Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders today voted to initiate a series of discussions on faith, science, and church's understanding of the Biblical account of creation.
Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders voted September 27 to begin a series of discussions on faith, science, and the church’s understanding of the Biblical account of creation.
“Advances in scientific knowledge often confirm and validate views of faith,” read the proposal presented by Lowell Cooper, a vice president of the Adventist Church worldwide. “However, in regards to the origin of the universe, of earth, and of life, the claims of faith and the claims of science frequently appear to clash.”
The dialogues represent a way for the Adventist Church to provide leadership in this important area, explains the proposal document. The conversations will help the church take a multi-disciplinary look at the challenges or contributions that science, theology, and philosophy bring to the church’s understanding about origins.
The teaching of creation is vital to the church’s “life and proclamation,” said the document. “Reports in the public media about rapid advances in scientific knowledge are often framed within certain assumptions about origins,” raising questions about “how to reconcile the differing explanations of origins offered by faith and science.”
It is important to “work together to face the challenges to our faith that come from both secular and Christian thought leaders,” said Dr. James Gibson, director of the church’s Geoscience Research Institute, in a June interview with Adventist News Network. Gibson was secretary of an eight-person committee that drafted the proposal voted last week.
According to the proposal, its goals include increasing “clarity regarding the Adventist understanding and witness about the Biblical account of origins” and facilitating “open communication among theologians, scientists, and church administrators.”
The proposal calls for an international group of some 80 church administrators, scientists, and theologians to meet next year. “The goal of this first meeting is to find a way to dialogue together and develop an agenda that can be used as the basis for a much larger involvement of the church internationally,” said Cooper.
In 2003 and 2004, similar regional discussions will take place, most likely at different Adventist educational institutions around the world.
“There may be people who think the church’s doctrine of creation is now under review,” said Pastor Jan Paulsen, Adventist Church world president. “This is not the case. We have stated the church’s position, and it is clear.”
Paulsen said he welcomed this new forum for discussion. “It is important that everything we believe, all of our statements of belief, can be open and accessible to our entire Adventist community to talk about and to make sure we understand each other,” he added.
