I try to keep my eyes open for clear discussion of information and design written so that non-experts, such as me, can understand them. Jeffrey Shallit’s post On Design seems to suit. It’s part of a discussion with Michael Egnor, but I think it will stand alone quite well.
Author: henry
-
Biblical Prophecy in a Nutshell
Part of my current devotional reading is currently in Isaiah. Today this included Isaiah 46:10 —
(10) I declare the end when it is just the beginning,
From ancient times, things that have not yet been done.
I say, “My plan will be established,
and I will do everything I desire.” — Isaiah 46:10 (my translation)Biblical prophecy is frequently looked upon as God sort of looking into his crystal ball and seeing what is going to happen. I’m not arguing that God doesn’t know what will happen, although the openness of God is an interesting study. But I do not believe that is the primary point of prophecy. Viewing prophecy as a form of divine crystal ball encourages us to look at it as a means of satisfying our curiosity and of providing us with security and control. If we know what is going to happen, we can prepare for it.
I have a friend who has a whole house generator and a safe room. In this hurricane-prone area, that’s not a bad idea. I’m not criticizing him for that. But what he has done is looked at the probabilities and protected himself against the dangers. It gives him a sense of safety and control. In hurricane season, that is certainly not a bad thing!
The first have of Isaiah 46:10 affirms God’s declaration of future events. But the second half states it more clearly for us, I think. Prophecy is not so much prediction are promise. It is a promise that God is going to do something in the future. Why can he make that prediction? Because he is the one who is going to make it come to pass. He is not passively looking at what humans do and saying, “Watch out folks, this is what’s coming up!” I might compare that to the hurricane forecaster. God is more like the parent who tells his misbehaving children, “Something you won’t like is coming up!” The forecaster sees the hurricane forming and warns of it in advance. The parent speaks of what he intends to do.
I think the latter gives us a better perspective. Why, for example, is Jonah’s prophecy unfulfilled? Because God’s word had already accomplished what it set out to accomplish. Why could Jerusalem be destroyed when God had promised David a descendant on his throne? Because David’s descendants had departed from God’s plan. Those two events challenge the simple prediction model; they are completely in accord with the promise model.
Note here that my point is not that predictive prophecy is impossible or that God’s knowledge is inadequate. Rather, I’m talking about the mechanism and purpose. God is the actor in prophecy.
In conclusion I’d like to quote [tag]Brevard Childs[/tag]. I’m reading his commentary as I work through Isaiah in Hebrew:
. . . Biblical prophecy is not simply a description of a coming historical event made in advance, shortly to be visible to all. Rather, Isaianic prophecy interprets the effects of God’s entrance into human history. It embraces a different dimension of reality, which only in part coheres with empirical history. The eschatological appeal of God’s rule involves a vision of divine intervention that indeed enters human history, but is not exhausted by any one moment. The quality of God’s salvific presence is not limited to one specific event in time and space, but embraces the whole of God’s announced purpose for creation, which moves toward consummation. . . . — Isaiah, p. 361-2
-
Time Compression in Eschatological Texts
I want to touch on something that I encounter in conversation fairly frequently. Why is it that Christian texts applied to the coming of Jesus and to the end-times come often in the same contexts in Hebrew scripture. A good example of this is Isaiah 60-66, in which we have a mixture of texts related in Christian thought to either of these events. Isaiah 61:1-3, for example, is related to the first coming, while 66:22 is related to the second coming in Revelation 21:1. These are merely a couple of examples.
I encountered a similar issue with Mark 13, in which a number of verses refer rather specifically to the destruction of Jerusalem, yet we slide into material that appears eschatological with very little warning. I would suggest that this ambiguity is why there is so much debate over the correct interpretation of this and closely related passages (Matthew 24, Luke 21, and the whole book of Revelation). Interpreters differ because the lines are not drawn with the sort of clarity we would like.
Today my devotional reading included a passage that I think illustrates this telescoping, so to speak, of multiple events. It seems to me that what happens in each instance is that there is an immediate scene of God’s action, either in judgment or salvation, and that the immediate event and God’s ultimate judgment/salvation are brought together. Perhaps there is a type/antitype involved, but I will explore that at another time. In any case they are combined, and the view seems to be much like one might get looking at a distance.
To illustrate this, let’s suppose that there are two clouds in the distance. In my imagination, I’m on the plains around Omaha, NE, where I used to watch for tornadoes. I see one in front of me, and another larger one behind that. The one that is further away may, in fact, be much larger and much more distant, but I have no perspective to give me the time. If I describe the scene, I might confuse the two looming storms–the closer, smaller one, and the larger one at an uncertain distance.
In Isaiah 45, the primary topic is the call of Cyrus to rescue Israel (45:1ff). There is no doubt about the reference of the prophecy, because Cyrus is mentioned by name and spoken of/to in recognizable terms. Cyrus has come, accomplished his mission, and gone. In verse 23, however, we’re told that every knee will bow to YHWH, and every tongue will swear by him. That is a passage that fits much better in the eschaton than it does in the time of Cyrus, a time in which we know that no such thing happened.
I suspect that God has very little interest in informing us about the details of the end times. We are naturally curious, and we want to protect ourselves by knowing the details and thus preparing in detail for them. But the purpose of prophecy has never been to provide that sort of information. Rather, such prophecy calls one to precisely the opposite of independence–total dependence on God.
-
Rightly Dividing or Slicing and Dicing – Jeremiah 4:23
In debates on creation and evolution I have occasionally encountered the ruin and restoration theory. This view allows an old earth, but does so in a different way. Genesis 1:1 is viewed as an original creation, and then the word in 1:2 normally translated “was” is instead translated “became.” I discuss the details in the article above.
But what I find even more interesting, and certainly more relevant to this Bible study blog, is the slicing and dicing that must be done on verses elsewhere in scripture in order to make them fit with this theory. In fact, one of my major complaints about dispensationalism is that it tends to make it next to impossible to read contextually. The context is created by the dispensations, but clearly not recognized by the writers of the text.
An example of this tendency is Jeremiah 4:23. This is summarized in a note in [tag]Scofield[/tag]’s Reference Bible: “Cf. Gen. i.2. “Without form and void” describes the condition of the earth as the result of the judgment (vs. 24-26; Isa. xxiv. 1) which overthrew the primal order of Genesis i.1.”
But if you look at Jeremiah 4, you find that the topic has nothing to do with any original creation, nor with a primal judgment but rather with a judgment on Judah for its sins. The prophet goes on to depict the destruction that will come on the land. There is no literary division between verse 22, clearly about Judah, and verse 23, which Scofield is claiming refers to another time and place.
The argument is that “without form and void” refers back to Genesis 1:2, as surely it does. But for what purpose does it make this reference? It intends to compare the judgment to a removal of all the blessings of creation and to evoke that primal emptiness as a hyperbolic description of the destruction to come to Judah. Is there justification for calling it hyperbole? Absolutely. First, I would accept this as hyperbole based on the context alone. The context clearly indicates the destruction of Judah by Babylon, and “without form and void” is hyperbole in connection with that destruction. But further, in verse 27, after providing this description of absolute destruction, we find this: “. . . yet will I not make a full end.” “Without form and void” is pretty complete. This is all allowable in poetic language.
To understand this as referring to another time and place is to take it completely out of the context of Jeremiah. Such an interpretation would mean that Jeremiah suddenly, in the middle of a comparatively coherent discussion of one topic, changes subjects for several lines without any indication that the subject has changed, and then switches back. Verse 28, for example, again speaks of this destruction as future.
If one can do that, then one can take any phrase or clause of scripture and force it to mean anything one desires.
-
Empathizing with Alan Greenspan
From a Newsweek interview via MSNBC:
Interviewer: Who would you like to win next year?
Greenspan: Is one of the choices leaving the office open?Yeah, me too.
-
Rejecting ID, but is it a priori?
On a previous post Ray commented:
A religion or naturalism arrived at as a result of following the evidence where it leads, is quite acceptable, and even to be expected in most cases for it is a conclusion arrive at after an objective analysis of the evidence. It is therefore a reasonable conclusion.
Naturalism or a belief in ID, arrived at as a conclusion read into the evaluation of the evidence by, amongst other things, the exclusion of other potential conclusions on an apriori basis is quite another.To either assume or exclude a Designer on an apriori basis, seems to me, to be fatal to an objective analysis of the question.
Nevertheless, I see that I will only be repeating myself and irritating the rest of you( not my intention). Ive said my piece and I wish to thank all of you for your time.
God bless.I don’t mind this topic at all, and as I commented in response, I don’t believe my rejection of ID is a priori (with a specific exception noted below). I immediately need to clarify that I do not reject a designer as such, but rather intelligent design as a scientific concept. From a theological point of view, I hold that the universe is designed and that God is the designer. I simply believe that the design is consistent and that it does not show “wrinkles” in the natural universe. I (intelligent design) and its claim that the designer can be detected scientifically at particular points in nature.
The problem seems fairly simple to me. One could say that science deals with two categories of processes or entities, which I will loosely call “things.” There are things that scientists do understand and things they don’t. Good scientists would like to improve their understanding of things they already understand and learn to understand those they don’t.
ID proposes to divide the things that we don’t understand into two categories–those we can theoretically hope to understand and those that must be attributed to a designer. Now as a scientific layman, I am mystified as to what benefit is to be derived from this new division. All it does is attempt to put a stop sign in front of certain processes for which it is assumed we will never find answers in the natural world.
And it is an assumption. Everything we understand about the natural world was once not understood, and in many, many cases there were people who assumed it could never be known. One of my frustrations in reading Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box was in the number of discoveries that Behe relates, and even does such a fine job of explaining. Yet he uses this progress of knowledge to support the claim that there’s a roadblock in the way now. Saying we can’t know something we don’t know is silly–after all, we don’t know.
Let me also dismiss the notion of a non-supernatural intelligent designer. There are two reasons. First, if the intelligent designer is itself natural, then it will simply require explanation as well. How did it come into existence? Second, if we are looking for a natural designer, it makes sense to try to discover the nature of that designer in order to be able to guess capabilities, limitations, intentions, and so forth. One piece of evidence that ID is not scientific is simply that its proponents show no curiosity about the nature of the designer. This very lack of curiosity indicates that they do know who they are proposing–God. But in the United States they need something that will pass church-state muster.
So now if we are looking for a supernatural designer, what exactly happens? First, we must assume that this designer is one who intervenes in the natural world and who does so in a detectable way. There is no reason that the designer must be detectable. The best design of a universe might well run its course (assuming it has one) without any intervention at all. Intervention need not be detectable. Supposing that some element of nature was made to appear completely random. With any care, our hypothetical supernatural designer could altar the random input in such a way as to be undetectable.
Second, if we assume that the designer is supernatural, it automatically operates outside the natural laws. Should a scientist come upon one of these unexplained processes, and attribute it to the designer, then he steps beyond something he can investigate using the methods of natural science. Here is where I could properly be accused of arguing something a priori. I think that by design and definition, scientific methods are not suited to studying the supernatural. If it is truly supernatural, then you cannot limit it by natural laws, thus it can do anything, and can be fitted anywhere. But that does not exclude a designer a priori, merely the detection of the designer by the methods of natural science.
If we have an intervening designer, what we will find is that there will be a number of points in nature that are not explained. We won’t know whether they could be explained naturally or not. Every system which has a Darwinian explanation for its development was once a system for which there was no such explanation. ID has not added anything whatsoever to our knowledge. Without a designer we have some things that are explained and some that aren’t. With a designer–same thing!
ID does have a massive disadvantage, however, in that once you claim something cannot theoretically be explained, you reduce or remove the motivation for studying it and learning what can be learned. And considering that there are things once declared irreducibly complex that have since been “reduced” so to speak, that roadblock in the path of knowledge is not a good idea.
-
Evangelicals and Evolution
One response I get to my teaching and writing on creation and evolution goes something like this: “You’re just a liberal who’s trying to do away with the Bible, so it’s natural that you go along with the secularist society around you on evolution as well.” But that isn’t the case. For example my company (Energion Publications) publishes Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. who would best be described as an Old Earth Creationist. You can imagine that as I edited his books for publication, not to mention in our personal friendship and dialog that has gone on for a number of years longer, we have engaged in a few debates on this. But the fact that by almost any measure you choose, Elgin is more conservative than I am, in the area of creation and evolution, there is no difference in the way we would handle the Biblical materials.
That’s my long way around to get at the point that creation vs evolution need not be a conservative/liberal issue in Christianity. I may be a liberal (though I prefer “passionate moderate”) but you can’t determine that by my stance on evolution.
Steve Martin, an evangelical Christian, has a blog titled An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution. He left a comment on my previous post linking to a post on his blog Evangelicalism and Evolution: Why the Discussion Matters. I agree with the additional points that he makes there, and would like to call this to everyone’s attention.
I had an experience with my pamphlet God the Creator that supports his point. A college student told me that he was talking to a fellow-student who was interested in Christianity, but whose scientific training convinced him that evolutionary theory was the best explanation for the diversification of life on earth. The Christians he talked to were telling him that he had to give up that belief in order to be a Christian. This young man had attended my seminar “God, Dinosaurs, and You” (I’m not responsible for that title), and told him otherwise. At the time he shared this with me, several more people were attending church simply because that barrier to faith had been removed.
I would add also that as I believe the primary Christian witness is the individual Christian (and Christian congregation or community) through whom Christ is shown to others, a lack of individual integrity is critical to the gospel.
OK, enough rambling. I’ve gotten in my commercial plugs. I don’t do that much all that often on this blog. Really! I’ll be adding Steve’s blog to the blogroll.
-
Why the Creation-Evolution Controversy is Important
I’m going to try for a brief statement, something that seems to be an unnatural act for me!
I am sometimes asked why I spend so much of my time on the [tag]creation[/tag]/[tag]evolution[/tag] controversy. The reason is simply that there is a full scale assault going on against free inquiry, something that is essential to the integrity and continued progress of science. As we have seen in the case of Dr. [tag]Richard Colling[/tag], scientists are asked to give up or lie about what they know to be the truth in order to meet a theological conclusion.
Creation and evolution is simply the most obvious case at the present time. Not only is the pressure intense in church circles, so that many people prefer not to discuss the issue rather than deal with the controversy, it is also a factor in political circles as creationists seek government recognition for ideas which have failed in the scientific arena.
There is simply no excuse in my view for what amounts to a demand to lie. This overlaps into my field of Biblical studies. Shortly after I completed my MA degree, I was interviewed by a college for a possible teaching position. I had some disagreements with the dominant theology and I recall listing these off for one person, saying I was flattered to be considered, given my degree level and lack of experience, but that I would have problems in those areas. The answer? “You don’t have to teach everything you know.” That would not be an option I could live with.
In science the case is very clear. You go with what the evidence says, and to be evidence it must be something that can be seen by people of any religious persuasion, or of no religion at all. That’s a theologian’s way of putting it, but I think it does make the point.
I’m not interested in theistic or non-[tag]theistic science[/tag]. I’m interested in science. My personal faith requires integrity of me, and nothing less meets that standard.
-
Like Us or Die
Here’s another case: Leader offers $100,000 for cartoonist’s death.
The head of an al-Qaida-led group in Iraq offered $100,000 for the killing of Swedish cartoonist [tag]Lars Vilks[/tag] over his drawing depicting the Prophet Mohammad.
I’ll say again what I have said before. Blasphemy should not be illegal. I believe in [tag]free speech[/tag] when it’s engaged against my own faith. I don’t change my mind when it’s going against someone else. Muslim leaders who offer this kind of reward simply reflect badly on [tag]Islam[/tag]