The Influence of Science
By Tim | March 11, 2008
While reading a book about the (mis)use of science by the Third Reich before and during WWII, the author made the casual observation that the notions of theoretical physics (i.e., the branch of physics associated with quantum theory and relativity, Planck and Einstein, known today as “Modern Physics”), many of which were very new at the time, were immediately translated to sociology, biology, civics, and economics. This was not the first time a revolutionary scientific discovery had found itself being applied in strange ways in other fields of study.
Many people who were quick to grasp Darwin’s theories concerning the naturalistic evolution of life on earth were as quick to apply principles like natural selection and survival of the fittest to societies, be they defined economically (e.g. Karl Marx), intellectually, or racially (e.g. the Nazis). Darwin’s views became the ethical justification for communist rebellions and the dictatorship of the proletariat. They became the justification for testing people for intelligence and for mental illness, then locking away and/or sterilizing those who were deemed to lack sufficient intelligence or who were suffering or likely to suffer from a mental illness. Of course, they became the justification for the systematic murder of the Jews and other “undesirables” in German controlled Europe during WWII.
It is important to note here that a scientific discovery is not necessarily wrong, factually or morally, if is happens to be used to justify evil acts. Though Darwin himself was very much a racist and was at least starting to walk down the road the Social Darwinists sped down (see his lesser known book titled The Descent of Man), that in itself does not make his ideas wrong. Of course, he was wrong, but that is another discussion for another day.
Rather what is interesting here is that we see a pattern emerging in post-Christian Europe where scientific theories become the fundamental foci of truth for a society. This happened in 19th Century Europe with Darwin, in the Weimar Republic in 1920s Germany, and it happens today here in America.
In case you doubt me on the last one, watch how many commercials and advertisements talk about environmental issues and promote companies, products, or behaviors as “Green.” Why? The most influential new scientific theory of our day is Global Warming, and it has begun to infuse our culture with its implications.
The problem is that science makes for bad epistemology. If all we know and how we know what we know (the definition of epistemology) comes from only our five senses, then how can we know what is moral? There is no morality, except natural law - kill or be killed. There is no value to life of any kind since more can be made. There is no human dignity since people are just animals with bigger, better brains.
Science makes an attractive philosophy, a tempting idol, because it has produced a higher standard of living. But science is only possible because we are made in the image of the One who made the natural world. If the human genome is just encoded information, we can only realize as much and begin to understand it because we speak the language, albeit poorly, of the One who wrote the message. Furthermore, science changes. Twenty years ago, scientists were warning of another Ice Age, where glaciers would extent to the Great Lakes, farming would be ruined in the Plains, and most people would either freeze or starve. Now, those glaciers that were creeping toward Ohio are thought to be retreating to nothingness, putting our coastal cities underwater and making it too hot to farm. Something that fluid and that unknowable cannot be a firm philosophical foundation for understanding life. But in the absence of the Truth, we find ourselves freezing philosophically, and any blanket will do, even one too short to cover us.
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Darwin on Trial
By Tim | March 7, 2008
Johnson, Phillip E. Darwin on Trial. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993.
Johnson begins his critique of the Darwinian theory of evolution by discussing several legal issues, like whether the teaching of “creation-science” in
It was
The means
This concept of natural selection, while acclaimed, has proven difficult to define. Johnson cites several proponents of Darwinism who struggled to define it as anything more than a tautology. Specifically, they define fittest variants as the ones who leave the most offspring, and then note that the most offspring are left by the fittest. As an explanation, a tautology such as this one has no explanative power. But natural selection can also be formulated as a scientific hypothesis, though one that relies largely on population variations in species due to climate changes or unusual events as its evidence, since these species have not changed noticeably in very long periods of time, much less have become a new species. The real need for natural selection is not as an explanation or a scientific hypothesis, but as a means to banish the supernatural from a worldview and it still have explanative power over the origin of life.
To be continued…
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What is Faith?
By Tim | March 4, 2008
Faith is not hoping for things to turn out OK when there is no reason to think they will. Faith is based on a Person and on that Person’s character. Take for example the man from the Bible perhaps best known for his faith, Abraham.
We marvel at the faith Abraham when he almost offered Issac at God’s command, and rightly so. But don’t misunderstand why Abraham was willing to almost do what he almost did. Abraham had been promised Isaac many times by God, even though when the first promise came he was 75 years old and his wife was 65 - both past prime childbearing years. It would be another 25 years before Issac was born, when Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90. Abraham had seen God bring life (the baby Issac) out of death (his and Sarah’s bodies, both past the age of fertility). So when God tells Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, Abraham knows that God is master of life and death because he has seen God exercise that power in his own life. Abraham trusts in God because God has given him every reason to trust in him.
Furthermore, Abraham knows that God keeps his promises. God promised him protection, provision, and ultimately the fatherhood of many nations through Isaac, the child of promise. When God sent Isaac after all those years and in spite of the biological obstacles, it showed Abraham that God would keep his promises. So when God tells him to offer Isaac, Abraham knows that God has also said that his offspring (which, as the Apostle Paul would point out later, refers in the plural sense to those who would share in Abraham’s faith and in the singular sense to Christ himself, who was by human lineage descended from Abraham and Isaac) would be reckoned through Isaac. Knowing that God does not go back on his word, Abraham knows that Isaac will continue to live. Consider Genesis 22:5 - Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” Abraham affirms that Isaac will return with him from the mountain, though he also knows that he has been told to offer Isaac as a sacrifice.
Abraham knows this because Abraham knew God. He understood that God keeps his promises and had seen God act mightily in his life. Therefore, he was willing and able to trust this God who had proved himself faithful again and again. Abraham’s faith was not blind hope or hope without reason. It was hope with every reason because it was hope in God himself.
So when we waver in our faith, is it because we are forgetting who God is, or forgetting what God has done, or maybe some of both? It is easy for us to trust in logic, in the counsel of friends, and even in our own understanding. But none of those things are nearly as trustworthy as God. If we are trusting Him, we are trusting in Him - His Person and His Works.
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Tiptoeing Through the TULIP - Part 4
By Tim | February 28, 2008
For the previous entry in this series, click here.
As we discussed last time, the idea of unconditional election can bring up some rather troubling thoughts. First, what about human responsibility? If God so chooses everything, then how can a person be responsible for his or her actions? The answer is that God’s choosing and our choosing are not mutually exclusive. In other words, God’s sovereignty does not abrogate my responsibility for my actions. For example, the author of a story is sovereign over the characters, yet, from the perspective of the characters, they make choices and reap the consequences of those choices. God is the ultimate author of the universe is sovereign over all that occurs, yet from our perspective we make choices and face those consequences.
Second, what about those God does not choose? Is that fair? For this objection, Paul anticipates the question in Romans 9 and provides the answer:
You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
The answer is that God is under no obligation to show mercy. All people have sinned against him and deserve the just punishment for that sin. That God chooses to show mercy to some is an act of kindness and love; he does not owe it to anyone and it is not unfair that he would choose only some. As for the rest, we can only say that God is God and we are not. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. Some things are just a mystery, either because we do not need to know them or because we would not have the capacity to understand them if we did.
Next time in this series, we will look at Limited Atonement, the third letter of the acronym TULIP.
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Praise the Lord and Pass the Potatoes
By Tim | February 27, 2008
Have you ever noticed how much of the Old Testament ceremonial law and sacrificial system involved eating? There are the lists of foods which an observant Jew may and may not eat. The methods of preparation of food are dictated. But more than that, when the offerings were made, they were rarely to be consumed in their entirety by fire. Most offerings prescribed that some of the animal or grain was to be eaten. Specifically, it was to be eaten by the priests in the Tabernacle (later the Temple), in the symbolic presence of God.
Even the Passover, perhaps the most defining event of salvation history besides the Cross and Empty Tomb, was instituted as a meal. The Israelites ate the lamb whose blood was sprinkled on their door posts and the bread without yeast on that first Passover. The Law required the Jews to eat it that way each year, but even in the Passover meal we see that this is not the completeness of God’s salvation plan because it was to be eaten in haste, fully dressed for travel, figuratively “on the run.”
In the institution of the Lord’s Supper (which was at Passover), we see a precursor to the ultimate worship in heaven at the marriage feast of the Lamb, and when we as Christians partake of the Lord’s Supper we do it specifically to proclaim Christ’s death and Christ’s promised return. We do this most sacred and most important rite - only one of two which are prescribed for us to observe in the New Testament - by eating and drinking.
There must be some significance to eating and worship. If there were not, God would not have required to be worshiped by eating throughout the history of Redemption. If there were not, Paul would not have forbidden the Corinthians to eat meat offered to idols in their temples (1 Corinthians 10:14-22). If there were not, Paul would not tell us that many Corinthians were sick and some had even died from partaking unworthily of the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11).
Not to make too much of this, but it does underscore one important truth: God made us with an inner part (soul) and an outer part (body). Our bodies are not evil in themselves, because God made them and saw that before the Fall we were “very good.” It has been an error throughout the history of the church (and even before) to view the unseen world as good and the physical world as evil. Rather, it is God who is good and anything which opposes him that is evil. Let us be careful in understanding where that line is, because many have misrepresented it in the past.
Topics: Christian Living, Worship Wednesday | No Comments »
News from the World of Science
By Tim | February 26, 2008
Yahoo posted this story yesterday about evidence of a great flood in the past in which water was released from under the ground. rather than the more conventional means of flooding (i.e., rain). Why is this interesting? It is interesting to scientists because it acknowledges a wide scale flood that would have happened fairly quickly since the entire volume of water which flooded the area would not have had to come from rainfall. It is interesting to us because it provides some confirmation (albeit unacknowledged by the article) of Genesis 7:11:
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.
As Francis Schaeffer wrote, “if both studies[of the Bible and of nature via scientific discovery] can be adequately pursued, there will be no final conflict.” Why is this discovery not recognized as such?
Two reasons come to mind. First, our total depravity limits our ability to understand God correctly through creation. In Romans 1:22-32, Paul traces the failure of general revelation (what can be known about God generally through observing His creation) to be properly understood. Second, our total depravity limits our desire to understand God correctly through any revelation of Himself to us. This argument is presented in Romans 1:19-21.
So, even when our best efforts to understand the world and God’s revealed truth tell us the same thing, there is still room in the human heart for unbelief. This makes the words of Abraham to the Rich Man in Luke 16:31 all the more chilling. We probably cannot underestimate the degree of our rebellion against God, which also tells us we cannot overestimate the degree of his love and mercy which overcame it.
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Sowing and Reaping
By Tim | February 21, 2008
Have you ever known someone who could do just about anything and seemingly “get away with it”? Sometimes it seems like justice is lacking, that someone can sow the wind and reap cool tropical breezes on sunny days while sipping icy drinks with little umbrellas.
A man named Asaph noticed this, too. In fact, it bothered him so much he wrote a song about it. I don’t know what the original title was or at which number it topped out on the Billboard Charts, but I can tell you where to find the words to the song.
After observing how people seem to do whatever they want and face no consequences for it, Asaph makes the following plea: All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. Have you ever felt that way?
But, then Asaph went to Worship, and got the proper perspective on things: God will ensure that justice will prevail. Interestingly, rather than rejoicing in the downfall of those who he had observed prospering in their wrongdoing, Asaph has this reaction to God’s revelation of His justice:
When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
Asaph understood that he deserved God’s justice, and could stand before God only because of God’s unmerited favor, better known as mercy. He concludes with a declaration of his dependence on God and a renewed commitment to draw near to God:
Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.
This Psalm is a great object lesson in the importance of worship for right doctrine (orthodoxy) and right living (orthopraxy). But it is also a warning to avoid two dangers that redeemed sinners face living in a fallen world in rebellion against God. We must avoid thinking that God will not require an accounting of all things. God is just, and we cannot mistake His patience for inaction (see 2 Peter 3:8-10). We must also avoid pride when God brings part of that justice to bear on someone, because we stand only by God’s grace through the faith He enabled us to have. Each wrong reaction is the opposite of the other, and we must be careful to keep it in the lines, finding the place of balance where we are confident in God’s justice yet humbly understanding that our right standing before God is only because Jesus bore the just wrath which our sins deserved for us (Romans 3:21-26, 1 John 4:10).
Topics: Christian Living, Theology, Worship Wednesday | No Comments »
Tiptoeing Through the TULIP - Part 3
By Tim | February 20, 2008
Click here for the previous entry in this series concerning the “T” in TULIP, Total Depravity.
The “U” in the acronym TULIP stands for Unconditional Election. Like Total Depravity, this term is also subject to some level of misunderstanding. It is helpful to realize that the substantive in the phrase Unconditional Election is “election.” It is the noun, modified by the adjective “unconditional.” Remember from elementary school or from School House Rock! the adjective questions: Which one? What kind? How many? In this case, “unconditional” answers the question “What kind?” What kind of election does God practice? Unconditional.
Now that we’ve explained the relationship between the terms in the phrase, let us now look in turn at what each means. First, what is election? It is the sovereign choice of God to redeem a portion of fallen humanity from sin and restore them to right relationship with Him. While this doctrine may make us uncomfortable with some of its implications, we cannot deny it is biblical. The story of Old Testament is of God choosing for Himself a people which he redeems (e.g., Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the nation of Israel, the kingdom of Judah, the remnant which returns from exile). In all these instances, God could have chosen no one. In most of these instances, we see God choose someone over another person or people who may have been a more likely choice from a human perspective (e.g, Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Israel over Egypt. David over his brothers).
This idea continues in the teaching of the New Testament. Jesus clearly teaches God’s sovereign choice in salvation in John 6 (see verses 35-51). In verses 63-65, Jesus says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” Only by the Spirit do we come to Christ, and that Spirit is the deliberate gift of the Father to the one who believes.
Second, is this election unconditional? By unconditional, we mean that it is not based on any merit in the person or goodness within them. Some believe that God chooses those who He, in his perfect foreknowledge, knows will choose Him. This would be a conditional election - God choosing based on the meritorious act of a sinner choosing Him. There are two problems with the view of conditional election. First, total depravity rules out the possibly of the sinner choosing God on his own accord (remember above where Jesus said it is the Spirit who gives life while the flesh is of no help?). Second, the Bible clearly teaches unconditional election. Consider the following passages (emphasis added):
Romans 9:10-18: And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
1 Corinthians 1:26-31: For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Ephesians 1:3-5: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
There is no human will or exertion that can earn God’s mercy. There is no room for boasting. Just as God chose Jacob over Esau before they were born, God chose those He would redeem before the foundations of the earth were laid. Pride is excluded. God’s salvation is by His sovereign and unconditional choice.
Now, this idea brings up some possibilities which might be troubling to some. We will talk about those in the next post in this series.
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Why I Write This Blog - Part 3
By Tim | February 19, 2008
So, now we arrive at the purpose of this blog. As workers in the harvest (as Christians, this is a role we are all called by God to play – Matt. 28:18-20), we need to understand these reasons why people believe the lie. If we understand that pride is an obstacle for the lost person, we can point out that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus as Lord, as well as make a case for the enslaving nature of sin. If we know that people are unwilling to consider the implications of their shaky beliefs, we can challenge them to consider them, to realize that the bed of deals with death that they have made is too short, and their blanket of lies will not cover them. We can do this because we, as Christians, have the answer to the purpose and meaning of man’s existence; we have the only worldview that ultimately makes sense of the inner world of our own consciousness and the outer world of our experiences.
Of course, it is not so simple as making a few observations to the lost. With the significant departures in thinking from evangelical Christianity and current culture, the work of pre-evangelism often is a must. There is a good deal of work to be done in regards to getting to speak the same language with a lost person so that communication is meaningful. What a Christian means by words like God, sin, and salvation may not be what the unsaved person understands those words to mean. After crossing that obstacle, then the truth man’s lostness must be communicated before the gospel can be presented effectively. A man who does not feel thirsty will not want a drink, even if the truth of his situation is that he is severely and dangerously dehydrated. In the same way, a person who does not understand his or her state of lostness will not understand his or her need for a Savior. It is this work of establishing communication and then communicating the lostness of unsaved people, which could be thought of as pre-evangelism, that is the purpose of this study.
It is crucial to note here that this is not a game. This is a matter of grave seriousness. As workers in God’s harvest, we must remember that God loves each and every one of these people who are living in rebellion against Him, just as He loved you before you accepted His offer of salvation. The people of the “plentiful harvest” are not our enemies. They have rebelled against God, but God is still reaching out through Jesus Christ to them, just as he did to you, as the loving Father of the wayward Prodigal son. We must share out of love and compassion, not out of a desire to be right or to win arguments.
I hope this blog will be a training manual of sorts for workers in the harvest, especially for those in Western cultures confronted with the pervasive systems of rugged naturalism, post-modernism, and existentialism. After all, workers in the harvest need not be unskilled labor. However, it is important to remember that salvation is a work of God, not man. No matter how good an argument or presentation of the Gospel one makes, only God can save, and people have to choose to follow Him. But that salvation is God’s miracle and not man’s work is no excuse for not being ready to answer those who question or even attack Christianity. To the contrary, it is more important than ever that we as Christians stand “ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you.” (1 Peter 3:15)
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Decisions, Decisions
By Tim | February 18, 2008
Making choices can be hard. Sometimes they are hard though we know they shouldn’t be since one avenue is sinful, but our weakness and bent toward sin pulls at us. Sometimes they are hard because we don’t want to disappoint others or “loose face” in front of people whose respect we desire to have. Sometimes they are hard because no choice seems to have any clear advantage over the other. When faced with several choices, none of which are morally wrong or ethically deficient, how do you choose?
I read somewhere not long ago that so long as no alternative is sinful, God doesn’t really care which alternative you choose at a decision point. I find that hard to believe. God is very specific about his plans and purposes, and leaves nothing to chance or randomness. When you consider the hundreds of prophecies which foretold the birth, life, ministry, and death of Jesus which were made hundreds of years before their fulfillment with none left unfulfilled, it becomes clear that God, not the devil, is in the details. It seems unlikely to me that God would simply not care about a choice we make.
So how do you make the wise and best choice among several alternatives which present themselves?
If I figure it out, I’ll let you know.
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