Biologos links to another blog with another statement of Bruce Waltke’s position on evolution and related topics:
Here is Waltke’s summary of his own position (pages 202 and 203 – note, the capitalized ADAM below refers to humanity):
The best harmonious synthesis of the special revelation of the Bible, of the general revelation of human nature that distinguishes between right and wrong and consciously or unconsciously craves God, and of science is the theory of theistic evolution.
By “theistic evolution” I mean that the God of Israel, to bring glory to himself,
1. created all the things that are out of nothing and sustains them
2. incredibly, against the laws probability, finely tuned the essential properties of the universe to produce ADAM, who is capable of reflecting upon their origins
3. within his providence allowed the process of natural selection and of cataclysmic interventions – such as the meteor that extinguished the dinosaurs, enabling mammals to dominate the earth – to produce awe-inspiring creatures, especially ADAM
4. by direct creation made ADAM a spiritual being, an image of divine beings, for fellowship with himself by faith
5. allowed ADAM to freely choose to follow their primitive animal nature and to usurp the rule of God instead of living by faith in God, losing fellowship with their physical and spiritual Creator
6. and in his mercy chose from fallen ADAM the Israel of God, whom he regenerated by the Holy Spirit, in connection with their faith in Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, for fellowship with himself.
It looks like Waltke is another person who accepts scientifically detectable evidence of design, at least based on the fine tuning of the universe. He seems to accept the same kind of design argument from nature that Tim Keller uses in The Reason for God. Does anyone know if he has elaborated on this?
In addition, his version of “theistic evolution” is quite different from other formulations. Specifically, he believes that God specially intervened in human history, and “by direct creation made ADAM a spiritual being.”
Hey PDS,
Two things for clarification:
1. In his OT Theology (quoted above), Waltke affirms common descent, but believes that animals apart from God’s direct interaction are not capable of spiritual relationship with God. He does not believe that God intervened to change Adam biologically in order to make him human. You would benefit from reading about his understanding of God’s image and likeness in the sections called “The Gift of Cosmos” and “The Gift of Adam.”
2. There is a page dedicated to the fine tuning argument in the chapter “The Gift of Cosmos” in his OT Theology, so I think it is fair to say that he holds to the validity of the fine-tuning design argument.
Kyle,
Thanks for the input. He did state in the Update on the Biologos site:
“Adam and Eve are historical figures from whom all humans are descended; they are uniquely created in the image of God and as such are not in continuum with animals.”
This does not appear in the summary above and seems much stronger. It seems that his position may have changed or been refined since 2007. “Common descent” can mean a variety of things, especially if you separate it from the mechanism of natural selection. In his OT Theology, does Waltke go into detail as to the biology in involved? I hardly think he would take a strong position that God did not intervene in the biology.
Please provide more quotations from his OT Theology if you have the time.
Thanks.
PDS, have you read this exchange that Prof. Waltke had with Peter Enns last year in the Westminster Theological Journal regarding Enns’ book, Inspiration and Incarnation? It seems that Waltke and Enns have strong areas of disagreement (though expressed in a most respectful manner) in regard to Enns’ “incarnational” view of Scripture. An excerpt:
While Waltke does not directly address Enns’ view of Adam in this exchange, it seems to me that he would disagree with Enns’ recent Biologos posts on the historicity of Adam.
Here are the links:
Prof. Waltke’s essay
Prof. Enns’ response
Kendalf,
Thanks. I look forward to reading those. Your links did not work for me, but this should:
http://peterennsonline.com/2009/04/27/bruce-waltke-and-peter-enns-on-inspiration-and-incarnation/