Al Mohler again - when atheists and baptists agree
I have trouble believing in the theory of evolution. So does Al, so at least I'm in good company.
I did my studies in biology at a time when neo-Darwinism was the current orthodoxy, in the late 1970s. Interestingly, Dawkins' first book, The Selfish Gene, had just been published and people were wrestling with his reductionism. I studied micro-evolution, population biology, the way populations respond to stresses, pressures and change. Classic peppered moth stuff. The thing is, populations have great diversity. When under pressure the population expresses less of that diversity and so they appear to change. Nothing new has happened - you just lose one extreme or another. We live in a world where we are losing diversity all the time. Because of pressure on environments we lose species every day. Where is the increasing diversity that we should see ? Surely pressure and crisis should produce an explosion of speciation. If it's true.
I became a christian during my studies and began to think about death and the gospel. I have to bury people. What do I say ? Do I say "Death is this tragedy, this terrible thing that has taken away your loved one, death is the last enemy that Jesus will destroy", or do I say "Death is the wonderful means that God has used to produce this wonderful rich world that we see today" ?
Not only that but for reformed christians the backbone of our faith is our understanding of how God works in covenant, with two federal heads. "In Adam all die", says Paul, "in Christ shall all be made alive".
He sets up a two-sided argument. There is Adam and all who are in him. Adam and his posterity are dead in sin and die eternally. There is Christ and all who are in him. Christ and his posterity are alive to righteousness and they will live for ever. We are born in Adam. Christians are translated into, seen in, placed in Christ.
Now take away Adam and take away the fall. Death was in the world for billions of years before any recognisably human species arose, so it can't be the result of any rebellion or fall. Anyway life is about a rise from the mud to this fruitful abundance, not a fall from perfection to this struggle we see.
Covenant theology becomes just a kind of philosophy, a model, a useful fiction.
Al, it's not just baptists, is it ? Or at least it shouldn't be.
I did my studies in biology at a time when neo-Darwinism was the current orthodoxy, in the late 1970s. Interestingly, Dawkins' first book, The Selfish Gene, had just been published and people were wrestling with his reductionism. I studied micro-evolution, population biology, the way populations respond to stresses, pressures and change. Classic peppered moth stuff. The thing is, populations have great diversity. When under pressure the population expresses less of that diversity and so they appear to change. Nothing new has happened - you just lose one extreme or another. We live in a world where we are losing diversity all the time. Because of pressure on environments we lose species every day. Where is the increasing diversity that we should see ? Surely pressure and crisis should produce an explosion of speciation. If it's true.
I became a christian during my studies and began to think about death and the gospel. I have to bury people. What do I say ? Do I say "Death is this tragedy, this terrible thing that has taken away your loved one, death is the last enemy that Jesus will destroy", or do I say "Death is the wonderful means that God has used to produce this wonderful rich world that we see today" ?
Not only that but for reformed christians the backbone of our faith is our understanding of how God works in covenant, with two federal heads. "In Adam all die", says Paul, "in Christ shall all be made alive".
He sets up a two-sided argument. There is Adam and all who are in him. Adam and his posterity are dead in sin and die eternally. There is Christ and all who are in him. Christ and his posterity are alive to righteousness and they will live for ever. We are born in Adam. Christians are translated into, seen in, placed in Christ.
Now take away Adam and take away the fall. Death was in the world for billions of years before any recognisably human species arose, so it can't be the result of any rebellion or fall. Anyway life is about a rise from the mud to this fruitful abundance, not a fall from perfection to this struggle we see.
Covenant theology becomes just a kind of philosophy, a model, a useful fiction.
Al, it's not just baptists, is it ? Or at least it shouldn't be.
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