The Secret of Running unveiled!!

I’ve just discovered the secret of running! Just read articles about controversial theological issues before you run. I became so angry that I knocked 45 seconds off my best 5K time, even though my recent faithfulness to my exercise program isn’t much better than the biblical faithfulness of the theologians I was reading.

Huh. Gonna have to read these guys before the next race.

Okay, let me tell you what I am babbling about. I think I have settled down sufficiently to communicate coherently. My sweet daughter-in-law emailed to ask my opinion of a recent Christianity Today article on Dr. Francis Collin’s work with the Human Genome Project. The article dealt with Collin’s theological conclusions that he felt were demanded by the results of science.

Among his conclusions was that Adam and Eve never really existed (or if they did, they were rulers of the humanity that existed at the time) and are used allegorically in Scripture. Collins believes (on the basis of his genome research) that there was a population in the neighborhood of 10,000 in the far-distant past (approximately 100,000 years ago), who constituted the earliest humans. Based on a claim of a 95-99% match between the human and chimp genomes (total gene sequences), he believes that humans indeed descended from chimps. By the hand of God, of course.

Collins is a theistic evolutionist, one who believes that the God of the Bible “got things rolling” billions of years ago, and carefully guided the mechanisms of evolution to produce the present biodiversity of the cosmos, including humans. In 2007, Collins founded BioLogos, an organization whose aim is to show that there are no fundamental incompatibilities between evolutionary science and the Bible. Collins professes faith in Christ.

As I read the CT article, I ran across names that I am quite familiar with: Pete Enns, from whom I took Old Testament Intro at Westminster Theological Seminary; Tremper Longman, from whom I took a class on Old Testament Poets at WTS. Both of these men are supportive of the Biologos work. I might add that Pete and WTS have parted ways, due to Pete's heterodox positions. Tremper now teaches elsewhere.

Richard Phillips, a classmate and good friend while I was at WTS, was quoted as warning against Collins conclusions (yay, Rick!).

What angers me is that Biologos and its supporters are jettisoning a vitally important part of Scripture, and doing it in two equally dangerous ways: they are exalting the authority of science under the fallacious moniker “all truth is God’s truth,” and they are employing an irresponsible and illegitimate hermeneutical principle that could be as readily applied against the blood atonement of Christ as it has been against a literal Adam and Eve. Both of these fallacies will be dealt with in later posts here.

This post is first in a series of about twelve on the topic, “What’s your source of authority?” Science really is not the issue here; source of authority is. I'll explain that in future posts. I am adding this series as a sidebar on the Thoughtspot to make it easier to locate the posts.

Pete Enns once explained in OTI the motives of German liberal theologians, who were employing destructive higher criticism against the Bible: they were trying to “protect the Bible from itself.” Pete, you’ve fallen into precisely the same trap; I am so sorry.