The Importance of Gracious Dialogue in the Origins Conversation

A Southern Baptist theologian reflects on “why” and “how” Christians should engage questions of faith and science.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://biologos.org/blogs/guest/the-importance-of-gracious-dialogue-in-the-origins-conversation

Good point. I hope to see more.

I don’t discount the idea that eschatology is important (or interesting, or contentious!)–but in my opinion the statement:

No theology of creation is complete without an understanding of the purpose and goal of the world.

is too strong. On the one hand, it is naively true, but in the sense that you could place the period after the word complete. That aside-- I think the constraints on our view of creation come primarily if not exclusively from the gospel. I don’t see (maybe I haven’t studied enough) how whether one is a preterist or futurist, or whether one is a pre/post/a mill has any profound impact on one’s understanding of creation.

But isn’t the gospel inherently eschatological? The gospel presentes a future hope of resurrection for all and eternal life in a new creation under Christ’s reign which we are only beginning to understand and experience now.

Agreed. I understood the use of eschatology in it’s more narrow sense, as referring to the much debated catastrophic details of the end of history. Not in the generally agreed upon broader sense of referring to the fact that history will (somehow) end and the kingdom will be fully consummated. Certainly the gospel is inherently eschatological in that sense. And certainly the creation account leads us to the very reason as to why we need a redeemer to ensure that the kingdom to has a non-zero population of people.

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