Complete Glover Series Now Available

When Christians choose to reject science that is nearly universally accepted, and choose to hold to views founded upon a literal reading of Genesis, their choice may be largely inconsequential. Other than accepting a false sense of reality, and limiting their own appreciation of the cosmos and of life sciences, their choice may have little impact upon their day to day lives.

But when Christian educators reject the last 200 years of scientific advancements, and pass this bias on to their students, they severely cripple Christian young people by passing on notions which will be completely worthless in their careers. Again, this may matter little to the student who does not pursue a career in certain technical or scientific fields. But those who do pursue such careers will find themselves severely handicapped in the job market.

Gordon J. Glover, author of Beyond the Firmament (see my review here) addresses this issue in his video series entitled “Science and Christian Education”. Glover has just announced the completion of the series, and it is available for viewing at YouTube by clicking here. Christian educators, or parents whose children are home-schooled or are enrolled in Christian schools, ought to view these 10 minute videos. But any believer who is struggling with how concepts like evolutionary biology, cosmology, and geology interface with an evangelical view of the Scriptures will benefit from watching this series. The videos are nicely done, powerful and succinct. I recommend them to my Christian friends.

Inspiration: Is the Bible inspired?

Questions about the Inspiration of the Scriptures, Inerrancy, troubling texts, contradictions in the Bible, etc., keep cropping up here at OutsideTheBox. Today’s post will be the first in a “sometimes series” on the Bible entitled, “Accurately Handling the Word of Truth.” In this series, I will state my own views on the Bible, and perhaps help some of my readers to sort out their honest and troubling questions about the Scriptures.

Today's post looks at the question of Inspiration. It was written 18 months ago in the aftermath of controversy surrounding my views on the sciences of cosmology and evolution in the local church to which I belong. I wrote it originally to dispel concerns that I no longer "believed the Bible." Not at all certain that I accomplished that purpose, I offer it here anyway in hopes it may, at least, clarify my views for my readers.

As I was preparing this post, I happened upon this excellent post on “Negotiating Tensions in the Bible” which Chris Tilling posted over at Chrisendom earlier today. Those interested in a deeper, more scholarly approach to these issues may wish to read his essay, which he recently penned for some of his own students grappling with these difficult questions. Happy reading!

As always, I invite your comments.

Inspiration of the Scriptures

By Cliff Martin

What was the process of the inspiration of the Scriptures? How did it happen? To what degree are the Scriptures without error? How dependable are they? Can we safely base our lives on their teachings? These are fair and responsible questions. As I am being asked to clearly state what I believe about these questions, I have chosen to declare in writing my views on the inspiration of the Bible.

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Three issues swirl about the larger question of inspiration. Every Bible believer who desires to maintain a reasonable and viable faith is obliged to face three issues honestly and thoughtfully. The three issues are:

1. How does the Bible square up with external evidences? When we place the Bible alongside the findings of history, geology, cosmology, and biology, how much agreement or disagreement do we find? And if we find discrepancies, what do they tell us about Inspiration?

2. How does the Bible square up with internal evidences? Are there contradictions? Do we find teachings in the Old Testament, for example, that do not align well with the nature of God as we understand him from the life of Jesus, and the New Testament? If the Bible disagrees with itself in matters of history and/or theology, what does this tell us about Inspiration?

3. What does that Bible say about itself, both explicitly, and inferentially? Does the Bible declare itself to be without error? What can we glean from the writers themselves? For many Christians, the starting point must be this third set of issues. It is argued that if the Bible makes certain definitive claims about itself, issues one and two must be laid aside. So I will begin this discussion with this question: What does the Bible itself declare about itself?

First, we must recognize that the Bible says nothing about itself. The Bible as we have it had no “self identity” until the process of canonization, hundreds of years after the last words were penned. To construe any claims within the texts about the “Scriptures” as encompassing all of the texts contained in our Bible ignores this fact. Or we must use an unlikely premise that the authors who made the claims were doing so in anticipation of the defining of Scripture which was not to occur for some 300 years or more.

However, New Testament writers did look back upon a defined set of the Hebrew Scriptures. And many of these writers, and Jesus himself in his spoken words, clearly regarded Old Testament texts which they quoted to be the words of God (though we must be careful not to press this point too far—often they quoted the textually corrupt Septuagint). They might, for example, quote an Old Testament Scripture with the words “the Holy Spirit says ....” Neo-orthodox thinkers like Karl Barth [1], and many others who do not believe in plenary verbal inspiration, confess their belief that God’s Holy Spirit does indeed speak to us through the Bible, through the very words. But it requires a deductive leap to conclude that these New Testament authors therefore regarded all of the O.T. as the very words of God, without error. Such a claim is never made anywhere in the Bible. But Paul does declare that the Scriptures (however he might have defined them) were inspired. Let’s examine this clearest of all Biblical claims about its composition, from 2 Timothy 3:16:

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; (NASB)

The Greek word translated “inspired” is theopneustos. It occurs only this one time in the New Testament, and it is absent from other Classical Greek literature of the era. So beyond this one verse in the Bible, we are left with no clues as to its usage. But the word itself refers to the breath of God. While some might argue that “God-breathed” can only mean verbal (word for word) inspiration, the term may mean no more than its Latin corresponding word, the root of our English, inspired, which means “breathed in”. An artist or a hymn writer might be moved to paint or compose by some stirring expression of nature, and properly claim that they were inspired of God to produce their work. Of course theopneustos, may mean more than that, but we are not obliged to conclude that it does. Therefore, the Scriptures themselves seem to leave those of us who believe in Inspiration with considerable latitude for our understanding of the meaning of Inspiration. Charles Pinnock, a respected evangelical leader, has concluded,

The Bible does not give us a doctrine of its own inspiration and authority that answers all the various questions we might like to ask.  Its witness on this subject is unsystematic and somewhat fragmentary and enables us to reach important but modest conclusions. [2]

When we turn our attention to the text of the Bible itself (issues one and two, above), we are confronted with many inaccuracies and discrepancies. I will not point them all out in this essay. But no honest Bible scholar denies them. John Piper [3] (a leading Evangelical defender of inerrancy), readily admits that there are “hundreds” of such discrepancies, and that “we dishonour the text not to see them ....” He holds out the hope that all these problems will find solutions, but he suggests we might not get those solutions “in this life” [4]. I do not share his optimism. The list of discrepancies is not getting shorter. Instead, the list keeps growing as our knowledge of the earth and the cosmos expand. It boggles the mind to understand how some of those discrepancies could possibly be solved. And it borders upon intellectual dishonesty to dismiss them in such a cavalier fashion as Piper does.

Perhaps the problem isn’t with the Bible. Perhaps the fault lies in our definitions of Inspiration, and our insistence that the Scriptures are verbally (word for word) inspired in their totality. If the Scriptures do not expressly claim this for themselves, and if the mounting evidence is to the contrary, should we not at least give consideration to other views of Inspiration? The modern day doctrine of inerrancy together with the importance bestowed upon the doctrine, was born in the fundamentalist reaction to modernism at the turn of the 20th Century. Many consider it to be the lynchpin of orthodoxy. But the early leaders of the fundamentalist movement were not unanimous in their acceptance of inerrancy. One of those early leaders, James Orr, warned,

It is urged...that unless we can demonstrate what is called the inerrancy of the biblical record down even to its minutest details, the whole edifice of belief in revealed religion falls to the ground. This, on the face of it, is the most suicidal position for any defender of revelation to take up. [5]

Suicidal, in Orr’s opinion, because he viewed inerrancy as impossible to defend. And thus, the inerrantist inevitably paints himself into a corner.

Rather than spending any more time discussing what the Bible is not, I would like to make clear what I believe the Bible is.

I believe that the Bible is a unique book, inspired from Genesis to Revelation. I believe it is the very book God wanted us to have. I hold to the authority of the Scriptures in matters of faith and practice. I believe the Bible provides a solid and dependable foundation for Christian living. I read it. I study it. I love it. I teach it. I find that it is “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16, NASB). I believe all the Scriptures are infallible. Infallibility, as I use the term, means that the Bible, in its totality, does not mislead on issues of faith and practice, though it may not be without error in all respects, e.g. in history or science. In my years of reading and studying the Bible, this view of the Scriptures is more consistent with the Scriptures themselves than what I consider a forced claim of inerrancy.

[Though my view of Inspiration has shifted as I have gained a more thorough understanding of the issues, this shift has not affected my core beliefs. I believe in the Incarnation; I believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus; I believe in his Bodily Resurrection; I believe in the reality and power of prayer. I believe in the indwelling, empowering Holy Spirit.]

I believe that in the process of inspiration, God did not override any author’s memory or knowledge base. [Paul, writing the inspired book of 1 Corinthians, included a little misinformation, then corrected himself, then said he was uncertain because he could not remember (1:14-16); the variations in the reporting of events during the life of Jesus which are found in the Gospels are best understood as resulting from inexact recall of events]. It was not God’s intention to produce a supernatural perfect book. Many have wondered why it is that the leader of the Christian faith, Jesus Christ himself, never wrote a book [6]. The answer is quite simple for me. If Jesus had a written a book, the church would have fallen into worship of that book. It would be venerated. It would be legalistically applied. God has chosen not to give us “the perfect book” because our faith is not about words on a page, but about a growing, dynamic relationship with the Lord of the Universe! However, the Bible does give a faithful and accurate account of this growing relationship with God from Abraham through John, the Apostle.

My understanding of the mechanics of inspiration is perhaps best expressed in how I view the early chapters of Genesis, especially chapter one. Here, we see God inspiring Moses to convey remarkable new truths even as he wrote out of his mistaken Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) concept of the universe which included a firmament, with “waters above”. [7] The cosmology of Genesis 1 is quite clearly based in these concepts. We read similar accounts of Creation in Egyptian and Mesopotamian literature that predates Moses. But Moses offered some rather earth-shaking revelations about the one Creator-God, and the nature of God’s relationship to mankind. This is the essence of the revelation of these chapters. [8] It is a message which is today obscured by an insistence that Genesis 1 be understood literally. When the world hears Christians defending literalist interpretations of the Biblical account of Creation, this powerful message of Moses is marginalized, and the voice of the Church is, sadly, muted.

I believe that once Moses had these understandings about Creation, that God “inspired” him to write down his understandings. Moses then supplied the context in terms of ANE cosmogeny [9]; these misunderstandings did not bother God, nor did they detract from the revealed truths being conveyed. God knew that as man’s relationship to Him progressed, further revelation would build upon these writings of Moses. He knew that, in time, man would get the science right. Through this process of progressive revelation, truths about God would come into clearer and clearer focus. I believe this is exactly what we see happening through the whole course of Scripture, culminating in the person of Jesus and the writing of the New Testament.

When I read through the Bible, I am so thankful that God inspired Moses to write down what he was learning about God, even when his understandings were incomplete, or inaccurate. But God, as I have come to know him, is better represented in the writings of David, than Moses. Better still in Isaiah, Jeremiah. Better still in the Gospel records, and finally, in the writings of Paul, and John. Each new layer of inspired writing builds upon the earlier revelation. Like the process of zeroing a telescope in on a distant star, the person and character of God comes into clearer and clearer focus as we move through the Scriptures. In the end, we are equipped with a faithful journal of the history of the one true and living God with a people who sought him, and found him. The net message of the Bible, taken as a whole, comes through loud and clear! It is the revelation of God.

The fact that the Biblical authors did not have their cosmology down pat (no one did until the 15th Century A.D!) does not detract from the power, life-flow, and personal impact the Scriptures convey to me. To push the issue of inerrancy, to insist upon a woodenly literal interpretation of Genesis 1, obscures the real truth of the Word, robs it of its life, and sets up an easy target for the skeptics.

The conflict that has grown up between science and the Bible is an artificial one. It should never have happened. Christian faith was the driving force for science up to and including Darwin. Believers were highly motivated to explore Creation, the handiwork of our Friend! When a strong anti-evolutionary bias linked to Fundamentalism’s defense of the Bible (a linkage which James Orr, and his friend B.B. Warfield both warned was a mistake), an unhealthy distrust of science developed in the Fundamentalist wing of the church. Bible-believing Christianity ceased to be a major player in the advance of science. Lamentably, we deeded that territory largely over to the secularists, who today use science as a club to beat up on Christian beliefs.

There is no conflict between the true scientific exploration of Creation, and the inspired revelation of the Creator. (And contrary to the popular notion among some believers, there is no anti-Christian conspiracy among scientists today, many of whom are Bible believing Christians.) Truth about God and his Creation is truth, whether it is found in the pages of Scripture, or in the lenses of Hubble’s telescope. It is all truth. It is time for this tired, misguided warfare to come to an end.

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Endnotes:

1 Neo-orthodoxy, a 20th Century movement, is distinct from both Liberal Protestantism and Fundamentalism. This can be seen in Barth's understanding of the Bible. He rejected the Fundamentalist claim that the Scriptures are inerrant. He rejected the modernist Liberal Christian claim of that time, that God could be known primarily through human scholarship (science and reason). He believed that the Bible was the primary place where God is revealed to human beings, but he did not hold the Bible to be without error.

2 The Scripture Principle, Charles Pinnock, page 80

3 These excerpts come from Piper’s book, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, page 77

4 I have never understood how the inerrant Bible Piper holds, reads, and teaches from is any different from Barth’s neo-orthodox Bible. Both scholars hold a book riddled with errors. The known errors admitted by both men number in the hundreds. Piper and Barth have an identical problem: how to read and discern the Bible which has known errors, and may contain other errors we have not yet identified. There is no difference. Those who hold to inerrancy and cast aspersions upon those who do not, claiming that they can “pick and choose” what to believe are not being fair or honest. They have the ability, and the responsibility to do the same! Piper and Barth are both utterly dependent upon Holy Spirit illumination, without which the Bible is nothing more than dead words on a page. (And isn’t this how God intended us to regard the Bible?)

5 Revelation and Inspiration, James Orr, page 197.

6 Christians seldom ask this question, but in my experience, it is among the most common questions raised by nonbelievers.

7 See Gordon Glover’s Beyond the Firmament, chapter 3 and following.

8 Steve Martin has written an excellent post on this subject which can be found here.

9 a cosmogeny (or cosmogony) is any view of how the universe came into being.

The problem with Intelligent Design ...

 ... "is not that [it] is wrong." So begins the 14th installment of Gordon Glover's video series on Christian education, evolution and folk science. Following that disclaimer, he proceeds to explain why a Bible-believing Christian like himself rejects the teaching of Intelligent Design in the science classroom. Christians are often perplexed when they hear of fellow believers (such as Glover and myself) who accept evolutionary science, but who oppose the teaching of Intelligent Design. The following image from Glover's presentation helps to bring the issue into focus. It is a quote from Isaac Newton, who did so much to advance our understanding of gravity and the laws of motion. While Newton understood planetary movements better than most of his contemporaries, there were aspects of these movements which he found baffling and inexplicable. In the face of such insurmountable mysteries, he made the mistake of turning to Intelligent Design, and divine intervention for an explanation.

In one sense, what Newton said may be true. But what he meant was that the mysteries of our Solar System could only be understood in terms of God's constant active power. Of course, we now understand the physics of our Solar System, and we see how God has put into place natural laws and phenomena by which these movements are governed. We no longer feel a need to appeal to the constant supernatural intervention of "an intelligent and powerful Being." We can be thankful for scientists like French mathematician and astronomer, Pierre-Simon Laplace, who rejected Newton's Intelligent Design theory and continued to pursue scientific investigation of the astronomical data. Laplace helped us to see how God was able to construct a Solar System which did not require his active supernatural intervention to "make it work". Of course, we all take Laplace's explanations for granted, today.

No believer I know rejects the idea of intelligent design, if by that we mean God is the ultimate architect and Creator of the entire cosmos. But many of us do reject the so-called "scientific" theory of Intelligent Design which is a thinly-veiled attack on evolutionary science. We are grateful to Laplace for refusing Newton's science-stopping explanation. And in the same spirit, we say "press on" to the evolutionary scientists of today (with many Bible-believing Christians among them) who continue to fill out our understanding of the natural history of life on earth. Their work will only be done unfettered by the philosophically and religiously driven theories of Intelligent Design.

The point is this: intelligent design may be good philosophy, and sound spiritual reality; Intelligent Design is bad science. 

If this topic interests you (or angers you!), I recommend Gordon's discussion of Intelligent Design in Lessons 13 and 14 of his series.

The Stronghold of Creationism

I will return to the God & Evil series; a post at a friend's site prompted the following ...

I recall a conversation I had with a friend about two years ago. I had recently read Francis Collins’s wonderful book, The Language of God, and I was in the middle of Gordon Glover's Beyond the Firmament. My friend had expressed his astonishment that I accepted the evidence for evolution. I told him that in five years, maybe ten, he too would come to accept evolution, as would most Christians. Wow! How wildly optimistic I was!

I now tell people that I do not expect to live to see the day when most conservative Christians accept evolution, and that it may take another fifty to one hundred years before Christendom abandons its anti-evolution stance. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publishing of the Origin of the Species. The last time Christians had to adjust to the theological and bibliological implications of unsettling science (following Copernicus and Galileo), the church took 200 years to come to terms. If my 50 year projection is accurate, we're just about on schedule.

Steve Douglas has just posted Why creationists are creationists, an excellent piece detailing the reasons for the solid resistance to evolution in the conservative wing of the American church. I recommend it for those who seek to understand why this resistance is so unyielding. 

Your comments are welcome.

Personal Note: Check out these blog sites ...

Okay, I just couldn't pass up the cartoon. I hope I didn't offend anyone. But if I did, please, instead of getting mad, find out for yourself why the skeptic who drew this is so right on the money! 

(Did I just make matters worse?)

I want to draw your attention to some interesting post series on the sites of a couple of my friends. If you believe, as I do, that good science is vital for the health and witness of the church, then you will want to check out these two sites. If you do not believe that good science matters much, then you especially need to check out these sites!

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Over at Beyond the Firmament, Gordon Glover has been posting a series targeting the teaching of good science in Christian schools. Anyone who has surveyed the textbooks used in Christian schools will know that students are, for the most part, simply not learning good science. But Gordon’s essays are of general interest, and I recommend them to all my readers. Among the posts in this series:

• (#1) The unfortunate and unnecessary conflict between conservative theology and current science;
  
• (#4) The definition of “folk science”;
  
• (#6) The “Antipodes”, the what?? ... if you ever thought that incorrect thinking in the realm of science has limited consequences for the church and its mission, you must read this one;
  
• (#7)“Aristotle’s Cosmos”, the 16th Century brouhaha over geocentrism (#8 is a follow-up);
  
• (#9) Modern day Geocentrism, ... you mean people still actually believe that??
  
• (#10) Young Earth Astronomy, is that an oxymoron?; and
  
• (#11) Flood Geology, an excellent overview demonstrating that Flood Geology was untenable 200 years ago, and it still is today.

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Steve Martin, at An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution, has for the last few weeks been hosting an interesting series entitled, “Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics”. The essays are written by a number of evangelical Christian scientists who teach at the university level. These professors share insights, as well as some of the personal struggles, that arise out of their experiences in the academic world as evangelicals who teach evolution.

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As for me, the pace of my postings has slowed, of late. Keeping up the pace, on top of family life and operating a business, is difficult. But please stay with me! I will very soon post a review of The Dawkins Delusion? the McGraths' answer to The God Delusion. And I do intend to return to my main post series. I wish to offer some concepts of how the big bang, entropy, evolution, and randomness are not only adaptable to Biblical Christianity, but serve to inform our faith, adding new dimensions to our understandings of theology, as well as renewed impetus to "be about the Father's business." Stay tuned!

Book Review: Beyond the Firmament

“Why another book on science and faith?” Gordon Glover poses the question himself in the preface of Beyond the Firmament, his first book, released earlier this month by Watertree Press. While Glover offers his owns reasons, I would like to add a few of my own.

The motto of the publisher Watertree Press (also new) is Read. Think. Grow. With this book, their first release, readers will likely do all three. Glover challenges us to step outside our comfortable paradigms and think about issues like the big bang and evolution in new and fresh ways. He takes the reader on a journey of discovery to answer such questions as: What do we know, and how do we know it? What can the Bible tell us about nature? What can nature tell us about itself? What about evolution?

Glover's approach to this subject matter is unique. He does not write from the perspective of a trained scientist. This, I believe, is to his advantage. The reader will not be bogged down in the arcane language of the lab or technical terminology. (When it is necessary to introduce terms which might be unfamiliar, Glover defines those terms in simple language using footnotes on the same page.) Instead, Glover employs entertaining analogies and a bit of humor to shake us out of our comfort zones and compel us to think clearly! While Glover is not a trained scientist, he does not lack understanding of the technical issues at hand. But his presentation of those issue to the untrained reader is clear, straightforward and to the point. The result is a book that is easy to read, informative, and enjoyable. I recommend it to all my readers who wish to have a clearer world-view when it comes to the sciences of origins and the Bible.

Glover’s forte is analogy. His analogies open up delightful windows upon the truth. They yield up opportunities to look at things from completely new and fresh angles. This sometimes indirect approach catches us off guard, and gently dismantles our faulty preconceived notions without attacking them head-on. It is hard to be defensive and argumentative when we are smiling! Whether Glover is imagining a fleet of levitating snow machines or exposing the folly of a Christian insistence upon “theistic meteorology”, even the resistant reader will be disarmed and forced to rethink his cherished assumptions.

Another strength of Glover’s is his understanding of ancient Near-Eastern world-views, and how they impacted the writing of the Old Testament. Every believer who struggles with early Genesis and Inspiration should read this book. Glover, a committed Bible believer, makes a strong case that those who would defend the Scriptures must do so with an understanding of the world in which they were written. His approach brings clarity to many of the riddles of Biblical interpretation, especially as they relate to modern science.

Reading Beyond the Firmament was a pleasure for me. I shared most of Glover’s views before I read his book, and he introduced little information with which I was not already familiar. Still, his unique and fresh approach captivated me and gave me an enjoyable experience.

Personal note ...

I am in Canada with my wife for a conference in Vanderhoof, B.C. (British Columbia is more beautiful than Oregon! It is, quite possibly the most beautiful piece of the planet!!) I am also reading Gordon Glover's newly released book, Beyond the Firmament, which I am enjoying very much. I will be reviewing it here soon, and then dialoging (a lot!) with Gordon. Very good book. I recommend it to all my readers. Anyway, all of this to say that it may be a few more days before I am able to finish the next post on the the problem of evil.

~ Cliff