Abstract
After carefully reading John McIntyre's communication, "Repeating the Catholics' Galileo Error," (PSCF 52, no. 4 [December 2000]: 255-9) and discussing it with him at length, it is clear to me that McIntyre's position has some serious, perhaps fatal, flaws: 1. McIntyre says "Christians should wait for the scientific verdict before interpreting Scripture." [p. 256] I understand this to mean (and McIntyre confirmed my correct understanding in his final response to me) that whatever topic we might choose to address from Scripture, if the scientific community should choose to address the same topic from their materialistic perspective, the church is obliged to back off and defer to the scientists. I am unable to see how this differs from the rightly criticized "God-of-the-gaps" mentality, where the church backed off of every theological statement as science encroached on it. McIntyre was unable to help me see the difference, if he even tried to do so.