Comment on Ted Wilson: No Room for Evolution as Truth in Adventist Schools by Fred.
Curious to see the contrast between the views espoused here by Sean Pitman and those advocated vociferously at the recent Science and Faith Conference, which I attended.
At the conference Ed Zinke and Richard Davidson gave close to a dozen talks between them that extolled a historical-grammatical hermeneutic devoid of any form of criticism. In their view the Bible ABSOLUTELY takes precedence above science and human reason. During several lectures Zinke even had the audience repeat after him “Scripture AND…” referring to the (presumably dangerous) alternative hermeneutics. Davidson answered a question during a panel session about whether their approach, the proclaimed “official” approach of the SDA church, constituted fideism to which he insisted it did not because the evidence considered derives from scripture rather than blind faith. At the end of the conference Ted Wilson forcefully endorsed the historical-grammatical hermeneutic during his final lecture.
I have read some of the earlier dialogue here between Sean Pitman and others on this topic. At the time I straddled the fence and to be honest I still do. I wondered at the time whether you guys were just speaking past each other. However the conference made crystal clear to me that a very wide gulf exists between Sean Pitman’s views and those of Zinke, Davidson and Wilson, with both sides claiming to represent the official church hermeneutic. I can assert that there is no way on God’s green earth that both sides are in agreement!
So Sean, if you want to change the church’s hermeneutic you have got your work cut out for you. I honestly do not see it happening unless you can persuade Zinke, Davidson and Wilson that they are wrong. Good luck with that.
