Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Biblical Inerrancy

  • An Evolutionary Understanding of Kinds

    One of the key issues in the creation-evolution controversy is the extent to which Genesis 1-2 should be understood as narrative history, and whether its statements with regard to the physical world should be taken as scientific statements, or at least as statements that carry some scientific content.

    I was just reminded of the importance of this issue by an essay by Alvin Plantinga, “When Faith and Reason Clash” in the collection Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics, edited by Robert T. Pennock. In answering the question of what we do when our scriptural position and that of science clashes, Plantinga says (p. 121), “. . . I don’t know of any infallible rule, or even any pretty reliable general recipe. All we can do is weigh and evaluate the relative warrant, the relative backing or strength, of the conflicting teachings. We must do our best to apprehend both the teachings of Scripture and the deliverances of reason; in either case we will have much more warrant for some apparent teachings than for others. . . .”

    He then proceeds to divide “evolution” into five claims, two of which are the Ancient Earth Thesis and the Common Ancestry Thesis. The reason I list just these two is that the difference between them is the focus of this short essay. I think also that the handling of these two elements by creationists of all varieties will emphasize the problems with any notion of “theistic science.” Plantinga regards the scientific evidence for an ancient earth to be so strong, and the scriptural evidence for a young earth to be weak enough that we can accept an ancient earth. Common ancestry, on the other hand, he interprets differently. He sees the scientific evidence as much weaker, and the Biblical evidence much stronger, and thus he feels justified in rejecting it.

    Let me note first that I don’t think that the Bible makes scientific statements, and thus there should not be an issue of conflict between what the Bible teaches and what one learns from science, since they are talking about different topics. Nonetheless I want to look at the difference between these two issues on the assumption that one might extract some scientific information from Genesis. Is the Ancient Earth Thesis or the Common Ancestry Thesis better supported scientifically? Is either of them more forcefully contradicted by scripture? How would one deal with this approach?

    Old earth creationists (OEC), and many intelligent design (ID) advocates see the evidence for an old earth as extremely strong, but in general they want to maintain some sort of historical and scientific truth claims for the early stories of Genesis. For a recent example, see William Dembski’s Christian Theodicy in the Light of Genesis and Modern Science in which he attempts to reconcile the idea that physical death is the result of human sin with an old earth in which death occurred prior to the existence of human beings. I hope to respond to that article some time soon. It’s really quite interesting. Here, however, I am simply noting that it takes the scientific evidence for an old earth seriously, seeing it as solid enough to effectively require that one deal with it, and thus requiring a somewhat complex interpretational solution.

    Ignoring Dembski’s new view for the moment, however, let me look at just how difficult it is to reinterpret Genesis so that it will support an old earth, based on previous claims. In this way I’d like to outline just how solid the Biblical evidence is for each position, since according to Plantinga we should apparently judge each of these elements and relate them to the validity of the scientific evidence.

    Read as narrative history, Genesis 1-11 teaches several things:

    • a young earth, in the neighborhood of 6,000 years old
    • special creation in the course of a week
    • a specific incident resulting in a fall of humans from their relationship to God which resulted in their expulsion from Eden, commonly interpreted as the source of all physical death
    • moral deterioration of humanity to a point beyond redemption except for a few
    • a universal flood that destroyed all those not in the ark, including all human and animal life, but apparently not plant life
    • the formation of multiple languages from an original universal language at the Tower of Babel

    In reinterpreting these elements, old earth creationists do the following:

    • In some sense regard the creation days as long periods of time. (There are multiple ways of doing this, but I’ll regard it as just one element of interpretation.)
    • Deal somehow with the sense of “special creation” in the passage, when this creation is accomplished over long periods of time and with significant detours (extinction events, for example)
    • Find a way to understand physical death before the fall narrated in Genesis 3. (Again, there are a variety of explanations, but they are all more complex than the narrative history reading of Genesis 3.)
    • Dealing with moral deterioration and the flood as one element, they need to restrict the range of the flood so that it does not completely disrupt the geological record, as a universal flood surely would.
    • Relate the apparent history of language and patterns of migration with the Babel story. (I have really never seen anyone address this issue, but I think it would come up if the others were to be solved.

    Note that I’m not particularly singling out any of these elements as wrong, or even extremely improbable. I’m simply looking at the weight of scriptural evidence that must be reinterpreted in order to accept an old earth view under Plantinga’s idea of theistic science. If one is to read Genesis as narrative history with scientific content, then I think the young earth folks have the inside track on straightforward exegesis.

    Now let’s turn to common descent. At the risk of oversimplifying, since I’m not a biologist, let me state this simply as the descent of all life from a single life form by descent with modification. To reconcile such a picture with Genesis we need to deal with at least two elements of the old earth scenario, time and physical death prior to the fall. But the reconciliation already provided by the young earth advocates already cover those points. In addition, we need to deal with the issue of reproduction after their kind. And that is where I would really like to discover what the great problem is.

    In the good old days of George McCready Price, whose books were part of my early education, creationists tended to believe that species were very closely fixed. A “kind” was a rather tight package and corresponded closely to species. Over time, that has changed, and with good reason. But creationists of all varieties are still trying to find the boundaries of “kinds.” Why are they doing that? Most importanly why are people who can accept an old earth hung up on the issue of kinds?

    If we can accept a range of variation within a population and still call that reproduction “after their kinds,” then where in the Biblical text is this absolute warrant for a hard coded boundary? By shifting the distribution of characters in a population, you can move the population anywhere you wish without any single creature ever failing to reporduce “after its kind.” It seems to me that rather than being the most difficult element of the picture, “after their kinds” is actually the easiest one to deal with. Once any variation is permitted within the definition of such reproduction, there is no inherent limit on such variation.

    Thus with much less effort than is required to allow an old earth we have an explanation for common descent that is in accord with scripture. What is more, many of the difficulties inherent in spreading special creation over a period of time are removed. Many people question the idea of special creation that takes long periods of time simply because it hardly seems “special” any more. The OEC tells the evolutionist that God took the same amount of time, permitted the same amount of death and destruction, allowed the same number of species to become extinct, only the creation is more personal and special. The question is why? If, on the other hand, God was using variation and natural selection as the process of creation, then the time factor and the “after their kind” explanation make perfect sense together.

    It seems to me that there must be some other issue here, and with that issue we’re headed straight back toward the dreaded “God of the gaps” theology. The real point is that OECs can still see specific, identifiable acts of creation by God with an old earth, but if we allow creation of all life forms via descent with modification, this evidence for the existence and activity of God disappears. I think that is the real reason why there is so much greater resistance to common descent than there is to an old earth (though one shouldn’t underestimate remaining Christian resistance to an old earth). But I think scripture can be interpreted to support common descent with greater ease than an old earth. In fact, the greatest barriers have already been eliminated by the old earth argument, and indeed, common descent helps make some better sense of some of the difficulties that the old earth view introduces.

    I can’t leave this subject without noting that I believe that either set of interpretations, young or old earth, are misguided. We need only look at the nature of the “after their kinds” statement to see the problem with reading science from Genesis. There is no definition here to determine just how descent with modification would occur. There is no limit on the “kinds.” Evolution by this standard could wander anywhere. We know that in actuality, evolution is constrained in its pathways by the existing form of the creature. There is simply no statement in Genesis 1-11, and I would suggest in the entire Bible, that is defined in such a way that it could be used directly in science. Further evidence for this is provided by the large number of alternate interpretations applied to the text. I used just one general set, but any OEC could challenge me on any point and claim he has a better interpretation. But that would simply show that the original statement was not well-defined in a scientific sense.

    Theistic science is a non-starter, at least from the Biblical point of view. The Bible fails to provide such knowledge.

  • Revelation: Progressive or Continuous?

    Working on the book of Hebrews over on my Participatory Bible Study blog has led me to do some additional thinking about revelation or inspiration, and how it functions. One of the key claims of the book of Hebrews is that Jesus is a greater revelation than that provided by the Torah. In order to support this claim, he has to first establish that revelation is in some sense progressive, though he does not develop a doctrine of progressive revelation, but rather establishes that a new, greater revelation can supercede an earlier one.

    This is a key difference between Christianity and Judaism. Judaism sees the Torah as the ultimate revelation, and everything that follows is less authoritative. The idea of something appearing that would supercede the Torah is pretty much anathema. It is typical of later religions to make a claim that their own newer revelation is greater than what has gone before. For Christianity, it’s Jesus and the New Testament, but then many Christians want to claim that revelation has ceased. For Islam (or at least the vast majority of it), the Qur’an is the final revelation, and cannot be superceded. It’s finally the perfect thing.

    But Christians divide on this point, some believing in one form or another of continuing revelation, while others believe that revelation ceased with the age of the apostles. Amongst Christians liberals and charismatics tend to see revelation as continuing, while the reformed movement and those related to it see revelation as complete with the Bible. There are a number of special cases, such as the Roman Catholic church and the concept ofthe “magisterium.” Technically, this is not continuing revelation, but in effect, it certainly gives that appearance. The Latter Day Saints have their living apostles who can bring out new revelation.

    I grew up as Seventh-day Adventist, and one of the key controversies between SDAs and the rest of the Christian community is over Ellen White. Can you have a modern prophet, and how does this relate to scripture? Here again I think there is a difference in the way things are expressed and the way they are put into practice. My experience was that many Adventists used the writings of Ellen White as though they were scripture, no matter how church doctrine was stated. But I don’t think SDAs are alone on this issue. The place of the prophetic movement in charismatic and pentecostal churches is very similar and I see some of the same things being done either with words from the Lord, visions, and writings. Some conversation here between modern charismatics and Seventh-day Adventists might be valuable. I have often wondered how Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel would fare if we had as detailed a record of their lives, along with copies of every letter they ever wrote. Fortunately or unfortunately we don’t get to compare the first draft of Jeremiah with the second, and attempts at a chronology of his message are often quite speculative.

    So let me ask first whether revelation is progressive. I think “progressive” is a terribly dangerous word. In biology, evolution is often described as a progress from simple to complex, primitive to modern, with “modern” defined as “better.” As time goes forward some suppose that organisms become better adapted to their environment, so that we have a constant movement toward perfection. But if you read descriptions of evolution by actual biologists, this picture doesn’t seem to work quite as well. One can say for certain that variety has generally increased, i.e. there is more now than there was in the Cambrian period, but none of the other claims I mentioned can be made with certainty. “More complex” may mean less adapted, and thus natural selection would select for simplicity. The environment changes as well, so one cannot be certain that we’re always moving to better adaptation.

    Why bring biological evolution in here? Simply because progressive revelation is often compared to biological evolution, often in a negative sense. It’s part of the “applying evolution to everything.” Well, one can certain apply some evolutionary concepts to anything that changes, but that’s not really the issue here. “Progressive revelation” has gotten tangled with the same types of misunderstandings that are involved in biological evolution. First, it is assumed that any new revelation must automatically supercede an older revelation. Second, it is assumed that as time goes on the revelation we have in our possession will be better and better, i.e. that we will become closer and closer to the truth about God.

    Just as the inevitable progress of biological evolution does not seem so well founded, and just as adaptation can go on for many millions of years without any assurance that anything actually gets 100% adapted, so I see little reason to assume that revelation will be progressive in either of those senses. What I personally hear from the Lord is more adapted to my circumstances. A current revelation to a church community will be better adapted to their time and their place, but because we are imperfect people, we will always have problems fully comprehending that revelation. A perfect revelation cannot be 100% adapted to imperfect recipients.

    But my prior paragraph could easily be misunderstood. The biological analogy breaks down. The revelation is not, in fact, adapting itself. Rather, the revelation is coming to different people, in different circumstances, at different times, and in different ways. It has always been that way. We can refine our understanding, but again, because we are imperfect, there is no guarantee that we are always getting better. We can hope we are, but we cannot be certain. The next generation could look back at our time and laugh, just as many of us laugh at a prior time.

    I think that God is continually revealing himself, continually speaking. We hear with varied clarity. In scripture and established traditions, we take those things that have been heard, confirmed, and reaffirmed at many times and in many places. What Isaiah said is not necessarily better than what someone hears from the Lord in their morning devotions. But Isaiah’s words have been used and tested repeatedly by many people over a long period of our tradition, and so have been accepted as of genuine, general value over a wide geographic area and over a broad range of times and places. The fact that his book is scripture is a definition of the community that accepts it, not a simple derivation from the nature of the content.

    I know there will be those who are disturbed. I am overcome by delusions of grandeur, and am receiving revelations of the quality and value of those of the prophet Isaiah. [Pause for effect :-)] Well, no, I’m not. But if God speaks to me, and if I hear correctly, the words of God are just as true whispered in my ear as in anybody else’s. And of course they are just as true whispered in anybody else’s ear, including the ear of someone I despise, as they are in mine.

    I have more options to test these words now because I have scripture, as defined by my community, and I can even dabble in scripture as defined by other communities just to check things out. This increase in quantity and variety gives me an advantage. One pictures Abraham, as tradition suggests dealing with idols as was the family business, and suddenly addressed by God. “Get out of here! Go somewhere that I’ll show you!” Abraham has very little to go on. Scripture doesn’t exist yet, and won’t for centuries. He simply has to decide whether to accept what the voice says (presumably based on the patriarchal tradition, but do you want to decide on God’s voice based on your family tradition?) or not. I have it easier. I have a community; I’m not about to found one. I have other people who at least claim to hear God speak, though this is often more of a hindrance than otherwise. There’s more variety.

    But fundamentally God speaking is God speaking, and I don’t think it’s getting better or worse. We just have more instances of it to study. So I reject the term “progressive” and prefer “continuous.”

  • High School Bible Classes Again

    In a previous post, The Best Place to Teach the Bible, I discussed my view that home and church or other private organizations were the best way to teach the Bible. I’ve had a couple of comments to that post that I think deserve some comment, and since I don’t like to make post-length comments here on my own blog, I’m going to comment in another post.

    First, Dave L. comments:

    Henry, I agree with your position concerning keeping the Bible out of schools, but had a question for you on one of your responses above, namely, “just because someone reads Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek [doesn’t mean] they will agree on what the Bible says.

  • Gleason Archer on Daniel

    I’ve just run through another commentary on Daniel, in this case the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 7, section on Daniel, by Gleason Archer. (See my notes on this commentary.)

    You can review my more detailed view in those notes, but I would simply state that this is one of two carefully conservative, scholarly commentaries on Daniel that I have read. Those who would like to preach from the book will find it particular useful. Let me list these major commentaries on Daniel in order, from most conservative to most critical.

    1. Daniel, by Desmond Ford.
      This is no longer in print, but it is available from some libraries, and occasionally used. Desmond Ford was a Seventh-day Adventist scholar and he did quite a good job of summarizing the evidence from a conservative perspective. His key to interpretation is the apotelesmatic principle, suggesting multiple fulfillments for predictions.
    2. Daniel and the Minor Prophets (Expositor’s Bible Commentary), by Gleason Archer.
      This is a solidly evangelical commentary. There is no give on historical or prophetic/predictive issues.
    3. Daniel (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries), by Joyce Baldwin. Conservative but with a lighter touch.
    4. Daniel (Apollos Old Testament Commetnary), by Ernest Lucas
      Allows either a 6th or 2nd century date, while affirming a high view of scripture.
    5. Daniel (Anchor Bible), by Hartman and Di Lella
      Affirms a 2nd century date while also affirming inerrancy.
    6. Daniel (Old Testament Library), by Norman Porteous
      A good example of a fully critical commentary, though it is a bit short for my taste.

    I may spend some time on literary criticism of Daniel after I present a series of entries on Isaiah 24-27 as an example of critical methologies.

  • Ernest Lucas on Daniel

    In an earlier post, Dating the Book of Daniel, I mentioned that I had ordered Ernest Lucas’s volume on Daniel in the Apollos Old Testament Commentary series. I now have received, read, and returned that volume, and I thought I would post a few notes.

    I have to admit that I continue to be puzzled at the number of conservative scholars who either embrace or allow a late (2nd century BCE) dating of the book of Daniel. Lucas covers this issue in some detail throughout the book. He does not make a specific statement on Biblical inerrancy, though I would be surprised to hear that he does not accept it, but he nonetheless believes that one can see certain portions of the book as history presented as prophecy.

    He takes an unusual approach in that he does not argue the dating and authorship of the book in the introduction, but rather presents basic lines of evidence throughout the commentary, and then summarizes them in an epilogue. His view is that a conservative scholar with a high view of inspiration can hold either of the major views on dating, a sixth century or a second century composition. He does argue rather forcefully for the unity of the book, which would exclude various composite theories of authorship, including a late author writing in Hebrew building on either an Aramaic document, or a collection stories written in Aramaic.

    In the prophetic interpretation portions of the commentary, Lucas sees all of the major prophetic sections ending at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Thus the little horns of chapters 7 & 8 both refer to Antiochus. This interpretation is not unusual in critical commentaries, though it hasn’t been a common conservative view until recently. Even more unusual for a conservative Christian commentary is that he also interprets chapter 9 as ending with Antiochus, rather than using it as a Messianic prophecy. I must be clear here–he does not rule out the application to Jesus that is common in Christian interpretation, but he does believe that interpretation is less probable. The key reason for this is his interpretation of the “word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem” (Daniel 9:25) which he believes most probably refers not to any decree, but to one of Jeremiah’s prophecies of the time. The chronology
    does not work for the ministry of Jesus in this case. Of course, it also doesn’t work for Antiochus Epiphanes, but Lucas calls the time frame symbolic rather than precise. I think he’s quite possibly right on the time period not being intended as precise, but again I am not used to seeing that position in an ostensibly conservative commentary.

    In Daniel 10-12, the final section, which the vast majority of the commentators agree refers to the history leading up to, and the reign of Antiochus, Lucas offers the option of viewing most of the material as history written as prophecy, and then tries to avoid the obvious conclusion, assuming that is the case, that 11:40-45 are an inaccurate prophecy. He suggests that this section is a loosely worded way of saying that Antiochus would come to an end. I’m afraid here that I have to say that I would prefer that a commentator either admit that the text is wrong, or that the prophecy must have some other application. If this does apply to the death of Antiochus, it goes well beyond any normal concept of “general.”

    Despite any tension that may result from the author’s view on dating, which is unlikely to satisfy either a liberal or a conservative audience, this is truly a well-written and well-researched commentary. There are two features of this commentary that I especially appreciated.

    Lucas applies some excellent literary-critical methodology to the stories, and to some extent to the prophecies, discussing the plot and characterization. Daniel is particular susceptible to the literary-critical approach, which can produce some substantial insights from the stories. Too often the main questions asked in studying Daniel are whether it is historical, whether the prophecies are really predictive, and what they mean. There is substantial value in the stories if one will take the time to think about them seriously, and Lucas does that.

    Second, Lucas interacts with commetators who range from the very conservative to the very liberal/critical. He doesn’t ignore the various arguments and concerns, nor does he usually dismiss them without discussing the evidence. He does occasionally dismiss some complex theory of authorship quite abruptly, but normally he does so with particularly convoluted and low probability theories.

    I strongly recommend this commentary to any student of Daniel. Whether your view is conservative or liberal you will find material that challenges your view, and will help you to think through the material more thoroughly. Lucas provides his supporting methodology throughout. In particular, I would recommend this commentary to those interested in pursuing genre and or literary criticism in the book of Daniel.

  • Resistance to Evolutionary Theory

    Why is it that some people resist evolutionary theory so stubbornly? Many times I have used the argument that evolutionary theory is more complex than creationism, and that we are asking people to go against their intuition in favor of the evidence. But the more I think about it, the less I think that is true. I do think that most creationist thoroughly and systematically misunderstand the basics of evolutionary theory. But I’m going to suggest that the misunderstandings result from the need to reject it, and not the other way around. Most of these folks could understand, but at the most fundamental level they don’t want to.

    Many of you will find this article pretty redundant. The reason I took up the topic is because of the example, which is in my area of expertise, and thus it tickled me to use it as an example. In addition, it was when I did a paper on the comparison of the Septuagint and Masoretic text versions of the genealogies that I first began to question young earth creationism. I read my first creationist literature before I was ten, and was pretty much steeped in it by the time I was in college. Then I began to examine it critically.

    Let me illustrate from Kent Hovind’s Creation Science Evangelism, and their article titled Who Was Cainan? This is actually a rather simple question, and I’m only going to discuss it briefly as an illustration. Basically, if you take your choice of available modern Bible versions, and read the genealogy of Jesus provided by Luke, you can find the order of the post-flood patriarchs. (Luke reads these leading back to Adam, and I’m going to put them in chronological order here.) Luke has Shem, Arphaxad, Cainan, Shelah (also known as Sala) and so forth (verses 35-36). You can compare this to the genealogy of Genesis 11:10-13, and the order is Shem, Arpachshad, Shelah. Cainan is missing from the list.

    Now there is a simple explanation for this. This additional name occurs in the Septuagint (LXX), and this indicates that there is a textual variant in the text of Genesis, and the LXX, or another manuscript containing the same variant, was likely Luke’s source for this passage. Alternatively, the name could have been added by a copyist based on the same source, but the evidence for this is vanishingly light. If you consider the evolution of a text of this nature, you will start most likely with oral transmission for a period of time, followed by creation of written copies (there’s little agreement on the date of writing, though I suspect they may be quite early in the process of development of the Pentateuch, and form a framework for portions of it). These written copies are then included by redactors in broader documents, and then those documents are copied multiple times. Luke simply uses the documents available to him.

    Now old earth creationists use this very case to suggest that there may be gaps in the genealogies of Genesis, thus giving us Biblical room for a greater age for humanity on earth, and certainly a much earlier date for the flood. I would suggest in addition that the very formation of the lists into 10 names before and 10 names after suggests selected lists. So the old earth creationists find this name very convenient in support of their position.

    CSE cites Jonathan Sarfati of Answers in Genesis, who indicates that he believes this is one of the few copyists errors in our largely excellent manuscripts. For him, it is the autographs that are inerrant, and not any copy or translation. Thus, we solve the problem more or less by assuming a copyist’s error, and also assuming that the form of the text we have is correct. There is considerable variation in the genealogies in the LXX of Genesis 5 & 11, but this is beyond the scope of this entry. Also, I’m not trying to criticize Sarfati, and am not basing this on his work. (You can see his discussion at Cainan on the Answers in Genesis site.) So one set of young earth creationists would solve the problem with the assumption it was an error.

    But CSE does not approve of this answer. They want a result that allows them to claim that the Bible as they have it is inerrant, and not some autographs they can’t get a look at anyhow. So they must somehow preserve both the chronology of Genesis 11, and the presence of the name in Luke 3:36. Thus they explain how even if there was an intervening generation, the chronology would be unchanged. I’ll leave you to read the creative explanation directly from their site if you care to. In producing this ad hoc explanation, they use another interesting tactic, citing another group with very low credibility, Gail Riplinger’s AV Publications. Gail Riplinger is the author of one of the worst pieces of trash I have ever encountered in print, titled New Age Bible Versions.

    (At one point I started to critique that book, but after just a few pages I found there was insufficient space in the margins to keep track of even the major falsehoods, much less the more minor, but significant errors. (James White, who is much more conservative than I, nonetheless took the time to go through the book in detail. He has a lengthy response to New Age Bible Versions on his site, New Age Bible Versions Refuted. Riplinger in turn calls White’s material “libellous” and “actionable,” though I can’t see where she has tried to sue. For anyone who thinks Riplinger’s material has any value, look at her answer to the supposed question, “What is the most subtle change that new versions are making?”. In this she argues that changing the capitalization of pronouns that refer to God is changing the orthography of God’s word. I kid you not.)

    Now why do I go to this example? To illustrate a method. Neither CSE nor AiG can simply follow the evidence where it leads. The old earth creationists get into this situation in some cases, though in this case they have an explanation that accords with the evidence, though not, in my opinion, all of it. CSE has a previous theological position that the KJV as they have it must be inerrant, and thus there must be an explanation for that set of English words. AiG has a position that the autographs must be inerrant, and thus they must assume that the autograph did not contain the fateful added name. Old earth creationists accept the name because it is actually helpful to their claim that there are gaps in the genealogies of Genesis 5 & 11.

    You might say that I reject all these explanations simply because I want the passage to be inaccurate. But that is simply not the case. I would be fine with whatever variant was correct in the book of Luke, but the evidence points to the presence of Cainan in that text. It is possible, of course, that I’m wrong on this. Sarfati’s point about documents of the LXX might have some validity, though I think it’s weak. But you see, it would be no problem for me if he turned out to be right, and Cainan was not in the sacred, though unattainable, autograph.

    But the key here is that in the cases I cited we have something that must be true, so an ad hoc explanation for how it is true. With any ancient near eastern document, literary, or historical, the approach of historians is to examine critically its claims, and to determine its credibility based on that kind of historical study. Nobody thinks that the Sumerian antediluvian king lists are historical documents. Why? Because they give preposterous lengths for the reigns of the kings. But in the case of the Bible we are told to ignore all evidence in any direction except to confirm some interpretation. We should let the Bible speak for itself, and if we did we would realize that these lists belong to a different category of literature than “historical records” and could then treat them as such.

    So is it that evolution is counterintuitive? It seems rather intuitive to me, especially common descent. There is simply so much about the animal world that suggests a genetic relationship. I think it is not common sense, or our intuition that is the problem, but rather a prior commitment to treat a certain document as historical no matter what the evidence suggests. This results in a backwards methodology. A source is accurate not because one has checked it and found it so to the best of one’s abilities, but rather because it supports the position that already must be true.

    So one stray patriarch tells the story.

  • The Danger of False Assumptions

    Every so often it’s fun to look through an ICR document or so. It’s so nostalgic, considering that this was the sort of stuff that I found very convincing when I was young. I would like to emphasize that this is not by any means the definition of Christianity. It’s just some of the noisiest.

    Yesterday I took at look at Impact #81, Theistic Evolution and the Day-Age Theory, and I think it deserves some comment on the methods of Biblical interpretation involved. But first, I must note that it is a bit bizarre, in that it tries to respond to theistic evolutionists on a “proof-text” basis, something that very few theistic evolutionists, if any, would find relevant. This approach to debates about the Bible is not uncommon. The only productive discussion that can be held between people with contradictory approaches to interpretation is one that deals with the methods of interpretation themselves. It is likely, however, that ICR’s Impact #81 is actually written to reassure the troops, and actually is not intended to respond to actual theistic evolutionists.

    The basic approach to interpretation taken in this article is literal, and the specific variant is proof-texting.

    The first is illustrated by the following statement: “The biblical text, at least to the unbiased observer, indicates a universe and earth that were formed in six days . . . ” (emphasis mine). It is this idea of the “unbiased observer” that is the problem. Biblical literalists follow a rule of interpretation that says that a text is to be taken literally unless it cannot be, and only if it cannot be taken literally should figurative explanations be considered. This is a principle stated by Tim LaHaye, amongst others and underlies a great deal of fundamentalist, conservative, and charismatic Biblical interpretation, though charismatics should know better. (See my review of LaHaye’s book, How to Study the Bible for Yourself for more information.)

    Now this is clearly a bias, and that bias is toward literal interpretation. I would suggest as an alternative that one always look at every passage of scripture and allow the nature of the passage, its setting and context, statements about it by the author, and comparison to similar literature help you to decide whether it is to be taken figuratively or literally. I’ve been told this is also a bias, and I will allow that it can be, although it is a quite neutral bias. The actual opposite bias to LaHaye’s (and the ICR’s) approach would be to assume everything is figurative and only take it literally if I can’t find a figurative interpretation.

    The simple fact is that this common rule of Biblical literalists comes close to guaranteeing that they will misinterpret the Bible. The reason is that there is a substantial portion of the Bible that is intended figuratively. Let’s consider, for example, applying this rule to the plays of Shakespeare. I could quite easily construe many of the plays as portrayals of actual history on that basis. The signs that we have a dramatization would likely not be enough to convince me that they were fictional or fictionalized. In a previous entry, I indicated that one of the strengths of the young earth position is simply that if one assumes literal interpretation, it accords with the Biblical data. But that assumption of literal interpretation is the key.

    Now let’s go forward to the ICR’s response to the day age interpretation in Genesis. The first 10 objections to the day-age interpretation are simply reiterations of the literalistic and proof-text style interpretation. They could have simply said, “If you take all this literally, you will take all this literally. Note also that the day-age interpretation is normally used by old earth creationists. Theistic evolutionists normally take a different view. (See my comparison in Creation, Evolution, and Genesis 1-11.)

    Their entire approach to the definition of the word in Genesis 1 reads as though it was written by someone without a basic knowledge of linguistics. To allow you to compare, let me give you the basic steps for studying the meaning of such a word:

    1. You collect examples of usage. In the Bible, this often means at least looking at every usage example.
    2. You divide these up by definition and construct tentative definitions.
    3. You take note of the particular constructions, contexts, and types of literature in which the word is used.
    4. You look at the particular example, and see where it fits best, or you may even find you need to construct a new definition.

    This is generalized somewhat, but it makes the basic point. The procedure followed in the article is to see if there is a proof text available that says that a day is long enough to suit the needs of evolutionary change and the established age of the earth. Since there is no such text–why should there be?–the author concludes that the day-age theory is wrong. But the specific type of argument he is refuting is not the type of argument that the day-age proponents use. (For a discussion of the day-age theory, see Consider Christianity, Volume 1: Evidence for the Bible, pages 119ff.)

    The 11th point relies on the previous 10, that is, if a day is 24 hours in Genesis 1, it must be 24 hours in the 4th commandment. At the same time, if it is not 24 hours in Genesis 1, it would not be 24 hours in the fourth commandment, which simply refers to that passage. In a quotation or allusion, one first assumes that the meaning of the word is unchanged from the original. Out of context quotations, or intentional adjustment or paraphrasing. Thus there is nothing new here.

    Now the oddity is that we go from the beginning to the end of the article, and we find that the entire argument is simply that the days of creation are 24 hour literal days. This argument is one designed to challenge old earth creationism, though it does so very ineffectively, but not theistic evolution.

    What they are missing is the simple discussion of literary genre. What type of literature is Genesis 1? This is the question that most theistic evolutionists (and for that matter old earth creationists) answer differently than do young earth creationists. And every single argument presented in Impact #81 is totally irrelevant to this question. The young earth creationists make the assumption that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are narrative history to be taken literally. But how do they come to that conclusion?

    Well, it is simply their bias. If you assume that everything is to be taken literally, if possible, then provided one isolates oneself completely from the scientific evidence, Genesis 1 can be taken as narrative history. Otherwise, it bears practically no resemblance to it at all.

    How do we recognize a type of literature? Here are some normal clues:

    1. Labeling – we buy a book that is labeled as a novel, and we expect it to be a novel. If it is labeled “mystery” or “historical novel” those additional elements will impact how we understand the literature. This labeling is only rarely applicable in the Bible. Ancient literature was not commonly labeled as to genre.

    2. Literary characteristics – there are certain characteristics of various types of literature, such as key phrases like “once upon a time” or the presence of footnotes. One doesn’t expect reference footnotes in a novel, and one doesn’t start a scientific paper with “once upon a time.”

    3. Fantastic events – if we are dealing with a literary type that includes fantasy, we may find fantastic events that we know don’t happen every day. For example, in C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe even if we didn’t know the book was fiction from the label, we would assume it was fiction when the children go into another world through the wardrobe. In the Bible, the parable of the trees (Judges 9:8-15) is clearly a parable, even without a label, and we know it from the moment that it starts “The trees once went out to anoint a knig” (NRSV). Why? Trees don’t do that.

    Now, the first of these can’t be applied to Genesis 1, but the second and third certainly can, and they should be, and that’s precisely what the young earth creationists are never going to do, because the moment you apply these principles without the assumption that it is literal, then there is plenty of evidence that it is not. For example, the description of day and night prior to the creation of the heavenly bodies (and yes, I’m aware of the explanations), suggests that the author lacks a concern with that literal detail. The events of the sixth day, if one takes Genesis 2 seriously as well, are simply too much for one 24 hour period, no matter how much one tries to word around it.

    But there is something further that young earth creationists are not going to do, and that is comparing this literature with other similar literature, such as creation myths from the ancient near east. And there we will find both similarities and differences, but we will certainly find similar literary characteristics. (See my essay Genesis Creation Stories – Form, Structure, and Relationship.)

    Is it better to assume what type of literature Genesis 1 is based on our twentieth century knowledge and attitudes, or would it not be better to look at it in comparison to other literature that is contemporary to it?

    One last point, going back to the beginning. The author is not able to correctly state evolutionary theory either.

    Two elements are essential in any evolutionary scheme, whether it be theistic or atheistic: long periods of time and the assumed validity of the molecules-to-man evolutionary scenario.

    Of course, long periods of time are not assumed, they are demonstrated by excellent scientific evidence. Biological evolution is not a “molecules to man” theory either. Biological evolution operates on existing life. Abiogenesis is another matter.

    Theistic evolutionists, however, profess a certain allegiance to the Scriptures and must attempt to harmonize the biblical account with the evolutionary scenario. The biblical text, at least to the unbiased observer, indicates a universe and earth that were formed in six days; evolutionists suppose at least six billion years. The mechanism by which theistic evolutionists harmonize the two is known as the day-age theory.

    Actually, as I’ve pointed out, few theistic evolutionists take Genesis 1 literally enough to care one way or the other about the day-age theory. I certainly do not, though I find it interesting as a point of interpretation. It is essential to most old earth creationists and their case is, in fact, quite good, assuming one takes Genesis 1 even that literally.

    Thus, ICR’s Impact #81 manages to fire a dud at the wrong target.

  • Genre and Canonical Criticism

    Continuing my discussion of Biblical criticism and the tools that make up that method, let’s look at genre and canonical criticism together. I do that, because they look generally at the same point in the production of the text as we have it, but look in different ways at that point in time.

    We have already encountered the term “genre” in discussing form criticism. Make sure to distinguish the way in which “genre” is used in “genre criticism” as opposed to the way it is used in form criticism. In the former, it is a category of short elements, normally of orally transmitted material, that takes certain forms due to that process of transmission. Here we are looking at the genre of a larger literary document.

    You may gather from that definition that we have shifted our focus away from the prehistory of the text and its development, to looking at the document as we have it now. At the same time we move from looking at smaller portions or even fragments of the text to looking at it as a whole document. Thus if we consider the book of Matthew, for example, form criticism is concerned with the individual sayings of Jesus and reports of his deeds, source criticism looks at how these were collected into documents which became sources for the author of Matthew, redaction criticism looked at how those sources were combined into the whole gospel in order to tell us what Matthew himself was trying to accomplish. Tradition criticism looked at this whole process. Genre criticism looks at the gospel of Matthew as a whole, asks what its genre “gospel” may be, what are its purposes, and how was it used by the community that saw it as a gospel. Canonical criticism looks at the whole of Matthew but looks at it as part of the canon of the bible and of the New Testament, and insofar as it is interested in a community, it would be the one that first saw this as authoritative for the church.

    Genre Criticism

    Recently I’ve been doing some study of the book of Daniel, in which genre criticism can be extremely important. Previously, I discussed the dating of Daniel, particularly from the point of view of Anthony Di Lella, author of the Anchor Bible commentary on the book. Di Lella believes that the book is pseudonymous, written in the 2nd century BCE, and also that its stories are not generally historical, but rather are edifying stories. (See Dating the Book of Daniel.) At the same time he maintains that this view does not conflict with inerrancy. How does he do that?

    The issue is simply one of genre. He believes that one of the characteristics of apocalyptic is that it is pseudonymous, and he determines on various grounds that the stories are edifying tales and not historical, but he also determines that the use of this genre was to encourage people in a particular time of persecution, looking at the community that first received the book as a whole, and the purposes for which they would use the book.

    On a much less radical note, genre criticism of the gospels asks just what type of literature the gospels are. Are they histories, and if so what type? Are they novels as some literary critics have proposed? For many, the answer is that there is a specific genre of “gospel” which is not identical to any other form of literature. Once we have determined the genre, we ask just what that genre was intended to do. It would appear that a presentation of a coherent chronological picture was not part of the plan, as the various gospels, even though they show signs that the authors were acquainted with certain of the others, do not present a consistent chronology. These are the types of questions that genre criticism is supposed to cover.

    Canonical Criticism

    Canonical criticism is concerned with where those gospels fit in that broader scheme. In studying the gospels one might ask why there are four, and just four, gospels, and just where Matthew fits into that scheme. How does this one gospel contribute to the function of the “gospel” genre (or whatever one may have determined that genre was)? Why do we have “gospels” in the canon at all?

    In the case of Daniel, there are also issues of canonical criticism. Where does this type of literature fit into the faith life of the church? Why would we value an apocalypse, whether we see its stories as historical or not? Daniel itself is placed in different positions in the Jewish canon and in the Christian canon. Is there a reason for this? Canonical criticism is not largely a matter of looking at the order of the books, of course, but rather looking at how the book functions as part of the community’s Bible as a whole. Nonetheless the fact that the Christian canon seems to put a higher value on Daniel than the Jewish canon is probably significant in the way each community sees that book.

    One can continue by asking what role Revelation plays in the New Testament canon. Many people didn’t think it should be there, and even some moderns don’t feel the right choice was made. When they say that Revelation should not be canonical, are they commenting on its usefulness in the church, its potential use, or the way in which it has been used or abused? These are questions that the canonical critic applies in study.

    Putting things Together

    Though this is not my last entry, the introduction of these two tools of Biblical criticism provides an opportunity for me to comment on the use of the tools in general. Too often Bible students who do start to use critical methods get tied up on one or two methods. These tools provide different ways of looking at the text, but in order to understand both the text itself and how it applies to the modern church or community, one needs to look at it in a variety of ways. Commentaries that focus solely on one aspect can be quite hard to use practically. A form critical commentary, for example, will look heavily at the prehistory of the text, paying much attention to hypothetical material while passing over the text as we have it. On the other hand, a canonical critic can be tempted to ignore the fact that a text does have a prehistory and act as though it dropped from heaven whole.

    The Bible student who wants to get the most from the text will use a balance of tools as they are appropriate to the particular text he is studying.

  • God is Creator of Everything

    In a previous post in my series on Christian view on origins, Biblical Doctrine of Creation, I listed six elements of a Biblical doctrine of creation. I need to specify this more precisely as a Biblical doctrine of creation based on the Christian Bible and on one or another Christian approach to Biblical interpretation.

    Excursus – What is Biblical?

    Very often debates on whether any particular doctrine is Biblical founder on the fact that people are using different approaches to interpretation, and thus a text that applies in one way in one person’s argument means something completely different to the other, simply because of a different approach to interpretation. Since this is so important as I start discussing a Biblical doctrine of creation, let me give a simple example.

    In Matthew 5:17 Jesus says, “Don’t think that I have come to destroy the law and the prophets. I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” Now I interpret this text to mean that Jesus came to bring the law to fruition, that is to give it its deeper meaning, something defined by the texts that follow indicating a new way to look at various laws. Murderous anger is now like murder, lust like adultery, and so forth. In each case Jesus discusses the motive. I see these as examples of how Jesus invites his followers to look at the law.

    Now some people will say that Matthew 5:17 means that Jesus came to put an end to the law by keeping all of it, and would not see the following instructions as examples of that, but as a separate topic. When Jesus died, according to these folks, taking the penalty of the law, he removed the law and now we live by the Spirit. Others hold that since all of the preaching of Jesus was given to the Jews, the moral instructions of this chapter only apply to Jews. Christians belong to the church age, and are under grace. Somewhere in there most Christians will have found an approach to interpreting Matthew 5:17 that resonated with them, and may feel that the alternatives are quite weird. (I might not have included your view, and I certainly oversimplified them all.)

    Those differences in interpretation illustrate what I mean when I say that everyone approaches Bible study within some kind of interpretational matrix, and that if yours matrix is different from mine, we can debate about the matrix (or paradigm), but likely we’ll just degenerate into yelling if we try to argue what is “Biblical” and what is not based on completely different interpretational matrices. In the first three chapters of his book Faith, Form, and Time, Kurt Wise builds a case for a literal reading of the Bible in general and the early chapters of Genesis in particular. Thus he believes in a literal creation week of 24 hour days, patriarchs who literally lived hundreds of years, and a worldwide flood with all creatures preserved on the ark. For him this is Biblical, and any view holding that these materials are not narrative history, but rather are of other literary genres and thus should be understood very differently, would be unbiblical. For me, on the other hand, Wise’s view is not Biblical, because he is reading genres such as liturgy, myth, and legend as narrative history, and thus makes them mean things that are inappropriate to those genres.

    Note that the doctrine of inerrancy is not at issue here. While I do not accept the doctrine of inerrancy, there are theistic evolutionists who do. The issue is intent. An inerrantist can read the book of Jonah and determine that it is not historical. How is this possible? Because if he determines that the genre is “edifying story” it is not an error that the book is not historical. One doesn’t test a work of fiction based on whether the characters in it actually existed and did the things described. (For a connection of this same concept to the book of Daniel, see Dating the Book of Daniel.)

    So keep in mind as I discuss these various views that when I discuss how each view handles the Biblical materials relating to a particular doctrine, I’m considering their approach to interpretation. I’m not trying to say that all views are Biblical; I’m simply pointing out how each group relates its view to the Biblical material.

    Creator of Everything

    Major passages: Genesis 1:1-2:4a, Psalm 104:24, Hebrews 1:2, Romans 11:33-36, Isaiah 45:7.

    Most of these passages are quite self-explanatory in connection with this topic, though they are subject to different interpretations in terms of how and when God created. The key common element is that nothing is attributed in Christianity (or Judaism as I understand it) to any entity other than God. There are some points in Christian theology in which negative results have occurred in creation based on the activities of hostile entities. It is common, for example, for Christians to credit Satan with the “creation” of evil.

    The problem here is the understanding of God’s responsibility for the actions of creatures with free will. Many Christians remove God from responsibility for evil simply by attributing it to Satan. But Satan himself is a created being, again according to the Bible. (Note here that this statement is a bit loose, as the doctrine of Satan is not clearly fixed, especially in Hebrew scriptures.) In general, however, if someone makes something that causes damage, one is regarded as responsible for that damage. If I light a fire in my back yard, and then don’t control it, and it burns out of control and damages my neighbor’s yard, I cannot claim that the fire is responsible but I am not.

    That is not quite analogous to our case, however, because God is creating a creature that can choose what behavior it will engage in. Nonetheless, God created a creature who was capable of becoming evil, and thus set in motion the process of evil coming into existence. While most of the texts I listed simply speak of God creating everything, one text is more specific.

    7Forming the light,
    Creating the darkness,
    Making well-being,
    Creating disaster,
    I YHWH do {or make} all these things.

    There is some debate about the word I have translated “disaster” and the KJV translates “evil.” Some people think this alternate translation solves the problems. But this passage is actually using two words indicating the extremes in order to include everything between. No matter how light it is or how dark it is, God is the one who made it. No matter how good things get or how bad they get, God is the one who made it. God is absolutely the creator of everything. We may look for excuses (Satan did all the bad stuff), but God is not looking for such excuses. According to the Bible, he readily claims responsibility for the creation of everything.

    This doesn’t mean that I’m unaware of texts speaking of the devil. It does mean that I see the Bible as ultimately attributing all creative activity to God. For some reasons (best know to God, presumably), God created entities that were capable of evil, and gave them the freedom to exercise that option.

    In my view all of the Christian views of origins potentially fulfill this first requirement. Some Christians use the concept of the devil to avoid divine responsibility, but one can’t even make a generalization there, as many do not.

    Nonetheless, thestic evolutionists are frequently accused of not seeing God as the creator of everything, but rather of maintaining that all living things are produced by evolution, and thus not created by God. This accusation is itself unbiblical.

    It’s clear (I think) to both creationists of all varieties as well as to evolutionists that there are things in the world that come into existence on a regular basis. (I’m leaving stellar evolution for a later article discussing whether God is still creating.) For example, a new island might be formed by a volcanic eruption. I recall a visit to Crater Lake in Oregon, which was formed in only moments ago geologically speaking. Would any Christian claim that the lake and islands are not created by God?

    But the text of Isaiah gets very specific on this by calling God the creator of Israel (Isaiah 43:15). Now God clearly did not create Israel out of nothing. Rather, their ancestors were called, went through the normal processes of population growth, migration, and conquest, and eventually became the people to whom the message of 2nd Isaiah was proclaimed. Thus God is still the creator even of things that are produced through natural processes. Finally, let me mention every human baby, and in fact every form of new life, all of which is a creation of God, even though it is the result of natural processes.

    That is the first element of a Biblical doctrine of creation, and I believe that all of the views of creation we have discussed so far are consistent with it.

    For other entries in this series see Post Series.

  • Good Theology, Bad Theology, and Demons

    I have frequently commented that intelligent design (ID) is bad theology. Equally often, I am challenged by someone who will point out that ID may be bad theology from my point of view, while it might be good theology from someone else’s point of view. This is a very valid objection to what I have said, though I will defend the basic point. ID could be more correctly termed “theology done badly” than “bad theology.”

    Nonetheless, since ID is being supported primarily by Christians, and evangelical Christians at that, it can be quite properly called “bad theology” as well, because it is bad theology within what is supposed to be the theological framework of most of its supporters. If you are wondering why there is a split amongst conservative Christians over ID, it is simply that many conservative Christians are saying either that this does not prove or that it is not even trying to prove anything that actually works within their theology.

    In talking to Christian groups, I frequently find people who are shocked that I don’t support ID. “How can you not believe the universe is designed?” they ask. My answer is that I don’t accept ID precisely because I believe that the universe is designed. However it is disguised, however many chapters of mathematical formulas are provided, however many pious statements are made (whenever someone is not trying to pretend this is not theology), ID does not prove, and is not attempting to prove that the universe is designed. It is, in fact, attempting to prove that some elements are more designed than others, i.e. when we deal with specified complexity as a test of design, it means that we distinguish things that could happen randomly, and things that happen by design. Right or wrong, evangelical Christians are generally very uncomfortable with things that happen randomly. They are not looking for Paley’s watch on the seashore to prove that the watch is designed, but rather to prove that everything is designed.

    Incidentally, that remains a failing of Paley’s proof for the existence of God. In traditional Christian theology the sea, the seashore, and each grain of sand is a design, and not just the watch, so again we’re distinguishing design from design. Theologians grab hold of such arguments largely because in a scientific age in which objective knowledge is king, they want to have just such scientific facts in hand. They want to replace faith with fact, but do so without giving up theology. The ID theorists envy the scientists their objective data, and their theories that explain major categories of evidence in an elegant way. They want that for themselves, but they don’t want to give up theology and go pursue science in order to do it.

    Scientists wonder why ID proponents are so slow to get down to actual research and publication related to their material if they really want ID to be accepted as scientific. Michael Behe has even suggested research, questionable as it may be, that could be done, but nobody is doing it. Why? Because these people are essentially following the processes of theology. They are rearranging the existing ideas and historical data, and constantly wondering why it is that it doesn’t become acceptable science. They can maintain this search despite scientific training because they have become theologically convinced that theological proposals must be able to be as true as, and as demonstrably true as the results of the hard sciences.

    This comes simply from a different approach. Most commonly theology, especially Christian theology, focuses on coherence rather than correspondence. (I’m bracing myself for the accusations that I am oversimplifying here. I am. I confess it. But I think that the generalization is adequately valid for my purposes and I don’t want to dig that far into epistemology.) The scientific method, on the other hand, focuses on correspondence. If a theologian finds a misbehaving fact, one that won’t fit into the system, he is first going to look for a way to tuck it into the system. A scientist in the same circumstances will try to adjust the theory, and if that fails, will hope to propose a new one and become famous. This is what the general public seems to miss about science and scientists. Discovering revolutionary new things is something scientists dream of. You don’t get famous by producing more data to support an existing theory; you have to produce something new. Theologians do try to produce something new as well, but most commonly that is a new way of arranging or looking at old data. An entirely new theology can be built without a single piece of hard data being introduced. And need I mention inventing data, something that gets scientists get caught at and get drummed out of the profession, but makes theologians founders of new religions. 🙂

    A theologian doesn’t worry about new discoveries destroying his systematic theology. He is concerned instead with people who take apart the logic, or reinterpret some foundational text, and then follow some new path through the data. Rarely, however, does such a reinterpretation result in the original author recanting his view. It will probably just start a new school of theology, or a new sub-school, or perhaps a new sub-sub school. That’s because one theologian can’t tell another one that he is unable to replicate his data, and thus the theologian’s theology must be false.

    Let me detour for a moment to comment that when a theologian deals with a field that does have objective data there will be a difference, and that theologians can make statements that can be objectively disproven. For example, a preacher approached my son when he was ill with cancer, and said that God had told him that anyone he laid hands on and prayed for would be healed of cancer. He laid hands on my son and prayed. My son later died of that cancer. Claim falsified. Fortunately, my son was smarter than the preacher, and didn’t let those words ruin such time as he had left at that point. But even in these cases, the theologian’s approach is not generally to alter the theory, but to explain the data within the prior theory. The recipient didn’t have enough faith (whether that was specificed in advance or not), the historical data that seems to contradict the inerrancy of the Bible can be explained in some other way, or will soon enough be contradicted by other data and God (or rather the theologian) will be vindicated.

    If I can illustrate from something closer to my own field of Biblical studies, let’s say new evidence is discovered about the destruction of Jericho, as has happened several times. The objective archeologist takes the new data and adjusts his historical charts for the city of Jericho, looking at all available evidence. The theologian, in this case a defender of the Bible, looks at that data to see how it can be handled to support the Biblical story of the destruction of Jericho by Joshua and the Israelites. Some skeptics, taking an equally theological approach look at the same data to see how well it can be used to oppose the Biblical story. Only the view that attempts to formulate the best understanding taking into account all of the data (and that admits where data is absent) is an attitude compatible with a scientific approach. (I’m avoiding here differences between historical study and hard science. My observation is that the data comes down on the side of the defenders sometimes and of the skeptics sometimes, which suggests to me that the Bible is neither 100% historical when talking about history, nor is it totally in error. Of course, any amount of error means not inerrant.)

    This takes me to the current mini-flap about an article Rumors of Angels: Using ID to Detect Malevolent Spiritual Agents. Scientists quite properly laugh this out of scientific court. But why would ID advocates avoid it? The intelligent designer is not specified. ID is not supposed to be a religious concept. So what difference does it make if the designer is an alien, and unknown intelligence from the stars, an angel, a demon, or God Almighty?

    But that article has underlined the problem, because we clearly see that ID cannot distinguish between these various possibilities of a designer, because it is trying to demonstrate design in those little places where some external intelligence (rodents of unusual size, perhaps?) might tinker with life in an experimental lab. It’s precisely because they are not looking for design in the traditional sense that most Christians accept theologically, that this kind of thing cannot be excluded. Evangelical theologians would not be proposing angels and demons as agents of creation. But ID doesn’t really have a defense against it.

    And please, my fellow Christians, don’t laugh just because we’re talking angels and demons. If you believe in one invisible friend, who are you to laugh at more invisible friends and and some invisible enemies. I see nothing in Christian theology that suggests that we can’t have such agents involved. But again, the fact that ID can admit this shows that it is working much more like theology than science. It reminds me of a three year old foster child my parents took in when I was a teenager. Whenever something bad happened, she’d announce, “Somebody done it, but I didn’t done it!” ID has attained just that level of explanatory power. When all current explanations have failed, ID proposes that we announce: “Somebody done it!”

    Personally I don’t see much theological light in seeing demons interfering with nature. I’d have a serious practical problem if someone started suggesting exorcism as the proper response to Ebola, but then DD (demonic design) doesn’t suggest that the demons are actually in the virus, but rather that they adjusted it. I don’t tend to see “spiritual beings” as existing, but rather as more of a metaphor allowing us to use concrete language about spiritual issues. But then that’s my theology. Others will be more receptive to spiritual entities, many will be less so. That’s theology for you!

    And thus I see ID as badly done theology, because it does not fit itself into any theological system, including the one purportedly held by most of its advocates, and because it presents itself as though it was theologically demonstrating something it cannot. In my own Christian view of a creator God who is sovereign over all and designed everything, however small, including many processes that produce other things in predictable ways, it is also just plain bad theology. Your mileage may differ on how good the theology is, but it remains theology, nonetheless.

    But something else that shows up here is that it is also politics, because it shows a different face to different people. Many Christians right now are deceived into thinking that somehow these scientists who advocate ID have “proven” the existence of God and the presence of the creator. Because they believe this has been scientifically proven, they cannot see why it should not be taught as science in the classroom. Finally, they think, the existence of God has been made as certain as the principles that allow an airplane to fly! But ID has acomplished no such thing, and I would suggest that Christians should not rejoice if it had. The ID movement is perpetrating this deception as a political strategy. This makes it badly done theology used as a political strategy. The jury is still out on whether it’s an effective political strategy.

    “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1, NRSV). Let’s not confuse that with science. If that type of faith embarrasses you, perhaps you should reconsider your faith choice.