Kilns College Next Semester

The classes being offered next semester at Kilns College (in Bend, OR) have been posted. It's a pretty interesting list and a great group of teachers. Go here to check 'em out, and get a jump on planning how you'll take advantage of these great educational opportunities.

Great Weekend

Wow!

We had such a successful Apologetics Conference right here in Bend this weekend! It featured Drs. J.P. Moreland, Craig Hazen, and Scott Rae from BIOLA and Talbot Seminary, and was extremely well-attended. As the first annual such event, we of Kilns College and the Apologetics Guild, were thrilled with the interest, the turnout, and the caliber of the eleven messages delivered.

Many kudos to Rich Waller for making this exciting event a reality, and thanks to Emi Popa and all of those who served behind the scenes. I can't wait to do this again.

"All Scientists Agree.." (Part 2)

In the last post, I took issue with the claim "All scientists agree (about anthropogenic global warming or macroevolution, or whatever)." I argued that such a claim is generally false (as with evolution and global warming) and that such statements are red herrings, efforts to evade the real issue, which is whether the evidence and reason should lead us to believe that the larger claim (that man-caused global warming is occurring, e.g.) is true.

But there's another interesting thing to notice about such claims. And that is the fact that they are not themselves scientific claims but rather sociological claims. That is, a claim about what "all scientists believe" falls within the discipline known as sociology of science, not within any scientific discipline such as biology, evolutionary biology, or climatology. Therefore, whenever it is a scientist (biologist or climatologist) making such a claim, he is outside of his area of expertise (and generally doesn't realize it).

Rightly understanding this has important implications. Our culture is greatly affected by idealogies that are based upon a high regard for science and an uncritical acceptance of what scientists claim. But most of the time, the real issues (whether intelligent design theory should be taught in government schools, or whether science should seek only naturalistic answers to the questions it pursues) are not issues that a scientist has any training or qualification to address. Rather, these are issues rightly addressed by second-order disciplines.

The sciences--chemistry, physics, biology, and such--are first-order disciplines, fileds that study particular sets of phenomena. There are other disciplines that are second-order disciplines, which means that they involve the study of other disciplines. Those second-order disciplines that are important to understanding what science is (and should be) and how scientists work are at least four: sociology (of science), psychology (of science), history of science, and philosophy of science (with the latter two being the most important).

So, when a scientist makes the claim "All scientists believe..." he is likely talking through his hat, or at least wearing a hat disingenuously (speaking as an authority in an area in which he is not an authority). As important as this is with regard to questions of whether anthropogenic global warming or neo-Darwinism are accurate understandings of reality, it is even more important with regard to the question "What is science?" And here again, though we allow scientists all the time to tell us what science is and how it is done, most scientists have no training in these issues. Thus, the scientists allowed to testified in court cases regarding the teaching of intelligent design are completely unqualified to address the issue of what science is. Instead, it is philosophers of science and historians of science who should be allowed on the stand.

The problem is that any philosopher of science would tell you that intelligent design theory and even theories about the universe that begin with an understanding of the world that is based in Genesis are scientific theories. Whether they fare better (than naturalistic theories) is another story, and will be discerned based on evidence and explanatory power and such. But where we are at present is this: on the issue of what science is, we have uncritically accepted the uneducated opinion of scientists who are sadly unqualified to answer the question. And the result has been devastating not only to the teaching of science but to our entire educational and political systems.

"All Scientists Agree..."

My regular readers will realize that I care about the environment, that I see care for the creation as a part of God's unrescinded "dominion mandate" and something in which Christians ought to be leading the way.

That said, I've never bought into the anthropogenic global warming scare. There are several reasons for this. They include (but are not limited to) the fact that the issue has been so hijacked for political purposes, the recognition that the alarmists tend to ignore the incredible design of the atmosphere (and the existence of the Designer), the existence of a wealth of contrary evidence, and others. But perhaps the most obvious reason for my skepticism about such claims is that the so-called argument takes a form that is fallacious and untrue, and one that is increasingly used (in this issue and others) in lieu of good evidence and reason. I'm thinking here of the claim

All scientists agree that...

or

There is no disagreement among scientists about...

You may right away recall at least one other issue where this claim is made, and that is with regard to evolution. Of course, anybody that's been paying attention at all realizes that there's quite a bit of controversy among scientists as to whether natural selection acting upon random genetic mutations is an adequate explanation for the diversity of life. But the claim--even if it were true--would be irrelevant to whether evolution is true. It's an example of the ad populum fallacy, and is a thinly-veiled attempt to divert attention from the actual evidence itself (which overwhelmingly and increasingly contradicts neo-Darwinism).

And the same problems exist when the claim is made with regard to global warming. Again, the claim is untrue; many experts disagree that man-caused global warming is occurring on a scale that warrants concern. But more importantly, it's fallacious, and what really matters is what the evidence says. And (if you've bought into the global warming hype, here's where you can breathe a sigh of relief), the evidence is all the other way now, and that with a vengeance. The polar ice is back to normal levels (only a year later), and there's no longer any need for you to start considering captive-breeding polar bears. But my favorite news item on the global warming front this week is this, that while British Parliament is putting the finishing touches on a costly and misguided law aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions, London is blanketed by the first October snowfall since 1922.

Global warming alarmists continue to do their best to ignore contrary evidence. Increasingly, it seems that the environment itself seems to want a say in how obvious and abundant such evidence is.

Apologetics Conference

Less than two weeks now til the first Apologetics Conference here in Central Oregon, and I'm really looking forward to it. J.P. Moreland, one of the leading philosophers of our day and author of a number of books that have greatly influenced me, will be the keynote speaker. It will be my privilege to introduce Craig Hazen, head of the Apologetics Program at BIOLA, who will speak to us a couple of times. Scott Rae will also be there, and he'll be talking about ethics issues and how a Christian worldview should inform them. (I'll have the opportunity to speak on naturalism in science during one of the break-out sessions.)

This is all happening at New Hope Church (on Bend's south side) the evening of Friday, November 7th and all day Saturday the 8th. Cost for the whole thing is only $20, and you can go here to register. See you there!

Indoor Soccer

I thought some of my readers might be interested in this sports news from the Central Oregon Indoor Soccer League (Men's A) and the Antioch Church team for which I play goalkeeper and my sons Nathan and Jasper both play.

In the last game of the regular season Wednesday night, the Antioch team surprised the men of Chivas Bend with a strong all-around performance that resulted in a 10-4 drubbing. Chivas, who would go on to win the playoffs the following night, were never in this one, as they trailed 5-0 after a first half in which the Antioch defense played with clinical precision and the offense was firing on all cylinders.

Antioch, a young team beginning to gel at season's end, could do little wrong, and the visitors were reeling under an offensive onslaught. Nathan Gerhardt opened the scoring with a hammered right-footed shot from the left side. Gary Christensen made it 2-nil when he deftly converted a header from the top of the box. When Tyler Fetters slotted home a shot from no less than the midfield stripe, the Antioch fans (Courtney, Joelle, and Krea) went wild.

But the home side was not done. Awarded a free kick in the offensive zone, Nathan Gerhardt caught the Chivas napping (well, actually, busy arguing the call). He back-heeled the ball to his brother Jasper streaking down the right side, who fired it just inside the far post. Brandon Groza volleyed in a cross from Nathan to finish off an inspired first half.

Once the Chivas decided to return after the break, the men of Antioch found the play a bit more balanced, and time and again their defense was put to the test. "Gary played out of this world!" said awestruck keeper Rick Gerhardt. "He personally blocked more shots than I was called on to save." Jasper Gerhardt was also an immovable force in defense, calmly turning away every rebound before the Chivas forwards could reach them.

Nonetheless, the visitors managed to find the goal net three times in quick succession, before Emi Popa made a telling run down the right side and slammed in Antioch's 6th goal of the night. Nathan Gerhardt scored his second of the evening after dribbling through most of the opponent's men, and then a Jasper Gerhardt cross led to an own goal on the part of Chivas' beleagured defense. When Kip Jones notched home a header in the 35th minute (given a nifty pass from Popa), each of Antioch's field players had managed a goal. Chivas would score once more, but Nathan Gerhardt's goal on a breakaway completed his hat trick and the home side's rout. Another goal by Popa set a cap on the victory, despite its being ruled as having crossed the goal line subsequent to the game-ending buzzer.

With this convincing win at the end of the fall campaign, Antioch has shown a promise of even better things to come in the spring, and the team's fans (Courtney, Joelle, and Krea) have every reason to expect great things from future matches.

The Crux of Cosmic History

Last night, the Antioch family had a wonderful time of fellowship and communion at Summers Wood Flooring. I had the privilege of making some remarks about the historical event we commemorate whenever we celebrate communion.

I first argued that the atoning death of Jesus on the Roman cross (together with the Incarnation that made it possible and the Resurrection that made it worthwhile) is the central event of all church history. Though Christ-followers today have disagreements about the number of sacraments they celebrate, and the details and frequency of those sacraments, all believers worldwide partake of communion and have been doing so ever since the resurrected Jesus ascended.

But more than that, we can see that the Cross is also the most decisive event in all of human history. Not only do we who came after it look back upon it, but for more than a millenium and a half the people of God (the Israelites) looked forward to it. They did this whenever they celebrated the Passover, which was a type of the Messiah's lamb-like offering (Isaiah 53:7). They also did this whenever they offered atoning sacrifices for their corporate and individual sins. Such sacrifices did not of themselves forgive sins, but acknowledged Messiah's future, once-for-all sacrifice (Hebrews 10:10) that would effectively deal with humanity's ultimate problem--separation from our Creator due to our sin and rebellion.

But even to say that the Cross is the focal point of all human history is to understate the case. The fact is that Christ's redeeming act of obedience on the Cross transcends cosmic history, and that both as to eternity future and eternity past. Revelation 5 contains a vision of Heaven, of a time and place outside of our universe. And even there, we (in our own glorified, resurrected bodies) and the angels will be focussing on the Cross and crying "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!" And we are told (in several Scripture passages, including Titus 1:2 and Ephesians 1:4) that our redemption in Christ was promised before the creation of the universe. II Timothy 1:9 says that God

saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.

The Greek here means "before times eternal."

Throughout this discussion of the Cross, I used words like 'central,' 'decisive,' 'important,' and 'critical.' But there were a couple of words I didn't use, and that for good reason. In stressing the centrality or importance of a particular moment or event, we sometimes use the words 'crux' or 'crucial.' Crux means 'a pivotal or essential point requiring resolution or resolving an outcome.' Crucial means 'important or essential as decisive or as resolving a crisis.' (Again, the crisis resolved by the Crucifixion is our eternal separation from God by our own sinfulness.) But had I referred to the Crucifixion as the crux of human history or the crucial moment in cosmic history, I would have been guilty of redundancy. That's because both of these words have as their root the Latin word meaning 'cross' or 'torture.'

In short, whenever we employ the words 'crucial' or 'crux,' we are tacitly acknowledging that the standard of centrality, importance, and decisiveness against which all other things must be measured is the substitutionary death upon a Roman cross of the eternal Son of God outside Jerusalem in AD 30.

Prevalence of Carnivory

I've been discussing the issue of animal death and carnivory, and how it is perceived by many moderns as a problem difficult to reconcile with the goodness of God. For Christians with this perception, the issue leads to strange interpretations of the Bible, and ones that do serious damage to the doctrine of God's sovereignty.

As an apologist, one who spends his time defending the truth claims of the Christian world- and life-view, it is frustrating (to say the least) to read and hear other Christians airing truth claims that are not biblical and that are contrary to both evidence and reason. Prominent among such views is this notion that predatory animals were not created by God because they are somehow evil.

Several years ago now, my oldest son was asked (along with the other students in his Sunday school class) to think of something created by God for each letter of the alphabet. Being a snake enthusiast, when he came to 'V,' my son wrote down 'venom.' The teacher asked him to think of something else, since she wasn't sure that God had created venom (she apparently perceived of all such things as rattlesnakes, scorpions, and bees and wasps as evil or fallen). Many Christians today likewise see predatory animals--those that eat other animals--as bad, and therefore not directly created by God.

Let me assume, for the sake of argument, that this were true, and see what the implications of that view include. By way of comparison (with those implications), we'll keep in mind that what the Bible actually claims (in many different books written by various human authors) is that God alone is the Creator of all living things. As just one example, here's Psalm 104:24-25...

O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great.

What I want to do is to delineate for you the types of animals that are carnivorous--those that, on the view I'm critiquing, must be viewed as NOT created by God. For simplicity's sake, I'll confine the discussion to extant animals and those living in North America.

There are seven orders of mammals alive in North America (not including humans, whose order, primates, is primarily omnivorous, eating both palnts and animals). Of the seven, three orders consist entirely or primarily of herbivorous animals. These orders are the lagomorphs (rabbits, hares, and pikas), the rodents (some of which are not above eating eggs and young birds), and the even-toed ungulates (deer, elk, moose, pronghorn, and sheep).

The other four orders of mammals are entirely or primarily carnivorous (or, in the case of the opossums, carrion feeders). Chiroptera (bats) are primarily animal-eaters, though some species (especially outside North America) are fruit-eaters. The Insectivora (moles and shrews) are exclusive in their diets, eating only other animals. Then, of course, the Carnivora are flesh-eaters, with a very few species departing from the strict rule and occasionally eating berries or carrion. The Carnivora are a varied group, represented (in North America) by eight different families; they include, the dogs, the cats, the weasels, the skunks, the bears, the raccoon family, the eared seals, and the hair seals. On the "predators are evil" view, we must disqualify the vast majority of these diverse, unique (and well-adapted) species as not intended or created by God.

Among birds, the situation is much more weighted in favor of herbivores, with many passerines (perching birds) thriving on seeds and fruit. Nonetheless, many other passerines eat invertebrate animals. Moreover, whole groups--including hawks, eagles, falcons, owls, gulls (and similar species), most other seabirds and shorebirds, shrikes, crows and jays, and others--eat animal prey exclusively. Are we--without any scriptural warrant--to claim that God made finches, but that the origin of eagles, killdeer, penguins, and all these others must be explained some other way?

Among the reptiles, the vast majority are exclusively meat-eaters. This includes all of the snakes, all of the crocodiles, and nearly all of the turtles. (A few turtles supplement their diets with fruit and vegetables, but even these species are not strictly vegetarian.) Lizards are a bit more of a mixed bag, but those that eat plant material exclusively are the clear minority.

Amphibians (frogs, toads, and salamanders) are likewise an entire class of animals that prey mainly or exclusively on other animals. The same is true of the bony fishes (Osteicthyes) and, of course, of the sharks and rays (the cartilaginous fishes).

According to this cursory glance at just the vertebrates, we can see that four of the six classes (cartilaginous fishes, bony fishes, amphibians, and reptiles) are comprised mostly of animal-eaters. Of the remaining two classes (birds and mammals), entire groups are meat-eaters. In other words, the clear implication of the view that I am critiquing is that most of the animal species inhabiting North America today were not part of God's plan, and that He is not to be praised for the creation of eagles, flamingoes, bobcats, raccoons, dolphins, or sailfish. I find this a really strange position for any Christian to take.

The Night

We interrupt this series on the "problem" of animal death to bring you (in response to public demand) another poem by my youngest daughter, Willow. This one she wrote a year ago (as a 9-year-old), and the last line is telling.

The evening is cool, the moonlight is bright.
The owls are calling all through the night.

While children are sleeping, each snug in her bed,
here come the stars, marching ahead.

Some creatures are moving all through the night,
while others are sleeping, waiting for light.

Down goes the moon, up comes the sun.
Here come the children, ready to run.

The Pains of Animals

By way of review (if only for my sake), we've been discussing the supposed problem of animal death and suffering. I have suggested that this is a very modern concern, and one that involves a naivete about ecology (though I haven't yet fleshed out the latter claim). We have also seen that efforts by Christians (especially those who hold to a "young earth creationist" view) to use Scripture to explain animal death as not a part of God's intent in creation are demonstrably flawed. In each case, the Scripture passage appealed to does not say what these believers try to make it say. Moreover, other Bible passages are explicit in claiming for God the responsibility for creating and sustaining those animals that prey upon other animals. Today, I want to look at an interesting section from the writings of C.S. Lewis, which will set the stage for later posts on the subject.

The essay I have in mind comes from God in the Dock, and is titled "The Pains of Animals." It is actually more than an essay; it presents an 'inquiry'--from C.E.M. Joad--regarding chapter nine of Lewis' The Problem of Pain followed by the latter's reply.

I find a couple of Lewis' quotes worth sharing. In attempting to clarify his earlier claims, he summarizes the least speculative part of his original treatment...

The data that God has given us enable us in some degree to understand human pain. We lack such data about beasts. We know neither what they are nor why they are. All that we can say for certain is that if God is good (and I think that we have grounds for saying that He is) then the appearance of divine cruelty in the animal world must be a false appearance. What the reality behind the false appearance may be we can only guess.

As an ecologist (and as I have perhaps hinted already), I take issue with the widespread perception that the animal world is "cruel." That is, I would heartily affirm that the appearance of cruelty is a false one, or (better yet) a subjective perspective. But my main point here is to affirm Lewis in his willingness to remain agnostic about the issue, to give God the benefit of the doubt where his (Lewis') knowledge remains imperfect.

Lewis himself arrives (a bit further on) at the recognition of the subjectivity involved here. This, too, is perceptive, and constitutes an important counterpoint to the argument against God made by appealing to animal death.

If I regard this pity and indignation [at the suffering in the insect world] simply as subjective experiences of my own with no validity beyond their strength at the moment (which next moment will change), I can hardly use them as standards whereby to arraign the creation. On the contrary, they become strong as arguments against God just in so far as I take them to be transcendent illumination to which creation must conform or be condemned. They are arguments against God only if they are themselves the voice of God... That the mere contingent Joad or Lewis, born in an era of secure and liberal civilization and imbibing from it certain humanitarian sentiments, should happen to be offended by suffering--what is that to the purpose? How will one base an argument for or against God on such an historical accident?

In other words, one very reasonable response to the perceived problem of animal suffering is that God's workings in the planet's ecology are not what some modern people perceive them to be. That is, perhaps God has good reasons for creating a world that involves animal death, and our perception of such death as bad or evil is wrong. As I see it, the types of evidence that lead to this conclusion include historical, Scriptural, and ecological. That being so, both those who appeal to animal death in arguing against God and those who build strange Bible interpretations around a felt need to absolve God of responsibility for animal death are sadly misguided.

Genesis 1:29-30

Another Scripture verse often cited by those who see the prelapsarian (i.e., pre-Fall) world as devoid of predators is Genesis 1:29-30. Ralph D. Winter, for example, has this to write,

Yet in the very first chapter of the Bible both the animal life and humans mentioned there are clearly described as non-carnivorous, meaning that they did not kill each other {Genesis 1:29}.

But the verses in question simply do not characterize the animals at all. Rather, they make a positive statement about God's being the One who provides for man and all the animals. In Genesis 1:29-30, there is absolutely no prohibition made, and only a modern desire to absolve God of the creation of predatory animals could lead to anyone's inferring such a prohibition. Here are the verses (from the ESV)...

And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.

The context here is what is known as the dominion mandate. God is here telling man that he has both the privilege and responsibility of caring for the rest of the created order. It is likely that God is emphasizing the fact that green plants form the basis for the food chains of all land life. It may also be that God is emphasizing that all such plants are meant to be useful as food. (Genesis 1 is, of course, the most abbreviated of creation accounts; in the longer version that appears in chapter 2, there is a prohibition made--one not mentioned in chapter 1--when God says that Adam is not to eat of the fruit of one particular tree.)

Whatever God's revelatory intentions in Genesis 1:29-30, they do not include saying that carnivory was not a part of life up until that time. Such an understanding requires eisegesis--reading into the passage something that is not there.

Perhaps a similar example will clarify this. Let's say my family is going on a two-week vacation that happens to coincide with the week during which you will have moved out of your old home but are unable yet to move into your new one. We arrange that you willl stay at our house while we're gone. As we are leaving, my wife says, "We stocked the refrigerator for your sakes--make sure the kids know to help themselves." Do you take that as a prohibition against your eating the fruit in the basket on the kitchen table? Will you deliberately avoid the fresh-baked bread on the counter or the goodies stacked in the pantry? Of course not!

Using the Genesis 1 passage to build a doctrine denying animal death (at that stage of creation) is likewise logically untenable. And the motivation for doing such hermeneutical gymnastics is a modern misunderstanding about the beauty of the ecologies with which God has filled the land and seas ever since He first created life.

As serious students of God's revelation to us, we should at all costs avoid building doctrines around what amount to mere inferences on our part. This is especially true when the rest of His revelation to us--the remainder of Scripture and the evidence from nature--strongly asserts a contrary conclusion. God is indeed the Creator and Sustainer of all life--including the lion and the eagle--and He calls all that creation "very good." (So do I.)

Romans 5:12

(3rd post in a series)

We're discussing the very modern view held by many Christians that animal death is a bad thing and that therefore predation could not have been a part of God's original creation. Two of the Scripture passages used to defend this view are Romans 5:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22. According to Ken Ham,

Physical death and bloodshed of man and animals came into existence after Adam sinned (Romans 5:12; I Corinthians 15).

These two passages say much the same thing, so we'll concentrate our analysis on Romans 5:12. I think it will be easy for my readers to come to a more accurate conclusion--than does Ham--of what this verse is and is not saying. Here's the verse (in part)...

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin...

Let's stop there for a moment. The apostle Paul writes a good deal about death (Greek, thanatos), and often further identifies the death in view. Sometimes, it's "death to sin" or "death to the law." Many other times, he has in mind the spiritual death of humans; occasionally he mentions his own physical death or that of other men. If the "death" here and in Romans 15 is meant to include animal death, these would be the only places in all of his writings where he concerns himself with such. For the moment, let's provisionally accept that this is a possibility, and wait to see if further investigation sheds any light on the issue.

What about the word translated "world?" The Greek word kosmon must--in Ham's view--refer to the entire planet Earth. While this is, in fact, one of the definitions of kosmon in the Greek of New Testament times, it is difficult to find any New Testament passages where this is the most likely meaning. More frequently, the Greek word translated "world" refers to the entire universe, to all humanity, or to a subset of humanity. An example of the latter usage can be found in this very same letter of Paul's. In the greeting, Paul writes (1:8),

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.

Theologians and New Testament scholars are unanimous in understanding this "all over the world" to reference a subset of humanity, the people inhabitating the region of the world known at that time to Paul and his readers.

So, before reading the rest of the Romans 5 passage, let's recap what sort of clarifying information we're seeking. The death referred to here could be a number of different things, and we're most interested in whether it explicitly or implicitly includes the physical death of non-human animals. As for "world," we want to discover whether it is best understood as referring to 1) the entire universe, 2) the entire planet Earth (as seemingly required by the view I'm critiquing), 3) all humanity, or 4) a subset of humanity. Now we can read verse 12 in its entirety.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way, death came to all men, because all sinned.

It seems to me that Paul (or the Holy Spirit through Paul) could not have made it much clearer than He did. The definition of kosmon in view here is #3 above--all humanity. Moreover, the death in view is that which comes to all men, and the death which comes as the result of sin (which further identifies it as human death).

Far from supporting the interpretation that there was no animal death before Adam sinned, this passage (like the one in 1 Cor. 15) very carefully and specifically addresses only human death, a death in which all humans share--apart, that is, from the life made available by the Second Adam (of Rom. 5:15 and following), Jesus Christ.

Genesis 1:31

By way of review, many modern Christians insist that because (in Genesis 1:31) God called what He had created "very good," that must mean that there was no predation or animal death associated with that creation. As Henry Morris has it,

There was, therefore, nothing bad in that created world, no hunger, no struggle for existence, no suffering, and certainly no death of animal or human life anywhere in God's perfect creation.

Such insistence warrants several responses.

First of all, it is worth noting that this view that animal death is bad is a very modern and urban problem. Our great-grandparents, who, if they wanted to eat meat, had to do the butchering themselves, had a much more accurate and biblical understanding of the vast differences between animals and humans (as do those who still live much closer to the land today). (In this regard, those modern Christians decrying animal death as bad have seemingly adopted some of the misunderstandings of the very evolutionists against whom they argue.) To be sure, animals (especially birds and mammals) experience pain. But they do not in dying worry about their children left behind or expect to stand before their Maker in judgment for their sins. Simply put, this view of animal death as a bad thing is a culturally-derived concept and not one that comes from Scripture.

Second (and to piggy-back directly off that last statement), where Scripture speaks of animal death and predation, God unapologetically takes responsibility for it and seems to view it as good. God tells Job that it is He who provides animal prey for the lion and the raven (38:39-41), and for the hawk and the eagle (39:28-30). In speaking of the created animals, the psalmist praises God, saying

...when You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust, When You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and You renew the face of the ground. (Psalm 104:29-30)

So the Bible itself praises God and gives Him glory for the creation and sustenance of predatory animals; it would seem presumptuous (at best) for us to stand in judgment over Scripture in this regard.

Third, the Hebrew words translated (in Gen. 1:31) "very good" do not mean "perfect." This can be seen by the fact that the very same words are used to refer to Rebekah (in Genesis 24:16), where they are generally translated "very beautiful." Again, the phrase is used (by Joshua and Caleb in Numbers 14:7) of the land of Canaan, where it is translated "exceedingly good." Thus, the creation prior to the fall of Adam should likewise be understood as having been exceedingly good or very beautiful.

Fourth, even if we were to read into these words of Genesis 1:31 some sense of perfection, we would have to understand that perfection as applying to God's purposes for the created order. What Morris, Ham, and others do is to judge the creation (and its ecology) by their own standards. Logically, this entails the corollary view that ever since the fall we are living in a sort of cosmic Plan B. But the whole of Scripture makes clear that the central event of all human and cosmic history--the atoning death on the Cross and subsequent resurrection of Jesus--was planned from before the foundation of the Earth. (For a wonderful contrast of these two quite different understandings, I highly recommend Mark Whorton's Peril in Paradise, from which I have derived much of my understanding of these issues.) The original creation was perfect for God's purposes for it, not perfect according to the arbitrary sensibilities of modern Americans (or Australians).

Fifth, the claim being made by these well-intentioned but misguided Christians is eerily similar to one for which Jesus strongly rebuked Peter. In Matthew 16, Jesus had just commended Peter for rightly understanding that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God. But then Jesus began to share that He would go to Jerusalem to suffer and be put to death. Peter said,

Far be it from You, Lord! This shall never happen to You.

In effect, what Peter was saying was, "My view of God has no place in it for this sort of suffering!" Though we read of Jesus' rebuke of him, modern Christians are guilty of the same sort of thing: "My view of God does not include His having a purpose for millions of years of animal suffering!"

Sixth (and lastly for now), the view that animal death is bad betrays an utter ignorance of ecology and a naivete about life itself. I'll be glad to discuss this one at great length at another time, but for now let a teaser statement suffice. While it is easy to blithely talk about life without death, such life (at least given the physics of this universe) would of necessity entail no reproduction, no eating, no movement, and no metabolism.

We who are Christians have every reason to affirm with Scripture that the world God created and the life with which He filled it were--and are--"very good." But when we go on to read into Scripture our own ideas about what is and is not good, we run the risk of blaspheming the very Creator we should be praising.

(Next up... Romans 5:12.)

Animal Death and Theodicy

A "theodicy" is a defense of God. It generally involves a defense of God's justice in view of some circumstance, argument, or condition that is seen as calling that justice into question. In our day, one condition (of the world in which we live) that is commonly understood as requiring some sort of theodicy is predatory behavior in the animal kingdom and animal death generally.

At some point (at the end of what I hope will be a brief series of posts on this subject), I'll argue (as an ecologist) that predation is a beautiful, necessary, exquisitely-designed part of life on earth, and thus something that needs no apologetic. But before I make that case, I want to deal with some of the other misunderstandings that have led to the modern confusion (among Christians and skeptics) about this issue.

But the goal of this first post is even less ambitious; it is merely to convince you that there is in fact widespread belief that predation and animal death are bad, and therefore cannot have been intended by an all-powerful, benevolent God. To do so, I'll appeal to three diverse views held by Christians today, each of which is at its foundation an attempt to absolve God of the blame for the ecology of our world, containing as it does animals eating other animals.

The first view is the theistic evolution (TE) view held by biologist Kenneth Miller. Miller, a Catholic, is outspoken in his disdain for proponents of Intelligent Design, insisting that not only is neo-Darwinian macroevolution true but that God only set the process going and then never intervened. (Over against the very different form of TE endorsed by, for example, Francis Collins, retired head of the Human Genome Project, Miller's view might better be called "deistic evolution.") But here's the point that is pertinent to our discussion... By insisting that God did not intervene, but allowed evolution to run its course unhindered, Miller believes he is absolving God of things (predation, parasitism, and suboptimal designs) that he (Miller) considers bad or for which he sees no purpose.

The second view is the Young-Earth position of Henry Morris or Ken Ham. In the face of overwhelming contrary evidence from the universe around us, and despite significant flaws in their interpretation of Scripture, Morris and Ham (and many others like them) insist that their view must be true primarily because they cannot reconcile long ages of animal death (prior to the fall of Adam) as being deemed by God "very good." Writes Morris,

The completed creation was "very good" (Genesis 1:31), with nothing bad or unfair or hurtful--certainly no "struggle for existence" or "survival of the fittest," or any lack of anything needed by any of God's created beings or systems.

Likewise, according to Ham,

The main point is that death, bloodshed, and suffering of living creatures were not possible before the fall. It was a perfect world...

Similarly, Ralph Winter offers what I can only consider a bizarre view (of how to reconcile God's Word with God's world) in a speculation I only recently came across.* Winter accepts the evidence for an ancient universe and earth. But he, too, gets hung up on seeing predation as irreconcilable with God's "very good" creation. His speculation is that (though Scripture nowhere implies such a role for them) it was the job of angels to assist God in the creation of living things. He goes on to suggest that the Cambrian explosion (during which all the animal phyla or body forms suddenly appeared without precursors) coincided with the fall of Satan and thus that predatory creatures (then and ever since) cannot be blamed on God but on Satan and the demons that rebelled with him.

I'm not making this up, and, believe me, I don't post it here in order that even more scorn might be heaped upon Christians for some of the silly things they believe. But if my brothers and sisters are going to be free to write such stuff, someone (like I) needs to be able to demonstrate what's wrong with it--and by that I mean where they misunderstand nature, where they misunderstand Scripture, and where they are guilty of poor reasoning. I'll begin (in the next post) by addressing some of the Scriptures these folks use to argue that animal death and predation are bad.

The bottom line is that Scripture and the record of nature--both rightly interpreted--are in perfect agreement and that animal death and predation provide no reason for questioning God's justice and perfection.



* Note to grammar geeks (others please ignore): Relative to most people, I'm kinda nutty with regard to doing my best to avoid dangling participles. But here's one of those cases where I give up the struggle. I simply can't quite bring myself to write, "...speculation, across which I only recently came."

Hypsiglena torquata

The last couple of years, my son, Nathan, has set a goal of finding (and handling) eight different species of snakes in Oregon in one summer. This is a tough thing to do, as Oregon is not a state with a lot of reptilian variety. This summer, he accomplished that goal. The final species of the season was a Night Snake (Hypsiglena torquata), a rarely seen and completely nocturnal species. Night Snakes are rear-fanged, and prey primarily upon lizards (and their venom is not a problem for humans).

Nate and his brother Jasper found this individual while cruising the roads of Jefferson County near midnight on a hot late-summer evening (which seems to be the best way to find them). Nate took the top photo, and Willow took the other two photos I've shared here.

Genovia Pear

It is my pleasure at this time and place to debut a brand new poem by my youngest daughter, Willow, age 10. It's called "Genovia Pear."

I sit on a bench in the cool morning air
Next to a tree called Genovia Pear.
I reach for a pear so high in the tree,
I fall to the ground and hurt my right knee.

First Broadwing

Today at the hawk migration monitoring station at which I assist each fall, my son, Nathan, and I had a new life experience. We captured and banded a Broad-winged Hawk (Buteo platypterus). In fifteen years of fall migration trapping at Bonney Butte (just southeast of Mt. Hood), this is only the second individual of this species ever captured.

In the eastern United States, broad-wings are a common enough bird. In fact, they tend to form large flocks in which to carry out their long southbound migration, and single-day counts at eastern hawk-watching sites (like Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania or Hawk Ridge near Duluth, Minnesota) can reach the tens of rhousands of them.

But where we trap is in the Cascades Range of western Oregon, and so sightings (much less captures) are extremely rare. It seems, though, that individuals of the species are extending its breeding range westward slightly or, at the very least, are willing to take a more westerly migration route to the wintering grounds.

The young bird we caught looked like a very small version of a young Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis). I'd show you a picture, but (in one of the corollary's of Murphy's law, no doubt) the reason we caught the bird in the first place was that today was the first day we neglected to pack the camera for the hike to the ridge.

Evidence of Demons

I promised to share some scientific evidence for the existence of demons in the universe in which we live. But first, a word about science.

In our day, materialist scientists have promoted a simplistic interpretation of scientific reasoning. There has been motivation for this, since it has helped them to defend their own metaphysical (religious) view, that of materialism. That simplistic view says that science observes physical phenomena and seeks to inductively incorporate all specific facts into a few general principles. The claim is that science is primarily an inductive enterprise and that its raw materials (that which it studies) and its explanations are necessarily limited to physical/material things. (Most at this point also make the illogical leap to the supposition that all things real are also physical, but more on that another time.)

Whereas much of science does, in fact, involve inductive reasoning, a good deal of scientific reasoning is instead abductive. This is especially true of the historical sciences, those that seek explanations for past, unrepeatable events. Abductive reasoning essentially seeks to argue to the best explanation. The scientist evaluates all of the available and relevant facts and phenomena, discards those theories that do not accomodate those facts, and concentrates on refining the theory that best fits them.

Some evidence for the existence in our world of demons comes from research into UFOs. By far the majority of reports of unidentified flying objects are eventually explained (they become IFOs, identifiable flying objects); they involve some well-understood natural phenomenon, some man-made craft, or, in some cases, hoaxes.

At the end of the day, however, there remains a set of UFO sightings that cannot be so explained. These are generally referred to as residual UFOs (RUFOs) and are estimated to represent up to about 23% of all UFO reports. (Other researchers estimate them as a much lower percentage, but no astronomers studying them believes that percentage to be zero.)

In general, RUFOs are capable of producing physical effects but are not themselves physical. That is, they leave behind physical trauma, to plants, animals, people, and/or machines. These include burns and compression (as of plants), agitated behavior (of animals and humans), and other symptoms (injuries, burns, nausea, bleeding, and even death).

But the causes of all of these physical effects are not physical themselves. They do not obey the laws of physics. (For a list of supporting evidence for this claim, see chapter 6 of Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men by Ross, Samples, and Clark.) In the mid-70's, President Carter asked NASA to undertake UFO research. NASA, citing its mandate to focus on exploring physical phenomena subject to physical laws--and aware that the evidence leads to the conclusion that RUFOs are not physical--declined the President's request.

According to Astronomer Hugh Ross,

Residual UFOs are both real and non-physical, and as such they manifest specific characteristics. Examining these characteristics leaves the distinct impression that they have an intelligence and a strategic purpose behind them.

Ross goes on to list and discuss these characteristics: RUFOs favor certain times and locales, they keep pace with human technology and science fiction, they seem to have always been around, they match the scientific literacy of their witnesses, they make repeat visits to certain witnesses and sites, they visit a select few, they appear to be alive, they arouse disturbing emotions, they cause bodily and psychological harm, and they deceive their human contacts. The conclusion of many scholars and scientists is that demons--malevolent beings from another dimension--are behind residual UFOs. According to RUFO researcher Jacques Vallee (quoted in Ross et al.),

The UFO phenomenon represents evidence for other dimensions beyond spacetime... The UFOs are physical manifestations that simply cannot be understood apart from their psychic and symbolic reality. What we see here is not an alien invasion. It is a spiritual system that acts on humans and uses humans.

What strengthens this conclusion is the further research that demonstrates that those to whom RUFOs appear (and those abducted by UFOs) have either associated themselves with the occult or have in some manner opened themselves up to demonic contact.

Reasoning abductively, the best explanation for the RUFO phenomenon is demonic manifestation. Ross again...

The truth about UFOs can be known. Indeed, the UFO mystery is a mystery solved. Earth is not being visited by aliens from another planet, but some people are being visited by spirit beings who want everyone to think they are aliens from another planet. By trusting the revelation given by the greatest transdimensional Being of them all, people need never wonder about UFOs again. When people put their lives in the hands of this Cause of human existence, this God who loves every person, the fear of UFO demons and what they can do evaporates.

1 Peter 5:8-11

I had the opportunity to preach last Sunday at Antioch. Aaron Wells and I delivered a "nunchuck sermon," the two of us separated by a worship song; it was the wrap-up of the summer preaching series in 1st Peter. You can listen to or watch the sermon here.

My portion was apologetic, and I sought to show the reasonableness both of believing the promise contained in 1 Peter 5:10 and of accepting the existence of the devil (verse 8). Regarding the latter, I argued that the question of the existence of demons is part and parcel of the larger question of whether materialism (the metaphysical view of many modern scientists) or biblical dualism is the correct understanding of the world in which we live.

I promised during the sermon, though, to blog about scientific evidence specifically for the existence of demons. So look for that in the next post (or two).

Advanced Apologetics

Beginning next week, I'll be teaching a Wednesday evening class on Advanced Apologetics at Kilns College. I've had folks asking just how advanced it's going to be.

Are there prerequisites? What if I haven't taken Intro to Apologetics? Do I need to understand quantum mechanics?

As I see it, this course will cover the basics. So, no, there are no prerequisites (like Intro Apologetics) and no, you don't need to worry about your grasp of physics. Where the "advanced" comes in is that we will go in-depth on the apologetics issues we tackle. Rather than spread ourselves a mile wide and a centimeter deep (how's that for mixing measurement systems?), we'll plan to thoroughly thrash out the arguments we take on.

I'm really looking forward to it; I hope you'll consider joining us (for credit or audit).