Undeception

Almost two years ago when I posted on another website the original version of what would become the last two posts of my Bibliology and Hermeneutics series, my friend Jeremy Lile took a principled stand against my essay.  He disagreed with the idea that “if the Bible does not present a ‘scientific’ explanation of phenomena it is also errant.” Recommending Clifford Geertz’s Interpretation of Cultures, Jeremy argued that this was improper: “[This conclusion is] the result of the method you have adopted. The etic strategy, i.e., the outsider’s perspective, you employ necessarily removes the text from its cultural framework and breaks it down into foreign categories created by the analyst. Analysis now occurs ‘outside’ the cultural system – meaning is no longer ‘local.’ This approach is useful for cross-cultural studies, but it has its shortcomings. The emic view, which I have been advocating implicitly in my articles, approaches data from inside the culture. In other words, it would be wrong to call ‘story’ (emic) errant because is doesn’t line up with our notion of history (etic). It would also be wrong to assume the author was trying to present what we call history. It’s an unfair assessment of the text from the outside. More to the point: the errancy may only exist in the categories you created for analysis.”  Regarding the invalidity of forcing the outsider view, another contributor noted, “This would be like discovering and claiming an already inhabited island, and then prosecuting the natives for trespassing.”

I realized how heavily I had weighted my writing towards demonstrating “errors” in Scripture. This was never my intent. As I explained: “I agree that ‘error’ sounds much too derogatory; my use of it is concessive . . . If you define ‘error” as ‘not matching the scientific and historical details with impeccable precision’, you must admit that the Bible does contain those sorts of issues. If you define ‘error’ as ‘not being successful at the thing for which it was intended’, we coincide much more closely with your emic view and the Bible is absolved of that sort of guilt. It is nevertheless the fact that people in a modern age will consider your emic view to be a mamby-pamby way of saying that errors are not errors.”

I explained that my approach to the modernists with their anachronistic etic approach to Scripture was to concede their approach for sake of argument but then to compel them to deal with the consequences of it.  “I’m cutting them off at the pass. Perhaps I’m cutting them off a little too far down the pass, but in the end, I don’t think our views are too far apart. All I want to do is show that we in our modern era ivory towers interpret Scripture differently than those who wrote the Bible and their original audience, and that we cannot impose our science on to the text.”  When I speak of “errors” I am attempting to force them to see the need to approach Scripture differently, because as far as they’re concerned, their modernist biblical interpretation looks just fine from where they’re sitting. My philosophy has been that some people need the shock of seeing how their approach to Scripture actually undermines its authority when we approach science and history honestly and realize the lack of concord between those subjects and Scripture.  But increasingly, especially following my recent musings, I agree with my friend that it simply won’t do to leave them there clutching their modernist’s Bible riddled full of holes, even for a second.  More than ever, I stand by what I told him at the end of our conversation.

“My essay is deconstructive of old conclusions, and your view is more constructive of new conclusions. Mine would be the first chapter of a book, and yours the rest of the book.”

Thanks for your challenging comments, Jer.  I’m still waiting for more chapters from you…

I have been outspoken at times in the past among my blog ring of friends in claiming that it’s not enough to argue the validity of mainstream science, or to incessantly drone, “Science and faith need not conflict

,” no matter how true those claims may be. The fact is that they do not persuade most evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. The problem is not with science vs. faith as categories, but between their perceived contradictory claims.

That seeking to identify the natural processes that explain the “origin of the species” is not inherently atheistic or inimical to the idea of a deity is obvious on its face. For one thing, the theory of evolution has nothing to say about the origin of life; that separate field of inquiry is called abiogenesis (life from non-life). Accepting evolutionary theory by no means whatsoever entails belief in non-miraculous abiogenesis or vice versa.¹ Although I personally disagree, it would not be at all inconsistent to argue that God miraculously and instantaneously created the universe, then sculpted the first cell by hand, and finally endued it with life and yet accept the scientific account of evolution, specifically that there is no evidence that God specially designed or interfered with the natural processes of evolution that played upon that first cell (no matter how it became alive) and eventually brought about humans. In short, when we emphatically insist that there is nothing even slightly “atheistic” about evolution, we are not just putting lipstick on a pig. It’s slanderous nonsense to bind the idea of descent with modification (evolution) to an “atheistic, materialistic worldview“. Who would associate the attempt to discover natural causes for universal gravitation or the weather system with any particular worldview?

But as I intimated above, I long ago recognized that this isn’t enough for most devout Christians devoted to the Bible and inherited doctrine. It is why I haven’t made it a point to recommend to Undeception readers very good books like Francis Collins’s The Language of God and why I prefaced a full exposition of my views on science with a long series on bibliology and hermeneutics: the problem starts and stops with the Bible. Nonetheless, until a recent conflagration among my local friends, I must say that I lost sight of this obvious fact. In that argument, it would not have mattered how many undeniable implications of common descent I demonstrated from comparative anatomy, the fossil record, or DNA (as it turns out, I’m not very good at arguing science anyway). It didn’t even matter when I clearly demonstrated inconsistencies in their interpretation of Scripture using their own hermeneutics. They explicitly told me that their minds were made up: their presupposition is 100% concord between science and their interpretation of Scripture. No view calling into question either strict inerrancy or their historiographic reading of Genesis (usually because a challenge on the latter is a challenge on the former) may be entertained for even a second, no matter how well supported by Christians who have looked into the scientific evidence; I was, in fact, told that those Christians must be either compromising the truth they know or deluding themselves.

So in the end, I finished the (at times heated) discussion newly convicted that my original diagnosis of the failure of science to penetrate mainstream American Christianity was correct. At least my friends were being honest about their root concern, which was their bibliology, despite the fact that they, as all creationists do, tried to bolster their theological presupposition with alternative “science”, courtesy of ICR and AIG.

In the same way that the conviction that the ground outside is wet follows from the belief that it has just rained, any doubts about mainstream science that their pursuits in creationist folk science have birthed in them are secondary to a theological presupposition and not vice versa. The single catalyst motivating the conservative Christian community to seek, develop, and defend a novel alternative science is how it assumes the Bible is to be interpreted. If Genesis 1-3 weren’t in the Bible and if Adam were not mentioned elsewhere, everyone knows that there would be no Christian counter-science movement as there is today.

This leads me to make the following exasperated plea to creationists and other ID advocates: be aware that your problem with mainstream science is not, as many think, fundamentally philosophical or scientific but theological. In reality, anti-evolutionists are unlikely to utilize either philosophical or scientific evidence for any purpose other than to lend credibility to their predetermined interpretations and theological constructs.

Face it: the only reason Christians try to detect God’s miraculous signature in biology rather than in the developmental process of the fetus (cf. Ps 139.13) or the source of rain (cf. Gen 7.11, 8.2), both of which are directly attributed to things other than natural processes in the Bible, is because of their interpretation of the Bible. All Christians (I do hope) recognize both scriptures I just cited as non-scientific descriptions of reality because we allow literary-generic principles and cultural context to influence our interpretation.

But the same is unfortunately not allowed to work for the creation stories in fundamentalist and evangelical circles. Those who interpret the stories as infallible history and especially those unwilling to reevaluate the majority’s interpretation of Pauline theology must naturally remain at odds with the scientific consensus, but even they usually realize it’s no good saying, “Your science is wrong because my holy book says so” without presenting an alternative model that appears to scientifically account for observable facts. And so they go on the hunt, creationists trying to debunk, modify, or replace existing scientific understanding, ID advocates exploiting any as yet underdeveloped part of evolutionary theory and insisting the entire system is a house of cards rather than what it is: surprisingly robust and still very much under development. Can anyone honestly tell me that this theologically motivated revisionism is science?

It is often objected, why would we reinterpret or call into question centuries of Christian dogma based on an ever changing, human-devised scientific consensus led by atheists? I frame it in very different terms: we’re asking why they are not consistent in calling into question human-devised interpretations of Scripture by using the observation and reason with which God endowed our species, tools they themselves already use to interpret so many passages of Scripture whose actual “plain meaning” would contradict observable facts. For instance, how can they conclude that expressions such as the sun “rising”, “setting”, or standing still (Josh 10.12-14) in Scripture are simply phenomenological and not scientific expressions if they were not already using scientific observation to determine the earth’s motion in relation to the sun? Biology, astronomy, and geology are in essence no different than less systematic forms of human observation; rather, indeed, science is merely a form of human observation consciously systematized to minimize prejudice and critically examine presuppositions. Observing the natural world and applying that empirically perceived knowledge in our interpretation of Scripture is the same exact principle that helps us to decide that since people haven’t been observed to sprout from one another and attach themselves to things using tendrils, then Jesus’ claim to be “the vine” cannot be construed as science.²

But I’m (re)learning my lesson: what is the use of arguing with special creationists who have chosen to remain insulated from criticism of their theology unless we have another prepackaged, gift-wrapped theological construct that will maintain their cherished doctrines wholly intact? A modified bibliology and hermeneutic set is the only chance these people have of jumping across the divide, but if they do not have a new, more-or-less fully formed theological system to latch onto, the tendency has been either to fall into atheism or to never jump and instead abjure the other side. Few are willing to leap and be caught by those already standing on the other side, gradually and humbly building a theology that makes sense of all observed facts. As far as I’m aware, there is no fully formed, ready-made theological system that handles all questions raised by evolution, and that is a major reason there are so few Christians who accept evolutionary theory and a Bible not absolutely concordant with science or history.

The other, more fundamental reason is that an admission of the Bible’s lack of concord with facts of science/history is considered to cast aspersion on the Bible’s authority to speak on spiritual matters. Until we find a way of addressing those concerns satisfactorily or someone somehow contrives an exegesis that doesn’t call the Bible’s complete concord with mainstream science into question but allows Christians to use science, our view stands no chance among the inerrantists.

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I realize this post might sound aggressive, cynical, and maybe even a little bitter, and for that I apologize. I have scoured it several times, looking for a way to qualify my blanket statements to make them more accurate, and frankly, I’m at a loss for a way to do so. I’ll appreciate your suggestions for mitigating my generalizations.

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¹ The last time I heard evolution described as an explanation for “the origin of life”, I shook my head, sighed, and corrected the person under my breath, muttering to myself, “It explains the diversity of life, not the origin.” Now, I have indeed heard such a statement as mine expressed before, but this time it struck me as an inadequate distinction. In actuality the diversity of life is fully explicable in terms of special (miraculous) creation; God just made different things in different ways. Rather, it’s the similarity of life that common descent explains so much better. The creationist will be tempted to throw out the old line, “Well, if God created everything, you would expect similarities (anatomical, genetic, etc.) between them, because God wouldn’t need to reinvent the wheel. Common Designer, common design.” But this simply doesn’t work when you go further inside the data. As Gordon Glover points out, the existence of nested hierarchies – shared, not differing characteristics – only makes sense under a common descent model. For a fuller explanation of this claim, see video number 12 from Gordon Glover’s “Science and Christian Education video series (also embedded below). [back to post above]

[zdvideo width="480" height="360"]http://www.beyondthefirmament.com/Lesson_12.flv[/zdvideo]

² Please don’t get distracted by this one analogy of mine: sure, there are other things that go into interpreting Jesus’ metaphor as metaphor, but it is certainly true that if the line between people and vines were not as clear as it is that we would certainly have something else to factor into our interpretation of John 15. My point: human observation is an indispensable tool for biblical hermeneutics, and it’s not invalidated when it’s the particular type of human observation called science (cf. the issues of “sunrise” or the heart as organ of thought, both ancient misunderstandings corrected by fairly modern science). [back to post above]

Equating evolution with Charles Darwin ignores 150 years of discoveries, including most of what scientists understand about evolution. Such as: Gregor Mendel’s patterns of heredity (which gave Darwin’s idea of natural selection a mechanism — genetics — by which it could work); the discovery of DNA (which gave genetics a mechanism and lets us see evolutionary lineages); developmental biology (which gives DNA a mechanism); studies documenting evolution in nature (which converted the hypothetical to observable fact); evolution’s role in medicine and disease (bringing immediate relevance to the topic); and more.

By propounding “Darwinism,” even scientists and science writers perpetuate an impression that evolution is about one man, one book, one “theory.” The ninth-century Buddhist master Lin Chi said, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” The point is that making a master teacher into a sacred fetish misses the essence of his teaching. So let us now kill Darwin.

via Essay – Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live – NYTimes.com.

I was honored to receive an award from James McGrath at Exploring Our Matrix, who was himself a deserving recipient. The idea is to honor five to seven blogs whose content is considered particularly inspiring. What a hard award for me to give, as I typically don’t frequent blogs I don’t find, in some sense, inspiring! Not only that, but I don’t have a huge repertoire of blogs, so, as you’ll see, I’ve actually tagged two or three of them before. But to give proper honor to the award that has honored me, I must pass it on. So here are the five that came to my head when I was looking for five places to hang the plaque engraved “Inspiring”:

1) The Smoak House (Joshua Horne) — I think I’ve tagged him for every award and/or meme I’ve ever done. But I couldn’t neglect him for this one, as I think he walks a fine line between being goofy, geeky, informative, challenging, and, yes, inspiring. I’ve noticed that his inspiring posts don’t generate many comments, but I want to reassure him that they are inspiring, even to cynics like me.

2) Meditations on an Eyeball (Vance H.) — Vance hasn’t posted in four or five months, but I wish he would post more often because his posts are usually so doggone thoughtful and thought-provoking. Consider this a solicitation for more, Vance – the internet does miss you.

3) Castle of Nutshells (Damian Caruana) — Another guy I just tagged recently but whose posts always make me stop and ponder things deeper than mere ideas and facts, which is where this blog usually camps out.

4) Unfinished Christianity (Virgil Vaduva) — Not only is Virgil a bang-up nice guy (and the only person on this list who I have actually met aside from Joshua, my brother-in-law), but his blog, much like The Smoak House and Exploring Our Matrix, just seems to nail it with the right amount of posts on diverse topics. The “inspiring” aspect of Virgil’s blog is evident in its title and subtitle (“Where I am today is not where I am going…”). His dedication to what he believes and humility about what he’s unsure of are truly inspiring.

5) Now I Know in Part (“Thomas”) — This is a blog I recently discovered whose author has fairly recently set out on a journey I began a number of years ago. What I find inspiring is his optimism, honesty, and dedication to filling in the holes in his theology after coming to doubt certain key doctrines (namely creationism). Keep going, Thomas; the road’s long, but not too difficult as long as you make sure to enjoy the scenery and avoid fearing what’s ahead.

I could go on (these are by no means the only inspiring blogs I know of), but I’ll stop at five. Thanks again, James.

Early last year I had the pleasure of reading a book entitled Beyond the Firmament. The author’s site is on my blogroll, so you may have noticed it. Here’s my review on Amazon:

The whole conflict between faith and science has been trumped up. Does this surprise you? This book will convince you.

This book is divided up into four sections. “What do we know and how do we know it?” is a preliminary, basic overview of what is called “epistemology” in fancy terms, making distinctions between natural and special revelation that carry the next two sections. “What can the Bible tell us about nature?” is a look at the special revelation in the Bible and discusses the boundaries of what it can tell us and why we can’t just assume over-literalized interpretations when interpreting it. In the next section, “What can nature tell us about itself?”, Glover describes what science can tell us about the beginning of the universe and the origin our our solar sytem, and then describes why radiometric dating methodology is reliable. The last section, “What about evolution?” is a summary of evolutionary theory.

Glover’s strong points are his knack for analogy and his conversational style. His humility and honesty about the limitations of science make bearable the experience of shattering the “godless atheist” facade so many evangelicals have constructed in front of mainstream science. He explains some heady concepts (including a bit of mathematics and physics) very simply, and just in case it starts seeming too dense, he doesn’t linger there long; for more advanced readers, he provides references to more technical works.

This book was not meant to grapple with theological issues associated with Adam or the Fall; it does try to provide a case for not simply dismissing any data that might make us take a second look at our first guess on those topics.

This book is accessible but not condescending, enjoyable and humorous at times but not a slick car-sales job, earnest but not overbearing.

For anyone who might be interested in looking into the issue of evolutionary creationism (Glover’s term of choice in lieu of “theistic evolution”), Beyond the Firmament is the place to start.

The reason I mention it now is that I am pleased to report that one of Sonlight’s owners, mentioned in this previous post as having maintained an anti-evolution stance, has now “come out” as a fan of this book; please note that this is not to say whether he has entirely embraced the book’s conclusions. He also was impressed with the Haarsmas’ book, Origins: a Reformed Look at Creation, Design, & Evolution, so much that he expressed a desire for Sonlight to begin offering the book!

Releasing Christian educators from the Young Earth Creationist (YEC) plantation by getting them to at least dialogue on the issue of origins is something essential to the viability of our faith for present and coming generations increasingly aware of the usefulness and reliability of modern science.

As if all this hasn’t communicated the value of this book, let me again highly recommend Beyond the Firmament. You locals can borrow my copy, and I’ll even buy a couple copies for those interested but not sufficiently funded (it’s less than $15 at Amazon).