I had the chance today to do a radio spot on the resurrection of Jesus, its place in church history and in human history. I shared the 'minimal facts' argument (of Gary Habermas) for the historicity of Christ's bodily rising from the dead, and discussed the variance (through history) of the degree to which the church engaged in such an annual commemoration. I was able to squeeze in some theology, some history, and even some philosophy.
This interview (which will serve as the mandatory public service announcement for these stations) is due to be aired Sunday morning on five radio stations in Bend (Oregon). On the four FM stations (95.1, 104.1, 105.7, and 96.9), it will be heard from 7:30 to 8:00, and on the AM station (1340) it will air from 9:00 to 9:30.
Check it out (as you're getting ready to go to church to celebrate this most significant event in cosmic history and to worship its Author).
Friday, April 6, 2012
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Creation Care Summit
I'm excited about an upcoming gathering in Portland that will bring together Christians committed to following their Lord in His mandates to be good stewards of His creation. It's called the Creation Care Summit, and will take place on Saturday, April 21 at the Tigard (Oregon) campus of George Fox Evangelical Seminary. Here's a blurb from the Summit's webpage...
Wilderness International, Inc. and George Fox Evangelical Seminary are partnering to provide a forum for evangelical Christians interested in environmental stewardship to explore our Biblical call to care for Creation. Come join us for a time of learning, sharing, and encouragement. Hear from local authors, experts and practitioners on the current issues related to the care of God’s creation from a Christian worldview. Network to build partnerships. Visit the resource table area to gain additional information. Find out how you can get involved in existing Creation Care efforts or be inspired to initiate your own!You can go here to learn more and to register. I'll be there; I hope you'll join us!
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
The Crux of Cosmic History
I spoke at my home church, Antioch (of Bend, Oregon) this past Sunday. It's a brief sermon (about 25 minutes) on the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth not only in human history but in all of cosmic history. Have a watch/listen!
Rick Gerhardt :: The Crux of Cosmic History from Antioch Church on Vimeo.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Justice Conference
Here's a new promo vimeo for the upcoming (2nd annual) Justice Conference in Portland, Oregon, February 24-25. I'll be speaking at the pre-conference on Friday on the topic "Justice and the Environment: A Worldview Perspective."
What is Justice? from The Justice Conference on Vimeo.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Response to Dinosaur Comments
A few months ago, I posted here and on VIMEO a response to a question at church (during our Redux service) about the Bible and dinosaurs. On the Redux VIMEO page, I received two comments (from a Nate Tinner). Here's the first:
As for the "dinosaurs are indeed animals created with all the others," he seems to be misreading (he would say reading literally whereas I would say reading superficially) the relevant creation accounts. Genesis 1 does not portray all animals created at once (in a Narnian fashion) but rather carefully details a chronology of creative events. Moreover, that chronology--while specifically mentioning groups of modern animals--does not tell us even the chronology much less the timing of the creation of dinosaurs, and that for good reason. But perhaps here would be a good place to insert Nate's other comment:
That leviathan is "quite simply a dinosaur" is news to me, and to virtually every other Bible commentator today or at any time in church (or Jewish) history. The interpretation of leviathan as referring to dinosaurs is a very modern form of eisegesis, a reading into the Bible a meaning that is not found there. And the reason no Bible reader (prior to the late 1800's) would have been guilty of this hermeneutic faux pas is because prior to that time no reader would have even had a notion of 'dinosaur' to wrongly insert here. Of the 35 centuries since the Hebrew word for leviathan first appeared in what we call the book of Job, only people living in the last two of those centuries (and not even all people living in those two centuries) were aware of the existence of such creatures. Because (and I hate to tear down Nate's little fantasy world here, but) dinosaurs and humans never coexisted; all that humans know of dinosaurs is of their fossil remains.
So readers of Job throughout roughly 93% of the time since Job was written would have had a couple of legitimate options... either leviathan is a largely symbolic creature (the literalness of its description, after all, breaks down at some point) or it refers to the crocodile, an animal that terrorized the people of Old Testament times (as it does to this day). I prefer the latter option, but am not dogmatic about this. What ought to be clear, however, is that the reason that no Bible commentator until recently interpreted leviathan as simplistically as does Nate is because dinosaurs were neither an explicit part of the creation account nor a part of the reality of Job's intended readership.
Nate's other comments are easily addressed. He clearly didn't listen well. I did not refer to 14 'scholars,' but rather to 14 interpretations of Genesis 1 that are held or have been held by Christians committed to the authority and inspiration of Scripture. Nate's young-earth creationism is just one of these 14 views, and one of only two views that lead to a young creation. All of the other 12 allow for or mandate an understanding in line with the evidence from creation itself (of a universe and Earth billions of years old).
I am not an evolutionist at all. Having studied biology all my life, it is plain that evolution is not supported by the evidence. Indeed, I would go so far as saying that the only thing evolutionism has going for it is the straw man option that Nate seems to believe. That is, if the only other option (for explaining the diversity of life on Earth) is the idea that God created everything essentially as it is a few thousands years ago and over the course of a six-day period, then suddenly evolution's intractable evidential problems seem somewhat insignificant. Everything about this universe and Earth testifies to much greater age than a few thousand years, and there is not one half acre of this planet whose geology is explained by a global flood a few thousand years ago.
Fortunately, young-earth creationism of the sort to which Nate ascribes is not a part of true Christianity. This flawed interpretive scheme arose only in the 17th century, and should long ago have been discarded by any serious student of the Bible.
The reliable record of nature reveals a God so much bigger than the puny idol created by young-earth creationism. The true and living God who tells us that "The heavens [reliably] declare His glory" created a marvelous universe that has been unfolding and being prepared for His crowning creation--human beings--for billions of years. He has throughout that time (though not Himself confined by time of any sort) been interacting with that creation, creating new life forms millions of times, even fashioning many of them to participate in the forming of Earth as a suitable place for humankind, which He created as a single pair, Adam and Eve, about 40-60,000 years ago. The Bible is miraculously accurate in its description of creation, even anticipating by millenia the scientific discoveries of the 20th century--including the basic fundamentals of big-bang cosmology, the transcendent beginning (out of nothing) and ongoing expansion of the universe and the discoveries of modern genetics (that all living humans are descended from a single male and a single female from the region of the Middle East).
The great thing about biblical Christianity is that it provides the uniquely accurate portrayal of the world in which we actually live. It is not merely a cultural myth or an evidence-and-reason-free belief system. It is the true understanding of reality, and passes every test of reason and evidence.
Unfortunately, many like Nate are being taught a lot of nonsense about how to interpret the early pages of Scripture. And far too many young people have confused young-earth creationism with what the Bible really teaches. When they come face to face with the varied, independent, and overwhelming evidence and reasons contrary to a thousands-of-years-old universe and a global flood, many of them throw out Christianity rather than merely discarding these modern caricatures of Christianity.
And hence the need for blogs like this one and VIMEOs like the one to which Nate responded.
I Thessalonians 5:21.
I should think that adding up the years of Bible characters (given the extensive genealogies provided in Scripture) would give a moderately accurate creation date. Sounds pretty explicit to me. The dinosaur issue is really a no-brainer, if dinosaurs are indeed animals created with the all the others...In a previous post here, I tackled in depth the misconception among modern Christians about the Hebrew genealogies, and explained why Nate's claim here is naive and demonstrably false.
As for the "dinosaurs are indeed animals created with all the others," he seems to be misreading (he would say reading literally whereas I would say reading superficially) the relevant creation accounts. Genesis 1 does not portray all animals created at once (in a Narnian fashion) but rather carefully details a chronology of creative events. Moreover, that chronology--while specifically mentioning groups of modern animals--does not tell us even the chronology much less the timing of the creation of dinosaurs, and that for good reason. But perhaps here would be a good place to insert Nate's other comment:
And the Leviathan mentioned in the OT is quite simply a dinosaur (in the sense of "terrible lizard"), given its descriptions in Job (?and elsewhere?)...
I didn't really see that this guy even answered the question. He simply said the Bible doesn't teach about it (no scriptural support given, and his only argument implies that he is an evolutionist and the Bible can't speak to such a modern issue), despite the fact that a literal Genesis interpretation (I don't know or care who his 14 "scholars" are, Judaism has always aligned with a Young-Earth view as far as I know) speaks to the contrary on all points.
That leviathan is "quite simply a dinosaur" is news to me, and to virtually every other Bible commentator today or at any time in church (or Jewish) history. The interpretation of leviathan as referring to dinosaurs is a very modern form of eisegesis, a reading into the Bible a meaning that is not found there. And the reason no Bible reader (prior to the late 1800's) would have been guilty of this hermeneutic faux pas is because prior to that time no reader would have even had a notion of 'dinosaur' to wrongly insert here. Of the 35 centuries since the Hebrew word for leviathan first appeared in what we call the book of Job, only people living in the last two of those centuries (and not even all people living in those two centuries) were aware of the existence of such creatures. Because (and I hate to tear down Nate's little fantasy world here, but) dinosaurs and humans never coexisted; all that humans know of dinosaurs is of their fossil remains.
So readers of Job throughout roughly 93% of the time since Job was written would have had a couple of legitimate options... either leviathan is a largely symbolic creature (the literalness of its description, after all, breaks down at some point) or it refers to the crocodile, an animal that terrorized the people of Old Testament times (as it does to this day). I prefer the latter option, but am not dogmatic about this. What ought to be clear, however, is that the reason that no Bible commentator until recently interpreted leviathan as simplistically as does Nate is because dinosaurs were neither an explicit part of the creation account nor a part of the reality of Job's intended readership.
Nate's other comments are easily addressed. He clearly didn't listen well. I did not refer to 14 'scholars,' but rather to 14 interpretations of Genesis 1 that are held or have been held by Christians committed to the authority and inspiration of Scripture. Nate's young-earth creationism is just one of these 14 views, and one of only two views that lead to a young creation. All of the other 12 allow for or mandate an understanding in line with the evidence from creation itself (of a universe and Earth billions of years old).
I am not an evolutionist at all. Having studied biology all my life, it is plain that evolution is not supported by the evidence. Indeed, I would go so far as saying that the only thing evolutionism has going for it is the straw man option that Nate seems to believe. That is, if the only other option (for explaining the diversity of life on Earth) is the idea that God created everything essentially as it is a few thousands years ago and over the course of a six-day period, then suddenly evolution's intractable evidential problems seem somewhat insignificant. Everything about this universe and Earth testifies to much greater age than a few thousand years, and there is not one half acre of this planet whose geology is explained by a global flood a few thousand years ago.
Fortunately, young-earth creationism of the sort to which Nate ascribes is not a part of true Christianity. This flawed interpretive scheme arose only in the 17th century, and should long ago have been discarded by any serious student of the Bible.
The reliable record of nature reveals a God so much bigger than the puny idol created by young-earth creationism. The true and living God who tells us that "The heavens [reliably] declare His glory" created a marvelous universe that has been unfolding and being prepared for His crowning creation--human beings--for billions of years. He has throughout that time (though not Himself confined by time of any sort) been interacting with that creation, creating new life forms millions of times, even fashioning many of them to participate in the forming of Earth as a suitable place for humankind, which He created as a single pair, Adam and Eve, about 40-60,000 years ago. The Bible is miraculously accurate in its description of creation, even anticipating by millenia the scientific discoveries of the 20th century--including the basic fundamentals of big-bang cosmology, the transcendent beginning (out of nothing) and ongoing expansion of the universe and the discoveries of modern genetics (that all living humans are descended from a single male and a single female from the region of the Middle East).
The great thing about biblical Christianity is that it provides the uniquely accurate portrayal of the world in which we actually live. It is not merely a cultural myth or an evidence-and-reason-free belief system. It is the true understanding of reality, and passes every test of reason and evidence.
Unfortunately, many like Nate are being taught a lot of nonsense about how to interpret the early pages of Scripture. And far too many young people have confused young-earth creationism with what the Bible really teaches. When they come face to face with the varied, independent, and overwhelming evidence and reasons contrary to a thousands-of-years-old universe and a global flood, many of them throw out Christianity rather than merely discarding these modern caricatures of Christianity.
And hence the need for blogs like this one and VIMEOs like the one to which Nate responded.
I Thessalonians 5:21.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Harry Reasoner on Christmas
At a Christmas Eve service we attended, the pastor shared this writing by Harry Reasoner (of 60 Minutes) from 1973. In it, Reasoner suggested three possible ways of approaching Christmas:
One is cynically—as a time to make money or endorse the making of it.For all my readers who know firsthand that the Christmas story is true, have a Very Merry Christmas. And for those readers not yet certain, hang in there, and do your best to seek the truth in the year ahead.
Another is graciously—the appropriate attitude for non-Christians who wish their fellow citizens all the joys to which their beliefs entitle them.
The third is reverently. If this is the anniversary of the appearance of the Lord of the universe in the form of a helpless babe, it is a very important day. It's a startling idea of course. My guess is that the whole story—that a virgin was selected by God to bear his Son as a way of showing his love and concern for man—in spite of all the lip service given to it, is not an idea that has been popular with theologians.
It's a somewhat illogical idea, and theologians like logic almost as much as they like God. It's so revolutionary a thought that it probably could only come from a God that is beyond logic and beyond theology.
It has a magnificent appeal. Almost nobody has seen God, and almost nobody has any real idea of what he is like. The truth is that among men the idea of seeing God suddenly and standing in a very bright light is not necessarily a completely comforting and appealing idea. But everyone has seen babies and most people like them. If God wanted to be loved as well as feared, he moved correctly. If he wanted to know his people as well as rule them, he moved correctly, for a baby growing up learns all about people. And if God wanted to be intimately a part of man he moved correctly here, too, for the experience of birth and family-hood is our most intimate and precious experience.
So it comes beyond logic. It is either all falsehood or it is the truest thing in the world. It is the story of the great innocence of God, the baby. God in the person of man has such a dramatic shock toward the heart, that if it is not true, for Christians nothing is true.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Hell Unfair? (Part 3)
I've been offering a Christian response to the claim that eternity in Hell seems an unfair penalty for the sins committed in 70 or 80 years in this life. In two previous posts, I supported each of the following:
1) There may be a category fallacy involved in the claim, since time is a part of this universe whereas Heaven and Hell are not.
2) In our own imperfect judicial systems, there is almost never a direct link or correlation between the time involved in committing the crime and the duration of appropriate punishment.
3) A factor that does matter (even in our judicial systems) is the person or authority against whom the crime is committed. Where the issue is eternal punishment in Hell, the authority against whom the crime has been committed is the supreme Authority--the Creator of all things, the all-powerful, Holy God who gives life in the first place. He is also the only Authority who can (and does) offer a pardon.
4) The claim of unfairness seems to imply that what gets people condemned to Hell are little sins, the breaking of somewhat arbitrary rules that God set up to keep people from having fun. Actually, according to the Bible, what gets people sent to Hell is utter and wholesale rejection of their Creator and of His loving authority in their lives.
5) The claim also seems to assume that the person who so rejects God will wish--once he finds himself in Hell--that he could change his mind. I find no reason--and certainly no evidence in Scripture--that this is the case. Rejection or acceptance of God in this life is done with eyes wide open, and is a decision foundational to who we are. The person who hates God in this life will rather remain in Hell for eternity than choose to love and worship Him after death.
This brings us to the last point I want to make (though there are undoubtedly other problems with the claim that Hell is unfair). For this one, I want to address a particular form of the claim, directly quoted from an email I received:
In the first place, this claim mischaracterizes the crime as mere disbelief. This is not the Bible's portrayal. (Again, it's perfectly legitimate to allow the Bible to defend itself in this instance, since it is the biblical doctrine of Hell that is being argued against; it is the claimant who first brought the Bible into the discussion, not I.)
According to the Bible, eternal judgment comes because we reject our Creator and His authority over our lives, choosing instead to live according to our own inclinations (which choice leads to brokenness in all our relationships--with God, self, others, and creation), and then rejecting God's merciful, sacrificial offer of pardon. We hate God and run from Him, and Hell is simply the place reserved for those who want nothing to do with God.
Second, this claim depends upon pretending that there is insufficient evidence for believing in God. And while even we Christians sometimes act as though the evidence is worth quibbling about (with the professed atheist), the truth is far different.
According to the Bible (especially Romans 1:18-32), all men know there is a God. Further, the natural reaction of fallen humans is to suppress that knowledge, run from God, and delude ourselves into thinking we can pretend that He doesn't exist. In our day--where the fallacious rhetoric of the so-called New Atheists becomes best-selling books--we have an entire subculture of people who not only engage in such foolishness but communally approve and encourage such delusion in others.
To put it bluntly, the acquaintance who emailed me is not 'confused' about the evidence (as he claims); instead, he is in a state of open rebellion against God, which leads him to self-delusion about the evidence.
Throughout the history of human civilization--and certainly throughout western history for which we have the written records--as men have looked around them at the starry heavens, at other living things, at the planet on which they live, the logical conclusion to which they have come is that things are the way they are because they are designed. In our generation, the evidence available to us is exponentially greater than that available to previous generations. Our technology allows us to see the birth of gallaxies at the beginning of the universe some 13+ billion years ago. In the other direction (in terms of scale), we can now see the insides of cells and even of the molecules that make up cells. And as each scale of the universe becomes accessible to us, the overwhelming characteristic continues to be that of exquisite design, the evidence of an unimaginably powerful, wise, loving Designer behind it all.
In light of all this, the modern atheist/agnostic project is radically illogical. To see this exquisite design at every level and claim (as do Richard Dawkins, Francis Crick, and others in our day) that it is an illusion (only 'apparent') is absurd. To act as though the burden of proof ought to be on the people who (in keeping with the majority of people throughout history) see the design in the universe as real is bizarre. And to order one's life on the basis of this type of absurdity is mere self-delusion (of the type that Romans 1 describes).
The evidence for God is not confusing. The evidence for the careful design of this universe is not 50/50. The evidence for purpose and design is not even merely overwhelming. God's creation of this universe left no room for doubt. It is only our own stubborn, proud rejection of His authority in our lives that leads us to fool ourselves into thinking that we can feel justified in questioning His existence.
1) There may be a category fallacy involved in the claim, since time is a part of this universe whereas Heaven and Hell are not.
2) In our own imperfect judicial systems, there is almost never a direct link or correlation between the time involved in committing the crime and the duration of appropriate punishment.
3) A factor that does matter (even in our judicial systems) is the person or authority against whom the crime is committed. Where the issue is eternal punishment in Hell, the authority against whom the crime has been committed is the supreme Authority--the Creator of all things, the all-powerful, Holy God who gives life in the first place. He is also the only Authority who can (and does) offer a pardon.
4) The claim of unfairness seems to imply that what gets people condemned to Hell are little sins, the breaking of somewhat arbitrary rules that God set up to keep people from having fun. Actually, according to the Bible, what gets people sent to Hell is utter and wholesale rejection of their Creator and of His loving authority in their lives.
5) The claim also seems to assume that the person who so rejects God will wish--once he finds himself in Hell--that he could change his mind. I find no reason--and certainly no evidence in Scripture--that this is the case. Rejection or acceptance of God in this life is done with eyes wide open, and is a decision foundational to who we are. The person who hates God in this life will rather remain in Hell for eternity than choose to love and worship Him after death.
This brings us to the last point I want to make (though there are undoubtedly other problems with the claim that Hell is unfair). For this one, I want to address a particular form of the claim, directly quoted from an email I received:
Eternal punishment seems a bit harsh for any sins committed in only 70-odd years on this confusing planet, especially the sin of disbelief.This form surfaces two further, related misunderstandings shared by many who claim that the biblical doctrine of judgment is unfair.
In the first place, this claim mischaracterizes the crime as mere disbelief. This is not the Bible's portrayal. (Again, it's perfectly legitimate to allow the Bible to defend itself in this instance, since it is the biblical doctrine of Hell that is being argued against; it is the claimant who first brought the Bible into the discussion, not I.)
According to the Bible, eternal judgment comes because we reject our Creator and His authority over our lives, choosing instead to live according to our own inclinations (which choice leads to brokenness in all our relationships--with God, self, others, and creation), and then rejecting God's merciful, sacrificial offer of pardon. We hate God and run from Him, and Hell is simply the place reserved for those who want nothing to do with God.
Second, this claim depends upon pretending that there is insufficient evidence for believing in God. And while even we Christians sometimes act as though the evidence is worth quibbling about (with the professed atheist), the truth is far different.
According to the Bible (especially Romans 1:18-32), all men know there is a God. Further, the natural reaction of fallen humans is to suppress that knowledge, run from God, and delude ourselves into thinking we can pretend that He doesn't exist. In our day--where the fallacious rhetoric of the so-called New Atheists becomes best-selling books--we have an entire subculture of people who not only engage in such foolishness but communally approve and encourage such delusion in others.
To put it bluntly, the acquaintance who emailed me is not 'confused' about the evidence (as he claims); instead, he is in a state of open rebellion against God, which leads him to self-delusion about the evidence.
Throughout the history of human civilization--and certainly throughout western history for which we have the written records--as men have looked around them at the starry heavens, at other living things, at the planet on which they live, the logical conclusion to which they have come is that things are the way they are because they are designed. In our generation, the evidence available to us is exponentially greater than that available to previous generations. Our technology allows us to see the birth of gallaxies at the beginning of the universe some 13+ billion years ago. In the other direction (in terms of scale), we can now see the insides of cells and even of the molecules that make up cells. And as each scale of the universe becomes accessible to us, the overwhelming characteristic continues to be that of exquisite design, the evidence of an unimaginably powerful, wise, loving Designer behind it all.
In light of all this, the modern atheist/agnostic project is radically illogical. To see this exquisite design at every level and claim (as do Richard Dawkins, Francis Crick, and others in our day) that it is an illusion (only 'apparent') is absurd. To act as though the burden of proof ought to be on the people who (in keeping with the majority of people throughout history) see the design in the universe as real is bizarre. And to order one's life on the basis of this type of absurdity is mere self-delusion (of the type that Romans 1 describes).
The evidence for God is not confusing. The evidence for the careful design of this universe is not 50/50. The evidence for purpose and design is not even merely overwhelming. God's creation of this universe left no room for doubt. It is only our own stubborn, proud rejection of His authority in our lives that leads us to fool ourselves into thinking that we can feel justified in questioning His existence.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Thanksgiving 2011
If you're reading this post, the chances are very good that (despite the current economic downturn) you live at a higher level of prosperity than 99% of the people who have ever lived. Although we still face many of the physical frailties common to all humankind, we have access to health care unimaginable to previous generations. The variety and quality of food available to us is astounding, and most of us can, if we want, travel to the other side of the world to visit friends or loved ones, or just to see new sights.
Along with improvements in health and nutrition, scientific and technological advances have also served to make our lives more comfortable, safe, and entertaining. Perhaps more importantly, the advance of scientific knowledge--from all fields from cosmology to genomics--has provided our generation with overwhelming evidence not available to our parents and grandparents of the great love and care God had in preparing all these good things for us. As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day this year, our gratitude should likewise be greater than that of previous times, while we share with folks of all generations heartfelt thanks for the supreme gift of relationship with our Maker through His death on the Cross that gave us forgiveness and abundant, eternal life.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Along with improvements in health and nutrition, scientific and technological advances have also served to make our lives more comfortable, safe, and entertaining. Perhaps more importantly, the advance of scientific knowledge--from all fields from cosmology to genomics--has provided our generation with overwhelming evidence not available to our parents and grandparents of the great love and care God had in preparing all these good things for us. As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day this year, our gratitude should likewise be greater than that of previous times, while we share with folks of all generations heartfelt thanks for the supreme gift of relationship with our Maker through His death on the Cross that gave us forgiveness and abundant, eternal life.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Monday, November 21, 2011
Hell Unfair? (Part 2)
In the previous post I began a response to the claim that
1) It may involve a category fallacy, since time is a created part of this universe, and eternity and Hell are portrayed as outside of this universe,
2) Even in our own judicial systems, we don't consider the time taken in committing a crime as having much to do with the appropriate duration of punishment, and
3) A factor that we do consider important is the authority or person against whom the crime is committed.
Regarding this third issue, we discussed the fact that the authority against whom our crimes are committed is the supreme Authority, the One who created all things (including the sinner himself) and the only One who could offer (and has offered) clemency. And this recognition surfaces another misunderstanding in the original claim...
4) The claim seems to imply that the crimes that send us to Hell are sins with a lower case 's,' minor indiscretions, in effect just having a little more fun than the next guy by breaking some rather arbitrary rules that God set up for unfathomable reasons of His own. That, of course, is a huge distortion of the Bible's portrayal.
[Note to reader: In many cases (when defending the Christian worldview) it is inappropriate to place much emphasis on what the Bible says. This is because the person to whom you're speaking likely doesn't consider the Bible to be authoritative. And because the Christian worldview is the uniquely accurate understanding of the universe in which we actually live, there will always be good reason and evidence available in its defense (and the Bible can be brought in later as corroborative evidence). In the case before us today (the unfairness of Hell), it is legitimate to bring in the Bible because the person against whom we're arguing did it first. That is, the idea of Hell that is being argued against comes from the Bible. It is the Christian and the biblical portrayal of Hell that the disputant finds unfair. And so it is perfectly justified for me to allow the Bible to defend itself, to demonstrate that the claim being made involves a misrepresentation of Scripture's full picture of eternal judgment.]
Instead, the biblical picture is that every human being is broken and fallen, that our crime is absolute rebellion against our Creator, and that this rebellion has led to our failing utterly to reflect His glory, the purpose for which He created us. We chronically reject His authority on our lives, we run from Him, we deny His existence, we do as we please, all of this with dire consequences for ourselves, for those around us, and for the rest of creation. Just as each individual lie that So-and-So offers is attributable to the fact that So-and-So is a chronic Liar, so our sins are attributable to the much larger fact that we are Sinners.
The crime for which people are condemned to eternity in Hell is not merely the collection of little-s sins that might bring a blush to their face if shared in public--instead, it is the bold, arrogant shaking-of-the-fist in God's face that says "I'll do it my own way; I neither thank you for creating me nor acknowledge your authority in my life!"
And this leads to the next misunderstanding...
5) The claim seems to imply that the person condemned to eternity in Hell will regret his decision, will wish he could change his mind, will himself find the punishment unfair. I see no reason or evidence--and certainly none in Scripture--that would suggest this to be the actual case.
All indications are that the person who rejects God in this life will continue to do so in the next. The person condemned by God to Hell will--despite the torments inherent there--rather remain there than to face an eternity of offering worship and praise to the God he detests.
God has already judged every human being, finding each guilty of treason and deserving of eternal punishment. But, in His great mercy, He has also offered a way of clemency, of forgiveness. He took upon Himself the punishment we deserve, and gave each of us--for all eternity--the opportunity to accept an everlasting pardon. We can either head to the eternal imprisonment we deserve, or we can walk away completely free, not to go 'back to the streets' as it were, but to a room in His house that He has specially prepared for us.
We either say to this merciful Judge "Thy will be done," and find ourselves eternally in Heaven, or He eventually says to us "Thy will be done," and we find ourselves eternally in Hell.
To put it simply, it's an everlasting fool who dares to shake his fist in the face of a Judge like that.
This brings us to a sixth, fatal misunderstanding associated with this claim that the eternality of Hell is unfair. But (since I'll have much to say about that one) I'll save it for another post.
It seems like an eternity spent in Hell is an unfair punishment for sins committed during 70 or 80 years in this life. The punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime.In that post, I suggested that this claim involves several misunderstandings that render it fundamentally flawed, and identified three of those:
1) It may involve a category fallacy, since time is a created part of this universe, and eternity and Hell are portrayed as outside of this universe,
2) Even in our own judicial systems, we don't consider the time taken in committing a crime as having much to do with the appropriate duration of punishment, and
3) A factor that we do consider important is the authority or person against whom the crime is committed.
Regarding this third issue, we discussed the fact that the authority against whom our crimes are committed is the supreme Authority, the One who created all things (including the sinner himself) and the only One who could offer (and has offered) clemency. And this recognition surfaces another misunderstanding in the original claim...
4) The claim seems to imply that the crimes that send us to Hell are sins with a lower case 's,' minor indiscretions, in effect just having a little more fun than the next guy by breaking some rather arbitrary rules that God set up for unfathomable reasons of His own. That, of course, is a huge distortion of the Bible's portrayal.
[Note to reader: In many cases (when defending the Christian worldview) it is inappropriate to place much emphasis on what the Bible says. This is because the person to whom you're speaking likely doesn't consider the Bible to be authoritative. And because the Christian worldview is the uniquely accurate understanding of the universe in which we actually live, there will always be good reason and evidence available in its defense (and the Bible can be brought in later as corroborative evidence). In the case before us today (the unfairness of Hell), it is legitimate to bring in the Bible because the person against whom we're arguing did it first. That is, the idea of Hell that is being argued against comes from the Bible. It is the Christian and the biblical portrayal of Hell that the disputant finds unfair. And so it is perfectly justified for me to allow the Bible to defend itself, to demonstrate that the claim being made involves a misrepresentation of Scripture's full picture of eternal judgment.]
Instead, the biblical picture is that every human being is broken and fallen, that our crime is absolute rebellion against our Creator, and that this rebellion has led to our failing utterly to reflect His glory, the purpose for which He created us. We chronically reject His authority on our lives, we run from Him, we deny His existence, we do as we please, all of this with dire consequences for ourselves, for those around us, and for the rest of creation. Just as each individual lie that So-and-So offers is attributable to the fact that So-and-So is a chronic Liar, so our sins are attributable to the much larger fact that we are Sinners.
The crime for which people are condemned to eternity in Hell is not merely the collection of little-s sins that might bring a blush to their face if shared in public--instead, it is the bold, arrogant shaking-of-the-fist in God's face that says "I'll do it my own way; I neither thank you for creating me nor acknowledge your authority in my life!"
And this leads to the next misunderstanding...
5) The claim seems to imply that the person condemned to eternity in Hell will regret his decision, will wish he could change his mind, will himself find the punishment unfair. I see no reason or evidence--and certainly none in Scripture--that would suggest this to be the actual case.
All indications are that the person who rejects God in this life will continue to do so in the next. The person condemned by God to Hell will--despite the torments inherent there--rather remain there than to face an eternity of offering worship and praise to the God he detests.
God has already judged every human being, finding each guilty of treason and deserving of eternal punishment. But, in His great mercy, He has also offered a way of clemency, of forgiveness. He took upon Himself the punishment we deserve, and gave each of us--for all eternity--the opportunity to accept an everlasting pardon. We can either head to the eternal imprisonment we deserve, or we can walk away completely free, not to go 'back to the streets' as it were, but to a room in His house that He has specially prepared for us.
We either say to this merciful Judge "Thy will be done," and find ourselves eternally in Heaven, or He eventually says to us "Thy will be done," and we find ourselves eternally in Hell.
To put it simply, it's an everlasting fool who dares to shake his fist in the face of a Judge like that.
This brings us to a sixth, fatal misunderstanding associated with this claim that the eternality of Hell is unfair. But (since I'll have much to say about that one) I'll save it for another post.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Hell Unfair?
I recently came across a challenge I had heard before about the Christian doctrine of Hell. The challenge goes like this...
First (and this is a relatively minor point), the claim may involve a category fallacy. That is, it seems to treat of eternity as involving the same sort of time as we experience in this universe (only lots more of it). This is, of course, understandable, since as creatures currently confined to this half dimension of time, we have great difficulty imagining other temporal realities. But time--along with matter, energy, and space--is a created part of this universe. And Christian belief (and the biblical portrayal) is that God is transcendent--outside of, unconfined by--the dimensions of this universe. This understanding is powerfully supported by modern cosmology and astrophysics. (Christians have variously understood God either as timeless or time-full, having multiple dimensions of time at His disposal.) Additionally, Christian belief entails Heaven and Hell likewise existing outside the dimensionality of this universe.
So the temporal reality of Heaven and Hell may be completely unlike the time experienced in this life.
Second--and more practically--in our own judicial systems we do not tend to base the time associated with punishment upon the time associated with the crime.
I may go to my job as a cashier at the candy shop, and every other day for two entire years steal $1.00 worth of candy. At the end of that time (a long period of deliberate lawbreaking), I would be guilty only of a misdemeanor, and the punishment would include absolutely no jail time. By contrast, I could conceive of and carry out a heinous double murder in the space of ten minutes; if convicted of these crimes, I might face two consecutive life terms in prison, or worse.
So the claim seems to hinge upon a correlation between the temporality of crime and punishment, a correlation that doesn't even hold in our own imperfect judicial systems.
Third, a factor that does matter in our own systems is the person or authority against whom the crime is committed. If I betray a confidence entrusted to me by my wife, it may have ramifications for my marriage and our relationship; but I will not be convicted of any crime, nor will I serve any prison time. If, however, I betray a confidence entrusted to me by my federal government, the charge is treason and the punishment has historically been execution.
In the case before us--the issue of Hell--the authority against whom the crime is committed is the highest Authority possible, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the transcendent Lawgiver (the Source of the absolute moral code), and the Creator of the one sinning against Him. That same Authority is not only the one against whom the crime is committed but--as the supreme Authority--the only one who can offer (and has so offered) clemency.
Let's say I am lying on the soccer field. An opponent offers me a hand up, and I reject it. This is no big deal; maybe I believe he fouled me in the first place, there are plenty of other players who could help me up, and frankly, I can get up under my own power. But in the case at issue (in the claim we're addressing), I have fallen without hope; I am completely unable to save myself, and there is no one else who can help me... except the very Authority against whom I've sinned and who in His great mercy has offered me a single way of salvation. If I reject His gracious offer of a hand up, the consequences of that rejection are understandably severe.
In the next post, I'll identify additional ways in which this claim--that the eternality of Hell is unfair--is fundamentally flawed.
It seems like an eternity spent in Hell is an unfair punishment for sins committed in 70 or 80 years in this life. The punishment doesn't seem to fit the crime.How should a Christian respond to this? I would respond by pointing out several misunderstandings inherent in this claim that make it fundamentally flawed. (And that's just what I'll do, beginning with this post and running through the next couple...)
First (and this is a relatively minor point), the claim may involve a category fallacy. That is, it seems to treat of eternity as involving the same sort of time as we experience in this universe (only lots more of it). This is, of course, understandable, since as creatures currently confined to this half dimension of time, we have great difficulty imagining other temporal realities. But time--along with matter, energy, and space--is a created part of this universe. And Christian belief (and the biblical portrayal) is that God is transcendent--outside of, unconfined by--the dimensions of this universe. This understanding is powerfully supported by modern cosmology and astrophysics. (Christians have variously understood God either as timeless or time-full, having multiple dimensions of time at His disposal.) Additionally, Christian belief entails Heaven and Hell likewise existing outside the dimensionality of this universe.
So the temporal reality of Heaven and Hell may be completely unlike the time experienced in this life.
Second--and more practically--in our own judicial systems we do not tend to base the time associated with punishment upon the time associated with the crime.
I may go to my job as a cashier at the candy shop, and every other day for two entire years steal $1.00 worth of candy. At the end of that time (a long period of deliberate lawbreaking), I would be guilty only of a misdemeanor, and the punishment would include absolutely no jail time. By contrast, I could conceive of and carry out a heinous double murder in the space of ten minutes; if convicted of these crimes, I might face two consecutive life terms in prison, or worse.
So the claim seems to hinge upon a correlation between the temporality of crime and punishment, a correlation that doesn't even hold in our own imperfect judicial systems.
Third, a factor that does matter in our own systems is the person or authority against whom the crime is committed. If I betray a confidence entrusted to me by my wife, it may have ramifications for my marriage and our relationship; but I will not be convicted of any crime, nor will I serve any prison time. If, however, I betray a confidence entrusted to me by my federal government, the charge is treason and the punishment has historically been execution.
In the case before us--the issue of Hell--the authority against whom the crime is committed is the highest Authority possible, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the transcendent Lawgiver (the Source of the absolute moral code), and the Creator of the one sinning against Him. That same Authority is not only the one against whom the crime is committed but--as the supreme Authority--the only one who can offer (and has so offered) clemency.
Let's say I am lying on the soccer field. An opponent offers me a hand up, and I reject it. This is no big deal; maybe I believe he fouled me in the first place, there are plenty of other players who could help me up, and frankly, I can get up under my own power. But in the case at issue (in the claim we're addressing), I have fallen without hope; I am completely unable to save myself, and there is no one else who can help me... except the very Authority against whom I've sinned and who in His great mercy has offered me a single way of salvation. If I reject His gracious offer of a hand up, the consequences of that rejection are understandably severe.
In the next post, I'll identify additional ways in which this claim--that the eternality of Hell is unfair--is fundamentally flawed.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Evidence from Astronomy
I handled the Q & A service at my home church, Antioch, last week. After several questions about biological evolution, someone asked me about the latest astronomical and cosmological research. Here's my answer...
Is there astronomical or astrophysical evidence for evolution? from :redux on Vimeo.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Problems with Scientism
In the Critical Thinking class I'm teaching at Kilns College, we've discussed some bad epistemologies (flawed theories about truth and knowledge). One such bad idea--held by many in our culture--is scientism, the view that the only things we can really know are those things that have been shown to be true through scientific testing.
I come across this view frequently, especially in newspaper articles about science. (There seems to be a whole subculture within journalists of those who--while not scientists themselves--are sophisticated enough to agree wholeheartedly with everything scientists tell us.) The following articulation of scientism comes from an article in the L.A. Times, in which journalist Lori Kozlowski interviews Chris Mooney, coauthor of "Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future." The context and implication of the entire article is that whenever the public disbelieves or is skeptical of what scientists say, the public is wrong...
Mooney's view here is, of course, absurd, and I'll just give two reasons for now.
The first is that it is self-refuting. The claim "we can only know that which has been tested scientifically" is itself a knowledge claim, and one for which there is no scientific test. It's not a scientific claim at all, but a philosophical claim, and it falsifies itself. It is self-referentially absurd, and necessarily false. No amount of further discovery will make the claim of scientism true. (The people who make this claim--like Chris Mooney--are not stupid; they just don't think very clearly in certain areas. A better high school education--one that taught introductory logic, for example--might have saved them from this basic mistake.)
The second reason for rejecting scientism involves basic common sense. Just think about it--you know many, many things the evidence and reasons for which are not at all scientific. This includes a host of things for which you have firsthand (or even unique) knowledge; you were there and saw it happen. It includes many other things for which your justification for believing it (knowledge is "justified true belief") is sound. Do you know that George Washington was the first president of the United States, that we fought a war in VietNam, that the Romanian revolution took place in 1989? There's nothing scientific about any of that; so history involves a great deal of knowledge that refutes scientism. But so does geography, mathematics, your knowldege of current events. Indeed, unless you happen to be a scientist, most of the things you know how to do at work and at play you learned without scientific testing. Indeed, though there is increasingly DNA testing or other forensic science involved in criminal cases, most trials are decided primarily on eyewitness testimony and other non-scientific evidence and reasoning. I could go on and on, but have probably already belabored the point.
So Mooney's epistemology is demonstrably flawed, and it is this illogical epistemology that is at the heart of his conclusions about vaccination and autism. In other words, those parents who are skeptical of science's claim that there is no link are not involved in making conspiracy theories. Instead they are thinking more clearly about the issue--and with more at stake, since it's their kids' health on the line--than the scientists who have gotten involved. Though these parents may not consciously recognize the self-refutation involved in the scientist's claim, they are right to recognize that negative results from scientific testing do not serve to negate the abundant counter evidence from firsthand experience.
It is our right and duty as parents to carefully scrutinize the claims of science. This is especially true when the scientists involved betray their own failures in thinking clearly, as whenever they articulate the view described in this post as scientism.
(A version of this post originally appeared on this site on September 16, 2009.)
I come across this view frequently, especially in newspaper articles about science. (There seems to be a whole subculture within journalists of those who--while not scientists themselves--are sophisticated enough to agree wholeheartedly with everything scientists tell us.) The following articulation of scientism comes from an article in the L.A. Times, in which journalist Lori Kozlowski interviews Chris Mooney, coauthor of "Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future." The context and implication of the entire article is that whenever the public disbelieves or is skeptical of what scientists say, the public is wrong...
Q: What about the vaccine skeptic movement?In other words, science tells us that there is no link between autism and childhood vaccinations, and that's the end of the story. People--that is parents--who don't believe science on this one are wrong (though not necessarily stupid). Even those parents who have personal, firsthand experience of their normal child suddenly displaying the behaviors of autism following their being vaccinated are wrong. Because, you see, on the view of scientism, no amount of eyewitness testimony can be brought to bear against science.
A: It bubbled up originally for legitimate reasons. The mercury preservative thimerosal probably shouldn't have been in vaccines. [Blogger's note: Ya think?] It was taken out for precautionary reasons. Since then, science has come in and we can't detect the correlation between a rise in autism diagnoses and use of childhood vaccines...
So, at some point you have to let go. But that hasn't happened. Instead, there's a conspiracy theory and people have appointed themselves as experts on this.
The people who try to avoid vaccination, who believe this, are not stupid. They're not disadvantaged... So the distrust of science--this is not something a better high school education would have saved them from. (ellipses in original article]
Mooney's view here is, of course, absurd, and I'll just give two reasons for now.
The first is that it is self-refuting. The claim "we can only know that which has been tested scientifically" is itself a knowledge claim, and one for which there is no scientific test. It's not a scientific claim at all, but a philosophical claim, and it falsifies itself. It is self-referentially absurd, and necessarily false. No amount of further discovery will make the claim of scientism true. (The people who make this claim--like Chris Mooney--are not stupid; they just don't think very clearly in certain areas. A better high school education--one that taught introductory logic, for example--might have saved them from this basic mistake.)
The second reason for rejecting scientism involves basic common sense. Just think about it--you know many, many things the evidence and reasons for which are not at all scientific. This includes a host of things for which you have firsthand (or even unique) knowledge; you were there and saw it happen. It includes many other things for which your justification for believing it (knowledge is "justified true belief") is sound. Do you know that George Washington was the first president of the United States, that we fought a war in VietNam, that the Romanian revolution took place in 1989? There's nothing scientific about any of that; so history involves a great deal of knowledge that refutes scientism. But so does geography, mathematics, your knowldege of current events. Indeed, unless you happen to be a scientist, most of the things you know how to do at work and at play you learned without scientific testing. Indeed, though there is increasingly DNA testing or other forensic science involved in criminal cases, most trials are decided primarily on eyewitness testimony and other non-scientific evidence and reasoning. I could go on and on, but have probably already belabored the point.
So Mooney's epistemology is demonstrably flawed, and it is this illogical epistemology that is at the heart of his conclusions about vaccination and autism. In other words, those parents who are skeptical of science's claim that there is no link are not involved in making conspiracy theories. Instead they are thinking more clearly about the issue--and with more at stake, since it's their kids' health on the line--than the scientists who have gotten involved. Though these parents may not consciously recognize the self-refutation involved in the scientist's claim, they are right to recognize that negative results from scientific testing do not serve to negate the abundant counter evidence from firsthand experience.
It is our right and duty as parents to carefully scrutinize the claims of science. This is especially true when the scientists involved betray their own failures in thinking clearly, as whenever they articulate the view described in this post as scientism.
(A version of this post originally appeared on this site on September 16, 2009.)
Saturday, October 1, 2011
A Good Day at the Butte
The breeze was westerly, and just enough to bring the hawks down the western edge of Surveyor's Ridge. I was at the southern end of that 35-mile-long ridge, at Bonney Butte, a place that concentrates southbound hawks, falcons, eagles, ospreys and vultures in fall. Hiding in a ridgetop blind that melded with the trees, I tried to capture as many of those migrating raptors as I could, banding and taking measurements of each before sending them back on their way.
I captured 17 hawks yesterday, including 9 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 5 Cooper's Hawks, and 2 Red-tailed Hawks. Many of them came in waves, and this kept me hopping, balancing the banding/measuring with trying to capture more at the same time.
The best bird of the day was the female Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) pictured above. She was a second-year bird with orange eyes (in her year of hatch she had yellow eyes, and as a full adult she'll have deep red ones). Her annual molt was nearly complete, with a few brown wing and tail feathers not yet replaced by the striking gray feathers that she'll sport for the remainder of her life. I was glad that Vince and Sarah, a couple from Portland, were there to watch the capture and to see at close hand and to briefly hold this beautiful wild creature.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Response to E____
(Thought I'd share--because of its apologetic content that ought to be of general interest--an email I just sent to a young atheist with whom I share a mutual friend...)
Hi E____
I'm writing you at the request of K_____. She indicates that you consider yourself an atheist, either because you see no reason to believe in God, because in your experience God is a crutch for people with a need to believe in Him, or both. The perspective I will share with you is that of a biologist who is also a philosopher and historian of science.
As I see it, my need is not to believe in God, but to align my beliefs with reality. This is, of course, what is meant by truth--when things really are the way we believe them to be. Were there any reason to disbelieve in God (or to believe in some other god or gods), were there any evidence on the side of atheism or polytheism (or Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam), I would pursue such reasons and evidence in search of the truth.
There is no question in my mind that the Christian worldview uniquely matches the reality of the universe in which we live. While I could take the time to identify fatal logical, scientific, or historical flaws in any of a number of other worldviews, I'll make the case that Christianity much better matches reality than does scientific naturalism/atheism. And I'll do this for two reasons, first because I suspect the latter is the view that you espouse (rather than, say, Hinduism), and second because it's the alternate worldview I've researched the most. It is, after all, the great cosmogenic myth of our time (though, despite its present popularity, its tenure among the great ideas is astonishingly short) and what was uncritically offered as indoctrination throughout much of my formal educational experience.
To repeat, as a scientist and philosopher of science, I see Christianity as the accurate understanding of the world in which we live, and far superior in its explanatory power to scientific naturalism. The issue is not at all close. That is, whereas you ask "How can any well-educated scientist believe in God?" I have exactly the opposite query: "How can any but the most superficially educated scientist embrace the belief that there is no God?"
In other words, while the content of our beliefs--yours and mine--are exactly opposite on this issue, the strength of our respective beliefs is equally great. The difference is that I have spent a lifetime (and much longer than your lifetime) examing the evidence for both sides of the argument. I have been intentional in reading the works of atheists (ancient and modern), and have critically examined the reasoning and evidence offered by them. Have you done the same for Christianity? Have you read, for example, The Case for a Creator (Strobel) or Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis), The Creator and the Cosmos (Hugh Ross) or The Design of Life (Dembski and Wells)? I have read The God Delusion and The Greatest Show on Earth (both by Richard Dawkins), A Letter to a Christian Nation (Sam Harris), etc. (So flawed are some of the arguments therein that they provide abundant examples of both formal and informal fallacies for the college course I teach in Critical Thinking.) The point is, if you really want to understand a different worldview or belief system, read, comprehend, and wrestle with the very best books by proponents of that system.
Although I see a plethora of problems with scientific naturalism and the failed evolutionary theory that (for many) makes it plausible, I will have to limit my remarks to a few. (I'll be happy to interact with you, take questions or comments, and keep a dialogue going, but for an opening salvo I'll try not to be too lengthy. For one thing, the more I write, the more I run the danger of addressing a belief you don't actually hold. I'll address some misconceptions very common in our culture today, and you'll have to forgive me if you don't share some of these misconceptions.)
Most scientists spend all of their time studying phenomena within the ongoing processes of our world, and can happily do so without reference to God. But no matter how well we come to understand the movements of the starry heavens, the behavior of quarks, or the ecological relationships of a particular biome, there are bigger, more fundamental questions the answers to which science (if properly understood) can contribute. Of some 9 or 10 of these that come immediately to mind, let me briefly discuss two: the existence of the universe and the design of the universe for advanced life. (Other big questions include the existence of order in the universe, the origin of life, the diversity of life, the origin of the information in the genetic code, the origin of irreducibly complex biological systems, the existence of human consciousness...)
Note at the outset that theism (and particularly Christian theism) has been the default understanding--the view with adequate explanatory power--for each and all of these big questions throughout the history of Western thought. Note also that the very modern idea that atheism/scientific naturalism is somehow reaonable arose because Darwin offered a naturalistic explanation for just one of these big questions--the diversity of life. To put it another way, scientific naturalism has singularly failed to offer adequate explanations for these other big questions (and its attempts to do so lead to naturalism's most embarrassing errors in reasoning, ignoring of evidence, and such).
When we come to explaining the existence of the universe, we arrive at big problems both for naturalism generally and for evolutionary theory in particular. Darwin proposed his theory--which, according to Richard Dawkins, made it possible to be "an intellectually fulfilled atheist"--under the assumption that the universe itself was eternal (thus offering natural selection a nearly infinite amount of time to work its wonders). We now know this necessary assumption to be wrong; the universe had a beginning a mere 13.6 billion years ago, and the Cause of that beginning is outside the matter, energy, space, and time of the universe.
For statisticians and mathematicians, the realization that the universe had such a recent beginning is fatal not only for neo-Darwinism but for any naturalistic explanation for life's diversity. But more fundamentally, this 20th-century discovery represents powerful support for the Cosmological Argument for God's existence (that is, in philosophical terms, that the universe is contingent and its cause a necessary, eternal Being) and for the claims of Judeo-Christian scriptures written 3500 years ago. Indeed, general relativity and big bang cosmology are the most rigorously tested ideas in physics precisely because physicists and astronomers recognized (and found distastful) their theological implications and sought to refute them (through steady-state, oscillating-universe, and other alternate theories).
The past several decades have also yielded (primarily among physicists and astronomers) the discovery that the universe itself and our location in it are incredibly fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life and of intelligent life. This recognition has been dubbed the "Anthropic Principle," and rarely does a week go by without there being discovered yet another parameter of the entire universe or of a more local aspect of it whose value is set in the extremely narrow range (among the broad range of possible values) that makes human life possible. Ignoring for the time being the separate (huge) question of how life originated, the probability of even one life-support planet in the universe (even given the existence of 100 billion trillion stars and the possibility that there are planets associated with many of them) is zero. Astrophysicists Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinge put it this way:
Again, I could address each of the other big questions of metaphysics in turn, and we would see that all of the latest scientific discoveries powerfully support the Christian worldview and leave the naturalistic worldview without explanations. But there are more basic--logical--problems for scientific naturalism.
Modern science--the continuous, progressive endeavor that has cured many diseases, landed humans on the moon, and mapped the human genome--arose only once in human history, and that from within a Christian worldview. And this is not merely an historical oddity. Rather, Christian theism provides the logical grounding that makes science a worthwhile endeavor. Scientific naturalism does not. To be sure, today's well-trained (but poorly-educated) atheist scientist can engage in scientific research, but he cannot logically justify it. Among some two dozen assumptions that logically ground science (which come from Judeo-Christianity and for which atheism cannot account), two of the most important are that the physical universe is orderly and that our senses and reasoning are reliable in discerning that order. Christian men of the 16th and 17th centuries found in Scripture that the universe is the product of the mind of the caring, transcendent Creator, and so expected that the universe would be ordered, reflecting God's intelligence and rationality. Similarly, they discovered in the Bible that we humans are created in God's image, which they took to include sharing at least in part in His rationality.
The naturalist scientist depends upon there being order in the universe, but can only accept it as a fortunate brute fact--he cannot offer an explanation for it. As for the reliability of human senses and reasoning (in discerning that order), the situation is even worse. If--as on the evolutionary view--the human brain is simply the end-product of a designless, purposeless evolutionary process, there is no reason to expect its beliefs to be reliable in discerning reality. As astronomer and popular science writer Paul Davies has it,
My hope, E______, is that you are really open to the truth on this central question of human existence (otherwise I've wasted a good deal of my valuable time already). I realize that there is powerful motivation for seeking to deny the existence of God, since the idea of a transcendent, all-powerful, all-knowing, and holy God who might concern himself with our human affairs and behavior can be terrifying. But reality is impervious to our wishes, and so (at least for me) finding the truth trumps my desires.
If you are open to continued dialogue, I could share (in separate emails) any or all of the following:
How the scientific evidence supports the Christian worldview regarding the other big questions (that I alluded to earlier),
Why neo-Darwinian evolution is a dying theory that will no longer be defended by anyone once tenured dinosaurs like Richard Dawkins pass away, (how the fossil record, genetic evidence, etc. support the idea of creative interventions and refute evolutionary claims),
How Christianity grounds--and naturalism fails to logically justify--morality,
How archaeology vindicates the historical reliability of the Old and New Testaments,
How fulfilled prophecy points to the supernatural character of the Bible,
How the history of Western civilization and all of the available evidence powerfully support the historicity of the rising of Jesus of Nazareth from the grave,
etc.
Let me know...
Rick Gerhardt
Biologist and Christ-follower
* Two of the really ludicrous notions that in our day get much popular press out of the scientific community are 1) that scientists are the experts in defing science, and 2) that the definition of science involves an exclusive appeal to physical or natural laws and phenomenon. In truth, we scientists--unless we have embarked on intentional separate study--receive no education in the history and philosophy of science. It is, therefore, not scientists, but philosophers of science who are the experts in what science is. And philosophers of science are unanimous in declaring that no one has successfully defended the claim that science is restricted to material, physical, or natural explanations. To put it another way, to the extent that scientists artificially limit themselves to studying only natural phenomena, they have disqualified themselves from making any larger metaphysical claims (as about the non-existence of immaterial or supernatural things). So in yet another way, scientific naturalism can be seen as a grand effort in fallacious self-delusion.
Hi E____
I'm writing you at the request of K_____. She indicates that you consider yourself an atheist, either because you see no reason to believe in God, because in your experience God is a crutch for people with a need to believe in Him, or both. The perspective I will share with you is that of a biologist who is also a philosopher and historian of science.
As I see it, my need is not to believe in God, but to align my beliefs with reality. This is, of course, what is meant by truth--when things really are the way we believe them to be. Were there any reason to disbelieve in God (or to believe in some other god or gods), were there any evidence on the side of atheism or polytheism (or Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam), I would pursue such reasons and evidence in search of the truth.
There is no question in my mind that the Christian worldview uniquely matches the reality of the universe in which we live. While I could take the time to identify fatal logical, scientific, or historical flaws in any of a number of other worldviews, I'll make the case that Christianity much better matches reality than does scientific naturalism/atheism. And I'll do this for two reasons, first because I suspect the latter is the view that you espouse (rather than, say, Hinduism), and second because it's the alternate worldview I've researched the most. It is, after all, the great cosmogenic myth of our time (though, despite its present popularity, its tenure among the great ideas is astonishingly short) and what was uncritically offered as indoctrination throughout much of my formal educational experience.
To repeat, as a scientist and philosopher of science, I see Christianity as the accurate understanding of the world in which we live, and far superior in its explanatory power to scientific naturalism. The issue is not at all close. That is, whereas you ask "How can any well-educated scientist believe in God?" I have exactly the opposite query: "How can any but the most superficially educated scientist embrace the belief that there is no God?"
In other words, while the content of our beliefs--yours and mine--are exactly opposite on this issue, the strength of our respective beliefs is equally great. The difference is that I have spent a lifetime (and much longer than your lifetime) examing the evidence for both sides of the argument. I have been intentional in reading the works of atheists (ancient and modern), and have critically examined the reasoning and evidence offered by them. Have you done the same for Christianity? Have you read, for example, The Case for a Creator (Strobel) or Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis), The Creator and the Cosmos (Hugh Ross) or The Design of Life (Dembski and Wells)? I have read The God Delusion and The Greatest Show on Earth (both by Richard Dawkins), A Letter to a Christian Nation (Sam Harris), etc. (So flawed are some of the arguments therein that they provide abundant examples of both formal and informal fallacies for the college course I teach in Critical Thinking.) The point is, if you really want to understand a different worldview or belief system, read, comprehend, and wrestle with the very best books by proponents of that system.
Although I see a plethora of problems with scientific naturalism and the failed evolutionary theory that (for many) makes it plausible, I will have to limit my remarks to a few. (I'll be happy to interact with you, take questions or comments, and keep a dialogue going, but for an opening salvo I'll try not to be too lengthy. For one thing, the more I write, the more I run the danger of addressing a belief you don't actually hold. I'll address some misconceptions very common in our culture today, and you'll have to forgive me if you don't share some of these misconceptions.)
Most scientists spend all of their time studying phenomena within the ongoing processes of our world, and can happily do so without reference to God. But no matter how well we come to understand the movements of the starry heavens, the behavior of quarks, or the ecological relationships of a particular biome, there are bigger, more fundamental questions the answers to which science (if properly understood) can contribute. Of some 9 or 10 of these that come immediately to mind, let me briefly discuss two: the existence of the universe and the design of the universe for advanced life. (Other big questions include the existence of order in the universe, the origin of life, the diversity of life, the origin of the information in the genetic code, the origin of irreducibly complex biological systems, the existence of human consciousness...)
Note at the outset that theism (and particularly Christian theism) has been the default understanding--the view with adequate explanatory power--for each and all of these big questions throughout the history of Western thought. Note also that the very modern idea that atheism/scientific naturalism is somehow reaonable arose because Darwin offered a naturalistic explanation for just one of these big questions--the diversity of life. To put it another way, scientific naturalism has singularly failed to offer adequate explanations for these other big questions (and its attempts to do so lead to naturalism's most embarrassing errors in reasoning, ignoring of evidence, and such).
When we come to explaining the existence of the universe, we arrive at big problems both for naturalism generally and for evolutionary theory in particular. Darwin proposed his theory--which, according to Richard Dawkins, made it possible to be "an intellectually fulfilled atheist"--under the assumption that the universe itself was eternal (thus offering natural selection a nearly infinite amount of time to work its wonders). We now know this necessary assumption to be wrong; the universe had a beginning a mere 13.6 billion years ago, and the Cause of that beginning is outside the matter, energy, space, and time of the universe.
For statisticians and mathematicians, the realization that the universe had such a recent beginning is fatal not only for neo-Darwinism but for any naturalistic explanation for life's diversity. But more fundamentally, this 20th-century discovery represents powerful support for the Cosmological Argument for God's existence (that is, in philosophical terms, that the universe is contingent and its cause a necessary, eternal Being) and for the claims of Judeo-Christian scriptures written 3500 years ago. Indeed, general relativity and big bang cosmology are the most rigorously tested ideas in physics precisely because physicists and astronomers recognized (and found distastful) their theological implications and sought to refute them (through steady-state, oscillating-universe, and other alternate theories).
The past several decades have also yielded (primarily among physicists and astronomers) the discovery that the universe itself and our location in it are incredibly fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life and of intelligent life. This recognition has been dubbed the "Anthropic Principle," and rarely does a week go by without there being discovered yet another parameter of the entire universe or of a more local aspect of it whose value is set in the extremely narrow range (among the broad range of possible values) that makes human life possible. Ignoring for the time being the separate (huge) question of how life originated, the probability of even one life-support planet in the universe (even given the existence of 100 billion trillion stars and the possibility that there are planets associated with many of them) is zero. Astrophysicists Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinge put it this way:
The speculations of The Origin of Species turned out to be wrong... It is ironic that the scientific facts throw Darwin out but leave William Paley, a figure of fun to the scientific world for more than a century, still in the tournament with a chance of being the ultimate winner.In the words of Stephen Hawking,
It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.The currently popular way of trying to get around the clearly theistic implications of big bang cosmology and the anthropic principle is to postulate an infinite number of other universes, each with different parameter values, such that we just happened to have won the lottery to end all lotteries. Besides there being absolutely no evidence (and no possibility of there ever being evidence) for such a situation, this metaphysical view does not do away with the need for a Creator, but only pushes that problem up a level. Moreover, while such a view might address the fundamental anthropic parameters (those that apply to our universe as a whole), it does nothing to explain the much greater number of local fine-tuned parameters (the crafting of our galaxy and solar system for life support).
Again, I could address each of the other big questions of metaphysics in turn, and we would see that all of the latest scientific discoveries powerfully support the Christian worldview and leave the naturalistic worldview without explanations. But there are more basic--logical--problems for scientific naturalism.
Modern science--the continuous, progressive endeavor that has cured many diseases, landed humans on the moon, and mapped the human genome--arose only once in human history, and that from within a Christian worldview. And this is not merely an historical oddity. Rather, Christian theism provides the logical grounding that makes science a worthwhile endeavor. Scientific naturalism does not. To be sure, today's well-trained (but poorly-educated) atheist scientist can engage in scientific research, but he cannot logically justify it. Among some two dozen assumptions that logically ground science (which come from Judeo-Christianity and for which atheism cannot account), two of the most important are that the physical universe is orderly and that our senses and reasoning are reliable in discerning that order. Christian men of the 16th and 17th centuries found in Scripture that the universe is the product of the mind of the caring, transcendent Creator, and so expected that the universe would be ordered, reflecting God's intelligence and rationality. Similarly, they discovered in the Bible that we humans are created in God's image, which they took to include sharing at least in part in His rationality.
The naturalist scientist depends upon there being order in the universe, but can only accept it as a fortunate brute fact--he cannot offer an explanation for it. As for the reliability of human senses and reasoning (in discerning that order), the situation is even worse. If--as on the evolutionary view--the human brain is simply the end-product of a designless, purposeless evolutionary process, there is no reason to expect its beliefs to be reliable in discerning reality. As astronomer and popular science writer Paul Davies has it,
People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature--the laws of physics--are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least not in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.The early evolutionist J.B.S. Haldane also saw the problem:
If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of the atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.Philosopher Alvin Plantinga sums it up thus,
Modern science was conceived, and born, and flourished in the matrix of Christian theism. Only liberal doses of self-deception and double-think, I believe, will permit it to flourish in the context of Darwinian naturalism.C.S. Lewis made the analogy to dreaming and waking. While awake, we can account for our dreaming, but while dreaming, we cannot fit in the waking world.
The waking world is judged more real because it can thus contain the dreaming world. The dreaming world is judged less real because it cannot contain the waking one. For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific points of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religions. The scientific point of view [here he has specifically in mind the evolutionary-based naturalism of the past several decades] cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.Why, as a scientist, do I believe in the God of Christianity? I have so far given only a very partial answer, but one I hope that addresses some of your most central issues. In part, I am a Christian because all of the scientific evidence (regarding the big-picture questions) falls squarely on the side of Christianity and is opposite the evidences required for the success of a naturalistic project. More basically, Christianity makes science a worthwhile endeavor, by providing the necessary logical grounding; naturalism can neither logically justify nor defend the scientific enterprise.*
My hope, E______, is that you are really open to the truth on this central question of human existence (otherwise I've wasted a good deal of my valuable time already). I realize that there is powerful motivation for seeking to deny the existence of God, since the idea of a transcendent, all-powerful, all-knowing, and holy God who might concern himself with our human affairs and behavior can be terrifying. But reality is impervious to our wishes, and so (at least for me) finding the truth trumps my desires.
If you are open to continued dialogue, I could share (in separate emails) any or all of the following:
How the scientific evidence supports the Christian worldview regarding the other big questions (that I alluded to earlier),
Why neo-Darwinian evolution is a dying theory that will no longer be defended by anyone once tenured dinosaurs like Richard Dawkins pass away, (how the fossil record, genetic evidence, etc. support the idea of creative interventions and refute evolutionary claims),
How Christianity grounds--and naturalism fails to logically justify--morality,
How archaeology vindicates the historical reliability of the Old and New Testaments,
How fulfilled prophecy points to the supernatural character of the Bible,
How the history of Western civilization and all of the available evidence powerfully support the historicity of the rising of Jesus of Nazareth from the grave,
etc.
Let me know...
Rick Gerhardt
Biologist and Christ-follower
* Two of the really ludicrous notions that in our day get much popular press out of the scientific community are 1) that scientists are the experts in defing science, and 2) that the definition of science involves an exclusive appeal to physical or natural laws and phenomenon. In truth, we scientists--unless we have embarked on intentional separate study--receive no education in the history and philosophy of science. It is, therefore, not scientists, but philosophers of science who are the experts in what science is. And philosophers of science are unanimous in declaring that no one has successfully defended the claim that science is restricted to material, physical, or natural explanations. To put it another way, to the extent that scientists artificially limit themselves to studying only natural phenomena, they have disqualified themselves from making any larger metaphysical claims (as about the non-existence of immaterial or supernatural things). So in yet another way, scientific naturalism can be seen as a grand effort in fallacious self-delusion.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
New Semester
A new semester starts this week at Kilns College (in Bend, Oregon), and the course I'll be teaching starts this evening. That course is Critical Thinking, and it's apparently full.
In Critical Thinking, I hope to be able to accomplish several things.
For one, we'll consider the biblical foundation for nurturing the life of the mind, and examine the historical union of Christian theology and the promotion of literacy, Christianity's founding of schools and universities and of modern science, and it's traditional role at the forefront of political and social discourse. We'll touch upon the less positive situation of the last 100 years, where evangelicalism largely abandoned its tradition of recognizing the importance of cultivating the mind.
We'll take a little time to talk about how to get the most out of reading.
And then the remainder of the course will serve as an introductory logic class, in which we'll discuss what constitutes a sound argument and how to recognize an unsound one. As we examine formal and informal logical fallacies, we'll use as our examples actual fallacious arguments that impinge upon issues that ought to be meaningful to anyone seeking to know the truth about the world in which we live.
While it's too late to get into this class, there are ten other courses being offered at Kilns this semester, and most of them still have room. But don't wait--it's already the last minute to sign up and start attending. Go here to check those classes out.
In Critical Thinking, I hope to be able to accomplish several things.
For one, we'll consider the biblical foundation for nurturing the life of the mind, and examine the historical union of Christian theology and the promotion of literacy, Christianity's founding of schools and universities and of modern science, and it's traditional role at the forefront of political and social discourse. We'll touch upon the less positive situation of the last 100 years, where evangelicalism largely abandoned its tradition of recognizing the importance of cultivating the mind.
We'll take a little time to talk about how to get the most out of reading.
And then the remainder of the course will serve as an introductory logic class, in which we'll discuss what constitutes a sound argument and how to recognize an unsound one. As we examine formal and informal logical fallacies, we'll use as our examples actual fallacious arguments that impinge upon issues that ought to be meaningful to anyone seeking to know the truth about the world in which we live.
While it's too late to get into this class, there are ten other courses being offered at Kilns this semester, and most of them still have room. But don't wait--it's already the last minute to sign up and start attending. Go here to check those classes out.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Stewards of the King
Here's a Vimeo of the sermon I delivered at Antioch this past Sunday:
Rick Gerhardt :: Stewards of the King from Antioch Church on Vimeo.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Time Flying
Our week here in Nicaragua is flying by. We've spent most of our time at the House of Hope. There we've played baseball with the kids, put on workshops for the ladies and another for the staff, sorted beads, created new card designs, made jewelry, finished tiling the cafeteria, played with the young kids, built shelving, and heard powerful stories of how God has worked and is working to transform lives. It's been a great privilege to encourage some of the dedicated and courageous people working here, and to come alongside (if only for awhile) the women and girls who have experienced so much personal tragedy and trauma.
Yesterday, we took a trip up into the mountains to Matagalpa. The purpose was two-fold--to see the ground where the next Nicaragua Christian School is to be built, and to visit the Nicaraguan Young Life camp and the coffee plantation that helps support it.
Tomorrow, my daughters and I will have the opportunity to visit the young girl we sponsor through Compassion International, something to which we've been looking forward ever since we decided to visit Nicaragua.
The only bummer has been that Jackie, our good friend and one of our hostesses here in Managua, was admitted to hospital with an infection in her leg; it required surgery and will continue to require intravenous antibiotics until after we've left on Saturday. So we have greatly missed Jackie and her mother, Marilyn, for the latter half of our stay.
It's been a fantastic experience, and I am so grateful for the wonderful team that God put together for this trip. We've worked together, cried together, played together, and laughed together. I know it's been life-changing for each of us, and that we will leave a part of our hearts here when we leave.
Yesterday, we took a trip up into the mountains to Matagalpa. The purpose was two-fold--to see the ground where the next Nicaragua Christian School is to be built, and to visit the Nicaraguan Young Life camp and the coffee plantation that helps support it.
Tomorrow, my daughters and I will have the opportunity to visit the young girl we sponsor through Compassion International, something to which we've been looking forward ever since we decided to visit Nicaragua.
The only bummer has been that Jackie, our good friend and one of our hostesses here in Managua, was admitted to hospital with an infection in her leg; it required surgery and will continue to require intravenous antibiotics until after we've left on Saturday. So we have greatly missed Jackie and her mother, Marilyn, for the latter half of our stay.
It's been a fantastic experience, and I am so grateful for the wonderful team that God put together for this trip. We've worked together, cried together, played together, and laughed together. I know it's been life-changing for each of us, and that we will leave a part of our hearts here when we leave.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Lunes Nica Update
We've had a couple of great days at the House of Hope. Sunday, after worshipping at the International Christian Fellowship (where our team led the church in an Antioch worship song, Our God Reigns by Justin Lavik), we went to the House of Hope where we played baseball with the kids and then had a pizza party.
Today we did a number of things there, bead sorting (for tomorrow's jewelry making), designing new greeting cards, and tiling the floor of the cafeteria. In the afternoon, part of the team led a workshop with the women and girls that live there, while others played with the little kids, children or grandchildren of some of the residents.
We saw an iguana in the yard this morning, enjoyed a warm rain shower in the afternoon, and are watching an awesome lightning storm (as well as rising lightning bugs) from the veranda this evening.
Eating well, working hard, loving life. Wish you were here.
Today we did a number of things there, bead sorting (for tomorrow's jewelry making), designing new greeting cards, and tiling the floor of the cafeteria. In the afternoon, part of the team led a workshop with the women and girls that live there, while others played with the little kids, children or grandchildren of some of the residents.
We saw an iguana in the yard this morning, enjoyed a warm rain shower in the afternoon, and are watching an awesome lightning storm (as well as rising lightning bugs) from the veranda this evening.
Eating well, working hard, loving life. Wish you were here.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
In Managua
Safe and uneventful trip for our team of eleven from Antioch. While waiting in line for Immigrations at the Managua Airport, all the lights went out. None of the locals seemed much concerned, and power was restored before too long. 80 degrees here at 9:00 in the evening, and not raining (as it has been off and on).
We're very comfortably billeted at the lovely home of the Loftsgard family, once hailing from Bend but now 13 years in Nicaragua. Looking forward tomorrow to a church service, tour of Managua (with mini history lesson), and a tour of House of Hope followed by a pickup baseball game and a pizza party there.
I'll blog about it here, but you can also follow this trip and the Antioch team in Cambodia by going to the Antioch Missions blog.
We're very comfortably billeted at the lovely home of the Loftsgard family, once hailing from Bend but now 13 years in Nicaragua. Looking forward tomorrow to a church service, tour of Managua (with mini history lesson), and a tour of House of Hope followed by a pickup baseball game and a pizza party there.
I'll blog about it here, but you can also follow this trip and the Antioch team in Cambodia by going to the Antioch Missions blog.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Regreso a Managua
I'm headed back to Nicaragua manana. Going back (a year later) to visit my friends the Loftsgards and some of the ministries with which they're involved. This time I'm taking both my daughters, and looking forward to a great time. I'll keep you posted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)