It's a bit of a stretch to say that's about Darwin and Lyell! In context, it's about people saying "This Jesus of yours really ought to have turned up by now, shouldn't he?". Aren't there enough of those around without trying to apply the passage to Darwin and Lyell?
I'm surprised, TB, that you've raised the "created in God's image" line against evolution - I thought better of you than that. Do you suppose that that means that God has a physical body just like ours? I'm sure you don't. There's lots to explore about
Imago Dei, but none of it has anything to say about evolution.
Imago Dei is a spiritual description of us; it's quite clear, from the genetic evidence alone, that physically we are mostly
Imago Simiae.
You are right that the Bible doesn't say God used evolution. Nor does it say He didn't. It doesn't say much about embryology either, although it does say that "He knit me together in my mother's womb". By this reasoning, we must say that embryology is also contrary to Scripture.
We can argue the "death by sin" point as long as we like. I notice that, if physical death is the result of the fall, God lied. He said to Adam that he would die the same day. What did happen the same day was that he was expelled from Eden - became estranged from God. This is the death to which God referred, and which came through the fall. It makes sense - Christ's work, as the second Adam, is to heal that estrangement. But we're really in the wrong forum for theology.
Nor does suggesting that evolution is the creative outworking of God mess up the genuine contingency and random element of evolution. Your God is too small if He cannot work through what are, from any scientific frame of reference, truly random events and purely natural laws. Nor can it be that "bizarre" a concept, given that it is the position of the majority of Christians, and of the majority of Christian denominations.
[This message has been edited by Karl, 11-27-2002]
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