Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: old-earth-creationism

  • Interpreting the Bible I: Obvious Exegesis

    I’m starting a short (I hope) series on interpreting the Bible. This is in response to a series of posts I read recently. The first two were from EvolutionBlog, OEC vs. YEC and The “Terrible Texts” of the Bible. I then encountered A question for Christians on Positive Liberty, which discusses some poor (in the both mine and the post author’s opinion) exegesis used with regard to homosexuality. Though I do read Positive Liberty, I actually went to that post via Dispatches from the Culture War, who agreed with and commented further on the post here.

    I have two more kind points of meta-posting. First, what interests me in these posts in particular is that all of the authors involved are people I read regularly and respect, though obviously I disagree with them on some issues. I’m not talking here about stupid approaches to the Bible, but rather, misunderstanding of Biblical studies as an academic enterprise and also of the role of the Bible in Christianity. Second, I’m posting this here on my Threads blog, rather than on my Participatory Bible Study blog, because I’m most interested in commenting on the social aspects.

    Now for those who were not too bored by the introduction . . .

    What distresses me here is that while those involved in scientific endeavors quite rightly expect others to note technical nuances in their fields, or at least to admit those nuances are inaccessible to them, they often don’t grant similar respect to another field. I’m going to get to material on the Bible and homosexuality in later posts, but right now let me just illustrate from the creation vs. evolution debate.

    It’s quite common for a scientist, let’s say an evolutionary biologist, to comment on how some creationist fails to comprehend details of an issue because that person is a non-specialist. This is very important and quite appropriate, because people who don’t understand certain issues precisely can make wildly silly remarks about it. An engineer may not be well equipped to understand cell development. I’m not really all that well equipped to understand any of the above, which is why I stick my nose in a book when posting on science and/or get someone more expert to check what I write. (On a blog, I can count on correction in the comments, but those usually come from people who know even less than I do.)

    Similar courtesy is often not extended to experts in Biblical studies, however. Scientific experts are quite quick to comment on just how people in Biblical times understood the world, and what their statements on such topics actually mean. One example is the common statement that the Bible “clearly” supports young earth creationism, so that anyone who is a Christian but doesn’t support a young earth is “going against the Bible.” It’s one of the few things on which non-theistic evolutionists and young earth creationists can agree!

    But stating that the Bible “clearly” supports young earth creationism is an example of “obvious exegesis.” I use that particular collocation of words in my title because it makes my hair stand on end. I hope I can make some of my readers feel similarly about it as I write.

    In discussing this I’m going to look at two aspects of Biblical interpretation. First, exegesis. I’m going to simplify by restricting the word “exegesis” as I use it here to mean “getting to understand what the original author meant to the people to whom he originally spoke or wrote.” (We’ll find, however, that even such an apparently simple label as “original author” is somewhat complex.) Second, we have application, or the way in which people who use the Bible in their lives in some way take Biblical statements and apply them. This one isn’t so simple either, and not just because modern Christians try to accommodate the Bible to modern science.

    For this introductory post, let me simply take a look at one statement from Jason Rosenhouse:

    But for all of that, I do still have quite a bit of sympathy for their interpretation of Genesis. It sure looks to me like twenty-four hour days and a young-Earth were what the Biblical authors intended. The text itself describes the days as being bracketed by an evening and a morning, which is a very odd way of speaking if something other than twenty-four hour days were intended. . . .

    Now oddly enough, Rosenhouse gets around in the paragraphs following this one to a couple of the key points of exegesis that do not fit into a young earth model, but he misses significant details, and also some of the key ways in which an expert in appropriate areas in Biblical studies would look at the text. Note here, of course, that I am not an “expert” in the “doctoral degree and academic involvement” sense. I’m a popularizer. That’s important, because an expert in any one of the areas I’ll touch on would make this more complex than I do, not less.

    So is it so obvious that Genesis describes creation in seven literal 24 hour days? That all depends. In what context are we studying what part of Genesis? Rosenhouse does not that Genesis 2 is different from Genesis 1, but he only notes the length of time involved, not the key point, which is that Genesis 2 is itself a creation story that differs from Genesis 1, that it does not have any days of creation at all, and that it is chronologically incompatible with Genesis 1. If I step beyond Genesis I should point out that Psalm 104 is also a creation story that skips that part.

    So when we do exegesis, we have several levels at which we can look:

    1. The textual pre-history, in this case Genesis 1:1-2:4a vs Genesis 2:4b-24. We will get a different answer to our questions in looking at the original intent of each author. (Note that I have a breakdown of these stories according to the sources here.)
    2. We can look at the redactor who somehow combined the two stories. The interesting thing here is that he is unlikely to have been unaware that the two stories do not share a time framework, and are not actually chronologically compatible. In interpreting the combined text, we have to take that into consideration. Did he mean Genesis 1 to be taken as the chronological framework, which should then be imposed on Genesis 2, or did he see them as compatible in another sense? (If, as I argue below, Genesis 1 is liturgy, while Genesis 2 is a narrative sharing many, but not all, characteristics with myth, then it is quite possible that he intended the reverse–that Genesis 2 is closer to the history, while Genesis 1 is the way in which it is celebrated liturgically, and the time framework is entirely liturgical.)
    3. We can look at their canonical position as part of the Torah. This involves adding the Sinai experience and the 10 commandments, which pushes us back in the direction of a literal creation week.
    4. We can look at them in the broader canon of scripture, in which case we must not only add those points at which a literal creation week is described, but those texts, such as Psalm 104 or Proverbs 8 that describe creation differently.
    5. Finally, we get to the point of application, as in what is the community that uses the Bible as scripture expected to believe about this material. This is where those who are not part of the community, and especially those who once were but no longer are tend to be very dogmatic. The “true” Christian way is to figure out what the original author said and then to believe that. I’m going to deal with this in a later post, but I will simply note for now that this has never been the actual approach, even when people most vigorously claimed it was.

    So what would the “obvious” exegesis of Genesis 1-2 be, actually? I hope I’m giving you the sense that this is not quite so simple. Rosenhouse is certainly right on one point, in my view. Genesis 1-2 was not intended to describe the process of evolution. As he says:

    Ultimately, it is very hard to believe (to put it kindly) that a writer setting out to communicate a lengthy creation process over billions of years would have written anything like what Genesis records. . . .

    Just so. It’s hard to believe, and you shouldn’t believe it.

    But then he says:

    Or you can take the most sensible approach. That’s where you recognize that the Bible (more specifically the Torah) is not inerrant, and it is not the word of God. . . .

    While I certainly agree that the Bible is not inerrant, the rest simply does not follow. A simplistic idea of how one gets from scriptural text to doctrinal belief is posited and then discarded. An idea of the word of God that may or may not be correct (or more importantly held or not held by a community) is assumed and then dismissed.

    If I believe that errancy is incompatible with the phrase “word of God” then obviously I must discard it if I discover error–or, perhaps, alter my view. But having discovered that Genesis does not describe evolution does not remove the option of allegory, or any number of other points. (I’m going to discuss the meaning of “word of God” in a later post in this series.)

    So let’s go back to the initial point of “obvious exegesis.” Just what did the Biblical writers think they were writing in this case. Was it chronology? Was it narrative history? Allegory? Myth? Here is where I find myself most annoyed with superficial looks at what the Bible might mean, whichever end of the spectrum they come from. Allegory is a particular type of literature. Myth is a particular type of literature, as is narrative history, theology, liturgy, and so forth. All of these occur in the Bible, and all of these are written to answer different questions or to serve different roles.

    Those liberal Christians who call Genesis “myth” are doing as much or more disservice to the Bible as those Christian fundamentalists who treat it as science or history. It is none of the above. In fact “it” cannot be so classified, because “it” combines different types of literature into one text.

    The redactor of Genesis had before him (or in his head) genealogies, stories from various sources, poetic elements, liturgy and theology, which he wove into a new text we call Genesis. I would argue that Genesis 1 is liturgy, and that is a fairly common view amongst experts. Now liturgy is not myth and it’s not allegory, though it may partake of aspects of both. For example, when the minister on Easter Sunday morning announces “He is risen!” as part of the liturgy, nobody supposes that he is claiming that Jesus just rose from the dead, nor does one suppose that the liturgy means that this rising occurs annually. Nobody who understands the liturgical calendar supposes that this statement is made precisely (even to the day or week) of the anniversary of what it celebrates.

    Neither does Genesis 1 necessarily mean that the writer or those who used it in their liturgy actually believed that the earth was created in six literal days followed by a literal day of rest. In fact, allegorical interpretations of the seventh day come much before modern times, as, for example, in the book of Hebrews. But even earlier you get sabbatical years and cycles of seven years, all based on this same concept.

    Were you to ask the Israelites just what they believed at the time when Genesis took on its current form, I would personally guess that they would believe something like a literal week “a long time ago.” (I would note that Daniel seems confused on some chronology that occurs over only a few centuries. We’re talking millenia. That probably means “ancient times.”) I also think they would be surprised at the question, simply because it didn’t occur that much in their world. My guess as to their answer is not obvious, however, it’s just my guess. They might have just looked at the questioner oddly and had him locked up as nuts!

    Genesis does not answer the kind of questions we seem to want answered regarding origins, because those were not the questions that the authors wanted answered, and they wouldn’t have had a clue as to the answers even if they had asked them.

    Note that I have not excluded Jason Rosenhouse’s view. Much of what he says the Biblical text doesn’t mean is quite likely correct. But looking at what it does mean is substantially more complex. Understood in its historical context I would say that the Bible provides very little comfort for any of the groups. The Biblical authors would, I think, be equally surprised by efforts of young earth creationists to lock their days and their chronology into stone, by the day-age efforts of old earth creationists, and by efforts of some Christian evolutionists to suggest that the Bible really teaches their view. It simply doesn’t tell any of these stories, or answer the questions these stories intend to answer.

    I intend to continue with posts on the meaning of the phrase “word of God,” on how scriptural application is determined, and how this relates to the issue of the Bible and homosexuality as I continue.

  • Albert Mohler Steps in It on Evolution

    There are some basics about what evolution is and is not, and what the various positions of both creationists and evolutionists are, that everyone who steps into the debate should know. Some examples include the difference between a young earth and an old earth creationist. I’ve seen a few discussions in internet fora in which someone explains the age of the earth in great detail to someone else who actually agrees.

    Then there is the difference between an intelligent design (ID) proponent and one of the more specific types of creationist. An ID proponent might be young or old earth, or might even accept most, but not all, of the features of biological evolution, as does Dr. Michael Behe.

    Someone of the stature of Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. should be aware of these things. I don’t mean he has to agree with anyone else’s position. Merely that he should be aware of what those positions actually are. Pretending that alternative views don’t exist strikes me as just a bit deceptive.

    Nonetheless, Dr. Mohler writes, in The End of Evolution (article, not book), writes in his introductory paragraph:

    The evolutionist is locked into an intellectual box from which there is no rescue. Evolutionary theory is naturalistic by necessity – everything must be explained in purely naturalistic terms. Only nature can explain nature, and there is no other source of meaning or truth. Thus, in the end the theory of evolution – and the theory of evolution alone – must explain everything about humanity.

    Now I could fisk the entire article, almost word by word, but I’m just going to touch on three paragraphs. You see, there may be a few people out there who believe that evolution explains absolutely everything, but there are very few of them.

    What evolution does is explain, within the bounds of science, how live diversified on planet earth. It would also propose how life may well diversify anywhere. It is not merely evolution that is naturalistic by necessity, but science itself. That’s for a rather simple reason: Science is designed to explain the natural world. It is ill-equipped to explain the supernatural, because the supernatural does not function as the natural world does. That’s why we call it supernatural.

    Now one may not believe there is a supernatural, but if one does believe in something supernatural, it would be extremely odd to also believe that the supernatural followed natural laws. If it did, we would simply call it natural. On the other hand, if it does not follow natural laws, how would a method designed to study things that follow natural laws study it?

    Imagine the lab experiment for chemistry (the only science I took in college). Careful instructions are given as to temperature, what chemicals one is to combine, how, and when. Then the teacher announces, “Then, if God wills it, the whole thing will light on fire!” It’s silly. I think everyone knows it’s silly.

    Here’s the problem. Many Christians living in western culture are so thoroughly convinced that science is the best way of knowing that they want to put their faith, the most important thing in their life, on a foundation of science, somehow.

    But faith is not science, and God is not a proper object of scientific investigation. Oh, we can see what God has done via science. I would suggest that if a miracle actually takes place, the scientific evidence for the physical event should be present. But even so we do not see a miracle. Rather, we see the results of the miracle. We simply have an event for which we lack an adequate natural explanation.

    If you can’t accept that there are other ways of knowing than science, then you probably shouldn’t be a Christian, because science is never going to make a scientific theory of the Christian faith. It cannot because of its nature and because of the nature of science itself.

    When Christians say evolution is naturalistic, they are quite correct. But when they treat that as some special thing about evolution as opposed to all other branches of science, they are in serious error, both scientifically and theologically (from the viewpoint of orthodox Christian theology). Scientifically, they try to examine a phenomenon that is by definition not available to scientific inquiry. Theologically they try to put God in a box, regulated by natural laws. The god that they can fit in that box is not God.

    A bit further on Mohler says:

    Evolutionary theory cannot possibly explain the totality of human experience, much less the reality of human origins. Evolutionists – if consistent – believe that every human experience, every emotion, every physical attribute, every hope, and every fear is simply a feature developed by means of natural selection.

    Of course, looked at from the Christian point of view, evolution cannot explain the totality of Christian experience. It’s not supposed to. As a Christian, I believe the totality of human experience involves origin from God and an experience with God, neither of which are defined in a way that science could even investigate.

    But neither can any other scientific theory explain all those things that it does not purport to explain. Now there is a great deal that evolution can explain. In fact, I think what evolution can explain would make Dr. Mohler very uncomfortable, and so he has to make a broadside attack on something he clearly does not understand. Evolution can explain a great deal. (See my earlier notes on the book Random Designer: Created from Chaos to Connect with the Creator for more information.)

    Finally, I want to address this paragraph:

    That’s a cold theory, and it just doesn’t make sense to the vast majority of Americans – and it shouldn’t. The Christian worldview offers a far more satisfying, true, and understandable account of human origins and human existence.

    As a minor point, let me note that the majority of Americans are not really equipped to evaluate the evidence for biological evolution. It requires certain skills which the majority of us do not possess. I’m a well-read layman on the subject, yet I would refer you to others to discuss the science, while I discuss Biblical and theological issues.

    But as for it being a “cold theory,” it’s also a cold fact that a hurricane will follow it’s proposed course and there’s nothing I can do about it. Shall I reject it because it’s cold, inexorable, and so incredibly NOT warm and cuddly? The fact that the Christian worldview, or rather Dr. Mohler’s particular version of it, is satisfying doesn’t make it any more true. In theology we would have things such as legalism, the notion that one can earn one’s salvation. One can construct such a system that will be quite satisfying. But assuming Dr. Mohler is a good Southern Baptist, he would not accept the satisfying argument as a demonstration of their validity. He would argue that one can’t earn salvation, that it is God’s gift.

    Which leads to the word “true.” If we are to determine whether evolution is true we have to go right back to that place that Dr. Mohler apparently wants to avoid–natural, and naturalistic, science. Methodologically naturalistic, of course, which simply takes note of the fact that science studies the natural world, not the supernatural.

    The facts do not adjust themselves to our convenience and comfort. Whether I like the idea of evolution or not is quite irrelevant to whether it is a valid theory.

    Meteorology is a cold theory. But whether I accept it, or replace it with an alternative theory of lovingly God-guided hurricanes, that hurricane is still coming. It cares not in the least how comfortable I am.

  • An Answer for Mark: Death as a Divine Tool

    Mark responded to my post Dealing with the Theological Implications of Evolution, and in turn poses a question to me, well summarized in the last sentence of his last paragraph:

    What is the particular problem that is raised that Stegosaurus had a million or so years in the sun but now is no longer?

    Which reminds me that I get in the most trouble for the things I don’t say in a post. That question needs to be put into the context of the point I was trying to address in the post. Some Christians respond to evolution by saying that it doesn’t really make any difference. Genesis tells us that God created; evolution tells us how God created.

    Depending on your audience, that will mean substantially different things. In some ways I regret growing up and essentially completing my formal education as a young earth creationist. There are so many lines of inquiry I would have pursued. I don’t mean things that would have advanced knowledge generally, but that could have advanced my knowledge.

    At the same time, I understand how young earth creationists think, and telling them that evolution doesn’t make any difference is quite futile. You see a substantial part of the young earth creationist background involves an understanding of the fall. I’m not saying that every young earth creationist feels this way, but I personally haven’t encountered one who doesn’t.

    The fall of humanity happened at a specific historical point. There was no sin in the world before that, and there was sin afterward. The physical world suffered as a result of sin, and was, in fact, dramatically altered because physical death was introduced at that point. (Never mind how an ecology would function without death.) In the particular form in which I learned it, the deteriorating ages of the patriarchs in Genesis 5 & 11 indicates the deterioration of the very fabric of the universe, or at least of life, so that people became less and less long-lived as they separated from God.

    In that context, to say that evolution makes no difference theologically is nonsense. Evolution makes all the difference in the world. If God used evolution as his tool to create the world, not only is the chronology different, but the connection between sin and physical death is broken. There might be some deterioration of the world after sin, though no evidence of this is available, but the direct connection cannot exist.

    For people who hold the young earth creationist viewpoint, at least in the form I grew up with, evolution is a devastating blow to all they hold dear. If the fall did not cause deterioration, then how can redemption cause recreation? Remember here that they believe this does involve the physical world, all of creation (Romans 8:22). Everything from God’s personal care of everyone, to redemption, and finally to the life hereafter and the new creation falls under their system if evolution is true. The theological impact is massive.

    I would add a side note on the “gap theory” or “ruin and restoration creationism” which holds that the earth is very old, the same age as that held by mainstream science and by old earth creationists, yet that sin was brought to earth before the creation that occurred in Genesis 1. In their view sin caused death, but did so before Adam was created. Adam then participated in that death at the fall. For them successive extinction events can become successive acts of destruction by God intended to wipe out or punish evil. Evolution is still devastating to their theology and they would reject it vigorously.

    One other odd view is Bill Dembski’s view that death was introduced prospectively, i.e. God knew that evil would occur and dealt with it before the fact. Adam was thus responsible, even though he sinned much later. I blogged about it a bit here, and Dembski’s article can be found here. (Note that he has revised this several times, so quotes from it in any earlier articles may be wrong. I’ve tried to note the date, but I think I forgot a few times. I always used the version that was online as of the date I posted.)

    Old earth creationists and theistic evolutionists are in essentially the same place on this. Death must be seen as a natural part of the way the universe is designed, and death becomes God’s tool. I would say that the issue is even harder for old earth creationists. Let me digress for a moment to explain why.

    I’m not much impressed with the common argument that God didn’t create evil; God created Satan, who then rebelled. In other words, I don’t feel the separation between God taking action directly, God creating someone who has the option to take an action, or God creating a process that has that same effect. If God created Satan knowing he would do evil (a requirement if one accepts foreknowledge, which in the traditional sense I do not), then God is equally responsible. If God creates a world in which the holocaust can occur, he can’t evade responsibility. In scripture, I don’t see any great effort to avoid God’s responsibility for whatever happened. That seems to be mostly a later effort.

    Let me illustrate. Supposing I have responsibility for a group of children, and I let them loose in a room full of valuable but fragile items. I don’t set any parameters, but simply tell them to play and then I run off. I don’t come back, observe, and most importantly intervene when their play gets lively and the valuable items are broken.

    If the owner of the valuables comes to me and charges me with responsible, will he except the excuse that the children did it? I suspect not. I put the children there. I didn’t instruct them properly. I didn’t monitor them, and I didn’t intervene to stop them. I think most people would regard me as responsible for the breakage.

    In the same way I regard God as responsible for the universe. I think I have warrant to believe that God regards God as responsible for the universe.

    But the fact is that in my experience most people do not agree with me with regard to God. They do find “the devil did it” to exonerate God in some sense. In that context, I think the old earth creationists have a bit of a problem. As a theistic evolutionist I believe that God so ordered the universe that there would be processes that would bring about life and allow it to diversify. I must accept that God is thereby responsible for such things as scarcity of resources; no diversification would occur if there was no selective survival.

    The old earth creationist, it seems to me, must see God as creating an incomplete process. Variation and natural selections works some, but appears to be defective. Thus God allows the process to work and then steps in and creates greater variations from time to time. So God is not merely using a tool that is part of the fabric of the universe; he is also getting involved on a day to day (or more likely age to age or period to period basis. I think if they were consistent the same people who accept a devil based theodicy should regard this as God with dirty hands.

    I must restate, however, that I think theistic evolutions and old earth creationists are in the same boat on this one, and that evolution does not make a theological difference on this one point. But that is only true between old earth creationists and theistic evolutionists. Young earth creationists or ruin and restoration creationists would see it somewhat differently.

  • Unlumping the Various Creationists

    . . . or not, as the case may be.

    Almost two years ago I wrote about my difficulties with the term theistic evolutionist. (I dealt with these definitions more recently here.) My problem was, and is, that the theory of evolution I accept is not different from that accepted by non-theistic evolutionists. The theory of evolution explains a variety of natural processes and brings them together in a theoretical framework. My theism doesn’t alter anything there.

    Today Ed Brayton has elevated a discussion between himself and commenter King of Ireland about this issue to a full post. In his case it’s kind of the opposing sphere, and the question is whether it’s right to lump together a large group of people from intelligent design (ID) advocates to young earth creationists and call them all “creationists.” Would it be useful to add those who believe in guided evolution into the same crowd?

    Let’s look at this just a bit. Evolution involves a group of concepts. I’m going to list them in the order of how thoroughly established they are. Understand that I regard all of these elements as well established; I require them in an order to deal with division of the creationists below.

    1. The earth is old, about 4.5 billion years old, in fact
    2. All life on earth is related (common descent)
    3. The relatedness of all life can be substantially explained by variation and natural selection

    I call anyone who accepts all these points an evolutionist. I don’t like the “ist,” but “someone who accepts the theory of evolution” gets clumsy after a few repetitions. There are a couple of variants that should be mentioned.

    First, there is the notion of guided evolution. There is an important divide here between those who think guidance can be detected, and those who do not. The latter are still generally evolutionists, and could carry out research within the theory. Guided evolution in that sense is a philosophical view, not a scientific one as I see it. Those who believe that the guided evolution is detectable, on the other hand, step outside the theory of evolution, and should be expected to provide hypotheses and test them.

    Second, there is that group of people who expect natural causes to explain everything, but don’t think the current explanations are sufficient. They might, for example, assume that life came here from outer space, but believe it formed elsewhere under unknown conditions. Aside from noting that the actual origin of life is not part of the theory of evolution, while this is a bit perverse, it is nonetheless a natural type of explanation. Lacking evidence for or against, it is simply speculation. Again, the proponents need to get down to the hard science.

    Now for creationists. There are several key breaking points, which I list below in less logical order:

    1. The Bible provides accurate scientific information
    2. The earth is young, 6,000 to 10,000 years old (young earth creationists who deny the great age of the earth)
    3. There is a substantial barrier to variation so that new “kinds” cannot be produced (generally old earth creationists, though the point is applicable to all)
    4. God has intervened repeatedly in the history of life to produce new kinds, and this interference can be detected, or at least the need for it can be demonstrated. (I regard “it might be a space alien” as just a silly attempt to distract us from the religious nature of the claim.)

    Are there substantial differences between these views? Absolutely. The fourth option does not require one to accept that the Bible conveys accurate scientific information, nor does it expect one to deny the overwhelming evidence of the age of the earth. One might argue that it doesn’t even require one to deny common descent, as claimed by Michael Behe.

    So is it fair to group these people together as “creationists” and to exclude the people I described as evolutionists from the camp, even though they might believe in God as ultimate creator?

    There is, in fact, one huge common denominator between all of the groups of creationists: They believe that God has intervenes in the world on an ongoing basis in a way that can be detected. Generally this takes the form of claiming that certain levels of changes in organisms cannot be explained through natural means, thus requiring intervention of the intelligent designer. I’d be unsurprised if someone came by to tell me yet again that this designer need not be God, but I find that explanation so contrived that it’s hard to imagine it is being seriously presented.

    The ID proponents themselves, however, have contributed to this lumping, even though they regularly complain about it. In creating a big tent, they have brought young earth creationists, old earth creationists, and guided evolutionists into the same big tent. Then they complain if they are all called by the same label. The odd thing is that ID is a proposition that can sound good to people with such a wide variety of viewpoints. The sneaky part of it is that it manages this by failing to propose anything very substantial.

    Consider the vast differences there would be in nature if there had been a world wide flood. I can’t see how you get believers in a world wide flood under the same tent as those who propose a more local event. Actually covering the entire planet with water would leave such an indelible mark that it would be unmistakable, and no explanation of the geological record that didn’t take it into account would get anywhere. Yet supposedly both work together under ID.

    Someone might say that I have been terribly unfair, because ID says nothing related to a global flood. ID could be true, whether or not such a thing happened. And certainly ID would be true in all cases. That’s how in combines Michael Behe on the one hand and someone like Paul Nelson on the other. It doesn’t say very much.

    But what it does say is very, very powerful–to the creationist mind. It provides the one single thing that all these views have in common: God intervened repeatedly in the history of life in the world.

    All varieties of creationist agree that natural processes, whether or not one postulates they were created by God, are insufficient to explain the diversification of life on earth. ID is not merely creationism; it is distilled, bottled, and aged creationism.

    Based on this I believe it is entirely fair to refer to this entire group as creationists. They may distance themselves from one another, and it is also good to distinguish them from one another when that is signification, young earth, old earth, believer in a universal flood, and so forth.

    ID is the essence of creationism. It is creationism. It’s proponents have been careful to gather the widest variety of creationists possible under their umbrella. All we are doing in calling them creationists is going with what they, themselves have done. They’d prefer we didn’t, and that should tell us something as well. What sort of people like to disguise their identities?

  • Why Anti-Evolution Lies?

    Earlier I blogged about Dr. Steve Matheson’s use of the term “folk-science” to deal with some creationist writing about science. in that post I struggled with that term, and how to distinguish lies from differences of opinion, viewpoint, and simple ignorance.

    Well, Dr. Matheson is now dealing with some material he outright calls lies. This starts with When it’s not just a disagreement, and continues with Talking trash about “junk DNA”: lies about “function” (part II). I don’t know nearly enough to get involved in this argument, though Matheson’s articles are straightforward and I think I understand the logic.

    The thing that I can follow is that the statements of science are being misrepresented. This was one of the things that started me away from young earth creationism. While I could not always understand the reasons that young earthers were wrong about science, it was often quite easy to simply compare what evolutionists wrote about the subject, and what creationists claimed they wrote and to find out that they did not match.

    But I wax long-winded as usual, and I only have a simple point. Since the representation of the mainstream science position is false, and is easily demonstrated to be false, why use it? Would it not be logical to exclude easily disconfirmed material from your argument? I would suggest that if they could make their argument whilst correctly representing the mainstream science, they would. The fact that they resort to these types of misrepresentation suggests that they don’t have alternatives.

    I have long had respect for Reasons to Believe, even while disagreeing with their position. Reading this series is suggesting that my own ignorance allowed me to give them the benefit of the doubt. Consider the weakness of a theory if you cannot support it without obvious misstatements of the opposing postion.

  • Is This Pastor Going to Hell?

    According to an e-mail received by the Rev. John Shuck, he is. And what is the great sin for which he may already be damned? He has signed the Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science. Thus, according to the letter, he is teaching a “damning doctrine,” and may actually be reprobate. On the off-chance he’s not, the writer does pray that God will grant him repentance.

    Now I have to just take a short side trip through the joys of soteriology, particularly views of the atonement and justification. Apparently, according to some, while you are justified by faith, apart from works, and you cannot earn your salvation through any good works, you can quite easily be damned by misunderstanding obscure points of doctrine. Apparently God’s grace is sufficient to cover murder, for example, but balks at failure to comprehend the true nature of the fall. This “salvation by correct doctrine” seems to me to me a new and damnable (gotta love that word!) form of salvation by works, only now the works are intellectual rather than spiritual. Pity the poor person who simply can’t work his mind around the precise doctrinal definitions required before one can receive God’s grace.

    In any case, there is one other thing on which I wanted to comment. Rev. Shuck sees here an indication of the reason some people are so fiercely determined to make us accept Genesis literally as some kind of literal history of the cosmos. It’s because death, according to this view, must result from sin, so how could you have evolution before human sin? After all, it’s survival of the fittest, meaning some die, and that’s anathema (another word I can’t resist after reading the letter) to some Christians.

    But here is where many Christians need to pay close attention. There is, in fact, only one of the many interpretations of Genesis that has a perfect world, into which physical death of all types is introduced by sin–young earth creationism. Other very common Christian interpretations, even among evangelicals, allow physical death before the fall. They have to. Where, for example, could an old earth creationist imagine fossils to come from? Old earth creationists aren’t that stupid–they believe that living creatures died before the fall. Many of them, by the simple expedient of thinking “spiritual/eternal” when they read of the death that followed sin, don’t have any problem with the fall at all.

    Unfortunately many Christians who hold these various views other than young earth creationism are not aware of the various interpretations, and aren’t aware that young earth creationists aren’t arguing their view–that God is simply the creator, however he worked–but rather are arguing for a 6,000 year old earth, and some incomprehensible variety of ecology in which no living thing died. There’s a mental experiment for you. Design an ecology in which every living creature continues to live forever, and yet reproduces.

    I suspect that the problem of the atonement does drive a great deal of creationism, and the entire debate would probably become a bit less contentious if the young earth crowd was not involved. Nonetheless it is interesting to see such obscure points of doctrine create such heat.

  • Biblical Inerrancy and Evolution

    It’s very easy to equate the creation-evolution debate amongst Christians with the inerrancy debate. Many assume that those who accept the theory of evolution will automatically reject inerrancy. But this is not the case. This confusion results from another incorrect equation–Biblical inerrancy with Biblical literalism.

    Biblical literalism is itself a difficult concept to get ahold of. In popular usage, “taking it literally” is often equated with taking it seriously. But the most common form of Biblical literalism means taking the Biblical text as the most concrete form of literature possible. This is expressed, for example, by Tim LaHaye in chapter 11 of his book How to Study the Bible for Yourself as: “A good rule to follow is try to interpret each passage literally. If this is obviously not the case, then as a last resort try to find the spiritual or symbolical [sic] truth it is communicating.” What this means in practice is that a Biblical passage gets interpreted as a form of literature that can be taken literally.

    Let’s take the book of Jonah, for example. To the literalist it appears to relate a series of events, and one can take it as a true story. Jonah did flee in a ship, get swallowed by a great fish, preach in Nineveh, and convert the entire population to the worship of Israel’s God. A non-literalist, on the other hand, can consider that the book might be a fictional story written to make a point. Thus it could express certain teachings, such as a willingness to show grace to foreigners, even if the actual events of the story did not happen.

    To illustrate this from a modern perspective, consider the difference between a historical account of a battle, a historical novel based on the events of the same battle, and a romance set in the time period of the battle. The first intends to tell you what happened in the battle. It may be in error on various points, depending on the quality of the research and what information was available, but its point is to relate a series of events accurately. The historical novel, on the other hand, does not purport to report events strictly as they happened in the actual battle. It may invent actions for lead characters, or attribute historical actions to fictional characters in the novel. It might be intended to portray the feelings of soldiers involved, or even to give a picture of the events based on history, but with more of a personal feel than the available information permits. The romance, finally, may be authentic in terms of costumes, attitudes, places, and connections to historical events, but is much more loosely tied to actual history.

    The Bible is a collection of literature of various types, and thus the interpreter is called upon to determine just what type of literature is involved with each reader. I cannot object strongly enough to LaHaye’s idea that you try to take it literally if at all possible. The first step is to ask what type of literature any particular passage is. If one interpreted a historical novel as though it was a work of history, then one might expect to find things like the home of the lead character in the place where the novel indicates the character lived. But one would be disappointed.

    So how does this relate to inerrancy? Inerrancy itself means different things to different people. But the standard definition amongst theologians can be summarized as “the Bible is without error in what it intends to convey.” Now if you think about it a moment, “fiction” is not “error.” Rather, it is intentionally written as it is for a purpose. Thus if a Biblical writer chooses to express a message in the form of fiction, as is indubitably done in the parable of the trees (Judges 9:7-15), that is certainly not an error–it is the intent.

    The assumption that a belief in inerrancy involves some sort of literalism thus results in some considerable confusion. In the area of origins, this involes assumptions regarding the interpretation of Genesis, especially chapters 1 & 2, assumptions that divide interpretations into two categories: 100% accurate narrative history vs an interesting ancient story that got it all wrong. In fact, most interpretations of Genesis fall somewhere between these extremes.

    Amongst these options are some kind of symbolic meaning, usually associated with Old Earth creationism. In this case, Genesis generally presents creation in phases without getting picky about chronology or other details. Just how picky one can get will vary with the interpreter. Then there is my own interpretation which suggests that Genesis 1:1-2:4a is a form of liturgy, while Genesis 2:4b-25-4:26 is a form closely related to myth. These are designed to express the relationship of humanity to God in the context of an ancient near eastern culture, and their cosmology. A similar relationship can be expressed in a modern cosmology, something I think Dr. Richard Colling has accomplished in his book Random Designer; I blogged on the specific point here.

    As I understand inerrancy, someone who accepts that doctrine could accept either of these two alternatives. In fact, I’ve discussed my position on evolution with a friend who does accept Biblical inerrancy, and he indicated that the difference between my view and his does not involve Biblical inerrancy. If he found me convincing on other grounds, his belief in inerrancy would not prevent him from accepting the conclusions I express about origins (in general, that is).

    Why am I concerned about this, since I do not accept the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy? I would like debates to center on actual issues between those debating. The confusion between literalism, in the form of taking literature in as concrete a manner as possible, and inerrancy, as believing the text contains its intended message without error is unnecessary and unproductive.

  • Theological Arguments Against Evolution: Sin and Death

    Yesterday I wrote about the senses in which the phrase “bad theology” is used in the creation-evolution debate and in particular on the question of ID. To call something “bad theology” generally requires either a challenge to the internal logic of the statement, or a reference to a particular faith community, because there is no single “good theology” against which theological statements can be tested.

    I’d like to follow up by looking at a theological argument against evolution, and how it relates to the some faith groups. While there has been considerable argument against intelligent design on theological grounds, the theological objections to evolution have been addressed less frequently.

    In fact, I am frequently told that a belief in evolution really doesn’t have any theological consequences. The Bible tells us that God created the world, science tells us how. The only folks who have a problem with this are a few who incomprehensibly treat the Bible as a science textbook. There are two problems with that. First, there are quite a considerable number of folks who believe that the Bible is true in a sufficiently literal sense that they expect to connect the factual dots of Genesis to scientific data. They are frequently addressed with the rather inadequate statement “You shouldn’t take the Bible so literally!” Second, an excessively literal reading of scripture is not the sole theological problem with the theory of evolution.

    Regarding the first point, the issue is a bit more complex than simply “not taking the Bible literally.” One has to ask just how one is to take it. I’m not going to address this in detail in this post (I talk about it a great deal more in my book When People Speak for God), but at a minimum one needs to specify how someone ought to take the Bible. For example, assuming Genesis 1 is not narrative history (one of the things loosely grouped as literal) what is it? I would suggest that it is liturgy, and that in turn suggests some things about how to understand it.

    But today I want to look at a theological argument in a different form. Instead of arguing that evolution must be incorrect because the Bible makes certain historical claims, one can argue that evolution must be incorrect based on certain theological claims. These theological claims may be derived from the Bible, but the important issue is that they seem to contradict certain things derived from evolution.

    Those who are not religious, or specifically not Christian will find this a strange form of argument, but it is valuable to see how certain people think about these issues in any case, and to realize that there are many for whom evolution poses substantial theological problems, quite apart from the interpretation of Genesis 1-11 as narrative history.

    Sin and death is such an issue, and in my experience, it is the key issue. The theological proposition involved states that physical death is the result of human sin, and that had human beings remained loyal to God, there would be no death. Now I’ve discussed this position from the point of view of theodicy in Theodicy: Taking a Stab at Natural Evil. Since some may have a hard time comprehending this argument, it states that evolution cannot be true simply because it involves creatures dying before there were human beings to have committed sin. As I discuss in the referenced post, this is a problem for old earth creationism as much as it is for evolution, and Dembski has proposed an alternate suggestion, that God created physical death as a sort of pre-emptive response to sin, which God’s foreknowledge told him would occur.

    But I’m dealing here solely with those who hold a chronological relationship. In this view human beings are created perfect in a world without death, they rebel against God, and death results. Obviously, for someone who holds that position, evolution cannot possibly be true. I grew up with that view as a member of the Seventh-day Adventist church. It took me some time to step away from it, as it can get pretty much ingrained.

    I can now argue against the theology involved, pointing out that Genesis doesn’t actually say that, but in fact suggests that barring the way to the tree of life is a way to prevent human beings from becoming immortal. One can understand spiritual death in many other passages that relate to death. None of that really matters for my purposes here; this particular position demonstrates that there are theological consequences to belief in evolution, and the presence of physical death as a fundamental fact of the universe is one of those.

    Indeed, one key mental exercise I propose to such people is to propose a universe in which there is no death and yet there are things such as “fruit” to eat. How exactly does such a thing work? In particular, choice seems to be a fundamental of the universe and of the Bible, and what exactly is choice without a chance of failure?

    I heard this very recently presented in quite different terms, dealing with God’s care, grace, and gentleness. How could a God who teaches the law of love create by means of such violence? Then there are those promises of a future, peaceful world where “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith Jehovah.” Isaiah 65:25 (ASV). Surely if it’s promised for the future world, it must also have been true of the past!

    Now I personally would compare this approach to a belief in verbal dictation of scripture, for example. People accept this position while ignoring the abundant evidence of different writers, backgrounds, perspectives and so forth throughout. Don’t come to a conclusion of how something ought to be, and then assume that it is that way. The physical evidence for evolution is extremely strong, and for an old earth it is overwhelming, either of which would require substantial modification of this particular doctrine.

    The key thing to remember, however, is that for someone who holds the specific form of this doctrine I cited, there is a serious theological impediment to accepting the theory of evolution, and this is based not necessarily on reading the Bible literally, although the sequence is. You can argue the evidence for evolution as much as you want, but they won’t be moved, because they have a key theological proposition that directly contradicts it.

    I have been interested to note as well that my own view of God is perceived as more distant, because I believe that God honors choice and allows the consequences to take place. In fact, I believe those who suggest I see God as more distant are quite correct. I believe God is distant enough to allow human responsibility to be meaningful.

    This separates me just a bit from the NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria) approach, since I hold that the discoveries of science can have a substantial impact on one’s theology. They certainly have had such an impact on my own theology. In general, I believe NOMA to be the correct approach, and theology and science must clearly be separated to prevent theology from attempting to predetermine the results of scientific research. (I’m reminded of the notice at my graduate school offering grant money to those who would do research “to support a 6,000 year model of the earth’s history.) But physical reality should have an impact on theology.

  • Theisms, Creationisms, and Evolutionisms: An Exercise in Definition

    The debate about labels is one of the most interesting aspects of the creation-evolution controversy to me, and at the same time one of the most frustrating. Since my primary training is in Biblical languages, and by my own efforts in linguistics, the way words are used simply fascinates me.

    There is plenty of influence of the PR efforts, particularly those made on the intelligent design side, but also by those of folks in mainstream science. I’m not writing to complain about this. I think it is a natural thing for those who think they are advocating a true or valid position to try to label themselves and the issues in the most favorable fashion. Often this will seem to them as the most accurate labeling as well. After all, they are presenting a “true” position!

    My attention was brought back to this topic a couple of days ago when I read this entry on the Panda’s Thumb which shows that [tag]Bill Dembski[/tag] rejects common descent. I then looked around for some evidence, because I thought I remembered that [tag]Michael Behe[/tag] accepts common descent. And sure enough I found it on Telic Thoughts in an article complaining about the use of terminology:

    In reality, it is more accurate to label Behe a theistic evolutionist, as this label would accurately communicate that a) Behe is an evolutionist and b) believes God was involved in the process of evolution. And in fact, this is how most people interpret theistic evolution, as some sort of God-guided process. How most people interpret a label is the most important point.

    (more…)

  • The Common Thread in Modern Creationism

    It’s hard for me to work with the terms “creationist,” “creationism,” and “evolutionist,” because if I’m completely honest I consider myself to be a creationist who accepts the theory of evolution. The two do not clash in my mind in any way. The term “evolutionist” seems to suggest that I accept evolution as some sort of philosophy of everything, which I do not. I accept gravity, but do not call myself a gravitationist. I accept creation, but to call myself a creationist would invite confusion with the likes of [tag]Kent Hovind[/tag], a fate diligently to be avoided.

    When I teach comparative literature, which is much closer to my own field of study than biological evolution, I always remind students that in order to produce valid comparisons, one must consider both the similarities and the differences. If one ignores differences, one can make very dissimilar things appear almost identical. The reverse is also true.

    Thus I do have some problem with those who call intelligent design merely “warmed over creationism,” if by creationism. There are differences as well as similarities, though most of the differences appears in the presentation, not in the substance, and one of the major differences is that ID tries to say so much less than either young or [tag]old earth creationism[/tag].

    But there is a common thread between all of these varieties of creationism, including ID, and it was illustrated by Dembski’s comments on the flagellum at the University of Oklahoma, discussed here by Dr. Philipp Klebba, here at ERV, and also at The Panda’s Thumb.

    The key point in which I am interested was made in the Panda’s Thumb article:

    Klebba’s relentless questions forced Dembski to admit that

    … [N]o amount of detail would ever convince him of evolution. No matter how much evidence you had, he wanted ‘evidence + 1’. I shit you not, Dembski retreated to the YES [sic/YEC] fossil defense– For every fossil you find, you create two more gaps. Dembski modified this to for every step in the evolutionary process science discovers, it creates two more half-steps to explain. He even pulled a classic-quack move, and made a plea to quantum mechanics.

    And here is my major point. The common thread through the three varieties of creationism is that they are all looking for the break in the natural processes of variation and natural selection such that God must intervene in the natural processes in some way. Whether that intervention is at the biochemical level or whether it deals specifically with speciation events, there needs to be a gap showing where God is “necessary” to the universe.

    In contrast, as a “creationist” who accepts the theory of evolution, I believe that the entire universe is designed. That universal design is the biggest problem there is for IDC, because IDC requires places that are less and more designed so they can detect the differences. IDC doesn’t try to demonstrate that the universe is designed, as many people, especially Christians, believe it does. Rather, it is attempting to prove a variation in God’s involvement.

    Of course Dembski will not admit an evolutionary pathway no matter how many steps you discover. Why? Because that would mean totally abandoning everything he has worked for. If all the animals truly are equal, and none are more equal than others, then what is there for Dembski and his ilk to detect? The field is different, but the method is the same as the constant attack on new fossil discoveries by the young earth crowd. One new specimen, in their propaganda, simply means two new gaps that must be filled. And of course they have no similar requirement to fulfill.

    When the United States set out to send a man to the moon, there were those who believed it couldn’t be done. Their task was very easy–just say “no!” The folks who went to the moon, and those who made that trip possible had a much harder task. They had to actually produce the appropriate hardware and make the trip.

    Scientists are faced with a similar situation with IDC. They must fill in every gap, while the ID crowd stands by and announces that they can’t. Every time they fill one in, someone mentions how many more there are to fill in. But the only people who are actually doing anything are the working scientists who are filling those gaps, and of course making two more in the process. Because that is what scientists do. They make discoveries, but almost always a discovery simply opens up a whole new array of things we don’t know. That is the strength of science, and it is also what IDC tries to present as its weakness.

    I understand the desire to find God’s fingerprint in nature, a desire shared by all these branches of creation. But that search involves finding holes in God’s creation, places where it didn’t quite work. No matter how much you change the field of study, the method is still going to look very similar, as [tag]Bill Dembski[/tag] showed at the University of Oklahoma.