Tag Archive for: science

Are Science and Faith at Odds? Insights by Augustine

Why Science Needs God

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Atheists are fond of asserting that religion and science are at war, and that science supports atheism.   Upon closer review, however, “science” doesn’t support atheism or anything else.  Why not?  Because science doesn’t say anything—scientists do!

Science is a method that people use to discover cause and effect relationships.  Science doesn’t gather and interpret data, scientists do.  Unfortunately, some scientists allow their atheistic worldview to dictate how they interpret the evidence. Since they’ve ruled out intelligence in advance, there’s no way they will ever interpret the data to conclude an Intelligence such as God was involved.  They don’t seem to realize that science needs someone like God.

How so?

In order for us to do science, natural laws must be orderly and consistent. We couldn’t do science if natural laws weren’t held constant or nature behaved in a completely random manner.  But where do natural laws come from and why are they so consistent?  And why do all physical things change, but not the natural laws that govern them?

In all our experience, laws always come from lawgivers.  That’s why the best explanation for the orderly and consistent natural laws that make science possible is a rational Law Giver who created and sustains the universe—the same spaceless, timeless, and immaterial Being that created and fine-tuned the universe at the Big Bang. So even if atheists succeed in demonstrating that natural laws can and do explain cause and effect inside the universe, they still have to rely on God for the existence and persistence of those laws.

Atheistic materialism can’t account for those laws or the orderliness of nature. But a rational Creator and Sustainer powerfully explains the unchanging laws that make science possible.  Thus, the war is not between science and religion, but between science and atheism.

Want the details including answers to objections?  They are in the book and the new Stealing From God online course I’m hosting that beings January 15 (you can start the self-paced version any time after that too).  The course includes ten hours of video, and several live video conferences where I’ll be answering questions.   Since we limit the size of the live classes to ensure every student has an opportunity to ask questions, you’ll want to sign up soon if you want to be a part of this

 In addition to the details on that link, I’ll be discussing some of the course content right here on this page in the few weeks leading up to the course.  So keep checking back here for more.

 

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God Darwin Evolution

If Evolution is True, Atheism is False

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By Tim Stratton

Atheists often appeal to evolution in an attempt to explain the primate complexity we observe today without a need for an Intelligent Designer — God! Indeed, many say the reason they affirm atheism is because they believe evolution is true. Since their hypothesis does not include God as a designer, atheists feel justified in affirming that God does not exist and that Christianity is false. With that said, however, if evolution is true, it does nothing to prove that God does not exist or do anything to disprove the historical resurrection of Jesus (the two essential ingredients of “mere Christianity”). Moreover, what atheists fail to comprehend is that by appealing to evolution in an attempt to “prove” atheism, they ultimately prove too much!

Evolution simply means change over time. Most evolutionists and young earth creationists will agree that some things do genuinely change over time (even if they disagree on how much some things change over time). What is important to note is that Darwinian evolution requires a genuine change over dynamic time — at least if one is hoping to explain primate complexity. With that in mind, I contend that if evolution is true, then atheism is false!

Consider this: I believe that some things do genuinely evolve and change over time. In fact, we currently exist in a world in which things are constantly changing right in front of our eyes! That is to say, we exist in an evolving state of affairs (change happens)!

The problem, however, is this: it is logically impossible for a changing state of affairs to be extrapolated into past infinity! In “English” that means that if we currently exist in a changing state of affairs and things are really happening one event after another, then it is impossible for things to happen chronologically in this manner without a first change. If we exist — right now — in a changing state of affairs, then it is impossible to go on and on forever in the past. Logically, there must have been a beginning or a first change.

If there never was a first change, then the present moment — “right now” — would not exist. To help illustrate why the concept of past infinity is incoherent, consider two thought experiments.

Infinite Jumpers & Steppers

First, is it possible for someone, say a superhero with infinite jumping powers, to jump out of an infinitely tall bottomless-pit? Of course not. There is no launching pad or foundation from which to jump. When it comes to things changing over time (evolution), if the hole at ground level represents the present moment and the idea of past infinity means there is no foundation to jump from (a first change over time), then the present moment of change could never be reached. The jumper could never get out of the hole because there is no starting point for him to progress upward. Because the present moment does exist and things do change over time (evolution) it logically follows that a foundation exists for the first change to occur leading to the evolution (change over time) we notice today.

Second, suppose a man walks up the steps to your front porch and rings the doorbell. You answer the door and ask if you can help him. He states, “I have just walked an infinite number of steps and finally completed them right here on your front porch.” Of course, you do not believe him, yet he insists that he has accomplished this feat. You ask for proof and he invites you to join him on a journey to retrace his infinite number of steps. He tells you that once the two of you reach this infinite point, you will then follow those same footsteps all the way back to your front door. You adamantly reject his offer because you realize that if you were to retrace an infinite amount of steps you will never get back home! In fact, you will never turn around to begin your journey home!

Consider the steps involved . . . you would take one step, then a second step, then a third step. Eventually, you would take a millionth step, and eventually a billionth step, and then a trillionth step. Whatever step you were currently taking you could always take one more and count it — never reaching actual infinity. Whenever you decide to turn around to come back home you will be on a countable step. So, if you do ever make it back home, your steps would not be infinite.

Just as it would be logically impossible for you to retrace all the steps this pedestrian claims to have made, it is just as impossible for this pedestrian to traverse an actual infinite amount of steps ending on your front porch. A rational person will know that one who makes such a claim is either delusional or deceptive. The “stepper” must have taken a first step.

Change over time (evolution) has the same problem. If a first change occurred, then it logically follows that a first change resulted from an unchanging, eternal, and beginningless state of affairs. Think of this as a frozen/static state where nothing happens and nothing has ever happened logically prior to the first change (I know this is hard to imagine). This might not seem like a “big deal” but the implications are enormous! This is the case because if things are not changing in a frozen/static state, then nothing would ever happen. This is because if things are not evolving, emerging, decaying, growing, or becoming unstable (which are words implying change over time), then these things would never be able to cause the first change. Change over time cannot account for things starting to change over time. That is to say, if nothing is happening, then nothing can describe or account for the first change that resulted from a static, frozen, and unchanging state! UNLESS…

… a volitional agent existed in this static state who had the power to act.

Other than a volitional agent, what else could cause a change from an unchanging state of affairs? At the least, a volitional agent with the power to act could exist in a static state and then cause something to happen. That is to say, if nothing is happening, but a volitional agent with free will exists in this static state, then this volitional agent can freely choose to act and cause the first change. This is what Aristotle meant by the “Unmoved Mover.”

Volitional agents are personal types of “things” or rather, “beings.” If a being is personal in nature, then this being is the kind of “thing” in which you can have a personal relationship — that is, at least if you are a person! Thus, if you are a person, then it is at least possible that you can have a personal relationship with this unmoved mover!

An Argument from Change Over Time

We can summarize this entire argument in a step-by-step syllogism:

1- Things change over time (evolution).

2- A changing state of affairs cannot be past infinite.

3- Therefore, a first change resulted from an unchanging state of affairs.

4- Only a volitional agent can cause a change from an unchanging state of affairs.

5- Volitional agents are personal.

6- Therefore, this personal agent existed in an unchanging state of affairs.

7- Anything existing in an unchanging state of affairs never began to exist and is eternal with no beginning.

8- Therefore, the cause of the first change (and ultimately the change of affairs in which we find ourselves) is a personal agent who is eternal with no beginning and was in a changeless state of affairs logically prior to causing the first change.

This final deductive conclusion should be eye-opening! Why should this get one’s attention? Because this personal agent who caused things to start evolving and changing over time is God! The Bible does not just note the possibility of having a personal relationship with the Unmoved Mover — God — it explains exactly how you and I can know God personally through Jesus Christ!

Bottom line: If you believe that things actually do evolve and change over time, then you should reject atheism!

Stay reasonable (Isaiah 1:18),

Tim Stratton

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2j7eSMT

 

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Christianity Science

Is Christianity at War with Science?

The claim that Christianity is at war with science is one of the most common claims I hear from young people today. In fact, the belief that Christianity is opposed to modern science is one of the top reasons young people cite for leaving the church.[1] That’s why in the updated Evidence that Demands a Verdict, my father and I respond to this charge before advancing the historical evidence for Christianity.

But where did this idea come from? Is it accurate? In 1896 Cornell University president Andrew Dickson White released a book entitled A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. White is largely credited with inventing and propagating the idea that science and Christianity are adversaries in the search for truth. White cast Christians as fanatics who clung to scriptural claims that the earth was flat. But is this account true? Sociologist Rodney Stark responds,

White’s book remains influential despite the fact that modern historians of science dismiss it as nothing but a polemic—White himself admitted that he wrote the book to get even with Christian critics of his plans for Cornell . . . many of White’s other accounts are as bogus as his report of the flat earth and Columbus.[2]

The Warfare Myth

Why has this warfare myth been so influential? The truth is that the supposed warfare between religion and science is a polemical device used in the secular attack on faith. In reality, theology was essential for the rise of modern science.

How so? In their book The Soul of Science, Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton demonstrate that Christian assumptions, such as the conviction that nature is lawful (since it was the creation of a rational God) and that science is meant to alleviate toil and suffering, provided the backdrop for the emergence of the scientific revolution in Europe.

Most scientific pioneers were theists as well, including prominent figures such as Copernicus (1473–1543), Boyle (1627–1691), Newton (1642–1727), Pascal (1623–1662), Kepler (1571–1630), Pasteur (1822–1895), Bacon (1561–1626), and Max Planck (1858–1947). Many of these pioneers intently pursued science because of their belief in the Christian God.

The Real Conflict

While the theistic worldview fosters the development of science, ironically, naturalistic evolution undermines it. Since according to naturalism we humans are the product of a blind, purposeless, and unguided evolutionary process, how can we trust our rational faculties to produce true beliefs?

In his book Where the Conflict Really Lies, Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga explains that what naturalistic evolution guarantees is

…(at most) that we behave in certain ways—in such ways as to promote survival or more exactly reproductive success. The principal function or purpose, then, of our cognitive faculties is not that of producing true or verisimilitudinous (nearly true) beliefs, but instead that of contributing to survival by getting the body parts in the right place. What evolution underwrites is only (at most) that our behavior is reasonably adaptive to the circumstances in which our ancestors found themselves; hence it does not guarantee mostly true or verisimilitudinous beliefs. Our beliefs might be mostly true or verisimilitudinous; but there is no particular reason to think they would be: natural selection is interested, not in truth, but in appropriate behavior. (314–315)

Certainly, some Christians resist science. This is undeniable. And, as Plantinga observes, there are some beliefs individual Christians hold that are in tension with modern science. But this is only shallow conflict. No real conflict between theism and science exists. The real conflict—the deep conflict—is between science and naturalism.

Notes

[1]  David Kinnaman, You Lost Me (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), 135-136.

[2] Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God (Princeton, NJ: Princeton, 2009), 123

 

Sean McDowell, Ph.D. is a professor of Christian Apologetics at Biola University, best-selling author, popular speaker, part-time high school teacher, and the Resident Scholar for Summit Ministries, California. Follow him on Twitter: @sean_mcdowell and his blog: seanmcdowell.org

 

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Purpose Faith

Finding Purpose in Faith

By Al Serrato

Many skeptics maintain unquestioned faith that science will solve the world’s problems. Seeing the evidence of chaos throughout the world, often the product of religiously-inspired violence, they conclude that religion is somehow the problem. Authors like Christopher Hitchens capitalize on such assumptions, writing best-selling books that explain how “God is not great” or how religion has “poisoned” everything. By contrast, science has provided “progress,” the sense that things are definitely getting better from a technological sense, as we continue to harness more and more power to make our lives increasingly prosperous and comfortable.

While this faith in science is certainly understandable, it does not survive close scrutiny. This is so because the problems that ail us, the questions we need answered, are questions that science simply cannot answer. After all, science is not philosophy. It does not provide meaning, however much it advances knowledge or power. Modern Americans, of all people, should recognize this limitation. We live in a culture that is deteriorating in many ways. Pleasure seems to be the principal pursuit of a large segment of the population, and despite intense efforts to find nirvana, and despite access to the best “toys” ever made, people seem to be increasingly stressed… and distressed. We seem to be experiencing a huge increase in depression and destructive behavior patterns; addictions to drugs and alcohol, gluttony leading to obesity, gambling, and pornography, to name a few. These pursuits may lessen the emotional pain for a while, but they leave the afflicted even more broken in their wake. What people lack, in increasing numbers, is a sense of belonging; some purpose or meaning to which they can devote their lives and that can make sense of the world.

Science cannot address what is lacking any more than a mechanic can tell me why I no longer enjoy driving my car. He can take measurements and tell me things about functionality and performance. He can modify the car with the latest gadgets to make it run faster, smoother, louder – to make it anything I want it to be. But these measurements and modifications, however important, cannot provide meaning. Because in the end, what I like, what I feel about certain things, persons, places, events – these are a reflection of me, and what is inside me, and not of the things around me.

Human life is exceedingly complex. From mitochondria powering the cells, to the mind that emerges from the gray matter in our skulls, the human body is a marvelously complex product of advanced engineering. But until we understand the purpose for which we are created, until we understand what we are meant to do with these wondrous “machines” that we inhabit, we are like cars driving straight off a cliff. Everything is functioning perfectly, but without a driver behind the wheel, it soon comes to a crashing, and painful, end.

Philosophy is needed to answer these most pressing questions. And a philosophy that has stood the test of time and that provides a robust explanation for life is a good place to start. In the pages of the Bible, the questions that matter most are addressed by the source of all that is. When its lessons are followed, life tends to flourish, not in the sense of a great wealth or fame – not in the sense of the “prosperity gospel” – but in the sense of a lasting joy. Joy in the knowledge of who you are and what you were created for; joy in the sense of homecoming when our days wind down, as they inevitably will. Joy in the prospect of reuniting with our true “soul-mate,” the one we have been seeking, the one for whom we were created and who is even now beckoning us home.

 

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

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Science Doctrine Creation

Should We Let Science Influence Our Doctrine Of Creation?

By Evan Minton

Science is an amazing thing! It’s enabled us to transcend so many of our previously existing barriers, from being able to walk on the moon to being able to carry on a live conversation with someone on the opposite side of the planet, from helping us know what makes fevers run hot to knowing what makes stars hot, from giving us the flashlight to the strobe light to the blacklight. It’s an amazing thing, but unfortunately, many seem dedicating to pitting science against Christianity and vice versa.On the one hand, you have the atheists who have tried to monopolize science as theirs and nobody else’s (Their symbol is an atom for Pete’s sake). On the other hand, you have Christians who insist that a strict, literal, face value reading of Genesis is the only way to read it, and if you deviate from the 7 24-hour day view, you’re a man pleaser and a compromise.

The Bible and Science both talk about our origins, so it’s no wonder that people would wonder if they’re simpatico. I would affirm that there is no conflict between God’s world and God’s word. There may be a conflict between science and theology, but not between the world and The Bible. Science and theology are both interpretations of God’s world and God’s Word respectively. If the universe and The Bible have the same author, then when both are interpreted correctly, there won’t be any conflict. If there seems to be conflict between our interpretation of Genesis or any other biblical passage with what the scientific evidence seems to be saying, then we should either (1) go back to the biblical passage and re-evaluate whether it seems to be saying what we initially thought it said or (2) carefully consider whether the scientists somehow erred in interpreting the data.

When it comes to apparent conflicts between The Bible and the universe, many Christians will gladly do 2, but scorn anyone who does 1 on the basis that they’re convinced that 2 is not the case. For example, if someone is convinced that the universe and Earth are both billions of years old on the basis of powerful scientific arguments, they may begin to reconsider whether the Callendar-Day view of Genesis 1 is actually correct. Perhaps The Day-Age view, championed by people like Hugh Ross of Reasons To Believe, is the correct way to interpret the text. Maybe The Framework Hypothesis, defended by people such as Kirk MacGregor and Brad Kramer is the correct interpretation. Or maybe The Bible isn’t talking about material origins at all, but functional origins, as argued by Old Testament scholar John Walton. I think all 3 of these views have their strengths and weaknesses, and these views are totally compatible with what prevailing scientific thought says about the age of the universe and the Earth.

However, young earth creationists like Ken Ham would object to this. Ken Ham, in particular, would and has argued that we shouldn’t “Take man’s word over God’s word” and that allowing science to influence our interpretation of The Bible is putting God’s infallible word in submission to man’s fallible word. Ken Ham has said specifically “Talking about the six days, what we’re really talking about is does it really matter what God says. It’s an authority issue,” and “There has been a battle ever since the beginning between man’s word and God’s Word,”[1]

I think one can come to The Day-Age view, The Framework Hypothesis, and The Functional Creation view on exegetical grounds alone (see here, here, and here), but let’s leave the question of whether any of these (or others) are exegetically justified aside. The real question here is this: should we give science any voice whatsoever when it comes to formulating a doctrine of creation? After all, if God’s word is infallible and man’s word is fallible, then why should we care what the latter has to say? Should our interpretations of creation passages be hermeneutics-only, completely void of any scientific input? I’d like to argue that the answer is “no” and give a few reasons why.

Everyone Has Already Allowed Science To Color Their Doctrine Of Creation To Some Extent

First of all, for any YEC to say that his theological views on creation are 100% hermeneutics and 0% is outright false. He may not realize it, but he’s already allowed science to color the way he sees the doctrine of creation to some extent. For example, when he reads John 1:3 which says “Through Him [The Word a.k.a Jesus] all things were made through Him and without Him, nothing was made that has been made”  what does he think this means? Obviously, it means that anything that exists exists because Jesus Christ created it. But what encompasses “all things”? The YEC will most likely say that it encompasses atoms (and the protons, neutrons, and electrons that comprise them), spiral galaxies, DNA, the bacterial flagellum, and many other things. These exist, and according to John 1:3, anything that exists exists because Jesus created it, so that means Jesus made atoms, spiral galaxies, DNA, and the bacterial flagellum.

However, for most of human history, no one even knew these things existed. Concordism VS. Accomodationism debates aside, no one knew anything about atoms or DNA or even spiral galaxies prior to the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Science discovered these things. The Bible never mentions them. If you believe Jesus created molecules, you’re holding a theological belief affected by scientific data. If you believe the billion trillion galaxies are an invention of God’s, then you’re holding a theological view that most people throughout church history have not held to.[2] If you believe that that the uncannily computer-code like genetic code, known as DNA, was programmed by God, then you are holding a theological view that was not held throughout most of church history. Did Peter believe God created DNA? Did Paul believe God created DNA? Did the apostle John believe that God created the bacterial flagellum? No, because no one knew these things existed until relatively recently.

Or what about the nature of the sky? Some argue that Genesis 1:2 is saying that God created the sky as a solid dome (what the word “firmament” means, raqia in Hebrew).[3] I know many YECs who would say that that can’t be what is being said in the text. Why? Well, because for one thing, The Bible is inerrant. For another thing, we know from science that the sky is not solid. If it were, the astronauts would have crashed into it in the 1960s. If the sky isn’t solid, then that can’t be what The Bible is saying. Is there any reason exegetically to reject the solid dome interpretation of Genesis 1:2? None that I can tell. It seems like a fairly reasonable interpretation to me, at least when viewing The Bible in a scientific void. This is, yet again, another theological view YECs hold on the basis of scientific evidence.

Many young earth creationists, including Ken Ham, are holding beliefs about creation that come from science and science alone. It would, therefore, be hypocritical to try to argue that science shouldn’t affect our views about creation. It would be hypocritical to argue that science shouldn’t have a voice in the creation controversy. It would be hypocritical for a YEC to say that someone is submitting God’s Word to “Man’s Word” when he concludes that God created over billions of years on the basis of science all the while believing that the reason Noah’s Ark could fit all of the animals was that a small number of “kinds” were put on the ark and then rapid micro-evolution occurred post-flood to give us the diversity of animals we see today. Moses wouldn’t have known anything about micro evolution, yet many YECs appeal to micro evolution to explain how billions of species of animals exist while Noah’s Ark could only hold thousands. Should we let science influence our interpretation of the biblical text? Many YECs are already doing this.

By the way, for reasons why the post-flood micro evolution explanation doesn’t work, see this blog post. 

The takeaway point is this: Every Christian allows science to affect their doctrine of creation, not just Old Earth Creationists, and Evolutionary Creationists. And I find nothing wrong with that. There is no biblical mandate that says we cannot take extra-biblical information into account in forming a robust view of reality.

The Bible Is Infallible, Biblical Interpretation Is Not 

Remember my contrast between The Bible and The universe with theology and science. The latter two are interpretations of the former. Neither are fallible. Young Earth Creationists are quick to point out man’s fallibility and the possibility that the prevailing scientific thought might be wrong, but scarcely do they consider that their interpretation of Genesis 1 may be wrong. It’s true that science is not always right. It’s true that scientists may possibly be wrong about something currently considered a fact. However, biblical interpretation is also fallible. There would not be an Arminianism/Calvinism debate or a pre-trib/post-trib rapture debate, or a Continuationist/Cessationist debate if our ability to interpret scripture was infallible. God’s word is infallible, but we can err when interpreting it.

Yet you can point this out to YECs time and again and they will refuse to recognize that they’re conflating their interpretation of scripture with scripture itself. Many will not see this as a matter of differing interpretations, but a matter of believing God’s word. In their eyes, to doubt the 24 hour day view is to doubt The Bible itself!

However, one could challenge the YEC by saying “you are holding up your fallible interpretation against God’s infallible universe.” But that wouldn’t be very helpful. In the case of God’s world and in the case of God’s word, we are dealing with interpretations. The data cannot be wrong, but our interpretations of it can be.

Should we let science influence our doctrine of creation? God has given us two books: the book of scripture and the book of nature. We should let there be a two-way conversation between God’s two revelations, not a one-way conversation.

To Adhere To A Bible-Only (read that as YECist-Only) Way Of Viewing Science Results in YECs Being Guilty Of The Very Thing They Accuse Secularists Of

To start with a preconceived interpretation of biblical passages and then force-fit scientific data to conform to that interpretation is to fall into the very trap creationists often accuse secular scientists of doing. You can find the claim all over the creationist literature that the primary reasons scientists adhere to an old earth and evolution is because they’re starting with atheistic presuppositions and then they interpret the data in light of those presuppositions, so it’s no wonder that they come to the conclusions that they do. Regardless of whether or not this is true of atheist scientists, for YEC scientists to start off with their interpretation of Genesis and other creation passages and then do science in light of that interpretation commits the exact same error. An old earther or evolutionist can say “Well, it’s no wonder that AIG scientists come to the conclusions that they do. They start off with the presupposition that The Bible teaches the universe is 6,000 years old and then they interpret the scientific data in light of that presupposition.”

I for one am opposed to starting off with any preconceived notions when interpreting scientific data, with the exceptions of presupposing the reliability of logic, our cognitive faculties, and the intelligibility of the universe (the prerequisites to doing science). YECs say “We need to let The Bible speak for itself” all the while not allowing nature to speak for itself. This is hypocritical. When AIG has their scientists agree to a statement of faith that says the universe is 6,000 years old, they are not letting nature speak for itself.

I would argue that once you do that, you’ll find that the heavens are declaring themselves to be billions of years old and that one has to resort to explaining things away and avoiding the plain reading of the data to maintain YECism.

Conclusion 

Should we let science influence our doctrine of creation? Why not? We all have already let it interpret our view of the doctrine in many areas, why not let it have a voice in figuring out how long it took God to create and what processes (if any) He used to do so? Additionally, our ability to interpret scripture is just as fallible as our ability to interpret the universe, therefore human fallibility cannot be used as an excuse for ignoring what the science textbooks say on any issue. You wouldn’t just completely ignore a biblical commentary on the grounds of human fallibility. Thirdly, to presuppose any interpretation of the way the universe has to be inevitably leads to biased conclusions. This is true of both naturalists and young earth creationists. Good science is objective science. Good scientists say “Where does the evidence lead?” not “How can we make the evidence fit X”?

Notes

[1] Ken Ham, as cited in “Ken Ham Says That Believing In 6 Days Of Creation Is ‘Litmus Test’ On Biblical Authority”, by Stoyan Zaimov, September 16th, 2016, The Christian Post. http://www.christianpost.com/news/ken-ham-believing-6-days-creation-litmus-test-biblical-authority-169673/ 

[2] Before the invention of advanced telescopes, people believed that our galaxy was the only one that existed. Before that, people didn’t even know that there was such a thing as galaxies at all! It was mainly thanks to modern telescopes that we not only discovered that there were other galaxies out there, but also what types of galaxies exist (such as spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies).

[3] As an accomodationist, I would agree with these scholars. The Bible is filled with what is called “Ancient Near Eastern Cosmology”. That is, the Bible reflects the cosmology of its day. I don’t think this calls the inerrancy of The Bible into question at all, as I don’t think it was God’s intention to teach the recipients of his word cosmology or any other science for that matter. He used the faulty science of the day to express theological truth. For more information on this, see my blog posts: “Hermenuetics 101 – Part 3: Understanding The Cultural Context” and “Why Did God Write A Book?” 

 

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

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Christians Science

“Christians Are Opposed To Science!” What Do You Mean By That?

By Evan Minton

In any debate or argument, it’s very important that you understand the terminology that your opponent is using and that your opponent understands the terminology that you’re using. If you don’t define your terms, you’ll just end up talking past each other and you’ll end up attacking straw men. As the philosopher, Voltaire put it: “Define your terms or we shall be like two ships passing in the night.”[1]

Often, you’ll hear atheists and anti-theists say things like “Christians don’t believe in science” or “Christians are anti-science!” or “You can believe in God or you can believe in science, but not both.” or “You can believe in The Bible or you can believe in science, but not both.” Atheists claim to be the champions of science and they deride Christians and Christianity for being opponents to science. But, in order to respond to the secularist’s claims, one has to ask a very important question: “What do you mean by that?” It’s one of the questions of The Colombo Tactic, a debate tactic talked about in Greg Koukl’s Tactics: A Game Plan For Discussing Your Christian Convictions. 

What do you mean by that? What do you mean by “science”? What definition are you ascribing to that term? Because how the secularist is defining “science” will determine whether or not I agree with his claims. In my experience debating atheists on the internet and in real life, I have found that “science” can mean many different things to many different people, and when they claim “Christianity and science don’t mix” or “God and Science don’t go together” or “You can believe in The Bible or believe in science, but not both”, while all of the atheists are using the same words and are phrasing their arguments the same way, they don’t actually all mean to convey the same message.

It is the object of this blog post to look at the various definitions of “science” and talk about whether or not Christianity (and Christians by extension) are truly “Anti-Science”.

Definition 1: Science = Science Is The Only Way To Know Truth. 

Some people confuse “science” with a philosophy called “scientism.” Scientism asserts that the only way to know what is true and what is not is through the scientific method. If you haven’t reached a conclusion through the scientific method, the conclusion can only be believed on blind faith or superstition. Scientism means that it can’t be known through science, it simply cannot be known.

If this is the definition of “science” that the skeptic says is incompatible with Christianity, then I would agree. Scientism and Christianity do not go hand in hand, for Christianity asserts that there are various roads to discovering the truth. For example, Romans 8:16 says that the way in which we know we are children of God is through the inner witness of The Holy Spirit. Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance of things we do not see.”[2] We can know that we’re truly born again by The Holy Spirit witnessing to our hearts, telling us so. We can have confidence that God will always keep His promises by having faith in Him. Faith in Him is the evidence of what we do not see. What do we not see? His promises being fulfilled. We will see them in the future (e.g our entrance into Heaven because we placed our faith in Christ, Jesus’ return), but we don’t see them now. We trust that God will do what He says. Neither of these avenues to knowledge are through scientific means. The first is through spiritual, the second is through faith. One cannot be a Christian and believe that science is the only way to know truth.

On theological grounds, we must reject scientism. Since some atheists take scientism to be the same as science, they see a rejection of scientism as a rejection of science.

Of course, I would reject scientism even if I were not a Christian or even a theist at all. Why? Because the philosophy of scientism is logically self-refuting. A self-refuting claim is one that is refuted merely by asserting it. Such as examples would be “I can’t speak a word in English” spoken in English, or “My parents had no kids that lived” or “Everything I say is a lie”. If someone said to you “My parents had no kids that lived”, you would say “Well, that can’t be true. At least if they’re really your parents, since you’re alive.” If someone said “Everything I say is a lie”, you would know that if this statement is true, it’s false. If it’s true, at least one thing this person says is true, so not everything is a lie. But, if the statement is false, then it also isn’t true that everything he says is a lie since not everything he says is a lie. Either way, the statement cannot be affirmed without being undermined. If it’s true, it’s false, and if it’s false, it’s false.

Scientism is self-refuting in the same way. When someone says “Science is the only way to know truth”, I ask them “How did you come to that conclusion?” (another example of The Combo Tactic). How did you come to the conclusion that science is the only way to know truth? Did you come to that conclusion using the scientific method? How could the scientific method even be used to test that statement? What procedures would be involved in testing, scientifically, the claim “Truth can only be known through science”? The statement “Truth can only be known through science” is a philosophical statement, not a scientific one. It cannot be tested using the scientific method, and therefore, it collapses under its own criteria.

1: Truth can only be known through scientific testing.

2: Scientism cannot be known through scientific testing.

3: Therefore, scientism cannot be known.

For this reason alone, even atheists should reject scientism, at least if they want to remain logical. Are Christianity and Science opposites? Only if you’re using “science” as a synonym for “scientism”. But, by that definition, science and logic are opposites as well.

Definition 2: Science = An Old Earth and Darwinian Macro-Evolution 

I’ve come to learn that one big reason Christians are labeled anti-science, why Christianity is seen as being undermined by science, and why belief in God and belief in science are seen as incompatible, is because many Christians reject the scientific consensus regarding the age of the universe and the validity of Darwinian macroevolution. Being anti-evolution is seen as being anti-science.

Now, first of all, there are many, many Christians who accept the various dating methods and agree that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and that the universe is around 14 billion years old.[3] There are also Christians who accept Darwin’s theory of large-scale evolution and believe that that was the process God used to bring about all of life.[4] Where I stand on this issue: I don’t know. I am definitely an old earther of some sorts.

So, even given this definition of “Science”, it would only follow that some Christians are anti-science, but certainly not all. On this definition of “science”, only a portion would be anti-science. This charge wouldn’t affect Francis Collins, Deborah Haarsma, N.T Wright, Peter Enns, or others. They would not be opposed to science under this definition of the word.

Would The Bible be opposed to science? Well, this would depend on whether concordism is true or whether accommodationism is true. Does The Bible actually intend to teach us how old the universe is and the precise method and order God brought everything into being? If The Bible’s goal isn’t to convey cosmology or biology to us, but instead used the scientific understanding of its initial recipients (ancient Jews) to get theological and moral truths across, then even if we find scientific nonsense in The Bible, that would be no grounds for disavowing biblical inerrancy or concluding that scripture isn’t inspired. So which is it, concordism or accomodationism? Richard Bushey wrote an article he wrote making the case that God never intended to teach His readers science: see “Why The Biblical Flat Earth Model Doesn’t Flatten Christianity”. 

For further reading, see “Hermeneutics 101 – Part 3: Understanding The Cultural Context”  and my blog post “Why Did God Write A Book?” 

There are many interpretations of Genesis that are compatible with an old earth and even evolution. For a treatment of The Day-Age View, I recommend reading Hugh Ross’ “A Matter Of Days”, for The Functional Ontological Interpretation of Genesis, read John Walton’s books “The Lost World Of Genesis One” and “The Lost World Of Adam and Eve”. Deborah and Loren Haarsma’s book “Origins: Christian Perspectives On Creation, Evolution, And Intelligent Design” is also a source I’d recommend.

Is God incompatible with evolution? No. Christians have always held that God can work through natural processes as well as through miracles. If a man goes into surgery, and people pray that the surgery goes well and it does, they don’t say “Well, God didn’t do it. It was the surgeon and his skills”. They would say something like “God guided the surgeons’ hands so that they wouldn’t screw up” or, if one is a Molinist, “God placed just these surgeons in these circumstances knowing that they would perform the surgery successfully”. For some reason, a lot of Christians just don’t apply that same reasoning to evolution. Evolution no more replaces God as an explanation for the existence of the animal kingdom than a vacuum replaces a maid as the explanation for why the floor is clean. Evolution doesn’t replace God as an explanation for why life exists any more than an oven replaces a chef as the explanation for how dinner was cooked. Evolution doesn’t replace God as an explanation for life any more than a surgeon replaces Him as an explanation for why a surgery went well.

Is evolution incompatible with the epistemological justification of God’s existence? I don’t see why that would be so. Biological design arguments aren’t the only arguments for God’s existence, you know. There’s The Kalam Cosmological Argument, The Cosmic Fine-Tuning Argument, The Local Fine-Tuning Argument, The Moral Argument, The Ontological Argument, The Argument From Desire, The Argument From Science’s Doability, The Transcendental Argument, and there’s plenty of historical evidence indicating that Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross and rose from the dead (see here, here, and here). All of these arguments are, in my judgment, sound, and none of them depend on the truth or falsehood of Darwin’s theory. One can concede evolution and all of these arguments would still need dealing with.

I’d like to point out though, that just because one is opposed to a scientific theory, that doesn’t mean one is anti-science. That would be like saying that because a Christian disagrees with a particular interpretation of a passage of The Bible that he’s therefore “Anti-Bible”.

Definition 3: Science as defined As Philosophical Naturalism.

If what one means by “science” is the philosophical worldview called Naturalism (i.e nothing exists but the natural, physical world), then Christianity is definitely incompatible and opposed to “science”. There’s no such thing as a naturalistic Christianity. Naturalism rules out anything supernatural, by definition. It doesn’t allow for God, angels, or demons, and since it doesn’t allow for God, it doesn’t allow for miracles, and since it doesn’t allow for miracles, it doesn’t allow for a bodily resurrection.

Christians, Christianity, The Bible, God, all of these are anti-science if science is used as a synonym for atheism.

Definition 4 and 5: Science = (A) Knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method. (B) Such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena: natural science.

This is one of the definitions that Merriam-Webster’s dictionary gives. It defines science as “such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena :natural science”[5]  Definitely not opposed to this. I speak for myself and many others when I say that learning things about the universe is a good thing. I am very pro-science under this definition of the word, and many other Christians are as well. Some Christians are scientists themselves. In fact, historically, the scientists who made the most groundbreaking discoveries and ergo were remembered for generations held to the Christian worldview. Do names such as Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, Michael Faraday, Robert Boyle, and Johannes Kepler ring a bell?  Modern day examples would include Francis Collins, who worked with the team that successfully mapped the human genome in its entirety. Under Marriam-Webster’s number 3, we can say that Christians are not anti-science. Christians have actually made great contributions to science.

I love learning science. I can’t get enough of it, to be honest with you. I initially dove into scientific research as part of my apologetics training (i.e to learn how to defend the Cosmological and Fine-Tuning Arguments), but as I learned more and more, I actually became interested in learning science for the sake of science itself. In fact, if I hope to some day buy all the seasons of How The Universe Works and Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s show Cosmos: A Space-Time Oddysee on DVD. I greatly enjoyed those programs.

I find the information in scientific books, journals, and TV programs fascinating. Not only that, but I consider it a form of worship. Jesus said to love God with all of our minds (Matthew 22:37). To learn how creation ticks is one way to pay this intellectual homage Jesus was talking about. When I hear scientists on TV talk about what goes on inside of a star, I cannot help but think “What an awesome God I serve! He made that!”. When I hear of astronomers describe the conditions on Saturn’s moon Titan, even if I never open my mouth, I at least inwardly praise God for making such a fascinating system. Even with evolution, If I fall off this fence I’ve been sitting on, I would say alongside Charles Kingsley, an Anglican Priest, and a friend of Darwin: “We knew of old that God was so wise that He could make all things; but behold, God is so much wiser than that, that He can make all things make themselves.”[6]  I believe God loves science, and I believe it makes Him happy the more we learn about this big, beautiful world He created. When the Higgs-Bozon (a.k.a The God Particle) was discovered, I saw a meme that was captioned “‘Hey scientists, thanks for finding my particle’ – God” and although it was intended to be humorous, I personally think it reflected the truth. When Higgs first predicted that such a particle existed, I can imagine the Father turning to The Son and saying giddily “This particle We created, they’re close to finding out about it!” I like to think of it as like a father giving his children a large jig-saw puzzle, then he sits back and watches in gladness as His children piece together more and more, getting a fuller picture the more pieces they successfully fit together.

When I use the word science, I never use definitions 1-3. I always use 4 and 5: “(A) Knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method. (B) Such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena: natural science.” Christians, Christianity, The Bible, God, none of these are incompatible or opposed to science by these meanings of the word. And if you’ll click the link in Footnote number 5, I think you’ll find the Christian worldview isn’t incompatible with any of the other 3 definitions Marriam-Webster gives either. It is certainly incompatible with some of the definitions secularists often ascribe to it.

Conclusion

“Christians are opposed to science!”, “God and Science and mutually exclusive”, “You can believe The Bible or science, but not both.”. To my Christian readers, when you hear these statements, you need to first understand what they mean by the word “science”. Do they mean “Scientism”? Do they mean acceptance of an old earth and evolution? Do they mean it as a synonym for atheism? Or do they use it to mean an investigation into how the universe works? Depending on what they mean by it will determine what kind of response you should give. Not getting a definition out of them will likely result in you and the atheist talking past each other. Does he mean the same thing as you do when he says the word “science”? Find out. Ask the question “What do you mean by science?”

Footnotes 

[1] Or at least he’s been attributed as saying this. It is uncertain whether he ever did.

[2] I don’t believe that Hebrews 11:1 is teaching blind faith. Fideists will use the verse this way, but I really don’t think that’s what the verse is actually saying. For one thing, the context of this verse includes examples of people who had very strong evidence for God’s existence (e.g Abraham, Moses) and praises them for their great faith. Hebrews 11 is a sort of “Faith Hall Of Fame”. Faith is a synonym for trust. To have faith in God means to have trust in God. You can trust in God while having evidence for His existence. Inversely, you can have evidence for God’s existence and not trust Him at all (cf. James 2:19).

[3] Most of the Christian Apologists I’ve learned from over the years are Old Earth Creationists, such as Lee Strobel, William Lane Craig, Hugh Ross, Frank Turek, Norman Geisler, J. Warner Wallace, Sean McDowell, and Neil Mammen. While they reject evolution, they do agree that the universe and Earth are billions of years old, and would agree that young earth creationism defies sound science. For those interested in this position, I suggest Reasons.org. Also, see my blog posts on this on the “The Creation Controversy” page.

[4] These Christians call themselves Evolutionary Creationists. For those interested in investigating this position, I suggest BioLogos.org.

[5] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science

[6] Charles Kingsley, The Natural Theology Of The Future, 1871

 

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

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Debating Atheists Arrival Universe

Debating Atheists: Arrival of the Universe (Part 2/5)

,

By Dan Grossenbach

In the previous post of this short blog series found here, I explained how four facts agreed upon by the majority of non-Christian experts can be used to build a strong case for Christianity. This is the approach I took when I debated Freethought Arizona spokesperson Dr. Gil Shapiro in November 2016. In this week’s post, I’ll cover the first one.

#1 The Arrival of the Universe

Either the universe is infinitely old or it started at a finite time ago at a certain point in time. There’s no third option unless we deny the existence of the universe altogether as some new age or eastern beliefs do. The cosmos has been the focus of study as long as man has existed and some mysteries remain yet unsolved. Nevertheless, that the universe had a beginning is something we can say with relative certainty.

  1. About 13.8 bya the universe came into existence where energy, matter, natural laws, time, and space arrived on the scene prior to which they were not there.ASU astrophysicist and religion critic Paul Davies says “the universe can’t have existed forever. We know there must be an absolute beginning a finite time ago.”[1]

Alexander Vilenkin, another skeptic of religion goes further arguing for a finite starting point even with the possibility of multiple universes when he said this in 2003:

“It is said that an argument is what convinces a reasonable man, but a proof even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape:  they must face the problem of a cosmic beginning.” The problem for Vilenkin and his non-Christian peers is what follows from a “beginning.”[2]

In defense of this idea, outspoken religion skeptic and Arizona State University physicist Lawrence Krause said, “If you asked me what I would bet, I would bet that our universe had a beginning.”[3] To see why scientists like Davies, Krause, and other skeptics consider the beginning of the universe a problem, it’s important to see what follows from another fact we already know.

  1. In uniform and repeated human experience, everything that begins to exist has a cause

Sensing the pending consequences of these two facts, Dr. Krause tries to show how events can occur from “nothing.” The trouble is, he defines nothing as something. You can see Krause first properly defines “nothing” as the “absence of anything” but in the very next breath tells us his “nothing” of the pre-beginning initial conditions of the universe contained something, namely, lots of complex “stuff” and “particles” interacting with each other.[4] Dr. Krause is a brilliant man and must know better. For the stuff and particles he just listed by default entails space, time, energy, matter, and abstract objects like physical laws and logic which is all that’s needed to make up our entire physical universe. These things are not only not “nothing” (no-thing) but are the very things scientists tell us did NOT exist until they came into being at the beginning of the universe, a beginning Dr. Krause would put his money on. In fact, the universe itself is comprised of the same things he attributes to as “nothing.” So for Krause: nothing = universe.

If these first two points hold true, as nearly all experts agree, and the logic is sound, the following conclusion is inescapable.

  1. The universe had a cause.

This opens a whole other can of worms. Who or what is the cause? Well, we can infer a few things from this argument. The cause must be supernatural, uncaused, spaceless, immaterial, timeless, personal, powerful, rational, and independent. This list of attributes rules out nearly every world religion except monotheism.

Uncaused – Gen 1:1, Ps 102:25-27, Jn 1:3, 1 Cor 8:6, Col 1:16, Heb 1:2

Spaceless – 1 Kings 8:27, Isa 66:1-2, Acts 7:48

Immaterial – 1 Kings 8:27, Isa 66:1-2, Acts 7:48

Timeless – Ps 90:2, Job 36:26, Rev 1:8, Jn 8:58

Personal – Gen 17:1, Rev 19:6, Ps 33:9, Rom 4:17

Powerful – Gen 18:14, Jer 32:17, Job 42:1-2, Mt 19:26, Mk 14:26

Rational – 1 Cor 14:33, Isa 1:18, 2 Tim 2:13, Lk 10:27

Independent – Gen 1:1, Ps 102:25-27, Jn 1:3, 1 Cor 8:6, Col 1:16, Heb 1:2

We’re not able to show the God of Christianity on this first argument alone, but there’s no better candidate than theism to fit the bill. At the very least, the God of biblical Christianity matches this description without a single miss and is among a very short list of contenders. It’s important to note none of the rival atheistic theories fit these attributes for the universe’s initial cause. But before critiquing any rival options, I waited for Dr. Shapiro to present another cause that better explains the creation of the universe. He never did. And the options offered by the atheists mentioned here start off on false or unfounded assumptions. Atheists might not like the Christian explanation, but they seem to support the basis for it and fail to offer a better way. So the Biblical account of the arrival of the universe remains the best explanation available to us.

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

Endnotes:

[1] Paul Davies, “The Big Bang-and Before,” lecture at Thomas Aquinas College March 2002 quoted from ReasonableFaith.org.

[2] Alexander Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One p176, quoted from Common Sense Atheism blog post “Craig on Vilenkin on Cosmic Origins” by Luke Muehlhauser

[3] Lawrence Krause, debate with William Lane Craig in Brisbane, Australia on August 7, 2013 transcript here

[4] Lawrence Krause, debate with William Lane Craig, 2013, video here starting at around 17:00

 

 

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Religion Avoiding Truth

Is Religion the Practice of Avoiding Truth?

By Luke Nix

Introduction

A month or so ago, I came across an interesting challenge to Christianity. A skeptic told me that religion was an exercise in avoiding truth- a willful delusion. He observed that many Christians (and religious people, in general) tend to believe the claims of their “holy” books over what has been discovered about nature, history, or the very nature of reality. He noticed that many religious people have a precommitment to a particular understanding of the world and no amount of evidence provided will persuade them otherwise. He, as an intellectual, does not want to make this same mistake. In this post, I want to explore the possibility that he is making the same mistake based upon the philosophical foundations of the claim he makes for rejecting religion, and Christianity specifically.

Missing Philosophical Foundations

While several things did strike me as dissonant about his claim, one of the first things that I noticed about the language the skeptic chose was that his naturalistic worldview could not provide any such grounding for the claim. I am specifically referring to his references to the will and ability to reason.

The Missing Will and Intentionality

First, if naturalism is true then any specific event is the cumulative result of the events prior to it, governed by laws of nature. Not only does this apply to any specific event, it applies to all events in the history of the universe all the way back to the big bang. On this view, ultimately, the laws of physics and the initial conditions of the universe fatalistically determined every event that would take place. This includes every “willful” “decision” that humans would make. Ultimately, there are no true decisions being made, no person is “willfully” denying anything; they are merely reacting to the events prior to their “decisions.” The claim that anyone is doing anything “willfully” does not make sense in a naturalistic world. So, the naturalist cannot actually claim an intentional anything and be speaking accurately about reality.

The Missing Ability to Reason Reliably

Second, an assumption of the claim is that it is possible for people to reason reliably and accurately (but have just chosen not to). If naturalism is true, then the brains responsible for reasoning and the senses responsible for sensing the environment are not focused on true inferences or true observations but on survival. Alvin Plantinga spends an entire book on this very topic that I have recently read and reviewed. However, I’d like to reinforce Plantinga’s conclusion, that if naturalism is true then we cannot trust our brains to reason towards truth, with some evidence from the real world. If naturalism is true, there is no such thing as free agency (see paragraph above). This means that everything that we believe about the intentionality of others is false. We intend to get up in the morning, to eat, to walk, to drive, to work, to organize, to engineer, to account, to create, to relate, to think, and numerous other things. If evolution has produced brains that believe that we actually do these things intentionally, then our brains survived for their ability to produce a majority of beliefs that are false yet highly practical in the environment.

The Over-Abundance of “Useful Fictions”

What makes this so powerful is that intentionality is merely one all-encompassing belief about reality that, if false, demonstrates that our brains are unreliable when it comes to inferring truth about reality, yet we have evidence that our brains have survived and that we do believe these false notions. With every additional false notion that is brought to the table of evidence (the concept of design, the concept of purpose, the concept of value, the concept of progress [all four require true intentionality, even value grounded in purpose], objective morality, moral and creative responsibility, reward and punishment, and even the existence of God- just to name a few more), the conclusion that Plantinga argued philosophically becomes even more certain evidentially.

But some naturalists attempt to escape this conclusion by saying that these are merely “useful fictions.” I find this to be an astounding concession. When we are discussing the ability to discover truth, “useful fictions” is actually an oxymoron. This becomes painfully apparent when one considers how deeply grounded in and encompassing of our beliefs about reality these fictions truly are. And yet, we still believe them because the fictions are useful. Useful for survival, but obviously not for their truth-value, for if it were for their truth-value, we would not believe them. Any naturalist who grants that “useful fictions” are believed fall prey to this devastating argument. And what is even more devastating than all our beliefs being based in fiction? The fact that we have near-certainty that no belief will ever be believed for its truth-value. For the naturalist, this brings annihilation to the only source they thought they had for truth: science. Science depends upon the reliability of our senses and our brains to infer true things about reality, and if they can never be reasonably expected to produce such, then science has no place to begin or go regarding the search for what is true. Science is merely another “useful fiction” that we falsely believe for its survival value.

Conclusion

The skeptic who raises such a challenge fundamentally contradicts their worldview when they claim that someone is “willfully avoiding truth.” And the evidence closely approaches 100% that they should be speaking that claim to a mirror: it is all-but-certain that they are the ones with the willful delusion, possessing faith despite the evidence–a blind faith. Based upon the weight of the evidence and the logical contradiction within the worldview, any skeptic, who raises this challenge out of concern for the pursuit of truth, should abandon their naturalism and the idea that our brains are the result of unguided processes otherwise they fall victim to the very evil they wish to escape.

For more information on this argument against naturalism I highly recommend:

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2sc7V3P

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Kids Science Christianity

The Art of Raising Kids Who Will Not Bow to the Idol of Science

By Natasha Crain

There’s a new hero in town. He’s thought to be all-powerful, always right, and everyone’s best friend. If anyone says something that could possibly be construed as being opposed to this hero, they are to be quickly shamed and put in their place. You see, if the world wants to move forward productively and intelligently—or so the story goes—they must get in line behind this hero.

He is today’s “way and truth.”

His name is science.

And tens of thousands of people marched for him last weekend in the “March for Science.”

If it sounds funny to give human attributes to the concept of science, don’t blame me. I’m only talking about science in the same kind of terms that the secular world effectively does.

To be sure, this hero isn’t actually new. He’s been promoted as such for a few centuries. But his popularity is skyrocketing today. He’s become a mainstream idol and he’s literally being paraded as a replacement for God.

In this post, we’ll look at how the secular world has turned science into an idol, and how we can teach kids not to bow to it.

To be clear: This post is about combating the idol of science…not science itself. In fact, if you read this and conclude that I’m opposed to science because I used the words combat and science in the same post, it’s a good sign you’ve fallen prey to the very mentality I’m describing.

Understanding How the Secular World Has Turned Science into an Idol

Before we can understand how to combat the idol of science, we have to understand how the secular world has created the idol in the first place. Here’s the basic strategy.

1. Proclaim that science is the only reliable way to determine what’s true about our world.

The Huffington Post featured an article with “19 of the Cutest and Funniest Kids from the March for Science.” One picture shows a boy holding up a sign that says, “Make America Think Again” and is wearing a shirt that says, “In Science We Trust.”

One man bluntly stated that science is truth:

Similar examples abound.

This idea—that science is the only trustworthy way of learning about our world—is the key philosophical starting point for those who want to replace God with an idol of science. (Note that this was exactly the thinking behind the ridiculous Scientific American article on the resurrection that I critiqued in my last blog post.)

If you can convince the masses that “science” is synonymous with truth, it’s quickly implied that no other sources of truth are necessary. Who needs the Bible when we can figure everything out in test tubes?

2. Promote a false dichotomy between “science” and theism so people feel they have to make a choice.

With point 1 firmly in place, people are ready to start believing that science and theism (belief in a personal God) are a trade-off. You pick one as your source of truth. But don’t think for a minute the choices are being hailed as equally viable. Those who pick God are to feel ashamed for being backward and unscientific. After all, it’s assumed they rejected science.

So choose science and join others who made the obvious choice for truth at the cool kids’ table.

That’s the message.

3. Use the word science in a such a variety of ways that people stop trying to clarify what exactly is meant by “science” in any particular context and accept whatever is claimed in its name.

March organizers said they were doing it to encourage “scientists, educators, and advocates, as well as social service workers, artists, trade workers, business people, our elderly population, and families to come together for science.”

Sounds pretty harmless, right? As one 8-year-old said, “Trees make oxygen. It helps us breathe. Who doesn’t like that?” Other kids held up similar non-controversial posters that said, “I love my microscope”; “Future scientist”; and “Science: Experiment, Learn, Fail, Repeat”; and “Science Matters.”

There’s basically no one who would have a problem with any of those statements. In fact, you might even begin feeling a wee bit silly for ever casting a skeptical eye on the March in the first place. But that’s precisely the problem. Non-controversial statements are a smokescreen for the myriad other pieces of secular worldview being promoted under the umbrella term “science.”

If the March was only about science as a field of study, as these examples would imply, no one would need to march at all.

People march because they want something.

They want you to believe something or do something. And if you take a survey of the statements made by marchers, it’s clear they are using the word science interchangeably to mean a variety of things:

  • A field of study (as in, science is the systematic study of the natural world)
  • Scientists (the people who engage in that field of study)
  • Findings of scientific research
  • Interpretation of the findings of scientific research
  • Consensus on the interpretation of the findings of scientific research
  • Policy decisions that in any way touch on any of the above

It’s an effective strategy that you can see everywhere in media today. Establish that science is the only reliable way to gain knowledge about the world, convince people they need to choose science or God, then smuggle in whatever you want to put forward as truth under the generic label of “science” and make everyone think disagreement is for the uneducated fools who didn’t make the smart choice.

Don’t believe it for a minute.

The Art of Raising Kids Who Won’t Bow to the Science Idol

As Christian parents, we must help our kids understand science as nothing more and nothing less than what it is: an extremely important field of study that can give and has given us a wealth of knowledge about the workings of God’s creation.

We can modify the three points above to see what our kids really should know.

1. Scientific research is one (important) way to determine the truth about our world.

Scientific research reveals the mechanics of the universe at a level of detail far beyond what God has revealed to us in the Bible. There’s no verse in the Bible, for example, that states the force of gravity. Science complements our knowledge of God because it reveals the workings of the world He created. Christians need the field of science as much as those with any other beliefs.

But science can say nothing about the ultimate meaning or purpose of our universe, or where all those laws of nature came from in the first place. You can study how a marble maze works, and describe those actions and mechanisms fully, but that doesn’t answer the questions of how the maze came together, why it’s there, and what we should do with it.

To answer these kinds of questions about the universe, we need the input of the One who created it. In that way, the Bible complements science.

2. There need never be a choice between science and God.

Far from being polar opposites, science needs God.

The goal of science, broadly, is to discover the order of the universe. But the feasibility of that goal depends on the assumption that the workings of our natural world can be discovered. We often take that for granted, but we shouldn’t.

Our universe is both understandable and logical. These characteristics allow us to do science in the first place. If the universe was just a hodgepodge of chaotic events, ungoverned by structured laws, science would be a hopeless task.

But why is the world intelligible rather than chaotic?

If the universe is truly the product of unguided evolutionary forces, as atheists claim, there’s no reason to expect that an elegant ordering of nature would happen on its own. But if the universe is the product of intelligence, as Christians and other theists claim, we would expect it to be orderly—a reflection of its rational designer.

Much more could be said on this, but the bottom line is that there is no trade-off between science and God. It’s a false dichotomy. You can pretend you’re “choosing” science, but your choice has no legs to stand on its own. You need God and science.

3. Thoughtful conversations about “science” must be nuanced enough to determine which meaning of science we’re talking about.

Let’s revisit the various meanings of science to see just a few questions that could be asked about any statement like, “Science says X.”

  • A field of study: Science, as a field of study, can say nothing. Only people say things. So, no, science doesn’t say X.
  • Scientists: Which scientists? Which field are they in? What are their credentials for speaking on this particular subject? What is the context for what they said? Who disagrees? Why do they disagree?
  • Findings of specific scientific research: How was the study designed? What was being tested? What was assumed? Who conducted it?
  • Interpretation of the findings of scientific research: What have prior studies on the subject found? What further research is needed to understand or test these findings? Is there a reason to believe this particular study is authoritative in some way? Where is the line between the findings of the study and what people are saying should be done with those findings?
  • Consensus on the interpretation of the findings of scientific research: When consensus is claimed, who is included in that consensus? How is consensus measured? Who has determined that consensus has been reached? What reasons do we have for believing the consensus?
  • Policy decisions that in any way touch on any of the above: The questions here are literally endless. Even if 100 percent of people agreed about the interpretation of 100 percent of scientific findings, there could be endless (legitimate) discussion on what the best policy measures should be based on those findings.

“Science says X” is an authoritative statement built on a foundation of hundreds of assumed answers to questions like these. What happens when we get tricked into believing that anything labeled science is authoritative?

This.

This is from Bill Nye’s new Netflix show, Bill Nye Saves the World, in which he “educates” the public on science issues.

This is being promoted as science.

I apologize for posting something of such a graphic nature, but this needs to be seen to be believed.

                                                 

Incredible.

So, to the little boy who said, “Trees make oxygen. It helps us breathe. Who doesn’t like that?” the answer is no one.

Absolutely no one.

But that’s not the science the secular world wants us all to “like.” That science is an idol made by hands of people who want God off His throne.

Do not bow down.

 

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

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Soul Collider Ghosts

Brian Cox, Souls, & the Large Hadron Collider

By Tim Reed

There are so many great scientists out there. The things they get to discover and explain to the rest of us lay people are always very cool. Every so often, however, a well-known scientist will get a bit of publicity over a controversial comment they make. When theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking’s book, The Grand Design was released, it caused quite a stir in the philosophy community regarding his statement in the book that “philosophy is dead.”

Hawking’s claim that “philosophy is dead” is a self-refuting philosophical statement. He goes on to endorse, ironically enough, a philosophical view called model-dependent realism, gets facts about the history of philosophy wrong, implies a philosophical, metaphysically impossible claim about the universe, and finally states that the law of gravity itself is responsible for the existence of the universe. More recently, Bill Nye the “Science Guy” (a mechanical engineer by trade) gets basic biology wrong, misunderstands the pro-life view, and confuses science statements with philosophical statements in a Big Think video about abortion.

Recently, several online science outlets like LiveScience and ScienceAlert, have published articles referencing a BBC program featuring theoretical physicist Brian Cox and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. I noticed that even well-known theoretical physicist Sean Carroll shared the article by LiveScience on Facebook. The conversation between Cox and Tyson has gotten traction because of a claim that Cox makes about the Large Hadron Collider and ghosts. Here’s the relevant portion of the conversation:

“If we want some sort of pattern that carries information about our living cells to persist then we must specify precisely what medium carries that pattern and how it interacts with the matter particles out of which our bodies are made. We must, in other words, invent an extension to the Standard Model of Particle Physics that has escaped detection at the Large Hadron Collider. That’s almost inconceivable at the energy scales typical of the particle interactions in our bodies” (Cox).

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was also on the show, pressed Cox to clarify his statement.

“If I understand what you just declared, you just asserted that CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, disproved the existence of ghosts.” (Tyson)

Cox replied,

“Yes . . . I would say if there’s some kind of substance that’s driving our bodies, making my arms move and legs move, then it must interact with the particles out of which our bodies are made. And seeing as we’ve made high precision measurements of the ways that particles interact, then my assertion is there can be no such thing as an energy source that’s driving our bodies.” (Cox)

So, per Brian Cox, since ghosts are an “energy source” and the Large Hadron Collider has never detected the energy of ghosts, they must not exist. A perusal of various Facebook posts using the search feature easily demonstrates that many people believe the same argument advanced by Cox extends to belief in the existence of souls. Again, since souls are an energy source and the Large Hadron Collider has never detected the energy of souls, they must not exist either (according to Brian Cox).

Let’s talk for a minute about Christian philosophy and belief in souls. As a Christian, I believe the Bible teaches that the human person is a composite being made of two fundamental realities, one material and the other non-material. This idea is articulated very generally in the Bible, leaving us the conceptual space to explore details of this view through philosophy. In Christian philosophy, we have a technical term for the view that human persons are a body/soul composite. It is called Substance Dualism. This is the view that each person is an embodied soul, a simple, indivisible substance not having any parts. Substance Dualism has been defended rigorously by Christian philosophers like Richard Swinburne, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and J.P. Moreland, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University.

Let’s see how a few philosophers define what they mean by a soul, since this may give us some indication where Brian Cox’s argument may have gone astray. First consider the words of Richard Swinburne:

“…I conclude that the human soul cannot be analyzed as composed of form and matter; it is *non-physical* and indivisible, and possesses only pure mental properties. This is the view of Plato and Descartes…” – Richard Swinburne, Mind, Brain, & Freewill

J.P. Moreland writes:

“In chapter 3, I defended property dualism and concluded that consciousness is, indeed, *non-physical*. In this chapter, I will argue for substance dualism, the view that the owner of consciousness-the soul or self-is *immaterial*.” – J.P. Moreland, The Soul: How We Know It’s Real and Why It Matters

Baker and Goetz state,

“As dualists we do not (necessarily) deny that current research in brain sciences and related disciplines might pose some interesting new challenges to a dualist theory that includes the Soul Hypothesis as a component. For example, dualists have the specific challenge of sorting out in some detail which features of human mental life depend directly on the physical part (the body) and which depend directly on the *nonphysical* part (the soul).” – Mark Baker and Stewart Goetz, Introduction to the Soul Hypothesis volume

Dean Zimmerman says,

“A person, like me, who thinks he’s an *immaterial* soul uses “I” in roughly the same way as a person who thinks that he’s a brain, or a body, or even (like some “madmen” Descartes mentions) that he is made out of glass.” – Dean Zimmerman, From Experience to Experiencer

Brandon Rickabaugh states,

“I am puzzled and very concerned by the move toward physicalism among theologians, especially within the Society of Vineyard Scholars. I can see no convincing arguments in favor of doing so, and this paper has demonstrated the tremendous failure of such arguments against SD (substance dualism). We are *embodied human persons* (an SD view), not bodily human persons.” – Brandon Rickabaugh, Responding to N.T. Wright’s Rejection of the Soul: A Defense of Substance Dualism

I emphasized certain words in the previous quotes to help you figure out what the problem is. According to these Substance Dualist philosophers, the soul is a “non-physical” or “immaterial” entity. An immaterial entity can’t be composed of energy because it is non-physical. It can use energy, but its essential nature does not consist of energy. I love how Brandon Rickabaugh put it, that we are “embodied human persons.” If we are embodied, that means that our essential nature is something other than a physical body. It’s reasonable to say that these five quotes are representative of the substance dualists writing and defending the view in the philosophy community. I would further contend that no category of substance dualism (i.e., Thomist, Cartesian, or Emergentist) believes anything other than that the soul is immaterial.

Physicist Brian Cox assumes that souls are an “energy source,” then constructs his argument upon that assumption. The Large Hadron Collider should have discovered such an energy source by now, but they haven’t, so says Brian Cox. Clearly, the problem here is that his argument doesn’t work because people who believe in souls don’t agree with his assumption. We reject his assumption and so, therefore, his entire argument does not even get off the ground. Brian Cox and the people who find his flawed reasoning convincing are simply mistaken. Cox and company have not attacked the soul; rather, they merely attack a straw man.

Along with the philosophers noted above, Tim Stratton has argued forcefully for the existence of the soul. The Freethinking Argument provides good reason to think the soul exists. That is to say, the view that human persons are composed of a nonphysical component called a soul is still alive and well.

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