Thinking Christian

Book Review

My generation grew up saturated with scientific optimism. I was born just a few months before Sputnik took man into space for the first time, and I can vividly remember watching the TV broadcast of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the surface of the moon. Science—both physical and behavioral—was succeeding spectacularly. There was just one major world conflict to worry about—the Cold War—and it seemed that if we could just get beyond that, nothing could halt our progress toward a marvelous future of cooperative abundance based in human rational prowess. In the process, everyone knew, superstitions like religion would be supplanted by scientific understanding. We didn’t need God. Man would figure everything out on his own, through his autonomous reason (we said “man” and “his” that way then, oblivious to issues of sexism).

This was the modernist hope and dream. It was wrong.

We were the last American generation to grow up with such rationalist optimism (the last one in Europe was probably earlier). Even for us, that attitude was already under severe pressure. Science had not prevented the Holocaust, and someone like Josef Mengele could even operate under its banner. In the Soviet Union, psychiatry was being criminally employed against dissenters. The atom bomb was metaphorically hanging over all of our heads. When questions of civil rights came to the fore, science and other rationalist approaches had virtually nothing to offer in answer. The ’60s generation began asking “Who am I?” “What’s my purpose?” “Why should I bother with my parents’ morality?” Hallucinogenic drugs, the ultimate in anti-rationality, had their heyday. Religion was beginning its resurgence around the globe.

In short, modernist rationality failed in its promise, and its failure paved the way for postmodernism. How shall I summarize postmodernism? Very carefully, gingerly, and with a strong disclaimer: this brief paragraph will distort as much as it explains. Postmodernism is an attitude as much as a philosophy. It recognizes the failure of modernist, autonomous rationality to explain meaning, value, and truth; and it concludes that any attempt at explanation must be empty, at best an exercise in power. Language is not for representing reality—there is no reality to be represented—but for playing domination games. Religion in particular is about power, not truth. Not just that, but because of many religions’ arrogant confidence that they hold the truth, they represent some of the most dangerous handlers of power.

Now if I were putting that forth as anything like a full description of postmodernism, I’m guilty of a terrible irresponsibility. If on the other hand I have hinted that there is something important in postmodernism, something crucial for Christians to be aware of, to understand and study further, then I may hope I am contributing something positive thereby. For me, born in the mid-1950s, postmodernism is virtually a foreign world. It is the world I live in, however. It is missionaries’ responsibility to understand the culture in which they minister.

Where did today’s relativism come from? What is the real source of “identity politics” (politics of race, gender, etc.)? Why do gay-rights advocates take conservative Christians’ disagreements as “hate language”? How can present-day theologians come up with such disparate interpretations of the Bible? Why do

Christians, we are all missionaries. We have homework to do.

The question is, how to understand this philosophical and cultural current? Postmodernism is infamously confusing. How does one go about learning more about it? Heath White’s Postmodernism 101: A First Course for the Curious Christian (Brazos Press, 2006) is a great place to begin.

It’s well named: it is indeed a 101-level book; very clearly written, with virtually no technical language and hardly any five-syllable words (unless you draw “ism” out to two syllables!). Yet it’s thoughtfully written. I never felt I was being talked down to.

Professor White, who teaches philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, tells us his background is in the “evangelical wing of Protestant Christianity.” Coming from that standpoint, he is clearly not afraid to identify both strengths and weaknesses in postmodernism. For instance, on page 155:

Postmodernism blows the whistle on the many false promises of modernity, which puts its faith in reason and progress rather than God. Postmoderns are remarkably clear-eyed about the failures of modernity and about the sickness, oppression, and death that pervade our world. Their multiple alternative accounts of history have the merit of bringing these evils to our attention. Postmodern though, however, is critical, skeptical, and deconstructive, without any new remedies to offer. It often engenders a worldview of deep hopelessness.

In the face of this pessimism, however, Christianity offers not cheery optimism but divine promises.

He elaborates on those promises, and especially how they relate to modernism and postmodernism. In short, they don’t fit well with either. Neither modernism nor postmodernism proves to be satisfying or coherent in the end. But these are not our only two options. Before modernism there was premodernism, which took human rationality as useful and reliable if applied under the direction and within the guidelines of revelation. Something much like that seems to be the best way forward even today, when modernism’s failures are evident, and where the situation for postmodernism is likely to be along the lines White describes on pages 160-161:

Postmodernism may [someday, eventually] collapse from its own contradictions and its inability to account for historical events, the way many aspects of modernism have. September 11, 2001, may do to postmodern moral relativism what the Holocaust did to modern ideas of moral progress. Alternatively, postmodernism may be sidelined into irrelevance, especially from a Christian point of view. By 2025, two-thirds of Christians will live in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, cultures where the history and guiding ideas of Western civilization—the springs of postmodern thought—are simply much less important than they are in North America and Europe.

It is a fairly safe bet that the general distrust of truth and knowledge that marks postmodernism is temporary. This skeptical syndrome flares up at intervals throughout history; it is a response to intellectual exhaustion and often portends something remarkable and new…. Postmodern doubt is a frame of mind in the same mold, a response to the fruitlessness of modern approaches. Because a new way forward has always manifested itself before, we can expect that it will do so again. The shape of that intellectual revolution to come, however, is not yet clear.

I recommend this book to youth pastors and campus ministers; indeed to anyone in ministry who seeks to understand the last several decades’ cultural changes, and the attitudes of those who are a product of those changes. It’s also good material for interested college students and advanced high school students. Readers who regard themselves as postmodern may see that theirs is not the only cure for modernist failings. Those of us who look on postmodernism as deeply confused will better understand how that confusion arose—and we may be warned against accepting modernist (autonomous) rationality as the only or best alternative.

Postmodernism 101: A First Course for the Curious Christian by Heath White. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006. Amazon.com Price US $12.23. Paperback, 176 pages, including annotated bibliography.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Thinking Christianly | 1 Comment »

Dallas Willard writes in The Divine Conspiracy (p. 335),

“God,” Paul said, “makes clear the greatness of his love for us through the fact that Christ died for us while we were still rebelling against him” (Rom. 5:8).

The exclusiveness of the Christian revelation of God lies here. No one can have an adequate view of the heart and purposes of the God of the universe who does not understand that he permitted his son to die on the cross to reach out to all people, even people who hated him. That is who God is. But that is not just a “right answer” to a theological question. It is God looking at me from the cross with compassion and providing for me, with never-failing readiness to take my hand to walk on through life from wherever I may find myself at the time.

God’s deep, gracious love is proved in the price he paid in love on our behalf. Christ died for us. He died in love, to bring us to God, to break down the sin barrier between us and God.

One could go into explaining how the cross of Christ accomplished that: how sin separated us from God, earning us death, and how Christ paid that price for us. Let’s not dwell there this time, though. For now, let’s consider this fact in its simplicity: the price that God imposed, God paid. The price was death (Romans 3:23). God made the payment through the death of God the Son, Jesus Christ. He was the one the Father called his beloved, who often proclaimed his own eternal unity with the Father (John 10:30, John 17). He died by crucifixion, among the most torturous methods of execution ever practiced by a government on earth.

As Willard recalls the love of God that led God to do this for us, he throws in that terrible cultural hand grenade, the word exclusiveness. He had, to, though. It’s really quite inescapable. If the Christian message is at all true, then it is exclusively true. It cannot be one of several options. It is either exclusively true or it is thoroughly wrong.

Though this may be difficult, in an age when pluralism and inclusivism are considered among the chief virtues, I think anyone might be able to see this necessity. It is impossible to include Christianity—the kind of Christianity that centers on the life, death, and resurrection of Christ—in a list of ways to know God. Even if one doubts Jesus ever said what he did about being the only way to God (as in John 14:6, for example), it should be clear that he cannot be one of many items on a spiritual menu.

Let us consider what it would mean if he were. Suppose Eckhart Tolle and Oprah and the Bahá’ís and all the other inclusivists are right. Suppose Christianity is one of many paths to God, to enlightenment, fulfillment, Nirvana, or whatever the real goal is.

Then the universe offers us many ways to reach our best destiny. Whatever reality is at its core, there’s something about it that gives humans a real place, a real direction, a real destiny. Somehow in some personal or impersonal (and therefore metaphoric) way, the universe has us in mind, and it offers us all kinds of ways to flourish for now and for beyond. We just have to pick one of those ways off the universe’s spiritual menu. Let’s see, will I have the t-bone or the tofu?

Reality isn’t too picky. It’s nice to us, in a way. It wants us to be free to choose. You can follow any number of paths, many of which really are rather nice ideas. Experiencing the Now (per Tolle) is a nice idea. New Age spirituality of all kinds fits well into the “nice” category. The Secret says everything will go well if you’ll just think more positively. Those are a couple of attractive options. Let’s just make sure we include Jesus. The cross of Christ is another nice thing on the spiritual menu. Wasn’t that sweet of God the Father to offer his own Son’s torture and death as one of our options?

No!

When Jesus faced the cross it was in agony, with sweat dripping as blood. This was even before he was arrested—he knew what was coming! Was that one of the universe’s nice ideas for us?

His friends and followers deserted him–as he knew they would do. Was that one of the universe’s nice ideas for us?

He was cruelly tortured and mocked. Was that one of the universe’s nice ideas for us?

He hung on that infamously cruel cross, dying in excruciating pain while they laughed at him. Was that one of the universe’s nice ideas for us?

He was stabbed in the side, so that water and blood flowed out. Was that one of the universe’s nice ideas for us?

His body was wrapped up, entombed in the dark. Was that one of the universe’s nice ideas for us?

There is nothing nice about the cross. It is unthinkable that this was an item on some spiritual menu, one choice among many, something we could feel free to pass over in favor of positive thinking (or any other supposed path to God). 

Christ’s resurrection makes manifest the glory of both his death and his life. It redeems the loss of his death. It makes its greatness even greater. But it does not make it nice. And it hardly supports anyone’s view that Christ is just one of many enlightened ones!

C.S. Lewis said in another context,

But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Neither did he leave open the possibility that he might be just one of many spiritual options. He did not intend to.

Posted by Tom Gilson under New Age & Thinking Christianly & Worshiping Christian | 2 Comments »

Truth In the Fire
I have written appreciatively twice of Dallas Willard lately. Now I turn to his article, Truth in the Fire: C.S. Lewis and Pursuit of Truth Today: Publications: The Independent Institute. Originally delivered as a lecture ten years ago at the C.S. Lewis Centennial at Oxford University, this paper springboards from Lewis’s understanding of Truth, and attacks being made upon it in Lewis’s time, to a more contemporary discussion of the same issue. (Dallas Willard is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California.)

Everything we believe, everything we understand about the world, hinges on this issue. A colleague of mine has written a book (now out of print), God Is the Issue. I do not intend to say that Truth is above God, or more important than God. But God is consistently identified in his Word as the source of Truth, and as Truth himself (2 Samuel 22:32, Psalm 18:30, John 5:31-32, John 7:18, John 14:6, 1 John 5:20).

The Truth that is in God is multi-faceted: it involves his personal faithfulness, his consistency, his keeping his word, his integrity. It also involves what is technically, somewhat coldly perhaps, called propositional truth: that which allows us to affirm or to deny that something is in fact true in a meaningful sense (see Deuteronomy 18:22, 2 Samuel 7:28, John 19:35, Acts 26:25, 2 Corinthians 7:14).

Propositional truth itself is “In the Fire,” the phrase Willard uses in the title of his paper. Postmodern-leaning Christians often dismiss it: “How can you reduce the truth of God to mere propositions?” But that of course is a straw man. To insist on the reality of propositional truth is not to deny the other various aspects of God’s truth, any more than to insist that birds can fly is to deny they can sing. God can be (and is) personally faithful, at the same time that statements regarding him (or other subjects) may be true or false.

Rumors of Relativity
Of course the question is not raised only in regard to God. Propositional truth is denied on general terms, or is accepted only on the understanding that it is not objective. Truth is relative, they say. As Willard puts it:

In the face of present attitudes, however, even earnestness about truth—also about goodness and beauty—is definitely uncool. It might be tolerated in a Freshman. But he or she would be expected to wise up quickly, and might pay a stiff price for not doing so. The idea of devoting one’s life to truth, goodness or beauty is now quaint if not ridiculous, on the campus as in the corporation. They are not considered to be objective realities against which human life is or can be measured.

To encourage you to read the whole article, I’ll pick up a few points from it. First, on this belief that all truth is relative, Willard disagrees, to put it mildly. I stand with him.

All this puts us in position to see that, while belief is relative—a fact or statement is believed only if someone believes it—truth is not relative. One believes something, one does not truth it or fact it. Again, we can and should experiment with this. Try getting your car to run by believing gas is in your tank. Or by also enlisting others to believe it, or by generating a social movement in favor of it.

Pilate’s Question
But what do we mean by “truth?” Willard dares (such audacity!) to suggest an explanation, including,

When the object of our belief or statement is as we believe or state it to be, when it “matches up” to that object in the familiar way already indicated by cases, our belief or statement is true. Truth is just this characteristic of “matching up.” Otherwise our belief or statement is false. Truth and falsity are, then, objective properties of beliefs and statements….

For a belief, thought or statement to be true is simply for its subject matter to be as it is represented, or as it is held to be, in that belief, thought or statement. When we confirm that a hitherto unconfirmed belief or statement is true, we do not create the relation (correspondence) it actually has to what it is about, any more that we create the fit of a wrench to a bolt head by placing the wrench on the bolt head, or the fit of a door to a frame by putting the door in the frame….

Moreover, truth, as we have seen in the case of fact and reality, is totally unyielding in the face of belief, desire, tradition and will. There is no such thing as a belief or statement whose quality of truth or falsity is modified by mere belief or disbelief, desire or aversion, habit or tradition or social practice or professional opinion, or will and intent. We state it once again: belief is relative, as are our perceptions, but truth is not. Truth is a relation, a “correspondence,” but not one that depends upon belief or attitude….

A dignitary such as Pontius Pilate or a university professor can well say, rhetorically, “What is truth?” But that is never accepted as a response from a child being interrogated about vanished cookies, nor will a child accept it as an explanation of a broken promise. They know what truth is very well, even though, as they also know, it is not easy to determine in some cases. —Is it true there is a Santa Claus, for example, or a tooth fairy?

Is that so complicated, now? Well, of course there are issues attending this matter of truth, which Willard acknowledges in his paper. But the central foundation of it was never challenged for century upon century. It was only when men began to doubt everything except the evidence of their senses that they began to doubt such a thing as truth exists. Intuitively it is obvious even to a child; but intuitions don’t boil in a beaker, and they don’t generate a satisfyingly measurable electrical field, so the empiricists thought they must not be real. Never mind that (as Willard points out) they could not determine they were unreal without depending on their being real.

Why It Matters So
And why is this such a crucial matter? Simply this: without the ability to speak a true statement, to affirm a true proposition, then one cannot say things like,

• “God is love.”
• “Jesus Christ is the Word of God become flesh, full of grace and truth.”
• “Eternal life is found in Jesus Christ.”

These things cannot either be affirmed or denied. They are without content. They may be opinions, but they can be neither right nor wrong.

Further, without the ability to affirm something as true (even potentially), the following cannot be said, even to disagree with them:

• Opinions about God are without content.
• They may be opinions, but they can neither be right nor wrong.
• These things cannot be said, even to disagree with them.
• Nothing in fact can be affirmed as actually true, or denied as being actually false.

I hope you’ve noticed this is turning self-referential, as the philosophers put it. A self-referential statement is one like, “The sentence I am now writing is ten words long.” That happens to be true, if I counted right. Here’s another self-referential statement. “The statement I am now writing is false.” That one is not only false, it is incoherent, impossible; it cannot be true unless it is false; it cannot be false without being true. A better description for it is nonsense.

In a similar sense, if all truth is relative then the last several bulleted statements above are true, but if they are true propositions, then there are no true propositions. They are in the same condition as “This statement is false.” If they are true, then they are false.

Desperate Separation
One who denies truth denies all affirmations, all denials, all discourse. The result is not only to remain desperately separated from God, also to create a whole new kind of separation from each other. We can talk to each other, but your words and mine have no common referent, no meaning in common. You speak your language and I mine, but we can have no shared understanding: for there is no objective reality out there for us to share in.

It is a philosophy of absurdity. More grievous than that, though, it is a philosophy of utter alienation.

Hat tip (three weeks ago, saved until I had time to work on it): Victor Reppert

Posted by Tom Gilson under Thinking Christianly | 1 Comment »

There’s a potential false conclusion to steer clear of as you read Edward Tingley’s article, “The Skeptical Inquirer,” on which I blogged yesterday. He refers to Blaise Pascal’s statement that God cannot be known through the senses. One might suppose that he is saying that it is impossible to perceive God in any way. Whatever Tingley and Pascal might say to that, I would put it this way: While it is not impossible to see God, it is possible not to see God.

I was thinking about this on my drive home from the office, on the Colonial National Parkway between Williamsburg and Yorktown, Virginia. The drive begins in a forest of tall pines, dogwoods, oak, and maple trees, and continues along the York River, a place of unusual calm and beauty. I could certainly see God in that (his workings, that is, or better yet, his artistry). I can see him in the members of my family, and hear him in the birds singing as I sit on the back porch now.

Psalm 19:1 says “the Heavens declare the glory of God.” Romans 1:19-20 adds that

what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

And yet many do not see God there.

The same could be said for the historical evidences for God in Jesus Christ. There is ample evidence for the life of Christ in history; see Craig Blomberg’s article on this, for example. As for his death and resurrection, it’s marvelously explanatory. It makes sense of the generally agreed facts surrounding the events, and it explains the remarkable turn history took following Jesus’ (by ordinary standards) relatively obscure life. It lays the foundation for answers such as no other system of thought can provide for deep existential questions regarding the human condition, and what is to be done about it.

Yet many can see the same questions and consider the same answers, and not see God.

The classic philosophical arguments for God, likewise, explain conundrums like consciousness, reason, purpose, the existence of the universe, and more. They, too, are persuasive arguments for the reality of God.

I and many others see God there, yet still others do not.

Though it is not impossible to see God, it is possible not to see him. This, I think is the point to be taken home from Tingley’s and Pascal’s skepticism regarding finding God through the senses. Evidence can be interpreted in multiple ways, so in the end, though the senses can speak to the question of God, they cannot decide it.

Tingley’s important reminder for us is that they cannot decide against God any more than they can definitively decide for God. Those who seek a final conclusion on the matter must look elsewhere. Pascal suggests the heart as one place to look. It’s a suggestion worthy of real reflection.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Evidences & Thinking Christianly | 4 Comments »

National Faculty Leadership Conf 2008

You are warmly invited to join hundreds of professors, graduate students and others serving in academia in celebrating the greatness of Christ and in enriching our ability to serve him, one another, and the world.

I was there in 2006, and found it well worth the time and expense. Check out the academic tracks and the plenary sessions. The lineup is outstanding, yet you may find that the encouragement you receive there is even more valuable than these. The conference is hosted by Faculty Commons, part of the
I am not sure at this point if I will be there this time–I’m deciding between that conference and this one from CrossExamined. If I’m not there, I’ll definitely be wishing I could have been at both of them.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Thinking Christianly | No Comments »

This thread is open for continuing discussion on the topics leading up to here.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Thinking Christianly | 29 Comments »

Book Review

In this, my fourth and final post on Francisco Ayala’s book Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion, I wish to examine very briefly his views on knowledge as related to science and religion. I am addressing the same primary audience that he does in his book: believers in God. For the sake of brevity, and because Ayala seems also to have accepted them himself, I am going to work on the basis of two starting assumptions: there is a God, and he has revealed himself through the Scriptures. I ask readers who contest those assumptions to recognize that this is not the place for me to defend them. This is a blog, not a book, and to do the job properly would run very long. Even as it is, my treatment here can only be an introduction to issues of religious versus scientific knowledge, but I trust it will at least open up some good discussion.

Fences Around Religious Knowledge
Ayala devotes an entire chapter to showing there need be no contradiction between revealed religion–Christianity, to be specific–and evolutionary theory. Clearly he respects Scripture. He would like Christians to understand that Darwin has been a gift to religion as well as science. If it is a gift in the Ayala takes it to be, however, it comes to us as a horse once did to Troy with dozens of armed men hidden inside. The problem is most clearly expressed on page 172 (emphasis added):

The scope of science is the world of nature, the reality that is observed, directly or indirectly, by our senses. Science advances explanations concerning the natural world, explanations that are subject to the possibility of corroboration or rejection by observation or experiment. Outside that world, science has no authority, no statements to make, no business whatsoever taking one position or another. Science has nothing decisive to say about values, whether economic, aesthetic, or moral; nothing to say about the meaning of life or its purpose; nothing to say about religious beliefs (except in the case of beliefs that transcend the proper scope of religion and make assertions about the natural world that contradict scientific knowledge; such statements cannot be true).

When there is a conflict of knowledge or opinion between science and religion, science always wins; religion’s statements “cannot be true.”

Now, is this necessarily so? Why would it be? One could muster several plausible reasons, I suppose: science is evidence-based, its conclusions are open to public challenge and revision, it follows a near-universally trusted method for determining what is true, and its results have been wildly successful in helping us understand and control nature.

Why Would This Necessarily Be?
Let us, however, recall the assumption we have made for present purposes, and that Ayala seems to hold: that there is a God who has revealed himself through the Scriptures (an assumption that I hold to be quite true, but again, it is not my purpose this time to defend it). This God is revealed as the omniscient and omnipotent Creator, faithful and reliable, certainly able and eager to reveal himself to humans. He speaks with complete authority: he knows what is true. He cannot lie. Therefore what he speaks through the Scriptures is true, and if I may paraphrase, when science makes assertions about the natural world that contradict Scriptural knowledge, such statements cannot be true.

Given our assumptions, why would that conclusion not follow? Why would Ayala (who appears to have respect for God and Scripture) say just the opposite? We can never trust any Christian beliefs except as science allows, he says. It’s tantamount to saying we can only trust God as far as science allows; but who forced God aside and enthroned science in his place?

Religious knowledge has its obvious difficulties. Agreement is hard to find, and from a human perspective there is no universal method for testing religious truth. Let us not overstate the problem, however. Ayala is not speaking of comparative religion, or the conflicts of belief between Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and secularists. He speaks as one who believes in a Christian conception of God, to others who believe in the same God.

Interpretation: It’s for Both Science and Scripture
Ayala takes the position that the Bible just isn’t intended to speak to the same questions as science. It’s not a book on natural history or cosmology. Therefore if science contradicts the apparent teaching of theology on these subjects, then theology can gracefully bow aside and say, “A thousand pardons; I didn’t mean to be intruding on your territory.” This opens up the matter of interpretation: how literally (for example) are we to take the Genesis creation account? That’s a valid question. But interpretation is a valid question for science as well. How do we interpret nature and its evidences? Theologians have been wrong; scientists have been wrong too. Scientific knowledge is fluid, sometimes adjusting in minor ways, sometimes completely being overturned. A few years ago it was scientific knowledge that stomach ulcers were caused by stress; now it’s scientific knowledge that about 90% of them are caused by H. Pylori bacteria, and most of the rest by certain medications. Why then should “assertions [by religion] about the natural world that contradict scientific knowledge” necessarily be false?

Historic Christian theology teaches that God has spoken through nature, through an internal witness in human hearts (conscience, for example), and most clearly and unambiguously through Scripture. Psalm 19 expresses all three of these sources of revelation. Some theologians point out that God has written two books: the Bible and the book of nature. Both “books” may be understood correctly or incorrectly; both need to be interpreted. For a Christian, then, there is more than ample room for discussion about interpretation: Are the early chapters of Genesis intended to be taken literally or figuratively? Great question! Let’s work on it. The book of nature is open to similar discussion. Properly understood and interpreted, the two sources of knowledge must agree.

Necessary Agreement
If God is indeed God, the Creator of all, who speaks only truth, there is no need to ask which source of knowledge trumps the other, for in the end there can be no contradiction between them. Apparent contradictions are signals that our understanding or interpretation from one or both of these perspectives is wrong, and that we have more work to do. They do not automatically signal that science is right and that Scripturally-based knowledge is wrong. That view of knowledge is no gift at all.

Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion, by Francisco Ayala. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2007. 256 pages. Amazon price $24.95.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Origins and Science & Thinking Christianly | 12 Comments »

University of California, Irvine biologist Francisco Ayala writes in his book Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion (pages 174-175),

Scientific knowledge cannot contradict religious beliefs, because science has nothing definitive to say for or against religious inspiration, religious inspiration, religious realities, or religious values. There are Christian believers, however, who see the theory of evolution as contrary to the creation narrative of the book of Genesis. These believers are entitled, of course, to hold such convictions based on their interpretation of Scripture. But Genesis is a book of religious revelations and of religious teachings, not a treatise of astronomy or biology.

I will have some points of serious disagreements with this to express, but first I must put it in a context of some appreciation. Ayala strongly disagrees with scientists (of whom he names Dawkins, Futuyma, and Provine) who conclude that science has disproved religion. He quite rightly notes on page 173,

Scientists and philosophers who assert that science excludes the validity of any knowledge outside science make a “category mistake,” confuse the method and scope of science with its metaphysical implications.

Quite right indeed, and thank you, Dr. Ayala, for that. Scientists ought to recognize the limits of their art. I only wish I could feel as comfortable with Ayala’s views on religion. Several chapters earlier (page 42) he had complained of a kind of “conceptual schizophrenia” by which some people explain some aspects of reality in natural terms and some in supernatural. I think that in the first paragraph quoted here, he exhibits a different kind of conceptual schizophrenia.

The problem is that he speaks of religious realities as if they have nothing to do with realities of the natural world. How many kinds of reality are there, though? In some religious systems there is room for this dichotomy. Some Gnostic religions–of which modern-day Christian Science is one–deny the actual reality of the material world. For them, religious reality is the “real” reality, and what science is working with is illusion. Some Buddhists similarly speak of the physical world as “Maya,” illusion. Other historic forms of belief have accepted physical reality as real but an expression of evil or fault; this is found in Platonism and many common versions of Gnosticism. Folk religions or tribal religions have commonly viewed the natural world and the supernatural world as inseparably, personally tied together–the spirits of the trees and rivers, and ideas of the sort.

Only in relatively modern times have we split the world into two opposing realities in which the material was more real than the spiritual, or in which there could be spiritual realities that were stood in no relevant relationship to physical realities. This splitting has been well documented by Francis Schaeffer in The God Who Is There, and more recently by Nancy Pearcey in Total Truth. The daily world of economics, science, politics, the news, medicine, and so on occupy a “lower story” of reality, which is taken to be solid and genuine, while religious truths, values, morals, and so on, sit in a solidly walled off, “upper story” of private belief which need have no concourse whatever with the lower.

Ayala speaks of “religion.” I will speak of Christianity instead. The Christian faith cannot be relegated to an upper story with no relation to facts of science, history, and so on. Christianity claims that God has acted in nature and in history. Some of the “religious realities” of Christianity impinge on scientific realities. What, for example, does science say about visions? Is it possible to have a testable, reliable vision of a future event? In parts of the world where Islam dominates, many Muslims are turning to faith in Jesus Christ; and it is commonplace for that to take place by means of a vision of Jesus Christ. This happens so frequently (I am reliably told) that converted former Muslims are as likely to say, “tell me about your vision,” as they are to say, “tell me how you decided to follow Christ.”

There is a religious reality–a specifically Christian reality–involved here that could, in principle, stand in genuine contradiction to science.

Ayala says that Genesis is a book of “religious revelations and of religious teachings, not a treatise of astronomy or biology.” Well, of course it’s not a scientific treatise in the sense of conveying deep detail about natural processes. But it does speak to events that it claims actually to have happened in the cosmos and in the world. To show that with a minimum of biological and geological controversy, let’s move forward in Genesis a few chapters. Genesis 12 says that there lived a couple named Abraham and Sara, who in their very old age had a son named Isaac, who had a son named Jacob, who had twelve sons, one of whom became a regent of Egypt. It says there were seven years of bumper crops in that part of the world, followed by seven years of famine. These teachings have incredible religious importance to those who understand them in the context of God’s working in the world. Which “reality” do they belong to? Orthodox Christianity is committed to the full historicity of these narratives. It is conceivable that science could contradict them, however. Maybe some ancient record in the rocks or sediment would tend to deny there was any famine in Egypt. Perhaps archaeology might show that the whole story is utterly implausible (it hasn’t, by the way; quite the opposite in fact).

And Genesis says that God created the natural order. It does not say that he created it in such a way that his fingerprints in it are unambiguously clear to every observer. But it does show that there is no bifurcation between natural realities and religious ones.

When Ayala says that scientific knowledge cannot contradict religious beliefs, he is partly right, but for the wrong reason. He takes this to be true because science and religion have nothing to do with each other; but in fact they do, for religious beliefs may very well be statements about human and natural history. On the other hand, if the religion one has in mind in a statement like that is one that expresses real truth about reality (as I’m convinced Christianity does), then science and religion properly understood and interpreted certainly cannot contradict; for reality is a unity.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Origins and Science & Thinking Christianly | 1 Comment »

Book Review

In his book Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion, Francisco Ayala suggests that evolution supplies the answer to a serious theological conundrum. I alluded to this in my first post on this book: Things that Seem Wrong About the World:

When I was studying theology in Salamanca Darwin was a much-welcomed friend. The theory of evolution provided the solution to the remaining component of the problem of evil. As floods and drought were a necessary consequence of the fabric of the physical world, predators and parasites, dysfunctions and diseases were a consequence of the evolution of life. They were not a result of deficient or malevolent design: the features of organisms were not designed by the creator.

Related to that is evolution’s explanation for imperfections in nature (pages 22-23):

If functional design manifests an Intelligent Designer, why should not deficiencies indicate that the Designer is less than omniscient, or less than omnipotent? … We know that some deficiencies are not just imperfections, but are outright dysfunctional, jeopardizing the very function the organ or part is supposed to serve…. Even if the dysfunctions, cruelties, and sadism of the living world were rare, which they are not, they would still need to be attributed to the Designer if the Designer had designed the living world.

He returns to a similar theme later in the book (p. 154):

One difficulty with attributing the design of organisms to the Creator is that imperfections and defects pervade the living world…. Defective design would seem incompatible with an omnipotent Intelligent Designer.

But does evolution really solve that problem for Christianity? Phillip Johnson has a timely word on this topic in the current issue of Touchstone. He says,

Another motive for adhering to theological naturalism is a desire to protect God from having to take responsibility for all the nasty things in nature. It is all very well to give God credit for designing the beautiful things, but what God would have designed the mosquito? I fail to see, however, how theological naturalism protects God from responsibility for everything that exists. Granted that God created by natural laws, should he not have designed the laws of nature so that mosquitoes would not come into existence?

Ayala’s solution is no solution. He posits something like a deistic God in relation to natural history (I don’t know where he stands on God’s intervention in salvation history). This God kicked off a world and let it run. Some of it ended up looking nice and fine, but much of it’s a mess; an especially, painfully obvious mess in this month of a devastating cyclone and a horrible earthquake in Asia. And not just that; there have been terrifically damaging tornadoes and floods near my own home, and even worse to the west. I was near enough to see the smoke of a major brush fire earlier today, near Orlando where I’m visiting for a few days; it’s one of many threatening homes in Florida this week.

God cannot get off the hook for these things the way Ayala says he can. He would have us believe God has just let things be this way. Maybe God couldn’t do any better–he doesn’t know how to fix the mess he has made. Or maybe God feels that getting his hands dirty by touching his creation just isn’t very nice. Or is God is letting natural law and chance run their course, because he’s just dying with curiosity to see how it will come out in the end? Which is it? What kind of God does Ayala suppose this Creator is? Which of those options absolves God of responsibility for evil?

There is a solution to the problem of evil, but this is not it. We’ve discussed it at length before (this Google search may be the best guide to those links I can provide you, or you can explore further here). If I were to try to outline it in brief, I would run the risk of doing as much violence to the real answer as Ayala has done with his facile resorting to an evolutionary solution. (Any easy, brief answer to the problem of evil is guaranteed to be wrong.) I own up to having a purely critical purpose in mind for this post: to show that if evolution is supposed to be a gift to religion, in the sense of solving a certain theological problem, it fails to do so. We have better solutions than that, and thank God that we do.

Ayala wants to bridge a perceived gulf between science and religion. That’s a noble goal, and it certainly ought to be achievable, provided that we interpret both revelation and nature accurately; for if Christianity is true then its truths must be consonant with truths of nature, and vice versa. The bridge Ayala has tried to build here, however, won’t bear the required weight.

Darwin’s Gift to Science and Religion, by Francisco Ayala. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2007. 256 pages. Amazon price $24.95.

Posted by Tom Gilson under Origins and Science & Thinking Christianly | 13 Comments »

This talk on Views of Truth was given on March 9 to the Chapel at Kingsmill. I regret that I had no control over the recording method–the microphone was far from the front of the room, so there’s room noise. It’s still audible and listen-able in spite of that, though.

[podcast]http://www.thinkingchristian.net/wp-content/audio/viewsoftruth.mp3[/podcast]

 

 Views of Truth [34:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Posted by Tom Gilson under Thinking Christianly | 4 Comments »