Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: creation

  • New Creation-Evolution Site

    Laura links to a new site on creation and evolution written by someone she knows, and I wanted to promote the link to an actual post. I must say that I have substantial areas of disagreement with the post she directly links on thermodynamics, but I’m so involved on the theological side right now, which is after all closer to my area of expertise, that I think I’ll lay off it for the moment.

  • Genesis Links

    I started collecting links through clips on my bloglines account (yes, the blogroll is public), and one thing I’ve found is that I collect a remarkable number of links and I comment on only a few of them. There have been a number of good posts on Genesis recently, and I want to provide links even though I won’t have time for more than a sentence or two in comment. These all relate to creation or the flood and related issues, so we’re really talking about the first 11 chapters.

    From James McGrath, I found Doctor Who: Journey’s End, Creation’s End, God’s End?, which discusses some of the difficulties of the flood story. Reflecting on the flood story’s origins he says:

    But when an ancient Israelite author tried to co-opt that story (which was too familiar and could not simply be discarded) into monotheism, it created the ultimate theological conundrum. How does one account for a single God both destroying the world and saving humanity? . . .

    You’ll have to go read the entire post to get the picture. He also links to a number of other good posts and discussions here, though unfortunately I haven’t had time to get involved.

    Moderate Christian Blogroll member Monastic Mumblings shares a good quote on Genesis.

    Those cover it pretty well for now.

  • Making the World Make Itself

    PamBG quotes a letter that using some wonderful phraseology with regard to the process of creation, but also related to theodicy. I can’t access the letter itself due to a subscription requirement, but the part Pam quotes is quite good.

    I like these two sentences particularly well:

    Suppose instead that he made the world make itself.

    . . .

    Be the incarnation suggests that, in Jesus, God knew by experience, not just observation, what it was to be rejected, and hunted down; . . .

    Yes!

  • Blogroll: Geocreationism.com

    Having decided to blog a couple of times per week about my blogroll, I’m going to start with a site I just added, Geocreationism.com. If you’ve been following this blog for any period of time, you will have noticed occasional comments from Geocreationist, and this is his blog.

    I have a couple of reasons for including it. First, he disagree with a number of positions I take, but is open to dialog. That’s an excellent start. Second, his position on creation and evolution illustrates one of my key contentions: This is not a black and white issue in which there are only two sides. One of the defining features of the moderate position, as I see it, is refusing to be held to a choice of extremes. That’s why moderates are frequently very annoying to extremists–we refuse to get stuck with only two options. Sometimes even if you give us A, B, C, and D, we want E-none of the above.

    Before I go to a particular post, let me look at Geocreationism’s subtitle: Geocreationism – Showing harmony between mainstream science and scripture. It’s very easy to forget that when we look at the interaction between science and scripture that both sides can vary. One can differ on a view of science or of a particular scientific theory, or one can differ on the interpretation of scripture. Any type of reconciliation or harmony involves both. This subtitle is one I would not use, for example, because I don’t think there is any need for harmony simply because I don’t believe science and scripture address the same questions. There are occasional overlaps, but these are incidental, I think. This is one of the issues for Christians. Just what is scripture trying to address, and in what way does it address it?

    We’ll see some of this in action in a recent post, “Evidence for Creation” (Review) – Ground Rules for the Review. Geocreationist is reviewing Tom DeRosa’s book Evidence for Creation – Intelligent Answers for Open Minds. In laying out his own ground rules he distinguishes what he calls “Darwinian evolution” and “Theistic Evolution.” He defines Darwinian evolution as largely equivalent to atheistic evolution, though he sees little difference between that and the various deistic views.

    He contrasts theistic evolution, in which he says that God not only starts everything, but “He started every wave of Evolution as well.” In his view, God is still distant in this view of theistic evolution, and thus he presents his own third view: geocreationism, or geocreationist theistic evolution. In this case, God is continually present and concerned. I’ll have to read more to see how this impacts the process along the way.

    Now I must say that this terminology is somewhat surprising to me. For example, evolution occurring in waves with God starting each wave sounds very much like old earth creationism to me. Further, Geocreationist describes his view in this way: “Evolution would occur with our without the randomness, as long as God remains involved; remove God however, and the randomness would not be enough.” That latter view sounds somewhat like ID or “guided evolution” to me, depending on how one fills in the details.

    If I’m reading all of this correctly, I’m going to fall into the “Darwinian evolution” camp. My problem with being placed there is that I don’t think God is distant. For each and every law of nature I believe we can say it happens “because God.” In other words God wills gravity, and should he stop willing it, there would be no gravity. Not to worry, however, he’s pretty fond of gravity. God also wills variation and natural selection, and those produce certain types of order according to that law. Remove God and you remove everything.

    Now I know that there are some views that allow for indetectible divine intervention, but I’m not particularly interested at the moment in things that are even theoretically indetectible. I believe that God creates the laws, i.e. the system, which in turn produces everything that we see. God can intervene, but he would do so because he wants to, primarily because he wants to communicate with these weird creatures who have come into being.

    I have one further comment initial comment. Geocreationist appears to be looking for at least an historical outline in the Genesis accounts. I think this is doomed to be a disappointing search in the long run. I do not believe that the literature involved was written with the intent to provide a narrative history of anything, but rather to express God’s relationship to creation using the cosmology and symbolic language of the time. I will blog more on it as time goes on, but I have found that everything tends to fit quite nicely when read in that context.

  • Creation-Evolution Posts and Reading Recommendations

    I’ve been posting a good deal about evolution since the Florida science standards have been rewritten and it’s time for comments. Early next year we’ll be dealing with a vote. Generally people think the new standards are good, but as is not uncommon, a different standard is applied to evolution than to other scientific theories.

    The issue is often framed either as faith vs. evolution, i.e. all who accept evolution are atheists, and atheists are bad, so we should reject evolution. As a subset the issue is framed as Christianity vs. evolution. Every aspect of that framing is wrong. Evolution is a well-supported scientific theory. It’s unfortunate that one can smear a theory by associating it with a certain category of people, but in the case of atheists that seems to work. It’s wrong, but there it is. But one of the advantages to science is that its results can be replicated, and they look the same to a Hindu, a Christian, or an atheist. One’s religious beliefs don’t change the information. Thus who it is that produces the information is not the issue.

    To back up some of my current writing, I’d like to point to some of my past post, taking on the religious issue first. There is not just one creationism. Even Christians subscribe to a number of different posts. In my review of What Is Creation Science? I commented on the attempt by the authors to separate the flood geology, the age of the earth, and what they call the “fact” of creation. This is an astounding claim. How can one make predictions about the fossil record without any timeline? How can one make predictions about it without regard to a universal flood? If such a flood happened, then it would certainly leave evidence. This situation is only made more complex by views such as old earth creationism, ruin and restoration creationism, and some minimal forms of ID that claim that perhaps God either tweaked the creation just a little bit here and there, or perhaps only created the first life-form with front-loading.

    I wrote a series of posts early in the days of this blog outlining these various views and also relating them to basic Christian doctrines. The major posts in that series were:

    For those interested in the religious aspects in particular, combine this with my series on my Participatory Bible Study blog. That series actually starts with Genesis 3, but it references my pre-blog (though updated) essay, Genesis Creation Stories – Form, Structure, and Relationship, and then continues with Genesis 3.

    You can get the whole series using this link, or by clicking on “Genesis” in the tag cloud in the right sidebar (at Participatory Bible Study).

    To the list of suggested readings, I would now have to add at least John Haught’s book God After Darwin, and Richard Colling’s book Random Designer, which I’m reading right now.

  • Who Cares about the Present, We have the Future!

    A few years ago I was discussing the behavior of a televangelist (who and the particular behavior is unimportant), when she said, “You know, if I believed in God, I’d be afraid to do that.”

    Now there are certain assumptions in that statement. The God in question must be one who rewards and punishes in the afterlife, and who cares how we behave in this life. But that’s not so far off as reasonably Biblical description of God.

    Thus I was interested to find the following quote in Judgment Day, the NOVA documentary on the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial. Lauri Lebo, a journalist, is commenting on her father’s view and that of other Christians in the area.

    If you believe in heaven and hell and you believe you have to be saved. Nothing else could possibly matter. Not the first amendment, not science, not rational debate. Er, all that matters is that you’re going to be rejoined with the people you love most on this Earth. (Source: Transcript part 9

    Now this statement struck me, and reminded me of my particular conversation. Though I obviously have a “side” in this case–I’m very much pro-evolution–I’m not primarily interested here in the constant battles over who is more truth-challenged in these debates. I think that the school board in this case came out pretty bad from the point of view of integrity, but that’s not my major point.

    My concern here is simply for the attitudes and practices that are appropriate for Christians who believe in eternal life. Is it proper to let the belief in eternal life overcome your scruples about everything else?

    Lectionary texts for the last week have dealt quite a bit with the question of waiting for the coming of Jesus and what we are to do in that case. I know that many people wonder why God would not tell us precisely when Jesus was scheduled to return. I could give many answers to that, but one would have to be this: We can’t afford to know when such a thing will happen. Every time someone has convinced a large group of people that the end of the world was coming on a particular date, they lose all interest in behaving themselves in this one.

    People spend a great deal of time in Revelation and related apocalyptic passages, but I would suggest we spend a little bit more time with Mark 13/Matthew 24/Luke 21, which can be summarized as saying to relax and keep right on going until it’s right there. In 2 Thessalonians 3:13, Paul gets in on the act as well, telling people not to tire of doing good.

    That one line is probably the best advice to Christians in anticipating the end of the world. Just keep on behaving like you’re going to be living out your life right here. Keep on doing good!

    I have encountered this attitude in academic disciplines. Why bother with scholarship, or why bother with extremely careful scholarship? The key thing is that you bring in souls. I have encountered this in daily life. Why should I put out my best effort at work? The ministry is more important. Why should I be careful with financial accountability? I’m doing God’s work.

    In connection with neglecting one’s secular work, I can’t resist a story. More than 30 years ago my father was medical director of a health conditioning center. They were building a new hospital facility, a good portion of it self-help. My dad was pretty handy, and as he was able, he was out getting his hands dirty, and especially working on the electrical installation.

    The facility was Christian, and there was a young man there who was supposed to be working, but who would bring his Bible, and would stop working and share things from it with other workers. Not only was he not working himself, he was disrupting everyone else. But what do you do? It’s a Christian facility, and look how holy he is! Well, my dad banned him from bringing his Bible to the site. It was quite a scandal for a few days. How could a Christian physician order a subordinate not to bring his Bible to work? But my dad stuck to his decision.

    I would suggest that the right attitude is to be doubly accountable–here and for the next world. Live like you don’t get to hide anything. Be as honest as you possibly can. Carry out your work as conscientiously as you possibly can.

    It isn’t a matter of putting eternity on the back burner. The Bible repeatedly commands faithfulness here. I think that means faithfulness in work, research, publication, and one’s political activities, as well as in one’s church activities. Lying, even if motivated by kingdom concerns, is not an option.

    Who cares about the present? We all should.

  • A Taste of Teaching the Controversy

    “Teach the controversy” is one of the well-worn slogans of the creationist movement, and has been well used in the controversy about intelligent design (ID). It’s power is in an appeal to fairness. There’s a dispute? Teach both sides. What could be fairer than that?

    As with most slogans the problems occur in practically every word. What is “the” controversy? What are the “weaknesses” of evolutionary theory that one should teach? And even more importantly, what does it mean to teach a controversy?

    I would suggest that in order to actually teach something, the instructor needs to take the students through a process of evaluation, of weighing and testing the evidence provided. If that controversy is ID vs the theory of evolution, such a weighing and testing will result in a negative evaluation of ID–unless, of course, one tries to privilege certain ideas over others.

    This is not the type of “teaching the controversy” that is desired by ID proponents. In general, they are asking that their views, though representing those of a very small minority of the scientific community, should be taught alongside evolution as having equal validity. The attempt to get these materials into public schools is simply an end-run around the process of science, and indeed of scholarship in general. What ID advocates are asking is that ideas that have been rejected by the vast majority of the scientific community should be presented instead to high school students for their evaluation.

    I can understand this desire. It’s always fun to take your material to an audience that will not be qualified to challenge you seriously on facts or logic. But it’s not the proper place to get ideas evaluated.

    We have just seen an example of “teaching the controversy”, and doing it well, on NOVA, and the ID folks don’t particularly like it. (The complaints about “Inherit the Wind” footage are particularly humorous.)

    Well, I’m not surprised. They didn’t actually want the whole controversy taught. They didn’t want all their claims evaluated. They just hoped they would be presented side by side to unsuspecting high school students who do not yet have the knowledge to evaluate what they are hearing.

    There are reasons why ID is presented to popular audiences rather than scientific ones. 1) Doing the actual science is too hard, or perhaps 2) The advocates know that no matter how hard they work, the evidence just isn’t there, or 3) They don’t actually care about science at all, and they’re just trying to make points in the culture wars. Come to think of it, it could be all of the above.

    But this argument does not only apply to ID. In the public school science program, we need to teach science, and we need to have some basis on which to decide what is and is not science. Any minority viewpoint can hire PR firms and try to get itself treated as science through the political process, but that is not a good way to determine what really is science. I suggest one standard: Consensus science. There is plenty of that to fill the science curriculum. Other ideas may apply, but the process goes through the scientific community for publication, testing, and verification.

    I would add one more note on this. I have commented before on the NCBCPS Bible curriculum which is aimed at public schools. Many Christians see this as a wonderful opportunity to restore Biblical literacy. But they need to think again. Just how is it that the Bible can properly be taught in public schools? It will have to be taught as an academic subject, which means that the historicity of certain stories, such as the exodus, the destruction of Jericho, or similar things, should be evaluated in a scholarly fashion, as objectively as possible.

    That requires, amongst other things, qualified instructors, and good curriculum (NCBCPS isn’t good curriculum). This will be Bible as a secular topic. Now I wouldn’t mind such a class. The reason I still oppose putting this in public schools is that I believe it inappropriately privileges my own sacred book over that of others and that it is extremely unlikely that we will find appropriately qualified teachers for a sound, academic course on the Bible at the High School level.

    I know, for example, that if I were to teach such a course, many fundamentalist and conservative evangelical students and parents would be shocked at what I would say, though I would be able to point to a great deal of scholarship in all of it. You see, I would “teach the controversy” about many of these subjects, evaluating the evidence, and some people would not be happy with the results.

    Perhaps in High School classes we should teach the most important elements of a subject (and make no mistake, evolution is one of these), and leave the myriad of controversies that people can cook up to be settled through examination by qualified persons.

  • Why the Creation-Evolution Controversy is Important

    I’m going to try for a brief statement, something that seems to be an unnatural act for me!

    I am sometimes asked why I spend so much of my time on the [tag]creation[/tag]/[tag]evolution[/tag] controversy. The reason is simply that there is a full scale assault going on against free inquiry, something that is essential to the integrity and continued progress of science. As we have seen in the case of Dr. [tag]Richard Colling[/tag], scientists are asked to give up or lie about what they know to be the truth in order to meet a theological conclusion.

    Creation and evolution is simply the most obvious case at the present time. Not only is the pressure intense in church circles, so that many people prefer not to discuss the issue rather than deal with the controversy, it is also a factor in political circles as creationists seek government recognition for ideas which have failed in the scientific arena.

    There is simply no excuse in my view for what amounts to a demand to lie. This overlaps into my field of Biblical studies. Shortly after I completed my MA degree, I was interviewed by a college for a possible teaching position. I had some disagreements with the dominant theology and I recall listing these off for one person, saying I was flattered to be considered, given my degree level and lack of experience, but that I would have problems in those areas. The answer? “You don’t have to teach everything you know.” That would not be an option I could live with.

    In science the case is very clear. You go with what the evidence says, and to be evidence it must be something that can be seen by people of any religious persuasion, or of no religion at all. That’s a theologian’s way of putting it, but I think it does make the point.

    I’m not interested in theistic or non-[tag]theistic science[/tag]. I’m interested in science. My personal faith requires integrity of me, and nothing less meets that standard.

  • Psalm 104: Presenting the Message

    Psalm 104 has a distinct message about God’s creation that has stuck with me strongly since I first studied the passage in graduate school. I have previously posted links to my prior study of the text and structure of this Psalm, done more than 25 years ago. I’m starting from that point now.

    When we deal with translation, the message can be presented in many ways. In this case it is presented through poetry. Previously, I worked with Psalm 46, showing how it has been presented in various ways, such as in Martin Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” I then tried to convert the message of the Psalm into the form of an Italian sonnet, at which I can be said to be no better than rank amateur.

    My point, however, is not to demonstrate my skill in transforming Biblical passages, rather it’s to suggest that we need to transform passages in various ways. For example, the message of Psalm 46 could be presented as:

    • A story built around the concept of God as our protector and defender
    • Multiple poetic forms
    • A hymn, as has been done, and in turn that hymn has been musically transformed many times
    • A praise song, or series of praise songs
    • A devotional or even theological essay
    • A drama presented at church

    I did some similar work with the story of Susanna from the apocrypha of Daniel. You can follow the links to related material there.

    All of this falls under the “Share” portion of my Bible study method. I think that Bible students are often the weakest at sharing, but that sharing can be one of the strongest aspects of your approach to Bible study. Thinking of different ways of sharing the message makes you think more about what the message actually is, while getting reactions from others tests the accuracy of your read of the message. Too often our idea of understanding the Bible is reducing it to theological propositions, and then sharing those propositions with others.

    Now don’t get me wrong here. Extracting theological propositions from your Bible study is not a bad thing. It’s just not the only thing. And sharing your theological propositions is not a bad thing either. But just as the Bible uses different ways of sharing, so you can use different ways of sharing. Consider that sharing part of your process of Bible study. It’s a way of exercising your understanding to discern good from evil (Hebrews 5:14).

    So what about Psalm 104? Well, I think this is a good illustration of precisely this point. Elsewhere, I’ve written about the two creation stories of Genesis–1:1-2:4a & 2:4bff. Now there are a number of approaches to these stories. Some people think they turn up a major Bible contradiction, and thus claim the fact that there are two creation stories as a challenge to the Bible’s inspiration and authority. Others defend against this charge by challenging the idea that there are two stories, thus preventing any contradiction.

    I have another suggestion: The story of God’s creation is much too broad and has way too many implications to be comprehended in any single telling. In Genesis 1, the theme is power and authority. God speaks and it happens. But at the same time God can seem very distant and other in that passage. Now these are part of the doctrine of God–transcendance. But what about God’s presence and care for us, immanence? Well, Genesis 2 and even the story of the fall in Genesis 3 present a God who is with us. Combine them, and we get a better picture of God than we would have had with either one. The stories, rather than contradicting, present two very different perspectives on one topic that’s large enough to allow both to present us with the truth of God and creation.

    But there is yet more that God needs to present to us. In reading Genesis 1-11, one could get the impression of a generally receding God, one who is getting more and more distant from us. That would be a sort of gradual deism, God the creator who is no longer present. Enter another perspective–Psalm 104. God is here, God is present, God is concerned with everything. At the same time God is ultimately powerful. (It would be good to go read Psalm 104 from your favorite Bible version about now.

    God’s power is shown in the first 8 verses. God is absolutely sovereign. God’s word sets the boundaries. The very foundations of the world (or the universe, as I understand it) are set by him. This part ties closely with Genesis 1–God of the powerful, absolute word.

    But then we turn in verse 9 to God’s attention to detail. Everything is beautiful. Everything works together. This culminates with the beautiful exclamation:

    (24) How marvelous are your works, O Lord!
    You made them all wisely.
    The earth is full of your created things.

    This is the detailed attention, the God who is present, providing food for everyone. It may be hard for us to comprehend this, but for God, who is infinite, there is no prioritizing. He can be the powerful God who sets the earth on its foundation and commands the water to be in a particular place, while at the same time being concerned with the food for a single particular lion, or a nesting place for a particular bird. We can’t manage that, because for every bit of attention we give to one thing, something else suffers. But not so with God. And here we have this theological principle about God presented in poetic form.

    But then we get down to the continuing nature of God’s presence.

    (27) All of them look to you,
    To give them their food on time.

    (28) You give to them, so they may gather;
    You open your hand, so they may be satisfied with good.

    (29) You hide your face, and they are disturbed;
    You bring their breath to an end,
    And they return to their dust.

    (30) You send forth your breath, and they are created;
    So you renew the face of the ground.

    It’s not just that God created, it’s that God creates. God is the ever-present creator. Every single move of every single subatomic particle is under God’s control. He doesn’t miss a thing. He doesn’t have a priority list. You are in no danger of falling off God’s radar screen, because nothing ever falls off of it.

    That’s why I call Psalm 104 the third creation story. There are a few other passages, but I think this one neatly ties together Genesis 1 and 2 and gives us the perspective of a God who is constantly present.

    Now the question I’m going to continue with in future posts on this topic is this: How do you share that concept in different ways? How do you catch the right way for you to really comprehend this and apply it? How can you find the right way for a friend?