By Ken Mann
The following is was delivered as a plenary session at a Biola on the Road conference in April 2017 at Faith Bible Church in Houston Texas.
Introduction
Charles Darwin. Evolution. Perhaps no other man and no other idea have had a wider influence on western culture. Since On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was first published in 1859, how we perceive our world and ourselves has been transformed. For those who have embraced Darwinism, humanity and every other living thing are the end products of a natural process. There is no Creator. There is no purpose. There is just survival. Humanity is a cosmic accident.
Since as early as 1888, scientists and academics have asserted that Darwinian evolution is a fact as certain as gravity. The momentum behind Darwin’s theory strengthened in the 20th century to the point that nearly every aspect of human behavior and culture has been subjected to an evolutionary explanation. Today, scientists who are merely skeptical about evolution risk losing their jobs if their views become known.
In the face of such an onslaught, what should a Christian think? In my own experience, I was always convinced that evolution was false. Not because I knew anything about it. Rather, I was certain of the existence of God and the reliability of the New Testament. I believed I had adequate justification to believe in a literal Adam and Eve, in the Fall, and in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
But for many years I was plagued by an internal conflict. Setting aside evolution, I have always loved science. Since studying physics in college, I have adhered to the adage that science is “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.” Despite the myriad of apparent conflicts between science and religion, I suspected that Psalm 19:1, the heavens declare the glory of God, meant that the study of creation was compatible with the Christian worldview.
Then in 2010, I enrolled in the Science and Religion program at Biola. During my first year, I took a class that focused on Darwin. At the time, Darwin seemed like the Mt. Everest of a “Science and Religion” program. Looking back on it now, this subject embodied everything that made the program so valuable. The tools I learned and the confidence I gained have transformed my Faith.
I always rejected evolution not because I understood the science, philosophy or history that surrounds it, but because I trusted God more. Today, I know the reasons why Darwinian evolution is not fact, and I should emphasize, none of them are based on Christian doctrine.
That might alarm some of you so let me explain. There are many myths and distortions about the relationship between science and Christianity. Perhaps the worst is that science and Christianity are in hopeless conflict, that the Christian church has been an impediment to science since Galileo. In reality, the foundations of modern science, the assumptions that made science possible, come from the Christian worldview. The pioneers of modern science were all committed Christians, most of whom saw science, in the words of Kepler as “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”
In other words, science and Scripture are merely two sources of revelation. There is the “book of nature” and the “book of Scripture.” These two “books” cannot contradict each other because they have the same author, God. When they seem to contradict, something has gone wrong with our understanding of Scripture, nature or both.
Since Galileo’s confrontation with the Catholic Church in the 17th century, there have been conflicts between doctrines promoted by the Church and the conclusions of science. In Galileo’s time, almost everyone accepted an earth-centered view of the cosmos that originated with the Greeks and had later become sanctified using certain passages from the Old Testament. Galileo questioned the conventional wisdom of his time and advocated an idea that would not be widely accepted for another century.
In the 19th century, Charles Darwin also challenged widely accepted ideas about God’s role in creating the world. Since then Christianity has been challenged by variety conclusions based on his writings.
How should we deal with these challenges? The first and more important step is to understand them. We shouldn’t run away from something that attacks our Christian worldview. We should run toward it. Engage, learn, and trust that God is sovereign.
As we engage with Evolution today, I want to reassure you that we are not going to wander off into the tall grass of the biological sciences. We are not going to talk about the Prevalence of Functionally Significant Glutathione S-Transferase Genetic Polymorphisms in Dogs. (That is the subject of a research project my daughter, a biochemistry, cell, and molecular biology major, has been working on since last summer.) Not because the science isn’t important, but because it takes a lot more time than we have available today. Further, there are far more obvious problems with Darwinian evolution.
It is assumed that Darwin’s theory was the triumph of science over the myths of religion. It is claimed Darwin was not influenced by religion; he studied nature and “discovered” how it really worked. Based on his empirical observations he proposed an idea that explained how life developed via natural processes without the direct intervention of a creator. In reality, Darwin had certain assumptions about God and how He would create that was inconsistent with what he found in the natural world. In short, Darwin was convinced his theory was true because his God would not have created the world as we find it.
My highest priority this morning is to be understood; therefore I want to be clear what I am talking about. I also want to inform, which means some of what I share might be challenging and new to some of you. I would ask for your patience as we go along. I will be around to answer questions and the substance of this talk, along with a list of some relevant books, can be found on my website under “resources.”
I am going to cover two things this morning. First, I am going to discuss some terminology that is foundational to this subject. Next, we will consider the theological ideas that were at work in the 19th century and still influence public perception of the relationship between science and Christianity.
Terminology
Whether you are engaging with someone with a different worldview or simply trying to learn more about a subject, navigating terminology is a crucial task. You have to be aware of words you haven’t heard or seen before. Whether I am reading or in conversation, I am always alert to such words. If I am reading, I will stop and look up the word. In conversation, it is difficult but still just as important to interrupt and ask the other person what a word means. If they can define the term for you, your conversation has been enhanced. If they can’t, you may or may not be able to continue. Regardless, it is important to prevent either side of a conversation from assuming what certain words mean.
Evolution
So what does the word evolution mean? That depends on the context and the intention of the author. Just on this subject, there are actually six different definitions that are routinely used. Only one definition is in view this morning, but if you read articles or blogs on evolution, you may encounter one or more of these definitions. You may even find authors who use the word in one sense, then later switch to a different meaning later in the same article.
- Change over time. To quote the Screwtape letters, “…to be in time means to change.” The study of nature frequently entails discerning what has happened in the past from the evidence we can examine today. Clearly, no one is going to disagree with this definition.
- Change in the distribution of different physical traits within a population. This refers to a field within biology known as population genetics. It studies the genetic composition of biological populations, and the changes in genetic composition that result from the operation of various factors, including natural selection.
- Limited Common Descent. “The idea that particular groups of organisms have descended from a common ancestor.” The best-known example of this is the finches encountered on the Galapagos Islands. Today there are many examples of different species that probably have a common ancestor.
- The mechanism of limited common descent, natural selection acting on genetic mutations. Darwin’s theory had three premises: organisms varied, variations could be inherited, and all organisms were under pressure to survive. Those variations that enhanced survival were passed on to other generations. Again, in a limited sense, such variation is observed, and it is plausible that survival could select certain traits over others.
None of the definitions so far are controversial. However, the next two are where most of the disagreements occur.
- Universal Common Descent. This definition of evolution asserts that every organism is descended from a single original organism. As controversial as this may sound, it is not the final word on what most scientists believe is meant by evolution.
- “Blind Watchmaker” thesis.
The term “blind watchmaker” was coined by Richard Dawkins in the title of his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence for Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design. Dawkins was ridiculing an argument made by William Paley published in 1802. Paley argued that the existence of a watch implies the existence of a watchmaker. Whereas a rock merely implies the processes of geology over time.
This definition of evolution is that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through an unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material process. This process is completely sufficient to account for the appearance of design in living organisms.
Or more succinctly, “Molecules to men by way of chemistry and physics.”
This final definition is what really drives the conflict of worldviews between materialism and Christianity. It goes by a couple of other names: “Darwinism” or “neo-Darwinism.” (The later term is a more technical and specific in that it refers to the integration of Darwinism and the science of population genetics in the middle of the 20th century.)
While you should always press for definitions, when you hear Darwin’s name or evolution invoked in a discussion about human origins or the development of life, you can be confident that the “molecules to men” idea is usually what is meant.
Science
The term science needs not so much a definition as a lot of warning labels. Being that it is in the title of my major, it will come as no surprise that I have developed some opinions on the subject. I am going to limit myself to two ideas.
First, science cannot be constrained by a specific detailed definition. There is no definitive list of criteria that says, “that is science, but this other field is not!” In other words, specific examples of science (e.g., physics, biology, and paleoanthropology) seem obvious, however, coming up with a list of criteria that separates astrology from astronomy, for example, is harder to do. Most everyone is going to agree that simply studying the movement of the stars and planets does not make astrology a science.
Second, beware of an inflated view of science as a source of knowledge. The view known as “scientism” asserts that the only things that can be known are from the natural sciences. It is a tactic designed to give the guy in a lab coat, as opposed to a theologian or a philosopher, a privileged status that ends the discussion. It is also a self-refuting concept because there is nothing we can learn from science. However you define science, that demonstrates scientism.
Theology
Theology is the study of the nature of God. I believe that the Bible is the best source for theology. But we can also learn something about the nature of God from other disciplines, such as science and philosophy.
Human Nature
Now that I’ve defined Darwinism, I should also touch on the term human nature. Obviously, this is a subject as vast human experience. An entire conference could be devoted to addressing this subject. How you define, human nature is determined by your worldview. One may approach this question from a scientific, philosophical, or theological perspective. For my purposes this morning I simply want to address the crucial differences between human nature according to Darwinism and human nature according to Christian theism.
From the perspective of Darwinism, human beings and every living thing is simply the end result of a blind, unguided physical process. In other words, we are merely animals. The process of natural selection has been invoked to explain nearly every aspect of human culture and behavior. Many of these explanations are simply unsubstantiated stories, but they have captured the imagination of many. From religion to sexual infidelity, to altruism there is an evolutionary story for everything about human nature.
Darwinism denies the possibility of the soul; it makes no room for the existence of the immaterial. As a consequence, one must come to grips with the idea that everything we do, everything we think, everything we feel is not evidence of our soul, but is merely the output of a physical process.
According to Darwinism, the difference between human beings and every other animal is a matter of degree, not kind. Let me illustrate what I mean by these two words with an example.
Steph Curry and Russell Westbrook are reputed to be among the best point guards playing in the NBA right now. The difference between them is a matter of degree. However, if we were to compare Curry or Westbrook to a basketball, we would have to say the basketball is a different kind of thing.
Since we are just animals, it shouldn’t surprise you that ethical decisions about humans and animals are a bit different for the Darwinist. Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, popularized the term speciesism, which refers to privileging members of a particular species over others. In other words, it is not always wrong to kill human beings under circumstances such as severe mental or physical handicaps. Some environmentalists have seized upon this idea to argue that the death of a logger or the economic destruction of a community are acceptable when weighed against the safety of a type of animal.
The Christian view of human nature is radically different. In addition to being grounded in Scripture, it is also consistent with our experience and deepest intuitions.
According to Christianity, human beings are unique in creation, a completely different kind of creature from every other animal. We are physical creatures. We are similar to other animals in many ways. Yet we also have an immaterial nature, a soul if you will. I have always been fond of this passage from the Screwtape Letters:
Humans are amphibians— half spirit and half animal… As spirits, they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. (p. 37).
I would quibble with Screwtape to the extent that we are not “half spirit and half animal” rather we are embodied souls. Our soul completely occupies and animates our bodies. Our soul can also exist apart from our bodies, but a human body cannot continue without a soul.
The most essential aspect of human nature, what makes us unique, is found in the phrase the “image of God” first mentioned in Genesis 1:26-27.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
To briefly unpack this phrase, if we consider the Hebrew words used here for “image” and “likeness” and Greek word (eikōn), it would seem that God created us to be similar but not identical to Himself.
Consider just three ways we are similar to God.
- We are spiritual. Part of our nature is an immaterial soul or spirit united with a physical body.
- We are personal, that is to say, we are self-conscious and rational beings. We have a mind, will, and emotions.
- We have the power to choose. Sometimes referred to as free agency, we have the capacity to deliberate and make choices.
Finally, no discussion of the Christian view of human nature would be complete without considering the Fall. As unique as we are, as much as we were created to be in fellowship with God and with each other, the most certain and painful fact is that something is horribly wrong.
Darwinism and the materialist worldview it supports must deny our daily awareness of evil. In ourselves, in our culture, even to some extent in creation itself, we are constantly confronted with the results of human rebellion.
Christianity explains the existence of evil, our embrace of and revulsion from it; and it offers a solution in the person and work Jesus Christ.
Theological Foundations of Darwinism
In Matthew 16, Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” This is the most important question anyone will ever answer. Understanding who Jesus is and what He did is an essential step to trusting Him as your personal savior.
That question is just as relevant if God the Father asked it. What you believe about God has a profound effect on every aspect of your life. Our perception of reality, how we choose to live, how we choose to solve our problems, everything about us is ultimately effected by our view of God.
This is no less true in science. For as long as people have tried to understand nature, their beliefs about what or who created the world has impacted how they comprehend nature.
In the 19th century, there were several trends in theology that set the stage for Darwinism. Consider one example. It was argued that it would demean God to believe every animal species was a unique act of creation. Rather, God would be a wiser and more capable creator if the capacity to create species by some natural process was built into creation. This view also downplayed or dismissed other things God did like miracles in the New Testament. This was sometimes referred to as “Greater God Theology.” Ideas like this and others we will now consider motivated Darwin to reconcile what was observed in nature with the theology of his day.
Natural theology and the ‘theory of creation’
The idea that God created is not really controversial in Christianity. It’s right there in the first verse, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Now a tremendous amount of words have been written about this verse and all that it means, however, no one doubts that central phrase, “God created.”
In the 18th and 19th century the perspective of creation was that from the motion of the heavens down to the myriad of animals and plants that occupy the earth, all of creation was a perfect, harmonious system that reflected God’s wisdom and benevolence. Starting in the 17th century a variety of theologians and scientists advanced the idea that evidence for God could be found in the study of nature. Known as “Natural Theology,” this field reached its peak in the works of William Paley at the beginning of 19th century. Natural theology argued, some would say brilliantly, that evidence for design could be found in nature.
However, there was a significant flaw in Paley’s perspective. Paley believed that God’s purpose in creation was the happiness of His creatures. Creation was idealized in such a way that God’s benevolence, wisdom were seen everywhere. Allow me to read a quote from Paley’s book Natural Theology:
It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a Spring noon or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. The insect youth are on the wing. Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties. A bee amongst the flowers in spring is one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked upon. lts life appears to be all enjoyment, so busy, and so pleased: yet it is only a specimen of insect life.
In short, the Natural theologians claimed nature demonstrated God’s wisdom and goodness but they ignored His providence, judgment or use of evil.
The problem of Natural Evil
The problem of evil is something that has harassed Christian belief for a long time. If you haven’t heard that phrase before, it refers to the tension that exists between the obvious instances of evil we find in the world and the characteristics typically attributed to God. It is sometimes put as a question: “How can God be benevolent and omnipotent and yet allow the evil we experience in the world?”
Most discussions of this topic make a distinction between moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is simply what people have been doing since Adam and Eve rebelled in the Garden. Natural evil, broadly speaking, is anything in nature that causes death or suffering. This could include everything from earthquakes, to disease, to all the horrible things animals do to each other.
Darwin, like other naturalists, did not see happiness and joy in creation. He saw death, suffering, and waste that he could not reconcile with Paley’s “happy” creation. He was particularly bothered by the suffering and death found in the animal kingdom. One particular example was a type of wasp that lays its eggs into the body of a caterpillar. After hatching, the larva starts consuming the host while it is still alive.
Darwin’s solution, consistent with greater God theology, was that God did not create the parasitic wasp or any of the other natural evil in the world. Rather, God created a system of natural laws which resulted in the world he studied. In a letter to Asa Gray (an American botanist) Darwin summarized his view this way. “I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance.”
To put it another way, God directly acting in creation was rejected in order to make the existence of natural evil comprehensible to human beings. If God did not directly create each individual species but merely created the natural system that resulted in the species we have today, then God is not directly responsible for natural evil.
“Nature is not perfect.”
A second aspect of natural theology to which Darwin objected is that all of the creation reflected God’s perfection. Of course, what is meant by perfection was apparently open to a wide variety of interpretations. For Darwin and many others since it has been the claim that many things found in nature are poorly designed.
Perhaps the most popular example of bad design in nature is the vestigial organ. When an organ or structures are no longer needed, it is “vestige” of the evolutionary process. It was needed in an ancestor species, but evolution has yet to remove it. In 1895 a German anatomist published a list of 86 vestigial organs in the human body. I am not aware of a single credible example today. Vestigial organs are not evidence of evolution. They are a combination of assuming evolution is true and ignorance of a particular organ’s function.
A more modern example of a claim of bad design is known as “Junk DNA.” This term was originally coined in 1972. When research first began into how DNA worked, the first thing discovered was the correlation between certain sequences of DNA bases (“rungs” on the DNA ladder) and the production of certain amino acids (20 different organic molecules that makeup proteins). The function of vast regions of DNA outside of these “protein coding,” upwards of 98% of the human genome was dismissed as “junk” until about five years ago. The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project began publishing results demonstrating that vast regions of the “junk DNA” in the human genome are being used.
Similar to vestigial organs, ignorance combined with an acceptance of evolution, resulted in the conclusion that subsequent research has proven wrong. In short, the existence of “Junk DNA” something that was once dogma is now becoming another failed prediction of Darwinism.
Theological Naturalism
A third theological idea that motivated Darwin and many others in the 19th century has to do with how God acts in creation. In order to make this clear I have to make a distinction between primary causes and secondary causes. An event which is caused by God and impossible by any other means, a miracle, is an example of primary causation. Something that occurs in accordance with natural law is an example of secondary causation. For example, the parting of the Red Sea as the Jews fled from Egypt was primary causation, the deaths of the Egyptian army caught when the water was released was secondary causation.
For many theologians and scientists since before Darwin down to the present day, science is not possible if God acts in the world. If primary causation is possible, then it is impossible to know the difference between an event caused by natural law and an event caused by God. In order to study nature, to understand the structure of “laws” that govern it, we must assume that God never acts in creation.
The net effect of this view does not deny that God was the creator of the universe, it simply means there is no evidence that He did. Of course, that is not the worst of it. If God has not done anything since the moment of creation, the incarnation and the resurrection of Jesus could not have happened.
Perhaps the simplest way to sum up this view is that God cannot be trusted. If He is capable of acting in creation, He is capable of tricking us. Science would become the “study” of the whims and unpredictable behavior of an omnipotent being.
Naturalism asserts that everything arises from natural properties and causes; supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted. For theologians in the 19th century, this meant that God acted in creation through the laws he created. They argued God was greater, glorified more if He did not intervene in creation. Dr. Cornelius Hunter refers to this as theological naturalism because theological reasoning motivated it.
Today the default position of science is a view known as methodological naturalism. This is the idea that when you are doing science, you can only consider natural causes. The actions of an intelligent agent cannot be considered. God does not act in creation. From there, it is a short trip to atheism, where God does not exist.
But let me emphasize this point–the origins of naturalism that motivated Darwin and have become dogma within science today were philosophical. Naturalism was not a conclusion of science; it was a starting point.
Conclusion
Human nature according to Darwin, how should the Christian respond? First and foremost, when confronting an opposing worldview, you must understand what it believes and why. By exploring some terminology and its theological foundations, I’ve given you an introduction into the worldview of Darwinism.
I provided a summary of some of the ideas about God and his role in creation that motivated Darwin. Since On the Origin of Species was published down to the present day, Darwinism has relied on a perception of God that cannot be found in Scripture. Either God is absent from creation and cannot intervene, or He is incompetent because nature is full of “bad design.” Evolution is accepted as true because a distorted view of God and creation seems to be false.
This is not merely about science. It is not merely about religion. It is an example of how assumptions about God, religion if you will drive the process of science. Darwinism is not fact. Darwinism is less of a science than it is a theological viewpoint that claims empirical support from science.
Human nature according to Darwinism, including its denial of the soul and denial of human uniqueness, is not learned from various scientific disciplines. It is implied by the science and therefore it is accepted because Darwinism is accepted. However, if Darwinism is false, then whatever it claims about human nature is also false.
Time did not permit addressing the evidence used to support and critique Darwinism. What I can say in terms of a summary is that the evidence for Darwinism is only compelling if you are already convinced it is true. On the resources page on my website, today’s talk is available along with a list several books that cover today’s material in more depth. I would also encourage you to check out the books that focus on the scientific critiques of Darwinism.
I would like to leave you with some questions to ask someone who believes “molecules to men by way of physics and chemistry” is the best explanation for the vast diversity of life we find.
- What is the evidence for evolution?
- What is the Christian view of creation?
- How did life originate?
Each of these questions, depending on the responses you get, could be followed up with two questions. (1) What do you mean by that? (2) How did you come to that conclusion? These two questions from Greg Koukl’s Columbo technique seek clarification and evidence that will help you understand the other person’s perspective better.
It has been my prayer preparing for today that the summary I would offer here would encourage believers. It is also my prayer that you would leave today motivated to learn more about this subject and others that will be discussed today. As Christians, we are heirs to a tremendous heritage of thought that I fear has been abandoned. We worship a Being that created all things, sustains all things, and knows all things. Our trust in God should not be limited to our salvation. God is sovereign over everything. He is sovereign over every domain of human knowledge. He is sovereign over every lie that could deceive.
Don’t run away from a challenge. Engage, learn, and trust that God is sovereign.
Theistic Foundation of Science, part 3
Atheism, Jesus Christ, Philosophy of Science, Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Ken Mann
Think Week: The Foundations of Science Found in Christian Theism, 3
We have been considering five presuppositions of science and how they can be explained by Christian theism. In the previous post we considered first three, here we will address the last two presuppositions, An Understandable World, and An Expressible World.
An Understandable World
We now turn to the significant mystery of why the world is understandable. From the perspective of naturalism, how or why this is the case usually boils down to a story describing how the evolutionary process increased brain capacity which led to a greater ability to survive. The purely physical view says the size and complexity of our brain is the reason we can understand the world.
However, there is a flaw in this argument as described by Alvin Plantinga in his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. In short, there is an important distinction between survival and truth. Evolution is a process that favors the capacity to survive, but that does not guarantee that our reasoning processes or our senses can be trusted, merely that they have facilitated our ability to survive. Patricia Churchland, a philosopher who embraces naturalism, made the following observation: “Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F’s: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive… Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.”[1] In other words, what governs survival is behavior, not beliefs. Beliefs do directly cause behaviors. In fact, a combination of beliefs, desires, and other factors lead to behavior. So it is more than conceivable that false beliefs about the world can lend themselves to survival just as well as true ones.
The evolutionary story is in stark contrast to how Christian theism not only explains why
creation is understandable but also the motivated observation as a part of science. Let’s consider three aspects of the intelligibility of creation: the nature of man, the nature of creation, and the transition from reason to observation.
The Nature of Man. The most foundational and misunderstood aspect of the nature of man, as described in the Bible, is that humanity was created in the image of God. I would like to offer three observations about this theologically deep topic.
First, the naturalist’s wooden interpretation of this phrase leads to the idea that God is physical being like us. In truth, God is an immaterial and transcendent being. Therefore whatever “image of God” means it cannot mean something merely physical.
Second, it is helpful to see this phrase in terms of the attributes of God that have been shared with humanity. God is a personal being, meaning He has mind, will, and emotions. In this way, human persons are finite examples of God. We have a mind that allows us to think, to reason.
We have a will that allows us to make decisions, to have intentions and purposes. We have emotions that allow us to experience relationships.
Third, there are attributes of God that cannot be shared with humanity. For example, God is infinite versus humanity being finite. In terms of knowledge, God is omniscient. In terms of time, God is eternal, without beginning or end. God is self-existent while humanity is contingent.
We exist because God created us, but God’s existence is not dependent on anything else.
We have a finite version of God’s rational capacities to reason and have intentions. Humanity and creation are the products of the same rational mind. Therefore, it makes sense we would have the capacity to understand creation.
An Object of Study not Worship. Christianity stands apart from other religions in its perspective toward creation. In contrast to many cultures and religions that believed creation was populated by gods, the Bible de-deifies the world. This allowed humanity to study rather than worship creation. As Nancy Pearcey explains: “The monotheism of the Bible exorcised the gods of nature, freeing humanity to enjoy and investigate it without fear. When the world was no longer an object of worship, then-and only then-could it becomes an object of study.”[2]
From reason to observation. A final observation about how Christian theism explains why creation is understandable can be found in the origins of the theological view know as voluntarism. During the Middle Ages, theologians such as Thomas Aquinas wrestled with reconciling with certain aspects of Aristotle’s views of nature with orthodox views of God and creation. For Aristotle, nature was understood to the extent that the purpose of any object or creature could be discerned. Once the purpose was understood nothing else needed to be known.
Regarding God and the nature of the universe Aristotle believed “that the ultimate rational causes of things in God’s mind could be discovered by the human reason; and that he had in fact discovered those causes, so that the universe must necessarily be constituted as he had described it, and could not be otherwise.”[3]
As various thinkers started proposing views that directly undermined the nature of God, based on an application of Aristotle’s views, the Church reacted. In 1277 the Bishop of Paris published a list of 219 statements condemning any statement that limited God’s freedom of action regarding creation. Some specific examples of physical concepts Aristotle believed clarify the intention of the Bishop’s condemnations. For example, Aristotle believed that a vacuum was physically impossible, heavenly objects can only move in circles, and ballistic motion (e.g. a baseball) was sustained by displaced air pushing the moving object.
The condemnations did not limit the work of natural philosophers (a term that referred to theologians who studied nature). Instead, it freed them from continued adherence to Aristotle’s views on the natural world. A new form of theology, known as voluntarism, was inspired.
According to Pearcey, “Voluntarism insisted that the structure of the universe-indeed, its very existence-is not rationally necessary but is contingent upon the free and transcendent will of God.”[4]
Voluntarism inspired and justified what we would refer to today as an experimental methodology. It established that the nature of creation could not be found via reason alone. We must observe nature to understand what the creator did. The need for observation, a foundational concept within science, was discovered by 13th century Christians attempting to defend the nature of God while thinking about the study of nature.
An Expressible World
Finally, let’s consider the existence of mathematics. As was noted in a previous post, mathematics as a discipline is completely devoted to abstract concepts. These concepts are frequently applied to physical reality as tools of explanation, and description. They sometimes even guide future research in disciplines like physics. Not only is the naturalist viewpoint unable to explain the existence of mathematics, it cannot acknowledge the existence of the abstract objects that make it possible.
The laws of nature, as noted above, are written in the language of mathematics. The character Ellie Arroway in the movie Contact, called mathematics the only universal language. According to Christianity, by virtue of sharing aspects of God’s nature, we are given access to that language. By describing nature via theories and mathematics, we are “thinking God’s thoughts.”
This points to an obvious and delightful concept that God created humanity to know Him directly through Jesus and indirectly through creation.
The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their utterances to the end of the world.
Psalm 19:1-4
We have now completed looking at five presuppositions of science and how they are grounded within Christianity. As I bring this series on foundations of science to a close, I hope I have made it clear that Christianity, far from being hostile or impeding science actually played a significant role in the thinking that made science possible. No matter how many secularists today denigrate Christian theism or the historical role it played, they cannot escape the idea that the study of nature serves two important ends: glorifying God and serving man.
In the next part of this series, we will look at some of the models, which describe how Christianity and science interact.
Biography
Carlson, Richard F., Wayne F. Frair, Gary D. Patterson, Jean Pond, Stephen C. Meyer, and
Howard J. Van Till. Science & Christianity: Four Views. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000.
Collins, C. John. Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003.
DeWeese, Garrett J. Doing Philosophy as a Christian. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011.
Deweese, Garrett J. Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult: A Beginner’s Guide to Life’s Big
Questions. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005.
Gould, Stephen Jay. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1999.
Hume, David. “The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.” http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm (accessed April 14, 2015).
Moreland, J. P. Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation. 2nd ed.
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1999.
Moreland, J. P., and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. IVP Academic, 2003.
Numbers, Ronald L. Galileo, Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. 1st ed.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Pearcey, Nancy. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy. Wheaton, IL:
Crossway Books, 1994.
Stark, Rodney. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-
Hunts, and the End of Slavery. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Notes
[1] Journal of Philosophy 84 [October 87], p. 548
[2] Pearcey, The Soul of Science, Kindle Locations 191–193.
[3] Ibid., Kindle Locations 295–297.
[4] Ibid., Kindle Locations 289–290.
The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 6: Facts (4) and (5) The Postmortem Appearances To Paul and James
3. Are Miracles Possible?, Jesus Christ, Theology and Christian Apologeticsby Evan Minton
This is part 6 in a blog post series on the evidence for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. The Minimal Facts Case for the resurrection of Jesus is what I’ve been defending the past 5 articles, and in part 2, I explained what a minimal facts approach is. Part of a minimal facts approach is a two-step process: (1) establishing 5 historical facts through the use of “the criteria of authenticity” and (2) discerning what the best explanation is for those 5 facts. In part 3, we saw that the historical evidence that Jesus died by Romans crucifixion is overwhelming, establishing the first of the five minimal facts. In part 4, we examined several pieces of evidence that Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers the following Sunday after His crucifixion. In the previous blog post, we saw that the historical evidence is strong that Jesus’ twelve disciples had visual experiences of Jesus after His death.
There are 5 minimal facts that undergird the inference to the resurrection
1: Jesus died by crucifixion.
2: Jesus’ tomb was empty the following Sunday.
3: The disciples experienced postmortem appearances.
4: A church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.
5: The skeptic James converted on the basis of what he perceived as a postmortem appearance.
In this blog post, we shall look at the evidence for those last two minimal facts, and then we’ll move on to figuring out what the best explanation of these 5 facts are.
The Church Persecutor Paul
It’s pretty obvious that Paul claimed to be an eyewitness of the resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15:8, immediately after citing the early resurrection creed, he said: “last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also.” Earlier in that same letter, he asked rhetorically “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen our Lord?” (1 Corinthians 9:1). So, from Paul’s own pen he tells us that he had a postmortem appearance experience.
However, some skeptics may balk and say “Yeah, he said he saw Jesus raised from the dead. But anyone can claim anything. I can claim I saw Santa Claus leaving toys under my Christmas tree last December. That doesn’t make it true. How do we know Paul isn’t just lying?” This is a fair question. This is why in prior writings, instead of merely pointing to where Paul says he saw Jesus, I made an inferential case for his postmortem appearance. There are several historical facts about Paul which, if you ask me, only make sense if Paul actually had a postmortem appearance experience.
*Before Paul Was A Christian, He Was A Persecutor Of The Church
We have good historical evidence that prior to becoming a Christian, Paul was a persecutor of Christians. How do we know? Because in his epistles, he says he was. In 1 Corinthians 15:9, after citing the creed to the Corinthians, Paul said “For I am the least of the apostles and do not deserve even to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God”, likewise in Galatians 1:13-14, Paul said “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” In 1 Timothy 1:13, Paul said: “Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.”
Now, I am inclined to believe that Paul is telling the truth here on the basis of three reasons.
1: The Principle of Embarrassment. The principle of embarrassment states that if an author mentions something that is embarrassing to himself, embarrassing to someone he cares about, hurts an argument he’s trying to make, or is in any way detrimental to him, yet he mentions it anyway, it’s very likely not to be made up. People make up lies to make themselves look good; they don’t makeup lies to make themselves look bad. Paul is mentioning details about himself that cast him in a pretty bad light.
Think it about it for a moment; if you were writing a letter to someone, would you lie about having a drug abuse problem that you don’t actually have? If you were writing a letter to some friends, would you make up lies about how you terrorized your local neighborhood? “Dear Todd, I’m doing well here in my new home in North Carolina. By the way, I became a Christian, but prior to doing so, I went into churches and cut Christians’ heads off en masse. From, Bobby.” Are you going to just make stuff like that up? I don’t think so! You probably wouldn’t even admit something like that even if it were true! But you especially wouldn’t say that if were not true. People don’t makeup lies that make themselves look bad! Paul would never say that he was a persecutor of the church if it wasn’t true. Paul would never say that he purposefully went around terrorizing people if that didn’t actually reflect reality.
2: The Principle Of Multiple Attestation. Not only does Paul say that he was a persecutor of the church, but Luke mentions it as well in the book of Acts (8:1-4, 9:1-2). Paul and Luke are independent sources, and therefore, there are multiple attestations to Paul being a persecutor. It is highly unlikely that both Paul and Luke independently fabricated the same lie. On the basis of the principle of multiple attestations, we have good reason to believe that Paul persecuted the church.
3: Paul Had A Reputation
Let’s keep something in mind here: in all of the epistles, Paul is writing to someone. And in Galatians 1:13, Paul said “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.” (emphasis mine). Paul says that he had a reputation for being a persecutor of the church, and tells his readers that they knew of that reputation. Now, if Paul wasn’t really a persecutor of the church, his readers would have immediately called him out for lying. You don’t say “You know about that bad stuff I did. You’ve heard about it.” to someone unless you did the thing you’re talking about.
*Paul Became A Christian, And Then Suffered And Died For Preaching The Gospel
Paul obviously became a Christian himself sometime after persecuting Christians. Like with the disciples, we know that Paul actually believed the message he was preaching because he endured terrible suffering throughout his life for the sake of the gospel, and was eventually killed for his Christian faith. Seven Independent sources attest to Paul’s suffering and martyrdom.
Paul himself recounts instances of his suffering. “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have constantly been on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” – 2 Corinthians 11:24-28
Some of the specific sufferings mentioned by Paul in 2 Corinthians are also reported by Luke. One of the shipwrecks was recorded in Acts 27:14-44, Paul was stoned in Acts 14:19, and Acts 16:22-24 records an instance of Paul being scourged. The book of Acts records several other hardships Paul endured for being a Christian, but I won’t mention them here.
Clement of Rome[1], Tertullian[2], and Dionysius of Corinth[3] (cited by Eusebius) mention his martyrdom. Polycarp[4] and Origen[5] record it as well. Paul was beheaded during the harsh persecution of Emperor Nero in the A.D 60s.
In all, we have 7 independent sources that testify that Paul suffered and died for preaching the gospel. On the basis of the principle of multiple attestations, we, therefore, have good grounds for affirming that Paul actually did suffer and died for the gospel.
*The Best Explanation: Paul Actually Saw Jesus
Now, how do we account for Paul’s radical, sudden change from Christian destroyer to Christian leader? From someone who caused martyrs deaths to someone who died a martyr’s death himself? I can think of no other explanation than the one Paul himself gave, “Then he appeared to me also, as to one untimely born.” (1 Corinthians 15:8). I think this is the only logical way to explain why Paul would go from terrorizing Christians to trying to persuade people to become Christians (even to the point of horrid suffering). Again, you can try to explain away Paul’s postmortem appearance experience if you want to, but you have no grounds to deny it altogether.
The Skeptic James
We now come to our fifth and final minimal fact: the conversion of the skeptic James. The Gospels tell us that Jesus had several siblings. Jesus’ siblings included James, Jude, Simon, plus some sisters whose names were never given. Most skeptics I’ve conversed with love to go after this minimal fact because they say it has the least amount of evidence for it. After all, it’s not mentioned anywhere except in one line, and that line is in the creed cited by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.
Nevertheless, I still think we have good grounds for affirming that this appearance occurred. First of all, as I said in the previous blog post, we have good reason to believe Paul got the creed from James himself. Secondly, the creed is extremely early (just 5 years after the death of Jesus) so had James not really experienced a postmortem appearance, he could have publically rebuked Paul for lying. The severe earliness of the creedal tradition and the probability that Paul got the creed from James has to count for something, right?
However, I think that just as with Paul, we can make an inferential argument for the postmortem appearance to James.
*James Was A Skeptic During Jesus’ Lifetime
James and his other brothers, we are told, were not believers during Jesus’ lifetime. We know this based on:
1: The Principle Of Embarrassment
It was embarrassing for a rabbi’s family to not accept him back in those days. It was embarrassing for a rabbi’s family to be opposed to him in some way or another back in those days. So this isn’t very flattering for Jesus, but it gets worse! In fact, Mark 3:20-35 tells us that Jesus’ family thought he was crazy and that they had come to seize him and take him home! This doesn’t paint Jesus or His family in a very good light, given the stigmatism back then. Therefore, it’s highly unlikely that the gospel writers would have invented skepticism on the part of Jesus’ brother James.
In fact, John 7 recounts a rather nasty story where Jesus’ brothers try to goad him into a death trap by showing himself publicly at a feast when they knew that the Jewish leaders were trying to kill him! Jesus’ brothers were trying to sabotage him! Why in the world would John place Jesus’ brothers in such an ugly light if such an event never took place?
2: The Principle Of Multiple Attestation
Not only does Mark mention it (chapter 3), but John mentions it as well (chapter 7). Mark and John are independent sources, and therefore, James’ skepticism is multiply attested. So, we’ve established that James was a skeptic.
*Just A Short Time After Jesus’ Death, James Came To Believe That Jesus Had Risen From The Dead.
Even though James was a skeptic, we know that later in the early church, James emerges as one of the pillars of the New Testament church, and one of the leaders of the church.
Moreover, he was eventually martyred.
Multiple Attestation
This is mentioned in both the book of Acts (21:17-20) as well as by Paul in his letter to the Galatians (2:9). Again, Paul and Luke are independently reporting this. Thus, we know this on the principle of multiple attestations.
*James Was Martyred For His Christian Faith
Multiple Attestation
We have the testimony of Flavius Josephus, Hegesippus, and Clement Of Alexandria[6] that James was martyred for his belief in his brother as the risen Christ. James’ martyrdom is multiply attested in these three sources.
*The Most Likely Explanation For Why James Went From Being A Skeptic To Being A Believer Virtually Overnight Is That The Risen Jesus Appeared To Him As 1 Corinthians 5:7 says.
I think the best explanation for James’ rapid conversion is that he believed the risen Jesus appeared to him.
New Testament critic Reginald H. Fuller says “Even if there were not an appearance to James mentioned by Paul, we should have to invent one to explain the transformation that occurred in James between the time of his unbelieving days when Jesus was alive and his time of leadership in the early church”[7]
That’s exactly the argument I’m making here. 1 Corinthians 15:7 aside, we have historically established that James was (1) a skeptic prior to Jesus’ death, (2) shortly became a Christian following Jesus’ death, and was willing to die for his Christian faith. How can we explain James’ overnight transformation if not that James had an experience which he perceived to be a visitation of the risen Jesus? I don’t think we can.
Conclusion
We have come to the end of the first step. We have historically established 5 facts which will undergird our inference to Jesus’ resurrection.
The 5 minimal facts that undergird the inference to the resurrection are:
1: Jesus died by crucifixion.
2: Jesus’ tomb was empty the following Sunday.
3: The disciples experienced postmortem appearances.
4: A church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.
5: The skeptic James converted on the basis of what he perceived as a postmortem appearance.
In the next blog post, we’ll see what is the best explanation of these 5 facts. At face value, it seems like The Resurrection Hypothesis is how we should explain them. However, perhaps we should examine other alternatives before we appeal to the supernatural.
Notes
[1] Clement Of Rome, 1 Clement 5:2-7
[2] Scorpiace, 15, in Roberts, Donaldson, and Coxe, eds. and trans., The Ante-Nicene Fathers.
[3] H.E. 2.26;
[4] Polycarp, “To The Philippians,” 9.2
[5] Origen, as cited by Eusebius in Ecclesiastical History
[6] Josephus, Antiquities Book 20, Chapter 9, Hegesippus as cited in “Eusebius. Church History Book II Chapter 23. The Martyrdom of James, who was called the Brother of the Lord”, Clement Of Alexandria, also cited by Eusebius in ibid.
[7] Reginald H. Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives (New York: Macmillan, 1980), 10.
Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2GgcRam
Apatía, ateísmo y lo absurdo de la vida sin Dios
EspañolBy Aaron Brake
Here’s a statement that may seem controversial at first, but upon reflection, the truth becomes more apparent:
If God does not exist and there is no life after death, then there is no ultimate meaning, value, or purpose in life.
The question of God’s existence is the most central and important question we can try to answer. If God does not exist and we do not survive the death of our bodies, life is ultimately absurd. J.P. Moreland provides an illustration that helps bring this truth home:
Suppose I invited you over to my house to play a game of Monopoly. When you arrive, I announce that the game will be a little different. Before us is the Monopoly board, a set of jacks, a coin, the television remote, and a refrigerator in the corner of the room. I grant you the first turn, and disconcertingly, inform you that you can do whatever you want: fill the board with hotels, flip the coin, toss a few jacks, make yourself a sandwich, or turn on the television. You respond by placing hotels all over the board and smugly sit back to wait my turn. I respond by turning the board upside down and flipping the coin. Somewhat annoyed, you right the board and replace the hotels. I turn on the television and knock the board over again.
Now, it wouldn’t take too many cycles of this nonsense to recognize that it didn’t really matter what you did with your turn, and here’s why. There is no goal or purpose to the game we’re playing. Our successive turns form a meaningless series of events one after another. Why? Because if the game as a whole has no purpose, then individual moves within the game are meaningless. On the contrary, only the actual purpose of a game according to its inventor can give the individual move any significance.[1] .
As Moreland puts it, if the game of Monopoly as a whole has no purpose, then individual moves within the game have no meaning or value. The only way your moves within the game of Monopoly matter is if you discover the purpose of the game and align yourself with that purpose.
As it is with Monopoly, so it is with life. Like the game of Monopoly, the only way our individual lives have any ultimate meaning or value is if life has a purpose behind it, and true purpose requires both God and life after death.
To help think about this, let’s assume that God does not exist. In an atheistic scenario, we as human beings are simply recent biological accidents on an insignificant speck of dust we call Earth hurtling through empty space in a meaningless, random universe that will eventually die a hot, cold death. In the grand scheme of things, we are no more important than a swarm of mosquitoes. In a universe where there is no God and no afterlife, our actions are meaningless and serve no purpose because ultimately each of us, along with everyone we know and influence, will die and enter oblivion. There is no difference between living the life of a saint or a sociopath, no difference between a Mother Teresa and an Adolf Hitler. Talk of purpose, morality, meaning, purpose, or value is simply incoherent babble. William Lane Craig frequently refers to this as “the absurdity of life without God.”[2] He states that,
Without God, the universe is the result of a cosmic accident, a chance explosion. There is no reason for it to exist. As for man, he is a freak of nature: a blind product of matter plus time plus chance. If God does not exist, then you are just a mistake of nature, thrust into a meaningless universe to live a purposeless life… the end of it all is death… In short, life is completely without reason… Unfortunately, most people do not realize this fact. They carry on as if nothing has changed.[3] .
The cure for apathy
It seems to me that when we honestly reflect on the absurdity of life without God we cannot, at the same time, remain apathetic to the question of God’s existence. God’s existence matters and has tremendous implications for our own existence. The absurdity of life without God should disturb us. It should keep us up at night. It should shake us out of our apathetic attitude and challenge us to seek answers to life’s fundamental problems. Unfortunately, this is not the case, especially in our information age where it is all too easy to remain distracted and caught up in the day-to-day hustle and bustle of life. Sadly, many people can simply go about their day without even giving life’s most important questions a second thought.
But if we want to be intellectually honest, and if we care about real meaning, value, and purpose, the question of God’s existence demands our attention. We ignore this issue and remain apathetic only at our own peril. As Brian Auten has stated, “the wise man seeks God.”[4] For the reasonable person, reflection on the absurdity of life without God should be enough to extinguish any remaining apathy regarding the question of God’s existence.
Perhaps then, apathy (or apatheism) is not something that can be changed directly—that is, it is not something that can simply be cast aside through direct effort. Rather, like our other beliefs, apathy must be changed indirectly. If apatheism is the belief that “God’s existence is not meaningful or relevant to my life,” perhaps reflecting on the absurdity of life without God will be powerful enough to indirectly change apathetic beliefs and help communicate the importance of taking God and other issues seriously.
The inconsistent atheist
I have never met an atheist who lives consistently with the implications of his naturalistic worldview. Even though he rejects both God and the afterlife, he continues to live his life as if his actions have true meaning, value, and purpose. As Craig said above, “they carry on as if nothing has changed.” Atheists reject God, but they still desire meaning, value, and purpose in life, so they undoubtedly find something to give their devotion to, whether it be themselves, family, money, pleasure, education, work, social causes, or politics. But neither does any of these subjective pursuits have ultimate importance or objective value in a world without God. In the end, the atheist must borrow from the Christian worldview in order to infuse his own life and actions with true meaning and purpose. This is because atheism and the naturalistic worldview offer no hope and provide no basis for meaning and value. Ken Samples states that,
Naturalism as a worldview seems incapable of offering the kind of meaning, purpose, and hope that humans require and long to experience. Instead, the ultimate fate of the individual, humanity, and even the universe will inevitably be the same regardless of what any one person can do. Nothing anyone thinks, says, or does will change the fact that each individual person, all of humanity collectively, and the universe itself (due to entropy) will one day be completely extinct, lifeless, and cold. The result of naturalism is inevitable hopelessness.[5] .
In other words, naturalism fails the existential test. Honest atheists cannot live happily and consistently with their worldview. If atheism is true, and if atheists honestly reflect on their own nonexistence and the fact that their actions in this life have no ultimate meaning, value, or purpose, it seems difficult to avoid overwhelming feelings of depression, despair, and gloom. No wonder then that some atheists have turned to nihilism. Christianity, on the other hand, succeeds exactly where atheism fails:
Biblical Christianity, therefore, provides the two conditions necessary for a meaningful, valuable, purposeful life: God and immortality. Because of this, we can live consistently and happily within the framework of our worldview. Biblical Christianity therefore succeeds precisely where atheism fails… Therefore, it makes a great deal of difference whether God exists.[6] .
An atheist replica?
Some atheists object at this point: “But I do have a purpose in life. I have meaning.” In a 2010 debate titled ” Does the Universe Have a Purpose ?” skeptic Michael Shermer offers four things that enable people to feel happier, more fulfilled, and more purposeful in life, regardless of whether God exists:[7]
Later in the debate, Shermer goes on to say,
Don’t you think that even if there isn’t a God, you should still find some purpose?… Maybe there is a God, maybe not. Either way, don’t you think you should roll up your sleeves and see if you can figure out some useful things to do to give yourself purpose outside of God? Don’t you think that’s worth it?… Shouldn’t I be doing these good things for other people? Shouldn’t I be finding love and commitment with someone, a meaningful career, helping my social community and getting involved in politics, trying to better myself and do something outside of myself? Shouldn’t I be doing those things anyway?
But notice that Shermer here completely misses the point, which is this: if there is no God, then there is no ultimate goal , meaning, value, and purpose in life. Sure, you can create subjective meaning and purpose if you so choose. You can live for some personal, subjective cause or reason that makes you happy. You can even do good things regardless of whether God exists or not. But Shermer offers no reason or explanation as to why , if God doesn’t exist, none of these things are objectively good, or why none of these things are objectively meaningful, valuable, or useful, or why we should pursue these goals rather than others that might make us happier and more fulfilled. In the end, it doesn’t matter, objectively speaking, whether you pursue these goals or not, because in the end, it all ends up the same anyway: you die, I die, the universe dies, and that’s all there is to it. Christian theist William Lane Craig offered this retort to both Shermer and Richard Dawkins in the debate:
There was a major shift in the last two speeches in this debate. Did you see what it was? We’ve argued tonight first of all that if God doesn’t exist, then the universe has no purpose. Our atheist colleagues admit that. But now what they’ve been saying is, “But look, we can build purpose into our lives,” in the words of Richard Dawkins, or in the words of Michael Shermer, “We can develop ways of making ourselves feel better by feeling as if we had a purpose.” Now you see that this is just to say that we can pretend that the universe exists for some purpose, and this is just fantasy. This is the subjective illusion of purpose, but in this view there is no objective purpose of the universe. And we, of course, will never deny that you cannot develop subjective purposes for your life. The point is about atheism, they are all illusory… But you cannot live as if your life is purposeless and meaningless, and therefore you adopt illusions of purpose to make your life livable. And that’s why I believe atheism is not just irrational; it’s deeply unlivable. You cannot live consistently and purposefully within the context of an atheistic worldview.
Ironically, this debate was titled “ Does the Universe Have a Purpose ?” Of course, if atheism is true, there was no ultimate meaning, value, or purpose in the debate. In the final scheme of things, it doesn’t matter whether the debate happened or not (nor does it matter whether you heard about it or not). In coming forward to defend the atheistic perspective, Michael Shermer, Richard Dawkins, and Matt Ridley all implicitly acknowledge at least some subjective meaning , value, and purpose in the debate. And if atheism is true, subjective meaning is all there could be. Any ultimate meaning is illusory.
Conclusion
Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent…and for this purpose I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice” (John 17:3, 18:37).
True meaning, value, and purpose come from knowing God and making God known. In answer to the question, “What is the chief end of man?” the Westminster Confession answers, “To glorify God and enjoy him forever.” But it is not enough to simply understand this purpose and assent to its truth. For our individual lives to have real meaning, we need to willingly align ourselves with this truth, and that means aligning ourselves with Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2).
Grades
[1] J.P. Moreland, The God Question: An Invitation to a Life of Meaning (Eugene: Harvest House, 2009), 34–35.
[2] See William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics , 3rd ed . (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), chapter 2, and On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2010), chapter 2.
[3] Craig, On Guard , 37.
[4] See his essay “The Wise Man Seeks God” available at http://www.apologetics315.com/2010/05/essay-wise-man-seeks-god-by-brian-auten.html .
[5] Kenneth Richard Samples, A World of Difference: Putting Christian Truth-Claims to the Worldview Test (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007), 217.
[6] Craig, On Guard , 49–50 (his italics).
[7] This debate is available in its entirety here: http://www.apologetics315.com/2010/11/does-universe-have-purpose-audio-debate.html
Translated by Maria Andreina Cerrada
¿Qué es la verdad?
Español“So you are a king!” Pilate told him.
—It is you who say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world:
to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who stands for the truth
listen to my voice.
—And what is truth? —asked Pilate.
Having said this, he went out again to see the Jews.
-John 18:37-38
The Roman governor of Judea questions the humble carpenter from Nazareth hours before his death on the cross and the question he asks him still reverberates like an echo in one of those medieval cathedrals in the minds and hearts of believers and non-believers alike: “ And what is truth ?”
Let’s take a few seconds to think about how important this question is, whether we are really equipped to respond adequately to it, and whether we even have a real concept of what truth is. If someone were to ask us this question, how would we respond? In these verses of the gospel we realize that everything, and I really want to imply that everything (all our beliefs, our life, our eternal destiny, etc.) is based on the answer to this question, What is truth ? Without having a clear idea and a precise definition of what truth is, it is impossible to try to know what is true and how to discern what is not. If we do not know this, then how can we be sure that we are right? Where is our reference point? And how do we know that we will not find a great disappointment at the end of the tunnel?
In today’s world, the mere thought of this leaves many without the slightest concern (just as many deny the simple reality that [objective] truth exists and we can come to know it) this should not surprise us, because our adversary (Satan), has taken it upon himself through his tactics of deception, to make us believe that the answer to this ancient question is not necessary, because now the fashion is to do whatever we please as long as we feel comfortable with ourselves without thinking about others or the consequences that this brings, this is because now everything is relative based on how it makes us feel. It is exactly at this point that our adversary takes it upon himself to inject us with this virus of relativity and we imperceptibly stop feeling threatened by its existence, we try to justify all our actions without considering the moral implications, we gradually forget that the Devil, sin and [objective] truth exist and as a consequence we join Pilate and leave the presence not only of the one who undoubtedly knows the truth, but also of the one who clearly tells us that he is the truth personified: Via, Veritas, Vita (John 14:6).
To turn away from the truth by choice is one thing, but to be unable to discern the truth even when it is right in front of us is, I would say, extremely worrying under any circumstance or situation. Let us now see how we can best address this issue. My hope is that by the end of this article each of you will have at least the basic tools to detect the lies that our adversary so cleverly uses to lead us away from the truth, and consequently, be able to enjoy the majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ and his truth in all its splendor.
Let’s see how the Royal Spanish Academy defines truth:
I dare say that our Lord Jesus would not have used any of these three definitions if Pilate had waited long enough to receive an answer to his question. Why? Let’s see what these three definitions have in common that makes them insufficient to correctly answer this question. The common factor is that they have all been formulated in a way that presupposes that truth is subjective from the beginning, since they appeal to the thoughts and feelings of each person (or group of people) without having a reference point, and they do not even give us the assurance that it can be known at all.
In order not to repeat the error of the previous definitions, we will begin with the definition of “The Truth” seeing it from the point of view that the truth about reality is knowable.
Let’s first rule out “ What is not the truth ” (we are not going to expand on this aspect but we will use it as a point of reference).
The truth is not:
After seeing these four points of what is not the truth, we can see more clearly what “the Truth” really is, and it is simply what corresponds to reality. Truth is what corresponds to its referent. The truth about reality is what corresponds to the way things really are. Truth is telling things as they are. [1]
Truth is that which corresponds to and/or adequately expresses what is real. Most philosophers have conceptualized truth only as a property of propositions. The most common account of propositional truth is the correspondence theory, which holds that a proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to how things are. [2]
A quick example would be the following statement “Jorge Gil was born in Turrialba, Costa Rica.” This statement is true only if it matches the facts of where I was born. If my birth certificate says: “born in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.” Well, we would clearly know that statement is false, but since my birth certificate does in fact say, born in Turrialba, Costa Rica and this matches the statement made first, then we know that it is true.
If the opposite were said, “Jorge Gil was not born in Turrialba, Costa Rica” and we assume that he was born there, then we would immediately know that this statement is false. This brings us to the law of non-contradiction, which we can briefly summarize as follows: “Something cannot be true and false at the same time and in the same situation” that is, if something is true, its opposite is false.
We can also know many things about the truth such as:
–Truth is discovered, not invented. It exists independently of anyone knowing it. (Gravity existed before Newton.)
–Truth is cross-cultural; if something is true, then it is true for all people, everywhere, all the time (2+2=4 for everyone, everywhere, all the time).
–The truth never changes, no matter how much our beliefs about the truth change. (When we start believing that the earth is round instead of flat, the truth about the earth doesn’t change, only our beliefs about the earth change.)
–Beliefs cannot change facts, no matter how sincerely we hold to them. (Someone may sincerely believe that the world is flat, but that only makes that person sincerely mistaken.)
–Truth is not affected by the attitude of the one who professes it. (An arrogant person [I want to clarify that this attitude is not worthy of any follower of Christ] does not make the truth that he professes false. A humble person does not make the error that he professes true.)
–All truths are absolute. Even those that appear to be relative are actually absolute. (For example, “I, Jorge Gil, felt cold on January 4, 2014” may seem to be a relative truth, but in reality it is absolutely true for anyone and anywhere that Jorge Gil felt cold on that day.)
In short, contrary beliefs [opinions/criteria/opinions] are possible, but contrary truths are not possible. We can believe everything to be true, but we cannot make everything true. [3]
I hope that with what we have seen so far, we have a little clearer what the truth is (and what it is not) and as we already know more about it logically, we see how important it is to handle these concepts and ideas in an appropriate way, this will help us identify, resist and counteract the constant attacks of our adversary, which continues to blind the minds of all those who do not believe or who have rejected the message of salvation, let us remember that we not only have the truth of God carved on the table of our hearts (Prov 3:3, 7:3; 2 Cor 3:3) God also gives us our intellectual faculties, our reasoning ability, the infallibility of the holy scriptures and undoubtedly the Holy Spirit that protects us and helps us discern in all things concerning God.
The Bible, as we will see below, uses the criterion of correspondence of truth; to conclude, we will cite several examples.
–The ninth commandment is based on this criterion: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Ex. 20:16)
–Satan is called a “liar” (John 8:44); his statement in the Garden of Eden to Eve, “No, you will not surely die!” does not correspond to what GOD actually said, “In the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
–Ananias and Sapphira “You lied to the Holy Spirit… You lied not to us but to God!” (Acts 5:1-4) They lied by giving a false report concerning their finances.
–Moses gives us one of the most important biblical passages regarding false prophets, following the principle of correspondence, these have to be tested based on “If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not come true or come to pass, it is a sign that his message is not from the Lord. That prophet has spoken presumptuously; do not be afraid of him.” (Dt 18:22)
–In Proverbs we see “A truthful witness saves from death, but a false witness lies.” This implies the correct truth regarding the facts. In a court of law, intentions alone will not save innocent lives when they are accused, only “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” will do so. [4]
I hope that now we are not only much more comfortable with the definition of what “The Truth” is, but also with the fact that our God and redeemer, our Lord and savior Jesus Christ said the following words “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) in them all the weight of the Absolute Truth falls on Him and it is our duty as Christians to trust in Him, we are called to love Him with all our mind (Matthew 22:37) that is why it is important to approach our beliefs and His word in a way that we can maintain both a spiritual and intellectual balance and follow it to the letter, always remembering that He Himself calls us to put everything to the test and hold on to what is good (1 Thess 5:21).
I leave you with these two quotes to reflect on:
“Truth is a reality whether you believe in it or not. Truth does not require you to believe in it to be true, but it does deserve your belief in it.” – Doug Powell
“Men stumble upon the truth from time to time, but most of them pick themselves up and walk away as if nothing ever happened.” – Winston Churchill
References
[1] The Big Book of Christian Apologetics , The Nature of Truth p. 562
[2] Evans, C. Stephen (2010-03-17). Pocket Dictionary of Apologetics & Philosophy of Religion: 300 Terms & Thinkers Clearly & Concisely Defined (The IVP Pocket Reference Series) (Kindle Locations 2267-2270). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
[3] [Geisler, Norman L.; Turek, Frank (2004-03-12). I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist p.37-38]
[4] Systematic Theology in One Volume , Norm Geisler, p.85-85
Note on references
Because these are originally in English, the translation and modification was made by the author of this article who does not claim any intellectual rights over them.
Fe y Razón
EspañolBy Kenneth R. Samples
Skeptics often accuse Christians of “blind faith.” And sometimes even believers have spoken of faith in less than rational terms. Yet historic Christianity affirms a necessary and proper relationship between faith and reason. There has been broad agreement in Christian history that the two are indeed compatible. Christian faith is reasonable in four distinct ways.
First, the Christian faith affirms that there is an objective source and foundation for knowledge, reason, and rationality. That source and foundation is found in a personal, rational God who is infinitely wise and omniscient. This God created the universe to reflect a coherent order, and he made man in his image (with rational capacities) to discover that intelligible organization. Logic and rationality are then to be expected among the characteristics of the Christian theistic worldview.
Second, Christian truth claims do not violate the basic laws or principles of reason. Christian faith and doctrines (e.g., the Trinity and the Incarnation), while often beyond our finite human understanding, are not irrational or absurd.
Third, the Bible itself encourages the attainment of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding (Job 28:28; Prov. 1:7) and promotes intellectual virtues such as discernment, testing, and reflection (Acts 17:11; Col. 2:8; 1 Thess. 5:21).
Fourth, the truths of the Christian faith are matched by and supported by such things as evidence, facts, and reasons. Biblical faith (Greek: pisteuo , the verb “to believe,” and pistis , the noun “faith”) can be defined as trust in a reliable, reasonable, and viable source (God or Christ). Faith (or belief) is a necessary component of both knowledge and reason, since a person must believe something in order to know it. However, reason can be appropriately used to evaluate, confirm, and reinforce faith. Faith and reason therefore function in a complementary way. While reason alone, without God’s special grace, cannot be a cause of faith, the use of reason is normally part of how a person might come to faith, and it supports faith in countless ways.
In short, faith is the foundation of reason and reason can serve to evaluate or confirm faith.
In the New Testament, faith is always centered on an object. And the confident object of a person’s faith, according to Scripture, is God or the Lord Jesus Christ. Even the faith that results in salvation itself involves knowledge (of the facts surrounding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ) and discursive reasoning (as to what the facts about Jesus Christ are and what they really mean). Saving faith includes knowledge (of the gospel), assent (to its truth and importance), and confident trust and dependence (on the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ). Such faith involves all the human faculties: mind (knowledge), will (consent), and heart (trust).
Christian faith and reason can also be connected in another important way. The Christian life should be marked by what the apostle Paul calls the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2). This involves using our knowing faculties to their fullest extent in our devotion to God. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) called this indispensable activity “faith seeking understanding.” Intellectual and spiritual. Believers should earnestly pursue the God-given use of reason to explore the depths of their faith and discover its doctrinal truth. Stretching the mental and spiritual muscles to understand (though never fully comprehend) doctrines such as the triune nature of God and the Incarnation of Jesus Christ moves us from an initial stage of faith to a deeper stage of reflection and a greater sense of God’s majesty. Loving God with the mind is part of fulfilling the general command to love and honor God with our whole being (Matthew 22:37).
Christian faith, therefore, far from being arbitrary and blind, is based on knowledge and reason. It is the task of the believer to represent this historic faith with grace and accuracy in an age of hardened skepticism.
Christian historical vision of faith and reason
There is a diversity of views in the history of the Christian church regarding the proper relationship between faith and reason, but the views have much in common.
These approaches to faith and reason are explored and explained in Ed L. Miller, God and Reason: An Invitation to Philosophical Theology, 2nd ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995), 129–53, and Kenneth D. Boa and Robert M. Bowman Jr., Faith Has Its Reasons: Integrative Approaches to Defending Christian Faith, 2nd ed. (Waynesboro, GA: Authentic Media, Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2006).
Translated by Jorge Gil Calderon
Edited by Jairo Izquierdo
Bibliografía recomendada para introducirse en la filosofía y teología
EspañolPara las personas que no estudian la carrera de Filosofía y/o Teología, puede ser complicado por dónde y cómo comenzar a estudiarlas. Por esta razón, he creado una breve lista de obras filosóficas y teológicas cuyo contenido no requiere conocimientos previos ni un dominio de un lenguaje técnico para poder comprender y disfrutar de la lectura de estos libros. Además, recomiendo un método de estudio temático en lugar de histórico, tal como lo presento aquí; ya que estoy convencido de que estudiar filosofía/teología de esta forma incrementa el interés y no promueve el escepticismo a diferencia del método histórico (cada generación parece ser refutada por la siguiente). Mi último consejo es que los estudiantes comiencen a estudiar inglés ya que existen muchos más recursos en este idioma que en el español, por lo que su estudio de estas disciplinas podría verse limitado.
A Faithful Guide To Philosophy (Peter S. Williams)
Philosophical Foundations For A Christian Worldview (J.P. Moreland & William Lane Craig)
Filosofía Elemental (Jaime Balmes)
Filosofía Y Cristianismo (Alfonso Ropero)
Introducción A La Lógica (Irving M. Copi & Carl Cohen)
Lógica Simbólica (Irving M. Copi)
Introducción A La Epistemología Contemporánea (Jonathan Dancy)
Warrant And Proper Function (Alvin Plantinga)
Warranted Christian Belief (Alvin Plantinga)
Metafísica (Eudaldo Formet)
Metaphysics: The Fundamentals (Robert C. Koons & Timothy Pickavance)
Unas Lecciones de Metafísica (José Ortega y Gasset)
Una Brevísima Introducción A La Filosofía De La Ciencia (Samir Okasha)
Christianity And The Nature Of Science: A Philosophical Investigation (J.P. Moreland)
Introducción A La Ética (Raúl Gutierrez Saenz)
La Filosofía De La Religión (Jean Grondin)
Filosofía De La Religión, Estudios Y Textos (Manuel Fraijó)
Philosophy Of Religion: Classic And Contemporary Issues (Paul Copan & Chad Meister)
Concepciones De Lo Divino. Introducción A La Teología Filosófica (Enrique Remorales)
Clases de “Defenders” en ReasonableFaith.org (William Lane Craig)
El Mundo De Sofía (Jostein Gaarder)
La Aventura Del Pensamiento (Salvador Dellutri)
Introducción A La Filosofía (Alfonso Ropero)
Jairo Izquierdo Hernández es el fundador de Filósofo Cristiano. Actualmente trabaja como Director de Social Media para la organización cristiana Cross Examined. Es miembro en la Christian Apologetics Alliance y ministro de alabanza en la iglesia cristiana bautista Cristo es la Respuesta en Puebla, México.
Human Nature According to Darwin – A Christian Response
Philosophy of Science, Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Ken Mann
The following is was delivered as a plenary session at a Biola on the Road conference in April 2017 at Faith Bible Church in Houston Texas.
Introduction
Charles Darwin. Evolution. Perhaps no other man and no other idea have had a wider influence on western culture. Since On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was first published in 1859, how we perceive our world and ourselves has been transformed. For those who have embraced Darwinism, humanity and every other living thing are the end products of a natural process. There is no Creator. There is no purpose. There is just survival. Humanity is a cosmic accident.
Since as early as 1888, scientists and academics have asserted that Darwinian evolution is a fact as certain as gravity. The momentum behind Darwin’s theory strengthened in the 20th century to the point that nearly every aspect of human behavior and culture has been subjected to an evolutionary explanation. Today, scientists who are merely skeptical about evolution risk losing their jobs if their views become known.
In the face of such an onslaught, what should a Christian think? In my own experience, I was always convinced that evolution was false. Not because I knew anything about it. Rather, I was certain of the existence of God and the reliability of the New Testament. I believed I had adequate justification to believe in a literal Adam and Eve, in the Fall, and in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
But for many years I was plagued by an internal conflict. Setting aside evolution, I have always loved science. Since studying physics in college, I have adhered to the adage that science is “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.” Despite the myriad of apparent conflicts between science and religion, I suspected that Psalm 19:1, the heavens declare the glory of God, meant that the study of creation was compatible with the Christian worldview.
Then in 2010, I enrolled in the Science and Religion program at Biola. During my first year, I took a class that focused on Darwin. At the time, Darwin seemed like the Mt. Everest of a “Science and Religion” program. Looking back on it now, this subject embodied everything that made the program so valuable. The tools I learned and the confidence I gained have transformed my Faith.
I always rejected evolution not because I understood the science, philosophy or history that surrounds it, but because I trusted God more. Today, I know the reasons why Darwinian evolution is not fact, and I should emphasize, none of them are based on Christian doctrine.
That might alarm some of you so let me explain. There are many myths and distortions about the relationship between science and Christianity. Perhaps the worst is that science and Christianity are in hopeless conflict, that the Christian church has been an impediment to science since Galileo. In reality, the foundations of modern science, the assumptions that made science possible, come from the Christian worldview. The pioneers of modern science were all committed Christians, most of whom saw science, in the words of Kepler as “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”
In other words, science and Scripture are merely two sources of revelation. There is the “book of nature” and the “book of Scripture.” These two “books” cannot contradict each other because they have the same author, God. When they seem to contradict, something has gone wrong with our understanding of Scripture, nature or both.
Since Galileo’s confrontation with the Catholic Church in the 17th century, there have been conflicts between doctrines promoted by the Church and the conclusions of science. In Galileo’s time, almost everyone accepted an earth-centered view of the cosmos that originated with the Greeks and had later become sanctified using certain passages from the Old Testament. Galileo questioned the conventional wisdom of his time and advocated an idea that would not be widely accepted for another century.
In the 19th century, Charles Darwin also challenged widely accepted ideas about God’s role in creating the world. Since then Christianity has been challenged by variety conclusions based on his writings.
How should we deal with these challenges? The first and more important step is to understand them. We shouldn’t run away from something that attacks our Christian worldview. We should run toward it. Engage, learn, and trust that God is sovereign.
As we engage with Evolution today, I want to reassure you that we are not going to wander off into the tall grass of the biological sciences. We are not going to talk about the Prevalence of Functionally Significant Glutathione S-Transferase Genetic Polymorphisms in Dogs. (That is the subject of a research project my daughter, a biochemistry, cell, and molecular biology major, has been working on since last summer.) Not because the science isn’t important, but because it takes a lot more time than we have available today. Further, there are far more obvious problems with Darwinian evolution.
It is assumed that Darwin’s theory was the triumph of science over the myths of religion. It is claimed Darwin was not influenced by religion; he studied nature and “discovered” how it really worked. Based on his empirical observations he proposed an idea that explained how life developed via natural processes without the direct intervention of a creator. In reality, Darwin had certain assumptions about God and how He would create that was inconsistent with what he found in the natural world. In short, Darwin was convinced his theory was true because his God would not have created the world as we find it.
My highest priority this morning is to be understood; therefore I want to be clear what I am talking about. I also want to inform, which means some of what I share might be challenging and new to some of you. I would ask for your patience as we go along. I will be around to answer questions and the substance of this talk, along with a list of some relevant books, can be found on my website under “resources.”
I am going to cover two things this morning. First, I am going to discuss some terminology that is foundational to this subject. Next, we will consider the theological ideas that were at work in the 19th century and still influence public perception of the relationship between science and Christianity.
Terminology
Whether you are engaging with someone with a different worldview or simply trying to learn more about a subject, navigating terminology is a crucial task. You have to be aware of words you haven’t heard or seen before. Whether I am reading or in conversation, I am always alert to such words. If I am reading, I will stop and look up the word. In conversation, it is difficult but still just as important to interrupt and ask the other person what a word means. If they can define the term for you, your conversation has been enhanced. If they can’t, you may or may not be able to continue. Regardless, it is important to prevent either side of a conversation from assuming what certain words mean.
Evolution
So what does the word evolution mean? That depends on the context and the intention of the author. Just on this subject, there are actually six different definitions that are routinely used. Only one definition is in view this morning, but if you read articles or blogs on evolution, you may encounter one or more of these definitions. You may even find authors who use the word in one sense, then later switch to a different meaning later in the same article.
None of the definitions so far are controversial. However, the next two are where most of the disagreements occur.
The term “blind watchmaker” was coined by Richard Dawkins in the title of his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence for Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design. Dawkins was ridiculing an argument made by William Paley published in 1802. Paley argued that the existence of a watch implies the existence of a watchmaker. Whereas a rock merely implies the processes of geology over time.
This definition of evolution is that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through an unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material process. This process is completely sufficient to account for the appearance of design in living organisms.
Or more succinctly, “Molecules to men by way of chemistry and physics.”
This final definition is what really drives the conflict of worldviews between materialism and Christianity. It goes by a couple of other names: “Darwinism” or “neo-Darwinism.” (The later term is a more technical and specific in that it refers to the integration of Darwinism and the science of population genetics in the middle of the 20th century.)
While you should always press for definitions, when you hear Darwin’s name or evolution invoked in a discussion about human origins or the development of life, you can be confident that the “molecules to men” idea is usually what is meant.
Science
The term science needs not so much a definition as a lot of warning labels. Being that it is in the title of my major, it will come as no surprise that I have developed some opinions on the subject. I am going to limit myself to two ideas.
First, science cannot be constrained by a specific detailed definition. There is no definitive list of criteria that says, “that is science, but this other field is not!” In other words, specific examples of science (e.g., physics, biology, and paleoanthropology) seem obvious, however, coming up with a list of criteria that separates astrology from astronomy, for example, is harder to do. Most everyone is going to agree that simply studying the movement of the stars and planets does not make astrology a science.
Second, beware of an inflated view of science as a source of knowledge. The view known as “scientism” asserts that the only things that can be known are from the natural sciences. It is a tactic designed to give the guy in a lab coat, as opposed to a theologian or a philosopher, a privileged status that ends the discussion. It is also a self-refuting concept because there is nothing we can learn from science. However you define science, that demonstrates scientism.
Theology
Theology is the study of the nature of God. I believe that the Bible is the best source for theology. But we can also learn something about the nature of God from other disciplines, such as science and philosophy.
Human Nature
Now that I’ve defined Darwinism, I should also touch on the term human nature. Obviously, this is a subject as vast human experience. An entire conference could be devoted to addressing this subject. How you define, human nature is determined by your worldview. One may approach this question from a scientific, philosophical, or theological perspective. For my purposes this morning I simply want to address the crucial differences between human nature according to Darwinism and human nature according to Christian theism.
From the perspective of Darwinism, human beings and every living thing is simply the end result of a blind, unguided physical process. In other words, we are merely animals. The process of natural selection has been invoked to explain nearly every aspect of human culture and behavior. Many of these explanations are simply unsubstantiated stories, but they have captured the imagination of many. From religion to sexual infidelity, to altruism there is an evolutionary story for everything about human nature.
Darwinism denies the possibility of the soul; it makes no room for the existence of the immaterial. As a consequence, one must come to grips with the idea that everything we do, everything we think, everything we feel is not evidence of our soul, but is merely the output of a physical process.
According to Darwinism, the difference between human beings and every other animal is a matter of degree, not kind. Let me illustrate what I mean by these two words with an example.
Steph Curry and Russell Westbrook are reputed to be among the best point guards playing in the NBA right now. The difference between them is a matter of degree. However, if we were to compare Curry or Westbrook to a basketball, we would have to say the basketball is a different kind of thing.
Since we are just animals, it shouldn’t surprise you that ethical decisions about humans and animals are a bit different for the Darwinist. Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, popularized the term speciesism, which refers to privileging members of a particular species over others. In other words, it is not always wrong to kill human beings under circumstances such as severe mental or physical handicaps. Some environmentalists have seized upon this idea to argue that the death of a logger or the economic destruction of a community are acceptable when weighed against the safety of a type of animal.
The Christian view of human nature is radically different. In addition to being grounded in Scripture, it is also consistent with our experience and deepest intuitions.
According to Christianity, human beings are unique in creation, a completely different kind of creature from every other animal. We are physical creatures. We are similar to other animals in many ways. Yet we also have an immaterial nature, a soul if you will. I have always been fond of this passage from the Screwtape Letters:
Humans are amphibians— half spirit and half animal… As spirits, they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. (p. 37).
I would quibble with Screwtape to the extent that we are not “half spirit and half animal” rather we are embodied souls. Our soul completely occupies and animates our bodies. Our soul can also exist apart from our bodies, but a human body cannot continue without a soul.
The most essential aspect of human nature, what makes us unique, is found in the phrase the “image of God” first mentioned in Genesis 1:26-27.
To briefly unpack this phrase, if we consider the Hebrew words used here for “image” and “likeness” and Greek word (eikōn), it would seem that God created us to be similar but not identical to Himself.
Consider just three ways we are similar to God.
Finally, no discussion of the Christian view of human nature would be complete without considering the Fall. As unique as we are, as much as we were created to be in fellowship with God and with each other, the most certain and painful fact is that something is horribly wrong.
Darwinism and the materialist worldview it supports must deny our daily awareness of evil. In ourselves, in our culture, even to some extent in creation itself, we are constantly confronted with the results of human rebellion.
Christianity explains the existence of evil, our embrace of and revulsion from it; and it offers a solution in the person and work Jesus Christ.
Theological Foundations of Darwinism
In Matthew 16, Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” This is the most important question anyone will ever answer. Understanding who Jesus is and what He did is an essential step to trusting Him as your personal savior.
That question is just as relevant if God the Father asked it. What you believe about God has a profound effect on every aspect of your life. Our perception of reality, how we choose to live, how we choose to solve our problems, everything about us is ultimately effected by our view of God.
This is no less true in science. For as long as people have tried to understand nature, their beliefs about what or who created the world has impacted how they comprehend nature.
In the 19th century, there were several trends in theology that set the stage for Darwinism. Consider one example. It was argued that it would demean God to believe every animal species was a unique act of creation. Rather, God would be a wiser and more capable creator if the capacity to create species by some natural process was built into creation. This view also downplayed or dismissed other things God did like miracles in the New Testament. This was sometimes referred to as “Greater God Theology.” Ideas like this and others we will now consider motivated Darwin to reconcile what was observed in nature with the theology of his day.
Natural theology and the ‘theory of creation’
The idea that God created is not really controversial in Christianity. It’s right there in the first verse, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Now a tremendous amount of words have been written about this verse and all that it means, however, no one doubts that central phrase, “God created.”
In the 18th and 19th century the perspective of creation was that from the motion of the heavens down to the myriad of animals and plants that occupy the earth, all of creation was a perfect, harmonious system that reflected God’s wisdom and benevolence. Starting in the 17th century a variety of theologians and scientists advanced the idea that evidence for God could be found in the study of nature. Known as “Natural Theology,” this field reached its peak in the works of William Paley at the beginning of 19th century. Natural theology argued, some would say brilliantly, that evidence for design could be found in nature.
However, there was a significant flaw in Paley’s perspective. Paley believed that God’s purpose in creation was the happiness of His creatures. Creation was idealized in such a way that God’s benevolence, wisdom were seen everywhere. Allow me to read a quote from Paley’s book Natural Theology:
In short, the Natural theologians claimed nature demonstrated God’s wisdom and goodness but they ignored His providence, judgment or use of evil.
The problem of Natural Evil
The problem of evil is something that has harassed Christian belief for a long time. If you haven’t heard that phrase before, it refers to the tension that exists between the obvious instances of evil we find in the world and the characteristics typically attributed to God. It is sometimes put as a question: “How can God be benevolent and omnipotent and yet allow the evil we experience in the world?”
Most discussions of this topic make a distinction between moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is simply what people have been doing since Adam and Eve rebelled in the Garden. Natural evil, broadly speaking, is anything in nature that causes death or suffering. This could include everything from earthquakes, to disease, to all the horrible things animals do to each other.
Darwin, like other naturalists, did not see happiness and joy in creation. He saw death, suffering, and waste that he could not reconcile with Paley’s “happy” creation. He was particularly bothered by the suffering and death found in the animal kingdom. One particular example was a type of wasp that lays its eggs into the body of a caterpillar. After hatching, the larva starts consuming the host while it is still alive.
Darwin’s solution, consistent with greater God theology, was that God did not create the parasitic wasp or any of the other natural evil in the world. Rather, God created a system of natural laws which resulted in the world he studied. In a letter to Asa Gray (an American botanist) Darwin summarized his view this way. “I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance.”
To put it another way, God directly acting in creation was rejected in order to make the existence of natural evil comprehensible to human beings. If God did not directly create each individual species but merely created the natural system that resulted in the species we have today, then God is not directly responsible for natural evil.
“Nature is not perfect.”
A second aspect of natural theology to which Darwin objected is that all of the creation reflected God’s perfection. Of course, what is meant by perfection was apparently open to a wide variety of interpretations. For Darwin and many others since it has been the claim that many things found in nature are poorly designed.
Perhaps the most popular example of bad design in nature is the vestigial organ. When an organ or structures are no longer needed, it is “vestige” of the evolutionary process. It was needed in an ancestor species, but evolution has yet to remove it. In 1895 a German anatomist published a list of 86 vestigial organs in the human body. I am not aware of a single credible example today. Vestigial organs are not evidence of evolution. They are a combination of assuming evolution is true and ignorance of a particular organ’s function.
A more modern example of a claim of bad design is known as “Junk DNA.” This term was originally coined in 1972. When research first began into how DNA worked, the first thing discovered was the correlation between certain sequences of DNA bases (“rungs” on the DNA ladder) and the production of certain amino acids (20 different organic molecules that makeup proteins). The function of vast regions of DNA outside of these “protein coding,” upwards of 98% of the human genome was dismissed as “junk” until about five years ago. The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project began publishing results demonstrating that vast regions of the “junk DNA” in the human genome are being used.
Similar to vestigial organs, ignorance combined with an acceptance of evolution, resulted in the conclusion that subsequent research has proven wrong. In short, the existence of “Junk DNA” something that was once dogma is now becoming another failed prediction of Darwinism.
Theological Naturalism
A third theological idea that motivated Darwin and many others in the 19th century has to do with how God acts in creation. In order to make this clear I have to make a distinction between primary causes and secondary causes. An event which is caused by God and impossible by any other means, a miracle, is an example of primary causation. Something that occurs in accordance with natural law is an example of secondary causation. For example, the parting of the Red Sea as the Jews fled from Egypt was primary causation, the deaths of the Egyptian army caught when the water was released was secondary causation.
For many theologians and scientists since before Darwin down to the present day, science is not possible if God acts in the world. If primary causation is possible, then it is impossible to know the difference between an event caused by natural law and an event caused by God. In order to study nature, to understand the structure of “laws” that govern it, we must assume that God never acts in creation.
The net effect of this view does not deny that God was the creator of the universe, it simply means there is no evidence that He did. Of course, that is not the worst of it. If God has not done anything since the moment of creation, the incarnation and the resurrection of Jesus could not have happened.
Perhaps the simplest way to sum up this view is that God cannot be trusted. If He is capable of acting in creation, He is capable of tricking us. Science would become the “study” of the whims and unpredictable behavior of an omnipotent being.
Naturalism asserts that everything arises from natural properties and causes; supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted. For theologians in the 19th century, this meant that God acted in creation through the laws he created. They argued God was greater, glorified more if He did not intervene in creation. Dr. Cornelius Hunter refers to this as theological naturalism because theological reasoning motivated it.
Today the default position of science is a view known as methodological naturalism. This is the idea that when you are doing science, you can only consider natural causes. The actions of an intelligent agent cannot be considered. God does not act in creation. From there, it is a short trip to atheism, where God does not exist.
But let me emphasize this point–the origins of naturalism that motivated Darwin and have become dogma within science today were philosophical. Naturalism was not a conclusion of science; it was a starting point.
Conclusion
Human nature according to Darwin, how should the Christian respond? First and foremost, when confronting an opposing worldview, you must understand what it believes and why. By exploring some terminology and its theological foundations, I’ve given you an introduction into the worldview of Darwinism.
I provided a summary of some of the ideas about God and his role in creation that motivated Darwin. Since On the Origin of Species was published down to the present day, Darwinism has relied on a perception of God that cannot be found in Scripture. Either God is absent from creation and cannot intervene, or He is incompetent because nature is full of “bad design.” Evolution is accepted as true because a distorted view of God and creation seems to be false.
This is not merely about science. It is not merely about religion. It is an example of how assumptions about God, religion if you will drive the process of science. Darwinism is not fact. Darwinism is less of a science than it is a theological viewpoint that claims empirical support from science.
Human nature according to Darwinism, including its denial of the soul and denial of human uniqueness, is not learned from various scientific disciplines. It is implied by the science and therefore it is accepted because Darwinism is accepted. However, if Darwinism is false, then whatever it claims about human nature is also false.
Time did not permit addressing the evidence used to support and critique Darwinism. What I can say in terms of a summary is that the evidence for Darwinism is only compelling if you are already convinced it is true. On the resources page on my website, today’s talk is available along with a list several books that cover today’s material in more depth. I would also encourage you to check out the books that focus on the scientific critiques of Darwinism.
I would like to leave you with some questions to ask someone who believes “molecules to men by way of physics and chemistry” is the best explanation for the vast diversity of life we find.
Each of these questions, depending on the responses you get, could be followed up with two questions. (1) What do you mean by that? (2) How did you come to that conclusion? These two questions from Greg Koukl’s Columbo technique seek clarification and evidence that will help you understand the other person’s perspective better.
It has been my prayer preparing for today that the summary I would offer here would encourage believers. It is also my prayer that you would leave today motivated to learn more about this subject and others that will be discussed today. As Christians, we are heirs to a tremendous heritage of thought that I fear has been abandoned. We worship a Being that created all things, sustains all things, and knows all things. Our trust in God should not be limited to our salvation. God is sovereign over everything. He is sovereign over every domain of human knowledge. He is sovereign over every lie that could deceive.
Don’t run away from a challenge. Engage, learn, and trust that God is sovereign.
Gotham City And Nazareth Are Not In The Same Category
Atheism, Theology and Christian Apologeticsby Ryan Leasure
As a child, Batman held the ranks as my favorite superhero. Unlike other superheroes who could fly, see through walls, or turn into green giants, Batman fought crime in Gotham City by more conventional means. He was a great fighter, used cool gadgets, had a killer suit, and drove a sweet car. In this way, Batman was more realistic than his superhero counterparts. Now suppose I truly believed Batman was a real person. After all, I had seen him on the movie screen and at the occasional Halloween party. My friends, however, thought I was ridiculous and tried to dispel this notion from my brain. Yet, no matter what they said, I remained convinced of his existence.
Until one day, my friend suggested to me that we go visit Batman in Gotham City. This sounded like a grand plan to me. I wasted no time packing my bags — with all my Batman t-shirts — and began daydreaming about hanging out with Batman. One final step remained. I needed to purchase plane tickets to Gotham City. So I pulled out my laptop, and began searching for the next plane ticket to Gotham City, except, I couldn’t find any! I searched vigorously for hours, but alas I came up empty.
My friend, who was sneakier than I thought, used this opportunity to explain to me why I couldn’t find a plane ticket — Gotham City doesn’t exist. In order to prove him wrong, I quickly googled Gotham City’s location, only to find that it was nowhere to be found. After all these years of thinking Gotham City was where New York City is located, I became dejected. The writing was on the wall. If Gotham City isn’t real, then Batman probably isn’t real either.
IS NAZARETH A REAL PLACE?
For years, Jesus mythicists have argued that Nazareth — like Gotham City — was fictitious. The argument goes, if Nazareth didn’t exist, then Jesus didn’t exist either. After all, the gospels repeatedly claim that Jesus came from Nazareth (Mk 1:24; Jn 1:45). Prove Nazareth didn’t exist, and you can prove Jesus didn’t exist either. Skeptics make this claim based on the fact that the Old Testament, Jewish historian Josephus, and the Jewish Talmud never mention Nazareth. Surely, the argument goes, these three major sources would have mentioned Nazareth if it was a real place. What are we to make of this claim? Was Nazareth a real place? Yes, and there’s proof.
ARCHAEOLOGY
In 1962, archaeologists discovered an Aramaic tablet in Israel which listed twenty-four different priest families and their locations. One priest family’s location was, you guessed it, Nazareth.1The traditional dating of this list goes back to the year AD 70, thus indicating that Nazareth was a real place in the first century.
Furthermore, more archaeological discoveries provide further evidence for Nazareth’s existence. Within the town itself, archaeologists excavated two houses in 2006 and 2009 — homes that match a typical home in first-century Rome. Inside the homes, they found doors, windows, a spindle, and cooking pottery.
Additionally, archaeologists uncovered first-century tombs right outside the town. This fits with Jewish customs which forbade burying dead bodies inside the town. Also, within the tombs, archaeologists discovered pottery which they date to the first century. The evidence is so conclusive, that expert archaeologist Jack Finegan states, “From the tombs… it can be concluded that Nazareth was a strongly Jewish settlement in the Roman period.”2
NAZARETH! CAN ANYTHING GOOD COME FROM THERE?
Based upon the digs, scholars suggest that ancient Nazareth was a small hillside village of about sixty acres, with a maximum population of 500 people. This fits nicely with Nathanael’s derogatory comment in John 1:46 when he asked, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” One would think that if you were inventing a religious hero, you would give him a more prominent hometown. The gospel writers had no motivation to make up this detail about Jesus.
DECREE FROM CAESAR
Perhaps the most important discovery from ancient Nazareth is a marble slab measuring 24 inches by 15 inches. Archaeologists date this slab to the first half of the first century — probably during the reign of Emperor Claudius (AD 41-54). On this tablet is a decree from Caesar himself stating that if anyone steals a body from any of the tombs, they will suffer capital punishment. Bear in mind; we’re talking about Caesar, the most powerful man in the world, and a small rural village of 500 people thousands of miles away. What would compel Caesar to care about grave robbers in Nazareth? This would be the equivalent of the President of the United States addressing a grave robber in a small rural town in North Dakota.
It appears Caesar had heard stories about Jesus of Nazareth rising again from the dead. He had also probably heard that Jesus’ disciples stole his body from the tomb. Lost in the shuffle were the exact details that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead in Jerusalem.
We know for certain that Claudius was aware of Christianity because he expelled all Christians from Rome in AD 49. Suetonius — a second-century Roman historian — writes that Claudius “expelled from Rome the Jews constantly making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus.” Luke also reports this event in Acts 18:2. Apparently, the Christian preaching that Jesus was the promised Messiah caused an uproar among the Jewish community. Think of how this radical claim would have caused dissension. The Jews had held to a strict monotheistic faith for thousands of years, and now suddenly, some of their own were claiming that Jesus of Nazareth is Lord! Perhaps violence was involved. It’s difficult to know for certain, but it was significant enough to cause Claudius to remove them all from his city.
WHAT DOES THIS PROVE?
Unlike Gotham City, Nazareth was a real town in the region of Galilee in first-century Rome. Archaeology confirms its existence several times over. Not only have we found ancient homes, pottery, and tombs, we also know that Caesar wrote a special decree to the people of Nazareth not take bodies from tombs lest they be put to death. It’s probable that he wrote this proclamation in relation to the story that Jesus rose again from the dead.
These archeological finds don’t necessarily prove Jesus’ existence, but they corroborate the gospels’ claims that Jesus came from Nazareth. For more on how we know Jesus was a real person, you can check out an article I wrote here.
Skeptics continue to cast doubt on the gospels, and more specifically, Jesus of Nazareth. Yet, archaeology continues to confirm the accuracy of the biblical narrative. Based on the archaeological finds discussed above, I think we can confidently say that Jesus coming from Nazareth is not fake news.
Tell me what you think in the comments below.
Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Iz7AjH
Why Don’t Miracles Happen More Often?
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Frank continues his series on Miracles by examining the very difficult question: Why Don’t Miracles Happen More Often?
He opens this podcast talking about his dear friend and fellow apologist Nabeel Qureshi who converted from Islam to Christianity and was one of the most effective defenders of the Christian Faith, yet he died from stomach cancer at the young age of 34.
This is a podcast you don’t want to miss.
Theistic Foundation of Science, part 2
Atheism, Philosophy of Science, Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Ken Mann
Think Week: The Foundations of Science Found in Christian Theism, 2
Five Explanations
In this post, we will begin to consider how the presuppositions of science described in the previous post can be explained or grounded. Recall that these presuppositions cannot be discovered or defended via any kind of scientific process. Rather they form a foundation that makes science possible.
In order to explore how to explain or ground the presuppositions of science, we necessarily turn to the question of worldviews. For the sake of space, I am going to contrast Christian theism with naturalism. By naturalism, I mean the view that everything that exists is physical. Immaterial things such as souls, consciousness or numbers do not exist. This would also exclude the existence of immaterial minds.
Let’s consider three of the presuppositions.
A Real World
In contrast to other religious systems (e.g., Hinduism or pantheism), Christianity teaches that the creation is real. Human beings were created as both physical and spiritual beings that must interact with the reality of their physical existence.
For the naturalist, this is not a strange idea, in fact, one definition of naturalism is simply that physical reality is the only reality.
An Orderly World
The Christian perspective as to why creation is orderly is based on three things. First, there is a single, transcendent creator. Creation is not filled with multiple, immanent, and competing gods.
Rather, all of reality is the unified and coherent product of a single mind. Second, the order of nature rests on the character of God. Since God is revealed to be reliable and unchanging, it is reasonable to expect creation to be the same. Third, God is the divine legislator. If God were the source and foundation of morality, why wouldn’t He also be the source for the “laws of nature.”
It is important to note that the very idea of “laws of nature” or even that creation should be orderly and predictable was unknown until the Middle Ages. Scholastic thinkers wrestling with how to integrate Aristotle’s views of creation with the Bible concluded that laws govern nature.
Further, they believed while God was the author of such laws, He was not constrained by them.
Nancy Pearcey makes the following observation: “The order of the reasoning here is important.
The early scientists did not argue that the world was lawfully ordered, and therefore there must be a rational God. Instead, they argued that there was a rational God, and therefore the world must be lawfully ordered. They had greater confidence in the existence and character of God than in the lawfulness of nature.”[1]
A Continuing World
The following passage by David Hume is a powerful description of the problem of induction, the process by which we infer that the future will be like the past.
For all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar sensible qualities. If there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless and can give rise to no inference or conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance.[2]
From the naturalist perspective, there is no answer to this issue other than the mere hope that the world will continue and that the “course of nature” will not change. However, the Christian theist turns to the doctrine that God sustains creation. Everything continues because God chooses for it to continue.
In the next post, we will consider the last two presuppositions, An Understandable World, and An Expressible World.
Biography
Carlson, Richard F., Wayne F. Frair, Gary D. Patterson, Jean Pond, Stephen C. Meyer, and
Howard J. Van Till. Science & Christianity: Four Views. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000.
Collins, C. John. Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003.
DeWeese, Garrett J. Doing Philosophy as a Christian. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011.
Deweese, Garrett J. Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult: A Beginner’s Guide to Life’s Big
Questions. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005.
Gould, Stephen Jay. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1999.
Hume, David. “The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.” http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm (accessed April 14, 2015).
Moreland, J. P. Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation. 2nd ed.
Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1999.
Moreland, J. P., and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. IVP Academic, 2003.
Numbers, Ronald L. Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. 1st ed.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Pearcey, Nancy. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy. Wheaton, IL:
Crossway Books, 1994.
Stark, Rodney. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-
Hunts, and the End of Slavery. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Notes
[1] Nancy Pearcey, The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Wheaton, IL:
Crossway Books, 1994), Kindle Locations 221–223.
[2] David Hume, “The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,” http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm, (accessed April 14, 2015).