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.”
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.
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