This is an extremely varied collection of readings. Culpepper is a local Christian minister, writing an opinion piece for the local newspaper. St. Augustine lived about 1700 years ago, before and during the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. He's generally recognized as the first great Christian philosopher/theologian, and is still much admired in the Christian community. Borg is a contemporary "liberal" Christian theologian.
The point of putting all these readings together is to let you see how various aspects of a Christian worldview can be developed so as to accommodate natural explanations and natural understandings of how the world works.
Culpepper's short essay should be read with an eye toward the current debates about what should be taught in the public school system regarding origins of the universe. Compare his views to those of the US Catholic Bishops. Look for what he is saying about the idea that a good science course should include the theory that God is behind the development of life. If you have heard about Intelligent Design theory, that some folks, including President Bush, have urged be included in the high school curriculum, you should think about how Culpepper's position relates to that.
Now, of course, St. Augustine had no conception of the theory of evolution, since he was many centuries too early for that. So, you will not find any mention of evolution in the writings of St. Augustine. But in this reading, he is talking about the proper way to interpret the Genesis creation accounts, and what he has to say about this is actually fairly amazing. Think about how his statements relate to the current debates over the theory of evolution. Notice how he uses basic knowledge about nature to get his interpretation off the ground.
Borg, being a contemporary religious writer, is of course aware of the controversies regarding the theory of evolution, and the role of the Genesis stories in that controversy. So, it should not be hard to see what he is up to, and how it relates to the issues. One of the main reasons this reading was included is that it addresses the question of whether the Genesis accounts can be true if the events they relate did not ever actually happen. That is, Borg is talking about what sort of truth might be involved in such stories. Compare his remarks about that to what the Bishops said, and then compare to the ideas that were developed early in the semester about the function and interpretation of myth. (Borg is treating the Genesis creation accounts as myth, in the full, rich sense that we talked about earlier.)
Although all these authors are writing from a Christian perspective, it should not be too hard to generalize from these examples to what people in other religious traditions might say along the same lines, if they were inclined toward compatibilism. I have chosen Christian examples because it has been almost exclusively Christians who have raised objections to the theory of evolution in recent decades. Keep in mind that the Genesis creation accounts are actually Jewish stories that Christians and Muslims simply inherited. There are a wide variety of creation myths in various religious traditions, and what a compatibilist might say about each will vary depending on the details of the stories, but the basic move toward nonliteral, metaphorical or symbolic interpretation will be the same.
You will have to make up your own mind whether you think any of these people are right. Notice that none of these authors deals with all the challenges that compatibilism faces.
To write about, to turn in
1. Culpepper says that he sees God as creator who set the process of evolution in motion, and who continues to work through that process. So, why does he not endorse the ideas of his fellow Christians who believe in intelligent design theory?
2. What are the key reasons St. Augustine has for deciding that the Genesis creation accounts cannot be taken as actual blow-by-blow historical accounts of the beginnings of the universe and the origins of life?
3. Give a brief summary of the methods Borg suggests we use to extract the real meaning of the Genesis stories. (Look for how he goes about figuring out what the stories are really getting at.)