So what to do with the Olivet discourse and Philippians 2? The kenosis of Jesus means that in some instances, and at some times, Jesus voluntarily gave up the use of some of the divine attributes. He, for instance, wasn’t omnipresent in the flesh, but he could have been. And in Matthew 24, he could choose to be omniscient regarding his return, but chose to give up the use of that omniscience, even though he retained it in character. To claim that Matthew 24 is a statement against any of Jesus’ omniscience is also to contradict Scripture, as evidenced of Jesus’ supernatural “seeing” of Nathanial in John 1.

So to review: since Jesus was at the Creation and performing it and all (Colossians 1), I think it’s reasonable to assume his omniscience while on earth, regarding this issue, is solid.

But this is way off topic, so I’ll quit.

I know, this is crazy-talk. But Jesus didn’t even think of himself as good (Mark 10:18). More crazy-talk. However, the bible is what it is, and I’d urge you to take it literally ;-)

Therefore, the Holy Spirit teaches the church that “straightforward” readings of our God-given text are not the definition of orthodoxy.

Correct interpretations come from the Holy Spirit. Honestly, they don’t even come from “the proper hermeneutic” or “a proper understanding of the literal sense of the author”, or any number of otherwise prudent ideas.

Children and the simple-minded benefit (i.e. are saved) by straightforward readings, because God is pleased to make learning look foolish. However, grown ups have to build upon those childish readings–not discarding them, but learning how deep an unfathomable are the truths behind them.

This is scary territory for the orthodox, because we all know that the demons love to say things like “move beyond the text” and “interpretive arc”, etc. However, Satan doesn’t attack us with unique methods. He just co-opts what is true. This should keep us from taking reactionary positions because of the unbelief of the liberals.

I’m confused. (no kidding).

So how then can Eve be said to have been the “mother of all living”?

Let me begin with some generalizations, keenly aware that generalizations always risk oversimplification. Nevertheless, we humans seem incapable of living without generalization. So, here’s how I would generalize the three camps and their relation to science:

• The creationist camp disregards science.
• The ID camp distorts science.
• Darwinists (or naturalists) idolize science.

Notice, there’s a fourth camp missing here. For lack of a better term, we’ll call this the “via media” (middle way) camp, positioned between the creationist pole that disregards science and the Darwinist pole that idolizes science. Karl Giberson says this camp simultaneously embraces “a science shorn of its over-reaching scientism and a faith freedom from a simplistic biblical literalism.”

BioLogos, another name for “via media,” “takes both the Bible and science seriously, and seeks a harmony between them that respects the truth of each. By using appropriate biblical and theological scholarship BioLogos believes that the apparent conflicts that lead some to reject science and others to reject the Bible can be avoided.” The big names in this camp include Francis Collins, John Polkinghorne, Kenneth Miller, Alister McGrath, Howard Van Till, Timothy Keller. Because we’re both Presbyterians, you’d care to know that Van Till and Keller are in the Reformed tradition.

It seems that the two of us belong here because we agree on at least two points: (1) Gen. 1 cannot be read as a literal account; and (2) the purpose of Gen. 1 is to proclaim the supremacy of Yahweh in the pagan world, not to communicate historical and scientific fact.

This “via media” camp is not necessarily committed to theistic evolution. See the following articles:

How is BioLogos different from Theistic Evolution, Intelligent Design and Creationism?

What role could God have in evolution?

At what point in the evolutionary process did humans attain the “Image of God”?

Did evolution have to result in human beings?

To be clear, I’m still in the early stages of exploring theistic evolution and its implications for Christian faith. So far, I’m sympathetic to the position as I understand it.

I agree that orthodox Christianity requires us to affirm the historical Adam, but I’m not aware that theistic evolution requires its denial. Here’s the official position at BioLogos: “Although BioLogos takes a firm stand on the fact that Adam and Eve could not have been the sole biological progenitors of all humans, science does not rule out the possibility of a historical Adam and Eve.” Go to the BioLogos Forum website and enter “Adam” in the search window and several articles will appear. I’ll highlight one article below:

How does the Fall fit into evolutionary history? Were Adam and Eve historical figures?

It seems like Enns is promoting a view of the Bible which defines inerrancy in terms of simple theology but rejects biblical veracity in the field of science (and usually by extension this includes history, archaeology, or fields of popular human secular study). This was certainly a liberal view, promoted in the 19th century, of the Bible that paved the way for many other ways to start distrusting the Bible.

Millard Erickson’s simple definition of inerrancy is simply that the Bible is truthful in all that it affirms.

These are two separate views. You seem to be taking the second view at times, merely stating that what Gen. 1 is affirming is different from a traditional interpretation. But Enns seems to be discounting the enterprise altogether, preferring rather to label various ways in which the Bible is authoritative and which ways it isn’t.

Do you disagree with Enns on this point or agree? It really really does matter, I think.

I do, however, strongly disagree with your assertion about ID. The implications of irreducible complexity, reverse engineering, and physics (heck, doesn’t the second law of thermodynamics point pretty strongly to a creation point?), and other scientific endeavors cannot possibly qualify as parascience. It’s an interesting parry, but I think the parascience claim falls flat if one actually reads the prolific writings of ID proponents. They’re doing science and real research, it’s just that they get shut out of academic journals because Darwinian naturalism has a tight hold on the flow of information.

I appreciate your rigorous look at proper biblical interpretation, but if Jesus thought Adam and Eve were real people (and I think this is a necessary orthodox position), then that’s good enough for me. He’s omniscient, after all. Longman tries to deal with this argument, but it’s weak.

I do not read Genesis 1 literally, but there’s not just 2 options: theistic evolution or 6-day creationism. I do read it as poetry that expresses simple creation fact: God created, it was orderly, and people are fundamentally different (different in degree and not just in kind) than everything else that is created. Theistic evolution can’t account for that simple observation. Humans are really really different from gorillas.

I could write so much more but I suppose we need to have that coffee. ;)

In context, doesn’t Augustine mean by this that since God does not inhabit time in the same way we do, He did not create THIS on one day and then THIS 24 hours later, etc.?

For God to take a “week” to accomplish something is, precisely, “too long a period of time.” If God exists outside of time, all of creation was accomplished outside of time as well–even though it then unfolds within time. I think that is Augustine’s point.

David Strunk: It’s nice to hear from you. Creationists and Christian ID proponents can be “lumped together” because, in Peter Enns’ words, they “share naïve views of what the Bible ‘ought’ to be, namely the notion that if the Bible is really the ‘Word of God,’ it will provide accurate historical and scientific information.” From their perspective, “If the Bible is not historically, even scientifically, accurate, then God is a ‘liar’ and there is no reason to trust him. The Word of God cannot make such huge factual errors. Based on this assumption, the scientific evidence is either ignored, marginalized, selectively appealed to, or re-interpreted to ease the tension.”

I share Enns’ view:

The Bible may not be of any value as a scientific conversation partner, but that has nothing — nothing — to do with the character of God or the Bible. And it certainly does not devalue the science/faith discussion as a whole…

Conservative Christians might respond, “The Bible can’t deal in ancient stories. It is the Word of God. It is different. It has to be at least consistent with science.” Not so fast. However different the Bible may be, intersecting with modern science is not the reason why. Many Christians understand that the Bible speaks in an ancient idiom and that we need to learn to ask its questions, not ours. False assumptions about the Bible erect a barrier to honest scientific investigation.

Where you say “ID proponents make scientific claims and arguments,” I reply that they are engaged in Marilynne Robinson calls “parascience,” defined here by David Bentley Hart as “a form of discourse whose rather grand, frequently incoherent, and usually irreducibly metaphysical assertions about the nature of the universe, the self, the genealogy of morality, and so on, masquerade as purely scientific claims.” The following resource was very instructive for me:

Kenneth R. Miller, “Darwin, God, and Dover: What the Collapse of ‘Intelligent Design’ Means for Science and Faith in America” (in The Religion and Science Debate: Why Does It Continue?, edited by Harold W. Attridge).

Pulling “Augustine into this fight” seems appropriate because he understood in his time what we should understand in our time: the creation story in Genesis should not be interpreted as primitive science. To do so is to wrench the words out of its immediate context and historical context, ignoring the genre of theological poetry (cf. Tremper Longman, Walter Brueggemann).

You say “we ought to be open and inviting to all possible arguments” but then conclude “evolutionary principles, even theistic evolution, is weak philosophy.” Is that openness? My exposure to creationists and ID proponents leaves me with the strong impression that their arguments are not only bad science but also bad hermeneutics and bad theology. When wrong questions are posed to Scripture, wrong answers inevitably result.

As I said in my previous post, “The Future of the Science and Religion Debate,” Christians can achieve a “synthetic middle ground” in the debate if they get a better handle on the vocations of science and religion and a more robust doctrine of creation.

ID proponents make scientific claims and arguments, evidenced by the fact that its proponents include Deists, Christians, Jews, and others- Anthony Flew is a great example. An ID argument is not a biblical argument or a theological argument, even if those scientific arguments have theological implications.

To pull Augustine into this fight seems a little disingenuous. Quite frankly, “general revelation” in this regard seems to be divided between people who considered all possible hypotheses (ID proponents) and those who prima facie reject certain hypotheses (naturalists reject the evidence for intelligence and complexity in design). There’s no slam dunk here in deciding who owns “general revelation” and its truth.

And besides the fact that we ought to be open and inviting to all possible arguments- which btw is precisely what you say about postmodernism- the arguments for change over time, life from non-life, and the neglect of the obvious difference of humans from the rest of the animal kingdom are weak. Evolutionary principles, even theistic evolution, is weak philosophy.

Consider reading Signs of Intelligence or Darwin’s Black Box.

As I have explained here, it has some congruence with biblical religion in its philosophical grounding and in its suggested outcome, but its methods are those of science.