“The Ancient Sage”

We host an every-other-week gathering in our home, which we simply call "Sunday Breakfast". As the name would imply, we serve breakfast to our guests, after which we gather in the living room for worship, Bible study, and discussion. We usually have a "questions that skeptics ask" segment in which we pose some of the difficult questions that skeptics ask us, or that our own "skeptic within" might raise. Tomorrow, we will be asking some difficult "why" questions. I plan to use the following poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in our discussion. It was written in 1885, late in the life of the poet. Because this site often considers evidence for and against faith, I am sharing the poem with my readers. Tennyson shares insights he gained over a lifetime about faith and hope, urging caution against certitude, and healthy humility for all who pursue truth. Feel free to offer your comments!

"The Ancient Sage"

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

If thou would’st hear the Nameless, and wilt dive
  Into the Temple-cave of thine own self,
There, brooding by the central altar, thou
May’st haply learn the Nameless hath a voice,
By which thou wilt abide, if thou be wise,
As if thou knewest, tho’ thou canst not know;
For Knowledge is the swallow on the lake
That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there
But never yet hath dipt into the abysm,
The Abysm of all Abysms, beneath, within
The blue of sky and sea, the green of earth,
And in the million-millionth of a grain
Which cleft and cleft again for evermore,
And ever vanishing, never vanishes,
To me, my son, more mystic than myself,
Or even than the Nameless is to me.
  And when thou sendest thy free soul thro’ heaven,
Nor understandest bound nor boundlessness,
Thou seest the Nameless of the hundred names.
  And if the Nameless should withdraw from all
Thy frailty counts most real, all thy world
Might vanish like thy shadow in the dark.

‘And since—from when this earth began—
  The Nameless never came
Among us, never spake with man,
  And never named the Name’—
 
Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son,
Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in,
Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one:
Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no
Nor yet that thou art mortal—nay my son,
Thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee,
Am not thyself in converse with thyself,
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise,
Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,
And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith
She reels not in the storm of warring words,
She brightens at the clash of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’,
She sees the Best that glimmers thro’ the Worst,
She feels the Sun is hid but for a night,
She spies the summer thro’ the winter bud,
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls,
She hears the lark within the songless egg,
She finds the fountain where they wail’d ‘Mirage’!

Book Review: Only a Theory

Subtitle: "Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul."

Author: Brown University Biology Professor, Kenneth R. Miller.

Publisher: Viking, in 2008.

Available at: Amazon

The stakes in the evolution debates are higher than I had imagined. Miller gives a very sobering analysis of the potential ultimate damage possible if the Intelligent Design movement wins the day. Every Christian interested in the I.D. verses Evolution controversy should read this book! My review follows ...

Will I.D. Undo American Leadership in Science?

... for that is precisely what it threatens to do. Ken Miller sets into clear focus all that is at stake in the Intelligent Design verses Evolution controversy. (Miller is a committed Christian, and one of the leading evolutionary biologists in America today.)

If this were merely a science question, if the debate were taking place in laboratories and peer-reviewed science journals, evolution would be winning hands-down. This, Miller contends, was clearly demonstrated at the 2005 Dover, Pennsylvania trial. And Miller devotes several chapters to scientifically dismantling the contentions of Intelligent Design theorists, building a strong case for the overwhelming superiority of Evolution over I.D. However, Miller shows us how the debate has been deftly shifted out of the realms of laboratory, field stations, data, and evidence, and into the realms of philosophy, religious dogma, and the very soul of America.

There is more at stake in the evolution wars then a mere testing of Darwin’s theory. Darwinists, like Miller, have always welcomed challenges to evolution. But I.D. fails miserably as a science. Recognizing this failure, the founder of the I.D. movement, Phillip Johnson, has proposed a strategy that has little to do with defeating evolution scientifically. Rather, he outlined a new set of goals in his Wedge Document, which is an appeal for a new approach to unseating evolution in the American classroom. Apparently concluding that evolution cannot be defeated on scientific grounds, Johnson suggests the battle be engaged in the courtrooms of public opinion, at the ballot box, and by rallying social conservative evangelicals.

While many Christians might applaud this approach, and while it may be effective, this is not the historically proven methodology for arriving at scientific conclusions. If the Copernican controversy had been settled in the courtroom of public opinion, we might be confirmed Geocentrists to this day. No, the scientific method which has served America so well, and thrust us into world leadership on so many fronts, does not settle its questions through public relations, get-out-the-vote drives, or political action committees.

Miller laments that if I.D. is successful in turning the question of origins from a scientific quest into a philosophical debate, the loser will not just be evolution, but our entire scientific enterprise, and our place of leadership in the world. Science, and evolution, will live on in the rest of the industrialized world with or without America’s leadership. (This is a distinctly American issue. Miller points out that America lags far behind the rest of the industrialized world when it come to public acceptance of evolutionary science.) The proponents of I.D. seem content with that prospect. Miller is not.

Written in a readable, and at times entertaining style, Only a Theory deserves more attention within the Christian community. I recommend it to my readers, especially those who take a favorable view of I.D.

One of the most fascinating discussions in the book for me comes in Chapter 8, the last chapter. Here, Miller discusses the paradoxical alignment of anti-evolution dogma and political conservatism. True economic conservatism is based in the teachings of Adam Smith. Smith proposed that the larger economic system is best served by the somewhat chaotic interplay of self-interested capitalists. The economic freedoms of unfettered capitalism result in greater innovations, and growth and development benefiting the entire economic system. Charles Darwin credited Adam Smith with helping him to see how the same principles led to innovation, growth and development in our evolutionary past. Thus, Miller draws the bold conclusion that support for evolutionary science is a more natural fit for economic conservatism than the anti-evolution stance we typically observer in those quarters. Hopefully, our scientific future will continue to lead us into innovation, growth and development, unfettered by the restraints of a philosophical movement, Intelligent Design.

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.

The Problem of Evil III. Pristine Creation (?)

After a lengthy pause, I resume the God and Evil series with this, the third post dealing with the Problem of Evil (hereafter referred to as PoE). In this series, I offer my own resolution to the quadrilemma of Epicurus discussed in this earlier post. The series will be several posts long. The full picture will only become clear as all posts are presented. For this reason, I will not generally respond to challenges or arguments to individual posts. But I am more than happy to answer any questions for clarification.

A central tenet of traditional Christian theology is that evil invaded a once pristine Creation. The assumption is that God’s original Creation was idyllic, unspoiled. It is assumed that God would not create a broken universe, one with a component of evil present at the very beginning. Into this unspoiled Creation, evil enters as an unwanted guest, through the rebellion of Satan and his angelic followers, and/or through the rebellion of man as illustrated in the first three chapters of Genesis.

Is this picture correct? Was all of Creation originally an unspoiled Eden? Is evil an interloper, and invader and spoiler of an otherwise ideal, paradisal cosmos? Does Scripture support this view, or does it suggest the contrary? At the culmination of his creative work, God looked at creation and found it to be “very good” ( Genesis 1:31 ); but was it perfect? Can our study of Creation, our scientific investigation of the universe itself, help us to answer this question? I believe it can.

If you believe, as I do, that God faithfully reveals truth through the nature of the universe (see Romans 1:20), then we can confidently look to the natural history of our cosmos as revealed in science to provide us with insight about God’s creative activity. Amazingly, our study of the present day cosmos has given us a remarkable front-row view of the creation moment. It is as though we can watch God fling this universe into existence. We are treated to such a trail of evidence, echos from the deep past, that astrophysicists today actually subdivide the very first second of time into “epochs” of natural history.

Among other things, they tell us that, following the initial moment of creation (aka “the Big Bang”),there was a very brief period known as the "Planck Epoch", which lasted a tiny fraction of millisecond. After this briefest of moments, the cosmos entered into a condition which has continued to the present day: the state of ever increasing entropy. (For a fuller explanation, see my earlier post on entropy) This Law of Entropy (also known as the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) dictates that the cosmos, as we know it, has a death sentence. We don’t know how long the universe has to live; some predict only about 100 billion years. Other suggest 100 trillion years or more. But we know that the ultimate fate of the universe is death. And now we understand that God made it this way from the very beginning. Not only is the universe winding down, entropy predicts that all matter, including all living beings, will ultimately die and/or decay.

This understanding is in keeping with the teachings of the Bible. The Psalmist declares that “In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.  Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded” (Psalm 102:25-26, quoted in Hebrews 1:10-12).

The Christian theological concepts I learned growing up in the church have evil invading the cosmos at some point in time after creation. Following this invasion (either the Fall of Adam and Eve or the judgment of Satan), death and decay begin to spoil an otherwise pristine Creation. Clearly, if 20th century science is close to the truth, this concept does not square with reality. But can the reality of a universe which has included death and decay from its very outset square with the Scriptures?

Your comments are welcome!

"Christianity Benefits Africa," Declares an Atheist

I will return to the "God and Evil" series in the near future. I found the subject of today's post a fascinating twist on the neo-atheism debates. I invite your comments.

It is popular among today’s secularists to portray Western Christian missionaries as damaging to native populations and their indigenous cultures. No one would argue that missionary activities have at times been misguided. The Western church model, typically inappropriate to other cultures, has too often been forcibly applied together with the gospel of Jesus. This needless exporting of Western cultural trappings has resulted in great harm in many places. But is it fair to paint all missionary efforts with the broad brush of condemnation because of these mistakes of the past? Or to put the question another way, has the net effect of the preaching of the gospel been positive for those populations that embraced Christianity, despite the failings of some missionaries? And is it possible that such positive effects could be noted even by a skeptic, one who doubts the gospel message itself?

Matthew Parris is a British journalist who writes for The Times (aka Times of London). In the December 27, 2008 edition, he penned a column which he titled, “As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God”. You can read his full essay here. Below are some excerpts:

“Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset.”

“... I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.”

... only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it”

Fascinating declarations coming from such a well-known atheist. Of course, he throws a bone to his follow-secularists when he writes, “It's a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package.” Say what? Salvation is the very heart of the package, not just a “part”. Nevertheless, Parris’s admission that the God of the missionary is just the medicine Africa needs is all the more remarkable in light of his stated aversion to the message of salvation!

Parris is very clear. The missionary message, and the deeds inspired by it, get more mileage than relief funds, secular NGOs, the U.N., education, etc.

I have a Canadian friend who has long maintained that the best thing a Christian can do for Africa is to go there, even if only for a short time.  Wayne leads teams of North Americans into Liberia, and Sierra Leone two and three times a year. The teams sometimes number 20 or 30 or more. The airfare for those teams could feed thousands of orphans, maybe build a school or two, or staff a small hospital for a year. When practical folks like myself point this out, Wayne objects vehemently. Our “ministry of presence” is simply invaluable, he contends, and Matthew Parris offers his own unique “Amen!”

Personal notes and links of interest

There has been a precipitous decline in Christians commenting on this site. While a number of atheists join in the discussion, it seems that Christians are either 1) offended by my manner (e.g. my rejection of many standard Christian answers to the problem of evil may offend some) or 2) fail to see that the problem of evil has never been adequately answered, or 3) just don't care. (And some readers simply do not engage in posting comments.) Since my primary purpose here is to engage believers in considering the impact scientific discoveries have upon Christian theology (though atheists are welcome and helpful in the process!), the almost total lack of engagement by believers has been a source of discouragement for me. So, a few weeks ago I posted this comment and chose to take a break from posting.

Since that time, I have been encouraged to continue to write. My monitoring of the site tells me that many of you are still coming by to read. Some fellow believers have assured me that they read the posts with interest, but have for various reasons chosen not to offer comments. So, very soon I will resume this series, and continue to develop my thoughts in this venue. I may at some point chose to disable comments if they prove to be unhelpful. 

Blogging takes a toll. Two of my blogging friends Tom and Steve are taking indefinite breaks from blogging, and perhaps trying a different approach. Tom offers very insightful posts and comments from his perspective as a former YEC Christian, and now an atheist/evolutionist, and I hope he finds time to continue blogging in some form. Steve has developed what may be the premier site on the web discussing the theological implications of evolution for evangelical believers. I hope his hiatus is short-lived.

Two additional notes on the more positive side: Beyond the Firmament author, Gordon Glover continues to post his excellent video series on Christian education, evolution and folk science. Earlier today he released Lesson 10. I highly recommend this video series to believers who still question the validity of evolution and common descent. And another blogging friend, Mike Beidler, recently appeared in a BBC radio broadcast, Beyond Belief, in which he recounts his own personal pilgrimage from a staunch YEC special creationist to a Christian who accepts evolution. Follow the links to the program, and give it a listen.

Stay tuned. In my next post, I will tackle this question: Does the universe offer any evidence indicating whether this Creation was ever pristine, edenic, unspoiled? and does this matter?