Clifford Goldstein: Seventh-day Darwinians, Redux

In 2003 the Adventist Review published a very controversial article by Clifford Goldstein titled, “Seventh-day Darwinians.”  This strongly worded article seemed to slip through the vetting cracks and ended up causing a great deal of heated debate within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, especially at our academic institutions like La Sierra University and Loma Linda University. Now that this particular controversy has hit center stage, Cliff has revisited his original article, which significantly contributed to the thinking of many involved in this current debate (including my own thinking). I’m sure Cliff’s current article will cause many more to reconsider this issue in a new light as well.  – Sean Pitman

ANY HONEST ADVENTIST WHO WONDERS IF OUR FAITH COULD EVER BE reconciled with evolution must read Physics and Cosmology (Nancey Murphy, Robert John Russell, William R. Stoeger, SJ, editors; Vatican City State, Vatican Observatory Foundation: 2007). A compilation of papers presented at a symposium in Italy in 2005, the book is crammed with scientists, philosophers, and theologians (Catholic and Protestant) who seek to explain the goodness of God in the face of the world’s evil (in this case, “natural” evil). Each contributor, though, worked from the premise that natural evil and suffering were “built into the universe from its origin” (p. 264). Why such a horrible, and wrong, start? Because all believe that evolution is the means God used to create us. (Read more)