Tag Archive for: Materialism

The human body is a marvelous and complex system. Of special interest is the cellular mechanism of the body. Every 7-10 years, the cells of the body replace themselves, to the point that the body is essentially new every decade.[i]

 

While the DNA remains the same over the course of a person’s life, the cells change at varying rates. A person’s stomach lining replaces itself every few days. The skin’s epidermis replaces itself every 2 to 4 weeks. The body’s hair changes every 6 years for women and 3 years for men. Liver cells rejuvenate every 150 to 500 days. Bones take around 10 years to change.

Philosophically speaking, the materialist has a problem if he decides to claim that the body is all of human existence. If humans are only their bodies, then each person changes completely every decade. However, this poses severe challenges to personhood. The lack of permanence is not feasible for a person’s essence. Thus, an immaterial soul is required to explain the permanence of the human psyche for three reasons.

Defense of the Immaterial Soul from Personal Identity

First, the immaterial soul must exist to verify continued personal identity. Looking back at our lives, it is clear that we look different each decade. I remember looking back at photos from my high school days. Before wearing contact lenses, I donned thick glasses that automatically darkened when in daylight. With a thick bouffant hairstyle, thin moustache, and 80s-style glasses, I looked something like an officer or detective from a 70s television show. I was much like an officer from CHiPs, but without the cool motorcycle.

Though I may be embarrassed by my stylish choices in high school, never would I dare to say that I was not the same person that I am today. Yes, I have changed, grown, and matured over the years. But I maintain the same identity that I did back then. Permanence of personal identity with an ever-changing body is only possible if our identities are held together by an immaterial soul. Without it, there is no guarantee that we will retain our personal identity.

Defense of the Immaterial Soul from Personal Constancy

Second, the immaterial soul is imperative to explain personal constancy. Consider for a moment if the materialist is right in that the body is the only component of personal human identity. That would mean that the person completely changes every decade. Thus, a crime committed in 2015 could not be tried in 2025 because the person is not the same. Since the body has completely changed, the person must have also completely changed if the body is all there is to personal identity. Thus, no one could be held accountable for what was done over time. Additionally, no one could be rewarded for something they accomplished over time.

For some, this may sound absurd. However, the lack of personal constancy is the metaphysical deduction from materialism, when it is allowed to be taken to its ultimate conclusion. The immaterial reality is necessary to account for the constancy of personal identity.

Defense of the Immaterial Soul from Personal Growth

Lastly, if a person did not have an immaterial mind, will, and emotions found in the immaterial soul, then a person would not learn and grow over time. Even brain cells regenerate over time, at least to a degree.[ii] Granted, learning does interact with the brain. However, if personal identity was only found in chemicals and cellular changes, growth could not occur. Yet, a person learns, grows, and develops one’s character over time. This is something that occurs within the immaterial soul. Again, given the changes that occur, a person would always be in a constant state of flux with no consistency or permanence. The soul working with the body is what gives an individual personal identity. This mind-body connection is also known as hylomorphism.[iii]

Conclusion

Since the early days of philosophy, scholars have sought to understand the complex relationship between permanence and change. Materialists often accept change without any sense of permanence, whereas rationalists, such as Parmenides (510 BC) believed that reality is “just being, one single solitary unchanging being. Reality is the One.”[iv] The body is in a constant state of flux. Thus, the only way a person could have a permanent, constant identity is if a person has an immaterial soul, a soul that serves as the form of the body.

References: 

[i] Chris Opfer and Allison Troutner, “Does Your Body Really Renew Itself Every Seven Years?,” HowStuffWorks.com (Sept. 22, 2022), https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/cellular-microscopic/does-body-really-replace-seven-years.htm.

[ii] Tim Newman, “Brain cells keep growing well into our 70s,” MedicalNewsToday.com (April 7, 2018), https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321416.

[iii] Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology: In One Volume (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2011), 636-637, 1221-1222.

[iv] Daniel J. Sullivan, An Introduction to Philosophy: Perennial Principles of the Classical Realist Tradition (Charlotte, NC: TAN, 1957), 20.

Recommended Resources:

The Great Book of Romans by Dr. Frank Turek (Mp4, Mp3, DVD Complete series, STUDENT & INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, COMPLETE Instructor Set)

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)      

How to Interpret Your Bible by Dr. Frank Turek DVD Complete Series, INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, and STUDENT Study Guide

Debate: What Best Explains Reality: Atheism or Theism? by Frank Turek DVD, Mp4, and Mp3 

 


Brian G. Chilton earned his Ph.D. in the Theology and Apologetics at Liberty University (with high distinction). He is the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast and the founder of Bellator Christi. Brian received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); earned a Certificate in Christian Apologetics from Biola University, and plans to purse philosophical studies in the near future. He is also enrolled in Clinical Pastoral Education to better learn how to empower those around him. Brian is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in ministry for over 20 years and currently serves as a clinical hospice chaplain as well as a pastor.

Originally posted at: https://bit.ly/4j530XP

By Al Serrato

Many years ago, when I was younger and much less wise, I decided it would be a good father-son project to invest in an older car that I could restore. (Note to fathers: it’s a much better bonding idea to find something your kids like than the other way around). So, after some searching, and mindful of my meager budget, I ended up finding an ’87 Mustang convertible that was in pretty good shape overall. It wasn’t difficult for me to envision that with a little elbow grease, and a website that specializes in Mustang parts, I could make this car showroom quality in no time.

After the novelty wore off, and my kids’ interest waned from little to none, I found that I had a solitary project on my hands that had this very annoying habit of making negative progress. That’s right. No matter how many items I crossed off the to-do list, more kept getting added. And I found that things always went from good to bad, from working to broken, from clean to dirty. Window switches that were working one day stopped working the next. Motors that keep the windows moving smoothly up and down began to groan and then stopped. Fuses blew, over and over again. Amazingly, the process never worked the other way. No matter how long I waited, broken switches never fixed themselves. Cracked pieces of trim, or a broken taillight, never repaired themselves. Rust in the metal always appeared, where it wasn’t before, and never gave way to clean and shiny metal. Yes, the law of entropy was fully in effect, and the only way to reverse that process was to invest time, energy, and money.

This of course comes as no surprise to anyone who has ever owned anything. Nor is it a surprise to anyone who has considered the way nature operates. Scientists tell us that this law – entropy – is a characteristic of the universe. Entropy is, put simply, a measure of disorder, and it seems that a universal law is in operation moving everything from states of higher to states of lower order. In other words, nature has a particular direction to it, and that direction is down.

Christianity and atheism are competing worldviews. Each one claims to be able to make sense of the world so as to explain the way things really are. And despite the increasing popularity of atheism, and the increasing disdain for historic Christianity, the atheistic worldview is utterly incapable of making sense of the world. As it relates to entropy, atheism must explain why it is that the “evolution” of life has escaped this universal law. How is it that incredibly complex human beings evolved from lower life forms? When DNA is subjected to random change, the result is often lethal – it’s called cancer. But somehow, atheists insist, given enough time, a simple single-celled life form acquired the instructions necessary to produce a complete human life, instructions that must perfectly direct the assembly and interworking of dozens of systems. And if that were not hard enough, how can life have emerged from inert – lifeless – material? Leave a rock alone for a few millennia and you end up with, well, a rock.

The Christian worldview, by contrast, can provide that explanation. The Big Bang event that started this downward slide in progress is the result of a massively powerful and immensely intelligent being, who provided the laws we see in nature, and who wrote the instructions that scientists are beginning to decipher within DNA. The reason life “evolved” on earth is because an Intelligent Designer designed it to and provided the energy source to power the process. Recognizing the need for such a “first cause” is not unscientific. Indeed, modern science began with the presupposition that intelligent minds could untangle the mysteries of nature because these mysteries were not random but were themselves the product of an ordered mind, of intelligence.

Fighting the obvious, as atheists do, is even less successful than fighting entropy. They would be better off using their time in more productive pursuits.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Paperback), and (Sermon) by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek 

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book)

 

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Al Serrato earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1985. He began his career as an FBI special agent before becoming a prosecutor in California, where he continues to work. An introduction to CS Lewis’ works sparked his interest in Apologetics, which he has pursued for the past three decades. He got his start writing Apologetics with J. Warner Wallace and Pleaseconvinceme.com.

 

By Bob Perry

The way large church authorities deal with heretics hasn’t changed much over the centuries. They demand adherence to dogma. They threaten or silence those who defy the hierarchy. Finally, they excommunicate those who refuse to submit to their demands. The religion of scientism is no different. Denying its dogma will have consequences. Heresy will be punished. No matter which denomination they represent, scientism’s priests are ruthless enforcers of the church’s rules.

We’re All “Religious”

The “skeptical” materialist, Michael Shermer has offered the following as a description of his atheism:

“There’s no, like, central set of tenets that we adhere to or believe in, or anything like … a Christian or a Jew or whatever. We don’t have anything like that, because there is nothing. It’s just simply we just don’t believe.”

Shermer’s denial of any adherence to religious belief is instructive. It pays to remember what a “religion” is. This is especially true because Dr. Shermer regularly rejects the legitimacy of any religious point of view in the scientific marketplace of ideas.

A religion is a template we use to understand and respond to the world. Everybody has one. Shermer’s religion is simply informed by a belief that God does not exist. But that assertion does not allow him to escape the fact that he holds to a systematic view of the world. He has just tried to construct his ideas about ethics, truth, and ultimate reality without God. The question is not about who holds religious views. The question is which of those views correspond best with the way the world actually is.

The Atheist Religion

Pointing out the religious nature of scientific materialism is not just a clever way to make a trivial point. Not when we have been trained to believe that any discussion about things that really matter must begin by accepting something like Shermer’s naturalism. Any view that questions that mindset is categorically dismissed as a matter of personal opinion that no one needs to take seriously. Only scientists may offer us “proof.” Our scientific culture ordains scientists as the source of all wisdom and authority.

They are scientism’s priests.

The Religion Of Scientism

If Materialism (the idea that everything is physical) is true, this all makes sense. If the physical world is all that is real, every phenomenon must be understood as a consequence of molecules in motion. And if material causes are the only kind we are allowed to invoke, it stands to reason that science – the study of the material world – is the only explanatory game in town. If science holds all truth, our belief in science – scientism – is our greatest hope.

But if Scientific Materialism is the only tool we’re allowed to use to analyze things, what do we do with things that it cannot explain even in principle? In other words, how do the priests of scientism propose to explain real things that are not physical?

Can Science Disprove God?

Surely you’ve heard this one: “Science has disproved God!” This is an odd claim. It has to take into account two mutually exclusive truths. First, that science is the study of the physical universe. Second, that no credible theist has ever claimed that God is part of the physical universe.

These details seem to be lost on the priests of scientism who proclaim their disbelief in the deity with a smug wave of the hand and a demand for “evidence.” They insist on having physical evidence for a non-physical entity. But the scientific clergy has already dismissed such a thing by mere assumption.

Do they not see the circularity in their reasoning? Without it, the entire scaffolding of scientism collapses under the weight of its own criteria for identifying truth.

The Language Of Science

Take mathematics. It is wildly ironic that the priests of scientism seem to be ignorant of the language of their faith. Science depends on mathematics to make its case. But Materialist scientists have described mathematics as “an abstract, immutable entity existing outside space and time.” Math describes the structure, orderliness, and invariant properties we observe in nature. Cosmologist Max Tegmark calls it “something bordering on the mysterious” that has “an eerily real feel” to it and satisfies “a central criterion of objective existence.” Stephen Hawking wondered where things like mathematics and the laws of physics and chemistry could have originated.* Even atheist Bertrand Russell once remarked that mathematics holds both “truth and supreme beauty.”

Mathematics is the language of science – the vocabulary of those who deny non-physical reality. Yet mathematics is a combination of numbers and concepts. Neither of these is physical. But both of them are undeniably real.

Faith In The Unseen And Unseeable

Scientists use mathematics to present the quantum metaphysics they use to evade the clear inference that a Big Bang requires a Big Banger. The design of the universe, they say, really requires no explanation at all. Their math tells them that the inexplicable degree of fine-tuning in this universe implies that our universe is just one among an infinite number of alternate universes. We just happen to live in the one that got things just right.

As Max Tegmark has put it, this “idea … seems strange and implausible, but it looks as if we will just have to live with it because it is supported by astronomical observations.”

Of course, the priests never address the fact that these alternate universes are, by definition, unobservable. In other words, the priests who demand “evidence” from theists actually hold “blind faith” in something for which they can never gather physical evidence.

They just want us to “live with it.”

Blind Answers To Life’s Big Questions

Agent causation. Life from non-life. Mind from matter. Each of these are things we see and experience every day. And each is completely inconsistent with a materialistic view of the world.

This is not to say that the scientific enterprise is misguided. Far from it. The point is that Christian theism understands science in its proper context. Theists see science as the rational method we use to discover and understand the order and majesty of God’s creative work. When you look at it that way, you see that theism makes each of these conundrums vanish. They each make sense inside a more comprehensive view of nature. It turns out that the explanatory power of Christian theism far exceeds the materialistic alternative.

Priests And Prophets

Scientism actually diminishes science. It idolizes a view of the world that cannot account for all of reality. It tells us, “Be patient. Science may not have explained these things yet, but it will. Just give it time.”

The priests of scientism think this is persuasive. But their pious exhortation serves only to confirm their religious zeal.

The priests, it seems, also fancy themselves as prophets.

 * Quoted by Dean Overman, A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization (New York, New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1997), 159.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Why Science Needs God by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Science Doesn’t Say Anything, Scientists Do by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3, and Mp4)

Oh, Why Didn’t I Say That? Does Science Disprove God? by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book)

 


Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and an M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/2QIyh7H

By Bob Perry

As I’ve discussed elsewhere, Darwinian Evolution tells a great story. But that story is wholly disconnected from the actual evidence of life on Earth. That’s especially true when it comes to the origin of life. To be fair, Darwinian Evolution insists it has nothing to do with the question of the origin of life. But that doesn’t let materialism off the hook. If there is no God, there must be a materialist explanation for the origin and diversity of the life we see around us. But there isn’t one. Darwinian Evolution fails to explain the diversity of life on Earth. And Materialism cannot explain the origin of life.

Nothing to Select

Natural selection is the core mechanism in the Darwinian model for explaining life. This is the source of the “survival of the fittest” idea with which we are all familiar. Mutations in some organisms provide them with a competitive advantage over others. These more adaptive traits are “selected” and further enhance the propagation of those species. This seems to make sense. But it cannot apply to the origin of life. A lifeless Earth would have contained no organisms. There was nothing to mutate, so there could not have been any “helpful” mutations. Natural selection had nothing to work with. It may help us understand the diversity of life. But what it cannot do is explain life’s origin. So, evolutionary biologists have been trying for decades to find a way to explain how life got started using only stuff available in the material world.

And they’ve failed.

The Miller-Urey Experiment

In 1953, biochemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey of the University of Chicago conducted an experiment to demonstrate how life began. Their goal was to show that life could have arisen through purely chemical processes. For that reason, they could only use the elements that were available on the early Earth. Their experiment passed electrical impulses through a mixture of methane, hydrogen, and ammonia. These were the elements they thought made up the atmosphere of the early Earth. Their goal was to confirm Charles Darwin’s speculations about the origin of life. Darwin believed that life arose from a “primordial soup” of pure chemicals in a “warm little pond.”

A Myth Repeated

On their first attempt, Miller and Urey were able to form some simple amino acids. They believed they had proved that the origin of life on Earth was no longer a mystery. To this day, you will still see the staggering success of this experiment touted in science textbooks.

But it’s not true. Reports of the success of their experiment have been greatly exaggerated.

For starters, it turns out Miller-Urey assumed the wrong initial conditions that existed on the early Earth. Most importantly, they neglected to include oxygen as being part of the early atmosphere.

The Oxygen Conundrum

As it turns out, oxygen was not only present; it is also required to support life. The problem is that if there is oxygen in the atmosphere, or dissolved in water; it shuts down pre-biotic chemical pathways. But that’s not all. If oxygen is not present, pre-biotic chemistry doesn’t work either. So, whether oxygen is present or absent, it ruins Darwin’s infamous “primordial soup.” Pre-biotic molecules cannot form.

Explaining the origin of life requires that oxygen be present. But the presence of oxygen also wrecks the process. The oxygen conundrum is that both of these have to be true at the same time.

But that’s not all.

Chicken and Egg Scenarios

There are regular conferences that meet to discuss the Origin of Life. If you attend one, you will find that oxygen is not the only problem with explaining how life got started. And they keep piling up. The more biochemists learn, the worse the problem gets.

Metabolism and Replication

Cellular life must be able to use the energy it gets from its surroundings. To survive, it has to transform that energy so that it can develop, grow, and sustain itself. This is known as metabolism. No matter how simple the life form is, it must also have the ability to copy and reproduce itself. This is what we call replication. This means that the very first life form must also have had these processes in place. And both of these processes had to have arisen simultaneously.

Proteins and DNA

Along with the replication issue, there is an even more intractable problem. Replication requires proteins which act to copy DNA and use that copy to form a new cell. But without DNA, the cell cannot produce proteins. DNA is the ‘blueprint” used to build an organism. Proteins are the “workers” that follow the blueprint to assemble the cell. And therein lies the problem.

You can’t create the blueprint (DNA) without the workers.

But you can’t assemble the workers without the blueprint.

You need both the blueprint and the workers to be in place right from the beginning.

An Inevitable Conclusion

You can read more about the origin of life issue in Fazale “Fuz” Rana‘s book linked below. But here’s the bottom line. There is no materialistic explanation for the emergence of life from non-life. Wishful thinking and Darwinian “just-so” stories are easy to concoct. But the evidence against them continues to pile up. The more we learn, the more the existence of life seems to depend on the intervention of an intelligent agent. But one thing is certain — materialism cannot explain the origin of life.

Life and a Creator God

But there is another line of evidence that is sitting right in front of our faces. It may be the most astounding evidence of all. The evidence I’m referring to is the evidence about the origin and nature of life itself. This is just one more aspect of the world we live in that is best explained by an intelligent, powerful being. Someone you might refer to as God.

Here is a great summary of why the evidence for the origin of life points straight to God.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Science Doesn’t Say Anything, Scientists Do by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3 and Mp4)

Oh, Why Didn’t I Say That? Does Science Disprove God? by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book)

Defending Creation vs. Evolution (mp3) by  Richard Howe

Exposing Naturalistic Presuppositions of Evolution (mp3) by Phillip Johnson

Macro Evolution? I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be a Darwinist (DVD Set), (MP3 Set) and (mp4 Download Set) by Dr. Frank Turek

Darwin’s Dilemma (DVD) by Stephen Meyer and others

Inroad into the Scientific Academic Community (mp3) by Phillip Johnson

Public Schools / Intelligent Design (mp3) by Francis Beckwith

 


Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and a M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2of535D

By Terrell Clemmons

It’s Time to Remit Darwinian Storytelling to the Annals of History.

Stephen Meyer was a young geophysicist working in the oil industry in Dallas, Texas, in 1985 when he saw that an interesting science conference was coming to town and he decided to drop in. During a panel discussion on the origin of the first living things, Charles Thaxton, a highly credentialed chemist, noted that the information stored in DNA could not be explained by chemical evolutionary processes. This was generally known already and uncontroversial. But Thaxton ventured a step further by suggesting that the information could point to an intelligent cause. This was a reasonable inference, Thaxton said because, in our regular human experience, we know that information is typically attributable to intelligent causes.

This struck Meyer as both intuitive and plausible. But what really piqued his interest was the heated reaction of some of the other scientists at this suggestion. They got really personal. Some criticized Thaxton’s intellect; others, his motives, as if he’d broken some unwritten convention. What was with all this emotion? Meyer wondered. He’d always thought scientists were objective professionals who coolly looked at data and followed the evidence. This was an interesting problem.

The encounter led to some follow-up discussions with Thaxton and a burning new question, which Meyer would take with him to Cambridge University a year later: Could this idea of intelligence—or intelligent design—be made into a rigorous scientific argument?

But during his first year there, an after-lecture social gathering brought home a sobering reality. Everyone at Cambridge was openly atheistic. In fact, atheism was so preemptively the assumed worldview that theism was not even on the table. Meyer not only believed in God; he was a Christian. Clearly, this could be a lonely work environment, and the widespread atheism around him could present obstacles to collaborations on this question. But he took heart in remembering the great scientists of history whose science had been specifically driven by their Christian worldview.

The Closed Darwinian Circle

Science writer Tom Bethell, who had arrived at sister university Oxford about twenty-five years prior, experienced a similarly disappointing revelation. He’d arrived at Oxford “naively imagining that philosophy taught us the meaning of life.” It didn’t.

But Bethell later came to see its usefulness. Many problems in philosophy had flourished, he discovered, because the words used to formulate theories weren’t clearly defined. Sometimes, he further realized, the vagaries seemed to be intentional. Bethell would go on to a long career as a philosophically astute journalist, brilliantly clarifying and parsing some of the most crucial enigmas of public life and history.

Case in point: Charles Darwin’s central postulate said that the diversity of biological life on earth could be explained by natural selection operating on random variations. Herbert Spencer, a contemporary of Darwin, summarized this notion as “survival of the fittest.” The phrase stuck, and today, Darwin’s postulate reigns as the grand unifying theory of established science.

But was there an inherent problem with it, philosophically, from the very start? “Doubts about evolution first arose in my mind when I looked at the title page of The Origin of Species,” Bethell wrote.

I read, and then reread that page:

On the Origin of Species

by Means of Natural Selection

or the

preservation of favoured races

in the struggle for life

by Charles Darwin, M.A.

1859

The words ‘preservation’ and ‘favoured’ stood out. Was there any way of knowing what ‘races’ (meaning species, or individual variants) were favored other than by looking to see which ones were in fact preserved?

This was no pedantic quibble. For if there truly is no way of determining what is “fit” other than by seeing what survives, then Darwin was arguing in a self-confirming circle: the survival of the survivors. In rhetorical terms, this is what’s called a tautology—a statement that is true by definition, due to the construction of the language by which it is expressed. In effect, Darwin’s proposed mechanism—natural selection—rested on the observation that, “Survivors survive.” To which any clear-thinking middle-school student might say, “Well, duh.”

Curating History

Beginning with this observation, Bethell’s latest book examines the dialogue that has taken place among scientists since the publication of The Origin. But rather than giving us a chronological point-counterpoint synopsis of it, Bethell presents a kind of “tour” of the topics over which the debate has been hashed out—the “rooms,” if you will, of the 150-plus-year-old house of Darwin: common descent, natural selection, the fossil record, information theory, evolutionary psychology, artificial intelligence, the growing intelligent design movement, and more.

The upshot of it all is captured in his title: Darwin’s House of Cards: A Journalist’s Odyssey Through the Darwin Debates. Darwinism is an idea past its prime, he concludes, one whose collapse is inevitable and is in fact already demonstrably underway.

Examining a Theory and Its Theorist

He states that forthrightly, but also backs it up with characteristically sound logic—examining, like a museum curator, Darwin’s various claims in light of both mounting new evidence against them and the ongoing lack of evidence supporting them. Room by room, he shows how evolutionary theory today is being propped up by logical fallacies, bogus claims, and outdated empirical evidence that has all but disintegrated under the weight of new discoveries.

In addition to covering the high points of the scientific discussion, Bethell also delves into the man Darwin as he revealed himself through his personal writings. While Darwin was in his own right a legitimate scientist, his theorizing was influenced, inordinately as it turns out, by three ideas of his day: Malthusian economics, Progress, and philosophical materialism.

  • Malthusian Math: Political economist Thomas Malthus had speculated that when population growth outstrips food supply, then death by starvation would result in some sectors of society but not others. Darwin had read Malthus, and he simply transferred the calculus of overpopulation to the plant and animal kingdom. “It at once struck me that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The result would be the formation of new species.” Darwin had no evidence of the formation of any new species, though. That was pure extrapolation.
  • Progress: Capitalized to denote the philosophy as it existed in his day, “Progress” was the reigning metanarrative in post-Enlightenment England, the all-encompassing, assumed a trajectory of reality. It was “as difficult for him to escape as the air he breathed,” wrote Bethell, and Darwin was a confirmed believer. The word “evolution” doesn’t actually appear in The Origin. He referred rather to improvement, progress, and perfection, in the end, writing that “all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress toward perfection.”
  • Materialism: Darwin himself was a full-blown materialist, but he avoided outwardly confessing the extent of his belief. He’d worked out his theory by 1837, but didn’t go public with it for more than twenty years, partly because the 1830s climate of opinion was highly unfavorable to materialism. Even at publication in 1859, he still didn’t deploy it consistently in The Origin, but rather strategically and progressively invoked it over the course of six editions.

Darwin’s metaphysical outlook was not a deduction from his science, though, but was influenced by his theology. He raised theological issues in several of his writings, and Bethell devotes an entire chapter to his evolving religious views. Two points are worth mentioning here. In his autobiography, Darwin mentioned being “heartily laughed at” for quoting the Bible while on the H.M.S. Beagle. We can only speculate about the psychological effect of this incident, but it obviously affected him enough to write about it forty years later. Afterward, he reconsidered the Bible’s place in his view of the world and concluded it was “no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian.”

In addition, like many in insulated societies, he took issue with God over the problem of evil and suffering, ultimately deciding that the concept of an all-loving and all-powerful God could not be reconciled with the reality of misery in the world. “Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete.”

More a product of their theorist and the zeitgeist, then, than of science, Darwin’s postulates found easy acceptance among an elite intelligentsia predisposed to believe in materialism and Progress. Sadly, liberal clergy went along without objection or concern.

Straightening Out Bad Philosophy

Molecular biologist Jonathan Wells concurs with Bethell that Darwinian evolution is one long argument bolstering an a priori metaphysics. In Zombie Science: More Icons of Evolution, he gives three common definitions of science: (1) empirical science is the enterprise of seeking truth by formulating hypotheses and testing them against evidence; (2) technological science comprises the advances that have enriched modern life; and (3) establishment science consists of professionals conducting research. These can all be legitimate uses of the word.

In addition, though, he notes, some people have come to define science as (4) the enterprise of providing natural explanations for everything. But this would more accurately be called methodological naturalism. And while it is true that the methods of empirical science limit the causal explanations, it can confirm or disconfirm to the material realm, to go further and assume that only material causes exist is to assume an unstated claim about metaphysical reality. Furthermore, to do so and call it science constitutes fraud.

Metaphysical Storytelling & the Judgment of History

Fraud aside, it also compromises science. When priority is given to proposing and defending materialistic explanations over following the evidence, materialistic philosophy is running the show. Where this happens (and it does), Wells calls it zombie science. “Evolution is a materialistic story,” he writes, “and since the materialistic story trumps the evidence, it is zombie science.”

Listen to biologist-turned-filmmaker Randy Olsen’s explanation for why he knowingly passed off falsehood in his 2007 film Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus: “Scientists must realize that science is a narrative process, that narrative is story; therefore science needs story.” This is stunning! What Olson is saying here is that metaphysical storytelling should override accuracy in science reporting.

Returning to Meyer at Cambridge, during his first year, he was granted a second telling revelation when his supervisor offered some unsolicited advice. “Everyone here is bluffing,” the kindly old school don said. “And if you’re to succeed, you must learn to bluff too.”

Fortunately, Meyer opted for personal integrity and legitimate science over bluffing and storytelling and then left it to others to sort things out. Imagine the exhibit in some future Museum of Science and History: Everyone believed the Darwinists, boys, and girls until a few brave scientists concerned with data and following evidence came along and called their bluff.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a science story worth telling.

 


Terrell Clemmons is a freelance writer and blogger on apologetics and matters of faith.

This article was originally published at salvomag.com: http://bit.ly/2z72XqW

By Luke Nix 

Introduction 

An interesting TED Talk came across my Facebook feed a few weeks ago. The talk focused on finding meaning in life. More and more people are discovering that pursuing happiness is leading them nowhere. They discover that every time they think that something obtainable or achievable will make them happy, once that has been obtained or achieved, that happiness lasts only for a short time. Then a discovery is made of something else that is greater than what they originally thought would make them happy, and they pursue that. This process repeats numerous times until they reach the top, then they realize that there is nothing left, yet they still feel unfulfilled. This TED Talk attempts to address that problem by positing that instead of pursuing happiness, people should pursue meaning. Here is a link to the talk, and I highly recommend that you watch it in full before continuing with this post: There’s more to life than being happy- Emily Esfahani Smith.

On The Surface

The speaker recognizes the problems that the pursuit of happiness brings: unhappiness, unfulfillment, depression, and suicidal tendencies. The offered solution gives hope to those who are depressed and tired of the pursuit of happiness. From a pragmatic perspective of survival, this talk was quite encouraging and invigorating. However, regardless of the survival advantage that it provides if one believes the claims, if the claims in the talk do not reflect reality (are not true), then the person who believes them has traded the truth for a lie in the name of mere survival- a delusion that is evolutionarily necessary to believe if we wish to win the survival game. If the speaker is presenting a delusion, then, for those who value truth and knowledge as well as survival, the talk is truly as useless as the solution it wishes to supplant. So, for the sake of truth, the claims need to be investigated and analyzed at a deeper level.

I would be curious to know the speaker’s philosophical foundations. Her worldview must be able to support her claims. Here are some questions that I’d like to ask of the speaker in the deeper analysis of the solution she offers:

  1. Do your foundations support your initial conclusion that meaning is better happiness? What objective standard does your worldview feature that would allow such a value judgment?
  2. How do you conclude that “better” should be a person’s pursuit? Again, what is the objective standard?
  3. Can your foundations support meaning that is more than mere Nietzschean game invention? What is the objective standard by which to judge whether an invented meaning is either objectively good or objectively evil?
  4. Do you have a standard to judge what constitutes a better self?
  5. Ultimately, is there an objective goal or purpose by which to judge progress or regress, better or worse, good or evil?

Meaning: Delusion or Game?

Notice the common term in all the questions is “objective.” People can create standards, but those would be “subjective.” If she does not have objective foundations (such as if she holds to naturalism or some form of atheism), then not only can what she presented not even get off the ground (insinuated in my first question), but what she has presented is nothing more than useful fictions or invented games with the existential survival advantage of the person not committing suicide for one more day. Such an “advantage” is not true meaning but rather an evolutionary delusion or Nietzschean game that keeps the person perpetually hanging on to life by a brittle thread (click or tap the links for more on those two options). If meaning is merely a delusion (regardless of its source, really) or a game, it should be rejected.

We all long for meaning, but if our worldview cannot ground or fulfill that desire, then either our worldview must be rejected, or our desire must be rejected.

This means that either we must reject the idea that our lives can have true meaning, or reject the worldviews that necessarily imply that our lives do not have true meaning. Yet, we know that our lives have true meaning, so that leaves us to reject all worldviews that are incompatible with our lives possessing true meaning. These worldviews should be rejected in favor of a worldview that does provide philosophical foundations for meaning, morality, and purpose. Interestingly enough, the speaker almost assumes that her audience agrees with her that their lives can have true meaning, so that would logically lead to necessarily rejecting naturalism and atheism (which she may very well reject but just never mentioned).

Meaning Puts Worldviews to the Test

Now, if we refuse to give up our desire for meaning, what worldview are we to believe that does provide such philosophical foundations and objective standards? Since both naturalism and atheism must be rejected, that leaves some form of theism. But not just any form of theism will do. The only ones available must also have foundations to support the intrinsic value and meaning of the individual and their life (some forms of theism actually do deny the intrinsic value of humans, so they must be discarded, as well). The Judeo-Christian doctrine of the Image of God provides the foundation for humans possessing intrinsic value in these theistic systems. But which one is to be accepted: Judaism or Christianity?

If we go back to the pursuit of happiness and look at all the dark roads that numerous people have gone down throughout history, including ourselves at different times in our lives, we realize the pain and suffering that we have caused others in our selfish pursuits of happiness. We realize that we have violated others’ intrinsic worth to placate our desires, and we know deep down, especially the older we get and the harder we try, that no amount of good that we do in this world will be able to repay the evil we are guilty of committing for our own selfish, hedonistic gains. In seeking to repay the moral debt, we seek justice for those we have wronged. In seeking justice, we are seeking forgiveness and even redemption. But with the realization that we cannot repay the moral debt, we see that finding justice and obtaining forgiveness and redemption are not possible. In this, we have unmet desires for happiness, meaning, and purpose. Forgiveness, justice, and redemption are not just inseparable from each other, they are inseparable from the pursuits of happiness, meaning, and purpose. If it is not possible to right our wrongs (achieve justice), then attaining forgiveness is equally impossible. Thus it is impossible to fulfill our desires for justice, forgiveness, and ultimately, meaning.

What, Then? Conclusion

It is only at the Cross of Jesus Christ that justice, forgiveness, and redemption converge and, for everyone who accepts the gift, is provided. Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” That last part is an invitation to those who have searched for justice, forgiveness, redemption, happiness, purpose, and meaning yet have discovered and accepted the futility of their endeavor. But how do we know that Jesus wasn’t just blowing smoke on that invitation? How can we know that He can fulfill those desires? We can know this because He conquered death and injustice by coming back to life after being unjustly executed on a Roman cross. And we do not have to believe this blindly; all the historical evidence points squarely to the reality of this supernatural event in history. To those in search of meaning: You have been given the subjective evidence of your own desires for meaning, justice, and forgiveness and the objective evidence of the Resurrection. Jesus Christ is alive, and He is calling you to live a meaningful and fulfilling life in Him. In your search of meaning, you can either believe an evolutionary delusion, invent a Nietzschean game, or follow the evidence where it leads. Which option will you choose?

 


Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2LkWbWR

By 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.

By 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).

By Bryan Chilton

In our last article, we presented the first four of the eight major worldviews. As we noted, this is a revision to a previous article that only listed six. The first article in this series presented the worldviews known as atheism/naturalism, agnosticism, pantheism, and panentheism. This article will provide the last four. To keep from confusion, the last four worldviews will be listed as #1-4 in this article even though they represent #5-8 on our list.

  1. (#5) Polytheism: Several Gods Exist.

The term “polytheism” comes from two Greek terms: “polu” meaning “many” and “theos” as we have already defined as the term for God. In the polytheistic worldview, it is held that many gods and/or goddesses exist. Certainly, aspects of Hinduism meet the worldview. But, Hindus hold that the universal God manifests in various avatars. Polytheism is better represented in pagan religions, Greek and Roman mythologies, as well as Mormonism.[1]

The trouble with polytheism is found in necessary beings. Even if it is possible that there are many universes populated by Mormon men and women, one would be forced to push their existence back to a Prime Necessary Being. As noted earlier, all material, physical universes must hold a starting point. The universe demands an explanation for its existence. According to the BVG theorem, there cannot exist eternal material universes. Therefore, even if there are multiple universes populated by multiple gods and goddesses, those universes and beings become contingent upon the necessity of a transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being we know as God. Because of the concept of Ockham’s Razor,[2] polytheism fails as gods and goddesses are not necessary beings, whereas God is. The Christian apologist will need to use the issue of necessary and contingent beings among other areas as a starting point with polytheists.

  1. (#6) Dualism: God and the Physical World are Irreparably Separated.

Dualism is the belief that the spiritual and physical realms are irreconcilably separated. One must not confuse the dualist worldview with the dual nature of mankind (soul/body). A form of dualism in the human person can be demonstrated biblically.[3] However, the dualist worldview takes the distinction between the soul and body to extreme measures. Dualists will claim that the spiritual dimension is good and the physical dimension is bad. Thus, resurrection is not accepted nor is recreation of the new heaven and new earth presented in Revelation 21. Ancient Gnosticism, Platonism, and New Age philosophies often fit within the dualist paradigm.

The trouble with dualism is twofold. On the one hand, not all spiritual beings are good. Angels are considered spiritual beings. However, Satan and his demonic cohort are certainly not good. Rather, they are the epitome of evil. So, dualism fails to account for the fact that not all spiritual entities are good. On the other hand, dualism fails to account for the historicity of Jesus’ literal bodily resurrection. God, who is Spirit (John 4:24), created the physical world. The grand theme of Scripture is God’s restoration of the world and humanity. This includes the physical world. The Christian apologist will need to describe these distinctions and will want to provide the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection to the dualist.

  1. (#7) Deism: God as a Deadbeat Dad.

Deism is unique in that it takes its name from a Latin word rather than Greek. The Latin term “deus” is the word for “God.” Deism holds much in common with theism. Deists generally accept the existence of a transcendent God who is worthy of worship. The deist also accepts that this God is worthy of praise. The key distinction comes in God’s current involvement with creation. Deists reject the idea that God is immanent. They hold that God created everything at the outset but does not interject or intervene in creation since that time. Think of a wind-up toy. A person winds up the toy and releases it. The toy continues until it winds down without any involvement from the one who wound it. God is presented much like a deadbeat dad—that is, a dad who is uninvolved with his child’s life. Thus, deists reject the miraculous, revelations in any form except for reason, and personal relationships with the divine. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Locke are among the more famed deists.

Deism fails if one miraculous claim can be proven. If one miracle can be demonstrated, then deism fails because the miracle serves as evidence of God’s involvement in creation. Craig S. Keener’s two-volume work Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts will help the Christian apologist defeat deist claims. Also, the apologist will want to demonstrate the historicity of Jesus’ bodily resurrection as evidence of God’s involvement.

  1. (#8) Monotheism/Theism: God is Omnipotent, Transcendent, and Personal.

Finally, we come to the final worldview. The last worldview is monotheism or theism. Theists hold that one God exists. God is both transcendent (separate from creation) and immanent (works within creation). Thus, God is omnipotent (all-powerful) and omniscient (all-knowing). But, God is also omnibenevolent (all-loving) and omnipresent (in all places). God is beyond the scope of the universe and is not constrained by the laws of nature. Yet, God is also personal and reveals himself to humanity. The three classic religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are considered theistic in scope.

Theism triumphs in many ways. Theism best explains the necessity of God’s being, the creation of the universe, the miraculous, personal revelation, and the substance dualism of humanity. However, one must note that while all Christians are theists, not all theists are Christian. The Christian apologist will want do demonstrate the reliability of the New Testament, then illustrate the reliability of the Old Testament, in addition to providing evidence for the life and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In doing so, the Christian apologist will show that God has ultimately revealed himself in Jesus.

Conclusion

Everyone has a worldview of some sort. The first step in presenting the gospel message comes by understanding where the person’s worldview currently resides. Understanding a person’s worldview comes by listening. Apologetics and evangelism are not a quick process. As Douglas Groothius claims, the Christian worldview is argued as the best hypothesis “carefully, slowly, and piece by piece…this means paying close attention to the components and implications of the Christian worldview, with an eye for detecting false stereotypes and caricatures.”[4] The process takes time, but if a person comes to faith in Christ, it’s worth every moment spent.

  Notes

[1] Mormons hold that God the Father is wed to a divine mother. Jesus is believed to have been the first spirit child. Mormon theology also holds that Mormon men and Mormon women wed in Mormon temples are able to become gods and goddesses of their own celestial universe and will produce their own spirit children.

[2] That is, the simpler explanation is preferred.

[3] See the works of J.P. Moreland, especially his book The Soul, for more information on substance dualism.

[4] Douglas Groothius, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Downers Grove; Nottingham, UK: IVP Academic; Apollos), 50.

© 2017. Bellator Christi.

 


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I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist (Paperback)

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Why I Still Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist (Set)

By: Brian Chilton

Before the website transferred from pastorbrianchilton.wordpress.com to bellatorchristi.com, I had written an article on the major worldviews across the globe. I presented six major worldviews at the time. While I still think the previous article treated the most major of worldviews, I have come to realize after reading Douglas Groothius’ book, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith, that other major worldviews exist that should be discussed and incorporated into the list.[1] So, let’s revisit the major worldviews in this article. The goal of the article will be to notify the reader of each belief and will show how Christian theism triumphs. In addition, the Christian apologist will need to understand the starting points that must be taken with each worldview.

Worldviews

  1. Atheism/Naturalism: Rejection of God’s Existence, Only the Physical World Exists.

The term “atheist” is taken from the Greek term “a” meaning “no” and “theos” meaning “God.” Placed together, the term means “no God.” The atheist, therefore, is one who does not believe in the existence of God. Atheists are often termed “naturalists” as they only accept the existence of the natural/physical world, thereby rejecting the existence of things like God, spirits, the human soul, angels, and demons. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss are good examples of atheism.

Atheism holds a problem as it pertains to the immaterial world. Naturalism cannot explain the existence of human consciousness. Even if the consciousness could be shown to derive from material means, naturalism (or materialism) faces a great problem as the human consciousness is a non-material thing. A scanner can see brainwaves, but not mental thoughts and the like. Naturalism holds two additional problems. On the one hand, naturalism cannot answer why anything exists. It has been mathematically demonstrated by the theorem of Borg, Vilenkin, and Guth (i.e., the BVG Theorem) that there cannot be an infinite regress of material worlds. Every material world must have a beginning point. On the other hand, naturalism fails to account for the mounting evidence of near death experiences.[2] Atheism and naturalism hold great problems serving as a cohesive worldview. The Christian apologist will need to demonstrate the reasonability of God’s existence and the means by which naturalism fails.

  1. Agnosticism: God’s Existence is Unknowable.

Agnosticism comes from two terms: “a” the Greek term meaning “no” and “gnosis” the Greek term meaning “knowledge.” The agnostic does not necessarily reject belief in God. The agnostic claims no knowledge on the issue. There are at least two forms of agnosticism. Atheistic agnostics incline to reject belief in God, but are open to the possibility of God’s existence. The atheistic agnostic claims that it is impossible to know whether God exists or not. Bart Ehrman and Neil deGrasse Tyson are examples of atheistic agnostics.

Theistic agnostics are individuals who are inclined to believe in God’s existence. However, they are doubtful whether individuals can know anything about God. The theistic agnostic may either reject divine revelation altogether and claim that no religion is correct, or the theistic agnostic may reject exclusive revelation and will claim that all religions are correct. When I stumbled into my time of personal doubt, I became more of the theistic agnostic (one who claimed to be spiritual but not religious). The Ba’hai religion and Morgan Freeman may be considered examples of theistic agnosticism.

The trouble with agnosticism is with divine revelation. If God can truly be shown to exist, then atheistic agnosticism begins to wane. If one can demonstrate that God has revealed himself to humanity (particularly through Jesus of Nazareth), then theistic agnosticism begins to fade. The Christian apologist will need to understand, first, that agnosticism can cover a wide variety of flavors. Second, the Christian apologist will need to describe the evidence for Jesus of Nazareth’s life, miracles, and resurrection.

  1. Pantheism: The Force is With You.

Pantheism comes from two Greek terms: “pan” meaning “all” and “theos” meaning “God.” Pantheism may look quite a bit like panentheism and even theistic agnosticism. However, generally speaking, pantheism is the belief that God is an impersonal force. Buddhism is the greatest example of pantheism. The Star Wars idea of the “force” is another example of pantheism. Buddhists claim to be agnostic concerning God’s existence. Yet, the Buddhist believes in impersonal forces (i.e., the force behind reincarnation). The goal of such a worldview is to become nothing. In fact, the Buddhist concept of Nirvana means that one has become so enlightened that he or she escapes the wheel of reincarnation and becomes nothing.

The trouble with pantheism is diverse. On the one hand, the pantheist will speak of such forces in such a way that intelligence is necessary. For example, why is there a wheel of reincarnation? Why is it that good behavior elevates one to a higher level and vice versa? On the other hand, pantheists have great trouble in explaining why anything exists at all. Much more could be said on this issue as it pertains to the trouble of pantheism. The Christian apologist will need to describe the internal inconsistencies of pantheism as a starting point as well as note the personal nature of the divine.

  1. Panentheism: Everything is God.

Panentheism comes from three Greek terms: “pan” meaning “all,” “en” meaning “in,” and “theos” meaning “God.” Therefore, panentheism is literally defined as “all in God.” Panentheists hold that God penetrates everything. While the Christian may initially be inclined to agree, one must understand that panentheists believe that everything is God. Thus, the panentheist would agree that Jesus of Nazareth is God. But, the panentheist would also agree that you are God, he is God, everyone is God, and even your kitchen sink is God. The panentheist does not distinguish between the personal God and the physical creation. Hinduism is the greatest example of panentheism.

Panentheism, however, holds issues as it pertains to the world. If the world is God, then why is there so much evil? God is certainly good. So, if everyone is God, then wouldn’t everything be perfect? To accept such a claim, one must have a flawed idea of God’s nature. With the panentheist, the Christian apologist will need to begin by teaching the distinction between the personal divine being of God and the physical, material creation that is the world.

We have investigated the first four of the eight major worldviews. In our next article, we will describe the final four: polytheism, dualism, deism, and monotheism/theism.

Notes

[1] See Douglas Groothius, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2011), 50.

[2] Here, I do not mean heavenly or hellish experiences. I am addressing the scientific verification of such events in this world. For instance, if one were to see something that could not have been otherwise seen after one’s death, then this would serve as a verification of the soul’s survival past death. Soul survival discredits naturalism.

© 2017. Bellator Christi.


Resources for Greater Impact

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I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist (Paperback)

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Why I Still Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist (Set)