Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Running to Home Base (Becky Lynn Black)

    Dave Black links to an essay from his wife Becky Lynn regarding dealing with cancer. She believes that she’s on the home stretch. A taste:

    My goal has always been to display Christ to know His calling in the midst of dealing with cancer. We have dealt with cancer as stewards for the Lord Jesus.

    I empathize with Dave and Becky a great deal, because as I read their emails and blog posts I recall the summer of 2004 when James was on his run to home. That final story began when Jody was in Hungary leading a mission team, and she got to hear of the return of James’s cancer via e-mail.

    But the biggest struggle is not with cancer, as Becky notes. I would mention fear, which takes away your life while you’re still alive. Treasure the moments you have.

    One accusation made against Christians is that we’re weak and require Jesus as a crutch in order to get through life. I don’t argue with that. I’m weak. Without Jesus, I wouldn’t have made it. I understand that others handle these things without that comfort and hope, but I confess that I am too weak to do that.

    I pray that the Lord be especially near to Dave and Becky at this time and with all who are in need.

  • Robert Reich on Immigration

    Robert Reich exposes some myths about immigration. I’d have a couple of quibbles (I wish “myth” weren’t used in this way, for one thing), but they wouldn’t change the overall result. This is why I don’t worry about immigration. In fact, our paranoia about immigration costs more than immigration, in my view. I favor treating aliens as “the citizen among you …” (Leviticus 19:34). And yes, I’m aware of the hermeneutical issues with using that verse, but I choose to borrow the phrase nonetheless.

  • Why I Still Don’t Like Inerrancy

    Andrew Wilson has a post on The Gospel Coalition (Voices) blog titled Why I don’t Hate the Word Inerrancy. In a certain way I have to agree with his conclusion:

    But I don’t think the answer is to hate the word. If we were to abandon every word that had been tainted by poor use, we’d have to remove dozens of descriptors from our lexicon, beginning with “Christian”—only to find that the replacements we brought in were also sullied over time by clumsiness, groupthink, insensitivity, and arrogance. …

    Just so! It’s pretty difficult to hate a word when the word hasn’t really done anything bad. It just fell into the hands of cruel people who have tortured it a bit.

    But I still have to wonder about the value of the word in the first place. As a substitute for saying that God’s word is true, it draws much of its usage from the effort to narrow down the concept of what we mean by “true.” It ties truth to a collection of facts, to data, and not to the message. Properly interpreted, the message of the books of Kings in the Hebrew scriptures can be true without being accurate in every detail of the numbers. There are serious issues in the chonology of the divided kingdom, and resolving these is an interesting hobby, but it’s not really something that impacts the truth of the Bible message.

    I think inerrancy, as used—and in effect a word is the way it is used—tends to put our focus on the wrong aspect of any story. It makes our first question be “did this happen precisely as stated?” rather than “what message does God have for me in this story?” That’s unfortunate.

    I think there are worse problems for inerrancy than the ages and reigns of kings, but that provides a good starting point. Once we are past that, we need to look at how God communicates. How did God send us scripture? How did God cross the gap between infinity and our finite existence?

    This is one of those questions that plagues discussion of topics such as the meaning of Genesis. I believe that God communicates to us in our language, and that Genesis communicated God’s message about creation to people who believed in an earth that was flat (though round, like a dinner plate), with the waters under and the heavens above. They also believed that earth was the center of the universe and had no concept of the size of the universe. In that context, God spoke about God’s involvement in human lives.

    That means that the science of Genesis is doubtless in error, when looked at from our point of view. But it’s not in error by mistake. It’s in error intentionally. By God’s intention, not by the intention of the human authors who knew no better. It’s in error in the same way as my explanation of some technical topic might be if I presented it to a child.

    And lest you get the idea that I think we are on a pinnacle or knowledge, I expect that, if the world continues and we don’t set ourselves back to the stone age through our own stupidity, people a few hundred years from now may consider our view of what the universe is like to be hopelessly primitive. They’ll look for new ways to tell the story of God’s involvement.

    I don’t like the word “inerrancy” because it says that the Bible is going to mean what I think it needs to mean rather than saying that the Bible gives God’s message in the way that God wanted it to be presented.

    As I read it, God did very little to scratch our modern itches.

  • Of Creation, Evolution, and Worship

    There are few topics that get Christians more angry at one another than the subject of evolution. Those who accept a young earth (or young age for the universe) tend to think that those who accept the theory of evolution do it simply because they lack the faith to believe the Bible. To them, this is the first step toward rejecting Christianity and becoming an atheist. Those who accept the theory of evolution often think the young earthers are ignorant, perhaps willfully so. (All of this ignores the broad sweep of views between young earth creationism and a purely materialistic view of origins. There are many nuances on the line between the two. But that is a subject for another blog post.)

    I disagree with both those viewpoints. Irrespective of my own beliefs (and I’ll get to those in a moment), I have met too many dedicated Christian believers whose faith is nurtured by Scripture and also accept evolutionary science to imagine that acceptance of evolution is necessarily the first step on the road to unbelief. I have also met too many intelligent and capable individuals who accept a young earth to believe that they are all ignorant or stupid. As a matter of principle, I never want to imagine someone is stupid because of their view on a single issue, nor do I want to think them immoral because of their view on one moral issue. Someone who is intelligent, competent, and functional, and yet believes something I find ridiculous, does not thereby become generally stupid.

    As an example, my dad was a doctor (MD), and an excellent one. Yet he believed in a young earth and a literal creation week his entire life. I’m not going to go down the route of believing that he was somehow less capable of carrying out his profession in a competent fashion, which he did all his life, because of one issue. There’s the family connection there, but I know a number of other people in similar situations.

    In spite of this, I  am not arguing a middle of the road position. I have a firm position on creation and evolution. I was raised with young earth creationist literature. I devoured the literature written by George McCready Price and Frank Lewis Marsh, icons of my Seventh-day Adventist upbringing, as well as many others. I did not begin to doubt this view because of studying science. In fact, I changed my position through a study of Scripture. It all started when I wrote a college paper examining the text of the genealogies of Genesis 5 & 11 and looking at the resulting chronology. Archeology did enter into it, as I looked at the dating of events that would be required to match that chronology, but characteristics of the text itself first suggested that we did not have literal history there. Nothing I have studied since has changed my mind on that point.

    9781938434723mBut I’ve written on this subject many times before. Just try typing “evolution” in the search box. I’m writing this because I’ve just sent a book off to the printer titled Worshiping with Charles Darwin. That’s a provocative title. Carol Everhart Roper designed a provocative cover to go with it. That was intentional. It’s not actually the most controversial book I’ve published, even on this topic, but I’ve focused on the controversy. That’s marketing, but it also comes from conviction.

    I look at this from two perspectives. First, as a Christian and a church member, I believe that this is a non-essential. That God is creator is an essential. How God created is not. I think we should have tolerance and respect in the church on this issue. But my belief in tolerance and respect does not mean that I don’t have a firm position on the issue myself. I believe that God is the creator of heaven and earth and that through the study of the world by the methods of the natural sciences we can learn how creation was accomplished and how the physical world functions. I believe we are in error both in theology and in science when we try to impose our theology on the findings of science. It’s bad theology because to claim that what we learn from the natural world is not reliable we make God a liar. It’s bad science because it imposes a conclusion prior to the data.

    Thus I would be called a theistic evolutionist, though I object to the label. I am a theist, in that I believe in God. But my theism is not a characteristic of my acceptance of the findings of evolutionary science. Though I am strictly an amateur in any scientific endeavors, I do not modify the findings of science by saying “and God.” This is not because I do not see God in the natural world. It is rather because I see God everywhere in the natural world and not more so in one place or another. I do not see God more in my cat’s purr than I do in a pencil falling. Both things result from God. Science tells me how. Science does not discover God at some specific point. Science is studying God through studying God’s handiwork. But science does not improve its study of the handiwork by trying to pretend to find God at some specific point. That is why I don’t like linking the word “theist” to “evolutionist.”

    But I also object to the word “evolutionist.” Evolution is not my philosophy. It is not my religion. It is not an article of my religious faith, though the fearless pursuit of accurate knowledge is. I am not an evolutionist any more than I am a gravitationist. I believe that gravity functions as science describes. I believe that evolution functions as science describes. I believe we will discover more about how each of these works. Neither gravity nor evolution is an object of my faith or trust. My trust in science is based on the method, a method that has proven functional repeatedly. It is not a matter of perfection either. Science will produce new results and alter previous understandings. But it has proven effective at correcting its own errors.

    Now people who believe what I do about evolutionary science have tended either to keep quiet in church or to simply say that we believe the Bible teaches that God is the creator and the how doesn’t matter. I don’t agree with these approaches. What I think we need to do is think about how the discoveries of natural science impact what we believe about God and how they change how we tell the story of God the creator. Genesis 1 & 2 told the story to the ancients. We can listen in to that story and learn theology and generate our own liturgy. But I think to tell the story as faithfully as it was told so long ago we need to tell the story of the creator in the light of what we know about cosmology and origins. Belief that God has used evolution as the means of diversifying life here on earth, and presumably elsewhere in the universe, is not a withdrawal from an area of faith. Rather, it is a new look at the expanding story of God and our knowledge and experience of God. We need to tell that story faithfully and vigorously.

    And this brings me back to the title of this recently released book. We could pretend that the discussion doesn’t matter, but that would not be faithful to the search for truth or to the integrity of the way we proclaim the gospel. I know of people for whom this issue has been a stumbling block. It’s time to talk about it openly. We’ve been arguing about it vigorously, but that’s not what I mean. We need to start looking at the implications and talking about how we tell the story of the gospel faithfully in the world God created and is creating. I think that is something worth celebrating.

    Bob Cornwall has taken up one part of that task. I hope the conversation continues to grow.

  • The Bible Gives No New Science Revelations

    My title is slightly modified from No Scientific Revelation in the Bible, posted by RJS at Jesus Creed, with links in turn to work by John Walton. I think this is an important point.

    My argument since I was an undergraduate just trying to work my way through these issues, has been that if you can easily explain terminology used in terms of the cosmology of the time there is no adequate reason to try to read modern ideas into the text.

    Some find every reference that might just allow them to sneak advanced scientific revelation into the text and try to claim that as evidence that the Bible writers had some advanced knowledge. But unless one makes a claim that is clearly different from what was commonly believed about the way the world works, and that claim matches later knowledge, there’s no basis to assume advanced revelation.

    The Bible speaks within the world of its original hearers and readers. That shouldn’t be a problem for us. That is precisely what it should do. It’s our function to carry on the story in our world as we know it. Should the world carry on for so long, in another couple of millenia other people, who may know as much more about how the universe functions as we do compared to the ancients, will be telling the story within their context and their knowledge.

    God didn’t intend to provide a science textbook, or a crib sheet for scientific advancement. I can make this claim because if God did try to do such a thing, it was a miserable failure. I prefer not to call God a miserable failure.

  • Three Good Posts on Inerrancy

    Why I Hate the Word “Inerrancy”

    The Bible Isn’t Perfect and It Says So Itself

    In All Things Necessary to Our Salvation

    I owe a hat tip to the author of the first one for the links to the other two. All express important points, though there are certain differences of nuance between the three.

    I think it is also important, however, to relate our fallible interpretation to the idea of inerrancy. If we are to be able to prove that the Bible is true, then we will have to read it correctly. (I’ll ignore another issue, that of the standard by which we judge it to be inerrant, for right now.) Here’s an extract on this point from my book:

    Thus the question is not only the accuracy of the content, but rather in what is to be conveyed, and how well we are capable of understanding it. I would presume God would write his character quite perfectly in nature, and yet that may be the hardest message to interpret. Some people prefer the immediate revelation of modern prophets or of dreams and visions. I too believe that God is as capable of speaking today as ever, and as likely to do so, but in that case we have the additional burden of deciding on the authenticity of the message, and we still need to interpret what we hear, especially if it is a vision or dream. Even a verbal message must be verified as to accuracy and then applied correctly.

    This is one of the reasons I believe that the doctrine of inerrancy, an evangelical standard today, is not only wrong, it is inadequate. It deals only with the source. It seems to be a way of guarding the barn door after the cattle have departed. Interpretation has gone in a thousand directions while some are arguing that the message was absolutely correct at the starting point. In addition, somehow it’s OK for us to lose part of the source in the process of copying–something acknowledged when inerrancy is postulated solely of the conveniently missing autographs–and yet if one supposes that instead something got altered on the way from God to the prophet, all revelation must immediately become suspect.

    Revelation is of value when I comprehend and apply it, and assertions of its validity apart from adding the line “and you can understand it” are pointless. I think that is part of the reason why there is wisdom literature in the Bible. It’s God’s message, but you have to think about it and comprehend it. Who you are, and how you have exercised your mind will make a difference in what you will understand. Revelation is not a replacement for reason, nor in appropriate areas is reason independent of revelation.

    No matter whether you are listening to a new idea, a message someone claims to have received directly from God, or the interpretation of a passage of scripture, your individual mind, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, is the final filter to separate sense from nonsense. The last person, and the decisive person, to hear from God is you. Even the firmest believer in the detailed accuracy of the text of scripture will realize that many interpretations of that scripture are nonsense. (pp. 3-4, emphasis added for this post)

     

  • Science and Genesis: Allister McGrath, John Polkinghorne, N. T. Wright, John Walton, et. al.

    Some very interesting points. It’s only fair that Herold Weiss, whose book Creation in Scripture I publish, would disagree with some of John Walton’s views, while affirming the broader ideas about how to read an ancient text.

    (HT: Allan R. Bevere)

  • Colbert Discovers the Real Strategy Behind Data Mining

  • David Alan Black on Dealing with Hardship

    I posted on my company’s blog today about writing to communicate, but I didn’t cover one important aspect: Transparency. Transparency isn’t a technique or a policy. It’s an attitude and a moral commitment. It says, “I’m not going to lie about how my life is going. I’m going to let people see what is real.” A speaker, teacher, or writer will be forgiven many, many faults if he or she is transparent.

    I’d like you to read one of Dave’s posts today. If you are one of the many who have appreciated Dave’s ministry and teaching, you’ll want to read it for the update in any case. I have Dave’s permission to copy from his blog any time I want in marketing his books, but this isn’t about marketing, and I feel it should be read in the context where it is. Right now it’s at the top, but if it has moved (those who know how Dave blogs know what I’m talking about), just scroll down to Thursday, June 13 and then to 6:02 AM.

    And follow the directions … you’ll find it worthwhile.

    And do remember to pray for Dave and Becky!

     

  • The Attractiveness of Etymology

    The etymological fallacy is one of the most well known fallacies in biblical exegesis. In fact, many people “know” it who don’t understand it.

    I was reminded of why etymological explanations are attractive this morning as I was reading Isaiah in the LXX. I came to the word “toparcos” in Isaiah 36:9. Now I couldn’t remember seeing this word before, though I know I have seen it, since I’ve read this very passage before. Almost instantly the etymology of the word struck me, “topos” and “arc-” (in its various forms), thus “rule of a place,” possibly district governor.

    Of course, I looked it up. And that is indeed the definition provided.

    Those who work with languages will not be at all surprised by any of this. My point is simply that the reason people tend to be attracted to the etymological fallacy is simply the general value of etymology. It solves a few problems for you, and then you try to make it solve everything else. To someone with a hammer, everything is a nail.

    Which has led me to use the term “anti-etymological fallacy” by which I mean the fallacy of accusing everyone who appeals to etymology at any point in their argument of the etymological fallacy.

    Etymology is useful. It’s sometimes a helpful pointer to meaning. It can help one discover the options when one is deciphering an ancient document. It doesn’t determine meaning.