"If I may end on a more personal note" (on evolution and Christian faith)


Posted by PeteEnns on October 26, 2015 in Christianity and evolution The Evolution of Adam 1 Comment
evolution of adam

Last Friday I gave the Religion and Civil Society lecture at the annual meeting of the Institute for the Study of Christianity and Culture at Michigan State University on “Reconciling Human Origins and Religious Faith: Thoughts from a Christian Evolutionist.” (Go Wolverines . . . uh, I mean Spartans.)
Many thanks to Malcolm D. Magee (director of ISCC) for the invitation to speak and to his assistant Kristin Whitwam for making everything run smoothly despite my best efforts to be difficult.

Thanks, too, for all the wonderful people who came out to dialogue about evolution and Christian faith.  You remind me why I do this and why this is anything but a dead topic!

I spoke for an hour from a manuscript, which I almost never do (the manuscript part . .. going on for an hour is easy peasy for a wordy guy like me), and complete with all sorts of impressive PowerPoint slides.

Below is the concluding portion, and I thought I’d share it with you.
******
If I may end on a more personal note, my own journey has taken some turns over the last ten years or so, that have collectively influenced how I look at questions like the Bible and evolution and many, many others. This journey involves both personal and professional experiences.

I have come to believe that the life of Christian faith is not fundamentally “rational,” by which I mean faith in God is necessarily trans-rational (not anti-rational) but not “captureable” by our minds. It’s mysterious. It’s mystical. After all, this is a faith that calls upon its adherents to “participate in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

Read more at

http://www.peteenns.com/if-i-may-end-on-a-more-personal-note-on-evolution-and-christian-faith/


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