There’s context enough in a 40 minute lecture to see …

Comment on PUC responds by David Read.

There’s context enough in a 40 minute lecture to see where Dr. Ness stands on these issues. He suggested that the evidence from bio-geography and various dating techniques were damaging to the traditional Adventist narrative of earth history. He also stated that while there might be good evidence of a local flood, there wasn’t much support for a global flood (he did, however, discuss flood geology and Clark’s ecological zonation theory of the fossil record).

Very subtly, and without being forceful or overbearing, he was mooting the idea that the church could move to a theistic evolution/figurative creation week/local flood view of origins without causing too much trouble for our theology. He did acknowledge and discuss at length, however, the fact that this view would bring death into the fossil record before sin, and hence alter the Adventist view that death, at least of animals, was a result of the Fall.

Recent Comments by David Read

The Reptile King
Poor Larry Geraty! He can’t understand why anyone would think him sympathetic to theistic evolution. Well, for starters, he wrote this for Spectrum last year:

“Christ tells us they will know us by our love, not by our commitment to a seven literal historical, consecutive, contiguous 24-hour day week of creation 6,000 years ago which is NOT in Genesis no matter how much the fundamentalist wing of the church would like to see it there.”

“Fundamental Belief No. 6 uses Biblical language to which we can all agree; once you start interpreting it according to anyone’s preference you begin to cut out members who have a different interpretation. I wholeheartedly affirm Scripture, but NOT the extra-Biblical interpretation of the Michigan Conference.”

So the traditional Adventist interpretation of Genesis is an “extra-Biblical interpretation” put forward by “the fundamentalist wing” of the SDA Church? What are people supposed to think about Larry Geraty’s views?

It is no mystery how LaSierra got in the condition it is in.


The Reptile King
Professor Kent says:

“I don’t do ‘orgins science.’ Not a single publication on the topic. I study contemporary biology. Plenty of publications.”

So, if you did science that related to origins, you would do it pursuant to the biblical paradigm, that is pursuant to the assumption that Genesis 1-11 is true history, correct?


The Reptile King
Well, Jeff, would it work better for you if we just closed the biology and religion departments? I’m open to that as a possible solution.


The Reptile King
Larry Geraty really did a job on LaSierra. Personally I think it is way gone, compromised beyond hope. The SDA Church should just cut its ties to LaSierra, and cut its losses.

As to the discussion on this thread, round up the usual suspects and their usual arguments.


La Sierra University Resignation Saga: Stranger-than-Fiction
It is a remarkably fair and unbiased article, and a pretty fair summary of what was said in the recorded conversation.