Quote from David Byrne's blog:
“The end of the world happens every time somebody dies.”
Something for a theologian to do something with, although, an atheist (or en evolutionist, for that matter), of course, could do nothing with it.
So, where would that leave the Archibisop of Sydney, given that he's an evolutionist and there's no between category.
24 October 2011
20 October 2011
Reformation Europe
Quotes from Elton's Reformation Europe:
Reminds me of so much that is said of evolution!
Same again!
The revival of Greek studies might add to the number of authorities consulted, but it did not encourage any idea of criticising received knowledge by personal observation...astrology deserves to be called the specific science of the humanist.
Reminds me of so much that is said of evolution!
it is now thought that he probably arrived at his revolutionary notion by pure reasoning, without any scientific investigation. This is a method which has yielded as much error as truth, and in the sixteenth century reasoned error predominated.
Same again!
15 October 2011
Theistic evolution #2
I mentioned TE a while ago, but I've moved on a little, and think that the term should be expunged from discussion. Once Christ is mixed with another 'principle'; in this case, the principle that not only did the Word create, but the creation created itself, Christ is diminished. So, there can't be two creators: Christ and the creation; with separate ontologies, but only one.
So, if a Christian thinks that the two can mix, then I think they are referring to a 'god' other than the creator, and so they are only referring to evolution.
So, if a Christian thinks that the two can mix, then I think they are referring to a 'god' other than the creator, and so they are only referring to evolution.
10 October 2011
Open letter to Peter Jensen: atheism debate
Dear Peter,
I followed with interest your recent participation in the 'atheist' debate. One remark that you made in that debate caught my attention.
You said:
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.
It seems from this that you regard ‘evolution’ as being restricted to mere biological machinery descriptive of, for instance, the development of new species, or indeed, all life from just one cell. I get the impression that you conceptualise this within a basically creationist frame of reference: that is, you hold that God created, although, possibly not as the Bible sets out (how one could know that God did create, or that it was God who did the creating, when what is currently claimed about the universe's origin, and seemingly accepted by many Christians does not line up with scripture is not entirely clear, but that is another matter).
The fearful thing is that your position allows the unravelling of any proclamatory opportunity by its acceptance of the materialist framing of being when discussion of origins arises (as it did in the speech by Russell Blackford). As soon as it is denied that Genesis gives any information about the history of the cosmos, the biblical conceptualisation of the compass of God and our existential ground is unseated, the point of contact between a real God taking real action in making then redeeming the world, for real effect is gone and the way to repentance is effectively closed. This is denial, in short, that there is any possible objective concrete reference in Genesis 1 to real events or the world we stand in and where God’s covenant is operative.
As soon as we say that Genesis conveys truth, but not in the only information that it presents, we invite the materialist to maintain his conceptualisation of the world and find no place for God. This comes about because we say that the world can at once be created with the only representation of this in the detail set out in Genesis 1, by a God who is love, and for loving reasons, and be the aimless product of random material interactions, and full of un-love, at the same time.
This hardly brings glory to God. Modern evolutionary atheism is clear on this: it sees no place for the glory of God in an evolved world, only ‘facts’ that show there is no god (a stark example of this is provided by Sommers and Rosenberg in “Darwin’s nihilistic idea: evolution and the meaninglessness of life” Biology and Philosophy 18: 2003)!
And it doesn’t help to grasp at analogical views of Genesis 1 to hope to change this. These end up not explaining the text, but explaining it away. Thus, ‘framework’ type views are ‘anti-exegetical’: in that they deny the intersection of the text and the real world of sin and relationship, rather than prophetically position us within it.
So, what is happening here?
I think we must reach back into the Enlightenment “project” to tease this out.
In your remark you seem to have bought the Enlightenment story, without acknowledging that it starts with a complete disjunct between rationality inherited from its biblically inspired forebears, and the Bible itself, attempting instead to find a rational ground in humanist terms: the biblical basis is removed, but its effects are forlornly held on to.
To save its scheme, the Enlightenment needed to find a substitute basis for the real and us in it that was independent of a creator, or at least a creator-person. It found this, after not to much searching, in rehabilitating the ancient Greek notion of a universe that is truly ontologically independent and that necessarily, made itself. Thus is the evolutionary principle around which the modern world turns.
For you to then express a concern that the modern world wants evolution to be more than a minor mechanical detail of biological change and adaptation could only evoke puzzled looks from its proponents: that’s the very point of it! Evolution is a totalising world view that explains, and is relied upon to explain, the origin and nature of the universe purely in terms of the universe itself. It has reduced God, if he is to be given any place at all, to a result of matter (brain activity), completely captured within the bounds of the cosmos and entailed by it, at best. Certainly not separate from it, not holy, not to be glorified and worshipped, from whom there can have been no separation, against whom death is neither a breach nor the last enemy, and to whom is owed nothing at all.
In the end, your remarks betray two mistakes about evolution.
Firstly, you think that it is just the mechanical detail of life within a basically Christian conception of the world. Not so, as it proposes completely different things about the real world from those in Genesis 1, in the main.
Secondly, you seem to confine evolution to science alone, cutting it off from wider questions. In fact, it starts as a metaphysical principle and ends, not as science, which it never was, but as a metaphysical setting for all experience that pursues the material (“now, let’s suppose that the universe is not the result of intention, but is completely explained by naturalistic processes”), and rejects the personal, let alone the supernatural, as basic to being. Evolution is an overarching materialist conceptualisation of the world, counter at every point to the Christian one.
Post the Enlightenment; it is a methodologically pagan program that is, as Mary Midgley, the British philosopher, pointed out in ‘Evolution as a Religion’, the creation myth of the modern Western mind. It is the idea that now provides the cultural and intellectual reference point for art, literature, intellectual enquiry (including theology, I must add; yours being an example), and human relations. It has nothing to do with anything that the creator God reveals about himself, the world or our redemption.
Also on creation and the Christian starting point.
I followed with interest your recent participation in the 'atheist' debate. One remark that you made in that debate caught my attention.
You said:
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.
It seems from this that you regard ‘evolution’ as being restricted to mere biological machinery descriptive of, for instance, the development of new species, or indeed, all life from just one cell. I get the impression that you conceptualise this within a basically creationist frame of reference: that is, you hold that God created, although, possibly not as the Bible sets out (how one could know that God did create, or that it was God who did the creating, when what is currently claimed about the universe's origin, and seemingly accepted by many Christians does not line up with scripture is not entirely clear, but that is another matter).
The fearful thing is that your position allows the unravelling of any proclamatory opportunity by its acceptance of the materialist framing of being when discussion of origins arises (as it did in the speech by Russell Blackford). As soon as it is denied that Genesis gives any information about the history of the cosmos, the biblical conceptualisation of the compass of God and our existential ground is unseated, the point of contact between a real God taking real action in making then redeeming the world, for real effect is gone and the way to repentance is effectively closed. This is denial, in short, that there is any possible objective concrete reference in Genesis 1 to real events or the world we stand in and where God’s covenant is operative.
As soon as we say that Genesis conveys truth, but not in the only information that it presents, we invite the materialist to maintain his conceptualisation of the world and find no place for God. This comes about because we say that the world can at once be created with the only representation of this in the detail set out in Genesis 1, by a God who is love, and for loving reasons, and be the aimless product of random material interactions, and full of un-love, at the same time.
This hardly brings glory to God. Modern evolutionary atheism is clear on this: it sees no place for the glory of God in an evolved world, only ‘facts’ that show there is no god (a stark example of this is provided by Sommers and Rosenberg in “Darwin’s nihilistic idea: evolution and the meaninglessness of life” Biology and Philosophy 18: 2003)!
And it doesn’t help to grasp at analogical views of Genesis 1 to hope to change this. These end up not explaining the text, but explaining it away. Thus, ‘framework’ type views are ‘anti-exegetical’: in that they deny the intersection of the text and the real world of sin and relationship, rather than prophetically position us within it.
So, what is happening here?
I think we must reach back into the Enlightenment “project” to tease this out.
In your remark you seem to have bought the Enlightenment story, without acknowledging that it starts with a complete disjunct between rationality inherited from its biblically inspired forebears, and the Bible itself, attempting instead to find a rational ground in humanist terms: the biblical basis is removed, but its effects are forlornly held on to.
To save its scheme, the Enlightenment needed to find a substitute basis for the real and us in it that was independent of a creator, or at least a creator-person. It found this, after not to much searching, in rehabilitating the ancient Greek notion of a universe that is truly ontologically independent and that necessarily, made itself. Thus is the evolutionary principle around which the modern world turns.
For you to then express a concern that the modern world wants evolution to be more than a minor mechanical detail of biological change and adaptation could only evoke puzzled looks from its proponents: that’s the very point of it! Evolution is a totalising world view that explains, and is relied upon to explain, the origin and nature of the universe purely in terms of the universe itself. It has reduced God, if he is to be given any place at all, to a result of matter (brain activity), completely captured within the bounds of the cosmos and entailed by it, at best. Certainly not separate from it, not holy, not to be glorified and worshipped, from whom there can have been no separation, against whom death is neither a breach nor the last enemy, and to whom is owed nothing at all.
In the end, your remarks betray two mistakes about evolution.
Firstly, you think that it is just the mechanical detail of life within a basically Christian conception of the world. Not so, as it proposes completely different things about the real world from those in Genesis 1, in the main.
Secondly, you seem to confine evolution to science alone, cutting it off from wider questions. In fact, it starts as a metaphysical principle and ends, not as science, which it never was, but as a metaphysical setting for all experience that pursues the material (“now, let’s suppose that the universe is not the result of intention, but is completely explained by naturalistic processes”), and rejects the personal, let alone the supernatural, as basic to being. Evolution is an overarching materialist conceptualisation of the world, counter at every point to the Christian one.
Post the Enlightenment; it is a methodologically pagan program that is, as Mary Midgley, the British philosopher, pointed out in ‘Evolution as a Religion’, the creation myth of the modern Western mind. It is the idea that now provides the cultural and intellectual reference point for art, literature, intellectual enquiry (including theology, I must add; yours being an example), and human relations. It has nothing to do with anything that the creator God reveals about himself, the world or our redemption.
Also on creation and the Christian starting point.
Ancient Error
This appeared in the SMH letters: John Dickson is a member of the Centre for Public Christianity and a Sydney Anglican clergyperson. He is probably most well known here for his heterodox views of Genesis 1; yet in his own field:
Not-so-ancient error
Having also waded in ancient literature on ethics, I must advise John Dickson (''And the last shall be first - why leaders thrive on humble pie'', October 7) that the Athenian statesman Pericles certainly never lamented how little influence he had compared with Demosthenes. Pericles died nearly half a century before Demosthenes was born.
Back in fourth century BC Athens, Demosthenes and Aeschines were the Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott of their day, and it was the modern advertising executive David Ogilvy who observed: ''When Aeschines spoke they said 'How well he speaks'; but when Demosthenes spoke they said 'Let us march'.'' As an academic in the department of ancient history at one of our prominent universities, it is Dr Dickson who will be eating the humble pie, I'm afraid.
Julian Holden Turramurra
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/pity-were-not-as-concerned-for-foreign-children-20111009-1lfmg.html#ixzz1aLW6nivy
Not-so-ancient error
Having also waded in ancient literature on ethics, I must advise John Dickson (''And the last shall be first - why leaders thrive on humble pie'', October 7) that the Athenian statesman Pericles certainly never lamented how little influence he had compared with Demosthenes. Pericles died nearly half a century before Demosthenes was born.
Back in fourth century BC Athens, Demosthenes and Aeschines were the Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott of their day, and it was the modern advertising executive David Ogilvy who observed: ''When Aeschines spoke they said 'How well he speaks'; but when Demosthenes spoke they said 'Let us march'.'' As an academic in the department of ancient history at one of our prominent universities, it is Dr Dickson who will be eating the humble pie, I'm afraid.
Julian Holden Turramurra
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/pity-were-not-as-concerned-for-foreign-children-20111009-1lfmg.html#ixzz1aLW6nivy
1 October 2011
Where do we go now?
As I was reading back through Al Mohler's blog, I came to this article on a recent Templeton Prize winner. It illustrates the end game of the opening canvassed by Peter Jensen in a recent debate: Peter starts by thinking that the evolutionary speculations can somehow be isolated from an evolutionary world view (well, they can, in a unreflective denial of their mutually exclusive bases). He thinks this will end in the glory of God. Al's blog illustrates that in fact, it goes the other way; unwittingly and ironically paving the road to perdition.
30 September 2011
Is that all that is at stake?
In this post by Al Mohler, he talks about the importance of the historical place of actual Adam and Eve, something fast eroding in even evangelical circles; or likely be the next on the list of 'it aint history' in Genesis 1-11. The results are illustrated in Al's quotes in the article
29 September 2011
28 September 2011
Consensus
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"
Michael Crichton, 2003 Caltech lecture "Aliens Cause Global Warming"
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.
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