Thinking Christian

Geoff Arnold had some very significant trouble with my recent statement about the Noachian flood. He said,

Do you actually, literally, believe this? The complete lack of any physical evidence for this amazing claim doesn’t trouble you? Do you reject all of science, and if not, how do you disentangle the bits you accept from the bits that are contradicted by your religious beliefs?

Good grief. If this is a thinking Christian position, I shudder to think what an unthinking one might be like….

What shall we make of a criticism like this? I could give a directly worded statement of my position regarding the Flood, which I have done. But that’s not all that Geoff was getting at in this comment. We need to tear apart his premises, some of which are unspoken; for it is often the unspoken premises that most severely undermine good thinking, since we tend to let them enter unprocessed and unfiltered. Here are some of them:

• The Noachian flood is “an amazing claim.”
• There is absolutely no physical evidence for it.
• To believe in the Noachian flood is to reject at least some science.
• That rejection is based on “religious beliefs.”
• There must be some mysterious principle by which I “disentangle” the parts of science I accept and the parts I do not accept.

Let’s examine that last one before proceeding. Science itself, like all of knowledge, involves considerable disentangling, does it not? Consider for example the Tree of Life as constructed under Darwinian principles. On what principle should the branchings be determined? Morphology or genetic similarity? If the latter, then which genes? Different methods yield different results. Don’t these different results require some disentangling? Disentangling is a fact of life, even within science or a single branch of science. Therefore the hoot of derision we hear in Geoff’s, “how do you disentangle…?” is either misdirected or misinformed, or else it’s based on some principle that says that in this case it’s a different kind of problem altogether.

Of course it is the last of those: Geoff obviously thinks disentangle “religious beliefs” from scientific knowledge involves something of a different sort than what happens within science. Let me now suggest that Geoff probably takes these as additional though unspoken premises:

• Science produces knowledge on the basis of physical evidence.
• If there is no physical evidence for the Noachian flood, then there is no evidence for the Noachian flood.
• “Religious belief” is not really knowledge.

The first statement in this set is true but incomplete. Science certainly produces knowledge on the basis of physical evidence, but not only on that basis. Its knowledge is also the product of interpretation, which is filtered through worldview. Uniformitarianism, for example, is an interpretive lens through which historical geology is viewed. It’s not the only one that’s possible. Now, I happen to think uniformitarianism is generally a trustworthy lens, except as it exists as a scaled-down version of methodological and/or philosophical naturalism, which exclude a priori any possibility that the flow of natural history could have experienced some non-linearizing intervention. There are multiple lines of converging evidence to support (not prove, but support) uniformitarianism. There is no physical evidence whatever for naturalism. It is purely a worldview lens.

The last statement in this latter set is just wrong. There are, to be sure, religious beliefs that are false and therefore do not qualify as knowledge. But I don’t think that’s all Geoff probably means, reading between the lines of what he said. There is a rather common view of religion and knowledge that I suspect Geoff would buy into: that religious “belief” and actual knowledge really have little to do with each other, except that where their subject matters overlap, religious “belief” must always yield to actual knowledge. I can “believe” anything I want, but if there’s some actual knowledge out there that my “belief” conflicts with, my “belief” yield to “knowledge.”

But that’s not what religious belief is, at least not in the case of Christianity, the only religious belief system I have in mind here now. I believe that Jesus Christ lived, and died, and rose again. Why do I believe this? Because I know it to be true. How do I know it? On the basis of evidences, reasoning, logic, and so on. I believe that there was a vast flood that destroyed almost all of humanity. How do I know this? On the basis, again, of evidences, reasoning, logic and so on.

The evidence set I’m relying on for both of these is, of course, not primarily scientific, but that doesn’t mean it is not knowledge. I have written at great length on my reasons for believing in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection: reasons based in evidence leading to knowledge. Some say it’s false and therefore not knowledge; I say (and have supported with evidence) that they are wrong: it is true and it is therefore knowledge. Knowledge that I believe; belief that is knowledge.

The Flood is a belief I hold based on evidences as well. The evidence set for it is more complex and involved than that regarding Jesus Christ. It has to do with reasons (reasons!) to believe that God has produced a trustworthy record for us in Genesis. I could go into more detail on this, but I think it would detract from my main point here.

So let me state that main point in full now. (I have been heading toward it but I have not articulated it yet.) Geoff mocks my position here, apparently on the basis of some apparent stupidity revealed by my having to disentangle religious beliefs from scientific knowledge. That’s not what’s going on at all, though. Yes, there is some disentangling to be done, and it’s not all simple or obvious, which is also often the case within science itself, as I have shown. What I am disentangling, though, is not “belief” and “knowledge.” It is knowledge and knowledge.

Do I reject all of science? Heavens, no! But I will doubt—and possibly reject—any part of “science” that is clearly contradicted by other solid knowledge I have. And where there is disentangling to be done, whether it is all within science or whether it involves multiple disciplines of knowledge, I will recognize the questions and confusions for what they are and refrain from jumping to dogmatic conclusions. I am not the least bit embarrassed to claim that as a thinking Christian position.

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Not long ago I heard J.P. Moreland in a lecture discussing the importance of knowing that Christianity is true. Moreland is an apologist and the author of what I consider to be one of the most important books written by a Christian in recent years, Kingdom Triangle. I don’t have his exact words, but it went something like this:

“There seems to be among average churchgoers a nagging suspicion, a fear, that the scholars—those who are really in the know—have proved the faith is all wrong. In the universities, the laboratories, and even the  seminaries they’ve found out the Bible is mostly false and the message of Christ is a big hoax; but the rest of the world just hasn’t quite caught on yet.”

Moreland was actually drawing from Dallas Willard, in another on that short list of most important books, The Divine Conspiracy. Willard is professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, and stands in a good position to comment on this topic. On page 92 he wrote,

The powerful though vague and unsubstantiated presumption is that something has been found out that renders a spiritual understanding of reality in the manner of Jesus simply foolish to those who are “in the know.”

This presumption, though “vague and unsubstantiated,” is nevertheless “powerful,” he says. What kind of effect might it have? Does it really make a difference? It must. A believer, after all, is someone who believes; and if that belief is colored by concerned that the really smart people, the ones who understand, have found out it’s all foolish, that belief may be little more than a confused mind game: “I guess it’s all wrong, or at least I think it is, but I’m going to believe it anyway.” This is irrational. It makes us double minded, even unstable, to use James’s words (James 1:6-8).

I wrote in a pending post that quite often, it really is good to do what others say is good for us; but too many churchgoers “believe” not because they think it’s true, but because they think it’s good for them to believe. That kind of belief isn’t good for you, though; it’s just confused.

This presumption that it’s foolish to believe is wrong, at any rate. Willard goes on:

But when it comes to say exactly what it is that has been found out, nothing of substance is forthcoming.

Thus Rudolf Bultmann, long regarded as one of the great leaders of twentieth-century thought, had this to say: “It is impossible to use electric light and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles.”

To anyone who has worked through the relevant arguments, this statement is simply laughable. It only shows that great people are capable of great silliness. Yet this kind of “thinking” dominates much of our intellectual and professional life at present, and in particular has governed by far the greater part of the field of biblical studies for more than a century.

But the baseless presumption in question must be seen for the empty prejudice it is if we are to enroll with serious intent in Jesus’ school of life. Though this is not the place to discuss it, you can be very sure that nothing fundamental has changed in our knowledge of ultimate reality and the human self since the time of Jesus.

Here on this blog entry is not the place to discuss it either, for it would go far too long. I will leave you with questions and some advice instead, directed especially toward followers of Christ. Do you really believe what you “believe?” Does believe, for you, mean to consider the Gospel to be true and reliable information, or does it mean something less than that? Do you sense that nagging suspicion that it might be all wrong after all? Are you believing because you’re confident it’s true, or because you think it’s probably good for you?

If you identify any of those haunting doubts in you, here’s what not to do: Don’t try to squash or squelch it, don’t feel condemned about it, and don’t feel shame over it. It’s a signal, a good and helpful one for you to pay attention to. It may be a sign that what you “believe,” you don’t really believe, and that you’re trying to manage some kind of impossible schizophrenic doublethink. Bring that vague unsettledness out into the open. Turn it into genuine questions. Then you can look for genuine answers, in Scripture, at your church, and among good books and blogs (of which I hope this is one).

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