Have you heard about the controversy about Genesis and inerrancy that has recently involved the Biologos group and Al Mohler?

It started when Al Mohler gave a talk entitled "Why does the universe look so old?".
In the speech, he in passing criticized the Biologos Foundation and its blog contributors for disbelieving and teaching others to disbelieve the textually evident six-24-hour-day creation week of Genesis 1.  Then Biologos contributers Darrell Falk and Karl Giberson and Peter Enns wrote responses to Al Mohler.  The dialogue is rather shocking, as Giberson and Enns showcase the deliberate rejection first of contextually-honest interpretation of Genesis, then of Biblical inerrancy itself.

The Biologos folks are saying in essence: The Bible has some mistakes in some areas (like science), but that's not a problem because we can still learn from the rest.
In the words of Peter Enns, "I do not think I am honoring Scripture by expecting it to reflect modern questions that were simply not on the mind of ancient Israelites. It seems to me that you [Mohler] may be expecting Genesis 1 to do something it was not intended to do, namely reflect factual information that would answer the sorts of questions we have today."

Of course this distinction between "factual" truth versus some other kind of truth is unnecessary and dangerous.  As Jesus said in John 3, "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?"

Albert Mohler wrote an initial response here, and here is another trenchant critique by Lita Cosner.

I think it's great that Al Mohler is challenging the Biologos folks about their teaching that the Bible contains mistakes.  Below, I'd like to (1) excerpt a couple highlights from Mohler's speech, and then comment on two areas:  (2) the actual content of the Biologos folks' argument, and (3) the devious and borderline fallacious language tricks that the Biologos folks tend to employ in their rhetoric.
1. First, here are some excerpts from Al Mohler's original speech:

"It’s not just panic amongst the cultural elites in the secular world however. It is also panic among the theologians. There is the warning from Professor Waltke, that if we do not get with the program we will be marginalized as a cult. There are the warnings of people like Peter Enns, the website BioLogos - a movement started by Francis Collins, now the director of the National Institutes of Health under President Obama, formerly the head of the Human Genome Project, the author of the book The Language of God in which he makes his own argument that, unless we get with the program, we are going to be intellectually marginalized. And Francis Collins makes the point made by so many others that we will actually lose credibility sharing the Gospel of Christ if we do not shed ourselves of the anti-intellectualism, which is judged to be ours by the elite if we do not accept the theory of evolution....
"Kenton Sparks writing on that website suggests that, intellectually, evangelicalism has painted itself into a corner - that we have put ourselves into an intellectual cul-de-sac with our understanding of biblical inerrancy. He suggests that the Bible indeed should be recognized as containing historical, theological and moral error. Peter Enns, one of the most frequent contributors to the site, suggests that we have to come to the understanding that, when it comes to many of the scientific claims, historical claims, the writers of scriptures were plainly wrong.
"Karl Giberson, Eastern Nazarene University, says this: "clearly the historicity of Adam and Eve and their fall from grace are hard to reconcile with natural history." He says this, "One could believe for example that at some point... in evolutionary history God ‘chose’ two people from a group of evolving humans, gave them his image, and put them in Eden, which they promptly corrupted by sinning. But this solution is unsatisfactory, artificial, and certainly not what the writer of Genesis intended.""
"That’s not said by someone who’s defending the book of Genesis, but rather the theory of evolution, and trying to remove the possibility of the very kinds of things that some who identify themselves as evangelicals are trying to claim. An old earth understanding is very difficult to reconcile with a historical Adam as presented not only in terms of Genesis, but in terms of Romans. It requires an arbitrary claim that God created Adam as a special act of his creation and it entangles a good many difficulties in terms of both exegeses and a redemptive historical understanding of scripture."
"It is not fair to say that an old earth position cannot hold to a historical Adam. It is to say that it cannot hold to a historical Adam without arbitrary intellectual moves and very costly theological entanglements. It is to say that this position seems to be at an insoluble collision with the redemptive historical narrative of the Gospel. The cost to the Christian church, in terms of ignoring this question or abandoning the discussion, is just too high. The cost of confronting this question is also costly. It can be very expensive because it can create intensity and conflict and controversy but I would suggest that the avoidance of this will be at the cost of our own credibility.

 

 

2. Now let's look at the specific arguments presented by the Biologos contributors.

a. The Biologos people say that Biblical interpretation has been wrong about scientific matters before, and has needed outside help from scientific observations to correct the natural/straightforward meaning of the text.

Example quote:
Let us suppose that the viewpoint you champion-General Revelation cannot trump Special revelation-had guided Christianity from its inception. The natural reading of Psalms 93 is that the earth is fixed and cannot be moved. Indeed this was thrown at Galileo and got him in trouble for proposing an "unbiblical" astronomy. The natural reading of the Biblical references to slavery is that it is OK and I am sure, Dr. Mohler, as a leader of the Southern Baptists, that you are painfully aware of how enthusiastically your predecessors defended the institution of slavery on biblical grounds. And I am sure you take pride in how hard your contemporaries have worked to distance themselves from that history. The natural reading of the creation of the moon in Genesis is that it is a light, similar to the sun, and not just a big rock. Is there not a long list of examples where General Revelation has forced us to set aside Special Revelation?
http://biologos.org/blog/how-should-biologos-respond-to-dr-albert-mohlers-critique-karls-response

Ok, each of these are separate examples.  The slavery example does not seem relevant to the science debate.  On the moon, Genesis nowhere says that it was "not just a big rock".  Genesis merely calls the moon a "light", which it obviously is.  Genesis 1 -
 14Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;
15and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.
16God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.
17God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,
18and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness;

On Galileo, others have shown that the main controversy was not science versus the Bible, but one scientific theory versus another.
http://creation.com/galileo-geocentrism-and-joshuas-long-day-questions-and-answers

Does the Scripture clearly teach a geocentric solar system?  Not at all.  For example, regarding Psalm 93:1-2 which say
    1The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty;
The LORD has clothed and girded Himself with strength;
Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved.
2Your throne is established from of old;
You are from everlasting.

consider this comment from http://creation.com/id-theorist-blunders-on-bible-response-to-dembski

"Dembski should read the verse in context. The next verse says, ‘[God’s] throne is established of old’, where the same word kôn is also translated ‘established’. And the same Hebrew word for ‘moved’ (môt) is used in Psalm 16:8, ‘I shall not be moved.’ Surely, even Dembski wouldn’t accuse the Bible of teaching that the Psalmist was rooted to one spot! He meant that he would not stray from the path that God had set for him. So the earth ‘cannot be moved’ can also mean that it will not stray from the precise orbital and rotational pattern God has set (‘firmly established’) for it.
...the Psalms are poetic books, so we should generally expect figurative language and be very careful before concluding that a particular verse is literal. Psalms have the defining characteristic of Hebrew poetry, which is not rhyme or metre, but parallelism. That is, the statements in two or more consecutive lines are related in some way: saying something, then saying it again in a different way. Or saying one thing then saying the opposite. So the parallelism in Psalm 93 clearly shows the reader that the verse Dembski cites should not be taken literally.
Conversely, Genesis is straightforward historical narrative. This should be obvious, because it has all the grammatical features of Hebrew narrative, e.g. the first verb (in Genesis 1:1) is a qatal (historic perfect), and the verbs that move the narrative forward are wayyiqtols (waw consecutives); it contains many ‘accusative particles’ that mark the objects of verbs; and terms are often carefully defined."

 

Enns tries again: "The biblical authors, along with all ancient peoples, assumed the earth was stationary and that the sun moved. Would that not require us to do likewise?"

Unfortunately, Enns misses the crucial distinction between assuming that the authors believed something, versus observing that the Bible (the authors' actual written output) states something.  How does Enns know that the author of Genesis believed that the sun revolved around the earth?  He assumes this, based only on writings from other ancient civilizations like the Babylonians and Egyptians.  But does the Bible actually teach that the sun revolved around the earth?  No.  So Enns' argument does not have any substance.

As an example of Enns' fallacious reasoning, let me apply his technique against his own beliefs.  Imagine if I were to say, "Peter Enns is a member of the Biologos group, which is associated with Francis Collins.  Francis Collins is on record as supporting certain types of human embyronic stem cell research.  Human embyronic stem cells come only from abortions.  Therefore, we see that Peter Enns is a supporter of abortion.  Now, how could we possibly trust anything written about Genesis by someone who supports abortion?  Enns is only trying to get us to support abortion ourselves!"   This building of a specious case based on presumptive unstated beliefs is what Enns is trying to do in his point excerpted above.

So Giberson's and Enns' point about Galileo seems superficially convincing, but upon examining the details, it becomes evident that the Bible does not teach the supposed "scientific errors" that they claim it does.  The Bible does, however, directly teach that the world was created in six days, and indirectly that it was created only a few thousand years ago.
b. The Biologos people say that science is SO clear about the age of the earth, that there is ZERO doubt about it, and so any suggestion that the earth is only a few thousand years old simply MUST be wrong.

Example quote:
Most scientists consider the age of the earth to be almost as well-established as its shape. Just as “flat earthism” cannot be taken seriously any longer, neither can “young earthism,” and I wonder if you really want Christians to “vote science off the island,” for that is what you have to do to preserve the young earth claim.

Giberson points specifically to the problem of starlight: how could light from stars millions of light-years away reach the earth in only thousands of years?  Even stellar events like supernovae and other things are seen.  If God created the light 'in-transit' but these events didn't actually happen, then God would seem to be deceiving mankind.

Actually however, there are several good astronomical theories that explain how distant light could reach the earth in only thousands of years.  For example, the Humphreys/Hartnett models propose that the Milky Way and the Earth are located in the approximate center of the universe, and that gravitational time dilation explains why distant stars and starlight has "aged more" than life here on earth, especially during Creation Day 4.  Time dilation is a well-known phenomena that has been experimentally proven.  There are even effects like the Pioneer anomaly which are best explained using these young earth creationist models.

So it is clear that "science" has not given an unequivocal answer regarding the age of the earth.  Some tests indicate old ages, while many others indicate young ages, perfectly in line with the Bible.  The scientific evidence and theories continue to develop, but the Bible's account remains literally accurate.

Other scientific tests methods as radioactive dating and counting varves or ice cores have been shown to be inaccurate in many scenarios and in several events whose ages are precisely known.  For more info:
http://creation.com/young-age-of-the-earth-universe-qa
http://creation.com/radiometric-dating-questions-and-answers
http://creation.com/fossils-questions-and-answers

 

c. The Biologos people say that Genesis 1-2 cannot be literal because Gen 1:1-2 assume a "preexistent watery chaos" which God then "tamed."

As to the "preexistence" of the water, the verse right before Genesis 1:2 says that "God created the heavens and the earth".  Thus it is stated that God created everything (including the waters), and then verse 2 "zooms in" and "picks up the story" from that first moment (1:1) to the creation of the sea/sky distinction.

I agree with Enns that God is indeed portrayed as taming the seas, as is later poetically described in Job and other places.  But this does not mean that God did not create the world in six days as He specifically said in Genesis 1-2.  Just because Francis Scott Key wrote a nice rhyming poem about "rockets' red glare" and a flag proudly waving in "dawn's early light" doesn't mean that the battle at Fort McHenry on September 14th 1814 didn't happen.  History doesn't have to jettison accuracy when it alludes to grand themes.   There is historical accuracy, theological significance, and poetic beauty, in the way God describes His creation in Genesis 1-2.  Neither excludes the others.  For more on this, see this article on the framework theory.

 

d. The Biologos people say that Genesis 1-2 cannot be literal because Gen 1:7 teaches the existence of a hard "firmament" which "held back" the "waters above."

As explained elsewhere, Genesis 1:7 does not teach this at all.

 

e. The Biologos people say that "days" mentioned before the creation of the sun indicates a non-literal Genesis 1-2.

But this is obviously a weak argument.  "...all it takes to have a day-night cycle is a rotating Earth and light coming from one direction."

 

 
3. The rhetoric of the Biologos group

Here are some examples of rhetorical phrases from the Biologos group that are borderline fallacious, or especially doctrinally egregrious.
Where does one draw the line that marks that place where one has *left evangelical Christianity*? Whose view of that line should we recognize?

This is a 'straw man' argument... It seems to me that the real question is about truth, not denominationalism and demarcation.  The real question is: "How did God create the world?"  not,  "What is the minimum set of beliefs one has to believe to be called an 'Evangelical Christian'?"
Did God form a literal first-man 'Adam' directly from dust on Day 6 and breathe into his nostrils the breath of life?  Or did He pick some particular hominid from some tribe of half-monkeys after millions of years of evolutionary survival-of-the-fittest and suddenly bequeath to him some socio-theological awareness?  Is the Bible sufficiently clear to decide between these competing explanations?
As another example of why Falk's rhetoric is problematic, consider those who deny the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ.  Are we to wrestle with "where to draw the line" doctrinally on that issue?  Or do we simply point out that those who deny such doctrines are contradicting the Bible?  Who cares whether someone who denies parts of the Bible is called an "Evangelical" or a "Theistic Evolutionist" or a "Flubberdeemoo"?  Labels and lines are not the point.  The point is whether one is accurately interpreting and believing the Bible.
The BioLogos Foundation exists in order that the Church, especially the Evangelical Church, can come to *peace* with the scientific data...

Falk tries to uses "peace" vs "war" imagery...  i.e., he tries to paint believers in a literal Genesis as "warring" against "scientific data".  But actually, as one sifts the data from the interpretations, one discovers that there is plenty of scientific data that supports a young earth.  And one could just as easily say that the Biologos people are the ones "warring" against the traditional interpretation of Genesis 1.  We need to pray that they would come to peace with the literal interpretation of Genesis 1, the interpretation favored by Jesus, Moses, Paul, etc.
My most general question would have to be whether this really matters as much as you say. It seems to me that you are making a theological mountain out of an exegetical molehill, but I suspect we should just agree to disagree about that.

If Giberson really believed this, then why would he and his colleagues spend so many pages defending their position?   If one looks back at previous doctrinal controversies, such as the modernism/liberalism controversy of the early 1900's, one notices that all heretics say this.  They deny a particular truth from the Bible, then in the ruckus that arises, they try to paint themselves as indifferent to the issue.
Many *faithful* Christians understand verses 1-2 this way, and they feel that they are honoring God’s Word by doing so.

Notice that word "faithful".  This is the 'they're good people, how can they possibly be wrong' fallacy.  It is a sleight-of-hand intended to make it difficult to challenge these "faithful" Christians.  These are not just ordinary Christians.  These are "faithful" Christians.
If you reply that these Christians are not "faithful" in the sense of accurately interpreting Genesis (i.e. they call it poetry when it is actually historical narrative), the sleight-of-hand accuses you of demeaning their character (they keep their promises, they pay their bills, they are nice to their neighbors, etc).
This fits with the current tendency to use language about being a 'faithful witness' and being part of the 'community of faith', as opposed to truth, accuracy, and correct beliefs.  If one is a sincere and "faith-filled" person but one's faith is based on incorrect foundations, that faith can lead into grevious error.
Also, notice that they "feel that they are honoring God's word" by allegorizing and mythologizing away the young-earth creationistic implications of Genesis 1-2.  How can one argue against a "feeling"?!
However, it remains the case that truly honoring God's word involves accurate interpretation and belief.  Merely "feeling" that one is honoring God's word does not guarantee that one is actually honoring God's word.  As Jesus and Moses believed that Genesis 1-2 referred to literal days of creation, we can follow their example in correctly understanding the account.  (Exodus 20:11, Matthew 19:4)
I realize you may disagree here, and maybe you have a way of seeing literal days where there is no sun. I disagree strongly but *that would not lead me to question your commitment to the Gospel*. Reading the days figuratively is not an act of spiritual rebellion, which you seem to suggest. It is a result of taking the text very seriously and faithfully, trying to discern from the text itself how best to read it.

Enns here is attempting to take the moral high ground, by insinuating "If you were in my place I wouldn't be condemning you... therefore you are being less openminded and generous and tolerant than I am...  therefore your argument is wrong."  For starters, this is an ad-hominem argument - attacking the character of the person arguing with you does not constitute an argument substantiating one's position.
Further, this is a straw-man argument, because Mohler did not question Enns' 'committment to the Gospel', but rather, his accuracy of Genesis 1 interpretation and his (un)belief in the inerrancy of the Scriptures.
Enns is quite defensive here, feeling attacked (for some reason) about whether he has been "faithful" and "committed to the gospel".  Actually however, the issue he should simply admit to is his belief in the errancy of the Scriptures.  Enns obviously believes that the Bible has mistakes in it, and Mohler was simply pointing that out.  Enns should admit that, e.g. "Although I do believe the Bible contains some scientific mistakes, I continue to try to take the text very seriously and faithfully."   That way readers can understand that when he says "seriously and faithfully", he means, "unless I come across an 'error', in which case I am free to discount it."
Christians have disagreed with Augustine, but it is hard to find someone who would warn others about him because of his views on Genesis 1. It was not a theological hill to die on.
Also, although you are a Southern Baptist, I know you have great respect for the Reformed tradition. It is true that from Calvin, to the Westminster Assembly, to 19th century Princeton, and the Dutch Reformed tradition, many (not all) Reformed theologians understood the days of Genesis 1 to be "natural" days. But even then, they did not make it a point of Christian orthodoxy, as you seem to do.

These are more examples of Enns trying to say that the interpretation of Genesis 1-2 is "unimportant", and not worth spending much energy arguing about.  Unfortunately for Enns, our origins and the origin of sin is extremely important for the entire rest of the Bible.  Furthermore, it is not surprising that Calvin et al did not spend a lot of time on the literalness of Genesis, because the whole controversy did not exist back then!  Darwin would not yet be born for another 250 years.  But in each era, certain issues are hotly attacked by heretics and liberals, and must be defended.  In Calvin's and Luther's era, heretics were teaching salvation by works.  Thus these men powerfully defended the Bible's teachings in this area.  Today, Genesis 1-2 is widely discounted as a mythological/spiritual/nonliteral account by people and entities such as Biologos, and so Mohler and others naturally have need to defend that particular section of the Bible.
Flexibility of views and generosity of spirit concerning Genesis 1 are hardly unusual among committed Christians. It is not a slippery slope to unbelief but a humble way forward to discern what it means to read God’s Word faithfully. I do not think such flexibility or generosity are a mistake, as you seem to argue. Would you not, along with many thoughtful Christian thinkers of the past, allow diverse points of view to sit side-by-side for the benefit of Christian unity?

Notice the overload of "positive words" here, as Enns tries to whitewash his 'spiritualizing' and 'mythologizing' Genesis 1-2.  "Flexibility" implicitly portrays orthodoxy as "rigid and unbending", "generosity" portrays orthodoxy as "stingy", "humble" portrays orthodoxy as "arrogant".   "Diverse viewpoints allowed to sit side-by-side for unity" is set up against the traditional belief that Genesis 1-2 actually refers to a literal event, just as it explicitly describes.  The words "committed" and "thoughtful" are used (as "faithful" above) as epithets to try to sneak some extra argumentative force into the discussion by citing the lifestyle of the Christians who believe in an allegorical/mythological Genesis 1-2, rather than putting the weight of the argument on actual reasons to treat Genesis that way.
How can we demonstrate that the *heart of the Gospel message* has nothing to do with the age of the earth or how God chose to create life?

What defines the 'heart of the Gospel message?'  Who defines it?  Does this mean we don't need to refute false Biblical teaching, as long as it doesn't compose whatever we consider the "heart of the gospel message"?
Falk's question points to a kind of "least-common-denominator" doctrinal minimalism, in which each doctrine that the Bible teaches is free to be jettisoned, one by one, because it supposedly has nothing to do with the "heart of the gospel".
On the contrary, the Bible is clear -
    Every word of God is tested;
He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.
Do not add to His words
Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar.  Proverbs 30:5-6

"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:17-19

So then, what is the gospel message?
"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures...." 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

What does "according to the Scriptures" mean?  Surely it means that the Christ who was prophesied throughout the Old Testament was the One who came to fulfil 'all that the prophets had spoken' about Him, Jesus.  The first prophecy was given in Genesis 3:15, to Adam and Eve, the first two humans, who had just sinned the first sin.  According to Paul in Romans 5, as he is defining the heart of the gospel, "...through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin...."  Paul builds a repeated comparison between Adam and Jesus which would make no sense if Adam were not historical and if death did not arise until Adam's sin.

In the same chapter that contains the oldest and most succinct creedal summary of the "heart of the gospel" in Scripture, we find it stated that Adam was "the first man" (1 Corinthians 15:45).  If we deny the latter, we will end up denying the former.  The literal accuracy of the Genesis account has everything to do with the heart of the gospel.

Have you heard of the evolutionary term "convergence"?  It refers to the supposed arrival of multiple biological lineages to the same "body plan" through independent evolutionary histories.  The problem is that the main evidence for evolution is supposed to be the seamless "tree of life" in which body plans ("morphologies") gradually change into what comes next.  When an animal exhibits an organ extremely similar to another supposedly unrelated animal in the evolutionary "tree of life", instead of accepting that it is evidence against the theory of evolution, proponents simply say "it evolved more than once" and give it the name "convergence".

This hilarious handwaving deserves much... um... scrutiny.   Here's a gem from recent Creation Safaris:

 

In the land of Jabberwocky, a scientist named Niwrad came up with a theory of everything he called Galumph.  With frabjous joy, he investigated all the creatures of the borogoves with his apprentice, Ecallaw.  He found that the Jubjub birds had round eyes and the mome raths, though similar, have square eyes.  That’s because of Galumph, he explained.  The Bandersnatch and Jabberwock, though looking very different, both have round eyes.  “Galumph triumphs again!” Niwrad chortled.  “But how can that be?” burbled Ecallaw with uffish look.  “They are so very different in other respects.”  “Callooh! Callay!” exclaimed Niwrad frumiously.  “'Tis only to demonstrate the power of Galumph.  The former is a case of Parallel Galumph.  This one, a case of Convergent Galumph.  Do you see?  Galumph explains all.  We must away and tell Yelxuh, our mimsy publicist, to announce our scientific triumph to the townspeople!  We have slain the mystery of Jabberwock with Galumph.  Galumph has wiped the brillig from our slithy toves, and given us Enlightenment!”
    Convergence is about as meaningful and convincing an explanation as this.  If God exists, and if it were his intent to show the impossibility of evolution, he could hardly have done a better job than to show both unity and diversity of plants and animals, but with cross-branches linking unrelated lineages with similar traits.  It would simultaneously show a single Creator (instead of polytheism) and the impossibility these complex species and traits had emerged naturally from common ancestry.  As far as the differences between bat species, it is also much more plausible to explain by trait loss rather than by innovative gain of new complex systems.  Yet the Darwinists, intent on their naturalistic world view, have come up with a term like Galumph, called Convergence, to rescue their beliefs from the evidence.  To see the extent of their use of this rescuing device, look at Brett Miller’s partial list of incredible similarities between unrelated creatures in his essay,

The Convergence Concoction.  Like his final cartoon shows, it’s so much easier for lazy scientists to say “It evolved!” than to consider the implications of the evidence.  Another resource on the explanatory flimflam being sold as Convergent Evolution can be found in this article on the Explore Evolution website, section II D.
    It can look impressive to see in scientific papers the amount of detailed work researchers perform to arrive at their Galumph explanations.  How could all these analytical tools like Bayesian analysis, software that generates phylogenetic trees out of genetic inputs, mathematical manipulations, inscrutable jargon, tables, charts and piles of supplemental data be misguided?  How can it be wrong when it feels so right?  But if the conclusion of this bridge over troubled water is “Galumph!  Stuff happens,” it doesn’t matter.  That’s a non-starter as an explanation.  And busy work is not science.  Undoubtedly one could find similar amounts of complex procedures and data manipulation in the textbooks on alchemy and astrology.  Couching the Stuff Happens Law (09/15/2008 commentary) in euphemisms does not produce understanding.
    By failing to include the top-down theories in their roster, they have failed to address the pool of possible explanations.  Regardless, this jabber about Convergence is not an explanation; it’s Jargonwocky masquerading as meaning.

 

 

Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.
So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick."
But when Jesus heard this, He said, "This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it."
Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was.
Then after this He said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again."
...
So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days.
Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off;
and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother.
Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house.
Martha then said to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.
"Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You."
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
Martha said to Him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?"
She said to Him, "Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world."
When she had said this, she went away and called Mary her sister, saying secretly, "The Teacher is here and is calling for you."
And when she heard it, she got up quickly and was coming to Him.
Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met Him.
Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and consoling her, when they saw that Mary got up quickly and went out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw Him, and fell at His feet, saying to Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled, and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see."
Jesus wept.
So the Jews were saying, "See how He loved him!"
But some of them said, "Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?"
So Jesus, again being deeply moved within, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
Jesus said, "Remove the stone." Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, "Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days."
Jesus said to her, "Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?"
So they removed the stone Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. "I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me."
When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth."
The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."   (John 11)

Fellow Xangan Lance "FKIProfessor" posted a thorough review of the fascinating-sounding book "The Spiritual Brain". You can read his review here: http://www.xanga.com/FKIProfessor/632686621/the-spiritual-brain.html .

The book seems to be a good example of the growing number of non-Christian non-materialist scientists.  I.e. they don't believe that we humans are just 'machines'; they believe there is a 'spiritual' aspect to us as well, but they do not believe in the Biblical portrayal of a personal God who created the world and who has related to us in the past, currently relates to us in some ways, and will be fully revealed to the whole world in glory at some point in the future.  As an example, it's interesting to note that the Dalai Lama (top Tibetan Buddhist leader) was invited to give the keynote address to the 30000 scientists present at the "Neuroscience" conference in 2005, about spirituality and the brain.

One especially fascinating aspect of the book (from Lance's review; I haven't read it myself) is the discussion of the "God areas" of the brain.  I.e., there is some experimentation investigating areas of the brain which reportedly when electrically stimulated can produce 'out of body' experiences, mystical experiences, etc.  And the 'God gene' - the idea that some people are more susceptible than others to 'mystical experiences of God'.

I would actually not be surprised if there really is an area of the human brain which is closely tied to mystical experiences, or even genetic components which enhance the function of this area.  But of course I don't think that that would rule out the existence of the human soul, any more than a team of researchers investigating a locked running car from underneath coming across a 'gas pedal rod' which revved the engine, could legitimately conclude that there was no longer any need to suppose that cars need 'drivers'.

And this research really underscores for me that my faith in God through Jesus Christ is NOT based on subjective experiences.  I do not believe in Him (primarily) because I have "felt" God's presence (although I have) or experienced specific answers to prayer (although I have).  Rather, my faith in Him is based primarily on the evidence from history, especially the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  If He really rose, and the evidence indicates that He did, then the God He preached about is real, regardless of whether I "feel" Him today or not.

If you want to delve further, Glenn Miller's writings on this (e.g. http://www.christian-thinktank.com/sh6end.html) are very interesting.  He tends to be more 'subjectively oriented' than me about the basis for his faith, but he makes some interesting points (and certainly believes with me the 'objective' bases found in the historical record).

What is your faith in God based upon?   What evidence for the reality of God do you have that you could not attribute to an "imaginary friend?"  Or if you do not believe in the God of the Bible, what do you think about my reasons for believing in Him?

2 Chronicles 25:5-9...

Moreover, Amaziah assembled Judah and appointed them according to their fathers' households under commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds throughout Judah and Benjamin; and he took a census of those from twenty years old and upward and found them to be 300,000 choice men, able to go to war and handle spear and shield.

He hired also 100,000 valiant warriors out of Israel for one hundred talents of silver.

But a man of God came to him saying, "O king, do not let the army of Israel go with you, for the LORD is not with Israel nor with any of the sons of Ephraim. But if you do go, do it, be strong for the battle; yet God will bring you down before the enemy, for God has power to help and to bring down."

Amaziah said to the man of God, "But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the troops of Israel?"

 

A legitimate question, in my opinion.   Here's a king who's faced with a choice.  He's just become king, and he's about to go out to war.  He's paid the equivalent of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to hire mercenary soldiers.  But then a prophet of God comes and tells him that he should send them all home, because God will not support him if he sends this particular group to fight his battles.  But what about all the money I would lose? asks Amaziah.  It was a nonrefundable deposit!

How profound is the answer in return:

And the man of God answered, "The LORD has much more to give you than this."

 

This six minute video is absolutely hilarious... especially if you've ever heard any of these arguments from an atheist or evolutionist.  There's also a related piece of text, but the video is even funnier.

This really hits on many of the most important questions about God.   Right at the beginning, the question is asked: "If there is a Dawkins, why hasn't he shown himself to me?"

There are lots of obvious answers - perhaps "because he's got better things to do with his time", etc.  But personal subjective experience isn't the only type of evidence... maybe he's "shown himself" to other people...?   Ah, but what if all those other people who claimed to have seen him are all lying?   Or delusional?/hallucinating?   Or merely spreading legends and hearsay?

The logic is almost exactly the same as the evidence for the Biblical Jesus and His miraculous life and resurrection...   and once you have a miracle-working, resurrected, Messiah who teaches that God does exist and that He is in fact "one" with Him, the evidence for the existence of "God" begins to stack up quite substantially...

Here's an interesting article about the woman scientist who discovered soft extant dinosaur tissue in "68-million-year-old" dinosaur bones.

Here's an excerpt of the part that especially caught my eye:

"...Young-earth creationists also see Schweitzer’s work as revolutionary, but in an entirely different way. They first seized upon Schweitzer’s work after she wrote an article for the popular science magazine Earth in 1997 about possible red blood cells in her dinosaur specimens. Creation magazine claimed that Schweitzer’s research was “powerful testimony against the whole idea of dinosaurs living millions of years ago. It speaks volumes for the Bible’s account of a recent creation.”

This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.” For her, science and religion represent two different ways of looking at the world; invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena breaks the rules of science. After all, she says, what God asks is faith, not evidence. “If you have all this evidence and proof positive that God exists, you don’t need faith. I think he kind of designed it so that we’d never be able to prove his existence. And I think that’s really cool.”"

First, it's interesting to note her a priori philosophical bias, which is certainly "methodological naturalism" and probably steps over the boundary of "philosophical naturalism" too...  Her view is that God absolutely CANNOT work in time and space in scientifically detectable ways... in other words, God could be good, and loving, and kind, and powerful, and whatever else, but He most certainly CANNOT interact with the world He has created in ways that could be detected by humans - God absolutely CANNOT do miracles.   If He could (so reasons the phobia), then people might actually believe in God based on evidence rather than blind faith. (Oh!  Horrors!)

According to Schweitzer, "invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena breaks the rules of science."

Oh, well excuse me.  Forgive me for asking, but who makes up these "rules" again?  Shame on Newton, Kepler, Dalton, Faraday, Joule, Maxwell, Stokes, Pasteur, and Kelvin for indulging in such flagrant scientific naughtiness.

Schweitzer is not alone in her complaint, of course.  Michael Ruse writes: "Even if Scientific Creationism were totally successful in making its case as science, it would not yield a 'scientific' explanation of origins. The Creationists believe that the world started miraculously. But miracles lie outside of science, which by definition deals only with the natural, the repeatable, that which is governed by law." (Darwinism Defended, p. 182).

Similarly Richard Lewontin writes: "Either the world of phenomena is a consequence of the regular operation of repeatable causes and their repeatable effects, operating roughly along the lines of known physical law, or else at every instant all physical regularities may be ruptured and a totally unforeseeable set of events may occur.... We can not live simultaneously in a world of natural causation and of miracles, for if one miracle can occur, there is no limit." (Scientists Confront Creationism, New York: Norton, 1983, p. 26)
...and also...
"It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen."

Unnerving indeed, in all honesty.  It is non-trivial and (potentially life-altering) to find (paraphrasing C.S.Lewis) "a real, live God in our midst".

Now granted, methodological naturalism can be useful, in finding out "the way things usually work" (also called "nomological" investigation - the study of how things generally proceed, based on the "laws" (Greek 'nomos') that govern the universe).   But as soon as it morphs into an 'Absolute Principle', the openminded curiosity which is the chief treasure of the scientific endeavor is discarded.  As soon as I state that "I've never observed a miracle in my laboratory, therefore God has never done (and can never do) a miracle" or even worse, "I refuse to believe in miracles because that might allow [Lewontin's proverbial] Divine foot in the door", I have unjustifiably closed and locked my mind.   In agreement with William James, and contra W.K.Clifford, "unlimited skepticism" can sometimes be a hindrance to finding the truth...

Schweitzer is almost technically correct when she disparages "invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena", in the sense of invoking the "miraculous" hand of God in suspending the laws that He has ordained that generally govern the physical world.  But she neglects to mention that the whole controversy is about exactly that point - what phenomena are natural and what are not?  ...and is it possible that some phenomena truly CANNOT be explained naturalistically?  (the origin of matter, the origin of DNA, Christ walking on water, Christ's Resurrection)?

When I throw a basketball up in the air and it falls back to the ground, there is no need to infer a "miracle" - there is not necessarily any suspension of the normal processes of gravity that God has established.   But must we assume that God is bound by these laws that He created?  That He can never suspend them if He so chooses?

In my humble opinion, we ought not to make such "metaphysically gratuitous" assumptions.  As Steven Meyer writes (with my insertion), "Of course intelligent design [and creationism] is not wholly naturalistic, but why does that make it unscientific? What noncircular reason can be given for this assertion? What independent criterion of method demonstrates the inferior scientific status of a nonnaturalistic explanation?" 

By contrast, the Kansas folks got it right:

Older 2001 Definition: "Science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations of the world
around us."

Revised 2005 Definition: "Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses
observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument
and theory building, to lead to more adequate explanations of natural
phenomena."
"More adequate", "more accurate", "closer to the truth about the way the world works"... This is the true and noble goal of science... the aim of that worthy perennial nomological enterprise... that "glory of kings."

 

This post is for Dan (I forgot to write down your email address last night :) ...

I'm working on an official reply to the discussion thread at http://www.xanga.com/ArgumentsFromtheRight/458794085/item.html ... hopefully I'll post it (on my Xanga) later this week.  But until then, feel free to read the old thread to get a feel for some of the facets of our discussion...  It's pretty long (41 printed pages), but worth reading if you have the time, in my opinion... especially the last 10 pages or so (the last 2 or 3 xanga comment-pages).

...and if you would like to check out some info on the evidence in favor of the reliability of the Gospels, I recommend this site for some nice, balanced, well-referenced discussion on all the issues.  For example, this is a nice place to start: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/nuhbias.html .   If you want to dive into a higher level of detail, you might enjoy reading http://www.christian-thinktank.com/stilldex.html , a multi-part study and dialog with a skeptic about the writing of the New Testament.  And if you have lots of free time and lots of skeptical questions and feel like exploring something random, try reading some of the other fascinating articles at the site!

Look for my next installment later this week, hopefully... 

With esteem and respect,

Tim

Related to yesterday's entry, http://www.christian-thinktank.com/adam03.html is a cool article!

Since writing the above sentence, I just read the article again.   It is EXTREMELY awesome and relevant.   There are loads of good thoughts to meditate on in the article.  If you are a "skeptical" person or have ever experienced some disillusionment with "the church" and "what we're expected to believe" versus "the hypocritical reality" that we see, or have ever had doubts about the Bible's veracity (in other words, if you are a sentient human ,  then I strongly encourage you to read the article and interact with it!

I'll probably also be reading it a few more times within the next few months...

Ok, more philosophical/epistemological musings...      Sorry for those of you my esteemed readers who would rather read little tidbits and anecdotes...     But I'll come back to those in a few days, perhaps.

These thoughts were prompted by some discussions from this past week, although they've been percolating for quite a while.  My views on the inspiration/inerrancy of the Scriptures have also been undergoing some modification over the last few months.  I'll have to explain that some time.

For now, enjoy, and although I didn't write it in a very clear way, please feel free to wade in and suggest any of your thoughts, critiques, and suggestions for improvement.

 

============================

 

The topic is "science and the Bible", and the question is how to proceed if they seem to contradict.  (It might be helpful to merge these thoughts with Moreland's "four views" from our readings).  Working on the following assumptions:

1. The Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God to mankind.

2. Observational/nomological science connects us to the real world that God created, so that by performing experiments and observing the results, we (have the potential ability to) view/interact-with a real physical world, not an "illusion" - i.e. our observations "correspond" with a reality that exists outside of any human observers.

3. All of our interpretations of the Bible are fallible and must pass through multiple "layers" of cultural/environmental influences.  Examples of the layers are:
- between the original autographs and the extant manuscripts and codices
- between the extant codices' symbolic semantic Hebrew/Greek message and our own individual understandings (i.e. "Do I understand the language this manuscript is written in?")
- between the Hebrew/Greek and the English, if we don't know Hebrew/Greek (i.e. the issue of "translations")
- the broad-context questions - e.g. "I know this says "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth...", but does the word "days" in context refer to literal 24-hour days, or unspecified periods of time?"

4. All of our interpretations of scientific experiments are fallible and must pass through multiple "layers" of cultural/environmental influences.  Examples of the layers are:
- if I read about an experiment (e.g. Michelson-Morley) in a textbook rather than performing it myself (with direct sensory observation), I have the same difficulties of textual interpretation as above with Scripture:
- "do I understand the language of this scientific report?"
- "am I grasping the meaning of what the author wrote in broad context?"  (e.g. the word "evolution" has many meanings)
- if I perform the experiment myself, am I 'sure' that I am not performing the experiment incorrectly, or that I am not failing to account for all possible confounding factors? (i.e. experimental error, sensor noise, other confounding factors)
- whether another or I perform the experiment, are our assumptions valid?  (e.g. uniformitarian "annual layer" assumptions for varves, ice cores, tree rings, etc)
- whether another or I perform the experiment, is my model valid to the necessary precision? (e.g. relativity and quantum mechanics drastically revised the physical models of the 19th century, allowing greater prediction precision than before)

5. Both our scientific and our Scriptural understandings can be supposed to be "asymptotically convergent", meaning that although they can be "wrong" to various precisions, increasing time and study will bring our beliefs closer to "The Truth".
- e.g. for scientific theories, Einstein's theory of gravity "refined" Newton's, rather than "contradicting" Newton's.  Yet even Einstein's may not be the "exact" way that gravity is described.
- e.g. for scriptural interpretations...

6. It is desirable to hold to a set of beliefs that is as consistent as possible.  If possible, the set of beliefs that I hold should have no contradictions at all, when all qualifiers and caveats are accounted for.

7. It is desirable to hold to a set of beliefs that is as "livable" as possible.  This should "include" my own innate sense of what is morally desirable (while recognizing that my own innate conscience may possibly need revision from time to time).
- For example, if my conscience prompts me to treat other people with love and respect, even if they hold wrong beliefs (1 Peter 3:15), then a system of beliefs (such as Christianity) which shows the propriety and rationality (with respect to "the real world", both physical and spiritual) of such love and respect would be preferred over a system of beliefs which provided no rationale for such love of others (and certainly over a system which, for example, provided a rationale for destroying others so that my own 'fitter' genes would predominate/propagate).
- Yet, my conscience is not the end-all, since it might be corrupted.  For example, if I as a white Southern slave-owner of 150 years ago was confronted with compelling evidence from a belief system (such as Biblical Christianity) which I had strong reason to believe was true, I should be able to modify my innate sense of what was right and proper (e.g. from "The negro ought to know his place" to "The negro is my brother as a human, he has just as much dignity as an imagebearer-of-God as I do, and he needs to hear about God's salvation and kingdom just as much as I also need to hear").

 
Holding to these principles and assumptions, we might try to come up with a statement that we all agree upon...  (though I am not too optimistic about this...   such as:
"We agree that it is possible for scripture to 'trump' science, in the sense that:
- After all available scientific and scriptural evidence has been duly considered, it is possible for me:
- to experience and hold to a belief that my particular interpretation of a Scripture passage is directly contradictory to my particular interpretation of observational-scientific experiments and historical-reconstructions-supported-by-observational-scientific-experimental-evidence, and further:
- to experience "sufficient confidence" in a belief that my Scripture-based-belief indicates that the Scientific-theory is wrong, and further:
- to be "correct", "right", "legitimate," and "epistemically-justified," in my subsequent repudiation of a scientific theory based on an interpretation of Scripture that I am sufficiently confident is the correct interpretation (to the requisite level of asymptotic accuracy)."
In shorter words:

"We agree that sometimes it is proper to disbelieve in a scientific theory because of what Scripture says."

Or:

"It is possible to be so convinced that one understands what the Scriptures are saying/implying in a certain passage, that one believes in that interpretation in spite of the fact that scientific theories and evidence contradict that interpretation... and it is possible to be epistemically justified in so doing."

 

The critique might then arise: how does one know, to start out with, that the scriptures are "correct"/"infallible" in this scientific sense?  If it contradicts the scientific evidence we see around us, why shouldn't we throw it out?

In reply I would ask - "how does one know that ANY repository of truth is "correct" (let's temporarily postpone discussion of "infallible") in a scientific sense?"   And, "if a piece of evidence contradicts my current scientific understanding, do I throw out the "new piece of evidence" as "spurious," or do I revise (possibly drastically) my scientific beliefs to conform to the one new piece of "evidence?"

The basic problem is that theories never make quantum/qualitative jumps to the epistemological status of "scientific fact"... they instead gradually/quantitatively increase in the estimation of the scientific community, and sometimes for reasons other than scientific reasons.   (Cf. Popper, Kuhn, Ruse)

Yet the question of empirical corroboration of scripture-texts is important.  If the Bible consistently claimed things that were demonstrably false today (such as that people rise from the dead all the time, or that the earth is flat and is supported on the back of a giant tortise), we would be wise to reconsider our belief in it.

On the other hand, if the Bible claims things that are historically reasonable (such as the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead ca. 2000 years ago in Judea) and subsequently provides adequate ("non-circularly-reasoned") grounds for its own inerrancy, then it might conceivably be justifiable to trust its account of historical events which are accessible only in a limited way by modern scientific reconstructions...