Again, I don’t believe that Greg (on the thread “John MacArthur on the ‘Lie of Evolution’” http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2009/10/john-macarthur-on-the-lie-of-evolution/) said that Matthew’s interpretation of scripture was bad, only that it was different from ours.

Anyway, on natural revelation and interpretation of scripture:

We have only our natural faculties with which to interpret scripture, and we learn how to read and communicate by using our natural faculties and by observing and interacting with nature (unless, perhaps, we are prophets). I’m not discounting any “sensus divinatus” as A. Plantinga calls it, but just pointing out that our primary means of communicating and learning to communicate is entirely natural.

Consequently, when trying to understand the meaning of something that someone else has communicated (e.g., the writer(s) of Genesis), one uses one’s God given natural faculties (including reasoning) to gain as much knowledge about the communication as possible. This includes awareness of unspoken or unwritten assumptions that are part of the shared communication event. When we are separated from the writer by culture and distance, we have to explicitly learn much more about their cultural and communicative assumptions than we do if we are talking to our childhood friends (i.e., people raised in the same cultural milieu as us). It is wrong to import our own assumptions into the text in order to derive the meaning of the text that was intended by the writer(s).

In respect of scripture, the “Wesleyan quadrilateral” (a term coined in the 1960s to describe what Wesley did) has been a very helpful approach. Wesley’s quadrilateral is composed of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, with primacy given to Scripture.

Theistic evolutionists, for example, give far too much weight to “reason” in relation to the other components, and so are willing to re-interpret Genesis 1 and 2 in ways that other Christians find inconsistent with tradition and Scripture.

regards,
#John

” I would suggest you read the link from CMP I linked earlier which suggest that the Bible indicates Special Revelation and General Revelation are on much more equal terms then you suggest and that when we understand something with a degree of certainty from General Revelation this should affect our tradition and theology.

If you have some disagreement with CMP’s exegesis of the relevant scripture then let me know where you disagree and we can further this discussion.”

Nothing in Romans 1 would actually be accepted by science, so is this really relevant at all? Show me one science textbook that says any of these things that Paul says are clearly seen, are in fact such.

We’ve just been told by Greg that Matthew’s method of interpretation is really very bad. Why should we then trust Paul’s interpretation of General revelation? Or are you and Greg not on the same page?

Why would Romans 1 be something to quote in favour of interpretations from General revelation to override special revelation, since everything that Romans 1 says is in scripture, not only in Romans 1, but all over the place?

Don’t all exegetes acknowledge that this is Paul’s excursion into commenting on those people who haven’t received the word of God, NOT those who have? Paul’s conclusion about the general revelation is the lack of excuse for those ignorant about things that are known in the scriptures. I can’t see the slightest warrant for you to use this passage to argue for what you want to do.

As I said before, there is a major problem in your hope to integrate evolution into special revelation which is that you have no guidance on how to do so. Even if its true, you have no way to know how to meld the two, other than talk vaguely of metaphors and so forth.