Category: Theology

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Epistemology Science & Technology Spirituality Theology

What's Wrong with Theistic Evolution?

For a short while, I fancied myself a theistic evolutionist. I realize now that I can’t really carry that label. First, I hate labels. Second, the one label I do want to carry is “Christian.” I don’t think being a Christian necessarily commits a person to a particular view about “evolution,” if that means simply that organisms change gradually over deep time and all of life shares a common genetic heritage. Those facts, it seems to me, are irrefutable. But I do think being a Christin commits a person to a particular view of humanity, and particularly of humanity in relation to God. We surely don’t know all the details of exactly what it means that God formed man “out of the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7) or exactly in what ways the Biblical references to “Adam” and the “Garden” are literary stylizations. But, fundamentally, I think being a Christian entails a theology that asserts (a) humans are in some way unique among the creatures of the earth; (b) humans at their root, in their first representatives created by God, had a special relationship of fellowship with God and each other; and (c) the first human representatives broke that relationship and this has affected all of us in relation to God, each other, and the rest of creation, ever since. This is what sets the stage for God’s relationship with Israel and for the cross of Christ.

In this regard, I’m really troubled by Karl Giberson’s summary on Steve Martin’s blog of his forrthcoming book, “Saving Darwin.” Now, I want to be careful here, because I haven’t read Giberson’s entire book yet. The book was blurbed, with some reservations, by John Wilson, Editor of Books & Culture, whose judgment usually is sensible. Maybe some context will help, but, in his guest post, Giberson says this:

I suggest in Saving Darwin that we must abandon the historicity of the Genesis creation account. Adam and Eve must not be thought of as real people or even surrogates for groups of real people; likewise the Fall must disappear from history as an event and become, instead, a partial insight into the morally ambiguous character with which evolution endowed our species. Human uniqueness is called into question and we must consider extending the imago dei, in some sense, beyond our species. These are not simple theological tasks but, if we can embrace them, I think we may be able to finally make peace with Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.

To me, this is an important place at which Christian theology has to “push back” at science in dialectical tension. It seems to me that Giberson here advocates that we concede a central motif of the Christian story. I don’t think this is an “evangelical” issue; it seems to me to be a “Christian” issue.

If this is what it means to be a theistic evolutionist, I am not one. I’m not sure what that makes me — I respectfully reject young earth creationism, I think old earth day-age creationism isn’t fair either to the Biblical or scientific records, and I think much of the contemporary “intelligent design” debate — much, not all — just recycles William Paley’s theologically and scientifically discredited watchmaker arguments. Maybe a real synthesis and “peace” between “faith” and “science” in some respects simply is not achievable in this life. I don’t like it, but maybe a humble, respectful, but firm patience here is part of the “not yet” walk of faith.

Categories
Spirituality Theology

A Definition of "Faith"

From John Stackhouse’s blog: “Faith is what we do when we cantilever our lives out over what we do not and cannot know, while anchoring our lives upon what we think we do know. Faith relies on knowledge even as it moves out from knowledge into the unknown.”

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Science & Technology Spirituality Theology

Stackhouse on Creation and Evolution

An older, but equally excellent, Stackhouse post that mirrors much of my own thinking:

First this:

There are only two respects, then, in which “creation versus evolution” makes sense: first, when certain Christians insist that “creation” must mean “creation science” and thus rule out any divine use of evolution; and, second, when certain evolutionists insist that “evolution” must mean only what Darwin thought it meant, namely naturalistic or atheistic evolution. For then, of course, “creation versus evolution” really amounts to “theism versus atheism.” Put this way, however, we should recognize that we are dealing now with a religious and philosophical issue, not a scientific one. Science cannot, in the nature of the case, rule out God as somehow supervising evolutionary processes.

.. and then this:

Maybe evolution, theistic or otherwise, can explain all these things–as Christian Francis Collins believes just as firmly as atheist Richard Dawkins believes. But we must allow that evolution has not yet done so.

And that’s a pretty important set of allowances to make—as the ID proponents, as well as the creation science people, rightly insist. Indeed, the late evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould himself agreed, sufficiently so that he and Niles Eldredge postulated “punctuated equilibrium” as a theory to explain the last problem on that list. The creation science and ID people simply aren’t wrong about everything—and their opponents would do well to heed their criticisms, even if they hate their alternative theories.

All of this is right on, IMHO, and it echoes on of Stackhouse’s themes about epistemology and apologetics, which I greatly appreciate: it’s ok to say “I don’t know” sometimes.

The fact, which we evangelicals need to face, is that the basic outlines of contemporary evolutionary theory seem to be sound. All of life does indeed seem to be genetically linked, the amazing and beautiful facts of how genetics operate show that organisms can and do change over time, and contemporary evolutionary theory seems to provide sound explanations for what we find in the record of life on earth.

However, the grand narrative of evolution with a capital-E is inferential and does not in itself account for some important beliefs and affirmations that Christian theology brings to the epistemic table. The evolution-with-a-capital-E metanarrative raises very important questions about “chance,” God’s action in the natural world, and, probably most importantly, about human nature and sin, in ways that seem to require some “push back” or dialectical tension / conversation with theology. So, it seems to me, we have an obligation not to dismiss or ignore basic and well-established principles of how life on earth ordinarily works, but at the same time we do not have an obligation to accept the entire evolutionary meta-narrative. Did God “intervene” at some key points in life’s development? How exactly do Christian affirmations about the uniqueness of humanity, sin, and “the Fall” relate to the ordinary development of life on earth? We don’t know exactly — and that’s ok — we’re not obligated to resolve either end of this tension or to state what we hold and affirm about all aspects of it in stark “either-or” terms. All we really have to admit is that we’re limited in what we can say for sure about how this all works together.

Categories
Epistemology Theology

Stackhouse on Certainty

John Stackhouse wrote a wonderful post recently on certainty.  I”ve been reading some of Stackhouse’s books recently (will blog on them soon) and am finding much resonance with how he thinks through things.  Here is the heart of it:

The Bible, that is, doesn’t promise somehow to lift me above my human limitations into an epistemic situation such that I can know something truly and also know that I know it truly and could not possibly be wrong. How could I, as a human being, ever experience something like that?

(And those who quote passages such as Luke 1:4 and Hebrews 11:1 need to consult the Greek lectionaries to see what is actually meant in the English translations that use “certain” words therein. Those words do not mean certainty in the former sense I’m defining here.)

No, the Bible promises that I can know with such assurance, such conviction, such well-grounded faith that I then can and will act in accordance with that faith—and thus be faithful.

This is, finally, the point of it all. We Christians “live by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7)—and so does everybody else, actually, since no human being can transcend our common situation of epistemic finitude. In fact, if we enjoyed all the certainty (in the former sense) that some Christians say we should claim, well, then, we wouldn’t need faith anymore. We would just know things, and we would know that we were entirely right about them.

Instead, we know things more or less well, just like I know various people more or less well, or various songs more or less well, and thus I have more or less confidence in my knowledge of them. I don’t know anyone or anything in such a way that I could not possibly be wrong about them.

Is that a bit scary? Yes, it is, and I think fear motivates a lot of people who spout off about absolute truth and certainty and the rest of it, and who condemn anyone who suggests that we can’t be as sure of things as they say they are. But claiming certainty in a big, belligerent voice doesn’t alter the situation one bit. And I wish such bullies would calm down and face, so to speak, reality.

Welcome to the human condition, friends. We have to sort out the world as best we can, with whatever help we think we have found.

Categories
Culture Spirituality Theology

Everyday Journal

During exams I got behind in my blogging and failed to mention the latest issue of The Everyday Journal.  Among other notable articles is this interview with Brian McLaren by Thom Turner.  An excerpt from the interview:

If I want to see change in the world, the change needs to begin in myself. If I want to see the world become more peaceful, for example, I need to become a person of peace. If I want the world to become less consumptive, I need to become more self-disciplined, and so on. So, to be the change we want to see in the world, we need spiritual practices that help us change. If you imagine a bunch of greedy people trying to make the world more generous, or a bunch of bitter people trying to make the world more forgiving, you see the folly of seeking local, national, or global change without paying attention to spiritual formation.

And this reflection by Meagan on finder herself changed forever after missionary work in Alaska: “even today, talking to my friends from SEND of Alaska’s Summer Missionary Program (SMP) sometimes reminds me of what I imagine an AA meeting to be like.”

As well as much other excellent stuff!

Categories
Historical Theology Spirituality Theology

Eucharistic Baptists?

The evanglical / sort-of-Baptist church I attend had a “liturgical” service today.  It really spoke to me!  I think it’s so great to connect with the historic traditions and confessions of the Church — the Apostle’s Creed (or a Baptist version of it?!!) and a eucharist in which everyone comes forward to identify with the body and blood of Christ.  This is exactly the kind of service I’ve been looking for — contemporary worship mixed with historic confession and observance of the Lord’s Supper, but still with a Biblical sermon. 

In fact, I’d be interested to explore and push a little further how we treat the eucharistic meal in the economy of salvation.  Growing up in evangelical / fundamental / pietistic churches, I’ve always heard the communion meal prefaced with some statement about how communion doesn’t have anything to do with salvation.  The churches I grew up in were eager to distance themselves from what they (mis)understood to the the Roman Catholic view on the eucharist as sacrament — actually the closed Bretheren church I went to as a little kid was hatefuly anti-Catholic — but even then I felt the “communion merely as rememberance” view was unsatisfying. 

I wonder if it isn’t time for us as evangelicals to recapture the Patristic and Reformational view of the eucharist as something more mystical than merely a remembrance — or maybe I should say, to reinfuse the term “remembrance” with soteriological meaning.  I like Calvin’s view that salvation comes by grace alone mediated by faith as a gift of the Holy Spirit — and so the eucharistic meal is not a “means of grace” in the Roman sense of it — but that partaking in the eucharist is a kind of sign and seal of faith.  I think that the Baptistic evangelical tradition has gone too far in the direction of defining faith as internal experience — we’ve over-reacted to more sacramental forms of the faith.  Internal experience, IMHO, is important, but highly variable and also highly unreliable — particularly for people like me who struggle sometimes with anxiety, depression, doubt, etc.  The fact that someone stands up in front of the congregation and receives the bread and cup is itself an expression and act of faith — and something very real and mysterious happens at the spiritual level in that moment.  (I want to use the phrase “soteriological meaning” above not to signify a sacrament that is required for salvation, but to understand participation in the eucharist as part of what happens along the “way of salvation” — part of the process of the saved / “being saved” // already / not yet of life in Christ).
 
I’m not sure if Calvin ever went in this direction, but I’m kind of thinking of a pneumatological theology of the eucharist.  When someone takes the elements in faith, the Holy Spirit is present to that person and in the gathered community of faith in a special way, supplying, confirming, reinforcing, directing, invigorating faith.  I wonder if this is a sort of evangelical way forward from a kind of stale view of the eucharist without getting in to the question of the “real presence” in either its Catholic or Lutheran versions.  I wonder, if by understanding the Holy Spirit to be present in a special way when the elements are taken in faith, we are able to recite the actual text of scripture:  “this is my body, broken for you” “this cup ???????? ????? ????????is the new covenant in my blood” without having to get into the ontological status of the physical elements.
Categories
Science & Technology Spirituality Theology

Kicked off of Uncommon Descent Again; an Open Letter

An the ASA list, we have been discussing a post by Denyse O’Leary, on the Uncommon Descent ID blog maintained by her and Bill Dembski, which quoted from another thread on the ASA list.

I was very upset by Ms. O’Leary’s blog post because the thread it referred to from ASA list was started by someone with some honest doubts and questions about the relation of faith and science. Several people on the ASA list, including myself, tried to respond to that person in ways we thought might be helpful (and indeed I still hope they were helpful). Hey, we’re all in this exciting but sometimes nerve-wracking boat ride together.

I posted a comment on Uncommon Descent expressing my concern about this (actually my comment got unintentionally triple-posted because it was originally stuck in a spam filter). My biggest concern was what I perceived as a lack of sensitivity to the person who orginally was some thoughtful and troubling questions of us here on the ASA list. I then followed up on a couple of other comments relating to Aquinas and secondary causes.

My reward for this was to be summarily banned from Uncommon Descent — once again.

I would be lying if I were to say that I don’t care about being banned from Uncommon Descent. I do care, mostly because I’m an intense and competitive guy with an overly active sense of fairness. In another sense, I don’t really care — like the rest of us, I really should spend my time on more productive things than arguing with people on blogs (or email lists) anyway. So, yes, I’m ticked — but I’m not crying in my milk. I’ve been kicked out of fancier joints, I guess.

But what I care about most is Truth and the Kingdom of God. I don’t claim any great insight into either except for whatever grace God has given me. And in my humble estimation, the kind of thing represented by Denyse’s “Letter” and the resulting hoo-ha in the comments thereto advances neither.

I’ve no desire to step into yet another online culture war spitting match. Yet, I’d like the record to reflect my requests and thoughts about this to Ms. O’leary and Bill Dembski. Hopefully someone will take them to heart. So, I offer below for the record the comments I offered to them.

In doing this, I also append a little disclaimer: I do not consent to the quoting or reproduction of these comments in any forum unless they are reproduced in full. To do otherwise would be dishonest. Hopefully that’s scary coming from a lawyer.

Herewith the text of my letter:

Denyse and Bill,

I would love to have the opportunity to continue commenting on UD, but it seems that Bill has permanently banned me. Bill, I’d be most grateful if you’d remove that ban, or at least explain to me why it was made. I was certainly critical of Denyse’s post, but I think my criticism was fair and justified. Further, I think the point about secondary causes and Aquinas was a fair one.

I would at least like the opportunity to continue the discussion on secondary causes, which I think is an important one. Given your own recent post about “directed evolution,” Bill, I’d think you’d agree that the discussion of secondary causes and Aquinas could be helpful. You’ve stated publicly that people who believe in “directed evolution” are ID people. I, then, am an ID person, for that is what I believe, within the specific framework of Christian theology as informed by Aquinas and mediated by folks such as Torrance and McGrath.

Denyse, my biggest problem with your post was that it seemed terribly insensitive to the person who originally asked a genuine question about doubt on the ASA list. You apparently didn’t read the ASA list carefully enough, because half of what you attributed to George Murphy came from the person struggling with doubt, not from George. A number of people on the ASA list tried to offer helpful comments to this person, including myself, as my post on UD shows. Whether George’s specific comments were good or not could be debated (personally I very much appreciate George’s kenotic perspective on creation), but you did a grave disservice to everyone involved by simply yanking out a few lines as you did.

Do you have any problem, Denyse of Bill, with the resources I proposed to the doubting person? Do they suggest in any way the sort of capitulation to materialist philosophy or theological softness that you attribute in your post? Does recommending Angus Menuge’s book “Agents Under Fire” in any way suggest that I have even a tip of my big toe in the materialst’s camp?

Denyse, my second biggest problem with your post was that you did absolutely nothing to help the doubting person while she was on the ASA list. Where were your recommendations to her? What counsel did you give her? It strikes me as arrogant in the extreme to cherry pick from a discussion with a hurting person, to which you didn’t even contribute, and then to twist it into some false accusation about how the Church is going to pot. I have a major moral problem with that kind of opportunism.

Denyse, you suggested to me that I’m afraid of stating in public that I believe in a desiger-God; that I’m shying away from ID out of some concern for my career.

Denyse, I don’t know who you think you are to make a statement like that to me. You don’t know me at all. I’ve been an evangelical Christian for over 30 years; I graduated from an evangelical college; I was a litigation attorney in a major firm for 13 years, and now I’m a law professor. I have never hidden my faith; indeed, I’ve always proclaimed it openly in what I say, write and do.

You may note that I never use a psuedonym when I write online; that’s because I believe in letting my “yes” be “yes.” Visit my blog sometime ( http://www.tgdarkly.com/blog ) and tell me if I seem to be timid about proclaiming my faith in the gospel to a hostile world. More than that, as a worship leader in a local church, I spent hundreds of Sundays, one after the other, standing in front of groups of 800 or more people, mostly strangers, visibly and openly proclaiming that Jesus, the logos who made us, is Lord. Who are you to question my faith commitment when you have no idea whatsoever how I have publicly lived it out?

Trust me when I tell you that I’ve taken my professional and personal lumps for being open about my belief in Jesus and in my affirmation that there is “one God, the the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth.” For you to suggest that I’m somehow afraid of expressing my belief in a designer-God is unwarranted. If God wills for me to suffer for my faith in Christ, that ultimately is something I will rejoice in.

Finally, your unwillingness to engage the deeper theological questions arising from what “evidence” of design means is gravely disappointing. I’m sure you know — or maybe you don’t know — that the question of “natural theology” has been debated for centuries. It is NOT a capitulation to materialism to suggest that natural theology reveals little or nothing about the designer to unregenerate minds. I consider myself within the broadly Reformed tradition; plenty of great minds in that tradition, Barth not the least, have been leery of natural theology. And it is NOT a capitulation to materialsm to suggest that God ordinarily works through secondary causes — this, indeed, is a classical theistic position that ultimately is a defense against atheistic claims that God is the author of evil. Again, read Aquinas, particularly his Summa Contra Gentiles.

Bill and Denyse, I think the way you are handling your blog is a terrible shame. We could be having productive and interesting high-level discussions about things like Aquinas and Barth and the doctrine of creation, in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Instead, we get nastiness, misprepresentations, and censoring even of fellow Christians who affirm the reality of a designer-God!

And let me add this final thought, Bill: I’ve no illusions about my own influence in the world. You’ve never heard of me, and you don’t care who I am, so I’m another buzzing fly to be swatted away. But, I’d humbly suggest that I’m exactly the kind of person you should want to engage. I’m not one of the misanthropic blog trollers who often populate blog comments. I have deep evangelical roots, a fair amount of theological education, and as a law professor at a very good law school, over time, Lord willing I will have an opportunity to influence students and to serve as “salt and light” within the academic legal community. Do you think people like me will have any interest in supporting your ideas or work when we can’t even have a civil discussion about Aquinas and causation?

For what it’s worth,

Sincerely,

David W. Opderbeck
http://www.tgdarkly.com

Categories
Science & Technology Theology

Landauer and the Ontology of Information

This continues the discussion on the ontology of information. Someone suggested that “information” has been shown by Rolf Landauer to be physical, and therefore not a thing-in-itself. I happened to have been reading some of Landauer’s work before this theological discussion for a law paper I’m working on right now relating to the legal regulation of information through intellectual property law (thrilling, I know).

The problem I see with using Landauer’s view of information is that it seems inseparable from a materialist metaphysics. Here is Landauer’s opening salvo in “The Physical Nature of Information,” Physics Letters, July 15, 1996:

“Information is not a disembodied abstract entity; it is always tied to a physical representation.”

He continues:

“our assertion that information is pysical amounts to an asertion that mathematics and computer science are a part of physics.”

Later, explicitly contrasting his view to (what he perceives to be) Christian theology and earlier scientific views derived from theology, he says:

“Our scientific culture normally views the law of physics as predating the actual physical universe. The law are considered to be like a control program in a modern chemical plant; the plant is turned on after the program is installed. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John I, 1), attests to this belief. Word is a translation from the Greek Logos “thought of as constituting the controlling principle of the universe.”

He concludes:

“The view I have expounded here makes the laws of physics dependent upon the apparatus and kinetics available in our universe, and that kinetics in turn depends on the laws of physics. Thus, this is a want ad for a self-consistent theory.”

Given the argument here in “The Physical Nature of Information,” which follows up on his “Information is Physical” (Physics Today May 1991), it seems to me that Landauer clearly is proposing a materialist metaphsics. I can’t reconcile that entirely physical view of “information” with the belief that, as we in the ASA have put it, “in creating and preserving the universe God has endowed it with contingent order and intelligibility, the basis of scientific investigation.”

Categories
Science & Technology Theology

Information and Natural Theology

I’ve been discussing with various people the nature of “information” and how the ontology of information relates to natural theology and intelligent design. Someone suggested that “information” should be understood as a thing-in-itself apart from matter and energy. He used money as an analogy: money is separable from the commodities it can purchase.

I thought that was an interesting analogy, but for the opposite point: that “information” is not a thing-in-itself, a given aspect of creation, but rather is socially constructed. Here are the preliminary thoughts I had about that, and about how it realtes to natural theology:

Wealth as an analogy for information is very interesting. It gets right to the heart of how I’m trying to think about this. Wealth, or better, a medium of market exchange, isn’t a thing-in-itself in the same sense as matter and energy. God created matter and energy such that they are fundamental properties of the created universe. He didn’t create “wealth” or any medium of market exchange in the same way.

Rather, wealth and currency are socially constructed by people. The only reason a dollar has any value is that society agrees that it has such a value. Absent the social contract, a dollar is a worthless piece of paper. God didn’t create money in the sense that he created matter and energy; He created people who in virtue of bearing His image are social beings; and in virtue of being social beings, people construct social realities that can include things like money. But those social realities aren’t a given in the way that matter and energy are givens. People couldn’t “agree” that matter and energy no longer exist and thereby make it so; but people could (and often do) agree to construct markets without currency, and thereby make it so.

I am beginning to think of “information” the same way: as a social construction, not a given fundamental property of the universe such as matter and energy. We can only properly speak of “information” in the universe in the context of its construction in social relationships.

I think this social view of information has implications for natural theology, but I haven’t really worked this out. In short, if information is a social construction, we should not expect to be able to separate a message from its social context. God may be communicating something about Himself to us through nature, but we will only truly recognize that message in the context of relationship with Him. We can’t speak of “information,” then, as an independent property of the universe that could be detected and measured by just anyone, like matter and energy. “Information” can only be constructed in a social context; genuine information about God can ultimately only be constructed in a social context appropriate to that sort of exchange — the Church. Any effort to construct a natural theology apart from the presuppositions of faith expressed in the community of the Church will therefore fail.

Does anyone have a more “objective,” non-social view of what “information” is as a thing-in-the-universe? If so, can you think of a better, non-social analogy (other than something like money)?

Categories
Theology

Theology for the Community of God

I love the late Stan Grenz’s work. Recently I started reading his systematic theology, “Theology for the Community of God.” His introductory chapter, “The Nature and Task of Theology,” is a gem. Here is what he says about theology that centers on propositional revelation, what he calls the “concordance” view of theology:

Despite its positive contributions, the concordance understanding of theology has one decisive flaw. It does not give adequate attention to the contextual nature of theology. Theological reflection always occurs within and for a specific historical context. Consequently, all theological assertions are historically conditioned. In contrast to the assumption of propositionalists, by its very nature theology is a contextual discipline.”

Yes! He continues, on the relation between Theology and Truth:

Theological systems do not provide a replica, a ‘scale model’ of reality. Their propositions are not univocal. Hence, no one system can claim to be an exact verbal reproduction of the nature of God or of the human person and the world in relation to God. Rather, the theologian seeks to invoke an understanding of reality by setting forth through an analogous model realities which may be mysterious, even ineffable. In this process of understanding, a systematic theology can be helpful, insofar as it is an appropriate analogue model able to assist us in grasping the profound mystery of reality. In this sense, a theological system is always a human construct.

Again, yes! He then concludes this about the “ongoing nature of the theological task”:

“Theology is a contextual discipline. Theologians do not merely amplify, refine, defend, and deliver to the next generation a timeless, fixed orthodoxy. Rather, by speaking from within the community of faith, they seek to describe the act of faith, the God toward whom faith is directed, and the implications of our faith commitment in, for, and to a specific historical and cultural context.”

Once more, yes!