YEC vs. EVO presuppositions / methodology

What you aren't noticing is that these particular premises are ironclad and immovable on both sides of the debate. They have the quality of absoluteness. I am not saying they can't be debated on threads for that purpose. I am saying that there is no way to have a discussion about the science questions because the science side has given itself the right to dispute the Bible premise of the YEC (and some other creationists) but refuses the YEC the right to dispute the science premise, which is taken as absolute and indisputable, that is, that the principles of science are the final judge of everything. This sounds equitable but when it is the science premise that is calling the terms of defense it is not. Yes, you are, and yes, you may not.Of course you refuse to accept my "dictates" Paul, haven't I said that IS the situation here? Isn't that the situation I'm talking about. I refuse to accept yours as well, but it is yours that dominate at EvC. Try to step back for a minute and see what I'm talking about.I know what is the word of God and you may not dictate to me your contrary view. I think about EVERYTHING from my presupposition of the word of God and it is nonnegotiable, just as your science premise is nonnegotiable. You simply cannot step back from your own assumptions for a minute can you? Always you refuse to grant for a second the different creationist perpective. Always you must judge it as "false" and "wrong" and so on because that's what your presupposition has determined.You simply declare that creationists are wrong, over and over again. And you don't seem to see how that is YOUR nonnegotiable premise in operation. I'm just supposed to submit to it, and if I don't you accuse me of all kinds of evils.

This is absolutely absurd. You reserve to yourself the right to tell me what is and is not the word of God before you will accept my premise.Some proposal.

I'm trying to define the FUNDAMENTAL problem, I'm not criticizing EvC as such or Percy's attempts to deal with the problem, simply trying to say what it IS.

I have shown that there is over and over and over on this thread.I am now involved in a debate with Moose so any other will have to wait.

I have been trying to have a civil discussion with you, but your contentiousness prevents it, and it's easy to lose track of what you think you are saying anyway as you always just start shooting off a barrage of accusations, usually without quoting me so I could see what you are talking about, and I don't see any constructive way to proceed from here.So have a nice Thanksgiving.

Perhaps we are continuing to have a problem with the definition of words or something but I'm unable to understand what you are saying here.How is it possible to have a successful debate if creationists may not discuss science in the science fora from the creationist premise?

OK, I was having trouble reading it but if that's what it means, this is a solution that has been run by before and it doesn't work. The science side applies its criteria on the religion side too and some object strenuously to any attempt to exclude it, because EvC IS a science site after all.Science DOES rule at EvC, and there's nothing in principle wrong with this. They have a right to run the debate however they see fit, but it also helps if you have a clear sense of the consequences of the tacitly impregnable science presuppositions, which is what I'm trying to get at in this thread.There is this endless endless chiding and poking and upbraiding of creationists for not adhering to the science standard. They can't get why creationists repeat themselves, keep coming back to the same position they think they've answered, and so on. The admins are forever calling creationists on science criteria, either not grasping or refusing to respect that Biblical creationists, however scientifically knowledgeable or not, operate from the authority of God and not from the principles of humanistic science.So at the very least, in my opinion the science side needs to recognize and respect the Biblical creationist presuppositions, not give in to them but treat them as a valid opposing worldview instead of with the familiar ridicule and denigration that the debate here so frequently devolves into.So part of what I'm doing is emphasizing the coherence and nonnegotiable character of the YEC presuppositions, which I don't think is generally appreciated here, as the usual attitude is just that "religion" is this idiotic emotion-driven nebulous belief that ought to yield to a good dose of what is called Reason, when in fact Biblical Christianity is a complete, complex and lucid worldview unto itself.

The problem apparently is that at EvC there are MANY notions of the nature of God and God's will, and many different interpretations of the Bible, which obscures the fact that outside EvC there is a coherent theology of the Bible that is orthodox and representative of a solid family of Protestants.If you get into allowing individuals to debate and define God's will, you get into a morass that will only lead to confusion, but if you appeal to this body of theology, which is what I am doing as consistently as I am able, with God's help, you will begin to understand that this is a solid Biblical worldview that is NOT subject to any further establishing of what God said at EvC because it IS established in this Protestant frame of reference. (I'm not saying there is perfect consistency within this theology but on all the important points there is).So it is not open to EvC-ers to determine "that God actually said what it is claimed that he said." This HAS been established. Other theologies may of course be considered and discussed, but this IS the historic Biblical theology that I represent here to the best of my ability. I guess you can ask me to identify it better but you can't ask me to accept a viewpoint that contradicts it.

If I had one I thought feasible I'd have done it already. And the purpose of this thread is to show the problems anyway.But I can propose for starters what I've been saying in the last few posts, that it would help if the presuppositions of the Biblical creationists were respected as a coherent worldview, no matter what their degree of scientific knowledge, and I'd add as well, one with an illustrious history in Western civilization.But I could also suggest that EvC go with their science view to the max and warn creationists that only the most advanced scientific thinking will be respected here and to avoid the science fora altogether, and then they should go to great lengths to recruit creationists who are also scientifically trained. Truly Bible-believing creationists will still not be able to make much headway in this humanist-science-dominated place but perhaps they can at least escape the most disrespectful treatment.

Yes there are many interpretations to be found, but there is ALSO this body of coherent established Protestant theology and since it is this theology that is pertinent to the creationist-evolutionist debate, which is what is under discussion here, those that don't adhere to a literal six-day creation and a literal worldwide flood don't need to be considered in this context. See above. The only theologies that are relevant to this discussion are the literalists, and I'm trying to point out that there is a body of Protestant literalist theology that is a consistent coherent worldview. No legitimate Protestant theology ever leaves it up to the individual to interpret scripture. It has a history and a coherent body of interpretation across many denominations and commentators and preachers. The pope is not a Bible literalist. It is clearly established by a consensus of many Protestant leaders. I'm basically a Calvinist, which is no new cult, and I also respect the views of many evangelical anti-Calvinists. The viewpoint I'm talking about is indeed coherent. I have a nose for it and can point out a great many of its representatives if you'd like a list.

All you are doing, Modulous, is reiterating and reinforcing the Science Premise as if there were no other. [AbE: That is, your analysis of the problem is completely from the Science Premise without the slightest awareness of the Biblical Creationist Premise]. This thread is trying to discuss the YEC Premise in comparison to it.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-25-2005 03:39 AM

If they accept evolution in any sense at all they are not literalists. I can't even understand what that could mean. But I have acknowledged that there are all kinds of points of view, and yet nevertheless there is a substantial literalist theological consensus on Genesis.Maybe it would simplify this point if I just tracked down the comments on Genesis of a number of well-known Protestants. We don't need all Protestants to agree in order to establish that the position I take is solidly within orthodoxy.

You must read this very differently than I do. I looked through that website and find only the most conservative statements consistent with my own beliefs overall. I didn't find a statement on evolution but there were links to Philip Johnson's arguments.As for the above quote, what do you think it means? In context I read it to mean that they oppose the idea of any body OUTSIDE the church body imposing a confession of faith on the church body, since they mention a "secular" as well as "religious" source of such an imposition, but I didn't read far enough to find more of an explanation of this. But the statement is introductory to their own confession of faith after all, so they certainly aren't against a confession of faith as such, merely the imposition of it from outside. [AbE: In case it isn't clear, a confession of faith is a statement of principles the signing body as a whole is to be held to. It hardly admits of individuals within the body having the right to deviate from it. Much deviation simply means the individual should not belong to that body.]And perhaps you also read such terms as "priesthood of believers" and "soul competency" and "liberty in Christ" differently, consistent with your idea that individual judgments of scripture are acceptable, as if this could mean that all individual interpretations are equal? I understand them from Paul's writings to mean that all believers have the same gospel message through the Holy Spirit and the same authority to proclaim it, not at all permission to deviate but merely an acknowledgment of spiritual competency to recognize the truth. The priests of the Old Testament Temple had strictly delineated official functions and they are the model of the priesthood of all believers, so there's nothing at all in this concept that suggests individualism, but rather strict adherence to the requirements of the gospel. I'm not familiar with the term "soul competency" but I think the concept is probably familiar enough: something like the fact that the individual has the Holy Spirit and therefore the competency to judge according to the standards of the gospel, not implying perfection but inspired judgment to different degrees, and certainly implying that there is a body of truth that individuals may know in different degrees, but nothing along the lines of the freedom to differ wildly, which you seem to imply. And "liberty in Christ" does not mean liberty to invent your own doctrine, but refers to liberty from legalistic standards of sin.If you have reason to think I'm wrong about the above, you'd have to show me that your view of it is spelled out somewhere on that site. I couldn't find anything to that effect on the site myself (though I didn't read it thoroughly), and the idea doesn't fit with what I know about Southern Baptists either. They are overall a conservative Bible-believing body and affirm a definite set of literal Bible readings.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-25-2005 03:32 AM

Modulous was simply applying the scientific premise.I am not demanding anything at all, much less suggesting introducing creationism into the scientific fora. This thread is about defining the status quo, which includes trying to analyze the exclusion of creationist premises from the science fora, but certainly not proposing including them as the solution to that situation. I've said repeatedly that there is NO solution to this conflict between the opposing premises/worldviews. All I've "proposed" is that the science-minded would do well to learn to appreciate the YEC premise as the coherent worldview it is, but I'm hardly demanding it. If I'm proposing anything along practical lines it is that YECs avoid the science debates or leave the site altogether, and that EvC should make a more concerted effort to seek science minded creationists.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-25-2005 03:02 AM

That's an OK idea, something to be added to IRH's idea about how to deal with the problems under discussion, but I'd really like it to be recognized that I'm not in the business of proposing a solution here. I'm really only trying to ANALYZE the situation, and point out what seems to me to be the inherent and fundamentally unresolvable conflict.I'm also trying to break the hegemony of the ruling science premise by insisting on the equality of the Biblical creationist premise, and demonstrate that these are two total worldviews in conflict, and not, as the science side always interprets it, merely a matter of good science versus bad science, or scientific correctness versus scientific idiocy.But again, solutions, proposals, advice, etc. are NOT what I'm aiming for on this thread. I've many times said that I really don't think there is a solution. Some ideas to ameliorate the worst effects of this head-on collision could come out of it I suppose, and I have ventured a thought or two on the subject myself, but this is NOT what the thread is about. I know everybody always wants solutions whenever somebody starts trying to define a problem, but this overlooks the great difficulty involved in defining a problem clearly.Seems to me the thread has been wandering quite a bit today anyway and I'm not succeeding in my objective at all.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-25-2005 03:35 AM