One Of the Many Things Doctor Who Doesn’t Teach Us About Time.

Warning: I start with some arcane terms. Hang on, though because I will explain these terms simply enough.

Listening to a podcast by William Lane Craig recently, he made the comment that the B-theory of time didn’t support the Kalam Cosmological argument and that was one reason that he was an A-theorist. (Please feel free to listen to this podcast.) I haven’t spent much time mulling over all of the implications of the theories of time, but that comment was provocative because I at least knew that a full-blown A-theory supports a multi-verse. Interestingly, it also fuels Craig's Molinism.

So I considered the two theories of time against the ideas of time that I have developed from reading scripture and realized that the two theories were not mutually exclusive. On a whim, I posted as much to my Facebook timeline and got some virtual blank stares. So I apologize to my Facebook friends for just being me. The real me isn’t particularly socially acceptable. Therefore, herewith, I will endeavor to explain what I meant. Also, I have written on this some before and produced at that time some diagrams that might be helpful.

The A-theory of time, in simple terms is the idea that things stay the same as they go through time. When I look at a painting that my mom painted, for example, although it has changed hands a couple of times, it is still the same painting that my mom painted. This seems like common sense. It seems true to us because we can understand it intuitively. That’s why this is a prevalent idea of time.

This is the idea of time that classical apologists use to prove the existence of God. They often use some variation of what is known as the Cosmological Argument. William Lane Craig uses one called the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It’s very persuasive. Cosmological arguments typically observe that everything has a cause. If you trace the cause of something backward through time you must find a cause that has no cause because you can just keep going back and never find a First Cause. And that’s what they call it: First Cause. Non-theistic scientists hold that the first cause was the Big Bang. The Big Bang happened and everything has progressed since then each causing the next thing to happen until you get to the present day.

The problem is that they have no scientific natural explanation for what caused the Big Bang. Cosmological arguments work because they demonstrate that the First Cause wasn’t natural. There had to have been an uncaused cause. That’s God. From that point on we can point out how the First Cause is necessarily personal and has endeavored to reveal himself to us. But the classical Christian apologist starts with the Cosmological argument.

The problem I find is that the Bible indicates that the B-theory is in some way in play also.

The B-theory is the idea that time is an illusion of sorts wrought by our ability to know the past, experience the present, and not know the future. But it holds that from one moment of time to another things that appear to be the same are really different. My mom’s painting is not the same one that she pained. The one she painted exists only at the time she painted it. It came into my possession because a family member gave it to me. That was a cause for the fact that it’s presently hanging on my wall. It stayed on my wall because I hung it on a nail there. That causes it to remain there from one moment to the next. But a pure B-theory holds that the cause may only be and illusion and that the painting that is there now is not the painting that was there a moment ago. The nail likewise is different. The wall, the house, the yard, and even me – nothing that is there now was there a moment ago and what was there a moment ago cannot be proven to actually have been there although we have some memory of it. If something were there in likeness to what is there now, it isn’t the same thing.

Now, I didn’t produce a diagram of that because I don’t believe in a pure B-theory. But the diagram I did produce marries the A-theory and the B-theory together as such:

The Biblical support I offered in passing in my original article still stands:

“…we know that God not only created “In the beginning” but he sustains his creation (Heb 1:3) and creates constantly (Psalm 139:13) and provides for his creation (Job 38:41).”

So non-Christian B-theorists use the B-theory to dispute Cosmological arguments. My realization was that neither the A-theory and B-theory are exclusively true. Now, I know that they are both in some way true because I have the revelation of scripture. However, it occurred to me that from a logical standpoint, only conclusions that did not necessarily follow from each theory were in conflict. Therefore, the theories are logically compatible.

If Postmodernism is True...

If postmodernism is true, then I can't know what they believe.

If postmodernism is true, then they can't know what to deconstruct.

If postmodernism is true, then why do they even write books?

If postmodernism is true, then how do they know that I don't understand them?

Since I know what postmodernists believe, they seem to be clear on what they are deconstructing, they write books propagating their absurdity, and they think they know that I don't understand them, then we know a few things:

• Postmodernism is false.
• Postmodernists are justifying untruths that they want to be true or denying truths they don't want to be true. (Since postmodern deconstruction seems aimed at ethical considerations, squirming out of moral obligations is almost certainly the purpose of postmodernism.)
• The opposite of naturalistic, evidential science (which is rationalistic) isn't supernaturalism (which is also rationalistic), it's postmodernism (which intends to deconstruct rationalism).

Watch this panel discussion to see Christian philosophers Sarah Geis, Larry Burtoft, Doug Groothuis, and David Mathewson deconstruct postmodernism.

Consider Your Witness

There is a good discussion on Presuppositional versus Evidential Apologetics on a recent Unbelievable podcast. You can listen to it here. (HT: AOMin)

Kurt Jaros speaks on the evidential position and Scott Oliphant speaks on the presuppositional position. They discuss alternate terms for the positions and sometimes use them. The alternate term for Evidential Apologetics is “Natural Theology”. The Alternate term for Presuppositonal Apologetics is “Covenant Apologetics”. I mention that so you won’t be thrown off if you dive into the middle of it without listening to the whole thing.

One thing I wanted to point out: At just past the 1 hour mark, 1:03:00 Jaros asks, “How do we know?” He’s asking the epistemological question about how we convey with certainty the assertions regarding our Christian theology over and against other beliefs. The argument Jaros is making is that presuppositonal apologists still need to provide evidence to back up their assertions.

Oliphant’s response is that God can use all kinds of things, but that doesn’t make those things true or epistemologically revealing. Evidential apologetics are still constrained to probability. Jaros understood the response well enough, but I wanted to unpack this briefly.

Neither Evidential nor Presuppositional apologetics are convincing unless the Holy Spirit opens someone to the truth of the gospel. Now, my non-Reformed friends will disagree with this. That’s what makes evidential apologetics more appealing to the non-Reformed.

But in either case, the most convincing presentation isn’t evidential in the classical sense, it’s testimonial in the legal sense. That’s why our witness is of the utmost importance. Those of us who have the Holy Spirit can testify as to his work in our lives. We can testify as to the living work of Christ through the Holy Spirit today.

It’s not like a science experiment where we can say that this is most likely to be true, but like a court case where we take the stand as eyewitness testimony to the living God. Yet we do not make our case to the jury as it were. We call out fellow witnesses to recognize their own testimony of the work of God in their lives. That is the truth that Presuppositional Apologetics upholds. Consider, therefore, your witness.

A Response From an Embarrassingly Ignorant Young Earth Creationist

I was listening to Dr. William Lane Craig’s recent podcast where he was commenting on a discussion between theistic evolutionist, Francis Collins, and atheist Richard Dawkins. You can listen to it here.

At 7:51 Craig said, “…over 50% of evangelical pastors think that the world is less than 10,000 years old. Now when you think about that… that is just hugely embarrassing… This is just scientifically nonsense and yet this is the view that the majority of our pastors hold. It’s really quite shocking when you think about it.”

Well, I’m not a pastor, so perhaps I’m not quite as embarrassing. But what I find embarrassing is Dr. Craig’s apparent ignorance regarding the epistemic problems with scientific conclusions. He says two things that demonstrate some incoherence in his understanding of revelatory epistemology:

At 3:54, “I would agree… that you ought to exhaust the naturalistic hypotheses first before opting for a supernatural hypothesis.”

At 13:24, “With regard to Christian faith and practice I would say you need first and foremost to do your biblical hermeneutics responsibly and objectively. You need to not interpret the Bible in light of modern science, but to interpret it according to what its original author and original audience would have understood. That’s the first and foremost task is to interpret the Bible objectively and correctly. Then the second task will be trying to integrate what we learn from the Bible with the worldview of modern science so as to have a sort of synoptic worldview that takes into account all that we’ve learned, not only from divine revelation, but from God’s revelation in nature – in the book of nature. And then we will build a synoptic sort of worldview that makes the best sense of the data.”

It’s this incoherence that makes Dr. Craig a prime example of something Dr. K. Scott Oliphint, professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, said in a recent interview. It’s worth listening to, which you can do here.

Continuing with Dr. Craig’s podcast, he goes on to say at 9:35,

“What would hurt the Bible would be if the Bible intends for us to believe that the world is only 10,000 years old and therefore comes into conflict with the best evidence of modern science. That’s what would hurt the Bible. What would not hurt the Bible would be if it could be shown that the Bible doesn’t take a position on how long the universe has been around. Then it wouldn’t be damaged by scientific evidence, or the geological age of the earth, or the age of the universe.”

Then Craig knocks Francis Collins for believing in theistic evolution. What difference does Craig see in the science that he feels supports an old earth and the science that is used to support evolution? From a scientific standpoint, they are equally unscientific if for no other reason than they have not been observed and cannot be tested. Those aren’t the only things wrong with the science, and I’ve already pointed to problems with the science behind the age of the earth in previous articles.

He continues in his incoherence by agreeing with Bill Nye (the Science Guy) that we should not teach our children about a young earth, but he believes that we should teach our children about the controversy surrounding evolution:

At 15:45, “I would not disagree with [Bill Nye] that we ought not to teach our children that the world is only 10,000 years old. I think that that’s not something that the Bible imposes on us, and it’s not supported by modern science, so I would agree that… we shouldn’t teach that to our children. But we should certainly teach them that there is a Creator of the universe who is God and who brought the universe into being and designed it in such a way as to support the existence of human life. And with regard to how human life and biological complexity came to be on this planet, I think we need to teach the children the controversy; teach them the various views that are held today so that they are conversant with the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution and can discuss it even more intelligently than their peers with regard to its pros and cons. And then teach them a range of alternatives that are available for the objective Bible-believing Christian today.”

But I want to go back and explain a little further how his comments about biblical hermeneutics are incoherent. If you take the first chapter of Genesis at face value without considering any modern scientific thought, you must conclude that days it refers to are solar days. If we look at the scientific investigation used to date the earth as very old, every last conclusion regarding the age begins with the assumption that the earth is very old. The scientific discovery is employed to determine how old. You can’t do radiometric testing on rocks without assuming the ionic percentages that made up the rocks at the time they were formed, which you assume was millions of years ago. You can’t construct a geologic column unless you assume that the layers were deposited over millions of years. Therefore, in order to use the conclusions of scientific endeavors such as these to controvert a plain reading of the biblical text and substitute a figurative reading of it, you have to assume that plain reading is inaccurate a priori.

Scientists are just as adamant that macro-evolution is just as certain as an old earth. The only reason Craig can say that the science behind old earth is beyond reproach where macro-evolution is not is because the text of the Bible can more easily be subverted to agree with an old earth than it can with macro-evolution. Perhaps another reason he gives is found is this comment:

At 8:37, “…the young people in their congregations [of pastors who hold the view that the Bible teaches a young earth] are convinced that the pastor is right that the Bible teaches this, but they are convinced by their geology teacher or the earth science teacher that the world is older than that, that means ‘give up the Bible and walk away from the Christian faith’.”

So does Dr. Craig mean that we need to be old earthers so that our young people won’t leave the church? It’s not clear that he means this, but I see no good reason for saying it otherwise.

Finally, it seems that Craig misses the fact that the modern scientific industry is founded on an assumption that the Bible isn’t true.

At 3:08, “But here he takes the rather cheeky position that the reason that they opt for the multiverse is to avoid a Creator which is, in fact, what Stephen Hawking has actually said in his book, The Grand Design.”

You can’t harmonize a Biblical worldview with conclusions that are founded on an assumption that the Bible isn’t true. There is a way to do science that recognizes the veracity of the Bible. This is where science was historically rooted. But the modern scientific academy rejects any but science that makes naturalistic assumptions. Craig acknowledges this on one level, but then tries to mix it with how to understand the Bible on the other. This is the most egregious error in his thinking.

Old Earth Theology – What the Early Church Fathers Taught

This is the final post on a series about Old Earth Theology. This first post is here.

The teachings of the early church fathers are not part of the inspired text. However, as the beginning of our church traditions, they are a study in how orthodox Christianity is understood and taught. So it is interesting to see how the church fathers interpreted Genesis 1.

To this end, there is a good book out that has a chapter that discusses it. It’s entitled Coming to Grips with Genesis: BiblicalAuthority and the Age of the Earth. It’s a collection of 14 articles by various authors in support of YECm. The first chapter written by James Mook details the teaching of the early church fathers on Genesis 1.

Dr. John Millam, an OEC, has a reasonable critique ofMook’s article. I always like to balance arguments with critiques and responses from the opposing side. The side who ignores good arguments from the other side is suspect. While Millam has a good critique, it’s not sufficient as an argument for OECm. Some of the church fathers taught that the days were 24-hour periods of time. Some taught that they were figurative periods of time. In looking at the evidence, however, I found out that the figurative “days” in Genesis 1 were never explicitly taught as long periods of time prior to Adam and Eve. Instead, they taught them as a type of eschatology.

I have never heard of this before, so I have had to study this. This type of eschatology was widely held by various Jewish sects although they differed on the particulars. It was especially popularized by the rise of the teaching of the Kabbalah, a school of thought that taught a form of mystical exegesis. Some scholars argue that the Kabbalah was the origin of the doctrine of the Trinity. I think that theory is in error. But I also think that mystical exegesis is in error. Although the Kabbalah helped popularize the eschatology of Genesis 1, that understanding doesn’t rely on the Kabbalah for validation.

In fact, varieties of eschatology that use Genesis 1 are different enough that it’s not wise to speculate on eschatology on that alone. However, whether the church fathers were YECs or not, it seems most likely that the eschatological understanding was more important to them. Given that one of the differences concerned the day the Messiah was to come, the church fathers certainly understood that he had already come in the person of Jesus Christ.

But I’ll say it again: none of the church fathers taught any form of an old earth creation. Granted that there are problems with using them to support a young earth as Millam has pointed out, but even some of Millam’s arguments are questionable. For example, he argues that while the early church fathers never taught an old earth, he doesn’t think that they would have rejected it either. The appeal to this comes oddly after an attack on their hermeneutics as apparently being vastly different. You can’t have it both ways. If you say that someone’s interpretive method is questionable, you wouldn’t want to say that you think they would have supported your position as evidence that your position is correct. So obviously Millam respects the church father’s understanding of scripture. Given that never taught OECm, and some were explicitly YECs, then the evidence suggests that as a body, they would more likely have accepted YECm.

Additionally, given that some taught that the “days” of creation were allegorical of all of creation, they believed that creation consisted of about 6000 years with a seventh indefinite period of time after the resurrection. What aspects of that are accurate is a different discussion. It’s intriguing to think that perhaps the millennium in Revelation 20 refers to the sixth or seventh day of creation. Just don’t tell the strict dispensationalists. That could stir up a hornet’s nest.

Old Earth Theology – Who Is Making the Arguments

My first post on this series is here.

There are two basic sets of arguments that contribute to an old Earth theology. The first set contains arguments that are scientific in nature. The second set contains arguments that are theological in nature. Quite simply, there are two different groups that make each of these arguments.

Naturalists and Theistic Evolutionists

The mainstream scientific school of thought is dominated by scientific thought that relies on naturalistic presuppositions. That means that before any conclusions are drawn from testing, any supernatural explanations are automatically denied. The untested theory is that the supernatural cannot be empirically tested. The non sequitur conclusion is that only natural explanations are possible.

It is from this philosophy of science that Darwinian evolution draws it’s a priori conclusion. So the question is not whether organisms evolved naturally from inanimate matter. The question is how they evolved from inanimate matter.

Given that even non-biological science is naturalistic, sciences that are not directly related to Darwinian evolution still assume that Darwinian evolution occurred. Therefore, when physicists and geologists test to determine the age of the earth, they must assume that it is old enough for life to have evolved. Therefore, any evidence that the earth is young is dismissed as anomalous or not yet explained.

There are naturalists who otherwise believe in a supernatural Creator. Some may even be Christian. However, they hold any claims of Christianity to be untestable because they don’t fit into the naturalistic presuppositions that they have been taught define science. If you want to work in mainstream science you largely have to buy into naturalistic presuppositions to be accepted.

Non-Evolutionists

The theists who argue for an old earth are the ones who argue from a scriptural standpoint. The question I have always asked is why they argue for an old earth when the scriptures don’t explicitly teach that. The plain reading of Genesis 1 is that God created the earth in 7 rotations of the earth as denoted by the period of the sun. In fact, these theologians go out of their way to deny that Genesis 1 doesn’t mean what it seems to say.

The only reason I can think of why they do this is that they have heard some of the evidence for an old earth and an old universe and are convinced by it enough to see if the scriptures make allowance for the current mainstream science on the matter. What I haven’t heard a single one in this group address is the evidence for a young earth. The only thing I can conclude is that they haven’t heard the evidence for a young earth because mainstream scientists typically don’t address it.

The Science Isn’t Conclusive

The thing is, there is some compelling evidence out there that the earth is relatively young. Not all scientists are naturalistic. Some Christian scientists actually work on the fringes and conduct experiments using science that is based on non-naturalistic presuppositions. That means that they allow that there may be a God.

Answers in Genesis has been a clearinghouse for non-naturalistic science, particularly as it relates to the origins of the universe, the earth, and life. Recently, they have been repackaging some of the leading evidences for a young earth. I’ll repost their top ten list here:

1. Very little sediment on the seafloor
2. Bent rock layers
3. Soft tissue in fossils
4. Faint sun paradox
5. Rapidly decaying magnetic field
6. Helium in radioactive rocks
7. Carbon-14 in fossils and diamonds
8. Short-lived comets
9. Very little salt in the sea
10. DNA in “ancient” bacteria

Another consideration that I think trips many people up is the age of the universe versus the age of the earth. Many scientists, much less laymen, think that time throughout the universe passes relatively uniformly. In our day-to-day life it certainly seems so, so it’s understandable that it’s a difficult concept for most people to grasp.

But vast differences in the passage of time are far more common than most people think. The spectrum of electromagnetic radiation (visible light and various radio waves) is nothing but temporal distortions generated by subatomic interactions that approach the speed of light. What I’m trying to say is that the universe could easily have been created after the earth and aged so fast that it appears older than the earth. It’s not scientific fiction and actually explains a few things that the Big Bang theory can’t account for. There are some that think this theory is far-fetched, but it’s actually a more likely explanation for the evidence than the Big Bang.

What I’m trying to say is that there’s no good reason to believe the naturalists on the age of the earth without question. They have some legitimate observations that can’t be ignored. But those observations have their own problems. Naturalistic science should be scrutinized. Theology that goes out of its way to accommodate it should be scrutinized as well.

My next (and last) article in this short series will discuss what the early church fathers taught regarding Genesis 1. You might be as surprised as I was when I first read it.

Old Earth Theology

As a matter of full disclosure from the beginning of this, I’ll let it be known that I’m a Young Earth Creationist (YEC – I’ll refer to Old Earth Creationists as ‘OEC’).

Additionally, to limit any discussion to the topic at hand this series is about the differences between Old Earth Creationism (OECm) and Young Earth Creationism (YECm) between Christians. It will involve some of the science surrounding this topic and will assume that naturalistic evolution has not occurred. So that eliminates discussion of theistic evolution. It’s not that I get many commenters here, but I have a very specific topic that I wish to discuss. I won’t entertain discussion otherwise here.

I have thought about this for a number of years now. The topic of the age of the earth is one that seems fraught with a lack of understanding. Most of the time when I read or hear an OEC explain why he or she believes OECm, the rationale typically given is limited to arguments regarding the exegesis of Genesis 1.

The problem with this approach is that an exegesis of Genesis 1 devoid of scientific considerations results in interpreting each ‘day’ as a single rotation of the earth. In other words, the exegetical arguments that result in a gap between verse 2 and 3 (the Gap Theory), or interpreting each of the days as referring to very long unspecified periods of time, are obviously informed by some information that the OEC isn’t disclosing.

The reason it seems is that OECs think it goes without saying that science has absolutely proven that the earth is old, but they aren’t prepared to discuss the science because they are theologians, not scientists. They haven’t studied the science in any depth, but what they have seen appears to have been pretty convincing to them. Most OECs that I have read or heard merely dismiss the science with statements such as “Well, Genesis 1 isn’t a science textbook.” I can only interpret that to mean, “I don’t understand the science, but it seems to me that scientists have proven that the earth is very old. Genesis can be interpreted different ways. It’s not a deal-breaker. Therefore, I can say that the earth is very old without changing the gospel. That’s so scientists don’t think I’m an idiot and other Christians won’t think I’m a heretic.”

The view of YECm is that a plain reading of the scriptures are that the days are single rotations of the earth and that the science isn’t conclusive.

The only non-theistic evolution OEC that has addressed the science that I have seen merely said that the science for the age of the earth is not encumbered with the same naturalism as Darwinian evolution is. Therefore, he concluded, we can accept the conclusions without delving into the intent of the scientists. The only problem I have with that is that many of the scientists whose work contributes to calculations of the age of the earth are Darwinian evolutionists otherwise and invested in an old earth a priori to testing and analyzing data.

The point of this article is simple. I have some sources that I have reviewed regarding arguments for OEC. But I may not have them all. I have reviewed plenty for the exegesis of Genesis 1, but can find very little other than what I have mentioned for importing scientific conclusions into the exegesis of Genesis 1. If anyone reading this knows of some better argument for OECm, please let me know. I’d like to interact with it and post my findings. I’m looking for the best arguments for OECm if any are out there that I haven’t found. Post links or resources in the comments and I will review what I understand.

What I plan to cover in the future is how the early church fathers handled Genesis 1 (in general) and how the science is not conclusive. If anyone comes up with a better argument than I have seen, I’ll include it as well.

Edit:
The second article discussing who (in general) is making the arguments can be found here.

Some Arguments for Complementarianism

The erudite Steve Hays blogs at Triablogue among other places and carries out some exceptional ad hoc debates online. The following was part of a recent article entitled Amputee-identity disorder detailing one of his recent debates regarding abortion. This section regards complementarianism, the biblical idea that men and women were created by God to complement each other by positionally fulfilling different roles in order to reveal truths about God. These contain some observations I had never thought of before and I wanted to pass them along without further comment.

steve hays
    November 3, 2012 at 10:09 PM

    i) You act like TGC advocates arranged marriage. If a woman doesn't want to have "habitual sex," then don't get married in the first place! No one is forcing them into marriage.

    ii) You have no concept of marriage. It doesn't even occur to you that marriage requires mutual accommodation. You seem to imagine that in a relationship with someone else, you should never ever have to do anything you don’t want to do. That doesn’t work in marriage–or friendship.

    ii) Paul's command (if that's what you’re alluding to) requires mutual accommodation (1 Cor 7:3-4). It's not a command to wives, but a command to couples. A command to husbands and wives alike.

    iii) Is it actually true that men want sex more often than women, or is that, itself, a sexist stereotype?

    iv) Take the hook-up culture on your average college campus. You can't have sexually active single men without sexually active single women. So why assume that women are less interested in sex than men?

    v) Or is that even though women are (allegedly) less interested in sex, they offer sex because that's the only way to hang onto their boyfriend? If they don't offer sex, he will dump them.

    But even if that's true, that's damaging to feminism. For that means women are so emotionally dependent on having a man in their life that they will do things to keep him which they find personally disagreeable.

    vii) Another explanation is that women are trying to keep up with other women. It's a female competition. Every girl has to have her own boyfriend.

    But if that's the case, it makes women look too emotionally weak to resist peer pressure.

The Nature of God's Will

Stand to Reason has recently combined their youth blog with their main blog. One of the features that the youth blog brought to the table was a weekly challenge that gives readers an opportunity to try their hand at answering a challenge to the Christian faith with a followup article later in the week that offers a recommended answer. This week's challenge was thus:

Here's a question we received from a reader:

If morality is in God's nature, then He is omnibenevolent, right? Does that mean that God cannot choose evil? So, if God cannot choose to do evil, does that mean He doesn't have free will?

What do you think? How would you respond to a friend who asked you this? What kind of questions would you ask him? What would he need to clarify? Leave your response, then look for Brett's answer on Thursday. People from different theological traditions will probably respond to this differently, so this should be interesting.

My response was to clarify the difference between God's will and human will:

We must understand that God's will is not the same as man's will. God's will is creative. Man's will is reactive. Man doesn't choose the conditions or the determinants of his choices. Mutually exclusive paths (conditions) are set before him from outside of himself and he cannot choose by using information or stimuli (determinants) outside of God's created order. For God, however, the conditions and the determinants are the same for he creates them out of nothing more than his nature which his will reflects. Since goodness has its foundation in the nature of God, there is no higher ethical standard against which God's will can be compared. So whatever God does is good.

Now the problem we have in trying to ascertain God's goodness is the effect of sin on epistemology. Sin distorts our ability to perceive truth by creating ethical dilemmas inside of God's creation. God himself is not conflicted, but we perceive conflicts because of the distortion.

Perhaps a metaphor will help. God's will is like a river that flows gently but swiftly and strongly. We are like swimmers in the river who can choose either to swim against the flow of God's will or with it. If we swim against God's will we push against the water that is carrying us downstream. Our efforts are frustrated by the strength of God's will. Our swimming is laborious and difficult and we are buffeted by the current. Are we not swimming as God has instructed? yet because we swim against the flow we feel God may be doing some evil against us.

On the other hand, if we choose to swim with the current, our swimming is easy and we are carried along to our destination. Perhaps the speed at which we are carried along is frightening and other swimmers struggling against the flow impede our path dangerously. Perhaps rocks or some other natural peril threatens us. Nevertheless, we find that we are carried to our destination handily.

God has established not only the river, but its source, destination, obstacles, and us. We will be carried along willingly or unwillingly. The willing will be happy with the destination. The unwilling will not. God has done no evil to either.

Now, this answer I gave doesn't answer all questions regarding the problem of evil. That wasn't my intent. But since we know that God is always good, he is trustworthy despite what we may not understand. That is what someone questioning Christianity on this point will most need to hear.

The Truth About the Same-Sex Marriage Agenda

Lest any think that the homosexual agenda is honorable and honest:

Russian-American journalist, Masha Ghessen, said the following last month at the Sydney Writers Festival:

"...fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there—because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist."

At least she's being honest in this case about the Same-Sex Marriage Agenda. She says in this same speech that she is uncomfortable with lying. Why? If lying is wrong, then don't do it. But if it is wrong, then you have to understand that those against whom you fight have a moral foundation that for the same time holds both lying and homosexual activity to be sinful. And what moral foundation do they have?

HT: Stand to Reason

Does Science Tell Us How To Interpret the Bible?

Here is a great impromptu panel debate on a TBN program, Praise the Lord. I'm not typically a watcher of TBN. It's Christianity "light" and open to all sorts of ministerial lunacy. This seems to be one instance where they accidentally let in a couple of people who knew the Bible and were willing to stick up for it.

Young Earther, Ken Ham, sticks it to Old Earther, Dr. Hugh Ross, with interaction by such names as Ray Comfort, Dr John Bloom, Sean McDowell, and Eric Hovind. It's worth watching and thinking about.


BTW, I'm a Young Earther. I believe it's possible for the rest of the heavenly bodies to be older than the earth and have been created after the earth and for the light to make it to earth. I think God could pull this off easily and that it could even happen without breaking the laws of physics. I don't think the current understanding of physics is particularly well advanced. We'll get there if physicists can set aside some of the unrelated philosophical presuppositions that they are using as models for proposing cosmological theories.

The debate boils down to the nature of revelation. For Ken Ham, The Bible is authoritative as the revelation of God. For Dr. Ross, natural revelation is equal to the Bible as authoritative. I agree with Ken Ham. Sola Scriptura.

ht: Answers in Genesis

An excellent and thoughtful discussion on the "Unbelievable?" radio program between David Instone-Brewer and James White about Reformed theology versus the alternative over Instone-Brewer's new book, "The Jesus Scandals". From the Unbelievable? website:

David Instone-Brewer is a New Testament Scholar at Tyndale House, Cambridge. He returns to talk about his new book "The Jesus Scandals" and some of the reasons why he believes Jesus' theology doesn't conform to a Calvinist view of God's sovereignty.

Does the Parable of the Great Feast contradict the idea of an "elect", did Jesus in some sense believe in "luck", are disasters ordained by God?

James White of Alpha and Omega ministries is a Calvinist and responds to David's viewpoint.

Listen to the program here.

What Kind of Time Do We Have?

William Lane Craig has recently been talking about theories of time. Listen to his recent podcasts. I’m going to talk about these theories, what Craig believes regarding these theories, what I believe about these theories, and the relationship these theories have with theology.

Most people reasonably perceive time as passing basically the same for everyone. This is reasonable because macroscopically that’s the only perception we need in order to function well in this world. But time is a little more complex than that in how it is integral to the form and function of the created order.

There are two basic sets of theories for how the universe functions. Craig goes into more detail, but I’ll try to explain them both here. The A Theory of time is that the past exists because it has happened and that the future is not fixed and determinate like the past. The B theory of time is that each moment of time is its own stand-alone slice of existence and that the future is as determinate as the past.

Craig goes into some detail about the difference between time passing and the measurement of time. Don’t get bogged down by this. Philosophers are good at using very specific language without specifically defining the language they are using. The specific definition may have been expounded on somewhere, but philosophers assume that everyone knows what those definitions are. I do the same thing, but at least I’m trying not to do that. In fact, there’s much to say on this, but it’s not relevant to the point I’m going to make here so I’ll refrain. When Craig starts talking about relative time, the clocks ticking, the Lorentz transformation, etc., don’t worry about trying to follow him. It’s not overly relevant to the point he’s ultimately driving at.

What is relevant, however, is that Craig makes some observations that imply that the A Theory and the B Theory are mutually exclusive. The debate may often go there, but for all the wrong reasons. He’s right to criticize B Theorists that dismisses the A Theory. Particularly, he gives as an example the one who on judgment day stands before God for judgment. The slice of a person standing before God is different than the slices who sinned against God. I would add that such a slice would be different than the slice who came to faith. How could God condemn a slice that didn’t sin?

One problem that Craig has with this argument is that he is using a false understanding of the nature of sin. I can see that if his exclusionary view of the B theory is true, that this may be the nature of sin. But it’s not the biblical nature of sin. And perhaps this is why Craig says that if the B theory is exclusive of the A theory that this denial of the biblical nature of sin, among other things, would negate the B theory in favor of the A theory.

But that’s the other problem. Although many may argue for mutual exclusion between the two theories, I don’t see why they are necessarily mutually exclusive. In fact the reason that Craig doesn’t like the B theory is given in the third podcast: If there is any truth to the B theory, then there can be no room for libertarian free will. The reason that this is a problem is that Craig dismisses it because of a conclusion that he doesn’t like, not because of some problem that is foundational to the theory. The only argument that he gives is that there is no evidence possible for the theory. But this is an argument from silence. Craig, himself, is a Molinist. Molinists believe that God chooses from the best possible outcome based on libertarian free will choices that He knows people will make. Molinism isn’t a view taught in the Bible and it’s not provable. So this particular argument that Craig makes is an argument against Molinism.

But there is another problem with his Molinism and what he criticizes in these podcasts. He also talks about the multiverse. This is a theory well represented in science fiction television programs and movies. He gives one example from one of the Star Trek episodes. The theory is that at every point where more than one thing could have happened, a new universe is formed to accommodate the decision that didn’t get made in this universe. He’s right to point out that materialists use this argument to make it possible for the universe to be fine-tuned in order to sustain biological life as we know it.

But there is a problem with his rejection of a multiverse as a Molinist. He likely considers that since God has chosen the best possible course of action for the universe, that there is only one universe. However, the Molinistic way that God does this is by considering all the other possible universes. Now, I could at this point argue that by simply considering them, they would exist at least with some limited ontological form. It’s a stronger observation, however, to note that if God controls secondarily at every libertarian decision, then there must be some truth to the B Theory. In fact, the B theory must be compatible with the A theory. They can’t be mutually exclusive.

The issue that Craig has with the B Theory exclusive to the A Theory is that it presumes hyper-predestination. But he never considers in these podcasts if it is possible that the A Theory and the B Theory are compatible. That’s what I believe. I believe that we experience the world God created as the A Theory considers it but that God creates it as the B Theory presents it. I consider that His creation, providence, and sustenance are all the same thing to God. But He also provides a continuity from one slice to the next. My slice now is the same spiritual and moral entity as my slice a moment ago. I’m mostly the same material being as well. I ingest food and drink and expel various wastes as I go along. So my body changes over time. Nevertheless, I am the same being albeit my decision-making ability is limited to the created order that God has provided. To what extent has God determined my choices? I don’t know, but He will glorify Himself in all of them.

Why I Don’t Argue Evidence Anymore

The Bible is filled with appeals to evidence. God has given signs and wonders since the beginning to mark His revelation and to establish evidence of His authority. In the exodus of Israel, God performed some amazing things for Israel to experience. As they failed His expectations time and again, the subsequent wilderness wanderings were peppered with reminders of how God miraculously delivered them. In the Psalms, there are countless observations of God’s work in creation.

Jesus’ teaching was filled with evidence intended to encourage people of faith. Interestingly, the same evidence evoked a different response from those who lacked faith. The very presence of the Bible is evidence of the revelation of God it contains. It contains accounts of its own writing and its effect on people at different stages of its writing. It is part of the history that it records and we can see how different people have reacted differently to it as evidence of its veracity.

So evidence is important, but evidence never convinces on its own. The reason is that evidence is apprehended differently by different people based on their presuppositions.

Parenthetically, even arguing presuppositions is often pointless. The reason is because of what I have discussed recently regarding the dual nature of theistic epistemology. Lacking the Holy Spirit, making sense of the world is fraught with frustration for those who care to think about it. That’s why many challenge and contend for a pointless existence. In some way, they sense their own pointlessness and are irritated by it. Why even argue if what they say is true? It would be better to let sleeping dogs lie and go find somewhere to be blissfully happy until their inevitable demise. Yet they spend countless hours fretting about it and bothering people who seem to have the peace of mind they lack.

My current MO for dealing with people like this was illustrated recently on Justin Taylor’s blog. I won’t repost anything I wrote there. Just follow the link if you’re interested. Jay, apparently an atheist, made a blanket challenge for evidence and claimed that no evidence was sufficient. I responded enough to point out and illustrate that his problem was a faulty presupposition. That’s not really the core presuppositional argument, but it’s designed to make someone who is really interested in truth question their own presuppositions for flaws.

I did what I usually do at that point and exchanged enough to see if Jay would show signs of enough intellectual honesty to have a fruitful dialog. Two people in a discussion can only grow if both are honest enough intellectually. Usually, people like Jay will not question himself and seek to grow in the exchange, despite his challenge. The challenge is merely a pretense for verbally expressing the angst of a pointless case.

I did say something I’d like to elaborate on here. Children often cling to what respected authorities say unquestioningly among their peers. So a typical children’s argument might go like this:

                “My dad says….”

                “Oh yeah? Well my dad says…”

                “That’s stupid!”

                “Huh-uh!”

                “Uh-huh!”

So children grow up and their dad’s lessons are replaced with the likes of various books, professors, pastors, news media, celebrities or peers who appear authoritative by virtue of their insistent assertiveness. Now grown up these same children will draw on the authorities they know as they once did on people like their dads. These are the basis of the average person’s presuppositions. Inherent in assertions is an unmentioned authority as though to say, “Oh yeah? Well my dad said…”

Unless one is willing to address one’s presuppositions, the effect of any resulting argument is no different than the child’s argument above. I’m of the mind that it’s most fruitful not to allow a childish debate to continue, but to cut to the chase and ask people to question their true motives. If they will, then the discussion can continue. If they won’t be honest about it, the discussion should be over.

It’s also good to throw in a quick presentation of the gospel. No telling who is paying attention or if the Holy Spirit will see fit to use it at that time.

How to Know Which God Is Real

There are two kinds of people. The first kind are people who want to believe what they want to believe because it justifies some behavior or because they have some emotional attachment to believing it. The second kind are people who really do want to believe what is true, but still struggle against believing what they want to believe that isn’t true. There may be the rare third kind who have it all together, but these would be extremely rare. D.A. Carson might be in that boat.

But if someone truly desired to know truth, then I believe it is possible to get very close. Without quantifying that, I’ll use the ideas that I set up in my last article as the foundation for developing a basic method.

Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason has what he calls “The Columbo Tactic” based on the style of the old Columbo character played by Peter Falk in the TV show of the same title. The method that I propose is similar.

In the last article, I talked about the singular nature on non-theological epistemology and the dual nature of theological epistemology. The difference was in the fact that someone who believed in a god would have to conclude that in order to know god, he would have to reveal himself. The question then remains, how do we know which of all the gods people worship in the world is the true one?

If there are people who are concerned only with believing what they want to believe, then we know that these people do not espouse knowledge that they gained from outside themselves. They may say things that they learned from others, but they choose to acknowledge this on their own accord. They have no assurance.

People who espouse a god will typically claim some divine assurance that what they believe is true and that the knowledge they have was revealed by that god. All but one religion would have some false assurance of this, so one cannot rely solely on the testimony of others. That doesn’t mean that testimony cannot be an indicator of truth. It means that it isn’t a reliable source of assurance.

So if the true God reveals Himself, then we can be sure that He would make it plain to those to whom he chooses to reveal himself. Psychologically speaking, some doubt may be necessary in order to pull this off. So the presence of some occasional doubt isn’t an indication of a lack of assurance. The true indicator of receptivity to true revelation is the desire for truth over and against what you otherwise want to believe.

What I propose as the method of apprehending truth in light of this desire, is to simply ask yourself some questions:

1.       Why do I want to believe what I believe? (This speaks directly to motive.)

2.       How do I know what I know? (This reveals false motives of which we are not consciously aware.)

3.       In what way does God make His true revelation distinct from all other false revelation?

These kinds of questions should be asked of all things we know or desire to believe. Answering honestly will eventually result in knowing the truth. Self-delusion, particularly more elaborate ones, may result in the same thing. However, self-delusion hardly produces honest answers.

(For atheists, honest answers to numbers 1 and 2 will produce the presupposition of a God who reveals Himself necessary to ask question 3.)

I’ve already mentioned doubt. Occasional doubt can be a good thing. But if asking results in the loss of faith, then one had no faith in what was true to begin with.

What It Means to Be Sure About God

I considered a more technically accurate title to this: The Epistemological Duality of Theology. "Epistemology" is a philosophical term that refers to theories about how we know things. That’s the big word you need to know, to don’t get scared away. Read on. This information provides some background understanding for the next article I will post.

Epistemology is an important thing to think about. If you want to believe some philosophical idea to be true you have to talk about how you know it in the first place.

Non-theological epistemologies often focus on the single track of how we know something as though knowing it makes it true. If it's not true, then you don't know it. If you know it then it's true. That’s almost an oversimplification of it. It’s what we more commonly call relativism. Sometimes non-theological epistemologies consider that something can be true whether we know it or not. So the debate in non-theological circles centers on whether what we know determines its truth or whether truth determines our ability to know it.

These are just two sides of the same coin. They all consider something to be known as unable to reveal itself. Our perception is what is important. Even if something is true, if we can’t perceive it there’s no way we can talk knowledgably about it because we can’t know it. That’s the nature of non-theological knowledge.

Theology involves the consideration of a truth-giver. So it has two tracks to understanding knowledge: revelation and assurance. Revelation is that which the truth-giver gives us to know, particularly about himself. Assurance is our ability to know that it is true. If you deny the former, then your theology devolves into non-theological philosophy. In other words, you end up denying a truth-giver.

Up to now, I have only referred to theology in the general sense. It's true of any theological system. It's true of Islam, Hinduism, etc. For the most part, although belief in a divine creator requires a dual epistemology, religions have to develop this epistemology outside the revelation. The only religion that doesn’t have to do this is the one that is true. The reason is because if a system of theology seeks to justify a revelatory epistemology from a God that doesn’t exist, then they lack the necessary revelation to do so.

However, the religion whose God truly exists is self-revelatory. That is to say, worshippers know that they have revelation from God because He reveals Himself to them in such a way as they have a means for perfect assurance that the revelation is true. On the surface, this appears as circular reasoning. However, knowledge that has been revealed doesn’t come from a belief in revelation. Rather, a belief in revelation comes from knowledge having been revealed.

The interesting thing about revelation is that it doesn’t discount obtaining knowledge through other than revelation. So there is a dual nature to theological epistemology.

I’ve already mentioned the false revelation of false religions and the assurance of true religion. In the next article, I will talk about one way to use this knowledge to determine what the true religion is.