OK, I’m generally pretty slow in getting on these political cases, and this is no exception. But Laura is right about this case and the need to get something done. I suspect the online position will not be useful either, but perhaps some mail to the appropriate government officials will help.
Public opinion, properly applied, helps keep government officials accountable.
One frequent response I get when criticizing certain views of creation is that I believe the people who hold those views are wrong, not really Christian, and/or are incredibly stupid. Now there are occasional folks whose intelligence seems questionable, though I prefer to question the intelligence of their arguments, and not their actual IQ. I believe quite intelligent people can hold incorrect views. I’m certain I do. That certainty is fed by the fact that I’ve changed my views on some topics. For example, I was once a young earth creationist myself and I was a precinct worker for Ronald Regan in 1976, you know, the campaign against Gerald Ford, four years before he was actually elected. Now I’m registered independent and lean somewhat more to the left.
My position on Christianity and creationism is simply that the church’s position should be that God is the creator and allow the “how” to be an open question on which people can disagree. I do not want theistic evolution to be doctrine any more than I want young earth creationism to be doctrine. Individual denominations not only have the right to determine their own position, but certainly will, irrespective of what I think. While I think it is unfortunate when certain conservative denominations close the door on this particular issue, it’s a fact of life.
At the same time, I do not intend to be quiet on the issue myself. I believe the young earth creationists are massively wrong, and old earth and ID creationists are wrong to lesser extents and I will go on debating those issues and calling things wrong when I think they are. At the same time I will note that they certainly have no slowed down the propaganda for their own point of view.
In addition, I will note that I object when they call defending their particular view of creation “defending the faith.” This is not because I have a better reason to call my view of the “how” of creation “the faith.” I would be quite wrong to call a defense of theistic evolution “defending the faith.” Thus the Answers in Genesis creation museum is not designed to defend the Christian faith; it is designed to defend one particular view of how and when God created. I regard it as dishonest to portray it otherwise.
I’m author of the month from now until sometime late August (not sure when it will end) on the Compuserve Religion Forum. I will be available for debate over there as well as on my excessively large numbers of blogs. The discussion is primarily of my new book When People Speak for God.
That’s obviously the answer to some question, but what question is it an answer to?
Well, I’m frequently asked by fellow-Christians why I would pray if I don’t believe that God will do what I ask. I’m also frequently asked by others why I would bother to pray if there is no evidence that prayer works. It could also be an answer to the frequent question of why I’m not at all interested in the results of studies on the effectiveness of prayer.
I wrote on this from a more scriptural point of view in my essay Praying, Being Heard, and Not Getting It. Here I just want to give a few personal reflections.
It starts with the reason I pray in the first place. I pray, because I can commune with God. Those who don’t believe in God are welcome to fill in some kind of meditation, communion with my subconscious, or whatever you want. What I believe is that I commune with God. Now what is this communion with God? Is it something that can be tested? Just what scientific test would one propose to determine how effective one’s prayers are at communing with God?
Designing a prayer study depends on determining just what it is that is going to happen when somebody prays. I see no theoretical reason one can’t test such things, provided one can find something to predict. For example, are people more likely to be healed when people pray for them or not? It seems a simple question. Of course, you can’t weed out factors like how many people might be praying for certain patients in the study even though they know nothing of the study. Thus statistically, Mary might be in the control group for which nobody in the study is praying, but she might elicit numbers of prayers in some other way. Nonetheless, it would seem to me such a study would work generally, always provided that the prediction was in fact the right thing to test.
But when I pray, I expect to communicate with God, but I expect God to continue to do things his way anyhow. I don’t see God as a slot machine in the sky. Some scriptures certainly suggest the idea that he is, but others tend the other way. I think this reflects our own experience. Sometimes things happen as we’d like; sometimes they don’t.
My personal test on this came with the death of my 17 year old son in 2004, less than a week after Hurricane Ivan passed through. In the prayer order of things, I would have taken the life of my son over anything else I might ask God for. Yet my double-wide trailer was spared, despite being in an area of substantial destruction, and my son died. There was nary a leak in the trailer. There was not a moment of respite on my son. Travel plans for guests at the funeral were chaotic due to the cleanup from the storm.
Did God answer my prayer on my home, but deny the prayer on my son? I couldn’t answer precisely how God works in these things. I can simply note that my son’s cancer ran the course that might be expected of that type of cancer, and that damaged areas were scattered, as they often are in a hurricane. Did I consider cutting off my prayer? “God,” I could say, “This prayer machine isn’t working. I put in several sacks of quarters into the ‘heal my son’ slot, and a quarter or two into the ‘save my home’ slot, and you skipped the healing and handled the home.”
Many people, I know, have quit praying under that sort of circumstances. Many people will think either that I had insufficient faith–if I’d had enough what I wanted would have happened. Others will think I’m a stupid man because I continue to pray when prayer clearly doesn’t work. (Go ahead, admit you think I’m stupid on this point, even if you’re gracious enough to give me points in other areas.)
The bottom line, however, is that I didn’t pray so that certain things would happen and others wouldn’t. I prayed because I could. I prayer, as C. S. Lewis once noted, because I couldn’t help it. But even more I pray because I enjoy praying. It’s an important part of my life. I don’t think it gives me a handle on God, or a way to force God to do things my way. It does give me exceptional opportunities, I believe, to reshape my life according to the way God wants it to be. And that is why I will keep right on praying no matter what the studies show. They aren’t designed to discover anything I want or need to know.
I was kind of set off on this topic by the story of Ante Pavkovic, who said that he was trying to “avert the wrath of God on the nation” when he protested Hindu prayer in the Senate (source ; HT: Dispatches). I’m not sure precisely how being discourteous in the Senate gallery will avert God’s wrath, but it sounds to me as though Pavkovic thinks God is hard of hearing and will perhaps miss the nasty Hindu prayer while hearing the Christian ones from the gallery. Or perhaps he thinks God is too dumb to figure out what to do about America, and needs our guidance. It would be much more useful to stay at home and earnestly ask God to guide him into an effective means of witness.
All this rhetoric about averting God’s wrath on the nation has a subtle foundation in the notion that America has become God’s chosen nation. In the times of ancient Israel nations in general were seen as belonging to their various gods. Israel was YHWH’s country, and he blessed or cursed Israel according to their obedience or disobedience. The idea of a pluralistic society simply didn’t exist. Most people who pray for the nation are not Christian dominionists, but they do take the promises God made to Israel and apply them to the United States without serious consideration of the context.
All of which leads them back to the “prayer receiving machine in the sky” which will give the right people what they want if they pray often and loudly enough. I really enjoyed the seen in Bruce Almighty in which Bruce sets the computer to answer everyone’s prayer “yes.” The resulting chaos is quite amusing. But the comedy has a wonderful point. It doesn’t work that way. It couldn’t work that way.
I suggest those who study prayer seriously consider whether there’s anything to study. Just as I don’t like intelligent design, because I think it’s an effort, however disguised, to make God subject to scientific study, so I don’t think prayer can be studied. If you want to get stuff, feed your money into a vending machine. If you want to get closer to God, pray.
PS: For those interested, I have three prior essays that are relevant to this issue: The Hand of God, The Hand of God: Miracles, and The Hand of God: Prayer. These three essays are also edited and incorporated into my book Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic.
. . . has been posted at Mere Orthodoxy. My entry this week wasn’t from this blog, but rather from my wife’s devotional list, to which I contribute.
I haven’t gotten anything written during the last week on this blog. This is not due to a hiatus in Bible study. There’s plenty to write, and I’ve been writing elsewhere, but I just haven’t gotten here with something specifically exegetical.
In the meantime, I wrote a devotional from my wife’s list, titled Handling Scandal. It seems rather relevant both in the church and the nation right now.
A couple of days ago I wrote an entry about young earth creationists and presuppositions. Two commenters have now taken me to task over my claim that young earth creationists try to dodge their main presupposition, that Genesis is narrative history conveying accurate science.
Commenter Jonathan Bartlett said:
I think you are slightly confused on some of the issues. Scientific creationists DO NOT say that they came to believe in YEC because of the evidence. What they do say is that they believe that YEC can be _supported_ on the evidence alone, and believe that it can be investigated and analyzed scientifically without respect to the Bible. There is a difference between the _inspiration_ for an idea and the _support_ for an idea. Science should, in theory, criticize only the _support_, and not the _inspiration_, and it is on this basis that scientific creationism attempts to make its case . . .
I am always delighted when someone accuses me of being confused, and I am most frequently accused of confusion by creationists who generally believe that I don’t understand their position, even though I was myself a young earth creationist most of the way through college and only slowly rejected it over a period of years. And just to prevent the normal reply that obviously I was led astray by my secularist professors, I am a graduate of a Seventh-day Adventist college where the dominant view was YEC.
What’s interesting about the paragraph I quoted from the comment, however, is that it accuses me of confusion while at the same time demonstrating the very thing I describe! My contention is that the young earth creationist position is founded on the presupposition that Genesis 1-11 is narrative history that is accurate in its science. I didn’t specify “inspiration” as opposed to support, because I don’t think that matters all that much. In what sense would it be possible for something to be “investigated and analyzed scientifically without respect to the Bible” and yet impossible for one to “get to” (my unscientific terminology) that same thing through science?
When a young earth creationist sets out to demonstrate his theory apart from the Bible, he is, in fact, claiming that it is scientific. In the link I provided in one of my own comments, a young earth creationist claims to be prepared to debate the issue without referring to religion. He’s avoiding the presupposition, pretending it’s unnecessary, whether he confesses to getting inspiration from the Bible or not.
My basic claim here is that such an activity denies one of the presuppositions of young earth creationism, and that this presupposition is essential, and is actually held by the young earth creationists. Young earth creationism will completely fail without that presupposition. It cannot be scientifically supported. It fails tests from archeology through physics, geology, biology, astronomy, and so forth. Its predictions fail. The Bible is not merely an inspiration, it is a fundamental element running through the YEC position, and not merely the Bible, but a specific category of literalistic view of the Bible.
There are two reasons YECs want to avoid this fact. First, there is the first amendment in the United States. They would like their dogma taught in the public schools. Since their dogma is religious (though I believe theologically unsound), they have failed to get the courts to accept it. But when they go to court and claim that their position is scientific when it is, in fact, attached at practically all points to the Biblical text of Genesis 1-11 read as narrative history, they pretend, and I repeat pretend not to employ the (very bad) presupposition that is fundamental to their entire system.
The second is that science has gained a high level of public respect. It has earned it. So to be respectable, the YECs have to place themselves on a level with science. They accomplish this in two ways. 1) They claim that their own view is the really scientific one, and 2) They degrade the scientific claims of their opponents by claiming they are merely the result of scientist’s presuppositions or their faith in _____ (fill in claim of moment here).
Young earth creationists really shouldn’t talk about presuppositions. It doesn’t work well for them.
Another commenter, macht, also is severely bothered by my “get to” phrase. Before I quote what he said, let me say that I think it is nonsense to claim that one can be inspired by the Bible to create a scientific model, then to claim that one can fully analyze and test that model scientifically without reference to the Bible, yet one can’t “get to” the model through science.
If one can fully analyze and test a model, one can assemble that model based on hypothesis and testing. Science works that way.
Here’s the quote:
Morris and Parker think that evolution and creation are two different worldviews that ultimately cannot be confirmed or falsified by science. But they also say that these two worldviews each have a scientific model which can be confirmed or falsified. As far as I can recall, they dont claim that we can come to either one without presuppositions. What they say is that each scientific model attempts to explain empirical data within their own frameworks and that when we evaluate each, the creation science model is confirmed and the evolution science model. . . .
This is an example of the pervasive prevarication of young earth creationism. Evolutionists have faith; they have faith. Evolutionists have a worldview; they have a worldview. Evolutionists have presuppositions; they have presuppositions. It’s all just one happy presupposition party in which your guess is as good as mine, so who are all those nasty scientists, and a few Biblical studies types like me, to criticize? (It’s another topic, but it’s interesting to note that we have this sort of post-modern “we all have our reality” view, except that we’re supposed to come out believing YEC is TRUTH.)
So what are the presuppositions of young earth creationism? There is a God. He inspired a book. That book must be taken literally, and its first 11 chapters are a historical narrative of prehistory. Even though the writers, however divinely inspired, had no scientific skill at all, one must take their words as science. Maybe I missed some, but that’s the gist.
What are the presuppositions of biological evolution? Hmm. Let’s see. You learn about nature by observing nature. I should add, of course, that the scientific method has been repeatedly shown to work as the specific means of studying nature, as is testified by this computer on which I’m writing and all the various accomplishments of technology that lie between this computer and the one on which you will read this post. It may be a worldview, but it works!
The worldviews are not equal. One works and the other doesn’t. The theory of evolution is validated, and young earth creationism is not.
Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars I found this article on WorldNetDaily. Ed suggested that it didn’t require fisking, but from the Christian point of view there are a couple of things I’d like to comment on.
Lofton says,
I love Ken Ham president of the Answers In Genesis ministry because he’s a Christian with a brain and he has the guts to defend the faith. I also love him because he drives the God-haters nuts or I should say he drives them even nuttier.
Where to start? There are so many silly things about that paragraph. First, there’s the notion that Christians with brains are rare, and thus one had to search and search until finally Ken Ham was located. Oh joy! Oh Rapture! A Christian with a brain! Well actually there are plenty of Christians with brains, and there are plenty of Christians who are willing to defend the faith, and none of them are Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis. I’m not so much commenting on Ken Ham’s IQ as I’m suggesting that he is not defending “the faith” but rather an eccentric view of Biblical interpretation that is producing misguided science. Unless “the faith” is to be equated with massive rejection of evidence over a wide variety of fields, then Ken Ham is not defending the faith. Young Earth Creationism doesn’t merely collide with geology and evolutionary biology. It collides even with archeology. There is written history that dates to before the flood date according to young earth creationists.
Christians should make no mistake. Ken Ham isn’t just after secularists. He’s opposed to Christians who disagree with him about when and how God created.
Thus Christians with brains such as Hugh Ross are excluded by Ken Ham’s viewpoint. Now I’m not arguing that Ken Ham doesn’t have the right to disagree with Hugh Ross, or with theistic evolutionists. He absolutely does. But people who look at or read about that museum in Kentucky should not imagine that it is dedicated to the general proposition that God created, or that it is a general defense of Christianity against some supposed secularist forces. It’s not. It is designed to advocate a young earth position, a position that is truly not tenable.
But Lofton continues saying that Ken Ham drives God-haters nuts. I’ve got to tell you that in general the response I get from non-Christians with whom I discuss any young earth creationists is one of extreme humor. I suggest that a response is necessarily precisely because the public discussion of the museum is so deceptive. Many Christians who actually have no problem with evolution may believe this museum is simply about generally seeing God as the creator, of seeing God’s handiwork in nature. It’s a good idea for them to hear that it isn’t.
I cannot speak for “God-haters,” as I’m not certain that I’ve met any. I certainly have met quite a number of people who would strongly oppose practically everything taught in the museum. I haven’t been there, but from what I’ve seen, I would be one of them.
What’s going on in the quoted paragraph, however, is not an attempt to accurately portray the situation, but rather to rally Christians against these imagined God-haters. There is nothing like invoking the word “atheist” to get the faithful ready to rally around. But the faithful need to consider two things. First, as Christians we’re not called to act as mobs trying to persecute those who don’t like us. The way Christians speak about atheists is, well, just not Christ-like. Second, when you’re trying to choose a rallying point to defend the faith, it’s a good idea to choose a solid one, something that is part of the essentials of the faith, and is likely to stand the test of time. Young earth creationism doesn’t meet that test.
But the great fun starts when Ham is quoted saying, “. . . all scientists have presuppositions that they start with to determine how they interpret evidence.” In support of this he notes that scientists search for answers in nature. I’m shocked! Scandalized even! Well, not so much. It seems just natural that scientists setting out to study nature would, well, study nature.
The word “presupposition” is a buzzword these days, and it gets abused more than it gets properly used. On the one hand, “you’re just basing everything you say on your suppositions” or “that’s all you can possibly see in your worldview” (nearly synonymous phrases) are used to end the discussion. Supposed simply being informed that I have presuppositions is supposed to end the discussion. On the other hand, the idea of presuppositions is dismissed entirely.
In fact, we all do have presuppositions. But we can actually identify them, and then we discuss whether they are appropriate or not. For example, if one is studying nature, one should, most likely seek one’s answers right there–in nature.
But young earth creationists are the master of the great presupposition, and many of them are the master of the denied presupposition. They presuppose that Genesis 1-11 (amongst other texts) contain narrative history and scientific statements. They assume that they should be interpreted primarily in a literal fashion. When some of them claim that they get to young earth creationism on purely scientific grounds, they are merely denying this presupposition. It is impossible to come to young earth creationism on purely scientific grounds. Anyone who claims that is simply denying their most fundamental presupposition.
If one eliminates this one presupposition, the entire young earth structure collapses. There’s simply no reason for it. It’s designed to explain things that just are not so.
Thus I find it particularly ironic (as in break the irony meter) to have a young earth creationist talk about presuppositions. We could also word this in worldviews. They would generally suppose that their worldview is simply the view that God is creator and sovereign. But that is not precisely the worldview. They must add all of those presuppositions about Genesis to their worldview. God is not just sovereign and creator. He is not just a God who reveals himself, or even a God who reveals himself to prophetic writers who produce sacred texts. He is specifically a God who reveals scientific data or historical narratives. There is no need to presuppose all of that. One can test each of those things.
Absent those unjustified presuppositions, the worldview of young earth creationists lacks any justification whatsoever.
No, not Miss New Jersey’s stupidity, the stupidity of anyone who thinks it should be news that a young lady, especially one involved in the performing arts, might horse around. Those pictures are supposed to be some kind of scandal?
I don’t follow beauty pageants, but I was bothered by this, and then what do I find on RSS? Amanda Marcotte, whom I have previously used as a good proof that there are really such radical liberals as I’m occasionally accused of imagining (well, whenever the same accusers are not calling me liberal), wrote a top class article, Miss NJ discovered to be human being, Powerline distraught.
Yep. That’s what I wanted to say about this, but didn’t quite have the words.
Now I have two posts to generate complaints from the right. My moderate image may be shattered.
