How to find the truth
I came across this comment on this thread. I’ve come across it a bit recently, so I thought I’d post on it here. (more…)
Meditations on Psalm 62
This Psalm contains two key themes interspersed throughout the Psalm. The first is contained in verses 1-2, 5-8 and 11-12 and consists of David’s explanation of the Lord and who he is. (more…)
Dealing with Arianists
This follows this post and this post dealing specifically with Jehovah’s witnesses. (more…)
Jehovah’s Witnesses – The new world translation
This post follows my previous one which focuses on who Jesus claimed and demonstrated himself to be. (more…)
Jehovah’s Witnesses – Jesus is God
A couple of nights ago, I went to see a couple from our church to talk with them about a Jehovah’s Witness friend they have who has been trying to convert them to their church (or rather their cult or religion). We talked at some length and looked at a number of scriptures and I thought I might record some of what we talked about here. (more…)
Lincolns Birthday – On liberty
The article below appeared in K-House eNews newsletter a couple of days ago. I thought it was a very good summary of both the ideals of democracy as well as the expectations that that same democracy demands of its people. You can read the original article here. Today the 12th is ticking over in North America, so it seems fitting to post it today.
On February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room cabin in Kentucky. On the 200th anniversary of his birth, we remember the lanky self-taught lawyer who hated slavery, who pressed forward until he finally attained the highest office in the country – just in time for the bloodiest war in US history. But, even more, we remember the greatness of that man who loved true liberty, who dreamed in his day "of a place and time where America will once again be seen as the last, best hope on earth."
There are many things that can be said about Abraham Lincoln. He lost his mother when he was nine, and two of his four sons died before he did. He stood at the helm of America while it was torn in two, and he not only protected the Union, but managed to emancipate the slaves in the process. Yet, it was not just his humble beginnings or his ability to overcome personal tragedy that made Lincoln remarkable. Nor did the abolition of slavery or the survival of the United States alone make him a great man. Abraham Lincoln was a great man because of what he believed in and what he stood for. He was not only about the business of preserving a collection of states under one federal government. He was a man determined to protect America to be the haven for true liberty that that Founders intended it to be.
In his 1861 address at Independence Hall, which he described as, "a wholly unprepared speech" Lincoln said the following:
"I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here, and framed and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that Independence. I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together.
"It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence."
Lincoln loved liberty. He loved true liberty in its good old-fashioned sense. Today the concept of liberty has been kidnapped, and the word has become a euphemism for humans to do whatever they like without legal repercussions. Liberty does not mean a blank check for immorality. True liberty is lifting "the weight" of tyranny, freeing men to govern themselves and take responsibility for themselves as men and not as slaves. The freedom of the black man was representative of the very freedom that all Americans embraced in the Declaration of Independence. No longer would they be called "boy" – told what to do and how to do it. They would henceforth be men, fully responsible for their own lives. That’s true liberty.
It is the same with spiritual liberty. By the blood of Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, we are no longer slaves to sin. In fact, we are no longer under the letter of the Law. Yet, our freedom is one in which we serve God in holiness out of love, pushing closer to the heart of God than the Law could ever lead us. It is never a freedom that condones license to sin, but one in which we walk with God as sons and daughters.
"Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." -2 Corinthians 3:17
"For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another." -Galatians 5:13
But liberty is never free. It always comes with a price. In the case of our spiritual liberty, the only begotten Son of God was slaughtered on a Roman cross to win our freedom. In the case of America, our freedom was also bought with the blood of our forefathers. And it is now protected only with vigilance.
Our precious liberty is in danger of being taken away. Men (and women) who have abused their freedoms have brought financial destruction on the nation and the entire world. Men (and women) who have abused their social freedoms have torn apart the family, brought children into single family homes, and have spread disease, violence, substance abuse and crime. As we have replaced liberty with license, proving ourselves children instead of men, our government has stepped in to hold our hands; we’re in serious danger of losing the very freedoms we love.
We are in the midst of another great civil war. This time it’s a war of ideas and of values. It’s a war that threatens to destroy us just as certainly as the war Lincoln faced nearly 150 years ago. His words from the Gettysburg Address seem just as fitting now as they were then:
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live…The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
That says it.
Happy 200th Birthday Abraham Lincoln. We’re grateful to God for your tremendous service to America. May we not fail those who bled for us by treating their sacrifices as little in value. May we treat our freedoms with great regard, walking not as spoiled children but as righteous men. And may we fight so that this nation can have a new birth of freedom; one in which we truly behave as one nation under God.
More thinking on the role of apologetics
Since the discussion several months ago, I've continued to think through the role that apologetics has to play in the modern church.
Firstly, if you carefully consider passages like 1 Cor 12 and Eph 4 you should come to the conclusion that gifts are given to the church for the benefit of the wider church rather than for the benefit of the individual. What we see in this is that God is in the process of equipping the church (or corporately, the saints) with the capabilities it needs to achieve the purposes of God at that time in that place – be it a neighbourhood, a town or city, a country or the world.
With this in mind, the church today has been equipped (possibly more than ever before) with thinking believers who can thoughtfully respond to the intellectuals and rationalists of the modern world. Why is this the case?
Certainly part of this is to do with helping believers understand that while the best of the worlds thinkers can come up with reasons to reject Christianity, these thinking Christians can come up with counter points that rebuff these reasons and uphold Christianity, and even attack the underlying world view that sits behind it and demonstrate its weaknesses.
In addition, I believe the role of apologists will increasingly be to defend the right of western Christians to be Christian. There are people who would like to see Christianity wiped off the face of the earth, and the unity that the Internet provides (which it affords to all) gives these people the ability to work together to attempt to achieve this (and we are seeing this in the hostile attitudes found in some forums and even Christian blogs).
Most of those who are in this camp base their activity on the naturalistic world-view which intellectual reasoning plays a large part in. In these cases the reasoning of thoughtful believers provides Christianity en-masse both the arguments against this naturalistic reasoning and demonstrates the coherence of the Christian world view, which validates its place in the western society.
And yes, God can use apologetics as a tool to bring people to faith and repentance, but as previously noted, faith is something that is given by God (Eph 2:8, Rom 12:3), by the preaching of the word of God (Rom 10:17) which is a heart based change done by the Spirit of God (Rom 2:29).
Dominic from Thinking Matters has recently written up how he sees apologetics fitting in. If you are interested in apologetics and where it fits, I recommend that you read his post – it is the best summary of where apologetics fits that I've read from an apologist.
Worship or curse
I’m still here. Its been a quiet week on the blogging from here, with having to make some changes to the site and the normal work load, I’ve been a little distracted. I still have two posts on reasons for the law that I want to get posted, but that can wait until next week.
In the meantime, I have been reading and thinking.
One thing from last weekend that I’ve been discussing with various people as well as thinking about (along the lines of “how the heck can you say that”) was a statement from our evening service last Sunday night where a visitor at the front said (in effect – I can’t remember the exact words):
“That tsunami was not Gods doing – God would not bring that sort of destruction on anyone.”
At the time, I was (shall we say) less than thrilled with this… as I think we should be when God is not given the due he is worthy of.
This sort of sentiment is crazy and is philosophically challenged – in fact it is also theologically challenged also – severely so.
To make this kind of statement about the Christian God, you must not read the Old testament. The Old Testament (not to mention a good number of places in the New Testament) often attributes natural disasters to the hand of God – and rightly so. Not only so, but there is (humanly speaking) even worse things than this that is not only condoned by God, but also ordered – much to the disgust of many unbelievers. Clearly God does bring disasters – including natural disasters – upon people for a variety of reasons.
However, contrast the above statement with a statement from John Piper in his excellent short book “Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ” where he recounts huddling through a storm which caused some destruction around him, but then he compares it to much worse natural disasters and then says:
“Beneath the wreckage of such wind you have two choices: worship or curse.”
This is an amazing contrast. Rather than saying “God would not do that” he confronts us with the obvious choice we have – worship God – which means to stand in amazement at His power, wonder at His purpose and depend upon His mercy and will for your life. It is a heart rending, and impossible thing to do (again, humanly speaking), but it is either that or curse God for what He is doing.
When we curse God in such circumstances we presume to know better than Him what is good and right. We assume that we ourselves are the ones who define goodness (actually this is commonly believed by many unbelievers) and toss away any supremacy in God. We also assume that we have more rights than God does – as if the world were here solely for our benefit. Perhaps that is one of the purposes of natural disasters – to remind us that the earth was made by God and for God (Col 1:16) – and that we are part of the “for God” part – not the “by God” part.
Worship or curse is not only the choice we make in storms, but in every aspect of our lives. In every hard decision, in every undesirable circumstance, in every moment of rejoicing and in every moment of boredom. Worship or curse.
A little nugget on purpose
I’m reading a book at the moment which is a great book – very thought provoking. I’ll share the details at a later date, but here is a little nugget from it that I’ve been meditating on.
“Indeed, what could be more ludicrous in a vast and glorious universe like this than a human being, on the speck called earth, standing in front of a mirror trying to find significance in his own self-image?”
Really brings it home… Self esteem is a trap that so misplaces what is of value that it is startling.
Alvin Plantinga on "The God Delusion"
I stumbled upon this article – a review of sorts – of "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins on Christianity today. If you don’t know Alvin Plantinga, his considered by many to be one of the smartest philosophers alive today. And it happens that he is a Christian.
So, it is very interesting to read his thinking on the God delusion.
Plantinga begins by saying:
The God Delusion, however, contains little science; it is mainly philosophy and theology (perhaps "atheology" would be a better term) and evolutionary psychology, along with a substantial dash of social commentary decrying religion and its allegedly baneful effects…. however, much of the philosophy he purveys is at best jejune.
He then goes on to explore Dawkins proposition that God is improbable because he would have to be complex. He also explores the logic used by Dawkins to demonstrate that it is possible that everything was biologically formed. He summarizes this as:
We know of no irrefutable objections to its being possible that p;
Therefore
p is true.
If you are an atheist, read the article before commenting here. The only thing I wanted to point out here is that this is the way science works in many cases today. As I wrote a few weeks ago, science is increasingly understood through a philosophical world view – not based on the information conveyed by the evidence alone. Dawkins appears to have this same flaw according to Plantinga.
The last thing I wanted to draw out of Plantingas review is from when he explores naturalism – specifically the Dawkins version (which is fairly mainstream amongst naturalists).
Like most naturalists, Dawkins is a materialist about human beings: human persons are material objects; they are not immaterial selves or souls or substances joined to a body, and they don’t contain any immaterial substance as a part. From this point of view, our beliefs would be dependent on neurophysiology, and (no doubt) a belief would just be a neurological structure of some complex kind.
In other words – Dawkins is saying that there is no spiritual or supernatural realm – all that we think is supernatural is really just our brain making electrical noise. I ran into this argument a few weeks ago, so I was particularly interested in Plantinga’s argument on this. It turns out very simple.
…from a naturalist point of view the thought that our cognitive faculties are reliable (produce a preponderance of true beliefs) would be at best a naïve hope. The naturalist can be reasonably sure that the neurophysiology underlying belief formation is adaptive, but nothing follows about the truth of the beliefs depending on that neurophysiology.
In other words – you can’t trust what is going on in your brain – there is not spiritual realm, so its all just hogwash. But Plantinga continues:
In fact he’d have to hold that it is unlikely, given unguided evolution, that our cognitive faculties are reliable.
If you can’t trust the part of our brain that tells us about the spiritual realm, what part of our brain can you trust?
Plantinga sums up his article with this:
The God Delusion is full of bluster and bombast, but it really doesn’t give even the slightest reason for thinking belief in God mistaken, let alone a "delusion."
The naturalism that Dawkins embraces, furthermore, in addition to its intrinsic unloveliness and its dispiriting conclusions about human beings and their place in the universe, is in deep self-referential trouble. There is no reason to believe it; and there is excellent reason to reject it.
The review also covers the fine tuning argument, multiple universes and a few other things that Dawkins tries on, so I encourage you to give it a read.
Book Review: The Divinity Code
New Zealand journalist Ian Wishart became a Christian after an enthusiastic atheistic stance during which he took part in interventions with Christians to try and turn them from the faith.
According to his introduction in his latest book the Divinity code (home, Amazon page), the Lord converted him to Christianity, regardless of his belief in how the world came to be, and now, years down the track he has written a very compelling response to books such as "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.
In the book Wishart explores a variety of protests to the existence of God and the authenticity of the Bible, and pulls apart the latest round of atheistic posturing and in the process demonstrates that Christianity stands up to scientific and historical evidence extremely well when it is looked at through an unbiased lense.
The concepts that Wishart points to in the first few chapters, which deal with the origin of the world have mostly been overlooked by the atheist community. You can read about these in books such as "The Privileged planet" (also available on DVD in abridged form and posted online here).
However, Wishart in his book goes much further than just to look at science. He compares the story of Genesis with the stories of many other ancient cultures and stories, as well as dealing with the unique claims from the Bible about God, Christ and even the Bible itself. He does this in some depth drawing on writings dating back to first century historians (in the case of the New Testament account of Christ). As he does this, he takes the "inaccuracies" of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Spong and others and pulls them apart, looking deep into the facts and issues around them and explaining with clarity the real story that is behind them.
The second half of the book deals much more specifically with the Biblical claims (the existence of Christ, His resurrection, miracles and prophecy are all included). Wishart explores the attacks on scripture from recent books and rantings and then proceeds to demonstrate the shortfalls of the opposing arguments and demonstrate clearly from neutral sources that their scholarship simply falls short.
If you are someone who is wondering about all the arguments that have been offered and whether Christianity makes any sense at all, this book is remarkably cohesive, presenting clearly that not only do the latest atheistic arguments fall short in a number of ways, but that by starting your world view with the Bible, the world is intelligible and even somewhat predictable.
Personally, I enjoyed this book. Ian writes in an easy to understand manner, and while his tone may offend those who he opposes on occasion, (not that they are likely to read the book anyway), his style is engaging and keeps you reading to the end.
Unless you are a hard core apologist who who is reading the deeper science and history books yourself, I recommend this book wholeheartedly.
Science, theory and world views
I came across this tonight – which is the wikipedia entry for theory – and which deals specifically with scientific theory.
The bit that I found most interesting is this quote:
In Mohr, 2008, the author argues that theory is espoused in a construct without pragmatic relevance when utilized through various sociological or philosophical schools of thought. Truth, in theory, then becomes relativistic depending on its framework. Mohr further argues that as a result of the dilution of what constitutes truth and emerging relativism in the field, that framework evaluation for the creation of theory is now obsolete.
This quote suggests (perhaps accuses is a better word) that scientific theory is increasingly subject to the world views of the scientist or scientific community and thus it is increasingly not objective, but subjective. The importance of this is that if a hypothesis is not falsifiable, then it can be regarded as true regardless of its practical implications (sounds awfully familiar to me).
The citation for this entry is:Mohr, Johnathon (2008). "Revelations and Implications of the Failure of Pragmatism: The Hijacking of Knowledge Creation by the Ivory Tower". New York: Ballantine Books. pp. 87-192.
Problem is that I can’t find this book anywhere, nor any solid information about the author. I’ve looked on the Random House site, Wikipedia, Amazon and Google and found no references that link this book and this author (or actually any real information about them).
From my observations (limited as they may be) these comments are certainly on track, but I’d like to know more about this citation.
Has anyone come across this book, author or similar writings before?
Apologetics and evangelism
I’ve been meditating for quite some time on 1 Cor 1:17-25, and tonight I came across another verse that cross references it beautifully and thought that I’d share it.
Let me start by stating that the premise here is evangelism. I’d also add that I’m no shining example of this, in fact this is in some respects borne of my frustration with myself and my own unwillingness to live this out. This is the lowest beggar preaching to other beggars….
In 1 Cor 1:17-25 Paul is addressing the divisions in the Corinthian church, and he does this by explaining that his approach was and is to keep the gospel simple. Specifically he says "For Christ did not send me to baptise, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power" (1 Cor 1:17). In fact he says "I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor 2:2).
Given the propensity of some (including myself at times) to fall back on an apologetic stance when dealing with unbelievers, let me say that this verse specifically addresses this propensity. The word translated "eloquent wisdom" in 1 Cor 1:17 includes approaches of a philosophical, scientific or otherwise worldly nature.
What does it say about this wisdom? It says that it empties the cross of its power. To be precise the sentence construction is that Paul did not come with this approach so that he would not empty the cross of its power.
We are to be "prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15) – what is the reason for the hope in me if it is not the saving work of Christ? How should we defend against this? By telling them of the work of Christ and how I have hope as a result of this. We are defending against the hope in us, not the reliability of scripture.
Indeed we are called to preach the word in season and out of season (and given it could only ever be in season or out of season this means at all times in all circumstances). To convolute this by talking about apologetics, philosophy, creationism, or whatever is simply emptying the cross of its power if the end goal is to evangelise the lost. Thus, using this approach is a waste of time in this regard.
To further clarify this, let us consider Gal 5:11. In Galatia certain men had come into the church and were preaching legalism, specifically that believers needed to be circumcised in order to be saved. To this Paul makes this interesting statement: "But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed." The inference is of course that the cross is offensive to Jews, and that by getting circumcised, the believers were accommodating Judaism. The interesting part is that this accommodation removes the offense of the cross, and thereby averts any persecution.
There are two startling assumptions in there. Firstly the cross is supposed to be offensive, and secondly believers are supposed to be persecuted!
So, not only is worldly wisdom in evangelism pointless and serves to convolute the gospel, but it also reduces the offense of the cross and serves (intentionally or not) to avert persecution by accommodating the worlds way of thinking.
How does it do this? We live in a modernistic world – that is one where intellect, rationality and reason are highly exalted and draw respect and acclaim. Rather than confronting sin and rebellion with the news that our debt was nailed to the cross (Col 2:14) and if we believe we will be saved (Rom 10:9), we too try to accommodate reason and rationality by tearing apart world views at an intellectual, philosophical and scientific level – which incidentally does not convert people, but generally just sets them more firmly against our views. In other words we try to fight them on their (our?) level, rather than taking the discussion to their soul and letting the word of God do its work through the spirit of God.
Not only this, but to do this, we must spend time taking in the information to be able to do this effectively (which it can never be anyway) rather than spending our time in prayer and reading the word to prepare us to share the simple gospel of Christ.
Now back to 1 Cor 1:17-25. In verse 18, Paul says bluntly that the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Now it is natural to be ashamed of speaking foolishness, but are we prepared to be seen as foolish in order to simply obey scripture? If your heart is the same as mine, the answer may well be no.
However this will just not do. Paul said that he was not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes (Rom 1:16). Surely this is the example we are to follow.
Timothy seemed to have this problem of being ashamed of the gospel and Paul gave him some sound advice: "For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God"(2 Ti 1:6-8).
Paul didn’t instruct Timothy to learn the latest techniques in apologetics, rather he encouraged him to fan into flame the gift of God, because God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and self-control. Because of this Timothy (and us) should not be ashamed, but willingly share in suffering for the gospel.
How do we fan this gift into flame? Simply by spending our time reading the word, praying and then doing what we are commanded to do. This is clear from the reason Paul gave that he was not ashamed of the gospel in verse 12 "But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me." Being convinced that he is able to guard what has been entrusted to me has more to do with the one I trust than support from empirical data of His existence. Thus, we should heed the sound words of scripture.
Personally I want to spend more time understanding the word of God than interpreting scientific data founded on uniformitarian and Darwinian assumptions. The word of God, not science is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness. This should be the focus of our discussions with unbelievers, not worldly data, philosophy or science.
When we get this wrong we fail to give the Holy Spirit room to move and depend instead on the intellect, which without Holy Spirit wrought transformation, will never come to the conclusion that we want them to come to. Their hearts are darkened and their thinking has become futile (Rom 1:21). The preaching of the word of God is the only hope for the unbeliever (Rom 10:14-17), and this is what we are commanded to do.
This is truly good news to simple believers such as myself because it means we don’t have to read up on all the latest apologetics theories, creation science or philosophical perspectives in order to defend the word of God. In fact we don’t have to defend the word of God at all, neither are we commanded to do so. The Lord is more than capable of defending His word, and has done so repetitively over the last several millennia through the schemes and plans of mankind bent on destroying His word and His people. Now all those people and their schemes are dead, but the word of God abides forever.
Why I believe in a young earth
We studied creation last night, as we are starting an overview or a survey of the Old Testament in our home group.
When preparing for the study, I looked in depth at some arguments for an old earth in Genesis 1.
One of the interesting threads I looked at was this one. I have no intention of doing a point by point critique of the arguments, but in preparing for the study I came up with some reasons why I don’t buy the old earth hypothesis.
Firstly some background.
The book of Genesis was written by Moses sometime during the period of Israel’s wanderings. This gives us some important insights into the purpose of the book. The book of Genesis was intended to explain the origin of the Hebrew people and their God including an explanation of the origin of the universe (primarily that it was created by and subject to the Hebrew God), how it got to be the way it was and why, as well as where the nation of Israel had come from and the origin of the nations around them.
Given this, the book was written to be easily understood, which indeed it is – even to children today.
With this in mind here are my 10 reasons why I don’t believe the Bible supports an old earth.
1. The old earth hypothesis is based on evidence that is interpreted through uniformitarian philosophies. What I mean by this is that if you took all the "evidence" out of the picture and read Genesis 1, you would come naturally to the conclusion that the earth was made in six 24 hour days. The only reason to put an old earth into the creation account is to support current scientific theory.
2. It assumes that current scientific theory is correct and complete. Scientists suppose that the earth is old because of certain data that suggests this, however, not all the data is available yet (there is much we don’t know), and much of what is available is only hypothesis to support atheism. Theories such as this one are interesting as they demonstrate that there are hypotheses that are yet to be explored, but yet hold up well to scrutiny while upholding the laws of relativity, etc.
3. The old earth hypothesis opposes the apparent intention of the author who as we saw above wrote an account to give understanding. This is not to say that it explains every aspect of creation, however, the intention of the author seems to be clearly to present a six day creation. If this were not intention of the author, he would have used different words to get his point across – words that gave the intended message.
4. It sets about reconciling scripture with scientific theory rather than pushing back on science and saying the science is wrong. In this way it marginalizes the authority of scripture
5. If the days were not literal 24 hour days but long periods of perhaps millions or billions of years, and given Adam lived through part of the sixth day and the seventh day, he must have been millions of years old, yet Gen 5 states that he was 930 years old when he died, therefore it introduces significant discrepancies into the word of God.
6. Unless you throw out the consecutive order of the days (which you have to do) then much of the plant life would not have survived the millions of years without birds and bees (and other insets) to pollinate them.
7. Similarly to point 5, it requires interpreting other passages of scripture differently to their historical and natural translation. The example on the page I linked to above did this with Rom 5:12 to make it say that mans sin only brought death to man as animals are not explicitly mentioned. However this particular example plays roulette with the redeeming work of Christ not to mention that it flies in the face of verses like Rom 8:20-21 and Isa 24:5-7.
8. Given the argument I just mentioned and that the primary purpose of old earth thinking is to account for the fossil record – it marginalizes the effects of sin. If sin only affects man then sin is not as bad as we have been led to believe. This has huge implications as we will see in a moment.
9. It marginalizes the wisdom of scripture by elevating the wisdom of man.
10. It is designed to make Christianity more palatable and acceptable to unbelievers rather than accepting that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who reject it.
It is also mooted by old earthers that the age of the earth does not affect any of the major doctrines of the Bible, so it is harmless to hold this view. True it does not completely oppose the major doctrines, but it is more insidious than it first appears:
- It marginalizes the authority of scripture. Rather than opposing false science, false science is elevated to at least as much authority as the bible. Both scripture and science must be seen to be true or there would be no attempt to align their conflicts. However, scripture is the inspired yardstick by which science is to be measured.
- By accommodating the fossil record before the fall, it marginalizes the consequences of sin and therefore the seriousness of sin
- This in turn marginalizes the seriousness of Gods judgement as judgement is based on the weight of the individuals sin
- It marginalizes the work of Christ on the cross. If sin is not so bad then Christ’s death is not as significant.
- It marginalizes the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit – as sin is not as significant to overcome
- It marginalizes the supernatural nature of creation by replacing it with natural process
- It marginalizes the glory of God as seen in His creation – this is the most serious issue
- It marginalizes the role of faith by trying to rationalize what cannot be rationalized. Heb 11:3 says "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible". If everything can be rationalised intellectually, then we have no need for faith.
On this last point I have much more to say, but that will have to wait until another day.
For what do we do all this damage? Just to accommodate current scientific theory that is incomplete and in many cases incorrect.
Interestingly Peter wrote about this and cites uniformitarianism: "…knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” (2 Pe 3:3-4 emphasis added). Now, here we are in the 21st century defending the word of God against even evangelical Christians who uphold this error.
It would be interesting to see what scientific theories they are trying to shoe-horn into the Bible in 200 years time…
Why evidence is not necessary to rationally believe
In a previous post I stated that I didn’t need evidence to support my beliefs. This caused a bit of a stir with some atheists, so I thought I’d explain why I said this (even though I’m sure that few if any atheist will still be reading this blog).
First up, I’m not saying that evidence isn’t important, rather I’m saying that believing something without evidence is not irrational and therefore someone may be justified to believe something even though they don’t have the evidence to support those beliefs. Neither am I saying that Christians don’t have evidence to support our beliefs.
For the purpose of clarity evidentialism says it is irrational to believe anything without evidence to support that belief. This is of course self refuting. That is – if you believe this to be true then you must have evidence to support this claim. And no – it is not self evident.
That is – to rationally hold the belief that any beliefs must be supported with evidence you must have evidence that proves you need evidence. To dismiss this and yet require evidence is irrational.
Let me illustrate: When asked by his professor if he had ever seen God, heard God, smelt God, tasted God or touched God a student noted in reply that neither had he seen, heard, smelt, tasted or touched his professors mind. So if the lack of this evidence proved that God doesn’t exist, so too the same lack of evidence proved that the professors mind doesn’t exist, however, if it is rational to believe that the professor has a mind, so it is also rational to believe in God.
One more note on evidence… while it is possible to give evidence for the existence of God through (for example) science or epistemology, generally to do so in defence of Christianity to an atheist is pointless because atheists don’t want to believe in God, so you are generally going to start from a position of weakness where no evidence you offer will ever be enough.
This is because nobody starts formulating their world view with evidence, we all start with a presupposition for which we look for data to interpret as evidence, and therefore providing evidence to contradict someone else’s evidence doesn’t affect their presuppositions, so no change will come about. The Bible calls this hard heartedness.
On top of this, atheists use this hypothesis to say that the burden of proof lies with the believer, and then when a believer gives this evidence the atheist has the far easier task of calling that evidence into question. If the atheist took the burden of proof, the believer would have that easy job, but that wont happen due to the fact that most atheists are evidentialists whose evidence is shakey at best.
So, next time an atheist asks for evidence, you have two options – get into a data war that nobody will win (neither you nor them will change their minds) or tell them that it is not necessary to have evidence for you to rationally hold your beliefs.
