I would like to suggest that we take more seriously what we read in Genesis 1 about God creating humans to be his image, particularly in the matter of "subduing the earth." This means that God wants us as humans to create our civilizations in such a way that they incorporate the virtues of God such as honesty, love, justice, truth, etc. in the way our culture functions. History is the process of our learning how to do that, so that the closer any culture gets to this standard the more godly it will be. African cultures need, as to all cultures, to be analyzed in this respect. How truthful, just, loving, etc is our culture? Christianity exists for that purpose, to disciple the nations, as Christ commands us.
In addition to your notes, there is another perspective to add.
God used the Church of the Middle Ages to convert the barbarian tribes of Europe, a process pretty well completed by about 1000 A.D.
Also, and important, these converted nations were discipled to the extent that they had changed their national output from destructive (of the Roman Empire) to constructive (the renaissance). This would not have happened had the church not disciplined them as it did. But now, having achieved a measure of spiritual maturity, many of these peoples no longer required the rather arbitrary disciplinary measures of the Middle Ages, and broke away much the same way as young people, disciplined by their parents, break away from home to make their own way in life. We should see God's hand in this process, using the efforts of the church of the medieval period to further his kingdom. See not only the human defects but also and more important the sovereign grace of God in giving direction to the process of human history in Europe.
It appears to me that this discussion is going nowhere between John and Roger. John appears to be the ultra-conservative and Roger appears to be the ultra-liberal. I find myself in disappointment with both. However, I do recognize that John might well see me as a liberal, and Roger might see me as too conservative. There would be good reason for both opinions.
I look at my stance as one foot in and one foot out. I am, after all, an emeritus minister of the CRC in good and regular standing, and that is important for me. When I function in a somewhat official capacity in that regard, I do try to stay within the Reformed fences; as for example the article in the Banner some time ago. I’m looking over the fence in that article but I haven’t jumped it. That being said, in my private life, in my retirement years, I exercise the freedom of following wherever the Lord leads, even if that should be on the other side of the Reformed fence. Which, I am forthright to say, is where I am in my private theological life.
I hear the Lord calling all of us to new horizons of truth and service, and I hear that message mainly from the scientific advances that are being made in recent times. All truth is God’s truth, however and wherever it may be found. When God calls it is our obligation to listen, to understand, and to obey. John points out that there are numerous unknown quantities in the scientific picture. I suppose that will always be the case. There will always be things we do not understand or know. But God gives us what we need to know in our own times and circumstances. And that is what he is doing now. God is calling us to listen to new insights into his truth, and is summoning us to follow its lead by the indwelling guidance of his Holy Spirit.
So that is why I may well appear to John as a raving liberal. I’m willing and ready to re-examine and redefine our entire theological system, retaining that which is necessary but scuttling what is not necessary. One person cannot do this adequately alone, so I am hoping and expecting that God will raise up better theologians than I to continue this work in the future.
But there is also a sense, and perhaps Roger senses it more than John, that I am trying too hard to hang onto outdated theological positions. For example, I am totally enamored of Genesis One, which I regard as the most important and influential document ever written. So I am doing my best to orient my forays into theology using the basic insights of that document as the pattern. I am discovering that the old horizons of ancient Jewish thought have been compromised to an alarming extent throughout the history of the Christian church, so much so that a great deal of what the ancient church defined as true theology is in fact a mixture of Jewish and pagan Greek philosophy. So I am of the confirmed opinion that we need to go back to the beginnings of a theistic and monotheistic pattern of thought, and to understand the sending of Jesus in that context, without the admixture of subsequent theological definitions from the ancient church.
So, to conclude, I see myself as more conservative than John and more liberal than Roger! Blessings on you both!
It's interesting where this discussion is going. Roger and John going at it together, following up on their own problems and insights.
As I recall, what triggered this exchange was some comments I made about the effect of a developmental process on our theology. We have wandered somewhat from that topic into items that have been debated for years, all the way back to Dort. Concerning Roger's idea that Paul and Jesus contradict each other - I have recently written a commentary on the Gospel of John and on the Book of Romans. I have found no contradiction whatever between the what John says about Jesus and what Paul writes. But now here is something else you might wish to chew on.
THE TRINITY. Ihave examined three distinct doctrines of trinity, that of the Apostles’ Creed, of the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds, and of neo-orthodoxy. There may well be others that have appeared here and there in the history of theology, with which I am not conversant. I have done my best to delineate and distinguish these three, and to push hard for a return to the basic Biblical viewpoint of the Apostles’ Creed.
God the Father is the creator of the heaven and the earth, the entire universe. He is and remains in absolute sovereign control over everything he has created, including not only the vast reaches of space but the ongoing process of human civilization. He therefore has a divine plan and purpose toward which he is guiding all things, and has produced a human race to effectuate that purpose. That human race has emerged slowly out of animal origins and is slowly learning how to live as images of God.
We find ourselves in the twenty-first century at a certain place in that historical development, one which we can easily recognize as a definite improvement over sheer animality but nowhere near the perfection of humanity that God intends. So we need to accept that vision, learn as best we can from what God has been showing us how to live and how to proceed. We must not become mired in the past or in the present, but recognize that we are in process, on a journey, toward a destination, and therefore that we need to be open to the constant nudging and and prodding of God through whatever means he chooses to speak.
Jesus the Son, the second person of the trinity, is and remains the touchstone of our faith. It is he, both in his life and in his teaching, who is the constant reference point of truth and life. He incarnates the absolute best of what God wants from the entire human race. He is the Man who incarnates perfectly what Genesis One pictures first as adam, created to image God in its subjugation of the earth. There is no other such person. Only Jesus, born miraculously of the virgin Mary such that he is not only the Son of God but also the Son of Man, born of a woman. Jesus meets temptation and overcomes it. He understands people who do not know very well what it means to serve the Lord God. He puts himself at their disposal such that he allows them to execute him on the cross. He also puts himself at the disposal of God in heaven such that he trusts the creator to raise him from the dead. Having done all he could in one human life he ascends into the clouds, gone forever, leaving the field to his and God’s Spirit.
The Holy Spirit. So we understand that God the Father is now exercising his divine control and sovereign direction of history by means of what his Son Jesus has done on earth. That is, by means of the gospel and the church of Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. What God sent Jesus to accomplish is now being carried on by those who believe in Jesus and who follow him as best they can. It is always God’s purpose and God’s instruction and God’s guidance that is in control, but since the time of Jesus this purpose of God is channeled through what Jesus has done and revealed, and thus by the Holy Spirit working in committed Christian believers.
But it is of paramount importance to keep our understanding of this process in Genesis perspective. That is, of the explanation that humans are to subdue the earth and gain dominion over it in such a way as to image God in that process. We are talking here of human civilization. God’s desire is that we humans create a civilization, all of it, in such a way that the virtues of truth and love and justice and all around goodness characterizes all of our politics, economics, education, health services, business, and everything else that we do collectively. All of us, not just the church, but the entire human race. That’s the work of the gospel, of the church, to bring about that kind of civilization. So that, let us confess, is the work of the Holy Spirit, the third item in the Christian trinity.
John, You ask, “Your perpective on the human race slowly learning to live as images of God.... where do you get that from?” Answer: Genesis 1-3, the rest of the Bible, and history. What Genesis One tells us about the image of God and the cultural mandate means that God intends to have a human race that subdues the earth as his image. Then Genesis Three tells us that God is not getting it from the humans he brought into existence. Then the rest of the Bible tells us what God is doing to bring the human race along, step by step, in the direction of what he wants f rom us. First Abraham taken out of the polytheistic culture of Babylon. Then the nation of Israel to be shaped into a holy nation by the Torah given to Moses at Mount Sinai. Then David and Solomon to typify something of the kingdom of God. Then the Babylonian Captivity to eradicate all vestiges of idolatry. Then Jesus to begin the process of expanding the work of salvation to all nations. And so on till our times when the gospel continues to draw people from all nations into the kingdom of God. Wherever large numbers of people follow the Lord Jesus, there we see significant advances in people working for justice, truth, integrity and all kinds of virtues that image God. The result can be seen by comparing the best of Christian civilization with any and all other civilizations.
John, you cite the imperfections that still plague us, but you should be concentrating on the huge advances we have made, or better, that God has made in the human world, recognizing that the evil that exists is still there for us to overcome by the help of the Spirit of God. But always go back to Genesis One to define the goal toward which God is leading us, and do not belittle the effectiveness of the gospel in history. Consider that it was the gospel that changed the barbarian tribes that overran the Roman Empire from marauding destroyers to the creators of a magnificent new civilization beginning in Europe. Don’t despise the real beginnings and the real progress that God has made in shaping the world as he wishes it to become. God’s work is a work in progress.
You both are surprised that I think God is succeeding in making the human race better. You point out a long list of evils, seemingly proving that we are getting worse instead of better. May I suggest that you have clearer eyes to see what Satan is doing than what God is doing? The evils you point out highlight the task that remains to be done, but it does nothing to delineate the progress the gospel is making.
Recall that Jesus said, prior to his ascension, that all authority in heaven and on earth belongs now to him. If the world is getting worse instead of better, would this not negate Jesus’ affirmation? We say now that Jesus sits at God’s right hand. What do you think that means? It means that God, who has absolute authority over everything he has created, is now exercising that authority by means of his “right hand man” Jesus, that is, by the gospel preached by the church and effectuated by the Holy Spirit.
Then, when we put all that in the context of Genesis One, image of God and cultural mandate, we see that God is slowly getting us, the human race, to learn how to be the humans God wants us to become. That includes everything we do, not only as individuals but also as nations and as an entire human race. Actually, it is precisely in the effect of the gospel on our cultural institutions that we must learn to see the power of Christ at work, not only in our personal lives. Are the United States and Canada more just societies than ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome? How can you doubt it? That is because the gospel has had enormous effect in transforming our barbarian ancestors in Europe into the constructive nations of the western world. The evils you point out, accordingly, point to the task remaining to be done.
Another item on a somewhat different tack. God is calling us today in the twenty-first century to listen to what he is saying via the scientific community. John, you are concerned with the gaps in scientific knowledge, rightly perhaps, but we need to listen when such matters as the age of the universe, the construction of the planets, the appearance of life, the provenance of the human race, and other dramatic breakthroughs such as the genome list – when these things are demonstrated to be true. I personally believe we need to adopt an entirely different paradigm around which to reconstruct our theology, a paradigm of developmentalism. You will both recognize that if we do that, then the notion of God guiding us into a better and better life by means of the gospel makes a lot more sense.
Item # 1. 1) The author </em>(Walhout<em>) frames the whole thing in a reading of history that is simply inaccurate. Purgatory, indulgences, relics, etc. did not form the "backbone of Christianity" 500 years ago. When these became too important, the Reformation happened. To put creation, sin and salvation (think Apostles Creed) on par with these is simply wrong.
Response. I believe in creation, sin and salvation. I also believe in the Apostles’ Creed. I would not put the items mentioned “on a par with” more important doctrines. I am simply affirming that the time has come when God is asking us to re-examine our traditional formulations in the light of scientific discoveries, and if found defective, to improve them. Who knows, it may even result in another upheaval the size of the Reformation?
Item # 2. 2) Apart from the concluding blurb from a synodical report, Walhout fails to mention anything about how the church has already been wrestling with these issues for the past 150 years. This includes the various ways Genesis 1 has been interpreted well before Darwin came along, the numerous scholars who have described Adam and Eve as the representative head of the human race, and the work of scholars today in wrestling with these questions (i.e. books and articles by the Haarsmas at Calvin College).
Response. It is because I have read these and similar books and articles that I have come to the conclusions I have. There isn’t room in one Banner article to summarize all that; I articulated the insights that such documents have suggested to me.
Item # 3. 3) This article lacks helpful distinctions, such as the difference between evolution and naturalism, which help us ask and answer the important questions.
Response. What one person considers “the important questions” will probably vary from person to person. I addressed those that were important to me, and in my judgment important for the church as a whole to address. To expose what the article does not do may help some, but it would be much more helpful to address the items it does propose (as in the next item #4).
Item # 4. 4) He does suggest evolutionary theory calls for a reworking of doctrines like creation, sin and salvation. About sin, he says, "We will have to find a much better way of understanding what sin is, where it comes from, and what its consequences are. Theologians will have to find a new way of articulating a truly biblical doctrine of sin and what effect it has on us." In other words, evolutionary theory will enable theologians to be true to the Bible in our theological articulations. The implication being that now we will really understand the Bible. I think the problems in this are obvious. I am a bit floored that anyone in this forum might suggest that sin and salvaiton are not core doctrines of the Christian faith.
Response. I did not suggest that sin and salvation are not core doctrines of the Christian faith. They are. I simply suggested that we may need to find a better way of understanding them. The paradigm of developmentalism will help us to do that.
Item # 5. 5) The author makes a prediction about the future, a prophetic claim, if you will. If history teaches us anything, it teaches us that we humans with our best sciences cannot predict the future. Unless Walhout received this from God himself (including being from Scripture), he should not put this forward as something that will inevitably happen. Being a false prophet is a serious matter in the Bible."
Response. What prediction is he talking about? That people a millennium from now might look back on our times with amazement? If so, I do plead guilty. It’s interesting that he says history teaches us we cannot predict the future, but in this case I am pleading the actual precedent of history, the exact opposite of what my critic suggests! From where did I receive this? Where does anyone receive truth from? All truth is from God. So, in so far as my article is truthful, of course it comes from God. I think he misread the article if he says that I am predicting that it “will inevitably happen.” It appears to me that it will happen, but this is a far cry from inevitability. And his last comment. Indeed it is a serious matter to be a false prophet. However, perhaps my critic should raise a mirror. What if it turns out I am right and he is wrong? Would that make him the false prophet?
You know, John, it is only of secondary importance for you to understand me or for me to understand you; what is of primary importance is for us together to understand God. I am hearing God speak to us via the scientific community, and, frankly, you appear reluctant to listen. You appear to be listening to what God said to our forefathers centuries ago but to be closing your ears to what God is saying to us now. Is it so strange that God might be asking us to move ahead in our thinking and in our obedience? You would not be wanting to close your ears if that were so.
John, I apologize for the suggestion that you may not be listening to God. I did not intend to insult you, but I guess I did. You have a much right to say the same of me from your point of view. For whatever good it might do, I withdraw the comment. I’m sorry for it. We are all trying our best to listen for the truth that God has for us.
Further, I have nothing whatever to say in reply to your scientific insights. I have no expertise whatever in that field. I can only say I have been convinced by what Van Till wrote back in the early nineties and what the two Calvin profs wrote in the scientific journal a couple of years ago, and what I heard from a biologist about chimpanzees being 97% the same genetically as humans.
My concern is theology and Bible interpretation. And I do see progress, development, in the Bible. Genesis One describes the successive stages in the creation, moving step by step toward the shaping of the world as God wanted it to be. Each day’s work presupposes the work of the preceding day. That’s development, is it not?
Similarly the work of God in shaping the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. Abraham was called out of the polytheism of Babylon into monotheism, the one only God of Israel, Yahweh. That’s a good and necessary development. God gave Israel the Torah at Mount Sinai; that too is a step forward for them, shaping a coherent nation out of a group of slaves. The return from Babylonian captivity was also an advance, once for all eliminating idolatry from the people.
I think we need to see also that the ministry of Jesus is also a step forward in God’s plan to save the world, the extension of the gospel to all nations, not merely to the Jews. So I see also this same process continuing as the gospel overcomes all obstacles in the ancient Roman empire, resulting in 390 in Emperor Theodosius declaring Christianity to be the only legal religion in the empire. That’s progress, development. Then look at what the gospel did for the barbarian tribes that overran the empire. It transformed them from destructive to constructive, producing the beginnings of the western civilization which we have inherited.
You have constantly pointed out the failures and inadequacies and evils that still plague us. Nobody denies that. But for myself I keep looking at what God has done and what he is continuing to do, and I am confident that the work he has begun he will continue to do until such time as he determines will be the telos toward which he guides all things.
God’s work has encountered major setbacks all throughout history, but God always has a way of using those setbacks as the occasion for making a major step forward in his plan to get us as a human race to greater obedience. We can have all confidence that God will use the evil things you mention in order to have us rebound from them into a better world. That’s what I believe with all my heart. This is God’s world, not the devil’s.
John, You write at the end, "But this is not a biological evolution. This is a spiritual renewal, a being born again, a dedication to God, and a fulfillment of God’s promise. It is wrong to conflate this with evolution in which God plays no visible role, or in which God cannot intervene.<"/p> I trust that you are not suggesting I am defending a concept of evolution in which God plays no role. I am suggesting that the process of the physical development of the universe since the beginning of time can be characterized as the way God has brought the world to the condition it is in today, and that this guidance, this sovereign control, applies as well to the control of human history as well, all of this working steadily toward the telos God has in mind for the future.
John, in your last sentence you speak of "undirected macro-evolution." But what about "directed macro-evolution?" Directed of course by the Creator God as in Genesis One and throughout the Bible. Which, to my unscientific mind, would be what appears to be truthful Biblically. Do you suppose God could have employed such a developmental method to bring the world and the human race to the point at which we are today? My theological concern has been what effect, if any, would such a development have on our traditional theological definitions. There doesn't seem to be a meeting of the minds on that point.
Posted in: Purposefully Putting Culture Before Christ
I would like to suggest that we take more seriously what we read in Genesis 1 about God creating humans to be his image, particularly in the matter of "subduing the earth." This means that God wants us as humans to create our civilizations in such a way that they incorporate the virtues of God such as honesty, love, justice, truth, etc. in the way our culture functions. History is the process of our learning how to do that, so that the closer any culture gets to this standard the more godly it will be. African cultures need, as to all cultures, to be analyzed in this respect. How truthful, just, loving, etc is our culture? Christianity exists for that purpose, to disciple the nations, as Christ commands us.
Edwin Walhout
Posted in: Can You Recommend a Good Devotional?
You can find a few more at www.edwinwalhout.com; on the book of Revelation, or the Psalms, or a few theological topics.
Posted in: Reformation Reflections
In addition to your notes, there is another perspective to add.
God used the Church of the Middle Ages to convert the barbarian tribes of Europe, a process pretty well completed by about 1000 A.D.
Also, and important, these converted nations were discipled to the extent that they had changed their national output from destructive (of the Roman Empire) to constructive (the renaissance). This would not have happened had the church not disciplined them as it did. But now, having achieved a measure of spiritual maturity, many of these peoples no longer required the rather arbitrary disciplinary measures of the Middle Ages, and broke away much the same way as young people, disciplined by their parents, break away from home to make their own way in life. We should see God's hand in this process, using the efforts of the church of the medieval period to further his kingdom. See not only the human defects but also and more important the sovereign grace of God in giving direction to the process of human history in Europe.
Edwin Walhout
Posted in: My Banner Article
It appears to me that this discussion is going nowhere between John and Roger. John appears to be the ultra-conservative and Roger appears to be the ultra-liberal. I find myself in disappointment with both. However, I do recognize that John might well see me as a liberal, and Roger might see me as too conservative. There would be good reason for both opinions.
I look at my stance as one foot in and one foot out. I am, after all, an emeritus minister of the CRC in good and regular standing, and that is important for me. When I function in a somewhat official capacity in that regard, I do try to stay within the Reformed fences; as for example the article in the Banner some time ago. I’m looking over the fence in that article but I haven’t jumped it. That being said, in my private life, in my retirement years, I exercise the freedom of following wherever the Lord leads, even if that should be on the other side of the Reformed fence. Which, I am forthright to say, is where I am in my private theological life.
I hear the Lord calling all of us to new horizons of truth and service, and I hear that message mainly from the scientific advances that are being made in recent times. All truth is God’s truth, however and wherever it may be found. When God calls it is our obligation to listen, to understand, and to obey. John points out that there are numerous unknown quantities in the scientific picture. I suppose that will always be the case. There will always be things we do not understand or know. But God gives us what we need to know in our own times and circumstances. And that is what he is doing now. God is calling us to listen to new insights into his truth, and is summoning us to follow its lead by the indwelling guidance of his Holy Spirit.
So that is why I may well appear to John as a raving liberal. I’m willing and ready to re-examine and redefine our entire theological system, retaining that which is necessary but scuttling what is not necessary. One person cannot do this adequately alone, so I am hoping and expecting that God will raise up better theologians than I to continue this work in the future.
But there is also a sense, and perhaps Roger senses it more than John, that I am trying too hard to hang onto outdated theological positions. For example, I am totally enamored of Genesis One, which I regard as the most important and influential document ever written. So I am doing my best to orient my forays into theology using the basic insights of that document as the pattern. I am discovering that the old horizons of ancient Jewish thought have been compromised to an alarming extent throughout the history of the Christian church, so much so that a great deal of what the ancient church defined as true theology is in fact a mixture of Jewish and pagan Greek philosophy. So I am of the confirmed opinion that we need to go back to the beginnings of a theistic and monotheistic pattern of thought, and to understand the sending of Jesus in that context, without the admixture of subsequent theological definitions from the ancient church.
So, to conclude, I see myself as more conservative than John and more liberal than Roger! Blessings on you both!
Edwin Walhout
Posted in: My Banner Article
It's interesting where this discussion is going. Roger and John going at it together, following up on their own problems and insights.
As I recall, what triggered this exchange was some comments I made about the effect of a developmental process on our theology. We have wandered somewhat from that topic into items that have been debated for years, all the way back to Dort. Concerning Roger's idea that Paul and Jesus contradict each other - I have recently written a commentary on the Gospel of John and on the Book of Romans. I have found no contradiction whatever between the what John says about Jesus and what Paul writes. But now here is something else you might wish to chew on.
THE TRINITY. Ihave examined three distinct doctrines of trinity, that of the Apostles’ Creed, of the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds, and of neo-orthodoxy. There may well be others that have appeared here and there in the history of theology, with which I am not conversant. I have done my best to delineate and distinguish these three, and to push hard for a return to the basic Biblical viewpoint of the Apostles’ Creed.
God the Father is the creator of the heaven and the earth, the entire universe. He is and remains in absolute sovereign control over everything he has created, including not only the vast reaches of space but the ongoing process of human civilization. He therefore has a divine plan and purpose toward which he is guiding all things, and has produced a human race to effectuate that purpose. That human race has emerged slowly out of animal origins and is slowly learning how to live as images of God.
We find ourselves in the twenty-first century at a certain place in that historical development, one which we can easily recognize as a definite improvement over sheer animality but nowhere near the perfection of humanity that God intends. So we need to accept that vision, learn as best we can from what God has been showing us how to live and how to proceed. We must not become mired in the past or in the present, but recognize that we are in process, on a journey, toward a destination, and therefore that we need to be open to the constant nudging and and prodding of God through whatever means he chooses to speak.
Jesus the Son, the second person of the trinity, is and remains the touchstone of our faith. It is he, both in his life and in his teaching, who is the constant reference point of truth and life. He incarnates the absolute best of what God wants from the entire human race. He is the Man who incarnates perfectly what Genesis One pictures first as adam, created to image God in its subjugation of the earth. There is no other such person. Only Jesus, born miraculously of the virgin Mary such that he is not only the Son of God but also the Son of Man, born of a woman. Jesus meets temptation and overcomes it. He understands people who do not know very well what it means to serve the Lord God. He puts himself at their disposal such that he allows them to execute him on the cross. He also puts himself at the disposal of God in heaven such that he trusts the creator to raise him from the dead. Having done all he could in one human life he ascends into the clouds, gone forever, leaving the field to his and God’s Spirit.
The Holy Spirit. So we understand that God the Father is now exercising his divine control and sovereign direction of history by means of what his Son Jesus has done on earth. That is, by means of the gospel and the church of Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. What God sent Jesus to accomplish is now being carried on by those who believe in Jesus and who follow him as best they can. It is always God’s purpose and God’s instruction and God’s guidance that is in control, but since the time of Jesus this purpose of God is channeled through what Jesus has done and revealed, and thus by the Holy Spirit working in committed Christian believers.
But it is of paramount importance to keep our understanding of this process in Genesis perspective. That is, of the explanation that humans are to subdue the earth and gain dominion over it in such a way as to image God in that process. We are talking here of human civilization. God’s desire is that we humans create a civilization, all of it, in such a way that the virtues of truth and love and justice and all around goodness characterizes all of our politics, economics, education, health services, business, and everything else that we do collectively. All of us, not just the church, but the entire human race. That’s the work of the gospel, of the church, to bring about that kind of civilization. So that, let us confess, is the work of the Holy Spirit, the third item in the Christian trinity.
Edwin Walhout
Posted in: My Banner Article
John, You ask, “Your perpective on the human race slowly learning to live as images of God.... where do you get that from?” Answer: Genesis 1-3, the rest of the Bible, and history. What Genesis One tells us about the image of God and the cultural mandate means that God intends to have a human race that subdues the earth as his image. Then Genesis Three tells us that God is not getting it from the humans he brought into existence. Then the rest of the Bible tells us what God is doing to bring the human race along, step by step, in the direction of what he wants f rom us. First Abraham taken out of the polytheistic culture of Babylon. Then the nation of Israel to be shaped into a holy nation by the Torah given to Moses at Mount Sinai. Then David and Solomon to typify something of the kingdom of God. Then the Babylonian Captivity to eradicate all vestiges of idolatry. Then Jesus to begin the process of expanding the work of salvation to all nations. And so on till our times when the gospel continues to draw people from all nations into the kingdom of God. Wherever large numbers of people follow the Lord Jesus, there we see significant advances in people working for justice, truth, integrity and all kinds of virtues that image God. The result can be seen by comparing the best of Christian civilization with any and all other civilizations.
John, you cite the imperfections that still plague us, but you should be concentrating on the huge advances we have made, or better, that God has made in the human world, recognizing that the evil that exists is still there for us to overcome by the help of the Spirit of God. But always go back to Genesis One to define the goal toward which God is leading us, and do not belittle the effectiveness of the gospel in history. Consider that it was the gospel that changed the barbarian tribes that overran the Roman Empire from marauding destroyers to the creators of a magnificent new civilization beginning in Europe. Don’t despise the real beginnings and the real progress that God has made in shaping the world as he wishes it to become. God’s work is a work in progress.
Edwin Walhout
Posted in: My Banner Article
John and Roger,
You both are surprised that I think God is succeeding in making the human race better. You point out a long list of evils, seemingly proving that we are getting worse instead of better. May I suggest that you have clearer eyes to see what Satan is doing than what God is doing? The evils you point out highlight the task that remains to be done, but it does nothing to delineate the progress the gospel is making.
Recall that Jesus said, prior to his ascension, that all authority in heaven and on earth belongs now to him. If the world is getting worse instead of better, would this not negate Jesus’ affirmation? We say now that Jesus sits at God’s right hand. What do you think that means? It means that God, who has absolute authority over everything he has created, is now exercising that authority by means of his “right hand man” Jesus, that is, by the gospel preached by the church and effectuated by the Holy Spirit.
Then, when we put all that in the context of Genesis One, image of God and cultural mandate, we see that God is slowly getting us, the human race, to learn how to be the humans God wants us to become. That includes everything we do, not only as individuals but also as nations and as an entire human race. Actually, it is precisely in the effect of the gospel on our cultural institutions that we must learn to see the power of Christ at work, not only in our personal lives. Are the United States and Canada more just societies than ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome? How can you doubt it? That is because the gospel has had enormous effect in transforming our barbarian ancestors in Europe into the constructive nations of the western world. The evils you point out, accordingly, point to the task remaining to be done.
Another item on a somewhat different tack. God is calling us today in the twenty-first century to listen to what he is saying via the scientific community. John, you are concerned with the gaps in scientific knowledge, rightly perhaps, but we need to listen when such matters as the age of the universe, the construction of the planets, the appearance of life, the provenance of the human race, and other dramatic breakthroughs such as the genome list – when these things are demonstrated to be true. I personally believe we need to adopt an entirely different paradigm around which to reconstruct our theology, a paradigm of developmentalism. You will both recognize that if we do that, then the notion of God guiding us into a better and better life by means of the gospel makes a lot more sense.
Edwin Walhout
Posted in: My Banner Article
John, you want me to respond. OK.
Item # 1. 1) The author </em>(Walhout<em>) frames the whole thing in a reading of history that is simply inaccurate. Purgatory, indulgences, relics, etc. did not form the "backbone of Christianity" 500 years ago. When these became too important, the Reformation happened. To put creation, sin and salvation (think Apostles Creed) on par with these is simply wrong.
Response. I believe in creation, sin and salvation. I also believe in the Apostles’ Creed. I would not put the items mentioned “on a par with” more important doctrines. I am simply affirming that the time has come when God is asking us to re-examine our traditional formulations in the light of scientific discoveries, and if found defective, to improve them. Who knows, it may even result in another upheaval the size of the Reformation?
Item # 2. 2) Apart from the concluding blurb from a synodical report, Walhout fails to mention anything about how the church has already been wrestling with these issues for the past 150 years. This includes the various ways Genesis 1 has been interpreted well before Darwin came along, the numerous scholars who have described Adam and Eve as the representative head of the human race, and the work of scholars today in wrestling with these questions (i.e. books and articles by the Haarsmas at Calvin College).
Response. It is because I have read these and similar books and articles that I have come to the conclusions I have. There isn’t room in one Banner article to summarize all that; I articulated the insights that such documents have suggested to me.
Item # 3. 3) This article lacks helpful distinctions, such as the difference between evolution and naturalism,
which help us ask and answer the important questions.
Response. What one person considers “the important questions” will probably vary from person to person. I addressed those that were important to me, and in my judgment important for the church as a whole to address. To expose what the article does not do may help some, but it would be much more helpful to address the items it does propose (as in the next item #4).
Item # 4. 4) He does suggest evolutionary theory calls for a reworking of doctrines like creation, sin and salvation. About sin, he says, "We will have to find a much better way of understanding what sin is, where it comes from, and what its consequences are. Theologians will have to find a new way of articulating a truly biblical doctrine of sin and what effect it has on us." In other words, evolutionary theory will enable theologians to be true to the Bible in our theological articulations. The implication being that now we will really understand the Bible. I think the problems in this are obvious. I am a bit floored that anyone in this forum might suggest that sin and salvaiton are not core doctrines of the Christian faith.
Response. I did not suggest that sin and salvation are not core doctrines of the Christian faith. They are. I simply suggested that we may need to find a better way of understanding them. The paradigm of developmentalism will help us to do that.
Item # 5. 5) The author makes a prediction about the future, a prophetic claim, if you will. If history teaches us anything, it teaches us that we humans with our best sciences cannot predict the future. Unless Walhout
received this from God himself (including being from Scripture), he should not put this forward as something that will inevitably happen. Being a false prophet is a serious matter in the Bible."
Response. What prediction is he talking about? That people a millennium from now might look back on our times with amazement? If so, I do plead guilty. It’s interesting that he says history teaches us we cannot predict the future, but in this case I am pleading the actual precedent of history, the exact opposite of what my critic suggests! From where did I receive this? Where does anyone receive truth from? All truth is from God. So, in so far as my article is truthful, of course it comes from God. I think he misread the article if he says that I am predicting that it “will inevitably happen.” It appears to me that it will happen, but this is a far cry from inevitability. And his last comment. Indeed it is a serious matter to be a false prophet. However, perhaps my critic should raise a mirror. What if it turns out I am right and he is wrong? Would that make him the false prophet?
Edwin Walhout
Posted in: My Banner Article
You know, John, it is only of secondary importance for you to understand me or for me to understand you; what is of primary importance is for us together to understand God. I am hearing God speak to us via the scientific community, and, frankly, you appear reluctant to listen. You appear to be listening to what God said to our forefathers centuries ago but to be closing your ears to what God is saying to us now. Is it so strange that God might be asking us to move ahead in our thinking and in our obedience? You would not be wanting to close your ears if that were so.
Edwin Walhout
Posted in: My Banner Article
John, I apologize for the suggestion that you may not be listening to God. I did not intend to insult you, but I guess I did. You have a much right to say the same of me from your point of view. For whatever good it might do, I withdraw the comment. I’m sorry for it. We are all trying our best to listen for the truth that God has for us.
Further, I have nothing whatever to say in reply to your scientific insights. I have no expertise whatever in that field. I can only say I have been convinced by what Van Till wrote back in the early nineties and what the two Calvin profs wrote in the scientific journal a couple of years ago, and what I heard from a biologist about chimpanzees being 97% the same genetically as humans.
My concern is theology and Bible interpretation. And I do see progress, development, in the Bible. Genesis One describes the successive stages in the creation, moving step by step toward the shaping of the world as God wanted it to be. Each day’s work presupposes the work of the preceding day. That’s development, is it not?
Similarly the work of God in shaping the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. Abraham was called out of the polytheism of Babylon into monotheism, the one only God of Israel, Yahweh. That’s a good and necessary development. God gave Israel the Torah at Mount Sinai; that too is a step forward for them, shaping a coherent nation out of a group of slaves. The return from Babylonian captivity was also an advance, once for all eliminating idolatry from the people.
I think we need to see also that the ministry of Jesus is also a step forward in God’s plan to save the world, the extension of the gospel to all nations, not merely to the Jews. So I see also this same process continuing as the gospel overcomes all obstacles in the ancient Roman empire, resulting in 390 in Emperor Theodosius declaring Christianity to be the only legal religion in the empire. That’s progress, development. Then look at what the gospel did for the barbarian tribes that overran the empire. It transformed them from destructive to constructive, producing the beginnings of the western civilization which we have inherited.
You have constantly pointed out the failures and inadequacies and evils that still plague us. Nobody denies that. But for myself I keep looking at what God has done and what he is continuing to do, and I am confident that the work he has begun he will continue to do until such time as he determines will be the telos toward which he guides all things.
God’s work has encountered major setbacks all throughout history, but God always has a way of using those setbacks as the occasion for making a major step forward in his plan to get us as a human race to greater obedience. We can have all confidence that God will use the evil things you mention in order to have us rebound from them into a better world. That’s what I believe with all my heart. This is God’s world, not the devil’s.
Edwin Walhout
Posted in: My Banner Article
John, You write at the end, "But this is not a biological evolution. This is a spiritual renewal, a being born again, a dedication to God, and a fulfillment of God’s promise. It is wrong to conflate this with evolution in which God plays no visible role, or in which God cannot intervene.<"/p>
I trust that you are not suggesting I am defending a concept of evolution in which God plays no role. I am suggesting that the process of the physical development of the universe since the beginning of time can be characterized as the way God has brought the world to the condition it is in today, and that this guidance, this sovereign control, applies as well to the control of human history as well, all of this working steadily toward the telos God has in mind for the future.
Edwin Walhout
Posted in: My Banner Article
John, in your last sentence you speak of "undirected macro-evolution." But what about "directed macro-evolution?" Directed of course by the Creator God as in Genesis One and throughout the Bible. Which, to my unscientific mind, would be what appears to be truthful Biblically. Do you suppose God could have employed such a developmental method to bring the world and the human race to the point at which we are today? My theological concern has been what effect, if any, would such a development have on our traditional theological definitions. There doesn't seem to be a meeting of the minds on that point.
Edwin Walhout