Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • The God Exception – Opening Shot

    I’m going to try to divide this one up, because the topic promises to get a bit long. Also, objectors please note that I am aware of various approaches to theodicy and am not discussing them here. My point is simply that we assume some good explanation will be available for certain things, while do not do so for one particular topic.

    One of the regular objections I hear to a Christian believing in evolution is the violent nature of the process. And indeed many creatures have died in the course of the evolution of life on this planet including more than one major extinction. It seems to be a very bloody process.

    The objection then may take one of two directions. The first is that the example of survival of the fittest (the expression most commonly used in these cases) provides a violent and bloody example, and thus that those who think they are the product of such a process will feel justified in being violent, weeding out the week as nature does, and generally doing a bunch of other unloving things.

    The second is that if we believe God is love–and we know from the Bible that he is–then we cannot imagine him using such a violent process in creation.

    There is a third angle, but it is not as closely related to my topic. The [partially] random nature of the process is said to remove our sense of purpose, and thus make us into immoral beings. I’m not addressing this last point, though it is closely related.

    The question that comes to me in these cases is this: In what way is the God potentially portrayed by evolution (the God who would do things that way) any less loving than the God portrayed in scripture? After all, in scripture we have a God who decides to destroy all of his creation except for eight human beings and selected pairs of varies animal groups (Genesis 6-9). Further on, in Numbers 31, we have the same God dissatisfied with the amount of killing carried out by the Israelites in battle, and ordering them to kill many more. In Joshua we have the depiction of the invasion of Canaan, with the command to kill everyone in the country. Finally, we have a God who is willing to throw a substantial portion of the people he created into hell. Just how many we’re not told, but lots.

    Now the issue is not whether there is any way to read these chapters in a way consistent with a loving God. There are in fact, quite a number, with quite variable degrees of plausibility. The issue, rather, is why it is that we feel that we should construct such explanations for these Bible stories, but somehow if evolution is true, it is an indelible stain on God’s reputation.

    Whether evolution has taken place or not, and I’m convinced it has, there are quite a number of violent events that need to be explained, always presuming we can explain them at all. Theodicy is alive and kicking, even if often not in such good health. I do have to say that the concept of theodicy occasionally amuses me. What can we do with God if we find we can’t justify his behavior?

    It seems to me that evolution is one of the most minor issues of theodicy. The flood (even if it didn’t happen as such) or the Canaanite genocide (even if that didn’t happen either), require much more explanation in the light of God’s character.

    What I’m calling the God exception here is this: There are a group of violent events that are part of the Christian scripture and tradition that we tend to protect from blame in influencing evil events. We do not allow the process of evolution such a free pass, or assumption that there is, somewhere, an adequate explanation. We make exceptions for some of the most difficult material, and then get hung up on the relatively easy.

    (I describe this as an opening shot because I expect to say more on the topic.)

  • Christian Carnival CCXL Posted

    . . . at Fish and Cans.

  • Peter Enns Writes on Inspiration and Incarnation

    Earlier this year I commented twice on Dr. Peter Enns and the actions by WTS regarding his theology and writings. Now he has posted some additional information on his views and some responses to prior reviews of his work. (HT: An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution, though I should note that this does not have to do with evolution.) I think it’s appropriate for me to provide a link to this newer material as well.

    You can find a collection of links to material he has posted at I&I – Inspiration & Incarnation. This material was extremely important for me in clarifying his views, since I have not yet managed to read his book, though I very much intend to. I found this response to a review particularly helpful, after reading all of the five essays he presents on I&I.

    I do want to respond to part of his statement on inerrancy, since I have written some on that subject myself (see my book When People Speak for God). He says:

    I affirm that I am committed to the Bible’s inerrancy as a function of its divine origin. If I may offer a thumbnail definition, the Bible as it is is without error because the Bible as it is is God’s Word.

    To get directly to the point, if this is inerrancy, then what is there to argue about? I do not affirm the doctrine of inerrancy, yet I could say pretty much the same thing. I usually phrase it as “the Bible is precisely what God intended it to be.” Perhaps some of my readers could tell me if I’m missing something here, after reading all of Dr. Enns’ referenced essay, of course. (For more of my view without having to pay for it, see Inspiration, Biblical Authority, and Inerrancy.) Looking at it from clearly outside the inerrancy camp, that doesn’t look to me like what most people who espouse Biblical inerrancy are saying, however.

    As an example, I say that God speaks into the cultural matrix of the people who are addressed. He will work with what they believe on everything other than the truth he is trying to add. For a simple example, if one or both of the genealogies of Luke and Matthew are in error, one explanation could be simply that the communities involved would believe those particular genealogies and get the point–Jesus as human son of David and Adam. If one ancestor were wrong, for example, it would be harder to add something like, “Well, your genealogical records are incorrect, and the Holy Spirit is telling me to correct them.” That would uproot the teaching from history in the minds of the readers/hearers.

    Now please note that this is not something I am attributing to Dr. Enns–this is something I am saying. I’m simply not seeing where it would contradict his statement of inerrancy, yet I’m pretty sure that most who espouse the doctrine of inerrancy would find my explanation unacceptable.

  • Biblical Studies Carnival XXX Posted

    . . . at Codex.  No, I’m not a participant, but it’s a source of good reading.

  • Trust the Executive Branch?

    Liberals tend to trust the government to do right in social spending. Conservatives tend to trust the government on security issues. I’d suggest we do neither. It seems some appeals court judges agree.

    Allowing agents of the executive branch to simply declare someone outside the court system is ridiculous. I have a hard time understanding why someone would trust the executive branch to police itself on that matter. If nothing else there is the embarrassment of admitting one’s mistakes. That’s why we have a judiciary in the first place.

    Reviewing after they are captured doesn’t present a security hazard in the field. It is only a hazard to those who are afraid to correct their own errors.

  • Todd Bentley Obedient to the Lord?

    Dave Warnock links to this disturbing video of Todd Bentley. He discusses it further in his post Reflecting on cancer healing – Todd Bentley style. Peter Kirk writes on a related topic at Gentle Wisdom.

    Before I comment further, let me simply say that both of these are men whom I have to respect. I appreciate their ministries as best as I can follow them on the internet. Nothing here is intended to get personal.

    Frankly, the video is gut-wrenching in more ways than one. My 17 year old son died after a five year battle with cancer. At a revival meeting a pastor told him that God had told him (the pastor) that anyone on whom he laid hands and prayed for healing would be healed of cancer. James was 12 years old at the time. He wasn’t healed. That pastor said something false in the name of the Lord.

    Now I didn’t decide that everything that happened at those revival meetings was not of God based on that one incident. Yet at the same time, it illustrates a problem of extremely active revival meetings. What exactly guides or limits what one says or does? People who label themselves “Spirit led” often look down on the people who are totally focused on the written Word as dry and powerless. Yet one would hope that there would be some limit, some control on what was said and done.

    My question here is just what standard would limit what Todd Bentley could say God had told him to do? My personal standard would be this: “Kicking someone in the stomach is bad. God isn’t telling me to do that.” I apply an ethical standard to my behavior. If I think God is telling me to do something that is wrong, I’m going to let my behavior be guided ethically.

    Update (7/4/08): Peter Kirk has objected to the term kicking, and Dave Warnock adjusted the wording. I noticed the knee thing, but didn’t regard it as significant. Perhaps that makes me worse than others who didn’t notice it. I would say precisely the same thing about kneeing him in in the gut as about kicking him. Further, I have viewed this video, in which Todd Bentley talks about kicking people. Unfortunately I don’t have the clip without someone else’s commentary.

    Now I admit that I don’t know the full context of this action. I’m not going to proclaim myself an expert based on a YouTube video. Nonetheless I am having a hard time imagining the context that would make me think this was ethically right. If someone could suggest something that went before and after that would make it look good, I’d be interested in hearing about it.

    The only thing I can imagine would be a complete healing of the man in question, but even then I’m likely to apply something I say very frequently: God knows how to answer prayers better than we know how to pray them. In other words, even if the man was healed, I would be inclined to believe that God was showing him grace and mercy (perhaps because he was kicked in God’s name?), rather than that he was confirming a kick as the proper action.

    At the same time, the question I run into is one that Dave Warnock has to deal with, as do some of my friends over in the Lakeland area of Florida. How do you respond?

    Here is where I remain convinced that the wheat and the tares is the better option. If you become a blanket critic of anything, you will be very limited in your ability to respond to those who are involved or considering involvement.

    The problem at the center of this is hurting people, people who are looking for something. In fact, I believe what sends many people off the rails is that overwhelming determination that something has got to happen, that somehow there must be a physical demonstration of God’s power. If it isn’t happening in the normal course of events, let’s force it.

    Now it’s not bad to try to get life into our Christian lives. At the same time, once you get desperate, the controls are off, and it becomes very hard to discern good from bad. You think, “Maybe a kick in the stomach wouldn’t be so bad if it would just bring healing.” If you’re at that point, beware.

    As I’ve said before, while I try not to do blanket approvals or condemnations–I often don’t do a blanket approval of myself; never, in fact!–particular things can be labeled properly. Prosperity teaching-bad. Kicking in the stomach-bad. I’m pretty certain of those two!

  • The Loom Moves

    Carl Zimmer is a great science writer, and he will now be a columnist for Discover Magazine. Accordingly, his blog, The Loom, has moved there.

  • In Defense of Elitism

    I was going to write a lengthy post with a great deal of substance, but then I spent the day working mostly on the Moderate Christian Blogroll and Blog Aggregator. I’ve already posted links to the new feeds I created, and will post the code for this tomorrow on my computer services blog, if all goes well.

    But I really wouldn’t want having nothing much to say keep me from writing something, so I nurtured my negative reaction to this article in the Washington Post, which talks about some folks in Findlay, Ohio, also known as Flag City.

    Now let me get several things out of the way. I appreciate these people’s patriotism. I’m glad they’re living the life they want to live. I also don’t think that one must be a racist in order to oppose Barack Obama. There are plenty of policy grounds on which to do so. In fact, were my priorities a little reordered, I could easily switch to McCain myself. There are many policy issues on which I disagree with Obama, they just aren’t the most important ones on which I’m basing my vote this year.

    Obama took a big hit for making a few snide remarks about some people. He did so in too general a way, though many suspected, with some validity in my view, that he let the truth slip out by accident. I imagine he is frustrated by just the people he mentioned, and he doesn’t think that much of their views. He probably said it with more acid than he intended, but such are the risks of politics.

    But some people are just plain stupid. I’m not running for office, so I can say that. If someone is opposed to Barack Obama because he’s going to raise their taxes, that’s a political difference. If someone is opposed because they think he’ll pull out of Iraq recklessly, that’s a political difference. But if someone is opposed because they can’t pronounce his name, or they think he’s an Arab, or they believe he just must be a closet Muslim, that’s just plain stupid.

    I recall Tolkien’s description of Hobbits as folks who liked books filled with lots of things they already knew set down plainly without contradiction. He said it with some affection, I think. There’s a great value in people who are ordinary, who don’t want to spend their time in college or some academic environment, yet who are actually quite intelligent and have a good sense of ethics. There are others whose stupidity and willful ignorance are dangerous.

    There’s another version of elitism, or perhaps it should better be called anti-elitism, which attributes everything that an educated person does to his education. I get this over my more liberal views on Biblical studies. “The seminary ruined you,” I was told. Never mind that the seminary was much more conservative than I am and refused to publish some of my work. They say I was brainwashed into accepting the theory of evolution, never mind that the schools I attended were one and all young earth creationist strongholds.

    These folks will look down on someone like Obama because of his Harvard education. That, again, is just plain stupid. If you don’t like his policies, argue against them. If you don’t like his attitude argue against that. But education is a good thing, whether or not you like the opinions of those who graduate. Give them the credit of actually having their own views. Oddly enough, the reason more educated people seem to tend to be more liberal may not be because of brainwashing. (And no, I’m not using “more intelligent.” “More educated” is intentional. I know too many genius level conservatives to say conservatives are less intelligent as a group.)

    So I’m in favor of elitism. I like intelligent people. I like educated people. I like people who are willing to apply all that learning and think for themselves. There will be bunches of those on both sides of this election. There will also, unfortunately, be quite a number of stupid, willfully ignorant people.

    I call the first group elite; the second group deserves no respect.

  • The Foreignness of the Bible

    Richard Rhodes doesn’t think it’s all that foreign.  Read about it at Better Bibles.  I give this one 5 stars out of 5.

  • Continuing Moderate Christian Blogroll Saga

    Since I believe there are still many Moderate Christian Blogroll members who watch this blog, but not the Moderate Christian Blogroll Blog, I’m going to link again to the current status. I have created new RSS feeds that should be including all sites properly. Go to this post to get details.