Science

The Life Dialogue: Intelligent Design 3

This is part of a series of posts on the “Life Dialogue” within Christianity. Check out other posts in the series here.

Intelligent Design (hereafter ID) is a theory that suffers a lot of critique from all sides of the life dialogue within Christianity, as well as the secular world. Just a google search can bring up thousands of images ridiculing the theory, both from an evolutionist standpoint (often calling it creationism in disguise) and from a creationist standpoint (calling it evolutionism in disguise). I find that, too often, those criticizing the ID movement present a caricature of its arguments, without ever addressing the relevant issues it raises.

Creationists often attack ID for trying to sneak some kind of atheism into theology. I simply don’t find this to be true. The ID movement would have many theological implications, but atheism is definitely not one of these. Theistic Evolutionists criticize ID for being just creationism in disguise. I simply can’t see this as anything but a non sequitur of the greatest proportions.

Recently, an article in Philosophia Christi (cited below) by Warren Shrader discussed ID’s mechanisms of detecting intelligence. Shrader writes that the Explanatory Filter utilized by Dembski (discussed briefly here) can be strengthened by considering the epistemological tools of cognitive abilities in determining whether there is a specification condition (which would therefore justify a “design inference”).

The way we can utilize epistemology within the ID hypothesis is “…given an event E and a pattern D, we say that D is a specification of E if and only if the following conditions are satisfied.” These conditions are: 1) Tractability (essentially meaning it is possible for a cognitive agent to produce the pattern D), 2) The probability of E given H (“the hypothesis that the event in question was a product of chance” 383) and J (information) = the probability of E given H “for any information J generated by I“, and 3) D delimits E  (392-393).

Armed with this capacity for determining design, ID avoids the objection that patterns can be replicated by computers. This is done by criterion 1), which restricts patterns to our finite cognitive abilities. This of course means that it is very possible that many “positive” results will be thrown out, but this only strengthens those positives that do result, because they are irrefutable evidence for ID. In other words, when we tighten the design criteria such that we guarantee the patterns were produced by a cognitive agent, we have guaranteed that intelligence has been detected.

Combine these tools with those mentioned in my previous posts on ID, and there is a functional system for detecting intelligence in biology, cosmology, etc. Reading about ID has me excited to read more. I cannot emphasize enough how much readers who have not explored the issue themselves should try to do so.

Source:

Shrader, Warren, “Dembski’s Specification Condition and the Role of Cognitive Abilities,” Philosophia Christi, volume 11, number 2, 2009, 377-396.

The Life Dialogue: Matt Moss Guest Post 5

This is part 5 of a series of guest posts by Matt Moss on the Genesis Creation account. Check out the first post here, the second here, the third here, and the fourth here.

Thesis 6: The Fall of Man into Sin destroys the order of God’s Cosmic Temple.

This destruction and disarray can be seen firstly in this: Man has tried to make himself God. This is what the deceiver promised in 3:5- “eat of the tree of which you were commanded not to eat and you will be like God.” Man has separated himself from communion with God in this Cosmic Temple. The price for his rebellion is expulsion from the Cosmic Temple, man and woman are cast out, East of Eden (this will be important in a moment).

A brief note on “sin:” I must say that one of the worst parts of Walton’s book is when he tries to address the place of death in creation before the 7 days of functional ordering and how it fits in after the Fall. I think this happens because Walton suffers from the same fate as most reformed evangelicals who deny any hereditary original sin that is a condition plaguing all mankind and even causing detriment to the world around us. Surely he would hold that all are sinful, but his language in the book leaves the door open for someone to think that he defends natural disasters and animal attacks on humans as if that’s always the way it was meant to be. He gives no indication that sin is a condition of chaotic disorder in this world. For him, sin is simply a wrong action we commit (or good we omit).

In retrospect I think Walton would find that a Lutheran understanding of Sin would actually HELP the case he tries to make in the book and even make sense of some of the loose ends that he leaves untied. Allow me to explain how a Lutheran understanding of Sin fits into this Genesis 1 Cosmic Temple. The word for sin in Hebrew is hta. Many have said that this is the word for when an arrow misses its mark. That is true, but it is not speaking of the ACTION of missing the mark (sin as an action would be what Walton and the reformed hold as do Lutherans although we do not limit it to that).Hta is the condition that things are not as they are intended to be! Sin is not, “oops I missed the target” (an act of committing wrong). Hta is “I shot the arrow straight down and now gravity is going UP!” or better yet, “I shot at the target and now the arrow is facing the opposite way, impaling my heart!” The correct condition is that the arrow is where it belongs: in the target. The hta is the condition where the arrow is completely confounded and misplaced.

When it comes to the Cosmic Temple then, the entrance of SIN (hta), as this condition of chaos, reverts the perfect, ordered, functional Cosmic Temple to the chaos of 1:2a. God spent seven days ordering this Cosmos into a Temple of communion between God and man and now man has rejected this Temple and sent all of creation back into tohu andbohu, purposelessness and functionlessness, worse than that! The world is now a place of rebellion and death. The ground of the earth is cursed (3:17-18) and as man and woman are expelled from the Cosmic Holy of Holies they are sent into the wilderness where animals, weather, and nature itself are now hostile to them! Throughout the OT and even into the NT the wilderness is viewed as the land of desolation, tohu and bohu, and separation from God. And yet, God is not about to let their chaotic overturn of His creation be the final word on the matter!

Thesis 7: God’s establishment of the Israelite Tabernacle/Temple serves to return mankind to the divine order of the Cosmic Temple: communion with God.

Finally we get to the point of all these temple comparisons. What was the point of all those tabernacle/temple regulations in Exodus and Kings? Why was God so specific? Because God wanted to show them in explicit visual detail that He was opening a new Eden by which the Israelite sinners could return to communion with their God! However, one thing had changed. Man was no longer pure and clean. Man was sinful and defiled and would need atonement to come before God. This is why the ONLY thing that differs between the Cosmic Temple and the Israelite Temple is the sacrificial system.

Allow me to quickly go through some of the aspects of the Temple that reminded Israelites that they were returning to God’s Holy Eden- the pleasure of His presence. First, recall that the man and woman were banished EAST of Eden. The Tabernacle and Temple of Israel each had the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy of Holies positioned in the West and the worshipers would enter through the East gate. By going from East to West they are coming home from the way God banished them.

Second, we recall the rivers of Eden: the Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris and the Euphrates. In addition to the water basins looked at above, it is also of remarkable note that there stands a spring just south of Solomon’s temple, in the Kidron Valley which was named, “The Gihon Spring.” Hmm. Very Interesting!

Once inside the main gate the Israelite worshiper walks among the courts, surrounded by wooden walls and looking at the pillars of the Holy Place with their decorated tops made to look like trees. Even to this day Cathedrals all throughout the world use pillars with decorated tops to act as trees leading to the centre of the Garden: the Holy of Holies in the Temple and the Chancel of the Cathedral!

Inside the Holy Place you have your lampstands to mark the minor lights just like the large menorah in the outer court acts as a greater light! Finally, you find behind the curtain of the Holy Place the Holy of Holies where God Himself sits on the Mercy seat. For Israel worship at the Temple is a return to the divine order of Creation as God intended, the sinful corruption of the world is made right. And yet, all of this was incomplete. The sacrifices all looked forward to a final sacrifice. Through the Israelite Temple worship God was reconciling His people, but through the final redemption, all the Earth would be restored to the Cosmic Temple God created.

Thesis 8: Jesus Christ finalizes the restoration of the Cosmic Temple.

Hebrews 10:1-18 is worth your read right now! Once you’re done, come back and read on.

Christ is the finale of the sacrificial system as surely as he is the only true sacrifice. More than this, the tearing of the Temple curtain at his crucifixion speaks of this restoration. Through Christ Jesus man is reunited to God and the Cosmic Temple is restored. Likewise, going back to our seven days of creation, there is now an eighth day of creation. Just as God rested on the seventh day, so Christ rested in the tomb on the seventh day. Then on the eighth day Christ was raised from death to life and established a NEW Creation through Resurrection!

“It doesn’t look so new,” you might say. “There is still death and disaster, pain and suffering.” Yes indeed. We live in a period of “now and not yet.” We are saved yet we are not in heaven yet. Sin has been defeated, yet we live in a fallen world. As Paul writes in Romans 8:18-30 (do look it up and read it, I won’t post it all here, the post is long enough) we and the whole of creation await the future glory. I find it marvellous that in the last two chapters of Revelation we find an undoing of the seven days of creation. In Revelation 21 – 22 we read of the New Heaven and the New Earth and we see an unravelling of what was created in Genesis 1. The sea is no more but all will drink from the spring of the water of life (cf. John 4; 7:37-39- the latter occurring in the Temple during the Feast of Booths where water is poured out as libation). The sun and the moon are no more because Christ the Lamb is their light (cf. John 8 “I am the Light of the world”- said while he was in the Temple for the Feast of booths, standing by the menorah)! In every way the New Heaven and New Earth are much greater than the pre-Fall Cosmic Temple.

To summarize what the last posts have addressed: Genesis 1 – 3 is an ancient Temple Cosmology that does not specifically address the questions of how or when God did His material creating work. Beyond that Genesis 1 – 3 serves as a Liturgical text, a Temple text, a Christological text, a Trinitarian text, a Redemption text, a Sacramental text, a Teleological text, and an Eschatological text, but NOT a 21st century scientific treatise. As I have told many people before, there is such a wealth and richness to these initial chapters that we simply miss the point of the text when we try to force it into modern scientific debates and attempt to answer questions that God did not deem important enough to address in His revelation to ancient Israel. What God does answer in these chapters is why He has made creation work the way it does, how man has thrown it into chaos, and how He will restore it to an even greater glory.

The Life Dialogue: Young Earth Creationism 3

This is part of a series of posts on the “Life Dialogue” within Christianity. Check out other posts in the series here.

I wrote in my last post on Young Earth Creationism (hereafter YEC) that I had missed one of its primary tenets, which is that the theological, not the scientific, should be the focus of the “origins” debate. This key point means that the challenge to YEC that it doesn’t have a fully developed scientific model doesn’t seem to be as much of a challenge as one may think, for YEC is grounded in theology, not science.

The problem with this is that this makes YEC hard to evaluate in light of the other views (Old Earth Creationism, Intelligent Design, and Theistic Evolutionism) because its advocates rarely try to put forward a competing scientific model. Instead, YEC tends to be a view which focuses on pointing out flaws the arguments of its opponents rather than constructing its own models. While YEC does have some views which are offered for explanations of the world we observe (a catastrophic global flood is one possibility, though one visitor to this site commented on the scientific impracticalities of testing this), its case is largely built on attacking the other views as invalid.

It is to this that we shall now turn. For now, let us focus on YEC’s case against the other Christian views of the age of the earth. First, YEC, because of its theological nature, is absolutely tied to the belief that the Genesis creation account of six days explicitly means six literal 24 hour periods. Ken Ham gives several reasons for taking this belief seriously in The New Answers Book 1. These reasons include the context of Genesis 1, the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11, Exodus 20:9-11 pointing to six literal days, and that “Jesus was a young-earth creationist”. I’ll outline and critique these arguments below.

The argument about the context of Genesis 1 focuses on the light/dark cycle for the meaning of days (26). This argument has some merit, though I think one of the key problems is that there was no sun for a few of the light/periods, meaning that at least something else must have been going on here. I do think that this argument has some merit, however.

The genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 would seem to point to the dates that Ken Ham and YECss tend to affirm (though Ham says it is about 6000 years, contrary to other YECs I have read who tend towars 10-15,o00). The problem with this is that it is that semitic genealogies tended to list only key people. Also, the individuals listed could refer to entire families or separate genealogies. I don’t think that the genealogies make a strong case for the YEC view.

Exodus 20:9-11 states (ESV), “Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

This is a fairly strong argument for the YEC, in my opinion. The parallel meaning of six literal days because of creation order tends to point to a more literal reading of Genesis 1. The only problem I see with this argument is that the 7th day clearly is longer than one 24-hour day according to all the Christian theology I know. What response could non-YECs give? I think one could argue that Exodus 20 is pointing metaphorically or figuratively back to Creation, and that the literal reading is at least slightly weakened by the 7th day.

Finally, was Jesus a YEC? I must say I find it incredibly anachronistic to apply a position in a modern debate over the creation accounts to Jesus. Ham presents the evidence as, among other verses, Jesus saying in Mark 10:6, “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.'” This has some initial plausibility for pointing to a Young Earth, but one immediate problem I see with taking this as literally as Ham wants to is that Jesus says “beginning of creation”, which, if one were to take it very literally, means that Jesus is asserting that man and woman were created first, contrary to the creation account in the Bible. I still do find this verse an extremely strong argument for YEC, however.

So, where does this leave us? I still think the YEC position has the strongest theological stance due to the ability to more easily read the accounts as six literal days. It seems to me, however, that other views have plausibility due to a day being as a “thousand years” for the Lord (2 Peter 3:8). YEC counters to this have not persuaded me that this could not mean that the Genesis account is longer than a literal week. The question I put forth is whether or not the Genesis account was intended as incredibly literal as the YEC position insists.

Source:

Ham, Ken. The New Answers Book 1. Master Books. 2006.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from citations, which are the property of their respective owners) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

The Life Dialogue: Matt Moss Guest Post Part 4

This is part 4 of a series of guest posts by Matt Moss on the Genesis Creation account. Check out the first post here, the second here, and the third here.

It would now be my contention that day two and its parallel day four are the building and filling of the Cosmic Temple. In the religious Tabernacle/Temple of Israel this comes off a bit differently because of the Fallen status of the world. Day 2’s establishment of the expanse parallels the setting up of the tent of the Tabernacle and the walls of the Temple. Notice then that day 5 is the creation/assignment of the birds of the sky (above the tent’s curtain) and the sea creatures (below the tent’s foundation). What fills the temporal Temple will come on days 3 and 6.

For now I would like to add one more decorative indicator of Temple cosmology. If you remember your temple diagrams that you’ve seen and the Levitical procedures you may have read about in various OT courses/studies, you will surely remember the pools and the washings! Priests had to regularly wash themselves and their robes before proper use in the Temple. For the Tabernacle, see Exodus 30:17-21. And for the Temple see 1 kings 7:23-26; 2 Chron 4:2-5. As with the lampstand above, these serve a symbolic purpose as well as a practical one! They are part of the Temple precisely because they are part of the Cosmic Temple in Genesis 1!

Genesis 1:11-13 and 24-25, “And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day… [day 6] And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”

As foreshadowed above, on day 3 we have a further establishment of the Cosmic Temple and on day 6 we have the first part of the filling of the Cosmic Temple. First I will deal with day 3. While travelling through the wilderness, the Israelite Tabernacle did not uproot and replant trees in the Tabernacle every where they went. However! You will read and see Acacia wood being used in everything from the Ark of the Covenant to the pillars that hold up the curtain and the walls of the Holy Place (see The Lutheran Study Bible page 141 for a great breakdown of materials used). The tent posts all the way around the outer court too serve as a garden image with all their rich colours. Later in the Solomonic Temple, there is a similar tree-like architectural feature. First we note that cedar and cypress timber from Lebanon was used (1 Kings 5:8-9; 6:14-18). Just as the trees and vegetation of day 3 served to decorate the Cosmic Temple, so also the acacia, cedar and cypress wood are used to decorate Israel’s Tabernacle & Temple.

As for day six, I have isolated the first part from the second part (mankind) simply because man deserves a bit of time on his own. Much like the birds and fish are to fill the Cosmic Temple but are kept out of the temporal Tabernacle/Temple, so too these animals are included in the Cosmic Temple BUT are only brought into the Israelite Tabernacle/Temple to be sacrificed (more on this later!).

Genesis 1:26-31- “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

I’ll cut right to the chase. Man is the priest of the Cosmic Temple. This becomes even more explicitly clear in 2:15, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” These two tasks, “to work it and keep it” (avad and shamar) are only used together in reference to the Levitical priesthood. Upon God’s resting of day seven, the Cosmic Temple is fully ordered and filled, that is, it is fully functional! God is present and he places His man in the Garden of Eden, the Holy of Holies of this Cosmic Temple, to be the High Priest who serves God by working and keeping this Temple. And at the centre of this Cosmic Temple stands the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. Man is given one command by which he might serve and love the gracious Creator, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (Gen 2:16-17).”

Despite avoiding material creation questions throughout his book, Walton appears to lean toward the special creation of mankind. He therefore rejects the evolution of man even though he allows room for evolution of animals. For him, Genesis 2 allows us to have a material understanding of man’s formation/creation (out of the dust). I don’t think it’s the strongest part of his book, but for now I am too fixated on the notion of the man as priest of the Cosmic Temple.

God then makes a suitable helper for the man (gender roles, order of creation, marriage, and the like are topics for further discussion in other forums). We all know what happens next. The perfect, complete, finished, and functional Cosmic Temple, perfectly and wonderfully ordered by God that He might live in communion with His creation, is disturbed. No, that’s too weak a description. The fully ordered creation is hurled into disorder, chaos, and disarray. SIN enters in 3:7.

The next post will discuss Thesis 6.

The Life Dialogue: Matt Moss Guest Post Part 3

This is part 3 of a series of guest posts by Matt Moss on the Genesis Creation account. Check out the first post here, and the second here.

Thesis 5– Genesis 1 – 2 describes the whole of creation as God’s (pre-fall) Temple.

When examining the seven days of creation we see several factors that indicate something cultic (meaning religious) taking shape. The first three days show a forming of the earth which (in v. 2) was “without form.” In the second set of three days you see a filling of the earth which (in v. 2) was “void.” Walton, in keeping with his functional model suggests a better translation of these words tohu and bohu (without form and void). Similar to bara’ he provides a survey of tohu’s use in the Bible (bohu occurs three times, always with tohu) and shows that the word “describes that which is non-functional, having no purpose and generally unproductive in human terms (48-9).” In light of this, the state of tohu and bohu means that the earth has a functional non-existence. Thus, when God begins His bara’ work, the functional bringing into existence of all that He does, Genesis 1 wants us to see what purpose everything serves.

Examining the functions in Genesis 1 we will find many parallels to the religious life of ancient Israel as studied in Exodus, Leviticus, and the rest of the OT. I’d like to turn now to days 4 – 7 of the Genesis 1 account (1:14 – 2:3) to examine the indicators that the Genesis 1 cosmology is a temple cosmology.

Genesis 1:14-19 (ESV) – “And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.”

So let’s look at what functions these lights in the sky are given:

1) to separate the day from the night

2) to be for signs and for seasons (moed) and years

3) to give light upon the earth

4) to rule the day & night

5) to separate the light from the darkness

Now you may be asking yourself, “I don’t see anything here that is particularly temple focused. First I would like to point out that in a society where watches & clocks are not present, the Sun, Moon, and stars are what tell you when it is time to worship (they did so much more often than once a week). Second, we can see throughout the OT that specific days of specific months are given festivals and holidays. These were mapped out by using these very lights, after all that is their given purpose in point two, “to be for signs and for moediym and years.”

The word moed occurs 223 times in the OT, so we have a large cross section of uses to help us nail down the possible meanings and the intended meaning within this context. The basic lexical entry is “appointed time.” However it is important to note that in Exodus 23:15, God says, “You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the moed in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt.” At the very beginning of the cultic/religious life of Israel upon exiting Egypt this word is tied to their religious festivals! Throughout Exodus, Leviticus, & Numbers moed is unanimously used in the phrase “tent of meeting (moed)” for the tent in the centre of the Tabernacle (the travelling version of the Temple before Solomon builds the first Temple). Now, beyond this there are countless uses of moed as “appointed time” in the worship life of Israel. I would thus maintain that Genesis 1 claims the functional purpose of the Sun, Moon, and stars is to indicate the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly worship schedules of God’s people. In other words, when the ancient Israelite children asked their parents, “why is that moon shining in the sky?” the parents would answer in accord with Psalm 104:19 and say, “God made the moon to remind us when to observe the Feast of Passover and the other feasts/festivals.”

There is one more minor indicator that I would like to bring up when discussing the functional creation of Light. When we examine Genesis 1 as a Temple cosmology we realize just why something seemingly inconsequential like the Golden Lampstand (Ex. 25:31ff) is present in the Temple. Not only does it serve to light the room, but it is absolutely necessary to have this light in the Temple because this Temple reflects the Cosmic Temple corrupted in the Fall. If the Cosmic Temple has Light (Gen 1:3-5, 14-19) so must the Tabernacle/Temple have that Light (Ex. 25:31-40; 2 Chron 4:7).

Genesis 1:20-23- “And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.”

Granted, there is not much here that we would directly relate to the Temple if we did not first see that days 4-6 are paralleling days 1-3. Now, when we look back to verses 6-8 and read it in the light of other ancient Near Eastern cosmologies we see that on days two and four more than any other we find the physical shape of a temple. The Lutheran Study Bible footnote on these verses is very helpful in pointing out the structural/functional aspect of how the “expanse” works and the image it evokes. “The point of the image is the function rather than the substance: the sky serves as a divider. The Israelites often used figurative terms to describe the cosmos as it appeared to them (cf. Is 40:22, where the sky is described as a “curtain” and a “tent”).”

[Further expansion of thesis 5 coming later this week]

The Life Dialogue: Matt Moss Guest Post Part 2

This post is the second guest post in my series on the “Life Dialogue” within Christianity. See Part 1 here. See other posts in the series here.

PART 2

Thesis 4– Genesis 1 does not address the specific method that God used in material creation, therefore (given T1-3) no specific answer to the questions of how or when is necessary to salvation.

Walton makes an important distinction between material creation and functional creation. Material creation is what modern debates obsess over. How did the material (the animals and people) get here: did they evolve or were they created or both? When did they come about? A quick reading of Genesis 1:1 – 2:3 shows that good, solid answers to these questions are not given. “In the beginning” is hardly a round number. Even those who attempt to date the earth using the various genealogies of the Bible prove their ignorance of ancient Near Eastern family lists which often “telescope” or skip generations of individuals and focus on the most notable. In other words, no one should think that the genealogy from Adam to Abraham is intended to tell us exactly how old the earth is. That was not the purpose of the genealogy and that is not what the genre allows a modern reader to do either.

Now, as for the “how material was created.” Walton argues very convincingly that Genesis 1 remains silent on this. With our modern biases we immediately object, “how can that be!? It says plainly, ‘and God said let there be light.’” Walton backs up to Gen 1:1 and addresses the Hebrew word bara’ (to create). In our understanding we always attach an ex nihilo understanding onto this word. That alone shows how materially minded we are, we have a very material focused cosmology. Walton first demonstrates that all ancient Near Eastern cosmologies were ‘function’ oriented, not material oriented. This means that the neighbouring creation accounts are concerned with the gods assigning functions to what comes about. How and when was not the question they were asking.

Walton then shows a similar mindset in ancient Israel. Even the word bara’ is a functional word. Walton provides a survey (p. 42) that outlines every use of the verb in the Hebrew Bible. The first thing of note is that God is always the subject. The second thing of note is that it nearly always is used in a functional sense, where God is giving something a specific purpose or function. Let’s look back to that light example. Genesis 1 does not stop with, “And God said let there be light.” No, Genesis 1:3-5 says “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5Godcalled the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (italics mine)”

More than making light is taking place. God is assigning functions to the light and the darkness, he is naming them for their functions! This is seen even more specifically when God creates the Sun and Moon. “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons (A more accurate translation is “festivals”- a temple word), and for days and years, 15and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. (underlining mine)” How and when is not important. Why are they present? That is the question God chose to answer for the people.

Walton does go through these days in detail and then gives brief critiques of the various models out there. The first thing worthy of note is that yom (Day) does mean day… not age. Walton would argue that this hardly seals the deal for Young Earthers since they are completely fixated on material models of creation. Walton seems to take the side that the seven days of Genesis 1 are the seven days in which God assigned all creation its specific function, indeed without function one might hardly say that they exist at all (he uses the analogy of a company- before it is certified it cannot be said to exist even if it has a building and equipment and workers). Thus, Walton, like Genesis 1, remains mute on the hows and whens of material origins before the days when God assigns the functions and Walton sticks with what Genesis 1 does give us, which is the next thesis [coming next week in part 3].

The Life Dialogue: Matt Moss Guest Post Part 1

This post is the first guest post in my series on the “Life Dialogue” within Christianity. See other posts in the series here.

This post was written by my dear friend, Matt Moss, who has just returned from studies in England. Here we go:

JW has asked me to write this guest post for a long time now and I have delayed and delayed due to school and general business. So now I begin what he has asked me to do: present an explanation of creation as it is presented in Genesis 1. One reason this post was delayed was because I came across a book by John Walton entitled “The Lost World of Genesis 1,” which tackled Genesis 1 in a similar way in which I had hoped to. I decided to study it before attempting to write my own piece. While I do not agree with every direction he takes, the work is insightful and challenging. In the end it served to be a very formative work in helping me develop what others (professors) were beginning to form in my mind. Namely, that the cosmology of Genesis 1 is not intended to address 21st century scientific debates on the origin of species and to make it address such debates is shoddy exegesis and an abuse of Scripture.

Precisely speaking, the cosmology of Genesis 1 is a Temple cosmology, a religious document that tells us so much more than how the material of this world came into existence. As this post will hopefully show, Genesis 1 goes beyond the pithy question of how and when everything came into being. Genesis 1 answers who brought it about and why! The when and the how are not answered which tells us two things. 1) The ancients might have been smart enough to realize that the important questions are ones of metaphysical importance: why are we here? And/or 2) God did not tie salvation to having a 100% perfect scientific cosmology and therefore did not deem it necessary to provide the ancients (or us) with a fail-safe scientific model for how and when He did what He did.

Given our ever-present desire to know all things, this will hardly be greeted with joyful ears, but hopefully by the end of this post you will see that there are much better discoveries in the Genesis 1 than what the scientific harmonizers try to glean from the text.

PART 1

Thesis 1: The Bible does not tell us everything we want to know.

I hope this one is self-explanatory, thus I will not waste any more space on it.

Thesis 2: The Bible tells us what it does so that we might believe in Jesus Christ as God’s Son and have life in His name.

For the Christians who read this blog entry, I sincerely hope that this too is unanimously affirmed and needs no more addressing. (Jn 20:30-31)

Thesis 3: Therefore, nothing on which the Bible is silent will negatively or positively affect your salvation.

The implication being- if the Bible is silent on the mechanics of the material creation (as we will explore below) then modern debates over young earth, old earth, design, and all other scientific cosmologies fall into a level of importance far below what the text actually seeks to tell us. Now, I am fully willing to acknowledge that many in the scientific field will take evolution and other aspects of theoretical cosmologies and use them to offer proofs that deny God’s existence. Thus, apologetics serves a valiant purpose in refuting this and affirming the truth that God is creator. However, this post’s main focus is on Genesis 1, which is the chief text wrestled over by all who place themselves under the large umbrella of “creationists.” If Genesis 1 is truly silent on the how and when of creation by God, then Young Earth Creationists should not use Genesis 1 to brow beat Old Earthers into accepting their 21st century model (and vice versa, et al). Let science do its job with integrity, clarity, and truth and let the Bible say what it says. Unduly harmonizing them does injustice to both. 100 years from now science may have developed a cosmology that is 180 degrees different than anything we have today. Think then of how much time would have been wasted force-fitting Genesis 1 into a 21st century cosmology. We would have nothing to show for it but a need to start all over and try and force Genesis 1 into a 22nd century cosmology. I think the better option is to (1) adopt as best we can an ancient Israelite cosmology while we read the text, (2) take out (exegete) what it is truly saying, and (3) learn the lessons that God communicated to His first audience which is what He still desires to tell us.

Part 2- Coming later this week.

The Life Dialogue: Old Earth Creationism 3

This is part of a series of posts on the “Life Dialogue” within Christianity. Check out other posts in the series here.

Hugh Ross has been the subject of the last two posts on Old Earth Creationism (hereafter OEC) I wrote in this series on the “Life Dialogue” within Christianity. His work in fields related to this debate has been invaluable to Christians seeking an understanding of the world and Scripture. Thus, I’m continuing the trend of writing about his works for the OEC side of the debate.

Hugh Ross argues in Why the Universe is the Way It Is that the incredible fine-tuning of the universe shows that God planned the universe specifically for: 1) the rise of human advanced civilization at the earliest possible time, 2) the triumph of God through Christ over evil, while also keeping the natural laws constant and using a process which took literally billions of years.

Ross argues, among other things, that the universe must be quite old. This is the point of contention which is most prevalent in his book, so it is the part I will focus upon.

The universe must be old, argues Ross, for several reasons. First, there is the most oft-cited reason: the measured age of the universe, judging from the latest technology, shows that the universe is about 13.73 billion years old (Ross, 44). Second, heavy elements required for life needed time to build up (44), along with radioactive isotopes (45), while “dangerous events” such as supernova eruptions needed to subside (47). Ross further argues that the earth must be quite old (the latest measurements indicate about 9.2 billion years) in order to sustain life. This was because the sun needed time to stabilize, while there also had to be fewer bombardments from asteroids and the like (48ff). Further, continental landmasses had to form in order to sustain advanced civilizations (50ff).

Further, Ross believes Scripture backs up claims about the universe. He cites Psalm 104:2 and Isaiah 40:22 as passages which describe the universe as “stretching out” like a tent. These verses, he argues, show a divine inspiration of Scripture, as that is exactly what has been happening with our universe since the Big Bang (131). He goes on to cite extensively verses which point to Scripture lining up exactly with current scientific discoveries (cf. particularly p. 126-145).

So what can the Christian take from such an argument? This particular work of Ross’s will (mostly) mesh well with not just OEC but also the theories of Theistic Evolution (TE) and Intelligent Design (ID). It is in Ross’s expansion of his ideas that his view becomes distinct (see this post for a wider exploration of Ross’s arguments). But the conclusions he draws will remain contested by Young Earth Creationists (YEC).

The Christian desiring to combat Ross will have to attack the verses he cites while also attacking his scientific model. Again, the YEC could appeal to differing interpretations of the same evidence, arguing that while it may appear that the universe is as old as 14ish billion years (what’s a few million years when we’re talking billions?), that is only because, as Ross frequently points out, God would know exactly how old the universe would have to be to sustain life. However, God, being all-knowing and all-powerful, could have simply created the universe already capable of sustaining life. Ross would answer by arguing (as he does on p. 147ff) that it may be a false assumption to say that God only wanted to make an environment for humans to live comfortably in (153). Rather, argues Ross, God set the universe up in such a way that humans would not only exist, but also have opportunities to learn, grow, confront evil, explore and wonder at His Divine Nature and His conquest of evil through Christ (153-158).

Ross may be challenged from the “other camp”—that is, ID and TE—that he is arguing anachronistically and trying to read science into Scripture. I’m not sure what answer Ross would provide, but I believe he could counter that if God truly did inspire Scripture, then it seems as though God would know how the universe came to be. Not only that, but he could have left “markers” or “indicators” of inspiration throughout Scripture by revealing various truths about the origins and nature of the universe to the authors of Scripture. Thus, Ross might argue, it is entirely valid to treat the Bible as a “science book”, but only secondarily so. Interestingly, those who desire to read Scripture literalistically and apply it to science often fall under the YEC label, given Genesis 1ff, but Ross argues (rather well, imo), that the Bible can be read fairly literally while discovering an Old Earth scenario.

Source:

Ross, Hugh. Why The Universe is the Way It Is. Baker Books. 2008.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from citations, which are the property of their respective owners) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

The Life Dialogue: Theistic Evolution 3

This is part of a series of posts on the “Life Dialogue” within Christianity. Check out other posts in the series here.

Theistic Evolution’s (hereafter TE) primary problem for the Christian is, of course, theological in nature. Perhaps the greatest challenge to TE is the doctrine of original sin. Recently, I investigated what advocates of TE had to say about this doctrine.

Robin Collins argues in his essay “Evolution and Original Sin” that the doctrine of original sin should be redefined into what he calls the “historical ideal” (HI) view (469). Regrettably, I believe Collins fails to provide an adequate theological defense of his view. Further, I believe there is actually a stronger way for TEs to defend against the “problem” of original sin. Collins’ argument has several key features:

1) Adam and Eve were not historical figures, but rather representatives of early mankind, having evolved from hominids (470). Collins does allow that perhaps Adam represents the “stem father” of humanity–that is, representing the first group of early hominids which arose as the human race (486)

2) The Garden story “represents an ideal state that was never realized… Genesis 2 falls into the category of a ‘golden age’ story” (470)

3) Original sin refers to the “sinful choices” of early hominids, the “continuing sinful choices” of their ancestors, and “the resulting bondage to sin and spiritual darkness that is inherited from our ancestors and generated by our own choices” (471)

Collins continues by interpreting Scripture in this light. First it should be noted that Collins takes science as one of the means by which we can interpret Scripture, despite his own assertions that the Bible is not a science or philosophy book (compare 475 to 482ff). He begins by interpreting Romans 1:18-32, but he believes the more important verses are in Romans 5:15-19. Paul writes in Romans 5 that:

“For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”

These passages seem to suggest that Adam was indeed one man, just as Jesus is one man. Collins argues, utilizing Swinburne’s argumentation in Revelation, that a speaker’s message does not necessarily include the presuppositions as part of the intentional conveyance. One immediate problem with this (though Collins seems to view it as a bonus) is that Paul is seen as either not necessarily believing what he was saying–which seems unlikely–or he was profoundly mistaken in his presuppositions. The statement is to be distinguished from the presupposition. “The statement is whatever the speaker, by public criteria, is seeking to add to the existing beliefs of the hearers” (Swinburne, Revelation, 30). The problem is that I don’t think this argument applies here, for it seems that Paul is not just presupposing that there is one man, but also utilizing that presupposition as part of what he is seeking to add to his hearers’ existing belief. For Paul is saying that it is one man through whom all mankind fell, so, too, is it one man through whom all mankind is saved.

The argument that Paul and his hearers shared the presupposition of one man, and therefore this is not part of his intended message, misses the context of Paul’s message. For Paul makes this statement in his letter to the Romans, not to fellow Jews who shared his presuppositions! Therefore, it seems to me that although the “one man” part of the statement could be taken as a Pauline presupposition, it is also part of the message conveyed. He is intending to add to his hearer’s existing belief (borrowing from Swinburne’s phrasing) that one man fell for all and one man atoned for all. This message is almost vacuous on an account which inserts possibly thousands of hominids in for the first “one man” (something Collins has no hesitation doing, see page 481 “…understand Adam… as theologically representing both everyman and the very first members of the evolving group of hominids that had gained moral self-consciousness”). I see no reason to accept such an interpretation textually.

I’ll leave out Collins’ interpretation of Genesis 1-4 for now, as I believe summing it up in the above points is sufficient. Rather, I want to turn now to an evaluation of his argument. First, I note that it seems necessary to add to the above outline of Collins argument the following clause:

4) Scripture is not inerrant–it is inspired in the sense that God “enlighten[s]” humans to “grasp new truths about the nature of reality and God” (473)

I reject 4 as incompatible with sound formulation of doctrine. I’ll not specifically address his argument point-by-point as that would fill up too much space. The main problem with Collins’ account of original sin is that it trivializes certain Bible passages (notably Psalm 51:5) and misinterprets others. But I don’t want to get into the finer details of his account. I think that Collins’ account is actually extremely weak. Only those willing to accept point 4) above will be able to take such a view on original sin as possible. Is there a way for TEs to avoid this uncomfortable assumption? I think there is.

Original sin, on TE, can be almost what it is on other views. The key feature is to point out (as Hugh Ross, an Old Earth Creationist does) that it is only human death that is explicitly seen as the consequence of sin. Thus, God can be seen as letting evolution happen until beings capable of moral reasoning evolve, then specially creating souls within humans or setting souls up in such a way that they emerge from humans (the latter view seems less plausible, but I’ll ignore that for now). God chose two specific hominids, planted souls in them, and placed them in a garden. The rest of the Genesis story can be taken fairly literally, with some modifications here and there, and original sin loses no meaning. Thus, the TE needs to acknowledge special creation of 1) The universe/matter/etc. and 2) Human souls. This doesn’t seem like an implausible “out” for the theistic evolutionist.

Finally, I want to address a few minor points in Collins’ essay. The first is that he seems to think special creation is somehow a negative thing. When critiquing other views, for example, he asserts that if God brought Adam and Eve into the garden to speak with them, He’d have to teach them a language, “which would involve a major act of special creation” (493). This is counted as a negative against a sort of Old Earth Creationist account. But I’m then curious as to what Collins thinks of the creation of the universe! Surely this “special creation” is an even more major act than teaching some animals to speak a language! I don’t see any plausible way for a Christian to use the presence of divine action as an argument against other views. Second, Collins seems to reveal some tendencies of agreeing with Intelligent Design (p. 496ff, for example, he argues for “theistically guided evolution”–how does this differ from ID?).

Thus, I think Collins’ view of original sin on TE is actually a weaker argument than that which can be made. I think the theistic evolutionist can augment his/her view with some acts of “special creation” and thus maintain a view that allows for inerrancy of Scripture without having to twist it as much as Collins does. Perhaps, however, I’m merely reflecting my own tendencies rather than accurately representing TE. If this is the case, however, and TE simply cannot coincide with the doctrine of inerrancy, for example, then I find this a strong reason for rejecting TE, particularly in light of competing models like intelligent design or Hugh Ross’s RTB Model.

Sources:

Collins, Robin. “Evolution and Original Sin.” Perspectives on an Evolving Creation. Edited Keith B. Miller. Wm. B. Eerdman’s. 2003.

Swinburne, Richard. Revelation. Oxford University Press. 2007. (A later edition than that cited by Collins, I’m utilizing my own text)

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from citations, which are the property of their respective owners) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

The Life Dialogue: Intelligent Design 2

This is part of a series of posts on the “Life Dialogue” within Christianity. Check out other posts in the series here.

Intelligent Design (hereafter ID) posits that the universe, and in particular life itself, is such that there must be an intelligent cause. I’ve discussed ID in the past and I believe the arguments featured by its advocates are compelling. The challenge to ID is at least twofold: 1. How does one infer design from living organisms without making the assumption that there is intelligence in the first place? and 2. How does this design inference aid scientific discoveries and research?

Paul Nelson utilizes a well-known example of intelligent design to make a case for the ID movement. When one comes upon a pocket watch in a forest, there is no question that it is intelligently designed. It is simply assumed that such a thing is designed. There is no effort to look into a naturalistic cause of the watch, for it is unnecessary. Often, people argue that ID immediately cuts off a path of research–that is, trying to locate a naturalistic explanation for an event. Nelson argues that such a belief is “desperately confused”. Skeptics of ID “[ask] us to pursue the naturalistic program of explanation without reason” (Nelson, 149). Rather, the “design theorist has no responsibility to naturalism” (150). Often, the naturalist has no explanation for the phenomena which the design theorist argues is an indicator of intelligence. Rather, they simply desire to rule out the possibility of ID to begin with (149).

Intelligence can be sought when things such as “biological specification” are present. Biological specification can be defined as “Any element of an organism necessary for viability (meaning survival and reproduction) in any environment in which that organism may exist” (162). Nelson argues from bicoid, a gene which, if absent, spells death for the species of fly in which it is present (150ff). The problem for the naturalist is that such a specified gene is absolutely essential to the survival of the organism. How could it have come about through evolution? Nelson argues that this is evidence against naturalistic evolution, as there is no clear way for a gene like bicoid to come into being, when its absence spells death for the species. It is basic to the creatures that possess it. Without the gene, the creatures lose viability (166ff). Such basic, viability-determining genes seem to point towards ID, as there doesn’t seem to be any other way to explain them.

The problem persists, however, as to how exactly does one get to infer intelligence in biological systems. William Dembski argues that this can be done through an explanatory filter. Whenever an event occurs, whenever a biological entity exists, etc., there are three possible explanations for such an occurrence. These are: 1. A law (here utilizing the refer to something which yeilds highly probable, naturalistic expectations and explanations), 2. Chance, 3. Design. The priority of these explanations follows in that same order. Law takes priority to chance and design, chance to design, and design is the final possibility (Dembski, 94-95). The key to determining design for cases in which this may not be obvious is utilizing probabilities. Simply being improbable does not mean one points to design as the cause of an event, however. Rather, it must be demonstrated that such an event was specified–it was chosen from a range of possibilities. Choice, argues Dembski, is what shows intelligence (109). In order to recognize choice, one must utilize the explanatory filter. If some event, E, is such that it is not highly probable (thus explained by a law) or intermediately probable (explained by choice) and further shows a sufficiently improbable possibility, then design is the likely explanation of E (98ff). The example Dembski uses is that of a combination lock, in which the chances of getting the right combination are 1/10,000,000,000. The exceedingly improbable chances of getting the right combination by guessing implies specification.  However, when specification comes into play–in this case, the specification that only one particular combination is correct–then one has an event which reflects intelligence upon the opening of the lock (103-104).

Thus it seems as though there are ways to discover intelligence in events that are not clearly attributalble to intelligence initially. Further, there seem to be events in biological systems which point to intelligence. This, of course, counts as evidence for ID.

It seems to me that ID has a significant case which should not be ignored as often as it is in the scientific community. Dembski alone has done some phenomenal work. One problem so far with ID is that I have yet to see an attempt to reconcile ID with the theological problems that come with assuming evolution to be the case. I still favor Ross’s RTB Model to anything I’ve read thus far, but I see ID as having some strong validity which could be integrated easily into the Christian understanding of the Life Dialogue (discussed in my posts on OEC–visit the link at the beginning of this post to view those posts).  This is my second cycle through the sides of the debate. I’ll be posting next on theistic evolution.

Sources:

Nelson, Paul. “Applying Design Within Biology.” Mere Creation.  InterVarsity Press. 1998. 148-174.

Dembski, William. “Redesigning Science.” Mere Creation. InterVarsity Press. 1998. 93-112.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from citations, which are the property of their respective owners) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.