While Shoveling the Driveway

Just a thought. This last weekend we were warned that a major winter storm was about to hit our area. This took me as a surprise because I had checked an online weather site less than 48 hours prior and nothing of the sort was predicted. My wife informed me of the forecast on Sunday - that it was supposed to start snowing Sunday evening and continue through the following day, leaving 10 or more inches of snow. I watched and waited until I retired Sunday night, wondering if schools would close and how long it would take to clear my driveway.

I woke up to find a modest 2-3 inches of snow - a minor inconvenience, not quite what was predicted.

I've seen this pattern repeated over and over, as has anyone who has tried to plan a spring camping trip. Listen to the weather reports on one TV station and you may or may not hear the same thing on another. Online weather services often show different forecasts. If you are looking at the next day forecast, the accuracy is usually pretty good. If the forecast is for three days out, not so much. If the forecast is for five days out - well, you'd better check back in a couple of days.

Theistic Inconsistency

I have been following the review of Steven Meyer's new book "Signature in the Cell" at Jesus Creed and, while the conversation there has been frustrating and at times heated, I have come to one clear conclusion. I find that it is impossible to see intellectual consistency in belief in orthodox Christianity while holding to the standard secularist definition of "science".

If that sounds strong or harsh, hear me out.

Secular science as defined by Judge Overton, insists on a uniformity of natural causes in a closed system. That is, since science can only examine natural phenomena, one can leap to the conclusion that every detectable effect found in nature must therefore have a detectable natural cause, explainable by natural law alone. Any appeal to something other than nature, it is asserted, violates the definition of science (and is sufficient cause for ridicule, insult and questioning the worthiness of one’s PhD.) Theistic Evolutionists like Meyers’ reviewer, do not assert there is nothing beyond nature, only that science, by definition, must never appeal to something beyond nature.

But for anyone who accepts the New Testament as a description of real events, this is a huge problem. If one is an orthodox Christian, one must affirm the creedal statements regarding the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ. Those are the rock bottom central assertions of Biblical Christianity, without which there is nothing left of historic Christianity. And those are events which are asserted as verifiable within the natural world, seen by eyewitnesses, but which by definition have no natural cause.

William Lane Craig on Romans 9

I've been recently confronted with a number of debates about Sovereignty and free will. Willaim Lane Craig has this to say about Romans 9 and the corporate view of election, which essentially says election is not about God individually predestining some to salvation and others to condemnation, but God choosing a "people", those who are "in Christ". Craig writes:

"[L]et's talk about Paul's doctrine of election in Romans. I want to share with you a perspective on Paul's teaching that I think you'll find very illuminating and encouraging. Typically, as a result of Reformed theology, we have a tendency to read Paul as narrowing down the scope of God's election to the very select few, and those not so chosen can't complain if God in His sovereignty overlooks them. I think this is a fundamental misreading of the chapter which makes very little sense in the context of Paul's letter.

Misquoting Augustine Part 5

Having looked at Augustine’s view of Genesis from his “City of God”, it is clear Theistic Evolution advocates should not use Augustine’s “Literal Meaning of Genesis” to make that case because Augustine was fairly thoroughly committed to positions that are in direct opposition to their central premise.

I have my reasons for trusting the “plain meaning” of scripture where scripture seems to be plain, though I acknowledge not all in scripture is equally plain. There are many quotations from Augustine, Athanasius and others in the early church as well as the reformers, well prior to the “modernist/fundamentalist” controversy of the early 20^th century, that assert long held belief in the trustworthiness of scripture.

Having said that, I do not completely accept the Young Earth view in many details because I am not sure the text is entirely clear as to its meaning. I do not think the age of the earth is a critical issue and I think the length of a day in the creation week seems a fairly secondary concern, hardly central to the faith.

I am, however, sympathetic to the main concerns of YEC. Those concerns are

1) that the definition of science must not be limited to naturalism and

2) Christianity without the historical fall of Adam and Eve is more like a placebo than a medicine. I settle my own mind by focusing on a couple of key ideas.

Misquoting Augustine Part 4

Before I get to a personal conclusion regarding Genesis, a thought occurs to me in regard to the origins debate.

Is it possible that there is confusion in the muddled idea of science that exists in the public consciousness, a confusion that extends into the science academy, science classroom, the literature, about what the limits of science are?

Everyone agrees, whether naturalist, creationist, ID advocate or theistic evolutionist, that science rightly studies phenomena in the natural realm - physical objects, measurable forces, detectable energy - all in accordance with natural law. Where the problem lies is not with science. It is a straw man to say ID or creationism rejects science. What opponents of naturalism reject is not science but the inferences made as a result of certain assumptions.

Misquoting Augustine Part 3

In the previous two posts I looked briefly at Augustine’s “Literal Meaning of Genesis” and its use by theistic evolutionists to bolster their case for a fairly figurative reading of Genesis. It should be stated clearly that the main question we are asking is “what is the most natural interpretation of Genesis?” We ask this particularly in the context of how Augustine understood Genesis some 1400 years before Darwin.

The point put forward by some advocates of theistic evolution is that even prior to Darwin, Augustine allowed for a fairly open interpretation of Genesis and discouraged Christians untrained in the sciences from connecting Genesis to scientific explanations. If those connections were proved to be false by the advance of science, we are told, Christianity would be discredited.

Misquoting Augustine Part 2

In part 1 I took a look at a particular quotation from Augustine’s Literal Meaning of Genesis (LMoG) used by theistic evolutionists to argue that it is unwise to read the Genesis creation account in a way that conflicts with current scientific consensus. Francis Collins' Biologos website makes Augustine appear to be a fairly prominent ally in a fairly flexible interpretation of Genesis 1-11.

While taken as a lone quotation, Augustine’s plea that “we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it” may indeed be a valid caution for all who seek to provide any scientific explanation for the fine details of Genesis 1. Theistic Evolutionists use this quote primarily as a rebuke to Young Earth Creationism, but often include in their sights the more “Old-Earth” views of folks like Hugh Ross and even the advocates of Intelligent Design who generally make no reference to Genesis at all. The goal of theistic evolutionists in quoting Augustine is primarily to convince Christians that Darwinism in toto is not incompatible with faith.

But those who quote Augustine in this way usually fail to mention Augustine’s views of the historicity of Adam, the historicity of the fall and the effects of the fall, which are far more central to a traditional position on questions of origins than the age of the earth or the precise mechanism of the initial creation of time, matter, space and energy. As we shall see later, Augustine would fully agree with a number of YEC views on topics pertaining to Genesis 3-11.