Undeception

I was intrigued by this short video showing Dr. Ard Louis (Oxford University) articulate a simple but profound critique of this fundamental aspect of the reasoning behind intelligent design.

Read Darrel Falk’s helpful summary and commentary here.

This same sort of argument can be applied to the various attractive (but always suspicious) “fine tuning arguments“.

As I said, I was struck by Dr. Louis’s evident intelligence and so went googling to find more about him. In so doing, I discovered that just a few nights ago (January 24, 2010) he gave a lecture at Stanford entitled “Can Science Explain Everything?” in which he argues that even when we accept the answers we find in the laboratory, our search for answers doesn’t necessarily come to a dead end there.

So, what do you think?

A commenter on the previous post raised an interesting point that leads me into something I’ve been wanting to explore here. He wrote:

I don’t see why it would be logically necessary that [the Bible] is 100% true. However, if we allow that it isn’t, then how are we to determine which parts are true? There is no way of knowing, which is damning [for the whole book]. An empirical test would be nice, but as we all know there is no such thing.

How we “determine which parts are true” is especially important in regard to the Bible’s supernatural claims. Being natural and living in a natural world, we find these claims almost impossible to evaluate. Hence, we tend to allow the truth of the spiritual claims of Scripture to piggy-back on the verifiable claims: typically, as the verifiable claims fare, so confidence in the unverifiable fares. This is obviously inductive reasoning, and not a very robust form of it either: conceivably, one could read a set of verifiable events in a newspaper, create out of whole cloth any number of stories detailing supernatural events supposedly related to those newspaper events, and publish a book integrating both the newspaper and the manufactured fantasy stories. Obviously, no one need seriously entertain the bogus claims’ truthfulness simply because of the truthfulness of the verifiable claims.

Now, I don’t think that the supernatural and other unverifiable events of Scripture were all created out of whole cloth. My point is that a healthy dose of humility in our bibliology is warranted: for instance, even if we find out that the Khirbet Qeiyafa fragment establishes that Hebrew writing and even specific content from Jewish scriptures date further back than scholars now suppose, it doesn’t necessarily follow, as some have apparently concluded, that “extreme liberal biblical criticism” has ceded territory specifically over to “conservative” forms of criticism. Doubtless, there are versions of “extreme liberal biblical criticism” that will take evidence like this (if it proves valid) in stride. The fact is, even if proof for the resurrection of Jesus were uncovered, there would be possible explanations other than those given by the writers of the New Testament.

When the conclusions of certain biblical critics is characterized as “extreme” or “liberal”, it has already been judged from a confessional standpoint. Is this fair? I happen to think that our confessions should be sufficiently grounded by evidence before allowed to sit in judgment of contrary evidence. This leads me to muse: those who approach a particular ancient text from the same position as everyone throughout history except some Jews and Christians and who seek to verify what they can using the carefully honed skills of historical and textual criticism are “liberal”, and those who posit an unnatural (“supernatural”) influence that throws out all other humanity’s understanding of the text are the ones called “conservative”? What in heaven’s name do “liberal” and “conservative” even mean anymore?

An excellent introduction to the nature and importance of historical studies for biblical interpretation is a short (142 pp.) and readable book called The Burial of Jesus: History and Faith by Dr. James F. McGrath. In this book, McGrath uses a critical examination of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ burial and resurrection coupled with our extra-biblical knowledge of first century Palestinian burial practices as an example of the kind of conclusions that an historian not committed to affirming inerrancy might draw. While the preponderance of his suggestions are not as scandalous as evangelicals might fear, many of the ideas he as an historian must entertain will certainly not sit comfortably with even more liberal evangelicals. But importantly, this is not his only point: he also seeks to present an explication of and apologetic for using the tools of historical study on our beloved Bible. Most evangelicals are skeptical of using these tools except when it is expected to not affect or to bolster their already formed conclusions; they tend to view historians who come to non-evangelical conclusions about Scripture as atheists seeking to undermine faith. This skepticism is understandable, but somewhat misplaced, since “…there is much evidence that there are many people working in the fields of history and Biblical studies as an expression of their faith rather than because of opposition to it” [emphasis original]. Moreover, engaging the findings of historical study should be a crucial part of our interpretive process. His book undertakes to explain how:

…the very common approach of taking Biblical stories uncritically at face value, and using them as a reason for dismissing evidence not only from history but from science and other sources of knowledge, is fundamentally misguided. Historical study provides us with the only tools available to us for knowing about the past. (p. 8 )

The historical data in Scripture is examined like we examine any other ancient text purporting to record historical events. Because first-hand observation is naturally precluded, empirical tests are never exactly conclusive when dealing with certain types of historical data; this means that most attempts to determine historicity are inevitably indeterminate. An historian gathers an idea of the likelihood of certain events but, as long as he is working as an academic, he must remain ultimately agnostic, no matter what his hunch might be.

At some point though, people generally aren’t content with accepting indeterminacy about such events: they will generally come to their own, ultimately untestable, personal conclusions one way or another. Some will consider errors in the Bible’s depiction of demonstrable events and then look askance particularly at the indemonstrable events, concluding, “None of it’s true.” Others like myself find that the supposition that the Bible testifies to certain fundamental transcendent truths explains more than it causes trouble for, especially when taking into account the experiences of ourselves and others we know and love. So, without contradictory evidence, but also without proof, we believe; the problem I’m critiquing is that not all of us recognize that it is in fact without proof that we believe. But as McGrath also argues, excessive dependence upon empirical proof can be just as misguided.

There are many questions that we cannot answer with absolute certainty, and yet we find ourselves willing to accept some things in the absence of absolute proof. Most of us consider this world that we inhabit to be real. Sometimes, we must take reason as far as it can take us, and then keep moving forward beyond what we can prove. (p. 12)

In his latest post, Mike mentions a Facebook conversation with someone puzzled by his rejection of inerrancy; I was involved with the conversation as well. As Mike described, this individual raised the common IYCBIAYCTAOI objection (if-you-can’t-believe-it-all-you-can’t-trust-any-of-it), asking, “Why do you believe the Bible is true?”

I responded by asking, “What makes you think it’s necessary that the Bible (as in the entire thing cover-to-cover) be ‘true’ (by which I assume you mean perfectly conforming to and accurately depicting objective reality)?” It’s this question I want to explore in this post.

Among other things, he responded that unless the OT (for instance) is 100% accurate, we cannot bear witness to Jesus. But this is manifestly false: the first century apostles evangelized to Gentiles who had no reason to accept the OT’s reliability, which wouldn’t even have been available to them in print, since copies of Scripture were not carried around for distribution in the first century. Yet somehow, these Gentiles believed the witness of Jesus’ apostles anyway. Moreover, early believers didn’t even have a New Testament to witness to Jesus; hearsay and word of mouth were all they had to go on. I contend that we’re no better off — nor worse off — than they are. We too are dependent on the testimony of fallible humans who have experienced God in Christ, and by faith we trust Him to lead us through fellow believers’ human testimony.

One of the most annoying things about the divide over inerrancy is that people like me who reject it are somewhat forced by the nature of the debate into the position of pointing out the flaws in Scripture. But I dearly treasure the Bible: even while not positing its perfection, I find it to be an invaluable witness to what our faith is supposed to be about. We depend on the Bible no less than we depend upon a guy at the gas station to give us directions. Could his directions be imperfect? Could it be 13 miles down the road instead of 10? Might we have been told to turn left at “the third red light” despite there being only two lights and a four-way stop? Yes, but we have no reason to believe he’s lying to us, and plenty of reasons for trusting that he has an idea of what he’s talking about and that we’re a lot better off having asked for directions than having driven around unguided. Besides, when we’re seeking direction (in both the literal or metaphorical sense), aren’t we supposed to trust God to deliver us to our destination?

So although I reject inerrancy, I still do find the Bible invaluable as an historical witness to God’s work in the world, and especially in the personhood of Jesus. This makes it all the more necessary for us to honestly and earnestly dig down inside the Bible and recognize how, when, why, and by whom it was constructed: this is the goal of biblical studies, which includes the disciplines of textual and historical criticism often unjustly maligned as being destructive of the text. And yes, we may end up discarding commonly accepting beliefs about the Bible like “Paul wrote 2 Timothy” or “We inherit Adam’s fallen nature because of his sin,” but if our faith is truly in God and not those beliefs about Scripture and what we’ve been told it says, we’ll come out on the other end with our faith purer for having stripped away the distractions.

For inerrantists, the Bible must be accurate through and through. For one thing, they want it to be provable as inerrant in order to substantiate the doctrines they have been taught. After all, you can’t prove anything with a source that’s got problems, right? And this is what they can’t allow: the Bible must not only be usable to prove the validity of their faith to others but, to an alarming extent, to themselves as well. I still believe God shows evidence of Himself in life circumstances, that He speaks to us in various ways; I believe I have experienced Him at work in my life in many ways. But none of it constitutes “proof” of any kind. My own faith bears a striking resemblance to the faith we see in the Bible. For instance, Abraham is a model of biblical faith: how much do you think he understood about the Bible, the atonement, or bodily resurrection? Or even the nature of God: like even many Israelites of later periods, he almost certainly wasn’t a true monotheist: YHWH was simply the supreme God, the right God rather than the only God. How much did any of this matter? He walked with God.

Biblical faith, the kind that pleases God, is not presented as carefully maintaining certain propositions about God (no one seems to be able to agree on just which ones) while stubbornly and myopically defending the interpretation of those propositions accepted by one’s tradition. Biblical faith is believing in God as a person, even when He isn’t fully understood; its key characteristics are trusting and allowing Him to guide us. Christians are guided by the example He provided us in the person of Jesus. The Christian faith can’t be proved, certainly not through a book that requires the reader to accept it as proof a priori – no matter how much we expect or would like for that to be the case.

Let me ask you: why is it logically necessary, rather than merely preferable for one reason or another, that the Bible be entirely true through and through? (Please try to answer without begging the question of its divine authorship and what that should look like.)

My friend Mike Beidler‘s not busy enough being a military diplomat in the Middle East right now. You know, things going so swimmingly, he doesn’t have anything at all to do. Since he’s been over there, he’s joined a group that is watching Focus on the Family’s film series The Truth Project that seeks to reinforce the predominant American evangelical worldview — you know, the Truth.

An important component of this project, of course, includes a critique of evolution, which, also of course, has bugged Mike a bit. I saw him writing up his thoughts in brief form on Facebook and decided to twist his prompt him to channel these interesting thoughts toward his recently inactive blog.

I succeeded.

Your assignment? Go read it, and give him enough responses so that he feels pressured to continue.

Since starting my research of the Gospels for my dissertation, I have repeatedly wondered (as I idly mused earlier) if there have been any attempts to identify where the Gospels may have originated/developed based upon dialectal considerations. As I run across patterns such as Matthew’s preference for plural nouns and lexical issues such as synonym substitution that by all appearances don’t significantly influence thematic or other conscious stylistic differences, I automatically think dialect, although of course idiolect variation occurs within a single dialect. This is contingent, of course, on being able to identify the place of origin for other texts with which they may be compared, so I recognize it’s a tall order. I assume there are plenty of guesses about where certain Gospels (John, for instance) originated based upon other considerations.

I imagine that narrowing down geographical areas in which the texts (or their authors) might have originated and developed has the potential to influence our understanding of the issues related to the transmission and composition of the traditions/texts of the Gospels.

I’d like to ask anyone who reads this blog and is informed about these issues: how have they been treated in the literature? And if you aren’t personally aware, do you think you could refer me to someone who might be? I’d certainly appreciate it!

Using an analogy especially interesting to me as an historical linguist, Sabio Lantz at Triangulations reminds us of the power of understanding that the Christian faith isn’t quite as unique as we all like to think:

We often see that naive mono-linguists think their language is unique in its ability to express deep thoughts. Well of course they do — they have never mastered another language. A good way to cure this parochial blindness is to do comparative studies. Using comparative linguistics researchers have learned more about the very nature of language than by studying any one language in depth.

He draws a correlation (the same one I drew a while back) between comparative linguistics, which shows that the Indo-European languages are related by a common source language, and comparative biology, which shows us that all life is related by a common ancestor. He goes on:

I feel that religious folks who have never thoroughly understood another religion are handicapped in a similar way to mono-linguists. And no matter how deep they dive into their religion, no matter how thoroughly they know their religious history, their scriptures original language(s) or the intricacies of their religion’s theologies, it will be the rare person who will see the deep patterns of all human religious thought.

Sabio suggests that just as “[i]t is by comparative religious studies that people can see how much their religion shares with other religions,” so also “[d]oing comparative studies helps people to see the nature of human hearts which generates their faiths.”

Despite the fears of many Christians, acknowledging such similiarities does not itself undermine the validity of Christianity. In fact, C.S. Lewis argued that certain universal similiarities such as shared mythological themes are to be expected. In his essay “Myth Became Fact”, he remarked that he would be more troubled if Christianity did not correspond to universal ideas in mythology, even in specific motifs such as “dying god” imagery:

We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about ‘parallels’ and ‘Pagan Christs’: they ought to be there—it would be a stumbling block, if they weren’t.

To be clear, this is not Sabio’s point. As a former Christian, he does indeed believe that the universality of Christian themes that contradicts Christianity’s typical claims of exclusivity should lead one to the conclusion that Christianity is superfluous as a whole. I disagree. But such claims of exclusivity are indeed overwrought and largely based upon the belief in an inerrant source of all knowing. I don’t think Christianity is even fundamentally about holding onto various and sundry truth claims, but about surrendering my being to God in Christ.

Like Sabio, I am uncomfortable with the type of Christianity that maintains that all necessary truth lies exclusively within the pages of the Bible. The biggest problem is that this philosophy has a tendency to undervalue truth in a tragic way. This type of person has been caricatured in the character of Ned Flanders, who forgets to live life in a way that’s at all relevant to the world God made. Although most inerrantists would not maintain that literally all truth is in the Bible, they would say that all truth necessary for salvation is in there. This, then, is typically construed as a stamp of authenticity on the entirety of the claims of Scripture, resulting in the nonsensical demotion of other valid pursuits of truth when they conflict with something in the Bible. Clear example: the evolution/creation debate. Another difficulty resulting from this is responsible for an old habit of my own in which ethical insights from other systems are eyed distrustfully as possibly being somehow “worldly” if they are not presented in the Bible, without looking at their intrinsic merit.

I’m not saying that the Bible is all “derivative”; no one could seriously believe that it’s not got something unique to bring to the table. What I’m asking is that we Christians begin to see that “not in scripture” and “unscriptural” don’t necessarily equate to evil, wordly, or useless. I continue to affirm by my personal faith that Christ (not the Bible) is the fundamental expression of God to humanity. But God’s truth is reality, and so permeates the universe in ways not able to be contained in a single book. Defenders of the Bible through inerrancy who see themselves as the guardians of God’s truth are limiting God’s reign and authority over all extrabiblical reality by subjugating it all to their interpretations of Scripture.

Whatever is true is true whether or not the Bible says it — whether or not it even agrees with it. If believing the truth is so important, shouldn’t we concern ourselves first with seeking out truth rather than defending what we already believe?

The Intelligent Design documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was never released in the theaters in the UK, so now in the wake of the DVD’s release there this month, the UK radio show Unbelievable has recently partnered with someone named Mark Haville to host the first screening of the movie to a UK audience. In anticipation of this event, Unbelievable has done a couple of shows related to the topic.

This last weekend’s show was an interesting knock-down-drag-out between Meyers and atheist Peter Atkins of chemistry textbook fame. I thought I’d direct my readers to it, if for no other reason than to enjoy the fireworks that result. I thought the discussion of Meyers’s trademark information theory arguments for ID almost went somewhere really helpful, but since Meyers has the tendency to filibuster and Atkins has a short fuse, and because both have no qualms about talking over one another, the topic ended up stillborn. In any event, it is evident that they are in effect speaking two entirely different languages.

Anyway, since Expelled is up for discussion again, I thought I’d point out a video produced by Gordon Glover at Beyond the Firmament. The point of this light-hearted video is to lampoon the ID claim that scientific institutions show unfair prejudice when they insist that their science faculty refrain from introducing non-natural (“unnatural”?) alternatives to scientific explanations that have so far adequately accounted for the natural phenomena being examined.

I’m happy to say that this video includes four voice-overs from your humble correspondent. Any guesses as to which ones? Hint: three of the voices are identical but are assigned to different faces, and the other is done in a non-American accent; the best ones, Stein and Dawkins, are done by Gordon himself.

Enjoy!