Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Natural Production of New Information

    One of the key arguments for Intelligent Design (ID) is that new information cannot be produced by natural processes, and thus there must be intervention by an intelligent designer for this new information to appear. That’s a crude statement, but it covers the ground pretty well.

    One problem I saw with the argument when I read Darwin’s Black Box, was one that was implicit in Behe’s writing, but which he did not acknowledge: Science discovers new things all the time. In the midst of describing how much we know now that was unknown in Darwin’s day, Behe suddenly seems to expect the reader to accept a stop sign in this one direction. For the production of an IC system, there must be intelligent intervention. There are at least two branches to that argument. First, no new information can be produced and second, that information can’t be organized as an IC system. Creating an IC system would require both, and that view has been challenged in both directions. Systems that appear to be IC have been proved to be no such thing, and many ways of producing new information through natural evolutionary processes have been demonstrate.

    Art has a post on the Panda’s Thumb that discusses such a structure in about as much detail as a non-biologist can take. It’s pretty clear writing, however, so if you’re willing to look up a couple of terms to make sure you’re on track, you should be able to follow it in its essentials. The key point can be summarized:

    The take-home message of all this is: portions of the maize mitochondrial genome that do not normally encode any protein were shuffled, extensively, so as to cobble together an expressed gene that encodes, not just any old polypeptide, but a multimeric gated ion channel. In other words, an irreducibly complex structure arose in one fell swoop, using DNA sequences that do not encode proteins. Basically, this is a case of IC from scratch.

    Much of the information that refutes Behe’s arguments was already available when he wrote, and much has appeared since. I appreciate those folks who are willing to write up this sort of complicated material for the rest of us.

    If I might add my theological note, as is expected of me as a theistic evolutionist, my question for my fellow Christians is why they would assume that a universe designed by God would be incapable of producing pretty much anything. I do not mean by front-loading for specific elements, but simply the design of a universe that functions. This is not an argument for or against intervention. It’s simply an observation that special intervention is not required. (By special intervention I mean action that contravenes the normal processes. As a theist, I believe that all things happen “because God,” but that God’s will is so consistent that we can call it natural law.)

  • Even Better Update on Driscoll Video

    Check this post on In Defense of the Faith for further information. One can’t be absolutely certain with blog comments, but this is beginning to make sense to me, I think. 🙂

    In textual criticism, we consider a reading that could give rise to all the others as more probable. This report–that the videos were available, but in a different way than expected–could give rise to all of them. This whole thing reminds me about making assumptions that one person’s take on an event is necessarily accurate, even if they are sincere.

  • Christian Reconciliation Blog Carnival #4

    . . . has been posted at Pseudo-Polymath. Despite my delinquency in sending in posts, this is a carnival I want to support. It’s small now, but has some excellent material but I think it’s only going to get better. Besides, where can you find a better goal?

  • Update on Driscoll Video

    A couple of updates on this controversy. I may have spoken too soon on the matter of the duties of the conference hosts. It appears that people may have gotten the videos there. I’m still not sure precisely what happened, so I will still maintain that handing out the video would be the right thing to do, though it seems it’s possible that’s precisely what did happen.

    Commenters on my previous post Peter Kirk and Charity had questioned me on this point, and Charity says that many people left with the video. Thanks for these updates.

    There are also two further posts to which I would like to call attention because they provide some additional perspective:

  • Look at New Perspectives on Paul

    This will be a slightly different post than my usual for this blog. Normally I grab a Bible passage or a principle of interpretation and comment on it. In this post, I want to tie together several threads of my blogging and teaching and point the direction toward some new questions that I’d like to examine as I continue some of my current study.

    I was launched in this particular direction by a post at Adrian Warnock’s blog, The PCA Considering Excluding the Followers of N. T. Wright. Now I’ve been watching Adrian’s blog lately because of the various atonement wars (as I call them), and things about N. T. Wright are bound to catch my attention. I have truly appreciated reading Wright’s material on the historical Jesus. His thorough scholarship and remarkably courteous form of dialog are quite refreshing. It’s not my plan to criticize anyone’s readings of the Westminster Confessions. I am, after all, not Calvinist. But the broader issues involve are very important to me.

    In addition, I just started podcasting a series on Mark that came from the older Bible Pacesetter Radio Program. This series was started 11/24/2003, and continued into 2004 until we canceled that program. Now I’m using the old programs, and then planning to continue through Mark. In listening to my teaching, I couldn’t help but notice some dependence on N. T. Wright for things that I said about Mark’s view of the proclamation.

    Further, I just completed a read through Galatians alongside J. Louis Martyn’s commentary, and I have saved more than 20 note items intended for future blogging out of Galatians. I’m not going to call that a series, because I have no idea when I’ll get to them. I already have numerous items for my series on Hebrews that I simply haven’t had time to post.

    I would note here that my primary training was in the ancient near east and in Old Testament, rather than New Testament. Yes, my concentration was Biblical languages, but at the graduate level that involved a very small amount of Greek, and a very large amount of Hebrew, but since I now spend my time teaching lay audiences, the New Testament is more in demand. This whole issue has become somewhat more important to me.

    So I followed this all up by starting to read from The Paul Page which is dedicated to the new perspective on Paul. One key item immediately caught my attention. As argued by Martyn, the new perspective relates the controversy over circumcision more to the identification with God’s people than to a faith-works issue. In a related point, Martyn argues that the “Jerusalem” of Galatians was not Judaism, but the circumcision oriented mission to Judaism which was based in, if not supported by, the Jerusalem church.

    A second key item is the view of Judaism, and particular the view of the law in the Old Testament/Hebrew scriptures. It has always seemed to me that New Testament scholars do not characterize this view accurately. It seems more like a caricature, but I haven’t taken the time to work on that in detail.

    This leads to the following comment, also from The Paul Page (Summary):

    Translating the doctrine of justification into contemporary terms, Wright notes with irony that this doctrine, which was principally concerned with unity and acceptance in the body of Christ regardless of social barriers, has been one of the most divisive doctrines in the history of Christianity, particularly between Catholics and Protestants who have traditionally interpreted it as a question of precisely how salvation is to be attained.

    I think this is a point of critical importance. How is something that is supposed to bring joy, freedom, and unity so often construed as a way to divide the body of Christ?

    In discussing this and other issues related to the atonement, I’m going to be working through these materials and becoming better informed on this new perspective.

    Update: Since I’m not Calvinist, I won’t be interacting with this that much, but I think it is only fair to present a link to the PCA preliminary report.

  • Centrist Third Party?

    I thought I’d blogged on this before, but I can’t find it. Eleanor Swift of Newsweek is writing about Unity 2008, a group that’s trying to create a third party movement and get on the ballot in all 50 states. The idea is to nominate a presidential candidate of one party and a vice-presidential candidate of the other. I would presume both would have to be moderates and would obviously not be intense party loyalists.

    I do see quite a bit of moderation in the leading candidates this year, however, and it will be interesting to see what kind of impact that has on this idea. I would still favor a third party, if it can work up steam, because I believe the two party system has become far too ingrained in our political process. I would like to see a process that was more party-neutral.

    Check out Unity 2008 for more information.

  • Lingamish on Iconography of the Gospels

    Lingamish is presenting a series on his blog, Iconography of the Gospels, in which he explores ways of looking at the gospels. I commend this series to those who are interested in reading the gospels with more breadth and depth.

    Entries thus far:

    Enjoy!

  • Church Planting Body Count

    I regularly find myself surprised at how surprised some folks are at the unsurprising. We should, after all, expect people to be the people they are, and Mark Driscoll is Mark Driscoll. Shocking, isn’t it?

    Well, Mark Driscoll prepared a video for a conference on church planting in which he was very much himself, and some folks were shocked. They criticized the video, and they didn’t hand out copies as promised.

    I first saw this video on Adrian Warnock’s blog. Adrian comments:

    I am praying for him right now as I write this as I am sure this was the last thing he was expecting or wanting. Personally I love the video and I think he is right on with what he says. Well done Mark for standing for God and more power to your elbow!

    Well, it should surprise nobody that I don’t particularly like the video, and I think there are substantial issues there beyond the exclusively man-oriented view of the world. Driscoll comments repeatedly on the things Jesus is not, and often in fairly derogatory terms. I particularly noted “tell the lady with the tambourine who shows up to church to park it” though I’m sure we’ve all been there with people who are doing things that we’d prefer they didn’t. So I disagree with the clearly male authority dominated approach.

    But I’m more disturbed by the picture of Jesus that is presented. The picture of “gentle Jesus meek and mild” is not a terribly accurate one, and it does need to be balanced. But the rough, overbearing Jesus, the hunting buddy Jesus who despises people who drink herbal tea and aren’t masculine enough, is also a false and dangerous caricature. (Bias alert: I drink herbal tea. 🙂 )

    There is also a good message hidden in there, though it has been buried under mounds of extraneous junk. Church planting isn’t easy. And despite almost disparaging remarks in the video about pastors of existing churches, pastoring isn’t all that easy either. (I sincerely hope that Driscoll didn’t intend to be a dismissive of the ordinary role of pastoring as he seemed to be. I think he was just very strongly focused on the church planters role, but I would suggest more care.) There will be people one cannot help, and there are people who need to be told to find another place to worship. Often that is to their benefit as well as to the benefit of the local church. But that is hidden by the shock value of the tone and of the setting for the video.

    Nonetheless I would have told the leadership of the conference to have the video handed out. First, they should do so because they asked Mark Driscoll for a video, and they have some obligation not to make him spend money and then send his people home. Being people of their word should be important. Second, I don’t think moderate and liberal Christians should fear conservative ideas. That video provides me with more material to use in illustrating precisely what I don’t like about the complementarian approach and certain uses of the spiritual warfare metaphor.

    I do have to ask my complementarian brethren, however, whether they would give equal time to a video presenting the egalitarian position. Is this about an open exchange of ideas, or are you just offended that a video espousing your view was not welcomed?

  • Languages of Forgiveness

    Christianity Today has an interesting article on languages of apology (and forgiveness). There are a number of helpful thoughts in this piece that can be helpful. The author, Gary Chapman (The Love Languages of God, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate) relates this to couples, in which I think it has the most use, but it would apply in other contexts as well.

    I think there is a danger of one using specific language in apology to avoid apologizing at all. The political apology (if I happen to have done anything wrong, I apologize) in which no wrongdoing is admitted, or the apology for another’s weakness (I’m sorry you’re so thin skinned as to be hurt by what I said) are generally not languages of apology, but rather languages by which one avoids apology.

    At the same time, understanding that not everyone means the same thing by the same words will be helpful in building communication. It’s worth looking at.

  • Dave Warnock Reads PFOT

    …. Pierced for our Transgressions, that is.

    Taking his own advice about reading books with a viewpoint opposed to his own, he is working his way through this book. I’ve read other materials on penal substitution (Justification by Faith Alone, for example, which maintains that the forensic nature of justification is critical to salvation by faith), and thus will not punish myself in this way, but Dave’s notes promise to be interesting.

    Here are the entries thus far:

    I’m quite in tune with Dave’s statement in his starting point post:

    I value Penal Substitution as one theory of atonement within a range of theories that have been considered orthodox teaching within the Christian Church, while recognising that different groups within the Christian Church have different views on various theories of atonement and that there is not total agreement (and probably never has been). I do believe that there is potential for penal substitution to teach us something about the cross and about God.

    But I struggle with certain theological aspects of Penal Substitution. Particularly the concept of God’s wrath being on Jesus and the potential for the need for justice and punishment being more powerful than God. Most importantly for me are concerns that Penal Substitution enshrines violence (that I do not see in Jesus, his incarnation, his life, his teaching, his death, his resurrection, his ascension and his second coming) into the nature of God.

    I too see some value in Penal Substitution as a metaphor for atonement, but as I’ve commented before any time you get the metaphor put in place of the reality the remainder of your theology will begin to get off balance. Recent PSA advocates appear to me to place their particular metaphor in place of the reality of the atonement, a reality that requires many metaphors, and cannot even be described adequately by all the metaphors we have available.

    When I point this out, I am often told that yes, there are many metaphors, but penal substitution has to be there, or it’s more important. No, it doesn’t have to be there. All that has to be there is God’s love made manifest through the incarnation. No human explanation is essential. Helpful, yes; essential, no.

    I do, however, sympathize with the “other” Warnock, Adrian, when he says of Dave:

    I am often quite surprised that people who hold views like Dave’s want to self-identify as evangelical. In the past, I rather suspect they would have worn the label “liberal” and been quite content to do so.

    I am willing to wear the label moderate or liberal without complaint. Some try to label me evangelical, for reasons passing understanding, but if I ever claimed that label for myself, I’d have to spend all my time trying to explain how some of my views are actually evangelical, while they manifestly are not. So go ahead and color me liberal. 🙂

    And just so I’m not dodging the obligation to put my own views on the line, let me give links to two complementary essays I have written: A Fruitful Faith and Focusing the Atonement.

    Update: It occurred to me after I posted this that those interested in this topic might be interested in my review of J. Louis Martyn’s commentary on Galatians and related links to material I wrote during my study of Galatians using that commentary.