Science and Religion, Pt. 2

"John Locke invented common sense, and only Englishmen have had it ever since."

–Bertrand Russell

As I have been writing on the subject of science, cosmology, and religious sentiment, reading Dr. Dennett (refer to my previous posts) has been very interesting. In page 26, the epigram by Bertrand Russell refers to Locke and his method of empiricism. In a coy way, Russell references Locke's common sense. Of course, in his reference, Dennett refers to Locke's idea of Ex nihilo nihil fit (=nothing can come from nothing). Locke obviously believed in a pre-existent Mind, calling this idea a common notion. Living in Descartes and Locke's epoch, the notion of a Creator, a rational and cognitive Mind, was readily accepted. However, this isn't cause for any scientist or religious person to deny the abilities of philosophers in the realm of empirical science. I'm currently still awaiting Dr. Poythress' book on theology's relation to science. However, I am still going to finish this series on science and religion. I will post a summary of chapters 2-3 and discuss them in detail.

Historical Argument for the Reliability of the NT

If A, then B

B, therefore A

If the Bible is the word of God (A), then the NT is a reliable witness of Jesus(B);

It is the case that NT is a reliable witness of Jesus (B), therefore the Bible is the Word of God (→A).

This is how the debate begins when one argues on the basis of reliability. Sometimes this argument, too, like other deductive arguments can lead to circular reasoning, and some have even adopted a circular kind of reasoning when they argue for God's existence on the basis of empirical data hoping to find God at the end of a syllogism. In this case, the argument is said to be argued from a historical point of view. I don't disagree with this method, since by the strictest sense all data, if interpreted properly—as Cornelius Van Til put it—is God's truth. However, in most cases the data is always misinterpreted or is not recognized by the atheist as reliable. This is the case with atheist philosophers George Smith (author of The Case Against God), Michael Martin (author of The Case Against Christianity), and Dan Barker (author of Godless : How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists). George Smith argues that the case for an omnipotent God is incompatible with reason and the problem of evil. In other cases, such as Dan Barker, he argues for the non-existence of Jesus as a historical figure. The argument I posted above has more to do with Barker's argument in his book than any other atheist writers that I have read. Michael Martin I would have to say is a little more honest than the previous two. He's also written on an academic level, so his level of philosophical profundity is a little more polished than the others.

The basic argument that I postulated above has a lot to do with the New Testament (=NT) as a reliable witness for historical data. Because of the overwhelming concessions in academia, I won't try to prove that the NT is a reliable source. It is common knowledge that the NT has a lot of bearing on the early Roman historiography. Making a holistic approach for the general acceptability for the NT is not an easy task but it is doable. The argument's main concern is with the apparent enthymeme, namely that the truthfulness of the reliable sources, the NT, are both sound and true; and those truth claims are that Jesus is the Son of God, resurrected from the dead, who claims to have come to save his people from their sins. So my paper will deal mostly with historical arguments that would lead anyone to accept the NT not only as a reliable source, but also as a reliable source for truth claims about a man named Jesus Christ and that everything he claims is true. If everything Jesus claims is true, then he is the King of Heaven and demands total obedience to his message, the gospel, and His will, law—the classical Reformed doctrine of Law and Gospel.

Philosophy as Everybody’s Business

A while back I had a discussion with some people from work that claimed that science is qualitatively more significant—whatever that means—than the discipline of philosophy. Aside from the obvious objectionable irrationality in that comment, I think that there should be qualification here. I don't think at all that they had in mind that everything having to do with philosophy is irrelevant. To confess that would to be denying the sciences altogether. One cannot do science, for instance, without a proper philosophical treatment of science, e.g., the relationship between deductive and inductive arguments that make a cogent hypothesis would make no sense outside the discipline of philosophy. The scientist needs deduction (=philosophy) in order to formulate a cohesive hypothesis. So, on that basis I think this statement was made out of ignorance and is an ignominy. What I believe was meant is that one doesn't practice philosophy, be that political or ethical, as much as we do scientific research, relatively. If this is the reason, then I think philosopher Mortimer J. Adler has a couple words to say about that:

PHILOSOPHY IS EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS

It cannot be too often repeated that philosophy is everybody's business. To be a human being is to be endowed with the proclivity to philosophize. To some degree we all engage in philosophical thought in the course of our daily lives. Acknowledging this is not enough. It is also necessary to understand why this is so and what philosophy's business is. The answer, in a word, is ideas. In two words, it is Great Ideas—the ideas basic and indispensable to understanding ourselves, our society, and the world in which we live.

These ideas, as we shall see, constitute the vocabulary of everyone's thought. Unlike the concepts of the special sciences, the words that name the Great Ideas are all words of ordinary, everyday speech. They are not technical terms. They do not belong to the private jargon of a specialized branch of knowledge. Everyone uses them in ordinary conversation. But everyone does not understand them as well as they can be understood, nor has everyone pondered sufficiently the questions raised by each of the Great Ideas. To think one's way through to some resolution of the conflicting answers to these questions is to philosophize.

The Great Ideas Program aims to do no more than to provide some guidance in this process. I am limiting the consideration of these ideas to an elementary delineation that will try to achieve three results for you.

First, it should give you a surer grasp of the various meanings of the word you use when you talk about the Idea.

Second, the delineation of each Idea should make you more aware than you normally are of questions or issues that you cannot avoid confronting if you are willing to think a little further about the Idea—basic ones, ones that human beings have been arguing about over the centuries

Third, in the consideration of each Idea, we are led to the consideration of other ideas. How does our understanding of truth affect our understanding of goodness and beauty? How does our understanding of what is good and bad carry us not only to an understanding of what is right and wrong, but also to an understanding of justice, and how does that affect our understanding of liberty and equality as well?

If I succeed in these aims, I will have helped you engage in the business of philosophy, which is everybody's business not only because nobody can do much thinking, if any at all, without using the Great Ideas, but also because no special, technical competence of the kind that is required for the particular sciences and other special disciplines is required for thinking about the Great Ideas. Everybody does it, wittingly or unwittingly.

I hope I am right in believing that everyone would wish to do it just a little better.

Taken from the Great Ideas website.

Science and Religion, Pt.1

I've recently bought a book on science and philosophy. In current discussions at the work place or, say, the dinner table, conversations about religion and science have been the ostensible topic of discussion. I've been listening to the theistic conversations, looking at different views within the evangelical and Reformed answers to the natural selection or Frame-work hypothesis, but none of the questions that the book Darwin's Dangerous Idea (Daniel C. Dennett) were raised.

Recently W. L. Craig debated a known scientist—a theist no less!—who holds to natural selection. In that debate, there was a lot of issues raised that I had not thought about, for one, the issue of common descent. Naturally I mused that the notion was clearly anti-theistisc, so I dismissed it altogether. This, however, is something that I think that Dr. Dennett raises—and embarrassingly I choked. He wrote, "On this occasion, we are not going to settle for 'There, there, it will all come out all right.' Our examination will take a certain amount of nerve. Feelings may get hurt. Writers [like the present writer] on evolution usually steer clear of this apparent clash between science and religion (22)." Clearly, if God is the creator of the world, students like myself should not be afraid to take a look at writers who are clearly presuppositionally opposed to theism, for they could even provide quintessential information, be that mathematics, biology, etc. Reality and trust exists outside the mind, but now I'm venturing into a philosophical area ("Mind") that I think has to be resolved by epistemologists. Howbeit that this notion of external reality exists, it gives us, you and me, valuable and sailable information about the world as it is. If God really did create the world—and since truth is not only in the minds of pious people—that world should exhibit his design.

Dennett, Daniel C. 1995. Darwin's Dangerious Idea. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Notes on a Lecture Given by Rev. Scott Wilkinson

Introduction

The PCA takes a "total tolerance" view of the mixture on Creation days. Great men in the Presbyterian tradition, like Gernstner and Sproul, held to this view. "To hold to a dogmatic view on the days of creation is outside the Reformed tradition," some say (NAPARC). A famous Reformed seminary has stated that it is outside the Reformed and Augustinian circles to make the creation days a litmus test of orthodoxy (see R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession on the chapter on QIRC). Those who hold to an orthodox 6/24 Creation and making it a test of orthodoxy, is clearly not a Reformed view, Professor Clark would say. Notice that this seminary (WSC) uses Augustinian twice in that critique. Why? Because his view was clearly an instantaneous Creation, which does not necessarily mean that it is literally a week-long period, i.e., 6/24 hour days. WSC claims that this issue should not be the test of confessional fidelity, despite the fact that the Westminster Divines were very clear, i.e., that there is a specific 6/24 hr. creation in view.

Points of Contention

• Historic Adam and Eve
  
• Animal sacrifices before Adam's sin
  
• Methods of interpretation of the days
  
  • Allegorical: instantaneous = could be days, years, seasons, etc.
    
  • Literal: Luther, Calvin, and the Westminster Divines
    
  • Gap theory: Thomas Chalmers, which taught that creation to be a period of millions of years.
    
  • Day-age view: B. B. Warfield, E. J. Young, C. Hodge.
    
  • Frame-work hypothesis: Herman Ridderbos, M. G. Kline, Lee Irons.
    

The final three deal with evolution and try to make sense of modern science. Meredith Kline himself claims that the young earth is a deplorable view in the service of the Church. Is there reason to deny modern science of the origins of Creation aside from the obvious presuppositions that are antitheistic? Because men almost without reserve hold to the old earth of modern science, that lead theologians to hold to any of the last three options. Clearly this is an issue of presuppositions, not science.

If modern science claims that evolution is a natural process, and not a miraculous creative act, why not deny other miraculous acts that we find in the Bible, like the Resurrection? This then leads us to see that Kline's primary goal is to eliminate the traditional 6/24 Creation view. While Kline accepts a naturalist view of the origins of the earth and Adam, he asserts that he still holds to the Biblical truths that Adam was a historical figure who prefigured a covenantal future Adam, i.e., Jesus himself, and all that is affirmed in the Scriptures. There is a major problem that I think every (thinking) Christian should think about:

1. Firstly, if you affirm with modern science that Creation is not a supernatural act by God but a natural process, there is no logical reason why you or anyone else would affirm what clearly contradicts what modern science denies, i.e., supernatural acts.
   
2. The second does away with the notion of Scripture. By its very definition, it is a supernatural gift given by God. If one affirms the first part of (1), then by modus tollens (if P, then Q; ~Q; therefore ~P) holding to Scripture is not only illogical but unjustifiable. There is no real reason why anyone in their right mind, if they hold to natural selection, would hold to supernatural revelation if he affirms a naturalist view of creation, since by definition the Scriptures—like creation—is a supernatural gift. Both Creation and Scriptures, to the conservative Christian, are both supernatural.
   

Holding M.G. Kline's view, one is set on a slippery slope to accept unbiblical ideas and puts that person in a horn of a vicious dilemma: either you're a naturalist or a supernaturalist.

Scot McKnight and Markan Priority

This is an ongoing book review of Scot McKnight's Interpreting the Synoptic Gospels: Guides to New Testament Exegesis. So far the book is giving me great insights as to how I should approach the gospels as an untrained exegete. I am not afraid to admit my weakness on the issue, since I know that I'm going to come up some answers eventually, and I hope it will later become a strength throughout my studies. Chapter 2 discusses great ways to look at historical writings in developing a more cogent approach to primary and secondary sources. McKnight then goes on to list some of the best sources to consult while doing the research, then he begins to move away from historical documents, giving me more freedom to approach the anticipated problem in Gospel exegesis—the relationship of the Synoptic Gospels, i.e., the Synoptic Problem. This is where my concentrated efforts are given precedence. (This is the reason for the research, actually.)

Dr. McKnight goes on to illustrate major theories that best explain and placate the problem. He postulates four major theories, two of which are more probabilistic in solving this problem. For the sake of my readers, I'm going to post them in name but I'm not going to explain them; however I am going to explain and address the view that he does support.

1. The Augustinian Hypothesis
   
2. The Griesbach Hypothesis
   
3. The Oxford Hypothesis (or Q Hypothesis)
   
4. The Farrer Hypothesis
   

McKnight argues for (3) while (4) follows the same line of reasoning while rejecting Q. Both, however, give Markan priority main adherence. From what I've read so far, it seems that (3) is most compatible with critical scholarship, and it is the most widely held view. That really doesn't say much since (2) was at one point in the position that (3) is in now. From what I've seen and read, it seems most reliable to hold to Q. But again, I have to wait and see where the evidence is going to take me. I just hope that I get there soon…but then again, let's not rush scholarship—no I'm not a scholar, but I aspire to be. I will write more once I've got more reading done.

Tim Keller and Days of Creation

Tim Keller recently stumbled a Christian on the PB which actually caused me to write so harshly. One of his parishioners was very upset at the way I criticized his elder. Really, though, who wouldn't? I know that if someone started to attack my beloved pastor, despite his views, I would do the same thing, to defend him. I may have been a little unreasonable in the way I responded, but I still think that his reasoning was a little muddled with emotion. Despite all my efforts, I still think that I had some reasonableness in responding the way I did. Other possible reading that you, the reader, might want to consider is the PCA's 28^th General Assembly. The committee put together a report on the issue of creation days and its non-stance policy on the 6/24 Creation debate. There is a lot of credible scholarship in that article and I put a lot of stock in some of the theologians' writings—and yes, some of them did hold to an old earth interpretation of Genesis 1-3, e.g., B.B. Warfield and Charles Hodge. I hope you enjoy my response. Thank you.

Julio Martinez Jr.

 

Wow! Amazing how a simple disagreement could cause so much "hurt." So what if I disagree? Yea, I think Keller is way off, and no I don't think I know his motives. However I can know or have certain knowledge indirectly about his intent. (Was it in a spirit of persuasion or was he merely stating a biographical fact?) As I have seen within my own confession (WCF IV.1), I can say that Dr. Keller is not being faithful to his confession. On another note, I don't see the OPC or the PCA making a standard for orthodoxy on the views of creation. It is a hotly debated issue and I recognize that. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Peters It's not as clear as you think. And I don't think it serves you to be so dismissive of Mason's position. The OPC and the PCA disagree with you. That should give you pause.

See now here I think you're wrong. There is no statement that either the OPC or the PCA which states that there position is old earth. This is the what the PCA's committee (28th GA) said by way of preface:

Quote:

Originally Posted by 28th GA of the PCA The Committee has been unable to come to unanimity over the nature and duration of the creation days. Nevertheless, our goal has been to enhance the unity, integrity, faithfulness and proclamation of the Church. Therefore we are presenting a unanimous report with the understanding that the members hold to different exegetical viewpoints. As to the rest we are at one. It is our hope and prayer that the Church at large can join us in a principled, Biblical recognition of both the unity and diversity we have regarding this doctrine, and that all are seeking properly to understand biblical revelation. It is our earnest desire not to see our beloved church divide over this issue.

You don't believe me, here's the link. Read it yourself. It isn't that they disagree with me--I can only speak for my denomination since I read the report--but the PCA is more concerned with maintaining unity than to divide the church on this issue. I have maintained that though I disagree with Dr. Keller, I still think that he is not being honest to his confessional standards; and I would further say the same thing to those who argued similarly at the 28th GA. That's not to say that I think he is sinning. (I never said he was living in sin for it.) It is my belief that the Westminster Standards take a literal 6/24 Days Creation. I know this doesn't sit well with some, even among folks in my denomination--yes, even my own congregation!--, but I'd much rather go with my conscience and intellect than the witness of a majority.

A further note:
I never intended this to get personal. I was not personal, I don't think, but if I did come off that way then I apologize. This is an academic matter for which I think I am convinced in my own mind.