I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming the matter is already settled ... the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world ... Consensus is invoked only where the science is not solid enough ... Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
Michael Crichton, 2003 Caltech lecture "Aliens Cause Global Warming"
28 September 2011
25 September 2011
Archbishop off the rails
At the “Intelligence Squared” public debate held a little while ago in Sydney there were six speakers; 3 spoke for the motion “Atheists are wrong”; 3 against, but this Peter Jensen quote from his presentation followed by an extract from Russell Blackford’s later address highlights the strategic vulnerability of Jensen’s agnosticsm-based doctrine of creation.
Sydney Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen: Thus, it is not with evolution as science that I have a problem; it is with evolution as an idolatrous explanation of all things; it confuses mechanism with agency; science with theology.
Now, the AB clearly has a content-less doctrine of creation here; not seemingly aware of this aspect of the doctrine, that reality; or all that created; is ontologically isotropic; and congruently exhibits a uniformity of causal transactions. He seems to think that the one reality is open to different basic descriptions, or different natures: that is, one is like God (in the Bible) and the other is not like God. Blackford, below, picks this up (and interestingly, his evolutionary way does not result in God's being glorified, which tends to rule it out as having any part of the creation) noting that evolutionary doctrines are disjunctive with the world having been very good before man's fall. He regards the fall as fictional, of course; so he is left with a world that is temporally replete with suffering. Jensen is left in this place too, with no connection between the real world and a history that does not embed enmity between creation and God.
And its not even that he needs to discuss science: he's committed the error of the two magisteria here; playing right into the atheist trap; pity he doesn't have sufficient confidence in the revelation of God to set his revelation in the history of his actions in relation to us to whom he reveals himself and out of that bring a critique of atheist nonsense and its self refuting implications.
Dr Russell Blackford [part-way into his presentation]: As we survey all the world's horrible circumstances, the endlessly varied kinds of excruciating pain, the deep suffering and sheer misery, inflicted on so many human beings and other vulnerable living things, it is not believable that a God of Love would have remotely adequate reasons to permit it all.
And it's no use responding to such questions with talk of free will. If free will means anything, it means being able to act in accordance with your own nature and values.
God is supposed to have free will, and yet we are assured by theologians that God will never act malevolently because it is not in his nature to do so. God will always freely choose to do good.
Well, why wouldn't God create other beings with benevolent natures who will also freely choose to do good? Heaven is supposed to be like that, so why isn't Earth?
And anyway, only a relatively small amount of the suffering there has been in the world over hundreds of millions of years could possibly have anything to do with the free choices of human beings.
Why has an all-powerful, all-knowing God of Love brought about the world's current life forms through the process of biological evolution, which has, as God could have foreseen, led to untold misery in the animal world? Why would God choose this as the process to bring about beings like us?
Biologists tell us that the evolutionary process inevitably produces design flaws - often painful or debilitating for the creatures concerned. These are present everywhere in the natural world, and in fact in the human genome itself.
These flaws are just part of the evidence that life on Earth has diversified over time through the blind process of evolution, rather than being the product of a guiding intelligence.
So why would an all-powerful, all-knowing God of Love choose a process that foreseeably produces so many atrocious outcomes for the creatures involved?
Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing God of Love choose the cruel, brutal operation of evolution, in which species supersede each other? You can't reconcile the process of evolution with the existence of such a god.
Indeed, in Blackford’s comments introducing the above extract he scornfully taunted his Christian opponents’ lack of faith:
Russell Blackford: In fact, though, they [Peter Jensen, Tracey Rowland, Scott Stephens] seem to have shown a lack of faith. None of the traditional arguments for the existence of God have been relied upon - they seem to have no faith in those arguments.
Indeed, no argument of any kind for the existence of a god was developed by them in any concerted way.
The transcripts: Jensen's and Blackford’s.
,
Sydney Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen: Thus, it is not with evolution as science that I have a problem; it is with evolution as an idolatrous explanation of all things; it confuses mechanism with agency; science with theology.
Now, the AB clearly has a content-less doctrine of creation here; not seemingly aware of this aspect of the doctrine, that reality; or all that created; is ontologically isotropic; and congruently exhibits a uniformity of causal transactions. He seems to think that the one reality is open to different basic descriptions, or different natures: that is, one is like God (in the Bible) and the other is not like God. Blackford, below, picks this up (and interestingly, his evolutionary way does not result in God's being glorified, which tends to rule it out as having any part of the creation) noting that evolutionary doctrines are disjunctive with the world having been very good before man's fall. He regards the fall as fictional, of course; so he is left with a world that is temporally replete with suffering. Jensen is left in this place too, with no connection between the real world and a history that does not embed enmity between creation and God.
And its not even that he needs to discuss science: he's committed the error of the two magisteria here; playing right into the atheist trap; pity he doesn't have sufficient confidence in the revelation of God to set his revelation in the history of his actions in relation to us to whom he reveals himself and out of that bring a critique of atheist nonsense and its self refuting implications.
Dr Russell Blackford [part-way into his presentation]: As we survey all the world's horrible circumstances, the endlessly varied kinds of excruciating pain, the deep suffering and sheer misery, inflicted on so many human beings and other vulnerable living things, it is not believable that a God of Love would have remotely adequate reasons to permit it all.
And it's no use responding to such questions with talk of free will. If free will means anything, it means being able to act in accordance with your own nature and values.
God is supposed to have free will, and yet we are assured by theologians that God will never act malevolently because it is not in his nature to do so. God will always freely choose to do good.
Well, why wouldn't God create other beings with benevolent natures who will also freely choose to do good? Heaven is supposed to be like that, so why isn't Earth?
And anyway, only a relatively small amount of the suffering there has been in the world over hundreds of millions of years could possibly have anything to do with the free choices of human beings.
Why has an all-powerful, all-knowing God of Love brought about the world's current life forms through the process of biological evolution, which has, as God could have foreseen, led to untold misery in the animal world? Why would God choose this as the process to bring about beings like us?
Biologists tell us that the evolutionary process inevitably produces design flaws - often painful or debilitating for the creatures concerned. These are present everywhere in the natural world, and in fact in the human genome itself.
These flaws are just part of the evidence that life on Earth has diversified over time through the blind process of evolution, rather than being the product of a guiding intelligence.
So why would an all-powerful, all-knowing God of Love choose a process that foreseeably produces so many atrocious outcomes for the creatures involved?
Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing God of Love choose the cruel, brutal operation of evolution, in which species supersede each other? You can't reconcile the process of evolution with the existence of such a god.
Indeed, in Blackford’s comments introducing the above extract he scornfully taunted his Christian opponents’ lack of faith:
Russell Blackford: In fact, though, they [Peter Jensen, Tracey Rowland, Scott Stephens] seem to have shown a lack of faith. None of the traditional arguments for the existence of God have been relied upon - they seem to have no faith in those arguments.
Indeed, no argument of any kind for the existence of a god was developed by them in any concerted way.
The transcripts: Jensen's and Blackford’s.
,
22 September 2011
Rocks in mud
In a recent promo on TV for a series on the cosmos, it was claimed that the series told us who we were and how we fitted into the universe.
That is, physical sciences, or the materialist interpretation of the physical world, is looked to for basic ontology and this as the foundation for human existential affirmations.
As I heard this promo, my mind went to the oft repeated phrase that religion (meaining biblical Christianity) and 'science' have two different domains of reference. The implication is that science deals with the real world; what actually is or actually happened, and is thus the real (material) basis for who we are and what significance we have (or don't), but religion deals within the real world about values, morals and other affective ethical aspects of life. But the important thing to note is that science is definitional and real, religion is derivative and encompased by the real defined by science. Science (in the sense of religions materialism and its cognates) then is the ultimate reference point, and religion is not.
Science, of course, is contextualised here by the materialist evolutionary world view, which sets out a comprehensive view of life, yet oddly introduces teleological concepts left right and centre contrary to its premis (see for instance the very notion of meaning: if there is in fact no 'meaning', or rather significance, meaning being a property of propositions, not phenomena, then science tells us nothing and any whiff of intentionality in any mind is a chimera).
Then, of course we have those theologians who, riding the wave of religion materialism's boosting, agree that the biblical informaiton about creation and contemporary scientific (materialist) claims about evolution treat different things, and are brought into compatibility in the notion of theistic evolution. Theistic evolution means that evolution is accepted, and any thing that God might have done is made consistent with the current materialist story.
Yet, this leaves one in great perplexity, because each has over-arching ontological claims with completely different epistemic and existential outworkings, which do not permit the glib compatibilist formulation that we have in theistic evolution.
Either the one is right: and intention is real because person-ness is basic in the structure of reality (that is God is and everything is a result of his intention, intention in love, moreover); or the other is, and if so, bibilical Christianity, and the spiritual matters it explicates are captured within the over-arching materialist ontology, and are not only finally, but are totally empty. The alternative, which theistic evolution seems to want to entertain, is that there is a functional dualism, with the real world we inhabit having a dualist character; at once created and un-created; with the incarnation being then inexplicable as there being no clear ontological relation between the dual ontologies. But this is simply unworkable because we can only live life as a unity, not monadically, but existentially and therefore ontologically unified with relations operating in consistent causality across time, space and domains of being.
What ends up is that we come straight round to material being basic, provding the root ontology, and intention (loving intention: our existential rootedness) being a (mere) epiphenomenon of matter and thus reflecting an arbitrary, or random, set of mechanical interactions at the atomic level with as much purpose and significanance as rocks caught in a mud slide!
That is, physical sciences, or the materialist interpretation of the physical world, is looked to for basic ontology and this as the foundation for human existential affirmations.
As I heard this promo, my mind went to the oft repeated phrase that religion (meaining biblical Christianity) and 'science' have two different domains of reference. The implication is that science deals with the real world; what actually is or actually happened, and is thus the real (material) basis for who we are and what significance we have (or don't), but religion deals within the real world about values, morals and other affective ethical aspects of life. But the important thing to note is that science is definitional and real, religion is derivative and encompased by the real defined by science. Science (in the sense of religions materialism and its cognates) then is the ultimate reference point, and religion is not.
Science, of course, is contextualised here by the materialist evolutionary world view, which sets out a comprehensive view of life, yet oddly introduces teleological concepts left right and centre contrary to its premis (see for instance the very notion of meaning: if there is in fact no 'meaning', or rather significance, meaning being a property of propositions, not phenomena, then science tells us nothing and any whiff of intentionality in any mind is a chimera).
Then, of course we have those theologians who, riding the wave of religion materialism's boosting, agree that the biblical informaiton about creation and contemporary scientific (materialist) claims about evolution treat different things, and are brought into compatibility in the notion of theistic evolution. Theistic evolution means that evolution is accepted, and any thing that God might have done is made consistent with the current materialist story.
Yet, this leaves one in great perplexity, because each has over-arching ontological claims with completely different epistemic and existential outworkings, which do not permit the glib compatibilist formulation that we have in theistic evolution.
Either the one is right: and intention is real because person-ness is basic in the structure of reality (that is God is and everything is a result of his intention, intention in love, moreover); or the other is, and if so, bibilical Christianity, and the spiritual matters it explicates are captured within the over-arching materialist ontology, and are not only finally, but are totally empty. The alternative, which theistic evolution seems to want to entertain, is that there is a functional dualism, with the real world we inhabit having a dualist character; at once created and un-created; with the incarnation being then inexplicable as there being no clear ontological relation between the dual ontologies. But this is simply unworkable because we can only live life as a unity, not monadically, but existentially and therefore ontologically unified with relations operating in consistent causality across time, space and domains of being.
What ends up is that we come straight round to material being basic, provding the root ontology, and intention (loving intention: our existential rootedness) being a (mere) epiphenomenon of matter and thus reflecting an arbitrary, or random, set of mechanical interactions at the atomic level with as much purpose and significanance as rocks caught in a mud slide!
17 September 2011
Self Organisation
A self-organizing garden is called a weed patch.
Courtesy of this post on organising in IT projects using the 'agile' methodology.
Courtesy of this post on organising in IT projects using the 'agile' methodology.
15 September 2011
Earth...Light...Action
In response to this Creation item; the following comment:
Thinking that the existence of light prior to the sun is problematic is, I think, an example of trying to project a naive observer view of the cosmos back into Genesis. While it is true that Genesis 1 has naive observer aspects, and some theologians think that this is the dominating characteristic of Genesis 1; I don't think that this is a necessary conclusion.
From a naive observor viewpoint is would seem peculiar if light, which seems to be made by the sun, existed before its source; but this misunderstands the physics of light. In fact, if there was no light: no photons emitted by sub-atomic excitement, there would be nothing coming out of the sun at all. Further, as light is but a part of the electromagnetic spectrum, one would reasonably surmise that the creation of light signified the creation of the entire spectrum, if not the entire energy field of the cosmos.
Could the lack of light be related to the formlessness and voidness of the 'stuff' of the cosmos: the heavens and earth as summary of all that was made, as inert 'stuff' un-energised occupant of space; add energy, and things really get going.
On these grounds, of course light would have to be 'made'. Without it the sun would be just sitting there, a mass of inert unproductive not-quite-matter.
Then this goes on to light being involved in the marking of evening and morning. I don't think that this occurs before day 4 when the marking of time is done by the heavenly bodies. Thus this marking was not occurring prior. So the evening and morning are set as nominal signifiers of the passing of time congruent with the later defined days now timed by the astronomical markers: same days by duration, different signification, but the same period of time elapsing on the basis of the equivalence of names.
I recall traveling in the arctic circle where my fellow travelers and I entertained each other playing with the fact that the light was the same at evening and morning: the light really didn't vary that much, but time still did pass, and the names gave meaning to the course of diurnal time. So with the days prior to day 4; I think is possible.
Thinking that the existence of light prior to the sun is problematic is, I think, an example of trying to project a naive observer view of the cosmos back into Genesis. While it is true that Genesis 1 has naive observer aspects, and some theologians think that this is the dominating characteristic of Genesis 1; I don't think that this is a necessary conclusion.
From a naive observor viewpoint is would seem peculiar if light, which seems to be made by the sun, existed before its source; but this misunderstands the physics of light. In fact, if there was no light: no photons emitted by sub-atomic excitement, there would be nothing coming out of the sun at all. Further, as light is but a part of the electromagnetic spectrum, one would reasonably surmise that the creation of light signified the creation of the entire spectrum, if not the entire energy field of the cosmos.
Could the lack of light be related to the formlessness and voidness of the 'stuff' of the cosmos: the heavens and earth as summary of all that was made, as inert 'stuff' un-energised occupant of space; add energy, and things really get going.
On these grounds, of course light would have to be 'made'. Without it the sun would be just sitting there, a mass of inert unproductive not-quite-matter.
Then this goes on to light being involved in the marking of evening and morning. I don't think that this occurs before day 4 when the marking of time is done by the heavenly bodies. Thus this marking was not occurring prior. So the evening and morning are set as nominal signifiers of the passing of time congruent with the later defined days now timed by the astronomical markers: same days by duration, different signification, but the same period of time elapsing on the basis of the equivalence of names.
I recall traveling in the arctic circle where my fellow travelers and I entertained each other playing with the fact that the light was the same at evening and morning: the light really didn't vary that much, but time still did pass, and the names gave meaning to the course of diurnal time. So with the days prior to day 4; I think is possible.
9 September 2011
Sample of 1
A local newspaper reported a new allegedly candidate transitional ape-to-man fossil.
Well, it might be an intermediate between two species, but I don't know how this could be determined. From a fossil, ancestry and progination are just not determinable either in general or the particular; so its a mountain of speculation: if people financed their businesses this way, we'd all be broke overnight.
But its also impossible to determine what we are dealing with with a sample size of just 1.
Nevertheless, much trumpeted!
Also of interest is the volume of comments attracted (see below). For a matter that is largely neglected by the church, it has obvious attraction, usually far outweighing the attraction of many other topics.
Paul was right.
The article mentioned the supposed age of the find; but, true to a newspaper, without mentioning the range of results, their error bands and the physical calibration that applied (as opposed to the guesswork calibration of fossil order).
Well, it might be an intermediate between two species, but I don't know how this could be determined. From a fossil, ancestry and progination are just not determinable either in general or the particular; so its a mountain of speculation: if people financed their businesses this way, we'd all be broke overnight.
But its also impossible to determine what we are dealing with with a sample size of just 1.
Nevertheless, much trumpeted!
Also of interest is the volume of comments attracted (see below). For a matter that is largely neglected by the church, it has obvious attraction, usually far outweighing the attraction of many other topics.
Paul was right.
The article mentioned the supposed age of the find; but, true to a newspaper, without mentioning the range of results, their error bands and the physical calibration that applied (as opposed to the guesswork calibration of fossil order).
29 August 2011
From (the) Kitchen, K. A. on ANE tales.
Re-posted from the Gairney Bridge blog:
K.A. Kitchen, in On the Reliability of the Old Testament, writes the following in response of frequent assertion of commonality between the biblical creation story and those of other early cultures:
Kitchen goes on to describe various similarities and massive differences between the different flood accounts:
Here the basic contents are common to both the Mesopotamian and Genesis accounts. So we have in both: a flood sent as divine punishment; one man enjoined to build an “ark”; he taking family and living creatures; and his survival. In detail the differences are so numerous as to preclude either the Mesopotamian or Genesis accounts having been copied directly from the other. We may list the following: (1) The Mesopotamian gods sent the flood simply becausee they could not stand the noise made by humanity … . (2) The Mesopotamian gods hid their plan from all humanity … . (3) The respective boats differ totally; … the Mesopotamian one was a cube! (4) The lengths of duration of the respective floods differ … . (5) A much greater range of folk people the Mesopotamian craft (pilot, craftsmen, etc.) … . (6) The details of sending out birds differ entirely between the two accounts. (7) The Mesopotamian hero leaves the ark on his own initiative, then offers a sacrifice to appease the gods [who were angry at his escape] … . (8) The land of Mesopotamia was replenished by direct divine activity …; but in Gen. 9 it is left to Noah, family and surviving creatures to get on the job by natural means. So, an epochally important flood in far antiquity has come down in a tradition shared by both early Mesopotamian culture and Gen. 6-9, but which found clearly separate and distinct expression in the written forms left us by the two cultures. (p. 425, emphasis added).
Kitchen goes on to state in lengths of the various accounts are considered, “Genesis … offers a more concise, simpler account, and not an eloboration of a Mesopotamian composition” (p. 425, emphasis in the original). He also notes, “Floods per se were a commonplace in the ‘Land of the Two Rivers,’ so why this fuss about a flood? Presumably because, in folk memory, there had been a particularly massive one, far more fatal than most, and the memory stuck ever after, until finally it entered the written tradition. Assyriologists have no problem on this score” (p. 426).
K.A. Kitchen, in On the Reliability of the Old Testament, writes the following in response of frequent assertion of commonality between the biblical creation story and those of other early cultures:
The individual themes of creation and flood … recur in other writings. Thus the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish (called “Babylonian Creation” in most books), completed circa 1000 from older sources, has been repeatedly compared with Genesis 1-2. But despite the reinterated claims of an older generation of biblical scholars, Enuma Elish and Gen. 1-2 share no direct relationship. … In terms of theme, creation is the massively central concern of Gen. 1-2, but it is mere tailpiece in Enuma Elish, which is dedicated to portraying the supremacy of the god Marduk of Babylon. The only clear comparisons between the two are the inevitable banalities: creation of earth and sky before the plants are put on the earth, and of plants before animals (that need to eat them) and humans; it could hardly have been otherwise! The creation of light before the luminaries is the pecularity that might indicate any link between the Hebrew and Eunma Elish narrative; but where did it earlier come from? Not known, as yet. Thus most Assyriologists have long since rejected the idea of any direct link between Gen. 1-11 and Enuma Elish, and nothing else better can be found between Gen. 1-11 and any other Mesopotamian fragments. (pp. 424-425, emphasis added)
Kitchen goes on to describe various similarities and massive differences between the different flood accounts:
Here the basic contents are common to both the Mesopotamian and Genesis accounts. So we have in both: a flood sent as divine punishment; one man enjoined to build an “ark”; he taking family and living creatures; and his survival. In detail the differences are so numerous as to preclude either the Mesopotamian or Genesis accounts having been copied directly from the other. We may list the following: (1) The Mesopotamian gods sent the flood simply becausee they could not stand the noise made by humanity … . (2) The Mesopotamian gods hid their plan from all humanity … . (3) The respective boats differ totally; … the Mesopotamian one was a cube! (4) The lengths of duration of the respective floods differ … . (5) A much greater range of folk people the Mesopotamian craft (pilot, craftsmen, etc.) … . (6) The details of sending out birds differ entirely between the two accounts. (7) The Mesopotamian hero leaves the ark on his own initiative, then offers a sacrifice to appease the gods [who were angry at his escape] … . (8) The land of Mesopotamia was replenished by direct divine activity …; but in Gen. 9 it is left to Noah, family and surviving creatures to get on the job by natural means. So, an epochally important flood in far antiquity has come down in a tradition shared by both early Mesopotamian culture and Gen. 6-9, but which found clearly separate and distinct expression in the written forms left us by the two cultures. (p. 425, emphasis added).
Kitchen goes on to state in lengths of the various accounts are considered, “Genesis … offers a more concise, simpler account, and not an eloboration of a Mesopotamian composition” (p. 425, emphasis in the original). He also notes, “Floods per se were a commonplace in the ‘Land of the Two Rivers,’ so why this fuss about a flood? Presumably because, in folk memory, there had been a particularly massive one, far more fatal than most, and the memory stuck ever after, until finally it entered the written tradition. Assyriologists have no problem on this score” (p. 426).
25 August 2011
Lucretius
From Chesteron's The Everlasting Man: on evolution and its ontological predicate!
There remains only the fourth element or rather the first; that which had been in a sense forgotten because it was the
first. I mean the primary and overpowering yet impalpable impression that the universe after all has one origin and one aim; and because it has an aim must have an author. What became of this great truth in the background of men's minds, at this time, it is perhaps more difficult to determine. Some of the Stoics undoubtedly saw it more and more clearly as the clouds of mythology cleared and thinned away; and great men among them did much even to the last to lay the foundations of a concept of the moral unity of the world. The Jews still held their secret certainty of it jealously behind high fences of exclusiveness; yet it is intensely characteristic of the society and the situation that some fashionable figures, especially fashionable ladies, actually embraced Judaism. But in the case of many others I fancy there entered at this point a new negation. Atheism became really possible in that abnormal time; for atheism is abnormality. It is not merely the denial of a dogma. It is the reversal of a subconscious assumption in the soul; the sense that there is a meaning and a direction in the world it sees. Lucretius, the
first evolutionist who endeavoured to substitute Evolution for God, had already dangled before men's eyes his dance of glittering atoms, by which he conceived cosmos as created by chaos. But it was not his strong poetry or his sad philosophy, as I fancy, that made it possible for men to entertain such a vision. It was something in the sense of impotence and despair with which men shook their fists vainly at the stars, as they saw all the best work of humanity sinking slowly and helplessly into a swamp. They could easily believe that even creation itself was not a creation but a perpetual fall, when they saw that the weightiest and worthiest of all human creations was falling by its own weight. They could fancy that all the stars were falling stars; and that the very pillars of their own solemn porticos were bowed under a sort of gradual deluge. To men in that mood there was a reason for atheism that is in some sense reasonable. Mythology might fade and philosophy might stiffen; but if behind these things there was a reality, surely that reality might have sustained things as they sank. There was no God; if there had been a God, surely this was the very moment when He would have moved and saved the world.
There remains only the fourth element or rather the first; that which had been in a sense forgotten because it was the
first. I mean the primary and overpowering yet impalpable impression that the universe after all has one origin and one aim; and because it has an aim must have an author. What became of this great truth in the background of men's minds, at this time, it is perhaps more difficult to determine. Some of the Stoics undoubtedly saw it more and more clearly as the clouds of mythology cleared and thinned away; and great men among them did much even to the last to lay the foundations of a concept of the moral unity of the world. The Jews still held their secret certainty of it jealously behind high fences of exclusiveness; yet it is intensely characteristic of the society and the situation that some fashionable figures, especially fashionable ladies, actually embraced Judaism. But in the case of many others I fancy there entered at this point a new negation. Atheism became really possible in that abnormal time; for atheism is abnormality. It is not merely the denial of a dogma. It is the reversal of a subconscious assumption in the soul; the sense that there is a meaning and a direction in the world it sees. Lucretius, the
first evolutionist who endeavoured to substitute Evolution for God, had already dangled before men's eyes his dance of glittering atoms, by which he conceived cosmos as created by chaos. But it was not his strong poetry or his sad philosophy, as I fancy, that made it possible for men to entertain such a vision. It was something in the sense of impotence and despair with which men shook their fists vainly at the stars, as they saw all the best work of humanity sinking slowly and helplessly into a swamp. They could easily believe that even creation itself was not a creation but a perpetual fall, when they saw that the weightiest and worthiest of all human creations was falling by its own weight. They could fancy that all the stars were falling stars; and that the very pillars of their own solemn porticos were bowed under a sort of gradual deluge. To men in that mood there was a reason for atheism that is in some sense reasonable. Mythology might fade and philosophy might stiffen; but if behind these things there was a reality, surely that reality might have sustained things as they sank. There was no God; if there had been a God, surely this was the very moment when He would have moved and saved the world.
21 August 2011
Pagans, poets and myth
From Chesterton's Everlasting Man
Chesterton reverses the logic of those who claim that Genesis as other than factual can tell us anything. Claims that poetry produces the rational realism of Christian thesim are simply wrong: poetry is bundled with myth to keep us from understanding, not to introduce us to it!
Paganism lived upon poetry; that poetry already considered under the name of mythology.
Chesterton reverses the logic of those who claim that Genesis as other than factual can tell us anything. Claims that poetry produces the rational realism of Christian thesim are simply wrong: poetry is bundled with myth to keep us from understanding, not to introduce us to it!
17 August 2011
Theologian's Own-Goal
In the Sun-Herald on Sunday 14 August 2011, Brian Rosner, a 'New Testament scholar' attached to the Centre for Public Christianity, scored an own goal against Christian proclamation, and without even trying hard to avoid it! My son's soccer team does better.
What Brian did was write this, in the context of a press debate on teaching scripture in public schools, with Peter Fitzsimons, a well known booster for atheism.
"The much-maligned doctrine of creation, which to many Christians is not in opposition to evolution..."
Now, the correct line of debate with an atheist goes something like: "so why should your view, which results from an arbitrarily and essentially meaningless tangle of chemicals, have any credibility at all? Now let's get on with my view, which is based on people having real value."; however, Rosner, wanting to show how compatible are Christian ideas with those that would keep people from their creator forever, put it about that some Christians actually share the materialist world view of most (modern Western) atheists.
Now, what could he mean by this, apart from 'Peter, we are really on the same wavelength on what is basically real...nothing in Christian theology really needs to disrupt the atheistic thought world'? How crazy...with friends like these...
And why bring it up at all? The rhetoric of so many neo-othodox theologians in this context is that creation doesn't matter, just keep up with 'clear presentations of the gospel' (notwithstanding that Paul shows that the intellectual path for an atheist is from creation to Jesus: refer to Acts 17, as the paradigmatic evidence of this). No, Rosner shows that it is really important, but perhaps not as the Bible sets out; after all, if he can conflate the Bible's teaching that creation was purposed in love, quickly and recently with the idea that it is purposeless, slow and meandering, then he's on a different wavelength from the apostles. Seems that he's rather set to deflate the importance of the difference to help atheists into the kindgom. But what they would hear, and consistently do hear, from what they write, is that as soon as their world-concept is accepted, the rationale of the gospel evaporates, and God shifts notionally from transcendent creator, to social construct. Rosner abets this, despite the fundamental stuctural disparity between the two conceptions of the world, instead of opposing it with Pauline energy, concern and commitment!
As Al Mohler stated in his talk on the age of the universe, it is futile to try to meet atheists half way, as there is no halfway point for those in oppostion. As soon as ground is conceded, the attack has failed.
I can imagine Fitz saying in response: "so, my world view is fundamentally sound; what does 'God' add to it"?
But aside from this, what is the point of saying what a number of Christians think? That number may be decidedly wrong (as it is in this case); its the fallacy of truth being established by popular vote. For a paid Christian to make this mistake is frightening. If I was paying fees at Moore, I'd want a refund.
Finally, just why would a Christian accept that the doctrine of creation is 'much maligned'? Do I detect a freudian slip? Why not say, the 'poorly understood', or the 'not-very-well-communicated-by-the-church doctrine of creation' (and this because it is generally despised, as the behaviour of most theologians and proclamation indicates; or either ignored, rejected, or undermined by being re-written for compatibility with evolution; against which it is diametrically set!), or the 'completely neglected and disarticulated' or any number of other descriptions for how contemporary neo-orthodoxy blunts the sword of God's word. Of course the world maligns every doctrine we have; this is not news, but as a rhetorical strategy, I think it is wanting. Here is an occasion to make a point, but instead Rosner adopts the tail between the legs tactic: one known not to work!
What Brian did was write this, in the context of a press debate on teaching scripture in public schools, with Peter Fitzsimons, a well known booster for atheism.
"The much-maligned doctrine of creation, which to many Christians is not in opposition to evolution..."
Now, the correct line of debate with an atheist goes something like: "so why should your view, which results from an arbitrarily and essentially meaningless tangle of chemicals, have any credibility at all? Now let's get on with my view, which is based on people having real value."; however, Rosner, wanting to show how compatible are Christian ideas with those that would keep people from their creator forever, put it about that some Christians actually share the materialist world view of most (modern Western) atheists.
Now, what could he mean by this, apart from 'Peter, we are really on the same wavelength on what is basically real...nothing in Christian theology really needs to disrupt the atheistic thought world'? How crazy...with friends like these...
And why bring it up at all? The rhetoric of so many neo-othodox theologians in this context is that creation doesn't matter, just keep up with 'clear presentations of the gospel' (notwithstanding that Paul shows that the intellectual path for an atheist is from creation to Jesus: refer to Acts 17, as the paradigmatic evidence of this). No, Rosner shows that it is really important, but perhaps not as the Bible sets out; after all, if he can conflate the Bible's teaching that creation was purposed in love, quickly and recently with the idea that it is purposeless, slow and meandering, then he's on a different wavelength from the apostles. Seems that he's rather set to deflate the importance of the difference to help atheists into the kindgom. But what they would hear, and consistently do hear, from what they write, is that as soon as their world-concept is accepted, the rationale of the gospel evaporates, and God shifts notionally from transcendent creator, to social construct. Rosner abets this, despite the fundamental stuctural disparity between the two conceptions of the world, instead of opposing it with Pauline energy, concern and commitment!
As Al Mohler stated in his talk on the age of the universe, it is futile to try to meet atheists half way, as there is no halfway point for those in oppostion. As soon as ground is conceded, the attack has failed.
I can imagine Fitz saying in response: "so, my world view is fundamentally sound; what does 'God' add to it"?
But aside from this, what is the point of saying what a number of Christians think? That number may be decidedly wrong (as it is in this case); its the fallacy of truth being established by popular vote. For a paid Christian to make this mistake is frightening. If I was paying fees at Moore, I'd want a refund.
Finally, just why would a Christian accept that the doctrine of creation is 'much maligned'? Do I detect a freudian slip? Why not say, the 'poorly understood', or the 'not-very-well-communicated-by-the-church doctrine of creation' (and this because it is generally despised, as the behaviour of most theologians and proclamation indicates; or either ignored, rejected, or undermined by being re-written for compatibility with evolution; against which it is diametrically set!), or the 'completely neglected and disarticulated' or any number of other descriptions for how contemporary neo-orthodoxy blunts the sword of God's word. Of course the world maligns every doctrine we have; this is not news, but as a rhetorical strategy, I think it is wanting. Here is an occasion to make a point, but instead Rosner adopts the tail between the legs tactic: one known not to work!
16 August 2011
Spotlight on leadership in the church
This article by Jon Zens picks up a theme I've caught in a few posts in my 'ministry' tag.
15 August 2011
Drifting away, doing nothing
The Youthworks site has an article that shows where conventional evangelism, Christian education and apologetics fails to connect with what younger people; probably all people, really want to know about life, the universe and everything.
The four biggest questions that surveyed young people had were:
The article's author went on to comment:
And is this surprising? I think not, because the Bible starts with these very questions: it sets out the parameters of the revelation of God in basic ontology linking immediately to the basic existential questions.
The author goes on to discuss this:
The mistake that is made is Christian thinkers not engaging with the thought world of those outside the church; but assuming a shared thought world.
Yet, Paul, 2000 years ago, saw the issue, and confronted it in Athens. In Acts 17:22ff, he showed us how to evangelise outside of a Christian thought world:
So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;
A comment on the Youthworks website put it this way:
The four biggest questions that surveyed young people had were:
1. How can I know that God exists?
2. How could a good God send people to hell?
3. How can I believe in a good God when there is so much suffering?
4. Doesn’t evolution prove that God doesn’t exist?
The article's author went on to comment:
What strikes me about those questions is that they are very focused on the question of God’s existence and his nature
And is this surprising? I think not, because the Bible starts with these very questions: it sets out the parameters of the revelation of God in basic ontology linking immediately to the basic existential questions.
The author goes on to discuss this:
In our apologetics we often get caught up in the questions that we think are important, like: “did Jesus rise from the dead?” “Why doesn’t God want us to have sex before marriage?” “Can I take the bible literally?”These are good questions, but we should be dealing with the more foundational questions first such as: “Who is God?” even when we are teaching kids that we think are well informed.
In the survey, as well as choosing from a range of questions, there was the option of writing down your own question. Popular questions that came up repeatedly were:
1. Where does God come from?
2. Why did God make us?
3. If the Big Bang is true does that mean God is not?
4. What is heaven & hell and how do you go there?
The mistake that is made is Christian thinkers not engaging with the thought world of those outside the church; but assuming a shared thought world.
Yet, Paul, 2000 years ago, saw the issue, and confronted it in Athens. In Acts 17:22ff, he showed us how to evangelise outside of a Christian thought world:
So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;
A comment on the Youthworks website put it this way:
This article indicates a deeper theological problem; and that is we seem to think [and] convey to our children, and probably the world, that profound questions about our being here at all can be answered independently of God. This arises from the empty notion that Genesis 1 doesn't tell us 'how' or 'what' but only 'why'; when, of course, the three questions cannot be separated. If the how or what of our being can be answered without reference to 'why' then the 'why' is not truly informative; but is detached from the world.
The contrary is the case, however, in the Bible's 'view'. That is, at base the question that the Bible answers first off is 'who' and this is folded out in terms of 'what', 'how' and 'why'. All are bound up with one another and reality is finally personal, not finally material, which is insisted by the modern materialism that hides behind the facade (the house of cards, really) of evolutionary dogma and yet insists that it provides foundational truths about our world.
In a Christian frame, science is not philosophically separate from theology, but grows out of it. And this is reflected in the history of modern science growing out of a thought-world that took its cues from the Bible's structuring of the real world as created by God; and created recently and rapidly, which underlines the hand of God, and not material independence mediated by extended periods of time isolating the cosmos from its creator.
10 August 2011
Kelly on Creation, Days and Theology
A piece published many years ago in The Presbyterian Witness
Q & A with Dr. Douglas Kelly
Q. The focus of your forthcoming book is Christ and creation. What is the importance of a study on creation in our day?
A. The title of my next book is The Creation: An Exposition Look at Genesis In Light of Changing Paradigms. Let me begin by citing from a great work from Straussburg by one of Calvin’s colleagues written in 1539 called Hexameron (still in Latin) on the six-days of creation. It was authored by Wolfgang Capito. He says that creation is the foundation stone of the whole Christian philosophy. By Christian philosophy he means systematic theology - world and life view and practice. If God did not make this world then religion is really a matter of some less than real world.
James Denny was a Scottish theologian in Glasgow in the 1890's and early 1900's. He wrote in the 1890's that to separate religion (Christianity) from science is to separate religion from the true. Once religion is separated from the true, Denny goes on to say, then religion dies among true men. I would say that if God begins His revelation to us with the doctrine of creation it must be important. It is therefore not only the first doctrine of the Bible (other than God Himself) it is primal. It is the basis of all covenants, of all revelation, of all God’s dealings with the human race, that He made all things out of nothing.
Of course we know from the New Testament, particularly the prologue to John’s Gospel that it was the agent of creation who took on flesh in the incarnation. As St. Anselm said in his famous Cor Deos Hormo? (Why Did God Become Man?) it took somebody as big as the Creator/God to become man to redeem us. If God is not really the Creator. Christ is not as big as the New Testament told us He was. His work does not have the kind of universal and eternal consequences that the New Testament theology teaches. Creation is important both for reality and that the real world is controlled by God. Christ the Agent of Creation is also our Redeemer. If you eviscerate a solid biblical doctrine of creation, the religion becomes unreal and Christ is diminished.
Q. Why is there so little connection between Christ and creation in modern day preaching?
A. I think there are two or three factors involved. I believe that evangelical theologians and commentators since the late 1800's have tended to avoid creation because of its controversial nature. There has been the rather uncritical acceptance of the assumptions of vast ages of the universe and of some form of evolutionary theory by most evangelicals. Dr. Nigel Cameron who is now at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School wrote a book in 1983 Evolution and the Authority of the Bible. He surveys the evangelical commentaries in the late 19th century and finds there is only one - Thomas Scott's - that hadn't caved in to some form of evolution. Therefore most ministers have come out of ministries and institutions that have accepted some form of evolutionary thinking. Obviously that is going to take away one's zeal for the glory of the Creator; if what He did is considerably less than what we are told in Genesis.
A second reason might be that there is a tendency among us ministers to see practical results. There is nothing wrong with that. I do as much as anyone. There can be a hesitancy to preach the whole range of biblical doctrine because you might feel that some doctrines might be too hard for people to understand or the doctrines do not get a good response or are too divisive. An example is the critique of evolutionary thinking. Thus many avoid it.
Q. Regarding creation, some reformed denominations are receiving men who believe that Genesis is poetic. What is some argumentation that elders can use to confront this view?
A. First let me recommend In the Beginning by Edward J. Young, published by Banner of Truth a few years ago. He was an authority of massive erudition in the Semitic languages. He discusses this matter. In the 60's when he wrote this he said that evangelicals were hesitant to enter the lists with people that accepted evolution. Thus they said that Genesis 1-3 was poetic and not meant to be taken as serious chronological history. Therefore they could have peace with the other point of view.
E. J. Young says that there are poetic accounts of creation in Scripture such as Ps. 104 and certain passages in Job. Such characteristics of Hebrew poetry are not found in Genesis 1-3. One of the marks is heavy parallelism as in the Psalms such as synthetic and antithetic parallelism. Such parallelism is not found in Genesis 1-3. These chapters are written as straight chronological history.
My colleague at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Dr. John Currid wrote an excellent article a few years ago in which he shows that the five or six characteristics of Hebrew poetry are not found in Genesis 1-3.
The great Jewish scholar, now deceased, Issac Cassuto did, I think, the finest single commentary I have ever seen on Genesis. It was translated into English in l961. He says the creation account is the way the Hebrew mind wrote history. The writer gives the broad picture in Genesis 1 and then isolates a portion and expands upon it in Genesis 2. This approach is not the method found in the Hellenistic and western intellectual tradition of writing history.
Q. Another critique laymen may hear is that past reformed scholars such as B. B. Warfield did not hold to a six-day (24 hours) creation view.
A. That is a true statement. Reformed scholars beginning in the mid 19th century felt the pressure in the shift in the intellectual world to the belief that geology had proven a massive age of physical structures in the physical world and in the solar system. The reformed scholars perhaps did not have the same alternative explanation to help them critique as some of us do today. They tried to preserve the truth claims of Scripture but make some kind of allowance for vast ages as did Thomas Chalmers of the Free Church of Scotland. That began to influence Charles Hodge somewhat. However Hodge very clearly came out strongly against Darwinism in 1874. He wrote What Is Darwinism? Therein he said that Darwinism is basically Satanism. Hodge was not an evolutionist. In his later years however he felt it necessary to make an allowance for an ancient earth because he thought the information that was coming in at that time was fairly conclusive.
Green, one of his successors at Princeton, was for an old earth. He felt that evolution was receiving so strong a testimony in science as for instance McKosh's support. McKosh was the head of Princeton and an evolutionist from Scotland. So Green wrote on the genealogies of Genesis, trying to lengthen them out and allow for an ancient earth. Warfield, a student of Green's, did the same. He would, I think, have allowed for some form of theistic evolution although Warfield was very conservative, one of our greatest scholars.
In his lifetime he did not have any serious challenges to this scientific paradigm. Therefore he felt he had to accommodate it. This has been the story with many of our best reformed scholars. Without wishing to disparage their great work in other areas, I think we have to say that we regret that they did not raise enough questions about those people who question the veracity of the word of God at these points. We do have considerable information available to us that they did not have to help us answer these questions.
Q. It is also a reminder that men are prone to error. We have to ultimately return to Scripture for our answers not just rely on the work of godly scholars.
A. Yes. That is perhaps what Christ meant when he said, "Call no man ‘Father’."
Q. Looking at Scripture there seems to be much internal evidence for a 24 hour day. If ‘day’ is not literal then the passage may not be literal itself.
A. Right.
Q. What is the meaning of the word ‘day’ in Gen. 2:4?
A. It is referring to the first day of creation on which God created all things out of nothing- all things visible and invisible as the Nicene Creed states. The remaining days are, as the German theologian Von Rad states, the turning of a chaos into a cosmos. [Alternatively it is merely an idiomatic way of saying ‘when’.]
Q. In Gen 5:5 we read "So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died." In Gen. 5:8 we read, "So all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died." Thus the time comparison between the two life spans was based on the same increments of time. [note that the ‘days’ these men lived were ordinary days: a whole lot of them, formed into definite other periods called years. The days remain normal days.]
A. I think that is clearly true. It is definite in Hebrew that when you have an ordinal accompanying the word "day" it always means a normal solar day. If in the Bible anywhere "day" means something else the immediate context makes that perfectly clear. For example, in 2 Peter 3:8 we read that "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The context clearly shows that "day" is a long period of time. [On the contrary, the normal day is used as a comparison; it tells us that God is not constrained as we are by time. If the day here was a long period it would make the comparison nonsensical.] It would be the worst form of isogesis to read that meaning back into Genesis 1 where "day" has ordinals in a specific series. The creation account sets the order for our lives. Are we to work 6000 years and rest 1000 years?
The Fourth commandment also points this out in Ex.20:8ff. The Sabbath is very clearly a normal solar day. Six days of work and one day of rest is the normal pattern.
I think the evidence is preponderant that "day" means a twenty-four hour day. The famous Hebrew Old Testament linguistic professor of Oxford University, Dr. James Barr was no conservative. He wrote the book Fundamentalism attacking conservative Christianity although he came out of that sort of background himself. He wrote a letter to David C. C. Watson in 1984. I have a copy of that letter. In it he says that no world class scholar in any major university that he is aware of thinks that the writer of Genesis intended the word "day" to mean anything other than a 24 hour day. Now he doesn't agree with the truth claims of Scripture. He is saying that we must be honest when we interpret Scripture and say that the writer meant 24 hour days.
Q. If we follow the reformed hermeneutic of Scripture interpreting Scripture then we can come to no other interpretation than that of a six day (24 hours each) creation. To deny six day creation is also to deny this interpretive principle.
A. I fear that if we loosen our moorings to the clear teaching of Scripture in these early chapters of Genesis we have brought in a principle that when the basic teachings of Scripture go against the culture then you go with the culture.
Q.Your forthcoming book is on changing paradigms. Could you elaborate on that theme?
A. I take the subtitle from the famous work of Thomas S. Kuhn (University of Chicago) who in 1970 published his classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Therein he speaks about a paradigm shift. Science proceeds not on an even uphill line but in terms of revolutions in which one paradigm (which is a world view, model or explanation of reality) is in a sort of revolutionary way replaced by another. This new paradigm is contradictory to many aspects of the former but contains all the same facets though from a different point of view.
The reason the old paradigm eventually goes defunct is because anomalies or questions are raised with it that cannot be answered in light of the basic paradigm. Kuhn gives illustrations in the history of science such as the old phlogistic theory of fire which finally just could not accommodate all the evidence. Another very different theory arose. This has happened many times in science.
Only time will tell if I am right. I am proposing that since so many problems are now being raised against the scientific empirical possibilities of the evolutionary mechanism even from non-Christian scholars, it is becoming increasingly difficult for evolutionary science to maintain intellectual standing because it cannot answer these questions.
I am thinking that we are in a transition time. If believing scientists of which there are many will continue to do their homework well and if people will learn what they can, the pressure may come that in another 40-50 years from now there may be an intellectual revolution that causes the old evolutionary paradigm to be replaced by the creationist paradigm or perhaps some other paradigm.
Fred Hoyle of Oxford and Wickransinghe wrote a book entitled Evolution from Outer Space in which they say evolution is preposterous. Professor Wickransinghe has flown over here from the British Isles to be a witness on the creationist side in some cases, such as a recent one in Louisiana. Even as a Buddhist he is willing to stand on the side of creation because evolution is such bad science. Now their paradigm would not be one of Biblical creation. Thus I do not know which paradigm will replace it. I do believe the evolutionary paradigm has got to go.
Professor Phillip E. Johnson of the University of California is showing in his books that evolution is intellectually bankrupt. He is not a young earth man but he does believe in creation. He shows that evolution is dogma, not science.
Q. Could you list two or three books that you think are important- books that parents could use with their children- teaching them how to counter evolutionary teaching?
A. A very helpful book by Phillip E. Johnson, Evolution As Dogma is approximately 40 pages and very helpful. Another book Pandas and People by Davis and Kenyon examines empiric evidence against any possibility of evolution. It is intended for use as a supplement to high school biology textbooks. The authors asked evolutionists to critique the book. They interact with them. They try to be fair. There is no mudslinging. That book is being used in many public schools as a supplementary text. It has been translated into Russian and is in wide use there.
A somewhat older work, but still a valid one, is Henry M. Morris' Evolution and the Modern Christian- particularly in regards to the two laws of thermodynamics. It is written at a popular and accurate level.
Paul Ackerman's It's A Young World After All is popularly written Some of its chapters are uneven but it is thought provoking and of use to parents regarding the age of the earth.
Q. Your book should be available by the end of 1997?
A. That is right. The book will have questions at the end of each chapter. I hope to have a study guide for use with it for Christian school and home school youth.
Q. It should also be of use in Sunday Schools and Bible study groups.
A. That is right. It will also be useful for pastors and seminary students.
Q. We will look forward to the book's publication. Thank you very much for this interview.
A. God bless you.
Q & A with Dr. Douglas Kelly
Q. The focus of your forthcoming book is Christ and creation. What is the importance of a study on creation in our day?
A. The title of my next book is The Creation: An Exposition Look at Genesis In Light of Changing Paradigms. Let me begin by citing from a great work from Straussburg by one of Calvin’s colleagues written in 1539 called Hexameron (still in Latin) on the six-days of creation. It was authored by Wolfgang Capito. He says that creation is the foundation stone of the whole Christian philosophy. By Christian philosophy he means systematic theology - world and life view and practice. If God did not make this world then religion is really a matter of some less than real world.
James Denny was a Scottish theologian in Glasgow in the 1890's and early 1900's. He wrote in the 1890's that to separate religion (Christianity) from science is to separate religion from the true. Once religion is separated from the true, Denny goes on to say, then religion dies among true men. I would say that if God begins His revelation to us with the doctrine of creation it must be important. It is therefore not only the first doctrine of the Bible (other than God Himself) it is primal. It is the basis of all covenants, of all revelation, of all God’s dealings with the human race, that He made all things out of nothing.
Of course we know from the New Testament, particularly the prologue to John’s Gospel that it was the agent of creation who took on flesh in the incarnation. As St. Anselm said in his famous Cor Deos Hormo? (Why Did God Become Man?) it took somebody as big as the Creator/God to become man to redeem us. If God is not really the Creator. Christ is not as big as the New Testament told us He was. His work does not have the kind of universal and eternal consequences that the New Testament theology teaches. Creation is important both for reality and that the real world is controlled by God. Christ the Agent of Creation is also our Redeemer. If you eviscerate a solid biblical doctrine of creation, the religion becomes unreal and Christ is diminished.
Q. Why is there so little connection between Christ and creation in modern day preaching?
A. I think there are two or three factors involved. I believe that evangelical theologians and commentators since the late 1800's have tended to avoid creation because of its controversial nature. There has been the rather uncritical acceptance of the assumptions of vast ages of the universe and of some form of evolutionary theory by most evangelicals. Dr. Nigel Cameron who is now at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School wrote a book in 1983 Evolution and the Authority of the Bible. He surveys the evangelical commentaries in the late 19th century and finds there is only one - Thomas Scott's - that hadn't caved in to some form of evolution. Therefore most ministers have come out of ministries and institutions that have accepted some form of evolutionary thinking. Obviously that is going to take away one's zeal for the glory of the Creator; if what He did is considerably less than what we are told in Genesis.
A second reason might be that there is a tendency among us ministers to see practical results. There is nothing wrong with that. I do as much as anyone. There can be a hesitancy to preach the whole range of biblical doctrine because you might feel that some doctrines might be too hard for people to understand or the doctrines do not get a good response or are too divisive. An example is the critique of evolutionary thinking. Thus many avoid it.
Q. Regarding creation, some reformed denominations are receiving men who believe that Genesis is poetic. What is some argumentation that elders can use to confront this view?
A. First let me recommend In the Beginning by Edward J. Young, published by Banner of Truth a few years ago. He was an authority of massive erudition in the Semitic languages. He discusses this matter. In the 60's when he wrote this he said that evangelicals were hesitant to enter the lists with people that accepted evolution. Thus they said that Genesis 1-3 was poetic and not meant to be taken as serious chronological history. Therefore they could have peace with the other point of view.
E. J. Young says that there are poetic accounts of creation in Scripture such as Ps. 104 and certain passages in Job. Such characteristics of Hebrew poetry are not found in Genesis 1-3. One of the marks is heavy parallelism as in the Psalms such as synthetic and antithetic parallelism. Such parallelism is not found in Genesis 1-3. These chapters are written as straight chronological history.
My colleague at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Dr. John Currid wrote an excellent article a few years ago in which he shows that the five or six characteristics of Hebrew poetry are not found in Genesis 1-3.
The great Jewish scholar, now deceased, Issac Cassuto did, I think, the finest single commentary I have ever seen on Genesis. It was translated into English in l961. He says the creation account is the way the Hebrew mind wrote history. The writer gives the broad picture in Genesis 1 and then isolates a portion and expands upon it in Genesis 2. This approach is not the method found in the Hellenistic and western intellectual tradition of writing history.
Q. Another critique laymen may hear is that past reformed scholars such as B. B. Warfield did not hold to a six-day (24 hours) creation view.
A. That is a true statement. Reformed scholars beginning in the mid 19th century felt the pressure in the shift in the intellectual world to the belief that geology had proven a massive age of physical structures in the physical world and in the solar system. The reformed scholars perhaps did not have the same alternative explanation to help them critique as some of us do today. They tried to preserve the truth claims of Scripture but make some kind of allowance for vast ages as did Thomas Chalmers of the Free Church of Scotland. That began to influence Charles Hodge somewhat. However Hodge very clearly came out strongly against Darwinism in 1874. He wrote What Is Darwinism? Therein he said that Darwinism is basically Satanism. Hodge was not an evolutionist. In his later years however he felt it necessary to make an allowance for an ancient earth because he thought the information that was coming in at that time was fairly conclusive.
Green, one of his successors at Princeton, was for an old earth. He felt that evolution was receiving so strong a testimony in science as for instance McKosh's support. McKosh was the head of Princeton and an evolutionist from Scotland. So Green wrote on the genealogies of Genesis, trying to lengthen them out and allow for an ancient earth. Warfield, a student of Green's, did the same. He would, I think, have allowed for some form of theistic evolution although Warfield was very conservative, one of our greatest scholars.
In his lifetime he did not have any serious challenges to this scientific paradigm. Therefore he felt he had to accommodate it. This has been the story with many of our best reformed scholars. Without wishing to disparage their great work in other areas, I think we have to say that we regret that they did not raise enough questions about those people who question the veracity of the word of God at these points. We do have considerable information available to us that they did not have to help us answer these questions.
Q. It is also a reminder that men are prone to error. We have to ultimately return to Scripture for our answers not just rely on the work of godly scholars.
A. Yes. That is perhaps what Christ meant when he said, "Call no man ‘Father’."
Q. Looking at Scripture there seems to be much internal evidence for a 24 hour day. If ‘day’ is not literal then the passage may not be literal itself.
A. Right.
Q. What is the meaning of the word ‘day’ in Gen. 2:4?
A. It is referring to the first day of creation on which God created all things out of nothing- all things visible and invisible as the Nicene Creed states. The remaining days are, as the German theologian Von Rad states, the turning of a chaos into a cosmos. [Alternatively it is merely an idiomatic way of saying ‘when’.]
Q. In Gen 5:5 we read "So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died." In Gen. 5:8 we read, "So all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died." Thus the time comparison between the two life spans was based on the same increments of time. [note that the ‘days’ these men lived were ordinary days: a whole lot of them, formed into definite other periods called years. The days remain normal days.]
A. I think that is clearly true. It is definite in Hebrew that when you have an ordinal accompanying the word "day" it always means a normal solar day. If in the Bible anywhere "day" means something else the immediate context makes that perfectly clear. For example, in 2 Peter 3:8 we read that "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The context clearly shows that "day" is a long period of time. [On the contrary, the normal day is used as a comparison; it tells us that God is not constrained as we are by time. If the day here was a long period it would make the comparison nonsensical.] It would be the worst form of isogesis to read that meaning back into Genesis 1 where "day" has ordinals in a specific series. The creation account sets the order for our lives. Are we to work 6000 years and rest 1000 years?
The Fourth commandment also points this out in Ex.20:8ff. The Sabbath is very clearly a normal solar day. Six days of work and one day of rest is the normal pattern.
I think the evidence is preponderant that "day" means a twenty-four hour day. The famous Hebrew Old Testament linguistic professor of Oxford University, Dr. James Barr was no conservative. He wrote the book Fundamentalism attacking conservative Christianity although he came out of that sort of background himself. He wrote a letter to David C. C. Watson in 1984. I have a copy of that letter. In it he says that no world class scholar in any major university that he is aware of thinks that the writer of Genesis intended the word "day" to mean anything other than a 24 hour day. Now he doesn't agree with the truth claims of Scripture. He is saying that we must be honest when we interpret Scripture and say that the writer meant 24 hour days.
Q. If we follow the reformed hermeneutic of Scripture interpreting Scripture then we can come to no other interpretation than that of a six day (24 hours each) creation. To deny six day creation is also to deny this interpretive principle.
A. I fear that if we loosen our moorings to the clear teaching of Scripture in these early chapters of Genesis we have brought in a principle that when the basic teachings of Scripture go against the culture then you go with the culture.
Q.Your forthcoming book is on changing paradigms. Could you elaborate on that theme?
A. I take the subtitle from the famous work of Thomas S. Kuhn (University of Chicago) who in 1970 published his classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Therein he speaks about a paradigm shift. Science proceeds not on an even uphill line but in terms of revolutions in which one paradigm (which is a world view, model or explanation of reality) is in a sort of revolutionary way replaced by another. This new paradigm is contradictory to many aspects of the former but contains all the same facets though from a different point of view.
The reason the old paradigm eventually goes defunct is because anomalies or questions are raised with it that cannot be answered in light of the basic paradigm. Kuhn gives illustrations in the history of science such as the old phlogistic theory of fire which finally just could not accommodate all the evidence. Another very different theory arose. This has happened many times in science.
Only time will tell if I am right. I am proposing that since so many problems are now being raised against the scientific empirical possibilities of the evolutionary mechanism even from non-Christian scholars, it is becoming increasingly difficult for evolutionary science to maintain intellectual standing because it cannot answer these questions.
I am thinking that we are in a transition time. If believing scientists of which there are many will continue to do their homework well and if people will learn what they can, the pressure may come that in another 40-50 years from now there may be an intellectual revolution that causes the old evolutionary paradigm to be replaced by the creationist paradigm or perhaps some other paradigm.
Fred Hoyle of Oxford and Wickransinghe wrote a book entitled Evolution from Outer Space in which they say evolution is preposterous. Professor Wickransinghe has flown over here from the British Isles to be a witness on the creationist side in some cases, such as a recent one in Louisiana. Even as a Buddhist he is willing to stand on the side of creation because evolution is such bad science. Now their paradigm would not be one of Biblical creation. Thus I do not know which paradigm will replace it. I do believe the evolutionary paradigm has got to go.
Professor Phillip E. Johnson of the University of California is showing in his books that evolution is intellectually bankrupt. He is not a young earth man but he does believe in creation. He shows that evolution is dogma, not science.
Q. Could you list two or three books that you think are important- books that parents could use with their children- teaching them how to counter evolutionary teaching?
A. A very helpful book by Phillip E. Johnson, Evolution As Dogma is approximately 40 pages and very helpful. Another book Pandas and People by Davis and Kenyon examines empiric evidence against any possibility of evolution. It is intended for use as a supplement to high school biology textbooks. The authors asked evolutionists to critique the book. They interact with them. They try to be fair. There is no mudslinging. That book is being used in many public schools as a supplementary text. It has been translated into Russian and is in wide use there.
A somewhat older work, but still a valid one, is Henry M. Morris' Evolution and the Modern Christian- particularly in regards to the two laws of thermodynamics. It is written at a popular and accurate level.
Paul Ackerman's It's A Young World After All is popularly written Some of its chapters are uneven but it is thought provoking and of use to parents regarding the age of the earth.
Q. Your book should be available by the end of 1997?
A. That is right. The book will have questions at the end of each chapter. I hope to have a study guide for use with it for Christian school and home school youth.
Q. It should also be of use in Sunday Schools and Bible study groups.
A. That is right. It will also be useful for pastors and seminary students.
Q. We will look forward to the book's publication. Thank you very much for this interview.
A. God bless you.
5 August 2011
Why I believe in God (Peter Jensen)
This piece was published in my church's newsletter for 31 July 2011, attributed to the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen.
My comment
Now, there're a lot of interesting angles there; and together, they make strong case, I think.
I was, however, quite struck by his avoiding the basic ground that the Bible sets out for belief in God, and indeed, his worship: that he is creator! I think, immediately, of course, of Romans 1:20 and that he grounds his revelation and sets his covenant relationship is the world that he has made.
I was asked recently about the reasons for belief and even more to the point, why I believe in God. I'm sure there are more, but here are ten of the factors which have created my belief in God.
First, the fact that he believes in me. That is, I have not found God at the end of a stringent enquiry into the nature of the universe. He found me, wandering as i was, and he revealed himself to me. It was his revelation, not my interrogation.
Second, the fact that his revelation was a public one. That is, it is not my private possession. When God revealed himself it was like the sun shining. As Jesus said, "I am the light of the world". Looking for God without looking at Jesus is like playing football without a ball—like seeing without insight.
Third, the fact that his revelation was a personal one. I do not believe in God because I have a superior intellect or am a better person. It is because God illumined my understanding by his spirit [sic-no capital 's'] as I looked at the person and work of Jesus Christ. God has to be God in the way in which I come to know him.
Fourth, I found that his revelation makes sense of the Bible. Overall, the Bible contains god's preparation for Jesus and then his fulfilment in Jesus. His preparation was more than sufficient to create a God believing people. The God they believed in was a God who made and then kept his promises; made promises and kept promises of an extraordinary nature. The most extraordinary, God-like keeping of promises is in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Fifth, I see that the worship of Jesus is a reality in the world. Everywhere people have treated him as God and seek to obey him. From that point of view it is no use asking is there a God—clearly there is. His kingdom is in the world. The actual question is, what sort of God? Is he a God whom I should worship?
Sixth, I judge that the worship of God makes best sense of the world. The standard human belief that there are many gods makes no sense of the unity of the world. The recently popular belief that there is no God makes no sense of the morality and beauty of the world. The belief that there is one remote God who cannot enter his own world makes no sense of the love in the world. The belief that Jesus Christ bore the burden of the sins of the world makes best sense, especially of a world of pain and suffering.
Seventh, I judge that believing in this God makes the best sense of history. I do not believe that history is circular, infinitely repeating itself. I do not believe that history will have no end. Believing in the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ explains the nature of the human experience of living in time and enables us to have the hope which give [sic] meaning.
Eighth, I judge that belief in God makes best sense of what I see in the community. The will of God expressed in the law of God is a tremendous positive force for good. The will of God followed by men and women is wholesome and life-giving. It creates generosity and public virtue. It frees people from such crippling vices as gambling and substance abuse.
Ninth, because I know that belief in God makes the best sense of what I experience in my own life. I have learned long ago that I am a weak and faulty creature, prone to error and vulnerable to pain. God and belief in God spares me some things because his law guards me against things which are harmful. I am not spared from the ordinary conditions of life in a world such as this. But I have found that in the midst of the trials of the world, the love of God is manifested in ways which assure and re-assure.
Tenth, because I know God. The way we have asked the question skews it a little. Our belief is intellectual but it is not merely intellectual; it is personal. To quote and old pro verb, God is not a problem to be solved but a person to be known.
My comment
Now, there're a lot of interesting angles there; and together, they make strong case, I think.
I was, however, quite struck by his avoiding the basic ground that the Bible sets out for belief in God, and indeed, his worship: that he is creator! I think, immediately, of course, of Romans 1:20 and that he grounds his revelation and sets his covenant relationship is the world that he has made.
30 July 2011
Speed
I recently heard a discussion that one of the indicators of God's being creator, and not the cosmos itself being its own 'creator', or processes within the cosmos being required to give effect to God's fiats in Genesis 1, is the parsimony of action implied in Genesis 1.
That is, a clear result of intelligence brought to bear is the economy of effort that is applied.
This is echoed in a number of passages in the Bible:
The centurion's servant is one. The centurion expected instant results from Jesus' command, just as he expected from his troops.
There are also examples in the Psalms:
Psalm 33:8-10: he spoke and it happened!
Psalm 148:5: same as above!
Genesis 1 itself indicates parsimony of causative effort: God spoke...and it was so!
I don't think this leaves much room for setting aside the implications of rapidity in Genesis 1.
That is, a clear result of intelligence brought to bear is the economy of effort that is applied.
This is echoed in a number of passages in the Bible:
The centurion's servant is one. The centurion expected instant results from Jesus' command, just as he expected from his troops.
There are also examples in the Psalms:
Psalm 33:8-10: he spoke and it happened!
Psalm 148:5: same as above!
Genesis 1 itself indicates parsimony of causative effort: God spoke...and it was so!
I don't think this leaves much room for setting aside the implications of rapidity in Genesis 1.
24 July 2011
Bavink, Lankshear and myth
Recently, searching my emails I came across this letter from 3 years ago: in Internet time, this is ancient history, of course, and what fun to share it.
William,
Bavink in "In the Beginning" makes the observation that materialism leads to occultism, and points to the late 19th C when it did just that... I'll hunt up the quote as its quite pithy.
Along those lines, thinking about Lankshear's jumble of ideas; particularly his joining of EE [Enuma Elish] and Gen 1: it seems that his fundamental take on reality in referring to a mythical view as having credibility; that is, an a-historical tale being able to meld with what is historical (or at least factual; as he seems to think for some reason that God is creator), must itself be mythical.
He is letting a source that is outside biblical revelation structure his world view... what is that source? Well, it could be either purely materialist (maybe provide links to Gisler's JETS paper on beware of philosophies and Mortensen's The Master's Seminary Journal paper on materialism and age of earth; I can give links if you don't have them) which means that he is judging the bible on the basis of a view that denies the world view of the bible: that is, a view that says "there is no god'; 'material is all there is' and 'man has no moral, generative or epistemological relationships outside himself' that is, is ethically and actually independent. So; Lankshear appears to base his thinking, at least by default' on this world view and uses it to analyse the Bible; from the get go he has prejudiced his thinking.
Alternatively, his view might be that consequence of materialism: mythological: that there are factors to consider that are not principally material, but have arisen culturally as a response by the imaginatively powerful to their situation in the material world...which reduces entertainingly to 'mere fiction'. If myth is a cultural response to a historical situation, then its interesting, but probably unimportant... Lankshear is then using the unimportant to assess the credibility of the Bible!
Another thing about ANE and other myths, they all take the cosmos as a given; effectively; even if they pretend to be a true cosmogony; they are not, as in EE they are either a theogony, or a story of the origin of something within the cosmos, not of the cosmos and its ontological implications for us...so, myths are pretty skinny; and they do not allow us to build anything of substance; thus mythologically referenced cultures have not produced natural science; nor objective history.
On this last point, he fails also to understand the critical importance in Jewish culture of objective history: Jewish thought regards objective history with bedrock importance; it is not a mythological culture at all, but a concretely historical one; for it to base this on a myth is both absurd and incoherent: cultures do not and cannot build objective historically referred structures on mythological foundations: the Jews have done the reverse: their culture is objectively historical and concretely real down to day 1.
Once Lankshear manages to reflect on the structure of his thought world he might be able to adopt a biblical noetical frame of reference which would instantly eliminate the explanatory dead ends of materialism and its cousin mythology.
BTW, I'll lend you Bavink: he's old fashioned (well...just old) but has some great ideas, including a wonderful logical critique of Darwinism as it then was.
William,
Bavink in "In the Beginning" makes the observation that materialism leads to occultism, and points to the late 19th C when it did just that... I'll hunt up the quote as its quite pithy.
Along those lines, thinking about Lankshear's jumble of ideas; particularly his joining of EE [Enuma Elish] and Gen 1: it seems that his fundamental take on reality in referring to a mythical view as having credibility; that is, an a-historical tale being able to meld with what is historical (or at least factual; as he seems to think for some reason that God is creator), must itself be mythical.
He is letting a source that is outside biblical revelation structure his world view... what is that source? Well, it could be either purely materialist (maybe provide links to Gisler's JETS paper on beware of philosophies and Mortensen's The Master's Seminary Journal paper on materialism and age of earth; I can give links if you don't have them) which means that he is judging the bible on the basis of a view that denies the world view of the bible: that is, a view that says "there is no god'; 'material is all there is' and 'man has no moral, generative or epistemological relationships outside himself' that is, is ethically and actually independent. So; Lankshear appears to base his thinking, at least by default' on this world view and uses it to analyse the Bible; from the get go he has prejudiced his thinking.
Alternatively, his view might be that consequence of materialism: mythological: that there are factors to consider that are not principally material, but have arisen culturally as a response by the imaginatively powerful to their situation in the material world...which reduces entertainingly to 'mere fiction'. If myth is a cultural response to a historical situation, then its interesting, but probably unimportant... Lankshear is then using the unimportant to assess the credibility of the Bible!
Another thing about ANE and other myths, they all take the cosmos as a given; effectively; even if they pretend to be a true cosmogony; they are not, as in EE they are either a theogony, or a story of the origin of something within the cosmos, not of the cosmos and its ontological implications for us...so, myths are pretty skinny; and they do not allow us to build anything of substance; thus mythologically referenced cultures have not produced natural science; nor objective history.
On this last point, he fails also to understand the critical importance in Jewish culture of objective history: Jewish thought regards objective history with bedrock importance; it is not a mythological culture at all, but a concretely historical one; for it to base this on a myth is both absurd and incoherent: cultures do not and cannot build objective historically referred structures on mythological foundations: the Jews have done the reverse: their culture is objectively historical and concretely real down to day 1.
Once Lankshear manages to reflect on the structure of his thought world he might be able to adopt a biblical noetical frame of reference which would instantly eliminate the explanatory dead ends of materialism and its cousin mythology.
BTW, I'll lend you Bavink: he's old fashioned (well...just old) but has some great ideas, including a wonderful logical critique of Darwinism as it then was.
20 July 2011
Southern Baptists
I've mentioned Al Mohler's work in previous posts.
Al has written a goodly amount on the matter of origins on his blog.
Here are some links:
The Futility of Theistic Evolution
Christianity and Evolution: Seeing the Problem
Creation vs. Evolution: The New Shape of the Debate
Evolution on the Mind
Should we really thank God for evolution?
The Buzzing Fly: Why the Creation-Evolution Debate is So Important
The Christian World View as Master Narrative: Creation
Mohler on Hawking on Creation
Mohler on Ruse on Creation'ism'
A darwinian compendium.
A knight of the mind.
Darwin's dog.
You'll get the idea!
Al has written a goodly amount on the matter of origins on his blog.
Here are some links:
The Futility of Theistic Evolution
Christianity and Evolution: Seeing the Problem
Creation vs. Evolution: The New Shape of the Debate
Evolution on the Mind
Should we really thank God for evolution?
The Buzzing Fly: Why the Creation-Evolution Debate is So Important
The Christian World View as Master Narrative: Creation
Mohler on Hawking on Creation
Mohler on Ruse on Creation'ism'
A darwinian compendium.
A knight of the mind.
Darwin's dog.
You'll get the idea!
16 July 2011
God and Science
This letter appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald today (16 July 2011)
Phillips' letter rightly identified the foundation of Christian theism (although without using that term) being that God is creator. Oddly, he sees the significance of this cornerstone idea or doctrine, while many teachers of the church fail to understand it, leading at best, in many cases to views such as Miers' above.
Miers and others who see a spilt between what happened and what it means are philosophically out of tune with the Bible's world concept, and theologically under-done when it comes to discussion of origins. The Bible is very clear that what happened is the basis for the significance of what happened (the 'why' that Miers notes). There is no split in the Bible's framing of the world of thought and event so that 'meaning' is carried on a different plane to causal continuity. Certainly the Bible insists that 'word' is necessary, but you may note, that the word with respect to origins is about what happened in causal continuity, and not other than what happened.
Phillips gets it: if the Bible is not to be trusted when it deals with events in causal continuity, then what it derives human significance from is but a fiction, and the 'really real' events, and their inherent meaning, are otherwise, and God is divided! A house divided, of course, is a house bound to fall, particularly when theologians set out to divide what God has conjoined.
Phillips knows that it is 'God of the real world' that Christianity has in mind; he just disbelieves. Miers on the other hand seems to think that Christian faith is in a God of other than the real world: disconnected, not Elohim who connects with us, or draws worship from us because he is creator of the real that we are in!
For the sake of brevity I won't go through the flowering of modern science in the rich bed of Christian theology and belief, including the face-value reading of Genesis 1.
God and science
Mike Phillips (Letters, July 15) suggests that Tony Maher has engaged in cherry picking of his beliefs and that there is an inconsistency between accepting climate change science on the one hand and belief in a creator god on the other.
As many theistic scientists will attest, it's a false dichotomy to pit God against science. Scientific inquiry looks at the world and how it works, while theology looks behind the curtain and wonders why it all exists to begin with.
One might look at how the world began, the other at why and by whom the world began. The two disciplines ask and answer completely different questions about life.
Cherry picking? I don't think so. But Mike Phillips might be comparing apples with oranges.
Andrew Miers Bardwell Valley
Phillips' letter rightly identified the foundation of Christian theism (although without using that term) being that God is creator. Oddly, he sees the significance of this cornerstone idea or doctrine, while many teachers of the church fail to understand it, leading at best, in many cases to views such as Miers' above.
Miers and others who see a spilt between what happened and what it means are philosophically out of tune with the Bible's world concept, and theologically under-done when it comes to discussion of origins. The Bible is very clear that what happened is the basis for the significance of what happened (the 'why' that Miers notes). There is no split in the Bible's framing of the world of thought and event so that 'meaning' is carried on a different plane to causal continuity. Certainly the Bible insists that 'word' is necessary, but you may note, that the word with respect to origins is about what happened in causal continuity, and not other than what happened.
Phillips gets it: if the Bible is not to be trusted when it deals with events in causal continuity, then what it derives human significance from is but a fiction, and the 'really real' events, and their inherent meaning, are otherwise, and God is divided! A house divided, of course, is a house bound to fall, particularly when theologians set out to divide what God has conjoined.
Phillips knows that it is 'God of the real world' that Christianity has in mind; he just disbelieves. Miers on the other hand seems to think that Christian faith is in a God of other than the real world: disconnected, not Elohim who connects with us, or draws worship from us because he is creator of the real that we are in!
For the sake of brevity I won't go through the flowering of modern science in the rich bed of Christian theology and belief, including the face-value reading of Genesis 1.
14 July 2011
Un-knowledge
The application of symbolism to critical biblical passages remains an interesting thing to contemplate.
Going on from my earlier post,
There is a major problem in attempts to cast the early chapters of Genesis as other than having the meaning of their face reading; particularly noting that the face reading is set in terms of of the causality of the world of our being and experience (coordination points are in the chronological alignment, the pattern of causality that is identical our experience, the continuity of space-time between the Genesis 1-3 depiction of the world and ours, and the uniformity of relationships between that depiction and ours, for example).
The problem is that unfooting Genesis 1 unfoots the understanding of our origin, relationships and sin (particularly the relationship with God) that only can come from Genesis 1.
The claim that G1 is mythic, or symbolic (which amounts to the same thing) immediately removes the information-content that it would otherwise convey. This means that the origin of all things, of our relationship with God (both made, in Genesis 1:27? and broken in Genesis 3:n, and fore-redeemed (Genesis 3:n), and our self-identity are not known, if they are not factual in the only account we have.
Then to explain sin, for example (but also to explain anything else in these chapters), becomes problematic. To understand the claims of scripture people must know the real connections that did, do and will affect them; they mythic connections will not do this, as people's lives are lived, challenged, enjoyed and frustrated in the real world, not the uninformative mythic one from whence comes at best metaphors of the real world. So is we can't show a 'real-world' engagement that explains our situation and all its dimensions, then it does not provide for us to understand our position.
This has a pastoral aspect.
If a person grappling to understand sin and God's redemptive response is told that sin is only explained in the Bible in symbolic terms, then the person can ask "then where did it really come from?" And how would we know? If G1 doesn't tells us what really happened, then what did really happen, and how would we know? Are we therefore really linked to God as G1 says, and do we really bear God's image, or is that just an ex-post facto hope for significance and meaning? The person could well ask, what is 'really real' and the 'real' point of reference for our existential position. If G1 is relegated to the symbolic, then the person would well look to materialism as the final reference point: materialism which eliminates God and the existential position would be the tissue of nonsense that Camus, Satre et al would leave us.
The unwitting, or perhaps just unacknowledged reference made when G1 is regarded as symbolic is that the world as we know it becomes 'a given' not created, and the result of itself, not of will. Alternatively it defaults to an implicit materialism which provides that true knowledge about the world in its totality (our world as experienced) leaves God out, as a not quite real figure; linking only through the tendrils of symbol, not the stout columns of what is real. So he's not really part of our world, but is set more in pagan terms, being an element of a prior world: the world as given, as Enuma Elish, for instance, assumes.
Going on from my earlier post,
There is a major problem in attempts to cast the early chapters of Genesis as other than having the meaning of their face reading; particularly noting that the face reading is set in terms of of the causality of the world of our being and experience (coordination points are in the chronological alignment, the pattern of causality that is identical our experience, the continuity of space-time between the Genesis 1-3 depiction of the world and ours, and the uniformity of relationships between that depiction and ours, for example).
The problem is that unfooting Genesis 1 unfoots the understanding of our origin, relationships and sin (particularly the relationship with God) that only can come from Genesis 1.
The claim that G1 is mythic, or symbolic (which amounts to the same thing) immediately removes the information-content that it would otherwise convey. This means that the origin of all things, of our relationship with God (both made, in Genesis 1:27? and broken in Genesis 3:n, and fore-redeemed (Genesis 3:n), and our self-identity are not known, if they are not factual in the only account we have.
Then to explain sin, for example (but also to explain anything else in these chapters), becomes problematic. To understand the claims of scripture people must know the real connections that did, do and will affect them; they mythic connections will not do this, as people's lives are lived, challenged, enjoyed and frustrated in the real world, not the uninformative mythic one from whence comes at best metaphors of the real world. So is we can't show a 'real-world' engagement that explains our situation and all its dimensions, then it does not provide for us to understand our position.
This has a pastoral aspect.
If a person grappling to understand sin and God's redemptive response is told that sin is only explained in the Bible in symbolic terms, then the person can ask "then where did it really come from?" And how would we know? If G1 doesn't tells us what really happened, then what did really happen, and how would we know? Are we therefore really linked to God as G1 says, and do we really bear God's image, or is that just an ex-post facto hope for significance and meaning? The person could well ask, what is 'really real' and the 'real' point of reference for our existential position. If G1 is relegated to the symbolic, then the person would well look to materialism as the final reference point: materialism which eliminates God and the existential position would be the tissue of nonsense that Camus, Satre et al would leave us.
The unwitting, or perhaps just unacknowledged reference made when G1 is regarded as symbolic is that the world as we know it becomes 'a given' not created, and the result of itself, not of will. Alternatively it defaults to an implicit materialism which provides that true knowledge about the world in its totality (our world as experienced) leaves God out, as a not quite real figure; linking only through the tendrils of symbol, not the stout columns of what is real. So he's not really part of our world, but is set more in pagan terms, being an element of a prior world: the world as given, as Enuma Elish, for instance, assumes.
12 July 2011
The odium of theistic-evolution
What is so odious about theistic-evolution, I think, is that it makes a represenetation of God, with respect to origins, that diverges from the representation God makes of himself through the creative actions; actions that are linked to who he is (Romans 1:20).
In saying that 'no, God didn't do that, but he did something else that not he but I tell you.' it is saying that God is different from how he has communicated himself, and the relationship of God to creation is not what the Bible sets out.
This arises, I think, in part from the thrall of modern materialism, but partly out of a misplaced idealism descended from ancient Greece, where 'god' is too exulted to have any real connection with the material.
But this is not Christianity. God has provided the material world as not only the setting, but as part of his covenant with man, as him who is in God's image, the steward of the creation, to whose redemption the 'whole creation' looks.
In saying that 'no, God didn't do that, but he did something else that not he but I tell you.' it is saying that God is different from how he has communicated himself, and the relationship of God to creation is not what the Bible sets out.
This arises, I think, in part from the thrall of modern materialism, but partly out of a misplaced idealism descended from ancient Greece, where 'god' is too exulted to have any real connection with the material.
But this is not Christianity. God has provided the material world as not only the setting, but as part of his covenant with man, as him who is in God's image, the steward of the creation, to whose redemption the 'whole creation' looks.
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