As someone who is neither a Christian nor an atheist, I think I can give a different perspective on your main questions: "Compared to what we see around us every day, are the basic tenets of Christianity really so irrational? What if said tenets are not irrational at all?"
To a non-Christian like myself, they 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.
It seems to me that Christianity and all revealed religions--including my own--have no part in this kind of rationalism and ultimately cannot make use of it.
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. 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 somewhat if they felt the need to make rational arguments to justify it.
You raise a lot of important and interesting questions, maybe too many to answer in a note. Possibly a respectful and amicable analysis of your observations with responses would make a good subject for next week's blog, especially since you have some knowledge of the Christian religion and require more detailed responses. I will first try answering in note form in the next day or two and see. I should say that I welcome and value different perspectives, and often read books and articles reflecting views different from mine.
Can I respectfully make a few additions to one of your paragraphs with the purpose of suggesting that with these additions, your thought experiment can actually become a logical and rational explanation for all of reality, not just the phenomenal.
Here goes...
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,
Ever wonder where you came from? Ever wonder why there are problems in life? Do you ever consider what gives meaning and purpose in life?
Do you ever consider what happens when you die?
Here is an (rational) explanation.
God created the cosmos. He transcends it. He created humans in His image with free will. They chose to rebel. The penalty, of which they were forewarned was death. But He promised to provide someone to save them from death and restore them to eternal life.
He came as ...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.
This sacrifice of this man of flesh, sent from God, was the fulfilled promise of God to restore mankind to a proper God intended right relationship with God and satisfies Gods justice at the same time.
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.
You can be restored to a right relationship with God, have eternal life and a perfectly logical reasonable explanation for all reality including the cosmos and the self evident non-material noumena as well.
I don't know if one could say whether it's reasonable or not, but it doesn't strike as rational. It's based on a series of unprovable assertions: "God created the cosmos. He transcends it. He created humans in His image with free will. They chose to rebel. The penalty, of which they were forewarned was death. But He promised to provide someone to save them from death and restore them to eternal life," etc. The only proof of these assertions would be biblical, I suppose, but that demands faith that the claims of the Bible are true.
If you make that leap of faith and believe in it, more power to you, but I don't see how it's logical to do so. It stems from something else, I think. A sense of numinous things or the like.
I suppose one could argue that observation of the wonders of creation makes the idea of some kind of God logical, but it could just as easily lead to a concept like Heraclitus's cycle of ever-living fire or the something similar.
It is therefore for me, logical and reasonable to understand I cannot prove anything that is of a higher realm by the epistemology within the lower realm.
You cannot put God in a test tube.
By faith, I believe what God has graciously revealed. This is not a leap to an upper story from a lower story.
I agree you can't put God in a test tube. Or justice, or goodness, or many other things. I don't subscribe to scientism. I was simply acknowledging that fact of transcendence. It means that ultimately faith is not a rational phenomenon. I actually don't think we disagree all that much.
Just so I don't come off as condescending, which I sincerely don't want to do, when I use the word "numinous" I only mean that I think there are people who feel--not just believe--very strongly that there is another world of which this world is only a shadow. "Now we see as through a glass darkly," etc. They believe this other world is as real or more real then our world, and this is the source of their faith.
I don't think this is rational, but I also don't dismiss it. I've never personally had that sense of things, though. However, I've often told my religious friends that if I had a genuine mystical experience, one I could not dismiss as hallucination or some other factor, I would become a believer. Thus far, it hasn't happened and might never happen, but I'm open to the possibility.
I hope I am not condescending either, and I welcome your thoughts.
The word “feel” is quite another topic. Too subjective although valid, to use as as the basis for truth, (Another big topic).
Re: mystical experience. The problem with that is there are far to many counterfeits. And when Jesus did miracles (which I suspect you highly doubt), many who saw still refused to accept he was God in the flesh. So the mystical and miraculous are not the avenues the God the bible promotes for knowing.
Here is where we may start to go in circles 😃
Faith comes by hearing and believing propositional truth such as that God exists and that he rewards those who seek Him.
A combination of faith and reason if you will.
And for further contemplation, something I will call mystery as distinct from mysticism. God’s written word becomes clear to us by the power of His Holy Spirit when we, if we are willing to, submit to His desire that we repent and receive his gift of salvation.
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
I suspect you have heard this as you seem well aquainted with the bible.
When I say "mystical experience," I don't mean witnessing a miracle or the like. I was thinking more of a personal experience. Something like Ezekiel's, for example: "I saw visions of God." If something like that happened to me and, for whatever reason, I was convinced it was real rather than just a dream or a hallucination, I think that would change my mind.
I need to write about this at length - not by way of argument or debate but to clarify some things I didn't explain as well as I might have. So I will write more about this on Monday, and am glad to have the opportunity to reexamine this from a different angle.
Much of it was written yesterday and this morning - however it covers ground I have written and thought about over time. At least one paragraph of it, and much of the previous Substack article "America in the Hands of An Angry God," was taken almost verbatim from a self published book Light in the Darkness of Postmodernism.
I did publish several other books with small Christian publishers but they did not get far. Here is my self-publishing author page
Yes, some thinking, some love of God in Christ (not nearly what it should be) but also a lot of reading, including some secular books - for example the one mentioned in the 1st paragraph (much of which I only skimmed as it analyzed a lot of postmodern rubbish not worth studying) - with a random, non-scholarly interest in philosophy. Much philosophy is a complete waste of time, but some general histories of philosophy give an interesting overview. And a little science here and there. Here is an excellent book on religion and science written from a Christian point of view by a math professor at Oxford, John C. Lennox, good for laymen if your interest lies in that area: "God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?" The answer is By No Means.
Thanks for sharing. I was born in Evanston, too, in 1965. Your books look interesting. We homeschool our kids, but I do not do much of the teaching. It's too bad, because your books look perfect for getting Christian high school kids to understand their faith and the society into which they are entering. I would love to share them with our kids. Something I will keep in mind.
There are some things in my books that would be useful in encouraging high school students to recognize the limitations of science and not to be intimidated by criticisms of the Bible, and also to look for higher things beyond pop culture, and also in some basic biblical teachings which are of course taught by many others as well.
If you find anything in my material that might be useful feel free to cut and paste it and even adapt it some for your personal use. The basic ideas are or should be common property.
1/2 Once again, this is too long, so I will have to put it in two or three parts.
About not calling down fire and brimstone on unbelievers, I didn’t know if you mean on all unbelievers in general, or if you mean on people who did not believe in the literal truth of Genesis. Concerning the former, Christ did teach that there was a heaven and a hell, described the latter as a place of eternal punishment, and warned people against it. But I don’t believe that he called down fire and brimstone on anyone.
As to those who do not believe in the literal truth of Genesis, I believe it is possible for someone to be genuinely saved by the righteousness of Christ attributed to him by faith without even having read the book of Genesis. And, I suppose someone could interpret the seven days as eons, periods of infinite length, though references to evening and morning do point to specific days.
However, when it comes to growth and maturity in the spiritual life, we have to maintain the historicity of Genesis. If we start out from the very beginning subordinating the works of God to the limitations of human science and fallen human reason, then all of the miracles in the Bible can be questioned, as well as the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ himself. The God who created the entire universe by his spoken word alone out of nothing is far beyond any secular humanistic restrictions. And Christians who do not see that are starting off on the wrong foot.
About human scientific knowledge not being allowed to take precedence over or sit in judgment over divine revelation, I think it is a matter of Human Scientific knowledge a priori. Admittedly, there are difficulties in interpreting divine revelation. Peter speaks of some of Paul’s teachings being difficult to understand, for example, and there are passages of the New Testament that are easier to understand than others. But some people do have the a priori starting point that scientific knowledge is the only real authentic knowledge, and anything that goes against it cannot be true. There is a very real presumption of the superiority of human scientific knowledge over the knowledge that comes by faith – and there is a knowledge that comes by faith. If you look at a concordance you will see words like “known, knowing, know, knowledge” are used literally hundreds of times in the Bible. Luke 1:4 says “That you might know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed.”
So, when anyone begins with the a priori assumption that the Genesis creation account cannot be considered historically accurate because (1) it does not agree with current scientific theories, or because (2) it cannot be empirically verified, they have adopted a false theory of knowing and an arbitrary and truncated definition of knowledge. This is an a priori problem of the presumed supremacy of secular scientific knowledge.
This is not to deny that there are limitations to human language, which cannot fully express divine things – but often human language cannot fully express human things either. There are limitations to language but it can express spiritual truths truly, if not exhaustively. That God exists – there is a lot of ambiguity in “Jack Bortos exists.” What does “exist” mean? We have some idea of what it means, even if it is not exhaustive. That God created the world; that our souls live after death; that we will be judged for our lives and be accepted by God or rejected by him; that Christ did not have a human father; that he rose from the dead – these can be grasped in some way; maybe not perfectly, but enough for our guidance and faith. In spite of the limitations of language, it is still possible to convey basic truths sufficient for us.
True, the Bible has passed through human hands – but the message is still there. Even though modern textual critical theories have muddied the waters with artificial changes and emendations based on inferior texts and faulty principles of criticism and translation, the basic message is still there.
I agree that the earth and the universe come straight to us from the Creator’s hand – but because of the fall, and because of sin, we cannot always read the creation as we ought. And, the creation does not give us enough detail. We read in Romans 1:20 that God’s eternal power and Godhead are clearly seen from the creation of the world. Thus, many people, not only Christians, have argued from the creation that there must be some sort of higher power behind it all. But, “they became vain in their imagination and their foolish heart was darkened.” So we cannot read creation aright.
And even those who read correctly from the creation that God existed, could not see their own sinfulness, and their need of forgiveness, and the means by which that forgiveness might be obtained. That is why God has given us further, more detailed revelation in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, and his life, teachings, death and resurrection; but also in the Bible, by which we can learn many things about that nature of God that we would never have been able to understand on our own.
All we have to do is look at the two greatest philosophers of the pre-Christian era, Plato and Aristotle, to see how far all of their philosophical brilliance fell short of the revelation of God in Christ.
So, no matter how intelligent you might be, and no matter how well you can read creation, that is not enough. You need something more, and that is provided in Christ. And that requires an accurate Bible because if we do not know what Christ really said or did, due to errors in the Bible, then we really have no religion at all, and Christ becomes whatever we want him to be, merely an image of ourselves.
More specifically, your reading of creation cannot tell you what sort of meta-scientific or supra-scientific causes and principles were at work in the first formation of the earth and the cosmos. There is no scientific explanation of that, it has never been observed in a laboratory or confirmed by experiment. So when you read creation, that is something very different from speculating about the origins of creation.
You say you can’t ignore what creation tells you? That the earth is so old? We do not have the wisdom or the knowledge to know what sort of conditions were present at the creation. True, the Bible does use allegory and poetry in places many, most or all of which are easily recognizable. But “God created the heavens and the earth” is not poetry or allegory. If you want to say that the creation of the first man and the first women and their fall from perfection into sin is only allegory, then what are the true facts of which the allegory is supposed to be a representation. Do you have any idea?
Moreover, the New Testament later refers to those facts as plain historical truths and derives doctrines from them.
You say that slanting your reading of creation because of a biblical interpretation seems more profane than an honestly made interpretation could ever be – but what if taking the creation account at face value is also an honest interpretation? What if one truthfully and honestly believes in the Genesis account and is not slanting anything? What if it is those who deny the account are slanting interpretations as part of an ill-conceived attempt to retain independence from God? Which is the honest interpretation and which is the slanted one? I believe to take it literally, as Christ and as Paul did, is honest.
It is not blasphemous or a violation of personal integrity for you to form certain conclusions and then say “I might be wrong.” Jesus said “Do not judge by outward appearances, but judge righteous judgment.” Here we need wisdom, faith, humility, divine guidance.
About Darwinism, I don’t think it has been honestly done. I believe it is a deception, and I don’t think it takes creation on its own terms either. To say that because human intelligence can create variations within individual species (microevolution), therefore it is possible for species to develop into new species with no intelligent direction (macroevolution) is a drastic and glaring non sequitur. As to taking creation on its own terms, Darwinism does not explain the first origin of life, nor does it explain how unicellular organisms split into masculine and feminine genders, nor does it explain how the cosmos and the world came into being in the first place. Neither does it explain the mystery of human consciousness, which makes us absolutely unique among all the other animals. Personally I thought Darwin’s attempts to equate animal emotions with human emotions were ridiculous.
You did not respond to this comment at the end of the post above.
"As to taking creation on its own terms, Darwinism does not explain the first origin of life, nor does it explain how unicellular organisms split into masculine and feminine genders, nor does it explain how the cosmos and the world came into being in the first place. Neither does it explain the mystery of human consciousness, which makes us absolutely unique among all the other animals. Personally I thought Darwin’s attempts to equate animal emotions with human emotions were ridiculous."
Darwinism does not take creation on its own terms, and leaves many things out. It is a false and inadequate theory.
2/2 You say that someone who's never heard of Genesis could not look at the earth and the universe with all the instruments we have now, do all the applicable research, and somehow draw the conclusion that something like literal six-day, young earth creationism had occurred. So what? Who cares? That is totally irrelevant. Truth is not limited modern human secular knowledge with its instruments and research methodologies. If you say that the truths of life, God, and the cosmos must be confined within those boundaries, that is an arbitrary and highly truncated definition of what is known and what is knowable. When Jesus was on earth many people could not look at him and draw the conclusion he had been born without a human father; that he had existed with God bore the creation of the world; that he would later return to the earth a second time in glory as God manifest. None of these things were evident to mere human reason – yet they were real nonetheless.
You say that in order to believe in the literal truth of the creation account in Genesis I have to believe (1) “There's a future or at least possible discovery (maybe one we'll miss entirely) that will get any person who understands it on board with creationism.” You say we can just dispense with that idea because (a) it is impossible and will never happen and (b) it would require such a drastic reconfiguration of the universe that we wouldn’t be able to get a steam engine to work or a computer.
I believe there is a future possible discovery, and that is the return of Christ as God. When God arises to shake the earth, and his power is finally manifest beyond all possibility of doubt, then it will be understood that it is he who created and rules the heavens and the earth. This will not in anyway nullify existing scientific knowledge – because the same God who created the cosmos and all that is in it created those same scientific laws according to which the ordinary aspects of life are sustained. The same God who created the world also created the principles by which steam engines work. So no drastic configuration of the universe would be required. All that would require drastic reconfigurations would be the false and limited world views which assert that material scientific reality was the only reality.
But, you see a second problem with my asserting the literal truth of the creation account in Genesis; (2) I would need to say that “God lied.” Once again, I disagree. God has clearly stated that he created the world, and made it obvious to all – “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth (shows) his handiwork” (Psalm 19). We read also in Romans 1, as was quoted before, that God’s eternal power and Godhead are manifested in his creation, so much so, that people who deny God “are without excuse.” This has nothing to do with the Gnostic belief that the sinful and evil nature of the physical creation points to a lesser creator.
You add that if the literal creation account in Genesis is true, “then for all we know God could have created the entire world, with all the things, all the people, and all their memories intact 20 minutes ago and be erasing it before lunch tomorrow.” But if we believe in the Bible we don’t have to bother with such irrelevant hypotheticals, because it teaches many things happened over many centuries after the Creation, and many things are yet to happen before the end of the age and the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. Thus we who believe have a solid and definite framework within which the entire human experience is firmly placed, with a definite beginning and a definite ending.
And merely rejecting the Genesis account of creation does not absolve the secularist from such worries. How do you know we are not just figures in a gigantic computer simulation game devised by some remote race of aliens? How do you know the outside world even exists? Maybe you are just a brain in a vat being given the illusion of life and experience by some alien Dr. Frankenstein on another planet?
If God did create the entire created universe in six days, as I and many others believe, this would not nullify any of the laws of science, physics, medicine, biology, engineering, whatever.
About a young earth itself being a lie, I have already referred to verses saying that God’s creation of the universe is self-evident, and people do not see it because they do not want to see it. There is no lie at all if the specific details of the earth’s origins are inaccessible to science (since you can’t observe them in a laboratory) and we can know them only through Genesis because God has revealed them there. If God says “I created the world and this is how I did it,” and people refuse to believe him, as they refuse to believe in many other things he has spoken to us through Christ and through the prophets, God is not to blame for their unbelief.
I do not see how that scenario has anything to do with the “complete obliteration of anything that even approaches Christianity.” On the contrary, it is not belief in the literal truth of Genesis that undermines Scripture, it is the denial of that truth that undermined Scripture. If the first few pages of the Bible are mythology – including events later referred to as factual in the New Testament – then our confidence in the truth of the Bible is undermined.
About your comment “The story of Genesis is actually extremely rich and was one of the first things that drew me into the belief that the Bible could be divinely inspired.” What do you see in it that is so rich? And what did you see in it that drew you into the belief that it could be inspired?
As to my view of Genesis taking that away from you, you have complete liberty to reject my interpretation – but what do you say about Jesus walking on the water, Noah’s ark, Jonah and the whale, and many other things in the Bible that are contrary to modern science? By the way, if once in the entire history of the world a man did walk on water, this would not mean that people would be strolling across the Atlantic from England to America on foot. The ordinary principles of water would not be changed, and boats would still be built according to the same principles. To put it another way, very rare miracles, including the one-time only creation of the earth, would not nullify the ordinary laws of nature as we experience them daily.
I do not believe my view makes it impossible for a lot of intelligent people to be anything other than atheists. Atheists today know perfectly well that liberal Christians see Genesis as symbolic, and this does not cause them to change their mind and say “Oh, I will believe in the Bible now.” I believe it is their own sin and blindness that has driven them to atheism.
“If you make it so Christianity requires deception, you'll find your pulpits manned by liars and fools. You say Christianity requires this; I say it's proving to be a dead end.”
There are pulpits today occupied by liars and fools, but they were not made so by my opinions of Genesis. I would go so far as to say as that many of them share your view, that the account in Genesis is not literally true, and that many other parts in the Bible are not really true either. Of course, human nature being what it is, there are pastors who can claim belief in a literal Genesis account, and in the virgin birth, the Trinity, the Bible as the Word of God, and still be corrupt and dishonest, and deceivers in other ways. So merely agreeing with me on Genesis is no proof of authentic, scriptural Christianity.
But about deceptive appearances, look at Christ. While on earth he had every appearance of being an ordinary human with ordinary origins. Thus when he said “I am the bread come down from heaven,” people that heard him say this refused to accept it. They said “We know his family, his brothers and sisters, look at him, an ordinary human being, how can he be the bread come down from heaven?” and they refused to believe.
The spiritual reality of Christ was very different from his outward appearance – yet this was no deception to those who had faith, and who believed because they did not only trust human judgment and go by outward appearance. This is a very clear example of how reality is different from outward appearances. Does this make God a deceiver? I don’t think so? There were enough signs and wonders and teachings of Christ that those who were given the gift of faith by God could believe – and those who trusted only their human intellects and outward appearances perished in darkness.
About my ethical objections to Darwinism, you say evolution has nothing to do with ethics. I think it has something to do with ethics, but in a false, negative and destructive way. Many people, especially before WW2, reasoned that “Darwinism is true, and that therefore human ethics should be based on the Darwinian scenario of origins. The Bible is false, people were not created in the image of God, humans emerged from the animals and are in essence no different from animals. Christian ethics are all false, and the only real ethic is one based on Darwinian realities of life as struggle. The strong survive and the weak die, the feeble and unfit should not be helped, charity and mercy are contrary to the struggle for survival of the fittest, etc. etc.” This was called Social Darwinism, and was used to justify euthanasia and the selective breeding of humans like animals.
Perhaps you see it differently, but I think the next step in this conversation would be for you to state your own views about God, Christ, the Bible and Genesis, rather than just finding fault with mine – which is OK of course as a starting point.
Trying to respond to all of your comments in order, I have written something very long, far too long to be put here. It would have to be broken up into three or four parts. So, I am going to postpone my regular entry until next week, and post my answer to you on Monday morning. I am willing to spend the time on it as it is an important subject, and I perceive your seriousness, and felt obligated to respond. However, neither of us wants to engage this topic forever, important as it is. There is something that is more important, and that is this:
What do you think of Christ? Was he God manifest in the flesh, born without a human father? Did he do the miracles described in the Bible? Did he die as a sacrifice for the sins of the world and then rise from the dead, and will he come back as God manifest to judge the world in righteousness?
Now, this is a very key point: If you believe those things, they are all contrary to the prescriptions of secularist, materialist science that you want to impose as an iron grid on Genesis. If you look at those aspects of Christ in the same way you look at Genesis, and allow to Christ only what human secular wisdom will allow, denying his deity, sacrificial death, miracles and return, you are not a Christian at all. If, however, you accept that science has nothing to say against such matters as they are above science and beyond science, then why not say the same about Genesis?
Your post below ["if you think scientists . . . "] I will answer regularly as a comment.
True, the New Testament is more accessible, yet much of the Old Testament is very readable. Many later theological controversies are irrelevant.
About Christ doing the miracles and being born of a virgin, what do you say to someone who tells you that that is mythology on the same order as Genesis 1, and that miracles are by definition impossible as we live in a closed physical system with nothing operating on it from the outside?
About the New Testament requiring a smaller leap of faith, part of faith is not merely a decision or an act of will on our part but faith being a gift from God, which he gives to some, and not to all. We read that “Christ is the author and finisher of our faith,” and “No man can come to me except the father draw him.”
About the literal reading of the gospels not being contradicted by history, we have a lot of history from that era – but we have no history of the moment when light, the sun and moon, the earth and all of the creatures emerged from non-being into being. So there is no historical contradiction. There is only the philosophical contradiction of people who believe that known processes are the only reality – but no one knows what sort of processes were in operation.
Also, many people deny the historicity of the New Testament for exactly the same reason that they deny Genesis 1: because they believe there is no God at all, or there is some sort of a god but he did not operate as described in New Testament myths.
I don’t think you dealt with your reasons for not accepting Genesis at too much length up to now, though now – if you look at my comments posted today – we have both stated our position fully. What I think is much more important now are questions of salvation, sin, being like Christ, and being accepted by God on the day of judgment.
I disagree that “The Gospels are eyewitness accounts of earthly events that can be understood on human terms.” A man walking on water, and doing all those miracles? God come to earth in human form in Roman Palestine and dying as a sacrifice for the sins of the world? Many people reject those things as impossible. Rudolf Bultmann the German existentialist philosopher said that all of thse things in the New Testament were mythology only.
It is true we can know God through Christ, and many people have become and lived as Christians with no Old Testament at all (especially in countries where Bible are hard to come by). But the Old Testament has many direct communications from God and many wonderful truths. This is why it is quoted in the New Testament so many times. It might be interesting for you to study “Old Testament quotes and references in the New Testament” to see exactly what the New Testament authors drew from it.
I agree that the statement “No one comes to the Father but by me” shows the inadequacy of the Old Testament. We have a fuller and a higher and a better revelation in Christ, since the blood of Old Testament sacrifices could never cleanse from sin. But many Christians have studied the Old Testament devotionally and found many rich spiritual truths in it. Many times I have spiritual correction and uplift from Moses and the prophets and historians. Have you ever read I Samuel? It is a remarkable book, and David had a deep faith. How else could his Psalms be such a blessing to Christians even today?
About your statement “I'm the one who gets to say how the world works, not biologists or physicists," that does not represent my position at all. Am I going to tell a nuclear physicist now the sun works, or tell a surgeon how to perform an operation? I can no more explain how many things in the world work than I could explain how a carburetor works or decipher the meaning of a text in a language I have never studied. I readily concede that in the details of how things work any scientist knows more than I do. But, when it comes to the question of origins, that is entirely different. If a nuclear physicist tells me how the sun works I believe him, but if he says the sun came into being as a result of an accidental explosion, I see now reason to accept a statement for which he has no authority or evidence. There is a huge difference between initial creation and subsequent everyday realities.
My position has nothing to do with epistemic jealousy at all. It is the epistemic imperialism of modern secularism which asserts that they alone have real knowledge, even for things thy have no evidence whatever for.
I don’t think the problem of Christianity is that it has hitched its wagon to a weak horse. I think much more of the problem is conformity to the world, sinfulness, disobedience to Christ in many ways, watering down the gospel, surrendering too meekly to the claims of scientists who think theirs is the only knowledge.
PS I posted my comments answering your longer comments as my main entry for this week. I don't think you will find them unpleasant or too argumentative.
“The Gospels are eyewitness accounts of earthly events that can be understood on human terms.”
Christ spoke and the storm at sea was stilled. He healed a man born blind from birth. He was born without a human father. He turned water into wine. What do you say to someone who tells you that such miraculous violations of natural law are a priori impossible?
“The Old Testament is really (in my view) an account of us mostly failing to know the Father directly.”
The Old Testament has many moving verses and passages and accounts of direct personal communication with God. Psalms, Proverbs, the prophets, many striking passages in the historical narratives, are directly inspirational to those trying to live the Christian life.
As you said the prophets, kings and heroes had their errors, and the people of Israel rebelled many many times, but there are many powerful and moving spiritual teachings of great depth and insight. And the sins and errors or ordinary people are factually recorded.
You have a low view of the Old Testament, and see it as a merely human book. I see it as the divinely inspired word of God, not equal to the New Testament in one sense, since we have a fuller revelation in Christ, but still the Word of God and foundational to the New Testament. This is why the New Testament authors quote it so often, why Christ quoted it, and specifically said that David was speaking by the Holy Spirit.
I do not believe the Old Testament is only an account of man trying to know God. We read in I Peter chapter 1 that the Old Testament prophets were moved by the Spirit of Christ: “Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.”
Jesus said in John 5 that we should believe the words of Moses: “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?”
And, we read in Hebrews that God created all things by his spoken word alone: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” This means that any and all scientific restrictions on how the world must have been created are completely irrelevant. And the same people who tell you Genesis is inaccurate will most of the time tell you the four gospels are inaccurate as well.
“I don't mean to diminish or insult your faith, but the full meaning of ‘No one comes to the Father except through Me,’ in my view really illustrates how inadequate the Old Testament is.”
This does not diminish or insult my faith in any way, since it is a basic statement of the faith that I have long believed. But, Christ was active in the Old Testament. We read this in I Corinthians 10:1-11, where Paul not only says that Christ was with the Israelites in the wilderness, but “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”
Moreover, we read in Hebrews 12:1 “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” – and what is this cloud of witnesses he appeals to? We see that in the preceding chapter, which mentions Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sara, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses.
What do we read about Abraham in Genesis 15:6? “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.” This is the very heart of Christianity, which is why Galatians refers to believers as children of Abraham.
Paul also says that Judaism is the root and Christianity is the branches, that Christians are wild olives grafted into the tree – and what about the prophet Isaiah? Do you see nothing of personal relevance or value in his writings? “Isaiah is quoted (or alluded to) in the Gospels approximately 21 times, 25 times in Paul's letters, 6 times in 1 Peter, 5 times in Acts, 4 times in Revelation, and once in Hebrews.” https://www.jesuswalk.com/isaiah/a5_nt_quotations.htm
“That's not to say we should throw it out and of course there are lessons to be drawn from it.”
Speaking to the men on the road to Emmaus, Christ said Luke 24: “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”
And later in the same chapter he says to the disciples “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures.”
“but to use a literal reading of it as some sort of litmus test for our faith just seems not only unnecessary but theologically suspect”
I have not used a literal reading of Genesis as a litmus test of faith. It is possible for one to adhere literally to the creation account yet not be pure in heart or following Christ in many other ways. After all, Christ did not say in the Beatitudes “Blessed are those who have the right interpretation of Genesis 1.” But I do maintain that human science has no more to say about the first emergence of the world out of non-being than it does about the Trinity or the virgin birth, sacrificial death, resurrection and return of Christ.”
Anyway I am very glad to have had this clarification. My larger purpose is now not to assert the plausibility of a literal Genesis, but to encourage you to reevaluate the Old Testament as a whole.
Very well written Joe. We are on the same page down to crossing t’s and dotting i’s.
As someone who is neither a Christian nor an atheist, I think I can give a different perspective on your main questions: "Compared to what we see around us every day, are the basic tenets of Christianity really so irrational? What if said tenets are not irrational at all?"
To a non-Christian like myself, they 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.
It seems to me that Christianity and all revealed religions--including my own--have no part in this kind of rationalism and ultimately cannot make use of it.
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. 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 somewhat if they felt the need to make rational arguments to justify it.
You raise a lot of important and interesting questions, maybe too many to answer in a note. Possibly a respectful and amicable analysis of your observations with responses would make a good subject for next week's blog, especially since you have some knowledge of the Christian religion and require more detailed responses. I will first try answering in note form in the next day or two and see. I should say that I welcome and value different perspectives, and often read books and articles reflecting views different from mine.
Hi Benjamin,
Can I respectfully make a few additions to one of your paragraphs with the purpose of suggesting that with these additions, your thought experiment can actually become a logical and rational explanation for all of reality, not just the phenomenal.
Here goes...
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,
Ever wonder where you came from? Ever wonder why there are problems in life? Do you ever consider what gives meaning and purpose in life?
Do you ever consider what happens when you die?
Here is an (rational) explanation.
God created the cosmos. He transcends it. He created humans in His image with free will. They chose to rebel. The penalty, of which they were forewarned was death. But He promised to provide someone to save them from death and restore them to eternal life.
He came as ...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.
This sacrifice of this man of flesh, sent from God, was the fulfilled promise of God to restore mankind to a proper God intended right relationship with God and satisfies Gods justice at the same time.
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.
You can be restored to a right relationship with God, have eternal life and a perfectly logical reasonable explanation for all reality including the cosmos and the self evident non-material noumena as well.
-------
Is that at all reasonable to you?
It is not a leap of faith for me.
I don't know if one could say whether it's reasonable or not, but it doesn't strike as rational. It's based on a series of unprovable assertions: "God created the cosmos. He transcends it. He created humans in His image with free will. They chose to rebel. The penalty, of which they were forewarned was death. But He promised to provide someone to save them from death and restore them to eternal life," etc. The only proof of these assertions would be biblical, I suppose, but that demands faith that the claims of the Bible are true.
If you make that leap of faith and believe in it, more power to you, but I don't see how it's logical to do so. It stems from something else, I think. A sense of numinous things or the like.
I suppose one could argue that observation of the wonders of creation makes the idea of some kind of God logical, but it could just as easily lead to a concept like Heraclitus's cycle of ever-living fire or the something similar.
Key word which I inserted purposely is transcend.
It is therefore for me, logical and reasonable to understand I cannot prove anything that is of a higher realm by the epistemology within the lower realm.
You cannot put God in a test tube.
By faith, I believe what God has graciously revealed. This is not a leap to an upper story from a lower story.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Blessings,
I agree you can't put God in a test tube. Or justice, or goodness, or many other things. I don't subscribe to scientism. I was simply acknowledging that fact of transcendence. It means that ultimately faith is not a rational phenomenon. I actually don't think we disagree all that much.
Just so I don't come off as condescending, which I sincerely don't want to do, when I use the word "numinous" I only mean that I think there are people who feel--not just believe--very strongly that there is another world of which this world is only a shadow. "Now we see as through a glass darkly," etc. They believe this other world is as real or more real then our world, and this is the source of their faith.
I don't think this is rational, but I also don't dismiss it. I've never personally had that sense of things, though. However, I've often told my religious friends that if I had a genuine mystical experience, one I could not dismiss as hallucination or some other factor, I would become a believer. Thus far, it hasn't happened and might never happen, but I'm open to the possibility.
I hope I am not condescending either, and I welcome your thoughts.
The word “feel” is quite another topic. Too subjective although valid, to use as as the basis for truth, (Another big topic).
Re: mystical experience. The problem with that is there are far to many counterfeits. And when Jesus did miracles (which I suspect you highly doubt), many who saw still refused to accept he was God in the flesh. So the mystical and miraculous are not the avenues the God the bible promotes for knowing.
Here is where we may start to go in circles 😃
Faith comes by hearing and believing propositional truth such as that God exists and that he rewards those who seek Him.
A combination of faith and reason if you will.
And for further contemplation, something I will call mystery as distinct from mysticism. God’s written word becomes clear to us by the power of His Holy Spirit when we, if we are willing to, submit to His desire that we repent and receive his gift of salvation.
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
I suspect you have heard this as you seem well aquainted with the bible.
I hope you continue to keep an open mind!
When I say "mystical experience," I don't mean witnessing a miracle or the like. I was thinking more of a personal experience. Something like Ezekiel's, for example: "I saw visions of God." If something like that happened to me and, for whatever reason, I was convinced it was real rather than just a dream or a hallucination, I think that would change my mind.
I need to write about this at length - not by way of argument or debate but to clarify some things I didn't explain as well as I might have. So I will write more about this on Monday, and am glad to have the opportunity to reexamine this from a different angle.
Beautiful, Joe. Really well done.
Thanks Jeff, I appreciate the good word!
Did you have this on hand, or have you written it in the past week or so? If you just put it out, you have a real gift for writing.
Much of it was written yesterday and this morning - however it covers ground I have written and thought about over time. At least one paragraph of it, and much of the previous Substack article "America in the Hands of An Angry God," was taken almost verbatim from a self published book Light in the Darkness of Postmodernism.
I did publish several other books with small Christian publishers but they did not get far. Here is my self-publishing author page
https://books2read.com/ap/xMvr1v/Joseph-E-Keysor
Light In the Darkness of Postmodernism.
I am reading this now. 8% so far. I was going to read it all before commenting. I could not wait.
I am profoundly moved at a personal level, even tears, to read such sageness.
We truly are alike in many ways. I hope that does not discourage you 🙂
No, it is no discouragement to me, I am glad to meet a kindred spirit on occasion and welcome any comments.
And thinking, and a Love of God, and . . .
Yes, some thinking, some love of God in Christ (not nearly what it should be) but also a lot of reading, including some secular books - for example the one mentioned in the 1st paragraph (much of which I only skimmed as it analyzed a lot of postmodern rubbish not worth studying) - with a random, non-scholarly interest in philosophy. Much philosophy is a complete waste of time, but some general histories of philosophy give an interesting overview. And a little science here and there. Here is an excellent book on religion and science written from a Christian point of view by a math professor at Oxford, John C. Lennox, good for laymen if your interest lies in that area: "God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?" The answer is By No Means.
Thanks for sharing. I was born in Evanston, too, in 1965. Your books look interesting. We homeschool our kids, but I do not do much of the teaching. It's too bad, because your books look perfect for getting Christian high school kids to understand their faith and the society into which they are entering. I would love to share them with our kids. Something I will keep in mind.
There are some things in my books that would be useful in encouraging high school students to recognize the limitations of science and not to be intimidated by criticisms of the Bible, and also to look for higher things beyond pop culture, and also in some basic biblical teachings which are of course taught by many others as well.
If you find anything in my material that might be useful feel free to cut and paste it and even adapt it some for your personal use. The basic ideas are or should be common property.
1/2 Once again, this is too long, so I will have to put it in two or three parts.
About not calling down fire and brimstone on unbelievers, I didn’t know if you mean on all unbelievers in general, or if you mean on people who did not believe in the literal truth of Genesis. Concerning the former, Christ did teach that there was a heaven and a hell, described the latter as a place of eternal punishment, and warned people against it. But I don’t believe that he called down fire and brimstone on anyone.
As to those who do not believe in the literal truth of Genesis, I believe it is possible for someone to be genuinely saved by the righteousness of Christ attributed to him by faith without even having read the book of Genesis. And, I suppose someone could interpret the seven days as eons, periods of infinite length, though references to evening and morning do point to specific days.
However, when it comes to growth and maturity in the spiritual life, we have to maintain the historicity of Genesis. If we start out from the very beginning subordinating the works of God to the limitations of human science and fallen human reason, then all of the miracles in the Bible can be questioned, as well as the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ himself. The God who created the entire universe by his spoken word alone out of nothing is far beyond any secular humanistic restrictions. And Christians who do not see that are starting off on the wrong foot.
About human scientific knowledge not being allowed to take precedence over or sit in judgment over divine revelation, I think it is a matter of Human Scientific knowledge a priori. Admittedly, there are difficulties in interpreting divine revelation. Peter speaks of some of Paul’s teachings being difficult to understand, for example, and there are passages of the New Testament that are easier to understand than others. But some people do have the a priori starting point that scientific knowledge is the only real authentic knowledge, and anything that goes against it cannot be true. There is a very real presumption of the superiority of human scientific knowledge over the knowledge that comes by faith – and there is a knowledge that comes by faith. If you look at a concordance you will see words like “known, knowing, know, knowledge” are used literally hundreds of times in the Bible. Luke 1:4 says “That you might know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed.”
So, when anyone begins with the a priori assumption that the Genesis creation account cannot be considered historically accurate because (1) it does not agree with current scientific theories, or because (2) it cannot be empirically verified, they have adopted a false theory of knowing and an arbitrary and truncated definition of knowledge. This is an a priori problem of the presumed supremacy of secular scientific knowledge.
This is not to deny that there are limitations to human language, which cannot fully express divine things – but often human language cannot fully express human things either. There are limitations to language but it can express spiritual truths truly, if not exhaustively. That God exists – there is a lot of ambiguity in “Jack Bortos exists.” What does “exist” mean? We have some idea of what it means, even if it is not exhaustive. That God created the world; that our souls live after death; that we will be judged for our lives and be accepted by God or rejected by him; that Christ did not have a human father; that he rose from the dead – these can be grasped in some way; maybe not perfectly, but enough for our guidance and faith. In spite of the limitations of language, it is still possible to convey basic truths sufficient for us.
True, the Bible has passed through human hands – but the message is still there. Even though modern textual critical theories have muddied the waters with artificial changes and emendations based on inferior texts and faulty principles of criticism and translation, the basic message is still there.
I agree that the earth and the universe come straight to us from the Creator’s hand – but because of the fall, and because of sin, we cannot always read the creation as we ought. And, the creation does not give us enough detail. We read in Romans 1:20 that God’s eternal power and Godhead are clearly seen from the creation of the world. Thus, many people, not only Christians, have argued from the creation that there must be some sort of higher power behind it all. But, “they became vain in their imagination and their foolish heart was darkened.” So we cannot read creation aright.
And even those who read correctly from the creation that God existed, could not see their own sinfulness, and their need of forgiveness, and the means by which that forgiveness might be obtained. That is why God has given us further, more detailed revelation in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, and his life, teachings, death and resurrection; but also in the Bible, by which we can learn many things about that nature of God that we would never have been able to understand on our own.
All we have to do is look at the two greatest philosophers of the pre-Christian era, Plato and Aristotle, to see how far all of their philosophical brilliance fell short of the revelation of God in Christ.
So, no matter how intelligent you might be, and no matter how well you can read creation, that is not enough. You need something more, and that is provided in Christ. And that requires an accurate Bible because if we do not know what Christ really said or did, due to errors in the Bible, then we really have no religion at all, and Christ becomes whatever we want him to be, merely an image of ourselves.
More specifically, your reading of creation cannot tell you what sort of meta-scientific or supra-scientific causes and principles were at work in the first formation of the earth and the cosmos. There is no scientific explanation of that, it has never been observed in a laboratory or confirmed by experiment. So when you read creation, that is something very different from speculating about the origins of creation.
You say you can’t ignore what creation tells you? That the earth is so old? We do not have the wisdom or the knowledge to know what sort of conditions were present at the creation. True, the Bible does use allegory and poetry in places many, most or all of which are easily recognizable. But “God created the heavens and the earth” is not poetry or allegory. If you want to say that the creation of the first man and the first women and their fall from perfection into sin is only allegory, then what are the true facts of which the allegory is supposed to be a representation. Do you have any idea?
Moreover, the New Testament later refers to those facts as plain historical truths and derives doctrines from them.
You say that slanting your reading of creation because of a biblical interpretation seems more profane than an honestly made interpretation could ever be – but what if taking the creation account at face value is also an honest interpretation? What if one truthfully and honestly believes in the Genesis account and is not slanting anything? What if it is those who deny the account are slanting interpretations as part of an ill-conceived attempt to retain independence from God? Which is the honest interpretation and which is the slanted one? I believe to take it literally, as Christ and as Paul did, is honest.
It is not blasphemous or a violation of personal integrity for you to form certain conclusions and then say “I might be wrong.” Jesus said “Do not judge by outward appearances, but judge righteous judgment.” Here we need wisdom, faith, humility, divine guidance.
About Darwinism, I don’t think it has been honestly done. I believe it is a deception, and I don’t think it takes creation on its own terms either. To say that because human intelligence can create variations within individual species (microevolution), therefore it is possible for species to develop into new species with no intelligent direction (macroevolution) is a drastic and glaring non sequitur. As to taking creation on its own terms, Darwinism does not explain the first origin of life, nor does it explain how unicellular organisms split into masculine and feminine genders, nor does it explain how the cosmos and the world came into being in the first place. Neither does it explain the mystery of human consciousness, which makes us absolutely unique among all the other animals. Personally I thought Darwin’s attempts to equate animal emotions with human emotions were ridiculous.
You did not respond to this comment at the end of the post above.
"As to taking creation on its own terms, Darwinism does not explain the first origin of life, nor does it explain how unicellular organisms split into masculine and feminine genders, nor does it explain how the cosmos and the world came into being in the first place. Neither does it explain the mystery of human consciousness, which makes us absolutely unique among all the other animals. Personally I thought Darwin’s attempts to equate animal emotions with human emotions were ridiculous."
Darwinism does not take creation on its own terms, and leaves many things out. It is a false and inadequate theory.
2/2 You say that someone who's never heard of Genesis could not look at the earth and the universe with all the instruments we have now, do all the applicable research, and somehow draw the conclusion that something like literal six-day, young earth creationism had occurred. So what? Who cares? That is totally irrelevant. Truth is not limited modern human secular knowledge with its instruments and research methodologies. If you say that the truths of life, God, and the cosmos must be confined within those boundaries, that is an arbitrary and highly truncated definition of what is known and what is knowable. When Jesus was on earth many people could not look at him and draw the conclusion he had been born without a human father; that he had existed with God bore the creation of the world; that he would later return to the earth a second time in glory as God manifest. None of these things were evident to mere human reason – yet they were real nonetheless.
You say that in order to believe in the literal truth of the creation account in Genesis I have to believe (1) “There's a future or at least possible discovery (maybe one we'll miss entirely) that will get any person who understands it on board with creationism.” You say we can just dispense with that idea because (a) it is impossible and will never happen and (b) it would require such a drastic reconfiguration of the universe that we wouldn’t be able to get a steam engine to work or a computer.
I believe there is a future possible discovery, and that is the return of Christ as God. When God arises to shake the earth, and his power is finally manifest beyond all possibility of doubt, then it will be understood that it is he who created and rules the heavens and the earth. This will not in anyway nullify existing scientific knowledge – because the same God who created the cosmos and all that is in it created those same scientific laws according to which the ordinary aspects of life are sustained. The same God who created the world also created the principles by which steam engines work. So no drastic configuration of the universe would be required. All that would require drastic reconfigurations would be the false and limited world views which assert that material scientific reality was the only reality.
But, you see a second problem with my asserting the literal truth of the creation account in Genesis; (2) I would need to say that “God lied.” Once again, I disagree. God has clearly stated that he created the world, and made it obvious to all – “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth (shows) his handiwork” (Psalm 19). We read also in Romans 1, as was quoted before, that God’s eternal power and Godhead are manifested in his creation, so much so, that people who deny God “are without excuse.” This has nothing to do with the Gnostic belief that the sinful and evil nature of the physical creation points to a lesser creator.
You add that if the literal creation account in Genesis is true, “then for all we know God could have created the entire world, with all the things, all the people, and all their memories intact 20 minutes ago and be erasing it before lunch tomorrow.” But if we believe in the Bible we don’t have to bother with such irrelevant hypotheticals, because it teaches many things happened over many centuries after the Creation, and many things are yet to happen before the end of the age and the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. Thus we who believe have a solid and definite framework within which the entire human experience is firmly placed, with a definite beginning and a definite ending.
And merely rejecting the Genesis account of creation does not absolve the secularist from such worries. How do you know we are not just figures in a gigantic computer simulation game devised by some remote race of aliens? How do you know the outside world even exists? Maybe you are just a brain in a vat being given the illusion of life and experience by some alien Dr. Frankenstein on another planet?
If God did create the entire created universe in six days, as I and many others believe, this would not nullify any of the laws of science, physics, medicine, biology, engineering, whatever.
About a young earth itself being a lie, I have already referred to verses saying that God’s creation of the universe is self-evident, and people do not see it because they do not want to see it. There is no lie at all if the specific details of the earth’s origins are inaccessible to science (since you can’t observe them in a laboratory) and we can know them only through Genesis because God has revealed them there. If God says “I created the world and this is how I did it,” and people refuse to believe him, as they refuse to believe in many other things he has spoken to us through Christ and through the prophets, God is not to blame for their unbelief.
I do not see how that scenario has anything to do with the “complete obliteration of anything that even approaches Christianity.” On the contrary, it is not belief in the literal truth of Genesis that undermines Scripture, it is the denial of that truth that undermined Scripture. If the first few pages of the Bible are mythology – including events later referred to as factual in the New Testament – then our confidence in the truth of the Bible is undermined.
About your comment “The story of Genesis is actually extremely rich and was one of the first things that drew me into the belief that the Bible could be divinely inspired.” What do you see in it that is so rich? And what did you see in it that drew you into the belief that it could be inspired?
As to my view of Genesis taking that away from you, you have complete liberty to reject my interpretation – but what do you say about Jesus walking on the water, Noah’s ark, Jonah and the whale, and many other things in the Bible that are contrary to modern science? By the way, if once in the entire history of the world a man did walk on water, this would not mean that people would be strolling across the Atlantic from England to America on foot. The ordinary principles of water would not be changed, and boats would still be built according to the same principles. To put it another way, very rare miracles, including the one-time only creation of the earth, would not nullify the ordinary laws of nature as we experience them daily.
I do not believe my view makes it impossible for a lot of intelligent people to be anything other than atheists. Atheists today know perfectly well that liberal Christians see Genesis as symbolic, and this does not cause them to change their mind and say “Oh, I will believe in the Bible now.” I believe it is their own sin and blindness that has driven them to atheism.
“If you make it so Christianity requires deception, you'll find your pulpits manned by liars and fools. You say Christianity requires this; I say it's proving to be a dead end.”
There are pulpits today occupied by liars and fools, but they were not made so by my opinions of Genesis. I would go so far as to say as that many of them share your view, that the account in Genesis is not literally true, and that many other parts in the Bible are not really true either. Of course, human nature being what it is, there are pastors who can claim belief in a literal Genesis account, and in the virgin birth, the Trinity, the Bible as the Word of God, and still be corrupt and dishonest, and deceivers in other ways. So merely agreeing with me on Genesis is no proof of authentic, scriptural Christianity.
But about deceptive appearances, look at Christ. While on earth he had every appearance of being an ordinary human with ordinary origins. Thus when he said “I am the bread come down from heaven,” people that heard him say this refused to accept it. They said “We know his family, his brothers and sisters, look at him, an ordinary human being, how can he be the bread come down from heaven?” and they refused to believe.
The spiritual reality of Christ was very different from his outward appearance – yet this was no deception to those who had faith, and who believed because they did not only trust human judgment and go by outward appearance. This is a very clear example of how reality is different from outward appearances. Does this make God a deceiver? I don’t think so? There were enough signs and wonders and teachings of Christ that those who were given the gift of faith by God could believe – and those who trusted only their human intellects and outward appearances perished in darkness.
About my ethical objections to Darwinism, you say evolution has nothing to do with ethics. I think it has something to do with ethics, but in a false, negative and destructive way. Many people, especially before WW2, reasoned that “Darwinism is true, and that therefore human ethics should be based on the Darwinian scenario of origins. The Bible is false, people were not created in the image of God, humans emerged from the animals and are in essence no different from animals. Christian ethics are all false, and the only real ethic is one based on Darwinian realities of life as struggle. The strong survive and the weak die, the feeble and unfit should not be helped, charity and mercy are contrary to the struggle for survival of the fittest, etc. etc.” This was called Social Darwinism, and was used to justify euthanasia and the selective breeding of humans like animals.
Perhaps you see it differently, but I think the next step in this conversation would be for you to state your own views about God, Christ, the Bible and Genesis, rather than just finding fault with mine – which is OK of course as a starting point.
Trying to respond to all of your comments in order, I have written something very long, far too long to be put here. It would have to be broken up into three or four parts. So, I am going to postpone my regular entry until next week, and post my answer to you on Monday morning. I am willing to spend the time on it as it is an important subject, and I perceive your seriousness, and felt obligated to respond. However, neither of us wants to engage this topic forever, important as it is. There is something that is more important, and that is this:
What do you think of Christ? Was he God manifest in the flesh, born without a human father? Did he do the miracles described in the Bible? Did he die as a sacrifice for the sins of the world and then rise from the dead, and will he come back as God manifest to judge the world in righteousness?
Now, this is a very key point: If you believe those things, they are all contrary to the prescriptions of secularist, materialist science that you want to impose as an iron grid on Genesis. If you look at those aspects of Christ in the same way you look at Genesis, and allow to Christ only what human secular wisdom will allow, denying his deity, sacrificial death, miracles and return, you are not a Christian at all. If, however, you accept that science has nothing to say against such matters as they are above science and beyond science, then why not say the same about Genesis?
Your post below ["if you think scientists . . . "] I will answer regularly as a comment.
True, the New Testament is more accessible, yet much of the Old Testament is very readable. Many later theological controversies are irrelevant.
About Christ doing the miracles and being born of a virgin, what do you say to someone who tells you that that is mythology on the same order as Genesis 1, and that miracles are by definition impossible as we live in a closed physical system with nothing operating on it from the outside?
About the New Testament requiring a smaller leap of faith, part of faith is not merely a decision or an act of will on our part but faith being a gift from God, which he gives to some, and not to all. We read that “Christ is the author and finisher of our faith,” and “No man can come to me except the father draw him.”
About the literal reading of the gospels not being contradicted by history, we have a lot of history from that era – but we have no history of the moment when light, the sun and moon, the earth and all of the creatures emerged from non-being into being. So there is no historical contradiction. There is only the philosophical contradiction of people who believe that known processes are the only reality – but no one knows what sort of processes were in operation.
Also, many people deny the historicity of the New Testament for exactly the same reason that they deny Genesis 1: because they believe there is no God at all, or there is some sort of a god but he did not operate as described in New Testament myths.
I don’t think you dealt with your reasons for not accepting Genesis at too much length up to now, though now – if you look at my comments posted today – we have both stated our position fully. What I think is much more important now are questions of salvation, sin, being like Christ, and being accepted by God on the day of judgment.
I disagree that “The Gospels are eyewitness accounts of earthly events that can be understood on human terms.” A man walking on water, and doing all those miracles? God come to earth in human form in Roman Palestine and dying as a sacrifice for the sins of the world? Many people reject those things as impossible. Rudolf Bultmann the German existentialist philosopher said that all of thse things in the New Testament were mythology only.
It is true we can know God through Christ, and many people have become and lived as Christians with no Old Testament at all (especially in countries where Bible are hard to come by). But the Old Testament has many direct communications from God and many wonderful truths. This is why it is quoted in the New Testament so many times. It might be interesting for you to study “Old Testament quotes and references in the New Testament” to see exactly what the New Testament authors drew from it.
I agree that the statement “No one comes to the Father but by me” shows the inadequacy of the Old Testament. We have a fuller and a higher and a better revelation in Christ, since the blood of Old Testament sacrifices could never cleanse from sin. But many Christians have studied the Old Testament devotionally and found many rich spiritual truths in it. Many times I have spiritual correction and uplift from Moses and the prophets and historians. Have you ever read I Samuel? It is a remarkable book, and David had a deep faith. How else could his Psalms be such a blessing to Christians even today?
About your statement “I'm the one who gets to say how the world works, not biologists or physicists," that does not represent my position at all. Am I going to tell a nuclear physicist now the sun works, or tell a surgeon how to perform an operation? I can no more explain how many things in the world work than I could explain how a carburetor works or decipher the meaning of a text in a language I have never studied. I readily concede that in the details of how things work any scientist knows more than I do. But, when it comes to the question of origins, that is entirely different. If a nuclear physicist tells me how the sun works I believe him, but if he says the sun came into being as a result of an accidental explosion, I see now reason to accept a statement for which he has no authority or evidence. There is a huge difference between initial creation and subsequent everyday realities.
My position has nothing to do with epistemic jealousy at all. It is the epistemic imperialism of modern secularism which asserts that they alone have real knowledge, even for things thy have no evidence whatever for.
I don’t think the problem of Christianity is that it has hitched its wagon to a weak horse. I think much more of the problem is conformity to the world, sinfulness, disobedience to Christ in many ways, watering down the gospel, surrendering too meekly to the claims of scientists who think theirs is the only knowledge.
PS I posted my comments answering your longer comments as my main entry for this week. I don't think you will find them unpleasant or too argumentative.
“The Gospels are eyewitness accounts of earthly events that can be understood on human terms.”
Christ spoke and the storm at sea was stilled. He healed a man born blind from birth. He was born without a human father. He turned water into wine. What do you say to someone who tells you that such miraculous violations of natural law are a priori impossible?
“The Old Testament is really (in my view) an account of us mostly failing to know the Father directly.”
The Old Testament has many moving verses and passages and accounts of direct personal communication with God. Psalms, Proverbs, the prophets, many striking passages in the historical narratives, are directly inspirational to those trying to live the Christian life.
As you said the prophets, kings and heroes had their errors, and the people of Israel rebelled many many times, but there are many powerful and moving spiritual teachings of great depth and insight. And the sins and errors or ordinary people are factually recorded.
You have a low view of the Old Testament, and see it as a merely human book. I see it as the divinely inspired word of God, not equal to the New Testament in one sense, since we have a fuller revelation in Christ, but still the Word of God and foundational to the New Testament. This is why the New Testament authors quote it so often, why Christ quoted it, and specifically said that David was speaking by the Holy Spirit.
I do not believe the Old Testament is only an account of man trying to know God. We read in I Peter chapter 1 that the Old Testament prophets were moved by the Spirit of Christ: “Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.”
Jesus said in John 5 that we should believe the words of Moses: “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?”
And, we read in Hebrews that God created all things by his spoken word alone: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” This means that any and all scientific restrictions on how the world must have been created are completely irrelevant. And the same people who tell you Genesis is inaccurate will most of the time tell you the four gospels are inaccurate as well.
“I don't mean to diminish or insult your faith, but the full meaning of ‘No one comes to the Father except through Me,’ in my view really illustrates how inadequate the Old Testament is.”
This does not diminish or insult my faith in any way, since it is a basic statement of the faith that I have long believed. But, Christ was active in the Old Testament. We read this in I Corinthians 10:1-11, where Paul not only says that Christ was with the Israelites in the wilderness, but “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”
Moreover, we read in Hebrews 12:1 “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” – and what is this cloud of witnesses he appeals to? We see that in the preceding chapter, which mentions Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sara, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses.
What do we read about Abraham in Genesis 15:6? “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.” This is the very heart of Christianity, which is why Galatians refers to believers as children of Abraham.
Paul also says that Judaism is the root and Christianity is the branches, that Christians are wild olives grafted into the tree – and what about the prophet Isaiah? Do you see nothing of personal relevance or value in his writings? “Isaiah is quoted (or alluded to) in the Gospels approximately 21 times, 25 times in Paul's letters, 6 times in 1 Peter, 5 times in Acts, 4 times in Revelation, and once in Hebrews.” https://www.jesuswalk.com/isaiah/a5_nt_quotations.htm
“That's not to say we should throw it out and of course there are lessons to be drawn from it.”
Speaking to the men on the road to Emmaus, Christ said Luke 24: “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”
And later in the same chapter he says to the disciples “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures.”
“but to use a literal reading of it as some sort of litmus test for our faith just seems not only unnecessary but theologically suspect”
I have not used a literal reading of Genesis as a litmus test of faith. It is possible for one to adhere literally to the creation account yet not be pure in heart or following Christ in many other ways. After all, Christ did not say in the Beatitudes “Blessed are those who have the right interpretation of Genesis 1.” But I do maintain that human science has no more to say about the first emergence of the world out of non-being than it does about the Trinity or the virgin birth, sacrificial death, resurrection and return of Christ.”
Anyway I am very glad to have had this clarification. My larger purpose is now not to assert the plausibility of a literal Genesis, but to encourage you to reevaluate the Old Testament as a whole.