word in
the second part of the Psalm that reveals even more information....
My own article on Romans 1:18-20
[on my Roman Road blog] is admittedly preachy and on a different vein - because it is,
afterall, the begining of a sermon I intend to preach on Sunday.
But it is a curious thing <g>
.
- Tom
ID is a hot button issue these days. More from me here. You can pick up my sermon and borrow as much as you like with proper attribution.