2010-08-14

Hays continues responding to a detractor of the mature creation view, who for all practical purposes is a materialist, even while claiming to be a Christian. i) The Bible can’t be treated as prima facie evidence for macroevolution. The traditional reading of Genesis has no concept of a molecules-to-man approach. God instantiates reality at a later point in the cycle. ii) Science can only deal with appearances, including those of origin, and those appearances would incorporate the appearance of earlier stages in a cycle instantiated at any arbitrary point. iii) Hays’ interlocutor operates by reverse linear extrapolation, taking the present as the current frame of reference. But that my watch says 2pm doesn’t tell you when I set it. Natural periodic processes tell you nothing of when they were instantiated in cycle. iv) Natural chronometers are all the naturalist has. He’s timing a natural process with another one. Using a clock to calibrate a clock, which is circulate. v) The significance of answered prayers is apparent to the one asking, but may not be to outsiders. Yet naturalistic inquiry may not identify supernatural activity in the chain of events, though there is.  “Even if the answered prayer triggered a chain-reaction, he can’t go back through all the train of events if there are missing links. Without continuous evidence for the intervening events, the trail runs dry. Yet if we believe that answered prayer is a factor in historical causation, then there are countless instances in which answered prayers impact the outcome even though it won’t be possible at this stage of the game to detect their contribution. Yet that isn’t reducible to a closed continuum of physical cause-and-effect.” vi) according to Christian theism, both natural and supernatural factors shape history, and do so on a regular basis. A naturalistic bias is a recipe for misinterpreting the world. vii) It’s not that there is no meaningful distinction between natural and supernatural factors, although that’s often a difference of degree rather than kind, since every event is ultimately an act of God. Keeping God on a leash

Hays has some useful reminders on issue that have been popping up in his debate with a practical naturalist: Traditionally in Christian apologetics it is often necessary to clearly demarcate miracles from ordinary providence because, so the argument goes, ordinary providence lacks the same evidentiary value as miracles. However, miracles ought not to be distinguished from providence on evidentiary terms. God reveals himself in ordinary providence no less than he does in signs and wonders. Now from an apologetic point of view its important to be fairly certain that an apparent answered prayer is an actual answered prayer. Nevertheless God lies behind every event that happens. Thanking God for the outcome of prayer is never wrong, even if you misinterpret it somewhat: we should never be hesitant to express our gratitude to God.  Now Thank We All Our God

From Gary Gutting, philosophy prof at University of Notre Dame: “find Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” stimulating, informative, and often right on target. But it does not make a strong case for atheism. His case is weak because it does not take adequate account of the philosophical discussions that have raised the level of reflection about God’s existence far above that at which he operates. It may be possible to make a decisive case against theism through a penetrating philosophical treatment of necessity, complexity, explanation, and other relevant concepts. Because his arguments fail to do this, Dawkins falls far short of establishing his claim.” Amateur philosophizing

Continuing with a summary of Turk’s post, he makes the following useful points to remember: i) People are saved by faith in Christ, by believing the Gospel Peter preached, not faith in a six day creation. ii) In that group, there are some who don’t hold to inerrancy. It’s not unthinkable that some who are saved are not saved to a high view of Scripture, but it is to them and their pastors’ shame. iii) Some aren’t great systematic thinkers. Having a fallible confession doesn’t mean you have a broken confession. iv) denying critical parts of Scripture is not the same thing as being rudely ignorant of them. v) This distinction is the place where the definition of "Christian" and "not Christian" resides. “There is a distinction between being merely someone from Antioch, and being someone who is a "Christian" -- and it does lie someplace in the mix of what a persecuted post-Jewish believer would tell people, and what Barnabas would tell people, and what Paul would tell people.” vi) This distinction isn’t found in BioLogos. BioLogos is aimed as appeasing another authority apart from Scripture. They are obliterating this distinction while fundamentally reinterpreting Scripture. They aim to be a middle way and in the process makes science have the first and last word, with Scripture subordinate to it, while surrendering orthodoxy.  More than a Mere Distinction

AiG: Members of the frends and family of ape-woman ‘Lucy’ are said to have used tools, much earlier on the evolutionary timeline than thought. Other scientists are unconvinced: University of California–Berkeley paleoanthropologist Tim D. White said the team’s conclusions “greatly outstrip the evidence.” There is no indication of tools in sites in the area in 40 years of digging. AiG points out that a young-earth creation model unsurprisingly resolve the dilemma, as highly intelligent humans lived at the same time as A. afarensis. At 3-4 million years the timeline is most likely post-flood, so the bones could have easily been relocated. News to Note, August 14, 2010

AiG; “Although there are a couple of forms of melanin and other pigments and factors playing minor roles in skin color, every human basically has a brown color.” AiG posts the article after taking a caller, who said, ‘black and white people do not belong to the same race’. However, ‘Over the last several decades, many examples of fraternal twins, where one is very dark (called “black”) and one very light (called “white”), have been documented.’ Provided that the parents have between them mixtures of the dominant and recessive genes, children could exhibit a large range of skin shade. [I’ll note here that Creationism has a basis for considering all men to be of the same race; evolutionism does not, and the latter tends to racism (cf. Nazi Germany)].  It’s Not Just Black & White

Beggar’s All: Responding to a Romanist, this post notes his use of a source known for passing forged/fake documents, which in this case, is ‘Pope Damasus’, or ‘the Decree of Gelasius’, which wasn’t written by him. “In truth, "the Roman Catholic Faith" was shaped by very many incidents such as this, in which a false or forged document is believed as genuine.” The post notes "Pseudo-Dionysius" as an example, a neoplatonist writer who purported to be the convert of Paul from Acts 17. It continues, “Nevertheless, the great Thomas Aquinas thought that he, and other fake sources, was genuine, and Aquinas has a somewhat foundational place in Roman Catholic theology and doctrine today. Much of what is now Marian dogma also had its roots in forged or spurious documents. ” The Phony Decree of Damasus or Gelasius

Beggar’s All: Luther says "we do everything of necessity, and nothing by `free-will'; for the power of `free-will' is nil, and it does no good, nor can do, without grace," to turn Erasmus’ position against itself; Luther quotes Erasmus describing free will as ineffective apart from the grace of God. And if free will is ineffective without grace, then it is enslaved to evil, something Erasmus didn’t reckon with. Even a Roman Catholic scholar admits Erasmus minimized the need for grace and the enslavement of mankind to sin. Luther continued after this quote: “If `free-will' is ascribed to men, it is ascribed with no more propriety than divinity itself would be—and no blasphemy could exceed that! So it befits theologians to refrain from using the term when they want to speak of human ability, and to leave it to be applied to God only.” Luther- The power of Free Will is Nil

Beggar’s All: Rhology responds to a Romanist attacking sola scriptura, saying “Once we start talking about "well, that's just your interpretation!", there is nothing else to say, from either side. Either you admit that God is capable of revealing Himself in such a way as to be comprehensible to people or you don't. Either you admit that people can speak in such a way as to be comprehensible to others or you don't.” After all, there can be many interpretations of an infallible magisterium. Ironically, his interlocutor wrote a rather lengthy blog expecting to be understood. The post interacts with a number of specific points of Roman Catholic eisegesis of Scripture, intra-Romanist contradictions on the interpretation of Scripture, and intra-Romanist disagreements. Roman Catholic Delusions – 2

Turretinfan: This is a dense read, but quite interesting: Peter Abelard on the Inerrancy of Scripture in Contradistinction to the Errancy of the Fathers

Truemant notes that it has become commonplace in Reformed evangelical circles to decry the level of polemic that has historically characterised the Reformed world. Trueman isn’t ready to embrace this self-loathing yet. i) The Reformed have no monopoly on polemic. See Catholic, Orthodox, Anabaptist, and Episcopalian. ii) The criticism of polemics often comes from those who enjoy the space that polemics have carved out for them and the safety that polemics provides them. Like those who use their right to freedom of speech to decry armed force by police and military. iii) With the example of David and Adonijah, a nasty controversy often only happens because at some earlier point someone turned a blind eye, taking the easy way to avoid a moral or theological issue. iv) Trueman writes, “Finally, I simply don't recognise the pictures drawn by the Reformed evangelical critics of Reformed evangelical polemicists.  The problem is they build grand cases about general types on very limited access to evidence.” Trueman elects to toss this sad, misguided self-loathing on the polemic front. Fear and Self-Loathing in Lausanne (Carl Trueman)

DeYoung points to a misuse of statistics: “In a 2007 study, Lifeway Research determined that 70% of young Protestant adults between 18-22 stop attending church regularly.” The study actaully found that they stopped for at least a year. This interpretation leads to the false conclusion that young people are pouring out of the churches never to return – if they were, we’d see a huge dip in the next demographic, but we don’t. We see religious affiliation increase with each bump in the age demographic. “on the negative side, the number of young people who do not affiliate with any religion has increased in recent decades, just as it has for the whole population… on the positive side, the percentage of young people who attend church or who think that religion is important has remained mostly stable.” Beware the Over-Hyped Stat

Burk points to an interview of McLaren by McKnight. “McKnight asks McLaren if he’s a universalist. Don’t hold your breath for a direct answer because McLaren doesn’t give one.McLaren says that he is not an exclusivist but that he can’t say that he’s a universalist either. He won’t commit to either view. McLaren’s says that he’s working within a new “narrative” in which those old questions of heaven and hell don’t make sense anymore. In spite of McLaren’s obfuscation, I think it’s pretty clear that he’s a universalist.” McKnight Interviews McLaren

Piper asnwers the question of whether the Holy Spirit is underemphasized, or overemphasized. Piper is a charismatic, and he goes on to say that we basically need to avail ourselves of the spiritual gifts God has given (if there is a gift of healing,etc), and that we have to factor in the timing of a sovereign God. He says, “But I've locked myself in my closet, "God save me. God help me. God strengthen me. God deliver me!" And God is saying, "Uh... I have taught you about spiritual gifts and you don't ever avail yourself of them. Don't come complaining to me saying that I haven't responded to you when I have gifts waiting for you and you never open the package."” Are There More Gifts for You to Unwrap-

CMI discusses the question of whether there is scientific proof for the existence of God. Along the way, the post says past events can only be determined by historical records as they are not available for observation and are therefore not accessible by science. “to determine the truth about our origins, we need an eye-witness account from someone who knows everything, who does not lie and who has written down (through the agency of human hands) all we need to know about the past. And we have just such a document in the Bible…” The author writes, “My Ph.D. was from Sydney University in electromagnetics and I can assure you that science is not always the dispassionate search for truth based on observations and logical deductions leading to irresistible conclusions that the public believes it to be.” http://creation.com/science-existence-of-god

Bring the Books strongly recommends Marsden’s biography of Jonathan Edwards. The Unprofessional Book Review- Jonathan Edwards- A Life by George Marsden

Patton looks at the question of whether the Bible tells you if you should go out for dinner (as an example). He begins with a reminder of grammatical-historical exegesis. “The fact is that while the Bible speaks to many things, it does not speak to everything in every verse. It is not a magic book that can be manipulated in such a way.” He says, these are the questions to ask, in order: “What did it mean then? What does it mean for all time (if anything)? How does it apply to me?”  Should I Go Out to Dinner Tonight- Let’s See What the Bible Says

(HT: Triablogue; Can we trust published scientific data-) After discussing a few examples of fraud in scientific practice, suhc as Climategate, similar cases where promoters of Darwinism use their influence to prevent the publication of articles critical of Darwinism (The most infamous of all scientific frauds was the Piltdown Man, unearthed in 1912 in a Sussex gravel pit.), etc., this post writes, “David Shatz, in his 2004 book Peer Review: A Critical Inquiry concludes that reviewers are “biased toward papers that affirm their prior convictions…are biased against innovation and/or are poor judges of quality… Epidemiologist John Ioannidis, in a paper (2005) entitled Why most published research findings are false finds that a randomly chosen scientific paper has less than a 50% chance of being true.” Reviewers also seem biased in favor of authors from prestigious institutions.” It concludes, “there is cause for some skepticism regarding the reliability of published scientific data . Data might well be distorted, fabricated or suppressed. Papers critical of the dominant paradigm might well be prevented from being published in mainline scientific journals. This is hardly surprising. After all, scientists are only human—fallen and fallible. They, too, are driven by various extra-scientific motivations, whether ideology, wealth or fame. It is thus important to double-check whether what was reported to have been observed is in fact accurate and complete.” [This is all the sort of stuff I saw in my SECULAR sociology of science course during SECULAR engineering school. It’s not as if it’s just YEC’s saying this stuff. And it’s still remarkable how blindly naive so many people are towards the scientific establishment.] http://bylogos.blogspot.com/2010/01/can-we-trust-published-scientific-data.html