Has Reason found a place to die?

I am constantly amazed at the positions some Christians make when it comes to science and religion.

For example here is another quote from J. David Newman over on Adventist Today:

I see that discussing uniformitarianism in any depth seems to "fiighten" many of you.  Maybe it is because if we do challenge that concept a lot of things could change.  But let me switch points a litte.  Grossmont College in California has a powerpoint presentation call The Assumptions of Science.  In Four panels they listed the assumptions.  Here are just a few of them.
The world is real.
The real world is knowable and comprehensible.
There are laws that govern the real world.
Those laws are knowable and comprehensible.
Those laws don't [radically] change according to place or time, since the early stages of the big bang.
Nature is understandable.
The rules of logic are valid.
Language is adequate to describe the natural realm
Human senses are reliable.
Mathematical rules are descriptive of the physical world.

However it was panel 5 that caught my attention.
Assumptions are accepted without proof.
They form the basis of all scientific thinking.

This is what I have been trying to say that whether we use the Bible or Science we first have to agree on our assumptions.  And scientific assumptions are accepted by faith not by proof.  And the way we come to those assumptions determines which ones we will accept.   Thus the atheist will come to the subject with a different set of assumptions from what the Christian will have.

Which means we should be open to question the assumptions.

http://disciple21century.com/assumptions-of-science.htm

I looked at the powerpoint presentation and it is pretty accurate. However Newman did not note the footnote at the bottom of the page which reads:

Just to make the point as clear as possible, these assumptions of science, like all such assumptions cannot be demonstrated to be correct as #5 correctly states.

In fact the presentation also addresses the supernatural in slide #8

Limitations of Science

Science can't help us with questions about the supernatural.  The prefix "super" means "above."  So supernatural means "above (or beyond) the natural."  The toolbox of a scientist contains only the natural laws of the universe; supernatural questions are outside their reach.

So notice what those many assumptions are. The world is real...how do you prove that, perhaps it is just a part of some dream inside some creatures head? The rules of logic are valid...how do you prove that maybe what we think is logical is simply based upon are biological inheritance and we actually have no choice in what we choose? These are the assumptions that the power point slide is addressing, the logical assumptions of life. We can provide all kinds of evidence for most of the things on that list but proof is much more difficult because proof has to be able to defeat any other possible objections to the theory. So science accepts the logic of the evidence but often can't provide the proof.

But why then if Newman read that slide presentation did he assert anything against Uniformatarianism. Wikipedia begins it's article on Uniformatrianism with this:

Uniformitarianism is the assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now, have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe. It has included the gradualistic concept that "the present is the key to the past" and is functioning at the same rates. Uniformitarianism has been a key principle of geology, but naturalism's modern geologists, while accepting that geology has occurred across deep time, no longer hold to a strict gradualism.

Simplified; what we see is reality and the reality is not judged by whatever claims to the supernatural may exist. So Newman thinks he is challenging the concept and science because he asserts supernatural activity. But science is not meant to deal with supernatural events and pleading to supernatural events can not change science in the slightest. It would be like putting science back to the middle ages when spirits caused bad whether or the even more ancient belief that spirits caused diseases. Science comes to its assumptions not on faith but by applying logic to the reality we see. Just because it can't be proven does not make something based simply on faith. That should be true for every Christian as well, we come to faith by the evidence.

I am very concerned for the future of Adventism as long as its adherents persist in their practice of twisted logic. But I have to grant that I can't prove that logic should never be twisted or that logic is the best and only solution to problem solving. But it is the best that we have now, based upon the evidence from the use of logic and the misuse of logic; that is real world application. But they can assert their faith without evidence and the wisdom of abandoning scientific methods...where faith just becomes what anyone wants to believe and therefore any faith is equivalent to any other faith.

It is sad to watch a segment of the Christian religion self destruct. But it appears to me to be what is happening when the traditionalists take over reasoning for the church.

Faith is Accepting the Grace of God

Most people when they think of faith think of a belief in something or someone. Something that is not fully happened yet so it can't be claimed to be a reality yet it is something that is expected to occur. We have faith that the building we are in will not simply collapse on us. Just as that faith in the building is either based upon our visual perceptions or our confidence in the builders and the inspectors and the host of people involved in creating a building, faith is never based upon just beliefs it should always be based upon evidence.

This frustrates many traditional type Christians. I was led to the following quote of Ravi Zacharias from a comment on Spectrum, (an open letter to Educate Truth). The commenter said of tand article by someone who used the Ravi Zacharias quote; “He mocks the "blind faith" of Christians, relying on the writings of Ravi Zacharias, a critic of the Bible.” Here is some of what Zacharias wrote:

If a pastor says, “All we need is the Bible,” what does he say to a man who says, “All I need is the Quran”? It is a solipsistic method of arguing.

The pastor is saying, “All I need is my own point of reference and nothing more than that.” Even the gospel was verified by external references. The Bible is a book of history, a book of geography, not just a book of spiritual assertions.

The fact is the resurrection from the dead was the ultimate proof that in history — and in empirically verifiable means — the Word of God was made certain. Otherwise, the experience on the Mount of Transfiguration would have been good enough. But the apostle Peter says in 2 Peter 1:19: “We have the Word of the prophets made more certain … as to a light shining in a dark place.” He testified to the authority and person of Christ, and the resurrected person of Christ.

To believe, “All we need is the Bible and nothing more,” is what the monks believed in medieval times, and they resorted to monasteries. We all know the end of that story. This argument may be good enough for those who are convinced the Bible is authority. The Bible, however, is not authoritative in culture or in a world of counter-perspectives. To say that it is authoritative in these situations is to deny both how the Bible defends itself and how our young people need to defend the Bible’s sufficiency.

There is little point in giving quotes from the blind faith side of things because they have nothing to stand upon aside from their tradition. Tradition may be good, bad or indifferent but if it is not inquired about it has tremendous potential for harm. A few examples of harmful traditions would include these:

...”[F]female circumcision/genital mutilation, facial scarring, the force-feeding of women, early or forced marriage, nutritional taboos, traditional practices associated with childbirth, dowry-related crimes, honor crimes, and the consequences of son preference...”

Faith is not based upon tradition, it is not a product of blind choice and it is not merely the assumptions that what you hope for will happen or what you can't see is there. When the Bible says: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1it is an expression of the results of faith not the reason for the faith. As the Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary says:

“Instead, he treats faith with reference to the future. It is that trust in God that enables believers to press on steadfastly whatever the future holds for them. They know that they can rely on God. So the writer's method is to select some of the great people in the history of God's people and to show briefly how faith motivated all of them and led them forward, no matter how difficult the circumstances.”

Faith was based upon their understanding of God, their experience with God, tradition may have been involved but it is only one part of the overall experience and knowledge, information and reality that creates the understanding of God as someone who can be trusted, someone who is a friend and not an enemy.

Few of us would be so foolish as to say we believe in anything by blind faith. Religion seems to be the one clear exception...well perhaps certain conspiracy theories as well. But generally it is not seen as a reasonable position to base anything on blind faith. What happens in traditional Christianity however is that traditional understanding and practices of Biblical interpretation become the excuse to accept blind faith. If someone uses different techniques to interpret the Bible so that it does not conflict with scientific reality, the traditionalist scoffs at the more reasoned explanation.

But the traditionalist does not want to admit that his faith is in a particular form of Bible interpretation technique, so instead they will say that they are simply following the Bible, or the plain reading of the Bible. Thus if you disagree or have a different interpretation you are going against the Bible in their view. If reason, history, science or any other form of reality disagrees with their interpretation they assert their fidelity to the Bible by which they mean their traditional interpretation of the Biblical texts.

Faith is not found in methods of Bible interpretation, it is not found in tradition, it is based upon the reality of the historical person of Jesus Christ as the incarnation of God. A revelation of the love and acceptance of even His enemies and His power over death and His promises of reconciliation. Faith is built on evidence and it is only faith in God, not interpretations, because we can and historically have been wrong in interpretations. But faith is about who God is, Faith is the acceptance of the gracious character of our God. Other things may fail us but if our God is love, the love revealed by Christ then we have good reasons for belief in better things to come.

The Bible misused as a dictionary, Faith still needs evidence

Today let us explore some more of the irrationality that propagates itself contentedly in the Adventist church. Keeping with last weeks article let us again examine a statement made by Preston Foster on Adventist Today website:

What I am positing is that 1) spirituality is, by nature, irrational as it is based on faith which is, by definition, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (that definition, alone, would repel the traditional rational thinker) and, 2) based on our limited ability to comprehend God, whose thoughts and ways, by His own admission, are different than ours is.

How many times have we heard this statement, as if the author of the book of Hebrews was actually trying to define the meaning of faith, as if his intent was to give us the once and for all time meaning of faith even though he had used it before and it had been used many times in the Old Testament and the Jewish religion. After all those using this statement will say that they are only letting the Bible define itself as if the simple common words needed to be defined by the Bible as if it was not only a compilation of books but also a dictionary. Think about that for a moment should I use that technique if I said to someone “I love you” and I used the Bible as a dictionary I could quote “God is love” (1 John 4:8) therefore my statement is now “I God you”. Oh we can work it out in a round about way, we can say God loves and because God loves we are able to love. But still the definition of love is not found in the word God, even less so if I don't capitalize god and I realize that there are many different beliefs about god and gods, after all, not all gods are that terribly loving are they? We can't just substitute one word for another because some place it was equated in a statement where “is” is used. “God God's you” it may be true but what does it mean. So are we really being wise to use Hebrews statement as the definition of faith. Let us look at the text in question with the surrounding context, because after all context gives meaning because we are rational:

^{HEB 10:37} For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay.

^{HEB 10:38} But my righteous one ⁿ will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him." ⁿ

^{HEB 10:39} But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

^{HEB 11:1} Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

^{HEB 11:2} This is what the ancients were commended for.

^{HEB 11:3} By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

^{HEB 11:4} By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.

The purpose here is not to define faith as some kind of irrational thought that just gets into our head and we believe it even though we don't see any evidence of it. Faith is not even meant here to mean just because a person is sure of something and hope that their certainty is true that it is in fact true in all things one maybe sure of, rather that faith in Christ is something He is sure of and encourages other to be sure of. As the Expositor's Bible Commentary says:

The chapter begins with some general observations on the nature of faith. They do not constitute a formal definition; rather, the writer is calling attention to some significant features of faith. Then he proceeds to show how faith works out in practice.

1 In the Greek the verb "is" (estin) is the first word. Faith is a present and continuing reality. It is not simply a virtue sometimes practiced in antiquity. It is a living thing, a way of life the writer wishes to see continued in the practice of his readers. Faith, he tells us, is a hypostasis of things hoped for. The term has evoked lively discussion. Sometimes it has a subjective meaning, as in 3:14 where NIV translates it as "confidence." But it may also be used more objectively, and KJV understands it that way in this passage by translating it as "substance." This would mean that things that have no reality in themselves are made real (given "substance") by faith. But this does not seem to be what the writer is saying. Rather, his meaning is that there are realities for which we have no material evidence though they are not the less real for that. Faith enables us to know that they exist and, while we have no certainty apart from faith, faith does give us genuine certainty. "To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for" (TEV). Faith is the basis, the substructure (hypostasis means lit. "that which stands under") of all that the Christian life means, all that the Christian hopes for.

Faith in the Bible is developed, it is practiced it is lived and thus Hebrews chapter 11 recounts several instances of faith. Not one of them simply based upon some irrational concept. God warns Noah and Noah builds and Ark, Abraham is called by God and goes to a foreign country, Abraham and Sarah have a child which they are promised by God. Now we may not know in all the cases how they received their messages from God but it does appear that it is not meant to convey the idea that their spirituality was based upon some form of irrationality. Instead they were trusting the one that communicated to them. The implication being that their lives included enough reason to come to the place where they could trust God rather then just following an irrational voice in their head. Think of the story of Israel's exodus from Egypt. Moses comes to Pharaoh and tells them what God wants. Pharaoh says who is this god and why should I do what he says and then evidence is provided. Pharaoh needed a rational reason to give up what was to him, his property.

We don't ever want to get to the position of faith without reason. There has to be a reason, there has to be some kind of evidence to create the faith. As Paul once wrote:

^{1CO 15:14} And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

Faith that is not backed by evidence is usually useless. Irrational preaching and faith is useless if there is not reality to move the irrational into the realm of the rational. The problem is that today there are certain people of a fundamentalist perspective who despise logic and reason because reason dictates against certain of their beliefs. Their beliefs having become sacred truth because they hold them tight because they are traditions. When reality conflicts with their beliefs instead of re-evaluating their beliefs they reject reality in favor of their traditions and as in the above quote redefine Biblical material to support their traditional views. Growth however comes from changing, discarding things that don't fit reality and adapting to new systems of thought that function with reality. It is not perfect as you don't arrive at truth instantly it is a constant movement toward greater understanding. Not every theory will work out and when they don't they must be discarded, keeping the theory just because it has become your tradition insures that you won't ever change or grow. This failure to grow is so often the landmark of religion, it becomes why Fundamentalists whether Christian or Islamic fight against modernity. Because modernity and even post modernity refuse to simply accept tradition without evidence.

So we have to move past the irrational toward rational views in all things, and God is not irrational the very process of progressive revelation of the Bible indicates that God understands the need to grow and change and step by step lead people in a rational way while maintaining the necessary distinction between the natural and the supernatural. Which requires us to reason not only why miracles occur but why they don't occur. How best can we understand a God whose capabilities so outweigh our capabilities and the distinction between force and willing trust. It is unlikely that we can fully understand God but to end the rational pursuit of God is a fulfillment of the old commercial that said “a mind is a terribly thing to waste”. We can never get to the point as someone once claimed a church authority said regarding the Godhead and The Plan of Salvation :

“to wit: if we try to understand it, we will lose our minds; but if we don’t believe it, we will lose our souls.”

Faith and Mystery vs. Certainity

I came upon the following quote from the speaker Brene Brown on her lecture “The power of vulnerability” at the TED website :

“The other thing we do is we make everything uncertain certain religion has gone from

faith and mystery to certainty, I'm right your wrong shut up that's it just certain...”

This is such an amazingly true statement yet so simply put that it becomes striking. This is so true of Fundamentalism and now becoming undeniable in Adventism. In a previous post I mentioned an Andrews Seminary student who I think is the perfect example of this. In Ervin Taylor's Blog entitled “Forward into the Past” we read this statement directed toward me:

“..It is also just funny how you and some others speak against the doctrines of the church and at the same time don't leave the church . People like you should be disfellowshiped , and given them a restraning order from our churches”... [please not I don't correct spelling or grammar when quoting blog comments]

I put that quote in because most who read the quote by Brene Brown will see the truth of the first part of the sentence but think that we don't actually have people saying shut up if you are not certain like them. Later on this seminary student who apparently is also already a Pastor from what he says, was more magnanimous, saying:

...”Ervin , Ron and Elaine , your problem is that you don't believe in the inspiration of scripture .As a Pastor , I wouldn't mind having you visit my church . I would just not baptize you or give you any privileges ( like preaching , or teaching a Sababth school class or leading in small groups ) So I believe there is place for everybody in the church , and I think that is what the church does to you , I don't think any of you teach or preach in the churches you attend but I am sure that people smile at you and invite you to stay after potluck . ELder Wilson say we should read more Ellen white , I thik she will answer your questions . read the chapter on creation and you will change your view .I am glad that God the remnant church the gift of prophecy and we have Ellen white who has been right on final events and every single area she wrote . Ellen is our modern day "Moses " who is going to take us to the promised land . If you don't want to be deceived by the Satan ,read her writings .”

Church is to be a place to be smiled at and maybe invited to a potluck just as long as you don't talk about what you think and are given no opportunity to express your beliefs or opinions or uncertainty. Shut up unless you believe like me seems to be the new Adventist Fundamentalism. Did you also notice that he would not even baptize those who don't believe like him. My statements here are not simply representative of this seminary student but upon the actual experiences I have in my local church and many churches I have visited. This seminary student is just a recent example who I have in writing so I don't have to rely on my memory of personal experiences.

Certainly about faith and ancient stories and ancient history is really not that wise. It leads to false acceptance of non facts to be facts. I have reason to believe the stories about Jesus Christ but that is based upon certain evidence but evidence is not completely solid which is why it has from the New Testament times been termed faith. But faith that becomes certainty is no longer faith and if that certainty is based upon the misuse of facts or the absence of facts then that certainty is hubris.

Religion as hubris is not attractive! Certainty becomes exclusiveness and rather then spreading the idea of love and acceptance with the humility to learn more, the “certain” church becomes accepting of those who believe like them, love is lost unless you believe as they do or at best a pipe dream talked about but not practices. Humility and learning become the qualities on the outside, they out there, study the natural world and they study mankind with it's many attributes, inside we have our beliefs and we are certain of them because Scriptures can only be interpreted as we on the inside interpret them. Those who are certain don't need to learn anything because it might go against their certainty, and humility becomes humility based upon the assumption that they have the truth, the certainty of their own view of the truth. As we look at history it is often those who are the most certain who are the most dangerous, you only have to look at certain segments of Islam to see that certainty in action and it deadly consequences.

A religion that has lost it's faith and mystery has lost it reason to exist.

Jan Paulsen lives in the miracle world

The Adventist church has begun a new You Tube channel called Adventists About Life.

In the Science vs. Faith presentation “Pastor Jan Paulsen, world president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church talks about miracles and challenges posed by the world of science and the world of faith..”

The following is my transcription of the almost 2 minute video:

The world of science and the world of faith, two seemingly separate worlds are they on a collision course or do they run parallel to each other or maybe occasionally both.

The world of science generally will accept only that which is empirically verifiable for which there really is, they can look back and say this is it how it happened and this is an actual pattern for how it will happen. I tell you what my problem with that is. That when you lock things into that kind of a model they cannot accept something in which the world of faith call miracles. To me the world of faith is a world in which God’s creative powers are constantly on display.

From the beginning, go to the book of Genesis the first chapter of Genesis through the mighty acts of God in history. You see it in the resurrection of Jesus, you see it in the second coming of Jesus, in the resurrection of our own bodies. The way scriptures present it. In the creation of earth made new. These are all displays of God creative power and it’s full of miracles.

The mind of science generally will not accept as reality that which is miraculous. To me this exists this is real. Miracles that is not a problem I have it for breakfast every day. If you cannot accept the miraculous God’s creative powers revealed in miracles ah…your done, finished you have no future.

This is the reality of my life and I observe God’s creative power on display all the time. To me as an Adventist this is important. To accept God’s creative powers and that is being manifested in many many ways.

The series seems professionally done. I did notice several times when he said miraculous that the camera was focused upon his open hand, which I though was kind of a nice subliminal symbolic message. But most of the message was really utter nonsense. That is the reason I transcribed it because somewhere I had read about this and the person thought it was a really good little talk. After I watched it I wondered if we had seen the same thing.

Let’s look at it in more depth:

The world of science generally will accept only that which is empirically verifiable for which there really is, they can look back and say this is it how it happened and this is an actual pattern for how it will happen. I tell you what my problem with that is. That when you lock things into that kind of a model they cannot accept something in which the world of faith call miracles. To me the world of faith is a world in which God’s creative powers are constantly on display.

Our SDA world president has a problem with Science dealing with empirical evidence for what really is and being able to predict what will happen based upon the empirical evidence. Science has given us so many wonderful things we no longer have to think that because it rains or the wind blows it is a miracle of God. Sure that is the way most all ancient religion including the Israelites thought, but we actually have evidence of things like water cycles. It is really not a problem that science has locked into a model of observation and evidence for cause and effect. There would have never been any real progress had they locked into the faith model. Of course recorded human history had a few thousand years of that, times in which man did not really improve himself or his situation and knowledge was limited to a few and even those few limited in their knowledge.

Paulsen continues with the account of God’s creative power’s constant display:

From the beginning, go to the book of Genesis the first chapter of Genesis through the mighty acts of God in history. You see it in the resurrection of Jesus, you see it in the second coming of Jesus, in the resurrection of our own bodies. The way scriptures present it. In the creation of earth made new. These are all displays of God creative power and it’s full of miracles.

Actually we read about the creative power of God in Genesis we don’t see it; neither did the writers of the book of Genesis. They are stories about the creation, the faith is about the belief in God as creator, it is not about how God created, and we don’t have to assume that the stories were meant as the literal method of creation. Even the resurrection of Jesus is not something we have seen. We do count it as credible because we have accounts of people who witnessed or were informed by witnesses and held to their witness even under persecution, more than faith it is a faith based upon some evidence. The other areas mentioned; the resurrection of our bodies and the creation of an earth made new are entirely based upon faith. We have not seen those things; in fact neither have those who wrote those statements in the Bible. We accept them because it is part of our understanding of the kind of person God is. It is our faith and our hope in the gift that God will give us. But it is not seen as a display of God’s creative power, it is an expectation as yet unfulfilled. It may be that we are living in the midst of multiple miracles or it may be that we are not; just as the ancient world thought everything was caused by God only through time and examination and compiled evidence do we see that perhaps the creator creates natural processes which make constant miracles unnecessary. It may even be that the creator’s miracles are so slight, acting upon DNA that we could never witness them until we have greatly advanced in science.

The mind of science generally will not accept as reality that which is miraculous.

And we should be ever thankful that science does not purport the reality of the miraculous. I can’t imagine a more fruitless source of knowledge than to try and study a miracle. Let us assume someone died and after a couple of days came back to life. Documented, the scientists were there and saw the whole thing. They could study the person for the rest of their lives but if the miracle was caused by an outside source say God they are studying the wrong thing. Empirical data may not tell us the origin of something but the processes involved with the thing can be studied. And no one is really studying them if their first or primary reaction is this is a miracle, I eat them for breakfast. If you don’t, then you have nothing, your done, finished; rather an obnoxious put down of science and the scientific method.

All and all Paulsen has presented us with total nonsense but we have to ask why? What is the purpose for such nonsense where he finds the problem of science in that it does not embrace miracles? Even if it did, even if you thought the world was filled with miracles it would not mean that they were produced by your particular God or your particular religious view. There are all kinds of faiths out there in the world, there is simply no reason to pit science against faith in the way that Paulsen has done. This makes me think there is a larger agenda to this. That it is a way to deny scientific reality in favor of the current fundamentalist young earth creationism. At a time when many Adventist theologians and science professors are attempting to reconcile scientific ages and processes with other ways God could create besides by the literalistic 6 days of creation. Paulsen is offering the traditional faith in the literal Genesis account. In other words the same old thing delivered by the science that he decries.