Handing the enemy a weapon

[philadiddle]

We all believe that the world today is governed by natural laws set in place by God. We wouldn't expect something in the science lab to be influenced by divine intervention. In fact, everything that happens in nature today is explainable with natural explanations. This is because God set things up to give us some space so that we could be free to choose God. Even though science explains so many things, we still believe God is an active God in the world today. Nature itself is set up to act out God's will. For example, if a farmer prays for rain and it rains, the his prayer was answered, even though there is a natural explanation for the rain, it is still God's work.

Now imagine if the farmer said that the rain had supernatural origins, that science couldn't possible explain it. Now the farmer believes in God because of this supernatural rain and he knows of God's existence because of it. He tells his friends because he wants them to believe in God too. The friend looks into it and finds out that meteorology can explain exactly why it rains and says "See, there is no God."

That is what it means to hand the enemy a weapon. To insist that science won't be able to explain a phenomenon, and then when science eventually can explain it (as it always does), ppl like Richard Dawkins will go "See, I can explain it through natural processes, there is no God."

This is essentially what YECs are doing. They insist that there is an unbridgeable gap in the fossil record, an irreducibly complex protein, or an unevolvable feature in an organism. Then, when science explains it, the atheists can say "See, there is a natural explanation, there is no God."

It is quite damaging to Christianity to continually hand the enemy reasons not to believe. I would like to suggest that we try to use God's gift of the scientific method to glorify Him, not to shove him out of the picture as the demands of creationism do. God used the natural method of evolution in the past just the same as He uses other natural methods to work now. There is no conflict between science and God, so stop giving the atheist weapons with your psuedo science.

 

[random_guy]

I believe this is also referred to as the "God of Gaps" argument. Basically, anytime something is unexplainable, you put God into the gap. As science fills out the explanations, the gaps get smaller and smaller, and as a consquence, "God" gets smaller and smaller. That's why I avoid this kind of argument. Sometimes the best answer is, "I don't know."

 

[vossler]

I would like to suggest that we try to use God's gift of the scientific method to glorify Him, not to shove him out of the picture as the demands of creationism do.

I have no knowledge that any creationist in good standing wants to shove God out of the picture. What's interesting is that's exactly how I see evolution, it puts God on the sidelines.

Sometimes the best answer is, "I don't know."

I personally like that answer quite well.

 

[random_guy]

I have no knowledge that any creationist in good standing wants to shove God out of the picture. What's interesting is that's exactly how I see evolution, it puts God on the sidelines.

I think this is one of the key differences between Creationists and TEists. TEists see evolution as a tool used for Creation, while Creationists see evolution as removing God from Creation. It makes it hard for dialog to occur due to this different.

 

[Mallon]

I think this is one of the key differences between Creationists and TEists. TEists see evolution as a tool used for Creation, while Creationists see evolution as removing God from Creation. It makes it hard for dialog to occur due to this different.

Indeed. The argument that evolution places God "on the sidelines" is demonstrative of the YEC understanding of God's providence in the world. Evolution restricts God no less than does meteorology, gravity, or Van der Waal's bonds -- all are natural processes and forces created by God at the start of creation. Why God must be restricted to miraculous acts at certain points in time is beyond me. I see God as present in all the world, whether it be through natural processes or miraculous events. Evolutionary creationism is not to blame for boxing God into the unexplored corners of the universe.

 

[vossler]

I think this is one of the key differences between Creationists and TEists. TEists see evolution as a tool used for Creation, while Creationists see evolution as removing God from Creation. It makes it hard for dialog to occur due to this different.

I agree, this is a major stumbling block.

 

[Smidlee]

This is essentially what YECs are doing. They insist that there is an unbridgeable gap in the fossil record, an irreducibly complex protein, or an unevolvable feature in an organism. Then, when science explains it, the atheists can say "See, there is a natural explanation, there is no God."

It's no big secret atheist put all their faith in science. It's the same with OOL they believe that a future Science Messiah will appear and reveal the true path to solve OOL issue. So it makes no difference what any YEC (or even TE) does,believe or say. So I don't buy your argument.

 

[Assyrian]

Science Messiah

 

[random_guy]

Science Messiah

Richard Dawkins? Honestly, I have no idea. I don't think Smidlee "gets" what science is. Not very many people have faith in science, they use it because it's a great method for figuring out how stuff works. My guess is because science goes against his beliefs, it must also be a religion.

 

[shernren]

Richard Dawkins? Honestly, I have no idea. I don't think Smidlee "gets" what science is. Not very many people have faith in science, they use it because it's a great method for figuring out how stuff works. My guess is because science goes against his beliefs, it must also be a religion.

If you went to a car mechanic 10 times with a car problem, and every single time he fixed the problem within one or two hours and charged you minimal fees, I think you would be quite justified to put faith in your car mechanic for fixing cars up, and at the same time be quite reckless to put faith in your car mechanic for fixing you up.

That is the extent to which people "believe" science. Science has had a fantastic track record at understanding the natural world. And until you can come up with an alternative framework that better works the natural world, science will be here to stay. But at the same time, science will never convincingly explain anything supernatural or spiritual.

That's just how things are.

 

[shernren]

I have no knowledge that any creationist in good standing wants to shove God out of the picture. What's interesting is that's exactly how I see evolution, it puts God on the sidelines.

We have been over this a hundred times but why just evolution? Why not, say, runaway subduction? I think runaway subduction is at least as godless as evolution if not more.

For suppose that creationists finally get their act together and produce a complete scientific model of the Flood. From beginning to end every single day of the Flood can be computer modeled with realistic tectonics, weather, and energy, right down to the Flood being resolved with a great wind blowing across the waters instead of the (rather unscriptural, to me) proposition that land height changes did it. Not just that, scientific modeling can show how every single land structure we have today originates from Flood mechanisms - and as a bonus, it works perfectly when you assume that the world was created in 4004BC. The YECs all stand up and shout "Hallelujah! We were right all along!"

What happens next? The atheists will admit that they were scientifically wrong. But don't you see that philosophically the creationists have proven their point for them? Science becomes the be-all and end-all of physical explanations. You don't need God for a young earth and a global flood, all you need is runaway subduction and a large cloud of water drifting through the solar system. It's utterly scientific and computer-tested down to the milimeter - but if it was computer-tested you can bet that the programmers wouldn't have had a clue how to code God into the math. The atheists will have a perfect physical theory to describe the origins of the earth, and it will be a theory without even a hint of God, as all scientific theories have ever been.

And in fact one of the things I feel that damns YECism is that it started precisely to legitimize a young earth by taking God out of it. It started as fervent fundamentalists realized that saying "The Earth is young because the Bible says so" wasn't going to cut it with people. So what did they do? They took the Bible out of it. The Earth is young because science says so and the Bible doesn't have to enter it one bit. The creation education controversies of the 80s and the ID controversies at the opening of the century only became controversies precisely because their proponents studiously cut the Bible, and then God Himself (in ID), out of their "fight against evolution".

To take an even more general stance, YECism then hangs the validity of the Bible upon their scientific credibility. The Bible must be scientifically true to be true; if scientific theories X, Y, and Z are true, then we are not born sinners, Jesus died on the cross for nothing if he did at all, and we should all give up and go home and shag whoever we want to. Don't you see how that takes God out of it? To say that "if we evolved, then sin has no meaning" is completely missing the point. We are sinners not because we evolved, or because we were specially created, but because God said so - and the creationist attempt to replace "because God said so" with "because the scientific theory of evolution is false" is nothing but taking God out of it. And quite frankly, God said so in so many ways throughout the whole of the Bible and in so many places outside it that for someone to restrict God's declaration of universal sin to a literal interpretation of Genesis 3 is utterly myopic. Just this morning I re-read a book by George Keizer (OTOH) called Help, where in the ending he describes himself, and the rest of the city of New York, walking silently by a woman crouching in a subway station sporting the scars of being beaten by an abusive partner, doing nothing to help - how in the thousands of people who walked by her there wouldn't be a single Good Samaritan, and even if there was one he would never be able to help her fully recover in her dependence and hopelessness. When you look at a scene like that, in a world like this, do you need Adam and Eve and a snake and some fruit - or worse, genetics and paleoanthropology (for disproving evolution essentially involves reinterpreting all the ape genomes and hominid fossils we have found so far) - to tell you that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God?

In fact, when Darwin was formulating his theory of natural selection, he did so within the mindset that this was a tool of the Creator, referring to the Creator many times within his works, and explicitly citing Paley's natural theology as an important influence. Darwin at least was never motivated to leave God out of it; he was just looking for a better natural explanation for things. The founders of scientific creationism on the other hand explicitly cut the Bible out of their presentation of their beliefs, and made creationism out to be something you could believe and teach on scientific bases alone. Aren't they the ones who put God on the sidelines? Shouldn't they get more censure from you than the group of people who include Theodosius Dobzhansky, Kenneth Miller, and (with reservations) Francis Collins?

 

[Smidlee]

Honestly, I have no idea.

Obviously you don't.

 

[Mallon]

Darwin at least was never motivated to leave God out of it; he was just looking for a better natural explanation for things. The founders of scientific creationism on the other hand explicitly cut the Bible out of their presentation of their beliefs, and made creationism out to be something you could believe and teach on scientific bases alone.

Good point, shern. It's telling that Darwin refers to God more in his writings than do the ID proponents, who refuse to finger just who or what the designer is.
Not that Darwin was a bastion to Christianity, though...

 

[vossler]

We have been over this a hundred times but why just evolution? Why not, say, runaway subduction? I think runaway subduction is at least as godless as evolution if not more.

As far as I know runaway subduction doesn't contradict the Bible, so that's reason enough not to mention it with evolution.

What happens next? The atheists will admit that they were scientifically wrong.

That presupposes they are willing to do so. I would submit most atheists will jump through any and all available hoops in other not to admit there is a God and they're quite good at it.

Science becomes the be-all and end-all of physical explanations. If You don't need God for a young earth and a global flood, all you need is runaway subduction and a large cloud of water drifting through the solar system. It's utterly scientific and computer-tested down to the milimeter - but if it was computer-tested you can bet that the programmers wouldn't have had a clue how to code God into the math. The atheists will have a perfect physical theory to describe the origins of the earth, and it will be a theory without even a hint of God, as all scientific theories have ever been.

That's part of the reason why I don't believe pursuing any such theories is beneficial or needed. God's Word stands on its own, it doesn't need science to back it up.

And in fact one of the things I feel that damns YECism is that it started precisely to legitimize a young earth by taking God out of it. It started as fervent fundamentalists realized that saying "The Earth is young because the Bible says so" wasn't going to cut it with people. So what did they do? They took the Bible out of it. The Earth is young because science says so and the Bible doesn't have to enter it one bit.

If it doesn't cut it then we should move on and shake the dust off our feet. I'm not aware of anyone trying to 'cut it' with people by taking the Bible out of the equation and substituting science for it other than evolutionists and IDists. That MO fits both camps quite well.

The creation education controversies of the 80s and the ID controversies at the opening of the century only became controversies precisely because their proponents studiously cut the Bible, and then God Himself (in ID), out of their "fight against evolution".

ID does this but not creationism.

The founders of scientific creationism on the other hand explicitly cut the Bible out of their presentation of their beliefs, and made creationism out to be something you could believe and teach on scientific bases alone.

Are you saying that this is what AiG and ICR do?

 

[shernren]

As far as I know runaway subduction doesn't contradict the Bible, so that's reason enough not to mention it with evolution.

But the problem you specifically mentioned here was:

What's interesting is that's exactly how I see evolution, it puts God on the sidelines.

Do you oppose evolution because you think it is against God, or against the Bible? How does evolution "put God on the sidelines" in any way that creation science does not?

That presupposes they are willing to do so. I would submit most atheists will jump through any and all available hoops in other not to admit there is a God and they're quite good at it.

That's part of the reason why I don't believe pursuing any such theories is beneficial or needed. God's Word stands on its own, it doesn't need science to back it up.

But the whole point of the scientific creationism movement is to make the Flood scientifically legitimate. Should they succeed, then you won't need God to explain a global Flood, any more than you need God to explain evolution - and no atheist will have any compunction believing a theory about the formation of the Earth's geological features that doesn't need a single miracle in it. Why should they? And even if Genesis 1-11 were scientifically true, why would that make any of the rest of the Bible true in any way, and why would that make even Genesis 1-11 spiritually true? If you can prove that it is scientifically plausible that all species were created separately, I can believe it without recourse to any deity or miracles.

Don't you see that creation science sidelines God as much as, if not more than, evolution?

If it doesn't cut it then we should move on and shake the dust off our feet. I'm not aware of anyone trying to 'cut it' with people by taking the Bible out of the equation and substituting science for it other than evolutionists and IDists. That MO fits both camps quite well.
ID does this but not creationism.
Are you saying that this is what AiG and ICR do?

Quite frankly, I think AiG and ICR are extremely naive philosophically, and they have not given enough thought to what scientific veracity means. Their writers have grown up in a culture where science is used to making ultimate truth claims (whether valid or not), and have co-opted that mindset wholesale without giving a thought to what it means for their Christian views. Either all science, including evolution, has room for God; or all science, including creation "science", has no room for God; and if AiG and ICR have been trying to develop a third option I have seen no work or results on their part towards this end.

I don't have the work with me so I can't make specific long citations, but Numbers' The Creationists documents how the founders of scientific creationism did indeed specifically distance themselves from Biblical proclamations and present their beliefs as science-based instead of Scripture-based. In the spirit of the times the early scientific creationists wanted to be known for believing in a young earth for scientific instead of Scriptural reasons.

But we need not look so far afield.

I didn't say the 'need for salvation' was based on Adam. What I said was that we all sin in Adam just as we all are made righteous in Christ. The Scriptures don't say that we cannot be descended from apes through genetic mutations, Mendelian genetics demonstrates that clearly enough. Show me a single beneficial affect that comes from the mutation of a gene involved in neural functions and you might have something there. Otherwise it's all speculation and supposition.

One problem is that it is difficult to demonstrate historical accuracy before the time of Abraham. Fortunately, the geologic strata stand as gigantic testimony to the global flood -- showing accuracy through the account of Noah.

Shouldn't you be disturbed that spiritual consequences are being tied down to scientific theories? If (per impossibile ) MK was convinced of the evolution of humans and laptoppop of conventional geology, would they stop believing then that man has sinned and that the Bible is trustworthy respectively? It is hard to believe that could happen to them but I have seen it happen often enough to dismiss altogether the possibility - and if anyone is to be blamed at all for such happenings it should undoubtedly be those who tried to resort to science to prove the Scriptures in the first place.

 

[vossler]

After reflecting on what you wrote yesterday I’ve found this to be a most interesting line of thinking. I actually find some of this to be very valid and something that has concerned me too. Some creationists to counter the scientific claims of evolution have, at times, in an effort for man’s credibility gotten into the same bed as the evolutionist and attempted to come up with scientific evidence to explain the world we live in as outlined in the Bible where no explanation truly exists. Instead of just saying ‘I don’t know’ they’ve also stepped out into the area of speculation and conjecture, that is very disturbing for me to have to say. The Word of God stands on it’s own and doesn’t require man’s analysis for legitimacy, especially when that analysis is based upon conjecture and speculation.

Now with that out of the way I’ll attempt to answer your questions.

But the problem you specifically mentioned here was:

What's interesting is that's exactly how I see evolution, it puts God on the sidelines.

The original claim stated that scientific creationism attempted to shove God out of the picture is what that response was in reference to. Evolution is exactly what does this, shove God out of the picture and make Him, at best, a bit player.

Do you oppose evolution because you think it is against God, or against the Bible? How does evolution "put God on the sidelines" in any way that creation science does not?

I oppose evolution because it is clearly against the Word of God. Creation science at least attempts to keep the Word of God as its foundation, it isn’t always successful but that’s the idea.

But the whole point of the scientific creationism movement is to make the Flood scientifically legitimate. Should they succeed, then you won't need God to explain a global Flood, any more than you need God to explain evolution - and no atheist will have any compunction believing a theory about the formation of the Earth's geological features that doesn't need a single miracle in it. Why should they? And even if Genesis 1-11 were scientifically true, why would that make any of the rest of the Bible true in any way, and why would that make even Genesis 1-11 spiritually true? If you can prove that it is scientifically plausible that all species were created separately, I can believe it without recourse to any deity or miracles.

Don't you see that creation science sidelines God as much as, if not more than, evolution?

Much of what you say makes sense if you paint the picture the way you do. Certainly I can see how that could lead people to think the way you are proposing. I myself am not looking for scientific legitimacy, at least not as a means of explaining how something occurred, just that it actually did occur. I don’t believe scientific creationism should be focusing on the how, just showing the scientific viability of something having actually occurred is more than sufficient. If the goal is primarily how then they will fall short and have to join the evolutionist by jumping on the speculation and conjecture bandwagon. The how is always God, I don't believe it is for us to know how but only to know who the author of the how is.

Shouldn't you be disturbed that spiritual consequences are being tied down to scientific theories? If (per impossibile ) MK was convinced of the evolution of humans and laptoppop of conventional geology, would they stop believing then that man has sinned and that the Bible is trustworthy respectively? It is hard to believe that could happen to them but I have seen it happen often enough to dismiss altogether the possibility - and if anyone is to be blamed at all for such happenings it should undoubtedly be those who tried to resort to science to prove the Scriptures in the first place.

Yes I am disturbed that for some people scientific theories seem to have spiritual consequences, Mark and laptoppop notwithstanding. I myself have no interest in scientifically proving the Scriptures, at least not from a how to perspective, but I think we should most certainly be looking to do so from a historical perspective.

 

[Assyrian]

I oppose evolution because it is clearly against the Word of God.

It seems odd that you keep making this claim when you don't believe heliocentrism is against the Word of God. Why? Because you interpret the passages differently.

It's a double standard. You allow no scope for other ways of interpreting the six day verses in your 'evolution is clearly against the Word of God' claim, but rely on non literal interpretations with geocentrism and flat earth.

 

[hithesh]

It's the same with OOL they believe that a future Science Messiah will appear and reveal the true path to solve OOL issue.

What is OOL???

 

[hithesh]

and (with reservations) Francis Collins?

why the reservations?

 

[Assyrian]

What is OOL???

I looked it up. According to the Urban Dictionary it is like a Pool, only without the ...

I suspect he means Origin Of Life.