Archives for “Evolution/origins”
The fireworks continue between BioLogos and the esteemed Joseph Emerson Brown Professor of Christian Theology and President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, God’s chosen Arbiter of Faithful Readings of the Scriptures, and official representative of the spirit of biblical interpretation on earth, Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. The latter has responded to Karl Giberson’s own response to an unreadably ignorant lecture recently given by The Great Baptist Paraclete.
A lot of the specific furor has been over Mohler’s original charge (it was no bland statement) that Darwin’s important trip aboard the Beagle was undertaken in search for evidence for an already assumed evolution. Giberson’s objection to this mischaracterization of history and Darwin’s motives is duly noted, but I myself am not so sure that Giberson’s stance that Darwin was still consciously nursing his “childhood faith” when he left aboard the Beagle is quite right, either.
- Mohler on theistic evolution In a recent post on his popular blog, Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, presented a predictable take on the origins debate. He states, I have...
- Proving Christianity with inerrancy In a discussion involving my rejection of inerrancy, a frequent commenter mentioned the inerrantist objection, ”Without [our Bible] can we confidently walk up to a non-believer and ask him to believe our own...
- Not historic, orthodox Christianity Today Joel Watts posted a quote from one of the Early Church Fathers on the subject of the Eucharist (a.k.a. the Lord’s Supper or Communion): For not as common bread and...
My good friend Cliff Martin describes the experience of people like myself who have followed the truth even when it took us outside the borders of the evangelical reservation and found that its gate-keepers enforce stringent import restrictions on items we acquire outside its borders – of course, he does so using the perhaps more apt biblical analogy of the shibboleth.
Speaking from experience, Cliff writes:
As I take a few steps back from the accepted traditional theology of the evangelical church to which I belong, that very church keeps nudging me to step further away. I am asked to keep my concerns to myself. When I try to warn my friends that the edifice of Christianity is supported by pillars of styrofoam, I am told things would go better for me if I would just keep it to myself. I am told that the personal rejection I endure on so many fronts is my own fault. I come on “too strong”, they tell me.
Let me interrupt here. Knowing as I do how tactfully and respectfully Cliff engages in conversation with those he disagrees with (read the comments on his blog posts!), I find it hard to imagine the label “too strong” being applied to him in any bad way, at very least in any way that wouldn’t also apply to the very evangelical polemicists he is talking to. More likely the label these people are reaching for is “too credible and unnervingly likable”, but regardless, he is passionate because he believes that these conversations are important. As he continues:
Related posts:- Theodicy and evolution Cliff Martin continues his interesting discussion of the apparently conflicting ideas of the loving Christian God and the God who ordained the sometimes brutal processes needed for evolution. I see...
- Lamoureux: links and labels Mike Beidler over at The Creation of an Evolutionist has a post up with a link to an overall excellent interview with the brilliant Denis Lamoureux, author of Evolutionary Creation,...
- The place of fear in our bibliology The other night, a friend and I reiterated our independent observations that, despite all nuances, what ultimately stands behind most of American Christianity’s implacable dedication to inerrancy is fear. Dr. Jim...
I’ve been watching the back-and-forth between Jerry Coyne and Karl Giberson. Apparently there has been a video produced for USA Today that features them in a conversation answering the question, “Are science and religion compatible?” that has not been put online yet. I think we know their answers, though.
Karl Giberson of the BioLogos Foundation, of course, finds faith and science completely compatible. Incompatabilist atheist Jerry Coyne actually insists that he does also, at least provisionally: “…if and only if ‘compatibility’ meant only this: ‘can someone be religious and also be a scientist/accept science? ‘” He goes on to clarify by reiterating that people are capable of inconsistency and holding beliefs that are in tension with one another, which is what he thinks science and faith are. Ever the incompatibilist, Coyne attacks the common Christian claim that there are “two ways of knowing”, one that is empirical and discernable only by observation, and one that does not depend upon physical observability. Says Coyne, “This—the disparity in ‘ways of knowing’—is the true incompatibility between science and faith.” He accuses Giberson and other compatibilists of failing to address attacks on the validity of the kind of religious epistemology that is “immune to rational scrutiny”. Because rational scrutiny is indeed applied to theology by believing theologians and philosophers all the time, he appears to be defining “rational” as laboratory-driven, or perhaps motivated by empirical evidence alone. He makes a point to dismiss the validity of holding beliefs merely acquired by culture and tradition, which of course any believer would do as well, but he implies that any beliefs initially acquired by any means other than deductive reasoning or empirical observation is necessarily invalid.
Related posts:- Dr. Ard Louis on science and faith: two videos 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...
- Limitations of science Dr. Keith Miller’s recent essay on the Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution site entitled “Creation, Evolution and the Nature of Science” included the following statement: In fact, as I have argued,...
- Climate science and evolutionary science This is a guest post from frequent commenter Arcamaede, who follows the climate change news very closely. I asked him to lend his “fair and balanced” perspective to this question....
John MacArthur, esteemed Fundamentalist pastor and author, thinks that 2 Peter 3.3-7 was written as a prophecy condemning modern geology and the principle of uniformitarianism.
Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.”
They deliberately forget that God made the heavens by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.
He’s not alone, of course. We’ve heard this for years, but recently a friend brought to my attention that he’s still spreading this pathetic exegesis to his followers.
Related posts:- Noah the evangelist and the dating of 2 Peter My friend Travis Jacobs recently mentioned on a podcast the fact that despite popular Sunday School renditions, the actual Genesis account of Noah never mentions his evangelistic efforts, nor even...
- Peter speaks Preterists point to a panoply of time statements in Scripture regarding the eschaton. Twenty of the twenty-six books of the NT give such time statements, expectations of an imminent occurrence...
- Quote of the day (12-6-2008) At the risk of inbreeding, I am compelled to submit this quote from a blogger who has twice linked to my post on why the debate over creationism matters. It...
Since at least the time of C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man up until quite recently in Francis Collins’s The Language of God, as well as among Vatican theologians, it has been argued that at some indeterminate time within our species’ evolution from primates, there was a special endowment from God upon our ancestors whereupon we knew right from wrong and morality was born. Further, it is argued that natural processes cannot explain humanity’s innate sense of right and wrong (regardless of the fact that it differs somewhat from culture to culture). This “Moral Law” argument seems to be the last God-of-the-gaps holdout for otherwise progressive theologians who accept common descent.
On the other side, atheists enjoy knocking this argument down. Despite Collins’s assertion that there is not likely to be any research that shows a naturalistic explanation of human conceptions of morality, there is indeed much promising research in that regard, much of which is highly suggestive of just such an explanation, even if the details are not all filled in yet (cf. the fossil record). This is how Steve Wiggins recently summarized the naturalistic explanation:
Related posts:- My position on the origins question Josh recently commented on another thread, “I want to hear your explanation of the origin of life on earth. I have heard the positions you are against. So how did...
- How useful are “pointers”? Dr. Francis Collins is a remarkable man. He was the director of the phenomenally successful Human Genome Project that mapped the entire human genome years ahead of schedule. He’s a...
- Non sequitur, thy name is Gary! Okay, okay. Don’t read this if it annoys you when I call out Gary DeMar on his incessant Campaign for Idiocy. I questioned whether I should even bother writing this,...
I have really enjoyed Pete Enns‘s contribution to BioLogos of late. His latest frames the Adam/Eve question in an interesting and honest way. Here’s an excerpt related to my last post:
What if we affirm that Paul’s view of human origins does not settle the matter for us today? Of course, this leaves us with a pressing question: how do we think about Adam today?
This is where the conversation begins for those wishing to maintain a biblical faith in a modern world. And whatever way forward is chosen, we must be clear on one thing: we have all left “Paul’s Adam.” We are all “creating Adam,” as it were, in an effort to reconcile Scripture and the modern understanding of human origins.
….
[O]nce you move to [the above affirmation], you have left Paul’s Adam and are now working with an Adam that is partially and even largely shaped by your own understanding and worldview. You are in an entirely different discussion.
It sounds bleak, but I have hope that efforts like the BioLogos Foundation, if they continue on their current trajectory, will begin to push through.
Related posts:- The BioLogos campaign at work An article from Karl Giberson and Darrel Falk of the BioLogos Foundation appeared in U.S. Today on Sunday (August 9, 2009). Admittedly, its title (“We believe in evolution – and...
- The significance of the Adam/Christ parallel Damian at Castle of Nutshells found an interesting article by Mike Heiser on the subject of “Adam’s Sin and Old Testament Theology.” Heiser brings home the fact that “there isn’t...
- The trouble with intramural accommodationism Can one be consistent in accepting both the common form of inerrancy as described in the Chicago Statement and universal common descent? This question is something I struggle with when...
Christians coming to terms with evolution, including many ID advocates who acknowledge common descent, will often arrive at a midpoint of sorts between denial of evolution and all-out theistic evolution (or evolutionary creation) that acknowledges that we are by-products of evolution and seeks to hold the line on the most theologically problematic aspect of evolutionary theory: the historicity of Adam and Eve. For many, this is a comfortable resting place and they remain content acknowledging the deafening scientific consensus of common descent on one hand and believing in a literal first human pair on the other.
This is often done by positing a bottleneck of the population down to two individuals, often misunderstanding the unfortunately ambiguous terms Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam. The more sophisticated (but odd) way of doing this is to allow there to have been more than two at the time of Adam and Eve, but to posit that the Fall event occurred to them uniquely, and that the effects have passed down to later humanity through descent from them.
Related posts:- The trouble with intramural accommodationism Can one be consistent in accepting both the common form of inerrancy as described in the Chicago Statement and universal common descent? This question is something I struggle with when...
- Dembski on theodicy and a young earth William Dembski, a father of the Intelligent Design movement, has recently become comfortable calling himself an old earth creationist who, as a good Baptist, accepts the historicity of Adam and...
- The Bible and the need for proof 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...
Can one be consistent in accepting both the common form of inerrancy as described in the Chicago Statement and universal common descent?
This question is something I struggle with when I observe people try to sell other believers on evolutionary theory without openly acknowledging the ways in which their own rejection of the idea of a single pair of progenitors has resulted in an often subtle yet usually profound modification of how they understand the Bible to work. I, too, have been tempted on numerous occasions to begin the presentation of my case by positing a (purely hypothetical) scenario in which accepting that early Genesis was unhistorical does not result in a revised or nuanced bibliology; if not outright dishonest, I feel that this approach is nonetheless misleading, perhaps even disingenuous, and a setup for problems later.
Related posts:- Lamoureux: links and labels Mike Beidler over at The Creation of an Evolutionist has a post up with a link to an overall excellent interview with the brilliant Denis Lamoureux, author of Evolutionary Creation,...
- Human interpretations of Scripture and nature This is long for a “quote of the day,” but it’s so well stated that I couldn’t resist. It’s from an article by Kenton Sparks, author of God’s Word in...
- Why the debate over creationism matters Recently I have been involved in a couple conversations with folks who aren’t really “informed” (I use the term loosely) creationists but have been hounded enough by creationists/biblical literalists who...
Enjoy these latest videos from the very creative Gordon J. Glover, the first in a series of videos having a little fun critiquing Intelligent Design.
http://www.youtube.com/v/iE5JIzJ0yUs
http://www.youtube.com/v/pqVJsmYJvDQ
And while I’m linking around, check out Tom Jefferson’s Mike Beidler’s witty and semi-satirical Evolutionary Creationist’s Declaration of Independence.
- Why I am convinced of common descent (and why I think you should be, too) These well-made videos from the Cassiopeia Project are excellent and accessible primers about evolutionary theory. I appreciate that, despite their emphasis on why the evidence is clearly and uniformly in...
- Lamoureux: links and labels Mike Beidler over at The Creation of an Evolutionist has a post up with a link to an overall excellent interview with the brilliant Denis Lamoureux, author of Evolutionary Creation,...
- Enemies united against an imaginary foe I’ve been quite vocal on this blog in pointing out my disagreements with the Christian critics of science (ID advocates and other creationists). Unfortunately, these special creationists have had quite...
I haven’t yet had the talk RJS asks about with my inquisitive, but trusting, science nerd second-grader, but I think she’s become aware of the science/creationism conflict, particularly as regards the age of the earth. She reads all secular books about science and we talk about science as though there were no such thing as creationism, but she is taught an adamant and somewhat polemical version of YEC at church. It won’t be long before I’ll have to address these issues, but I’ve been preparing for it for years now and don’t dread it anymore. Here is how I’ve imagined it going down.
Related posts:Well, the ancient Israelites didn’t really know how the world came about. They weren’t scientists and didn’t try very hard to be; they were more interested in how to live life obediently to God. This was a good thing for them, and something we can learn from them nowadays.
- N.T. Wright on “unfaithful”, “flat” readings of Genesis The BioLogos Foundation hits another home run by soliciting and sharing this gem: Bishop of Durham Tom Wright, while no fundie, is generally regarded among scholars and many evangelicals as...
- Chaos in Genesis and Germanic mythology Dr. Enns has recently reminded us that the Ancient Near East conceptualized the beginning of creation as a battle between order and disorder, the gods vs. chaos. We see the...
- Contextual interpretation in Genesis: Cain’s mark I suppose it goes without saying that approaching the Bible as contextually bound literature leaves you asking different questions and giving different answers. In the comments of one my posts...
The most dangerous shyster is the one who has convinced himself to believe his own pitch.
Over at The Creation of an Evolutionist, Mike is continuing to blog through his weekly viewing of The Truth Project. He just completed Lesson Five. More so than the previous lessons, Lesson 5 focused on a critique of mainstream science, and evolution in particular. Bear in mind that Mike is about as fair-minded as they come, but he is shocked by Del Tackett’s blatant misrepresentations of clear facts and doesn’t hold anything back in his detailed analysis. Make sure you check it out, especially if you’ve seen TTP and didn’t notice anything wrong!
(Thinking about what Mike has told us about Lesson 5 has really gotten my dander up. You’ve been warned.)
Related posts:- Thinking “Outside the Box” about the Bible My friend Cliff Martin has written one of the best, most concise descriptions of the nature and purpose of the Bible that I have ever had the privilege of reading....
- The return of the evolutionist — for real this time! 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...
- When Christianity undervalues truth 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...
The poll in my sidebar asking Christians how important they considered the faith/science debate to be ran for four months as of yesterday. In that time, 99 votes were cast. Today as I close it out, I add my own as the last vote.
I voted Critical. No surprise there.
What I do find surprising is that one of two choices that received almost no attention early on, Worse than unimportant, finished just a few votes behind one of the early contenders, Important, but not critical. Sure, it received a clear minority of votes, but given my blog’s audience, most of whom are at least vaguely aware of the debate’s importance, this is disturbing to me.
These people are asking why I should be wasting my time distracting Christians from what they really should be doing; none of them came on to the blog as requested to explain what exactly they thought I should be focusing on. Was it just a matter of, “Please, I’m uncomfortable with this topic — can we move on to something else already?” Perhaps, but I’m guessing that the evangelicals who would vote “Worse than unimportant” would genuinely feel that the debate is a distraction from what they consider to be one of the most important things on the evangelical’s to-do list: evangelism.
Related posts:- Would he be having a happy birthday? Two days shy of four months ago I posted a poll that asked Christians how important the faith/science debate is. I was going to wait until there were 100 results...
- Mohler on theistic evolution In a recent post on his popular blog, Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, presented a predictable take on the origins debate. He states, I have...
- You can’t just ignore the evolution debate I generally like World magazine. Oh, there’s plenty I disagree with in every issue, but one thing editor Marvin Olasky and his team just seem to get that so many...
Two days shy of four months ago I posted a poll that asked Christians how important the faith/science debate is. I was going to wait until there were 100 results to make a wrap-up post, but I’ve decided that in honor of Charles Darwins’s 201st birthday, I’d go ahead and comment on the 97 votes already in.
Christians, how important is the faith/science debate? Add comments here.
- Critical: Christians have got to pull their heads out of the sand, for the good of the Kingdom! (41%, 41 Votes)
- Pressing: This issue has too much visibility among those engaged in the general believer/unbeliever discussion. We need to deal with this head-on. (35%, 35 Votes)
- Important, but not pressing: I'm sure it's important for some people to address, for certain groups. But just give me the Readers' Digest version. (14%, 14 Votes)
- Unimportant: Totally a non-issue. Next! (2%, 2 Votes)
- Worse than unimportant: What a waste of time! An utter distraction from what really matters. (8%, 8 Votes)
Total Voters: 100
Loading ...It should be noted that I actually stopped looking at this poll’s results after around 50-60 votes. Until then, there had been a lead of five or ten votes (varying) in favor of “Pressing”, with “Critical” in second place. So now today when I looked at it, I was surprised to see that “Critical” had finally overtaken “Pressing”. The popularity of both answers could be read as a testament to the impact of Charles Darwin, but I find myself wondering, would he be pleased by this result?
Related posts:- Evolution and evangel(ical)ism The poll in my sidebar asking Christians how important they considered the faith/science debate to be ran for four months as of yesterday. In that time, 99 votes were cast. Today...
- Why are so many Christian scientists evolutionists? As a followup on my reason number two from Why the debate over creationism matters, wherein I state a couple sources underlying this question, I’d like to get my readers’...
- Darwinism Must Die 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...
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.
Related posts:- Faith and science: on “two ways of knowing” I’ve been watching the back-and-forth between Jerry Coyne and Karl Giberson. Apparently there has been a video produced for USA Today that features them in a conversation answering the question,...
- Limitations of science Dr. Keith Miller’s recent essay on the Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution site entitled “Creation, Evolution and the Nature of Science” included the following statement: In fact, as I have argued,...
- Florida science standards dethrone God! Details at 11 Talk about a love/hate relationship… I highly commend Gary Demar of American Vision for a number of reasons. Chiefly, he is on the front lines in arguing against the immobilizing...
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.
Your assignment? Go read it, and give him enough responses so that he feels pressured to continue.
Related posts:- The Truth Project and critical thinking The most dangerous shyster is the one who has convinced himself to believe his own pitch. Over at The Creation of an Evolutionist, Mike is continuing to blog through his...
- The place of God’s providence in my theology I have been musing lately about how my stance on the creation/evolution controversy would impact other areas of theology if applied consistently. The stance I’m referring to is my conviction...
- Lamoureux: links and labels Mike Beidler over at The Creation of an Evolutionist has a post up with a link to an overall excellent interview with the brilliant Denis Lamoureux, author of Evolutionary Creation,...
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.
Related posts:- No arguments from ignorance allowed R.C. Sproul recently had a discussion with Ben Stein, host of a documentary called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”. This documentary takes a look at the way some colleges appear to...
- My crackpot detector’s about to explode .!. Three unmistakeable signs of someone no one has any business taking even half-seriously: 1) They imply or state outright that the beginning of the universe, the earth, or...
- Enemies united against an imaginary foe I’ve been quite vocal on this blog in pointing out my disagreements with the Christian critics of science (ID advocates and other creationists). Unfortunately, these special creationists have had quite...
The BioLogos Foundation hits another home run by soliciting and sharing this gem:
Bishop of Durham Tom Wright, while no fundie, is generally regarded among scholars and many evangelicals as fairly conservative in his theological outlook (e.g., he affirms an historical Fall of some kind), so this is good to hear from him. I found it interesting that Bishop Wright clearly affirmed Walton’s model of Genesis 1 as a statement of God’s authorship and control of the universe recounted in the form of an analogy to a temple dedication. He echoes Walton when he warns that taking a “flat” view of Genesis as simple history just because it’s what our culture expects is in a real sense a dishonor to the text itself.
Related posts:- Why Genesis 1 was written Not that I have all the answers, of course. I thought I’d reproduce a summary of my current thoughts on the issue that I formulated in an interesting comment exchange...
- Chaos in Genesis and Germanic mythology Dr. Enns has recently reminded us that the Ancient Near East conceptualized the beginning of creation as a battle between order and disorder, the gods vs. chaos. We see the...
- Indiana Jones and the Fall of Man Commonly in Christian theology, the agreement between Adam and God (the Adamic covenant) and the agreement between the Israelites and God (the Old Covenant of Moses) are contrasted (the Noahide...
William Dembski, a father of the Intelligent Design movement, has recently become comfortable calling himself an old earth creationist who, as a good Baptist, accepts the historicity of Adam and Eve. This comes as no surprise really, but it’s interesting to see how his gears turn as he systematically lays all his cards on the table for why he’s personally invested in pursuing a critique of common descent.
Discussing his book The End of Christianity with the host of the UK radio show Unbelieveable and an atheist guest, Dembski describes how he thinks that the chief difficulty for old earth as opposed to young earth creationism is the exceptionally long time for evil having existed prior to the event that was supposed to have caused it: the Fall of Man.
Related posts:- Theodicy and evolution Cliff Martin continues his interesting discussion of the apparently conflicting ideas of the loving Christian God and the God who ordained the sometimes brutal processes needed for evolution. I see...
- Lamoureux: links and labels Mike Beidler over at The Creation of an Evolutionist has a post up with a link to an overall excellent interview with the brilliant Denis Lamoureux, author of Evolutionary Creation,...
- My position on the origins question Josh recently commented on another thread, “I want to hear your explanation of the origin of life on earth. I have heard the positions you are against. So how did...
Related posts:Evolution caught in the act: US-German team measures how quickly genomes change
Mutations are the raw material of evolution. Charles Darwin already recognized that evolution depends on heritable differences between individuals: those who are better adapted to the environment have better chances to pass on their genes to the next generation. A species can only evolve if the genome changes through new mutations, with the best new variants surviving the sieve of selection. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, and Indiana University in Bloomington have now been able to measure for the first time directly the speed with which new mutations occur in plants. Their findings shed new light on a fundamental evolutionary process. They explain, for example, why resistance to herbicides can appear within just a few years. (Science, January 1, 2010)
- Beneficial mutations observed As a follow up to a post of mine from June 2008, I thought I’d take this opportunity to point out the excellent blog from the BioLogos Foundation called ”Science and the Sacred“,...
- Indiana Jones and the Fall of Man Commonly in Christian theology, the agreement between Adam and God (the Adamic covenant) and the agreement between the Israelites and God (the Old Covenant of Moses) are contrasted (the Noahide...
- Enemies united against an imaginary foe I’ve been quite vocal on this blog in pointing out my disagreements with the Christian critics of science (ID advocates and other creationists). Unfortunately, these special creationists have had quite...
The other night, a friend and I reiterated our independent observations that, despite all nuances, what ultimately stands behind most of American Christianity’s implacable dedication to inerrancy is fear. Dr. Jim Kidder, in so many words, makes the same point. The following quote certainly rings familiar.
For many people, this is not a scientific issue, it is a moral one. Even when having conversations with my wife, it is not uncommon for her to say that she understands the evidence and accepts it but that the ramifications make her uncomfortable. Indeed, both the ID side and the new atheists write that “Darwinism” is dangerous. The reasons are similar but the motives are different. Both argue that it leads one away from faith.
This is where I’m so baffled. Have these people not encountered the risen Christ in a dynamic way? I assure you as one who’s come through this process, letting go of inerrancy is an act of faith in the One who should be standing behind our beliefs, whom we have encountered in some meaningful way. Why should acknowledging that even the ancient believers whose testaments to God’s work became our Bible might not have been omniscient nullify what most evangelicals claim as the heart of our faith, our relationship with God? From where I stand, slavish, ritualistic belief in a set of rigid propositions strikes me as much more a “religion” than a “relationship” (to evoke a phrase I have always despised).
Related posts:- The Truth Project and critical thinking The most dangerous shyster is the one who has convinced himself to believe his own pitch. Over at The Creation of an Evolutionist, Mike is continuing to blog through his...
- History and faith 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...
- When Christianity undervalues truth 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...
I generally like World magazine. Oh, there’s plenty I disagree with in every issue, but one thing editor Marvin Olasky and his team just seem to get that so many other Christian publications don’t is that the core expression of our faith is in ministry to humanity. I’ll regularly be punching the air at their blind adherence to evangelical mainstays like neoconservative politics at one moment, and at the next, blinking back tears as they highlight Christian individuals and organizations making the kind of difference in the world that I regularly campaign for but all too rarely see in action.
For the last twelve years, they’ve recognized individuals who they find to have used their big stage influence to courageously stand up against a predominant but ungodly culture/power/ethical system. These individuals are deemed “Daniel of the Year”. This year it’s none other than Intelligent Design advocate Stephen Meyer.
Related posts:- Evolution and evangel(ical)ism The poll in my sidebar asking Christians how important they considered the faith/science debate to be ran for four months as of yesterday. In that time, 99 votes were cast. Today...
- Why the debate over creationism matters Recently I have been involved in a couple conversations with folks who aren’t really “informed” (I use the term loosely) creationists but have been hounded enough by creationists/biblical literalists who...
- Mohler on theistic evolution In a recent post on his popular blog, Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, presented a predictable take on the origins debate. He states, I have...
These well-made videos from the Cassiopeia Project are excellent and accessible primers about evolutionary theory. I appreciate that, despite their emphasis on why the evidence is clearly and uniformly in favor of evolutionary theory, they’re not polemical about specific claims or objections from evolution critics. There’s no slapping anyone around; the overwhelming evidence for common descent is just presented on its own terms.
There will no doubt be lingering questions about specific creationist claims and objections. But on the whole, I can’t imagine that evolution skeptics will be able to watch all of these and still automatically impute the worst motives for why Christians like me, who might have been otherwise content to hang onto the typical Protestant interpretation of Genesis, have become convinced of common descent. The scientific data is so compelling.
Related posts:- Detecting design and declaring independence Enjoy these latest videos from the very creative Gordon J. Glover, the first in a series of videos having a little fun critiquing Intelligent Design. http://www.youtube.com/v/iE5JIzJ0yUs http://www.youtube.com/v/pqVJsmYJvDQ And while I’m linking around,...
- Another one bites the dust Do you believe that the theory of evolution has never been observed? That it is purely theoretical and has never been, can never be, demonstrated in the laboratory? Well, it...
- Missing link found? From Missing Link: Scientists In New York Unveil Fossil Of Lemur Monkey Hailed As Man’s Earliest Ancestor from Sky News: Scientists have unveiled a 47-million-year-old fossilised skeleton of a monkey...
If so, I’m sure you made up your mind well before researching critiques. But seriously, do you have any idea how deceitful and fallacious Comfort’s introduction is?
It’s really sickening that so many Christians uncritically accept any criticism of evolution as valid simply by virtue of the fact that it’s a criticism of evolution. Even a cursory amount of research will show how many egregious misrepresentations of Darwin and evolutionary theory are in this introduction. And Comfort cut out two chapters that are widely recognized to contribute some of the best evidence for Darwin’s thesis.
If we will be known by our fruit, and especially if you want to entice others to eat it, I’d be much more careful that straw men and outright lies aren’t charged to your account if I were you.
Related posts:- Why are so many Christian scientists evolutionists? As a followup on my reason number two from Why the debate over creationism matters, wherein I state a couple sources underlying this question, I’d like to get my readers’...
- My crackpot detector’s about to explode .!. Three unmistakeable signs of someone no one has any business taking even half-seriously: 1) They imply or state outright that the beginning of the universe, the earth, or...
- Chance and diminishing domains During the course of his interview with Ben Stein that I mentioned in an earlier post, R. C. Sproul recounted the story of his conversation with a college professor. At...
Commonly in Christian theology, the agreement between Adam and God (the Adamic covenant) and the agreement between the Israelites and God (the Old Covenant of Moses) are contrasted (the Noahide and Abrahamic covenants are given varying significance depending on who’s talking). Many, such as those holding firmly to the Westminster Confession, argue that the Adamic covenant was a “covenant of works”, the Mosaic covenant was “of grace” at heart but administered through works, and that the New Covenant is thoroughly a covenant of grace. It’s almost as though God kept trying different ways to maintain a relationship with humanity, and finally managed to get it right with Christianity.
Reading the Eden story as an historical account gives us the impression that there was a covenant with humanity that got broken. Successive attempts at reconciling God and man were necessary, each in the form of a new epochal covenant that had to hold up at least temporarily until Jesus came and brokered the final version. But we get a slightly different picture if we understand the early Genesis accounts as etiology, an origins story, offered by later Israelite theologians to replace the errant myths they were familiar with, some lingering from their ancient past and others absorbed from surrounding cultures.
Related posts:- Case Study: the Fall This is the seventh in a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics. The traditional doctrines of the Fall and of Original Sin teach that the first human’s first...
- Self-preservation, the Fall, and redemption In my explanation of man’s depravity from the view of a recurring, individualized (non-historical) Fall, I have argued that mankind’s natural separation from God was in origin a result of...
- N.T. Wright on “unfaithful”, “flat” readings of Genesis The BioLogos Foundation hits another home run by soliciting and sharing this gem: Bishop of Durham Tom Wright, while no fundie, is generally regarded among scholars and many evangelicals as...
One of today’s posts on Science and the Sacred is called An Artist or An Engineer? The author argues that we shouldn’t expect the precision of an engineer in creation any more than we expect it in an artist. The article brings this out by raising the issue of what has elsewhere been called “unintelligent design”:
The problem of imperfect design in nature raises serious concerns for the idea of God as the divine engineer, the metaphor put forward by those associated with the Intelligent Design movement. After all, if God designed each detail in the blueprint of life, why would he create mammalian eyes which have a blind spot?
One of my friends who is critical of evolution responded to this article with a one line explanation for design imperfections: “A little thing called the Fall.” She was referring to the belief that the Fall of Man marred the entire physical creation.
Related posts:- Intelligent Design and the unseen Some Christians who accept the mainstream science view of the origin of the species (evolution), in a fair-minded and an admirably conciliatory way, throw a bone to the Intelligent Design...
- Focus on the Family responds Focus on the Family has responded to an anonymous blogging friend we call Thomas who wrote a letter in protest of their misrepresentations about evolution in the October 2009 issue...
- Mohler on theistic evolution In a recent post on his popular blog, Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, presented a predictable take on the origins debate. He states, I have...