nuance

In a recent Christianity Today interview you will find this from Tim Keller in response to a question about creation theories and apologetics:

Nobody does that anymore. Nobody says different Christians might come down in different places here and still have a high view of Scripture. Instead, they identify their take as the wise one, and say everyone else is selling out or something.

In today’s climate, to come down on a theory of creation would be as bad as if I said, “I’m a Democrat” or “I’m a Republican,” because then the people of the other party aren’t going to listen. They’re going to say, “So your gospel isn’t for Republicans,” or “It’s not for Democrats,” or “It’s not for me, because I believe in evolution.”

So I want to be noncommittal. I don’t want the people who don’t like one creation view to feel like now they can’t listen to the rest of the gospel.

Instead, I point out that it’s a red herring to go after that before you decide whether Jesus died and rose again. Two people said [last night at a Veritas forum]: “I can’t believe in Christianity, because look at the fossils.” And I was trying to say, “Because you believe in evolution does this mean that Jesus Christ couldn’t be raised from the dead?” One said, “No, that has nothing to do with it.” If he was raised from the dead, then you have to take seriously the Scripture and you have to work on all this. If he wasn’t raised from the dead, who cares about Genesis 1-11?

If I might comment, this reflects an interesting general trend in evangelical apologetics, even in Reformed circles, away from a hardcore presuppositionalism and back to a reasonable and chastened evidentialism. In other words, Keller cares not about rationalistic arguments casting doubt upon the possibility of knowledge through experience and thus drawing men to accept the canon of revelation as an axiomatic assumption. Such a perspective might chide a scientific question of origins and just say, “Believe the Bible or don’t.”

But Keller asks people to consider the resurrection, the historical event witnessed and recorded millennia ago. This is sufficient evidence for belief.

It is also sufficiently central in the way it shapes Christian gospel and even scripturalism. That is, it provides a center of belief which brings other essential beliefs into focus and, by contrast, reveals that which is not central nor essential and therefore open for discussion and debate. I must say that I am enamored with the wisdom in the statement “I want to be noncommittal,” for it reveals not only a recognition of central truths but a determination not to let peripheral issues become central even in one’s own mind.

It is in this sense that I would categorize myself as postReformed or postCalvinistic - I want to be noncommittal on the specifics of Reformed systematics and monergistic soteriology. I am determined not to dogmatize that which I believe is secondary, not primary, to the truth of the gospel and the Christian faith.

Thanks again, Doc.