What did I just step in?

"P" - Perseverance of the Saints: Summary and Thoughts

2012-01-19T20:21:00.000-05:00

I'm currently reading through the books For Calvinism by Michael Horton and Against Calvinism by Roger E. Olson. This post is one of a series of posts where I discuss the thoughts, impressions, and questions that surface during this study. Click here for the first post in this series.

Olson finishes up his tour of Calvinism (by way of "TULIP") in chapter 3 by describing perseverance of the saints (the "P" in TULIP). He defines it like this:

[A] truly elect person cannot ever be finally or fully lost because God will keep him or her from falling. (pp. 53)

I agree with Olson that this is by far the least objectionable doctrine in TULIP because it reflects little (if any) on the character of God. I have often been puzzled by this doctrine, simply because it is completely self-fulfilling (at least from our perspective) and provides little comfort or utility in the life of a believer or non-believer. Many examples can be given of "solid" Christians giving up their faith, and in these cases I often hear statements like "they either were not a genuine believer, or they will come back around eventually"... In either case, the doctrine is useless and provides little comfort.

I'm sure some people disagree; Perhaps someone who is absolutely sure of their salvation might see this as assurance that this will never change. But in that case, this assurance is only as sure as their belief that they are actually saved. In other words, telling someone that they can never loose their salvation is only comforting in as much as that person is sure they are actually saved. I've never seen this doctrine as adding anything to ones assurance that they'll end up in heaven someday.

Anyway, that end's Olson's tour of what he calls "Mere Calvinism", by way of the TULIP acrostic.

"I" - Irresistible Grace: Summary and Thoughts

2012-01-16T23:30:00.000-05:00

A person chosen by God for salvation will not, because he or she cannot, resist the "inward call" of God because God "bends their will." It is not a matter of coercion; the Holy Spirit does not overwhelm and force the person to repent and believe; rather, the Holy Spirit transforms the persons heart so that he or she wants to repent and believe.

And then a little later,

[T]he work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating grace, although irresistible, never violates the person's free agency: "The elect are so influenced by divine power that their coming is an act of voluntary choice.

And then, before the words were out of my mouth:

This seems peculiarly paradoxical, but that doesn't bother Boettner or other Calvinists.

Okay, the first statement makes sense to me: The Holy Spirit fundamentally changes a person's heart, so that they want to (and always will) believe. But that's not a violation of free agency? Did the person have any say in whether their heart was transformed? Obviously not. I think you get the point. This is another area where it will be interesting to see Horton's perspective.

Olson also raises two scriptural concerns with irresistible grace that I thought were interesting:

1) "Draw" vs. "Compel"

Olson describes how Calvinists claim that the word "draw" in John 6:44 really means "compel". Olson suggests that if the Greek word for "draw" can only mean "compel" then John 12:32 (which uses the same word) teaches universal salvation.

Obviously Olson must make the case that the Greek word for "draw" cannot have two similar (but different) meanings in the two contexts for this to be a valid argument. I'm not one to dig into the Greek and try to make a determination myself. (I know people that would, and more power to them, but I'd just be fooling myself.) I'll look forward to Olson's full discussion in chapter 7, and (I assume) Horton's opposite viewpoint in For Calvinism.

2) The order of regeneration and faith

This concept was completely new to me: Since repentance and faith are not possible unless a person has been regenerated (according to the Calvinist system) then logically regeneration must precede repentance and faith.

This is obviously opposite of typical experience, as well as counter to the message of "believe and be saved" as normally presented (even by Calvinists). In reference to this, Olson cites John 3:1-21:

Jesus tells Nicodumus that he must be born again and that belief in him will accomplish that (v. 14). There is really no way to reconcile this passage with belief that regeneration precedes faith. (pp. 52, emphasis mine)

I'm not sure how verse 14 relates to that (did he mean v. 15?) but even so, this whole issue of regeneration preceding faith seems like one of these theological fabrications that just must be so, because a theological system requires it...

"L" - Limited Atonement: Summary and Thoughts

2012-01-15T22:59:00.000-05:00

In chapter 3, Olson describes limited atonement by first stating that all Calvinists accept the penal substitution theory of the atonement, namely that

[T]hey believe... that God punished Jesus for the sins of the people God wanted to save... In other words, Jesus Christ satisfied the justice of God by bearing the deserved punishment of every person God wanted to save. That's what makes them "savable". (pp. 47)

He then goes on to define what limited atonement means:

The limited nature of the atonement... was in its scope and not in its value. It was particularly intended by God for particular people (as opposed to everyone indiscriminately) and it definitely secured or accomplished the salvation of those for whom it was intended - the elect. (pp. 47)

and later, adds this little tidbit:

[M]ost Calvinists deny that God intended the cross for all people, which means, of course, that he does not love everyone in the same way. (pp. 48)

This part of the chapter is where Olson begins to present some material that I'm anxious to hear from Horton's (pro-Calvinist) point of view. Olson gives a short summary of how Calvinists explain the various benefits received by the elect and non-elect, especially in light of the "all" passages in scripture. Olson describes how Calvinists claim (as in the quote above) that God loves everybody, but not in the same way. So Christ died for the sins of the elect, but not the sins of the reprobate. Christ's death benefits the non-elect in a more general way, like in the rising of the sun (Matthew 5:45). The "all" passages in scripture are said to apply to the non-elect in this more general way.

Olson puts it like this:

On the basis of what Scriptures do Calvinists affirm limited atonement? ... Boettner, Sproul, Piper and others point to passages such as John 10:15; 11:51-52; and 17:6, 9 19, in which Jesus says things such as "I lay down my life for the sheep."

Olson will rebut this more completely in chapter 6, but here he simply states that these passages, all of which indeed talk bout Jesus dying for "his people" do not necessarily exclude the possibility of Jesus dying for others. He continues:

In fact, 1 John 2:2 clearly states that he, Jesus, is the atonement for the sins of the whole world. Piper and others claim this refers to the children of God scattered throughout the world and not everyone. (pp. 50)

I'm sure Horton will present this argument more elegantly, but to me this claim just reeks of BS. Combine this with the divine picture that emerges when God is charged with sending people to hell "for his good pleasure", and the "T" in TULIP becomes the most problematic, at least for me.

"U" - Unconditional Election: Summary and Thoughts

2012-01-11T20:52:00.000-05:00

The Reformed Faith has held to the existence of an eternal, divine decree which, antecedently to any difference or desert in men themselves, separates the human race into two portions and ordains one to everlasting life and the other to everlasting death [hell]. (pp. 43 in Olson)

Olson summarizes unconditional election in this way:

God's predestination of the eternal destinies of individual human beings has nothing whatever to do with their foreseen character or choices. [emphasis his] (pp. 46)

Olson then goes on to describe what he calls "the dark side" of unconditional election, that because salvation and reprobation are unconditional, God could save everyone if he chose, but does not. He gives the Calvinist explanation of why this is so by quoting again from Boettner:

The condemnation of the non-elect is designed primarily to furnish an external exhibition, before men and angels, of God's hatred for sin, or, in other words, it is to be an eternal manifestation of the justice of God.

That certainly is an explanation of the purpose/reason for hell that I needed to digest for a while... I think I've heard Piper say something similar, basically that hell exists to display God's justice for His ultimate glory. Perhaps I'm blind, but I don't see that as very glorious.

C.S. Lewis gives a different explanation of hell in his excellent book, The Great Divorce. In the book, Lewis explains hell not as punishment for sin, but as an option that God mercifully allows. God respects an individual's choice to remain separate from Him. Lewis puts it this way:

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.' All that are in Hell chose it.

I see this issue (and I believe Olson would agree) as the main problem with Calvinism. I've discussed this before, and I'm reminded of Wesley's poem Oh Horrible Decree. Here's my favorite part, which still gives me goose bumps and tugs at tears every time I read it:

Oh Horrible Decree

Worthy of whence it came!

Forgive their hellish blasphemy

Who Charge it on the Lamb.

The righteous God consigned

Them over to their doom,

And sent the Savior of mankind

To damn them from the womb;

To damn for falling short

Of what they could not do

For not believing the report

Of that which was not true.

"T" - Total Depravity - Summary and Thoughts

2012-01-10T23:15:00.000-05:00

Chapter 3 of Against Calvinism discusses the five points of Calvinism (TULIP) one "letter" at a time. Olson defines the first, Total Depravity like this:

[Total depravity] means that every part of every human person... is infected and so affected by sin that he or she is utterly helpless to please God before being regenerated... by the Spirit of God. (pp.42)

Olson's description of total depravity is the shortest of all the letters of TULIP, because (I assume) it is one of the points that he agrees with, and is generally agreed to by most Christians. I've written about total depravity before, and I don't have much to add to that post. I did, however, find his description of sin very interesting:

Everything that flows from the dead person is putrid and filthy even if it seems to be virtuous. The reason is that true virtue is define by the motive, and the sinner's heart, blackened by sin, has a constant disposition toward self rather than toward God or neighbor. ... Sin lies in the motives, and they are entirely wrong until the Holy Spirit regenerates the person. (pp. 43)

This description of sin caught me a little by surprise. I'm not sure if this is because I've been consistently taught differently, or that Olson simply described sin on the basis of motives in a more direct way that I've seen in the past. In either case, I'm reminded of several specific conversations where someone who is doing something good questions their own motives. (i.e. someone asks "I'm not sure if I'm doing this for the right reasons") The common response I hear is something like:

"Maybe your motives are pure, maybe they're not. Can we ever be free from lingering selfish motives? What's more important is that you're obeying God."

Is that the right response? If not, what's the correct response to someone who struggles with doing good for the wrong reasons? Or is Olson's definition of sin inaccurate?

What do you think?

Against Calvinism - Chapters 1 & 2

2012-01-10T22:31:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in previous posts, I'm less familiar with Arminian theology. For this reason, I'm reading Against Calvinism first.

Chapters 1 and 2 are very introductory. Chapter 1 discusses Olson's motivation for writing the book, and some historical background of what he calls the "young, restless Calvinists" led by John Piper, etc. Olson describes how Piper is essentially repackaging Jonathan Edwards for a younger generation.

Also interesting to me (pp. 18, Chapter 1) was a short history of the Reformed church, specifically regarding Grand Rapids and Holland, Michigan (I grew up in the former and have recently moved to the latter). Looking for a new church in this area has proven to be an interesting endeavor, since the climate and culture still retains a strong Christian Reformed influence.

Chapter 3 gets into the meat of the discussion by going through TULIP one letter at a time. I plan a separate post on each letter of TULIP, addressing some questions regarding each point of "the doctrines of grace". But for now, I'll end this post with a quote that stood out from Chapter 1 of Against Calvinism.

[The] kind of Calvinism which attributes everything to God's will and control makes it difficult (at least for me) to see the difference between God and the devil.

For & Against Calvinism - The main arguments

2011-12-31T21:32:00.001-05:00

I'm currently reading through the books For Calvinism by Michael Horton and Against Calvinism by Roger E. Olson. This post is one of a series of posts where I discuss the thoughts, impressions, and questions that surface during this study. Click here for the first post in this series.

Having read the forward of each book, I think it might be helpful to summarize the main argument that each author will unfold in their book.

Calvinists are inconsistent because if they followed their system to it's logical ends, they would conclude that God is the author of evil, both natural and man-made (sin).

Arminians are inconsistent because if they followed their system to it's logical ends, they would conclude that salvation is works-based, i.e. not by God's grace alone.

Michael Horton puts it like this:

Roger thinks that if I followed Calvinism to its logical conclusions, I should concede that the Holocaust and natural disasters are caused directly by God and that those condemned on the last day could justly blame God rather than themselves...

On the other hand, I think that if Roger followed Arminianism to its logical conclusion, he should go on to deny that salvation is entirely of God's grace; that Arminianism leads inevitably to human-centered rather than God-centered convictions if followed consistently.

Obviously, neither group agrees that their system leads to these undesirable ends.

My initial reaction is that each system does seem to lead logically to the ends described by Horton. It's for this reason that it will be interesting to read the arguments laid out by each author.

Starting Perceptions & Biases

2011-12-28T00:18:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm just starting to read the two books,

Against Calvinism - By Roger E. Olson
For Calvinism - By Michael Horton

I thought it might be good to post a few thoughts regarding my initial perceptions regarding this topic before I get too far into these books.

Obviously, having grown up in a Reformed church, having spent the last decade in a John Piper-esque Baptist church, and recently having spent many hours (on my commute) listening to D.A. Carson, my theological background is decidedly Calvinist. With as much theological self examination as I can muster, I can confidently admit that everything I know about God has been learned in a Calvinist context. I think this has two important implications:

1) I am more likely to misunderstand Arminianism
2) I am more likely to (correctly) identify the problems with Calvinism.

That said, I enter this current study with these perceptions and biases regarding the two approaches in question:

Calvinism seems more intellectually rigorous. This is however, probably a result of my background. Having been in Calvinist circles all my life has no doubt exposed me to more Calvinist scholars. Still, it seems like the Calvinist bench runs deep: Sproul, Carson, Grudem, Piper, Keller, Mahaney, Packer... In contrast, I can't name a single Arminian scholar.

Calvinism seems to affirm free will, but these attempts either redefine it or end in 'mystery' (read: contradiction). This issue came to the surface while listening to D.A. Carson discuss open theology here. Carson describes himself as a compatabilist, in that he claims that God is sovereign over human choices, but humans are responsible for those choices. He doesn't go as far as other comaptabilists, however, by saying that we have free will only in that we are free to do only as we desire. In either case, the ball is dropped: the former ends in contradiction, while the latter is simply redefinition of free will, removing from it any trace of it's natural meaning.

I don't see how Calvinism can explain the problem of evil, without making God the author of evil. Calvinists solve this issue by pointing to the transcendence of God, and having a God that "we don't understand". To me, this is simply lazy. On the other hand, simply being distasteful doesn't make something wrong.

The common charge of Arminianism being a "works based theology" doesn't resonate with me much. This seems more of an attempt to villify it with a label. I look forward to learning more about that.

Calvinism seems to have stronger scriptural support, although this is a very uninformed perception. Passages like Romans 9 seem to be almost unexplainable in an Arminian system, but I haven't looked into that much.

For/Against Calvinism

2011-12-27T22:10:00.000-05:00

I've recently started reading about Calvinism. A friend of mine and I decided to read the two books,
Against Calvinism - By Roger E. Olson
For Calvinism - By Michael Horton

I've struggled with this topic before, but I can't say I've done anything other than casual reading on the subject. And as I mentioned in my previous post, D.A. Carson (a very strong Reformed teacher) has been highly influential in my thought life. But the points at which I've taken issue with his theology have frequently been related to the issues of God's sovereignty.

Ideally, the outcome of this study would be an actual decision... I don't think it's desirable or helpful or even possible to straddle the fence on this one. I'm not sure if a decision will result, and even if one does, whether I'll discuss it on this blog. I won't promise any sort of systematic review or notes, let alone any sort of timetable, but I'll definitely post some thoughts or quotes as I go. I'll also welcome your comments.

Some changes

2011-12-27T22:04:00.000-05:00

Although I have approximately zero regular readers (give or take a few) I thought it would be good to post an update, since a lot has changed with me in the last couple years. Here's a quick snapshot:

1) I spent the vast majority of my commute time listening to the sermons/lectures of D.A. Carson. I've really enjoyed his frank, no BS approach to studying the Bible, and his theology has really resonated with me. In particular, I'm attracted by his refusal to draw conclusions where there is insufficient biblical data. Most teachers seem to strive to draw conclusions that support their overall theological system, even from texts that have zero relevance or even contradict that system. Other than at a few points, I've found his teaching to be quite convincing, and this has led to a general quieting of the doubts and related issues that have fed this blog in the last two years. (Hence the reason for the inactivity in this blog)

Some of Carson's stuff that I've found particularly interesting and useful are:

The God Who Is There - This is actually an evangelistic series intended for biblically illiterate college students, but I found it to be extremely good, if you can get past the coddling at the beginning.

1 John - This is a verse-by-verse exposition of the book of 1st John.

2) I moved. I have lived the past decade in a city in upstate New York, and have recently moved back to my home state of Michigan. My new job just happens to be in Holland, MI, just 30 minutes or so from my hometown. One of the many reasons this is significant, is that Holland (like me) is very Dutch, and (less like me) very Reformed. This move leads to the next big change:

3) I'm looking for a church. The move means that I had to leave the church that I love, and now must find someplace new. The upside in this is that I have a lot to choose from; Holland is the historical home of the Dutch Reformed Church, and it is still one of the most conservative areas in the country. There are literally two churches on every corner (sometimes three) but by my count, 3/4 to 4/5 of them are either CRC or RCA.

A (hypothetical) regular reader of mine would recall that I've asked a lot of questions regarding Calvinism in the past, and often wondered if my former church (a Baptist, John Piper-esque Calvinistic church) is the best place for me. This is one of the reasons for the next item:

4) I'm reading about Calvinism. This one I'll cover in my next post. :)

"Highly Educated Forms of Stupidity"

2010-07-13T17:00:00.000-04:00

Last week I found a great article by J. Budziszewski, a philosophy professor at University of Texas, Austin. It describes his conversion experience, and is titled "Escape from Nihilism".

I was going to post a longer section, but the article is so great that I thought I'd just post this small snippet, and point to the whole article here for the rest.

[A] strong mind that refuses the call to serve the God who made it has its own way of going wrong. When some people run away from God, they rob and kill. When other people go away from God, they do a lot of drugs and have a lot of sex. When still other people run away from God, they just sleep their lives away.

Well, when I fled from God, I didn’t do any of those things. My way of running away from God was to get stupid. I am very serious. Though it always comes as a surprise to intellectuals, there are some forms of stupidity that you have to be highly educated and intelligent to commit, and I discovered them all.

God keeps them in his arsenal to pull down mulish pride.

- J. Budziszewski, in Escape from Nihilism [source]

"The Faulty Mechanism of Evolution"

2010-07-09T21:48:00.000-04:00

This post is part of aseries of posts that deal with some common Young Earth Creationist (YEC)objections to theistic evolution. The impetus for these posts came via acomment from a reader on a previouspost. An index of all these posts can be found here.

Here I would like to address this part of Steve’s originalcomment:

[Y]ou must trust in literally million of totally randomoccurrences happening over and over and over again through out billions ofyears. Not to mention that all these random occurrences must take place in suchclose proximity to each other, and in such a small window of time on order forthe two "new" male and female species to find each other and matebefore they die. The odds of that are mind boggling. And to believe that thisconveniently happened millions of times over?

Evolutionists do not believewhat Steve suggests above. If what he suggests above were to happen, it wouldtruly be mind boggling. But this is simply not what evolutionists believe. This argument shows a complete lack of understanding of the mechanisms behindevolution.

This type of argument isvery common among Young Earth Creationists, and betrays a complete lack ofunderstanding of the belief they claim to dismiss. How can someone dismissevolution on the grounds of lack of evidence if they simply do not understandit?

Let me try to clear up threevery common errors made by Steve and many other YECs. The following threepoints are fundamental to evolutionary theory, and if one doesn’t grasp thesepoints, they simply do not understand the theory.

1) Natural selection is a non-random mechanism

2) Evolution occurs primarily in groups

3) Evolution is a cumulative process

Natural selection is anon-random mechanism

Above, Steve is claimingthat evolution isn’t plausible because “millions of totally random occurrences happening over andover and over again throughout billions of years” couldn’t create a new species. He is totally correct. Steve (and many other YECs) miss a key aspect to evolutionary theory: naturalselection. Natural selection is non-random because organisms that are able toreproduces more will pass their traits on to their offspring. Organisms thatcannot reproduce will die without passing on the traits that do not let themreproduce. Evolution occurs when many random mutations are passed throughthe non-random filter of natural selection, producing a process that is notrandom.

Evolution is acumulative process

It is very common for YECsto claim that evolution isn’t plausible because random mutations must occurover and over again, and the probability of this happening is just too small. This claim falsely assumes that there is no mechanism for maintaining onemutation before the next can occur. In fact, natural selection is just thatmechanism. Natural selection turns what would be a random process into acumulative process. Each mutation that is selected by the environment(because it provides a reproductive advantage) is a stable organism, whichreproduces and introduces the mutation into the collective gene pool.

Evolution occursprimarily in groups

The claim made by Steveabove falsely assumes that speciation must happen suddenly, where oneindividual produces another individual of a different species. In fact, populationsof animals gradually evolve, not individuals. The most easily understoodtype of this kind of speciation is called allopatric speciation, where onegroup is separated from the main group. Due to different environmentalpressures, this separated group undergoes cumulative changes that are differentfrom the main group.

Putting it alltogether

So evolution occurs when thenon-random mechanism of natural selection acts on random genetic variation,over long periods of time, and primarily in groups, not individuals. If youmiss any one of those elements, you simply do not understand evolution, and youare in danger of making ignorant accusations that simply don’t hold water

"The Religion of Evolution"

2010-07-09T21:40:00.000-04:00

This post is part of a series of posts that deal withsome common Young Earth Creationist (YEC) objections to theisticevolution. The impetus for these postscame via a comment from a reader on a previouspost. An index of all these postscan be found here.

Here I would like to address this part of Steve’s original comment:

Evolution is the mostdogmatic religion there is. In order to believe it you must trust in literallymillion of totally random occurrences happening over and over and over againthrough out billions of years.

[And then later]

Would you agree that ittakes much less faith to believe a wonderful,loving,all knowing, always present, and all powerful GOD simply created everythingperfectly just for us just because he loves us. Why must there be a greaterreason or explanation beyond that. Why can't we take his word at face value?

Evolution is not a “greater reason” for God’s creation; it isn’t areason at all, it is HOW God created, not WHY. Steve is confusing purpose and mechanism; they are not the same thing.

Furthermore, evolution does not require “faith” and is not“dogmatic” because it is based on evidence. As I describe in my previous post, there is a vast amount ofevidence. As new observations are made,theories are changed or abandoned to conform to the evidence. This is exactly the opposite of dogma or thesort of faith implied above.

In fact, young Earth Creationism is actually more dogmatic,because it takes a particular belief, and (flying in the face of the evidence)claims that this is the way it should be, and any claims to the contrary arewrong. It cannot accept that whateverGod has done (As determined by biblical and scientific evidence) is okay. This is idolatry, and this is wrong.

"The Unproven Theory of Evolution"

2010-07-09T21:33:00.001-04:00

This post is part of aseries of posts that deal with some common Young Earth Creationist (YEC)objections to theistic evolution. Theimpetus for these posts came via a comment from a reader on a previouspost. An index of all these postscan be found here.

Here I would like to address this part of Steve’s original comment:

You might argue the theBible was written and translated by man, and could have errors (I personaltydon't believe this to be the case). But I feel compelled to point out to youthat evolution itself is only an idea of man and also may have many errors in it.It's all based on observation with the assumption that certain events occurred.Regardless of what information you've received in your studies of evolution, Iassure you, to this day, it has not been proven, and I'm totally confidant thatit never will be. No one was there to witness it. There is no documented recordof it taking place. No one can, or ever will know for sure.

First of all, we would never expect to observe large changes inorganisms directly. In fact, ifscientists observed something like a fish turning into a frog, then we wouldhave some good evidence against evolution. Evolution occurs mainly by the accumulation of small changes over largeperiods of time. Of course it hasn’tbeen directly observed.

Secondly, there is a documented record of evolutiontaking place. In fact, there are severaldocumented records. The fossil record,biological record, and genetic record are our record of it taking place. Now, I’m sure the question referred to a written record. Even though this kind of record should not beexpected to exist at all, (and of course does not) this does not mean that wecannot be sure that evolution did not occur.

Nothing in the natural world can be proven with totalcertainty. In the claim above, the kindof certainty that is being required is only possible through omniscience, whichonly God possesses. However, we canachieve a high degree of certainty by examining the evidence. In the case of evolution, we have vastamounts of evidence from a wide variety of fields. In each case, the conclusions from each fieldtest the conclusions from each other field.

The following is just a selection from the three types of“records” above that show that one must be completely ignorant of the data toclaim that there is no evidence for evolution taking place.

Keep in mind that each piece of evidencechecks and supports each other piece – this is important – no single pieceproves evolution, but as each piece is added, predictions can be made aboutwhat further evidence should show… This is how a phenomenon that is directlyunobservable is studied.

Common ancestry predicts a nested hierarchy (groups within groups). We in fact see an organized, well-defined, consistent hierarchy ("tree of life").
Different bodies of evidence give the same arrangement of the tree of life. Morphological/physical, genetic, and biochemical evidence all produce the same phylogenies.
Animals from the fossil record fit into the same tree of life. Despite the claims of evolution deniers, transitional forms have been found.
The animals found in the fossil record are arranged chronologically in order of increasing complexity and as predicted by the tree of life. (Try doing that with a flood.)
The geographical distributions of species and groups are consistent with their evolutionary history, e.g. marsupials are found only in Australia. This piece of evidence is still true when fossil evidence is considered.
Gradual change predicts a similarity in structure despite a difference in function. As species change and acquire new functions (swimming, flying), old structures must be adapted to the new function. This is exactly what is observed; the same bones in the same relative positions are used in human hands, bird wings, whale flippers and horse legs. Additionally, you never see birds with wings and arms, because wings and arms are adaptations of the same structures.
Organisms that evolve the same functions independently should show differing structures to accomplish the function. Octopus eyes and mammal eyes have opposite ordering of layers, because vision was evolved independently, as confirmed by their place in the tree of life.
Since new functions are acquired by adapting old structures, often the resulting structure/system is not optimal. Examples: We can choke because our digestive system and respiratory system share parts. We have a blind spot in our vision because of the suboptimal ordering of the layers. Octopi do not have the blind spot.
Speciation does occur and has been observed, despite claims that it has not. To me, the most compelling examples of speciation in action are "ring species”. Also, I have cichlid fish in my aquarium that only come from lakes in Africa that have habitats less than 200 years old. Most YEC accept this because they have to invoke post-flood speciation to explain the possibility of Noah's Ark.
Non-functional (junk) DNA shows a remarkable pattern of inheritance. For me, this is the most convincing and irrefutable evidence of macroevolution.

Now, although this cannot “prove” with 100% certainty thatevolution occurred, it is enough to be very certain that one of two scenariosexists:

Either 1) Evolution occurred.

Or 2) God has gone to extreme lengths tomake it look like evolution occurred.

Option 2) is neither the God of the Bible, nor a God I want toworship. Hence, I am convinced thatevolution occurred.

"The Slippery Slope of Evolution"

2010-07-09T21:24:00.003-04:00

This post is part of aseries of posts that deal with some common Young Earth Creationist (YEC)objections to theistic evolution. The impetus for these posts came via acomment from a reader on a previouspost. An index of all these posts can be found here.

Here I would like to address this part of Steve’s original comment:

Joe, you claim you are a Christian yet you don't believewhat the Bible has to say about how existence came into being. If you doubtthat part of the Bible, how can you be sure the parts with Jesus in it aretrue? Or what he said and did are true. If you pick and choose what you willand won't believe, aren't you in fact picking apart the foundations of yourfaith? If that's the case, what reassurance do you have of you salvation oreven of your existence?

First, it is simply untrueto claim that theistic evolutionists “don’t believe what the Bible has to say about how existence cameinto being.” What I reject is not what the Bible has tosay about origins, but what biblical literalists think the Bible has to sayabout origins. I do not “doubt that part of the Bible”; I doubt the biblicalliteralist interpretation of that part of the Bible.

I believe the Bible (including Genesis) is inspired by God and istrustworthy. But we need to be very careful about what we say a biblical textis trying to communicate. More on that later.

Now on to the main point:

The general question can be stated this way: If the creationaccount is not taken literally, then why should we take anything elseliterally, including the stories of Jesus’ death and resurrection?

There is a fundamental difference between the texts containing thecreation accounts and the texts containing the narratives of Jesus’ life. Thedifference is in the purpose of the original writers, and the literarygenre of the texts in question. If the genre is historical narrative,then there is no reason to interpret it literally, and it would be a mistake todo so. But if the genre is poetic, prophetic, wisdom, etc., then we must bemore careful.

Purpose & Genre ofthe Gospels

Looking first at thegospels, it is abundantly clear that the purpose of the gospel writers is toprovide a historical narrative of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, life,death and resurrection. Look at the opening verses of Luke:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that havebeen fulfilled among us, just as theywere handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses andservants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. Luke1:1-4

Here it is clear that Luke’sintention is to write actual historical facts, as they have been handed down tohim, so that his audience (Theophilus) can “know the certainty of the things[he has] been taught”. There is no reason to view the gospels as anythingexcept historical narrative because it is explicitly stated that the purpose ofthe text is to communicate actual events as experienced by eyewitnesses.

Purpose & Genre ofthe Creation Accounts

Now turning to the creationaccounts: It is not so straightforward to determine the authors’ purpose orthe literary genre(s) of the texts. However, when we begin to understand theworld in which the creation stories were written, it becomes clear that thereare a whole host of reasons why they may have been written other than forscientific/historical reasons.

The ancient near east (thehistorical context of the creation accounts) was polytheistic, and the godsthemselves were part of creation: The sun and moon were gods, not thingscreated by a single, transcendent God. The creation stories served the purpose(among many others) of reminding God’s people that their God was different;their God actually created the universe, and wasn’t a part of it. Thesestories used already existing myths and re-wrote them to show that Yahweh isnot like the gods in which their neighbors believe; Yahweh is creator, and as aresult we are accountable to Him.

I’ve discussed this furtherin a previouspost, so please go there for more explanation. Also, a great book on thesubject is TheLost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by JohnH. Walton.

Determining Context& Purpose Builds Confidence

I think it is pretty clearthat the rejection of the creation stories as literal historical truth does notthen lead to a rejection of the historicity of other parts of the Bible,including the life and significance of Jesus Christ. On the contrary,examining the purpose and context of texts like those describing the life andwords of Jesus gives us confidence that the authors were setting out toincrease our certainty about Jesus, and give us assurance of the salvation thatcomes by making Him our Lord and Savior.

More YEC Objections

2010-07-09T21:09:00.003-04:00

I recently received acomment on a previouspost where (in the post) I discuss the events surrounding my eventual rejectionof Young Earth Creationism (YEC). The comment, (made by someone named Steve)addresses a few of the big issues YECs have with theistic evolution. These objections are also pretty common, so I thought I’d devote a few posts toanswering Steve’s questions.

Steve’s entire comment isbelow, followed by an index to the posts addressing his objections.

Joe, you claim you are a Christian yet you don't believewhat the Bible has to say about how existence came into being. If you doubtthat part of the Bible, how can you be sure the parts with Jesus in it aretrue? Or what he said and did are true. If you pick and choose what you willand won't believe, aren't you in fact picking apart the foundations of yourfaith? If that's the case, what reassurance do you have of you salvation oreven of your existence?

You might argue the theBible was written and translated by man, and could have errors (I personaltydon't believe this to be the case). But I feel compelled to point out to youthat evolution itself is only an idea of man and also may have many errors init. It's all based on observation with the assumption that certain eventsoccurred. Regardless of what information you've received in your studies ofevolution, I assure you, to this day, it has not been proven, and I'm totallyconfidant that it never will be. No one was there to witness it. There is nodocumented record of it taking place. No one can, or ever will know for sure.

Evolution is the mostdogmatic religion there is. In order to believe it you must trust in literallymillion of totally random occurrences happening over and over and over againthrough out billions of years. Not to mention that all these random occurrencesmust take place in such close proximity to each other, and in such a smallwindow of time on order for the two "new" male and female species tofind each other and mate before they die. The odds of that are mind boggling.And to believe that this conveniently happened millions of times over?

Would you agree that ittakes much less faith to believe a wonderful,loving, all knowing, alwayspresent, and all powerful GOD simply created everything perfectly just for usjust because he loves us. Why must there be a greater reason or explanationbeyond that. Why can't we take his word at face value?

Index to posts:

Part 1: The Slippery Slope of Evolution
(If Genesis isn't true, what about Jesus?)

Part 2: The Unproven Theory of Evolution
(Nobody saw evolution happen!)

Part 3: The Religion of Evolution
(Evolution takes too much faith!)

Part 4: The Faulty Mechanism of Evolution
(Evolution just doesn't work!)

Some new faces around here...

2010-05-04T08:23:00.000-04:00

I knew something was up when I saw the traffic for my blog yesterday:

It turns out that David Heddle over at the blog He Lives has mentioned my posts on Calvinism. When a nobody like me gets mentioned on a great blog like He Lives, StatCounter is sure to go into a tizzy. This has happened once before, with similar results.

In both cases, the bloggers in question have disagreed with me, which is really great. I'm used to a religious environment where conformity is highly valued, and questions are seen as a lack of faith. I long for a church family where open questions are encouraged, and certainty is acknowledged as the elusive vapor it really is. (That sounds postmodern, but I've had that label thrown at me too many times in the last week, so keep it to yourself, okay?)

In any case, here are a couple posts from He Lives regarding Calvinism and the issues I've been discussing lately:

Sproul chapter two: God's Sovereignty
Sproul chapter three: Free Will

Enjoy!

A Depraved Idea (Quote of the Day)

2010-04-22T15:41:00.000-04:00

Here is the quote of the day for April 22, 2010. This one made me smile; A nice surprise in the middle of a long day.

"I don't believe in Total Depravity, and think the idea is totally depraved."-My friend Mark (here)

Total Depravity and Calvinism's Ugly God

2010-04-21T11:30:00.001-04:00

This sunday my Pastor preached a sermon on the topic of Total Depravity, or as he put it: "Your Instincts Stink." You can hear it online (at least for a few weeks) here. This is the kind of sermon that makes me want to look for an Arminian church, not because I dislike my church, (on the contrary, I love it and the people there) but because sermons like this can damage my faith.

My pastor did an excellent job communicating the Calvinist belief that man cannot accomplish anything good on his own. This ideas was expressed via the teachings of Johnathan Edwards and Augustine that

"Man will always act according to his strongest inclination at that moment."

Now, the idea here is that our inclinations (and therefore our actions) are (because of the fall) always evil, and only by the grace of God can we do anything good, including believe and have faith. Salvation is accomplished solely by God, through the sacrifice of Jesus and the election of God's chosen people who are able to believe through power given them by God. Going back to the Edwards/Augustine quote above, God changes our inclinations, allowing us to act differently, to believe, and to be saved. Man has absolutely no part in it anything.

I can see how this is comforting. The ball is in God's court. I don't have to worry about it. But to me it is extremely troubling. If you always act according to your strongest inclinations, you have absolutely no ability to change the course of your life whatsoever. You may think you can simply examine your inclinations/motivations, (this was suggested in the sermon) and try to change them, but if this idea is correct, the action you took to examine your motivations was in iteself a response to your strongest inclination at that moment. You are a deterministic being. Your life has already been determined, and your future actions, thoughts, feelings, and emotions are already determined, unless God intervines.

Of course the whole Calvinist system is based on the belief that (for the elect) God WILL intervine, and help us change our inclinations, giving us the ability to believe in Jesus and be saved.

But that's not the only problem with Calvinism. As I've discussed before, the problem of evil is a very difficult one for anyone who believes in a personal god. The ugly God of Calvinism is a god who created this world, orchastrated evil, saves some people of His own choosing, and damns the rest to hell for not believing something that isn't true. Calvinism heightnens the problem of evil so greatly that a better alternative is that God does not exist at all.

I think the Arminian system gives a much more believable (and palletable) scenario, while still taking seriously what the Bible says about election: That God, by his grace, created man with a choice, and "elects" some by pursuing them, (perhaps as a result of their choices) and further enabling them to choose better still.

A Calvinist might say "But you are undermining Gods soverignty! God is in control, not man!" Blogger Ken Schenck at the blog Quadrilateral Thoughts answers this well:

"If God can create the world out of nothing, then He is certainly able to empower a person, by his prevenient grace, to reach the smallest point of volition ex nihilo, a point of the barest will either to remain depraved as they are or to signify ever so slightly a desire for more grace... leading to God's empowerment to signify a desire for more grace still. Would you suggest that God is not clever enough to figure out how to do this, to empower totally depraved humanity to begin to make a choice?"

Now back to what I mentioned above, about sermons like this, and how they can damage my faith: There is nothing wrong with going to a church that teaches ideas that are contrary to your own beliefs. If one is actively engaged with their faith, and continually examining their beliefs, this is inevitable. But when ideas like this are presented in a way that suggests something is wrong if you don't totally agree, or that there isn't room for discussion, I begin to wonder if I am worshiping in the right place. I'm not suggesting that any belief be accepted as equal, but some discussion of alternate (but equally biblical) views should be accepted.

Of course, a Calvinist would claim that Arminianism is unbiblical based on their selected proof texts...

Justice, The Image of God, and Calvinism

2010-03-26T21:26:00.000-04:00

A couple weeks ago, our Sunday School class discussed "The Image of God", and what that might be. We divided up into groups and listed several possibilities. At the top of virtually every groups list were entries like "morality", "sense of right and wrong" and "desire for justice". Our deeply-rooted sense of injustice when we're wronged [Hey, that's not fair!] seems to be the human trait that we believe comes directly from God himself.

[As a side note, it was interesting to see how absent any form of "physical appearance" was from our lists. It seems that modern science has finally eradicated (at least among the people present) the delusion that our bodies somehow uniquely reflect a portion of God's being.]

There are, of course, good reasons why we believe that our morality and desire for justice is also a fundamental characteristic of Gods. Throughout the Bible we see God fighting for justice, or commanding his followers to seek justice. Countless passages tell of how God "loves justice" (Isaiah 61:8, Psalm 33:5) and hates those who make unjust laws or withhold justice (Isaiah 10:1-4, Deuteronomy 27:19). So it seems that we share with God a fundamental desire for fairness, justice, and righteousness, and this may be what is meant by "the image of God".

As I thought about this conversation in the days after the class, I began to wonder why Calvinists don't see a terrible problem with their cherished theological system...

A Calvinist believes that God is the only entity involved in our salvation in any way; He conceives, initiates, and completes the salvation of "the elect" without any contribution from them at all. They believe that some people are created for the sole purpose of eternal destruction, while others are created to be the objects of God's love, and are destined for eternal life. According to Calvinists, there is absolutely no difference between the two types of people other than Gods choice.

If your "injustice meter" isn't red-lined, get it checked.

So I ask the question: How could a God who is so concerned with justice invent a system that is so unjust? I think the answer is simple: He couldn't.

I'm reminded of a poem I read a few years ago by Charles Wesley, which discusses what he calls "The Calvinistic Conundrum". Here's a small portion:

Oh Horrible Decree

Worthy of whence it came!

Forgive their hellish blasphemy

Who Charge it on the Lamb.

The righteous God consigned

Them over to their doom,

And sent the Savior of mankind

To damn them from the womb;

To damn for falling short

Of what they could not do

For not believing the report

Of that which was not true.

What are my "religious views"??

2010-03-21T22:09:00.000-04:00

What should I call myself?

Lately I've been wondering what I should call myself. Specifically, what would I say are my "Religious views"? Currently in my Facebook profile I don't have anything listed. The reasons for this are complicated. In short, I'd rather not identify myself with any particular group, because in every group there are whackos that believe things or act in ways that I'd rather not be associated with. I have no problem sharing my faith with someone who is asking, but I'm not going to call myself "Christian" when the term can mean so many different things to different people.

What other people call themselves

Out of curiousity, I took a little "survey" of my facebook friends that also go to my church. Of the 50 or so that fit that category, here is what they had listed as their "religious views":

Christ Follower 17
Nothing at all 14
Christian 13
Baptist 4

There were also several unique entries that I'll discuss below.

I was surprised at how few people actually put "Baptist", although I do go to a pretty un-Baptist Baptist church. (We just changed our name to take the word "Baptist" out of our name...)

Also interesting is the dominance of "Christ follower". I suspect the reason for this is a sermon our pastor gave a while ago where he made a pitch for that term. While I don't mind it, it's prett un-original, and that disqualifies it for me.

In any case, I've had the desire to actually fill that space with something, since several other entries in my profile indicate that I do have beliefs of some kind. Here are the other unique "religious views" of some of my other facebook friends:

The supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples in and through Jesus Christ!
Jesus is LORD
Set Free
Redeeming love has been my plea...
I don't believe in atheists
I'm saved by grace, thru faith, not because of anything I've done - it's a gift of God!
Godfearer
Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords
God is my ALL

Some of those are interesting, but none are exactly what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something that shows exactly where I am: Pretty much in line with a lot of traditional Protestant beliefs (but not all) but with a desire to stretch those beliefs as far as I can. I question not for the sake of questioning, but to test these beliefs to see what is strong and what is weak, what is worth keeping, and what is open for change.

Options

So far I've kicked around a lot of labels, but most have been disqualified because they seem too arrogant. (Some also don't really fit me anyway) This category includes:

Thinking Christian
Discerning Christian
Intelligent Christian
Maverick Christian
Open-minded Christian
Reasonable Christian
Reasoning Christian
Intellectual Christian
Rational Christian
Freethinking Christian

Other labels that come close but are too negative (emphasizing the questioning or skeptical side of my faith) include:

Skeptical Christian
Doubting Christian
Questioning Christian

Current Possibilities

So far, there are two options that I am still considering. Here's the first:

Heterodox Christian

Wikipedia gives this description of the term:

The term heterodox is occasionally used by some Christians to refer to themselves when they are in disagreement with orthodox understandings, but voice this disagreement while still maintaining the overall value of the tradition. The heterodox Christian therefore remains in the tradition and attempts to stimulate constructive dialog around issues with which they disagree. [source]

I like that! I have a friend that this term fits perfectly (way better than it fits me) but I still like it a lot. However, the word "heterodox" has some pretty negative connotations, and I'm sure it would make friends and family worry more than I'd like.

The final option I'm considering is simply to put one or more scripture references.

Right now I would probably use the following:

Mark 12:30, Acts 17:11

or simply

I Thessalonians 5:21

I'm also considering:

Luke 12:57
Isaiah 1:18
Proverbs 10:14
Prov 19:2
Mark 9:24
Phil 1:9-10
1 Cor 10:15

Any Suggestions?

So what about you? What do you have on your facebook profile? Do you have any suggestions for me?

Taking God's Sovereignty Too Far?

2010-03-14T21:57:00.000-04:00

Today in our Sunday school class, the teacher spoke on the subject "What every Christian should know about SIN". Naturally, the subject of evil, it's origin, and effect on creation was high on his list of discussion topics.

The teacher, coming from a strongly Calvinistic viewpoint, emphasized the soverignty of God while maintaining that God allowed sin, but did not originate sin. From this perspective, there really is no reason sin must exist, except to create a problem for which there is only one solution: Jesus Christ.

This is obviously (at least to me) a pretty weak argument, and I suspect most who hold to it would recognize this. That's why the age-old fall back of "mystery" is so often peddled as the stop-gap between our common sense and the weaknesses of a particular theological position.

During the Q&A portion of the class, someone brought up the solution to this problem I think is most viable: That evil is the result of God's choice to give us the ability to sin; Evil exists in the world because a world without freedom is a world without love. We were created by God to love him, and true love cannot be forced.

The response from the teacher was something about being cautious that we don't undermine God's sovereignty, and the mystery of the balance between God's control over everything (including our choices) and the fact that God holds us responsible for our choices.

Why is it so horrible to suggest that God might choose to limit himself, specifically that he might limit his power over our own choices?

It's not like there isn't any biblical precident: The doctrince of divine kenosis (self-limiting) in the person of Jesus is well known and accepted. Why is it so scandalous to suggest that God would choose to limit himself in other ways? Isn't that the story of Adam and Eve; That God gives them the REAL choice to obey or not? Haven't we distorted this story into something else in order to defend the soverignty of God?

And I won't even mention open theology. (oh, wait... I just did)

Am I missing something, or is it plainly obvious that God's choice to limit himself does not diminish his sovereignty in any way?

What's the big deal?

C.S. Lewis: Jesus is a false prophet?

2010-02-27T19:54:00.000-05:00

Over the last couple days, I've been having a conversation with a reader (James) regarding whether or not Paul is a false prophet. (See the comment section of this post) The conversation has centered around Deuteronomy 18:21-22, where the writer answers the hypothetical question:

How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD? -Deuteronomy 18:21b

The writer then goes on to answer the question:

If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. -Deuteronomy 18:22a

I agreed with James that this statement could be considered universally applicable, not just to be applied to the situation being discussed in Deuteronomy 18.

Given that, the test for a false teaching can be reduced to the following:
A teaching is false IF:

1) The teacher was a prophet.AND
2) The prophet must have made predictions that did not come true.

In recent posts, I've blogged about Jesus' (Seemingly failed) prediction of his own imminent return, as well as the possibility that Jesus may not have known when he would return. In one post, I discuss a quote by C.S. Lewis where Lewis suggests that Jesus was wrong about his own return.

The test above raises the stakes in this conversation, because if Jesus was wrong (as Lewis suggests), and if he can be considered a prophet (which is undoubtable) then the test above would suggest that Jesus is a false prophet. It seems that C.S Lewis has come dangerously close to declaring Jesus a false prophet.

Lewis called the verse containing what he called Jesus' "exhibition of error" the "most embarrassing verse in the Bible". As I've said before, it seems more appropriate to be embarrassed about what C.S. Lewis said, than about what Jesus said.

When the Bible and Science Agree (And When They Don't)

2010-02-13T10:02:00.000-05:00

Lately there has been some teaching and discussion in my church regarding the "agreement between the Bible and science", focused on a few of the places where the Bible seems to be teaching a scientific truth long before this truth was discovered by science. This is certianly interesting, and perhaps helpful to some who struggle with the reliability of the Bible. But what about when science and the Bible don't agree?I would suggest there are at least two reasons why biblical and scientific data might disagree:

1. Our understanding of the scientific data is incorrect.
2. Our understanding of the Biblical data is incorrect.
3. Both 1 and 2.

What bothers me is that option 1 is generally the only acceptable option, at least in the conversations I've had with the pastors and teachers at my church. There seems to be a basic denial of the the fact that the words of the Bible (biblical data) must be interpreted to be understood.

When I asked my pastor who gave a sermon on this topic what we should do about the cases where science clearly teaches something contrary to "what the Bible teaches", he answered this way:

"I believe that where they disagree the Bible has it right. It may take science a while to catch up and has from time to time but I go with the Bible."

With all due respect, this seems completely crazy to me. The implication that we can't possibly be wrong about our interpretation of the Bible seems arrogant to me. Now, call me a heretic if you wish, but given the obscure nature of the biblical texts, and given equal time and effort studying the data, might we be MORE likely to be correct in our conclusions about scientific data, than about biblical data?

Is there some mystical force guiding our interpretation of the Bible, and not of science? Some may reply: "Yes! The Holy Spirit!" But if the Holy Spirit is a significant force in guiding Christians in their interpretation of the Bible, then God is intentionally sowing confusion in His church. The reality is that Christianity has an incredibly diverse array of beliefs (all based on biblical interpretation), and they can't all be right.

“In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.”-Augustine, in De Genesi ad litteram, 415AD. [source]

"If a position is true, every avenue of reflection ought to point in its direction."-Greg Boyd [source]

What Did Jesus Know? And Why Should I Care?

2009-11-11T13:21:00.000-05:00

I've had a significant bout of what might be best described as "theology disillusionment" lately (similar to this experience described by Stephen over at Undeception). But a recent post by Internet Monk is relevant to my last post, so I thought I'd comment.

In my last post, I discussed Jesus' (seemingly failed) prediction of his own imminent return, and briefly touched on the suggestion that Jesus may not have known when he would return. At the time I didn't even consider it a possibility, but after some thought have allowed it a spot next to the other possible solutions to the problem.

Anyone raising the question "What did Jesus know, and when?" is bound to receive a thousand different answers, some backed up by proof texts and others more emotionally derived. What is common in this discussion (at least among lay-Christians) is the general attitude that the subject of Jesus' knowledge (or lack of it) is interesting, but unimportant.

I'd like to suggest that the issue is more relevant than most would allow. If Jesus truly did not know when he would return, then the expectation of a future (to us) return of Christ is reasonable. But if Jesus' prediction of his own return is to be regarded as authoritative, then it seems more likely that this prophesy was fulfilled around 70AD during the siege and destruction of Jerusalem (and the temple) by the Roman army.

This, in turn, is relevant because it affects how we view the future. Can we look forward to Jesus returning and fixing all the ills of the world? Or are we responsible for affecting this change ourselves? Do we go out and win as many souls as possible, or do we work to end poverty and oppression? So in the end, the answer to these questions lies, in part, in our answer to the question that is the title of this post.

In my Baptist church, both of the options above are heretical to some degree, so again I ask myself: What did I just step in?

"The Most Embarrassing Verse in the Bible"

2009-10-25T22:32:00.000-04:00

I recently came across the following quote by C.S. Lewis:

"Say what you like,” we shall be told, “the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, ‘this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.’ And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else.”

It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.

C.S. Lewis, The World's Last Night: And Other Essays, p.97

C.S. Lewis is embarrassed of Jesus? I was sure the quote was taken out of context, so I looked it up... No such luck. Lewis goes on to explain how he solves the problem: With the assertion that Jesus probably really did not know how or when the "world would end". He continues:

"Yet how teasing, also, that within fourteen words of it should come the statement “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance grow side by side... The facts, then, are these: that Jesus professed himself (in some sense) ignorant, and within a moment showed that he really was so. To believe in the Incarnation, to believe that he is God, makes it hard to understand how he could be ignorant; but also makes it certain that, if he said he could be ignorant, then ignorant he could really be. For a God who can be ignorant is less baffling than a God who falsely professes ignorance."

Now, I'm not going to pretend that the mysteries of the Incarnation are fully comprehensible, but it really bothers me that a theologian as respectable as Lewis would suggest that Jesus was wrong about his own return. What Lewis is suggesting is that Jesus really did not know when he would return, but he still saw fit to make several predictions regarding his return. Isn't that called a lie?

Jesus' "confession of ignorance" (if it really was one) surely didn't sink in with his followers. Even Lewis notices that the expectation of Jesus' imminent return was widespread in the early Church. The claim that Jesus taught his own ignorance of the end-times seems unlikely. It seems more likely to me that Jesus made predictions about his return because he actually knew what he was talking about, and that the events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70AD constituted the fulfillment of Jesus' prophesy.

It seems appropriate to me to be embarrassed about what C.S. Lewis said, not about what Jesus said.

Paul: A False Prophet? My Response to Mark...

2009-10-20T22:30:00.000-04:00

This is my response to a continuing conversation I'm having with my friend Mark, who believes that the apostle Paul is a false prophet. Here is my original post, and this is his response, which this this a reply to.

Mark,

I think you know that I totally agree with you that taking Paul’s words and then interpreting Jesus’ words in light of what we think Paul is saying – that is just wrong. That’s why we are in this conversation in the first place, right?

If I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that Gamaliel (in Acts 5) is saying that if the apostles are set free, then the truthfulness of their teachings will be judged by the people: If the people follow them, what they are preaching is true, and if they are false teachers, the people will not follow them (and perhaps kill them).

But I ask: Is this what Gamaliel actually says? Look at Acts 5:38b-39:

“[I]f their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."

Gamaliel is stating that the success or failure of the apostles’ message is in the hands of God, not the hands of men. God is involved in the fight, and if the message of the apostles succeeds, we are right to say that it is “from God”.

This leads to the question: Did the apostles succeed, or fail? I think the fact that the Bible you hold in your hands contains Paul’s epistles is a strong indication of the only viable answer: Yes, the apostles (including Paul) succeeded in their mission, the message was delivered, and now we can say that indeed, that message is from God. God fought the battle and He won. And now He continues to fight it in your heart and mind.
What would we expect if Paul really is a false teacher? Gamaliel gives us two examples of false teachers:

“Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered.” Acts 5:36-37

Sure, Paul may have died as a result of what he preached. But this was after a long, successful teaching career that resulted in thousands of followers, and ultimately formed today’s Church.

Yes, there are problems in the Church today. My statement about the “character of the Church” being evidence of the truthfulness of the message was overstated. But Gamaliels statement was about the “purpose or activity” of the apostles, and that purpose and activity was the spread of the Gospel, the proclamation that Jesus is Messiah and Lord of all. They spread that message in person and in letters, and those letters survive to this day in our Bible.

Sure, the message that Jesus is Messiah was not accepted by a huge number of Jews. But if that is your main objection, then I think you make a mistake in overlooking the huge number of human beings that do believe Jesus was the Messiah.

You also mention the “fruit” of Matthew 17:15-20 being the person’s character, not how well their message spreads. I totally agree, and my point was not in line with the true meaning of the text. But there is no reason to suggest that Paul’s character was anything but exemplary. And it still stands that based on Gamaliels statement (discussed above) and the fact that the message of the apostles did not die out, their message was truly from God.

Now I’ll move on to something else you mentioned in your reply. You say that Paul’s teachings go against Torah. This makes me wonder: What do you believe about Jesus? What did he accomplish? How does he factor in? What affect does he have on Torah?

It seems to me that your views on Jesus will determine whether Paul’s teachings are acceptable. But if Torah is completely unaffected by the life and status of Jesus (if you even accept that) then of course Paul if a false teacher. But I think I need to understand how you view Jesus to further understand your beliefs about Paul.

Paul: A False Prophet? Mark Responds...

2009-10-20T15:13:00.000-04:00

In a previous post, I discussed how my friend Mark doesn't accept the writings of Paul as inspired, and considers him (Paul) a false prophet. Mark responded to me in an email that he has agreed to let me post here. Mark makes some interesting points, several of which I'll respond to in a seperate post.

Do I think that Paul is a false prophet? Yes, I do, however because of how we interpret his writings I come to this conclusion. If we can find a way to interpret his writings in a way that he is consistent and not contradictory to things in the Torah, and in Jesus' teaching, then I would have no problem with Paul. When I was talking with our pastor about this a few weeks ago, I told him that I believe that unless we can properly understand Paul, his writings are dangerous. Unfortunately Paul is not alive today to be able to explain what he meant in his letters, nor do we have all the information to understand who, what, when, where, and why he is writing what he does. If Paul meant to say, what most Protestants interpret him to mean, then under the Torah he would be sentenced to death, however there are things in the Torah that can only be done in an Israelite state that governs itself by the Torah, and that has not existed for thousands of years, and could be argued that it never existed, a country completely following God that is. So if Paul was alive today, and in agreement with Protestant interpretation, I would not call for his death, but that people should not follow him.

This is actually what Gamaliel had intended in his response, and is consistent with what we know of Gamaliel. His response is that if these men are preaching something they made up, people will figure it out and abandon them. However if it is from God, then you can not oppose God and what he wants to do, and Gamaliel could believe this is a test; "The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul." (Deut 13:3) Though there are legends that Gamaliel became a Christian, they are only legends, and Gamaliel is not in any way endorsing the apostles as being from God. This is also how Gamaliel would see Roman occupation of Israel, the rise of Christianity, of Islam, the LDS Church, and many other religions that test Israel's faithfulness to God.

God's intervening to fight for ideas that are true, and suppressing those that are not, does not reflect what Gamaliel believes, or how I think that God actually acts. Throughout the Bible there are multiple things that people could say "why didn't God just keep that from happening?" Why did he allow his people; to follow other gods, lose the Law, war against each other, become so evil in his eyes that he has them exiled. God even though he is completely sovereign over everything, he allows people great freedom to obey or to disobey him. They are even allowed to write new things and gain millions of followers, Islam and LDS are great examples of that.

I too am trying to figure out how Paul works, if he does, within Christianity. I just have not found a good way to do it. Even if I could, I am not sure I would be able to convince people to view Paul in a different manner. Currently, I don't know how to reconcile Paul. God, I believe is consistent in how he deals with people especially his people. Salvaging consistency, salvages my belief in God much in the same way your belief that God would protect the Bible salvages your belief in God.

When it comes to the "fruit" of Paul being judged by the size and character of the Church today it could be silly to say that Paul was not a false prophet. The history of the Church and it's present condition is in a miry, Joseph Smith has better fruit by that standing. But the "fruit" that Jesus speaks of, is a persons character, life and relationship to him, not of how well their message spreads. Like he says in Matthew 7:21-27:

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

I don't know if is Paul wrong, but our understanding, and following him over Jesus is wrong at the very least. Is he in line with Jesus or do we make Jesus line up with Paul in order to maintain a book that people put together? People that God allows to do evil things, and to disobey him.

Does God allowing people to choose to disobey him, make him unconcerned, uninvolved, or too weak that it is not worth pursuing a relationship with him? I think this is like the prodigal son, it is not the father that doesn't want the relationship, it was the son. The father wasn't unconcerned about his son, he saw him coming a long way off. He was not uninvolved, he gave his son everything he asked for, and made a feast when he came back. He was not too weak to go find his son and bring him back, but the son was the one that needed to come back, and see why he needed to come back. We both are prodigals, that need to get home. I for one am the one that is unconcerned, uninvolved, and too weak most of the time to find my way home. For me to find that way I need to start in the Torah and make my way from there.

-Mark

Quote of the Day - 9/23/2009

2009-09-23T21:54:00.000-04:00

Quote of the day for September 23, 2009:

"I disagree with these experts. Someone has got to stand up to experts."
-Don McLeroy, Texas State Board of Education chairman, during their debate over Texas state science education standards. (You can see it here at 0:55)

Paul: A False Prophet?

2009-09-19T08:38:00.001-04:00

I'm currently reading N.T. Wright's What Saint Paul Really Said with a couple of friends. One of those friends, Mark, doesn't accept the writings of the Apostle Paul as inspired (for various reasons), and instead views Paul as a false prophet who, if alive today, should be put to death.

As we began to read the book, he brought up these beliefs again, and I thought I would share my response to Mark that I sent during our email discussion: (This begins after a short discussion of Gamaliel's defense of the Apostles in Acts 5)

Incidentally, as I was reading those sections of Acts again, I read Gamaliel's words with a new perspective (no pun intended)... When he defends the apostles in Acts 5, he says:

"Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."

Gamaliel seems to have the same idea of God that I do: If he does exist and he is a personal, non-deist type of God, than he has a stake in the course of history (especially in the development of the Bible). A god that doesn't protect his communication with his people is not a god I can believe in. In case it's not obvious what I'm getting at: I don't think I can believe in a God that allowed the writings of a "false apostle" to be accepted as inspired by the vast majority of his followers. For me, to believe in God is to believe in the God of the Bible as we have it. Not because I trust Paul for any particular reason, but because any god worth believing in should be trustworthy when it comes to "scripture". Gamaliel's statement in Acts 5 takes as it's presupposition the only god I'm prepared to believe in: a god that fights for ideas that are true and suppresses ideas that are not. (Please don't ask me to explain why Islam is so widespread; I can't.)

I know that doesn't address all your specific comments (attacks :) ) on Paul, but I think my comments above make it clear: I don't think a faith in a god that does not include Paul as a true apostle is a faith worth having. I think it is much more likely that God just does not exist. I'm reading this book to make sense of some parts of the Bible that puzzle me, but it is not an option (for the reasons above) to throw out parts in order to salvage consistency. In my mind, the Bible works (somehow) or God does not exist.

In addition to what I said in my email, it's also important to note the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount:

"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them." Matthew 17:15-20

I think that if we look at the "fruit" of the Apostle Paul as seen in the size and character of the Church today, it is almost silly to suggest that Paul is a false prophet.

To me, it seems like the god that Mark believes in is so unconcerned with his people, or so uninvolved in world events, or simply so weak, that it's not worth pursuing any kind of relationship with his God. If God isn't interested in protecting the Bible from false prophets, then would he really be interested in me at all?

Boyd's "Letters From a Skeptic"

2009-08-25T19:58:00.000-04:00

This is my first post in two months. The reasons for this blogging silence are several. For one, it's summer and I have lots of other things to do . But I've also been taking a pretty deep dive into the NPP (by reading this book with a couple friends and also frequently sampling these three books.) I'm sure I'll blog on that later. Anyway, my apologies to all three of my loyal readers!

Another drain on my time has been my fledgling book business (the details of which shall remain a closely guarded secret). One side benefit of this enterprise has been the acquisition of some very interesting books at almost no cost. When I see something that piques my interest, or lines up with an already established interest, I get it. So today I acquired a book that I'm excited to read: Letters From a Skeptic - A Son Wrestles with His Father's Questions about Christianity by Gregory A. Boyd.

Although I've never read any of Boyd's books, I've heard plenty about him, and I've been meaning to grab one and page through it. Boyd intrigues me from two different perspectives:

On the one side, he has an approach to the Bible and to faith that really resonates with me. He believes in evolution, which shows me that he doesn't ignore the historical and literary contexts of the Hebrew Bible. His views on politics, (although I've not read The Myth of a Christian Nation and don't have much interest in politics) I agree with. His refusal to endorse Republican candidates from the pulpit and insistence that non-violence and love should be our national model (since that's what Jesus teaches) both ring true with me. Most interestingly, he is one of the leading proponents of open theism, a view of God's knowledge that suggests the partial openness of the future, where God's foreknowledge consists only of a realm of possibilities, since man, whom he created and endowed with the ability to choose, has not yet made these choices.

With that resume, one might expect him to be a pretty liberal Christian. But...

On the other side of the coin, he is a Baptist. [Gasp!] A member of the same Baptist affiliation (the BGC) as the uber-Calvinist John Piper, these two are sure to clash, (and have). Sure, as events at my church plainly show, the label "Baptist" doesn't mean much these days. But being a member of the BGC does mean something (as the scuffle between Boyd and Piper shows), it means Boyd isn't a liberal Christian. Boyd has also been an outspoken critic of liberal historical Jesus scholars, especially those of the Jesus Seminar.

In any case, the book is interesting to me for more reasons than it's authorship. First, although I'm true to my generation in that I shun labels, I think I would be hard-pressed to argue that I am not a skeptic. Second, the book is about a conversation between Boyd and his father where they discuss real, hard, honest questions about Christianity. My own relationship with my Dad has been similar, although more off-and-on and addressing different questions.

The most interesting thing about this book is that it addresses several (if not all) of what I've come to call THE BIG FIVE. In this recent post, I listed my top five "understandings I'm seeking;" issues with the Bible and faith that I don't understand and that often affect my faith. I was excited when I opened Boyd's book and immediately saw that at least three of the five were addressed directly, while the other two were likely discussed as peripheral issues in other chapters.

As I read the book (or at least the most relevant sections) I'll post on each of the BIG FIVE and how Boyd's thoughts in his book relate to each.

The god of liberal Christianity

2009-06-20T21:53:00.000-04:00

In my last post, I wrote about what is probably the most difficult issue I have with my faith: The multiple voices in the Bible, and how we (conservative Christians in general) elevate certain passages to supreme status, and reinterpret all conflicting passages, effectively neutering them of their meaning. In particular, the voices of Jesus and Paul stand out in stark contrast, especially when asking the question "What must I do to be saved?".

In that post, I discussed this post by James McGrath over at the blog Exploring our Matrix. In it, he discusses this problem, stating that his transition to liberal Christianity is a result of just these types of problems. McGrath states:

My own Liberal Christian position is a result of struggling with these sorts of issues. It doesn't seem to me that there is a single voice in the Bible, and we can simply listen to it and do "what the Bible says"... And so whatever it means to be a Christian, it cannot mean "believing the Bible". Because part of the challenge of the Bible itself is that it presents us with conflicting voices, and in doing so forces us away from the easy path of simply picking texts and following them, making us instead recognize that we are part of a 2,000-year-old dialogue that requires us to figure out for ourselves what it means to be a Christian in our own particular time and context.

I tend to agree with McGrath, that the proof-text approach taken by fundamentalist Christianity doesn't do justice to the character of the Bible. Furthermore, I think that anyone that says "I just believe the Bible" doesn't read it very often. Or they don't read it and actually think about what it says. To those who say just that, I would ask (taking McGrath's example): When you read Matthew 28 and Luke 24, do you "believe" that the disciples first saw the resurrected Jesus in Jerusalem, or almost 70 miles away in Galilee?

For McGrath, the solution to the problem was liberal Christianity, the willingness to approach the Bible as one would any other historical document without any preconceived notion of inerrancy or divine inspiration. For liberal Christians, the Bible is seen as a record of man's experiences in interacting with God. It may seem that a similar destination is in store for me, but there is a problem with that: To me, it seems that it is much more likely that God simply does not exist, than for the god of liberal Christianity to be real.

If God does exist, and He is interested in communicating with us (As the Bible, read as a historical and divinely inspired document would suggest) than would He not act to communicate with humankind in some sort of transferable way? Would He not leave more of a mark than just the "experiences" of some people in history? To me it seems more likely that He isn't out there at all.

To be fair, it isn't quite true that the Bible is the only way God has provided for us to know Him. But the god of of liberal Christianity (to me) seems totally fuzzy and unknowable. I think that if these problems end up pushing me to something other than conservative Christianity, it will be to atheism (or more likely agnosticism) than to liberal Christianity.

Jesus didn't really mean that, did He?

2009-06-19T22:01:00.000-04:00

So this is my first post in a while... I've kind of been on a break - a reading, writing, thinking break. Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed with things - with ideas - and just have to take a little break. So that's what that was.

So what's important enough to jerk me out of hiding? Well, it was this post by James McGrath over at the blog Exploring our Matrix. [Don't ask what I was doing reading a blog on a "reading break"] In it, McGrath is musing about what it would be like if fundamentalist Christians were to oversee a "final exam" that everyone must take before they were allowed to enter heaven. (He suggests two questions: Would you pass?)

This caught my attention because I recently had to complete a similar "exam": An application to participate in a local ministry contained the question:

If you died today and stood before God, and He ask you “Why should I let you into My heaven?” What would you say? This is not a testimony!

Now, I understand why the application included this question, and don't really have a problem with it. And that's not why I'm writing this post. I'm writing because the rest of McGrath's post hit a nerve. It perfectly describes the problems I'm having with my faith. In a nutshell:

It doesn't seem to me that there is a single voice in the Bible, and we can simply listen to it and do "what the Bible says"... And so whatever it means to be a Christian, it cannot mean "believing the Bible". Because part of the challenge of the Bible itself is that it presents us with conflicting voices, and in doing so forces us away from the easy path of simply picking texts and following them...

Yet this is exactly what "Biblical Christianity" (as it's often called in my context) does: It elevates certain passages to supreme status, and reinterprets all conflicting passages, effectively neutering them of their meaning.

Here's a good example: My pastor once gave a sermon on forgiveness, and at one point discussed Matthew 6:14-15 where Jesus makes the following statement:

[I]f you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

My pastor gave this as an example of why forgiveness is so important: because "God takes forgiveness seriously." He explained that this verse refers to "relational forgiveness": That our relationship with God is hindered if we do not forgive others.

I was puzzled at this interpretation because there is nothing in the context of Jesus' words that would indicate anything other than the obvious interpretation: That if we do not forgive, God will not forgive our sins. On the contrary, other statements of Jesus indicate that a lack of forgiveness will result in nothing less than hell: In Matthew 18:21-35, the unmerciful servant is sent to be tortured effectively forever for refusing to forgive.

When I questioned my pastor about this, he said that since we know (from Paul's writings) that we are saved by faith alone, we must interpret Jesus' words in light of this knowledge. Therefore, Jesus could not have meant that we will not be forgiven if we do not forgive.

This answer frustrates me to no end. In his post, McGrath addresses my pastor's answer:

[W]hile one might say "Scripture must be interpreted in light of Scripture", it still remains to be asked why one should start with the typical Evangelical prooftexts in Paul and John, and say that the others must be interpreted in light of them, rather than reversing the procedure and saying that the passages that seem to affirm "judgment" being on the basis of faith alone must mean something else.

I agree with McGrath. I would go one step further and ask: (as I have elsewhere) if God did become man, and that man is Jesus Christ, can't we expect Him to know what He is talking about?

I have more to say about this, but I'll put that in another post.

Too Busy

2009-04-30T08:13:00.000-04:00

I'm constantly amazed by how much my role as a parent can illuminate my relationship with God.

This morning as I left for work, I peeked my head in my 2 year old daughter's room to say goodbye. After wishing her a great day, I asked if she would give me a hug.

"No, Daddy. I'm busy with this toy." She turned her head away and focused on the toy in her lap.

I was crushed. I told her goodbye and headed toward the door.

I was reminded of all the times I'm too busy with whatever I'm doing to spend a few minutes alone with God. How many times have I said the exact same thing to God: "No Daddy. I'm too busy with that project in the back yard." Or "No, Daddy. There's a really good TV show on in three minutes." I wonder if, in those times, God feels something like I felt this morning.

Although my daughter and I see each other throughout the day, and we interact and experience life together, it is the special moments (like my goodbye hug) that I really look forward to the most. I'm sure the same is true of our heavenly Father: Although He is with us throughout the day, and we experience our lives in His presence, it's the special moments (like our daily quiet time) where we really make a connection with Him. When I'm too busy to spend that time with Him, I bet it breaks His heart.

So I was feeling pretty low this morning. As I walked across the driveway to my car, I heard the front door open. It was my little girl.

"I'm sorry, Daddy." My heart leaped. I ran up to her and scooped her up in my arms. "I'm sorry for not giving you a hug, Daddy."

My broken heart was suddenly healed.

God, I'm sorry for skipping my quiet time with you last night (and so many other times). Please forgive me. I look forward to those times. Help me to remember that you look forward to them, too.

Understandings I'm Seeking

2009-04-21T20:34:00.000-04:00

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for a long time now, simply because it’s subject is really the reason this blog exists. As I said in my newly-updated About This Blog post, this is where I put some of those thoughts about my faith (speaking very generally) that bounce around in my head, and just won’t go away. It helps to have a place to organize my thoughts, and I can come back to a particular post if I forget where my thinking was on a particular topic. Also, for those doubts or questions that don’t really have good answers, clicking that “Publish Post” button is like flushing the toilet.

Several months ago, Cliff Martin over at Outside The Box (a blog that I used to read regularly) posted his list of Understandings I’m Seeking – A list of difficult issues he was interested in understanding better. Ever since, I’ve kept a mental list of my own, to which I add as new issues become important to me, and subtract as I gain understanding on some issues.

Lately, my “Understandings I’m Seeking” list has become stagnant. The same issues have been at the top of the list for quite a while, which means that they have remained important to me, while simultaneously proving difficult to understand, at least for me. It is for this reason I think it is time for my own “Understandings I’m Seeking” post.

Understandings I’m Seeking

1. The relationship between the teachings of Jesus and the Apostle Paul

I'm seeking to understand how the teachings of Jesus are related to those of the Apostle Paul. In particular, I want to understand why Jesus' teachings are so different from those of Paul, especially when it comes to the requirements for salvation.

In my own Baptist tradition, the words of Jesus are constantly twisted to fit into a Paul-shaped mold, and to me, that just seems wrong. I hope one might be able to assume that God-incarnate would be able to get it right! But instead I constantly hear (in reference to Jesus' words) "Well.... You have to read that in light of ..." - And then some passage from Romans or Hebrews.

I understand the desire to harmonize the Scriptures, and the belief that inspired Scripture must fit together. But if God really did become man, and that man is Jesus Christ, than something is wrong. I am seeking to understand what that is.

2. The second coming of Jesus and the New Testament expectation that it was immanent

I’m seeking to better understand why the first Christians (and especially Jesus Himself) expected Jesus’ second coming to happen soon, as recorded in passages like Matt. 10:23, Matt. 16:27-28, Luke 21:5-36 1 Thess 4:14-15, Rev. 1:1, and many, many others. This expectation is typically explained away by claiming that Jesus, when He said "this generation will not pass away" before He returns, did not mean "generation" but instead meant the nation of Israel or even the generation that is alive when Jesus returns. (How convenient!)

I’m continually flabbergasted that the same people who insist on using the “plain reading” of Genesis 1-2 will put forth such flimsy explanations for the very plain statements of the expectation of the imminent return of Jesus. Once again, if God did become man, and that man is Jesus Christ, can't we expect Him to know what He was talking about?

I've done a significant amount of reading about the eschatological belief called preterism, which claims that all of Jesus' end-times prophecies were fulfilled within the timeframe he predicted, specifically in 70AD during the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army. This is not the place for a discussion on eschatology, but I should say that neither futurism nor preterism have provided satisfactory explanations for Biblical end-times prophesy.

I am seeking to understand what Jesus really meant by his end-times prophecies, and how this fits in with the rest of Biblical teaching. I especially am seeking to understand the implications of a successful eschatology on they way I view the world: Is the world coming to an end, or is it getting better and better? Is Jesus coming back, and will that be soon?

3. The dogma of Biblical inspiration and (secondarily) inerrancy

I’m seeking to understand why some Christians believe in the doctrine of verbal, plenary inspiration. (The equal inspiration of every word of scripture) Christians always give passages like 2 Peter 1:20-21 and 2 Timothy 3:16-17 as proof that the Bible (every single word of it) is equally inspired by God. Why don't these Christians notice the blatant circularity of this claim? A text within the New Testament that refers to "scripture" cannot be referring to the New Testament. At best, these proof texts can only refer to the Hebrew Scriptures (The Old Testament), and any texts considered “scripture” at the time the proof-text was written, if any.

I am seeking to understand the reality of Biblical inspiration as opposed to the dogma of Biblical inspiration. I believe that the Bible is inspired, and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, but I am unconvinced by any argument for verbal, plenary inspiration that takes the form: "The Bible is inspired because it says it is inspired." I realize that any "proof" of inspiration that refuses to grant authority to any source other than the Bible will always be circular. I just wish that this fact were not constantly ignored.

Of secondary importance is my desire to understand why some Christians believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. This is only of secondary importance because I have come to a settled belief that this position is entirely indefensible. Still, I am seeking to understand the implications of this apparent fact; On how it affects the way I should read the Bible, and how it affects the task of biblical interpretation.

4. The relationship between the Old and New Testaments

This issue has troubled me from the time I was a little kid: I am seeking to understand why God is portrayed so differently in the Old and New Testaments. The God of the Old Testament commands his people to kill rebellious teenagers, beat their slaves to within an inch of their death, to destroy entire cities, killing all men, women, children and babies, (including nursing babies and "ripping open" pregnant women) and actively participates in these slayings by chucking hailstones from heaven. In contrast, the God of the New Testament commands us to be peaceful, merciful, to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, return blessing for evil, and to live at peace with everyone. Are we talking about the same God here?

I understand that all people are sinners and deserve death. God can choose to do whatever he wants. This is not the issue. I am seeking to understand why God's message to His people, His communication to them about what is important, and His overal approach to justice is so startlingly different between the Old and New Testaments.

5. The soverignty of God and the problem of Theodicy (the problem of the existence of evil)

This issue is a little different: It involves two seemingly seperate issues on which I have come to a general understanding (or acceptance), but my thinking on these two issues is incompatible.

It is evident to me that God (in many occasions, if not all) chooses those with whom he is going to form a relationship: God chose Adam, not vice-versa. God chose Noah, not vice-versa. God chose Abraham, not vice-versa. God chose Moses, not vice-versa. God chose the 12 disciples, not vice-versa. You get the point. And it's hard to deny the reality of election with Bible passages like Mark 13:20, Romans 8:29-30, Romans 9:14-24, and on and on... The entire Bible shows God constantly choosing us, not the other way around.

Now, this doesn't mean we don't have a choice in whether to love God. A man can choose to romantically pursue a particular woman, but she will still have a choice of whether to reciprocate. Excuse the imperfect analogy, but this may be the situation between God and us. And God's power to woo surely surpasses even that of Giacoma Cassanova. Still, it is obvious to me that in some way, my relationship with God is more dependent on He than on me.

The second issue involves theodicy; the problem of existence of evil in the world, and the general lack of evidence for God's existence. I've written about this before: To me it seems the best explanation for this is that God created us to love, and love cannot be forced. Ironically, pastor-turned-atheist Dan Barker says it best:

It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being. [source]

I agree with Dan, and this is why God doesn't loudly proclaim His existence, doesn't do much to fix our broken world, and doesn't prove to us that He exists; He wants to give us a chance to love Him, and to do that He must give us the freedom to choose.

The problem lies in the integration of the two issues above. If God chooses those with whom He has a relationship, then why is there evil in the world? Why is there a need? (And please, don't say "The Fall" - The fall came as a result of God giving Man a choice) Conversely, if God values our free will enough to accept all the things that go along with it (i.e. evil, suffering) then does he really choose his "elect"? In order to answer theses two questions, I must talk out of both sides of my mouth, and that really bothers me. The answer may be as simple as my Cassanova example (above) but that has so far been unsatisfying.

So there's my list. If you can help on any of the above, by all means, email me. Or better yet, leave a comment on this post and let everyone benefit. I have fantasies of someday writing a single post on each of the above, but I know better than to commit. I'll just take it one post at a time.

About This Blog

2009-04-14T02:10:00.000-04:00

About this blog

This is a blog about my faith. If you know me well, you know that I'm constantly asking questions. As a result, my "spiritual journey" hasn't exactly been smooth sailing. This blog is part of that journey. It is my conversation with no one in particular (at least not yet). In a very real way it is part of my conversation with God.

What is the purpose of this blog?

This blog started by functioning as my "mental clearing house". Any time an "issue" arises with my faith, my natural tendency is to think and dwell and chew it over until my metaphorical jaw hurts. I have found that even if I don't come to a positive conclusion, (and I usually do not) writing out the issue often allows me to move on. Clicking that "Publish Post" button is like flushing the toilet. I still use this blog in that way, but now I use it in other ways as well.

For a while, I wrote quite extensively on my experience coming to grips with the theory of evolution. This was a story that I had written in many pieces, and it was good to get it all down in one place. Lately, this blog has served as a place for me to organize my thoughts, and it has been helpful to have you, my "imaginary friends" to hash this stuff out with.

Who am I?

My name is Joe. I am a 30 year old male, with two kids under three years old. I work as a research scientist in a technology company. I work in the area of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS), and my formal education includes an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, and a master’s degree in materials science.

I was raised in the very Dutch, very conservative, very Christian region of western Michigan. My parents were essentially Christian Reformed, and I grew up in a “Bible Church” that was basically Christian Reformed/Baptist in it’s theology. Growing up, I was taught that the earth is 6000-10,000 years old, and that the modern scientific description of the history of the universe was a false, deceptive idea, and was invented by Satan to help turn Christians into atheists.

I have retained many of the beliefs of my youth (albeit with many modifications): I go to a Baptist church and generally agree with most of the ideas expressed from the pulpit. However, I do believe that evolution (both animal and human) is undoubtedly the process by which we have come to be the way we are. I believe that God created us and the universe we live in, so I guess that makes me a theistic evolutionist, although I don’t really embrace the label. My switch from the young-earth beliefs of my youth to my current beliefs was a significant part of my spiritual journey, because it took me to the brink of atheism. The people in my church are mostly moderate Young Earth Creationists, so evolution is not generally accepted, but I have found that a vast majority of people (including some of the pastors) do not find my belief in a common ancestry troublesome. Actually, it doesn’t really come up much.

I have kept this blog semi-anonomous because it allows me to write in a very personal way, without worrying that someone who is only an acquaintance might wander upon it, and read something without knowing a lot about me. I’m not ashamed of any of this, but I can write more personally and transparently if I’m not worried about who might be watching.

Also, I've learned that anything that makes it into Google's "memory" can persist much longer than one might desire it to. Many years ago, as a geeky teenager, I posted a question to an online forum about some random geeky topic. When my name is "Googled", that post still shows up in the first page of results. How I wish I could give Google a lobotomy.

I don’t intend for my identity to be a secret to anyone who is sincerely interested in knowing more about me or what I write about. There are several people who know who I am and know about this blog, and that doesn’t bother me at all.

If you have any questions, you can always email me.

Who are you?

When I write, I imagine that my audience is someone who is sincerely interested in the Truth. Someone who isn’t afraid to ask questions, and doesn’t accept things just because that’s what they’re told to believe. Someone who is willing to wrestle with their doubts, to admit them, address them, answer them, and move on. Someone who gains strength and faith and peace not by dismissing doubts or questions, but by looking them straight in the eye and seeing if they should be taken seriously.

Some of my posts can tend to be negative. This is because, as I said above, a major purpose of this blog is to acknowledge my doubts and move on. I don’t intend for these posts to spread doubt, but if I discuss something here it is because I think it is worth discussing. I’m reminded of a quote by Os Guinness:

We ourselves are called in question if we have no answer to doubt. If we constantly doubt what we believe and always believe-yet-doubt, we will be in danger of undermining our personal integrity, if not our stability. But if ours is an examined faith, we should be unafraid to doubt. If doubt is eventually justified, we were believing what clearly was not worth believing. But if doubt is answered, our faith grows stronger still. It knows God more certainly, and it can enjoy God more deeply. Faith is not doubt-free, but there is a genuine assurance of faith that is truly beyond a shadow of doubt. -Os Guinness, in God in the Dark: The Assurance of Faith Beyond a Shadow of Doubt [pp.14]

The Duplicity of Me

2009-04-12T21:51:00.000-04:00

I recently read Dallas Willard's book Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. Actually I read it several times. It's an incredible book that I'm sure I'll write more about. But for now there is one idea that I've been chewing on recently:

Willard describes what he calls "the duplicity of man" - This is our tendency to say we believe something, and want to act a certain way, and sometimes we do, but when it comes down to that knee-jerk response in the heat of the moment, our actions do not match up with our beliefs and convictions. Of course, this is not a new idea. Paul wrote about the problem in Romans 7:

When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Romans 7:21b-24

One of the main ideas of Willard's book is that this duplicity is not a required state of every believer; in fact, for a true disciple of Jesus it is not even a possible permanent state. He suggests that a true disciple of Jesus will move beyond this duplicity into a "renovated character" where the desire of our heart (to look and act like Jesus) is what actually happens (most of the time).

Building on this, Chapter 8 describes how, moment to moment, our actions are generally out of our control. We are, to a significant degree, simply reacting to our circumstances in a way that is controlled by our thoughts and feelings at that moment. This pattern of actions, over time, reveals our character. Now, this doesn't mean that our actions are not our responsibility. Our will enables us to make choices that affect our future thoughts and feelings, and this is why we are responsible for our character.

I've been chewing on these ideas for a while now, but they came to a poignant climax today. In the last few days, I have experienced this duplicity in my own life with increasing awareness. As I continue to strive to look and act more like Jesus, I have been making better choices, seeing fruit in my life. But recently I have been placed in some situations where my actions were those "knee jerk" reactions that reveal my character. And I was devastated.

I guess I have always known this, but today I think I really saw for the first time what a horrible person I really am. I want to be a good father but I am horribly impatient and get angry when my 2-year old acts like a 2-year old. I want to be a good husband, and love my wife the way Christ loves his church, but when given the opportunity to serve her my gut reaction is to complain and be lazy and selfish. I know that every person I meet is made in God's image, and I want to love them and treat them the way I want to be treated, but instead I am selfish, arrogant and disrespectful. When someone takes something that I percieve to be mine, I want to react in love by giving them whatever else they need. Instead I lash out in anger and self-righteousness. Sadly I could go on and on.

This morning at church (today is Easter Sunday), our pastor talked about the life that we have access to through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Not just life after death, but life now (he called it "life before death"), which includes freedom from the power of sin. Once again, this is an old idea that is becomming newly significant to me. (It's also a huge component of another of Dallas Willard's books, The Divine Conspiracy) As I listened to the sermon this morning, I was overcome by how little freedom I have from the power of sin. I feel like sin has such a firm grasp on me that I am suffocating; The duplicity in my life is becoming unbearable.

When I arrived home from this morning's Easter service, I was feeling pretty low. All that talk and singing about Jesus giving us freedom from the power of sin was great, but simultaneously not feeling that freedom was excruciating. But then something put me over the edge. It was time for my daughter to take a nap, and she just wouldn't sleep. (She is so tired, why won't she just go to sleep!!) Instead of patience and gentleness, my reaction to her defiance was outright anger and a desperate need for control, and then pride. When naptime was over, I collapsed in a pile of frustration and tears. If you have made it this far in this post, you deserve to know: I thought the sobbing would not end. We had a half-hour to make it to Easter dinner, so of course, it did end, but the experience had a lasting effect.

I don't know what the answer is; Why these sins seem like they will never ever leave... I know that in my life I have a thousand times told God that I want him to be Lord of my life, that I want Him to come in and remake me into someone that looks and acts like Jesus, and that there is nothing I can do to make our relationship right, short of my trust in Him. And I will continue to tell Him that until I die. So I wonder; why is this "life before death" not something that I am experiencing? Or am I, and I am just expecting the wrong thing? Or am I just a big lump of clay that desperately wants to be a pot, and thinks it is a pot, but really just needs to wait for the potter to continue His handiwork? I think I'm willing to accept that this new-found hatred of my sin is a vital component to whatever He wants to do with me, if that is really the case.

But why am I so impatient!!!

I'll end with these lyrics from a Big Daddy Weave song titled Why. It is my anthem for today.

Why do I do all the things that I do
When I want to do what is right
Change this wicked heart of mine
Let me walk with you in the new life

So what will ever put an end
To my recurring bout with sin
It seems I'm always at a loss for a way to win
When what I really need to do
Is to confront it with the truth
And let Your words of life sink in and make my mind brand new

A transformation that happens over time
Is the product of a renewed mind

Create in me a clean heart
Place Your spirit deep inside
Capture every thought
'Till there's no place left to hide

Choosing to Believe

2009-04-01T22:18:00.000-04:00

In my previous post, I talked about belief, and how our actions reveal what we truly believe. One question that was left unanswered, however, is one posed by Richard Dawkins, among others:

Believing is not something you can decide to do as a matter of policy. At least, it is not something I can decide to do as an act of will. I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene Creed, and I can decide to swear on a stack of bibles that I believe every word inside them. But none of that can make me actually believe it if I don't. Pascal's Wager could only ever be an argument for feigning belief in God. And the God that you claim to believe in had better not be of the omniscient kind or he'd see through the deception. [The God Delusion, p.104]

Dawkins makes a good point, one that I struggled with it for a long time. I didn't believe, and I knew it. I really wanted to believe, but couldn't. What advice would you give someone in this situation?

For some, the issue really is that they don't want to believe. For Dawkins, I suspect that he poses the question not out of a genuine desire to believe, but to simply point out that it is truly ridiculous to ask someone to "just believe". He's right. We can't just decide to change our beliefs.

Like my last post, Dallas Willard's book, Renovation of the Heart can shed some light on this (at least it did for me). Willard agrees with Dawkins:

We do not choose to believe (or not). Our beliefs and feelings cannot be changed by choice. We cannot just choose to have different beliefs and feelings...

But Willard continues:

...but we do have some liberty to take in different ideas and think about things in different ways. We can choose to take in the Word of God and when we do that beliefs and feelings will be steadily pulled in a Godly direction.

So if Dallas Willard is correct, (and I think he is) then we are not able, in the current moment, to change our beliefs by simply choosing to do so. But this does not mean that belief is completely out of our control. Our choices today can (and do) influence the things we believe tomorrow. So if we choose to read and absorb the Bible and think in ways that will, over time, cause our beliefs to change.

Dawkins was correct when he wrote that:

I can decide to go to church and I can decide to recite the Nicene Creed...

True, he could decide to do that. But he doesn't. And of course, he doesn't believe. I'm not saying that going to church or reciting a creed will help someone believe in God. I am only saying (mostly from experience) that if one decides that he is going to live like God exists, his life will include things like going to church and reading the Bible. And these activities, sincerely pursued, will slowly change his beliefs.

So we are responsible for our beliefs, but not in a direct way. This has great implications for how we present the Gospel. In Willards words:

One of the worst mistakes that can be made in practical ministry is to think that people can choose to believe and can feel differently. Following that, we will mistakenly try to generate faith by going through the will, possibly trying to move the will by playing on emotion. Rather, the will must be moved by insight into truth and reality. Such insight will evoke emotion, appropriate to a new set of the will. That is the order of real inward change.

My pastor frequently says things like:

You're too busy to read your Bible? Well, you see, we make time for the things that are important to us. So make time to read your Bible.

Is it just me, or does that not make sense at all? How does that change whether I find it important to read my Bible? And if what he says is true, I will not begin to read my Bible until I find it relevant to my life. My will can do nothing (over the long run) to change my habits. My Bible reading will come through a change in my inner character, which will in turn change my priorities.

In the same way, no amount of willpower will enable me to believe something that I do not see adequate evidence for. True belief will come through experience of the truth of God's existence.

Believe? Sounds pretty simple...

2009-03-12T20:46:00.000-04:00

When I was dealing with the whole atheism thing, one of the things that always bugged me was the concept of belief. We're always told (and we tell others) that we just need to "believe in Jesus" and we will inherit eternal life. In the words of D.L. Moody:

Have faith in God! Take Him at His word! Believe what He says!

Is it really that simple? What if someone really doesn't believe? Richard Dawkins makes this point by asking the question:

What if I don't believe? How can I just start believing something that I don't believe? Does God want a bunch of fakers?” [a paraphrase from The God Delusion]

Stephen Weinberg, in Dreams of a Final Theory says the same thing, but much more eloquently:

The decision to believe or not is not entirely in our hands. I might be happier if I thought I were descended from the emperors of China, but no effort of will on my part can make me believe it, any more than I can will my heart to stop beating.

So is belief something we have control over, or are we at it's mercy? Does our will have any control over our beliefs, or are our beliefs completely inaccessible to us, as Dawkins would have us believe?

And what is faith? Is that the same as belief? Can you have faith and not belief? Belief and not faith?

A second aspect to this problem is less semantic and more theological. Ever since I started reading my Bible seriously, I have been struck by the differences between Jesus and Paul - Especially when they start talking about salvation. Paul, of course, says over and over again that faith (or belief) alone is what saves us whereas Jesus repeatedly emphasizes that we will be judged based on how we lived our lives. Now, neither Jesus or Paul are completely on one end of the spectrum, and this disparity is not new; it is one of the main causes of the Protestant-Catholic divide. But I am continually shocked by the efforts my fellow Christians will make to neuter Jesus' words in an effort to reconcile them with Paul's statements on salvation.

I read something recently that helps make sense of all this. In his book, Renovation of the Heart, Dallas Willard discusses what it means for a Christian to "believe":

Gandhi, who had looked closely at Christianity as practiced around him in Great Britain, remarked that if only Christians would live according to their belief in the teachings of Jesus, "we all would become Christians." We know what he meant, and he was right in that. But the dismaying truth is that the Christians were living according to their "belief" in the teachings of Jesus. They didn't believe them!

Moreover, knowing the "right answers" - knowing which ones they are, being able to identify them - does not mean we believe them. To believe them, like believing anything else, means that we are set to act as if they (the right answers) are true and that we will do so in appropriate circumstances. And acting as if the right answers are true means, in turn, that we intend to obey the example and teachings of Jesus the Anointed. What else would we intend if we believed he is who his people through the ages have declared him to be?

Perhaps the hardest thing for sincere Christians to come to grips with is the level of real unbelief in their own life: The unformulated skepticism about Jesus that permeates all dimensions of their being and undermines what efforts they do make toward Christlikeness.

The idea that you can trust Christ and not intend to obey him is an illusion generated by the prevalence of an unbelieving "Christian culture." In fact, you can no more trust Jesus and not intend to obey him than you could trust you doctor and your auto mechanic and not intend to follow their advice. If you don't intend to follow their advice, you simply don't trust them. Period. (Of course in this case you might well have good reason.)

I find that this helps greatly with the questions I pose above. What is belief? Belief is that which we are set to act upon. In other words, we believe something is true if we act as if its true.

This helps answer the second question: Who was right? Jesus or Paul? Well, of course, both are right:

In Acts 16, when Paul and Silas were asked by their jailer "What must I do to be saved?" they replied: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved."

This "belief" does not mean that the jailer should state that certain things are true about Jesus; that Jesus died for his sins, or say a special prayer, or even say that he is following Jesus with his life. For the jailer (and likewise, us) to believe means that the jailer really believes; and real belief will necessarily lead to doing the things that Jesus told us to do. If he doesn't go obey Jesus, he did not believe.

Likewise, In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats, and describes how, in the end times, people will be separated based on their actions: "[The wicked] will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." (Matt. 10:46) These actions are simply the kinds of things someone would naturally do if they believe. We will be judged by our actions because our actions are a direct and necessary result of belief, (understood correctly).

Unfortunately, this doesn't help answer the question: What must I do to believe? Richard Dawkins' question is still valid: "What if I don't believe?"

I think the answer to that question must have something to do with "faith". But that is another post.

Something a little different

2009-03-11T22:36:00.000-04:00

In the last few weeks, I've seen a couple really good blogs hang up their proverbial hats. Others have mentioned blogging fatigue, and I can totally relate to this. I have the next post in my series on my journey from creationist to evolutionist about 50% completed, and have absolutely zero motivation to finish.

It is for this reason (and more that I'll mention below) that I'm going to take a little break. Not from blogging, but from telling the story that I've been writing about for so long.

Another reason for this little change is that this blog is about my faith. While coming to grips with evolution was a very significant aspect of my faith, that whole struggle is in the past. The present state of my faith is much more interesting (to me) and my desire to write about other things has increased significantly. So that's what I'll do!

One final reason for the change: Up to this point, my blog has been quite formal, with pretty complete thoughts that I have worked on for a significant amount of time before posting. This is not really the kind of blog that I want to write. From this point on, I'll be much less formal; some of my posts will be incomplete thoughts, quotes from things I read or hear, or simply a question that I am thinking about at the time.

I think I am going to enjoy the change, and I hope my three readers will too.

11. Dealing with Genesis

2009-02-21T14:39:00.000-05:00

This is the 11th in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

If you have been following this description of how I became a theistic evolutionist, you probably can see why it was necessary for me to come to a conclusion (even if it was tentative) about the meaning of Genesis: I had been indoctrinated as a child with the belief that Genesis was God's way of communicating to us the process by which he created the universe. This belief was now gone, but the first few chapters of Genesis still required explanation.

I have found it very difficult to write this post. (This is one of the reasons why it has been such a long time between the last post and this one.) It is difficult to write for two reasons. The first reason is that the results are quite inconsequential (in a scientific sense). Although one can glean great insight into the thinking of the original authors and audience of Genesis, the conclusion that the Genesis accounts are not scientific leaves us with a purely theological message.

The second reason this post is difficult for me to write is that there is such a wealth of contextual information about Genesis 1-11 that any attempt to summarize it feels inadequate. Others have done so with great success, and it is not worthwhile for me to repeat their efforts.

For these reasons, I am going to be quite brief in my description of how I dealt with the creation accounts. I'll start by pointing out what I see to be the most significant aspect of Genesis 1-2, the observation that there are actually two creation stories. Next I will briefly discuss these stories' relationship within the context of the ancient near east. I'll end this post by describing some of my conclusions, however tentative.

About My Motive

One note: I will not try to hide my motive. As I have described in previous posts, I had determined that science was correct in its determination of the age of creation, and this was in conflict with my childhood beliefs. Seeing problems with the way young earth creationists read the Bible, my mind was fertile ground for a new system of belief (and method of biblical interpretation) that allowed the coexistence of biblical and scientific knowledge. It is only in retrospect that I have analyzed these new beliefs, and in doing so have gained confidence that they are correct.

Interpretation and Humility

One final thought before I begin: When faced with the seeming conflict between Genesis and science, it is often said (by young earth creationists) that “I just choose to believe the Bible”. I appreciate the sentiment of this statement, but let me expand that statement a bit, so it is plain what it really means. Choosing to believe the earth is young (because that's what the Bible says), despite all the evidence to the contrary, is in a very real way making the following statement:

“I am so confident that my interpretation of Genesis is correct that am willing to disregard the conclusions of every major scientific discipline. I am sure that this ancient text was meant to communicate scientific and historical information, and as a result, I am willing to throw out the observations scientists (many of them Christians themselves) have made about this world.”

I suspect that anyone who, in reference to creation, says something like “I just believe the Bible” or “That's just what the Bible says” is not considering the fact that every word or idea taken from the Bible must be interpreted. We have an interpreted Bible. It seems to me that this should bring an incredible amount of humility to any discussion about what the Bible “says”.

The Biblical Creation Accounts

One of the most revealing aspects of the first two chapters of Genesis is that they contain what is almost certainly two different creation accounts. If you haven't noticed this before, read them yourself: Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 and Genesis 2:4-25. Below is a summary of each. Please keep in mind that my purpose for discussing this is not to present an irreconcilable “problem” with the Bible that forces us to seek alternate interpretations of Genesis. My purpose is simply to show that there are good reasons to suspect that the authors of the creation stories were concerned not with history, but with theology.

Creation Story #1: Genesis 1:1 to 2:3

The first creation story is highly structured and great emphasis is placed on the order of creation. In the beginning, there is nothing. God speaks the universe into existence with a series of commands, i.e. “let there be light.” Gods creative activity takes place over six days. In the first three days, God does a lot of “separating”, and the result of this separating is several “containers” (or structures) which are ready-made for his creatures. The structures created on the first three days are:

Day 1: Day / Night
Day 2: Sky / Sea
Day 3: Dry Land

On days 4-6, God fills these structures with creatures. Notice the parallels with days 1-3: The structures are filled in the same order they are created:

Day 4: Sun /Moon & Stars
Day 5: Birds / Fish
Day 6: Animals & Man

This first creation story ends with the seventh day of the creation week, where God “rests” from the work of creation.

Creation Story #2: Genesis 2:4-25

The second creation story is less structured: First the author describes the creation of Adam, followed by God's planting of the Garden of Eden. In contrast to the first story, the focus is on Adam. God commands Adam not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and then decides that Adam needs a helper/companion. To solve this problem, God creates “all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air” but none are suitable to be Adam's helper. Then God creates a woman, Eve, from Adam's rib, and what follows is the familiar story about Adam, Eve, the serpent and the apple.

Notice that in this second story, there is very little emphasis on the order of creation. It would seem that Adam is created before plants and before animals. To illustrate this, compare Genesis 2 in several different translations: The word “had” is inserted in Genesis 2:8 and 2:19 in several translations, making the order of events ambiguous. In any case, it seems that the author was not interested in giving a blow-by-blow account of how things came into being, but was instead addressing more important questions, like the origin of sin and death.

Different Authors, Different Purposes

These two creation stories clearly were written to communicate different ideas. This is supported by the mountain of evidence that suggests four different sources for the book of Genesis. (See the resources section at the end of this post for more information) The easiest and most compelling example of this is the names used for God: In the first story, God is exclusively called “Elohim” (translated “God” in the NIV). In the second story, God is exclusively called “Jahweh” (translated “LORD God” in the NIV). If you have never noticed this, I highly recommend re-reading Genesis, paying attention to the names of God. Identifying the switch between the various sources (indicated by a change in the name of God) can help in explaining some of the more awkward transitions.

Context of the Biblical Creation Accounts

The context of the creation accounts is that of the ancient near east (ANE). The religions of the surrounding cultures were predominantly polytheistic, with gods in charge of almost every aspect of nature and daily life.

Other creation/flood myths were already in circulation and were familiar to the original audience of the Genesis creation accounts. These myths include many elements common the the biblical creation accounts; two of these myths contain the most stark similarities: the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Enuma Elish.

The cosmology of the ANE was primitive; the earth was seen as a flat disk surrounded by an infinite sea. The sky was believed to be a metal dome, separating infinite water above from the disk of the earth. The stars were thought to be embedded in the dome, and the sun and moon traveled across the dome. It was thought that under the earth stood an infinite freshwater sea, which supplied the rivers and lakes.

These contexts become important when considering the purpose of the creation accounts; even without additional knowledge, it is easy to see the influence of these cultural elements. The cosmology of the ANE is clearly seen in the first creation account, and the religious contexts and creation myths provide a compelling backdrop which helps to understand the motivation of the original authors.

So What's It About?

If the first chapters of Genesis are not chronological descriptions of God's creative acts, then what are they?

Here we see two stories written at different times by different people for different reasons. The authors were concerned with explaining the universe and the state of humanity, and they used common imagery that was familiar to their readers at the time. Their stories use elements from Babylonian and Sumerian creation myths to communicate theological truths, not historical or scientific information. These stories were direct rebuttals to the opposing myths and religions of the time.

Here are a few theological messages that can be seen at a first glance:

There is a God.
There is a single, all powerful God. (Not many gods with various powers, like the surrounding Babylonian culture insists)
Man is created in the image of God
God takes an interest in mankind's well-being
Creation was originally goodWe are destined to fail to live up to our divinely appointed roles
We are fundamentally alienated from our creator

There are surely many more. I don't intend to suggest that the message of Genesis 1-2 can be summed up in a few bullet-points. My point is simply that there is a message, and this message is not scientific.

To me it seems like many Christians who place an incredible emphasis on the historicity of Genesis 1-2 are ignoring the real meanings of this text. They have substituted a counterfeit message, obtained through a short-sighted method of interpretation, in response to a perceived threat from science. As I continued to learn about the contexts of the creation stories, I saw that science posed no threat to my faith. The physical world is just another source of revelation from God, and along with the Bible, we can come to an agreement on the big questions in life. It is important however, to address these questions to the sources that are appropriate for answering each question; Genesis can answer the question “What is wrong with the world?” but was not intended to answer the question “How did the world come about?”

In my next post, I'll continue to describe my experiences in adjusting to a new world that includes evolution, an ancient earth, and an even older universe. I'll describe what happened when I “came out of the closet” and revealed these struggles and beliefs to some of my friends and family.

Let us never throw ourselves head over heels into the headstrong assertion of any one [opinion]. Perhaps the truth, emerging from a more thorough discussion of the point, may definitively overturn that opinion, and then we will find ourselves overthrown, championing what is not the cause of the divine scriptures but our own, in such a way that we want it to be that of the scriptures, when we should rather be wanting the cause of the scriptures to be our own.
-Augustine writing in The Literal Meaning of Genesis [400AD].

10. Dealing with Young Earth Creationism, Part 2 – The YEC Hermeneutic

2009-01-18T21:09:00.000-05:00

Dealing with Young Earth Creationism, Part 2 – The YEC Hermeneutic

This is the tenth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

This is a continuation of the previous post. In it, I described how the motivation for young earth creationism (YEC) does not come from an rigorous and thorough examination of the scientific evidence, but instead arises from a belief that the Bible plainly teaches that creation is young.

From as early as I can remember, I was taught the “fact” that the Bible, when read correctly, plainly shows how (and when) God created the universe. I was taught that Satan invented the idea that the universe is millions of years old, and anyone that accepts the idea of evolution rejects the God of the Bible.

As I said in my last post: In all my years as a YEC, I had assumed that scientists that call themselves young earth creationists were YECs because they had examined the evidence and determined that it agreed with what the Bible says. I was shocked to learn that in reality, the opposite was actually true; YEC scientists believe the evidence points to a young universe because that is what they believe the Bible teaches.

In retrospect, this seem extremely naive. I'm a little embarrassed. It seems pretty simple and obvious to me now. I guess this kind of naiveté comes from being raised in a particular way, and rarely being exposed to ideas that disagree with what one is being taught. This kind of childhood indoctrination is a significant barrier to overcome.

So, at this point I had quite a few questions to answer: Would I reject all of modern science because of what the Bible teaches? Was the evidence for an old earth more important than what the Bible teaches? How do YECs read the Bible? Is that the right way to read the Bible? Does the Bible really teach that the universe is young?

So how do young earth creationists read the Bible? It was obvious to me that a literal interpretation is important, but there is more to it than that. Answers in Genesis president & CEO Ken Ham gives us a clue:

“Let’s be honest – if one just reads God’s Word, without any outside influences whatsoever, one would never get the idea anywhere of millions of years. This idea, which contradicts Scripture, comes from outside of it.” [source]

Ham is suggesting that we read the Bible without considering anything outside the Bible. He and other YECs state that we should read the clear meaning of the Bible, taking it word-for-word, and interpret it without outside influences. They are fond of labeling their reading as the “literal, straight-forward interpretation” or as “Biblical fact” calling all others “anti-Biblical”. They openly equate a literal interpretation with the true interpretation.

This interpretation starts with the principle that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and as such, is completely free from error in every detail. The words of the Bible are treated as if they have been dictated word-for-word directly from the Holy Spirit, and as a result should be interpreted literally without any consideration for the historical context, genre, or human authors and audience.

The intent is to arrive at an interpretation that is free from outside influences and arrives at a single meaning for the text. This is a noble motive; it provides a seemingly self consistent framework for coming up with only one meaning, supposedly the meaning that the Holy Spirit intended.

Unfortunately, this fundamentalist approach makes the typical modernist assumption that one can read the Bible without subjectivity. This, of course, is completely false; Although one may attempt to rid oneself of all possible biases, we each approach the Bible from within our own cultural contexts.

To me, it seems the ultimate in foolishness to ignore the fact that these words came to us through thousands of years of history, from a people with a different language, culture, history, values, and scientific world view. It seems that the first step in understanding these ancient texts is to determine (as best as one can) the meaning intended by the original author.
Howard VanTill, in a great book called The Fourth Day, quotes this passage from Berkhof's Principles of Biblical Interpretation:

[In interpreting the Bible, one] "must place himself on the standpoint of the author, and seek to enter into his very soul, until he, as it were, lives in his life and thinks his thoughts. This means that he will have to guard carefully against the rather common mistake of transferring the author to the present day and making him speak the language of the twentieth century.”
-Berkhof, Principles of Biblical Interpretation, p.115 (originally seen in VanTill, The Fourth Day, p.18)

Young earth creationists, in applying their fundamentalist interpretation, make this very mistake. This failure to place the text in its original context results in several difficulties which arise when trying to understand the Bible as a whole.

One serious difficulty which arises from a literal interpretation is that it leaves the reader impotent to deal with the contradictions and discrepancies that exist throughout the Bible. Literalists must resort to explanations that push the limits of our credulity, and in many cases they must break their own rules, dismissing the straightforward meaning of the text in favor of a flimsy cop-out.

The greatest of these difficulties, however, is that a literal interpretation completely ignores the historical and human character of biblical revelation. As I discussed in a previous post, I was quickly beginning to see the nature of God's interaction with His creation as primarily that of delegation. God seems to act primarily in the world through his creation. This is especially true for the Bible, which was produced by over 40 different human authors in a huge range of cultures, languages and geographical locations, and with an equally wide range of genres and purposes.

To ignore the historical context of the Bible is to ignore the method through which God communicated these words, and any interpretation which does not take the original author's intended meaning into account cannot be a correct interpretation. Let me try to make this clear: My ascent out of atheism relied heavily on reshaping my view of God's action in creation and in my own life. Any interpretation which refuses to incorporate this view of God's involvement in history (and in the Bible) is completely invalid and utterly useless in helping me understand the God in which I have placed my faith.

So, it had become obvious to me that young earth creationism was wrong for three main reasons: First, its evidence for a young age of the earth had proven completely inadequate. Second, because of the independent evidence from widely disparate scientific disciplines, it required a sweeping rejection of the entirety of modern science. Finally, (and most importantly) the refusal to consider the contexts of the author when interpreting the Bible made it impotent to deal with issues arising from God's pervasive use of humanity in producing scripture.

At this point, the idea that Genesis might not necessarily be a historical narrative (while still containing divinely inspired truth) had been introduced to me several times. Now that I understood how and why YECs interpret the Bible and how this interpretation fails, I was ready to take a closer look at the cultural and literary aspects of the creation story.

I'll close this post with the words of three Christians (all from vastly different time periods) whose comments are applicable to this post:

“In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.”
-Augustine, in De Genesi ad litteram, 415AD. [source]

“Men today do not, perhaps, burn the Bible, nor does the Roman Catholic Church any longer put it on the Index, as it once did. But men destroy it in the form of exegesis: they destroy it in the way they deal with it. They destroy it by not reading it as written in normal, literary form, by ignoring its historical-grammatical exegesis, by changing the Bible's own perspective of itself as propositional revelation in space and time, in history.”
-Francis Schaeffer, in Death in the City pp. 77 1969. [source]

"The tragedy of young-earth creationism is that it takes a relatively recent and extreme view of Genesis, applies to it an unjustified scientific gloss, and then asks sincere and well-meaning seekers to swallow this whole, despite the massive discordance with decades of scientific evidence from multiple disciplines. Is it any wonder that many sadly turn away from faith concluding that they cannot believe in a God who asks for an abandonment of logic and reason?”
-Francis S. Collins, in Faith and the Human Genome, 2002. [source]

9. Dealing with Young Earth Creationism – Is science really the issue?

2009-01-07T23:02:00.000-05:00

Dealing with Young Earth Creationism – Is science really the issue?

This is the ninth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

The fourth phase in Roxburgh's description of paradigm change is that of transition. In the first part of this transition phase I dealt with the arguments for atheism that had drastically diminished my faith. The second part of this transition phase involved dealing with Young Earth Creationism. This is the subject of this post.

Having grown up being taught (and believing) that the earth, moon, and stars are all 6000 – 10,000 years old, it was quite a painful and confusing process learning about how each scientific discipline paints the same story of the history of the universe. This is a story of immense antiquity: a 13.6 billion year old universe, 4.5 billion year old earth, and a convincing record of the history of life on this planet, showing that all life on earth has come from from a single ancestor.

Although believers in Young Earth Creationism invest incredible amounts of effort to provide “evidence” for their views, I had investigated these claims and found them extremely lacking. Not only were they totally wrong scientifically, but they bordered on deceptive. (I discuss this in a previous post) The final nail in the coffin came via a radio debate featuring YEC evangelist Kent Hovind. His incompetence made me embarrassed to call myself a believer. (I discuss this here)

In a future post, I'll discuss my interactions with the friends, family, and pastors who affected me significantly during this time. During this time, I had a lengthy interaction with one of my pastors (I am a member of a Baptist church). During our discussions he (and others) asked me to take another look at the evidence for young earth. One of the books he handed me was In Six Days – Why 50 Scientists Believe in Creation. As the title suggests, this book contains essays from 50 different scientists describing why they believe the universe and earth are young. (The full text is available here)

As I turned the pages of this book, I realized that this was a great resource: Here I had concise statements from 50 intelligent people who had rejected the scientific consensus on the the age of the earth. I could quickly determine how they had come to this conclusion, and by reading multiple essays, perhaps a common thread would emerge.

I decided to make a list of the reasons these scientists give for their personal belief in a young earth. But as I continued to read, I found this to be grueling; many authors gave similar reasons or evidence, and I was finding it difficult to tabulate everything. Soon I found two incredible resources, the first is an attempt to index every Creationist claim and give a rebuttal. The second is a Creationist's response to each item. Although I didn't consult it at the time, a third resource addresses each of the claims from an old-earth viewpoint:

Index to Creationist Claims
Creationist's Response
Old-Earth Response

Using these resources, it becomes easier to identify a claim, look it up in each index, and make a judgment as to its veracity. In this way, I was able to read each essay, tabulate the reasons given by each scientist, and evaluate the strength of the evidence.

A bit about motive: One might suggest that since I had already come to the conclusion that the arguments for a young earth were extremely weak and misleading, I would simply find what I hoped I would find. Would I simply see that there was a reason to believe in an old earth and stop there? Well, I agree that our preconceptions drastically affect how we perceive any argument, whether for or against our own views. I don't intend to try to convince you that I approached this exercise with an unbiased, neutral mind. That is simply not possible. I will simply describe my experience in investigating these claims. I invite you to do the same. If you come to a different conclusion, I'd love to discuss that with you.

As I read these essays, I noticed over and over again that the arguments these creationists gave were simply “reasons” that didn't stand up to any amount of serious thought. Claims like “The second law of thermodynamics proves that evolution can not occur” or “interpreting evidence is not the same as observation” are so easily dismissed, yet are so common in these essays.
It quickly became obvious to me that in order to be a consistent Young Earth Creationist, one must deny the basic principles of cosmology, physics, geology, biology and paleontology. These disciplines, using completely independent methodologies, have come to an undeniable conclusion regarding the age of the earth, and to claim otherwise requires a sweeping dismissal of all of modern science.

The real issue, however, is not science. The “scientists” of In Six Days don't dismiss the process of science because they have evaluated the evidence and have determined that it shows the earth is 6000 years old. No one would come to that conclusion without an external motive. That motive is the Bible.

In his essay, geologist Kurt Wise describes in an extremely instructive way what is really going on here:

Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth, I am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand. [source]

Here Kurt says most plainly what all the others were saying: That it doesn't matter what science says, it matters what the Bible says. No matter how much evidence exists against a young earth, creationists will deny that it represents truth, and instead find ways to make science say what they think the Bible says.

In all my years as a YEC, I had assumed that scientists that call themselves young earth creationists were YECs because they had examined the evidence and determined that it agreed with what the Bible says. I was shocked to learn that in reality, the opposite was actually true; YEC scientists believe the evidence points to a young universe because that is what they believe the Bible teaches.

This realization convinced me that it was utterly pointless to continue examining evidence for Young Earth Creationism. The evidence would never convince me, because it is not the reason one becomes a YEC.

So, the next step in understanding Young Earth Creationism was to attempt to understand how YECs read the Bible, and to ask the strange question: Should I abandon science because of what the Bible teaches? This is the subject of the next post.

8. Dealing with Atheism, continued...

2008-11-07T21:55:00.000-05:00

Dealing with Atheism, continued...

This is the eighth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

This is a continuation of the previous post. In the last few posts, I described how the religion of my youth had taught me that science was the enemy of faith. I was taught to believe that evolution was an evil idea invented by Satan to lead people into atheism. It was beginning to look like they were right. I had discovered the overwhelming evidence for the truth of evolution, and was terrified of the implications. If evolution was true, then my faith in God must be a silly case of wishful thinking.

The fourth phase in Roxburgh's description of paradigm change is that of transition. The first part of my transition phase involved dealing with atheist arguments that had caused my faith to diminish to a tiny ember. In my last post, I discussed two of the main ideas that helped me deal with atheism. In this post I'll discuss what I see to be the main flaw in atheist Richard Dawkins' view of God, and then deal with a problem I mentioned in a previous post about the lack of evidence for God's action in the world.

3. Dawkins' picture of “god” is naturalistic, not supernatural

One thing that strikes me as I read Dawkins' anti-religious writings is that Dawkins seems to be completely stuck with a picture of a god that is totally within nature. I didn't notice it in my first reading of The God Delusion, but it becomes more obvious to me every time I read or hear him speak. This was an important element of my transition; I deliberately approached subjects that I had a one-sided knowledge of and balanced out my familiarity with both sides of each argument.

As I said; Dawkins's view of god seems to be that of a god who is within nature. This is important, because almost every one of his scientific arguments against the existence of God assumes a god that is within nature. It is easy to see why: a God outside of nature is not within the purview of science.

Take this quote from Dawkins in this debate with Alister McGrath; notice how he constantly invokes the “probability” of God's existence:

"When you say god didn't come into existence but was always there, I find that not really very helpful because suppose I go back to my problem of explaining the eye; it would be no kind of answer to say "oh, well the eye was always there", it would still be something that requires explanation in the sense that anything statistically improbable does. So I don't think you can't get away with it with an eye, and I don't really see why you can get away with it with God." [21:14]

And just a few minutes later:

“Everybody agrees intuitively that the eye is far too improbable to have suddenly jumped into existence, and I want to say the same about God, and you don't and I don't understand why not...”

An eternal, supernatural God doesn't make sense to Dawkins, because for him, everything must be explained naturally. This can be seen by his insistence on comparing God with an eye: He requires the same kind of (scientific) explanation for God that he requires for an eye. He sums up this belief quite succinctly when he states:

“Any entity, any being, capable of designing a universe, or an eye, or a knee, would have to be the kind of entity which would be statistically improbable in the same kind of way as the eye is.” (emphasis mine)

This is a classic case of begging the question:

1) It's very improbable for natural causes to give rise to a being capable of creating the universe.
2) Therefore, God does not exist.

Dawkins' implicit assumption is that any god must exist within nature. He then bases the rest of his argument on this assumption. This is circular reasoning and complete nonsense. The Christian God exists outside of nature, and therefore it is nonsense to speak of the probability of His existence. The god that Dawkins argues against has nothing in common with the Christian God.

4. Divine Action: God as “The Great Delegator?”

In a previous post I mentioned one of the most significant challenges to my faith is the difficulty I experience in perceiving God's action in my life. This is a problem I still struggle with today, but McGrath provided me with some insights that help the situation considerably.

For instance, in the same interview I mention above, McGrath discusses this matter with Richard Dawkins. When discussing God's part in the September 11 terrorist attacks, McGrath states:

"Why didn't God just take the steering wheel [of the terrorist's plane] and change things? Well, that has been a constant issue down the ages as you well know. Christians understand God to have made the world in a certain way that is like a framework, but does not actually intervene. Of course the classic example of this the crucifixion. People were screaming at Jesus: 'If there is a God, why doesn't he just take you away from here?' That reminds us that we are dealing with a God that does not intervene directly in the world as we might hope." [47:40]

So God apparently prefers to delegate his action to creation itself; His activity in the world happens almost exclusively through natural causes. I didn't quite grasp this concept while I was initially dealing with the atheist proposition, but later it resonated with me because it fit perfectly with my experience. The concept of God as “The Great Delegator” sowed the seeds that eventually grew into an understanding of a God who is constantly creating through natural processes (evolution). This concept was simultaneously a defense against atheism and an introduction to the God who created evolution.

Unfortunately, this problem is not completely solved. A God who delegates His action to his creation can explain the lack of His obvious action in our world. But most Christians, including McGrath, claim that God does intervene in the world. In their discussion, McGrath states that if one child were spared in a devastating earthquake (while thousands of others perished) God could be seen as intervening to save the child. Dawkins points out the inconsistency of this position:

“What worries me is the inconsistency of what you just said when when I asked you whether God saved that one child... Sometimes you say that God doesn't intervene, (and you make a very eloquent case for why it would be a rather undignified thing to do as a God.) On the other hand you say He does intervene when He rescues one child from a earthquake.”

In a sense Dawkins is saying “Which one is it! Does he intervene or doesn't he?” I think Dawkins has a point here. Sure, God is free and able to intervene in one case and delegate in another, but for us to conveniently invoke God's intervention in this way is a pathetic case of theological cherry-picking. We really don't have a leg to stand on.

I think one possibility for obtaining a consistent picture of God's action centers around the extent of His involvement in the creation of natural laws. The word “design” has undesirable connotations in this context, but bear with me: What if God has so intricately designed the natural laws so as to bring about his purposes in both types of situations? What if God set up natural laws so as to save the child from the earthquake in what only seems like a miraculous way? This suggests a God in control of his creation in a completely different way; the laws of nature truly become the hand of God acting in our lives. It's hard for my finite mind to imagine, but I think this only amplifies the wonder of God and His creation.

So in conclusion: Atheistic ideas had dealt a serious blow to my faith, resulting in a seemingly perpetual state of doubt. With the help of the writings of people like Allister McGrath, I dealt with this problem by first realizing that both atheism and belief in God were faith positions. I decided to choose faith in God, regardless of my feelings about whether or not that faith was real. I saw that atheists like Richard Dawkins presupposed God's non-existence, and this could be seen in their main arguments for their position. Furthermore, my view of God was altered significantly with the observation that He seems to act almost exclusively through natural causes, and these causes could be so intricately designed so as to bring about events that are both mundane and incredible. This matched up well with my every-day experience. Finally, I was left with the resolution that my faith, whatever would become of it, would cease to be real unless it deliberately incorporated all the evidence from all credible sources.

In the next post, I'll continue discussing my transition phase by describing how I dealt with the remains of Young Earth Creationism that still lingered in the corners of my mind.

7. Dealing with Atheism

2008-10-27T19:51:00.000-04:00

This is the seventh in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

Dealing with Atheism

As I described in the last few posts, disembedding from my YEC roots was pretty thorough. I had learned a lot about evolution, and was completely convinced of its veracity, despite being taught as a youth that it was an idea invented by the Devil. I believed in an old earth, and and old universe. I was frustrated and confused because I had been taught (and still believed) that Genesis clearly stated that the universe was created in six days.

I had adopted old earth creationism as a sort of stop-gap, but this also crumbled under the weight of new scientific knowledge and devastating atheistic ideas. Suggestions by atheist writers had been devastating to my faith, and I couldn't shake the thought that all my religious beliefs were just a sad case of wishful thinking. Was I just hanging on to God because I would loose my friends, marriage and parent's love?

In Roxbaugh's description of paradigm change, the fourth stage is "Transition". My transition stage involved dealing with four different things: atheism, young earth creationism, the people in my life, and the science-faith conflict. I'll describe how I dealt with each of these in separate posts. Each of these happened simultaneously, but I will discuss them sequentially to avoid total confusion.

Dealing with Atheism

As I mentioned in my previous post, atheist suggestions (particularly those coming from a scientific perspective) had a significant affect on my languishing faith. One of the most outspoken atheists is of course, Richard Dawkins. Young Earth Creationists do a terribly poor job at defending against Dawkins' attacks, resorting to their typical tactics: quote-mining, red herrings, and ignoring Dawkins' actual points. As a result, I was surprised when I encountered the writings of Allister McGrath.

Two of McGrath's books, Doubting and The Dawkins Delusion, were extremely helpful in dealing with atheism. McGrath approaches Dawkins intelligently from a scientific perspective, acknowledging the value that scientific inquiry and reason can have to the conversation.

An even greater help was a debate between McGrath and Dawkins, which can be seen here. Watching this for the first time was rather poignant for me; I was overcome with relief and hope as I watched McGrath engage in an actual conversation instead of the usual circus I had constantly seen from YECs.

I'm going to discuss several main ideas that were extremely helpful in dealing with atheism. Some of these come from McGrath's body of work as a whole, some are more general. I'll give references where I can.

1. The faith of atheism

The main, over-arching problem with atheism, at least for me, is that it is just as much a matter of faith as is any religious faith. Evidence and reason are vital, of course, but at some point the usefulness of evidence and reason come to an end, and we are left with a choice. McGrath describes this in Doubting:

“[W]hen anyone starts making statements about the meaning of life, the existence of God or whether there is life after death, they are making statements of faith. You can't prove, either by rational argument or by scientific investigation, what life is all about. Whether you are Christian or atheist, you share the same problem.” Doubting, p.34

McGrath goes on to explain that doubt is not something that only Christians are vulnerable to: Atheists themselves are in the same situation. They doubt too.

It really came down to a choice: Would I have faith that God exists and wants a relationship with me, or would I choose to have faith that He does not exist? A third option, to continue to dwell in indecision, was also possible. But I had wallowed in indecision for so long. My soul was rotting away, and there wasn't much left.

At one point I read Phillip Yancey's book, Disappointment with God. While I wouldn't recommended it to anyone in a similar situation, it did make this point very clear to me. I had to choose. In his book, Yancey quotes Thomas Merton on the importance of this choice:

"How shall we begin to know who You are if we do not begin ourselves to be something of what You are?" asks Thomas Merton. "We receive enlightenment only in proportion as we give ourselves more and more completely to God by humble submission and love. We do not first see, then act: we act, then see. . . And that is why the man who waits to see clearly, before he will believe, never starts on the journey."

I definitely did not see clearly, and this is why I was finding it hard to act. God was not real to me, and previous efforts to change this had proven futile. But it was clear to me that I needed to make a choice, and act on that choice. At that time, this was all the farther I took this idea.

As of the moment I write this, I am still discovering what that all means, but I do know that Merton was right. He suggests that the more completely we give ourselves to God, the more real he will become to us. In a way, this is blatantly obvious. But it's also a strange way for God to convert new believers, isn't it? I think it shows just what kind of people with whom God wants a relationship. And it reveals a little bit of His character; he seems to want us to come to him on our own accord; He will not impress us or bully us into a relationship. In a way, He's kind of shy.

Note: I've discussed the subject of God's silence in a previous post.

2. Making sense of things

McGrath makes another suggestion that became quite important to me. He suggests that one of the basic goals of faith is to try to make the most sense of things; to try to explain our experiences and convictions in the most complete and internally consistent way possible.

This concept may sound strange, depending on ones religious background. It sure sounded foreign to me at first. I had been raised to be content with mysteries and unknowns, so burdening religious experience with the task of explaining “everything” sounded almost sacrilegious. But I think this is right at a very basic level. Deciding that God definitely doesn't exist would solve some of the problems I had been struggling with, but leaves others open and unsolved. (I do exist, after all...) Faith, (especially Christianity) attempts to answer more of these questions more consistently.

McGrath, (in his debate with Dawkins) when discussing whether faith is rational, says:

"Evidence takes us thus far, but then when it comes to deciding between a number of competing explanations, it is extremely difficult to have an evidence driven argument for those final stages. I believe faith is rational in the sense that it tries to make the best possible sense of things. But in the end it has to move beyond that, saying: Even though we believe this is the best way of making sense of things, we can't actually prove this is the case.” (at 4:58)

So an element of faith is the process of dealing with the evidence, and trying to make sense of it all. This appealed to me, since the religion I grew up with had completely ignored (intentionally or not) a lot of the evidence. I was at a point where any faith I chose to act upon must include (and integrate) all the evidence. ALL the evidence.

These are just a couple of the main ideas that helped me deal with atheism. In the next post I'll discuss two final ideas that helped increase my doubts about the faith of atheism, and enabled me to make a choice to pursue a faith that incorporates all the evidence.

6. Four Tough Problems

2008-10-20T20:44:00.000-04:00

This is the sixth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

Four Tough Problems

In the previous post I described how my faith lost the battle with science and atheism. The dichotomy had been set up and reinforced since I was a child: Either my faith is real, or evolution is real. I was taught evolution was evil, and when I discovered that it was probably true, my faith went up in smoke.

I'd like to mention a few of the most significant problems that I struggled with in this period of my transition.

The Anthropic Principle

In my first post on this disembedding phase, I described how a large part of my confidence in old earth creationism came from the incredible amount of fine tuning evident in the universe. As I described, this ended up being a significant chink in my armor.

The anthropic principle (when adopted by creationists) states that the properties of the universe appear to be fine-tuned by God to be perfectly suited to support life. This argument is actually quite stunning. There are hundreds of physical constants and properties that, if changed only slightly, would not allow life to exist. God custom made our universe for us! Case closed, right?

Not really. The ironic fact is that the anthropic principle is actually the most easily dismissed argument for God. It's really quite simple: With all the millions of galaxies, stars, and planets in the universe, if life is going to arise, it will happen on the planet with the right conditions, orbiting at the correct distance from its star, in the galaxy with the right conditions for life to arise. In short, we are here because the conditions are right for us to be here. As Stephen Hawking said in A Brief History of Time:

"Why is the universe the way we see it? The answer is simple: If it had been different, we would not be here."

The Demystification of the Universe

Scientific explanations can take the wonder out of God's creation. A sunset can loose some of its splendor when one learns that it is due to particles in the air. It's easy to see why science has become the enemy of many Christians: God seemingly has less to do when he is not painting sunsets. [Pardon my sarcasm]

In the 1600s, while Kepler was developing his laws of motion, the motion of the planets around the sun was explained by angels beating their wings in toward the sun. Today, we don't need to invoke spiritual beings to explain many of the phenomena we experience.

In the words of Stephen Weinberg, in Dreams of a Final Theory:

"Once nature seemed inexplicable without a nymph in every brook and a dryad in every tree. Even as late as the nineteenth century the design of plants and animals was regarded as visible evidence of a creator... Today, for real mystery, one has to look to cosmology and elementary particle physics. For those who see no conflict between science and religion, the retreat of religion from the ground occupied by science is nearly complete."

Or, in the words of Stephen J. Gould:

“The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.”

Every time I learned something new about the universe, my faith became smaller. This is predictable, for when science is painted as the enemy of faith, new and exciting information about our world is credited to Satan, and against God.

Belief & Wishful Thinking

This third issue is a little more personal. As I said in my last post, I had always struggled with my faith, it hadn't felt real to me since high school, and that seemed like ancient history. At one point, I remember sitting in a Sunday School class at my church where our pastor asked the question: “Why do you believe in God?” One by one, each and every person who answered said something equivalent to “I believe in God because I have a relationship with Him.” I had never had a relationship with God.

I was raised in a Bible church with a strong Calvinistic theology, so I was familiar with the teaching that God chooses those whom He wants to be his “elect”, i.e. whom He wants to save. This teaching says that no one is able to believe in Him unless God himself gives them the ability to believe. The thought had come to my mind many times: Is is possible that I am simply not elected by God? Does He simply not want me? Could belief be something that I am just not capable of? I surely wanted to believe, but was finding it harder and harder to do so. I repeatedly begged God to give me faith. When it didn't come, Weinberg's words in Dreams of a Final Theory rang loud and clear:

“The decision to believe or not is not entirely in our hands. I might be happier if I thought I were descended from the emperors of China, but no effort of will on my part can make me believe it, any more than I can will my heart to stop beating.”

Richard Dawkins echoed this thought in The God Delusion when discussing the claim by Christians that we just need to “Believe in Jesus” to be saved. He responded to this by saying “What if I don't believe? Does God want a bunch of fakers?” [a paraphrase]

It seemed like my faith came down to a simple case of wishful thinking. I had a lot to lose: Most of my good friends were from our church, and while I'm sure they would still love me as an atheist, it surely would ruin many relationships. My family would be devastated, and who knew if my marriage would survive. Not to mention the promise of life after death! I certainly had an abundance of reasons to continue “believing” even if I was a faker.

Weinberg captured this thought in the single most devastating passage of any I have read:

“Unlike science, religious experience can suggest a meaning for our lives, a part for us to play in a great cosmic drama of sin and redemption, and it holds out to us a promise of some continuation after death. For just these reasons, the lessons of religious experience seem to me indelibly marked with the stamp of wishful thinking.”

Divine Action

The final issue I'll discuss is the problem of divine action. Christianity teaches that God is intimately involved in our lives, from moment to moment. This is one of the reasons prayer is important, since it can affect the course of our lives.

My problem was that I did not see this action in the world. Do not get me wrong! I had (and have) been blessed in so many awesome ways; My wife is incredible and custom made for me, my closest friends are truly gifts from God, and my family was just starting to grow with the birth of my daughter. The problem was that I could usually see the cause and effect relationships that lead up to God's supposed action. The world looked as if God wasn't doing anything. Anything anyone claimed to be “of God” or an answer to prayer was easily explainable by its natural causes. This is okay, if God is said to act only through nature, but it seemed incompatible with a God who does specific things; a God who is intimately involved with our lives.

So, these are just a few of the issues and ideas I struggled with toward the end of my disembedding phase. By this point, young earth creationism was gone. My faith was all but gone. Disembedding was complete.

The next phase in Roxburgh's description of paradigm change is transition. In the next post, I'll discuss how I tried to make sense of everything I've discussed so far. First, I'll talk about what happened when I shared my struggle with those close to me, and then I'll share my experience as I tried to reconcile my faith and scientific knowledge.

5. A Bit of Light Reading

2008-10-06T21:44:00.000-04:00

This is the fifth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

A Bit of Light Reading

In the process of paradigm change, the third phase (according to Roxburgh) is disembedding. He describes this phase as:

"...when we begin to feel that the current system is insupportable and we begin to disconnect from it - like Dorothy [in The Wizard of Oz] being carried away from Kansas by a tornado."

As I described in the last post, my disembedding process began by shedding my long-held beliefs in a young universe/earth in favor of old earth creationism. This included extensive reading of Hugh Ross' books which left me with a significant interest in cosmology and theoretical physics. I began to read books on these subjects and was fascinated by this new window in to the world.

Bill Bryson's book A Short History of Nearly Everything really kicked things off for me. It was an incredible description of the unfolding of the universe, from the very beginning to this very moment. It gave me an appreciation for the process of science, and helped me understand not only what science says about the history and operation of the universe, but how we figured this stuff out. It helped to whet my appetite for more.

Stephen Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell was next. I was awed by his description of the beginnings of the universe and the nature of time. Brain-bending concepts like supergravity, supersymmetry, p-branes and imaginary time were fun to tackle and I was surprised at Hawking's ability to explain these complex ideas so accessibly.

Richard Feynman and Ralph Leighton's Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! made me want to become a theoretical physicist. Its informal character stood in stark contrast to Hawking's books, but Feynman made the process of pursuing authentic knowledge seem so interesting and important. This, along with another book, Feynman's Rainbow, helped me understand that one can make profound advances in science without leaving ones desk.

I also read a bit more on evolution: Richard Dawkins' spectacularly written story, The Ancestor's Tale traces our ancestry from the present to the past, in an incredibly compelling survey of the theory of common descent. Also, Stephen J. Gould's essays in Evolution and Extinction were vital in understanding some of the nuances of natural selection, speciation and punctuated equilibrium.

Steven Weinberg's Dreams of a Final Theory blew my mind. Half-way through I was ready to pack my bags and head back to grad-school to become a particle physicist. I loved the idea that it might be possible to finally join the worlds of quantum physics (which I had studied in grad school) with cosmology (in which I was beginning to dip my toes) into one complete theory of everything.

Okay, I'm leaving something out. All this exploration of ideas that were previously deemed outright wrong across the board had brought me to the conclusion that I had been duped. The wool had been pulled over my eyes. I now saw that the universe was utterly ancient, and it was fascinating. This previously forbidden territory had opened up countless avenues of exploration, and each one I ventured down turned out to be more exciting and compelling than the next. But there was a profound and dire problem that I had yet to face: I had been taught that all of this was a lie; each exciting detail was in some way a deception perpetrated by Satan. Either the entire picture of the universe that had been painted for me was false in every detail, or my faith in God was a total sham. These two armies had become firmly entrenched in my mind, and it was only a matter of time before the battle would begin.

It didn't turn out to be much of a battle. My faith didn't put up much of a fight.

The first significant blow to my faith came from the final chapter of Weinberg's Dreams of a Final Theory entitled What About God?. In it, he discusses the implications of the search for a theory to describe everything on the existence of God; generally answering the question of whether the final theory will say anything about God, or even prove or disprove His existence. I'll discuss specific ideas in my next post, but I remember spending my lunch hour in the parking lot at my work, devastated by the feeling that my faith was gone. I remember talking myself through the steps that would be required to break the news to my friends and family. It wasn't pretty.

Well, feelings come and go, and apparently so does faith. I regained my composure, walked back into work, and proceeded to live my life. I continued to go to church with my wife, and existed in a state of denial for a while.

I should note that faith had never worked very well for me. I had never developed much of a relationship with God. My personal Bible reading and prayer time had always been boring and seemed pointless. It's easy to see why the battle was almost over before it began.

Curiosity made me pick up The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. [You should be hitting your forehead with your palm right about now...] Although Dawkins' tone was quite off-putting and condescending, I still got his message: I was raised by Christian parents, so I was a Christian. I want God to exist to make myself feel better about death. My faith is wishful thinking, nothing more.

At about the same time I read Bertrand Russell's Religion & Science and Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things. Both reinforced the conclusion I was quickly reaching: My faith was a sham. I was a fake. Faith had never worked for me because it wasn't true! I knew science was right, and Christianity was wrong. Evolution made sense; I saw it everywhere I looked. I was forced to choose between science and God. Science seemed so real. God seemed so fake.

In my next post, I'll finish describing the disembedding phase of my transition from YEC to evolutionist. I'll discuss a few of the specific problems that really bothered me in the reading I described above, especially those which became significant in the later phases of this transition.

4: To Old Earth Creationism via Clark's Gully

2008-09-27T01:43:00.000-04:00

This is the fourth in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

To Old Earth Creationism (via Clark's Gully)

Roxburgh describes the third phase of paradigm change, disembedding, as:

"...when we begin to feel that the current system is insupportable and we begin to disconnect from it - like Dorothy [in The Wizard of Oz] being carried away from Kansas by a tornado."

As I described in the last post, my confidence in Young Earth Creationism took a huge hit when I heard creationist Kent Hovind make a fool of himself in a radio debate with evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci. This bothered me considerably, and was enough to overpower my comfortable ignorance and begin looking into the evidence for creationism.

A more profound effect of the rupture of these long-held beliefs was a heightened interest in the world around me. The new possibility of great age was enough to turn an ordinary rock from boring into fascinating.

My wife and I both grew up in Michigan, and we frequently travel between upstate New York and western Michigan. Each trip brings us over the Niagara Escarpment, a raised ridge that is prominent along the QEW expressway in Ontario. The Niagara Falls is also along our travel route, a feature which occurs where the Niagara river flows over the escarpment.

YECs believe that all the geological features of the earth came about as a result of Noah's flood, a theory which they call "flood geology". That had always seemed a little incredible to me: How could this massive step in the earth's crust be selectively carved or deposited by a big flood? How would that same flood deposit the layers into which the escarpment is carved? Even so, I had never had a reason to question these claims.

The new discontinuity in my YEC beliefs prompted me to look up the geological explanation for the Niagara Escarpment. I just couldn't drive up and down along it without knowing how it might have really been formed. I learned that it is the edge of an ancient sea; The remains of microscopic animals that lived in this sea had formed a layer of hard limestone, which has since eroded more slowly than the surrounding rock. Now that made a whole lot more sense. And it was pretty neat.

Also at this time, I had begun to take frequent hiking trips to the gullys that pepper the slopes of the finger lakes region of upstate New York. My favorite was a gully on the south side of Canandaigua lake called Clark's Gully. This is an incredible place. From an unmarked trail, a short 5-minute hike over huge boulders is rewarded with a view up a modest 30-foot waterfall. The sides of the gully rise sharply on both sides, cutting off access to all but the most intrepid. Those willing to climb up the slippery waterfall, or take the "long way" and trek up the steep slope around the gully are rewarded with an incredible array of features; Steep, ribbed cliffs line each side, while huge mossy boulders are placed in strategic positions as if by an interior designer. I know it sounds cheesy, but I left a piece of myself in that gully, and I think that piece may just be fully YEC.

The discovery of this new and exciting worldview (at least geologically speaking) prompted me to look into the next piece of the puzzle: The Big Bang. Whole volumes are written about the evidence for the Big Bang, so this is not the place to regurgitate this information. In short, I was astonished. The evidence is so complete, so compelling, that I became embarrassed for ever believing it was incorrect. I felt lucky that I hadn't shared my anti-Big-Bang beliefs with many of my non-church friends.

While I was learning about the Big Bang, I made another significant discovery: Other Christians exist that believe the universe is old, and that the Big Bang really happened. This is one of those things that I look back on and think: "Well, duh, of course!" But this disconnect with reality is a result of my history; I was taught a single (YEC) viewpoint as a child, and taught that it was the only correct belief, and that anything different (evolution, old earth) is evil and from Satan. Coupled with an overall disinterest in all things spiritual during my college years, I had never encountered another Christian who believed anything other than a recent creation 6000 years ago. This is why the discovery of old earth creationism was a surprise to me.

Hugh Ross is the most outspoken proponent of old earth creationism. I devoured his books: The Fingerprint of God, The Creator and the Cosmos, Creation and Time and Beyond the Cosmos. Ross describes a set of beliefs that acknowledges the validity of both science and religion, including the ancient age of the universe as well as the validity of the Genesis creation account. Typically, this approach inserts large amounts of time in the days of creation in Genesis 1, and proposes a parallel between the things that were created during the seven days of creation and the scientific description of the history of the earth. Evolution is generally denied in favor of "progressive creation" which suggests that God created via fiat miracle at various points in the history of life on earth.

Another aspect of this process that I must mention is this: Old earth creationists are very fond of listing scientific facts that point to an incredible fine-tuning of the universe and solar system to support life. This concept, called the anthropic principle, describes how properties of the cosmos, universe, solar system, earth, and biology are perfectly "tuned" to support life. This interesting and remarkable fact was key in bolstering my confidence, but as I will describe in the next post, ended up being a key chink in my armor in the following few months.

So, as Roxburgh describes, the third phase in the process of paradigm change, disembedding, involves disconnecting from the current system which has failed. As I've described above, the first part of this disembedding process involved embracing old earth creationism. This was basically the same YEC beliefs, with an acceptance of the theory and process of science, the old age of the universe and earth, and a modest change in the interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis. This might seem small, but I felt light-years away from were I was just months before.

But my disembedding process wasn't over. In the next post, I'll try to describe how my new interest in cosmology would lead me to the brink of full-blown atheism.

3: Enter Kent Hovind

2008-09-12T02:33:00.000-04:00

This is the third in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

Discontinuity - Enter Kent Hovind

Discontinuity came very slowly. It began when I took a zoology course at Grand Rapids Community College. It didn't shake my belief in YEC in any way, it simply began to help me understand what evolution is, what it claims to explain, and why it makes sense. I remember coming home one night and telling my Dad that I was starting to see how someone could think that it made sense. He continued to wonder out loud "How anyone could actually believe that stuff?"

So, my scientific knowledge updated with a basic understanding of evolution, I finished college (electrical engineering) and grad school (materials science) without significant change in my faith; mainly because my faith had a very small place in my life. During this time, my god was not the creator of the universe, but a creator of music... I lived and breathed The Dave Matthews Band. You could delete this section of my life without effect. It's sad, but true.

When the music was over, I found myself at a Baptist church, becoming challenged to either make my faith a real part of my life, or stop pretending. I decided to do the former; to embrace Jesus as my savior. But I was again surrounded by people who believed that evolution wasn't true.

At one point, the evidence for an old earth came up in a Sunday School class I was attending. An elderly man, one I had come to know well in recent months, made the statement: "What's wrong with that? Weren't there rings on the trees in the garden of Eden?" This was surprising to me. This was the first time I had encountered a Christian who admitted that the earth might at least look old. As I look back on it, I am shocked that it took that long. In any case, the door was open to at least consider the characteristics of the earth that made it look older than 10,000 years.

In the following months, I read a considerable amount of Creationist writings, by people like Ken Ham and Johnathan Sarfatti. My intention was to build my knowledge and confidence in my faith; to equip myself to defend my belief in creation. The result of all this reading, however, was a growing uneasiness.

I was troubled by the seemingly complete lack of understanding of evolution. This is not the place for a discussion of the failures of YEC, but their statements repeatedly show either a complete incompetence in all things scientific, or an incredible lack of integrity. I won't make this judgement, but both options are detrimental to the YEC crusade to disprove evolution.

A typical YEC tactic is to present a barrage of statistics and "proofs" that the earth is young, and that evolution cannot occur. In my effort to evaluate and understand this viewpoint, I decided that I needed a better understanding of evolution to more accurately decide who was right. I decided to use my 45-minute commute to "take" an audio course titled "Darwin, Darwinism, and the Modern World" by Chandak Sengoopta. This helped greatly in gaining a correct understanding of evolution, but increased my uneasiness with the YEC arguments.

At about this time, I found on the internet a radio debate between Kent Hovind (a YEC), and Massimo Pigliucci (an evolutionary biologist). I was excited to hear the two viewpoints presented side-by-side, and was anxious to see a Christian (and a professional evolution "debunker" at that) deal with the evolution problem head-on. I completely expected for the Creationist to give compelling reasons why evolution should be doubted, and to show that Creation, as laid out in Genesis, was the most viable alternative.

If you listen to the debate, you will be able to predict what happened. Pigliucci presents an easily understandable, well-reasoned explanation of evolution, and Hovind presents an air-tight case for his own incompetence. Hovind made statements that I knew anyone who even attempted to understand evolution would not make. Statements like:

The dogs change to get big dogs or little dogs, but they don't change into cows or bananas or pine trees.

and

You think humans and dogs came from a rock.

Or when asked what kind of evidence would convince him of evolution:

I want to see a frog come from a pig.

Hovind made statements that show that he is either intentionally deceptive, or incredibly dense and stupid. I'll avoid making that determination, but I wanted nothing of either alternative. As I listened, I couldn't believe the shame and embarrassment I felt for believing the same things as Hovind. My expectations of Hovind slam-dunking evolution had gone down in flames. I was ashamed and disappointed.

This is where the second phase of paradigm change reached its climax. The old system wasn't working so well, and it scared me to death.

Now, to be fair, Kent Hovind is the bottom of the barrel. Other YEC proponents like Ken Ham and Johnathan Sarfatti do not act like children, and at least they pay their taxes. As I said before, I was familiar with these guys, and my entire YEC worldview did not crumble with Hovind's incompetence. But I realized that I couldn't take their claims at face value. I at least needed to look into their claims to make sure they were true.

So that's what I did. What happened, in short, is incredible [heavy sarcasm]: I actually checked these claims. It's embarrassing, I know, but this was the first time that I actually looked at the claims of YECs to determine if they were true. I was disappointed.

I have to admit that this was also my first time I had actually seen a lot of the evidence for creationism. Frankly, up until that point, I didn't really have a reason to read any creationist literature. I was content that someone, somewhere had some reason for me to keep believing what I had been taught since I was a child.

I've decided not to discuss specific creationist evidence in this post. I'm sure I'll discuss this in future blog posts, but I don't think that proving the inadequacy of the YEC position is necessary, and would only prolong this lengthy post.

So, this is how discontinuity set in, in this retrospective look at my paradigm change from creationist to evolutionist. My next post will continue from this point, into the next phase of Roxburg's description of paradigm change: Disembedding.

"Evolution... is the dumbest idea in the history of humanity" -Kent Hovind

2: YEC, Born and Raised

2008-08-31T15:06:00.000-04:00

This is the second in a series of posts describing my transition from young earth creationist to theistic evolutionist. In the first post, I described how Alan Roxburgh's 5-phase description of paradigm change describes this transition well, and I have been using his framework to shape this discussion. See the introduction for a list of all the posts in this series.

YEC, Born and Raised

This is the step in which I have spent the majority of my life. As a child, I was taught to believe that the earth, moon, and stars are all about 6000 to 10,000 years old. My Dad, a young earth creationist, (YEC) taught me that all the features of the earth, the continents, oceans, mountains and canyons were formed during the flood described in Genesis 6-9. Now, I won't attempt to describe all of the beliefs of YECs, but the core of their beliefs is that, as described by a literalist interpretation of Genesis 1 & 2, God created the universe in six 24-hour days. In the following chapters of Genesis and the rest of the Torah, there is a continuous narrative, including an unbroken genealogical record that can be used to calculate the age of the universe.

In addition to these beliefs, I was taught that evolution is false; an evil idea that scientists invented and continue to push in order to eliminate God from a complete description of the universe. Evolution was a tool of atheism, the two went hand-in-hand. I was also taught that evolution is scientifically unsupportable, and that everything that evolution attempts to explain can be better explained by YEC theories.

When I was about 10 years old, my Dad took me to a "creation conference" at a local Christian Reformed church in my hometown of Caledonia, MI. The conference, run by the Institute for Creation Research, consisted of talks and seminars with the aim of equipping the attendees to defend their beliefs against the onslaught of evolutionists. Book and video sales were heavily promoted. Ironically, the huge mass of pamphlets, VHS tapes, and vast collection of YEC books is the only specific thing I remember from the conference.

In high school, my youth group leader at Whitneyville Bible Church supplied the teens of our church with t-shirts to wear to school. I remember buying two which said

"I believe in the big bang theory: God spoke and BANG! It happened."

and

"Over millions of years, monkeys evolved slowly into human beings. NOT!"

My high school never taught about evolution. In fact, I don't believe I ever heard the word in any high school class. (I come from a very dutch, very conservative region of western Michigan.) Therefore, it was easy for phase 1 to persist until my sophomore year of college.

My next post will describe the next phase of my transition from creationist to evolutionist: Discontinuity.

1. Paradigm Change: Introduction

2008-08-30T00:36:00.000-04:00

One of the most significant elements in the story of my faith was my transition from young earth creationist (YEC) to theistic evolutionist. I went from believing that the earth is about 10,000 years old to a complete acceptance of the current scientific consensus on the origin and development of life on earth.

This was not an easy process. It is a very long story. I recently read a description of this process that gives a very accurate framework of this journey. In the introduction to A New Kind of Christian, Brian McLaren presents Alan Roxburgh's teaching on the process of paradigm change. Although it was included in the book to describe the transition from the modern to postmodern mindset, as I read it, I was shocked at how well it described my change from YEC to theistic evolutionist.

Alan Roxburgh, a colleague in the Terranova Project (an initiative to explore how Christian faith will reconfigure in the postmodern matrix), teaches people that this painful process of letting go of life as we have known it and embracing a new life on new terms (the process of paradigm change) typically follows five phases:

1. Stability, when life is fine, current theories explain everything adequately, and questions are few—perhaps like Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz living happily in Kansas

2. Discontinuity, when the old system seems to be working less well—reflected socially in Dorothy’s conflict with her witchy neighbor, psychologically in her ambivalent desire to run away from home, and physically in the approaching thunderstorm

3. Disembedding, when we begin feeling that the current system is insupportable and we begin to disconnect from it—like Dorothy being carried away from Kansas by the tornado

4. Transition, when we haven’t fully left the old world and we haven’t fully entered the new world—like Dorothy newly arrived in Oz, trying to get her bearings

5. Reformation, when we decide to make a go of it in the new world we have entered—like Dorothy setting out on her journey to see the wizard, invigorated with new hope and passion

Of course, while we are going through an experience, we are rarely able to say to ourselves: "Oh, I just entered step 2 of 5." In the midst of paradigm change, our final state seems quite uncertain, and no "process" can be seen. Hence, I can only see retrospectively that the description above is strikingly accurate. It describes very well my change from creationist to theistic evolutionist.

I plan to use the next several posts to describe my journey through this paradigm change. Here are links to all the posts in this series:

1. Paradigm Change: Introduction (this post)

Phase 1: Stability:

2. YEC, Born and Raised

Phase 2: Discontinuity

3. Enter Kent Hovind

Phase 3: Disembedding

4. To Old Earth Creationism (via Clark's Gully)

5. A Bit of Light Reading

6. Four Tough Problems

Phase 4: Transition

7. Dealing with Atheism

8. Dealing with Atheism, Continued...

9. Dealing with Young Earth Creationism
10. Dealing with Young Earth Creationism. Continued...
11. Dealing with Genesis

To be continued..

A Response to "Why I Am Not a Christian" (4/4) - Christianity Predicts a Different Universe

2008-07-20T21:18:00.000-04:00

This is the last post in a series of four with the intention of discussing an essay by Richard Carrier entitled Why I Am Not a Christian. In his essay, he presents four reasons why he does not believe in the Christian God. I'll dedicate one post to each of these arguments. Each post discusses one of his four main points:
#1: God Is Silent
#2: God Is Inert
#3: The Evidence Is Inadequate
#4: Christianity Predicts a Different Universe

The fourth reason Carrier says he is not a Christian is that Christianity predicts a very different universe from what we actually observe. He suggests that the universe that we inhabit looks exactly like a universe should look if there were no god.

Right out of the gate, Carrier reveals one of his presuppositions that I think leads to this conclusion:

For a loving God who wanted to create a universe solely to provide a home for human beings, and to bring his plan of salvation to fruition, would never have invented this universe, but something quite different.

Carrier's starting assumption is that of God's purpose for creating the universe - that God created it solely to provide a place for us to live, and to bring about His "plan of salvation". As I've described in the first three posts on this topic, this is short-sighted. Of course, this universe was created to provide us a place to live, and He is in fact carrying out his plan of redemption. But these are not His only (or even primary) objectives. Carrier leaves out the key ingredient: free will.

If you haven't yet read my first post dealing with Carrier's essay, you should do so before continuing. It deals with the apparent fact that God values our free choice enough to allow us to choose to reject Him; to choose to spend eternity separated from Him.

I have chosen to use the words of Kenneth Miller to complete the rest of this post. He says it better than I could, anyway. I apologize for the long quote; if this bothers you, pretend they are my words. I believe every one of them.

Here are the last few paragraphs of his book, Finding Darwin's God, (with a few of my edits):

Science in general, and evolutionary science in particular... reveals a universe that is dynamic, flexible, and logically complete. It presents a vision of life that spreads across the planet with endless variety and intricate beauty. It suggests a world in which our material existence is not an impossible illusion propped up by magic, but the genuine article, a world in which things are exactly what they seem. A world in which we were formed, as the Creator once told us, from the dust of the earth itself.

It is often said that a Darwinian universe is one whose randomness cannot be reconciled with meaning. I disagree. A world truly without meaning would be one in which a deity pulled the string of every human puppet, indeed of every material particle. In such a world, physical and biological events would be carefully controlled, evil and suffering could be minimized, and the outcome of historical processes strictly regulated. All things would move toward the Creator's clear, distinct, established goals. Such control and predictability, however, comes at the price of independence. [This is the world Carrier says Christianity predicts, but...] Always in control, such a Creator would deny his creatures any real opportunity to know and worship him - authentic love requires freedom, not manipulation. Such freedom is best supplied by the open contingency of evolution.

If he so chose, the God whose presence is taught by most Western religions could have fashioned anything, ourselves included, ex nihilo, from his wish alone. In our childhood as a species, that might have been the only way in which we could imagine the fulfillment of a divine will. [This is why, as Carrier describes, early Christians (and todays Creationists) believed in ex nihilo creation.] But we've grown up, and something remarkable has happened: we have begun to understand the physical basis of life itself. If a string of constant miracles were needed for each turn of the cell cycle or each flicker of a cilium, the hand of God would be written directly into every living thing - his presence at the edge of the human sandbox would be unmistakable. Such findings might confirm our faith, but they would also undermine our independence. How could we fairly choose between God and man when the presence and the power of the divine so obviously and so literally controlled our every breath? Our freedom as his creatures requires a little space and integrity. In the material world, it requires self-sufficiency and consistency with the laws of nature.

Evolution is neither more nor less than the result of respecting the reality and consistency of the physical world over time. To fashion material beings with an independent physical existence, any Creator would have had to produce an independent material universe in which our evolution over time was a contingent possibility. A believer in the divine accepts that God's love and gift of freedom are genuine - so genuine that they include the power to choose evil and, if we wish, to freely send ourselves to Hell. Not all believers will accept the stark conditions of that bargain, but our freedom to act has to have a physical and biological basis. Evolution and its sister sciences of genetics and molecular biology provide that basis. In biological terms, evolution is the only way a Creator could have made us the creatures we are - free beings in a world of authentic and meaningful moral and spiritual choices.

Those who ask from science a final argument, an ultimate proof, an unassailable position from which the issue of God may be decided will always be disappointed. [Stephen Carrier included.] As a scientist I claim no new proofs, no revolutionary data, no stunning insight into nature that can tip the balance in one direction or another. But I do claim that to a believer, even in the most traditional sense, evolutionary biology is not at all the obstacle we often believe it to be. In many respects, evolution is the key to understanding our relationship with God.

-Kenneth Miller in Finding Darwin's God [pp. 285-291] (bold emphasis and bracketed text mine)

So it looks like the universe in which we find ourselves (the one described by the current scientific consensus) could be a necessary ingredient for God's plan to create beings free to choose to love him. What does that imply for the Creationist who rejects the scientific consensus of cosmology, biology, and geology? Must they also reject free will? Maybe not, but I have to agree with Miller, the Creationist's god is a weaker, marginalized version of the true Christian God.

A Response to "Why I Am Not a Christian" (3/4) - The Evidence is Inadequate

2008-07-13T21:32:00.000-04:00

This is the third post in a series of four with the intention of discussing an essay by Richard Carrier entitled Why I Am Not a Christian. In his essay, he presents four reasons why he does not believe in the Christian God. I'll dedicate one post to each of these arguments. Each post discusses one of his four main points:
#1: God Is Silent
#2: God Is Inert
#3: The Evidence Is Inadequate
#4: Christianity Predicts a Different Universe

The third reason Carrier says he is not a Christian is that the evidence for Christianity is inadequate. A scientist through and through, Carrier uses the scientific method (or a form of it) to investigate the claims of Christianity. The basic argument takes the following form:

Christianity claims A.
If A is true, we would expect to observe B.
We do not observe B, we observe C.
Over and over again, Christianity's claims fail this test.
Therefore, Christianity is false.

He doesn't stop there; he also presents a parallel argument:

Naturalism claims X.

If X is true, we would expect to observe Y.

We do observe Y.
Over and over again, Naturalism's clams pass this test.

Therefore, Naturalism is true.

It's important to note that this approach is exactly how science studies something that is not directly observable: If the theory is true, each piece of evidence checks and supports the theory. The data is cumulative; no single piece proves the theory, but as each piece is added, predictions can be made about what further evidence should show… Every time the theory makes a correct prediction, (and does not make incorrect predictions) the more confident we are that the theory is correct.

In my previous posts on this essay, I have quoted snippets of his essay to present his argument in his own words. I'm not going to do that this time, for one simple reason: I think he is right.

Let me make myself clear; I think there is very little evidence for the existence of God from a scientific perspective. Anyone who seeks to determine the existence of God by looking for "evidence" will probably come up empty, over and over and over again.

The problem is, a large portion of Christians insist on subjecting their religions beliefs to this type of scientific scrutiny. This is most striking in the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. I'll save discussion of ID for a future post, but the topic at hand brings an important issue to the surface:

Science and religion are separate ways of knowing; they address issues in separate domains. Therefore they can only provide answers to questions from within their prospective domains. In other words, science and religion provide answers to different types of questions.

The insistence that we must use science to address the claims of religion (and vice versa) is an overstepping of the boundaries of both ways of knowing. The late biologist Stephen J. Gould was a strong proponent of this separation, saying in his paper Nonoverlapping Magisteria:

"The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise—science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives. The attainment of wisdom in a full life requires extensive attention to both domains—for a great book tells us that the truth can make us free and that we will live in optimal harmony with our fellows when we learn to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly."

Although Gould was an agnostic, he understood the limits of his science. Unfortunately, it seems that people outside Christianity understand the proper roles of these two ways of acquiring knowledge better than Christians themselves. Don't get me wrong; science and religion will always provide clarity and inspiration across the border in both directions. In reality, the border is not easily defined, and there is a portion of inquiry which requires input from both science and religion. The majority of questions, however, lie squarely within one of these two domains.

Do Christians really need science to legitimize their faith? Do you really want to hand over your cherished beliefs to the authority and scrutiny of science?

The reality is that the nature of science is intrinsically atheistic. It operates under the assumption that the physical is all that exists, regardless of whether or not the scientists involved believe in the supernatural. This is by necessity because science can only study reproducible phenomena. God's will and action are inherently unpredictable, and therefore inaccessible by scientific inquiry.

Robert T. Pennock in a great paper on the subject, says it another way:

[A] characteristic of the supernatural... is that it is inherently mysterious to us. As natural beings our knowledge all comes via natural laws and processes. If we could apply natural knowledge to understand supernatural powers, then, by definition, they would not be supernatural. The lawful regularities of our experience do not apply to the supernatural world... The same point holds about divine beings--we cannot know what it is that they would or would not do in any given case. God works, they say, in mysterious ways.

If science shouldn't be used to defend the existence of God, what are we to do? How do we convince the world that they are in need of a savior? How do we convince them that Jesus is truly the Son of God?

I think Jesus gave us the answer in John while he was praying with his disciples:

"My prayer is not for them [the disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." John 17:20-21

Here Jesus prays for unity in his church, a church consisting of true believers; true followers of Him. Francis Schaeffer, in his book The Mark of the Christian, calls this "the final apologetic", explaining that according to John 13, to be one with God (and therefore show the world that Jesus is God) means to show love to other believers and also to non-believers:

In John 13 the point was that, if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he is not a Christian. [But in John 17] Jesus is stating something else which is much more cutting, much more profound: We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus' claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.

I have already written this post three different times, each ultimately ending up in my virtual trashcan. I just couldn't make sense of why, if there really is very little evidence of God's existence, do I still believe He exists? This morning in Sunday School, our teacher read the quote above from Schaeffer's book. It cut deep into my heart, and I remembered something I wrote in my journal several years ago, when I first wrestled with atheism. I was just coming out of the lowest point of my life, and I wrote these words:

"The love of these people [my Christian friends] is the only reason I still have any faith left at all."

The love I felt from the people close to me was the only thing I had left; it was the rope that kept me from falling headlong down that cliff. It really is the final apologetic.

Should we have answers for the issues Carrier brings up in his essay? Of course. But this should not be our primary defense. Instead, our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ will show the world that there really is something different, something real about our faith. It will show that Jesus really is the Son of God.

Schaeffer, in another one of his books, summarizes this entire post:

“[W]ithout true Christians loving one another, Christ says the world cannot be expected to listen, even when we give proper answers. Let us be careful, indeed, to spend a lifetime studying to give honest answers. For years the orthodox, evangelical church has done this very poorly. So it is well to spend time learning to answer the questions of men who are about us. But after we have done our best to communicate to a lost world, still we must never forget that the final apologetic which Jesus gives is the observable love of true Christians for true Christians.” Francis Schaffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster, pp. 164-165