My friend Henry Neufeld has posted a timely article that we are discussing on the CompuServe/Netscape Religion Forum under the title Good Theology, Bad Theology, and Demons. The discussion can be located at this page.

I find the article timely because of my recently posted sermon which gives a bow to the subject of natural revelation as a tie-breaker in the excuse game.

Neufeld has placed himself in the thick of the fray in the ongoing Intelligent Design debate, this time arguing from a Christian theological perspective that ID is bad theology.

Henry's full article can be found on Threads from Henry's Web .

Why is ID bad theology and why is this assessment shared among even conservative Christian scholars? Neufeld explains:

"If you are wondering why there is a split amongst conservative Christians over ID, it is simply that many conservative Christians are saying either that this does not prove or that it is not even trying to prove anything that actually works within their theology."

Going further, he asserts, "I don’t accept ID precisely because I believe that the universe is designed."

I'm not going to do all your work for you; you'll have to read the article and come back and comment here and in the forum.

I am still digesting Henry's article, but I did respond to him with this:

Henry,

>>I would say that while Paul does say that one can find God through creation, he doesn't offer any guarantee that we'll all find out everything, or that we'll get everything right. I think "clear enough" would be a good equivalent there.<<

My theology professor, Bill Hendricks, in his lecture on revelation, said that God has not revealed everything about Himself, but what He has revealed is true to who He is and adequate for us to know Him and relate to Him.

All Paul really guaranteed in Romans 1 was that nature offered enough revelation to point us toward "awe" "wonder" and that in human rebellion, we rejected even that.

Psalm 19 is a two-parter in my view - the revelation through creation which is adequate as a "call to worship," refined by the spoken word in the second part of the Psalm that reveals even more information.

I'll be interested in seeing how this develops ..."

Indeed I will.