http://www.truehorizon.org/index.cfm?i=9265&mid=25&blogid=3177 Thinking through science, faith and the relationship between the two ... Bob has been blogging at the True Horizon Blog since early 2006. You can find an extensive, searchable archive of posts on numerous topics there. Only selected posts or topical series related to science/faith issues will appear here. AdvancedMinistry Antony Flew died on April 8, 2010. For those who are not familiar with him, Professor Flew was, for a great portion of his academic career, considered the leading philosophical atheist in the world. He wrote several books defending his atheism and refuting the claims of anyone who believed in any kind of God. Then, in 2004, Antony Flew announced to the world that he had become a deist. The enormity of his "conversion" to belief in some kind of deity is hard to fathom. It was a courageous move on his part considering the flack and derision he received from many of his skeptical and atheist colleagues. Interestingly, Flew attributed his change of mind to the strength of the arguments he saw in the Intelligent Design movement. The evidence was simply too strong for him to ignore. If you want to read his own description of his intellectual journey his book, There Is A God: How The World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, is a quick and delightful read. Though (as far as I know) he never made the complete jump to Christian Theism, the book includes a concise, powerful account of the strongest argument he had ever heard regarding the resurrection of Jesus. It is an argument he received from a fellow British intellectual (and theologian), N.T. Wright that is outlined in Wright's massive tome, The Resurrection of the Son of God. I don't think anyone who is realistic could claim they would be honestly open to changing their mind about something as huge as the basis for their entire worldview. I wish more of us (on both sides of the atheist - theist debate) would be. It is a rare and courageous person who could do such a thing. One of Flew's favorite phrases was that he was determined to "follow the evidence wherever it leads." I greatly admire Antony Flew for his willingness to practice what he preached. I pray that he followed the Truth all the way to Christ, and that all of us would display the intellectual honesty and willingness to do the same. http://www.truehorizon.org/index.cfm?i=9265&mid=25&blogid=3177&comments=12190 12190 Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:25:00 +0000 [This is the 4th installment in this series. To see the others, click on the following links: Part 1 -- Part 2 -- Part 3]In his 1994 bestseller, Pale Blue Dot, atheist Carl Sagan offered this picture as the latest proof of the Copernican Principle and of humanity's breathtaking insignificance. In 1990, while at the edge of our solar system, the Voyager 1spacecraft turned its camera back toward its launch point and snapped this photo. Yes, that "pale blue dot" at the center of the photo is the Earth. Sagan's reaction to seeing this snapshot included the following ... Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves … It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. The authors of The Privileged Planet have a completely opposite take on this discussion. In their compilation of evidence that points to the Earth’s place in the cosmos as being special, Gonzalez and Richards, when analyzing such disparate data as: the size, orbit and position of the Earth as well as the interdependence of its ongoing formational processes, the size and location of the Moon relative to the Earth and Sun, the Sun’s composition and location within the Milky Way, and the structure of the galaxy itself; make a compelling case that each of these is fine-tuned to allow the existence of complex, self-aware life. But that's not all.They also show that the same factors that allow us to live in this place and time, also allow us the ability to discover just how unique and improbable it is that we live here. Our place in the solar system, our location in the galaxy, even the unusual size of the moon relative to the Earth, have allowed us to observe phenomena and make discoveries we could never have made if we were anywhere else. There is no reason why these two realities should be related to one another. But the fact that they are plays strongly into the idea that there is an element of design involved in our existence here. Theists have reacted with understandable indignation to the assertion that these are just anthropic "coincidences." Arguing that the factors involved in our appearance here reveal an incredible level of fine-tuning, theists demand an explanation for it. They also rightly point out that SAP and its progeny, MU, are not only products of pure speculation but that they are blatantly unfalsifiable. Man’s existence is special and the universe he lives in appears to point to him as its purposeful objective.And this brings me back to the reason I began this short series. As I watched the Hubble Deep Field 3D image in the original video and listened to the narrator's comment about how we live in "a very tiny place in the heavens" I realized that we can take that truism in completely different directions. Naturalists like Weinberg and Sagan take our existence here in this little corner of the cosmos to be a hopelessly brief and insignificant coincidence. Theists (like me) take it as breathtaking evidence that the entire universe was created not only with us in mind, but with us as its ultimate purpose.Yet we are both looking at the same data.I believe our response to the anti-theistic lines of reasoning, and the naturalistic worldview that spawned them, should include three commitments. First, we must insist on a commitment to truth. The Copernican Principle is based on a lie. Sadly, the distortions of this historical account have become so entrenched in the university, the culture, and even the church, that most Christians are completely unaware of them. It comes as a shock for most to hear that their understanding of the actual thinking of Copernicus and later Galileo, which led to their alleged “revolution,” is incorrect. As apologists, we must use every means possible to correct and disseminate the real story.Second, we must promote a commitment to objective reality and empirical evidence where this subject is concerned. This effort offers us common ground with even the most ardent naturalistic scientists. Science itself relies on a commitment to realism and disciplined analysis of empirical data. It despises the relativistic, non-rationality of postmodern philosophical thought that has driven this debate thus far. As such, the thinking that led to the “uncritical equation of geocentrism with anthropocentrism” must be questioned. There is no data that can be used to link these two conditions.The only way the latter follows from the former is by the infusion of metaphysical assumptions into the discussion. In particular, this allowance for naturalistic presuppositions led to SAP and MU in the absence of any supporting data. When speaking about scientific matters the debate should be confined to the data so that it can speak for itself and lead where it might.This commitment to objective analysis of the data is what defines our third commitment. When the data is analyzed the theistic hypothesis and the centrality of man to the creation both come crashing through all the rhetoric. The Gonzalez/Richards hypothesis offered in The Privileged Planet is one that combines data mentioned above about the habitability of this planet with parallel data that relates to our ability to observe and collect it. The authors combine these probabilities in their updated version of the Drake Equation.  In this way the multiplicative nature of the data demonstrates the vast mountain of improbability that the collective life-essential parameters must have scaled in order for us to be here.By this objective measure, the unfalsifiabilty and pure conjecture of MU are transformed from a threatening, infinitely-headed hydra into a theory with implications that could not conceivably be more beneficial to the theistic hypothesis. I say, let the naturalistic scientists have their way.Let them deduce MU from SAP. When the naturalistic scientist cites MU as the method by which all the design in our universe, including the existence of human life, is explained, he makes a startling admission. In essence he is saying that the level of design – that the precision of the fine-tuning of this universe – is so incredibly high that it requires an infinite explanation. This should give him pause because in his zeal to bury the theist he has offered an explanation that inadvertently, but perfectly, defines the God he so wants to avoid implicating.The irony here is stunning. Naturalistic scientists, seeking to demean the theistic hypothesis by capitalizing on the fact that the Earth does not sit at the physical center of the universe, have succeeded in elevating the importance of our existence to infinite levels.Realtors offer location, location and location as the most essential aspects of a property’s value. Though we may not be at the physical center, the data does suggest that we are at the habitable, observable and teleological heart of the universe. As far as location goes, one can hardly comprehend a more valuable, or a more remarkable, location than that. http://www.truehorizon.org/index.cfm?i=9265&mid=25&blogid=3177&comments=33532 33532 Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:39:00 +0000 [This is the 3rd installment in this series. To see the others, click on the following links: Part 1 -- Part 2]Considering the significance of our place in the cosmos has led many to the realization that, in some sense, the universe seemed to know we were coming -- that it looks designed to support advanced human life. This observation has been labeled the Anthropic Principle (anthropos = Greek for "man"). This is not just because we wish it was so. It is because there are so many factors so finely tuned to support life. There are literally hundreds of them and all of them have to be "just right" or life would not exist anywhere in the universe. Naturalistic scientists who play up the Copernican Principle have tried to claim that these anthropic observations are nothing but the rumblings of our hopeful imaginations or, at best, a string of amazing coincidences. They have done so by categorizing the anthropic "coincidences" in two ways.First, the Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP) can be seen as a logical extension of the Copernican Principle. WAP suggests that, whether or not our physical location has been moved from the center of the cosmos is irrelevant because there is nothing at all special about our existence anyway, regardless of where it is in space. In fact, we should expect to observe conditions, however unusual, that are compatible with, or even necessary for, our being here to observe the cosmos in which we live.Second, the Strong Anthropic Principle (SAP), proposed by physicist Brandon Carter, asserts an even more robust case for our existence in which he states that, “any universe with observers in it must be observer-permitting (emphasis mine).” Carter’s inclusion of the word “must” in his definition touched off widespread debate about what he meant to say but the result of this line of thinking has been that the importance of life on Earth was diminished, beyond the level of expectancy posed by WAP, to the point of a mandatory entailment.Not allowing the Copernican Principle any room for life’s meaningfulness to be introduced into the discussion, naturalistic science has literally taken the SAP to an infinite conclusion in the Multiple Universe (MU) hypothesis. There are several versions of this understanding of the nature of the universe, but they all share two characteristics – that there exist an infinite number of universes, and that they are all different. In this way, man’s existence descends to the level of pure chance and infinite unimportance. Thus “the Copernican Principle...explains all those ways in which our setting is commonplace [while] the Anthropic Principle[s] account for the exceptions.”The conclusions one reaches about this issue are all very dependent on the presuppositions one begins with. And this was my point from the beginning of the first post. I'll conclude with some thoughts on that the next time ... http://www.truehorizon.org/index.cfm?i=9265&mid=25&blogid=3177&comments=33531 33531 Sat, 10 Apr 2010 15:35:00 +0000 Ptolemy's Geocentric Universe [This is the 2nd installment in this series. The first is here] The unseating of the Ptolemaic understanding of the universe, first introduced by Copernicus (late 15th century), and verified through data analysis by Galileo (late 16th century), has been used to vilify theism and its sympathetic scientists for over 300 years. Here's why ...On the ancient view (like Ptolemy's: 90-168 AD) the universe could be best described as a giant "sump." In the given illustration (at right and the only decent one I could find), imagine the whole picture turned counter-clockwise 90 degrees. This puts the Earth at the bottom of the diagram, where the sump's bottom lies. On this view the value/worth of things increased as one went further "up" into the heavens -- or away from the sump. For instance, Hades was a really bad place to go because it sat beneath the Earth and you simply cannot get any lower than that. Just above the Earth was the "first heaven" or, as we would refer to it now, the atmosphere that surrounds us. When Jesus told us that the "kingdom of heaven" was "at hand" this is what he meant -- that the life God promised us was immediately obtainable right where we are now. We didn't have to go anywhere to acquire it. Just above the Earth (in the "second heaven") was the realm of the Sun, stars, and planets.The ancients believed the Earth was fixed at the bottom of the sump while these objects moved around above it within the second heaven. Thus the notion of a "geocentric" universe -- the idea that the Sun and stars moved around the Earth. Way out beyond the stars and planets was the "third heaven," where God himself lived. When Paul (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:1-3) relates his story of being "caught up to the third heaven," this is what he means. He is claiming that he was (somehow) brought into the very presence of God.All this is simply to show the ancient, geocentric view of the universe that had been around for some time but that was formalized by Ptolemy. When Copernicus came along and put the Sun at the center of things -- postulating that the Earth revolved around it instead -- what he actually did was move the Earth further away from the "sump" and out into the second heaven.This change, which has been mischaracterized by many ever since, actually moved the Earth to a more important position in the hierarchy of things! Regardless of the fact that the intent of neither Copernicus nor Galileo was to diminish the Earth's status based on its position; Regardless of the fact that the physical location put forth by these two Christian astronomers actually exalted the position of the Earth to a higher level than the Ptolemaic understanding. Despite these facts, the perception that man’s status within the universe was diminished by their discoveries continues to thrive. This has been the case because the revision of the physical location has been equated with a diminished view of the importance of man in the cosmos.This Copernican Principle, that we should assume that there is nothing noteworthy about the Earth’s cosmic position or the life it supports, has led to two follow-on views concerning our place in the universe. More on that next time ... ___________ NOTES ____________ Dennis R. Danielson, “The Great Copernican Cliché,” presented at the combined American Astronomical Society and American Association of Physics teachers meeting. San Diego, California. January 11, 2001. Guillermo Gonzalez & Jay W. Richards, The Privileged Planet. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2004. p. 248. http://www.truehorizon.org/index.cfm?i=9265&mid=25&blogid=3177&comments=33530 33530 Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:31:00 +0000 At our most recent Reasons To Believe local chapter meeting, one of our members showed the video clip above during a break and for no specific reason. I have seen it before but as I watched, it struck me how powerful a message this kind of discovery holds for anyone who sees it -- and how completely opposite an effect it can have -- depending on the worldview presuppositions of the viewer. Because of that "aha" moment, I decided I would devote a couple of posts here to addressing the impact of presuppositions, especially as in this specific case, they relate to the Copernican Principle. [This is a topic that is covered in depth in Gonzalez & Richards, The Privileged Planet if you want to delve into it more deeply] Looking at evidence like this Hubble Deep Field 3D image, and following the trend of more than three centuries of naturalistic presupposition, physicist Steven Weinberg once offered the following assessment of our place in the universe when he lamented: It is hard to realize that [life on Earth] is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat . . . The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless (emphasis mine). Because it would seem that incomprehensibility would be more apt to lead one toward a pointless assessment of some condition, Weinberg’s conclusion is paradoxical. But for Weinberg and his naturalistic colleagues, the roots of this appraisal go back to Copernicus himself. They rely on a gross misunderstanding of the Copernican emphasis on the Earth’s location as it relates to man’s existence. As the video ends, it seems to support the naturalistic view that our "very tiny place in the heavens" renders man's existence inconsequential. But a closer look at what Copernicus himself said, and at what really defines the significance of man's cosmic location, leads the Christian theist to a completely different conclusion. http://www.truehorizon.org/index.cfm?i=9265&mid=25&blogid=3177&comments=11818 11818 Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:33:46 +0000 We who believe that science is just one -- not the only -- method of discovering true things about our world, are constantly pounded for trying to connect science and faith and/or religion to our understanding of things. This is not allowed, "they" say. I submit that it is actually impossible not to do so. And I find it hugely ironic that those who are most vehement in their denunciation of both non-scientific answers to anything, and the related transgression of honoring a link between physics and metaphysics (no matter how limited) -- that those are the most inclined to ignore the science when it does not fit their pre-conceived narrative about the way the world has to be. Though I have absolutely no idea about his stance on faith or religion, I would love for all of us to subscribe to the view of the Nobel Laureate Physicist, Richard Feynman, one of history's most prolific scientists. Dr. Feynman gave the following description of scientific conduct when he spoke at the commencement exercises for the Caltech Class of 1974: "There is one feature I notice that is generally missing in 'cargo cult science' ... it's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty -- a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid -- not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and thing you though of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked ... Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them ... If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it." Isn't that a quaint idea? I wonder if the "scientists" at the East Anglia Climate Research Unit ever considered such a thing when they were deleting the Inconvenient Data or manipulating the data they did report? I wonder if the politicians who deny knowing when life begins would ever commit to the hour (or so) it would take to read some passages from any of many embryology textbooks about that exact subject before they vote to allow the killing of innocent human beings? I wonder if those who hype or blatantly falsify reports on the latest version of the "missing link" ever consider the ramifications of their actions, any alternate explanation for the evidence they give, or -- GASP! -- the possibility that they might be wrong? I wonder if those who vilify the very idea of Intelligent Design ever go to sleep at night wondering why they continue to insist that the agent-less process they demand as an explanation for complex-specified-information in biological systems is something they would never accept as an explanation anywhere else but in nature? I wonder if the Big Bang cosmologists who prattle on about the infinite "many worlds" hypothesis or a universe that "sprang from nothing without cause," ever stop to consider that the "theory" (pick one) they promote so vociferously amounts to indefensible speculation -- just like they assign (unfairly) to theistic believers? Unfortunately, the world we live in cares more about political victory than scientific integrity. Those scientists who don't toe the acceptable party line are ridiculed, chastised, and even fired for simply doing what Richard Feynman saw as an objective, honest approach to science. This tendency is sad to see, sometimes costly to allow, and always damaging to our common human pursuit of the Truth. Those of us who see this universe as God's creation should have no fear of science. Science is simply the way we discover and explore our Maker's work. It is one way that He speaks to us. It is nature's book (see: Psalm 19, Romans 1). We have no reason to distort it or hide what it says because, if our worldview is correct, our study of the world will never harm it. It is the anti-theistic denier who has motive to distort or misreport the scientific evidence before him because, ultimately, that evidence is an acid that destroys his view of the world. The irony here is thick. It is not those who subscribe to theism who "hate" science. It is those who subscribe to scientism -- the worshippers of science it self -- who fear it most. The human proclivity to fear our God is universal.   [I owe the Feynman quote to Peter Pearson of Aptos, CA, a letter writer to the Wall Street Journal on 12/3/2009, p. A22] http://www.truehorizon.org/index.cfm?i=9265&mid=25&blogid=3177&comments=10251 10251 Tue, 8 Dec 2009 12:23:05 +0000 A friend from church recently approached me to ask what I thought about the fact that his son, who will soon start his freshman year at the University of Cincinnati, was given Kenneth R. Miller's book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul as required reading for his freshman orientation. My friend's son is enrolled in one of the colleges of science in pursuit of an eventual medical degree. His concern about his son having to read the book is that the point of it is clearly spelled out right on the front cover: "in a few concise chapters, Mr. Miller pretty much dismantles all the claims, such as they are, for the intelligent design movement." In other words, a university -- which by definition exists to promote free inquiry toward a unified view of truth -- somehow finds it acceptable to indoctrinate its newest students with a dogmatic view of science that has nothing to do with science education. Why is that? The answer has little to do with the practice of science. It is not even about the definition of science as folks like Kenneth Miller insist. Instead, it is about the philosophy of science and the kind of implications that science is "allowed" to draw. Let me first say that no one from the Intelligent Design (ID) community that I have ever read would disagree Miller's view of what science is or how it should be practiced. Science is a systematic human endeavor meant to understand the way the world works. It is practiced by implementation of the scientific method that we all know and understand. No argument there. But Miller wants us to think that ID proponents are trying to change the definition of science for religious purposes (he says exactly that on page 187). This is the core idea of his book and he offers as proof a change that was made by the Kansas school board regarding the definition of science as it appeared in the state's educational standards. The original definition was ... "Science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us." The proposed change was this ... "Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building, to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena." Miller rejects the new definition because he believes it will bring science as we know it to a standstill (p. 197) and lead to the murder of the ingenuity and rationality of America's "soul." How so? Notice that the proposed change in the definition of science above does only two things. First, it simply spells out in more detail our understanding of the scientific method. This is not controversial by anyone's standards -- even Miller's. Second, it changes the goal of science from seeking "natural explanations" to "more adequate explanations." This is what Miller cannot accept. But notice that, for all his bloviating about the preeminence of science, the difference that sets him off is not scientific -- it is philosophical. Miller will only accept naturalistic explanations for all observable phenomena. Think about that for a minute. If we were to apply Miller's way of thinking to forensic science, an investigator analyzing a recently-deceased body would only be allowed to declare natural causes for the victim's death. Any attempt to imply that the death may have been due to murder -- the action of an intelligent agent -- would not be acceptable. Miller rules out implications based on an arbitrary presupposition -- that natural explanations are the only ones that are reasonable and allowable. That would be fine ... except that he wants to impose that arbitrary bias on everyone else. Apparently the University of Cincinnati (among most other institutions of higher learning) agrees with him and is happy to impose the same kind of intellectual prejudice on its students by means of a forced propaganda program aimed at incoming freshmen. Free inquiry indeed. Once you are aware of it, Miller's self-proclaimed defense of real science is exposed for the thinly-veiled philosophical objection it really is: "We live in a material world ... modern biology arises out of a conviction of the material nature of life ..." (p. 118)"[natural history] tells us that the specific details of today's living organisms were not the direct product of a flash of design in the dim and distant past. If they had been, life wouldn't be about change; it would be about stasis. The work of a designer would have been manifest in the perfect balances of nature, in the enduring constancy of his creations." (p. 123-4) How does Miller know these things? More importantly, how can he prove them under his own definition of science? The answer is that he can't. Rocks and waterfalls are also material in nature but surely don't constitute living things. Why are they not also "alive"? Apparently the material composition of a thing is not enough to fully determine whether or not it constitutes life. Things like conceptualization and imagination (just to name two) are products of the human mind but they can certainly not be explained by the physical interaction of chemicals in the brain for the simple reason that they are not physical themselves. We could hook detectors up to someone experiencing such a thing, monitor every electrical pulse going on inside their brain, and never know what they were "conceptualizing" unless they told us themselves. Miller claims to know not only how a designer "would" do things, but what constitutes a "perfect balance" in nature. If this isn't the height of arrogance, I'm not sure what is. Maybe Miller, knowing what an intelligent agent such as himself "would" do, ought to go about constructing a perfectly balanced nature for all of us -- or at least for himself. Here an ironic fact rears its head -- Miller would certainly consider the previous paragraph nonsensical and dismiss it as laughable because he knows he could do no such thing. Miller is a brilliant man; brilliant enough to know that such a goal would be impossible to achieve. The irony lies in the fact that he expects us to accept that the purposeless, unintelligent, "blind watchmaker" of natural selection is perfectly capable of doing such a thing. The fallacy in the arguments of Miller et al is that they operate under a philosophical paradigm that disallows intelligent causation in the natural world, and are therefore forced to interpret data with that presupposition in place. This is just basic circular reasoning -- assuming what you are trying to prove. The fact that a university would demand that its newest students adhere to this type of fallacious reasoning before they even show up at school should be troubling to those who think that the purpose of higher education is promote free inquiry. No one is questioning the way we do science. What the ID community is questioning are the conclusions we are allowed to draw from the data we evaluate in that endeavor. The implications of our study of nature are the most fascinating aspects of the pursuit of science. Some would say they are the only reason we do it at all. How such a thing could damage our collective soul or undermine the systematic approach we use to pursue the truth is beyond me, as is the reason Mr. Miller finds it so troubling. My disagreement with Dr. Miller hinges on his faulty philosophy. But his philosophy is not all that is wrong. The problem magnifies itself when his philosophical deficiency serves to undermine his whole case when it leads to an improper evaluation of the scientific case he makes against ID. More on that next time ... http://www.truehorizon.org/index.cfm?i=9265&mid=25&blogid=3177&comments=9788 9788 Sat, 7 Nov 2009 03:56:37 +0000 There is a certain topic among those involved in Christian apologetics that is very controversial to discuss -- but only within the church. For that reason it is a topic I do my best to avoid when I teach classes or discuss subjects that surround the issue. I think those who have been in classes I’ve taught that touch on this issue would vouch for the care I attempt to use in honoring both sides of the debate and purposefully trying to downplay my view. I don’t like to fight about it. I don’t think we should fight about it. But having said that, two events over the past couple of weeks have challenged me to quit being coy because I think being coy on this subject is harmful to the church, its mission, and the role of apologetics in that mission. So, I won’t be playing coy anymore. The subject is the age of the Earth. Christian apologists -- some more vehemently than others -- love to argue about whether the Earth is young (on the order of a few thousand years), or old (on the order of a few billion of years). Some, on both sides, who argue this point are nasty about it and will say things that are hurtful and harmful to their fellow Christian believers. They are more interested in winning an argument than in genuinely seeking the truth. Those who take the Old Earth (OE) view will talk down to those who disagree, call them stupid, or show disdain for the fact that anyone could be so gullible and naive as to believe in such a thing as a young earth. Those who take the Young Earth (YE) view are prone to use it as a test of orthodoxy. They seriously believe that if you don’t agree with them you are: 1) Capitulating to an atheistic/secular scientism, 2) Not honoring a high view of Scripture, and/or 3) Not taking the Bible “literally.” I say, “A pox on both your houses!” I will not engage in the nasty behavior or question the motives, sincerity or salvation of others. I will not argue about it. But I also will not be coy or pretend it doesn’t matter. It does matter. It matters because the logical Law of the Excluded Middle only allows that one of these views can actually be true. And that brings me to the first “event” that brought me to write this blog post. During our discussion of The Truth Project’s Lesson 5: Science (and as it always does when you discuss science in church), the age of the Earth issue came up. I did my usual carpet dance and tried my best to avoid taking a hard line position or revealing what I really thought. A friend of mine (who obviously has more guts than I do) raised his hand and said (paraphrased), “Wait a second. The point of this Truth Project thing is that Christianity is actually true. So, why are we saying it doesn’t matter. It seems to me that trying to insist that the Earth is only a few thousand years old makes us look like we don’t take science seriously. Which is it? Is the Earth old or is it young?” He was absolutely right, and he forced me to reluctantly admit to my own view. I had heard his argument before, of course, but my friend’s question, posed as it was in a class I was teaching about the reality of the Truth of Christianity, suddenly whacked me over the head like a baseball bat. It struck me that my evasiveness wasn’t doing anybody any good. Which brings me to the second “event” ... This one occurred when I received an email from Frank Turek that included an excerpt from an “exclusive interview” (published: 09/13/2009) with author Dan Brown. While discussing Brown’s newest book, The Lost Symbol, interviewer James Kaplan asked Brown: Question: Are you religious? Brown’s answer: I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, "I don't get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?" Unfortunately, the response I got was, "Nice boys don't ask that question." A light went off, and I said, "The Bible doesn't make sense. Science makes much more sense to me." And I just gravitated away from religion. Years after that encounter, Dan Brown went on to write one of the most popular books in human history, The DaVinci Code. This book sold more than 80 million copies all over the world and is one of the Top 5 best-selling fiction books of all time. Worse, it was written in such a way that many people didn't think it was fictional! Its denial of the deity and historicity of Jesus Christ was taken by many to be proven fact -- even by many in the church. In other words, you can draw a direct link from an unsupportable and untrue view of Genesis 1 to what became one of the most harmful and destructive books that orthodox Christianity has ever had to face … all because Dan Brown’s thoughtful question, answered in an intellectually cowardly way, led him to conclude that “the Bible doesn't make sense.” We say we believe in Dual Revelation -- the idea that God has “two books” -- that He speaks to us through Scripture and through Nature. I take both those books very seriously. I have a high view of both. And this is what I see in them. Though there is wiggle room in the amount of time that has transpired since Adam & Eve walked the Earth, there isn’t much. Even if we acknowledge that there are gaps in the genealogies we find in Scripture, there is no way to get past the fact that the Bible says Adam & Eve were the first human beings and that they showed up in the last 10,000 years or so. No disagreement there. But as clear and unequivocal as Scripture is about that, it is equally ambiguous about how much time transpired on the Earth prior to their arrival. The word “day” (Hebrew: yom) in Genesis 1 can mean anything from a “24-hour period” to a “specified length of time, an era.” So, to take a “day” to be a billion years is just as “literal” as it is to describe yesterday as Tuesday. At the same time, the record of nature gives us absolutely no evidence to support the claim that the Earth is just a few thousand years old. Scripture is ambiguous. Nature is not. Where the book of Scripture does not speak clearly, I will take he side of the book of Nature. This compels me to come out of the closet and be confident in saying … The Earth is old. We need to forget our internal church squabbles and get about engaging a culture that denies the truth and mocks our faith. I am more interested in making the case that God created the universe and why He did so. When he did it seems obvious to me. I won’t argue about it, but I also won’t hide the truth or pretend it doesn’t matter. It does matter. And the cost of avoiding the issue is just too high. http://www.truehorizon.org/index.cfm?i=9265&mid=25&blogid=3177&comments=9153 9153 Thu, 1 Oct 2009 08:34:13 +0000 Truth Project Lesson 5b: Science This week's continuation of the science topic leads us to keep the "big picture" ideas of the Truth Project in mind. What is true ... and what is the man-centered philosophy that constitutes the lies we see in the culture? Our study of science allows us to examine the "stuff in the box" to see if the Christian worldview holds up to these questions under scrutiny. What we find is a level of design in the creation that points clearly to the work of a Creator who fashioned this world and the life that inhabits it with and incomprehensible degree of complexity and order. Though these design inferences we make do not "prove" that the God of the Bible is the Creator (see last week's notes), they do show that life, and the design in the world that is needed to sustain that life, infers that the degree of care the Creator put into this creation is perfectly consistent with what the Bible teaches. It is important to note that Intelligent Design is not a retreat to ignorance as its critics claim. It is not a way to throw our arms up in the face of all this incredible evidence and just say, "It's too overwhelming. We can't figure it out, therefore God must have done it!" Nothing could be further from the truth. Intelligent Design is an "inference to the best explanation." It is a recognition that, in our collective experience, the only kind of source for things like the information and design we see in living systems has been that such things originate from an intelligent mind. Studying the stuff in the box has done nothing but confirm that idea and undermine the naturalistic alternative. Origin of Life The are several issues about how life originated on this planet that defy a naturalistic explanation. If you are interested in a little more detailed discussion of some of these you can go here: No Engines, or here: Origins of Life, but in a nutshell here they are. Darwinian Evolution Theory says that: Life began in a "primordial soup," but modern science has shown that no such soup existed. Natural Selection decides which forms of life are best suited for survival, but the origin of life scenario was a first event. By definition, natural selection had nothing from which it could select. Life must have evolved gradually, but the actual evidence shows that life appeared instantaneously in the planet's geologic history. First life must have been simple, but evidence shows that even the simplest forms of life are mind-bogglingly complex. The presence of oxygen in the early atmosphere would have inhibited the formation of life, but without oxygen, life can also not sustain itself -- a classic "chicken-and-egg" scenario. First life must have been able to self-replicate and metabolize, but doing so requires proteins and you cannot produce proteins unless you first have DNA -- another classic "chicken-and-egg" scenario. The Fossil Record By Darwin's own account, the Earth should be littered with billions upon billions of "intermediates" or "missing links" that would show the gradual development of every form of life. Yet 150 years after Darwin's pronouncement about that, the "latest discoveries" are few and far between. When we look into the claims of the latest "missing links" they always prove questionable at best, faked at worst, or are later found to be undermined by newer discoveries. In other words, a look at the evidence from the actual stuff in the box shows that Evolution does not pass the truth test. It does not correspond to the way the world actually is. Still, the mythology of Darwinism is perpetuated in our schools, in our books, and by a news media that is quick to jump on the naturalistic bandwagon. Intelligent Design is mocked and ridiculed as "not being science" simply because those who control the science cannot accept the implications and accountability that goes along with admitting that there may be something to the stuff outside the box. http://www.truehorizon.org/index.cfm?i=9265&mid=25&blogid=3177&comments=9118 9118 Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:05:41 +0000 Truth Project Lesson 5a: Science This week's discussion was more about philosophy of science than of science itself. There is a reason for that. The best science can hope to do is give us the what and how about the observations we make of the "stuff in the box." What it can never hope to offer us is the why -- the purpose or meaning behind the observations we make. As an illustration of this just ask yourself this question: "Can you measure your height with a speedometer?" If you don't think the question is a stupid one, you have to at least admit it's weird. What you cannot do is answer the question in any way that makes sense. You need a tape measure to determine your height; a speedometer just won't do. A speedometer is not designed to measure height. It is not the proper instrument to use for the task at hand. The same thing goes with science as it relates to making declarations about God. It is the wrong tool. We need philosophy and theology to do that. Science is the study of nature -- the stuff in the box == and God is not confined to the box. This fact goes both ways. We cannot "prove" the existence of God by simply measuring the stuff in the box. Likewise, the naturalist cannot "disprove" God by demanding that we are only allowed to discuss the stuff in the box. Unfortunately, both sides do this all the time. Both sides tend to attribute unwarranted delusions of grandeur to the power of science alone. That said, the science of cosmology (astronomy, physics, astrophysics) gives us some awe-inspiring evidence for the reality of a transcendent, enormously powerful being who exists outside the box. This doesn't prove that that being is the God of the Bible. We need other information to do that. But what it does do is show that what we know about cosmology is perfectly consistent with the Bible. Naturalistic scientists know this. They call it the Anthropic Principle: the idea that the universe seems to be designed with man in mind. They insist that this is a coincidence. "It may look designed," they say, "but you must always keep in mind that it is not." They go to great lengths to get around what seems to be a blatantly obvious inference. But the degree of "fine-tuning" of the universe that allows for life to exist anywhere at all is so incredibly complex and overwhelming, they have to explain it somehow. The latest version is called the Multiverse Theory (a.k.a. "Multiple Universes" or "Many Worlds"). This theory is a perfect example of how philosophy is cleverly disguised as science. There are many versions of the multiverse theory but they all have two essential things in common: That there are an infinite number of alternate universes, and ... That they are all different. From this it follows that the universe looks designed to us because we just happen to live in the one universe (among an infinite number of alternate universes) that got everything "just right." But notice something about this "scientific" theory. First, the reason they make this claim is not because they have scientific evidence for these other universes. They have zero evidence for them. Instead they make the claim because they cannot accept the implications of the evidence they do have about this universe. This is a philosophical position, not a scientific one. Second, we could never "find" an alternate universe. Any other universe, if it exists at all, is by definition undetectable. So, for these scientists to promote such a theory is pure speculation about something beyond our realm of existence that can never, in principle, be confirmed. This is not science! It is wishful thinking. It certainly isn't provable using the scientific method. That said, I actually love the multiverse theory, and here's why: By putting forth such a theory, these scientists are making a tacit admission that the level of design in our universe is so incredible, so overwhelming, so mind-boggling, that it requires an infinite explanation. Exactly. "The heavens declare the glory of God," even to scientists who cover their ears and close their eyes to it. No one is as blind as those who will not see. Next week: More scientific discussion about Darwinism, biology, DNA and the origin and diversity of life. http://www.truehorizon.org/index.cfm?i=9265&mid=25&blogid=3177&comments=9035 9035 Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:50:48 +0000