Noah, Gender Roles and Same-Sex Marriage
A quick reading of the Biblical story of Noah’s Flood might suggest that the only possible relevance of this story to the contemporary debate about same-sex marriage is that God sent this cataclysmic flood to punish the sort of corrupt and corrupting behaviour that gay and lesbian unions represent. One might also argue that efforts to dislodge Bible-long and most-of-church-history-long gender differentiations would and should invite the same angry response that God had to similar boundary breaking by angels and humans in Genesis 6:1-4.
The point is that we mustn’t tamper with what God has created for our good. We mustn’t violate what has been so clearly commanded in God’s Word, the Bible. There is certainly some historic and present strength in arguing along these lines, so much so that most conservative Christians will feel they simply have no room to move on gender roles and same-sex relationships.
I once thought that way – until some surprising implications of the story of Noah’s Flood began to dawn on me. I discovered that the same principles of interpretation that prevent some Christians from budging on homosexuality and gender roles also lock them into unsustainable views on other Biblical matters, including the historicity of Noah’s world-wide flood. Let me explain.
The Noah story
The main details of the Noah story are well enough known, and need only brief rehearsal. At the beginning of Genesis 6, God decides to wipe out every living creature (6:6-8), including the entire human race. Noah and his family alone are spared. They are given instructions to build an ark into which they are to bring seven of every kind of clean animal, two of every unclean animal, and seven of every kind of bird (7:2-3). In Noah’s 600th year, the springs of the great deep burst forth, the floodgates of the heavens are opened, and a forty-day and forty-night deluge is unleashed. With no let up, the floodwaters rise and rise until ‘all the high mountains under the entire heavens’ are covered, covering them to a depth of at least seven metres, (7:12, 20). ‘Every living thing on the face of the earth’ is thereby wiped out (7:23), except for Noah and those with him on the ark.
What makes this story so interesting and important is that it is so unambiguous. As a Sunday school child, I got the point – easily, quickly and frighteningly. Moreover, whenever the story is referred to elsewhere in the Bible, it appears that the writers are taking the story as straight-forwardly factual. Luke includes Noah in the genealogy of Jesus, suggesting he believed Noah to be an actual person. The writer of Hebrews includes Noah in his list of heroes of faith, along with other characters mentioned in Genesis 1-11. Jesus himself appears to have accepted the story of Noah as factual, as indicated by these words from the Olivet Discourse:
‘As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.’ Matthew 24:37-38 NRSV; parallel passage Luke 17:26-27.
That Jesus accepted the Noah story as factual is good reason for his followers to take it that way as well, as is the fact that the Bible as a whole appears to take it that way. Principles of Biblical interpretation I imbibed at theological college (Moore Theological College in Sydney) encouraged me to accept this story as factual. Three principles in particular, forged during the Protestant Reformation, were influential. The principle of sola Scriptura encouraged me to give much greater weight to what I read in the Scriptures than to other sources of knowledge, including the natural sciences. The principle of the analogy of Scripture encouraged me to be guided by what Scripture says about Scripture, to interpret the doubtful bits by the plain bits. The doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture asserts that the Bible’s meaning will mostly be obvious – and in the case of the Noah story this seemed correct.
Adding support to a plain-sense reading of the story is the fact that Jewish and Christian interpreters have mostly taken the story as straightforwardly factual. Norman Cohn, in Noah’s Flood: The Genesis Story in Western Thought, chronicles the history of theological reflection on the flood story from pre-Christian times to the present, and notes the near universal acceptance of the Noah story as factual, along with the chronology of Genesis implying a young earth. Many of the first geologists had a Bible in one hand and a pick or shovel in the other as they went about their geological work, convinced they would find ample evidence of a recent and cataclysmic flood.
The trouble is, they didn’t. The genealogies of Genesis 1-11, if taken literally, date Noah’s flood at around 2,300 BC, or about 1,700 years after the creation of the world. According to this dating, the flood happened a very short time ago, and therefore could be expected to have left abundant evidence of its occurrence. There is no such abundant evidence. In fact, there is none. While there is evidence of floods, even large floods, happening at around that time, and earlier, there is no evidence whatsoever of a universal or worldwide flood happening then, or at any other time in human history.
The Noah story, as it stands, faces formidable challenges to be accepted as credible today, challenges that can be expressed in the form of questions such as the following:
Where did all the water come from? 4.4 billion cubic kilometres of water would have had to be added to the oceans for Mt. Everest and other large mountain ranges to be covered.
Where did all the water go after the flood, and in so short a time?
How did the world’s plants survive being submerged for between five months and a year?
How did the world’s fresh-water fish survive their marine environment being swamped by salt water – or vice versa if the water was fresh?
How did Noah and his tiny family keep the animals alive – many with highly specialized dietary requirements? How, for example, were the carnivores fed and kept apart?
How did Noah manage to keep so many species alive? We now know that there are between 50,000 and 75,000 species of birds and animals and about 30 million modern and extinct species of organisms, which raises the problem of how they would all fit on the ark. Even if we assume that there were only two of each animal, rather than 2 plus 7 of some, it has been estimated that each of these animals would have needed to squash into the volume of a milk carton just to fit into the ark.
How did the animals manage to return to their specialized environments – many across un-crossable seas (e.g. Tasmania’s tiger; animals from North and South America).
How did the sloth, who doesn’t walk on land, manage to get all the way back to South America?
Where is the evidence of this massive destruction in places like Australia?
Questions such as these made it impossible, for me at least, to accept the Noah story as factual, even as largely factual. This wasn’t a disturbing realisation. By the time I had begun to ask questions about the historicity of the Noah story, I was already well aware of the widely accepted view that the early chapters of Genesis are best understood as myth, or as a mixture of myth and legend (Sage). Most scholars see the Noah story as a variation and adaptation of earlier Mesopotamian flood stories, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Atrahasis Epic, both dated to around the turn of the second millennium BCE.
That the Noah story might be mythical was not a big problem for me. However, I was aware that it constituted a considerable problem to those who persist with the hermeneutic I was taught and embraced at theological college. That there was a flood, and that a man named Noah and his family escaped the flood in a specially made boat, cannot reasonably be doubted by those who follow the Reformation principles of sola Scriptura, the analogy of Scripture and the perspicuity of Scripture, especially when you consider that Jesus and his apostles appeared to accept these details as factual, as have most Christians (and Jews and Muslims) up until the last few hundred years. Add to this the common belief among fundamentalists and evangelicals that the Bible is inerrant, that it has no errors, even of a scientific nature, the problem becomes enormous.
There have been two major responses to the problem among conservative Christians. The first is to persist in taking the story literally. This is the approach of those who describe themselves as creationists. The strength of this approach is its consistency. Creationists will often argue, with some warrant, that Christians who are not creationists are inconsistent – they take some parts of the Bible literally, for example, its condemnation of homosexual behaviour, but aren’t willing to give other bits the same respectful and believing treatment. Creationists are admirably consistent. The difficulty with their approach is that it runs in the face of mounting (in fact mounted) scientific evidence against a literalistic reading of the Biblical text.
The second response, which one is more likely to encounter among evangelicals, including Sydney evangelical Anglicans, is to suggest that Genesis 6-9 describes a localized flood. There are two insurmountable problems with this suggestion. The first is that it completely misreads the Noah story. To suggest the flood was localized entirely misses the point of the narrative, which is that God ‘regretted having created human beings on the earth’ (6:6), and would have entirely obliterated all life had it not been for his gracious sparing of Noah (6:6-8). It also seriously underestimates the size of the flood, which is said to top the ‘all the high mountains under the entire heavens’ to a depth of at least seven metres, (7:12, 20). That is no localized flood. Geologists have found evidence of large floods in Mesopotamia, in Ur, Uruk, Nineveh and Kish, for example, where flood deposits have been dated back to the fourth and early third millennium BCE. However, and significantly, other cities of the region show no such evidence.
A number of things are interesting and relevant for our purposes about this second suggestion. The first is that the only or major reason it has been suggested is because of accumulating scientific evidence. Most of the early geologists were Christian, many of them clergymen. They were the ones who first realized the flood could not have been universal – hence the more modest suggestion of a localized flood. Though I don’t think the suggestion works, it is significant that scientific advances have occasioned a re-reading of the Biblical text. It was under pressure from scientific discoveries that an alternative reading of the story gained widespread credence.
What was interesting to me as I began to think through the implications of these observations was the realization that the story of Noah’s gigantic flood would have seemed entirely credible in the ancient world, and even up until the last three or four hundred years. Those who first told and then wrote down Noah’s story are likely to have believed in a flat earth, above which was a firmament, above which were store houses of water able to be released in the form of rain. They would also have believed that the earth rested on water, and was surrounded by water.
This understanding makes highly credible the possibility of a universal flood. That the waters above and below and around the earth could flood the earth to a depth greater than the earth’s highest mountains would have seemed very possible. That the earth’s entire population of humans and animals could be wiped out by such a flood, that an ark could be built to house the world’s animals, and that these animals were within walking distance of the ark would have been plausible. The story is credible given ancient assumptions. However, we no longer share those assumptions. We have had to re-think the Noah story.
We also, I believe, need to re-think issues of gender and sexuality that are currently on the political and social agenda. For me, the realisation that we could, in fact must, take full account of contemporary knowledge in understanding and appropriating Biblical texts was liberating.
With respect to the issue of gender roles, I began (some years ago now) to wonder whether just as the Biblical writers had cosmological assumptions we no longer accept as true, they were also assuming a patriarchal understanding of male/female relationships no longer appropriate to 21st century life. Supporting this was the observation that within the Bible itself there is significant development. Starting at the beginning of the Bible, it is possible to plot a gradual, but real and sometimes radical dismantling of patriarchal assumptions as the Biblical story unfolds. It is likely that patriarchal assumptionsdo underlie the account of the creation of Adam and Eve and their subsequent fall.Those assumptions were ubiquitous within the Jewish culture that spawned that account. They are evident, and in some cases disturbingly evident, in the law codes of the Old Testament. Jewish law gave to men exclusive right to divorce their wives (Deuteronomy 24:1-4); a wife was considered the property of her husband, with few or no property rights herself (Exodus 20:17, Deuteronomy 21:16-17, Numbers 27:5-8); virginity and fidelity requirements were more deliberately and ruthlessly applied to women than to men (Numbers 5:11-31).
Patriarchy comes under significant attack in the ministry of Jesus, or at least earlier expressions of it do. Women are given the right to divorce their husbands (Mark 10:12). Jesus treats women with great respect, and readily accepts them as his disciples. He significantly elevates their status and role. Jesus’ example is followed by his apostles, including Paul. Paul may not have gone all the way towards dismantling patriarchy. However, one could argue that the trajectory established by Jesus and honoured by Paul was of such a nature that patriarchy, like slavery, can reasonably be set aside, especially in a world where women have come to show themselves capable of holding their own at all levels of human endeavour.
Another subject I have had to re-think of late is homosexuality. This was an issue I began to confront in personal and pastoral contexts from the early 2000s when I worked as an Anglican priest in Sydney’s inner suburbs of Redfern, Alexandria, Beaconsfield and Zetland. South Sydney Municipal Council houses a higher than average percentage of gay and lesbian residents. I was aware, in meeting and getting to know people of alternative sexual orientations to my own, that I had many prejudices, some of them created during my earlier nurturing in North American fundamentalism and Australian evangelical Anglicanism.
I wanted to have my prejudices challenged and, if necessary, overturned. I was heartened by changes I had noted within Sydney Anglican circles. There had been, in the past, an almost universal tendency to claim that homosexuality itself was sinful, regardless of behaviour. To be homosexual was to be sinful. That stance had already begun to be challenged when I first went to Moore College as an undergraduate. It has certainly been challenged since then, with many now recognising that homosexual orientation is simply that, an orientation, a possibly hard-wired tendency to be erotically aroused by people of the same gender. This understanding did not result from a careful reading or re-reading of the relevant Biblical texts. It came about under pressure from advancing scientific understanding. It also came about because of a new willingness by many to listen to homosexual people who were now bolder in telling their stories.
A year or two into my time at South Sydney Parish, I initiated, with the help of John McIntyre and good friend, Vic Branson, a pub discussion group called Quest. We ran it at the Parkview Hotel in Alexandria, a nearby suburb. One of the people we asked to speak at Quest was Rev. Dr Canon Stuart Barton Babbage. He had recently written his memoirs, Memoirs of a Loose Canon. In a long and distinguished career, Canon Barton Babbage had been Principal of Ridley College (in Melbourne), Dean of St Andrews Cathedral (Sydney), Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral (Melbourne) and Dean of the Australian College of Theology. What stuck longest in my memory from that night was Dr Babbage sharing with us the impact on him and his thinking of discovering that his son was gay. I can’t remember his exact words, but they were something along these lines: ‘This experience forced me to re-think my theology and to re-assess the adequacy of earlier understandings.’
Experiences like that, along with advancing scientific understanding, are forcing and/or encouraging many others (myself included) to re-think this issue. Those of us who identify as Christian must involve ourselves in what needs to be an on-going dialogue, a dialogue between us and the text of Scripture – to understand more fully what that text might mean (when it was written and for now), a dialogue with contemporary and evolving scientific research – to gain better understandings about what it means to be homosexual; a dialogue between those who are gay and lesbian and those who are straight – so we really do listen to each other; a dialogue among theologians and ethicists – as the implications of our thinking and acting are worked through.
This we must do as speedily as we can – for all sorts of good reasons, including the now urgent need to take seriously the heart-felt desire of our gay and lesbian friends to share in the benefits and responsibilities of marriage.
A related and less urgent challenge, one I haven’t yet fully put my mind to, is how to read and appropriate the Noah story for contemporary benefit and understanding.
Rev. Dr Keith Mascord
Note: this article picks up themes and some of the content of chapter 6 of A Restless Faith: Leaving fundamentalism in a quest for God (2012).It would be good to have the full text of that chapter (and, ideally, of the whole book) to inform discussion about this Blogg piece. To order your own paper or e-version, go to: www.arestlessfaith.com.au
Filed under Blog by on Apr 23rd, 2012. Comment. 
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Comments on Noah, Gender Roles and Same-Sex Marriage
Hey Keith,
Thanks for sharing the above. It’s fascinating to hear about what’s been happening in your life.
My one brief question about your argument in the above post is perhaps a category difference between Noah and homosexuality? You say that modern science has taught us we can’t believe the Noah story anymore, and thus we need to be open to modern science when it comes to (say) homosexuality.
The problem is perhaps that science questions the historicity of Noah, however homosexuality is not about historicity but morality. Moreover, science by its very nature can’t make moral judgements (as you know an ought can’t be derived from an is).
Just a thought.
God bless you,
Marty Foord.
” A related and less urgent challenge, one I haven’t yet fully put my mind to, is how to read and appropriate the Noah story for contemporary benefit and understanding.”
Maybe a good place to start is The Teachers Commentary (Revised Ed, 1955 SCM; pp104ff) – Genesis.
Great starter Keith.
Re contempory use of the Noah story, I am reminded of a comment made by Professor Charles Birch over 10 years ago now. He purloined Genesis 6:19 in the context of our ecological responsibility to the animal world – “… keep them alive with you.” Not a systematic approach I know, but full of possibilities; opening up the story in a new direction.
Hey Keith,
I remember an earlier incarnation of this paper.
I think there is need to be more discerning when we read the Bible and people need to be taught to recognise that there are different types of writing throughout the scriptures (historic, poetic, songs, laws, prophetic ect…) and our role is to sit under Scripture and understand how God intends for us, His created order to live for His glory.
Whilst i agree we have to be discerning there are a couple of issues i would like to raise with you as i think you are drawing too many conclusions that aren’t really in my view connected.
I don’t think that we can confuse the development of male female interactions in the Bible with the blessing of homosexual relationships. I think this is next to impossible to argue from scripture even when attempting to look at a trajectory. Luke Timothy Johnson writes “I have little patience with efforts to make Scripture say something other than what it says, through appeals to linguistic or cultural subtleties. The exegetical situation is straightforward: we know what the text says. But what are we to do with what the text says?….Ithink it important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good. We appeal explicitly to the weight of our own experience and the experience thousands of others have witnessed to, which tells us that to claim our own sexual orientation is in fact to accept the way in which God has created us” As you say you are basing this on your own interactions and personal relationships, but it is not possible to argue it from scripture, no matter how much you try.
The other area you appeal to is the development of scientific research. you mention it a couple of times yet the stuff i have read of “born gay” seem superficial and questionable at best. There is much more evidence of nature/nurture interaction and social influences.
the argument by which you arrive to the point where you say “including the now urgent need to take seriously the heart-felt desire of our gay and lesbian friends to share in the benefits and responsibilities of marriage.” i really think you are taking far too many liberties without looking into the biblical concept of marriage itself.
Yes the church has been appalling in its treatment of homosexual people, and the church needs to repent in areas where we have not loved out neighbors. This is not to say that loving homosexual people is the same as condoning behavior, i love my daughters but if they do something that is dangerous i will sit down with them and share with them my concerns. I have a group of lesbian girls in a spin class i run, they got to know me as a trainer first and it was only after a year that i “came out” as an Anglican Minister at which point one of them said to me “you’re a priest and you’re talking to us? don’t you guys hate people like me?” to which i pointed out that i still viewed them as beautiful people but disagreed with their lifestyle as i believe it not to be the best for them, and i want the best for them.
Unfortunately when it comes to this issue often there is this loud voice of “we want you to hear us, have a conversation with us” yet as an evangelical Christian I am not allowed to have a view without being labeled as “backward” or “homophobic” which i suspect will probably get thrown at me by some. yet can i point out that i do have many friends who are either practicing within homosexual/lesbian relationships (i love them, personally i disagree with their lifestyle just as much as they tell me they think i wasting my life away within my profession) or struggling with same-sex-attraction (i support them and encourage them to struggle against sin just as much as we all struggle against sin every day).
how is that for a first comment? please know there is no disrespect meant in this post keith, i still love and respect you as a lecturer, in fact i still think i have a copy of your PhD sitting around somewhere (tried to read it once and got lost) i just struggle with some of your conclusions.
Great start to the blogg! Marty, I am sensitive to the distinction between ethics and cosmology; and remember Graham Cole talking about a principle of ‘proximity to the personal’ to indicate a prioritizing of matters to do with theology and anthropology over more impersonal matters – including cosmological or scientific issues. While I found it helpful at the time, I am not sure how it can be sustained. Do we say the Bible contains scientific errors, but not errors of ethics, and if so, on what authority? Moreover, there does appear to be a trajectory within Scripture – even at the level of ethics, with Jesus’s teaching on love for enemies having profound ethical impact – so much so that reading the Psalms can be difficult because attitudes there sometimes jar sensitivies honed by Jesus, his teaching, life and death.
Not too much can be made from my argument (within this discussion piece); the most I am saying is that on certain issues the Biblical writers got it wrong – largely because of limitations of understanding – some of which were corrected within the span of the Scriptures. It could be that new knowledge (and it is very new, and even uncertain at points, as Josh points out) will occasion a necessary re-think in this area. If so, we’d need to work harder at the Biblical texts to see what principles they were appealing to (implicitly, unfortunately); how those are grounded, and how we might continue to take heed to what they were saying.
Re the nexus between what is and what ought to be – I’ve long held that what is right for humans (determining the ought) is and must be grounded in what is best for humans (the is). Ethics arise out of metaphysics (somehow). In discussing homosexuality we must ask what is best for gay and lesbian people, what is best for us as a society, what is best for children etc etc. Scientific studies do have something to say (given their essentially inductive and observatioonal nature) about these things.
Just a few thoughts. I wish I was a better ethicist!! Blessings to you also.
Good suggestions, for sure, Clive. I did preach on Noah a year or two back, but from memory concentrated on the hermeneutical issues. It would be really good to re-think the story – and somehow get over some of the ethical challenges. Cheers, Keith
Exactly – I wonder how to avoid the scaryness of the story – it freaked me out as a child. Most children’s bibles airbrush the horror away – which raises the interesting possibility that it might not be the best of children’s stories. I don’t know!!!
Great first comment – Josh. As I mentioned to Marty, the paper (as it stands – and without the associated arguments found in the book (which you are yet to receive!!) really only makes the simple point that it might be the case that limitations of knowledge and understanding – which are obvious throughout the Biblical text, because it is ancient literature sharing various ancient assumptions – mean that we must re-visit the issue of homosexuality. The Noah story was accepted literalistically up until the last 200 hundred years (and still in creationist circles) – and genre didn’t help much, actually, because it wasn’t clear what the genre was – but that understanding has now been rendered unsatisfactory and unsustainable.
There is some parallel with homosexuality. It has only been in the last 10 to 20 years that evangelicals (including here in Sydney) have conceded – and most now do – that homosexuality is not something that results from nurturing variations, but is, in some sense, hard-wired (as I understand things, the evidence is all moving in that direction). That is a huge shift – as I say in the paper, not occasioned by fresh exegesis, but by fresh scientific evidence.
I’d be very interested, however, in the evidence you refer to around nurture or circumstances. I had thought that was pretty much discounted as being of major significance. I think even groups like Liberty are conceding that people cannot shift from being homosexual to heterosexual (or visa versa), though the situation with women is more fluid, I understand.
I do agree with you that there is no trajectory within Scripture on homosexuality (though there seems to be with male-female relationships). But nor is there a trajectory within Scripture on Noah. In both cases, there was no reason (no new knowledge or understanding) to create a trajectory. The fact that there is movement within Scripture on some issues (eg the afterlife) means that there MIGHT be movement beyond Scripture on others – like homosexuality.
Nor do I think that we need to disrespect Scripture. As I mentioned to Marty, if we think we need to re-visit this issue (homosexuality), we will need to try even harder to understand (or attempt to understand) what were the principles being employed by the Biblical writers in making what were (as you say) straightforward commands. But note that women are commanded to cover their heads. We don’t do that – nor should we. We look beyond the command to the principles that underlay it – and then act appropriately in light of those. We have to do the same with homosexuality, I think.
Re marriage, I am working on another paper – maybe the next blog. This first blog doesn’t argue the case for same-sex marriage – just tries to give some space for such an argument.
Cheers – and thanks for the respectful engagement
Keith
Keith, can I suggest that if you think “scariness” should remove the Flood from children’s reading lists, it may suggest you are a little more distant from reading stories to young children than you realise! Children’s stories have always been, traditionally, bloodthirsty, violent and enigmatic.
just a thought keith, it would be worth talking to your IT guy and getting him to put a “subscribe to comment” button on the posts, so that you can get alerted to when people comment or reply rather than having to keep checking back.
Fair call, Michael. Reflecting on my own early encounters with the Noah story, I don’t think I was traumatized by it – though the scaryness of drowning did exercise my immagination. But maybe there is a bigger point here that stories like Noah’s flood story tap into some pretty primal fears and feelings; being overwhelmed by chaos. Myths and children’s stories are very similar types of narrative. What do you think? Keith
Hey Keith,
Thanks for your response. A couple of thoughts.
Firstly, the genre of Gen. 1-11 gives me plenty of evidence that it’s a kind of history very different from the other historical books in the Bible: a talking snake, the seed of the woman didn’t literally crush the serpent’s head [later in the biblical narrative], the ages of the people, where did Cain’s wife come from, etc. etc. It’s laced with symbolism. This has been admitted by theologians since the early church. For example, Augustine didn’t take the 6 days literally but believed God created all in an instant. He was aware that his kind of story is different to other historical works in the canon (and outside of the canon). So I’m a bit surprised you use Noah as a test case. Why don’t you try an example outside of Gen. 1-11?
Secondly, if the Bible can make theological and moral errors, what yardstick do we use to judge where the Bible is in error? In other words what authority are you using to establish the “good” and human flourishing (if indeed that is what is good)?
Thirdly, and following from this, we seem to agree that science can only describe not prescribe, and that science can be used once we know (from outside science) what the good is. Again, so where are you finding your notions of the good from?
Fourthly, Jesus’ teaching about loving one’s neighbour doesn’t necessarily contradict the imprecatory elements in the Psalms. We must take into account the salvation historical shift that Christ brings. The NT teaches that judgement day (the OT “day of the Lord”) is coming, it’s just that now Israel’s work of judgement (under God) has devolved onto Christ. Hence, we as believers are not to take vengeance on our enemies, because Christ one day will in an appropriate manner. There is a deep longing in the NT for injustice to be overthrown, it’s just we believers who will be the appropriate instrument to do so. That’s for Christ.
Hope you’re well Keith, and God bless you,
Marty.
*it’s just that we believer will NOT be the appropriate instrument to do so. That’s for Christ.
Hi, Marty,
Apologies for the slowness of reply. Re genre, point taken that this is a different form of literature than the more historical sections of the Bible – and yes this has been acknowledged for a long time. However, the issue of what sort of genre is being employed in these early chapters has been contentious – and not helped by the ‘plain meaning’ approach encouraged by the Reformers -and taken to extreme by fundamentalists. However, I ought to say that I received an email today (gracious and helpful) from one of Sydney’s better theologicans who informed me that he/she believed in Noah and a worldwide flood – pretty much as described in teh Bible. Theologians, including Augustine, I think, have consistently (throughout all of church history) that there was a person called Noah and that there was a worldwide flood (as described in Genesis 6-9. I’d be interested in your throughts on the genre of Genesis 6-9; whether you think there was a person called Noah, whether you think there was a flood – and, if so, whether it did wipe out the human race (apart from Noah and his family). It is because the answers given to those questions are so important to my argument that I use the Noah story. I am hoping you have a copy of the book to access the larger discussion in chapter 6.
Re your second point (and, by the way, having to wrestle with these very good questions is really good for me), if one does succeed in establishing that there are scientific or cosmological errors or errors of fact in the Biblical text (which I think can fairly easily be done), then the possibility of theological and ethical errors is certainly raised (hence the appeal – for some – of inerrancy as a doctrine). What I think is required (if this concession is made) is an argument to show why the Bible cannot be in error in its theology and ethics. That is a hard ask – and I would be interested in your thoughts. In terms of how we determine error, one simple method is to compare statements made earlier in the Biblical narrative to those made later – and sometimes earlier statements are contradicted by later ones (for example on the characteristics of life and after death) – and so a trajectory is established. We also learn from observation and study – and that has and will feed into our understanding of the Biblical text. One interesting example I was made aware of last week by Alan Craddock. He has done research – and referred us to other research – which indicates that an egalitarian approach to marriage works better – and is a predcitor of marriage success; with patriarchal models more likely (in a contemporary setting) to result in abuse and the dminishment of marriage happiness. If the reseach is accurate – and if it could also be generalised to more traditional socities – it would provide reason to re-think Christian ethics (and anthropology).
Re your third point – and I will try to be brief – I don’t agree that scientific prescriptions are irrelvant when it comes to prescriptions concerning human behaviour. I think I argued that they must be connected. There are hundreds of studies to demonstate the devestating impact of child sexual (and physical and emotional) abuse; these certainly provide warrant for not abusing children. I think we would agree that what is good for us (empircally) is the basis for what is good morally. Meta-questions about the ultimate source and grounding of the good – are good questions – and maybe better discussed over the phone or this will be become a treatise – but in brief, any such discussion cannot begin simplistically with the Bible. Understanding and appropriating its riches and wisdom will ineviatably involve a dialectical process necessarily involving reason, tradition and Scripture. As you can see, I am a good Anglican!!
Re the fourth point, have run out of time – but I am not quite convinced by what you say.
BUT REALLY am enjoying the chat! Apologies to others who have to wade through this stuff!!!
Blessings
Keith
As an atheist without bias, i found this article quite enlightenment, especially on context of having a faith and accepting science and adapting religious context to contemporary society.
It’s good, valuable read!
Keith, You really don’t need to apologise for the discussion. Marty has raised some points that are good for discussion. It helps the rest of us to see our way through the mire.
Apologies for taking so long to approve your helpful comment, Mr or Ms Johnson. My computer crashed, but is now back in operation. I do think it is vital, and even essential, to be open to truth whatever its source; regardless of our faith commitments.
You and others accessing this Blog may have read a cut down version of the Blog piece published in Monday’s Sydney Morning Herald and/or The Age. You can access the article at: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/beliefs-must-be-tempered-by-facts-20120617-20i3t.html
The Opinion piece was responded to in Letters to the Editor: at the following link: http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/flawed-flood-tale-not-a-watertight-reason-for-change-20120618-20k40.html
I was especially impressed by the first published letter by Reverend Dr Con Campbell – not because he ‘talked me up’, but because he responded respectfully and graciously AND because he raised some good points – raised already on this blog by Marty Foord. It is OK to disagree, but how we disagree needs to accord with our values – and, for me, as a Christian, respect, humility and truthfulness are of paramount importance. Con’s letter was a model of how to disagree. I will invite Con into the discussion on this blog – and hope he has time in the midst of his busy responsibilities at Moore College.
Hi, David. Thanks for the encouragement to longish responses – the article itself is long by blog standards, I think. I thought I might be indulgent and respond to the points raised by Con Campbell in his respectful and relevant Letter to the Editor in yesterday’s SMH.
Con argues that ‘the “scientific” or “historical” issues raised by reading Genesis 1-11 are primarily questions of genre. In the view of the best contemporary scholarship, this part of Scripture is both pre-science and pre-history, it is probably best described as “saga” (not myth).’ Con is completely on the mark with this comment – I argue along identical lines in Chapter 6 of A Restless Faith (pp. 116, 117). The issue of genre has exercised critical scholarship for some time. I mention the work of John Van Seters who sees one of two likely processes at work in the creation of the literature of Genesis 1-11; the historization of myth, or the ‘mythologisation of history’; I think the former more likely given the pre-existence of similar flood myths.
The point of the argument in the blog piece (and the SMH shorter article – and in the book) is that Jesus and the Apostles (and the writer of the book of Hebrews) don’t appear to understand the literature in those sorts of terms (though one might argue that they do); moreover, principles forged in the Reformation (and adhered to by most Protestants) lead people to take Jesus and the Apostles at face value – and so they accept the Genesis 1-11 stories as factual (in some senses at least). I received an e-mail from a highly respected evangelical theologian yesterday who said she continued to believe in a world-wide flood – I think, precisely because, of those guiding reformation principles (as well as the doctrine of inerrancy).
What I have argued is that advances in scientific understanding (with Christian geologists at the forefront of these advances) have altered the understanding of Christians and others – with most people shedding belief in a universal flood. That is the simple and fairly limited point.
I don’t think Con is quite right to say it is simply a matter of genre – especially when a number of his colleagues (I suspect) would still say they believed in Noah and Adam and a big flood.
Con goes on to what is his main point, which I will include (in case you haven’t read the SMH/Age piece): ‘To then re-think texts that speak clearly about homosexual practice but are written in vastly different genres (eg the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans 1:18-28) commits the fallacy of conflation, perhaps better known as “comparing apples to oranges”.
Rather than make this as big as the original blog piece, let me make some dot-point responses – to keep the discussion flowing!!!
* the idea the the genres are ‘vastly’ different is question beggging; most Christian believers down through the centuries have taken the Noah story as literal fact – creationist bag evangelicals for not doing so;
* one of the major reasons scholars have felt they needed to come up with alternative genre suggestions (eg saga) is because of the pressure of scientific discoveries; including archaeological and literary studies – which is kind of my point – science has precipitated re-thinks – it has done and will continue to do so, no doubt;
* I will need to ask Con to clarify what he means by suggesting I am comparing apples to oranges’ – as far as I can see, I am only talking about apples (or oranges); with each apple being an instance of an advance in scientific understanding encouraging a re-think; just as advances in cosmological understanding have precipitated a re-think of the genre of Genesis 1-11, advances in understanding about homosexuality are likely to precipitate a rethink about the relevant texts;
* advances in understanding about homosexuality have already significantly changed peoples’ thinking within the Sydney Anglican church, for example. It was once thought that homosexuality was a life-style choice; a peverse life-style choice. Most Sydney Anglicans no longer think this. Why, because of the science, not because of better exegetical work. In fact, this new undertanding (that homosexulity is not something people choose) has created some cognitive dissonances that are, in fact, sending people back to the relevant texts;
* A couple of things have been pointed out to me in the last couple of days, and I will finish with these; one is that cosmological assumptions are likely to stand in the background to OT prohibitions of homosexual behaviour (so ethics and cosmology are not inter-related); I need to follow this up, but I think what might be in mind is that the writers of Genesis and of the OT law codes believed that since God created things within their kinds, any bending of the fixed creational boundaries was wrong, but what we are now becoming much more aware of is that the strict division into male and female is not quite so neat as we once believed, with anthropological and ethical implications that we are currently beginning to think through.
* the last point is that Romans 1 may need to be read in light of how Paul would have understood homosexual practice. Evidently, in his Jewish and 1st century milieu, homosexaul practice was considered to be an expression of power and peversion (equivalent to child sexual abuse in our consciousness); it is possible, Paul would have had no experience of or awareness about long-term committed adult relationships by people who have been born gay or lesbian; it may not have even been in his sights. Once again, scientific advances are making a difference and are (rightly) shaping this important debate we are having.
Thanks again to Con for raising these imporant points. Cheers Keith
@Keith Mascord:
What are you doing writing posts at 1:29am, Keith? Beauty sleep! Beauty sleep!
Oh, I see. The time-line is out. Just ignore me. Much like the time-line of my upbringing which had the earth beginning 6-10 thousand years ago. I still maintain that sleep before midnight is crucial, but now it doesn’t seem so important to point it out. This is my first time blogging!
This is my first time blogging too!!! How much fun is this! As for being sleep deprived, I haven’t been sleeping quite so soundly. You could say I have been sleeping like a baby – that is waking up far too often!!!
@admin: @Mike Paget, children stories have not, as you opine, “always been… bloodthirsty.” There are hundreds of stories for children that are not bloodthirsty. Can I disprove your claim in 10 seconds? I ‘googled’ “top ten children’s stories”, followed the first result, and it produced #1 The Tortoise and the Hare, and #2 The Little Engine that Could; neither of which seem bloodthirsty. Further, there is a big difference between telling kids of a scary, talking wolf (yet reassuring that fairytales aren’t real) contrasted against claims that “Jesus is no fairytale”; that Bible stories are completely true; and that “The Lord saw how bad the people on earth were… He was very sorry that he had made them, and he said, “I’ll destroy every living creature on earth! I’ll wipe out people, animals, birds… I’m sorry I ever made them.” (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen%206:5-7&version=CEV); Oh, and you kids should dislike / not be like the big, bad wolf, but you should love God with all your heart! Perhaps I am completely wrong. Nonetheless, re. your suggestion (‘[Keith is] a little more distant from reading stories to young children than [he] realise[s]!’) seems lacking in any merit (or purpose or love).
Hi Keith. I have read your book and I really appreciate your honesty both in the book (and here), and the tone in which you have written it.
I’m not really sure if my objection below is too tangential to be worth a reply (or new thread) and I am aware that the ‘slippery slope argument’ is often not very helpful, so please do take my tentative remarks below with a grain of salt.
I am just wondering if a Christian person who takes scientific findings as determinative of biblical interpretation can, with integrity, believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
I have yet to read a scientific paper that makes the bodily resurrection (not resuscitation) of a dead person after 1.5 days possible. Nor have I read any scientific paper that makes this resurrected person able to appear in a locked room without going through the doors.
Do we then need to “do a Bultmann” on NT data too and treat accounts of the resurrection (and miracles) and appearances of Jesus (not to mention his heavenly ascension) as stuck in a Judeo (or Hellenic) cosmology that simply does not accord with science, therefore requiring demythologizing?
Kind regards. Pete.
Keith, I think some of your exegesis needs a bit more work e.g. your comments about divorce in Mark 10. I think there is, as I have said to you privately a parallel in your criticism of JW and your own hermeneutic – that is the privileging of particular centuries. It is the capital T Tradition which I think you both need to take into account. God has placed teachers in the church and not all of them are alive at the moment – we must not disenfanchise the dead- in-Christ. Raymond
Two related and important comments (by Peter Ko and Raymond Heslehurst). Not just because I am an Anglican, but also because I am an amateur philosopher poorly read in hermeneutics, I am committed to the often subtle and hugely important and inter-dependent roles of reason, tradition and Scripture. The Reformers may have privileged Scripture (in theory and perhaps not universally), but the truth is they each depend on and inform each other in the task of seeking understanding.
Peter, I wouldn’t want to make scientic findings determinative – for two good reasons: science at its best is humble and very often provisional in its findings; and secondly because of its inbuilt and self-chosen limitations (restricting itself to regularities in nature). There is more to reality than can be investigated by scientific method. Hence there is room for surprising interruptions to the normal – like the resurrection. Science ceases to be science when it pontificates on what is possible or not!
However, scientific enterprise often does come up with conclusions that it would be unreasonably to deny (age of the earth, lack of a worldwide flood during human occupation, end of the dinasour age; rotation of the earth around the sun etc etc). Theology has mostly been able to negotiate the changes necessitated by advances in cosmological and anthropological understanding – hence the value of something like the doctrine of accommodation.
Fair call, Raymond that Tradition can get left behind in the robust dialectic currently happening between science (reason) and Scripture; we are all deeply and valuably enmeshed in Tradition; we look at Scripture inevitaby through the grip of our traditions – some of which, I argue, are obscuring (eg inerrancy).
Some demythologizing is inevitably needed – where it begins and stops will depend on all sorts of factors – with genre important. Got to go. Am in Melbouren!! But thought I would keept the discussion going. Rather than me responding – others should weigh in!!
Cheers – well not so much here in Melbourne!! It is cold and rainy!!!
Keith,
Some pretty wild claims made in your piece, all made to buttress one point: the prohibition against homosexuality has to be rethought due to scientific progress.
Now, the very last word in the paragraph above should be a reminder what science does: it changes. There is no absolute certainty, and certainly not to the degree you believe.
Permit me to ask some questions.
1. “Those who first told and then wrote down Noah’s story are likely to have believed in a flat earth.” In all seriousness, given that the whole concept of Christians believing in a flat earth was a porky begun by atheists in the 19th century, would you like to give me the documented evidence that these people who wrote Noah’s story down believed in a flat earth?
2. “What stuck longest in my memory from that night was Dr Babbage sharing with us the impact on him and his thinking of discovering that his son was gay. I can’t remember his exact words, but they were something along these lines: ‘This experience forced me to re-think my theology and to re-assess the adequacy of earlier understandings.” Let’s change the good doctor’s son’s “affliction” to atheism or bestiality. Would Babbage be moved to then also rethink his theology?
3. “However, scientific enterprise often does come up with conclusions that it would be unreasonably to deny e.g. age of the earth”. If you had made this statement 2 centuries ago in Britain a respectable figure would have been 96 million years old. In Russia, several hundred thousand years, and if in France, 75,000. By the 19th century, Lord Kelvin estimated somewhere between 20 and 40 million years, the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz argued for 22 million while a Canadian astronomer Simon Newcomb backed 18 million years. And so on. The real issue here is testability. For example, how do you quantify the initial amount of material you are counting that is your guide to something’s age? This is particularly difficult (?impossible) if no one was around to measure it.
4. “There is more to reality than can be investigated by scientific method. Hence there is room for surprising interruptions to the normal – like the resurrection. Science ceases to be science when it pontificates on what is possible or not!” But surely the Flood was just as much done by the hand of God, as Scripture said it was, as was the resurrection. But of course, if you don’t believe the Flood history, then God need not be mentioned. Ditto with the resurrection, I guess. And if one doesn’t believe God is Creator, then scratch him from the Creation history. And so on, and so on…
5. If you told me that there is no evidence for ETs I would expect you to put some thought toward, for the sake of intellectual integrity, what would disconfirm your proposition. If you said nothing would, then I would be justified classifying you as an idiot, dishonest or both, not because there are people who believe in aliens, but because the strength of any proposition’s claim to truth should minimally be measured by the degree to which it can be falsified. So, Keith, what evidence would disconfirm your belief that a worldwide flood had not occurred?
Kind regards
Marc
Hi, Marc,
You have asked some good questions – which I’d be happy to attempt to answer, but I wonder if others accessing this blog might like to have a say. I don’t think blogs are meant to be a two-way conversation. However, let me make a few comments:
1. Your opening statement: ‘Some pretty wild claims made in your piece, all made to buttress one point: the prohibition against homosexuality has to be rethought due to scientific progress.’ is perceptive. The argument doesn’t establish much more than what you say (though to the extent that what I say is accurate, it does have implications for certain doctrines or suggestions including inerrancy). I intend to put up another blog piece that advances the discussion a little further.
2. Comparing homosexuality and atheism or bestiality is unfortunate, emotive and misleading. Unless you believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice (and a bad one at that), the comparison is flawed; as Con suggested, a case of comparing apples with oranges.
3. Re what would disconfirm my belief that there wasn’t a world-wide flood (or even very, very large flood covering mountains in Mesopotamia), the answer is simple enough: sufficient evidence of large enough flood deposits dated to a period within which human beings lived on earth. For up to 200 years, the evidence has mounted in the opposite direction. The reason I chose the Noah story is because it is eminently falsifiable (that is, the story taken literally). Most of the people who have contributed to this blog don’t take it that way.
Cheers
Keith
Keith, I think some of the science/proof discussion fails to express the possibility that there is an answer which neither confirms or refutes a matter. For example the literary structure of Genesis marked by the “these are the circles(generations) of…” does not give us sufficient material to make some comparisons we “Greek/Latin schoolmen” desire. While the Fall-judgement/redemption-societal fall clearly speaks of the human condition and Devine response it leaves out much detail I may like to know. Or to use a different example; Why does day seven have no end? I can give a theological answer but would argue you can make no statement about method from Gen1.1 to 2.3. Judgement in both science & theology must sometimes be suspended.
Dear Keith,
Thanks so much for responding again. It’s helping me grasp where you’re coming from. I feel like now we’re getting closer to the issues at hand. Please don’t apologise about taking a while to get back to me. Life is very busy for all of us!
Firstly, concerning Gen. 4-11 and Noah. I think a good case can be made for (i) seeing Gen. 1-11 as analogical / symbolic history; and / or (ii) seeing the flood as not universal (from the text itself and the rest of the Bible itself). But let’s say (i) for arguments sake, then my question still stands: can you find another example outside of Gen. 1-11 that will achieve the same purpose as you intend with your use of the Noah story?
Secondly, I’m struggling to see that you’re not illegitimately collapsing science into morality. How possibly can science give us moral answers? Science and psychology are descriptive only. A scientific study might tell us that a certain lifestyle choice X leads to (say) depression. But that doesn’t make X either right or wrong. The study simply tells us there’s correlation between X and depression. It’s then a moral issue whether we think depression is a good or a bad thing for a person. Science can’t decide that (and neither can psychology). Good and evil aren’t categories that science can deal with. You may think it’s obvious that depression is bad for someone. The point is to get assumptions we have out in the open, because too much in the name of “science” has nothing to do with science. I’m not saying we can’t use science once we have a set of morals (derived from outside of science). I’m just simply saying we can’ commit a category error that confuses science and theology (morality).
Thirdly, I still think you don’t appreciate the large jump you’re making from scientific error (in Scripture) to theological error (in Scripture). Concerning scientific error in the Bible: just because biblical writers had pre-scientific worldviews I can’t see that the Bible would commit anyone to have a pre-scientific worldview. The Bible doesn’t anywhere demand we believe pre-modern scientific ideas. So, the issue of scientific “error” (in Scripture) really isn’t an issue.
Concerning the link you want to make between scientific error leading to theological (and moral) error in the Bible, that’s a huge leap that IMHO ignores the Bible’s telos. The purpose of the Bible is to make us wise for salvation (2 Tim. 3:15). It is not to instruct us in science, but is designed to instruct us in theological (and moral) issues that pertain to final salvation. They are two very different things, which (it seems to me) you’ve collapsed.
So, I want press you, if there are theological errors in Scripture (and I don’t think you’ve made a case for it) what is the yardstick you use to judge them? If there are moral errors in the Bible, what is the yardstick you use to judge them? Science can’t help us with morality—it can’t be the yardstick. Nor can it help us with God (as he exists outside of the universe, and must reveal himself to us). Whatever yardstick you choose, it will have become your supreme authority, above Scripture.
Every blessing in Christ,
Marty.
Keith,
Thanks for the reply. There were 1 or 2 other points I made and is it possible you would respond to those?
1. With respect to your disconfirmation hypothesis of your belief that a worldwide flood didn’t occur, you claim that if there were large deposits of sedimentation that could be dated to periods when humans lived, this would be sufficient. I did allude to the presuppositional dating problems. Without your engaging with the theory behind radiometric dating it’s hard to even get started answering this. As I mentioned, inter alia, how does one know what the initial percentages of material to be measured were when no one was around to measure them. A scientist is forced to guess, and of course, his guess can’t be falsified. The other issue is, are there ever any inconsistent, counter-intuitive and contradictory results that demonstrate that these methods are not absolute and give false readings? There are more than enough.
On a side issue, there is an inkling of straw man here, though not so much to do with the dating as such. Sceptics often demand evidence like “I’ll believe it if I see Cambrian organisms in the same strata as man [or whatever]”. Such an argument does not engage with current flood geology modeling. Would fossilized Cambrian organisms be likely to be found in the same strata as man according to latest modeling? Probably not. Though there are a multitude of out-of-place Cambrian fossils which just should not be there where they’re found.
A creationist could also make the same argument by responding, “I’ll believe in an evolutionary palaeontological model if coelacanths are found alongside whales. After all, both lived at the same time and in the same environment.”
One last point here is that increasingly geologists are turning away from uniformitarian interpretations of the rock and fossil record and engaging with catastrophic causes, though admittedly local ones, to explain what they actually do see in the field.
2. If, say, two-thirds of the world’s surface rock was sedimentary (btw, sedimentary rock is laid down by water) and considerable areas of this contained extremely large numbers of fossilized life forms, would that not be an indication that there might have been a worldwide flood? After all, I can’t imagine what else would be good evidence. No sedimentary rocks and no fossils? Hardly!
3. May I suggest that recent scholarship has answered all those questions you raised in your above piece. ALL!
4. You never actually gave any explanatory argument why Jesus believed in the worldwide flood yet, according to you, it, in fact, never occurred. It’s not just the risk of Scripture being taken as fallible but the Creator himself being mistaken about his own creation and its history. Is this not something that one should approach with considerable caution? And sorry to repeat myself, but for what reason have you expressed this skepticism about the worldwide flood? To demonstrate that homosexuality is natural? Is that not a very long bow?
5. Re my counter-argument of substituting atheism and bestiality, I assure you that my intention was not an appeal to emotional or an attempt to mislead but purely a point of logical consistently. Both of these are proscribed in Torah. If man lying with man is now biological rather than choice – it’s all down to them genes! – why would man lying with his sheep not also be genetic? Why is there special pleading at this point?
Kindest regards
Marc
Agree with your comments, Raymond; the need to suspend judgement is particularly acute when dealing with these early chapters; complicating discussions (I have waded into) on the relationship between scientific and theological conclusions. Very, very fraught!!!
I am hoping to buy a recently published book by Jack Mahony which explores the impact of evolutionary theory on theology. It may be that we will need to re-think the traditional schema: creation, fall, judgement, redemption etc. Maybe worth a discussion once we have a read!!
Great questions, Marty – and I agree that we are making progress.
I am reminded of a comment Andrew Shead (Old Testament Lecturer at Moore College) made when telling me (a few months ago) about a book he was writing. He volunteered that all such books are ‘conversation starters or continuers’; I feel that with this one!!
I chatted with a philosopher (a real philosopher, unlike amateur me) this morning and church; and he agrees with you Marty that I need to do a bit more work to avoid a simplistic move from is to ought – not that they are not connected; we know or sense that they must be; what is morally right is also what is is good for us in some ultimate (though often not immediate) sense. I think you implicitly acknowledge that by asking whether depression is a good or a bad thing for a person. I’ll do a bit more thinking about your question (in consultation with my friend) and get back to you (and any others following this discussion).
As a way of anticipating what we might chat about when we revisit this (good) question, I would be interested in your answers to the following questions:
1. What is it that makes an action right or wrong? (or, asking the same question slightly differently: how do we know that is right and what is wrong?)
2. In your understanding, why is sex between a man and man and between a woman and a woman wrong?
3. If scientific studies could establish that homosexuality was not (generally or at all) a lifestyle choice, but rather a condition that one cannot be ‘cured of’ – analogous to heterosexuality, would that, or could that, make a difference to one’s understanding of what is wrong with gay or lesbian sex?
The questions are interconnected; so you might like to answer them all at once rather than in sequence.
Re question 1: I like the idea that the story might be analogical or symbolic history. I am however, wondering why you use the word ‘history’. Are you committed to it being history (perhaps better pre-history)? If so, why so? Given that the geological evidence (that I am aware of) suggests that there wasn’t a big (enough) local flood in the or around Mespotamia, what is left of the Noah story. Hyperbole can only go so far, surely. If there are some core facts (suggesting that legend might be a better category), what could those facts possibly be? What would we discover if we got into a time machine and went back looking for Noah?
Re what other parts of Scripture could be used to make similar points to the ones I have attempted to make through the Noah story, 1 Corinthians 11 – with its discussion of hair and head coverings (and angels looking on) is one that I have long thought would be worth writing a paper on – or 1 Peter 3 and its allusions to Enoch. Both passages (and there are others) where history and myth appear to be mixed in ways we moderns (and post-moderns) find difficulty making sense of. Of these passages, the first (1 Cor 11) is most relevant to the nexus between ‘is’ and ‘ought’.
Question 2 I have kind of put on hold (above).
Question 3 is, I think, a subset of question 2. Issues of fact and issues of value are not independent (even if one cannot argue directly from empirical facts to values); one’s metaphysic, cosmology and anthropology inevitably impact one’s ethic (we would certainly hope so; being made in the image and likeness of God must surely have a determinative influece on what is right or wrong for us). Someone suggested I look at Wenham’s commentary on Leviticus (or is it Exodus) where he relates the ethical codes to the cosmology outlined in this part of Scripture. That is another thing to follow though on.
Question 4 is a big one!!I need to give it more thought, Marty. As a ‘discussion starter’ I would suggest we could begin with an observation of the Bible itself as it was, over time, created. What generated the Bible was perceived encounters with God that are progressively described; with each generation appropriating and interpreting the literature already in what became a developing canon; with their own experience deeply influencial in how the earlier literature was understood and appropriated; God, who, as you say, is outide the situation (but also deeply embedded; transcendent but also imminent) guides this unfolding process. We today, continue to encounter God in contemporary experience which (as with generations before) feeds into our understanding and appropriation of what have become our Scriptures; we don’t stand above them, we encounter God through them; and as Jesus and the Apostles demonstrated, they can speak afresh to new situations.
I am not sure how that links up with the yardstick analogy. I have found Jurgen Moltman’s Trinitarian doctrine of Scriptural inspiration helpful; the Spirit animating the people of God in their faith, doubt and struggles reaching through the Son to the Father (that is a poor summary, but I am getting tired).
The model is dynamic and doesn’t depend on Scripture being inerrant – like some ahistorical foundational standard against which all is judged.
There is another comment from Marc, but I need to make a coffee for my wife and then restire for the night. Am back at my day job tomorrow – after a enjoyable break.
Blessings
Keith
Marc,
All good questions; will have to post-pone for a day or two. Maybe others would like to weigh in!!!
Cheers
Keith
Keith,
Your wife having coffee just before sleep? Wow!
You wrote, “a simplistic move from is to ought – not that they are not connected; we know or sense that they must be; what is morally right is also what is is good for us in some ultimate (though often not immediate) sense.”
Hume pointed out that the move from the descriptive or factual to the normative is rarely (never?) explicated. That is the ought/is problem. With this in mind,I believe you’ve got the second half of your comment around the wrong way: you’ve made the instrumentally useful (i.e. the descriptive) derivative of the morally good thing.
Regards
Marc
Keith,
I have picked up on mention of your blogsite on another site I look at from time to time and felt compelled to look in.
I am trying to grasp the conversation so far and it seems some of it going in all sorts of directions.
To help me get a better handle on where your thinking is coming from would you be kind enough to tell me whether you believe “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness”?
Trent
Oh, Oh, typo. Delete my penultimate word “and” and insert “in”. My apology.
Trent
Welcome to the discussion, Trent. I do believe that ‘all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness …’ and it is interesting that the verse goes on to indicate the (or a) purpose of this inspiration, which is ‘so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.’ The focus is a life-focus; on how we should live and love.
Some use this verse to argue for inerrancy – or for a literalistic understanding of the Scriptures; neither seems warranted from what we encounter in Scripture. I argue in A Restless Faith that far from illuminating our reading of Scripture, they obscure and mislead. But that may take us away from this discussion.
Cheers
Maybe. I will have a closer look!
You’ll be pleased that we have decaf rather than the reall thing!!
Keith,
Now I am more puzzled.
Surely, within the context the phrase is used, Paul is urging Timothy to be wise and to teach sound doctrine and he cautions against those who will turn away from the truth and turn toward myths.
That has been the Reformed reading has it not?
Trent
Hi Keith
It was good to see you last week – thanks again for your hospitality!
As discussed, here’s a link to the paper from the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, ‘What Is Marriage?’:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155
Although the primary author is a Christian (Catholic), the argument is not based on an assertion of God’s law or order. Rather, as the paper’s title suggests, the way that we define marriage is crucial in considering its relevance for same-sex couples.
Here’s an excerpt from the paper, relevant to some of the foregoing discussion:
“We do not pretend to know the genesis of same‐sex attraction, but we consider it ultimately irrelevant to this debate. On this point, we agree with same‐sex marriage advocate Professor John Corvino:
‘The fact is that there are plenty of genetically influenced traits that are nevertheless undesirable. Alcoholism may have a genetic basis, but it doesnʹt follow that alcoholics ought to drink excessively. Some people may have a genetic predisposition to violence, but they have no more right to attack their neighbors than anyone else. Persons with such tendencies cannot say “God made me this way” as an excuse for acting on their dispositions.
‘Neither we nor Professor Corvino mean to equate same‐sex attraction with diseases like alcoholism or injustices like violence against one’s neighbor. The point is simply that whether same‐sex unions can be marriages has nothing to do with what causes homosexual desire. Surely the fact that something is natural in the sense that it isn’t caused by human choice proves nothing: Disabilities or pressing special obligations can be natural in that sense, and yet they may prevent some people from getting married.
Similarly, if we discovered (plausibly) a genetic basis for male desire for multiple partners, that would not be an argument for polygamy; and if we discovered (implausibly) that no sexual desire had a genetic basis, that would not be an argument against marriage in general. There is simply no logical connection between the origin of same‐sex desire and the possibility of same‐sex marriage.’
Keith, with regard to the comment in your post above concerning ‘the heart-felt desire of our gay and lesbian friends to share in the benefits and responsibilities of marriage’, I am reminded again of Jeremiah 17:9: ‘The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?’ …recognising, of course, that these words have relevance for all of us as we consider our heart-felt desires. What a blessing that we do have access to the truth – and the way and the life!
Paul
@admin: G’day Keith,
I’m currently reading two fascinating books. One by Simon LeVay, ‘Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation’ and Jesse Prinz’s ‘Beyond Human Nature’ precisely to think about the science of sexuality because of my role on the Melbourne Diocese’s Social Responsibilities Committee. What I’ve read of LeVay so far, he certainly wants to argue for a ‘hard-wired’ sexuality. But Prinz’s argument about the significance of nurture to a whole range of domains, including sexuality, can’t be underestimated.
Coming from a chemistry background, I find it fascinating, but entirely unsurprising, that maternal hormone levels can affect brain development, chemistry, and structure (including responses to pheromones). Ideas about gay men usually having older brothers that have possibly influenced maternal hormone levels in second and further baby boys – influencing brain formation etc – again are interesting. As far as I can see, what LeVay doesn’t explore is the effects of endocrine disruptor chemicals like BPA and DEHP (and a mass of others!) that mimic sex hormones and have thoroughly flooded society through the plastics and other industries.
I think it’s difficult to claim much from the science on this – there is correlation, but not causation. That is, no single set of factors is determinative every time. As the APA indicates, a mix of physiological and psychological factors are involved in the formation of sexual orientation. And as Norman Doidge argues persuasively, the brain is a remarkable instrument and we underestimate its capacity at our peril (in ‘The Brain that Changes Itself’). While I’d agree that same-sex attraction may not be experienced as a choice, I don’t think that Daryl Bem’s ‘Exotic Becomes Erotic’ theory can be discounted – that is, it may very well be a series of subconscious choices that contribute, might it not? The end result is the same, it isn’t experienced as a conscious moment of ‘conversion’ from heterosexuality.
One of the great difficulties with the scientific explanation, as far as I understand it at the moment, is that it only partly explains attraction or orientation. Also, I would say that there is a difference between attraction and action. But scientific theories appear to suggest that activity is inevitable – we’re driven by biology, therefore we will act on that pre-programmed hormonal and brain-chemistry response. It’s all a bit fatalistic for my liking. It reduces lust and its resultant sexual activity – heterosexual or homosexual – to a series of chemical impulses over which we have little, if any, control. Just the excuse every teenage boy (or girl) is looking for, is it not? (Let alone every bloke going through a mid-life crisis)
Alas, I am back at work – after a wonderful month of (still busy) leave. This doesn’t mean that the discussion has ended – by any means. In fact, it has only just got (more) interesting.
As said in a previous comment, I am receiving some coaching on the ‘is’ ‘ought’ or naturalistic fallacy – with Jason and Paul’s comments both nicely tying in to this part of the discussion.
The reason for saying I am back at work is that I have work and family (and some church) pressures that are trumping the blog for a day or two – but train trips to and from work are proving productive for thinking.
Trent, let me also get back to you on the inspiration thing. I’d like to elaborate a bit on what I said about Moltmann’s helpful theory of inspiration. I certainly didn’t do justice to it in the earlier comment.
Cheers – and, as said, others may want to weigh in.
Keith
Keith,
I too am not able to reply at all hours so I hope you too will be understanding if I am slow to reply to what you write. I think I see enough to say you will.
Trent
Back to the ‘is’ / ‘ought fallacy – and whether I might be guilty of it. Perhaps I am, or have been, though what I have written (in the book, the blog piece and the SMH article) could be construed in ways that avoid it.
Let me have a go at doing this. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the ‘is’ / ‘ought’ (or naturalistic) fallacy is valid, and that any inferences of moral ought from statements of empirical fact are fallacious.
Does this imply the irrelevance of scientific fact? It don’t believe it does – and certainly not with respect to the debate over same-sex marriage. Let’s leave to one side the issue of marriage (which has its own nest of issues), and concentrate on homosexuality and homosexual sex.
I was in a discussion with some friends on the weekend where homosexuality was equated with sin – perhaps mistakenly because the conversation moved on to homosexual sex and the possibility of marriage.
Influencing the discussion for us as Christians were passages in the Bible that appear to condemn one or both of these (homosexuality or homosexual sexual activity). It may be that this distinction didn’t exist in the mind of the Biblical writers which somewhat complicates the matter.
I think it true to say that Christians and others have (in the past and up until recently) condemned homosexuality itself as sinful. It was believed that to be homosexual is to be sinful (or to have been guilty of sin in arriving at that condition). Whether or not that was what the Biblical writers meant or implied is a matter of careful exegesis (or science). The grammatical-historical method is a science of interpreting texts.
And so science informs our understanding of the condemnations of homosexuality (or homosexual practice) that we find in Scripture.
The contemporary debate about the origins and nature of homosexual practice is also relevant to questions of moral commendation or condemnation. Le Vey’s book is fascinating, I agree, Jason (it is footnoted in A Restless Faith). I don’t know the other book you refer to.
Let’s assume (for the sake of argument) that scientific investigation concludes that homosexuality is not something someone chooses; that in at least the majority of cases, the person has no control, no say, no choices that will result in them not being homosexual. It is simply the way they are.
If science establishes this beyond reasonable doubt, then a homosexual person escapes moral condemnation for his or her attractions to people of the same gender. Granted that this doesn’t decide the moral issue. One could make a case for saying that some crimes that people commit (some pretty awful crimes that I come across in my job) are not morally reprehensible because the people committing them had no choice. They were criminally insane. In some cases this is true, though in many cases, the best one can argue is for diminished responsibility – on the basis of mental illness or the impact of drug taking etc.
Jason’s suggestion that some degree of choice might be involved in cases of homosexuality cannot be put aside, for sure. The research data is not yet conclusive – though I must say that I am influenced by statements by people who have for years been involved in trying to cure people of homosexuality who have come to the conclusion that this just isn’t possible; no more possible than it would be to cure me of my heterosexuality.
That Jason thinks this relevant (which I do too) is an example of where science is relevant to the issue of moral censure or praise.
Getting back to the pretty simple – and not too far-reaching conclusion of the blog piece (we have been discussing – and the shorter SMH article) what can legitimately be said (without committing the naturalistic fallacy) is that science can inform the debate around homosexuality in ways that are similar to how it has informed the debate over Noah’s flood. There are issues of empirical fact that do have a bearing on what conclusions we come to.
I think empirical fact has even more bearing than I have thus far mentioned, but I will leave this to another time.
Cheers
Keith
PS. I am working on another opinion piece that will likely be the next blog piece as well – and I make the claim (not based on any rigorous scientific analysis) that most, or at least many Sydney Anglicans would now be of the opinion that homosexuality is not (for the most part at least) a life-style choice. Do you think I am right or wrong on this?
Hi Keith,
Interesting thoughts.
A few points before I head off to bed to read more of LeVay and Prinz…
First, I think there needs to be considerable clarification about the rhetoric of “choice”/”no choice” when it comes to sexual attraction. I don’t think it is very clear at all, even if it is very effective rhetorically. What does it mean? If it means that homosexually oriented folk don’t undergo a conscious, willingly selected ‘conversion’ to homosexuality, then for the most part, I agree with that statement. (I’ve known personally people who have chosen to be gay…at least for a while). However, what role does a series of choices about integrating environmental experiences into a system of beliefs and attitudes about sexuality and the world play? This is where Bem’s theory of ‘the Exotic becomes Erotic’ may have something to contribute. I must say, I’m more of a cognitive behaviourist than an essentialist.
Second, I’m not sure that there is ‘no control’; Yarhouse and Jones (‘Ex-Gays?’) indicate that there is success, even if very limited, in some people changing orientation. If one does not start with an essentialist position, then change is a possibility. However, as Norman Doidge points out, neural pathways once firmly established are incredibly difficult to shift to create new pathways (hence, habits are so terribly hard to break!). This is me wondering out loud: could the level of fixity in neural pathways be the reason for the “failure” of orientation change programmes? Coming back to the idea of ‘no control’. Even if ‘no control’ is how homosexual people experience their sexual attraction, that simply means they have ‘no control’ over the object of their sexual response – i.e., arousal – it doesn’t entail ‘no control’ over acting on that attraction any more than, say, those whose testosterone levels are higher than average and therefore are more aggressive. In other words, we still have impulse control. You rightly acknowledge the potential moral implications of the difference between
Third, I think you’re smuggling in a couple of presuppositions about essentialism and about evolutionary biology into your arguments. On essentialism (or ‘nature’) – you are suggesting a large degree of inevitability about sexual orientation. One of the things that annoys me about LeVay’s book at the moment is his term ‘pre-gay kids’. LeVay assumes that there is a latent homosexual orientation just waiting for the right time and circumstances to jump out of the closet, as it were. But without rigorous testing of foetal and maternal hormone levels to determine the precise contribution, there is no way of determining the exact extent to which maternal hormones influence children’s later sexuality. I realise there are other indicators as well (handedness etc). But what level of hormone change is required, for example? Does it always have the same effect? What are the factors in those who don’t identify as homosexual, and yet experienced similar maternal hormone levels? How would we even know these people existed? I’m afraid I think LeVay’s book has several methodological problems – mainly because it would be impossible to get certain foetal and maternal hormone experiments past a medical ethics committee!
Can’t think what I was going to say about evolutionary biology. It’s getting late and I’ve lost the ability to think clearly (if I ever had it!).
Really helpful Jason – and I sense, maybe I am wrong, that what you are struggling (as I am) to bring your Christian beliefs into line with reality – finding a way that makes best sense of both. I’d guess most of us on this blog are doing just that – which certainly makes this an important discussion.
Is it the case that the more one can implicate choices and related environmental factors, the easier it is to make sense of Paul’s words in Romans 1? To get back to the earlier discussion, this illustrates the relevance of scientific study.
Re environmental factors (including very subtle and perhaps unnoticeable choices), this doesn’t seem to line up with stories like Anthony Venn Brown’s who from his early teens had become a Christian and resisted like mad the idea that he was gay. Nor does it line up well with the fact that incidences of homosexuality appear to be fairly constant across cultures (including within cultures that are antagonistic to homosexuality).
The thing that worries me about efforts to implicate environment and choice factors is that this leaves room (or is deliberately making room) for the apportioning of blame. For centuries, that is exactly what we have done – with the result that incidences of suicide and self-harm/hatred are high. This, in itself, argues against homosexuality being a ‘choice’ – however subtle.
Which, of course, makes this an enormously sensitive issue.
Please don’t hear me saying that you are insensitive. You are not. As said, you are struggling to bring Scripture and experience together – while trying to help me and others in this struggle.
Thank you.
I do want, again, to pose a hypothetical (for any and all engaged in this discussion). Let’s assume that the emergence of same-sex attraction is not, at least primarily, the result of choices (however subtle), but is the result of a range of genetic and developmental factors that are mostly (or completely) outside of the control of affected individuals, so much so that we would be reluctant to blame them.
You might disagree with the hypothetical, but let’s go with it.
Given this reality, how would you justify say to a gay or lesbian friend or fellow Christian, ‘You must never have sex with another gay or lesbian person’?
This does, inevitably, re-introduce the topic of same-sex marriage – but that is what we have been talking about. Assuming that, as Christians, we believe that the proper place for the expression of sexual feelings and urges is in the context of a committed life-long relationship, how would we justify saying to a gay or lesbian friend or fellow Christian, ‘You won’t ever be able to enjoy sexual intimacy or fulfilment.’
Hi Keith, I think your next opinion piece will need to make a distinction between those who think that their homosexual orientation is ‘genetic’ (God given) or a ‘life-style choice’ or the result of XXY (or other chromosome imbalance) or ‘given over to it’ because of rebellion against God or hormone imbalance (the predisposition due to environmental factors either from the mother (absent father or other significant other) or siblings or birth order)… (etc). We will need to be clear about who you are addressing your comments about and who you are not.
Keith,
You pose two questions which appear polarize the discussion. Hypothetically this could be a helpful thing. I think you should specify if you mean ‘coitus’ as distinct from ‘sexual intimacy’. A hug may be regarded as a fulfilling sexually intimate act. I would be very interested in ow former gay or lesbians (‘hasbians’ for short) may answer.
Keith,
A quick correction: the ought/is distinction (Hume) is separate and different to the Naturalistic Fallacy (G.E. Moore).
I hope you didn’t teach your former students differently.
You are right, Marc. They are distinct though related. As you might have picked up in the blog, this topic is not one I have given enough attention to. I value the opportunity to engage with the challenge. Re teaching the distinction(s) to former students, I didn’t teach ethics at Moore – maybe should have!!
Hi, David,
The point of the hypothetical is not to acknowledge the full range of theories or ideas about hoomosexuality, but simply to ask what would be our response as Christians should it be shown beyond reasonable doubt that homosexuality (in most, if not all cases) is the result biological and developmental factors over which individuals have no control, therefore not a matter of choice. That seems to be the way the research is headed. If that trajectory continues to the point that it becomes accepted as fact, what would our ethical response be as Christians?
Why would we say it was wrong to have sex (coitus) or get married?
Keith,
I note you have had ministry within the Anglican communion. Can you inform me whether you believe and uphold the thirty-nine Articles of Religion and, for this discussion, the following Article:
9. Of Original or Birth-Sin.
Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in Greek, ,(which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh), is not subject to the Law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized; yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.
Keith,
You wrote that “[I am] struggling to bring [my]Christian beliefs into line with reality”. Isn’t that, again, around the wrong way? Shouldn’t “reality” be conformed to the biblical data? After all, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within.”(Romans 12;2)
It seems your epistemological basis is intrinsically flawed. This is why, for example, you cannot see the data that demonstrate a worldwide flood that Moses wrote about and Jesus taught.
I don’t believe you have any intention of engaging with my arguments. It would be far too inconvenient as you would have to take the bible far more seriously.
keith,
i feel you have attacked the problems you have witnessed in the sydney diocese (those you see as being unchristian) by attacking those things that are right and unifying and fundamental to our faith. your attack on the bible being one such example.
don’t attack one of the things moore and alot of sydney does right in order to attack those things you feel they are wrong on. it is worrying that you were “furious” at moore/sydney diocese and responded by attacking the bible and christian faith. your views and intentions,
i feel will harm those you say you love and want to love more.
i know my post lacks the intellect of other posts above (of which i think are important and relevant), but please accept my words with the love they were sent with.
Hi, Craig,
Thanks for your gracious post. It sounds like you have read A Restless Faith. I understand that you feel I am attacking both the Sydney Diocese and the Bible – and that I shouldn’t do both. I really do understand what you are saying and perhaps feeling.
Re the Sydney Diocese, I am still an active member; preaching, leading services, being a warden etc. And heaps of my friends are Sydney Anglicans. I am not actually attacking Sydney Diocese, but rather trying to draw attention to some movements or groupings within the Diocese that (as you say) could act a little more Christian in being respectful, loving and humble. The book, like the Open Letter, is a call better ways of living together, loving and resolving differences. It is not meant as an attack, but rather as an expression of concern and a call to a better way.
Re the Bible, once again, it is not an attack, but rather an attempt to better understand. Interestingly, most of what I wrote was checked by highly qualified experts who work (or have worked) at Moore Theological College – the theological engine room of the Diocese.
Having said all that, I am aware of how unsettling some of the things I have written will be – especially if the information I share (about Noah’s Flood for example) isn’t known. However, I think as Christians we do need to be open to truth where-ever it is found – and live in the light of that.
That is what I have tried to do – whether successfully or not – others, including God, will need to be the judge.
Thanks again, Craig
Hi, Marc,
Apologies for taking so long to respond to your earlier post. I was intending to get back to it – and also to one or two others I haven’t yet responded to.
Have we ever met, Marc? If so, you’d realize I don’t walk away from a good debate. If you are in Sydney (or ever get to Sydney) would love to have coffee. This is somewhat impersonal.
Re letting reality be conformed to the biblical data, this is complicated by a number of things; (1) have we correctly understood the Biblical data. As some of our contributors have pointed out, the literature of Genesis 1-11 is different to more straightforwardly historical or factual accounts; others have suggested the flood might be local etc.
Moreover, it is worth reminding you that the early geologists did exactly as you suggest we should (letting reality be conformed to the Biblical data). They went about their geological work with Bible in hand – fully expecting to find ample evidence of a worldwide flood. The trouble is, they didn’t – and accumulating geological data have simply confirmed the impossibility of taking this story literally. It would be worth you having a read of two books mentioned in chapter 6 of A Restless Faith, footnote 84, page 111. The second book, by David A Young, is entitled, ‘The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church’s Response to Extra Biblical Evidence.’
It is worth having a read.
Please be a bit careful about your comments. They sometimes come across as sarcastic and/or dismissive. Hopefully, you didn’t meann them to sound that way. Your final comment is an example of what I mean: ‘It would be far too inconvenient as you would have to take the bible far more seriously.’
It is because I take the Bible seriously that I struggle daily to understand it. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t read it.
Hi, Trent,
I am still an Anglican minister/priest. Re the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, it has been a while since I have read through them – but did a few years ago in the context of a discusison about tightening adherence to the 39 Articles here in the Sydney Diocese. From what I remember of the discussion (and there were a lot of Sydney Anglican ministers there), it was acknowledged that the Articles, though a fair articulation of Reformation convictions, nevertheless need to be understood within their historic context. Most would have had trouble saying a straightforward YES to each and every one of them. Moreover, the Articles themselves acknowledge changes in understanding over time.
A better question might be, ‘Did the Reformation get it completely right in its understandings of doctrine and biblical teaching?’ I wouldn’t be alone among Anglican ministers in saying, ‘Almost certainly not.’ Huge debates are taking place currently among evangelical theologians about whether Luther and Calvin did get it right in their understanding of justification by faith.
Re the Doctrinen of Original or Birth-Sin which you quote, similar developments in understanding make it difficult to accept this doctrine at face value. The idea goes back to Irenaeus, a 2nd century theologian and was developed by theologians including St Augustine. Like all doctrines, it is an effort to understand Biblical texts. Complicating the acceptance of this article as stated is whether we take Adam to be an actual person who at some point in time sinned (the Fall) or whether Adam is better taken to be a type of humankind (Adam being the Hebrew word for ‘man’).
Here is another instance of where our developing understanding of human life on this earth feeds into our understanding of theology. In essence the Article speaks about the corruptibility of human nature. Some of the implications that have been drawn from the doctrine over time, I do have trouble with – for example, that babies who die unbaptised go straight to hell. There are some ethical dilemmas that cluster around this doctrine – some of which I explore in A Restless Faith. Perhaps you are alluding to those discussions.
Maybe I should have coffee with you some time as well. These are weighty matters.
-
Keith,
You move in Sydney Anglican circles and seem to have done so at various levels for some time. You would have a pretty fair idea of what is going on within that Diocese. The points you made to me today on the Thirty-Nine Articles, Article 9, justification by faith, Reformation understanding on doctrine and bible teaching, the question mark over whether Adam was a real person, unbaptised babies who die going straight to hell – are these thoughts the general thinking of the Diocese?
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Hi Trent,
It is true that I am reasonably well connected in Sydney Anglican circles. Although some have the impression that Sydney Anglicanism is fairly monochrome – that we all think similarly, that is not the case at all. There is still quite a bit of theological variety – which I think is healthy. On each of the issues you (and I) mentioned there is lots of robust discussion happening. Though it is true that the Diocese is largely or mostly Reformed and evangelical in conviction, there are those who believe Adam was a particular man and others who take the early chapters of Genesis as descriptive of universal themes; re whether babies go to hell if they die in childhood, I understand that Archbishop Peter Jensen believes they don’t – whereas one could argue that the logic of Article 9 means that they should all end up in hell.
As you may know, I discuss these things in A Restless Faith.
What do you believe on these things?
Keith
Keith,
Thanks for the opportunity to entre into discussion. I sure would enjoy a cup of coffee with you. The Ashford General Store makes a nice one.
I’m hesitant about doing thinking out loud on social media like this blog. I have made a submission to the Senate and House of Reps enquiries, but haven’t yet found how to crate a link.
Frankly I feel the onus is on you to say why it is right for people who are homosexual to have sex and get married.
I suspect the discussion would be lengthy. Many of my views are expressed by the panelists on:
http://www.acl.org.au/2012/06/marriage-webcast/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Marriage+webcast+-+AMF&utm_content=Marriage+webcast+-+AMF+CID_58ae38bad69c7e80f0edfbc2d1639968&utm_source=CreateSend+Show+The+World&utm_term=Go+to+the+video
Can I recommend this (1.17hrs) to other contributors to this blog.
Keith, though I was aware of what you have said on the subject I wasn’t going to engage here but since you are consistent with your approach to Scripture while others within the Diocese who claim to be Evangelical but are inconsistent I thought I might inform you of both yourself and Moore College becoming an international topic of discussion here” which is a venue I look in on from time to time.
I don’t agree with your conclusion but the fault is due to your erroneous starting point. To your credit, your reasoning between the two points is consistent, apart from the inconclusiveness (at this stage) of science on a gay gene.
Sam Drucker
Keith,
Thank you for the invitation to put forward my views on the points mentioned. I’ll try to be brief.
As to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion I regard them as having served as an acceptable standard of belief since inception and, if affirmed at Ordination, ought to be honoured.
On Justification by Faith I find the teaching of the Apostle Paul at the various points to be unassailable.
On doctrine and bible teaching I am with your former colleague at Moore Theological College, Graeme Goldsworthy, in his encapsulation of the Protestant position via:
“It was the Protestant reformers who helped the Christian Church see again the importance of the historical and natural meaning of Scripture, so that the Old Testament could be regarded as having value in itself. ………. Protestant interpretation was based upon the concept of the conspicuous (clear and self-interpreting) nature of the Bible. By removing an authority for interpretation from outside the Bible – the infallible Church – the reformers were free to accept and use the principles of interpretation that are contained within the Bible itself.”
and:
“So the self-interpreting scriptures became the sole rule of faith – Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) was a rallying-cry of the Reformation.”
On Adam, the Scriptural presentation and subsequent Reformed view is that Adam was a real person who really rebelled against the Creator, thus necessitating the Christ really coming in the flesh as the Second Adam, through whom God is reconciled to man.
On unbaptised babies dying and going to hell, Scripture says that no-one is righteous, not even one. We were all in the loins of Adam when he rebelled and we are born into the world in the estate of rebellious Adam. I accept the Reformed position as being sufficiently supported by Scripture that all have to be born again from above. Whether God intervenes in the life, short as it is, of a baby before death is unknown to me but known to God.
I know you haven’t invited me to speak on the matter of the flood in Noah’s time but I trust you will not be offended in me speaking to it.
No-one on earth today saw what the early earth looked like nor have we experienced a world-wide flood so we are not exceptionally placed to say what evidence we would need. We do, however, have the testimony of God who brought the flood on the world and spoke in plain, straight-forward language indicating it was a world-wide flood. It unacceptably stretches credulity to read the account in Genesis 6-9 and reference to it in Matthew. 24: 37-39 and 2 Peter 3: 3-7 as reading anything other than the flood having global impact. There are issues of Hebrew language in use in Genesis 6-9 and comparisons elsewhere in the Old Testament which support the case I present but it I will only go into that detail if you ask.
As to what we would expect to see in a world subjected to a global flood, well, it can be a bit subjective. However, for my part, to hear of scientists suggesting planet Mars was once covered by a flood when we see no water on the surface of Mars yet, at the same time, they deny that Earth was covered by water when so much of our planet is covered by water, well, again, it stretches credulity. Other scientists have estimated the lowering of mountains and elevating of valleys and trenches to form the one level land surface would result in the earth being covered by water to a level of 2.7km above land surface.
The uncountable number of fossils, so many showing fine detail of original structure, found in sedimentary rock across the world is an acceptable finding for an event of rapid burial through a flood brought, not just by forty days and nights of rain, but by underground water coming through the breaking up of the earth’s surface, as may be expected with the activities mentioned in Genesis 7.
The wide extent and depth of sedimentary rock, laid down by water , across the world is also consistent with a world-wide flood. The Morrison Formation, all one consistency, extending from Canada to Texas is not outside the concept of having been laid down in a world-wide event.
I’ve gone on much beyond your invitation. I am convinced God has not left us without testimony of his will and activity from Scripture and even from the world. That is what I believe and what I believe is not outside the thinking of those who were used of God to bring the church out of that darkness into which it had fallen just prior to the Reformation. What God has put his hand on in blessing I am prepared to accept.
Welcome to the discussion, Sam.
Agreed about the lack of conclusiveness around lots of the science about homosexuality – though some themes are emerging that should increasingly help us in this important subject.
I plan to draw some of the discussion together in a moment, but do keep involved in the discussion.
Cheers
Keith
Thank you, Trent, for being so up-front about your views. A number of people I love deeply – and respect greatly (including Graeme Goldsworthy) believe as you do on this – though I do think that plain sense readings have got us into trouble, and continue to (as I have sought, perhaps unconvincingly) to demonstrate.
I plan to draw much of the foregoing discussion together – as a way of possibly bringing this discussion to a conclusion – with a view to starting another blog discussion, but please do keep commenting. I’ll briefly respond to your points about Noah in that context.
What I would say is that your understandings (as outlined just now) are a fair and consistent expression of Calvinist thinking – which has a pretty fair pedigree! You are in lots of good company. I simply no longer find it persuasive – for reasons that I spell out in A Restless Faith.
Blessings
Keith
Thanks Mandi. I’ve some friends with good skills in moving things up search engines, but I will let them know of this possibility. It might have me spending far too many hours on the blog, but good exposure for sure!!
Cheers
Keith
I thought it might be good to draw some of the threads of this discussion together – with a view to beginning another blog – maybe next week.
I don’t know if you have found this discussion helpful. I have. Some things have been clarified for me. It was good to be reminded – by Marty Foord’s very first post that ‘ought’ isn’t derivable from’is’; though I resisted in claiming that oughts must be grounded at some point, and ultimately, in considerations of what is. Ethics and ontology must be connected (even if the connection is indirect) or else morality because arbitrary.
In a recent blog contribution, I suggested that science has helped in understanding texts (specifically the biblical text) and is also helping us to understand homosexuality. Advances in understanding in both areas have sharpened our understanding of what the Biblical writers might be condemning. Re-reading Romans 1 in the light of these fresh and sometimes exploratory understandings is likely to prove fruitful. Who exactly was Paul thinking of, and what behaviour exactly? As almost always, the text under-determines the answer to such questions (especially since we can’t interrogate Paul in person).
I sense, from some of the recent blog entries, that people want to (or feel they need to) attribute blame to homosexual people for their behaviour – perhaps as a way of being true to what they think Paul meant in Romans 1. Issues of choice (individual and/or societal) are seen as important in this effort – especially when Paul does seem to be talking about choices people make.
If this discussion achieves nothing else, I hope it engenders some epistemic humility – both around interpretation of the Bible and the scientific data. Inevitably, we [and I definitely include myself] tend to gravitate to ‘evidence’ that supports our present convictions. Being open to correction is hard – hard for me.
Before attempting to draw the discussion together, let me tie up a few loose ends.
A number of people, including Josh and Marc, have questioning the large jumps I appear to have made to go from inconclusive scientific data all the way to gay marriage – without a discussion of marriage itself – with Paul providing a link to a useful discussion of marriage.
The criticism is just – certainly with respect to the blog and SMH pieces. There is some argumentative work to get to that sort of destination (ie same-sex marriage). Not even in my book do I provide that. All true – and therefore there is more work for me to do, though, in partial defence, the major purpose of the article and book is to lay some of the necessary groundwork. Without that sort of ground-work, my case would be doomed from the start.
Still, I wanted to acknowledge the legitimacy of the comments.
Let me also acknowledge that I haven’t responded as adequately as I should have to Marc’s points about the flood, nor, more recently, to comments added by Trent. Some of the points raised I simply cannot respond to because of lack of relevant expertise.
However, I am guided by reasonably extensive scientific consensus, and in particular by a Christian and highly qualified and capable geologist. He has said to me that with the on-set of plate tectonics, the already-large range of dating methods have received ample supporting collaboration. The idea of a world-wide flood in recent human history has been well and truly put to bed – with more than adequate explanations for fossils at high altitudes etc etc.
I may be misguided in depending on such advice, but I would prefer to rely on people with the relevant expertise and scholarly checking mechanisms. You may turn out to be right, Marc and Trent, but I am happy to go along with what I have been reliably told.
Now to the attempt to draw some of the strings together: let me try to clarify where I am coming from and what I have been attempting to say (in the blog article and book) – and then conclude with a series of questions – some of which I have asked already.
My basis thesis is that Christians have room to move on the issue of homosexuality – and even on same-sex marriage. Throughout history, Christians have changed their minds on a host of matters (often through painful argumentative processes). The church has engaged in fierce debates over cosmology, slavery, inter-racial marriage, gender, and now homosexuality. On all of these issues, people have appealed to the plain sense of the Scriptures. Some still do so by insisting that we should take the first 11 chapters of Genesis literally.
There are a number of ways forward on this. One way is to go back to the relevant Biblical texts and to see if we might be mistaken in our understanding of what these texts teach. At first sight, the prohibitions against same-sex sexual behaviour do seem to be straight-forwardly unambiguous. Moreover, Josh is right to point out that, unlike what is the case in the Bible’s evolving approach to gender relationships, there is no such trajectory or movement towards the acceptance of homosexual practice. You are right Josh. However, in some cases, including slavery and geology, the movement happens after the Scriptures have been written and accepted as Scripture. Maybe this is another such case.
Moreover, re-examination of texts has helped a little, for example, in jettisoning the Sodom and Gomorrah story as a story about homosexuality, it is a story about rape and inhospitality.
HAVING SAID ALL THAT, I don’t think there is much doubt that the Biblical writers would not have accepted homosexual practice as legitimate or right. To overturn that belief does involve taking issue with Scripture – arguing, at the very least, that the Biblical writers were targeting a practice they understood as perverse – because unnatural. One does need to employ a different view of inspiration, a different way of reading Scripture.
Which leads to a second approach we might take on this issue, and that is to accept the possibility that the Biblical writers were mistaken, or, at the very least, did not have in mind what we now have good reason to think is true about homosexuality. So, rather than try to harmonize the Biblical text and contemporary understandings (and that is what I sense is happening in some of our blog discussions) one acknowledges that at certain points the Biblical writers simply got it wrong.
We (or many of us) acknowledge this already in the case of cosmology and Flood-based geology; why not in this important matter of practice? [Re separating cosmology and ethics or theology, I am not sure that can so easily be done or justified – question below]
I personally have made my peace with the idea that the Bible is not inerrant. I mention in A Restless Faith a question Michael Jensen asked his father Archbishop Peter Jensen at a School of Theology a few years ago, ‘Isn’t it time we gave up on inerrancy?’ I agree with Michael’s question and with its implied answer. We do need to. Inerrancy obscures and misleads as much as it (positively) produces a patiently respectful attitude to the text.
We need a better hermeneutic. That is a big part of the argument of A Restless Faith.
We need, I think, to develop a doctrine of inspiration that takes full account of the time and culture-bound limitations of the Biblical writers. In working towards some such doctrine, I have been helped by German theologian, Jürgen Moltmann.
Moltmann differentiates between a ‘hermeneutics from above’ and a ‘hermeneutics from below’. He points out that Protestantism in the Reformed tradition has developed a doctrine of the authority of Scripture which places authority within the sovereignty of the God who speaks truly in and through Scripture. This approach resists relativizing historical criticism and emphasizes God’s direct address to us in Scripture. A name to associate with this approach is Karl Barth.
In contrast to a hermeneutic from above, Moltmann suggests and commends a hermeneutic which is both ‘from below’ and Trinitarian. He thereby emphasizes the humanity of Scripture, viewing it as human testimonies of faith which are historically, socially and culturally conditioned. How this becomes Trinitarian is that these testimonies are seen as inspired by the Spirit. In his words, ‘It is a movement of thanksgiving and praise, but a movement too of lament and doubt, which proceeds from the indwelling Spirit, through the Son/the eternal Word/the eternal Wisdom, to the Father.’ [Ways and Forms in Christian Theology, 2000, 143.]
Armed with a hermeneutic such as this, one can be open to the fact of limitation and error within Scripture. Marty’s questions about how we decide what is erroneous and what is not are good questions. It is easier, in some ways, to stick with inerrancy – but not ultimately satisfying or helpful – for me at least.
HAVING SAID ALL OF THIS, this does not mean that gay and lesbian sex or same-sex marriage is OK. That would be a jump, even from such a hermeneutical platform.
However, remember that I have not said more than that these are open questions; ones that we can and should address.
It might be worth quoting my concluding remarks in the blog piece:
‘Experiences like that, along with advancing scientific understanding, are forcing and/or encouraging many others (myself included) to re-think this issue. Those of us who identify as Christian must involve ourselves in what needs to be an on-going dialogue, a dialogue between us and the text of Scripture – to understand more fully what that text might mean (when it was written and for now), a dialogue with contemporary and evolving scientific research – to gain better understandings about what it means to be homosexual; a dialogue between those who are gay and lesbian and those who are straight – so we really do listen to each other; a dialogue among theologians and ethicists – as the implications of our thinking and acting are worked through.
This we must do as speedily as we can – for all sorts of good reasons, including the now urgent need to take seriously the heart-felt desire of our gay and lesbian friends to share in the benefits and responsibilities of marriage.’
I am currently working on an opinion piece – which will become the next blog piece, which takes the discussion a little further.
The reason that it is not done, you’ll be pleased to know, maybe, is that discussions on this blog and in the wake of the SMH article have got me to think further and more deeply. I want, for example, to read through the long article recommended by Paul Shepanski entitled ‘What is marriage?’
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/03/13/3452229.htm
Michael Jensen has also suggested an article I found helpful – one that recommends the recognition of homosexual partnering, but not marriage:
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/03/13/3452229.htm
Can I now ask (in some cases again) some questions to help me (and you too, hopefully) in working through this issue:
Questions:
1. What are the studies a number have referred to that suggest that nurturing and environmental factors are significant determinants of homosexual orientation – and how are these studies faring in peer reviewed journals?
2. Given that we mostly agree that the genre of Genesis 1-11 is different to other perhaps more straight-forwardly descriptive (and prescriptive) Biblical passages, what do you think can be said about the historicity of Adam, Eve, Noah, the Flood and the Tower of Babel, especially given that their existence appears to be assumed in the straightforward statements of Jesus, his apostles and other Biblical writers?
3. If one concedes that the Biblical writers held and articulated erroneous cosmological ideas, and/or that they were in error in understanding some of the Biblical stories in such erroneous terms, and/or as factual, how does one successfully argue that they were not in error in their ethics or theology? What is the argument or justification for making this distinction?
4. If two gay men (or two lesbian women) are Christian and want to express their love and commitment sexually and in life-long monogamous marriage why would we say no to them? [Assuming that one answer might be, ‘Because the Bible says so,’ why do you think the Bible says what it says on this?]
Thanks David,
Will try to make time to have a look!
Keith
@bennymay: Hey Benny – without wishing to start a discussion within a discussion – I stand happily by my observation! Ben Myers has a great post on children’s literature over on the Faith and Theology blog where he makes the point that traditional children’s stories, such as are found in Grimm, seem to us remarkably dark, certainly compared the much of the anodyne material marketed to parents and kids alike. As someone with 4 young children, and therefore someone who spends a great deal of time reading children’s stories, I’ve noticed how comparatively lacking in graphic or violent detail the prehistoric bible stories are!
Here is a wonderful quote: ‘Our handwringing educational moralisers not only misunderstand childhood, they also misunderstand the relation between stories and morality. The teenager who brings a pistol to school one day and guns down all his classmates was not reared on the good honest violence of the old adventure tales, but on computer games where acts of violence occur devoid of any human context or any narrative of friendship, bravery, and noble deeds. He was also reared, let us not forget, on a steady diet of sententious animated films, with their paralysing niceties of environmentalism, postcolonialism, tolerance, and Being True to Yourself. Our culture is blighted by the unprecedented mass production of such children’s stories – not by people who know or like children, but by film corporations with their focus groups, their market research, and their cynical cold statistics about what parents want and what they are willing to pay for.’ (You can find more at http://www.faith-theology.com/2011/04/on-violence-and-childrens-stories.html)
I’m sorry that the point of my comment wasn’t clearer (though perhaps a gentler response to me might have been to ask me what my point was, rather than describing it as purposeless, meritless and loveless). When Keith (who I remember very fondly from college) says ‘What makes this story so interesting and important is that it is so unambiguous. As a Sunday school child, I got the point – easily, quickly and frighteningly.’, there is an implication in the ‘frighteningly’, as I read it, that the violence and judgement of this story render it questionable reading for kids (and perhaps, by further implication, of questionable value to adults!).
Keith, thanks for being friendly though we disagree. You seem a nice bloke.
I don’t see that there is much scope for continued discussion because of the gulf between us on “Inerrancy of Scripture” and doctrine developed from that. I have and will continue to pray that God will help you.
What the Church needs is radical theology and I mean the word radical in its original sense (of the roots).
Over at the Sydney Anglican Heretics blogspot I recently finished republishing an essay title “Revival in History” written some 50 years ago by Paul E. G. Cook and published by “Banner of Truth“. It required 5 instalments. The essay gives an overview of the activity of God at various stages of the life of the Church to bring it out of the ‘naturalistic’ influences of man.
I see the same force behind the force of change leading the Sydney Episcopalain Diocese away from its roots. My brother, I am afraid you are caught up in it and I wish you weren’t. I really do and shall continue to pray the Lord for better for you.
The Downgrade Controversy which Charles Spurgeon had to deal with some 150 years ago in the Baptist Church has some parallel with what is going on today in the Episcopalian Diocese of Sydney if only by way of rhetoric employed. I shall quote from “The Unitarian Herald” of November 11, 1887 to demonstrate my point. The Unitarians were happy to see the controversy against Spurgeon and said:
“There can be no doubt whatever as to the direction in which the broad stream is flowing. The thoughts which people entertain about the character of God, and the destinies of man in the world to come, have of late years been undergoing a vast transformation . . . What is preached and believed at the present time is greatly in advance of what our pious grandparents were wont to listen to as the Word of God. Mr Spurgeon and his friends form a mere back-current or eddy in the stream of religious progress. One might be tempted to say, looking at the immense personal following Mr Spurgeon has, their numbers and the energy of their faith – Why, this man has got the people with him”; but that would be a grievously incorrect conclusion to arrive at. The breaking up of orthodoxy is not affected without some struggling survivals in an age that is surely leaving it behind. There can be no doubt about the issue. The authorities of the Baptist denomination are perfectly well aware of what is taking place; and powerful as the name of Mr Spurgeon has always been among them, they know they must not take his side against the younger men who have the spirit of the age with them . . . The big man must go; the big man is nothing before the march of the spirit of the age.”
Keith, please come out of that broad stream.
Sam Drucker
keith,
sam has sadly brought something to your attention that is between you and God,
and will be dealt with now or on judgement (please tell me you believe in judgement).
i say sadly because as one who calls himself a christian brother alot of your views break my heart ! i can’t say it any other way – you are so destructively wrong . history is full of examples of where your thinking leads and i pray that your course is changed soon.
God cannot be behind some of your logic and views, for example, your views on Biblical inerrancy and homosexuality/same sex marriage. lets face it, how easy is it for the world to accept a Bible that isn’t to be taken literally as is a God that allows you to redefine sin or allow sin to flourish while you are in fellowship with Him.
you make it very difficult to show where you are wrong because it is found throughout God’s
Word and i dare say you will not accept scripture as authority.
i too have seen the (sorry) side of humanity in the homosexual lifestyle and i know why it is not acceptable to God, no matter what brush you try to paint it with, it is sin that needs repentance. i think we both agree on the cross of Christ as the only place for salvation and as the only place that all those in rebellion against a Holy God can receive forgiveness for their sins. this is what the world needs to hear!
Thus saith the Lord not thus saith mans intellect.
Jesus said “sin no more”, that sort of flies in opposition to the re-defined Jesus of love and tolerance only, that the world (and church) is embracing so eagerly.
keith, i know you will feel there is not much love in this post but i do hope to see you in heaven, if not before.
finally, on a personal note – if it were not for God’s Grace, that has made me stand up for
His Word and His Truth, because of your views and book, i could have very easily closed my eyes and my heart on the church and christianity. this should scare you keith. i feel this is the dangerous ground you are on. how does one who is struggling with their faith belong to a church that is so intent on walking its own path and laying its own foundation and re-writing its manual.
nb- i do believe in once saved always saved.
craig
Thanks Sam,
There is quite a gulf between us, that is true – and you are right that differences around inerrancy are a large part of the reason.
Guiding me throughout has been the sense that all truth is God’s truth – whether from the Book of Nature or the Book of Scripture. Tensions in understanding both have historically proved creative – and there are evidences of life, love, truth and renewal where these tensions are wrestled with in conscious subjection to the God of truth. The Reformation, for all of its positive contributions, can hardly be said to have had the last word on Biblical truth.
Don’t walk away from or betray your ardent faith, but do at least countenance the possibility that other ways of seeing things might be of God after all.
Blessings
Keith
PS. For others who have been following this blog, I would still like some to have a go at answering the questions I have asked.
Thanks, Craig,
I appreciate your concern – I really do.
Just a few points. You criticise me around an acceptance of inerrancy – and that is fair enough, but inerrancy is a recent idea that isn’t even accepted universally among conservative evangelicals. Nor is it a Biblical idea, strictly thinking, though some argue it can be argued from various Biblical texts.
Re my views being unsettling, I am sure they are – though others who have left the church or were intending to leave the church have found what I have written has strengthened their faith. It has helped them to integrate their heart and mind, their science and their faith – in ways that are not untrue to the hermeneutic (or way of reading Scripture) that Jesus and his apostles used.
I probably won’t, with these few words, persuade you, Craig – and I deeply respect your views, which I once held as firmly as you now do.
We just do differ – and like you I am happy to leave the final judgment to God. As I used to say to my dad when he was alive, ‘One day we will know for sure who was right on these issues. Probably we will find that we were both wrong … or maybe partly right and partly wrong!!’
Time will tell.
Blessings
Keith
Keith, I have said what I felt compelled to say and you have responded as you have felt compelled to respond. We’ll leave it at that.
Sam Drucker
Keith,
I will raise your ONE geologist with my TWO geologists, ONE paleaontologist and my own experience working a few digs (plus throw in my tonnes of reading of both arguments over several decades). I win. You should change horses to the orthodox position. But you won’t will you. Why? Hounds and one single fox!
Questions: How much young earth/universal flood argument have you really read? That is, have you even bothered to research the very position you’ve rejected? What would the wise man do?
BTW, many years ago I attended a debate between John Woodhouse (geologist) and Carl Wieland of Creation Ministries. John lost, well and truly. John’s theology and “science” came up pretty, pretty poorly.
Marc, I am completely out-gunned by you for sure. Even if I was to stop everything and read all the creationist literature on offer, and do a geology degree, and even go on to get a Masters and PhD in the area, I may then be able to compete with you, but even then my contributions to the debate would have little impact, I am imagining.
I simply do have to trust those with greater expertise so, hear goes with my hand. The one geologist I referred to is the Associate Professor and Head of the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of New South Wales. I have another good mate who is a professional geologist, and, over the years have chatted to geologists here and in the US – so, at the level of acquaintances, we are getting closer.
Add to that the majority of the world’s geologists, biologists, physicists, chemists, cosmologists, archaologists and historians (whether Christian of other or no religions) who are not persuaded by creationist science.
I am happy to go with these. You are right that I am unlikely (at least in a hurry) to move in your direction – for scientific, hermeneutical, philosophical and theological reasons.
When creationists begin to win back the world’s scholarly community, I promise to take notice.
Cheers
Keith
Even if a global flood were true, this position would never win back the world’s (secular) scholarly community methinks. There is simply too much bias on either side now, and any evidence is interpreted accordingly or argued away. People don’t believe in a global flood or not based on the evidence. People believe in a global flood (or not) based on their presuppositions about God and the Bible, etc.
Keith,
I regret to say I am going to have bail out as some others have. I think you would know something of the type of response I would give to the four questions you have asked so there is no point rehashing it.
Just a few words in closing.
For me and my family, we will follow the Lord. All Scripture is inspired by God and God would not lead his people into temptation or error.
You quoted a book “by David A Young, entitled, ‘The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church’s Response to Extra Biblical Evidence.’“. It was “Davis” not “David”. My family will adhere more to the thoughts of those who trust the Word of God against the thoughts of any man attempting to interpret things of the past through the eyes of “Uniformitarianism”.
In this we have confidence, not in Davis A. Young but in his father, E. J. Young, the great Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary when, in his book “In the Beginning – Genesis 1-3 and the Authority of Scripture”, he concluded:
“All this, of course, involves a proper view of God. It involves what I would call the Christian theistic position. We believe in God. We receive the Apostles’ Creed: I believe in God the Father Almighty’, and we mean what we say. On the modern viewpoint you cannot believe in such a God. But on the viewpoint of the Bible itself, that is the only God in whom we can believe. So I consider Genesis as historical and as a revelation from God.”
There is, Keith, a few words of Scripture which are shuddering to the senses. They are the words of I John 1:10 which read:
“Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony [of God] in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.”
The context, of course is the testimony of God about his Son but it defies all logic to say the phrase “ Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar” does not have universal application.
That is a declaration all Christians must take very seriously because the consequences are Eternal.
For the present it is good-bye from me.
Thanks Trent, for all your contributions and concern.
Hoping we do meet some day!
Keith
Too much water under the bridge (or boat), you think Simon.
The debate does seem to be seriously polarized – though I am a Christian and changed my mind. My geologist friends are Christian. They believe in God. I am sure they believe God is capable of anything, so they haven’t ruled out a universal flood a priori. I take it they have been persuaded by the evidence.
Cheers and welcome!!
Hi again Keith
In response to your fourth question above (which seems to be the one that relates most directly to your pressing pastoral/evangelistic concerns), I’m afraid I recommend an even longer document than the ‘What Is Marriage?’ paper. Dale Kuehne’s book, Sex and the iWorld, helps explain why the bible says what it does about sexual relationships by placing them in the context of God’s broader intention for us to thrive in relation to him and to one another. It’s an easy book to read – and, I think, really engaging and insightful. I have a copy that I’ll mail to you if you’re interested. Let me know…
Paul
@simon: Simon,
You’re in error and your argument is possibly only relevant if you’re a biblical presuppositionalist apropos the Flood. I’m principally an evidentialist with respect to the Flood. I don’t see any discord between the historical record of the Bible and the historical sciences e.g. geology. The world, as it is, could only have come about in one way. That is, the world, formed by a global flood, would not appear the same as one which was not formed by the same process(es). Similarly with an evolutionary world vis-a-vis a created one. Paul is adamant that there no longer is a mystery, the veil has been lifted and that we can come to a full understanding of God.
Keith,
Bill Craig mentioned, somewhere, that logic keeps you honest. Given what I’m about to say, you might take his advice on board.
Some comments:
1. “Add to that the majority of the world’s geologists, biologists [etc]“. The informal fallacy Consensus Gentium, or deciding truth by numbers. Truth is never decided by a majority but must be decided on its own merits. And note the word “majority”. For this, see below.
2. “When creationists begin to win back the world’s scholarly community, I promise to take notice”. Of course, the disrespectful glibness would be quite OK if you, in the same breath, had also said, “When people who believe in the physical resurrection of Christ win back the world’s scholarly community, I promise to take notice.” Your rationality must be applied consistently.
3. “I am completely out-gunned by you for sure.” You missed (avoided?) my point: I was trying to point out that how many people you know is not what the argument is about. What the argument is about is whether you understand the argument. By your own admission you don’t, and yet you take a position. That’s very illuminating about character more than anything else.
4. I asked you “How much young earth/universal flood argument have you really read? That is, have you even bothered to research the very position you’ve rejected?” You didn’t answer directly. The answer is obviously zero. You took a position against another based on no analysis of the contrary one. You are having me on, aren’t you Keith?
5. “I simply do have to trust those with greater expertise [i.e. your long age and anti-Flood friends and atheists who uphold a worldview which is contrary to God’s revelation]” Do you not see the terrible irony? You hold to the inerrancy of your friends and atheists, but believe Scripture, Jesus and Paul were not inerrant.
Keith, where are you heading?
I get the feeling we are speaking past or over each other, Marc. My apologies if my most recent post seemed disrespectful. It wasn’t meant to be. My simple point is that in an issue such as the one we’ve been discussing lay-people like me must, necessarily, rely on those with greater expertise, training and experience. I agree with you that majorities can and often are wrong. What makes this majority significant is that it includes people of diverse religious points of view (involving Christians and non-Christians). Moreover, it is multi-discipinary; with emerging consensus being strengthened as multiple streams of research coincide in building what has become a stronger case over time.
That, at least, is my lay understanding.
What is your professional training in this area?
Keith,
Apology accepted.
However, not so quick. You have not engaged with a single thing I’ve said. What you need to do is ease up on the rhetoric, and just address my points, one by one, rather than rushing past them. You also need to start thinking for yourself because you’ve swallowed the paralogism that science is the new priesthood. I would never, never, surrender my intellect to anyone the way you apparently have. If they can’t explain something, if it’s too “difficult” for a layperson to get their head around, thus leaving the only choice to be “I trust you and will believe anything you tell me”, then my reply is, as Perry Wiles once said about creationists, I’m not going to blow my brains out.
The question you should be researching is, Why, if it’s HARD science, do so many well-respected, extremely well-accredited scientists not hold that evolution and an old age earth are scientific facts and actually hold the contrary conclusion that science points in the exact opposite direction?
My training is in The History and Philosophy of Science, Religion and Philosophy. But as I said, I did do several digs, a few with one of Australia’s most well-known evolutionists. And I can’t see the long age view fit. There are far too many items it can’t explain.
OK, Keith, let’s run with your truth criterion. I go to an expert and say to him, “Mr Expert, I want to know the truth. I won’t bother about using my own intellect – I’ll just trust yours. So, tell me the secret to the mystery of life.” See one expert’s answer below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSr7S3mPW9I
Keith,
The opening sentence of ‘A brief history of the soul’:
“The current intellectual climate is quite hostile to the idea that we are embodied souls.”
While the authors disagree, according to your epistemology, souls do not exist. There’s another Christian element which should be thrown out?
Dear Marc,
I love your passion – and fierce desire to protect the truth as you understand it.
As you might have gathered from A Restless Faith (if you have read it), I’ve always loved a robust debate.
However, I don’t feel that my debate with you is going anywhere fast. You won’t be jettisoning your creationist views any time soon – nor will I easily or quickly reverse a lifetime of Biblical, theological and philosophical reflection – nor a life-time of amateur reading in the area of science (including various encounters with creation science literature – none of which impressed me, to be frank).
I am happy to trust the guides who have guided me well thus far; am happy to keep learning, there is lots still to discover.
Thanks for the engagement – but i think it is time for us both to move on.
Blessings
Keith
PS. My epistemology doesn’t rule ‘souls’ in our out – as far as I can see!
I said, “I don’t believe you have any intention of engaging with my arguments. It would be far too inconvenient as you would have to take the bible far more seriously.”
You responded with “I’ve always loved a robust debate. However, I don’t feel that my debate with you is going anywhere fast.”
Well, I’ve never ever fancied myself as some sort of prophet, but, I suppose I’ll have to get used to it, eh Keith?
I think we are getting towards the end of this particular discussion. We might put Noah and his Arc respectfully back into the text of Scripture (and leave aside the scientific issues that we could keep discussing till the cows come home).
Paul Shapanski recommended a book by Dale Kuehne – Sex and the iWorld (2009) I found it an easy and helpful read, although it confirmed me in the opinion that the issues related to our emerging understanding of homosexuality are far from resolved.
Just a few comments:
* Kuehne interprets the prohibitions in Leviticus in relational terms, as being so relationally destructive that they warrant the death penalty. I am not sure that is the best way of interpreting the Holiness Code which is probably better understood as safeguarding creational boundaries; thus honouring the Creator’s intentions;
* The Holiness Code is very strict in the way it divides up creatures; for example, labelling ‘unclean’ non-scaled sea creatures because they don’t line up with the expectations of sea creatures; not mixing fabrics etc. This division into kinds is somewhat anachronistic – and certainly in the case of homosexual people who don’t neatly fit into stereotypical male/female categories. According to the Holiness Code, if applied consistently, they would have been excluded from Temple worship – simply because of their homosexuality (though it is probably anachronistic to suggest that the Israelites would have differentiated between orientation and behaviour).
* We do now understand things differently. Kuehne appeals to Hume and the ‘is’ ‘ought’ argument – to rule out a discussion of whether these changes in understanding should occasion a re-think about what is right or wrong. However, he appears to breach this ‘error’ (which I am not convinced is an error) by arguing that the reason for the Leviticus prohibitions is that the relational consequences of disobedience are catastrophic. In other words, the reason for the ‘ought’ is the ‘is’ of bad consequences.
* What I also found interesting is that Kuehne was happy to acknowledge that sexual orientation is not, normally, if at all, a choice. He also says that he enjoys respectful relationships with gay and lesbian friends – which I think is great – but this must create some degree of cognitive dissonance (it does for me). He has acknowledged that homosexuality is a non-chosen orientation (which doesn’t seem to be what Paul had in mind in Romans 1); he doesn’t have a go at homosexuals – though they engage in behaviour that in the Old Testament (and in many parts of the world today) would have had them executed. Nor is he willing to articulate the dreadful relational consequences of homosexual practice or coupling (apart from issues involving children). At the end of the book, you sense that he (along with almost everyone else) is struggling to make sense of all this.
* Kuehne’s discussion of human happiness/fulfilment is helpful – and he is right to say that human fulfilment does not depend on opportunities to express our sexual nature, but once again, he doesn’t provide (nor has anyone in the blog discussion provide) a reason for saying to a gay or lesbian couple, ‘You can be close friends, but you can’t have sex, nor can you get married in order to have sex.’
In summary, Dale Kuehne’s helpful and in many ways insightful book doesn’t succeed, for me, at least, in providing a definitive case against same-sex marriage.
There is more discussion required – at least that is what I think.
“leave aside the scientific issues that we could keep discussing till the cows come home”?
Sorry, did I miss something, something like a real intellectual grappling with the scientific issues or did I just see a “Oh-I-just-believe-the-experts-whatever-they-say” style pseudo argument?
@Marc,
Quote Marc:
“The question you should be researching is, Why, if it’s HARD science, do so many well-respected, extremely well-accredited scientists not hold that evolution and an old age earth are scientific facts and actually hold the contrary conclusion that science points in the exact opposite direction?”
Can you please explain what you mean by “so many well-respected, extremely well-accredited scientists not hold that evolution and an old age earth are scientific fact?
Which “well-respected, extremely well-accredited scientists” are you talking about that doesn’t support evolution and old age earth? Would you please point out a few, or even refer to a “well-respected, extremely well-accredited” scientific journal that has demonstrated evolution, and old age earth is wrong?
I would be very interested to hear your response please.
@Daniel Lin:
Daniel,
Rather than list some, I’ve given you a non-exhaustive list in the following.
http://creation.com/scientists-alive-today-who-accept-the-biblical-account-of-creation
One major problem for evolution and an old age earth is the dual problem of deleterious mutations accumulating far too rapidly (see John Sanford’s ‘Genetic Entropy’ – he’s ex-Cornell) and the far too slow appearance (if ever!!) of novel genome-building, information adding mutations (see Lee Spetner’s ‘Not By Chance’ – he’s ex-John Hopkins, & Haldane, as in Haldane’s Dilemma [btw, he's an evolutionist!]).
In summary, both these OBSERVED phenomenon (i.e. real science) should mean the death of evolution….if a person is intellectually honest, as I now am (in contradistinction to my take on the subject 20 something years ago). I expect you to demonstrate probity as well when examining the facts rather than, as most people do, bury your head back into your religious worldview of believing the lie that chance + time + chemistry brings life and complexity into existence.
Kind regards
Marc
Daniel (and Keith),
You may be interested in this:
http://creation.com/creation-religious-education
Very interesting Marc,
First of all, the old age earth is not a theory, the age of the earth is determined by radio active dating. It actually has nothing to do with biological evolution. The dating of the age of the earth is done by measuring the lead in uranium rich materials, and the result is that the earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old.
The age of the earth also coincide with evolution, the book you mentioned by John Sanford, I believed that his argument has already been debunked. John Sanford’s argument is done by misleading his readers on Kimura’s distribution of mutation. Kimura’s original argument (the part that John Sanford ignored), is that Kimura also said in his original work that, mutational load can be readily compensated by the occasional beneficial mutation. As for Lee Spetner, I have not heard of him. I will look him up.
Of course the scientific community welcome such challenges. After all, science is a field of study that is built by criticism of existing theories and falsifiability test. If a scientific theory is wrong, then overtime it will be corrected. For now, evolution is as core to the field of biology as gravity is core to the field of physics, both are currently unchallenged.
I think your accusation, based on the two references you quoted (one being debunked already), is not fair. Because you have completely ignored all the other evidence for evolution, which out weights the two references you mentioned (now down to one, and the other probably have been debunked as well).
If a person is truly intellectually honest, then I am sure that person will carefully look at ALL the evidence before calling to put a scientific theory to death.
Now, regarding another item on your previous comment:
“I expect you to demonstrate probity as well when examining the facts rather than, as most people do, bury your head back into your religious worldview of believing the lie that chance + time + chemistry brings life and complexity into existence”
I do think time and chemistry bring life and complexity into existence, because both time and chemistry are created by God, and God can use that to bring life and complexity into existence. However, I think you are stereotyping that whoever take evolution as a scientific valid theory “must” be believing that life arise out of “chance”. You are saying, if not A, than B. You are affirming a disjunction, and this is a logical fallacy, you have dismissed the possibility that God used evolution to create life and complexity (C).
Finally, attempt to discredit evolution is not just a challenge on evolution itself. It is an attempt to challenge all of the fields in science that evolution is built on: Biology, mathematics, physics and geology. If you really wish to understand science, then you need to understand that evolution is closely knitted to all these relating fields, to discredit evolution, will mean you have to be able to discredit some of the laws and theories in these other fields. For example, you will have to demonstrate that radio active dating is wrong (I have heard of many creationist attempt to do this before, all have been debunked).
In the end Marc, as a friendly reminder, I hope you will remember that the Christian faith is built on our Lord Jesus Christ, for Jesus is our solid rock where we put our faith in. We are not to gamble our Christian faith on proving a scientific theory wrong, lest we will be in danger of falling away from Christian faith, if science that you think must be wrong proves itself right one day.
Daniel,
By your own tacit admission you haven’t read Sanford’s book. Yet, you disparage his work. That says everything about you, but nothing about Sanford.
Further, to imply that he dishonestly laid out his case is libel against a brother.
Your best argument against Sanford’s work is you “believe” his work has been debunked. Brilliant! What atheist site did you drag that from?
It’s clear you don’t get Sanford’s argument – how could you, as you haven’t even bothered to read his book.
It’s great to hear the “debate-winning” words thrown in “mutational load”, “beneficial mutation”. Do you actually understand how they DON’T help the argument?
If “God used evolution to create life and complexity”, what exactly does God do in your scheme of things? I’ve never heard any theistic evolutionist explain this. Why? Because God CAN’T use evolution as it’s totally in opposition to his character. I don’t dismiss it without any thought; but after 30 years of contemplating and writing about it nothing is more clear than that theological fact. For you to say God could have used evolution without any philosophical argument is worse than blind faith – it’s just blind.
For starters, you could tell me how a supremely intelligent being can use chance (i.e. no direction) to create? Intelligent beings don’t use chance, they use intelligence, the opposite of chance. If you want to believe intelligent beings use chance then this is nothing more than New Age mysticism of reconciling opposites – but it’s certainly not Christianity.
Re radiometric dating, you need to do some homework rather than perfunctorily throwing up words like “debunked” as though that constitutes rational argument. For example, how do you scientifically verify how much parent and daughter elements were originally in the rock when no scientist was around a billion (or whatever) years ago to actually measure it?
Daniel, I really do hope you see that it isn’t just about the science but about the integrity of Scripture, upholding the sense of the Gospel, and of Jesus who came to die for the weak rather than, as evolution demands, the weak dying off for the strong. Even hardcore atheists, like Dawkins, understand that much. Dawkins once called Christians who want to play footloose and fancy free with the plain meaning of Genesis 1 (and by implication Exodus 20 etc), intellectually dishonest.
Marc,
If you really want to counter my argument, perhaps you should go and read up Kimura’s original work on distribution of mutation, and see for yourself how Sanford has butchered his argument instead of suggesting that I am being intellectually dishonest.
As I have said before, an intellectually honest person would surely examine all the evidence before he calls for “death to a theory”. To me, it appears that you have not thoroughly examine all the evidence.
As for your argument that God did not evolution to create life. Can you show me exactly which passage in the Bible that says “God did not use evolution to create life”?
Yet, you are still insisting that “evolution must be according to chance”. You are still asking questions based on your logical fallacy of affirming the disjunction. Please go back and read my previous post again.
Regarding radiometric dating, I think you need to read up how this works, I can’t really be bothered to write paragraphs explaining to you why this is an accurate method. If you are really interested in radiometric dating, you can read it up yourself, and if you truly think you have evidence to debunk it, why don’t you write up a journal article and submit it science or nature? The study of science is built based on self criticism and falsifiability, if you have good evidence and good mathematical reasoning to demonstrate that radiometric dating really is wrong, then I am sure your journal articles will be received by peer reviewed journals..
Finally, I do not see the integrity of the scripture being threatened by science. Genesis illuminates the truth of human nature and about God. It is more important to understand the message of the scripture than emphasizing the face value. If you really want to read the scripture literally, and if you really think that literal (word by word) reading of the Bible represents 100% fact about everything (including science) in the universe, then perhaps you would like to explain why, according to 1King 22-26, the Bible pretty much says pi is equal to 3?
You do ask a very good question why Jesus uphold the weak rather than the strong. But I think your problem is that you are applying evolution, which is a scientific theory studying biology, into human relationship. I am sorry, but you have seem to fall into the trap of scientism. Atheists such as Dawkins construct his atheistic ideas based on scientism. What is scientism? It is the idea that science must dictate all worldviews.
And obviously, as you would agree. Science is a way of knowing and understanding, but it is not the only way of knowing and understanding. So why are you applying evolution into the study of human relationship? Have it ever crossed your mind that evolution only explains the biology of creatures, but it doesn’t necessarily dictate human relationships?
If we all think your way. Then this means someone can come along and argue that because the second law of thermodynamics says the entropy of the universe always increase (therefore the disorder is always increasing), then this means next time your wife tell you to clean your garage, you can argue that the such action is against the nature because the second law of thermodynamic says the entropy (disorder) is always increasing anyway.
Similarly, if we all think your way, then an alcholic can say his downward spiral is inevitable, because just like the law of gravity on earth everything must go down..
Yes, I am using absurd argument, but it is only because I am pointing out the absurdness of the thinking that science should dictate all worldviews. Just like I disagree that believing the theory of evolution means we have to apply it into human relationship. Science is not he only way of knowing, and it certainly should not be applied to epistemology outside of its boundary. I leave you to think about this.
1King 22-26? Aside from the “s” is there something else erroneous in the citation?
Daniel,
1. Question: Have you read Sanford’s book? Yes or no? And can I still assume that your original criticism of Sanford was gathered from an atheist or atheist-inspired website?
2. But I do think you’re intellectually dishonest because you asked, “Which “well-respected, extremely well-accredited scientists” are you talking about that doesn’t[sic] support evolution and old age earth?”, to which I posted a link to a hundred or so, and yet you did not comment at all. I can only assume that your purpose in asking was not to learn that there are many, who, on the basis of science, don’t believe the dogma that the world is old and evolution true. I would have expected you to say something about that. My guess is that you don’t really care that there are scientists who take a different view to the materialist ideology that you’ve swallowed hook, line and sinker.
3. “As I have said before, an intellectually honest person would surely examine all the evidence before he calls for “death to a theory”.” With that piece of guidance I ask, name 6 recent books arguing for a young age earth and falsity of evolution that you’ve ACTUALLY read.
4. For a reponse to your implication that the Bible is not inerrant, see
http://creation.com/does-the-bible-say-pi-equals-3
Any moderate exercise of energies for a search on the Net for a CHRISTIAN response rather than using an ATHEIST criticism of the Bible on this particular subject would have brought a small reward for you.
5. “As for your argument that God did not evolution to create life. Can you show me exactly which passage in the Bible that says “God did not use evolution to create life”?”
Your “logic” is like asking “Since you can’t cite one passage that that Jesus did not say he did not eat McDonald’s, then he must have.”
Actually, the onus of proof is not on me but on you. Where in the Bible does it say that God used evolution? One passage, just one.
My proof that he didn’t is God’s own words found in the Bible, unlike yours. All the miracles occurred rapidly because that is what constitutes the miraculous. The Bible says (you see those words Daniel – the Bible says) that God created everything in 6 days, thus a miracle. Now I take God at his word – unlike some – who want to first sift the Creator’s direct speech through a materialist belief system. When God spoke to Moses and asked him to tell the Israelites that murder, adultery, theft, idolatry etc are absolutely wrong, he also instructed Moses in the fourth commandment (and elsewhere) that they should work 6 days and rest on the seventh because, wait for it, God too worked 6 days and stopped creating and rested on the 7th. There’s your proof, Daniel. I’ve heard all the “counter” arguments before but they basically amount to this disease of thinking that the people who cough up these silly “rebuttals” know better than Jesus, Paul or the early Church. (I have in mind Michael Jensen’s above belief that the Bible lacks inerrancy or members of ISCAST who believe that they, as scientists, now more about science than Jesus, as though Jesus is a mere man and not the Creator, as John and Paul go to great lengths to explain – but what the heck, if you don’t really care about the Bible’s words about the creation, then, well, you don’t care!)
6. “Yet, you are still insisting that “evolution must be according to chance”. You are still asking questions based on your logical fallacy of affirming the disjunction.”
Daniel, I don’t quite get your point. Either this is another example of intellectual dishonesty by refusing to logically set out how God could use evolution to create, or you believe there’s God here and over there we have evolution operating. If the latter is true, then you’re not a Christian. At best you’re a deist, at worst a pagan who believes a principle other than Christ is doing the creating. The Bible clearly speaks – if you listen closely enough – that Christ is the direct creator of everything, not a pagan principle of which evolution is arguably the best representative. But maybe I don’t understand your claim that I commit a fallacy.
7. “I can’t really be bothered to write paragraphs explaining to you [how radiometric dating works]“.
I never asked you to do that. What I asked was for you to tell me how a technician living in 2012 can know the exact original ratio between parent and daughter elements when there is no empirical method that can determine this ratio when the rock was FIRST formed. You ignored my request based on your unsubstantiated belief that, unlike God’s Word, the Bible, and His words themselves, radiometric data are infallible and that a scientist’s calculations of these are likewise never without error. You sure you’re a Christian?
8. Further, you’ve stated that “Science is a way of knowing and understanding, but it is not the only way of knowing and understanding”. Yet, you elevate science above that of plain Scriptural revelation. I don’t understand this.
9. “So why are you applying evolution into the study of human relationship? Have it ever crossed your mind that evolution only explains the biology of creatures?”
You are obviously way out of touch with the subject. I am presently writing an article for a peer-reviewed journal on evolution and ethics. In the process I’ve read about 150 books and 500 articles on the subject. So, in response to your “I leave you to think about this”, I’ve done way more than think about it. OK!
If ethics is not a part of human relationship then nothing is. Beyond any doubt, according to all the literature, you can’t explain ethics/morality without basing it on evolutionary theory. Of course I disagree. I suggest you read something about Kin Selection, Reciprocal Altruism, Group Selection. A good biography is ‘The Price of Altruism’ by Oren Harman whih brings in as much of the literature and thought on the subject that is possible in a biography.
To say that evolution just equals biology is naive or ill-informed. Just this morning I finished off a small book called “The truth of Cindarella” which is about how the huge rate step-fathers murder or injure their step kids can be explained against our evolutionary history. If evolution is true, they’ve got a good point.
Daniel, as a courtesy, I asked you to inform me the correct Scriptural passage you were referring to. Marc was kind enough to provide the answer for you (and me).
However, what I now see is something that disturbs me greatly. I am presuming you regard yourself as Christian but it is apparent you have ‘intellectually’ left the camp of Israel and entered the camp of the enemy of Israel to obtain one of the enemy’s weapons to use against your own kin. How could you betray your own like this? How could take up the arms of the God haters to use against those who submit to God’s rule in all areas of their life?
What is going on here?
@ Mark,
You have completely missed the point of my argument about scientism. If you insist on using science to view scripture, then you have fallen into the atheist trap of scientism. No amount of reasoning can help you out of that trap. I see no point in continuing our debate.
@ Trent,
You are accusing me of not being a Christian for embracing the truth. What is wrong with embracing the science that God used to create the universe? Your argument seems to collapse on itself.
@ Trent,
I was citing 1King 7:22-26, I missed out the 7 after 1king as a typo. For your convinience, here is the original passage:
Then he made the sea of cast metal. It was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference. 24 Under its brim were gourds, for ten cubits, compassing the sea all around. The gourds were in two rows, cast with it when it was cast. 25 It stood on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The sea was set on them, and all their rear parts were inward. 26 Its thickness was a handbreadth,[h] and its brim was made like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily. It held two thousand baths.
Tell me something, if the Bible really is 100% accurate in its representation of scientific fact, why does the passage says pi=3 here?
Personally, I think this is because the passage was written by men whose scientific and mathematical knowledge was not all that advanced. But this is still a good approximation, this is a sign that it is highly unrealistic for both Christians and non-Christians to have unrealistic expectations that the Bible should contain ALL the scientific knowledge about the universe.
With Marc’s argument about Jesus going to MacDonald, that is an argument of reductio ad absurdum. If we were to take on the view of his argument, then I can easily prove Marc’s entire argument wrong, by asking him:
The Bible has never mentioned the periodic table, does that mean the periodic table is false?
The Bible has never mentioned the law of gravity, does that mean the law of gravity is wrong?
The Bible has never mentioned the laws of thermodynamic, does that mean the law of thermodynamic is wrong?
The Bible has never mentioned 1+1=2, does that mean 1+1 is not equal to 2?
The Bible has never mentioned that Jesus has urinated, does that mean to think that Jesus urinated (a conclusion reached by scientific method) is blasphemy?
Come on, anyone with 1% common sense can see the problem of reading the Bible literally, any with 1% common sense can see that, treating the Bible as the only source to “epistemology” is not a very wise idea, nor is such an idea glorifying to God.
Furthermore, my biggest problem with creationist (YEC), is that, these guys are using “God of the gap” theory. They box God within the confined space to filling in the gaps currently unexplained by science. What if science fill these gaps one day? Are they going to fall away from the faith? This is the real danger of gambling Christian faith on proving science wrong. AS you would agree, Christian faith is built on the solid rock of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is only through Christ that we are saved, not by believing evolution is wrong. And please go back to read what I was saying about scientism. I think a lot of Christians have fell into the atheist trap of scientism. Instead of fighting the worldview of scientism, many Christians are fighting science itself, and that gives atheists even more reasons to stereotype Christians are antagonist to science, persecutors of scientists, devaluing both people and truth, this is not glorifying God.
Like I said before, I have come across many people who refuse to leave the battlement against science. These people are misguided by their good intentions, and in their battle against science, they seem to have forgotten that it is the Gospel of Jesus that we are supposed to be telling people.
I have heard a story told by my minister, that he once knew a man who was a strong YEC, anti-evolutionist and his belief in young earth and literal interpretation of Genesis 1. Eventually, after encountering much debates and seeing the evidence, as well as reading books, he found out that his previous belief in YEC was wrong. Unfortunately, he could not see that the message of salvation is centred on Jesus, not on “proving evolution wrong”. So his faith cracked and he fell away from God. I sincerely ask the readers here to think about this question, what is the most important in Christian faith? Is it proving evolution wrong? Or is it salvation by Jesus Christ?
Personally, I think the most important thing in Christian faith is Jesus Christ. Science explains “how” things are made, and that’s the limit of its boundaries and should not dictate other fields of epistemology, and this also means as Christians we can fully embrace science, and have a glimpse of God’s beauty through His works. If what we discover in science is God’s works, then why would He be threatened or diminished by what we discover about Him?
I tire of this conversation, whenever I discuss this kind of things with YEC, it is always a very frustrating experience. Those who do not agree can have their last words, but I think I have presented my view, and my argument very well. Take it or not, it’s up to you.
Yes, Daniel, I, Daniel, am always right. I don’t even have to respond to questions from people who take a different view to me. I just point out their [supposed] epistemological failures and just write, write, write and then have a dummy-spit. How intellectually honest of you.
I asked you one question about Sanford, namely, Have you read his book? You didn’t respond. It is clear you haven’t, yet, as demonstrated, you accused him of professional dishonesty. That tells me you are considerably dishonest yourself.
Daniel,
“Personally, I think”, how about you seek what God thinks !
The devil believes in Jesus and the Bible (Jesus did quote scripture to the devil).
Your understanding of the christian faith would seem a little shallow at best.
God does not need any more smart people, you seem to miss the point !
To live without the fear of God seems wonderfully liberating, but oh how you
will feel bitterly disappointed when science stands with you before God.
I wish you and Keith and others would see you cannot mock God. And yes that is exactly what you are doing under the guise of healthy dialogue.
Daniel, I would be interested to know how and when you were saved and what
church and ministers have fed you. Lastly how has being saved by the Blood Of Christ
left you feeling about God.
Please respond with your heart , not your head.
craig
Sorry Keith. I am sure you are wanting this conversation to wrap up. Daniel has posted three comments in a row (two directly to me and one indirectly) so I feel I have to respond and will try to be brief.
Daniel said: “Those who do not agree can have their last words, but I think I have presented my view, and my argument very well. Take it or not, it’s up to you.”
Response: Argument not presented well at all and is rejected.
Daniel said: “I tire of this conversation, whenever I discuss this kind of things with YEC, it is always a very frustrating experience.”
Response: I could sense the tension in what you wrote. It is almost like I could see scratch marks in the letters of your comments as if your fingernails embedded themselves in the keyboard through to the screen. I can understand tension when you were asked to justify statements and actions. However, the questions had to be asked in all reasonableness and responses needed to be intelligible.
Daniel said: “So his faith cracked and he fell away from God.”
Response: Conversely, I am aware of numerous testimonies of people leaving the world and receiving Jesus Christ as Creator, Lord and Saviour through revelation of the Word of God through Biblical Creationist theology. So, how do I deal with the man in your story? I am inclined to think that he never was Christian because a Christian receives the Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing salvation (Eph. 1:14)
Daniel said: “You are accusing me of not being a Christian for embracing the truth.”
Response: I did not accuse you of that. I don’t know if you are or not. I presumed you regard yourself as Christian and alluded to you wandering into the enemy camp for an argument to bring back into the Christian camp and use against ‘your own’. Since you have now thrown the enemy’s argument up to me as well as Marc I can only conclude you didn’t even bother to read a Biblical Creationist response provided via link from Marc. Marc seems to be on the money – you don’t bother to research sufficient of Christian responses to arguments against the Word of God.
Daniel said: “you have fallen into the atheist trap of scientism.”
Response: One argument of the world is turn your opponent’s argument upside down without anyone noticing it. It is actually to you the term Scientism best fits. Biblical Creationists start with the Word of God and interpret the world through His word (having due regard to genre). Your position is to interpret the Word of God through the current scientific world view. The latter is more in line with Scientism.
As you say, Trent, I am keen to have this conversation wrapped up. More than enough has been said to prompt observers and participants to research further on these important matters.
I, for one, agree that the issues are very important – and they do bear, directly and indirectly, on issues of faith and doctrine.
I would like to make a few observations that I hope will be helpful for all concerned.
1. Most people, I would guess, who have contributed to or followed this conversation are keenly, even passionately commmitted to understanding and responding appropriately to the Scriptures, and therefore to God.
2. What hasn’t been sufficiently acknowledged in this discussion are the assumptions that we all bring to our discussions of the Bible. There has sometimes been too quick an identification of our own interpretations with what God is saying. Moreover, inerrancy and a plain sense reading of the text have too quickly and without argument been assumed as non-negotiable reading strategies. Neither of these are ‘Biblical’ hermeneutical practices, either in the sense of being mandated in Scripture or exemplified in the practice of Jesus and his apostles.
3. What has been really disappointing about this most recent discussion or debate has been its tone. Unfortunately, too many of the comments have been sarcastic and/or dismissive or aggressively personal – unbefitting of people who are claiming to be Christian. I am reminded of the words of St Paul, ‘If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries, but do not have love, I am nothing.’
4. Relatedly, persuasion theory tells me that the best way to persuade someone else of the truth of your position is to find and build on common ground, and to do one’s best to represent another’s argument accurately and fairly, instead, as too often happened creating straw men to shoot down.
5. The almost inevitable result of not being respectful, loving and fair is that people become even more entrenched in the view they came to the discussion with.
If I have been guilty of any of the above, I apologize. If you think you might have, be man (or Christian) enough to say sorry.
Blessings
Keith
It is your site Keith and I shall leave you to express, unchallenged, your perception of the dialogue to date.
On reflection there were things I said which could have been said with more grace. For my failing in this respect I express my apology to Daniel and sorrow for any hurt caused.
I’m off to other places now as intended a couple of weeks ago.
Thanks Trent. Much appreciated.
God speed.
Keith
@Trent:
Although your argument is very well put, but I am going to have to disagree with you on several things:
1) Right from the beginning, when Marc pointed to Sanford, I have already provided the reason why Sanford’s argument has been refuted. I do not understand why you are saying my argument was not well put together.
2) I do tired of this conversation, this is why my last post I said Christianity is built on Jesus and not proving science wrong (which you have completely ignored). Because my time spent on debating against YEC, is better spent by telling people about Jesus. Obviously, you guys just don’t get it.
@Trent:
Another thing Trent, I couldn’t help but to point out the logical error of your counter argument. When you said:
“One argument of the world is turn your opponent’s argument upside down without anyone noticing it. It is actually to you the term Scientism best fits. Biblical Creationists start with the Word of God and interpret the world through His word (having due regard to genre). Your position is to interpret the Word of God through the current scientific world view. The latter is more in line with Scientism.”
The logical error you have made here, is that you de-constructed and reconstructed the premise of my argument, to something that is easier for you to attack. Let me show you what I mean:
1) The premise of my argument is: Source A is is not meant to be property B. Therefore, to understand B, we must study B. (The Bible is not a science textbook, therefore, to understand science, we must study science).
2) But you deconstructed, and reconstructed the premise of my argument to: Source A is not meant to be property B, therefore, the information from source B dominates source A.
I think it is clear that the premise of my argument in 1), is not the same as your reconstruction 2) of my premise. I am afraid, that you are using Straw man’s argument, and this is a logical error.
Like wise, I do respect that everyone here is trying to express what they believe to be true. Unfortunately, sometimes these arguments can get pretty heated. If I have made comments that have insulted anyone here, then I do apologize.
It is a fault on my behalf for not making a few things clear, and did not put good effort into writing my posts.
In particular: The rebuttal of John Sanford’s book didn’t come from an atheist website as some here have claimed. The information actually comes from a website hosted by scientists with very strong Christian undertone: http://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/ if this has caused any confusion, then I am sorry.
Cool post, love the color scheme you use, suits the blog well
@Josh:
For years I thought of homosexuality as a moral issue and argued this to a gay friend. While I do not know why some people are homosexual I have come to realise their sexuality has not been a choice (just talk to them about what it is like!!) – it is as integral to who they are as much as their skin colour or race etc. I have family who are gay – this was very difficult to deal with at first. I have come to know a number of gay people since then and also discovered some of my friends of 45 years ago were gay – something they hid from me. I have heard reports that some people change but I know of no research that shows this is the norm – I listened to one former gay person who had become an Evangelical Christian, but it just sounded like he was trying to be someone he wasn’t.
So I understand homosexuality as a reality and as integral to the nature of some people.
To argue, based on passages from scripture that they must change or abstain and to argue their behaviour is dangerous seems as illogical as arguing a black person must become white. I understand that if you don’t or can’t accept this as reality you end up classifying practicing gay people as immoral which I believe is potentially destructive. But if you do accept it as reality it means you have to rethink how to interpret scripture – I think this is part of the message Keith is conveying.
Thanks David. I think experiences like the ones you describe are gradually giving people good reason(s) to re-consider this complex, but, for many, existentially potent issue. Cheers.