Oxford Ethicists OK Killing Live Infants

Follow up to my last post. The UK Telegraph publishes today an article justifying infanticide. As I indicated in my previous post, there is no discussion at all of the medical facts of fetal development. Only this:

“We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.”

How much "value" is "some" value? At what point does society determine that the young individual who can be legally killed is "capable of attributing to her own existence" this undefined "value".

This is pure use of language to say nothing. And it comes from the science establishment, from the Journal of Medical Ethics at Oxford.

Any wonder why common decent folk don't trust the scientists?

Science Deniers

A label often attached to those who doubt either Darwinism or man-made global warming is “science-denier”. If one questions either the assumptions or the conclusions of either of those narratives, one is assumed to be anti-science, as if disagreeing with a conclusion was the same as losing all contact with reality. But I have to say in the dispute about a number of issues, I have a strong suspicion it is not really about the science. Why? Because I have a pretty direct example of agendas driving conclusions in spite of evidence coming from the other side of the political and religious spectrum.

Back in the late 70s, I became aware of the battle in this country over abortion. I was influenced by the Francis Schaeffer/C. Everett Koop collaboration and soon got immersed in literature from the pro-life perspective, including Bernard Nathanson’s seminal “Aborting America” and Jerome Lejeune’s stunning LIFE magazine pictorial.

I vividly remember how the arguments were framed before the advent of ultrasound. Opposition to abortion was framed as a “religious” and primarily a “Catholic” issue. That is, the only reason to oppose abortion, the public was told, was a purely religious belief that a soul is formed at conception, a belief advocated by a patriarchal institution that also opposed contraception and generally thought of sex as evil. If science was ever broached, we were told the “conceptus” was a mere “blob of tissue”, no much more significant than a blood clot.

It is at this particular point in history that “science” took a leap forward and the pro-life movement sought to rebut the “religious only” charge with newfound data. LeJeune’s stunning pictures and corresponding text made it difficult to refer to the unborn fetus as a mere mass of cells. And the advent of ultrasound technology gave us a real-time view of living active babies in the womb. Pro-life literature consistently cited medical facts: The stirrings of a first heartbeat within three weeks after conception, measurable brain activity by the seventh week, all organs accounted for and functioning before the end of the first trimester. Images of tiny beings sucking a thumb, yawning, stretching, even crying became the primary argument – decidedly empirical and completely without need of religiously based support.

And how did the other side respond? By allowing the scientific facts to speak? By following where the evidence led? Not at all. Instead, the other side fell to metaphysical and legal justifications while refusing to even discuss the science. The argument shifted. Now we were told that no one really knows when the soul enters the body or when “consciousness” or self-awareness might be relevant to the issue. We were told that “personhood” is a legal term that applied only to beings who had achieved a particular but undefined level of awareness. In other words, the science didn’t matter.

I've watched this issue for decades and I cannot recall a single media article, televised news report or major publication that even broached the subject of when life begins from a medical and scientific perspective. All the focus shifted to “personhood”if the fetus was considered at all, and the attention focused almost entirely on particular issues surrounding the rights of women.

In the early eighties I participated in a radio debate with both an abortionist and a representative of NOW. The abortionist was an elder in a local Presbyterian church. I was naïve enough to think that citing relevant medical facts about fetal development would cause him to pull out sophisticated scientific arguments to rebut my layman’s claims. I wondered if he would trounce me with scientific detail that was beyond my expertise. He instead, without missing a beat, simply changed the subject and started to cite scripture to justify the non-person status of the unborn and the ambiguities of Old Testament law on the subject. I was prepared for a few of those arguments and rebutted them, but I found myself quite disillusioned after that debate. I was young and naïve in thinking that political debates are won on evidence and argument. Spin, deception and outright lies are normative. Evidence was irrelevant.

Here is the point: In thirty plus years of watching this issue I have never seen any serious attempt by the other side to dispute the medical evidence that shows that life begins at conception. The science does not matter. Their position is completely disconnected from the science. In fact, it has to be.

So, shifting subjects, when I hear that conservatives who doubt that the evidence for manmade climate change is beyond question labeled as “science deniers”, I immediately turn a skeptical ear to that claim. All the conservatives I’ve heard speak on that topic offer arguments based on counter evidence, or question whether any programs at the government level will affect any measurable change. Reality is, a lot of money can be made if “Green” technology is favored over existing technologies. Environmental advocates are not immune from political ideologies. And frankly, watching Al Gore’s presidential campaign, I know that Al Gore is not an honest man. Specific counter arguments that cite contrary data from reputable science sources or show flaws in methodology and even manipulation of data are often simply dismissed or ignored. (For examples, see here) It is easier to ridicule conservatives with labels than it is to engage in honest debate.

And when ID advocates or creationists question the conclusions or assumptions of the science academy, I am very much aware that there is a long path between the assumptions, the collection, sorting and filtering of data, the interpretation of that data, and the final conclusion. I am aware of the charge that ID advocates don’t make predictions or get published in peer reviewed journals (when in fact they do they do) . I am also quite aware of counter evidence ignored rather than engaged with. I am aware of false arguments (like Haekel’s embryos) that still persist decades after being exposed as frauds and no serious attempt by the science academy to remove them from use in school textbooks. I am aware of the phony charge that one who believes in the possibility of supernatural causation cannot also believe in the orderliness of natural law. I am aware of the charge that theists espouse views based on beliefs and bias and not on evidence, but somehow the materialists are completely objective.

Which is why I posted on the thesis that the scientific method was developed in part because human beings were considered to be fallen and capable of both error and bias in the worldview shaped by the reformation. Human beings are often quite irrational – when it serves their purpose. This does not mean reason has no place – it only means other considerations overrule reason quite regularly.

And the one bias materialist and naturalists refuse to acknowledge is the bias of naturalism itself. Until that hurdle is overcome, the science won’t matter.

The Fall of Man and the Rise of Science

Two Interesting reviews of a book by an Oxford guy. here and here.

The book is “The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science” and the Oxford guy is Peter Harrison.

I'm intrigued by the book, and will likely buy it, but I have to say I find this thesis vaguely familiar. Francis Schaeffer outlined a similar viewpoint decades ago.

There are a few distinctly Christian presuppositions about the universe that many argue were necessary for science as we know it to come into existence. The first is often cited and understood by Christians in the ID and Creationist camps. It is simply the idea that the universe is orderly and that our brains can apprehend that order.

There's a lot in that statement. Christian scientists in the 17th century clearly believed the world was intelligible - but they believed the world was intelligible because they were theists who accepted in some sense the biblical creation account and the first line of the Nicene Creed. The belief in a Creator was the key idea that implied orderliness in creation, and that such order could be studied and understood because we were made for this reality. Without a creator, there is no reason for order.

The thesis of this book adds a whole new layer going in a deeper direction, the idea that belief in the fall of man was also a primary factor that drove the 17th century pioneers of science forward.

A Christian worldview would insist that human faculties for understanding are finite. But as Schaeffer argued and Harrison apparently documents, in the minds of 17^th century Christian pioneers in science, the fall of man changed not only the moral character of man, but the intellectual character of man. This had tremendous implications for the quest for knowledge. One of Schaeffer’s most central and controversial ideas was that Thomas Aquinas had an incomplete view of the fall in which the will of man was fallen but the intellect was essentially intact. So Aquinas thought that “right reason” could arrive at truth about the cosmos, man, philosophy and theology apart from the influence of divine grace and revelation. Aquinas’ notion of “right reason” allowed reason to operate independently of revelation according to Schaeffer and this laid the foundation for the autonomous rationalism and naturalism that would eventually drive a wedge between science from faith.

The Reformers, following Augustine’s understanding of original sin, rejected Aquinas’ optimistic view of human reason. Fallen human beings, in the Augustinian/Reformation view, are prone to error in a way that would not have been the case had man not fallen. In fact, men are intellectually in rebellion against truth, consistent with Paul’s statements in Romans 1 and Peter’s statements in 2 Peter 3.

The apparent thesis of Harrsion’s book is that 17^th century predecessors to modern science felt that these human weaknesses – being finite, capable of error due to the fall and the effects of the fall on the mind and even on the cosmos - could be counteracted, but only with a healthy dose of skepticism about human thought and only by the Grace of God. True knowledge, even about things not directly revealed in scripture, could be restored if rigorous methods, tests and controlled experimentation were applied to counteract the effects of the fall on the intellect. But such knowledge would always be incomplete and imperfect.

So the thesis is that it was the very potential for and expectation of human error that gave birth to careful scientific research and reasoning. Without a belief in the fallen nature of man, modern scientific methods of inquiry might not have come into being.

Reviews of the book note the high level of scholarship and extensive documentation. Given that this is a serious work from someone with credentials from Oxford, it should be hard to ignore. This is a thesis that runs completely counter to the notion that the influence of faith and Christian doctrine are anti-science. It asserts instead that science owes its existence to the very doctrine that is today most in question in theistic evolution circles – the fall of man. Harrison’s book could bolster the protest of many who find the current definition of science as a purely naturalistic enterprise to be false and unfair. And it could undermine the unwarranted confidence in the scientific consensus that many seem to hold as an article of faith.

From my own perspective, if this thesis has validity, then there is a cogent answer to the oft-repeated argument of theistic evolutionists who insist that the current scientific consensus must trump all alternative viewpoints from either ID or various Creationist camps. If the human intellect is fallen, then some knowledge about the distant past may simply be out of reach of human reason, and more importantly, the current naturalistic consensus in the Christian academy can be challenged on the basis that the human intellect is not only prone to error but also in rebellion. Though common grace can enlighten even the unbeliever, the effects of the fall taint human thought as well as desire and action. What is taken as empirical knowledge may be quite prone to error and self-deception apart from the corrective presuppositions of a supernatural universe, a fallen race and the need for grace and revelation. For the Christian who stands in the stream of the Reformation, revelation is a necessary starting point to true knowledge. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom”.

And given the intense interest in how Darwinian views seem difficult to reconcile with the historicity of Adam and the fall, it should be an interesting point of discussion to suggest that without the fall, there would possibly have been no science to begin with.

Perhaps the words of Peter can perhaps be heard once again, “...they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”

Gilberson's World

Karl Gilberson, formerly of Biologos and author of “Saving Darwin” has penned a little testimonial at Frum Forum to plug his new book “The Anointed.”

Michelle Bachman has stated that Francis Schaeffer had an influence on her in days gone by. Karl Gilberson recalls his own similar background and evangelical heritage and proceeds to paint Bachman and pretty much all conservative evangelicals as uneducated dunces. He directly names Schaeffer, James Dobson, Ken Ham and David Barton as “anointed” ones whose status in the evangelical community gives cover to anti-intellectual and dishonest dissemination of an alternate and defective standard of truth.

He takes a mild swipe at Schaeffer’s goatee and knickers. Of Dobson he sarcastically notes that he “had a PhD in child development and thus knew what he was talking about.” Of Ham who does not have a PhD, he snarks “Very few evangelicals grow up without hearing some trusted authority—perhaps even with a PhD—tell them that the age of the earth is an “open question.” It all boils down to the charge that conservative Evangelicals are trapped in an alternative “parallel culture” with its own standards of truth, where the statements of “anointed” leaders - whose only claim to authority is that the unsuspecting sheep think they have a special gift - trump rational analysis of truth claims.

He is clear that instead evangelicals should listen to real scholars like Francis Collins and Mark Noll, presumably because they have PhDs and know what they are talking about. (I mean no disrespect to Noll or Collins, just pointing out the contradiction in Gilberson’s position.)

I found the tone sanctimonious, condescending and elitist. But that was not the primary concern. I felt he misrepresented not only Schaeffer, but Dobson, Barton and even Ken Ham in his dismissive broadside, by not merely insinuating but flat out stating that the whole of conservative Christian intellectual thought was bereft of a rational approach to evaluating truth claims. I also believe his own reliance on academic consensus as the final arbiter of truth is problematic, for it does not account for the influence of human nature on the intellect and puts too much of the burden of determining what is true on ivory tower structures prone to influence by politics, ambition, greed and other human failings. Truth stands alone – it is not the property of any club.

With regard to Schaeffer, the charge of anti-intellectualism simply does not fit. Yes, Schaeffer was criticized for being a generalist and not an academic, but it was never his purpose to give a full picture of the entire body of work of Kierkegaard or Aquinas but rather to help laymen to understand a general ebb and flow of thought over time. Schaeffer’s influence was directly tied to the fact that he was engaged with the culture at large and with intellectual movements – he was the least anti-intellectual evangelical of his era. Gilberson is about as far off the mark here as one can get, and I suspect he knows it.

David Barton is held to be a presumptuous “amateur historian”, for audaciously quoting from original source documents to demonstrate that the founding fathers were not absolutist separationists in the sense that Barry Lynn and the ACLU would have us believe. Does one need a PhD to read a letter of Matthew Henry or the Federalist Papers? Barton has openly acknowledged that a handful of those quotes have come into question as to their authenticity and has stopped using them and has encouraged others to stop using them. But it is not like “real” historians have never concluded something to be authentic only to find additional information casts a doubt on the earlier conclusion. It is not like Barton’s entire case is dependent on a single quotation.

Nor does having the right credentials from the right universities protect one’s understanding of history (or science) from bad logic. Gilberson’s area is science. Does Gilberson hold his colleagues to the same standards as he holds Barton? For example, science texts still publish Haeckel's embryos as evidence for a broad, sometimes vaguely defined concept of evolution, even though it has been known for decades that Haekel’s drawings were flawed and misleading. Textbooks still cite the Miller-Urey experiment in relation to the advent of life on the planet even though we know now that Miller-Urey assumed an atmosphere that was not representative of what scientists now believe the original atmosphere on earth was. See here.

These are examples where, unlike Barton who has refrained from using evidences no longer clear in their authenticity, the entire community of academic science continues to use discredited evidences decades after those evidences have been exposed as faulty. Does this represent anti-intellectualism? An alternative standard of truth? A PhD that is of lesser value than someone else’s?

The point being, having the “right” PhD, from the right Universities with the blessing of the right establishment authorities does not insulate from fa;se conclusions about history or science and a lack of letters after one’s name does not put truth out of reach. The standard of determining what is true and what is not true can never be merely the consensus of what a particular cadre of institutional gatekeepers decide based on what is currently known.

Ken Ham is another target. His egregious crime is questioning the scientific consensus on origins and in particular believing in a recent creation. I don’t share the opinion of most young-earth creationists on the length of the Genesis day for minor exegetical reasons that have little to do with science, but I completely understand and support their concerns about what a denial of the historicity of Adam and the Fall mean for the all important “narrative” of Christianity. Kan Ham does not have a PhD. Many young earth creationists do, as do a fair number of ID proponents. It is quite clear that having or not having a PhD is really not what matters to Gilberson – his disdain for those who question the current scientific consensus would remain even if Ken Ham had 12 PhDs from Harvard.

What is most distressing to me about Gilberson’s vitriol against Ken Ham and the general creationist movement is how callous his disdain for creationism is toward the immense philosophical and theological concerns creationists have for matters that go far beyond the physical science of origins. At stake are huge questions such as “who are we as humans?”, “why does life exist?”, “how did evil originate and was God responsible?”, “what is the meaning of death?”. Insisting that “Science has settled it” with regard to genetic evidence for common descent does not even begin to grapple with the massive implications that confident conclusion suggests.

Granted, it is logically possible that naturalistic evolution is true. But if true, that conclusion raises philosophical and theological questions that physical science completely fails to answer. A purely materialist universe is one where peronality has no purpose. Naturalistic Christianity has no cogent answer to the question why an omnipotent miracle working God would limit his creative acts to natural cause and effect. A Christianity wedded to the narrative of naturalistic evolution exists with one foot on a naturalistic, mechanistic cliff and plants the other on a nebulous cloud of spirituality disconnected from real-world events.

Is it not possible that other considerations besides scientific data might legitimately have a bearing on how one approaches the question of what actually occurred in the genesis of life on earth? Does a set of philosophical assumptions and scientific theories that fails to answer the most basic questions of meaning, purpose, good and evil, not warrant scrutiny from outside of the narrow silo of physical science? If evolution fails to answer basic human questions, is it not fair to consider it may not be true for that very reason? But like most in the Theistic evolution camp, Gilberson bulldozes past the implications of the origin and development of life by random mutation and natural selection and holds those who do not follow in blind allegiance to naturalistic science in contempt. For Gilberson, the final arbiter of truth is natural science, and there lies the problem.

Creationists, whether they have been right or wrong about the interpretation of Genesis 1, have been correct in their criticism of what Schaeffer called “modern-modern” science. Schaeffer distinguished between two views. Early modern scientists who were often Christians held the belief in a uniformity of natural causes that flows naturally from a belief in a creator who formulated the laws of nature and was master over it. But later secularized approaches to science held to a uniformity of natural causes in a closed system. This meant there could be no allowance for divine intervention. In my experience, Theistic Evolutionists, like their non-theist counterparts in the scientific academy, assume and vehemently insist on the closed system. They claim it is a necessary assumption for science to function lest every unanswered question be automatically attributed to divine forces or blind superstition.

But the central questions every creationist asks are very simple and direct: “On what basis does one assume that every natural effect must have a natural cause and only a natural cause?” And to the Theistic Evolutionist, the creationist asks, “How does one who claims to believe in the miraculous resurrection of Christ so easily dismiss as “unscientific” every possibility of miraculous activity in the creation account?”

Instead of thoughtful engagement with the substance of these deep and vital questions, we get the derisive dismissal of anyone who disagrees with the secular consensus as “misguided”, “anti-intellectual”, “lacking credentials” or motivated by some irrational fear. But if a science that merely asserts that origins are bound to natural causes alone has no satisfactory answer to the epistemological question of how we can know that every event in the known universe over eons of time has a purely natural cause, how can one have the audacity to suggest those who ask the question are lacking in intellectual capacity?

Which leads to Gilberson’s attack on James Dobson, who though he holds a PhD from no less a place than the University of Southern California is dismissed with the sneer “who had a PhD in child development and thus knew what he was talking about.” Quite clearly, and again, the issue is not a lack of education or credentials in Dobson’s case. What is Dobson’s crime? Apparently his defense of the traditional family and the corresponding belief that a homosexual can change. Not sure if Gilberson’s apparent sympathy with the current “consensus” that being gay is irreversible is one of the reasons he is no longer at Biologos.

But what is condescending about his slam of Dobson is the insinuation that opposition to the normalization of homosexuality is built on nothing other than an alleged misreading of the biblical texts. Does Gilberson really mean to say that Dobson’s (or anyone else’s) entire case for one-man-one-woman marriage is based only on his anointed status as a conservative reader of pertinent biblical texts? That there is no data, no evidence, no real world reasons for concluding that gay sex might be less than ideal?

As I noted here, there is a long list of document, statistics, studies from a variety of reputable sources that show real issues related to physical and mental health that are associated with the “alternate lifestyle” in question. A higher rate of substance abuse, a higher rate of suicide, a higher rate of infection and death from a variety of STDs, a higher rate of domestic violence. There is a curious lack of clear evidence for any genetic cause for homosexuality and much evidence of other familial and social causes, suggesting that gayness is a learned behavior that can be unlearned. Is it not possible that Dobson’s views of homosexuality are based in part on actual data and include a concern for the well-being of the homosexual? That bucking the consensus might actually be based on intelligent inquiry and a refusal to accept assumptions or conclusions blindly?

Folks who support ID, folks who support various forms of creationism or ID, folks who support the nuclear family, folks who oppose global warming alarmism are not people who are blind to evidence or have a defective understanding of truth. Rather they are folks who question the unproven and often unspoken assumptions of the academy, and who can then, free from the constraints of those assumptions, see that there is genuine contrary evidence that makes alternate view compelling.

The point is, the premise Gilberson offers, that conservative evangelicals have a different set of standards for truth, is actually an indictment of the academy – the same academy Gilberson wants to establish as the official magisterium to set the secular doctrines that we all must adhere to. Instead of truth being an objective reality that all rational human beings can pursue and apprehend, Gilberson’s form of truth is a set of accepted conclusions about reality only attainable to those who have the right education, the right level of expertise, the right PhDs from the right institutions. Everyone else in Gilberson’s world, including those with PhDs from the wrong institutions, should sit down, shut up and swear allegiance to the Academic’s Creed. And those who do not are worthy of ridicule and contempt.

PCUSA - Dancing in the Graveyard

Today the PCUSA became the latest mainline denomination to allow ordination of gay clergy. This just a matter of hours after Evangelical left leader Jim Wallis took a thrashing from his erstwhile comrades in arms for rejecting an ad that asked churches to be more affirming of gays. An example of the reaction can be found here.

Tony Jones thinks opposition to gay marriage is just an excuse for evangelicals to divisively attack those they disagree with, comparing studied opposition to gay marriage with the slaughter of 42,000 in the Old Testament over a mispronunciation of a word. Tony is nothing if not subtle in his utter dismissiveness toward anyone who agrees with 3400 years of Western moral wisdom. But alas, we have much virtual ink spilled by Christians over the topic.

One thing in particular strikes me. Most of the debate, pro and con, over gay unions and gay activity and gay orientation is focused on legal arguments, moral arguments, biblical interpretation arguments. Little is devoted to the health issues.

There was a long footnoted fact sheet at Free Republic published back in 2003 that ought to at least enter into the conversation. I would suggest anyone who reads this summary go and check out the footnotes in the article. Included in the commentary and notes are tidbits like these:

Men with same sex partners are more than six times more likely to attempt suicide. Gay males have three to four times the incidence of depression and other emotional disorders. There is a 20-30 decrease in lifespan for male homosexuals vs the heterosexual population with the median age of death less than 50 years of age. The risk of acquiring AIDS through a single act of unprotected sex is 1 in 165 for gay men as opposed to 1 in 715,000 for the rest of the population. One out of every two men who engage in gay sex will become infected with AIDS. Additional areas of increased health problems include higher incidence of alcohol and drug use.

The hue and cry from the left, including the Christian left, is that persecution of gays by closed minded conservatives is an epidemic to be fought with the resources of federal programs and Google campaigns. The reality is that half of lesbians in a 1991 survey reported having been abused - not by hateful heterosexual fundamentalists - but by a lover or partner. Women were reported as being four times as likely to be abused in a lesbian relationship than in a traditional heterosexual marriage. 46% of gay men and 22% of gay women reported abuse within their relationships.

How does that compare to actual persecution by the straight community? The FBI reported the incidence rate of crimes relative to students in schools and uiversities is 0.00003%. Yet the hue and cry from champions of fairness and decency like Tony Jones is that the issue that needs to be addressed is churches not being welcoming enough, ignoring the destructive nature of a significant percentage of gay relationships.

As for the issue of gay marriage or unions, it is largely a myth that any such thing exists on any appreciable scale. One study of 156 "long-term" gay relationships found that not a single one of the couples was able to maintain fidelity. Another study of over 2000 gay men found that the typical number of sexual partners of that group ranged from 101-500, and many had more than 1000. Less than 3% of gay men have had a truly monogamous relationship with only one partner.

Interesting point made about homosexuality being in the genes. Genetic disorders are passed along generationally. Gay sex is sterile - there are no natural offspring, hence, the notion of passing a gay gene on to the next generation seems to militate against natural selection. If being gay is genetic, it could not last for more than a generation. "Gayness" seems to be based more on nurture than nature, and domineering mothers and absent fathers seem to play a major role in the susceptibility to homosexual temptation. The gay lobby goes nuts if any suggestion of the possibility of leaving the lifestyle is made, yet Medline databases between 1966 and 1974 include over 1000 articles offering evidence of homosexuals altering their tendencies and behavior with treatment. Yet we are told, even by "Christian" sources that there is no possibility of change because homosexuality is fixed and a "gift from God"

My point is simply this. Arguing scriptural prohibitions with Christians who advocate for full inclusion of gays in society and the church is futile. Secular activists do not care what scripture says and many consider Christianity to be the most oppressive of all ideologies. Liberal Christians embrace an approach to scripture that makes determining the meaning of the text something akin to either decoding a secret cypher or using a Ouija board. The text doesn't matter to them - they only care who controls the interpretation.

Likewise, framing the issue in the emotional realm of "rights" granted or denied is equally futile. In our post-modern society where truth is always culturally determined, there is no standard for weighing the rights of one group against another. Tribal warfare is the ethos of the day - agitation for causes trumps appeal to legal precedent or the longterm greater good that might be gained by the many if the few exercised restraint.

There might be hope of slowing or reversing the erosion of standards in the church if the emotions of personal anecdotal stories can be placed on the back burner long enough to look at some real data. Quibble over the details of this or that study, but for anyone who really wants to be objective, there is overwhelming evidence that folks in gay relationships are on a self-destructive path. And it is very hip to advocate for health related causes. We have anti-smoking campaigns, anti-drug campaigns - very good ideas - that get promoted to our youth. There are campaigns to eat better and watch cholesterol levels, to avoid fast foods, to avoid sugar, MSG, and preservatives.

Where are the calls to avoid intimate behaviors that could shorten one's life span by 30 years? To say nothing of the potential eternal consequences, this is a health issue perhaps far more statistically signifcant than smoking. Not everyone who smokes gets cancer. I'm sure the stats are a bit out of date, but as of 2003, one out of every two promiscuous gay men was at risk to become infected with AIDS. Who is really loving the gay community - the conservatives who oppose self-destructive behavior or those who give spiritual blessing to it?

Let me frame it this way. The PCUSA, Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church and Evangelical Lutheran church, in the name of being more "Christlike" and less judgmental, have made it church policy to ordain as spiritual leaders and examples those who actively participate in a lifestyle that can wreak havoc on the physical and emotional health of those who participate in that lifestyle. The leaders of those churches are far more responsible for the mental and physical health risks and deaths of gay men and women than any Christian church that upholds the traditional definition of marriage. But in an age where soppy sentiment and feelings of goodwill constantly overrule logic, genuine wisdom, and sane public policy, I expect the evangelical community will accommodate to the trends in the larger culture in a very short time.

Lord have mercy.

What is Essential

The Rob Bell flap over his views of Hell in “Love Wins” raises an interesting question. Many objected to Bell being criticized, because to them, Hell is not something we know a whole lot about, and our beliefs about the afterlife are not “essential”. So, to some, saying or implying that Bell is “out of bounds” is judgmental and wrong.

A similar question is raised by Roger Olson, who suggests that some Mormons that Mormons maybe could be considered Christians if they accept certain things about Jesus.

Augustine’s famous dictum, “on essentials, unity; on non-essentials, liberty; and in all things charity” can only guide our behavior if we have a consensus on what is essential.

Here’s my take. There are Creedal essentials, consensus issues that all Christians generally already agree on. If someone fudges on those, we have the right and duty to say that person is no longer withing the bounds of “orthodoxy”. These are primarily about Theology and Christology.

Then there are Confessional essentials. If I choose to align myself with a particular movement in Christianity, especially if I am employed by a church or denominationally affiliated organization, I am duty bound to adhere to their doctrinal statement. If I refuse, I may not be less than orthodox, but the denomination has the right to set me aside. These are usually about soteriology and ecclesiology.

Finally there are the non-essentials. Some things in scripture are just obscure. Some things in scripture probably don’t matter. We have the right to take positions, but not to divide over these.

So how does it work? I think in the Rob Bell case, it is a close call as to whether he crossed a universal line or a debated essential that is more a denominational sectarian matter, only because the creeds do not say much about hell. Can one believe in anhilationism and be orthodox? Maybe, maybe not.

Let me explain further.

Order 1 - Creedal essentials

The key issue here is idolatry. We must worship the one true God. When the great creeds were drafted, the primary issues were about the nature of God (Trinity) and the nature of Christ (Christology). Is God one God in three manifestations? No, the Arian view was found to be heretical based on scripture, baptismal formulas known from the apostolic times and other evidence of what the apostles taught. Is Christ fully man? Yes, and the Gnostic view was found to be heretical, again for scriptural, historical and deep theological reasons. So the universal essentials are mostly Creedal. The Trinity as an essential, Christology as an essential. Perhaps some who do not understand the full meaning of the terms can be redeemed, but actively worshiping the wrong God is idolatry and must be out of bounds. There was and remains a broad consensus, meaning the issues were not only decided in the 4th century creeds, but have been reaffirmed time and again for 1600 years after

Order 2 - Confessional essentials

The key issue is soteriology. The primary reason the Reformation happened is over a dispute about how salvation works. It was considered too big an issue to be set aside. Related to this were debates about ecclesiology, the power of the papacy, the succession of bishops, the “priesthood” of all believers. But the primary issue is salvation. And it was considered an essential to both sides. Protestants consider salvation by grace alone to be essential, and Paul seems to say many things like that in the New Testament, as does the writier of Hebrews. There is broad consensus across denominational lines about this. Faith alone also enjoys a broad consensus, particularly since the Joint Declaration on Justification and Vatican 2. Salvation through Christ alone certainly has an almost universal consensus.

Issues relating to sovereignty and free will are related, but not necessarily a dividing point. Sacramentalism has been a big dividing point, because it seems to many Protestants to minimize Sola Fide on one hand and Sola Christus on the other.

Order 3 – Last are the non-essentials, issues for which there is not much consensus. They may be matters that show up at the level of a Denominational or local Statement Of Faith, There may be some close calls. Matters related to modes of baptism might be considered a Confessional essential to some. I think more of views related to sign gifts, eschatology, orders of service, some matters of church polity, etc.

So back to the Rob Bell issue: Is Universalism an Order 2 issue or an order 1 issue? Is one’s view of Hell merely an issue of eschatology or is it an issue of soteriology? If one believes it is related to soteriology, then it is certainly an essential at the confessional level at minimum. It is also related to epistemology in Bell's communication style and the general ambiguity of his position. But the reason for the firestorm is that some consider the issue of Hell to be an essential at some level, while some do not.

For what it is worth, I think the Mormon issue is clearer. The LDS church, it has been abundantly documented, has always taught that Christ had a beginning, that God the Father was once a man. The Mormon view clearly runs afoul of historic orthodox Christology and Trinitarian theology. If Bell's challenge was to question the trinity or deity of Christ, no doubt he would be branded heretic by many from most traditions. But some place his musings on Hell at level 2, so he is branded as outside the norm at the level of Protestant confessions and long held understanding of numerous biblical passages.

And I think at that level, criticism of his views is fair game. Is Rob Bell a heretic for thinking some may have a second chance after the grave? Maybe, maybe not. But if I were a church elder, I would not want him to promote that view in my church.

Still Looking for Ken Miller's God

Published way back in 1999, Ken Miller's book "Finding Darwins God" was a major event in the Evolution/Creation/Intelligent Design battles. A friend loaned me a copy and I finished it today. A few observations:

Miller has an absolute commitment to naturalism as essential to science. And he is opaque to that being a problem for many theists who believe in a God who is outside of nature. He writes: "Presented modestly and accurately, evolution is a simple scientific idea. It claims only that material causes, the laws of physics and chemistry as played out in living things, are sufficient to account for the history and complexity of life. If evolution is neither more nor less than this simple scientific idea, then why does it engender such hostility?" (167)

His book is supposed to find a meeting point between Darwin and Christianity, and yet his methodology as a scientist insists that all of the history of life and all the complexity of creation can be accounted for through material causes. What he is stating here is simply the party line of materialist naturalism, the starting assumptions of Humanist Manifestos I and II and of most any world view that opposes theism and Christianity, yet he wonders why such a view might engender hostility?

Just a few pages later he writes: "At its heart, evolution is a modest idea, a minimal concept, just two points really. First the roots of the present are found in the past; and second, natural processes, observable today, fully explain the biological connections between present and past. On purely scientific terms, these two points leave very little to argue about." (174)

Again, the materialist viewpoint is fully embraced, including the universe spanning assumption that what we observe in the present will always and without fail be consistent with what occurred in the past according to natural law. This is an assumption that virtually all secular scientists and most theistic evolutionists or evolutionary creationists accept as almost a creedal statement of faith. It is one that creationists have vehemently argued against for decades precisely because it is an assumption. No one disputes the regularity of natural events. Theists have traditionally rejected the notion that such regularity is absolute.

More to the point, it is an assumption that calls into question dozens and dozens of events in both the Old and New Testaments. I have no beef with atheists who adopt naturalism, deny the miraculous and dismiss the Biblical accounts. But what place does this viewpoint have in a book that is supposed to reconcile Darwin to Christianity?

At a minimum, one who professes Christianity should accept the Nicene creed, which explicitly states God is maker of heaven and earth, that Christ was born of a virgin, that Christ rose on the third day after having suffered and died, and acknowledges a life in a world to come. I'm sure Miller, a Catholic, accepts these at some level.

But none of those creedal statements are consistent with the view that material causes account for everything in our world, nor are they consistent with the notion that all events in the past, without exception, can be explained by observations in the present. Add to these the miracles of Jesus, turning water to wine, walking on water, raising the dead, giving sight to the blind and we should see a problem. Adding further the Old Testament miracles of parting the Sea, crossing the Jordan on dry land, fire from heaven, etc., and one would think Miller and others who try to mesh naturalism with Christian faith would have a problem.

Oddly, and quite inconsistently, Miller stumbles into the issue and simply explains it away.

"Any God worthy of the name has to be capable of miracles, and each of the great Western religions attributes a number of very specific miracles to their conception of God. What can science say about a miracle? Nothing. By definition, the miraculous is beyond cxplanation, beyond our understanding, beyond science. This does not mean that miracles do not occur. A key doctrine in my own faith is that Jesus was born of a virgin, even though it makes no scientific sense-there is the matter of Jesus' Y-chromosome to account for. But that is the point. Miracles by definition, do not have to make scientific sense. ..(239)

What miller has forcefully and rudely taken away from the Creationist - the acts of God in nature in the creation of the universe, the earth and all living beings - he now attempts to reclaim in the events of the Gospels without offending any materialists in his academic community. He believes miracles can occur, but claims science can say nothing about them. So on one hand the possibility of miracles cannot be disproven by science, and on the other they are no threat to science. Does Miller see no conflict between his view that all biological, geological, astronomical and chemical phenomena can be explained in reference to natural law, but yet the virgin birth is something science simply cannot touch?

If the virgin birth is outside the reach of science, on what basis does he insist that nothing miraculous could have occurred in the origins of the universe? The origins of life? In essence, he dismisses the views of creationists for failing to follow scientific materialism to the letter, then reclaims the virgin birth by excluding it from scientific materialism.

Eventually, after arguing for the absolute certainty of the materialist, Darwinist model for the origins and development of life, he has to somehow find a way to squeeze God back into his thesis. He does so by introducing the idea of quantum indeterminacy. In short, the regularity of nature is not entirely predictable at the subatomic level. This means, for Miller, that determinism is false, that in the end science cannot predict or know everything, and somehow this leaves room for both freedom and for the activity of God.

"Even the most devout believer would have to say that when God does act in the world, He does so with care and with subtlety. At a minimum, the continuing existence of the universe itself can be attributed to God. The existence of the universe is not self-explanatory, and to a believer the existence of every particle, wave and field is a product of the continuing will of God. That's a start which would keep most of us busy, but the Western understanding of God requires more than universal maintenance. Fortunately, in scientific terms, if there is a God, He has left Himself plenty of material to work with. To pick just one example, the indeterminate nature of quantum events would allow a clever and subtle God to influence events in ways that are profound, but scientifically undetectable to us. (241)

Note that this is not an argument for the existence of God. It is merely the assertion of a possibility. And in the end, IF God acts at the quantum level to sovereignly influence events, possibly including the development of life itself, God's actions would NOT be detectable.

So belief is relegated to the realm of the unverifiable, allowing science the sole claim to objective certainty. He has reconciled faith to Darwinism by sequestering them into separate realities. Nothing about quantum indeterminacy requires belief in God, but for Miller, it is sufficient to insert God into that gap in our knowledge to allow some to still believe without opposing the scientific academy.

Here he does the same thing to ID proponents he did to the Creationists. He uses the very logic for his own view that he denied to them. He insists that ID amounts to a "god of the gaps" approach, where whatever we cannot fully explain by natural mechanisms is by default attributed to God. Such a suggestion (which does not accurately represent the ID position) is impermissible. Yet our gap in knowledge about why photons randomly pass through a mirror leaves an opening somehow for God to invisibly act. In what way is inserting God into quantum indeterminacy not also a "God of the gaps" approach?

Ultimately, nothing about Miller's (Darwin's) God resembles the Biblical, miracle-working Creator. Those who claimed to be eyewitnesses to the resurrection may not have used scientific terms to describe what they saw, but none would likely suggest the resurrection was explainable by natural causes alone, or that the action of God in that event was beyond detection. Instead, they insisted that they saw, held, touched something real. "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. (1 John 1:1) In the Biblical accounts, God created all, acted in history, did things that were visible, verifiable and left physical evidence. If Miller finds such notions of acts of God that left tangible evidence unscientific, on what real basis does he still believe in the virgin birth?

There are other details: I think he misunderstands Henry Morris' objections to radiometric dating, I think he under represents Behe's irreducible complexity arguments. Written in 1999 he could not have dealt with Stephen Meyer's arguments regarding the origins of life or ID arguments regarding genetic information and specified complexity.

But most importantly, I think Miller fails in the same way all attempts to mesh Darwin with Christianity fail. Science is given magisterial authority that cannot be questioned and scriptural accounts are diluted to the point that they are unrecognizable. And he trips over his own arguments.

In the end, Miller's book is an account that details THAT he believes in both Darwin and God, details WHY he accepts Darwin, but in no way explains WHY he believes in God or why anyone else should. If his intent was to reconcile faith and science, it fails to do anything other than elevate science over faith and turn faith into a mere irrational hope based on indeterminacy.