Archives for “fundamentalism”
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...
Daniel Kirk today expressed well my feelings about and disillusionment with theology (which I have written about here).
Reflecting over the course on The Cross in the New Testament that he just completed teaching, he writes:
Three big take-aways from both the lecture and the readings are these: (1) when the NT talks about the cross it is infinitely more concerned with how we live lives of faithful discipleship than it is with how the death of Jesus “works” to save us; (2) there are numerous models of “atonement” in the NT that address different facets of the problem of the human condition; and (3) penal substitution might be less pervasive than you think, and probably needs to be rethought in more biblical categories.
With one of my favorite lines in biblioblog history, Kirk notes, ”The problem with ‘knowing’ how the death of Jesus works is that it keeps us from being able to see how the NT writers talk about it.“ That hit me in the pit of the stomach: despite my railing against it, I recognize the lingering tendency on my own part to view various biblical texts from some unifying principle that may not apply to all the texts equally.
Related posts:- Cultivating good theology Daniel Kirk at Storied Theology has a great post up in which he’s critical of an article in the current Christianity Today theme this month by J. I. Packer and Gary A....
- 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...
- 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...
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...
In the wake of the Jennifer Knapp story, I’ve had a chance to analyze the reactions of people on either side of debate. One of the things that’s bothered me most is that the media and the blogosphere are predictably going out of their way to find reactions that sound hateful and hurtful. I’m convinced that the larger part of the truly reproachable reactions are the ones called out for attention by those who find criticism of homosexuality to be hopelessly benighted and who make a point to imply that these examples are but the tip of the iceberg of how cruel and uncivil Christians are. I’d like to point out that even Jennifer Knapp told Larry King that the responses have been overwhelmingly civil and fair.
This is not to say that Christians haven’t been critical of Knapp in large part; the evangelical community has, as expected, overwhelmingly opposed Knapp’s decision to be an apologist for Christian homosexuality. But I think any fair-minded person should step into the shoes of their opponents (even Christians!) for half a second.
Related posts:- When disgust eclipses compassion: evangelicals and homosexuality In a recent post I defended believers whose genuine compassion causes them to show concern about homosexuality among believers. Unfortunately, there is another common response to homosexuality, often accompanying and...
- The lost art of humility: homosexuality and usury Most of the hullaballoo surrounding Knapp-gate seems to have blown over for the time being, but its implications and the probability of similar future incidents continue to grow. Undeniably, a...
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.
- 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...
Related posts:“Just think of the natural sciences as they increasingly develop into a comprehensive knowledge of the world. A short time ago no one could have conceived of this development. What then do you suppose the future holds, not only for our theology, but for our evangelical Christianity? … There are those who can hack away at science with a sword, fence themselves in with weapons at hand to withstand the assaults of sound research and behind this fence establish as binding a church doctrine that appears to everyone outside as an unreal ghost to which they must pay homage if they want to receive a proper burial. Those persons might not allow themselves to be disturbed by the developments in the realm of science. But we cannot do that and do not want that. Therefore, we must make do with history as it develops.”
- 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....
- 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...
- 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...
All right, here’s a rant for you.
There’s a news story circulating about the well-known fact that homeschooling texts are ignoring or even (the audacity!) criticizing mainstream science in favor of creationism. The usual suspects have emerged to show their disgust of the benighted institution of homeschooling. There’s a poll up at MSNBC asking the question, “Is it OK for home-school textbooks to dismiss the theory of evolution?” Wait, what does “OK” mean here? Are they asking, “Do you think it’s good that home-school textbooks do this?” or “Is it healthy for society that they do this?” The ambiguity in the question itself implies that what they really want to know is, “Should the authorities allow parents to teach their kids this stuff?” The mantra among most secularists that I’ve heard on this issue is that homeschooling should be, preferably, illegal or, at very least, strictly regulated for content by the state. Thus, the following rant.
Related posts:- Homeschooling and agendas There is no bigger proponent of home education than yours truly. I myself was homeschooled from the fifth grade through graduation. Although a somewhat shy, awkward kid, I somehow turned...
- 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...
- 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...
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...
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...
As my 200th post, I’m going to give you a little insight into my background, how I think, and what led me to where I am right now. Of course I don’t think I’m really all that “screwed up”, but for those who do think I am, I thought I’d give you a bit of an explanation.
________________________________________________
While growing up in three different Southern Baptist churches, being involved mostly with other Christians living the Christian life, I saw little that made me think anything was missing about my own faith.
In high school I recognized the dangers of Fundamentalism (proper) through experiences with one of my school curricula, the Independent Baptist-based A Beka Book Publications. There writ large I saw a host of devout, well-meaning Christians who believed things that I found wholly incredible, despite the fact that by normal evangelical standards my church was quite conservative. I was amazed to think that this type of self-described Fundamentalists would think that I was teetering on the edge of damnation for believing the way I did. I knew that I, at least, was sincere and well considered in my beliefs, and that my relationship with God was as authentic as it could be and none the worse for rejecting what these sincere Christians believed.
Related posts:- 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...
- 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...
- 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 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...
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 Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship
Related posts:When the cosmos is understood in this way—as divine speech to humanity—then it is no longer possible to characterize Christian debates about science as a conflict that pits “God’s inerrant word in Scripture” against “errant human science.” Rather, any conflict between Scripture and science should be understood as a conflict between “human interpretations of God’s word in Scripture” and “human interpretations of God’s word in nature.”
When we understand the situation in this way, then in any apparent conflict between Scripture and science it is just as likely that we’ve misunderstood the biblical evidence as that we’ve misunderstood the science … in fact, one could make the theological argument that we’re more likely to misunderstand the Bible, as an instance of special revelation, than to misunderstand the general revelation available to everyone in creation.
- The nature of inspiration and the purpose of Scripture This is the third of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics. We can summarize the previous discussion by saying that 2 Timothy 3:15-17 teaches that these writings...
- Finding God’s hand in Scripture All Christians generally agree that the Bible was written down by humans, and most agree that in some way their writings are reflective of their individuality; the question comes in...
- 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 have recently been asked what I would consider a “liberal” Christian.
Well, for one thing, although I buck at calling myself as a liberal Christian, I recognize that I am more “liberal” than many others on certain issues. I think from a typical evangelical POV, a “liberal Christian” is thought of as not caring enough about sound theology; this makes me extremely uncomfortable given my hard-won theological views.
Another angle that might help is in evaluating one’s disposition toward traditional teaching. Please allow me to offer a categorization I’ve noticed, most phases of which I feel I have passed through, so bear in mind the probability of personal bias. Also note that I am aware I have not described every variety of Christian belief system.
Related posts:- 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...
- Herman who? Someone every Christian needs to know I come from a Christian tradition that downplays or contradicts basic principles of biblical interpretation (hermeneutics) on a regular basis. The starting assumption is that the Bible is God’s Word...
- Why Christian activism seems liberal Elsewhere I have blamed futurist eschatology for minimizing the Church’s call to focus on social issues and address the needs of the poor. But there are more causes than that...
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 under a post on another site.
I asked what sort of question the authors of Genesis 1 etiology intended to answer:
[1] why the world exists,
[2] how it got made, or
[3] both.
One commenter (whose opinion I highly respect) essentially agreed with me that the answer is [3], but added that Genesis 1 only answered [1] by implication of its primary goal of answering who is responsible, namely YHWH. I have sympathy for this, but I explained why I wrote [1] as I did.
I think Genesis 1 primarily attempts to answer the question of why everything is here as it is by instructing the Israelites/Jews that YHWH tamed chaos in order to subjugate and commission creation for His purposes. Things work as they do (=are “functional” in Walton’s terms) because it was He who intended the sun to shine, the fish to inhabit the ocean, man to hold dominion over nature, etc. The reason the world works as it does is because it was intended to work that way (“God saw that it was good”). There is certainly a strong element of the “who” answer intimately integrated into this, but I think another key aspect of Genesis 1 is a worldview shift toward the common Judeo-Christian belief that the chaos we see in our world is somewhat apparent rather than real.
Related posts:- 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...
- 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...
- Explaining Genesis to our children 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...
I’d like to address a question to a group that is, on the whole, unlikely to frequent my blog: those who would characterize themselves as conservative Christians.
Whether you were brought up in Christianity or accepted it later in life, the chances are overwhelming that you weren’t just taught to accept Jesus as Lord: you were sold an entire package. Whether it was done prior to conversion or immediately subsequently, you adopted a body of teachings on many subjects, doctrine intended to ground you and detox you from the lies of the world. Typically, depending on your particular tradition, you were told that Jesus atones for us by satisfying God’s need to punish people for wrongdoing, hell for unbelievers, the Trinity, and that all our confidence for the preceding proceeds from the non-negotiable truth that the Bible is 100% accurate (with the unspoken presupposition that your tradition’s intepretation of it was correct).
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...
- When disgust eclipses compassion: evangelicals and homosexuality In a recent post I defended believers whose genuine compassion causes them to show concern about homosexuality among believers. Unfortunately, there is another common response to homosexuality, often accompanying and...
- 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...
I have to admit that I would have thought this was pretty cool when I was young enough to want to color it.
There are a few related pictures at Jason Boyett’s site, which I’d never been to before today. Do check it out, along with his humorous comments.
(There’s one more really funny one you need to see at the original page.)
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,...
- 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...
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.
Related posts:- 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...
- The Bible’s text has a history Recently I mentioned to some friends the fact that Mark 16.9-20 should not be used as a proof text for anything given the near certainty that it was a later addition...
- 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...
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.
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....
- 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...
- The Bible made flesh I have read summaries of the incarnational model of Scripture as developed by Peter Enns, late of Westminster Theological Seminary, but too little of Enns himself. I think this recent...