Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Schilder on evolution

In this comment, Dr. Van der Meer said:
Abraham Kuyper as well as Bavinck and Klaas Schilder also include in their understanding of God’s creative work God-guided evolution of creatures in time.... The crucial issue for these three theologians is the acknowledgment of God’s purpose in the process of evolution; they were arguing against atheistic interpretations of the history of life that excluded divine guidance.
Further to what I wrote here, I would also refer to Dr. Freda Oosterhoff's article where she summarizes some of Dr. Schilder's thoughts on evolution with the following:
So long as the “men of Assen” cling to the concept of “creation,” and to the transcendental meaning of “God said,” and to the difference between the first and the second creation, and to the doctrine of the Logos [the divine Word], and to the absolute “in the beginning,” and so on – so long as all this is the case, so long will there be a dam that will stop any fundamental turn to the doctrine of evolution (p. 49).
From this, as well, I would conclude that Dr. Schilder was not open to notions of evolution.

(This was posted as a comment to Reformed Academic here.)