Ned's Faith Mumblings

Game Theory and Evolution

2012-02-09T04:18:00.000-08:00

It's been several years since I read Dawkin's "Selfish Gene" (where I mentioned it is an overview of game theory).

I realized that some people might want a tl;dr version of game theory. I think I can fit it in one or two (longish) blog posts:

First, I play a lot of games (to the point where I consider myself an amateur game designer). Game theory has little or nothing to do with actual, fun games. It also has nothing to do with "gaming" (the self-respecting term for gambling).

Game theory deals with logic puzzles. Both in finding the optimal solutions for them, and dealing with "populations" (numbers of agents all involved in the puzzle).

A classic example is the "prisoner's dilemma":

Two prisoners each have two choices, (0) remain silent, or (1) squeal on the other prisoner.

This yields four outcomes:

00	(Both silent) Each receives a small benefit
01	(One squeals) The squealer receives a large benefit, the silent a large penalty
10	(As above, roles reversed)
11	(Both squeal) Each receives a small penalty

The actual numbers used can vary, and the numbers (and their ratios) will determine the outcome in the later simulations.

The optimal strategy is to remain silent (since both win). However, if you know the other will be silent, you can "cheat" him and squeal (getting yourself a large bonus).

Now, let's apply that to populations.

Imagine a large population of "silents" (agents who always choose the silent option). This population is stable, it always generates benefits, which allows it to continue (propagating more silents).

Now add a single "squealer" to the mix.

This squealer will reap large benefits in every transaction, and never have a penalty.

In the next generation, there will be more squealers.

However, the population will never reach all squealers.

This is because when two squealers meet, they are both penalized. The final ratio will depend on the relative values for the four outcomes.

A population of all squealers might disappear (since they are all penalized), depending on the rules of the simulation.

To be continued!

Evangelism

2012-01-22T08:11:00.000-08:00

"Evangelism: How to Share the Gospel Faithfully" (John MacArthur, et al) - This was a really good book. Different chapters written by different people at Grace Community Church. The best quote is "work like an Arminian, sleep like a Calvinist". I also found a new appreciation for short-term missions, which must be viewed as first-most for encouraging long term missionaries.

State of Marriage

2012-01-15T11:07:00.000-08:00

An old post from Albert Mohler I found at the bottom of my inbox...

I'm fascinated by the degree to which Postmillenialism dominates Christian thinking. I would presume Mohler is a Premillenialist of some sort (being Baptist). At most, amil.

We must understand that, fundamentally, the majority will always reject God ("the wide road"). The founders of America were not strong Christians, but they did operate under the assumption of a Christian worldview - and that the population would continue to hold that view.

We see now, the consequences of such a system; where the population ceases to hold that view.

Why does the State involve itself in marriage?

From a "Christian nation" point of view, it is to encourage the formation of families. Tax breaks (in the form of tax tables, and benefits like health care) allow for one parent (originally the man) to provide for a family. Single people complain of unfair treatment, and the "marriage penalty" is born. Other groups seek State sanctification of what they call marriage - in order to access the benefits.

"There is no major society that exists without marriage, and those rare movements in history that sought to eliminate marriage led to disaster."

While true, we cannot operate from this motive (pragmatism, or even "the ends justify the means").

We are seeing the fallout of where a Christian derived system is reconciled with the majority rejecting Christ. The question is: can a stable (and God-honoring) system be derived where the majority reject Him?

I don't know, but I don't know if anyone else is even asking the question.

Some are calling for the State to withdraw from involvement in the regulation of marriage - and I must agree (and disagree with Mohler's claim this "would lead to legal, moral, and cultural chaos"). There are standard forms for wills, etc. which are not blessed by the State. Christian men will continue to provide for their families as best they are able. Non-Christians will continue as well as they are able.

But this is just removing a vestigial remnant of the Christian worldview. It does not address replacing and fortifying underlying structure.

End of Capitalism

2012-01-11T04:12:00.000-08:00

(continuing my series on economics)

Finally getting around to another article which triggered this whole excursion...

I like his insight. Marx saw inevitable problems with Capitalism, which made it unsustainable. Marx then assumed there was a better way, and created Communism (of course, being blind to its own unsustainable problems :)

"Because the truth might just be that the global economy is in historic, generational trouble, plagued by problems the orthodoxy didn't expect, didn't see coming, and doesn't quite know what to do with."

Work Before the Fall

2011-12-10T04:11:00.000-08:00

Now that I have laid some groundwork on economics and our current situation, we can examine the Biblical points on work and the economy.

There is little known about life before the Fall, but what we have is instructive.

First, we have God's work in Creation:

"And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made." (Gen 2:2)

The Hebrew word here is מְלַאכְתֹּ֖ו (mel-aw-kah). It can be used for ministry, or deputyship in addition to "work". It is not used for servile work. It is used again in verse 3 (repeated reference to rest from His work). After that, it does not appear until Exodus.

The work for the man (Adam) is described differently:

"And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it." (Gen 2:15)

The word dress here (עָבְדָ֖)(aw-bad) is usually translated "serve" (also in the context of work). In fact, in 290 uses, it is translated "serve" 227. It is translated "dress" only twice (Deut 28:39 being the other one). Usually "dress" comes from a different word, meaning "do".

("Keep" here means "guard", which is the subject for another day)

Finally, at the Fall:

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground" (Gen 3:19)

So we see a difference in the work of God, and the work of man (not surprising). The man's work, even before the Fall, is servile (in service to God) - possibly even hard.

At the Fall, we see man's work changed. Now it is literally "sweat" (zay-aw) to get bread. This might refer to conditions changing to cause sweat when working (perhaps due to a change in diet - garden vs. bread), but seems to more refer to "frustration". Before, the work was rewarding and pleasant - now it is tedious and often spoiled.

Man's work was created on day 6 - before God rested, saying everything is good. The Fall has brought frustration and sweat.

Next Review

2011-12-09T05:30:00.000-08:00

There is a new biography of William Tyndale coming out. It should arrive in a week or so, and will probably take a few weeks to read... Looking forward to it!

Artificial Scarcity

2011-12-08T04:44:00.001-08:00

As I said before, economics is the science of managing scarcity.

In an agricultural or industrial economy, this makes perfect sense. There is only so much food, or physical goods to go around. Some will have, and some will have not.

But the industrial economy has been slowly giving way to an "information economy" - where the people most in demand produce ideas (be it stories, movies, insightful commentary, whatever).

Information is not a physical good (although it requires physical goods to store and manipulate). It can be transferred quickly and easily, and every transfer is an opportunity for copying (distribution is nearly free, and scales well over huge numbers of people).

At the same time, the industrial side of things have become immensely cheap and efficient. China produces all the computers we can possibly need, each more powerful than a room size super computer from the 80's.

How do we handle this?

From very early on, the answer was "artificial scarcity" (it's in the Constitution!). This is usually in the form of "patents", and "copyright". A patent grants a monopoly to the inventor of a design for some time. Copyright grants a monopoly to the author of a creative work.

It's unclear how well this ever worked (it has always sort of muddled along). But in the age of the Internet, it is clearly failing badly.

Charles Stross eloquently identifies how the cure has been worse than the disease.

"As ebook sales mushroom, the Big Six's insistence on DRM has proven to be a hideous mistake. Rather than reducing piracy[*], it has locked customers in Amazon's walled garden, which in turn increases Amazon's leverage over publishers."

Charlie is noting the problem in the publishing industry, but we see similar things in music (ruled by iTunes). Movies suffer similarly, although no one agent has managed to corner the market (there have been huge upheavals - witnessed by the rapid move of new releases from theaters to DVD (to forestall piracy)).

The obvious solution is to not charge for distribution. Money would need to be gathered beforehand (like the patronage system). Obviously, a lot of kinks need to be worked out of the system, but it doesn't seem anyone is thinking this way...
(for example, why do we even need money)

The Skin Map

2011-12-07T21:00:00.000-08:00

"The Skin Map" (Stephen Lawhead)(audio) - This book was provided for me by the publisher.

The Skin Map is the first book in a series very much like Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia". You can also compare it to the purely secular "Merchant Princes" (Charles Stross).

The world is like our own, but there are "ley lines" which provide access to alternate Earths. Like most alternate Earth settings, some worlds are behind in time (although, apparently you cannot move to a world ahead of your own time).

The main character is a young man (Kit Livingston), who has not made much of his life. Kit is coming to that conclusion himself when everything changes.

The story follows Kit, his girlfriend, Kit's grandfather, and a mysterious man - who has the "skin map" tattooed on his person (as a flashback).

The ending is somewhat of a cliffhanger, but the book is satisfying in itself.

In the audio format, it is very accessible. The reader has a soft, pleasant, English accent and the pace is steady (not too fast or slow). His inflection is well modulated to indicate different speakers, with unique voices for all the characters. There are only four or five tracks per CD, so if your player has trouble keeping your current place you might have some difficulties getting back to where you left off.

That covers the basic outline, but how does it look from a Christian perspective?

First, anyone who has problems with magic, or druidic sorts of things will not be happy. Things like Stonehenge and ancient mounds form the basis of Kit's "ley line" travel. It is really pretty time, in my view, but I want to give fair warning for the sensitive conscience.

Second, I didn't really see anything that promotes or encourages a Christian worldview, nor any Christian themes. Again, that's not a problem for me. It is much like Tolkien or Lewis.

Finally, I am most grateful that it is lacking in the gratuitous sex and course language that permeates most authors today. I did notice one weird usage of part of Numbers 22:21 (KJV) ;)

Overall, I prefer Lawhead to Stross ("Merchant Princes"). It promises to be an interesting and well done series, and I will definitely read the next book.

Pro-life Failure

2011-12-07T04:47:00.001-08:00

Excellent post from Al Mohler.

"Voters in what is believed to be the most pro-life state in the union overwhelmingly voted down a statement that declared personhood for every human being from the moment of fertilization onward. The horrifying reality is this — the scare tactics used by abortion rights activists included some truths that even pro-lifers evidently do not embrace."

I often wonder why our politicians do not do something about the life issue, it seems they are actually representative of the people...

What is Christian Fiction?

2011-12-05T03:34:00.001-08:00

I'm into disc 8 (of 9) of "The Skin Map". This has led me to think about "Christian Fiction", which is what it is labeled as...

Several possibilities:

Written for Christians
Written by a Christian
Written from a Christian worldview (hopefully goes with #2)
Written to promote Christianity

This is not an area I have a lot of experience with. A good second hand account is "The Shack", which many people permitted because "it's just fiction". However, it was written from the point of view of aberrant theology - so it is hard to see any way it can be called "Christian" (unless you mean #1 or 2).

The only examples I can think of that I have read are the Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis, and the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) books by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Both authors are Christian (as much as we can tell). Not theologians, or rock solid on every doctrine, but seemed to hold the faith until the end.

The Space Trilogy seems to appeal to Christians more than non-Christians, and is reasonably consistent with the Christian worldview (although, more allegorical than literal).

But what about LOTR?

There are actually a lot of Christian themes in the books. However, when I read them, I didn't see them (they are not explicit). Furthermore, Tolkien pretty much created the whole industry for high fantasy (D&D, etc.) - which many Christians oppose.

I'm not sure where to place The Skin Map. It is certainly not overtly Christian, but that cannot be seen for sure until the conclusion. It is fairly Molinist so far, which is where a lot of Christians are... (although I would consider it heterodox, and potentially dangerous).

The End of Jobs

2011-11-22T03:28:00.000-08:00

(continuing my series on economics)

Finally getting around to another news article which triggered this whole thing...

He has many insightful points. It reminds me of thoughts I had when I first read about nanotechnology (Drexler's "Engines of Creation") - that there could come a time of "vacation for everyone". This is the world of Star Trek (particularly Next Generation) - fantasy twenty or thirty years ago, now suddenly upon us.

"And so the president goes on television telling us that the big issue of our time is jobs, jobs, jobs -- as if the reason to build high-speed rails and fix bridges is to put people back to work. But it seems to me there's something backwards in that logic. I find myself wondering if we may be accepting a premise that deserves to be questioned... Our problem is not that we don't have enough stuff -- it's that we don't have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff." (emphasis added)

This captures the problem succinctly.

Economics is the science of managing scarcity. As an engineer, I like to think the purpose of engineering is to make more stuff more efficiently, and to make jobs obsolete (even our own).

This is the goal, but we operate under the assumption that it can never be attained (like an asymptote). Further, we expected much greater heights (a space faring civilization). Now it seems we have peaked sooner.

The problem is twofold:
1) (As seen by Drexler) The frightening conclusion is that the wealthy can simply eliminate the underclasses (who are no longer needed to sustain them). Or similarly, the underclasses eliminate the wealthy (and probably start in on each other). If you only need a handful of people to run the economy, eliminate the rest. (This is why even atheists should be against abortion, on principle).

2) We have no path from here to there. We have 1% of the people with most of the wealth. We still have some jobs that have to get done that people don't want to do. We have little or no (or mostly negative) science, experience, and skill in distributing things needed and requiring things get done apart from the system of jobs and money.

The Mind of God

2011-11-09T08:33:00.000-08:00

"The Mind of God" (Paul Davies) - I seem to recall the name Davies in Christian apologetics. Hopefully, it is referring to some other Davies, but this was not really solidly Christian.

The book is fairly short (232 pages to end notes), but took me a long time to get through. It is basically a survey of different cosmologies, with some of the history. Davies is never really clear on which he favors.

He does make some things clear:

The Bible is not to be taken seriously in matters of origins
Evolution is true
He has faith that mankind can come up with all the answers

His openness towards mysticism was probably the most disappointing. I will probably do a separate post for that.

New Review Coming

2011-11-04T19:34:00.000-07:00

You know you're taking too long for a review when the company goes through a name change and it still takes you a year to get your review done :)

The Nelson Blogger Book Review program is now under the Book Sneeze name.

I became eligible for a new book as soon as my review for the last one was done, but I had held off. I am behind on my reading, and I wasn't sure what to read next.

Then I received notice of a new audio book available: "The Skin Map".

This should be ideal. It is Christian fiction, which I have read very little of, but would like to read more. And it is audio, so I can listen to it during my commute, without interfering with all the other reading I need to do...

Orthodox Study Bible

2011-10-25T05:02:00.000-07:00

(finishing my (three year!) review of the Orthodox Study Bible)

This has been the hardest part to write...

The Orthodox Study Bible is very beautiful, and filled with insight into the Eastern traditions. The English translation of the LXX is very interesting. It is certainly an excellent resource for those in Eastern rite churches.

My worry is for shaky Evangelical Protestants, who will see many Roman Catholic traditions fortified in these pages. The Eastern view of Mary is very much in line with the RCC view (possibly even more extreme, if that is possible). It saddens me that the Orthodox view Protestants as a branch of the Roman church, further from themselves, rather than closer to the teachings of the apostles.

180 Movie

2011-09-27T17:59:00.000-07:00

Just finished watching this!

30 minutes that could change your mind about everything.

A Case for the Rapture

2011-09-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

I) Surprise
My main focus is on Jesus' description of the Day of the Lord coming “as a thief in the night” (Matt 24:42, Luke 12:40 – there is no reference in Mark or John; Jesus refers to it again in Rev 16:15).

The apostles continue using this phrase in 1 Thes 5:2, and 2 Pet 3:10. (2 Thes 2 also talks some about the Coming of our Lord.)

Matthew says "Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come" (Luke is similar in content).

It might be argued from 1 Thes 5:4 that Christians can know the hour (that it is non-Christians who are taken by surprise), but verse 6 still calls for us to be watchful – there is no mention of any events for us to look for which would signal the Second Coming.

We see the opposite in 2 Thes 2. Apparently, some false teachers told the Thessalonians that the Day of the Lord was upon them (v2, they had been in effect “left behind”). Here Paul proves to them they are not in the last days, as there would be several very clear signs.

The other possible counterpoint is Rev 3:3 (letter to Sardis). Here the context is not the Day of the Lord; but related – judgment against a local church.

II) The Fullness of Wrath in Judgment
This is counterbalanced by the giving of several very specific time frames for events during the Great Tribulation, as God's wrath is poured out through many specific, supernatural signs.

For example:
Rev 9:5 - 5 months
Rev 11:3 - 1260 days
Rev 13:5 - 42 months

Additionally, there are the events of the 21 judgments which are played out sequentially. Many charts have been drawn up which detail much of this period, and which could be used to reliably determine the coming of Jesus.

III) Contradiction?
So then, we have an apparent contradiction – Jesus comes as a thief in the night, totally unexpected. Yet, we have Jesus' coming preceded by very specific, well-timed events (of unmistakeably supernatural proportions).

How can we resolve this contradiction?

The Rapture comes as a thief in the night, where we are “gathered unto Him” for we are “not appointed unto wrath”, and at some point after, the well-timed events begin their march to the close of history. The wrath of God poured out unto judgment.

Debt, Deficit, and Growth

2011-09-10T04:42:00.000-07:00

(continuing my series on economics)

Some important definitions:
debt - money that is owed (like a mortgage or credit card balance).

deficit - a shortfall in your budget (losing money each month or year).

Obviously a family can deal with some amount of debt, and it can be good. Borrowing for a home can be a way to get a home now and pay for it over your lifetime. Borrowing for a car is probably less wise, and running up your credit card is just foolish.

In the same way, government debt is not necessarily bad. As long as the economy is growing, the debt is controllable (you will have more future earnings to cover the interest payments).

Deficits are a whole different story.

Clearly, a family cannot survive for very long with debt and a deficit. Eventually, the credit cards will run out, and you will be bankrupt.

With the government, things are more muddy.

The economy (as it is currently formulated) is dynamically stable - like a bicycle. As long as it is running, it will stay upright. If it stalls, it will fall over, and is difficult to restart.

The government can take action to keep the economy running (running a deficit to pump money into the economy and make it grow).

But this doesn't make sense in a static economy. You're trying to restart an engine which has nowhere to go. You can continue to print money and hand it out, but there are not any more goods being produced. That will lead to inflation.

A Coming Static Economy?

2011-09-03T03:57:00.000-07:00

(continuing my series on economics)

When I look at current events, I wonder if we are looking at a transition to a static (non-growing) economy (although I am a pessimist, so it just might be me).

As I mentioned before, the primary factor of the economy is people. With abortion rates approaching 25%, we must admit that we have fewer people now (the producers and consumers of today's economy have been murdered). Also, reproduction rates in the West have fallen below the replacement rate (in America, you must overlook the first generation immigrant rate to see this trend). It is highly unlikely the population in the West will double in 40 years, or ever. It is possible the population will decrease (and will become heavily weighted toward the elderly).

When you look at the events of the Arab Spring, they are fundamentally economic (young people realizing they have no jobs). This is also somewhat present in the West, although to a lesser degree (although we are seeing some contraction of welfare states).

Interest rates are an indirect indicator of people's belief about growth in the economy. The government can lower rates to try and drive growth, but when rates stay low for long periods of time (record low rates on 30 year loans, for example) - this is an implicit statement that the economy will not grow.

The Limits of Growth

2011-08-31T04:04:00.000-07:00

(returning to my series on economics)

We finally come to one of the articles which triggered this whole thing...

His analysis is belaboring the obvious. Exponential growth, while exciting, is ultimately unsustainable. It's like the people who extend computing growth graphs to say that a hard drive can store the atomic state of a person for transporters in 2400 (Star Trek timeline), or show the temperature of CPU's reach that of the surface of the Sun.

At the same time, much of our economic wisdom is based on continual growth (see the previous post in this series).

Fifty years ago, it seemed certain that growth could be sustained through advanced technology (fission and fusion), and additional resources would come from expansion into space.

Today, that is far from certain.

The most important factor in the economy is people, and a growing economy requires a growing population.

Population has grown at about 2% (doubling every 35-40 years). This compares favorable with economic growth of 4-5%. Every forty years, you have twice as many people and four times the goods and services. There will not be equal distribution, but there is plenty to go around.

The most important good is food. The last hundred years have seen remarkable progress in this area. We produce more food with less people and land than ever before. Part of the cost of this is increased use of energy and fertilizer.

Similarly, modern conveniences require power (mostly electricity). Power production and distribution has not been spectacular, but has managed to provide what we need.

The Twilight of Atheism - pt 3

2011-08-22T06:01:00.000-07:00

(finishing my thoughts after reading McGrath's book)

My main concern is with McGrath's discernment (which is reflective of the kind of discernment we see in a lot of people).

"[in] the 2001 census of Great Britain... 72 percent of the population defined themselves as Christian. Relatively few of these attend church - a pastoral problem" (p 241)

I don't think that's a pastoral problem. It's a sign that most people have no idea what Christianity is. Most people are inoculated against the Gospel. This is not reassuring in any way.

"One of the most important elements in this new evaluation of the situation is the growing attention paid by sociologists to Pentecostalism, a rapidly growing worldwide form of Christianity." (p 192)

"One of the reasons that Pentecostalism has succeeded is that mainline Protestantism has failed to meet the needs and aspirations of the marginalized and disadvantaged." (p 196)

It appears McGrath laments the decline of mysticism and superstition which accompanied the rise of Protestantism, which Pentecostalism is bringing back (c.f. p 203, 216).

The second statement is particularly distressing. Mainline Protestants failed to protect the authority of the Bible, and sacrificed the true Gospel for a false gospel of "meeting felt needs" and helping social situations.

Pentecostalism is on the verge of losing the Gospel in the name of feelings and emotions (also through obsession with certain "gifts" of the Spirit). On the flip side, atheism is giving way to mysticism and New Age spiritualism (c.f. Sam Harris).

The Twilight of Atheism - pt 2

2011-08-21T04:03:00.000-07:00

(continuing my review of Alister McGrath's book)

I am always looking for the theology behind things. For McGrath, it is hard to find. The closest is probably pages 175-178, where he recounts his testimony of being an atheist before becoming a Christian:

"By 'atheist', I mean precisely what the word has always been understood to mean - a principled and informed decision to reject belief in God." (p 175, emphasis in original)
"I began to realize how little I knew about the history and philosophy of the natural sciences, or the nature of Christian belief... To cut a long story short, I discovered that I had rejected what I did not really understand... I began to discover a dimension to life that I had hitherto suppressed." (p178)

This is worrisome. Where is sin and repentance?

Also, McGrath seems to favor the atheist definition of faith (although it is conditional, he doesn't expand):

"If 'faith' is defined as 'belief lying beyond proof'" (p 180)

That said, McGrath does shed some light on why outward atheism had such a strong presence in Europe, but remained a minority in America. Atheism, as formulated in Europe, is a static attack on the Christianity of Europe - the mixture of Church and State. State Churches where leadership is a political appointment, and where Christianity is associated with nationalism and "the old way".

By rebelling against old, corrupt, and inadequate ways - and offering a new "global membership" (to eliminate nationalism) - atheism attracted many people who were oppressed under the old ways. Rebellion against kings and entrenched power became rebellion against the Church and, ultimately God. Where "Christendom" had been an instrument of oppression, atheism offered freedom.

In America, there was (and is) no tie between Church and State. Indeed, the local churches were often reactions against State Churches from Europe. When rebellion came, the churches were fully integrated into the spirit of rebellion.

This is why McGrath sees atheism in its twilight. The State Churches of Europe have been broken for more than a generation. The atheism of the last generation is no longer relevant for today. It cannot stand on its own, it is totally reactionary.

The Twilight of Atheism

2011-08-19T04:11:00.000-07:00

"The Twilight of Atheism" (Alister McGrath) - I had been told to read McGrath by some people at Biologos. Earlier, I read his "The Reenchantment of Nature". I was tired of the Biologos stuff, so this title seemed a good change.

McGrath connects the "empire of atheism" to modernity. He sets its rise at the fall of the Bastille, and its decline at the fall of the Berlin wall (p1, the same dates Oden uses for modernity, although McGrath does not cite Oden).

I'm finding myself annoyed with McGrath's style. He does not present things from a Biblical basis - there are no references to Scripture. His stand on key doctrines is often unclear, and sometimes hinted as being heterodox.

This is seen in his treatment of Hell:

"Darwin's rejection of God actually has little to do with the specifics of evolution, and much more to do with a general cultural dislike of some of the more noxious aspects of the hell-and-brimstone preaching of certain Victorian evangelicals " (p 104)

I can assume he means noxious to Darwin and the Victorians...
He sets this aside, until its sudden reappearance later:

"The most fundamental criticisms directed against Christianity have to do with the moral character of its God, and often focus specifically on the issue of eternal punishment. No theological issue posed greater difficulties for Victorian England." (p 274)

His advice?

"Christianity must provide answers - good answers - to such fair questions and never assume that it can recycle yesterday's answers to today's concerns." (p 274)

In charity, I can read that to say that we must always be careful to contextualize the Gospel message for our hearers. We must work to have the message make sense.

Growth, Debt, and Investment

2011-08-18T04:21:00.000-07:00

(Continuing my series on economics)

The world economy has been growing steadily for hundreds of years. Usually at a rate of 1-4%, but any continual growth is exponential.

This is the incredible power of compound interest. 4% growth seems low. You have $100 now, and you'll have $104 next year - big deal. But, in 20 years, you'll have $219.11. In 40 years, $480.10.

These investments are needed to counteract inflation, and to provide for yourself after you are unable to work.

Investments also provide the funds involved in debt.

Some people have a knee jerk reaction against debt ("all debt is bad"). This is because a lot of people misuse debt, and are enslaved to it.

There is nothing inherently wrong with debt. It provides a way to access future earnings. A person with an idea for business takes out a loan, and starts that business. The gains from the business pay back the interest on the loan. The lender gains interest, which protects their savings against inflation.

Debt and investment are two sides of the same coin - as long as the economy is growing, and has win-win situations.

Money

2011-08-17T04:10:00.000-07:00

Last time we spelled out the fundamentals of the economy: specialized labor, trade, and currency (money).

1 Timothy 6:10

"For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."

This verse is often misquoted as "money is the root of all evil", but it clearly love of money (elsewhere greed is identified as a form of idolatry).

The Kingdom of Israel (as spelled out in the Old Testament) made use of currency (the shekel). Through most of history, money was in the form of precious metals (gold, silver, and copper or bronze).

Many people today bemoan the move off of the gold standard (where paper currency is tied to physical goods, usually blocks of gold) (Ron Paul, I'm looking at you).

However, it is important to realize currency is simply the "working fluid" of the engine of the economy. It's like only putting 1 quart of oil in your engine, because 1 is such a good number - being neither prime nor composite.

A growing economy needs more money to keep transactions going smoothly. This is also the source of inflation (increase in the cost of goods). As more money chases a limited number of goods, prices increase. As long as inflation is predictable, it can be handled. As long as it is low, it can be handled. Unpredictable inflation is a serious problem, unpredictable high inflation can be deadly.

The real problem is that money is also a proxy for power.

Money is related to time, but not exactly comparable. Wages are paid out per hour of labor, but everyone gets the same amount of time (168 hours per week).

If you imagine power and influence coming through the use of one's time (getting people to agree with you), then money allows you to achieve the same purpose in little or no time.

This allows some people more influence in proportion to their money.

Now, this is ratio thing. If I am a millionaire, and everyone else is only millionaires then we are all equal. But if I am a billionaire, and everyone else is millionaires - I have an edge. We see this in the rising cost of political campaigns. People will spend millions (I seem to recall the last presidential election approached a billion from all sides) for these jobs. Callous people believe this is an investment which will be paid back, but not necessarily so. Once you have enough money, you can effectively view power as the end, and money as the means (power becomes a "good" which can be bought, rather than an investment with a return).

This is a problem outside of economics. It is a political, and ultimately, theological problem.

Fun Econ

2011-08-16T03:54:00.000-07:00

(In college 200 level courses where called Fundamentals of subject, so we called them Fun)

Fundamentally, economics is about the management of scarcity. You only have so much goods, and time, and you need some plan for utilizing them. That's it.

The basic input to the economy is work, human labor. Now, God created work in the beginning, before the Fall. So work is good. However, the Fall has cursed it. For now, work is unpleasant and people need some motivation to work.

The measure of effective work per person is called "productivity". When economists talk about "productivity increase" they mean the same amount of people are doing more work, or fewer people are doing the same amount of work.

The bare minimum is "sustenance farming". This is where everyone produces everything they need. There is little or no trade, and no opportunity for specialization. With low population density, life can actually be pretty relaxed (I recall hunter gatherers had the shortest work day). Productivity is very low, since everyone must each learn every possible task. Also, individual talent is not utilized to the fullest (if I am good at growing plants, but poor at managing animals - I still spend time doing both).

Specialization requires trade (I produce only goats, and I need wheat). And trade works much better with currency (money). I have a cow and want shoes. I can't use 100 shoes, and I don't want to give up the cow for less. I can sell the cow to a third party for money, and use some to buy shoes.

Capital is the means of production (it can also refer to large investments of money). This might refer to land or animals, factories, etc.

Production can be of durable goods (things that last, perhaps further means of production - a factory that produces factory parts), or consumables (things used up; food, paper towels). There is also service - things like waiters and cooks, accountants, etc. And energy (gasoline, electricity).

A "good" is anything produced for the economy. It is usually reserved for physical items, but might be used for anything. There are no "bads", but any production has waste outputs and often "externalities" (negative side effects which fall on third parties).

Christian Economics

2011-08-15T03:55:00.000-07:00

Because it deals with people, economics is a "soft science". The science is in the formulas and mathematical principles which can analyze trends and give some predictions for the future based on policies.

However, it cannot be separated from theology.

This comes into play with ideas like morality (what activities are right and good and should be encouraged), teleology (purpose), and anthropology (theory of man).

One of the big assumptions is that people are rational when it comes to economic decisions.

This ignores the fact that sin is irrational.

I recall after one of the recent bubbles, Alan Greenspan reported that he was surprised that greed could cause people to make bad decisions.

On the opposite side, there are those who believe that any notion of property, or that some might have more than others is inherently evil.

I am not so much interested in the ideal, as what Christianity has to say about economics in the presence of sinful actors.

ASC and Gene Therapy

2011-06-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

A fascinating article from Science Daily:

"They used synthetic proteins called zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs) to target a corrective gene at a specifically defined location in the genome of the X-CGD iPS cells. The iPS cells were then carefully screened to identify those containing a single copy of the corrective gene properly inserted only at the safe site. The researchers observed that some of the gene-corrected iPS cells could differentiate into neutrophils that produced normal levels of hydrogen peroxide, effectively 'correcting' the disease."

Taking defective blood stem cells, and patching their programming!

Hypocrisy

2011-06-20T05:17:00.000-07:00

One of the classic complaints against Christianity is "the church is full of hypocrites".

Let's overlook the obvious problem with this statement (you are turning down God's offer of forgiveness and eternal life in Heaven - because some people who claim they will be in Heaven are jerks).

First, I must say, if a local church is full of hypocrites, you should avoid that church.

Why?

Two possibilities:

They say they are evil, but are actually good. I don't think anyone would have a problem with this. It'd be like super-humility.
They say they are good, but are actually evil.

If they say they are good, they don't have a very good grasp of the Gospel (we are evil, God is good - we can get forgiveness for our evil, and get credit for God's goodness).

Ok. But what about atheists who are hypocrites?

Atheists cannot believe in anything greater than themselves. That is because everything dies with us (entropy). There can't be anything greater than ourselves, as individuals. At most, they can sponsor some sort of utilitarianism, which sees to the maximization of utility (although that has some problems).

So, any atheist who argues in favor of their belief system over any other - "because it is true" - is a hypocrite. Truth doesn't matter (under their system). Only our own purposes - which means theists can have their own purposes, and atheists shouldn't try to dissuade them.

Felix Manz - Martyr

2011-06-06T04:16:00.000-07:00

This is another series I've wanted to work on... I've had troubles locating a copy of Fox's (or Foxe's) Book of Martyrs. Although there seems to be one online...

"Martyr" is from the Greek word "witness". The early Church was famous for witnesses who were true to the end (death by persecution). There were so many, that martyr became synonymous with death for the faith.

This is very different from those who die while killing, as in Islam. The ideal Christian martyr is peaceful and gentle, like a lamb led to slaughter.

Felix Manz is in line with our recent coverage of Baptism.

During the Reformation, there were people who pressed for more thorough reformation. These people are generally known as the "Radical Reformers". The best known of these are the anabaptists (a derogatory term from their enemies, meaning "re-baptizers").

Anabaptists have only a idealogical connection to modern Baptists. Their more direct descendants are the Mennonites and related groups (now know more for non-violence and strict separation from the world).

The anabaptists believed that baptism should follow belief, which is what the systematic reading of Scripture shows. They also believed in non-violence (particularly the avoidance of military service) - largely because, at that time, military service was connected to religious warfare.

From Wikipedia:

"Felix Manz became ... the first Swiss Anabaptist to be martyred at the hands of other Protestants."

The baptism (and religious warfare) issue is very tightly connected with Postmillenialism, which I will address in a separate post.

Hyper-dispensationalism

2011-06-05T04:08:00.000-07:00

An interesting set of posts from AOmin (the first, which points to the second).

In the first Jamin says:

"consistent Dispensationalism is (or at least, should be) Hyper-Dispensationalism"

This is a very interesting statement. It's been a long time, but I have mentioned my own leanings towards dispensationalism. Hyper-dispy is definitely heresy, let's take a look...

Jamin sums it all up in one block of the second (older) post:

"Hyper-Dispensationalism teaches that there are two gospels in the New Testament, that Jesus and Peter taught works-righteous salvation, that all forms of water baptism are unnecessary and 'dangerous,' that the Great Commission in Matthew’s gospel is inapplicable for anyone today, and that the teaching in Paul’s epistles are the only relevant sources for doctrine in the church."

This is a remarkable statement (on the HD side, I assume Jamin is representing them accurately).

The only online source is the "Berean Bible Society".

Here we see the "other" aspects of dispy I mentioned in my post - "central interpretive motif". From fact 1:

"The reason for a right division of the Bible is because of God's two distinct purposes: (1) His purpose concerning Israel and the world according to PROPHECY, and (2) His purpose concerning the Gentiles in this present age according to the MYSTERY revealed to Paul. God doesn't want us to confuse the teaching of these two purposes. He has very graciously given us the key for a proper understanding of this. "

This definitely seems to be the root of the problem. They are assuming two purposes for God, which I don't think can be exegeted directly anywhere. God has one purpose - to glorify Himself.

Fact 2 is just wrong:

"This proves conclusively that Paul did not preach what the 12 Apostles preached."

This sets the Bible against itself. I'd need to read the academic works to see where this is coming from and how it is reconciled. It doesn't seem like it could stand for long.

Everything else seems to follow naturally from these foundational errors, leading to "fact" 7:

"That the COMMISSION the Church, the Body of Christ, is to work under, is found in II Corinthians 5:14-21 and Ephesians 3:9. The Kingdom commission of Matthew 28:19-20 and Mark 16:15-18 does not belong to God's present grace purpose."

2 Cor 5:14-21 speaks of our mission to preach the reconciliation of God and man through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Matthew 28 is the Great Commission ("go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.")

I think this sets things more in context.

The HD seem to be trying to break free from postmillenialism (the idea that the Church should be reconstructing the world into Christ-likeness). This makes sense for the original authors' timeframe (before 1940). That was in the midst of the great meltdown of postmillenialism (which peaked during World Wars I and II).

It is important to realize one can have both 2 Cor 5 and Matthew 28 without postmillenialism.

What Jesus commanded was not obedience to the Law, and theocracy. He taught the Law as a schoolmaster (which is what Paul says), to drive us to repentance. That is the "command" - "repent".

We are obedient to the command when we repent and trust that Jesus has paid the price of sin for us. We are baptized (just as the Gentiles in Cornelius' household were) as an outward sign of this obedience, which has worked an inward change.

This (HD) is an overreaction to a problem that didn't exist (as many heresies are).

The Baptism Problem

2011-05-27T04:12:00.000-07:00

(I've meant to write on this for some time, since my original posts on baptism. A recent post on Internet Monk makes this a good a time as any.)

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" Matthew 28:19

This is Jesus' direct command for us to baptize people. Apparently a tiny minority of people believe that baptism is no longer necessary, but the vast majority of Christians believe baptism is for today.

However, there is much disagreement about the how (or mode) and why of baptism. I have little concern for the mode (because of the why).

I am going to group everyone into one of two categories by "why":

Paedo-baptists (literally "child baptizers"): those who teach some form of baptism for children (especially infants), for whatever reason
Credo-baptists (literally "creed baptizers"): those who teach only those who can declare allegiance to some creed should be baptized

Interestingly, the New Testament only gives examples of adult converts to Christianity. There are no teachings for what to do about children. This makes it very hard to determine the best doctrine.

Tradition is certainly on the side of paedo-baptists. By about 400, paedo-baptism was the norm. This continued until the radical reformers (anabaptists), who were disliked even by the other reformers (Calvin and Luther).

An interesting note from Wikipedia:

'Although there is some modern controversy about the form of baptism, there is overwhelming evidence, and an impressive consensus, that the early Christian baptism was by immersion, and only for those old enough to make a profession of faith.' (North, 'A History of the Church: From Pentecost to present', 1983), p. 26

Against Empricism - Main

2011-05-24T04:18:00.000-07:00

Continuing from last post.

Having established that the only way to dismiss a worldview is to adopt it and check for internal consistency, let us run the numbers on empiricism:

"The only reliable basis for knowledge, the only route from subjectivity to objectivity, is to relentlessly subject a belief to doubt, then to allay the doubt (or confirm it) by gathering evidence that’s independent of one’s commitment to the belief."

We must subject this statement to itself. Where is the evidence that this is true? At best, we have only pragmatism, "It has worked in the past". By the same logic, I will live forever, since I haven't died yet. (And no, proving I will die doesn't address the point - pragmatism is not an empistemology)

There are more internal ironies:

"science as it’s commonly practiced manifestly does not make any commitment to naturalism"

"scientific theories rule out any appeal to an explanatory agency or power, whether it be God, the soul or free will, for which there is no good evidence or testable specification."

"Ruling out any appeal to a Higher Power" is naturalism. Again, where is the evidence that God is subject to test? God specifically says, "Do not put me to the test".

"we must find evidence for them outside private subjective experience, evidence that’s publicly observable by those who haven’t experienced God’s embrace"

Again, where is the evidence that "public observable evidence" is the only way of knowing? God says that He intentionally darkens those who are wise in their own eyes - blinding them to knowledge of Him.

Some choice quotes:

"there’s no epistemic space in which to construct such an alternative [as supernaturalism]"

"any deliberate departure from [empiricism] is immoral since it jeopardizes the well-being of the entire community"

"any ideological bias against the necessity for empiricism, such as faith in God’s providence, should be seen as a disqualification for public office"

Ahh, now we see the violence inherent in the system!

"To imagine that one’s worldview, whether religious or secular, is beyond disconfirmation helps to license an absolutism which brooks no dissent and countenances the demonization of those with different ideas."

Wait, didn't they just argue empiricism is beyond disconfirmation? Don't they license an absolutism which brooks no dissent and countenances demonization?

Empiricism is false under its own assumptions. It is hypocritical and self-righteous.

The Myth of Neutrality

2011-05-23T03:58:00.000-07:00

Continuing my series.

Closely related to objectivity is neutrality. From the article:

"Non-empirical ways of knowing fail to meet worldview neutral standards of epistemic adequacy, which is how we judge between competing ways of knowing."

When two parties disagree, we seek a neutral third party to arbitrate. Ideally, there would be some third way between naturalism and supernaturalism.

However, an appeal to "ideally" is really an argument from desire. "I want this, therefore it exists" - which is faulty.

The simple fact is there is no neutral worldview. You are either for God or against God (Matthew 12:30).

So, their "worldview neutral" point is really against God. Then, it is no surprise when they come to the conclusion there is no God. It also allows them to dismiss the theistic position, as "not neutral".

Again we see the underlying idolatry, "which is how we judge". God is the ultimate judge. We seek to usurp His judgment and impose our own.

The only way to judge a worldview is to (provisionally) adopt that worldview, and apply its arguments to their logical conclusions. If the worldview is internally contradictory (it reaches conclusions counter to each other, or counter to its assumptions), then that worldview must be false.

Jesus and Empiricism

2011-05-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

Today my pastor was preaching from John 8:12-20, and I thought it relevant to the current series.

It begins:

"When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.' The Pharisees challenged him, 'Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.' Jesus answered, 'Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going...'"

Now this is interesting. First we have Jesus comparing Himself to light.

The religious authorities reply that the Law requires the testimony of two witnesses for any account to be considered true.

Jesus replies that His testimony is true in and of itself.

How does this relate to empiricism?

The empiricist desires confirmation of results ("the testimony of two (or more) witnesses").

But that is for explanations (theories). No empiricist would deny the existence of light, he simply measures it.

Jesus is saying the same thing - "Here I am, measure me."

Against Intersubjectivity

2011-05-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

(continuing from last post)

Now we come to the crux of the argument:

"beliefs worthy of being called knowledge must submit to the tribunal of intersubjective, that is, publicly observable, evidence. Objectivity is only gained through intersubjectivity."

First of all, this statement is arbitrary. There is no basis. Where is the author's authority for such a requirement? While it sounds nice, there is no guarantee that intersubjectivity will lead to objectivity. Nor is any reason given that intersubjectivity (the experience of many) is better than individual experience.

Now I agree that the experience of many is superior to the experience of one. But that is because I believe in sin. A singular sinner becomes great in his own eyes. He overlooks his sin - that is nature of sin. Multiple people can see sin in others, that is also part of sin (I focus on your sin, and overlook my own)!

There is also a core failure here. It is the assumption that many eyes make for perfection (or truth). The problem is that a core design defect will be present in all eyes.

It's like the Pentium FDIV bug. This bug was present in all the first generation parts. You could run your problem on one computer, or a thousand. They would all fail in this regard. You can actually get slightly different results using equivalent algorithms due to the vagaries of floating point arithmetic. For most problems, you can accumulate the results to get a better answer. But for a select set of inputs, the answer would be just way off.

Similarly, intersubjectivity ignores man's Fallen nature. The Bible says the mind of the natural man is the enemy of God, and dysfunctional. No number of Fallen men working together will ever find God, understand God, appreciate Him, etc.

Against Experientialism

2011-05-20T04:43:00.000-07:00

(Continuing from last post)

The empiricists make a good point:

"Haught then attempts to establish that religious experience – the felt presence of God – is trustworthy evidence of God’s reality"

The problem with "religious" experience is that there is no way of determining what is true or false. Mormons feel a burning of the bosom; I've talked with Adventists who feel peace, having accepted the Sabbath into their hearts (not those exact words, but similar). Even Muslims can cite miraculous experiences relating to the Koran. Similarly, I have my own experiences I can point to.

Experience is not definitive, but it can be instructive. Indeed, what are scientific results, but experiential (I witnessed these measurements on these devices).

So experience must be accounted for, but it does not have ultimate authority. Authority lies elsewhere, as we shall see (soon).

Also, many "religious" practices shut off the brain. The Bible has nothing good to say about these practices.

Against Empricism

2011-05-19T04:55:00.000-07:00

One of the good things about Biologos is that it is a honey pot for atheists. Sometimes being right brings forces against you from two extremes, and sometimes you get crushed between the two extremes even when you're wrong :)

One of the atheist commenters there directed me to a link on empiric epistemology. This is quite a long read, but worth analysis.

To jump ahead a little:

"We must put epistemology first and get it right, and make no bones about it."

Amen. Now, to the beginning!

The introduction talks about the differences between our understanding and reality. How our mental models might be wrong, and that can lead to disaster for us. I would agree, and include theology as the most important mental model.

"that unregulated mortgage-based securities could coexist with a stable financial system, that they represented real wealth, but in reality they didn’t."

This reveals a real problem for the rationalist - why are so many people irrational? And given that we agree that many people are irrational (while believing themselves to be rational), how can you claim to be rational? If these others have blind spots, how can you know of your own log in the eye?

As a Christian, I really have no problem. Sin is irrational.

Then we come to the main argument:

"The only reliable basis for knowledge, the only route from subjectivity to objectivity, is to relentlessly subject a belief to doubt, then to allay the doubt (or confirm it) by gathering evidence that’s independent of one’s commitment to the belief."

I would agree, that apart from God, this is the only way for us to know anything. Of course, it is primarily an inverse way of knowing - we can never be sure of anything. This is the heart of postmodernism, which has overthrown modernism.

I'm running long here, so I will pick this up tomorrow...

Let me give a peek at the end:

"This certainly seems a recipe for nihilism, so those wanting to press the epistemological question in service to empiricism should have a response to such fears. This involves providing reassurance about the existential, ethical and practical viability of worldview naturalism: that without God, the soul and free will we’re still moral agents bound by ethical norms, fully capable of leading meaningful lives and fully engaged with our human communities and concerns"

That is an odd conclusion. What is morality without God?

Further, it is a failure to apply one's worldview to it's logical end (teleology and eschatology). If everything, everywhere will die - then what we do now is meaningless. Our actions and have no effect on the end state.

Why Evolution is True

2011-05-13T04:52:00.000-07:00

"Why Evolution is True" (Jerry Coyne) - I was somewhat disappointed by this book. I didn't expect to be convinced, and it certainly wasn't convincing.

Of course, I am interested in the theology. I know of Coyne only by reputation - that is, he has a reputation for being an angry atheist who hates Creationists (and probably most Christians).

His disrespect of Creationists certainly comes through, but let's go in order...

Coyne seems to understand that evolution really is about replacing our creation story:

"Evolution gives us the true account of our origins, replacing the myths that satisfied us for thousands of years." (page xv)

Frustratingly, he constantly talks about how teaching Creationism is illegal. It is not.

The argument against design is, fundamentally, theological (although Coyne doesn't seem to realize it):

If there was a Designer, He would do things this way
Things are not done this way
Therefore there is no Designer

But how do we know what a Designer would do or not do? Of course, there is an underlying idolatry here:

If I were like God, I would do things this way
Things are not done this way (this is the fact, the truth in the whole argument, which everyone agrees on)
Therefore there is no God

Basically, the old, "I am most like God (or would like to be God), I am not God, therefore there is no God".
Good examples of this are on pages: 54 and 81.

An interesting tidbit:

"the average rates of evolution seen in colonization studies are large enough to turn a mouse into the size of an elephant in just ten thousand years!" (page 141)

Remember, most creationist models require more evolutionary change than evolutionists. Which is exactly what experiments show.

Some good data for my friends at Biologos: on pages 158 and 159, Coyne tells us that only 2% of mammals are monogamous. Further, 90% of birds are "socially monogamous" (outwardly monogamous) - yet, in 75% of those species, individuals are adulterous.

More data on rapid speciation, page 180 - showing speciation taking place in tens of generations.

Most frustrating is Coyne's double standard.

Every creationist statement is examined, and if anyone is ever wrong, it is damning to all. If creationists disagree, it is a sign of the weakness of the thinking.

But when the evolutionary story changes, that is progress! Science marching forward. When evolutionists disagree, that is the sign of healthy science. This is highly visible on pages 208 (where Coyne mocks creationist disagreement) and 209 (where he praises biologists disagreeing).

Of course, you have to wade through the whole thing to get to some conclusions:

"Pearcey argues (and many American creationists agree) that all the percieved evils of evolution come from two worldviews that are part of science: naturalism and materialism" (p 224, Coyne seems to believe nat-mat is the only viable worldview)

And then he undoes himself:

"Now, science cannot completely exclude the possibility of supernatural explanation."

What argument can he offer against supernaturalism?

Supernaturalism is not needed (p 225)
Supernaturalism is the end of inquiry

To the first, all I can say is "So?" Where do our needs enter the picture? Are not God's needs highest priority?

To the second, all I can say is "So?" Why is pursuit of inquiry the highest good?

You must offer some standard of goodness.

Here is where Coyne fails the most. He proposes goodness for goodness sake. On page 231, he blandly promotes "cultural evolution" - that things are slowly getting better.

Perhaps the most ironic is his reference to the end of human sacrifice.

About 25% of pregnancies end in abortion, so have we really done away with human sacrifice? Or have we just made it neat and clean, and gotten it out of sight? At least the ancients performed their sacrifices in public, for the atonement of sin and the good of the community. Now we make our sacrifices in secret, for our own pleasure.

The Pope and Mary

2011-04-27T03:31:00.000-07:00

(continuing from the last post)
The middle questions don't concern me too much. I did want to analyze the last one:

"At the cross we witness a poignant dialogue between Jesus and his mother in which Jesus says to Mary: 'Behold your son”, and to John, 'Behold your mother.'"

This is entry into what could cause a big debate on the role of Mary. But it starts out well:

"These words of Jesus are, above all, a very human act. We see Jesus as a true man who makes a human act, an act of love for His mother, entrusting the mother to the young John so that she might be safe. A woman living alone in the East at that time was an impossible situation. He entrusts his mother to this young man and to this young man he gives his mother, therefore Jesus actually acts as a human with a deeply human sentiment. This seems very beautiful to me, very important, that before any theology we see in this act the true humanity of Jesus, his true humanism."

That is very true. The first application is always to those people at that time, in that context. We must cross connect many different things to go further.

But he goes on:

"it is also true that this Mother expresses the Church. We cannot be Christians alone, following a Christianity based on our own ideas. The Mother is the image of the Church, the Mother Church, and entrusting ourselves to Mary means we must also entrust ourselves to the Church"

Of course, this is not new. The Eastern Orthodox are even more extreme in their Mariology (if that is imaginable). It is of course, very hard to understand Biblically. Nowhere in the Bible is the Church referred to as Mother. In fact, nowhere is there talk of a "Church" that is separate from either a local body of Christians or all Christians everywhere - that is, people are the church. Thus, "the church at Corinth" refers to "the called out ones of Corinth" or "the saints at Corinth" (where every believer is a "saint" - holy, set apart to God).

The word "mother" is used 8 times from Romans to Revelation:

Romans 16:13 - this is in the final salutation, where Paul says hi to Rufus' mother
Galatians 1:15 - Paul refers to God's purpose for him, "from his mother's womb"
Galatians 4:26 - "Jerusalem is the mother of us all" (as opposed to Hagar). This is part of a great exposition on Sarah and Hagar - the mother of freedom, and the mother of slavery. Here, Hagar represents the burden of the Law, while Sarah represents the freedom of grace (which is ironic, since it was a descendant of Sarah's child who received the Law).
Ephesians 5:31 - "For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother"
Ephesians 6:2 - "Honor thy father and mother"
2 Timothy 1:5 - referring to Timothy's faithful mother
Hebrews 7:3 - "without father or mother" (referring to Melchizedek, who is a type of Jesus)
Revelation 17:5 - "Mystery Babylon the mother of harlots"

There are other references ("mothers", "daughter(s)", "nurse"), but they don't fit. For example, 1 Peter 3:6 says that faithful Christian women are the daughters of Sarah. 2 Corinthians 6:18 says we are sons and daughters of God the Father.

The Pope and Suffering

2011-04-26T17:17:00.000-07:00

An odd post from Ignatius Insight:

"the first question that comes from a seven-year-old Japanese child who says:'My name is Elena. I am Japanese and I am seven years old. I am very frightened because the house where I felt safe really shook a lot and many children my age have died. I cannot go to play at the park. I want to know: why do I have to be so afraid? Why do children have to be so sad? I'm asking the Pope, who speaks with God, to explain it to me.'"

Ok. Japan is the least Christian first world nation I can think of (unless one counts Russia as first world). This little girl has very likely never heard the Gospel, or about sin, or anything Christian. We need a strong proclamation of who God is, and what Jesus did.

"I also have the same questions: why is it this way? Why do you have to suffer so much while others live in ease? And we do not have the answers but we know that Jesus suffered as you do, an innocent, and that the true God who is revealed in Jesus is by your side. This seems very important to me, even if we do not have answers, even if we are still sad; God is by your side and you can be certain that this will help you. One day we will even understand why it was so. At this moment it seems important to me that you know 'God loves me' even if it seems like He doesn't know me. No, He loves me, He is by my side, and you can be sure that in the world, in the universe, there are many who are with you, thinking of you, doing what they can for you, to help you. And be aware that, one day, I will understand that this suffering was not empty, it wasn't in vain, but behind it was a good plan, a plan of love. It is not chance."

Let me start by saying that I am not the right person to witness to a seven year old girl who just had thousands of people killed nearby. You need a nice, motherly lady - not a troll who lives in a basement! :)

That said, there is a nice way to say what I say - not a dumbed down, watered down, or vacuous thing to say - to deliver the truth in love, with full truth and full love.

With that disclaimer, what this girl needs to hear about is sin and God's righteousness, and His demand for justice. How the world is in rebellion against God, and how we must surrender to Him.

That Jesus' death wasn't just a senseless act against an innocent.

That Jesus paid the price for sin.

And, if we turn from sin and trust Him, we can have our sins forgiven.

David Koresh

2011-04-16T04:58:00.000-07:00

An unusual article at CNN about survivors from the cult of David Koresh.

It is tempting to dismiss Koresh as a nut (which he certainly was). Atheists will use him as an example of how "religion poisons everything".

But this is a real life example of how theology matters, and we should take advantage to learn as much as we can (for many people paid a terrible price, we should not squander it).

The article doesn't address theology directly, but it is there to be teased out:

Page 2: "[believers are] resurrected so they can travel to a kingdom cut off to nonbelievers".

This is a fairly common (and mostly Biblical) belief. Mormons have a mult-level afterlife, where believers get the best and unbelievers get second best. Only the truly evil (in man's eyes) need to be relegated to Hell. It doesn't say what happens to nonbelievers, we would assume it is comparable to the Mormon idea.

Page 3, Doyle says "You don't have to believe as I do". This is interesting. First, what is the fate of unbelievers? If it is Hell, then you are doing a great disservice not to warn them. If not, I would assume the "believer's kingdom" is better than whatever nonbelievers get. Do you not want to share?

At the end of page 3 and into page 4 we are introduced to the horrors of this theology. It is interesting that things almost always devolve into either sex or money (and, for some reason, rarely both). That no one would stand up to him is sad. That Doyle would say "I couldn't argue because he'd show you where it was in the Bible" shows the importance of hermeneutics.

Page 4 also gives us this odd (singular) statement of Koresh's theology:

"There are three crucial points to understanding the Branch Davidian brand of religion.
First, God can appear in the flesh as a man. Second, that man doesn't have to be a good person. Third, if you question whether that man is God, then you are questioning God. In other words, the devil is responsible for your doubt."

There's a lot of problems here, but I am trying to be concise.

The first point is taking the special and making it general (as people do with the gift of tongues). Just because it's in the Bible doesn't mean we should do it! Many of the stories there are instructional ("These people did X, then they were destroyed").

The second point is just wrong. In John 8:46, Jesus challenges the crowd to convict Him of sin - and there are no takers. That people could be deceived in this matter is a troubling point for rationalists, but all too common as a result of sin (here people may feel unwilling to speak up out of their own wrong fears).

The third point shows the danger of human authority, particularly the authority of an individual or small minority. Human authority must always be spread out (a local church needs many elders, with no one of them elevated above the others). Human authority must be challenged, and accepted only when supported with Biblical arguments. Tradition and history are excellent guides here - both for what is right, and for what will destroy us.

Secular Confusion

2011-04-15T04:30:00.000-07:00

An interesting article from CNN:

"The argument that criminals could abuse the niqab is not compelling enough to deny the fundamental freedom of religious expression to a group of French citizens"

This is an excellent point (among many in the short opinion piece). How can the secular state claim to be all in favor of human rights, then forbid a right - all the while claiming it is to "protect people's rights".

As the author rightly says:

"And the irony and hypocrisy of claiming the ban protects women from oppression is glaring: Freedom must be 'protected' by denying women their freedom to choose how to dress."

The underlying problem is that secularism has no foundation, it is adrift in the sea of ideas. They want to assert some things are "right" (correct) and other things are "wrong". At the same time, they have no standard for right and wrong - so it must be "anything goes" (at least, anything the majority can agree on).

Of course, the majority is currently against a takeover by Islam. But anyone can run the numbers, and see that soon the majority will be a minority...

Evolution of Language

2011-04-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

One area I have little exposure to is the history of language. This is something I would like to look into more. If the evolution of language supposedly began as soon as the development of the physical structures for making sound and brain capacity (that is, well before the time for "Out of Aftrica") - then there should be one root language (common ancestor).

From Ars:

"The authors were able to identify 19 strong correlations between word order traits, but none of these appeared in all four families; only one of them appeared in more than two. Fifteen of them only occur in a single family."

This was only examining a single feature (subject-verb order).

Death and Evolution

2011-04-04T04:46:00.000-07:00

An interesting study at Ars (ignore the stuff about bottomonium, or not, I guess):

"Have an undergrad ponder death and, suddenly, anything they learned in intro to bio doesn't look so hot; they'll feel less inclined to accept evolution (or want to hear about it from Richard Dawkins), and more prone to find intelligent design appealing. The same held true in a random population recruited over the Internet. This didn't hold true for students in a natural sciences program, though.
The authors went on to show that it was possible to reverse this effect with a dose of Sagan (an experiment controlled with what the authors termed a "no Sagan" group). Have people read a passage from Carl Sagan in which he celebrates the wonder of the natural world, and the appeal of intelligent design faded into the background."

So thinking about death is protection against evolution - very interesting!

Also, those in the natural sciences have in some way had their consciences seared (or something).

The Impact of the Gospel

2011-03-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

Following up on Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, I have repeatedly read through the second.

The topics are, unsurprisingly, very similar. Tradition holds that the church at Thessalonica was founded during Paul's second missionary journey. He clearly spent some time there personally teaching them (2 Thes 2:5, 3:7). The letters may have been written in 50 and 51 AD.

The first letter offers encouragement and hope in the face of persecution (including tantalizing information about Jesus' return for the Church).

For the second letter, it is clear that the persecution is still ongoing (chapter 1). On top of this, there seems to be some sort of false teaching going on (2:1-3a). Apparently, someone claiming inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and falsely claiming the support of Paul has told them that they are living in the last days (the Great Tribulation, although Paul does not use those words).

What is Paul's response? That the Great Tribulation is only metaphorical, that things will get progressively better as the Church renews the world?

No. He tells them that there will be a great rebellion (probably spiritual, but possibly physical or both), that a "man of perdition" (or destruction) will rise up, and that all the unsaved will be deceived.

Paul here tantalizes us again:

"Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you? And now you know what holds back, for him to be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already working, only he is now holding back until it comes out of the midst. And then the lawless one will be revealed..." (2:5-8a)

Um, no Paul I don't remember, I wasn't there!

The King James has "he who now lets will let", which shows the importance of updating translations. "Let", to us, means "allow". But at the time of the KJV, it meant "deny" (or block). Thus, the Modern King James has fixed this to be "he is now holding back". The second "will let" was actually added - it is not in the Greek. But the idea is confirmed by the later "until he is taken out of the way (or midst)".

Dispensationalists hold that this is the Church being taken away, reducing the mediating effects of the Holy Spirit in the world. It makes a lot of sense, but it is not an open and close case from just this passage.

The Language of God

2011-03-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

"The Language of God" (Francis Collins) - For those who are unaware, Francis Collins is part of the founding team of Biologos. I'm somewhat surprised it has taken me this long to get around to reading something by him.

This book is largely a testimony of Collins' faith journey. His background is chemistry and biology, so he has held onto evolution as compatible with Christianity (much of his argument is basically, "I'm a Christian and an Evolutionist, therefore they are compatible").

I took very few notes on this one. Not much new, not a lot of deep analysis or theology. Collins' testimony is pretty solid (conviction from the moral law). Although it's clear he hasn't thought through all the theological ramifications of evolution.

Some of this shows up in the appendix. His thinking is clearly fuzzy on the use of embryonic stem cells for research (which we have seen before), and similarly for therapeutic cloning (pages 250-252, 253, and 256).

Science and the Trinity

2011-03-11T04:43:00.000-08:00

"Science and the Trinity" (John Polkinghorne) - I picked up this book because Polkinghorne is a guest contributor at Biologos. It is very short (180 pages), but a very slow read (Polkinghorne likes big words).

Biologos says its goal is to get conservative Christians to accept evolution. I don't think this goal is served by having liberals address the issue! (It does lead me to believe that no conservatives really support evolution, or at least, are not willing to publicly support it. One of their favorite conservatives, BB Warfield, is dead!).

Polkinghorne is a scientist, not a theologian, which makes it difficult to pin down exactly what his theology is. But it is obviously very far from orthodoxy. Some examples, just on page 46:

"It is not surprising, therefore, that we find attitudes expressed in the Bible that today we neither can nor should agree with. These include an unquestioned patriarchal governance of the family... an unhesitating acceptance of slavery" (emphasis added)
"Those who attribute no abiding significance to these timebound attitudes are recognizing that the canon of scripture is not of uniform authority." (He actually goes on more in this vein...)
"the many New Testament passages that speak of fearful and fiery judgement [sic] are rightly interpreted as implying that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ requires the punishment of unending torture for those who have not committed themselves to some kind of Christian orthodoxy in this life." (into page 47)

That's just in two pages, fairly early! It doesn't get better.

Polkinghorne seems to embrace open theism, at least to some degee:

"God does not use the prophets to provide a detailed preview of what must inevitably come to pass... God does not yet know the unformed future" (page 54)
"cosmic history is an unfolding improvisation and not the performance of an already written score" (page 80)
"God does not have that future available for perusal beforehand." (page 108)

I could go on. Polkinghorne manages to pack a lot of error into a small space. I am concerned mostly with the consequences of his theology, and its impact on the Gospel.

First we see the embrace of a sort of universalism (or at least, conversion after death):

"Yet the divine love will surely not be withdrawn in that world [death], but will continue to seek to draw all people into its orbit." (page 158-159)

He also seems to deny "absent from the body, present with the Lord":

"The soul, as I understand it, possesses no intrinsic immortality. The pattern that is me will dissolve at my death... we have no naturalistic expectation of a destiny beyond death... It seems a perfectly coherent hope to believe that the pattern that is me will be preserved by God at my death and held in the divine memory until... the new creation."

This is comparable to the belief of Jehovah's Witnesses, that God will recreate someone very much like you in the resurrection.

He also embraces "the best of all possible worlds" (the idea that God created the world with natural evil, because He is too weak to do any better):

"The existence of free creatures is a greater good than a world populated by perfectly behaving automata, but that good has the cost of mortality and suffering." (page 165)

Yet again, the god of human free will calls for the sacrifice of God's power and knowledge (also, I have reference to the sacrifice of God's holiness on page 94). I will stop here.

JP2 on Evil

2011-02-26T16:58:00.000-08:00

Some good points from John Paul II:

"Evil always exists in what is good."

This is awkwardly stated, a better phraseology would be (borrowing from C. S. Lewis) - "evil is a twisting or rejection of what is good". That is: good can exist in a vacuum, evil cannot. There is no "being evil for evil's sake" (despite the villains on Captain Planet). He says this later:

"Evil thus is not a thing but the lack of a good in a being in which what is lacking should be present."

"Suffering normally, however, is a sign that something is wrong in a real world."

That's precisely what I said in "The Problem of Evil".

It is interesting how Arminian he was:

"The possibility of evil is contingent on the possibility of freedom and love."
"Those who refuse the gift of grace, however many there be, are left with their choice. God cannot take that away from them. This is the limit of the divine mercy."

I thank God that He overrode my choice to reject Him! That He chose me, even when I was His enemy (Col 1:21).

Zarathustra

2011-02-07T18:36:00.000-08:00

"Thus Spake Zarathustra" (Friedrich Nietzsche). I must admit, this book was terribly painful to read. I first checked it out before Thanksgiving, so it has taken the better part of two months...

The translator is Thomas Common, and he has gone with a sort of KJV version. It didn't really work for me.

On top of that, the style is all in parables. When Jesus tells a parable, you can figure out what He is talking about. Nietzsche just kind of mumbles.

It's sort of like Robert Heinlein's social commentary - is he seriously putting forth an idea, or is he playing straight with his ridicule? Hard to tell.

Nietzsche is always held up as the ultimate atheist (Ravi Zacharias says he was true to his beliefs - he died cold, alone, and insane). It must be me, but it is sufficiently vague that you can read a lot into it...

Page 8:

"Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman"

The most important idea in Nietzsche is that of the "Superman" (ubermensch). This is not a guy in tights, but a stage of evolution. The ubermensch, as it is usually retold, is the next stage of human evolution (I am unconvinced, but I am probably wrong).

His statements about Jesus seem to place him thoroughly in the unbeliever camp (page 77):

"He [Jesus] died too early; he himself would have disavowed his doctrine had he attained to my age!... But he was still immature. Immaturely loveth the youth, and immaturely also hateth he man and earth."

What about "God is dead"? He does say that (first on page 6). He also says (page 294) to "the ugliest man":

"thou art the murderer of God" (italics in original)

It is not evolution or rationalism which has killed God (elsewhere, he says "pity" killed God) - it is man's ugliness (what I would call sin).

And did God remain dead? Page 320:

"Only since he [God] lay in the grave have ye again arisen."

I am reminded of Galatians 2:20 "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me".
And as the book closes (page 366-368):

"slowly seated himself [Zarathustra] on the big stone... The doves, however, were no less eager with their love than the lion "
"'I come to seduce thee to thy last sin' [says the soothsayer]"

And with that, I believe, Zarathustra died (seated on the Rock, with the Dove, and the Lion).

So is the "higher man" the rational atheist? Or the man born from above?

I don't think Nietzsche understood Christianity. I think his intent is more mocking (he comments on laughter being a weapon). But I think he was familiar with the language and ideas. Also, he has harsh words for the preachers of his day. Yes. So would Spurgeon.

Models Again

2011-02-06T14:24:00.000-08:00

Denis Alexander, at Biologos, has taken an aside from his model talk (which I commented on previously).

Alexander gives us a lot of insight into his thought processes, but I didn't find any compelling arguments for his case...

First:

"We have the possibility of fellowship with God through freely willed choice. Our nearest cousins, chimps and bonobos, to the best of our knowledge, do not."

I think this reveals a lot about his underlying assumptions (Arminianism). This is creating more problems for the Gospel at Biologos - as their train comes further off the tracks, and heads deeper into "trainwreckville".

He does seem to get something of the point:

"It is not Genesis that poses the questions, though Genesis is clearly relevant, but rather the Christian theology of creation, sin and redemption."

"the Retelling Model doesn’t do a very good job on the biblical notion of sin... the tendency is to think of sin more as unfortunate sociobiology, poor humans in thrall to the dictates of their genes, but fortunately ‘saved’ by evolutionary theories of altruism... But I think such accounts are profoundly deficient from a theological perspective. "

"In biblical thought, sin is a theological concept which only makes sense in relation to God and to God’s will. If there is no God then there is certainly no sin, and what you’re left with is human misbehavior, certainly not ‘evil’ except as a socially convenient label."

This seems to be his main point. That sin is sin because God says so (which is true - consider the eating the fruit of the forbidden tree).

However, the Law is supposed to be an expression of God's character - what pleases Him. So, how is it that when animals (and human animals before "Homo Divinus") do something, it is pleasing to God - but then afterward, it is not?

An interesting point on federal headship:

"the first sin impacting upon the world not through inheritance (as in Augustine), but via the theological notion of Federal Headship, involving a lateral rather than a linear fall-out."

I actually don't have much of a problem with this. As Jesus' perfect account is credited to us (without us being His physical descendants), so can Adam's faulty account be charged. I think the biggest problem is one of freely giving grace vs. unjustly accounting law breaking... (but this is actually one of the smallest problems in these Old Earth models!)

Finally:

"both Models have to give account as to how/why/when sin entered the world and in what sense sin ‘spread’ or ‘became relevant’ to the rest of humanity."

I hope Alexander goes into more depth in the future. This is actually a serious problem for the Gospel according to Biologos. As you spread the Gospel (including God's definition of sin) - you are making people previously exempt from the Law suddenly beholden to it!

Given historical conversion rates, this makes spreading the Gospel a very bad idea indeed!

Doctrines of Creation

2011-02-01T13:49:00.000-08:00

An interesting introductory post to a new guest series at Biologos.

It's just making an outline at this point, little argument or conclusions. The big points I see:

it [creation] has the kind of nature and functionality God intended it to have
God could have made any kind of creation He wanted but chose to make this particular creation

The first will be the sticking point. Is a world full of death and sinful analogue behavior in animals the world God intended? If so, how does this relate to the Law? (Why does God give us a sinful nature - which is good in animals - then tell us it is bad, and not to obey that nature?)

The second is a good counter to those who preach a "best of all possible worlds" - that God was limited (usually by human free will) from creating a better world.

Imagination Failure

2011-01-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

What amazes me most about the commenters at Biologos is how their imaginations function.

A man in the wilderness of Siberia finds a tooth! Their imaginations runs wild! They come up with a whole back story (and end story) for a whole race of peoples. Complete with language and dress, diet, mating and burial customs. They give them all names.

A Creationist suggests that there was no death before the Fall. Total brain-lock. "Where would all the animals live after a while?" There are more galaxies than there are people today, each with that many stars - I say. "How would the animals get to the planets around those stars?" Well, how about a nuclear powered rocket ship? And a space elevator.

I don't get it.

Anthropology at Biologos

2011-01-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

(matching my first post on this subject)
Biologos has posted a continuation of their anthropology series. This one covering their "homo divinus" model.

This model fails to answer key questions, just like the first:

"In this model the Fall then becomes the disobedience of Adam and Eve to the expressed revealed will of God"

Here we must ask, "how is it that the revealed will of God is contrary to the 'good' behavior of all other humans at this time". That is, either Adam and Eve were particularly monstrous (which no one is suggesting) - or they were just like everyone else. And if everyone else is "good", why is God telling A&E to do differently?

An interesting point to draw in the previous post:

"According to this model, God in his grace chose a couple of Neolithic farmers in the Near East"

Most Old Earth models have a fairly stable human population - never less than maybe 100k, and usually 1e6 to 1e7.

Across 1e6 years, at 20 years per generation: that is 5e4 generations. At 1e6 people per generation, that is 5e10 people (50 billion). So you have 50 billion people living and dying before God decides to say anything to anyone.

In the Young Earth model, taking into account exponential growth (under exponential growth, the sum of all previous generations is equal to the current generation), roughly half the people who have ever lived are alive today.

Judgment Inversion

2010-12-31T17:34:00.000-08:00

I was reading yet another excellent post over at Pyromaniacs.

It made me think about the odd observations I've had in witnessing to people.

Nonbelievers often talk about "What about all the unsaved people". Usually it is to point out how unjust God is...

Mushy people, who claim to be believers, often act like everyone is going to be saved (or will actually come right out and profess universalism).

I want to be charitable, and say it is because they realize they are unworthy of salvation, and therefore everyone is worthy.

But I think it is because of a misunderstanding of sin (on both sides).

The unbeliever very likely has a better understanding of sin. But he rejects God's justice. To him sin is normative. God has no basis for justice.

The mushy person rejects the notion of sin (or at least, makes light of sin) - sin isn't so bad, justice isn't necessary.

Anthropology at Biologos

2010-12-29T14:59:00.000-08:00

Biologos has the first substantive post on their models of anthropology. They are called "Retelling" and "Homo Divinus".

The author, Denis Alexander, tells us "The Retelling Model represents a gradualist protohistorical view". That is, it is a stylized account of what happened to the earliest humans (perhaps 200,000 years ago). This allows a smallish group to be representative of all humans to come.

Also:

"the Fall is interpreted as the conscious rejection by humankind of the awareness of God’s presence and calling upon their lives in favor of choosing their own way rather than God’s way."

Now this is interesting. What is the difference between humans of 200,000 YA and 4,000 YA (or today)? What is "choosing their own way" rather than "God's way"? Do animals choose God's way or their own way?

Sadly, Denis does not say.

Evolution and Theodicy

2010-12-19T10:24:00.000-08:00

(closing out the papers reviewed at Todd's blog)

The last paper is by John Schneider, entitled (in short) "An 'Aesthetic Supralapsarianism'". As a supralapsarian myself, I was eager to read it (spoiler: I was disappointed).

Once again, I appreciated the forthrightness of the author (page 5):

"the narrative of human evolution makes it very hard, if not impossible, to maintain this position [the Fall] and its approach to theodicy. For it seems, on this science, that not just natural evils, such as animal suffering and violent episodes in nature, but also the disposition for human moral evils, are practically part of God’s original design." (italics in original)

I addressed the problem of evil nearly three years ago. It is a serious matter, one that cannot be dodged (for example, by claiming "mystery").

Schneider makes an interesting claim on page 6:

"Concordists have never been able to resolve this conflict between the Bible and science on the order of nature with their hermeneutics of inerrancy." (he is speaking of Old Earthers here - he intentionally ignores YEC)

If true, this is a useful tidbit. I have been looking for a satisfactory theodicy from Old Earthers, and have yet to find one - it may not exist.

The crux of his argument is on page 10 (although I don't think he realizes it, as he goes into a long mumble about Job later):

"In Domning’s scientific 'theodicy,' these disorders are simply 'inherent in the existence of a physical and moral universe.' The theodicy is that to create a real physical universe, these sorts of sufferings were inevitable, even for God."

To which he adds:

"For now, I choose to ignore the questions that this assertion raises, such as the 'options' that would be available to an omniscient and omnipotent being, and how the 'new heaven and earth,' lacking these sufferings, is eventually possible."

This is a great failure on his part. These are the most important aspects of this argument - if God could not (or would not!) create a world without suffering and death the first time around, why believe the final state will be (or can be) different?

Which brings him to his shocking (and perverse) conclusions (page 12):

"God has 'rightfully,' or 'justly,' and not immorally or amorally, decided to make and to shape the world (and in microcosm, his own life) in this unexpected, undeserved, and painful way, including inexplicably great violence, disorder, suffering, and injustice." (emphasis added)

I don't see how it is inexplicable. God does what is pleasing to Him. So, suffering and violence (at least to animals) must be pleasing.

On page 13, we see his view of the true God of the Bible (commenting on Calvinism):

"God monstrously as creating some human beings for salvation, but all the others deliberately for eternal damnation."

So, a god who creates suffering because it pleases him is not monstrous - but a God who judges sin is?

And (page 13):

"Our experience of God and the world is on the whole exactly what God planned from the beginning." (emphasis in original)

Amen. But is suffering God's response to sin (the signal that all is not as it should be), or does it please God?

These are two pictures of two very different gods.

The Fall

2010-12-18T10:36:00.000-08:00

I'll interleave one of the papers from Todd Wood's review with the Biologos stuff, because it's all relevant.

I'll state up front that Wood wins the short and sweet summary, "This is basically a summary of standard liberal biblical scholarship".

There's a lot here (page 1):

"Modern science has amply demonstrated that phenomena such as predation, death, and the extinction of species have been intrinsic and even necessary aspects of life on earth for billions of years"

"the biblical Adam and Eve and their early offspring are portrayed as figures living in the Neolithic period, around 9,000 to 7,000 BCE, which is some 30,000 years later than the earliest archaeological evidence for religious behavior and culture among humans."

I appreciate his straightforwardness here. No need to dig up his presuppositions.

He also seems to grasp the nature of sin, which I am often frustrated trying to communicate to TE's (page 2):

"a range of evidence establishes that virtually all of the acts considered 'sinful' in humans are part of the natural repertoire of behavior among animals"

That is, what Christians call "sinful", biologists call "natural". This raises the question of where our nature comes from (and is it good).

Good, (presumably from God) - there is, therefore, no sin (no deviancy)
Evil, from God - God is the author of evil
Evil, altered - this is original sin

I just had to grab this chunk (page 4):

"the characters have symbolic names and act like stock figures; the episodes look prototypical"

This reminds me of the spoof "History Channel Produces bad SciFi".

Also, an oddity (page 4 again):

"nakedness as a symbol of primitive life, clothing of civilized life"

Not sure where he gets this idea. Nakedness was a symbol of right standing before God (who sees everything). Clothing is a symbol of shame (attempting to hide from God).

Ok, skip a lot of mumbling in the middle, lots of juicy stuff near the end!

Page 13:

"we share a transtemporal and universal biological and cultural heritage that predisposes us to sin."
"They [George Murphy] and others have proposed that original sin is a biologically inherited state, a byproduct of billions of years of evolution."

Interesting. So, he is going with #2. God made us be evil. Let the spinning commence! (still page 13):

"Yet selfish behavior did not become sin (culpable wrongdoing) in human beings until the evolution of their self-consciousness (and God-consciousness) allowed our remote ancestors to override their innate tendency to self-assertion by the exercise of their free will."

Sneaky, but fail. He is claiming that stealing, lust, and hatred are only sins because we know it's wrong (else it is good). But which is God's character? That which He creates or that which He commands? Harlow is making God out to be schizophrenic.

And the conclusion, page 14 (I'm thinking I need to start reading these things back to front...):

"To put the issue in these terms is not to blame God
for human sin. As Karl Giberson puts it, 'By these lights, God did not "build" sin into the natural order. Rather, God endowed the natural order with the freedom to "become," and the result was an interesting, morally complex, spiritually rich, but ultimately selfish species we call Homo sapiens.'"

And:

"We must trust that God created the kind of world that he did because an evolutionary process involving selfishness, suffering, and death was the only way to bring about such creaturely values as novelty, complexity, and freedom."

There it is again. God's creative power being limited by man. Ultimately, everything comes down to God-centered vs. man-centered.

Bonus points:

"Once the doctrine of original sin is reformulated [i.e. gutted], the doctrine of the atonement may likewise be deepened [i.e. gutted]. But the new understanding of sin requires that we now favor theories of the atonement like the Christus victor model or the moral influence theory, instead of the theory of a ransom paid to the Devil or a satisfaction paid to God’s honor [nice slam on propitiatory atonement]. Better, to privilege Paul’s soteriology, we must elevate the truth of a new humanity inaugurated in Jesus Christ, whom God sent into the world in suffering solidarity with a groaning creation—to be the vanguard of a new creation full of new creatures destined to be transformed and drawn up into the life and fellowship of the triune God." (emphasis added)

Nice Darwinian reference to the superman there...

And for double bonus points:

"For Christianity to remain intellectually credible and culturally relevant, it must be willing to revise— and thereby enrich—its formulation of classic doctrines"
"The task of Christian theology in every generation is not simply to repeat or paraphrase the tradition"

Yes, syncretism is always the only way forward. Relevance, always relevant. 2 Timothy 2:2 anyone?

Anthropology

2010-12-17T18:57:00.000-08:00

(As an aside, I had hoped to intersperse these heavy theological posts with some headlines from Science Daily. Sadly, my newsreader ate 4000 achived posts [about 4 months]. Good news, I'm all caught up! Bad news, no headlines.)

Biologos has launched right into their attempt at anthropology (the study of man).

Some might think anthropology involves digging up skeletons and buried cities, or studying primitive tribes.

Biblical anthropology consists of investigating what the Bible says about man. I'm looking forward to this series...

From this first post:

"address the relationship between the Adam of Genesis and the anthropological and genetic account of a humanity that did not have a single couple as the source of its genetic endowment"

I appreciate this honesty. Many people attempt to merge deep time and special creation for Adam and Eve. I don't see any advantage to such a position. If deep time is true, apply the conditions uniformly.

On Adam and Eve

2010-12-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

Right on time for my new analysis... I was reading Todd Wood's blog, and initially thought little of this paper. I'm glad I went back and read the paper.

He launches right in (page 2):

"In this study, I aim to show why we should retain a version of the traditional view, in spite of these [Biologos] pressures."

"Now it is true, for example, that the eastern churches do not talk about original sin the way that Augustine did; but it does not follow that they therefore have nothing to say on the subject."

I've lost count of how many times I've heard people claim that Eastern thinking solves the problem. The Eastern Orthodox have a serious problem with denying total depravity, but they still believe in the Fall.

He gets back to this on page 8:

"However, Towner has distorted Irenaeus' actual view. According to Irenaeus, the first humans were created morally innocent, their innocence being more like that of a child than of a full adult. God's goal was for them to mature into moral confirmation, but the Fall interrupted the process." (emphasis in original)

Page 5:

"A story is 'historical' if the author wanted his audience to believe that the events recorded really happened."

This is an important point. It all comes back to who is the author. Is it truly God, or can we dismiss parts of the Bible we dislike by claiming they are due to some human failing in authoring.

Page 6:

"scholars thinking along these lines might suppose that Genesis 3 teaches that 'humans are sinful.' But this is not a timeless truth on its own. Sooner or later someone will want to know, did God create humans with a tendency (or at least an openness) toward sinning, or did he make them good, only for humans to become sinful?" ... "In other words, the supposed timeless truth, once it interacts with actual human experience, demands answers to historical questions." (italics in original, bold added)

That's exactly it. What is sin? If our nature is now supposedly sinful, but our nature has evolved gradually from the animals (which are supposed to be good, day 5), how does sin work? You are forced to reject the Fall. Probably any notion of sin at all.

Page 7:

"Any telling of the biblical story must include the notion of sin. Humans are estranged from God, and Israel is God’s means of bringing light to the world." (emphasis in original)

He's skipping a bit here (I would have edited things differently). No sin, no need for salvation. No atonement (not to mention no explanation for the "wrongness" in the world).

Page 8:

"If we say that being prone to sin is inherent in being human with a free will, then we must say the Bible writers were wrong in describing atonement as they did, and we must also say that Jesus was wrong to describe his own death in these terms."

Yes, we also make God the author/creator of sin and evil (which he gets to later).

Page 9:

"Further, we have now made nonsense of the joyful expectation of Christians to live one day in a glorified world from which sin and death have been banished."

This is a good point. If death is "good", if there is no sin - then the eternal state is just like the current state. I am immediately reminded of Philip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld". An eternity of struggle, war, death and rebirth. If TE's are right, I'm totally making them all my grail slaves! (just kidding ;)

(still page 9):

"At least in the traditional understanding, humans are to blame for the evil they do and the pain they inflict; here, we can only blame God." (emphasis in original)

concluding:

"Finally, they fail utterly to address one of our deepest intuitions, that there is something wrong with sin and death, and that we need God to help us and to heal us."

The final portion of the paper lays out his theory. Of particular interest is the competing views of what is means to be made "image of God" (page 10).

It's interesting the position he takes, it is unclear to me what he is really gaining compared to the YEC position.

Page 13:

"this particular couple were a fresh start, for whom physical death was not their intended outcome."

Citing John Bloom:

"we can propose that the special creation of man occurred in one of these gaps and that it was not bridged by purely natural means."

Invoking special creation won't win him any favors in the TE/accommodation camp.

What is Evolution?

2010-12-11T18:56:00.000-08:00

I am somewhat appreciative of all the drama over at Biologos. In many ways, I believe they are in direct violation of Titus 3:9. At the same time, it is much like an investigation of heresy - it helps to form right doctrine and to determine error.

I've long held that matters of an Old Earth or Young Earth are a matter of conscience. Let everyone be convinced unto himself (and keep it to himself).

However, the more I dig into things in the course of this Biologos dust-up, the more I am convinced that an Old Earth is incompatible with orthodox Christianity.

In that light, I will need to expand out formal arguments and definitions in a series of posts.

First, the Biologos "About Us" page says:

"We also believe that evolution, properly understood, best describes God’s work of creation."

Now evolution means a lot of things, including:

Deep time - geological periods and time spans; the geologic column, and fossil record
Common descent - the belief that all living organisms descended from a single (very simple) organism or possible a common pool of self-replicating organic material
Macroevolution - in the past referred to as "the transmutation of species", or what might be better termed "transmutation of kinds" (to oppose "reproduction within kinds")
Stellar evolution - the belief that all matter started originally as hydrogen (one proton and one electron)
Microevolution - this is the one thing everyone agrees on. This is "descent with modification" which has been readily observed.

I believe #1 is the main problem. Without it, #2 and 3 disappear (similarly, assuming #1 makes arguing against #2 and 3 very hard). #4 is a separate issue altogether (you can have an old universe and a young Earth).

Hawking's Grand Design

2010-12-10T18:34:00.000-08:00

I found an interesting debate on CNN, through an article at Ignatius Insight.
(the debate is in three parts at Youtube, hopefully in a lasting fashion)

Part 1 - Larry King interviews Hawking
Part 2 - King gets reaction from a Catholic and Deepak Chopra (the panentheist)
Part 3 - has some back and forth (with the co-author standing in for Hawking)

I have a number of responses in different directions. I will have to expand on most of these in later posts.

First, is that any "God of the gaps" type explanation (or "science is how, theology is why" as it is currently phrased) is ultimately doomed to fail. Physicists are going to continue to push at all edges, until you are left with the god of deism (this is largely where Biologos is now). The "how" does not immediately give us the "why", but it does severely constrain it.

Second, is that Hawking is actually a theist. He is arguing on the nature and attributes of his "god", M-theory (it is eternal, and sufficiently powerful to create everything from nothing; it is explicitly not personal, nor just).

In part 3, near 2:30, Spitzer (the Catholic) has a clear shot at giving the Gospel. He blows it, and mumbles something about a "God shaped hole in our hearts" (not his actual words). Too bad.

In part 2, near 13:20, a blogger says "Thank God for Hawking". We can thank God, although we really should pray that God will break through Hawking's hard heart while there is still time for him.

Also, for Larry King. I know he heard the Gospel when he interviewed Kirk Cameron. He is clearly interested in eternal matters, but it has not taken root.

Santa Claus

2010-12-08T17:10:00.000-08:00

Internet Monk has an article on "the real Santa Claus".

Reading that, and the comments reminds me that few people know (or behave as if they knew) who the real Santa Claus is.

Most people behave according to the mythology initiated in the early 20th century, and evolving even today.

It's interesting how "godlike" Santa has been made to become:

Omniscient - "he knows when you're sleeping"
Eternal - always an old man, presented as the same man for the last hundred years (or more)
Judge - "he knows if you've been bad or good"
(aspects of) Omnipresent - able to visit every house in one night, present in all malls (although some attribute this to "helpers")

I say junk Santa. Who needs him? (Or encouraging parents to lie to their children)

Reenchanting Nature

2010-12-01T17:55:00.000-08:00

"The Reenchantment of Nature" (Alister McGrath) - The commenters at Biologos recommended McGrath as a source of theology from an evolutionist point of view. Sadly, this was the only book my library had (perhaps a good sign, as my library specializes in heretics and apostates).

This book was very short - 186 pages. McGrath assumes a lot, and his argument wanders a lot. This leaves me short on understanding his position.

It seems he feels that we (Western culture) have come to see nature as an "adversary" (to be conquered), rather than a "gift" (to be stewarded).

I can't help but think this is the result of his evolutionary thinking.

We see a glimpse of this on page 180:

"The issue of pain and suffering in the world remains something of a puzzle, and at times troubles Christians considerably."

The evolutionist must believe that God created suffering, because it is good - it pleases Him. This is definitely a puzzlement!

It reminds me most of "Ishmael", who takes this thinking to its logical conclusion - that we must allow human death as "most natural". Allow famine, allow the weak to die - to resist is unnatural ("sinful").

McGrath doesn't seem to go this far. But it is like his logic is leading him there, and he knows it is wrong. But he can't figure out why, so he says nothing (or says it is "a puzzle").

Arguing at Ars

2010-11-25T18:40:00.000-08:00

Part 4 is up. I'm surprised at the direction they are going... At least there is some interesting talk about "models". Usually, when I refer to models, I mean computer models. Or sometimes, abstract mental models (which will eventually end up as computer models).

The Power of the Gospel

2010-11-24T04:45:00.000-08:00

I finished repeated reading of the First letter to the Thessalonians.

This book is all about the impact of the Gospel in peoples lives:

chapter 1 tells us how the Thessalonians came to believe, even in the face of persecution
chapter 2 is on the conduct of Paul, regarding the nature of the Gospel and the preacher
chapter 3 demonstrates the lasting power of conversion
chapter 4 talks about the effects of the Gospel in people's lives, including our hope against death
chapter 5 closes with encouragement to continue to the end

Islamic Law in America

2010-11-23T17:15:00.000-08:00

An intriguing article from CNN.

I want to jump down to the bottom of the article:

"a New Jersey case, in which a judge refused to grant a restraining order against a Muslim man whose wife accused him of raping her repeatedly, made it necessary for Oklahoma to take action to keep Islamic law from being imposed there.

The New Jersey decision, in which the family court judge found the husband was abiding by his Muslim beliefs regarding spousal duties, was overruled by an appellate court."

The good news here is that the appellate court overruled the lower court. It is not clear what happened in the lower court that brought about this ruling.

This particular case is:

"The amendment would require Oklahoma courts to 'rely on federal and state law when deciding cases' and 'forbids courts from considering or using' either international law or Islamic religious law, known as Sharia"

This seems pretty straight forward. Use the law of the land. There is either weird judicial freedom happening, or this is over-zealousness.

Arguing at Ars, pt 3

2010-11-22T17:14:00.000-08:00

The third part is fairly interesting. It discusses analogies. The best part was using analogies to counter analogies:

"This process of refuting one analogy with another is called analogical filtering" (emphasis in original)

Biologos and Atonement

2010-11-21T04:54:00.000-08:00

I will continue to repeat that the problem of deep time (geological ages, death before the Fall, common descent, transmutation of kinds, etc.) is a theological one and not a scientific one. Our theology shapes our worldview, and our worldview gives us our assumptions. Our assumptions determine how we interpret evidence/facts.

That is why I always look forward to theological articles from Biologos, although I continue to be amazed at how unorthodox they always are.

In the latest, guest author George Murphy denies substitutionary atonement. (Although he says in the comments, "My purpose is not to reject other models of atonement such as penal sub. They can be effective ways of making Christ’s work vividly present to people. But they don’t contribute as well to an understanding of the reorientation of creation. & they don’t picture our role in the cross adequately or give faith a crucial role.")

But how else do you interpret:

"He [Gerhard Forde] focused on what actually brings reconciliation: the event of the cross, not satisfaction of some theoretical requirement." (emphasis added)

If there is no requirement for Jesus to die on the cross, why do so? To build trust? ("The point is that that God brings about faith in himself, something neglected in other views of atonement.")

Substitutionary atonement holds that God creates faith in us (ex nihilo), then we come to believe, and receive the benefits of atonement. It appears Murphy is saying that our witnessing of the events of the cross creates faith - which makes no sense to me. The cross might create a sense of guilt, that I would understand. Tens of thousands of people were crucified, no one trusts them.

"The idols we depended on for life brought death, and in a real sense we die."

That's certainly true. However, what about murder and lust and theft? Are these not also sin? And are they not related to our descent from animals?

And if there is no "theoretical" requirement to pay for sin, why did Christ die? Why can't God simply forgive (as the Muslims believe)?

I will try and read more by Murphy and his mentor Gerhard Forde.

Good and Bad Muslims

2010-11-20T11:43:00.000-08:00

For anyone who is doubtful about the reality of the dangers of Islam, a debate, "The Only Good Muslim is a Bad Muslim" (ht: Ignatius Insight).

It wasn't really much of a debate. Kreeft is not as knowledgeable about Islam, and ended up agreeing with Spencer in the end.

Spencer's case is simple:

Islam teaches people to be "bad" (from a Christian/Western point of view)
Those who are faithful are "bad"
Those who are not faithful are "bad Muslims" (not faithful to their Muslim, err, faith)

His proposal is actually quite logical - we must outlaw those portions of Islam which are contrary to our well being. I think there is about 0% chance of that happening...

There is a convicting story around the 40 minute mark. Quite nice.

I think their biggest problems is that the Magesterium has tied their hands. They have to say that Muslims worship the same God, and that by keeping to the light they have, they can earn salvation.

But this (Islam) is a problem that requires conversion. We must preach Christ crucified (a stumbling block to some, foolishness to most, and blasphemy to the Muslims). We must point out the doctrine of demons (as all false religions are) - and say that it is false; not muddled, not half-true. That there is one Way, not many.

Jesse Jackson

2010-11-19T05:20:00.000-08:00

An interesting post at Ignatius Insight:

"There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of higher order than the right to life. I do not share that view. I believe that life is not private, but rather it is public and universal."

That's Jesse Jackson in 1977. What happened to him?

Arguing at Ars

2010-11-18T18:15:00.000-08:00

The second part of the arguments article was not as good. But still useful to run through the examples.

Geocentrism Again

2010-11-17T17:30:00.000-08:00

A lot of material all piling up at once on this (since the last post)...

First, Todd Wood (an interesting YEC biologist) has a report from the "First Annual Catholic Conference on Geocentrism" (not that the Church government approves or is really happy with it).

In part 3, Wood references Galileo's letter, which I am reading with interest. Much fisking shall come of this!

I've also been reading up on the Coriolis force, which will make some heavy statements about geocentrism (specifically, the notion of a stationary Earth).

First, from part 2 of Wood's report:

"According to Wyatt, the whole universe 'rotates' around the earth every day, which is 'kinematically exactly the same' as earth rotation."

This is correct, but brings us to the Coriolis force (also the Foucault Pendulum experiment).

The Coriolis force is best visualized by watching water flow down a drain (although Wikipedia claims the Coriolis force in this case is not the primary cause). Regardless, the force is real, and should be explained.

Now, it is correct (true) to say "the Earth is stationary and everything revolves around it". It is also true that "the Earth is rotating and revolving around the Sun". You can argue about which is "more pleasing" or "makes better intuitive sense". The fact is, the two systems are going to have their advantages, depending on circumstances.

However, the geocentrists would say that their system is the "one true frame" (representative of what is physically happening) - which is wrong according to relativity (I need to do a "Relativity, Causality, FTL - pick 2"). Relativity says that no one frame of reference is absolute (they are all "relative" to one another).

Ironically, many of those who want to use geocentric errors against creationists are also wrong! The heliocentric frame is not "the one true frame" either.

Informal Arguments

2010-11-16T16:24:00.000-08:00

An educational article from Ars:

"A good debate should first establish that all the arguments are valid, and then spend the rest of the time quibbling about the premises."

I heartily recommend it for anyone who argues online. Always good to firm up your methodology.

Biologos and Marcionism, Again

2010-11-15T17:30:00.000-08:00

(in reference to my earlier post)

If Karl Giberson (of Biologos) were a starship, and we were privy to the dialogue on the bridge of that ship, we might hear, "Full power to the forward spin generators!"

Now, while Giberson is spinning, I don't think he is repenting (or perhaps, over repenting?)

Quoth Giberson:

"the greatest challenge of the Old Testament is the morality of God’s actions as described by various authors" (emphasis in original)

That is truly interesting and revealing. God defines what is good. Whatever God says and does is good. To suppose otherwise is to create a standard of goodness greater than God.

"My office overlooks a pre-school and there is nothing so innocent as those toddlers running about at recess. I am simply unable to imagine any scenario where God—as I understand him—would rain brimstone down on their heads, or drown them in a flood."

The tsunami in Indonesia killed hundreds of thousands of people, many of them children. The earthquake in Haiti likewise. What is God's involvement in these things? Where is sin, where is judgment? Giberson is stuck because these things must be good (day 5), or God is not in control (as Ken Miller suggests). He doesn't say.

"Do those portrayals faithfully agree with how Jesus himself reveals God in the New Testament?"

Perhaps this is more interesting...

"And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day." (Matthew 11:23)

Jesus seems to think the judgment of Sodom was right - and that some will get it worse than Sodom. Does Giberson not believe these verses can be attributed to Jesus?

Heart Repair

2010-11-14T16:09:00.000-08:00

An interesting article from Science Daily:

"they could find a cocktail that would reprogram fibroblasts into cardiac muscle, without having to revert to a stem cell state in the process."

Direct conversion from support cells into heart muscle cells, in mice.

Know Your Heresies - Docetism

2010-11-13T07:36:00.000-08:00

Docetism is accociated with the Gnostics. I like to reserve the label Gnostic (from gnosis or knowledge) for those who promote a notion of "special knowledge" necessary for salvation (like Jehovah's Witnesses, or Oprah's The Secret).

The Gnostics, being a group of people, held many different ideas, many of which interacted or were logically connected.

One of which was material dualism (which may get its own post) - the idea that the physical is evil and the spiritual good. This led to the conclusion that God cannot become physical in Jesus, which is what is referred to as Docetism.

Heresies come and go, and docetism is not very popular today (Modernism has given us the idea that the physical is good and the spiritual evil [well, nonexistent], so there is little attraction).

It is possible a backlash against Modernism may cause the pendulum to swing back.

1 John 4:3b "And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God"

ASC and Spinal Cords (again)

2010-11-12T16:23:00.000-08:00

Right on the heels of the last post, another from Science Daily:

"Three months after initial treatment, the mice demonstrated significant and persistent recovery of walking ability in two separate tests of motor function when compared to control groups."

This group is from UC Irvine. The previous from Japan.

ASC and Spinal Cord Injury

2010-11-11T18:32:00.000-08:00

An interesting article from Science Daily:

"mice with severe spinal cord injury were transplanted with NSCs and administered a drug known as valproic acid... therapy resulted in impressive restoration of hind limb function."

ESC Shutdown

2010-11-10T16:15:00.000-08:00

Just got to this from early September... I'm processing all this news in order, so, no spoilers please!

From CNN:

"'Congress has mandated that the public interest is served by preventing taxpayer funding of research that entails the destruction of human embryos,' Lamberth said"

I like the hyperbole on the part of the administration:

"The court's order causes irrevocable harm to the millions of extremely sick or injured people who stand to benefit from continuing research as well as to the taxpayers who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this research"

Really? Irrevocable harm? From research that has little or no useful applications currently?

Is this a victory? Not really. Private funds can still be used (and have been). Not to mention research being done outside the US.

Koran Burning

2010-11-09T05:08:00.000-08:00

This is another old one from the queues...

I was hesitant to bring up the Koran burning case. The pastor (Terry Jones) is clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer (there is some indication the church is linked to Westboro Baptist, of Fred Phelps fame).

However, someone (probably Doug Wilson, although James White also made some excellent points - although White is rarely snarky) made an excellent point that sometimes you need a fool to point out the emperor has no clothes.

Here we have someone making a point that Muslims tend to overreact when mocked - to the point of murder and rioting.

Everyone says (out of one side of their mouths), "Shhh! You're going to make them violent!"

Then (from the other side), "You're disrespectful, intolerant, and divisive! You are mischaracterizing Islam! We need to respect Islam!"

When people mock Christianity (often with NEA grants), no one says a word. Maybe there is a quote from an irritated pastor. No one gets murdered, no rioting (maybe a few people holding signs).

And no one suggests Christianity should be respected.

You have to admit, the tactic is working...

Geocentrism

2010-11-09T04:43:00.000-08:00

I'm really tired of people comparing geocentrism and young earth creationism.

The motion of the planets is observable and repeatable. Anyone can look at them and see for themselves.
Geocentrism (at least certain forms of it) isn't even wrong.

An excellent summary from Michael Flynn:

"Ptolemaic system: geocentric, stationary earth. Worked out in great detail by Ptolemy in his Almagest [title from an Arabic translation]. It was surprisingly accurate, as noted. Relativity theory tells us that the choice of frame of reference is arbitrary, so it is no less true mathematically than any other frame."

The real irony is that Galileo (the guy who pushed the whole controversy into the forefront) wasn't really right - he supported the Copernican model:

"Copernican system [1514]. heliocentric, rotating earth, circular orbits. This system had more epicycles than Ptolemy, and not notably simpler. It produced less accurate results in some cases, partly because it relied on the same inaccurate tables."

Toddler's vs. Atheists

2010-11-08T04:59:00.000-08:00

An amusing article from Ars (well, amusing once I put my spin on it :)

"Generally, humans recognize that while animate objects can create order, inanimate objects can only increase disorder"

Unless you're an atheist, who believes mud turns into people...

"There was no difference in the responses of 7-month old children to ordering and disordering events for either the animate or inanimate objects"

That's a good baseline. The first six months, babies focus on interpersonal skills - something most atheists need work on (I'm looking at you, Jerry Coyne).

"However, 12-month old children looked significantly longer when the rolling ball created order than when it caused chaos."

Out of the mouths (or staring patterns) of babes.

ASC and Heart Repair

2010-11-07T04:50:00.000-08:00

We've seen a lot of applications of adult stem cells in treating various heart conditions. From Science Daily:

"The cardiogenic cocktail was then used to induce this signature in non-reparative patient stem cells to program their capacity to repair the heart. Mouse models with heart failure, injected with these cells, demonstrated significant heart function recovery along with improved survival rate after a year, compared to those treated with unguided stem cells or saline."

Also:

"The pre-clinical data reported in this seminal paper have cleared the way for safety and feasibility trials in humans, which were recently conducted in Europe."

The language here isn't 100% clear, but it seems that this may already be under way in humans (there is significant lag between collecting data and publishing it. So while preparing the paper on mouse results, human tests might have started.)

Pill Data

2010-11-06T05:14:00.000-07:00

In a previous post, I mentioned that the pill can fail to prevent ovulation, and still prevent pregnancy by preventing implantation. This is effectively giving the new embryo a death sentence.

From Science Daily, a little data on how often this might happen:

"Of the 150 women who used the pill consistently, three of the 96 women with normal weight ovulated, as did one of the 54 women with obesity."

Not a huge sample, but 4 in 150 is almost 3%

That's fairly high. At once a month, that is one event every three years.

ASC and Parkinson's

2010-11-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

A variant on a story I saw earlier, from Science Daily:

"Researchers in the Zeng lab used human iPSCs that were derived from skin and blood cells and coaxed them to become dopamine-producing neurons." (in rats)

(the earlier results were from a different group, using different starter cells, and mice)

The Secular View

2010-11-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

(This got hung up in the queue, so it is way old)

It's a lot of fun to watch secular humanists spin.

You have a group of people dedicated to the destruction of everything humanists stand for (equality, freedom, rights). You have other people, who may not be actively participating, but who choose to identify visibly with that group.

Then, a humanists says the second group "makes him nervous" on national television. That's it. Not that he hates them, or wants to do away with them or restrict their rights. People who identify with those who want to eliminate his way of life make him nervous.

The response? Fire him.

Then we have Tavis Smiley (who I normally like).

I want to interpret that in the best way (1 Cor 13:7). I think he is saying Christians (people who call themselves Christians) do all sorts of things. I can see that.

The problem is:

Such people are, in all likelihood, not Christians (it is Christ who decides who is a Christian, not us)
They don't do such things because they are Christians
Other Christians do not approve

The Columbine blurb is just bizarre. Those were atheists (actually a lot of random shooters are...). Evidence is they targeted a couple of Christians, specifically because they were overtly Christian.

Biologos and Marcionism

2010-11-03T17:26:00.000-07:00

In my previous post, I (snarkily) summarized the form of posts at Biologos. There is an interesting departure from this in the form of Dr. Karl Giberson's "Straw Men of Atheism" posts.

Giberson is not a fan of presuppositional apologetics. He uses an evidential form, and it is quite insightful (or inciteful?) to see the atheists tear him up in the comment sections.

In the fifth installment, Giberson actually manages to belittle the Bible and open himself to atheist scorn - actually going so far as to embrace Marcionism:

"In The God Delusion Dawkins eloquently skewers the tyrannical anthropomorphic deity of the Old Testament—the God that supposedly commanded the Jews to go on genocidal rampages and who occasionally went on his own rampages, flooding the planet or raining fire and brimstone on wicked cities. But who believes in this deity any more, besides those same fundamentalists who think the earth is 10,000 years old? Modern theology has moved past this view of God."

Biologos insists that evolution and Christianity are compatible. I guess it all depends on what you mean by "Christianity". Not Biblical Christianity, but the teachings of (modern) liberal theologians.

Creation as Jazz

2010-11-02T05:07:00.000-07:00

Biologos seems to have (at least) three main categories:

Repeat "Evolution is true" mantra
Belittle the Bible
Poetry and art (proclaiming how beautiful the deist god is)

An example of the third is the recent post "Creation and Jazz Music".

It really speaks for itself:

"If God has shaped the world as it was from the beginning, the universe seems reduced to a mere puppet stage where God the Puppet Master pulls all the strings."

That's the treatment of the sovereign God of the Bible.

"Instead, God in his wisdom has provided a system in which creatures can make themselves." (emphasis added)

The important point in the creation debate is: "The creator makes the rules". If God created us, we are subject to His rules. If random chance creates us (or we create ourselves) - we are not subject to God's rules.

Finding Darwin's God

2010-11-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

It took me a long time, but I finally waded through it!

I picked up this book after getting involved over at Biologos. Kenneth Miller is one of the writers there.

I am looking for a book that pairs a solid scientific understanding of evolution and an old earth with solid theology - this book is not it.

Miller approaches things from the scientific standpoint (he is a cell biologist and professor). His theology is fairly broad, although not well defended or deep. He adds nothing new to the scientific argument, repeating the "evolution is true" mantra repeatedly.

What interests me most is his theology.

The choice quote (you have to get far in to find it, out of 292 pages):

"He [God] wanted these creatures [us] to be free to choose Him or to reject Him" (page 251)

There are aspects of this earlier (and it is much repeated later), but this really captures the heart of Miller's theology.

He has raised human will to the level of God (hyper-Arminianism).

"Free choice" is so important that Miller is willing to sacrifice everything else - God's omnipotence, omniscience, creation, etc. Even the definition of good is up for grabs (for how is "nature, red in tooth and claw" good?).

It is also not surprising to find elements of Open Theism (which is a common failure mode for hyper-Arminians; although it appears Miller has not yet fallen so far):

"The freedom to act and choose enjoyed by each individual in the Western religious tradition requires that God allow the future of His creation to be left open." (p.238)

"Given evolution's ability to adapt,... sooner or later it would have given the Creator exactly what He was looking for - a creature who, like us, could know Him and love Him" (p.238-239)

This is not the God of the Bible. The God who plans and purposes before acting. This is not the God who is the man Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

Given the course Biologos is taking, I doubt I will see reconciliation on these points. I have another book to try.

DNA Frontloading

2010-08-06T06:10:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting results of genomic research is the challenge to evolutionary assumptions. From Science Daily:

"report the draft genome sequence of the sea sponge"

"All living animals are descended from the common ancestor of sponges and humans, which lived more than 600 million years ago"

"essentially all the genomic innovations that we deem necessary for intricate modern animal life have their origins much further back in time that anyone anticipated"

Now the evolutionist will say, "See, we use the same proteins; therefore we have a common ancestor!"

However, there is a much more subtle (and damaging) point.

If the earliest life forms have all the complexity - then deep time (the billion year hammer) buys you nothing. Later forms use multiples of these genes, often with slight modifications.

Prehistoric Conditions

2010-08-05T04:26:00.000-07:00

One of the most interesting things about uniformitarians is their inconsistency. They insist the present is the key to the past (that current conditions tell us about how things operated in the past).

But the data shows that conditions in the past were unlike anything seen today.

Take this article from Science Daily:

"These elevated [oxygen] concentrations have been linked to gigantism in some animal groups, in particular insects, the dragonfly Meganeura monyi with a wingspan of over two feet epitomizing this." (italics in original)

Insects have an open circulatory system. This system is fairly inefficient, and limits the body size in insects today. In other words insects today could never be so big (they wouldn't get enough oxygen). So, the presence of these insects indicates higher oxygen pressure (either more oxygen or more atmospheric pressure or both).

Current oxygen levels are ~20%, "levels around 30 to 35%, as have been proposed for the Late Paleozoic". High levels of oxygen would also cause large amounts of coal to form.

Things were very different, that much is agreed on. That's what the evidence shows.

ASC Research

2010-08-04T03:44:00.000-07:00

An interesting article from Science Daily:

"engineers used human mesenchymal stem cells, which are found in bone marrow and other connective tissues such as fat. The stem cells differentiated into bone when grown on stiffer scaffolds, and into fat when grown on more flexible scaffolds."

Ray Bradbury on God

2010-08-03T17:03:00.000-07:00

An interesting article at CNN.

For those not familiar with him, Ray Bradbury is a fairly famous science fiction author. I have a certain grudge against him, because the one SF novel I got to read in high school was his "Illustrated Man". It wasn't particularly interesting (I remember it as half the stories being about the last moments of people in exploding rockets).

I had always thought of Bradbury as British, but apparently he was born in Illinois.

His theology is unusual among SF authors (who tend towards atheism), but nothing like Biblical faith:

"He considers Jesus a wise prophet, like Buddha and Confucius."

"'Jesus is a remarkable person,' Bradbury says. 'He was on his way to becoming Christ, and he made it.' " (not sure what that means!)

"We must move into the universe. Mankind must save itself. We must escape the danger of war and politics. We must become astronauts and go out into the universe and discover the God in ourselves."

I guess that last one says it all. Please pray for Mr. Bradbury.

ASC Supply

2010-08-01T03:43:00.000-07:00

An interesting article from Science News:

"The findings 'represent a huge and important progression in the field,'...The new studies accomplished the reprogramming feat by using viruses to deliver a four-gene cocktail that reverts the cells"

ASC Production

2010-07-30T05:01:00.000-07:00

An interesting article from Science Daily:

"Now, for the first time, MIT researchers have shown that they can deliver those same reprogramming genes using RNA"

ESC Research

2010-07-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

An article at Science Daily on the state of ESC research:

"Dr. Denis Evseenko... placed human embryonic stem cells into culture and, after three or four days, found a small subset of the cells that had lost a key cell surface marker characteristic of the pluripotent state and had gained a new marker that is a hallmark of mesodermal cells"

ASC and Heart Attacks

2010-07-22T05:31:00.000-07:00

Encouraging news from Science Daily on combining stem cells (presumably adult) and genetic engineering in rats:

"the researchers observed significant improvements in blood pressure function in the rats implanted with scaffolds seeded with stem cells modified to overproduce Akt1, SDF-1 and HGF"

Glenn Beck on the Atonement

2010-07-20T05:44:00.000-07:00

I've started following James White's ministry (Dividing Line). On a recent podcast, he mentioned Glenn Beck giving a presentation on the atonement (on Fox News channel, no less!).

This was too bizarre for words. Here we have a (self-described) Mormon, on a politically slanted news channel, presenting the heart of Christian theology! And doing a better job than many preachers on TBN!

Now Beck's main point is the bad (liberation) theology of James Cone. There's so much bad stuff there, it's easy to find the target.

But Beck nails it in one:

"And when it comes to salvation, how about the concept of grace? Saved by grace. You cannot earn your way into Heaven. There is no deed, no random act of kindness, no amount of money to spread around to others that earns you a trip to heaven. It's by God's grace alone that you are saved. Now, that doesn't mean you aren't supposed to do works and deeds — 'faith without works is dead.' Our work is a demonstration of our faith." (emphasis added)

Odd times indeed.

ASC Research

2010-07-17T07:42:00.000-07:00

An interesting article from Science Daily on using adult stem cells to investigate Parkinson's disease:

"iPS cells provide new and exciting opportunities to grow and study dopamine neurons from patients for the first time"

ASC Supply

2010-07-16T17:55:00.000-07:00

An interesting story from Science Daily on growing adult stem cells in hydrogel.