At Jesus Creed, the continued Evangelizing in the name of Christian Darwinism continues with a post by the prolific guest blogger RJS. The post is titled “Evolution, Belief, and the Virgin Birth” and features a discussion of a book by Robert Asher, “ Evolution and Belief: Confessions of a Religious Paleontologist.”
While I think I should be fair and say that I believe both RJS and Scott McKnight would profess to affirm tenets of the faith called into question by the author of the book, the rather uncritical discussion of the views and the ho-hum tone of the comments indicate a great deal of comfort with one who questions central doctrines of the historical Christian faith.
RJS has been a steadfast champion of Evolutionary Creationism, what used to be called Theistic Evolution. In the views presented in her posts, the primary constant is that science requires a commitment to seeking understanding of nature through natural processes alone. Though she is a theist and an adherent to Christianity, she sees natural law as vital to the scientific enterprise. Adding the possibility of interference from somewhere “outside of nature” is anathema to the science academy, which means no miracles are permitted, particularly in the discussion of origins. That raises a bit of a contradiction when EC’s deal with New Testament miracles such as the resurrection and virgin birth of Christ, as we shall see. (Read More)
RJS’ post finds Dr. Asher coming to the conclusion that the virgin birth is untenable. As such, Jesus Creed is found favorably discussing the work of a professed Christian who redefines the virgin birth to comport with a purely naturalistic science.
I’ve read Jesus Creed and RJS’ posts for years and I find it unsurprising that it has come to this. I find it necessary to note that the subheading under the “Jesus Creed” masthead is “Exploring the Significance of Jesus and the Orthodox Faith for the 21st Century”, Orthodox, being the key word.
Orthodoxy has been understood as adherence to the historic doctrines of the faith as stated in the three great creeds, which contain statements affirming the virgin birth and the resurrection.
Here, however, what we “explore” as significant to the 21st century is a denial of the virgin birth because that doctrine fails to fit within the more essential dogma of cause and effect within naturalistic science.
RJS sums up the direction of Robert Asher’s approach: “The very idea of a miraculous conception, that a virgin conceived and bore a son, hits a nerve in our secular Western society – both modern and postmodern. Frankly is it unscientific. (my emphasis) Robert Asher does not see acceptance of the virgin birth as traditionally understood to be either reasonable or necessary.”
She quotes Asher: “Female humans do not give birth unless they have been inseminated. As he was a human being, I infer based on what I know of biology that Christ would have developed in His mother’s womb, from zygote to morula to embryo to fetus. ...Everything that I understand about human biology indicates that He, too, had a biological father. There is no doubt, however, that this father was perceived as divine by his followers. As a human being, of course Christ had a biological father; it is not rational to believe otherwise.”
How does Asher deal with the gospels accounts? By saying the disciples “perceived” Christ’s father was divine. But rationality and science will not allow the notion of an actual virgin birth. Which gets to the question of whether miracles are possible. Asher says no.
“The “do you believe in miracles?” question assumes an opposition between “nature” and “god” that is wholly our own fabrication, as if the two compete with one another for our attention. This question presumes a philosophy that the two things are independent, even antagonistic – but I don’t think they are. Rather one is an expression of the other. God cannot “intrude” into the normal operation of nature because, the way I see it, nature is a part of God; it represents God’s thought, or laws, in action. He cannot intrude upon himself.
What we are left with, then, is a natural law that is immutable, a God who is invisible because “nature is a part of God”, which sounds more pantheist than Christian.
RJS does then refer to Polkinghorne as an alternate viewpoint, but does not seem to indicate that Polkinghorne’s view is better or more correct.
She sums it all up by saying that the purpose of the writers of the Gospels was to point to the interaction of God in relationship to people rather than the intervention of God into the physical realm. The purpose, she says, is to tell the story of the gospel. In this context RJS says, in seeming agreement with Asher: “Where did the male DNA (of Christ) come from? I rather expect that if we could do the genetic testing it would trace back to Joseph.”
One has to conclude from such a statement that Jesus, in her view, indeed could have had a human father.
So what are we to make of the notion of is “Exploring the Significance of Jesus and the Orthodox Faith for the 21st Century” if the virgin birth is included in the very definition of Orthodoxy in the form of the Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed? Natural cause and effect must be upheld, even if it means redefining a statement of faith that Christians have held for centuries, and even if it has to contradict the story of the conception of Jesus in the gospels.
To be clear.
• If one denies the virgin birth, one denies a long established doctrine of the Christian Creeds as well as the accounts of the gospels as written.
• If one denies the virgin birth on the basis of natural cause and effect then one must, to be logically consistent, also deny the resurrection as a violation of natural cause and effect. Conversely, if one denies the virgin birth on the basis of immutable natural law but accepts the physical resurrection, one is not being logically consistent.
• If one denies the virgin birth and/or the resurrection, then one has denied the orthodox Christian faith.
This is not an accusation based on malice, it is simple logic. What is advocated here is a way of thinking about the Gospels that is in opposition to Christian Orthodoxy as defined in the Creeds of Christendom.
It all seems so unnecessary, save for the unwavering commitment to the unverifiable assumption of the immutability of natural cause and effect. I have always found it presumptuous to insist on the immutability of natural law if one is a non-theist, but for a “theist” to do so remains to me exceedingly illogical. I have interacted in the comment sections with RJS in the past on this point, to no avail.
If, as Asher apparently thinks, God cannot “intrude” upon nature, because “nature is a part of God”, one has to wonder, how did nature begin? Is nature eternally part of God? Then in what sense is God the Creator? We might as well go on and excise that line about the “Creator of Heaven and Earth” out the creed as well, certainly the part about being creator of “all things visible and invisible”.
But, back to the logic, if one claims to be a theist and affirms that God created, then is the first act of creating not acting outside of nature? If God did not act in some way that is distinct from nature, in what sense is He God? Is not the very existence of nature a miracle – the imposition of divine creativity on something that did not previously exist? If God created “all things visible and invisible” then logic dictates at minimum that the first step in creation was not contained within nature and natural law, hence natural law is not immutable – its very existence began as a change from nothing to something.
Still, based on this ongoing futile attempt to reconcile naturalism to Christianity, we are asked to accept that to be a “Christian” who is honest with the science, that God is there – somewhere, completely invisible to any sort of detection. We can only see nature as cause and effect, all natural effects must have a natural cause. There can be no intrusion upon nature. If so, then God is unreachable by anything remotely like “science”, but somehow still vital to our lives, souls and minds.
Theistic Evolutionists or Evolutionary Creationists will usually insist that indeed “the heavens declare the Glory of God”. They do not seem to acknowledge that ultimately they cannot say how nature declares the Glory of God because nature functions just fine in the complete absence of any detectable activity of God. The insistence is that the heavens function only according to natural law ultimately leaves us with a mechanism that declares the absence of God far more clearly than any notion of His presence or activity. Nothing in a natural order that functions purely within itself says anything at all about God.
We will be told, regardless, that the wonder of nature is still, somehow, a testament to the creative genius of God behind it all, in some undetectable form, just don’t call it “design” or attribute to nature any sense of “purpose”. Only “randomness” or unguided change working with natural selection can be allowed. Even though Asher speaks of “purpose” and “randomness”, if anyone not beholden to pure naturalism uses a word to describe that creativity in terms of “design”, that one is immediately branded a “science denier” or a dreaded “creationist”, treated with derogatory dismissiveness.
What is exceedingly clear is that in the academy and the lab, there is one and only one dogma that cannot be violated – the immutability of natural law. That is the faith that is proclaimed, that is the doctrine that must be taught at all costs, that is the creedal statement that must be affirmed if one is to avoid excommunication.
And predictably, as one bows the knee to the immutability of nature, as one recites the Creed of naturalistic cause and effect, the Orthodox faith which insists on a Creator who acted in miraculous ways in Creation, Incarnation and Resurrection is eroded away to nothing. “Exploring the Significance of Jesus and the Orthodox Faith for the 21st Century” is reduced to slowly discarding any tenets of Orthodoxy that smack of the supernatural.
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