Well… it really IS part of OUR problem… our COLLECtiVE problem…
I could try to convince Evangelicals to accept the BioLogos position - - by promoting ideas that are RADICALLY opposed to evangelicalism… but what is the point of that?
We do better by developing positions that are a little more consistent with the Evangelical world view… even if it isn’t our own personal view of the matter.
The issue of evolution is the collective problem of the Christian community, which is why I am here. I’ve benefited greatly from materials by people like Enns and Walton (especially Walton), and I’ve appreciated the excellent work of the Biologos foundation. I thought being here might help me further, and might also provide opportunities for me to help others. So far I’m not quite sure yet how that’s working out; the reality on the ground here on the Biologos forum is very different to what I had expected.
I’m not trying to convince evangelicals to accept the Biologos position by promoting ideas that are radically opposed to evangelicalism. The Biologos foundation has enough of that kind of stuff on its hands by pointing out how evolution challenges directly such cherished doctrines as original sin and the immortal soul (the atonement will be next), and how it requires Christians to rethink their understanding of creation and inspiration. The Biologos foundation is already promoting ideas that are radically opposed to evangelicalism, and it’s right to do so because the evangelical community can’t avoid the collision with reality any more than my own community. I admire their boldness, vision, and determination to do what’s needed even at personal cost. But issues such as original sin and immortal soul aren’t my problem, because I don’t believe in them anyway. What I can do is point out the minority report in Christian history which has rejected these doctrines (proving that position is not a modern invention), and point out the current mainstream theological scholarly literature which also rejects these doctrines.
Like Unitarian Universalism? Like telling people the Exodus is just a myth and the account was written in the Persian era?
This is what I mean that your positions are not ones that anyone would predict from mainstream Christian scholarship.
Rejecting Original Sin makes perfect sense from a BioLogos world view, but …
Rejecting immortal souls is quite another bucket of worms! This is not an approach I would encourage … nor could I agree with. Even Unitarians can be enthusiastic in their belief in immortal souls. Or Freemasons!
Rejecting the reality of demons is another approach I would not encourage… but Unitarians like me can be pretty enthusiastic about rejecting demons…
It would be interesting to know whether Evangelicals would easier adopt Exodus as fictional or that souls are not immortal.
The reason I am vocal about Exodus is because I think it fits well with the Old Testament being unreliable (ditto Persian influences).
Your rejection of demons and immorality seems to be a pretty fundamental attack on the New Testament…
They are for anyone familiar with mainstream Christian scholarship.
I refer you to the initial post in this thread. I didn’t raise this, Brad did. It’s an issue which has to be faced, and it is non-controversial in mainstream scholarship. The Anglicans dumped the immortal soul back in the 1940s.
How well does “The Old Testament is unreliable” float with evangelicals?
Yeah and heliocentrism seems to be a pretty fundamental attack on the entire Bible, doesn’t it?
Well… I think you know, @Jonathan_Burke… they hate the idea.
But it is part-and-parcel with the idea that the Earth was not made in 6 days…
As for your comment on Heliocentrism… as you know, the Evangelicals don’t seem to think so …
When you understand how heliocentrism isn’t an attack on the entire Bible, you’ll understand why the idea that there’s no supernatural evil being called satan, or demons, isn’t an attack on the New Testament. You should look at the historical resistance to such beliefs, throughout Christianity. It’s a minority report, but it’s there. Such Christians were faithful to Scripture.
I am familiar with the historical resistance to such beliefs.
But you might do well to “stove pipe” your interests in the Bible. Attacking some of the more “popular” notions of the New Testament … while seemingly parallel to my attacks on the historicity of Exodus … is very much a different breed of dispute.
Then you’ll be able to understand that they’re not an attack on the New Testament at all.
Dude, this is a site which is trying to get people to accept evolution and gently letting them know they’re best off dropping original sin and the immortal soul in the process. Satan and demons are small potatoes next to that challenge.
Citation please. Because I work at BioLogos, and we’re not trying to get people to drop either.
I can see we have quite the opposite view of things.
Let’s suppose the BioLogos Statement of Beliefs were to suddenly include:
Footnote 1: Our view towards the Bible includes the position that the New Testament is in error regarding demons and Satan.
Footnote 2: Our view towards the Bible includes the position that the New Testament (does not teach/is in error regarding) the immortality of the Soul.
Jon, you can imagine that if these were official positions that it might take an extra 50 or 80 years to convince Evangelicals of the wisdom of God-Guided Evolution?
[My apologies for the tardiness of this post … I couldn’t complete the post this morning when it might have done more good.]
I didn’t say you were trying to get people to drop either. But ok, let’s say the original post in this thread is not even hinting that people re-consider their views on the immortal soul. Maybe that’s not what was intended by the question “on what basis can we defend the existence of an immortal, immaterial soul as modern Christians?”.
George that’s ridiculous. That’s like saying “Let’s suppose the BioLogos Statement of Beliefs were to suddenly include “Our view towards the Bible includes the position that Jesus was wrong about creation, and evolution is true””. The whole aim of BioLogos is to prove to people that evolution is true and Jesus was still right about creation.
If BioLogos came out with a statement saying the doctrine of the immortal soul isn’t supported by Scripture or science, it would not be saying anything more than what is already said in mainstream theological literature, including Bible dictionaries, Bible encyclopedias, and Bible commentaries that evangelicals use every day; see this post for examples. As you should know quite well, over the last thirty years there has been an increasingly strong push for mortalism in mainstream Christianity, with prominent theologians such as Clark Pinnock and Edward Fudge as just two of its champions. So this is not revolutionary, new, or even outside the mainstream. I’d say it’s an easier win than evolution.
It seems my point has gone right over your head. Mortalism may be coming in vogue in some circles… I don’t think you have any literature that says this is happening in the EVANGELICAL community …
… nor is the anti-demology movement taking root in the Evangelical community …
It just shows how diverse the pro-Evolution wing of Christianity is becoming …
No George it didn’t go over my head. That’s precisely why I mentioned Clark Pinnock.
But the year 1974 serves as a benchmark in the debate over annihilationism in evangelical history. That year evangelical publisher InterVarsity Press publishedJohn Wenham‘s The Goodness of God (later titled The Enigma of Evil), in which Wenham questioned the historic view of endless punishment and proposed annihilationism.‘, Morgan & Peterson, ‘Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment’, pp. 198-199 (2004).
‘Annihilationist ideas have been canvassed among evangelicals for more than a century, 2 but they never became part of the mainstream of evangelical faith, 3 nor have they been widely discussed in the evangelical camp until recently.’, Packer, ‘Evangelical Annihilationism In Review’, Reformation and Revival (6.2.37-38), 1997.
‘The overall concept of annihilation has recently received renewed interest, exposition, and defense from somewhat surprising sources. In the past decade a number of rather prominent evangelical theologians and leaders have affirmed they are annihilationists. Among these are Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Clark Pinnock, John R. W. Stott, Stephen Travis, and John Wenham.’, Erickson, ‘Is Hell Forever?’, Bibliotheca Sacra (152.606.260), 1996.
‘The plethora of literature produced in the last two decades on the basic nature of hell indicates a growing debate in evangelicalism that has not been experienced since the latter half of the nineteenth century.’, Mayhue, ‘Hell: Never, Forever, Or Just For Awhile?’, Master’s Seminary Journal (9.2.128), 1998.
‘Then in 1988, the issue received heightened awareness as John Stott acknowledged his openness to and tentative acceptance of annihilationism.’, Morgan & Peterson, ‘Hell Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment’, p. 199 (2004).
‘Other distinguished evangelicals continued this trend. In 1989 Philip Hughes resigned from Westminster Theological Seminary and espoused similar views in The True Image. In 1990 Michael Green adamantly opposed the historic view of hell in his Evangelism through the Local Church. Robert Brow followed suit in 1994, Nigel Wright in 1996, and Earle Ellis in 1997.’, ibid, p. 199.
‘Responding to criticisms of the doctrine of hell made during the modern period, a number of evangelical scholars have developed the doctrine of”conditional immortality.’‘’, McGrath, ‘Christian Theology: an introduction’, p. 478 (2006).
‘In its place, a growing number of scholars, evangelical and non-evangelical alike, have embraced a view of the destiny of the unbeliever called annihilationism or conditional immortality.’, Spencer, ‘The Destruction of Hell: Annihilationism Examined’, Christian Apologetics Journal (1.1.1), 1992.
Three dots may make a line, @Jonathan_Burke, but your positions are not a spoon full of sugar for the BioLogos medicine…
I hear the sound of one hand clapping.
In classical Greek philosophy, the non-material “soul” was much more than ‘just’ a spirit. It was an eternal essence that pre-existed the birth of an individual and post-existed (survived) the body’s death. The ‘soul’ was the perfected rendition of the material body that was seen to be imperfect (and subject to sickness, death and decay). Upon death, the soul was released from its cloak. In this, the immortal soul was seen as ‘higher’ than the mortal body. So I think that one cannot merely transpose one concept into the other. There is much to differentiate classical Greek ideas of the soul and what has come into Christian faith.
One also has to understand the Hebrew concept of life and death, because it is relevant to the bible, as a Hebrew creation. In Hebrew thought, the body/soul was one entity and indivisible. At death, the ‘person’ is placed into the ground, into Hades, but is fully conscious. There is no separation of body/soul as for the Greeks. This understanding enabled a belief in apocalyptic resurrection. It provided the framework for it to be expressed.
Probably, one reason why the Greek concept of soul came into Christian faith, was the Apostle Paul’s use of the Greek philosophical framework to interpret Christian faith for his Greek-speaking audiences. There is a fine line between teaching a concept and re-interpreting a concept to help hearers/readers to understand it. Was St. Paul teaching the Greek version of soul or was he interpreting the Gospel in categories his Greek audience could understand? That’s a difficult question to answer.
I think that modern science will also keep body and soul together as a single entity. When the brain function ceases then the person is functionally ‘dead’.
But then there is the matter of resurrection. If time-space is an Earth-bound concept then anything outside of that, another planet, universe, or even another time-space dimension, is not subject to the same rate of time. Our “day” on Earth is a single revolution around the polar axis of the planet. ie one single spin of the planet from point to point. If we travelled to Mars a “day” would be completely different, as would a year, which is a single revolution around our Sun-star. So perhaps the point of death/resurrection is instantaneous by a different “time” rate than for usso that the two become an almost instant event back-to-back rather than two separate events separated by a long time. Just a thought.
At any rate, Christian theology has lived with the idea of “a bodily resurrection, a re-creation, a new heaven and Earth” and a cosmological reconcilliation (Romans 8; Colossians; The Revelation).
St. Paul does however, not discount the body completely. In Romans 12 and in 1 Cor. 6: 19f he points out the value of the body. This is completely at odds with the Greek conception that dismissed the body as having no eternal value whatsoever.
For Greek philosophy, the soul is eternal. The soul is split into two parts prior to birthing, representing its male/female components. So when people speak of “finding one’s soul-mate” this is what it refers to: the re-joining of the male/female soul in eternity.
The question revolves around whether human beings have an essence. For the bible, the answer must be yes and no. Th Judeo part of Scripture won’t be compatible with the Greek conception of soul. Paul’s re-interpretation less so, but needs careful reading so as not to read foreign or assumptive elements into it. It’s not clear that Jesus viewed humankind in a dualistic way - but then again, he was Jewish!
If the Old Testament didn’t take a position on the physical or non-physical nature of the soul … then I’m not convinced it matters a hill of beans…
strikes me as a perfect explanation as giving personhood to a company in the form of a legal body with duties and responsibilities. Does it make it immortal and does it give it emotions?
Marvin
You have to understand that “reason” in A-T thought (and pre-modern thought in general) is a whole lot broader than the narrow concept of Spock-type logic we think of now. So yes, it does give the person emotions and, indeed, everything that distinguishes man from beast.
To Aquinas, the immaterial nature of reason, I think, gives the disembodied soul some kind of persistence beyond death in an attenuated form that enables communion with the Lord - but the real deal is the resurrection of the body, when the soul is embodied, but now by the imperishable.
So his basic concept is that the soul is the form of the material, but he wobbles on that a bit to accommodate the Scriptual teaching on the persistence of the spirit of man beyond death, and before the resurrection.
That’s pretty consistent with the Christian hope (and more so than the Cartesian dualist idea of a ghost in the machine), but to my mind takes insufficient account of the idea that it’s communion with the eternal God that gives eternal life, not an intrinsic propenisty in man.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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