“Is God the Source of Morality?” Debate @ Auckland Uni on Monday
Just a reminder about this Monday’s debate. The basic details are below,
More info here: Bradley v Flannagan Debate @ Auckland Uni “Is God the Source of Morality?” and here at the University of Auckland Event Page.
In: Contributors, political, theology
Is belief in God rational when you can’t prove God exists? @ Unitec
Matt is speaking on the topic “Is belief in God rational when you can’t prove that God exists?” at 12pm, Thursday 5 August in the Gold Lecture Theatre on the Auckland Unitec campus on Carrington Rd. The talk will be based on the Showing Christianity is True essay Matt had published as part of Apologetics 315′s essay series, “Why is Christianity True?”
Here is the flyer put out by the promoters, Encounter Christian Centre and Unitec Student Life fellowship:
The format is a talk delivered followed by Q&A. The event is open to the public and entry is free.
In: Contributors, political, theology
Determinism and the existence of sin
Arminians frequently argue that (exhaustive) determinism implies that God is the author of sin. The argument being that if God causes every event including the actions of sinful men the God is behind such actions and is culpable. Although the reasoning that the instigator of an action is responsible for such action is sound, note David murdering Uriah the Hittite; that God is the author of sin is less immediately apparent.
Moral restrictions that apply to man do not automatically apply to God. God is allowed to remove the life of men at his discretion, for man to do so is considered murder. Therefore one could argue that causing other men to sin would be sinful for man, but not for God. In fact one could argue that it is impossible for God to sin because by definition God actions are not sinful.
I agree with the proposition that everything God does is good. Not that it is good because God does it, but because it is in the nature of God to be righteous and everything he does is consistent with this nature. But I wish to approach this problem from a different perspective.
Let us accepting that God cannot sin (for whatever reason). The issue with determinism is that it makes God the cause and source of every action including those actions we term sin. But determinism also makes the intermediate agents non-culpable. Man can hardly be responsible, let alone guilty for that which he does at the exhaustive, non-resistible control of another. A gun is hardly to blame for the actions of the soldier. I don’t see how this is changes if the gun is given consciousness.
This leaves us with God being the author of all activity, man the author of none.
But the Bible states that there is such a thing as sin. It frequently warns us to reject sinful actions. That sin is real is not in doubt for those who agree with Scripture. But if God cannot sin, and determinism means that man is not culpable then we cannot resolve the dilemma.
- The Bible says that sin exists.
- God cannot sin
- Therefore men must sin
- The Bible teaches determinism
- But determinism implies that man is not culpable for sin
These cannot all be true. The question is which statement should we reject? Arminians would argue #4, as they do not think this is the case. Calvinists would argue #5 but this is logically and biblically untenable.
If we grant that God can and is permitted to do some things that man cannot and is not, this does not resolve the problem. Even accepting the Calvinist claim that God can cause evil and not sin still leaves the determinism problem unresolved.
In: Contributors, fun, political, theology
Auckland Bloggers Drinks – First Thursday in August
On the first Thursday of every month bloggers who happen to be in Auckland gather for the B3 (Bloggers Bar Bash).
What: Auckland Bloggers Drinks
When: Thursday 5 August from 6.30pm
Where: Galbraiths, 2 Mt Eden Road, Mt Eden, Auckland
Who: Bloggers, blog readers, blog trolls
Past blogging celebrities in attendance include bloggers and (blog readers) from Annie Fox, Barnsley Bill, Beretta, The Fairfacts Media Show, Stephen Franks, Garfield Herrington, Bernard Hickey, Cactus Kate, Kiwiblog, MandM, No Minister, Not PC, Roar Prawn, Lolly Scramble, SOLO, State Highway One, Whale Oil and WHOAR!
(MacDoctor is piking again – something about work or saving lives – excuses, excuses…)
Members of the media, members of parliament and other NZ celebrities have attended in the past but I won’t bother naming them because they are not bloggers and so are not as important or famous as the rest of us.
There is a Facebook page you can RSVP at and leave witty comments on or you can just turn up.
In: Contributors, political, theology
Monday quote
Yet even if they desire mere equality they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.
C. S. Lewis. “Equality.” Present Concerns: A Compelling Collection of Timely, Journalistic Essays
In: Contributors, fun, political, theology
Middleton Grange, Free Exercise and the Gay Rights Movement UPDATED
Over at GayNZ.com’s Proclamations of the Red Queen blog, Craig Young is in a celebratory mood. Middleton Grange, a Reformed Evangelical Christian school has been forced by law to pay reparations and have their management undergo “human rights education” because they dismissed a netball coach on the grounds that he openly engaged in homosexual conduct.
Middleton Grange is a school based in Christchurch. The school’s aim’s, as stated on its website, show that its first aim as a educational facility is to “Help pupils know and understand God and His ways and respond to Him in obedience, love and service.” The website further states,
The school rests on a Reformed and Evangelical interpretation of Scripture which informs all aspects of governance and management. The Christian Schools’ Trust is responsible for safeguarding the Special Character of the school.
Now it should be no surprise to any educated person that a reformed evangelical interpretation of scripture usually includes, among other things, the contention that sex between people of the same sex violates God’s commands. Nor should it be a surprise that, given the school’s stated purpose is to inculcate these beliefs, it will not hire or retain people whose example or teaching contradicts this purpose.
The only question that really needs to be asked then is whether it should be legal for religious groups like this to set up such schools and teach these things and engage in these sorts of hiring practices. Should reformed evangelical Christianity be a tolerated religion? The alternative is, of course, to ban such schools, force parents to send their children to schools that will teach that their parents religious beliefs are false - essentially not allow adults to propagate these values to their children. This is known as religious persecution.
In fact by ruling that the school must hire/retain staff whose actions are inconsistent with the schools purpose and then requiring the staff to undergo “human rights education.” the Human Rights Commission (HRC) goes one step further. It states that not only must such schools not exist but it maintains that the adults running them must undergo compulsory re-education into the secular liberal way of thinking. Am I the only one who finds this sort of thing a tad draconian?
Mr Young, however, seems to think otherwise, he states,
Frankly, I’m surprised that this sort of collision between lesbian and gay teachers and backward fundamentalist enclaves has taken so long to materialise. I suspect that it’s because we shun such neurotic and hermetically sealed enclaves unless there is good reason to do otherwise
Apparently the biggest problem in all this is that this sort of religious persecution and re-education has not happened sooner. As to why such schools should be persecuted, Young gives three reasons.
First because it is a “malignant Christchurch fundamentalist” school. In other words, Young considers this school to expound fundamentalism and he considers such a religion to be “malignant.” This really is not the issue, the issue is whether the state should persecute such religious groups and subject the people within them to compulsory re-education. There are many religious perspectives I disagree with, some I find highly offensive yet this does not mean that the state should intervene in this way.
Young’s second reason is,
Founded in 1964, it was host to Graham Capill, Christian Heritage Party leader. His dad Don was Vice Principal until the eighties. I was a one-time inmate there. It served as a nexus for the abortive campaign against homosexual law reform in the mid-eighties.
There are three reasons here (a) Young attended the school and did not like it, (b) a political leader Young is known to immensely dislike and who was convicted for sexual molestation once attended the school and this man’s father was once Principal; and, (c) the school promoted political views at odds with the secular liberal mainstream on issues like abortion and homosexuality.
It is hard to see how any of these reasons justify the HRC’s actions. Is Young saying any school he does not like should be legally punished? Is Craig suggesting that if an old boy of a school is convicted of a crime years after leaving that the whole school should be held responsible? Does Young support a return to collective and vicarious punishments perhaps?
The last reason Young gave is perhaps the most telling; schools should be subject to legal sanction if their politics are disagreeable. Again, am I the only one who finds it odd that this sort of crap is proposed by one of the voices for “tolerance” and “respect for diversity”?
Craig then gives the usual red herrings; he states “Should it end there? Well, no. If Middleton Grange refuses to employ lesbian and gay teachers, then what about issues like LGBT suicide prevention? Or homophobic bullying?” While I agree that bullying of any human being is wrong (it being assault) and suicide of any person is tragic, the reasoning here lacks cogency. Suppose a fundamentalist Christian was severely bullied at school, the kids picked on him because they considered him to be an intolerant bigot or suppose that his refusal to have pre-marital sex or drink alcohol made him a social outcast? I take it that Young would support fundamentalist teachers coming into this school and teaching a fundamentalist interpretation of the bible to their students so as to re-educate those bullying him? Perhaps the HRC should force the management of any secular school that does not do this to attend church…
The only remotely sensible comment Craig makes is a rhetorical question, “Should fundamentalist private schools be penalised by withheld operational funding if they refuse to obey mainstream New Zealand anti-discrimination laws?” Indeed that is the core question. Should private religious schools be allowed to teach and freely exercise their religion? Some segments of the gay rights movement and their supporters need to be honest and just outright admit that they support religious persecution instead of talking about “tolerance” and “the celebration of diversity” – values they clearly do not believe in.
UPDATE
Madeleine adds
In the comments below Joel, a blogger from the US, writes:
There is no liberty in New Zealand, I take it, nor equality.
And what about the human rights violated against the Christian school?
I have chosen to respond this here as originally Matt and I had toyed with looking at this in this post anyway and so I don’t want it getting lost in the comments, which I anticipate will be prolific in number (just a hunch).
New Zealand does not have an entrenched constitution, its Bill of Rights is a simple statute which is ultimately subordinate to any other statute it clashes with, see section 4:
4. Other enactments not affected
No court shall, in relation to any enactment (whether passed or made before or after the commencement of this Bill of Rights),—(a) Hold any provision of the enactment to be impliedly repealed or revoked, or to be in any way invalid or ineffective; or
(b) Decline to apply any provision of the enactment—
by reason only that the provision is inconsistent with any provision of this Bill of Rights.
Although, to be fair, for any clash the clashing rule, law or policy must be read in the way most conducive to it being consistent with the Bill of Rights, see section 6:
6. Interpretation consistent with Bill of Rights to be preferred
Wherever an enactment can be given a meaning that is consistent with the rights and freedoms contained in this Bill of Rights, that meaning shall be preferred to any other meaning.
If a consistent reading cannot be achieved then the courts will either deem a policy inconsistent with the Bill of Rights or deem it a justified limitation,
5. Justified limitations
Subject to section 4 of this Bill of Rights, the rights and freedoms contained in this Bill of Rights may be subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
The reality is that due to the fact the courts cannot strike statutes down or refuse to apply them and that there are no penalties for Bill of Rights breaches either beyond the stigma of being in breach of it, which only works if society values the right in question, if it is an unpopular group or cause being violated who cares right?
So that is the context freedom of religion sits in in New Zealand, which is covered in the section on democratic and civil rights:
13. Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief, including the right to adopt and to hold opinions without interference.14. Freedom of expression
Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.15. Manifestation of religion and belief
Every person has the right to manifest that person’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, or teaching, either individually or in community with others, and either in public or in private.
Now at a glance at these sections our US friends must be wondering how the tale Matt told above and the story in the newspaper article he linked to could happen; it appears that New Zealand requires the state to allow its citizens and private organisations the right to form any belief they like, impart it and act on it.
The reason you are momentarily lulled into this false sense of reality is because you have not factored in the Human Rights Act. Remember earlier when I said the Bill of Rights is subject to other laws? Let’s take a look at section 22, I have highlighted the key bits to take note of in italics:
22. Employment
(1) Where an applicant for employment or an employee is qualified for work of any description, it shall be unlawful for an employer, or any person acting or purporting to act on behalf of an employer,—
(a) To refuse or omit to employ the applicant on work of that description which is available; or
(b) To offer or afford the applicant or the employee less favourable terms of employment, conditions of work, superannuation or other fringe benefits, and opportunities for training, promotion, and transfer than are made available to applicants or employees of the same or substantially similar capabilities employed in the same or substantially similar circumstances on work of that description; or
(c) To terminate the employment of the employee, or subject the employee to any detriment, in circumstances in which the employment of other employees employed on work of that description would not be terminated, or in which other employees employed on work of that description would not be subjected to such detriment; or
(d) To retire the employee, or to require or cause the employee to retire or resign,—
by reason of any of the prohibited grounds of discrimination.
Let’s take a look at the “prohibited grounds of discrimination” shall we? The definitions section states “prohibited ground of discrimination has the meaning given to it by section 21“. Section 21 is long so I have only included the relevant bits for our purposes,
21 Prohibited grounds of discrimination
(1) For the purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are—
(m) Sexual orientation, which means a heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation.
So there you have it, freedom of thought, conscience, religion, expression and the manifestation of those beliefs are trumped by the Human Rights Act (and the Education Act which permits private schools to educate and manage themselves along the lines of the special character of the school).
Joel is right, New Zealand’s commitment to liberty and equality is lacking and respect for freedom of religion is lacking.
In: Contributors, political, theology
Middleton Grange, Free Exercise and the Gay Rights Movement
Over at GayNZ.com’s Proclamations of the Red Queen blog, Craig Young is in a celebratory mood. Middleton Grange, a Reformed Evangelical Christian school has been forced by law to pay reparations and have their management undergo “human rights education” because they dismissed a netball coach on the grounds that he openly engaged in homosexual conduct.
Middleton Grange is a school based in Christchurch. The school’s aim’s, as stated on its website, show that its first aim as a educational facility is to “Help pupils know and understand God and His ways and respond to Him in obedience, love and service.” The website further states,
The school rests on a Reformed and Evangelical interpretation of Scripture which informs all aspects of governance and management. The Christian Schools’ Trust is responsible for safeguarding the Special Character of the school.
Now it should be no surprise to any educated person that a reformed evangelical interpretation of scripture usually includes, among other things, the contention that sex between people of the same sex violates God’s commands. Nor should it be a surprise that, given the school’s stated purpose is to inculcate these beliefs, it will not hire or retain people whose example or teaching contradicts this purpose.
The only question that really needs to be asked then is whether it should be legal for religious groups like this to set up such schools and teach these things and engage in these sorts of hiring practices. Should reformed evangelical Christianity be a tolerated religion? The alternative is, of course, to ban such schools, force parents to send their children to schools that will teach that their parents religious beliefs are false - essentially not allow adults to propagate these values to their children. This is known as religious persecution.
In fact by ruling that the school must hire/retain staff whose actions are inconsistent with the schools purpose and then requiring the staff to undergo “human rights education.” the Human Rights Commission (HRC) goes one step further. It states that not only must such schools not exist but it maintains that the adults running them must undergo compulsory re-education into the secular liberal way of thinking. Am I the only one who finds this sort of thing a tad draconian?
Mr Young, however, seems to think otherwise, he states,
Frankly, I’m surprised that this sort of collision between lesbian and gay teachers and backward fundamentalist enclaves has taken so long to materialise. I suspect that it’s because we shun such neurotic and hermetically sealed enclaves unless there is good reason to do otherwise
Apparently the biggest problem in all this is that this sort of religious persecution and re-education has not happened sooner. As to why such schools should be persecuted, Young gives three reasons.
First because it is a “malignant Christchurch fundamentalist” school. In other words, Young considers this school to expound fundamentalism and he considers such a religion to be “malignant.” This really is not the issue, the issue is whether the state should persecute such religious groups and subject the people within them to compulsory re-education. There are many religious perspectives I disagree with, some I find highly offensive yet this does not mean that the state should intervene in this way.
Young’s second reason is,
Founded in 1964, it was host to Graham Capill, Christian Heritage Party leader. His dad Don was Vice Principal until the eighties. I was a one-time inmate there. It served as a nexus for the abortive campaign against homosexual law reform in the mid-eighties.
There are three reasons here (a) Young attended the school and did not like it, (b) a political leader Young is known to immensely dislike and who was convicted for sexual molestation once attended the school and this man’s father was once Principal; and, (c) the school promoted political views at odds with the secular liberal mainstream on issues like abortion and homosexuality.
It is hard to see how any of these reasons justify the HRC’s actions. Is Young saying any school he does not like should be legally punished? Is Craig suggesting that if an old boy of a school is convicted of a crime years after leaving that the whole school should be held responsible? Does Young support a return to collective and vicarious punishments perhaps?
The last reason Young gave is perhaps the most telling; schools should be subject to legal sanction if their politics are disagreeable. Again, am I the only one who finds it odd that this sort of crap is proposed by one of the voices for “tolerance” and “respect for diversity”?
Craig then gives the usual red herrings; he states “Should it end there? Well, no. If Middleton Grange refuses to employ lesbian and gay teachers, then what about issues like LGBT suicide prevention? Or homophobic bullying?” While I agree that bullying of any human being is wrong (it being assault) and suicide of any person is tragic, the reasoning here lacks cogency. Suppose a fundamentalist Christian was severely bullied at school, the kids picked on him because they considered him to be an intolerant bigot or suppose that his refusal to have pre-marital sex or drink alcohol made him a social outcast? I take it that Young would support fundamentalist teachers coming into this school and teaching a fundamentalist interpretation of the bible to their students so as to re-educate those bullying him? Perhaps the HRC should force the management of any secular school that does not do this to attend church…
The only remotely sensible comment Craig makes is a rhetorical question, “Should fundamentalist private schools be penalised by withheld operational funding if they refuse to obey mainstream New Zealand anti-discrimination laws?” Indeed that is the core question. Should private religious schools be allowed to teach and freely exercise their religion? Some segments of the gay rights movement and their supporters need to be honest and just outright admit that they support religious persecution instead of talking about “tolerance” and “the celebration of diversity” – values they clearly do not believe in.
In: Contributors, political, theology
Forum on the Family 2010
This year’s Family First Forum on the Family is almost upon us. On Friday 6 August 2010 people will converge on the Life Convention Centre in Auckland and listen to various speakers, participate in discussion, down coffee, eat yummy food and network on issues surrounding policies that affect families.
Matt and I have been going to the Forum on the Family for some years now. We always enjoy it as the speakers are generally thought provoking, considered and worthwhile and the opportunity to catch up with other bloggers and see people we are usually only in email or Facebook or blog contact with is really good but what I like best is being surrounded by people who care about their communities, who have clear opinions on the policies being set down by government and ideas as to the way forward. The people are real and genuine – sure there are politicians and media present and ‘celebrities’ but the bulk of those present are just average people with families who are not content to just bump along without giving some thought to the direction our policy makers are taking us in.
This year Matt cannot attend as he is relief-teaching that day and we cannot afford for him to lose a day’s pay. We were also worried that I would not be able to go due to the cost of the ticket – which in previous years I have been more than happy to pay as I think the event is worthwhile – but you all know our current financial situation. However, I am happy to report that in exchange for blogging the event my ticket is complimentary.
So I will be there and that, of course, is yet another reason for you to be there too 
The line-up looks promising: Aric Sigman, Melinda Tankard Reist, Tuhoe Isaac, Judy Bailey, et al.
Apparently ticket sales are already in excess of last year and there is a reasonable media presence expected so if you turn up and contribute to the discussion there is a very good chance that you will help make the conservative viewpoint heard so go and secure your ticket now!
Anyone who might be in a position to donate me/loan me an air-card for the day will enable me to live tweet the event across _MandM_. If you can help see our Support Page for how to get it to me.
The tradition begun in 09 of going for drinks afterwards is still on – Matt will be able to join us for that much at least - if someone can jog my memory as to the name of the venue we went to last time or can suggest somewhere nearby I will set up a Facebook Event page.
In: Contributors, political, theology
Epistemology 101: Clash of Authorities Part III
This three-part blog series is essentially the talk I gave at the recent Clearing the Air Forum, which was entitled “Discovering Truth in the Synthesis of Science and Faith.” The audience was comprised of scientists, church leaders, journalists and other interested parties so this is a fairly lay introduction to epistemology.
In my first post, Epistemology 101: Science, Faith and Authority Part I, I set out some basics about epistemology. In Part II I looked at testimony and authority. Now I will turn to my final point, what about the clash of traditions or authorities, what should we believe then?
Here is a fairly obvious example, suppose I am not a biologist but I hear it on authority that the scientific consensus is that evolutionary theory is the correct account of human origins. In the absence of any defeaters for this, such as the absence of compelling reasons for thinking that the biological sciences are unreliable in this area or some compelling disproof of evolution, I should accept this claim. One the other hand, I read the Bible and it looks like it states that the world was created by God in six 24-hour days and that humans and animals were created on separate days. I examine the subsequent genealogies and I discover that when added up these entail that the world is only a few thousand years old. If I accept the Bible as authoritative and as the word of God, then I have a reason for thinking that evolution is false. What should I do?
I am using this case as a vivid example because it is such an obvious one in an evangelical setting, particularly one like this full of scientists who will have experienced the tension first hand. I want to look at two approaches that I think are mistaken. The first is exemplified by a well meaning school board member I encountered a few years ago. I was applying for a job as a curriculum developer at a Christian school. I was asked if I would teach that Genesis was true. I responded by saying that at the senior level, students should learn about the debate over how Genesis should be interpreted. They should be encouraged to ask whether it literally teaches that the world was created in six 24-hour days or whether, as some scholars believe, the days are a kind of literary device drawing out the relationship between human and divine work. The board member responded in horror, he said “are you saying God might be wrong?” I did not get the job.
There was some wisdom in the board member’s response. If God teaches something then it is true and what God says trumps all human opinion, including scientific opinion. The problem is that I was not questioning what God said, I was questioning an interpretation of Genesis which was the basis of the board member’s conclusions about what God said. God does not make mistakes but human interpreters do.
Throughout history brilliant Christian theologians have disagreed as to how to interpret scripture and also which theological perspectives are correct. The fact that they disagree means that they cannot all be correct. Our theologising then is fallible and it is not given that we are always correct. It is mistaken then to assume that when the scientific consensus clashes with our theology it is always wrong and our theology is always correct.
In a room full of scientists this is probably uncontroversial but I want to also reject an equally erroneous view. This is the view that whenever scientific consensus clashes with a theological position, the theological position is always incorrect. Often this view is based on mistaken views on history. In the 19th century an interpretation of Church history known as the conflict thesis emerged. This position taught that religion and science had been locked in conflict throughout their history and that science had flourished only by fighting off the shackles of the church, which had consistently suppressed its ideas. The picture was of a Church constantly losing ground to science. This view of the history of science has been rejected by most historians today but its legacy lingers on.
In fact the history of science and religion is quite different. There were few conflicts of the sort this thesis puts forward and when they did occur issues were not as simple as science being right and theology wrong. In fact, in some cases the opposite was been true. The fact is that scientific consensus can be and has been, in the past, mistaken. Only a few decades ago the steady state theory of cosmology was widely accepted and it was believed the universe had no beginning, a thesis in direct contradiction to the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Today, theology now appears to have been correct. In the 12th century a similar clash occurred between aristotlean science and that of the Church. The church was proven correct. There are other examples, such as denials that people groups such as the Hittites ever existed and claims people could not write at the time of Moses.
Further, scientific consensuses changes over time. Alvin Plantinga notes,
According to Bryan Appleyard, “At Harvard University in the 1880′s John Trowbridge, head of the physics department, was telling his students that it was not worthwhile to major in physics, since all the very important discoveries in the subject had now been made. All that remained was a routine tidying up of loose ends, hardly a heroic task worthy of a Harvard graduate.”4 Twenty years later the same opinion seemed dominant: for example, in 1902 Albert Michelson, of Michelson-Morley fame declared that “the most important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted on consequences of new discoveries is remote.”5 And of course we all know of the scientific theories that once enjoyed consensus but are now discarded: caloric theories of heat, effluvial theories of electricity and magnetism, theories involving the existence of phlogiston, vital forces in physiology, theories of spontaneous generation of life, the luminiferous ether, and so on.[1]
Scientific consensuses then can and have been mistaken. In addition to this there is an important insight in the comment of the school board member who cost me employment. Given the fallibility of humans, even as a group, if God says something and the scientific community says something else then we have good reasons for thinking the scientific community is wrong and hence we do have a viable defeater for the testimony we have heard. God, understood as a all knowing, all powerful, perfectly good being, certainly is not mistaken and it is not as if he needs some scientists to enlighten him or correct his teaching.
I think the correct response is to allow science and theology to mutually correct each other. Take the case of evolution and the Bible. One needs to ask just how likely is it, given the evidence, that evolution occurred? One also needs to ask just how likely is it that the interpretation of Genesis underlying creationism is correct? If it is more likely that a literal interpretation of Genesis is true than it is that evolution is true then we should reject evolution despite the consensus in favour of it. On the other hand, if there are reasons for thinking our interpretation of Genesis is mistaken and that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming then we should conclude that God is not teaching us that the world is only a few thousand years old.
My own view is that there are good reasons for rejecting a literal interpretation drawn from what we have learned about ancient near-eastern texts from the same period. Evidence suggests that ancient genealogies did not function the way the literalist picture suggests and that much of early Genesis is a polemic against ancient near-eastern mythology rather than sober history. But my views are beside the point main point.
My point is that I think as Christians we need to say that both science and theology are valid ways of knowing and that human theorising in both fields are fallible.
There is a view in our culture which denies this, this is a view called scientism which claims, following Bertrand Russell, that whatever is knowable is knowable by the methods of science and what science does not tell us is not knowable. This is, however, a philosophical and theological view that rejects the existence of revelation. If we accept that God has spoken to humanity then we should not assume that God has not said something that is the basis for a legitimate critique of scientific claims or culture and if he has then we should not cower from offering such a critique despite the fact that the scientific community thinks otherwise. At the same time we should not embrace the kind of naiive theologising that reads the bible in English, ignores the fact that God’s word was mediated through human texts in different languages which essentially boils down to “God said it, that settles it” type thinking. Both approaches should be repudiated.
Let me make a final comment in this area. If we are to gain an accurate picture of the world then we need to take into account all information we know that is relevant to the question. If we bracket some information which is relevant then the picture we will only be probable on “part of the evidence” and may not be probable when everything else is factored in. If one accepts that science is the only way of knowing this does not matter much. Nor does it matter much if we think that all that is at issue is what we find in the scriptures. But if we accept, as I think we should, that both are valid sources of information then theologians and scientists needs to take others insights into account. There might be areas of reality in which both make claims. If scientists proceed ignoring information from theology that is relevant to what they study and theologians ignore what scientists are saying when it is relevant to the issue both will end up with a distorted view.
I think this picture applies to the issue of climate change. We have scientific claims about anthropogenic global warming being affirmed and contradicted in the media, in the pulpit, on talk-back radio, in the blogosphere and so on. Those of us who are not climatologists rely on testimony and we need to start being critical about whether much of what we hear is subject to defeaters. Similarly, the issue has moved beyond science into areas of ethics, public policy, laws and even pictures of eschatology. In these areas scientists are not experts and questions of theology and ethics, among other things, come into play and we need to have a method for negotiating this.
[1] Alvin Plantinga “Creation and Evolution: A Modest Proposal” in Robert Pennock Ed Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological and Scientific Perspectives (Cambridge, The MIT Press – Bradford Books, 2001) 785.
RELATED POSTS:
Epistemology 101: Science, Faith and Authority Part I
Epistemology 101: Science, Faith and Authority Part II
In: Contributors, political, theology
Hear Matt Preach on Acts
Matt will be preaching on a passage in the Book of Acts (he is still working on which passage) at our sister church, Riverhead Presbyterian on the corner of Arthur and Gt North Rds, Riverhead, Auckland at the 10am service this Sunday 25 July.
It is a small congregation and a wee bit of a drive for most but all are very welcome.
In: Contributors, political, theology
