Comment I made in CRC Pastors Group on Facebook asking why I liked Harrell’s piece
1. The dismissal of Harlow and Schneider from Calvin College I think had a chilling effect (it was chilly already) on conversations about some of these important issues. The problem with chilling conversation and discussion is that it doesn’t stop the thoughts, it just stops our mouths. Some people leave the church angrily and slam the door on the way out. That is a minority. Most leave it quietly because they don’t want conflict. They just don’t believe anymore because of ideas they’ve picked up but the church has not seriously engaged. Harrell’s piece begins to get into some of the complexity of the conversation about sin, Adam and origins.
2. With our tradition of Creation-Fall with such hard and discrete periods (based on a very small part of the Bible) we treat death and sin as some sort of alien substance that the serpent-woman-tree narrative introduces into “the world”. This tends to create for us a rather alien “creation” phase in the narrative that is unimaginable and disconnected from the present reality. Did our molars do violence to fruit? Were our bodies lacking of dead skin cells or dead hair? Is animal predation sinful?
Harrell’s discussion of the relationship between sin and survival is important to our experience of sin today. Much sin is done in the struggle for survival or at least in the perceived need for self-preservation.
We need to talk about these kinds of things and explore them in the light of all of scripture and all of life.
3. Plantinga’s piece was good, but he made the smaller point of doubting our doubts which again is vital but I think we need to have broader discussions, not just in the interest of defending traditional positions, but also in exploring the implications both of our traditional readings and the points raised by genetic and biological research.
About PaulVK
Husband, Father of 5, Pastor
Leadingchurch.com 
Think Christian’s Series on Adam and Origins
Comment I made in CRC Pastors Group on Facebook asking why I liked Harrell’s piece
1. The dismissal of Harlow and Schneider from Calvin College I think had a chilling effect (it was chilly already) on conversations about some of these important issues. The problem with chilling conversation and discussion is that it doesn’t stop the thoughts, it just stops our mouths. Some people leave the church angrily and slam the door on the way out. That is a minority. Most leave it quietly because they don’t want conflict. They just don’t believe anymore because of ideas they’ve picked up but the church has not seriously engaged. Harrell’s piece begins to get into some of the complexity of the conversation about sin, Adam and origins.
2. With our tradition of Creation-Fall with such hard and discrete periods (based on a very small part of the Bible) we treat death and sin as some sort of alien substance that the serpent-woman-tree narrative introduces into “the world”. This tends to create for us a rather alien “creation” phase in the narrative that is unimaginable and disconnected from the present reality. Did our molars do violence to fruit? Were our bodies lacking of dead skin cells or dead hair? Is animal predation sinful?
Harrell’s discussion of the relationship between sin and survival is important to our experience of sin today. Much sin is done in the struggle for survival or at least in the perceived need for self-preservation.
We need to talk about these kinds of things and explore them in the light of all of scripture and all of life.
3. Plantinga’s piece was good, but he made the smaller point of doubting our doubts which again is vital but I think we need to have broader discussions, not just in the interest of defending traditional positions, but also in exploring the implications both of our traditional readings and the points raised by genetic and biological research.
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About PaulVK
Husband, Father of 5, Pastor