Imagination Failure

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

(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

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

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

(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

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).

1. Good, (presumably from God) - there is, therefore, no sin (no deviancy)
2. Evil, from God - God is the author of evil
3. 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

(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.