Response to some comments

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” Genesis 1:3

Last week, BK made some substantive and insightful comments on my Substack article “The historicity and the necessity of Genesis (see comments in last weeks Substack). They required more than a few comments in response, so I am devoting this week’s Substack to a reexamination of the subject. I see this not as a debate or an argument, but as an attempt at clarification and communication and welcome the chance to view this subject again from a different angle.

This essay is divided into two parts:

I. Some general comments on knowledge and faith from a Christian viewpoint as it has been given me to understand it

II. A more specific response to BK’s comments

    A. With regard to Darwinism and scientific knowledge, and

    B. With regard to the leap of faith and the irrelevance of rational arguments in justifying or explaining Christianity’s core beliefs.

Ultimately, our definitions of “knowledge” and “rationality” come down to our underlying and overarching vision of reality. Do we believe that there is no reality beyond the material world, the world that is accessible to scientific study? Or do we believe that there are other dimensions and other realms of being that are unknown to science, and must be approached and understood in a completely different way?

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I. To begin with, last week’s Substack was written on my mistaken assumption that no one but Christians would want to read it. I really should have known better. After all, there are atheists, Muslims, Jews and others who are well-informed about the Christian religion, and there are Christians (myself included) who also find it worthwhile to study the ideas of people with opposing points of view.  But, somehow I forgot about that and imagined I was writing for people who were already in basic agreement with what I was saying.

That, by the way, is what Paul did in his Letter to the Romans. We see from various references in the opening chapter that he was writing to people who were already persuaded of the truth of the Christian message. Thus he says to the recipients of his letter: 

Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ: To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints . . .That I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.

Paul was not trying to prove to his readers that God exists, that Christ was God manifest in the flesh, or that the Bible was the true word of God. His purpose was to increase their understanding, and to help establish them more deeply and securely in those beliefs which they already had  (1:11, 16:25). He also wanted to give them instructions on living and growing in the Christian faith, and on the nature of God’s dealing with us in Christ, as well as some other topics.

Thus, while many Christians write books arguing for the truth of Christianity, they also write books for those who are Christians already – and that was my purpose, which maybe I should have made clear at the outset.

More specifically, my purpose was not to prove that Christianity was rational. It was rather to state that Christians do not need to be unduly concerned about or defensive toward scientific and rational criticisms of Christianity, because the truths of God are neither established nor refuted by ordinary operations of weak and fallible human reason.

I wrote along those lines because there is far too much deference paid to scientific knowledge – not only in the unbelieving world, which consistently overrates such knowledge, but also in some Christian circles. In the nominally Bible-believing churches today there is some insecurity and even defensiveness about the validity of religious faith and knowledge when it comes to a full belief in the historicity of Genesis.

Thus, I was attempting, in my own small and inadequate way, to edify the body of Christ, and to assert two points about the historical creation narrative in the first few chapters of Genesis:

(A) That this is a necessary part of Scriptural Christianity, and not (as some prominent Christians have claimed) just some outdated myth, and

(B) That divine revelation in this area is far beyond the range of scientific knowledge or criticism, which is irrelevant when it comes to the existence and to the creative acts and operative power of God.

This does not mean that science of itself is no value. If we want to build bridges, find a cure for an illness, or even understand the structure and the workings of the universe that God has made, science (both theoretical and applied) is of great value. But, it is of limited application, and is confined to the material, observable world. It cannot pronounce authoritatively on the existence or on the nature of higher spiritual realities that fall outside of its field of vision.

When it comes to the existence of God, science has no evidence to the contrary. If some call belief in some sort of a God irrational, the problem is not with the idea of a God that is above and beyond human intelligence and scientific methods. The problem rather is with the mistaken assertion that there are no other dimensions of reality beyond the merely natural and physical, and hence no other modes of knowing, beyond that of conventional human reason and logic.

The basic doctrines of Scriptural Christianity are not confirmed or refuted by the scientific method of hypothesis and experiment. The virgin birth of Christ; the Trinity; the resurrection from the dead and the day of judgment; the resurrection of Christ from the dead and his return as God to judge the world – these and yet other teachings are independent of weak, fallen and sinful human reason. Yet, it does not mean that they are irrational, or that we cannot use human reason to try and understand and apply them in our daily lives.

For example, Paul says in I Corinthians (chapter 15),

But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:

And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain . . .

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

Is this not a rational thought process, If A then B? It begins with spiritual faith in the resurrection of the dead as a starting point, which is outside of the realm of science, but from that starting point, we can apply it to our lives in reasonable and rational ways.

If there is no resurrection from the dead, then it is reasonable to live our lives as if this is all we will have. But if there is a resurrection from the dead, it is rational to seek to prepare our lives on that basis. So, the fact that Christianity is rooted and grounded in truths above the grasp of human reason unaided, does not mean it is irrational to believe in and try to work out those truths in our daily lives.

Here we come again to the inadequacy of human reason. We have no way of knowing by ordinary visual observation if there is another life after this one or not. The scientist has no evidence, and no data. Therefore, when that scientist says “There can be no resurrection from the dead because we have no data on that, and only that which can be supported by such data is real,” he is not merely expressing his personal belief and nothing more, but he is also arbitrarily deciding what is and is not knowledge, and what the limits of human knowing are.  

But then, how do we know our beliefs are true if we cannot confirm them by what we observe in the world around us?

Paul teaches in I Corinthians that the preaching of the cross is foolishness to the unbelieving mind – and “the preaching of the cross” does not only refer to the act of the crucifixion.  It also refers to all that pertains to Christ’s death, and made it necessary. That includes Christ’s nature and person, our sin and guilt, and the reality of God’s coming judgment – and all of these and other related teachings are foolishness to the natural mind. As Paul says in I Corinthians chapter 2,

But the natural man receiveth (receives) not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Thus we can agree with BK when he says that it is disappointing for Christians to try and prove that Christianity really is rational and can thus meet the high expectations of the corrupt, fallen and sinful human mind. The essential truths of Christianity are far above reason, but they are not on that account irrational merely because they do not conform to some arbitrary and imperfect human standard. Perhaps they could be called supra-rational - that is, beyond or outside of the limits of reason yet being integrated with reason on our lower level of earthly existence.

But can we know these supra-rational, non-material spiritual truths? The Bible says that we can.

And hereby [if we love “in deed and in truth”] we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him [God] . . .    (John 3)

And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath (has) given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.    (John 5)

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. (John 1)

These things we know by faith, which is the gift of God. But faith is far more than just believing without evidence. It is rather an inner faculty of spiritual perception, by which with God’s help we are open to the realities of the spiritual world, and can have direct experience of the reality of God. We can live these truths, as opposed to merely knowing about them. This might be compared to living in Paris, as opposed to merely knowing that it is the capital of France without ever having been there.

By faith we have access through Christ to the reality of God (Ephesians 2:18). This is a knowledge and an experience of God through faith that the world knows nothing of, but it is confirmed to our souls - and it is confirmed to us not by material evidence from this physical world that passes away, but by the reality of God himself :

While we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. (II Corinthians 4)  

We read in Hebrews 11 that “Faith is the evidence of things not seen.” This means that biblical faith in the biblical Christ is not something we believe without evidence. Rather, faith itself is the evidence of the reality of the unseen kingdom of God to which we aspire.

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II. Turning now to examine BK’s comments more carefully (they can be seen in their entirety in the Comments section of last week’s post), he says:

To a non-Christian like myself, they [Christian doctrines] may not be irrational compared to, say, New Age thought, but compared to something like Darwin's theory of evolution, they do seem quite irrational. Darwin based his conclusions on observable phenomena and sought to logically extrapolate an overarching theory based on those observations. That's been the definition of rational thought at least since Thales.

I believe this is defining rationality too narrowly. He says it must be based on observable phenomena and logically derived from those phenomena. Many would agree with that in this secular age of ours, but I see a major problem with that. It is, that people can apply that method and yet still end up in the wrong place.

For example, Thales used that method of seeking truth, and he came to the conclusion that the basic physical substance underlying all of reality was water. He considered observable phenomena, sought to extrapolate an overarching theory based on his observations, and yet he still came to a conclusion that was hopelessly wrong.

Of course, Thales is given credit by the historians of philosophy for at least making the attempt to understand the cosmos by reason and observation alone, without appealing to mythical elements, but the point remains: relying on reason alone is in itself no proof of accuracy or guarantee of infallibility.

The same could be said of Ptolemy and the countless others who relied on reason, evidence and fact to elaborate and build on the Ptolemaic view of the solar system. They were wrong and their rationality resulted in centuries of error – and very plausible error too, since it was consistently confirmed by many phenomena.

As to Darwin, he based his conclusions on observable phenomena, sought to logically extrapolate an overarching theory based on those observations, and also failed. His theory is by no means “settled science,” as his more vociferous devotees like to claim, but is in fact riddled with errors and deficiencies.

Flaws in Darwin’s theory do not prove that God exists, and neither do they prove that the Genesis account is true, but they do demonstrate the inadequacy of human reason apart from divine revelation. They also illustrate that relying on reason and material evidence alone is no guarantee of being right.

Here are some problems with Darwin’s theory:

(1) Darwinism is useless as a guide to life. It tells us nothing about morality or ethics, and it can be logically argued that if Darwinism is true, the only ethical standards and moral rules are the ones we make up ourselves. When people did try to extrapolate an ethical system from the concept of human origins as the result of a random, amoral and impersonal struggle for survival – and a pitiless and merciless struggle at that – they came up with Social Darwinism. This teaches that the strong survive and the weak die, and that’s just the way it is. This was very popular in Germany, with variations, but it died out in 1945 and people have been embarrassed to assert Social Darwinism too openly since then. Nevertheless, militarism, racism and imperialism follow logically from the belief that life has no higher purpose, that we emerged out of a struggle for survival, and that some human races are higher up on the evolutionary ladder than others.

(2) Darwinism has nothing to say about how the universe came into being, and it also has nothing to say about the first origins of life – and those are significant gaps. Surely the question of human origins also has something to do with the origin of the world we live in, and with the first emergence of life. Darwinism takes too much for granted, and just assumes things that should not be just assumed.

(3) Darwinism cannot explain the mysteries and the wonders of human consciousness. It can be asserted that all of our mental, emotional and spiritual qualities just emerged somehow, but exactly how that might have happened in a Darwinian context has never been empirically demonstrated and never will be. This is because the human spirit, which separates us from all of the beasts and makes us the human beings that we are, has a divine origin. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis chapter 2).

(4) A fourth problem with Darwinism is the leap from human intelligence effecting changes in existing species (microevolution), to impersonal chance creating new species that had never existed before (macroevolution).

Darwin observed the phenomenon of human animal breeding, and extrapolated from that the less than self-evident conclusion that much greater changes could be worked out over time by a random and impersonal process. But little changes accomplished by intelligent human agency should not be extrapolated to vastly greater changes wrought by blind chance.

This was elaborated on in last week’s discussion of this where it was asserted that there was no genetic mechanism by which elaborate and intricate changes in a creature’s DNA can be accidentally worked to bring about significantly different offspring. Scientists have been experimenting with fruit flies for years, and after thousands of generations fruit flies stubbornly remain fruit flies. 

A lawyer and university professor, Philip Johnson, wrote a powerful critique of the way evolutionists consistently used the well-established fact of variations within existing species (microevolution) to unjustifiably explain the emergence of new species (macroevolution). Called Darwin on Trial, the book does not make any religious claims, but only exposes flaws in the Darwinian system.

There are many elementary flaws in the arguments of some who assert the primacy of reason. For instance, the fact that humans and chimps share 98.8% of their DNA can be used to show common ancestry. But does that high degree of genetic similarity mean that if I score 100% on a simple math or English test, a chimpanzee will score 98.8% on that same test? Or do we need to understand that the chemistry of our physical bodies has nothing to do with our souls, which can be neither seen nor weighed, because they are derived from a higher spiritual reality unknown to science? And it is not irrational to assume that a Creator would use the same basic materials for various bodies inhabiting the same environment.

It is also said that there is a 99.9% similarity in the DNA of any two people. If that is the case, then either Marilyn Monroe was 99.9% similar to Mother Teresa, and Beethoven was 99.9% similar to Genghis Khan, or else the genetic makeup of our physical bodies is irrelevant to what makes us unique as human beings. As the 17th-century English writer Sir Thomas Browne put it,

There is surely a piece of divinity in us; something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun. Nature tells me, I am the image of God, as well as Scripture. He that understands not thus much hath not his introduction or first lesson, and is yet to begin the alphabet of man (Part II, Section 11). [1]

(5) There is one other problem with Darwinism I have seen mentioned in only one place, but never anywhere else. I read this in a secular book about the mysteries of science. It mentioned a number of things on a level suitable for laymen, including dark matter and dark energy. One mystery it mentioned had to do with the separation of primitive one-celled animals into male and female genders.

Think about that for a moment. How did a primitive unicellular organism develop two genders? Did one organism somehow split all by itself into a male and female, both of them with intricate yet fully functioning reproductive organs? Or did two separate organisms, that coincidentally were in the same place at the same time, separate into one female and one male, which happily floated into contact with each other to get the ball rolling, so to speak?

The author asserted that this was such an intractable problem, that not one single academically respectable paper has ever been published to explain how this might have occurred in a Darwinian scenario. On the contrary, the whole question is just swept under the rug and ignored, so Darwinists can still pretend their theory is “settled science.”

There are other problems with the theory, but to move on: What if Darwin was driven in his calculations by something other than pure logic? What if he interpreted the evidence as he did and developed his theory as he did, because he was moved by deeper, non-scientific impulses? What if his theory was the result not of detached and impartial consideration of the facts, but rather by a desire to escape from God?

Some philosophers have argued that reason is subordinate to will; that we first decide we want something, and then find the reasons to justify it. To put it another way, we believe what we want to believe. I believe this was the case with Darwin.

Naturally, the same argument can be made against religious belief, and Christians, being human beings like anyone else, are not immune to this failing. People can believe in something for various reasons – but in the teachings of Christ and in the full revelation of the Old and New Testaments, we have rigorous external standards which explicitly call on us to die to self, deny the self, and measure our thoughts and actions against God’s laws. Moreover, there is in the full message of Christ the direct actions of God upon the soul, so that we can experience God, so that we can truly transcend ourselves in some measure, with God’s help and with the help of the Spirit of Christ.

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John chapter 1).

“For it is God which worketh (works) in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians chapter 2).

Thus there is in Scriptural Christianity a personal experience of the divine, and a direct conviction of the reality of God. This goes far beyond mere doctrines, arguments, and Bible verses, and enters into the deepest part of the soul as a living proof of the reality of God. In Christ the vaguely numinous is personified and articulated. To repeat a quote from I John chapter 1:

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. (John 1)

This something that transcends human knowledge, but is more real than life itself, and is its own self-authentication.

Turning now more specifically to BK’s observations:

As a thought experiment: Imagine that you are not a Christian and know nothing of the tenets of Christianity. A person comes to you and says there was a man of flesh and blood who was actually God, and he was executed in the most brutal fashion imaginable and rose from the dead. As a result of this, the person says, if you believe that this man was God, you are redeemed of all your previous sins and become the object of his everlasting love.

My guess is that you would consider that person slightly irrational. I certainly would.

I do not think I have much caricatured Christian belief here and I do not wish to appear contemptuous. My point is merely that these beliefs are not rational and my Christian friends I most admire do not pretend they are.

I don’t consider this a contemptuous caricature, but I do think it is inadequate. It is certainly not the approach that any of the great evangelists of the past used, nor is it what Christ and Paul said when they spoke to unbelievers.

The Bible says of Christ that “with many such parables spake (spoke) he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it” (Mark 4). Jesus Christ did not just shove doctrines at people, but spoke appropriately, to “utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 13). He did this in a manner that stimulated their own thought, and allowed them or helped them to reach the desired conclusion independently.

When Peter preached his first sermon after Pentecost, a sermon in which three thousand people were converted, or when Paul preached to the Greek philosophers on the Acropolis in Athens, they spoke (by God’s guidance) in a manner suitable to the occasion.

To look at it another way, if someone had never heard of Darwinism, and was told “fish developed into birds and mammals” and nothing else, he would find that hard to accept.

The last part of BK’s comments are quite complex. They have to do with the means by which religious faith is acquired. I could have worked them into some of my earlier comments, but wanted to separate them and try to deal with them independently. They become very close to the key questions of what it means to believe, and why we believe what we believe.

My point is merely that these beliefs are not rational and my Christian friends I most admire do not pretend they are. They believe because they have made a leap of faith and do not attempt to argue for it on a rational basis because they do not feel they need to. So long as they leave me in peace with my own beliefs--and God bless them, they do as I do them--that's perfectly fine with me, and I happily admit that many atheists I've encountered were quite bigoted and unpleasant in comparison.

In fact, if my Christian friends attempted to make a rational argument for their beliefs, it would sadden me a bit, because it's their belief that is most remarkable about them, and this would be sullied.

Once again, the key is the definition of the word “rational.” If the word means only what falls within the reach of the scientific method, then, not Christian beliefs are not rational. But if the scientific does not cover all aspects of rationality – just as it does not cover all aspects of life and human behavior – then something may be rational yet outside of the range of scientific knowledge.

Thus, we cannot prove rationally that God is Three-in-one, but it is not irrational to say that “All of the design and order in nature clearly points to a creator.” In fact, saying all of the marvels of creation just happened by accident when nothing exploded into something can be considered highly irrational – especially when we see that there is no evidence for that assertion, and scientific evidence is allegedly based on observations of material phenomena.

But what about the leap of faith? The biblical teaching is not that we achieve faith by our own effort, by some kind of self-willed leap into the unknown or even into the absurd. The biblically Christian position is that it is God who initiates our faith, and our belief and acceptance is in response to his initiative. Thus the 18th-century evangelist Charles Wesley wrote in one of his hymns,

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,

Fast bound in sin and nature’s night.

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.

Hebrews 12:2 describes Jesus as “the author and finisher of our faith.” Elsewhere in chapter five of that same book it refers to Christ as “the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.

Christ himself said, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him”(John 6). To give another example, we read in the book of Acts that a woman named Lydia believed what Paul was teaching because God opened her heart.

Finally, Paul writes in Ephesians that we were dead in sins, but God made us alive in Christ (2:5). Thus, salvation is more than a leap which we make according to our own decision. It is rather a response and an opening to God’s initiative, which means we are awakened and quickened by the direct experience and act of God.

This is not a spectacular vision such as was granted to Paul on the road to Damascus when Christ appeared as a light brighter than the sun; or such as was granted to the prophet Ezekiel, when the visions were opened and he saw visions of God. But it is a direct experience of the reality of God which is more real than any earthly knowledge, and is in fact the doorway to eternity.

About the leap of faith, this is a phrase often associated with Kierkegaard. I read some of his books years ago, and was deeply impressed in some ways by the depth of his insights – but it did seem to me that his faith lacked warmth and light, and was more of a philosophical concept, a decision to accept biblical teachings apart from any divine initiative and substance. But that was just my impression years ago, and Kierkegaard wrote much that I never read.

But what about BK’s Christian friends not needing to argue for their faith on a rational basis? I have read where Christians try to prove that even though they are Christians, they can still be rational, and that is disappointing. It shows a weakness and an insecurity. But if someone says “God does not exist,” and a Christian answers “The heavens show the glory of God,” or “I know God exists because of what he has done for me, and how he has changed my life,” or “How do you know God does not exist?”, or “Have you ever really studied it?” – are not those rational responses, designed not to prove the existence of God, but to point someone in that direction?

Reason has many lesser and secondary uses, and can be put to the service of truths that transcend - but at the same time enter into - human experience.

Our reasoning powers come from God. He created us so that we can know his truths and discuss them, and understand them to an extent that is not exhaustive but yet is true nevertheless. I may stand on the shore and see only a part of the ocean, but what I see is really there.

In fact, the only reason we can know anything at all is because of the gifts of reason that God has given us. But, yes, one’s belief in God manifest in Christ does not come from reason – it comes from something far greater than reason. If it is real, it comes from the very source of reason itself.

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[1] Thomas Browne, Religio Medici (London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1869), p. 98.