Presented at the annual Southwest regional meeting of the EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY at The Criswell College (Dallas, Texas) March 27th, A.D. 2009
Abstract
Religion-and-science tensions, which focus mostly on contemporary creation-versus evolution controversies, are not a new problem, either to theologians or to scientists. However, the current dynamics of the tensions and controversy justify a more careful recognition of both the controverted issues and the history of influences leading up to those controversies. Theologians should carefully examine both what “science falsely so-called” really is (in the sense of 1st Timothy 6:20), epistemologically speaking, and how the evangelical world is confronted with what Scripture teaches about recognizing and responding to “false witnesses”. Some insights are provided by how Christ interacted with (and critiqued) Pharisees, Sadducees, and Samaritans, as well as the “pagan” community of His generation, followed by attention to Paul’s informative teaching about general revelation (in Romans chapter 1), and some insights from church history. The theological importance of what the Bible teaches about the age of the Earth is also considered, including the issue of open-versus-closed genealogies in Genesis, problems with hermeneutics, and a few word studies (in O.T. Hebrew and N.T. Greek), plus some recent trends in epistemological syncretism.
Keywords
epistemology, hermeneutics, general revelation, special revelation, age of earth
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