I’m typically a bit suspicious of theological conclusions that depend on us being scientifically smarter than the ancients. Theologically more informed, yes - thanks to Christ’s revelation and teachings - but theologically smarter - might also be an open question in my view.
This may well be true - but only because so many have been erroneously brought up to think of it as a zero-sum competition between religion and science. Under such a delusional dichotomy, they are trying to reduce theology to a mechanically predictive tool to be verified or rejected using the same measuring sticks science uses. This would be like comparing “life questions and theories” (analogous to religion) to “arithmetic” (analogous to science); and pretending that the two are in competition with each other. We notice that arithmetic always gets its sums correct, or is easily corrected when it doesn’t. The much more complicated “how to live life” category is much more difficult, messy, and often seemingly wrong or not verifiable in any case. So we decide that arithmetic “wins” and we should jettison our engagement with life questions. And so the bankruptcy of the competition model is revealed since it was a silly notion to begin with. One does not avoid “life questions” and dwell solely on arithmetic; rather they enlist arithmetic as one part, among many things, of what helps them out in life. Religion is no more in competition with science than your entire body is in competition with its own kidneys. I think Biologos is helping to bring light to this situation and helping to call into question the very creationist narratives that are unwittingly helping to fuel this cultural delusion.
I’m not so sure that rejection of that is so “liberal”. There are those who make the compelling case that prior to St. Augustine, there wasn’t any “original sin” - at least not in the way it’s been built up into a doctrine of genetic transmission today. So I would characterize it instead as a necessary shedding of an historical accretion that was mistakenly added onto the message of the apostolic church.
Those were good thoughts, Al, and I’m sorry if I let them provoke me in directions you didn’t intend. I think we still (as evidenced in this very thread!) struggle with the apparent “two-facedness” of God because we have this persistent inclination (and rightly so) that God is One, when it comes to justice, mercy, love, and yes - even wrath in its subordinated status to those prior attributes (but no less fearsome if that is only face presented us when we persist in our wicked ways.)