“Keller…considers three main clusters of questions lay people raise when they learn of anyone teaching that biological evolution and biblical orthodoxy can be compatible”

In the past several days, The Aquila Report has received a number of emails and phone calls bringing our attention to a paper written by PCA Minister Tim Keller, Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City. It was published last fall by the Web Site “Bio-Logos” which was at the center of the recent Bruce Waltke story.

For some reason, attention of a number of people has shifted to Keller’s paper which had already been published when we first reported the Waltke story. Rather than finding someone to comment on the Paper, we felt it was best simply to provide a source for people who desired to know its content to be able to read it themselves, without editorial comment.

BioLogos, the organization at the center of the Waltke story, has published a number of ‘White Papers’ which had been presented at its major workshop last fall. One of them was written by Keller entitled “Creation, Evolution and Christian Laypeople.”

Below is a note from the BioLogos Website introducing the White Paper and then two paragraphs extracted from the paper summarizing what Keller himself describes as his purpose in writing the paper. This is followed by a link to the BioLogos website where readers can download the entire paper.

From the BioLogos Website:
The fifth of seven white papers from BioLogos’ November workshop “In Search of a Theology of Celebration” is now available for download in our “Scholarly Essays” section. In his paper (link below), Tim Keller—pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York and author of The Reason for God—considers three main clusters of questions lay people raise when they learn of anyone teaching that biological evolution and biblical orthodoxy can be compatible. Keller offers some ideas on how to provide responses that take these concerns seriously.

From Keller’s Paper:
Therefore, below I will lay out three basic problems that Christian laypeople have with the scientific account of biological evolution. Nothing here should be seen as meeting the need for rigorous, scholarly arguments in answer to these questions. These are popular-level pastoral answers and guidance. As a pastor I have had to draw heavily on the work of experts. The first question, about Biblical authority, requires that I draw on the best work of exegetes and Biblical scholars. To answer the second question, about evolution as a ‘Grand Theory of Everything,’ I need to draw on the work of philosophers. When we come to the third question regarding Adam and Eve, I must look to theologians.

In short, if I as a pastor want to help both believers and inquirers to relate science and faith coherently, I must read the works of scientists, exegetes, philosophers, and theologians and then interpret them for my people. Someone might counter that this is too great a burden to put on pastors, that instead they should simply refer their laypeople to the works of scholars. But if pastors are not ‘up to the job’ of distilling and understanding the writings of scholars in various disciplines, how will our laypeople do it?

Link to paper: “Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople”

Link to Biologos Web Site: http://biologos.org/

Link to story on the Bruce Waltke resignation: OT Professor Bruce Waltke resigns from RTS Orlando Faculty amid historical Adam and Eve controversy.