Saturday, May 22, 2010

Essential Tools for the Creationist - Part 1

[refer to some introductory comments here]

I have often asked myself, "What is it that God's people really need with respect to creation and evolution issues? What tools do they need in order to help them evaluate things like creation models and points of evolution from a Lutheran perspective?"

It is absolutely imperative that Christians begin by making certain fundamental distinctions in order to enable them to adequately assess creationist models and evolutionary viewpoints. Therefore, what is of great help to God's people is not necessarily providing a new creation model, but rather, and more importantly, providing a way of evaluating such models using distinctions.

Let's look at some distinctions which are essential to this evaluation process.

1) Thoroughly and persistently distinguish between scientific 1 issues and theological issues 2 .

This distinction is necessary because the answer will determine the criteria by which assertions and conclusions are to be properly evaluated. For example, the criteria by which we evaluate scientific assertions and conclusions would include such questions as: Is the hypothesis testable, measurable and repeatable? Is the phenomenon observable? Are the conclusions logical? On the other hand, the criterion by which we evaluate theological issues is the whole of Scripture as it is revealed to us in the Old and New Testaments.

When exposed to creation and evolution literature, Christians often find themselves asking only one question: "Is this right/wrong?" Rather, a better approach is to maintain the distinction between the scientific and the theological by asking two separate questions instead of only one, namely, "Is this conclusion theologically permissible?" and "Is this conclusion scientifically valid and logical?" This is a worthwhile practice because something that is theologically permissible may have more than one scientific opinion. It is even possible that two scientific opinions which are diametrically opposed to each other may both be theologically permissible.


1 I define "science" and "scientific" as they are commonly used, namely, that which is understood solely from observations and measurements of the natural, physical world around us.
2 There are differences in theological definitions among the different Christian denominations. This author takes the Lutheran Confessions, as expounded in the Book of Concord of 1580, as expressing the true doctrine of Scripture.