John Polkinghorne: How Do We Explain the Incredible Uniqueness of Our Form of Multiverse?

"Galaxy Rising"

Star Light, Star Bright

We are light!
Did you know that?
Formed from starlight's cosmic debris
Across the wastelands of space -
Empty space, but not nearly empty, just emptied for creation,
As cosmic dust fallen to Earth
Fallen from the dazzling skies above
Ordained by creation's hands of Almighty God.

Bourne of Light, birthed by Light, formed from Light -
Ye Stars of heaven fallen to Earth
Mingling with earth
Mingling Love
Mangled by sin's dark emptiness.

To shine on a new day as the stars above -
Lighting dark places holding earth's sin
Lighting eternity's days with starlight above
Swept from the heaven's
Fallen as Love.


R.E. Slater
June 15, 2012

Fine-tuning and the “Fruitful Universe”

http://biologos.org/blog/fine-tuning-and-the-fruitful-universe

by John Polkinghorne

June 1, 2012

Today’s entry is part of our Video Blog series. For similar resources, visit our audio/video section, or our full "Conversations" collection. Please note the views expressed in the video are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.

Today's video features John Polkinghorne. Reverend Dr. John Polkinghorne, a British physicist and theologian, is widely regarded as one of the most important scholars in the science/religion discussion today. He worked in theoretical elementary particle physics at Cambridge University for 25 years before becoming an Anglican priest in the early 1980’s. Polkinghorne has written many books on issues in science and theology, including Science and Christian Belief, Belief in God in an Age of Science, and Questions of Truth (with co-author Nicholas Beale). Among his numerous honors, Polkinghorne was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, and he was awarded the prestigious Templeton Prize in 2002.

The conversation this week between Dr. James Dew and Dr. Ard Louis addressed aspects of natural theology, the anthropic principle, and fine-tuning of the universe. This is a topic that the renowned scholar Reverend Dr. John Polkinghorne explored at length in a lecture on the campus of Point Loma Nazarene University, delivered on November 15th, 2010. The entire lecture, entitled “Natural Theology”, is available for download here.

Today’s post is an excerpt from that lecture that explores the question, “Why is the universe so special?” To illustrate this point, Dr. Polkinghorne presents several examples of how the universe is fine-tuned for life, including the constants of stars and the balance of “zero point energy”. The potentiality for life, the fruitfulness of the universe, as he calls it, is accepted throughout science. The contentious question that remains, however, is what is the significance of this fine-tuning?

We provide a written transcript of the talk to make it easier to mull over Dr. Polkinghorne’s ideas while you listen.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Transcript of Lecture

I ask the question, “Why is the universe so special?” Now scientists don’t like things to be special; we like things to be general, and our natural anticipation would have been that the universe is just a common or garden specimen of what a universe might be like.

But we’ve come to understand a lot about the history of the universe. We know that our universe started 13.7 billion years ago, and it started extremely simple, just an almost uniformly expanding ball of energy, about the simplest physical system you could possibly think about. But a world that started so simple has of course become rich and complex. With you and me, in fact, the most remarkable and complex consequences are its history, at least of which we are aware. The human brain is far and away the most complicated physical system we have ever encountered anywhere in our exploration of the universe.

That fact itself might suggest that something has been going on in cosmic history rather than just one thing after another. But we’ve also come to understand many of the processes by which this rich fruitfulness has come to birth. As we’ve come to understand these, we’ve come to see that though these processes are of course evolving processes, they took long periods of time – the universe was 10 billion years old before any form of life appeared in it, at least as far as we know anyway – and life of our complexity only appeared yesterday.

Nevertheless, the universe is pregnant with life, pregnant with the possibility of life, essentially from the beginning onwards. By which I mean the given laws of nature had to take a very specific, very finely tuned form, if the universe was to have so fruitful a history.

That’s a very remarkable discovery, and let me give you some examples of why we believe that. If you’re going to have a fruitful universe, one of the first things you have to get right is that you have to have the right stars in the universe. The stars are going to have a very important role to play. First of all, you must have some stars that are going to be very long lived, live for billions of years, steadily burning, steadily producing energy which will enable the development of life on one of the encircling planets. We understand what makes stars burn in that sort of way very well, and it depends on a delicate balance between the strength of gravity and the strength of electromagnetism. Electromagnetism is the force that holds matter together. The seats on which you are sitting are held together by electromagnetism and in fact you are held together by electromagnetism.

If you alter that balance a little bit in one direction the stars will begin to burn intensely, furiously, just pouring out energy and they will only live a few million years rather than a few billion years. If you move it a little bit in the other direction they will burn so slowly they will be brown stars and they will not produce enough energy to fuel the development of life. So you have to have a very delicate finely tuned balance between the strength of gravity and the strength of electromagnetic forces in a fruitful universe.

Remember, science takes the laws of nature, takes the given strengths of gravity, the given strength of electromagnetism, uses that to explain processes in the world, how things happen, but it doesn’t explain where those laws of nature come from. They are just brute facts as far as science is concerned.

And the stars have another absolutely indispensible role to play. The stars are the place where the heavier elements essential for life are made in the interior nuclear furnaces. There are many elements that are necessary for life, of which carbon is perhaps the most essential. Carbon is the basis of the long chain molecules, which are the biochemical basis of life. The early universe only makes the simplest elements; it makes hydrogen and helium and it makes no carbon at all. Carbon only begins to be made when the universe, which started uniform, begins to condense and become lumpy and grainy with stars and galaxies. As the stars condense they heat up, nuclear processes begin again in their interiors. And it’s those nuclear processes in the stars that make carbon and the heavier elements. Every atom of carbon in your body was once inside a star. We are people of stardust made in the ashes of dead stars.

And that’s a very beautiful process that takes place in that sort of way. And one of the great triumphs of astrophysics and the second half of the 20th century was to unravel that process. One of the people who did some of the most important work on that was a senior colleague of mine in Cambridge called Fred Hoyle. And they were trying to figure out how to make carbon. They got helium, and if you can make three helium nuclei stick together that will produce carbon, but when you have something as small as a nucleus it is impossible to get three to stick together at one time, they’re just too small.

Ok, so let’s do it step by step. Stick two together gives you berylium. Helium 4 gives you beryllium-8, hope it stays around for a bit, another helium comes along, attaches itself, and bingo, you’ve got carbon-12. That’s the obvious thing to think about but it doesn’t work in the obvious way, and the reason it doesn’t work in the obvious way is that beryllium-8 is terribly unstable. It doesn’t oblige you by staying around long enough to catch that third helium, at least in an ordinary, straightforward way.

But Fred realized that it would be just possible for this to happen if there was a very large enhancement effect, in the trade we call it resonance, occurring in carbon at just the right energy, it has to be the right energy, which would enable that attachment process to catch that third helium much much more quickly that you might have thought, in fact so quickly that some of them would get caught before the beryllium-8 disappeared. It was a very good idea, and he must have felt pretty pleased with himself and he went off to just check in the nuclear data tables of this particular resonance’s energy levels, and it wasn’t in the tables, but he knew it must be there, he’s carbon based life like you and me.

So he rang up some friends in the States, a father and son team who were good experimentalists and he said, “Look, you missed something. There’s a resonance and energy level in carbon that you haven’t spotted, and I’ll tell you exactly where to look for it. I know exactly where this energy has got to be. You go look for it.” And they said, “No, no, we don’t want to do that, we have more interesting things to do.” But Fred was very determined and he bullied them into looking for it and they found it.

Now that’s a wonderful achievement, to predict an energy level in carbon on the basis of how it might have been made in the stars is a fantastic scientific achievement. But it’s more than that. Fred had a lifetime conviction of atheism, realized of course that if the laws of physics had been just a little bit different that resonance wouldn’t have been there, and the possibility of carbon-based life is too significant for it just to be a happy accident in his view, so he says in a Yorkshire accent that is beyond my power to imitate, he said that "the universe is a put-up job." Fred didn’t like the word God, and so he said some Intelligent, capital “I” Intelligence, must have monkied with the laws of nature to make carbon production possible. What that could possibly be I don’t know, but the more sensible thing to say is that creation is ordained, that the laws of nature would be such, as to enable the fruitfulness of carbon-based life. [we call this concept "indeterminacy" which is what natural laws are based upon... but for the Christian we see nature's indeterminacy as divinely guided. - res]

We’ll come back to evaluating that possibility in a minute, but before we do, let me give you two other examples of how specific, how special, our universe has to be for us to be able to be here today to think about. We live in a universe that is immensely big, beyond our powers to imagine really. There are a hundred thousand million stars in our galaxy in the Milky Way, of which our sun is just a common or garden specimen, and there are about a hundred thousand million galaxies in the observable universe, of which our Milky Way is a pretty common or garden specimen. So we live in a world that is unimaginably vast, and sometimes we might feel upset by that and think, “What could be the significance of us who are simply inhabitants of a speck of cosmic dust, as you might say, in this vast, vast universe?”

Nevertheless, if all those stars were not there, we would not be here to be upset at the thought of them. Because there is a direct connection between how big a universe is and how long it lasts, and a universe that is significantly smaller than our universe would not have been able to last the 14 billion years, which is the necessary time to produce beings of our complexity. So that’s another condition of the world that has to be right for human beings, or something like human beings, to be a possibility.

One final example, which is the finest tuning of all: quantum theory suggests that there should be an energy attached to space itself. In quantum theory the vacuum, so called empty space, is not just a void. There are things called vacuum fluctuations which occur in a continual sort of seething mass of things coming into being and going out of being all the time. So while there is nothing there that doesn’t mean there is nothing happening. That may sound strange and paradoxical but believe me that’s what quantum theory implies. And of course these happenings, these fluctuations, generate a certain amount of energy, we call it “zero point energy”, and that energy is spread out over the whole of space. So we expect there to be energy associated with space.

And just recently the astronomers have discovered something called dark energy which is driving the expansion of the universe, which is just such an energy associated with [empty] space. Well that’s very good, you might say. However, when we estimate, just from thinking about quantum theory, how much energy there should be in space it turns out to be a fantastically large amount, and when we see the amount of energy there actually is per volume in space, it turns out to be very, very small in relation to that expected size. In fact, it turns out to be smaller by a factor of 10^-120. That means by a factor of 1 over 1 followed by 120 zeros. You don’t have to be a great mathematician to see that’s a fantastically small number. So some fantastic cancellation has taken place to turn that big number into the tiny number that we actually observe, and if it hadn’t taken place we wouldn’t be here to observe it because significantly higher energy would simply have blown the whole show apart too fast for anything interesting to happen. That’s the finest tuning that we know in the universe: one part in 10¹²⁰.

So we live in a world that is very remarkably finely tuned, and we have to consider that. And all scientists would agree about what I have been telling you; this is non-contentious. Where the contention comes in is what we might make of that, what is the further significance of it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

In the conclusion to Dr. Polkinghorne’s lecture, he looks at two explanations for the "fine-tuning" principle -- the multiverse theory and the existence of a divine intelligence -- and explains why natural theology alone is not sufficient to make the case for a God who interacts and cares for his creation. To make the case for theism, he argues, we need revelation, God's self-disclosure. This is manifest in various ways, including that which we experience personally, including ethics and aesthetics.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

So what shall we make of it? Well I have a friend, a philosopher, called John Leslie, who thinks about these things. And he’s a very interesting philosopher. He does his philosophy by telling stories. He’s what you might call a parabolic philosopher. He tells parables. I find that very helpful. I’m not trained in philosophy, but anyone can get the point of a story. And he’s interested in this fine-tuning of our universe, this special character of our universe. And the way he wants us to think about this is by telling the following story.

You are about to be executed. You are tied to the stake, and the rifles of fifty highly trained marksmen are leveled at your chest. The officer gives the order to fire, the shots ring out, and you find you have survived. So what do you do? Do you just shrug your shoulders as you stroll away saying, “Gee, that was a close one”? I think probably not. So remarkable a fact surely calls for an explanation.

And Leslie suggests there are only two kinds of logically possible explanations for your extraordinarily good fortune. One is, maybe, there are many many many executions taking place today. Even the best of marksman occasionally miss, and you happened to be the one where all fifty missed. There will obviously have to be a lot of executions taking place today to make this possible, but it is at least possible. [The exclusionary rule of uncertainty? - res]

But then of course there is another possible explanation of your good fortune. Maybe there was only one execution scheduled for today, but more was going on in that execution than you were aware of. The marksmen were on your side and they missed by design. [The rule of intelligent design - res]

Now you see how that charming parable translates into thinking about the fine-tuning of our world. Of course if our world wasn’t fine-tuned, we wouldn’t be here to be even thinking about it. There would be no carbon-based life. But it’s such a remarkable and astonishing fact that it isn’t rational to simply say, “We’re here because we’re here. Nothing to worry about” any more than it is to say “Gee, that was a close one” as you strolled away from the execution. You should look for an explanation if you possibly can. [The anthropic principle - res]

And Leslie suggests that there are really only two forms of explanation which are possible. One is maybe there are just many many many different universes. Always different laws of nature, all separated from each other, all but our own unobservable by us, and if there is a big enough portfolio of them (and there would have to be a very very large number [that number is calculated to be 10 to the 500, which is a lot - res]), if there is a bigger portfolio then just by chance our universe turns out to be the one that has the right laws of nature for carbon-based life, because of course we are carbon-based life living in it. In other words, our universe is no more than by chance a winning ticket in a sort of multiverse lottery. That is the multiverse explanation of what’s going on, of the fine-tuning of our world.

Of course there is another explanation. Maybe there is only one universe, and it is the way it is because it is not any old world; it is a creation that is to be endowed by its Creator with precisely the finely tuned laws and circumstances which have enabled it to have a fruitful history. These seem to be the two kinds of understandings that make fine-tuning intelligible: either the multiverse, or the universe is a creation.....

Let us break off here from Dr. Polkinghorne's lecture to consider

the following before resuming further below - res

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

As An Aside,
Might We Not Consider...

by R. E. Slater

Or why not a third? That of the creation of multiverses AND of one with our special form of universe within this scenario? This does not reduce God by thinking of Him less, but expands the largeness of God's power and design harnessing the chaotic power of indeterminacy. Because, at least for now, the mathematics of quantum thoery rules for the concept of multiverses and not towards only one singularity - what we have understood as the "Big Bang" birth of our universe. But of an infinite array of Big Bangs each necessary to the formation of our world. Not by chance but by design utilizing chance. And without those "bubbling cauldrons" of inflating and deflating multiverses there is no us. And we still get to the place where Dr. Polkinghorne wishes to get to, that is, that God is the (very active, very involved) Creator of our world, and it is a special world designed for special purposes. Redemptive purposes. Purposes of Fellowship and Life.

Now perhaps those fluctuating masses of multiverses cancel each other out much as the quantum fluctuations of dark energy within our universe's void of space cancel each other out. I'm not sure. But regardless, because of the anthropic principle which states that in the end, we are here and can observe God's creation because all the conditions set for human life are in place for us to observe God's creation. If not, then there would be no us. Consequently, the formation of the universe - that is, our special form of universe - is so unique, and so rare as to be either a highly unique series of special occurences requiring the collaboration of highly unique cosmic processes to occur. Or, we must admit to some kind of "special intelligence" (sic, agnosticism and atheism) or a Godhead (theism) behind these processes that from the outside seems only due to large probabilities of chance (quantum science). But inside, within those processes of indeterminacy, can be understood as the guiding hand of a Creator God, as told to us in the Christian Bible time and time again.

I give below, through Wikipedia, several additional discussions to the above before returning to the conclusion of Dr. Polkinghorne's lecture....

From Wikipedia

Multiverse hypotheses in physics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse#Anthropic_principle

Tegmark's classification

Cosmologist Max Tegmark has provided a taxonomy of universes beyond the familiar observable universe. The levels according to Tegmark's classification are arranged such that subsequent levels can be understood to encompass and expand upon previous levels, and they are briefly described below.^[2][3]

Level I: Beyond our cosmological horizon

A generic prediction of chaotic inflation is an infinite ergodic universe, which, being infinite, must contain Hubble volumes realizing all initial conditions.

Accordingly, an infinite universe will contain an infinite number of Hubble volumes, all having the same physical laws and physical constants. In regard to configurations such as the distribution of matter, almost all will differ from our Hubble volume. However, because there are infinitely many, far beyond the cosmological horizon, there will eventually be Hubble volumes with similar, and even identical, configurations. Tegmark estimates that an identical volume to ours should be about 10¹⁰¹¹⁵ meters away from us.^[4][5] This estimate implies use of the cosmological principle, wherein one assumes our Hubble volume is not special or unique. By extension of the same reasoning, there would, in fact, be an infinite number of Hubble volumes identical to ours in the universe.

Level II: Universes with different physical constants

In the chaotic inflation theory, a variant of the cosmic inflation theory, the multiverse as a whole is stretching and will continue doing so forever, but some regions of space stop stretching and form distinct bubbles, like gas pockets in a loaf of rising bread. Such bubbles are embryonic level I multiverses. Linde and Vanchurin calculated the number of these universes to be on the scale of 10^1010,000,000.^[6]

Different bubbles may experience different spontaneous symmetry breaking resulting in different properties such as different physical constants.^[4]

This level also includes John Archibald Wheeler's oscillatory universe theory and Lee Smolin's fecund universes theory.

Level III: Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics

Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation (MWI) is one of several mainstream interpretations of quantum mechanics. In brief, one aspect of quantum mechanics is that certain observations cannot be predicted absolutely. Instead, there is a range of possible observations, each with a different probability. According to the MWI, each of these possible observations corresponds to a different universe. Suppose a die is thrown that contains six sides and that the numeric result of the throw corresponds to a quantum mechanics observable. All six possible ways the die can fall correspond to six different universes. (More correctly, in MWI there is only a single universe but after the "split" into "many worlds" these cannot in general interact.)^[7]

Tegmark argues that a level III multiverse does not contain more possibilities in the Hubble volume than a level I-II multiverse. In effect, all the different "worlds" created by "splits" in a level III multiverse with the same physical constants can be found in some Hubble volume in a level I multiverse. Tegmark writes that "The only difference between Level I and Level III is where your doppelgängers reside. In Level I they live elsewhere in good old three-dimensional space. In Level III they live on another quantum branch in infinite-dimensional Hilbert space." Similarly, all level II bubble universes with different physical constants can in effect be found as "worlds" created by "splits" at the moment of spontaneous symmetry breaking in a level III multiverse.^[4]

Related to the many-worlds idea are Richard Feynman's multiple histories interpretation and H. Dieter Zeh's many-minds interpretation.

Level IV: Ultimate Ensemble

The Ultimate Ensemble is the hypothesis of Tegmark himself. This level considers equally real all universes that can be described by different mathematical structures. Tegmark writes that "abstract mathematics is so general that any Theory Of Everything (TOE) that is definable in purely formal terms (independent of vague human terminology) is also a mathematical structure. For instance, a TOE involving a set of different types of entities (denoted by words, say) and relations between them (denoted by additional words) is nothing but what mathematicians call a set-theoretical model, and one can generally find a formal system that it is a model of." He argues this "implies that any conceivable parallel universe theory can be described at Level IV" and "subsumes all other ensembles, therefore brings closure to the hierarchy of multiverses, and there cannot be say a Level V."^[8]

Jürgen Schmidhuber, however, says the "set of mathematical structures" is not even well-defined, and admits only universe representations describable by constructive mathematics, that is, computer programs. He explicitly includes universe representations describable by non-halting programs whose output bits converge after finite time, although the convergence time itself may not be predictable by a halting program, due to Kurt Gödel's limitations.^[9][10][11] He also explicitly discusses the more restricted ensemble of quickly computable universes.^[12]

Cyclic theories

Main article: Cyclic model

In several theories there is a series of infinite, self-sustaining cycles (for example: an eternity of Big Bang-Big crunches).

M-theory

See also: Introduction to M-theory, M-theory, Brane cosmology, and String theory landscape

A multiverse of a somewhat different kind has been envisaged within the multi-dimensional extension of string theory known as M-theory, also known as Membrane Theory.^[13] In M-theory our universe and others are created by collisions between p-branes in a space with 11 and 26 dimensions (the number of dimensions depends on the chirality of the observer);^[14][15] each universe takes the form of a D-brane.^[14][15] Objects in each universe are essentially confined to the D-brane of their universe, but may be able to interact with other universes via gravity, a force which is not restricted to D-branes.^[16] This is unlike the universes in the "quantum multiverse", but both concepts can operate at the same time.

The (Weak) Anthropic principle

(Main article: Anthropic principle)

The concept of other universes has been proposed to explain how our Universe appears to be fine-tuned for conscious life as we experience it. If there were a large (possibly infinite) number of universes, each with possibly different physical laws (or different fundamental physical constants), some of these universes, even if very few, would have the combination of laws and fundamental parameters that are suitable for the development of matter, astronomical structures, elemental diversity, stars, and planets that can exist long enough for life to emerge and evolve.

The weak anthropic principle could then be applied to conclude that we (as conscious beings) would only exist in one those few universes that happened to be finely tuned, permitting the existence of life with developed consciousness. Thus, while the probability might be extremely small that any particular universe would have the requisite conditions for life (as we understand [carbon-based] life) to emerge and evolve, this does not require intelligent design per the teleological argument as the only explanation for the conditions in the Universe that promote our existence in it.

Occam's Razor (See also: Kolmogorov complexity)

[Occam's Razor simply states that the simplest explanation is usually the best explanation - "it is a principle urging one to select from among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions and thereby offers the simplest explanation of the effect." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor]

Critics^[who?] argue that to postulate a practically infinite number of unobservable universes just to explain our own seems contrary to Occam's razor.^[19]

Max Tegmark answers:

"A skeptic worries about all the information necessary to specify all those unseen worlds. But an entire ensemble is often much simpler than one of its members. This principle can be stated more formally using the notion of algorithmic information content. The algorithmic information content in a number is, roughly speaking, the length of the shortest computer program that will produce that number as output. For example, consider the set of all integers. Which is simpler, the whole set or just one number? Naively, you might think that a single number is simpler, but the entire set can be generated by quite a trivial computer program, whereas a single number can be hugely long. Therefore, the whole set is actually simpler. 

Similarly, the set of all solutions to Einstein's field equations is simpler than a specific solution. The former is described by a few equations, whereas the latter requires the specification of vast amounts of initial data on some hypersurface. The lesson is that complexity increases when we restrict our attention to one particular element in an ensemble, thereby losing the symmetry and simplicity that were inherent in the totality of all the elements taken together. In this sense, the higher-level multiverses are simpler. Going from our universe [Level 0] to the Level I multiverse eliminates the need to specify initial conditions, upgrading to Level II eliminates the need to specify physical constants, and the Level IV multiverse eliminates the need to specify anything at all."

He continues:

"A common feature of all four multiverse levels is that the simplest and arguably most elegant theory involves parallel universes by default. To deny the existence of those universes, one needs to complicate the theory by adding experimentally unsupported processes and ad hoc postulates: finite space, wave function collapse and ontological asymmetry. Our judgment therefore comes down to which we find more wasteful and inelegant: many worlds or many words. Perhaps we will gradually get used to the weird ways of our cosmos and find its strangeness to be part of its charm."^[4]

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Continuing with Dr. Polkinghorne's Lecture...

... And then the question is: which shall we choose? And Leslie says, and I think he’s right in saying this, he says that as far as fine-tuning is concerned, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. We don’t know which to choose. Each does the explanatory work required of it.

But I think that there is sort of a cumulative case for seeing the world as a creation which I don’t see reflected on the side of the multiverse. I’ve already suggested that the deep intelligibility of the world suggests we should see it as a divine creation with a divine mind behind it. And so that reinforces the notion of seeing the fine-tuning of the world as an expression with a divine purpose behind it. And of course there are also well testified human experience and encounters with sacred reality, of course. So it’s more of a cumulative case for a theistic view for the world that builds up on this side. I don’t see a corresponding cumulative case building up on the multiverse side... [that is, as an argument from the theory of chance; but as demonstrated above, we could also allow for the theory of multiverse, and thus keep indeterminacy as a principle, and still be able to keep the power of the Divine's assemblage as special and unique. Consequently, Dr. Polkinhorne's less specialized argument more-or-less complicates his theme for a Level 0 universe rather than simplifiing it per the observations made when using Occam's Razor as applied to multiverses. - res].

Moreover, of course, it’s not clear without further argument that the multiverse thing simply does the trick. Having an infinite number of things doesn’t guarantee that every desirable property is found among an infinite collection of things. There are an infinite number of even integers, but none of them has the property of oddness. So you have to make some more argument to say that it works in that way.

So that’s another meta-question, which I think receives its most satisfying response and explanation in terms of natural theology, of seeing the world as a divine creation.

In Western metaphysical tradition, there are really two different types of metaphysical tradition, and they differ from each other in what they take as their founding brute fact. Metaphysics simply means a worldview. Scientists sometimes say, “Oh, we don’t go bother with metaphysics,” but that’s absurd. Everybody who has a worldview has a metaphysic. We think metaphysics as inevitably as we speak prose, and the reductionist scientist who says everything is mere matter, nothing but atoms and molecules, is not making a scientific statement, but making a worldview, a metaphysical statement.

So everybody has a metaphysic and everybody has a basic brute fact. And the materialist metaphysic tradition takes the laws of nature, the given properties of matter, as its unexplained brute fact. Somebody like David Hume would suggest that was the right plotting point. And of course a theistic metaphysic takes the brute fact of a divine agent, a divine creator, as its unexplained brute fact.

What I’ve been trying to say to you in the last 20 or 25 minutes is that the laws of nature and their fine-tuned fruitfulness and deep intelligibility have a character that seems to me to point beyond themselves to demand further explanation and makes them unsatisfactory to be treated simply as a brute fact starting point. And that would be my defense of theism.

But now, natural theology, as I said at the beginning, is an attempt to learn something of God by the exercise of reason, by the inspection of the world, by a certain limited source of understanding. And it only appeals to limited kinds of experience -- general experience, the kind we’ve been thinking about – and so it only can lead to limited insight. If you were to give me the maximum success in what I’ve been saying to you this afternoon, it would be as consistent with the spectator God of deism who simply set the world spinning and watched it all happen, as it would be with the providential God of theism, who is of course the God in whom I believe, who not only set the world spinning but who is concerned for that world and interacts providentially in its unfolding history.

So natural theology, even when it’s most successful, can only give you a limited insight into God, and give you a very thin picture of the nature of God. God is the great mathematician or the cosmic architect, something like that. [But] if you want to know more about God, if you want to know, for example, does God care for individual beings? Does God indeed interact with unfolding history? Then you’ll have to look in a different realm of experience, you will have to move from natural theology to the theology of revelation, which appeals to what are believed to be acts of divine self-disclosure in the course of history.

So it’s a limited exercise, but I think it’s an exercise of some value.

[…] I’ll say two things very briefly. I’ve simply been talking about natural theology in terms, essentially, of our scientific understanding of the world, but there is another possible source of natural theology which I think is very important, a different kind of general human experience: personal experience, the experience of value in the world.

For example, I believe that we have irreducible ethical knowledge. I believe that is just a fact, and I know actually about as surely as I know any fact, that torturing children is wrong. That’s not some curious genetic survival strategy which my genes have been encouraging in me. It’s not just some cultural convention of our society, that we choose in our society not to torture children. It’s an actual fact about the world in which we live.

And there lies the question of where do those ethical values come from? And theistic belief provides one with an answer for that, just as the order of world we might see as reflecting the divine mind and the fruitfulness of the world is reflecting the divine purpose, so our ethical intuitions can be seen as being intonations of the good and perfect world of our creator.

And then of course there is the aesthetic experience in the world, and I think we should take our aesthetic experience extremely seriously. I think it’s an encounter with a very important and specific dimension of reality. It’s not just emotion recalled in tranquility or something like that.

And again of course science offers no help for us in these questions of value. If you ask a scientist as a scientist to tell you all he or she could about the nature of music, they would say that it is neural response -- things go off in our brains, neurons fire -- to the impact of sound waves on our ear drum. And of course that is true and this way is worth knowing, but it hardly begins to engage with the deep mystery of music, of how that sequence of sounds in time can speak to us -- and I think speak to us truly -- an encounter of a timeless realm of beauty. I think we should take our aesthetic experience very seriously.

And where do they come from? Where does that aesthetic value come from? And again theistic belief suggests that aesthetic experience is a sharing in the Creator’s joy in creation [sic, see the Lost sight of Transcendence and this website's Art and Poetry sections such as Jars of Clay - res]. So I see belief in God as being a great integrating discipline really, a great integrating insight, perhaps I should say rather than discipline. It links together the order of the world, the fruitfulness of the world, the reality of ethical values, the deep and moving reality of aesthetic values. It makes sense. It’s a whole theory of everything in that way, which is to me, essentially, most satisfying.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

http://www.pointloma.edu/experience/academics/schools-departments/school-theology-christian-ministry/h-orton-wiley-lecture-series/past-lecture-series/rev-dr-john-polkinghorne

The Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne comes to us from the United Kingdom. He is truly a household name in the best of Christian academic inquiry, especially as it relates to the intersection of science and faith. For 25 years, he was a theoretical physicist and played a significant role in the discovery of the smallest known particle called the "quark." In 1979 he resigned his chair as Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University to study for the ministry. He was ordained in 1982 within the Church of England - John Wesley's own theological tradition - and subsequently served in parish ministry for 5 years. He then returned to Cambridge to serve as Dean of the Chapel at Trinity Hall from 1986 - 1989, and then President of Queen's College, Cambridge. Dr. Polkinghorne is a founding member of the Society of Ordained Scientists and the International Society for Science and Religion.

His work demonstrates a commitment to both human agency and divine creative activity in the world - both central tenets of Wesleyanism -particularly expressing the conviction that these need not be mutually exclusive, competing allegiances. His work in bioethics, characterized by a commitment to the dignity of human life, as shared by the American Evangelical tradition, renders his contribution to the H. Orton Wiley Lectures as most timely.

Dr. Polkinghorne is chairperson of the Science, Medicine and Technology Committee of the Church of England's Board of Social Responsibility and has helped shape the UK's ethical guidelines pertaining to the responsible limits of reproductive technology, with particular concern for the ethical implications of fertility treatments and stem cell research.

The Friendship of Science and Religion

An Afternoon with Dr. John Polkinghorne - Part 1
November 14th, 2010
Download MP3

An Afternoon with Dr. John Polkinghorne - Part 2
November 14th, 2010
Download MP3

Dr. John Polkinghorne guest speaker in PLNU Chapel
November 15th, 2010
Download MP3


The Search for Truth in Science and Theology

Lecture 1
"Natural Theology"
November 15th, 2010
Crill Performance Hall
Download MP3

Lecture 2
"Motivated Belief"
November 16th, 2010
Crill Performance Hall
Download MP3

Lecture 3
"Providence and Prayer"
November 16th, 2010
Crill Performance Hall
Download MP3

Lecture 4
"A Destiny Beyond Death"
November 17th, 2010
Crill Performance Hall
Download MP3

continue to -

Index to past articles on "Particle Physics, Quantum Science, and the Universe"

Thoughts on Gratitude and Thankfulness

Growing Your Gratitude in Five Simple Ways

http://www.squidoo.com/growingyourgratitude

You might be here to learn about gratitude because this is all new to you.

Maybe you already know something about gratitude and have been developing it in your life for a while, but you want to grow your gratitude some more.

Or, maybe you're here because you're kinda cynical about the whole gratitude thing.

I know it can be easy to get caught up in the crap in your life, especially if you're going through a lot of rough stuff.

If that's your situation, you might even be thinking, "Ya right. You try and focus on what you're grateful for when you have as much crap in your life as I do."

I get it.

I've been there.

And gratitude works. Even if you can only think of one seemingly ridiculous thing to be grateful for at the beginning.

So no matter why you're here, read on to learn about gratitude and how you can grow it in your life in five simple ways.

What is Gratitude?

Gratitude is actually hard to define.

Here are some attempts:

1 - "[Gratitude is] the quality or feeling of being grateful or thankful" (www.dictionary.com).

2 - "Gratitude, thankfulness, or appreciation is a positive emotion or attitude in acknowledgment of a benefit that one has received or will receive" (Wikipedia).

3 - "Gratefulness is responding to life in all its fullness" (www.gratefulness.org).

I love that last one because I think it gets more to the heart of what gratitude actually is.

These definitions show that gratitude is about being thankful.

It's about being appreciative.

It has to do with your thoughts and emotions and attitudes.

And it has to do with your responses to life - - your actions.

But, for me, these things don't really get at what gratitude really is. That's why I say that gratitude is hard to define.

It's more than this.

It's a "beingness" - - something that is within you and flows out from the core of you.

It's a mindset - - a way of perceiving things that you choose to frame your life with.

It's an acceptance of things and an understanding that there's a purpose in all things . . . a lesson in all things. This implies that there's no resistance. No focus on what's missing. No focus on how much stuff sucks.

It's a choice. It's choosing to look at everything for what it has to teach. It's choosing to be thankful for it all. And it's choosing to move forward, making your life all that you want it to be.

Sarah Ban Breathnach on Gratitude

This very short clip is extremely powerful.

Can you write down 100 reasons why you're grateful for your life just as it is right now?

Gratitude by Sarah Ban Breathnach

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lOF7KEOTj7Q

49 Gratitude Quotes and A Poem of Thankfulness

http://reslater.blogspot.com/2012/06/gratitutde-and-thankfulness.html

Thanksgiving Bible Verses:

15 Great Scripture Quotes

http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/thanksgiving-bible-verses-15-great-scripture-quotes/

Thanksgiving Day is a time to reflect and be thankful for all that God has given us. Let us not only do this one day a year but celebrate the greatness of our God with thanks everyday! This collection of Thanksgiving Bible Verses focus on reasons to praise our great God.

Featured Thanksgiving Verse: Hebrews 12:28-29 Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.

These Thanksgiving Bible Scripture Verses are great for reading before any prayer on thanksgiving day.


Singing Thanksgiving

Psalm 28:7 -The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him.

Psalm 69:30 I will praise the name of God with song, And shall magnify Him with thanksgiving.

Psalm 95:1-6 - O Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the LORD is a great God, And a great King above all gods, In whose hand are the depths of the earth; The peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it; And His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.


Powerful Thanksgiving

For His Deeds

1 Chronicles 16:8 - Oh give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples.

For His Power and Strength

Psalm 107:29-32 - He caused the storm to be still, So that the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad because they were quiet; So He guided them to their desired haven. Let them give thanks to the LORD for His lovingkindness, And for His wonders to the sons of men! Let them extol Him also in the congregation of the people, And praise Him at the seat of the elders.

More Strength Bible Verses

For His Foundation is Firm

Colossians 2:6-7 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.


Speaking Thanksgiving

1 Chronicles 16:34 O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Psalm 34:1 I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Psalm 100:4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving, And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name.

Jonah 2:9 But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay Salvation is from the LORD.”

Ephesians 5:3-4 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.

Everything Thanksgiving

Colossians 3:15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.

1 Timothy 4:4-5 - For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.


Christian Quotes About Thanksgiving:

“A sensible thanksgiving for mercies received is a mighty prayer in the Spirit of God. It prevails with Him unspeakably.” ~ John Bunyan

“We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.” ~ Harry Ironside

“That action is not warrantable which either fears to ask the divine blessing on its performance, or having succeeded, does not come withthanksgiving to God for its success.” ~ Francis Quarles

“We ought to shout out our thanksgiving as if every war were over; as if there were no more big taxes; as if there were no sickness, no crime.” ~ John R. Rice

“I preached on the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of faith. While I was speaking, several dropped down as dead and among the rest such a cry was heard of sinners groaning for the righteousness of faith that it almost drowned my voice. But many of these soon lifted up their heads with joy and broke out into thanksgiving, being assured they now had the desire of their soul – the forgiveness of their sins.” ~ John Wesley


For What Are You Thankful?

Tell us about it, share in the comments below how you have been blessed by the Lord. You might also find some of these other great Bible Verse articles helpful:

20 Bible Verses About Friendship- How should you treat your friends? What does the Bible say about choosing friends? Read these great scripture quotes.

15 Quotes from Jesus in the Bible- What did Jesus say when He was with us? Check out these amazing quotes.

Source:

www. Biblegateway.com

The Holy Bible- New American Standard Version

“Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®,
Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995
by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.”

Life Song - Casting Crowns

The Doctrine of Inerrancy's Oblique Terminology and Virtual Meaninglessness

What does “inerrancy” actually do?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/06/what-does-inerrancy-actually-do/

by Roger Olson

June 9, 2012

Comments

During this week’s brouhaha over possible semi-Pelagianism among Southern Baptist theologians (see the previous two posts and the comments here), one response has stuck in my mind and given me reason to worry. It worries me more than the possibility of semi-Pelagianism in the ranks of the theologians.

I confess that throughout this budding controversy I have occasionally broken a personal policy. Normally I do not go to other blogs to see what others are saying about the subjects we talk about here. But the policy isn’t iron clad; it’s not a rule, just a rule of thumb to protect my time. If I went to every blog someone recommends I read, I’d never get anything else done. So, normally, I only go if the blog is by someone I respect or whose opinions I consider influential and the subject is directly relevant to a matter I’m working on here.

This week I followed a link one commenter provided to a blog containing quotes by leading Baptist theologians about this issue of possible semi-Pelagianism among non-Calvinist Southern Baptist theologians. One of those quotes was from a Southern Baptist seminary president’s blog. (Don’t try to drag a name out of me or even mention possible ones; I’m not interested in personalities here. I’m talking about ideas.)

The well-known seminary president began this particular blog post by congratulating the Southern Baptist theologians he was about to criticize for at least believing in the inerrancy of the Bible. He said he was glad to be having this conversation with them (over grace and free will) because at least they and he agree on biblical inerrancy.

Two things caught my attention about that and made me worry. First, why didn’t the seminary president begin by saying at least he and his debate partners agree about Jesus Christ or salvation by grace? Why jump immediately and directly to the Bible—and a particular theory about the Bible?

Yes, I know what some will say and probably he would say: There’s no point in even discussing doctrine unless you first agree about the Bible. Still, that reveals to me a kind of fixation on methodology and epistemology that, in effect, demotes Jesus Christ, God’s personal self-revelation, to status secondary to the Bible.

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. Would the seminary president say to JWs at his door “Well, at least we agree on the inerrancy of the Bible” before proceeding to discuss doctrine with them? I doubt it. (I’m not comparing semi-Pelagian Baptists with Jehovah’s Witnesses; I’m just making a point about inerrancy.)

It seems to me that the most important thing the seminary president and his possibly semi-Pelagian fellow Southern Baptists have in common is not inerrancy but the deity of Jesus Christ. I do worry that the fundamentalist and neo-fundamentalist penchant for jumping directly to biblical inerrancy as the litmus test for who’s worthy and not worthy of being taken seriously for theological dialogue reveals a latent, implicit bibliolatry which concerns me more than latent, implicit semi-Pelagianism.

Second, appeals to inerrancy without clear definition of it seems useless. There are so many definitions of “inerrancy” that, without agreement about what it means, simply uttering the word does nothing other than affirm a shibboleth that functions as a symbol of belonging to a tribe. But how much of a tribe is it if the shibboleth doesn’t really mean anything? And, as I’ve argued here before, what good is it if all who use it qualify it to death?

I assume that the seminary president’s mention of inerrancy as something both he and his possibly semi-Pelagian fellow Southern Baptists share in common was an attempt to affirm common ground so that they have something to use as an authority for settling doctrinal disputes. The problem is, of course, that bare “inerrancy” doesn’t do that. That is illustrated by the fact that he, a TULIP Calvinist, and they, at least leaning toward semi-Pelagianism, claim to adhere to the same inerrant authority and yet they disagree about its meaning around a very basic doctrinal locus.

My point is that “inerrancy” by itself doesn’t guarantee doctrinal orthodoxy. Would this seminary president say to a group of open theists “Well, at least we agree on inerrancy?” I doubt it—even if they did agree on it. But what does “agreeing” about inerrancy even mean?

“Inerrancy” is such a disputed concept that appeal to it does very little good without clear agreement about what it means. And once it’s defined, usually, at least among biblical scholars and theologians, it boils down to “authority for doctrine”—sola or prima scriptura. Even that, however, doesn’t guarantee doctrinal agreement (obviously!).

What the seminary president should have said (after mentioning their common faith in Jesus Christ) is “We agree that salvation is all of grace.” That’s true and meaningful. By itself, of course, it doesn’t settle the issue, but it provides substantial common ground on which the parties can discuss what that implies about human ability or disability, prevenient grace, etc.

Suppose the seminary president met someone with whom he agreed about everything except inerrancy? What would he do? Would he have Christian fellowship with him or her? Would he consider hiring him or her to teach at the seminary? Somehow I doubt it.

“Inerrancy” has simply become an over-inflated concept in neo-fundamentalist circles. It functions mainly as a shibboleth, a marker of belonging to a tribe. It’s too disputed (i.e., admits of radically diverse interpretations) and simplistic really to function as more than that. And even with that use it simply papers over important doctrinal disagreements that touch on the gospel.

To test this thesis, I once entered into a lengthy e-mail exchange about inerrancy with a president of a professional society of evangelical scholars that requires affirmation of inerrancy for membership. After many e-mail exchanges it became apparent to both of us that our agreement about biblical authority was substantial. I simply do not think “inerrancy” is the right word for what we both believe. (I suspect the vast majority of lay people and pastors in that scholar’s constituency have no idea how radically he and others qualify inerrancy—what they think it is compatible with.) So I asked him if I could join his professional society. He said no. To me, that proves “inerrancy” is, often, at least, merely a shibboleth [excluding others from a fellowship's fellowship - res].

My real worry about all this is the danger of bibliolatry. I suspect there is a sophisticated kind of latent bibliolatry at work among fundamentalists and neo-fundamentalists. Of course, they don’t explicitly worship the Bible. But a certain theory about the Bible is turned into a litmus test that divides Christians who agree on all the essentials of the Christian faith. “Faith in the Bible as God’s inerrant word” leans toward worshiping the Bible. The Bible itself should not be an object of veneration and that comes too close to it and opens the door to popular magical treatments of Bibles as talismen.

I once saw a television program that included a segment about Christian contractors who hide Bibles inside the walls of houses they are building. I grew up in a church where that would probably have been greeted as a great idea. (I was punished for putting a book on top of a Bible more than once!) I have a nagging feeling that contemporary fundamentalist and neo-fundamentalist treatment of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy easily flows over into such practices.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Further thoughts on why “inerrancy” is problematic

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/06/further-thoughts-on-why-inerrancy-is-problematic/

by Roger Olson

June 11, 2012

Comments

Notice I put “inerrancy” in “scare quotes.” That’s to indicate that what I am talking about is the term, not precisely the concept. Or, to put it another way, my concern is that the term is used for many different concepts and therefore, without definition, is virtually meaningless.

Now I am going to quote a leading evangelical theologian’s definition of biblical inerrancy. I’m not revealing his name first; his identity as the definition’s author is below it. I challenge you to read the definition first and only then see who wrote it. And before peeking at the author’s name, formulate an opinion about it. Is the definition what you thought “inerrancy” means? Is it what leading conservative evangelical inerrantist theologians mean? How many would agree with it?

Here is the definition which is copyrighted, but the author’s web site gives permission to disseminate it with the copyright line following. I also provide, as requested, a link to the source of the definition at the author’s web site. (However, I first encountered it elsewhere; it was given to me by a colleague many years ago.)

The definition:

“I. The Word of God

“The Bible is…without error in the original manuscripts…” Since there is a wide diversity of opinions on the meaning of “error” in such an affirmation, it is appropriate that I give my understanding of the word in this context so that you know what I am affirming.

I will suggest two definitions of “error”, the first of which I consider proper for judging the reliability of any literature including the Bible and the second of which I consider improper. According to the first I believe the Bible is “without error”.

1) A writer is in error when the basic intention in his statements and admonitions, properly understood in their nearer and wider context, is not true. (In reference to indicative statements, “true” means they correspond to reality; in reference to admonitions “true” means that obedience of these admonitions is in harmony with reality, i.e., it accords with the will of God.)

2) A writer is in error if any of his individual statements are not literally true.

The difference between these two definitions and my own understanding of the truth of the Bible may be clarified by three illustrations from Scripture. (To many of my fellow theologians the following would sound elementary to the point of being superfluous. But in my tradition it is a necessary starting point if we are to come to properly understand our affirmation on Scripture.)

A) God says about Jerusalem through Jeremiah (15:8), “I have made their widows more in number than the sand of the sea.” This statement is “literally” false. But according to definition 1 above, it is not false since the basic intention of Jeremiah is to press home (by an exaggeration which had become a commonplace analogy in the Old Testament) the tragically large number of widows as a sign of God’s judgment.

B) Jesus says in Mark 4:31 that the Kingdom of God “is like a grain of mustard seed which when sown upon the ground is the smallest of all the seeds on earth…” According to definition 2 above, Jesus erred here because the mustard seed is not the smallest seed on the earth. But according to the first definition he did not err because his basic intention was not in the least botanical. The point is the great contrast between the smallness of the seed and the largeness of the full-grown shrub. Jesus capitalized on the proverbial smallness of the mustard seed (TWNT, VII, p. 288) to make a perfect, inerrant point about the Kingdom of God.

C) If we used definition 2 above the Gospel writers would have to be accused of error in their chronology of events of Jesus’ life. Just one illustration: The story of the healing of the paralytic (Mt. 9:1-8 = Mk 2:1-12 = Lk 5:17-26), the call of Levi (Mt 9:9-13 = Mk 2:13-17 = Lk 5:27-32), and the question about fasting (Mt 9:14-47 = Mk 2:18-22 = Lk 5:33-39) follow back to back in all three Synoptics and so refer to the same events. Again, the stilling of the storm (Mt 8:23-27 = Mk 4:35-41 = Lk 8:22-25) and the Gesarene demoniac (Mt 8:28 = Mk 5:1-20 = Lk 8:26-39) follow back to back in all three Synoptics so that with the verbal parallels one can see that the same sequence of events is being referred to in each Gospel. But Matthew has these last two events before the three cited above. While Mark and Luke have them after these three events. It cannot be both ways.

But the Synoptics are not in error here according to the first definition above because it was not their basic intention to give a rigid chronology of Jesus’ ministry (which Papias said already in the second century, cf. Eusebius, E. H. III, 39, 14ff). Their intention was rather to give a faithful presentation of the essential features of Jesus’ teaching and deeds. In this particular instance Matthew probably felt he could best do this by including the storm stilling and Gesarene demoniac scenes in his composition of chapters 8 and 9 where he has gathered ten miracle stories. This presentation of Jesus’ miracle working is then bracketed together with the Sermon on the Mount with the identical summary statements in 4:23 and 9:35. Thus we have a literary unit which beautifully and inerrantly sets forth the essential features of our Lord’s ministry.

These three illustrations should suffice to clarify my understanding of the affirmation: “The Bible is without error.” I thus gladly align myself with the long-proved tradition: perfectio respect finis (perfect with respect to purpose). I know no better statement of my own position on this matter than that of the Second Baptist Confession of 1677: “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience…”

But I think just as important as agreeing with "Affirmation I" in detail is my deep commitment to the spirit of it. From history and from my own experience I can say that it is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of the Bible. We humans are incapable of finding out what we need so much to know: how to overcome sin, to escape the wrath of God, to become new creatures, to walk pleasing to the Lord. God must reveal this to us or we perish. This he has done and continues to do by means of the written Word, the Bible. When a man has understood the Bible he has understood the revelation of God infallibly, inerrantly, and verbally.”

End of the defintion. Please don’t peek at the author’s identity (below) until you’ve considered what you think about this definition. Then read on.

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The author is John Piper. The definition may be found at the following web site:

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/articles/how-are-the-synoptics-without-error/

Here is the requested copyright statement: By John Piper. ©2012 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org

Notice that, in essence, what John Piper says is that the Bible’s “inerrancy” means “perfection with respect to purpose.” It does NOT, he says, require literal interpretation. In fact, it is compatible with blatant errors INSOFAR as the author’s intention was not to be technically precise.

I once showed this definition of inerrancy to Carl F. H. Henry [(without mention Piper by name)]. I have his hand written letter responding to it. He said the author is well intentioned but needs help because the exceptions and qualifications leave inerrancy too open, too imprecise.

Precisely. That’s my point. Even strong inerrantist theologians do not agree among themselves about what inerrancy means. I believe I could affirm John Piper’s definition of inerrancy. But I would be willing to bet that if I produced it without John Piper’s name as its author and said it is what I believe “inerrancy” means many conservative evangelical (neo-fundamentalist) gatekeepers would reject me as not believing in inerrancy.

It is my personal opinion, based on thirty years’ experience “in the thick” of evangelicalism that much of the debate over inerrancy has to do with personalities, situations and contexts. One proof of that, to me, is that Harold Lindsell, author of The Battle for The Bible, signed the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy even though it contains qualifications he explicitly rejected in his book as incompatible with real belief in inerrancy. (The specific issue was Robert Mounce’s column about inerrancy in Eternity magazine. Lindsell attacked it in his book for qualifying inerrancy too much. Then, when Mounce’s qualifications were included in The Chicago Statement, Lindsell signed it anyway.)

I think John Piper’s definition of inerrancy as “perfection with respect to purpose” is good EXCEPT most people would not think that’s what “inerrancy” means. The vast majority of people who hear about “biblical inerrancy” THINK it means technical, precise, exact correspondence with reality with no room for estimates, rounding up or down of numbers, reliance on errant sources, etc., etc. During thirty years of teaching theology I have had the constant experience of showing students the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy and conservative evangelical theologians’ qualifications (e.g., Millard Erickson’s) and having them laugh. When I asked them why they laughed they always said “That’s not ‘inerrancy’.” Exactly.

What has happened is that conservative evangelical theologians and biblical scholars like Piper and Erickson and others have realized, as a result of their higher educations and researches, that the Bible DOES contain what most people (including they in the past) consider “errors.” But they want to hold onto the term “inerrancy” because it is such a useful litmus test for excluding “liberals” and other undesirables from the evangelical movement. So, instead of simply discarding the term “inerrancy,” they redefine it to death. But, almost no lay person and few pastors understand that’s what’s happening. They think the leading defenders of “inerrancy” believe what THEY do. The secret is, the scholars don’t.

Prevenient Grace and Why It Matters to Arminians and Calvinists Alike

Prevenient Grace: Why It Matters

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/06/prevenient-grace-why-it-matters/

by Roger Olson

June 7, 2012

Comments

This is a follow up to my earlier post regarding the statement of the traditional Southern Baptist view of salvation by certain Southern Baptist non-Calvinist, non-Arminian pastors and theologians. If you have not read that post, go back and read it before reading this one. Here I am picking up where I left off there and taking some comments subsequent to it into account. (This article may also be found below at the bottom of this present article; and yes, it is a very short read and should be read first before preceding - res).

Also, here, I am not delving into the debate between Calvinists and Arminians over the nature of prevenient grace as irresistible or resistible. That’s certainly interesting and much discussed in evangelical and Baptist circles, but here I am simply talking about prevenient grace AS IT IS BELIEVED BY BOTH CALVINISTS AND ARMINIANS.

Most people associate “prevenient grace” with Arminianism, but that is something of an accident of historical theology. Calvinists also believe in prevenient grace. “Prevenient grace” is simply a term for the grace of God that goes before, prepares the way, enables, assists the sinner’s repentance and faith (conversion). According to  (i) classical Calvinism this prevenient grace is always efficacious and given only to the elect through the gospel; it effects conversion. According to (ii) classical Arminianism it is an operation of the Holy Spirit that frees the sinner’s will from bondage to sin and convicts, calls, illumines and enables the sinner to respond to the gospel call with repentance and faith (conversion). [It does not however demand that the sinner converts, only that s/he may now be enable to convert through the properly freed use of her/his free will. Consequently prevenient grace is given to all men, both elect as well as non-elect.  - res]

Calvinists and Arminians agree, against Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism, that the sinner’s will is so depraved and bound to sin that it cannot respond positively to the gospel call without supernatural grace.

One commenter here attempted to use 19^th century Methodist Arminian theologian William Burton Pope to say that Arminianism does not necessarily believe what I wrote above. However, here is a quote from Pope that absolutely contradicts that and affirms the necessity of prevenient grace because the fallen will of the sinner is helpless without it: “No ability remains in man to return to God; and this avowal concedes and vindicates the pith of original sin as internal. The natural man…is without the power even to co-operate with Divine influence. The co-operation with grace is of grace. Thus it keeps itself for ever safe from Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism.” (A Compendium of Christian Theology [New York: Phillips & Hunt, n.d.] 2:47) (I provide other quotes from Pope to support my contention that he believed in the necessity of prevenient grace due to bondage of the will to sin and inability to cooperate with grace on page 152 of Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities).

All agree that Pelagianism is rank heresy. It was outrightly condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. Both the magisterial and radical reformers (at least the leading Anabaptists) condemned it as it is traditionally understood to mean (which Pelagius may or may not have meant—he was often ambiguous) that the human person, even after the fall, is capable of achieving saving righteousness apart from supernatural grace.

What is more often misunderstood and debated is the nature of semi-Pelagianism. The only monograph in English that I know of is Divine Grace and Human Agency: A Study of the Semi-Pelagian Controversy by Rebecca Harden Weaver (Union Theological Seminary of Virginia) (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996). Weaver recounts the whole history of the debate over original sin and grace that took place among monks between c.426 and 529. “Semi-Pelagianism” is a theological term coined much later to describe the teaching of certain semi-Augustinian monks of Marseilles (the “Massillians”) led especially by John Cassian. The essence of semi-Pelagianism is that, although humans are fallen and bent toward sin, and cannot achieve righteousness without supernatural grace, they are able apart from supernatural grace to exercise a good will toward God and God awaits that first exercise of a good will before he responds with forgiveness and regenerating grace. The initiative is on the human side. [To which both the classic Calvinist and the classic Armenian would hotly disagree, together, and with one accord.  - res]

As I demonstrate in Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities, Arminius and his faithful followers (Episcopius, Wesley, Fletcher, Watson, Summers, Pope, Miley, Wiley, et al.) adamantly rejected semi-Pelagianism and all, to a person, affirmed the necessity of supernatural grace for the first exercise of a good will toward God. I provide numerous quotes to that effect in the book. It is simply a blatant theological error to equate classical Arminianism with semi-Pelagianism. Unfortunately, there is a long history of making that error among Reformed theologians. Most of them rely on each other for their information about Arminianism and have not read Arminius. Some of them have read some of Wesley and try to single him out as an “inconsistent Calvinist.” That’s nonsense. There is no substantial disagreement between Arminius and Wesley on this or most other subjects (with the possible exception of so-called “eternal security” correctly called “inamissable grace”).

What have Baptists traditionally believed about prevenient grace? Well, of course, Particular Baptists (who appeared about forty years after the Baptist founders Smyth and Helwys and were Calvinists) have always emphasized the necessity of supernatural grace for the beginning of salvation. That’s not in debate. The question is: What have non-Calvinist Baptists believed about prevenient grace (which includes the question what have they believed about the incapacity of the will apart from it)?

It very may well be that the majority of Southern Baptists have believed and do believe that Adam’s fall did not result in the incapacitation of anyone’s will to respond to the gospel apart from supernatural grace. I have argued for a long time that semi-Pelagianism is the default theology of most American Christians of most denominations. The Baptist Faith and Message (1925, 1963) does not settle the issue as it does not speak directly to it.

So, let’s look back at the most important statement of faith of early General Baptists. (“General Baptist” is a term traditionally used for non-Calvinist Baptists.) The Orthodox Creed was written in 1678 in response to Second London Confession of Particular Baptists in 1677. The Orthodox Creed was written and signed (initially) by fifty-four messengers, elders and brethren of General Baptist congregations in England. (See W. L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith [Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1959], pp. 295-334)

Most scholars consider The Orthodox Creed a relatively reliable guide to what General, non-Calvinist Baptists believed in the first century of Baptist life. (Or its second century if you count Anabaptists such as Mennonites as baptists and forerunners of Baptists which I do.)

The Orthodox Creeds says that “man,” as a result of the fall of Adam, “wholly lost all ability, or liberty of will, to any spiritual good, for his eternal salvation, his will being now in bondage under sin and Satan, and therefore not able of his own strength to convert himself nor prepare himself thereunto, without God’s grace taketh away the enmity out of his will, and by his special grace, freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, enabling him to will freely and sincerely, that which is spiritually good….” (XX. Article “Of Free-Will in Man” Lumpkin, p. 312)

Clearly, unequivocally, 17^th century Baptists believed in the incapacitation of the will due to sin and the necessity of special (supernatural) grace for the first movement of the will toward God.

Why? The consistent, constant testimony of Scripture is that human beings do not seek after (the true) God: Psalm 14 and Romans 3 are stand out passages to this effect. At the heart of Paul’s message is that all boasting is excluded because the person has nothing good that he or she has not received (from God). (1 Corinthians 4:12)

Theologically, semi-Pelagianism is shallow and opens the door to Pelagianism; it does not take seriously enough the helplessness of humanity or humanity’s total dependence on God for everything good. It also attributes an autonomy to the human being that elevates the person too high in relation to God. It also reduces the gift nature of salvation and opens the possibility that salvation can be at least partially earned or merited.

Only the doctrine of prevenient grace matches what Scripture says about the human condition and about salvation and protects the gospel from humanistic dilution.

Semi-Pelagianism was condemned by the Second Council of Orange in 529—as Calvinists love to point out. (Usually they use that against Arminianism as if it were semi-Pelagian which it is not. They often gloss over the fact that the council ALSO condemned belief that God ordains anyone to evil! [per Calvinism. - res])

Back to the statement of the traditional Southern Baptist belief about salvation. I am not accusing the authors or signers of semi-Pelagianism. But, as it stands, the statement affirms it, whether intentionally or unintentionally. It begs correction. When corrected, however, if it is ever corrected, to include the necessity of prevenient grace due to incapacitation of will, it will be an Arminian statement whether that term is used or admitted or not. The only reason I can think of why the authors won’t amend it is to avoid being Arminian. Is that good enough reason to rest in theological error?

*I would also add that the statement in its essence is built upon negatives... consequently, I would rewrite it as a series of positive affirmations rather than negative denials. - res

* * * * * * * * * *

Thoughts about “A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation.”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/06/thoughts-about-%e2%80%9ca-statement-of-the-traditional-southern-baptist-understanding-of-gods-plan-of-salvation-%e2%80%9d/

by Roger Olson

June 4, 2012

Comments

 

Thoughts about “A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation.”

 

Recently a group of non-Calvinist Southern Baptists wrote and signed “A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation.” I certainly have no objection to a group of non-Calvinists pushing back against the tidal wave of Calvinism surging over contemporary evangelical and Baptist life in the U.S. (and other places).

 

Let me say first that among the authors and promoters of the statement are Southern Baptist theologians who have been adamantly denying that they are Arminians even though they are not Calvinists. I have thought, upon reading some of their writings (e.g., Whosoever Will), that they are Arminians who just don’t want to wear that label.

 

Now, however, I’m not so sure. Here is their statement about original sin and depravity:

 

“Article Two: The Sinfulness of Man

 

We affirm that, because of the fall of Adam, every person inherits a nature and environment inclined toward sin and that every person who is capable of moral action will sin. Each person’s sin alone brings the wrath of a holy God, broken fellowship with Him, ever-worsening selfishness and destructiveness, death, and condemnation to an eternity in hell.

 

We deny that Adam’s sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person’s free will or rendered any person guilty before he has personally sinned. While no sinner is remotely capable of achieving salvation through his own effort, we deny that any sinner is saved apart from a free response to the Holy Spirit’s drawing through the Gospel.

 

Genesis 3:15-24; 6:5; Deuteronomy 1:39; Isaiah 6:5, 7:15-16;53:6; Jeremiah 17:5,9, 31:29-30; Ezekiel 18:19-20; Romans 1:18-32; 3:9-18, 5:12, 6:23; 7:9; Matthew 7:21-23; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; 6:9-10;15:22; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Hebrews 9:27-28; Revelation 20:11-15” (italics added)

 

A classical Arminian would never deny that Adam’s sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person’s free will. Classical Arminianism (as I have demonstrated in Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities) strongly affirms the bondage of the will to sin before and apart from prevenient grace’s liberating work.

 

Now, perhaps this is the point of the statement’s mention of “the Holy Spirit’s drawing through the Gospel.” But that, too, can be interpreted in a semi-Pelagian way. Semi-Pelagians such as Philip Limborch and (at least in some of his writings) Charles Finney affirmed [rightly] the necessity of the gospel and the Holy Spirit’s enlightening work through it for salvation. What made them semi-Pelagian was their denial or neglect of the divine initiative in salvation (except the gospel message).

 

The problem with this Southern Baptist statement is its neglect of emphasis on the necessity of the prevenience of supernatural grace for the exercise of a good will toward God (including acceptance of the gospel by faith). If the authors believe in that cardinal biblical truth, they need to spell it out more clearly. And they need to delete the sentence that denies the incapacitation of free will due to Adam’s sin.

 

Leaving the statement as it stands, without a clear affirmation of the bondage of the will to sin apart from supernatural grace, inevitably hands the Calvinists ammunition to use against non-Calvinist Baptists.

 

It doesn’t matter what “most Baptists” believe or what is the “traditional Southern Baptist understanding.” For a long time I’ve been stating that most American Christians, including most Baptists, are semi-Pelagian, not Arminian and not merely non-Calvinist.

 

Calvinists and Arminians stand together, with Scripture, against semi-Pelagianism. (Romans 3:11 and 1 Corinthians 4:7 to name just two passages.)

 

 

 

continue to -

 

Index to past articles on "Calvinism v. Arminianism"

 

 




 

Love, Marriage and Mutuality

In place of rules, an atmosphere of

respect and mutuality has developed.

Love gets the duties done
http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/rabbi_albert_lewis_columns/index_2.html

by Rabbi Albert Lewis
The Grand Rapids Press
June 7, 2012

In the year 2000, Shirley and I bought and designed a new condo.

We looked at model A and model B and created model C. We picked each fixture and nob and were fortunate to build just what we wanted.

Over the years, we have done some remodeling and added to our dream home.

While talking recently, we realized there are no rules about how we live in our home (except the very clear ones when the grandchildren come and have to be reminded about their responsibilities). In place of rules, an atmosphere of respect and mutuality has developed, and tasks are accomplished more out of love than assignment.

Laundry and the dishwasher, two unexciting tasks, are addressed by both of us. If one of us sees washing that needs to be dried or sorted, we do it.

The dishwasher is unloaded by whoever gets up first in the morning or is least hu rried. We love to cook together and to share the responsibilities of the kitchen — including the cleanup. We even thank one another for what the other has done. It isn’t necessary, but always appreciated.

And it sends a message that we appreciate one an other.

Of course, there are occasions when there are tasks I don’t see as clearly as Shirley, but we accomplish them because we have chosen to make a house into a loving home. That didn’t happen overnight.

In this home, there have been hours of conversation, agreement, understanding and misunderstanding to reach a place of deep respect. Everything that happens in our lives is worth talking about. We even have certain places we prefer to sit to talk about issues that are most important to us. Fears, disappointments, joys and dreams all find space in our home and in our hearts.

And, after almost 50 years of marriage, we continue to find ways to be more sensitive to one another.

Love and deep mu tual respect evolve, but they are not simply the results of time. My experience has taught me that a truly deep and intimate marriage takes work and a willingness to examine oneself. Over the years, needs, desires, abilities and interests change. All this needs to be brought to the place where we sit and talk.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “The best friend is likely to acquire the best wife, because a good marriage is based on the talent for friendship.”

Shirley is my best friend, strongest supporter and most trusted critic. In this home we occupy and sanctify together, all emotions and thoughts are shared and weighed.

Sometimes, it’ s painful to hear about how we may have disappointed one another, yet it is thrilling to know that we have made one another happy — that we know in our deepest selves we are loved. An anonymous writer noted, “A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.”

With much gratitude and appreciation, we live in such a home.

Albert M. Lewis is rabbi emeritus of Temple Emanuel in Grand Rapids and author of “Soul Sounds: Reflections on Life,” available at soulsoundsbook.com. Email him at albertmlewis@att.net