"Failure to uphold any part of the Bible ultimately undermines trust in the whole."

I've been sorting through old papers and came across a special insert in one of the Answers in Genesis Answers magazines from last year. (Can't recall which issue. I removed the insert for future reference.)

The insert is titled "The Descent of Man" and suggests that Martin Luther held a pure view of Scripture: we are to "accept all of God's Word." Since Luther, however, men like Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), Thomas Chalmers (1760-1847), and Hugh Miller (1802-1856) compromised their interpretations of various parts of the Bible so that, today, many "deny all of God's Word."

And the alleged steps in this descent of man?

• Francis Bacon . . . "argued that the Bible is not needed to understand the world."
   
• Galileo Galilei . . . "argued that one can interpret the Bible based on science."
   
• Thomas Chalmers . . . "popularized the gap theory (millions of years passed between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2)."
   
• Hugh Miller . . . "popularized the day-age view of 'days' in Genesis 1.

As a result of these men's "compromise," the document urges,

Charles Templeton (1915-2001), once an evangelist alongside Billy Graham, later embraced evolutionary history over millions of years while attending Princeton Seminary; he died in unbelief.

And so, as the subtitle of the document declares, "Failure to uphold any part of the Bible ultimately undermines trust in the whole."

"Who are we to question God's account of creation?" asks the front cover of the document. "'Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding,' God says in Job 38:4."

And then, on the back cover: "Does God's Word trump man's ideas? -or- Do man's ideas trump God's Word? When faced with questions about current science models, many Christians place their faith in man's ideas above God's Word. Yet the search for understanding must always begin with God's Word. 'The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge' (Proverbs 1:7)."

Question: Do attempts to align what we might call "secular knowledge" with what we might call "spiritual" (or Scriptural) knowledge necessarily and unavoidably imply compromise?

Question: Suppose we "understand something wrong." Does that unavoidably imply that we are headed down the slope to unbelief?

Question (as asked before): Is Answers in Genesis itself compromised with unbelief, having permitted modern science to shape its understanding of what, prior to Galileo, was the incontrovertibly clear statement of Joshua 10? On what ground can they pretend they are not on the "slippery slope" to unbelief as Gerardus Bouw urges?

Question: The back cover says the search for understanding must always begin with God's Word. Must it end there as well? (Based on what else is said on the back cover, it sounds as if Answers in Genesis wants us to believe--and act on the belief--that the search for understanding must, indeed, end with God's Word as well. There is no room for scientific input into our understanding of Scripture. Indeed, from the AiG website itself: "Scripture interprets Scripture. . . . Scripture itself is our best theology professor in helping us understand and apply Scripture. . . . What to pray: seek repentance in your life for times when the words of men--even good men--have become more important to you than the Word of God."

Things I've known . . .

I've been at least vaguely aware of the things that Jonathan Dudley states in a recent Huffington Post article. But he provides some details and background of which I was wholly unaware.

Probably worth keeping in mind . . . and, from a young-earth creationist perspective, figuring out how to respond to what he says:

In theory, if not always in practice, past Christian theologians valued science out of the belief that God created the world scientists study. Augustine castigated those who made the Bible teach bad science, John Calvin argued that Genesis reflects a commoner's view of the physical world, and the Belgic confession likened scripture and nature to two books written by the same author.

These beliefs encouraged past Christians to accept the best science of their day, and these beliefs persisted even into the evangelical tradition. As Princeton Seminary's Charles Hodge, widely considered the father of modern evangelical theology, put it in 1859: "Nature is as truly a revelation of God as the Bible; and we only interpret the Word of God by the Word of God when we interpret the Bible by science."

In this analysis, Christians must accept sound science, not because they don't believe God created the world, but precisely because they do.

The question is: Is macro-evolution good science?

Dudley says it is.

Why? On what grounds?

Because no amount of talk about "worldviews" and "presuppositions" can change a simple fact: [young-earth] creationism has failed to provide an alternative explanation for the vast majority of evidence explained by evolution.

It has failed to explain why birds still carry genes to make teeth, whales to make legs, and humans to make tails.

It has failed to explain why the fossil record proposed by modern scientists can be used to make precise and accurate predictions about the location of transition fossils.

It has failed to explain why the fossil record demonstrates a precise order, with simple organisms in the deepest rocks and more complex ones toward the surface.

It has failed to explain why today's animals live in the same geographical area as fossils of similar species.

It has failed to explain why, if carnivorous dinosaurs lived at the same time as modern animals, we don't find the fossils of modern animals in the stomachs of fossilized dinosaurs.

It has failed to explain the broken genes that litter the DNA of humans and apes but are functional in lower vertebrates.

It has failed to explain how the genetic diversity we observe among humans could have arisen in a few thousand years from two biological ancestors.

Who should you trust? Who CAN you trust? Separatism and degrees of separation. Reforming Fundamentalism--Part III

I ran across an article two weeks ago on a fundamentalist website as I was looking for information about some of the people I count as spiritual ancestors. I have run across these kinds of articles in the past. I figure it is time I at least acknowledge their existence and say something about them.

As so many other such articles, The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree attempts to paint all efforts at Christian unity--working together for the advance of the Kingdom of God worldwide--as virtual blasphemy. No one who refuses to be quite as "holy" ("separate") as those who write these articles escapes the brush. Thus, as I have discovered,

Karl Barth more satisfying than the evangelical theology in which I was raised?

I referred last Monday to a comment by Kim in MT. "My world and my God are much larger now that I'm not trying to do the mental gymnastics to make them fit in the young earth, evangelical box," she had written.

Though it dismayed me, her comment did not come as too much of a surprise.

But I was blown away a few hours after my post when I received a note from Perry Marshall, a friend of mine, a guy I recognize as an outspoken and zealous advocate for Christian faith both publicly and privately.

I think you may be outgrowing both evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Congratulations.

???!!!!???

Discovering my spiritual heritage: Reforming Fundamentalism--Part II

When I received my copy of Reforming Fundamentalism, I began reading from the very beginning--the Preface, the Introduction, and then the body. Already, at the Preface, I was impressed with Marsden's candor and, frankly, insight:

Inevitably one's point of view will shape one's work. Since it is impossible to be objective, it is imperative to be fair. . . . I work from a particular Christian commitment that makes me generally sympathetic to what Fuller Seminary has been trying to do since its inception. At the same time, I have also tried to step aside from my sympathies. I think the primary justification for having historians these days is that they can provide critical perspectives, especially on traditions that they take seriously. Partisanship, then, although to some degree inevitable, is to be suppressed for the purposes of such historical understanding.

This approach will not entirely please those who see Christian history as adequately understood only as a battle in which it is perfectly clear who stands with the forces of light and who with the forces of darkness. I do not have any difficulty with the concept of the Christian life as a battle; I do not believe, however, that we can identify the forces of light and darkness so easily. My world is filled with ambiguities. Even with the light of Scripture we are very limited humans who see as through a glass darkly.

--p. xi

But it was as I began the Introduction that my heart leapt. I "couldn't believe" whose names I was reading as being associated with Fuller Seminary from the very beginning.

Introduction: Reforming Fundamentalism--Part I

I've mentioned this book a couple of times already: Reforming Fundamentalism by George M. Marsden. Sub-title of the book: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism.

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with Fuller Seminary. I know I was. Maybe I had heard the name, but I paid it no attention until Sarita and I moved to Pasadena, California, at the beginning of 1984. In 1984 and after, however, living in the same community where Fuller is located and, probably more importantly, working for Dr. Ralph Winter, a former professor of the seminary's School of World Mission, I couldn't escape hearing about the school and becoming aware of some of its strengths and weaknesses.

I came to understand that Fuller had undergone a major shift in its commitment to biblical inerrancy sometime prior to our arrival in Pasadena. And, for some reason, I also came to understand that Fuller considered itself--and still considers itself--an evangelical seminary.

Order from Chaos

This is definitely "out there" as far as this blog is concerned. But it's at least tangentially related by theme. (See Genesis 1--where God brings order from chaos.)

I post this, however, "just" because of my personal pleasure in the art of ambigrams or what I once called visual palindromes and similar curiosities.