A week or so ago, I read this from Escondido Westminster Seminary's Michael Horton:
Instantaneous creation of Adam and Eve is not explicitly required by the text or its subsequent interpretation, but the historicity of a first human couple with whom God entered into covenant is indispensable to theology at significant points in almost every locus. (from Horton's Lord and Servant, p. 118; quoted by Daniel Wells)
How scandalous this should be among the people of God. Westminster Escondido's Michael Horton joins Covenant Seminary's Jack Collins in declaring that "the text" of Genesis does "not explicitly require" that Adam was created by God "instantaneously" from the ground, or that Eve was created by God "instantaneously" from Adam's rib. Rather, Horton says the Bible would allow for—what? Adam and Eve's extrusion, evocation, emanation, or evolution over a period of time?
And what of the water Jesus changed into wine?
Does "the text" of Scripture or that text's subsequent interpretation "not explicitly require" that change to be instantaneous, either? Did time sloooooooooowwwwwwwww waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy doooooowwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnn so that the wine would not have the appearance of age, but true vintage?
Truthfully, which of us is surprised to read Christian intellectuals telling us it's OK to stretch Scripture onto the Procrustean bed of science?
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
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