"Kremlinology"? Discovery Institute's Glass House

Faith & Science Conversation
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Wayne Grudem. So this book is a pretty big tent. Grudem believes in Verbal Plenary Inspiration, and is one of the authors of “Translating Truth: The Case for Essentially Literal Bible Translation”. Which says a lot. This is Wayne “I cannot teach theology or ethics from a dynamic equivalent Bible” Grudem we’re talking about.

“Nor can I preach from a dynamic equivalent translation. I would end up explaining in verse after verse that the words on the page are not really what the Bible says, and the whole experience would be confusing and would lead people to distrust the Bible in English . . .

“Nor would I want to memorize passages from a dynamic equivalent translation. I would be fixing in my brain verses that were partly God’s words and partly some added ideas, and I would be leaving out of my brain some words that belonged to those verses as God inspired them but were simply missing from the dynamic equivalent translation.”

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Are the various theological standpoints of the editors ever mentioned? It sounds like Grudem’s criticism of TE theology would apply to most proponents of ID, as well.

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I can’t speak for any of the other editors.

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I had a really interesting conversation with a young-earth guy at ETS about the ID movement. He said to me, “I don’t agree with everything the ID folks say, but at least they’re putting up a fight! [against secularism/naturalism/etc.]” In other words, the culture war mentality explains why BioLogos folks get the business end of the theological criticism, while the ID folks do not.

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In April of 2002, I attended the Intelligent Design Debate at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. On the ID side were Behe and Dembski. Ken Miller asked Dembski why ID had not made much progress. He explained that they weren’t getting enough money.

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Ok, I can understand that. Let me re-phrase. Is the fact that your theology differs from Grudem’s theology ever mentioned? Is there any other mention of Grudem’s theology differing from other editors? Would you agree or disagree with my statement of “It sounds like Grudem’s criticism of TE theology would apply to most proponents of ID, as well.”? I feel like I’m doing some sort of cheesy cross-examination, but I’m really troubled by this volume of anti-TE rhetoric that apparently doesn’t even have complete agreement among the editors. If the editors do disagree on issues, I have no problem with that, as long as there is full disclosure of that. It seems rather clear that there is not.

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Thanks, Brad. That really does clear up the puzzle quite a bit. Would you guess it is broadly (but certainly not universally) accepted in the YEC camp that it’s ok to not accept a literal interpretation of Genesis, as long as you stand up to “Evilution”?

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The true fundamentalists would see ID folks as compromisers if they don’t affirm a literalist view, but my experience is that most conservative pastors/theologians/scholars etc. don’t have a hardcore YEC view, they are just generally pro-Bible and anti-evolution.

Paul Nelson (a YEC who works with the Discovery Institute) got pretty mad about the movie Is Genesis History portraying all non-YECs as compromisers (Nelson was interviewed as part of the film).

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We’ll take money too:) Science is expensive.

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Tell me about it…

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I am an unlikely person to know what evangelicals think about Grudem’s theology. ID proponents are each their own persons—I am not representing them.
I also am not representative of the other editors. I know of no disagreement among them. I was added as an editor after all the decision making was done, because of the editorial work I had done.

Science is my area, not theology. Especially evangelical theology. I’d tell you all to get your act together, except it’s even worse with Catholics!

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Eddie posted a piece on this over on the hump that touches on this thread – sorry I haven’t been keeping up over there or here because of my own work and distractions lately. But I told him I would let you all know about it.

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@Mervin_Bitikofer,

Thank you for your service to the discussion! Is Eddie’s real name really Edward Robinson?

Bio.Blurb:
About Edward Robinson
"Edward Robinson (Eddie) started his university career on a science scholarship, but ended up as a philosopher/theologian researching the relationship between religion and natural science. He has published several books and articles on religion/science topics in both mainstream academic outlets and denominational and popular periodicals. He has also taught courses in various departments in several universities."

Digressing from the digression, I found Eddie’s key statement from his Hump article is this:

"The consistent theoretical position of ID (regardless of what individual ID proponents might choose to argue when speaking as Young Earth Creationists, Old Earth Creationists, or anything else) has been that ID is about design detection, not miracle detection, and that ID is consistent with accounts of origin involving natural causes without recourse to miracles."

Eddie is being disingenuous here … but in a way he has to be. He never liked being cornered. The whole point of the discussion about the flagellum, for example, is that the flagellum could never happen in steps, because there would be no survival or reproductive advantage to having a partial flagellum… it had to be all or nothing.

In other words, without God to induce the full creation of a flagellum, the flagellum would not exist. This is not a “design detection” problem… it is a “miracle detection” problem!

The flagellum issue, and all the other issues I.D. supporters argue about is that these events in Evolution would not happen unless God was there to make it happen.

At no time is the discussion limited purely to “God conceiving of the evolutionary advance”. It literally has to be about something that would not happen if God didn’t make it happen. That, definitionally, is a miracle.

And if God made something happen that was not a miracle, then it is something that could happen without his participation.