The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 5

Final Assessments (Reviewing “Darwin’s Doubt": Robert Bishop, Part 4)

http://biologos.org/blog/final-assessments-reviewing-darwins-doubt-robert-bishop-part-4

by Robert C. Bishop

September 9, 2014

Today's entry was written by Robert C. Bishop. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.

Note: As the next installment of our Reviewing Darwin’s Doubt series,

we present the last post of Robert Bishop’s four-part review of the book.

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Over the course of this series of posts, we’ve seen how Meyer uses the biology literature to build his case that Intelligent Design (ID) is currently the best explanation for the origin of life. In this final post, I want to step back and consider this case as well as the place for God as Creator in the midst of the developing evolutionary synthesisthat’s been taking place.

If we set aside the divide-and-conquer and question-shift strategies and take the biology literature that Meyer surveys on its own terms, then the argument for ID looks much weaker. The reader may perceive that there has been a bait and switch in Darwin’s Doubt. Charles Marshall’s review of Darwin’s Doubt in Science last year suggests that the problems in Meyer’s book are due to his “true belief” in an Intelligent Designer.[1] And Meyer provides plenty of evidence for this conclusion.

He systematically paints the evolutionary biology literature as challenging neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, mistaking the normal process of theory development and modification for admissions of “weaknesses” in or “criticisms” of evolutionary theory. His case for “weaknesses” and “scientific criticism” is bolstered by selective quotations from the literature under the divide-and-conquer and question-shift strategies. An informed reader gets the impression that Meyer reads the literature hunting for support for his pre-conceived view rather than in search of insight into what evolutionary and developmental biologists are actually saying.

This hunting for ammunition can lead to claims such as “The technical literature in biology is now replete with world-class biologists routinely expressing doubts about various aspects of neo-Darwinian theory, and especially about its central tenant, namely, the alleged creative power of the natural selection and mutational mechanisms,” and that there is a “growing body of critical scientific opinion about the standing of the theory” (p. x). Three remarks are in order regarding Meyer’s claim. First, as Gilbert et al. (1996) make clear[2], they are focusing on an extended synthesis with natural selection and mutations. Second, the world-class biologists Meyer references (e.g., Simon Conway Morris) roundly reject Meyer’s assessment of what they themselves are saying. For instance, Meyer has cited Gilbert and others to the effect that current evolutionary theory is inadequate to explain macroevolution before, but as they have pointed out, they make no such claims.

Third, to say that there is a “growing body of critical scientific opinion about the standing of the theory” is misleading. A fundamental problem is that Meyer mistakes the normal scientific processes of investigating, revising, and extending a theory for “raising doubts” about the theory. The work of historians and philosophers of science as diverse as Thomas Kuhn and Phillip Kitcher have helped us recognize the normal business of scientific theory development is complex and rather messy. However, it’s possible that when hunting for support for a pre-conceived view one might mistake this messy process for “raising doubts” about a theory.

Clearly the kind of mischaracterization in Darwin’s Doubt is rhetorically important: It makes mainstream evolutionary biology look much weaker and more confused than it actually is. So, when Cornelia Dean writes that “There is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on earth” (quoted by Meyer, p. xi), she exhibits a much better grasp of the practices of biologists and the biology literature than Meyer does.

From a history and philosophy of science standpoint, Meyer’s way of framing things is disturbing. Every scientific paradigm is incomplete and always under development. Evolution is no different. It’s been well-known for decades among evolutionary biologists that macroevolution was a promissory note that was expected to be fulfilled as they continued to develop and extend the neo-Darwinian paradigm. More questions than solutions have been generated about the connections among genetic variations, natural selection, and the origin of higher taxa; but this is standard fare for any scientific theory (e.g., we have more questions about Einstein’s theory of general relativity than we did in previous decades as physicists continue to develop and extend the theory). The picture of evolutionary theory and developmental biology presented by Meyer doesn’t help us understand what scientists working in those areas actually do and what their debates actually are about. Nor does his framing help us understand whether evolutionary and developmental biology needs explicit reference to an observable intelligent cause.

The biology literature that Meyer surveys actually exhibits a remarkable self-critical sifting that makes theory development possible. Scientists test and correct one another’s ideas and continue to develop their theoretical frameworks. Gilbert et al. (1996) illustrates this beautifully, laying out a narrative of self-reflection, testing, and theory development in action as the story of the return of embryology and homology to evolutionary biology. This story is particularly relevant, because the discoveries we’ve made in evolutionary development the last thirty years provide eye-popping examples of why it’s important to recognize how even the most well supported theories in science can change and become stronger when evidence from seemingly unrelated fields provide unlooked-for contributions. (For instance, the discovery that deleting specific regulatory gene sequences leads to the production of a reptilian jaw in mice (Gilbert et al. 1996, p. 364)—exactly the sort of thing one would expect if regulatory networks played crucial roles in channeling embryological development.)

Where Is God in All This?

Finally, there is a theological issue to all of this. Many Christians are strongly supportive of ID, but should they be? ID eschews the Bible and theology, taking a thoroughgoing secularist approach to the quest for evidence for intelligent causes in nature. Such a secularist view obscures the status of nature as creation, an arena of Triune care and action (see my white paper). Moreover, ID focuses solely on scientific methods as the only viable means for detecting intelligent causes in nature. This cedes far too much to scientism[3], reflecting the dominant technocratic ethos of the times rather than a reflective Christian approach to understanding the Triune God’s relationship to creation.

Recall Meyer’s dichotomy highlighted in the third post of this series: “Either life arose as the result of purely undirected material processes or a guiding or designing intelligence played a role. Advocates of Intelligent Design favor the latter option and argue that living organisms look designed because they really were designed” (p. 340). Our choice appears to be either intervention from outside, beyond natural processes, or natural processes with no intelligent influence whatsoever. Yet, this is a false choice. Those pursuing evolutionary creation approaches (e.g.,B. B. Warfield) have been exploring theologically robust alternatives where God is active in creation through the very processes of evolution. Passages such as Genesis 1:24-25, Psalm 104, Job 38-42, among others, picture God and creation both at work. Indeed, Genesis 1 affirms that the Earth functions to originate life, not just reproduce it. All of this takes place under the superintendence of the Son and enablement of the Spirit.

Therefore, when biologists investigate evolution, development, and other biological processes, they are exploring the functionality of God’s creation and theorizing about God’s normal ways of working in the world (see my white paper). Many scientists don’t understand that this is what they’re doing, but there is no way to avoid it becausethey are studying a creation designed by our Triune Creator. This doesn’t mean that scientists always get things right; all scientific knowledge is provisional. But it does mean that Christians don’t face the false choice presented in Darwin’s Doubt between evolutionary science and God.

1. Charles R. Marshall, “When Prior Belief Trumps Scholarship,” Science 341:1344.
2. Scott F. Gilbert, John M. Opitz, and Rudolf A. Raff, “Resynthesizing Evolutionary and Developmental Biology,” Developmental Biology 173 (1996): 357-372.
3. Ian Hutchinson, Monopolizing Knowledge: A Scientist Refutes Religion-Denying, Reason-Destroying Scientism. Belmont, MA: Fias Publishing, 2011.

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Robert C. Bishop is the John and Madeline McIntyre Endowed Professor of Philosophy and History of Science and an associate professor of physics and philosophy at Wheaton College in Illinois. He received his master’s degree in physics and doctorate in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin. Bishop's research involves history and philosophy of science, philosophy of physics, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics. Bishop is the author of The Philosophy of the Social Science and co-editor of Between Chance and Choice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Determinism.

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The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - An Introduction

Why All the Fuss over Earth's Remarkable Cambrian Explosion?

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 1

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 2

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 3

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 4

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 5

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 6

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 7

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 4

Meyer’s Inference to Intelligent Design as the Best Explanation (Reviewing “Darwin’s Doubt”: Robert Bishop, Part 3)

http://biologos.org/blog/meyers-inference-to-intelligent-design-as-the-best-explanation-reviewing-da

by Robert C. Bishop

September 8, 2014

Today's entry was written by Robert C. Bishop. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.

Note: As the next installment of our Reviewing Darwin’s Doubt series,

we present part three of Robert Bishop’s four-part review of the book.

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All Christians agree that the universe is designed; otherwise, we would not be able to say that this is God’s creation. Where we may differ is on the nature of that design and the how as well as on expectations for detectability of design. As we’ve seen in the earlier posts, Meyer positions the evolution literature as inadequate to explain the origin of life so that Intelligent Design (ID) appears to be the best explanation for life on Earth. In the final two posts, I’ll examine this inference.

Meyer’s rhetorical strategies, discussed in the previous post, lead up to his punch line in chapter 18:

As I have described the many attempts to explain the scientific enigma motivating this book, the mystery has, in one sense, progressively deepened. As more and more attempts to explain the Cambrian explosion of animal life have failed, the evidence that these various competing theories fail to explain may be considered a set of negative clues–evidence that effectively precludes certain possible causes or explanations [note the divide-and-conquer strategy]. I’ve already explained why the received version of evolutionary theory, neo-Darwinism, fails to account for the explosion of information and form in the Cambrian period. I’ve also examined more recent evolutionary theories and shown why they too fail to explain key aspects of the evidence [the question-shift strategy]. To this point, then, much of the evidence has returned a negative verdict. It has told us a lot about what, in all probability, did not cause the Cambrian explosion. But...an accumulating body of evidence that makes one set of explanations less and less plausible may also begin to paint a picture of an alternative cause and the true explanation. (p. 354, comments in square brackets added)

The divide-and-conquer strategy Meyer pursues does significant work in his case for ID as the best explanation of the proliferation of body plans in the Cambrian period. First, this strategy masks the extended synthesis that has been taking place in the last three decades between population genetics, developmental biology, and epigenetics. Second, as a consequence, this strategy makes it significantly easier to argue that an intelligent cause is the best explanation relative to population genetics, developmental biology, or epigenetics as independent, rival explanations for the diversification of body plans in the Cambrian. Meanwhile, the extended synthesis, which has vastly more explanatory power and supporting evidence than the imagined separation and competition among its components, is left out of the argument. What looks like a compelling case for ID turns out to be mere appearance.

Meyer’s question-shift strategy is similarly significant for his inference that ID is the best explanation for the “Cambrian explosion.” He repeatedly redirects the reader away from the spectacular work on how variations in pre-existing genes lead to new genes within the forming extended synthesis towards the open questions in origin of life research (e.g., how did DNA or the first gene arise?). Meyer then concludes that “attempts to explain the Cambrian explosion of animal life have failed” because these attempts fail to answer origin of life questions.

Since none of the evolutionary mechanisms Meyer surveys supposedly can answer the latter origin question, the divide-and-conquer and question-shift strategies lead to Meyer’s conclusion: “Either life arose as the result of purely undirected material processes or a guiding or designing intelligence played a role. Advocates of Intelligent Design favor the latter option and argue that living organisms look designed because they really were designed” (p. 340). By this point it’s clear to the reader that the diversification of body plans in the Cambrian never was Meyer’s target; the real target is the most challenging problem scientists face, the origin of life.

The door, then, appears to be open for the work of an intelligent agent as a more compelling explanation for the intricacies of living organisms. Here is a representative example:

Nevertheless, neither proponents of “evo-devo,” nor proponents of other recently proposed materialistic theories of evolution, have identified a mutational mechanism capable of generating a [developmental gene regulatory network] or anything even remotely resembling a complex integrated circuit. Yet, in our experience, complex integrated circuits–and the functional integration of parts in complex systems generally–are known to be produced by intelligent agents–specifically by engineers. Moreover, intelligence is the only known cause of such effects. Since developing animals employ a form of integrated circuitry, and certainly one manifesting a tightly and functionally integrated system of parts and subsystems, the necessary presence of these features in developing Cambrian animals would seem to indicate that intelligent agency played a role in their origin. (p. 364, square brackets added)

We can note several things about this comparison with engineering. First, the contrast is between materialist theories and intelligent agents. Here, we face an interpretive issue. On the one hand, Meyer might be using “materialist” to draw a contrast with an immaterial agency. But nowhere in Darwin’s Doubt (nor in Signature in the Cell) does he offer any defense for why the relevant intelligent agents must be immaterial. An inference to the best explanation that starts with everyday scientific activities and ends with an immaterial intelligence as the best explanation is a very large and startling inference indeed! On the other hand, by “materialist” Meyer might mean theories that draw only on unguided or naturalistic causes. If so, then there is a further issue as to whether such theories are metaphysically naturalistic (meaning they already presuppose that there are no spiritual beings or spiritual realm), or are only methodologically naturalistic (meaning they take the biological phenomena on their own terms to understand them as they actually are). Metaphysical naturalism goes far beyond any claims that could be licensed by scientific methods and should be opposed by all believers; methodological naturalism is the way scientific investigation has been done since before the time of the Scientific Revolution and is well-grounded theologically.[1] Meyer certainly would be right to complain about metaphysical naturalism sneaking into scientific conclusions.

Second, the structure of the inference being suggested for the reader is that of a crime scene investigation (indeed, this is how chapter 18 is framed), or an anthropological or archeological investigation (Signature in the Cell draws explicitly on these, too). At first glance, these analogies with forms of human inquiry seem quite compelling given how Meyer has laid out his case. He argues that the complex integrated functionality of gene regulatory networks and other cellular machinery has a reasonable cause in an intelligent agent because such agents are known to be the causes of complex integrated functional systems in our experience (e.g., computers and cell phones).

Yet one problem with this line of inference is that it requires DNA, the genome, and so forth to literally be information-processing / integrated circuit systems operating based on programmed instructions; otherwise, the analogy with the complex integrated functional systems of our experience doesn’t hold. Certainly, it is true that such complex information-processing systems as computers have intelligent agents as their causes. However, language such as “information processing” and “integrated circuits” applied in the biology literature is ambiguous: Is it metaphorical or ontological? Biologists use such information-processing language in a variety of ways and often they use such language without specifying what they mean by it. What Meyer needs is an argument demonstrating that DNA, the genome, and so on ontologically are information processes systems. As metaphors, there is nothing about DNA implying that the context of the genome and the context of the complex integrated functional systems humans design and use are relevantly similar contexts. I see this as an area where there is further work to be done in making a compelling case for ID.

In the absence of that argument, what we have, here, is the fallacy of false analogy. The issue isn’t the level of complexity, though the genome is dazzlingly complex. Complex structures can develop over time through natural processes (e.g., a forested ecosystem developing on burned land over several decades). Rather, the issue is how strongly one can lean on terms that scientists use somewhat ambiguously to make ontological claims about the nature of DNA, the genome, and the like. Without a substantial argument for taking “information processing” and “integrated circuit” talk as ontological truths about the genome, there is no relevant similarity between the context of the genome and that of human-designed information processors.

Third, there are two basic problems with how Meyer compares crime scene investigation, anthropological, and archeological investigations with biological investigation. While it is the case that crime scene investigation offers some wonderful examples of scientific methods, it’s important to note that crime scene investigators already presuppose that a person is the cause of the crime. Similarly, anthropologists and archeologists already assume that human activity is involved. Human intelligence is a presupposition that is internal to such of forms of inquiry.[2]In contrast, an intelligent agent is a presupposition external to cellular and evolutionary biology; intelligence has to be brought in from the outside. This means that when Meyer frames the inference for intelligent agency as a crime scene investigation (or as archeological investigation), the activity of an intelligent agent is now a presupposition for biological inquiry. This is a presupposition biologists rightly object to.

Moreover, Meyer ignores the differences in context between natural science inquiry in biology and chemistry, on the one hand, and human inquiry, on the other. Meyer’s inference that intelligent agency is the best explanation for the Cambrian explosion depends crucially on taking natural science and human inquiry to be the same. But this is to ignore important differences between these two forms of inquiry and their subjects of study.[3] The most important distinction is that natural science inquiry objectifies its subjects of inquiry (e.g., electrons) deploying methods that treat every object of inquiry as related only via forces or other processes, where values and ideals are absent from those forces and processes. That is to say, natural science inquiry treats its objects of study as bundles of properties in a manner abstracted away from the richer contexts of human concerns.[4] However, applying this form of objectification to agents is anything but value-free when applied to inquiry about persons. For instance, astronomers can study the physics of star formation without any judgments about whether it would have been morally better for the star to have formed in a different location. And molecular biologists can study a molecular pathway without any judgments about whether it would have been morally better for the pathway’s reaction to be faster than it is. Whenever we turn to the study of persons, however, we can never avoid some form of moral judgment. Even the act of objectifying persons doesn’t avoid moral judgments: To study persons the same way we study stars and molecular pathways is a whopper of a moral judgment! The objectification that Meyer assumes is particularly problematic when God is the object of inquiry, being treated as no different in kind from chemical molecules as an object of study (as I described in a 2011 post). Meyer’s appeal to crime scene and other forms of human inquiry is neither as innocent nor straightforward as it appears.

Come back tomorrow for the conclusion to this series.

1. Robert C. Bishop, “God and Methodological Naturalism in the Scientific Revolution and Beyond,”Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 65, no. 1 (2013): 10-23.
2. One might object that an important task for crime scene investigators is to determine whether a death, say, happened by accident. Yet, human intelligence is an internal presupposition even in this form of investigation. Investigators depend on human intelligence to provide the appropriate contrast class for determining accidental death.
3. Robert. C. Bishop, The Philosophy of the Social Sciences. London: Continuum Publishers (2007).
4. This doesn’t mean, however, that natural science inquiry doesn’t serve the purposes of human concerns such as bettering human welfare through medical research, for instance. Rather, the natural scientist engages in abstraction and objectification for the purpose of understanding the properties and processes in question to produce effective medicines, say.

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Robert C. Bishop is the John and Madeline McIntyre Endowed Professor of Philosophy and History of Science and an associate professor of physics and philosophy at Wheaton College in Illinois. He received his master’s degree in physics and doctorate in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin. Bishop's research involves history and philosophy of science, philosophy of physics, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics. Bishop is the author of The Philosophy of the Social Science and co-editor of Between Chance and Choice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Determinism.

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The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - An Introduction

Why All the Fuss over Earth's Remarkable Cambrian Explosion?

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 1

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 2

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 3

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 4

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 5

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 6

The Differences Between "Intelligent Design" and "Evolutionary Creationism" - Part 7

Answering Charges of Impropriety. Part 3 - Underminining Tradition

Answering Charges of Impropriety

Today's post presents the problem of libel amongst over-eager, judgmental Christians to slap names and labels upon people and movements that can be mis-representative of that individual or movement in endeavors to create (or foment) public mis-information that is demeaning and personally destructive.

Any astute observer of the Press or social media sees this all the time - from Wall Street to Congress, from public officials to well-spoken religious leaders and teachers. Usually this is done by well-meaning people who hold an imperfect knowledge of what they are charging linking one event with another that is actually specious and untrue. At other times the charge is true and valid and requires both parties to work out what it would mean for any future relationship (family squabbles are usually of this nature between husband and wife, or child and parent). During this time love and commitment will be tested and perhaps either healed and deepened, or broken and left in disrepair. But the risk is ever towards personal separation and dis-connection when argumentation unfolds and libelous charges are carelessly thrown back-and-forth. This is not of God, nor of the Spirit, as the church of God.

The process of accusation can be seen time-and-again in the Bible from its earliest Old Testament pages when Moses was charged by the people for misconduct to Jesus' day at the hands of the Pharisees. Even in the New Testament church there was the problem of false prophets, teachers, and shepherds. This is not a new problem but an old problem that often is be bounded by ignorance, well-meaning but errant loyalty, or desires to protect and save. At other times disruption is driven by hatred, envy, and jealousy. The motives vary by its audience. And the charges as old as humanity itself.

Some charges may be true. Some may not be true. Essentially, the accused and the accuser must come to a resolution with each other in order to move on in relational affiliation. In the case of religion, this can be of a very personal nature involving the deepest passions of man. Inquisitions and crusades have been created on the backs of religion. Families have lost loved ones over religion (a Protestant child leaving his/her Catholic family; a brainwashed family member to the cults; or even over so slight a difference as to whether one sings hymns in church or listens to worship bands on a Sunday's venue).

Essentially, the accused person or religious body must determine the charge's source: is it one of simple mis-understanding and mis-information? Perhaps a cultural or generational disagreement? Or is it one of a more personal nature stemming in attacks of vindictiveness. Charges that bear validity need to be resolved on the part of the accused, forgiven, and ended. But charges that are not true must likewise be resolved on the part of the accuser, forgiven, and ended.

Realizedly, some personalities can be business-like and do this quite nicely with one another. Other personalities deeply struggle with this process and compound the problem unnecessarily a thousand-fold. A wise person, or body of governance, will determine the nature of the working environment as they move forward in the process, deciding perhaps to work with a mediator (or mediating body) who/which may help heal a torn relationship. The process of remediation can be a difficult one. For a wise person, the initial charges brought forth must always be with the attitude of reconciliation should it come to that, and rapidly so, if it can be done.

But if untrue, charges of libel or heresy tend to "stick" to the person, event, or movement, once a charge has been made, and is never so simply removed or resolved, persisting on the willingness of its accusers to believe untruths, falseness, rumor, or innuendo. And once tainted, a ministry, or minister, can never quite shake off the charge(s) of mis-appropriation, mis-conduct, or mis-information. It becomes a life-long combat that can hinder an otherwise good ministry. Or in many cases redirect that ministry's efforts towards areas of compromise and injustice (a recent example of this is the evangelic furor over World Vision).

In some instances, highly influential church leaders that have fallen can be Teflon-like and are able to bounce back from disaster, somehow side-stepping accusations without having deeply addressed those charges of impropriety. But more often than not, charges that are valid must be addressed (unless tempered with extreme prejudice and hostile intent). In those cases, a court of public opinion (in the case of religion, a synod or council, for instance) must be held to determine the veracity of the charges whether true or not. In many cases, differences in religious doctrine may only lead to splits and disunity. Religious creeds, confessions, and church doctrinal bodies have been birthed upon this process until we now have, 500 years after the Protestant Reformation, as many differing kinds of faith as we do people holding them.

In a postmodern church, or an emerging assembly of believers, these differences are being lowered as today's 21st Century Christians seek a greater spirit of unity over disunity. They are more willing to irenically discuss doctrinal differences within the greater center of Christ's healing atonement and fellowship rather than focusing upon the many dividers and dissemblers of the Christian faith. Others have taken it upon themselves to point out the historical background of dogmatic and doctrinal disagreements in hopes of providing an expanded biblical basis for sound judgment, understanding, and reconciliation, without jettisoning the faith altogether based upon premise and suspicion.

More often now than ever, the Bible's earlier faiths were built in a time without today's greater hindsight of church history, science, technology, and the arts, and pervasive global communications amongst world religions and cultures. As such, theology today is rapidly, if not expediently, working towards more enlightened definitions and expanded religious categories not previous thought in light of postmodern theological movements and cultural resettlement forced upon despised unfortunates (think of the many refugee populations that have shifted under threat of death and torture). As a result, faith has tended towards despair as much as towards the spiritual. Towards nothingness as much as towards a God-ness. And a deep response of love and acceptance is needed, especially of the church of God, if not very humanity itself.

For the church today the charge is to make the gospel relevant, meaningful, personal, and healing. To adjudicate Christ and His Word is now being re-contextualized towards less judgmentalism and more openness and acceptance. Even the word "adjudication" itself is wrong, communicating attitudes of "rightness and wrongness," of "black-and-white" thinking, against a postmodern world that sees life's categories in terms of non-binary, non-dualistic hyperbole, paradox, mystery, pattern-and-flow.

What this means is that yesteryear's doctrines and dogmas must come under a re-evaluation so that the postmodern Christian church might move forward in missional witness that is more open, receptive, and reconciling than ever before. Showing by love and good works the majesty of Christ and not simply the austerity of church politics and polities. To speak to a post-Christian world of the love of God and the power of His Holy Spirit in the action-words of redemption, resurrection, renewal, reclamation, reformation, and rebirth. As any good parent will know, good words vastly outweigh harsh words of duty and honor. So too has the Lord called us by the same in this day and age. To reach out to those different from ourselves in respect and goodwill to share a faith that has the power to heal the sin-sick soul and broken spirit. To bring justice to oppressive lands and households of discord and abuse. To share in the labor of life with others - both in its sufferings and toils, as well as its joys and laughters - as with a fellow souls traversing this world of reclaim and shalom. Amen.

R.E. Slater

September 15, 2014

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Amazon link

The controversial Bible scholar and author of The Evolution of Adam recounts his transformative spiritual journey in which he discovered a new, more honest way to love and appreciate God’s Word.

Trained as an evangelical Bible scholar, Peter Enns loved the Scriptures and shared his devotion, teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary. But the further he studied the Bible, the more he found himself confronted by questions that could neither be answered within the rigid framework of his religious instruction or accepted among the conservative evangelical community.

Rejecting the increasingly complicated intellectual games used by conservative Christians to “protect” the Bible, Enns was conflicted. Is this what God really requires? How could God’s plan for divine inspiration mean ignoring what is really written in the Bible? These questions eventually cost Enns his job—but they also opened a new spiritual path for him to follow.

The Bible Tells Me So chronicles Enns’s spiritual odyssey, how he came to see beyond restrictive doctrine and learned to embrace God’s Word as it is actually written. As he explores questions progressive evangelical readers of Scripture commonly face yet fear voicing, Enns reveals that they are the very questions that God wants us to consider—the essence of our spiritual study.


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Cathedral of St.-Etienne, Bourges, France

Moving Tradition from the Modern to the Post-Modern

R.E. Slater

September 17, 2014

When reading from the pen of Peter Enn's latest book, The Bible Tells Me So, the reader is introduced to what first appears as a whole range of non-traditional teaching that is cognitively disruptive and smelling of liberalism.

But it simply isn't.

What one thinks is the difference in Enn's scandalous words is the distance it has moved away from the church's more pedantic evangelic words of Scripture that have arisen over a past century's worth of great preaching.

Working from the ancient texts of the Bible (or what has been preserved of them through the oral teachings and religious traditions of ancient cultures), the reader at once sees its "airs" and "vernaculars" to differ substantially from our own English vernaculars steeped in an Americanized context of modernity. Moreover, this modern, Americanized context has also been re-contextualized religiously into an ironclad type of doctrine and dogma known as evangelicalism that has rigorously reworked the text of the Bible to become unlike its own pages - and more like us with our own cultural expectations of good and evil, God and sin.

At which point the wary (not weary) reader must know that reading the Bible from our own expectations can be both confusing and misleading when approaching the ancient pages and cultures of Scripture. Modernized doctrines no longer work - and dogmas no longer persist - except within the persistent culture of its supplicants. They become less plain, and more tumbled and confused, within the jargon of modern day societies filled with its own systematic arguments and pagan conventions of thought, means, and outcomes.

But for the text of the Bible to be like itself one has to revisit the text of Scripture from its own basis (and bias) written within more ancient times than the Americanized (or Westernized civilizational) context that the modern church has placed upon it. And when it is read like this than the Scriptures become unlike what we have heard and believed for so long within our evangelic Protestant and Catholic cultures.

Not that all evangelic teaching is bad. It's main points of salvation by grace through an atoning God of grace and forgiveness upon penitent sinners is to the point. This is the very nub of evangelicalism! But it is between the points, and the across the points, that it's tumbled thoughts about the Christian faith has become more like a dryer full of washed clothes cycled in a jumble of words and schisms that have become decidedly more like us and less like Scripture.

We know this because 2000-4000 years ago the area of science and technology had not occurred when the Scriptures were written. Nor had 20th century genocidal warfare occurred to the degree that it had in this past century. Nor the rapid disillusionment of whole societies when visiting the horror and carnage of societal warfare and class struggle upon one another. Consequently, world philosophy has changed. The academic disciplines have changed. Even literature itself has changed from pre-dated medieval thinking to a post-Renaissance, post-Reformational thinking that has given way to a whole range of Enlightenment's predecessors.

In essence, humanity had grown up. Matured. Moved on past the ancient eras and thinkings of biblical societies to confront their own histories and traditions and there find God still present within the sins and turmoils of our modern day world. But also distant from us even as He was to His own people who spoke un-God-like words met with un-God-like actions of hatred and war, injustice and unholy religious posturing.

The church within a society of men and women struggles as deeply now as the tribes of Israel of believing men and women did then. Asking the deep questions of "Who is God? Why has He forsaken me? What are we to do?" is no less pertinent then as they are now.

And with these questions must come a better idea of "Who God is. What does He want from us now. And why we live a life that is like the life we now live."

It is a truth that the unchangeable One has changed. The immovable One has moved. The impassive One has lamented for our destructions, our lostness, our sufferings, and deep darks. The God of the universe - the God of eternity - has been changed by His passions for our eras and times. He has been moved to present Himself for our atonement and redemption. He has cried in His heart of hearts for the destructions we have heaped upon our heads and our souls. Surely this God is no less than the God of the Scriptures who did the same in ancient times though we understood Him not.

And much less today with our "biblical" philosophies and predilections for dogmatic conventions and teachings denying the Holy One of Israel to be who He is when raising the very Bible that tells of Him beyond the Author Himself unto a standard that has become more Pharisaical and less Jesus-like.

But surely it is to this God of Scripture whom we must look for salvation and healing. To begin to do so will require abandoning evangelic doctrines-and-dogmas of the Bible that are no longer tenable in this day and age. Doctrines like inerrancy that have removed this God from our everyday living. Dogmas like "intelligent design" and "special creation" that do not purport with today's evolutionary sciences and technologies. Thoughts like "God has abandoned us" when He is the ever move present in our lives than even the closest Holy Spirit moment in Scripture through the lives of His prophets and disciples.

Yeah, it is we who have changed and must change yet again to be able to read and hear this God's Words afresh. And from within the context of our postmodernal civilizations when properly read - and not layered by modernity's culture of tenuous overlays and heated arguments - as a more proper counterweight to the 20th century's biblical zeals and excesses.

God is with us. This is a truth. And He has come through His Son who has made God's homecoming possible. We are not abandoned but we are held to a judgment to repent and forsake the sins of this world and give all to the Savior who has given all to us. These are sound evangelical observations. But how has this God come? And in His coming what does this now mean for today? These too must be answered within a broader context than formally realized.

Let us then yield yet one more time and look with favor upon the freshness of Scripture as it comes to life under the pens of new theologic reformers crying out, "Stand ye and hear!" This is a new day of Reformation. A day which makes fresh and relevant the Word of God to the disbelieving hearts of a younger generation in great doubt and dismay with yesteryear's arguments and teachings.

A day that proclaims God is dead when verily He is not. But dead to us in doctrines and dogmas that require fresh wineskins to expand with the fermenting juice of the Gospel lest they burst asunder and lose its good fruit upon a hard and unreceiving ground.

Let us then seek those wineskins in the new skins of postmodernism sent as a blessing by the hand of God who confuses the wise and makes wise the fool. Amen

- re slater

Recent blog articles from Peter's Pen

Jesus didn’t read his Bible like we do–(from The Bible Tells Me So)

the Bible is like clay to be molded around Jesus–(from The Bible Tells Me So)

the Bible’s diverse God–(from The Bible Tells Me So)

stories work–(from The Bible Tells Me So)

the Bible, history, and storytelling–(from The Bible Tells Me So)

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Answering Charges of Impropriety. Part 1 - Undermining the Bible

Answering Charges of Impropriety. Part 2 - Underminining Inerrancy

Answering Charges of Impropriety. Part 3 - Underminining Tradition

Answering Charges of Impropriety. Part 2 - Underminining Inerrancy

Answering Charges of Impropriety

Today's post presents the problem of libel amongst over-eager, judgmental Christians to slap names and labels upon people and movements that can be mis-representative of that individual or movement in endeavors to create (or foment) public mis-information that is demeaning and personally destructive.

Any astute observer of the Press or social media sees this all the time - from Wall Street to Congress, from public officials to well-spoken religious leaders and teachers. Usually this is done by well-meaning people who hold an imperfect knowledge of what they are charging linking one event with another that is actually specious and untrue. At other times the charge is true and valid and requires both parties to work out what it would mean for any future relationship (family squabbles are usually of this nature between husband and wife, or child and parent). During this time love and commitment will be tested and perhaps either healed and deepened, or broken and left in disrepair. But the risk is ever towards personal separation and dis-connection when argumentation unfolds and libelous charges are carelessly thrown back-and-forth. This is not of God, nor of the Spirit, as the church of God.

The process of accusation can be seen time-and-again in the Bible from its earliest Old Testament pages when Moses was charged by the people for misconduct to Jesus' day at the hands of the Pharisees. Even in the New Testament church there was the problem of false prophets, teachers, and shepherds. This is not a new problem but an old problem that often is be bounded by ignorance, well-meaning but errant loyalty, or desires to protect and save. At other times disruption is driven by hatred, envy, and jealousy. The motives vary by its audience. And the charges as old as humanity itself.

Some charges may be true. Some may not be true. Essentially, the accused and the accuser must come to a resolution with each other in order to move on in relational affiliation. In the case of religion, this can be of a very personal nature involving the deepest passions of man. Inquisitions and crusades have been created on the backs of religion. Families have lost loved ones over religion (a Protestant child leaving his/her Catholic family; a brainwashed family member to the cults; or even over so slight a difference as to whether one sings hymns in church or listens to worship bands on a Sunday's venue).

Essentially, the accused person or religious body must determine the charge's source: is it one of simple mis-understanding and mis-information? Perhaps a cultural or generational disagreement? Or is it one of a more personal nature stemming in attacks of vindictiveness. Charges that bear validity need to be resolved on the part of the accused, forgiven, and ended. But charges that are not true must likewise be resolved on the part of the accuser, forgiven, and ended.

Realizedly, some personalities can be business-like and do this quite nicely with one another. Other personalities deeply struggle with this process and compound the problem unnecessarily a thousand-fold. A wise person, or body of governance, will determine the nature of the working environment as they move forward in the process, deciding perhaps to work with a mediator (or mediating body) who/which may help heal a torn relationship. The process of remediation can be a difficult one. For a wise person, the initial charges brought forth must always be with the attitude of reconciliation should it come to that, and rapidly so, if it can be done.

But if untrue, charges of libel or heresy tend to "stick" to the person, event, or movement, once a charge has been made, and is never so simply removed or resolved, persisting on the willingness of its accusers to believe untruths, falseness, rumor, or innuendo. And once tainted, a ministry, or minister, can never quite shake off the charge(s) of mis-appropriation, mis-conduct, or mis-information. It becomes a life-long combat that can hinder an otherwise good ministry. Or in many cases redirect that ministry's efforts towards areas of compromise and injustice (a recent example of this is the evangelic furor over World Vision).

In some instances, highly influential church leaders that have fallen can be Teflon-like and are able to bounce back from disaster, somehow side-stepping accusations without having deeply addressed those charges of impropriety. But more often than not, charges that are valid must be addressed (unless tempered with extreme prejudice and hostile intent). In those cases, a court of public opinion (in the case of religion, a synod or council, for instance) must be held to determine the veracity of the charges whether true or not. In many cases, differences in religious doctrine may only lead to splits and disunity. Religious creeds, confessions, and church doctrinal bodies have been birthed upon this process until we now have, 500 years after the Protestant Reformation, as many differing kinds of faith as we do people holding them.

In a postmodern church, or an emerging assembly of believers, these differences are being lowered as today's 21st Century Christians seek a greater spirit of unity over disunity. They are more willing to irenically discuss doctrinal differences within the greater center of Christ's healing atonement and fellowship rather than focusing upon the many dividers and dissemblers of the Christian faith. Others have taken it upon themselves to point out the historical background of dogmatic and doctrinal disagreements in hopes of providing an expanded biblical basis for sound judgment, understanding, and reconciliation, without jettisoning the faith altogether based upon premise and suspicion.

More often now than ever, the Bible's earlier faiths were built in a time without today's greater hindsight of church history, science, technology, and the arts, and pervasive global communications amongst world religions and cultures. As such, theology today is rapidly, if not expediently, working towards more enlightened definitions and expanded religious categories not previous thought in light of postmodern theological movements and cultural resettlement forced upon despised unfortunates (think of the many refugee populations that have shifted under threat of death and torture). As a result, faith has tended towards despair as much as towards the spiritual. Towards nothingness as much as towards a God-ness. And a deep response of love and acceptance is needed, especially of the church of God, if not very humanity itself.

For the church today the charge is to make the gospel relevant, meaningful, personal, and healing. To adjudicate Christ and His Word is now being re-contextualized towards less judgmentalism and more openness and acceptance. Even the word "adjudication" itself is wrong, communicating attitudes of "rightness and wrongness," of "black-and-white" thinking, against a postmodern world that sees life's categories in terms of non-binary, non-dualistic hyperbole, paradox, mystery, pattern-and-flow.

What this means is that yesteryear's doctrines and dogmas must come under a re-evaluation so that the postmodern Christian church might move forward in missional witness that is more open, receptive, and reconciling than ever before. Showing by love and good works the majesty of Christ and not simply the austerity of church politics and polities. To speak to a post-Christian world of the love of God and the power of His Holy Spirit in the action-words of redemption, resurrection, renewal, reclamation, reformation, and rebirth. As any good parent will know, good words vastly outweigh harsh words of duty and honor. So too has the Lord called us by the same in this day and age. To reach out to those different from ourselves in respect and goodwill to share a faith that has the power to heal the sin-sick soul and broken spirit. To bring justice to oppressive lands and households of discord and abuse. To share in the labor of life with others - both in its sufferings and toils, as well as its joys and laughters - as with a fellow souls traversing this world of reclaim and shalom. Amen.

R.E. Slater

September 15, 2014

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Theologian Carolos Bovell

on being a mouthpiece of satan

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/09/on-being-a-mouthpiece-of-satan/

by Peter Enns

September 15, 2014

Comments

Today’s blog is by Carlos Bovell, a frequent contributor here. Bovell is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary and The Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto. He is the author of Inerrancy and the Spiritual Formation of Younger Evangelicals (2007), By Good and Necessary Consequence: A Preliminary Genealogy of Biblical Foundationalism (2009), an edited volume, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Authority of Scripture (2011), and Rehabilitating Inerrancy in a Culture of Fear (2012).

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A disturbingly common response from inerrantists to those who ask historical-critical questions about the Bible is that they are undermining inerrancy and are thus mouthpieces of Satan. Defenders of inerrancy are following Jesus’s lead, while non-inerrantists, who are perceived as denying the Bible, are doing what the serpent did to Eve in the Garden, which is get her to doubt God’s Word by asking, “Has God really said?”

In my last post, I observed that Bob Yarbrough is representative of inerrantists when he suggests that Jesus had a word-that-proceeds-from-the-mouth-of-God view of scripture (see Matthew 4:4), which according to Yarbrough is approximate to modern day inerrancy.

In this post, I observe that while inerrantist writers of this sort pose themselves as the good guys (doing and believing what Jesus did) they also have no qualms about presenting views that “challenge” God’s Word as being in step with the devil’s motives.

I give two examples. First, Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, makes the claim in a 2013 Alumni chapel at Southern Seminary concerning the denial of inerrancy:

There’s always a spiritual element behind it because I think the first recorded attack on the inerrancy of scripture we see is in Genesis chapter 3: “Has God really said?” (41:25)

So, inerrancy is a spiritual issue and to question inerrancy is to follow Satan’s lead.

Second, David Garner, associate professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theology Seminary, adds some heated polemic for good measure in his introduction to Did God Really Say?

When the serpent asks, “Did God actually say?” (Gen. 3:1b), the manner in which he tempts our first parents exposes his consistent modus operandi. God’s Word serves as Satan’s point of attack . . . With the force of spiritual authority itself, we turn the question, Did God Really Say?, right back on those who continue to misrepresent the gospel with serpentine-compatible methods. (p. xxii)

I have devoted quite a bit of time researching and writing in an effort to help Bible-believing Christians come to see that large swaths of American inerrantist culture is taken in by a rhetoric of fear, the sociological effect of which is to keep people from voicing honest and genuine questions concerning inerrancy (see again my last post).

As soon as students begin to think that they may have good reason to become critical of inerrancy, it is suggested they are ceding to temptation and being seduced by “serpentine-compatible methods,” as Garner puts it.

In these examples, commitment to inerrancy is presented as a spiritual obligation: If a student wants to make sure they aren’t following the devil’s lead (and who would ever say that they want to do that?) then they’d better quit asking such critical questions about the Bible let alone entertaining critical answers to those critical questions. Indeed, so long as there remains some solution to a problem that can save inerrancy, one had better accept it since trust in and obedience to God requires it. [observation: this attitude betrays a philosophical commitment to the dogma of inerrancy and not to the Bible itself - re slater]

This clear-cut, either/or choice–side with Jesus or Satan–poses a troubling dilemma for inerrantist churchgoers and students who begin having genuine questions.

But I am encouraged to see that more evangelical believers are coming to understand that the dilemma posed by some inerrantists is a false one—and in doing so they are actually the ones following Jesus’ lead.

You have heard it said that “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” but I say to you do not resist an evildoer (Matthew5:38-39)

Wait a minute! Is this not in essence what inerrantists claim that the devil was trying to do in Gen 3 in the Garden? But here in Matt 5, it’s Jesus who’s doing it. Didn’t the devil question the meaning of what the Word of God requires from believers? Well, according to Matthew, this is exactly what Jesus did throughout his preaching.

In fact, questioning what God really said appears to be Christ’s “modus operandi.” The main difference is that Jesus claimed that he was fulfilling scripture.

So (Jesus continues) you heard that God said he wants people to love their neighbor and hate their enemy? I tell you that God wants people to love their enemies. (Matthew 5:43-44) If this is not a challenge to God’s word then I don’t know what is, but Jesus explains that it misses the point to see it as a challenge. To understand what Jesus means to say and do by presenting scripture in the way he does, one must accept what Jesus says (and does) as its fulfillment.

Therefore, if we ask, does Jesus challenge people to doubt the popular way of understanding scripture? Or perhaps more provocatively, are Jesus and the devil then not doing more or less the same thing in challenging scripture? We should answer, at least on one level, absolutely.

But on another level, there’s also a world of difference because Jesus’ challenge purports to fulfill scripture, to achieve its purpose, to bring out its full meaning, to re-direct scripture so that it can be put to the service of God’s will.

How does Jesus set out to do this? By tying scripture directly to his mission, by enlisting it in his revelatory message that he is God’s Son and by consistently drawing upon it to support his ministry to the cross.

To support my proposal (and it’s only that, a proposal), I appeal to Matthew 4:1-11 where Satan tests Jesus in the wilderness.

For my part, I think that the scholars who view Jesus’ baptism and temptation as an “apocalyptic journey” or a “visionary experience” are definitely onto something. The heavens opening, the heavenly voice, and the Spirit (and other spirits) guiding Jesus to places throughout the world leave no question in my mind that Jesus underwent altered states of consciousness (and probably regularly did so and taught some of his disciples how to do it too).

Either way, Jesus’ faithfulness to scripture does not lie in a show of his belief in inerrancy (as Yarbrough and others claim) over against the devil’s questioning of it. Jesus’ faithfulness to scripture rather is shown through the dispute over whether now that Jesus has been revealed as God’s Son, he would have what it takes to obey God by carrying out his ministry to the cross.

It is this kind of faithfulness that must prove “according to the scriptures” because it is what God would have Jesus do.

I suggest that this is the aspect of Jesus’ view of scripture that post-inerrantists are trying to emphasize: that the scriptures are to be read in light of Jesus because he is the Son of God and the main way that Jesus showed this is by faithfully carrying out his mission to the cross and folding scripture into that mission.

So it misses the point to suggest that inerrantists are following Jesus while post-inerrantists follow the devil. We are all trying faithfully to follow Jesus—though we have serious disagreements about how best to do this.

Perhaps one important difference between inerrantists and post-inerrantists is that a post-inerrantist may be comfortable saying something like this:

The fact that Jesus is the Son of God is the fact that dictates that the scriptures must now always be read—if they are going to have significance for Christians—with him in mind.

Whereas an inerrantist might feel more comfortable saying something like this:

It’s the scriptures that dictate whether Jesus was right or not, whether he was the Son of God, and it would be mostly on the basis of their authority that we believe.

But, as I see it, this has it exactly backwards. It is Jesus that gives the scriptures meaning (for Christians) in the first place. To ask, “What is the best way to describe this? Should we call it the “authority” of the Bible?” does not make post-inerrantists the devil’s advocate. It’s a believers’ relation to Jesus that attests to this, not how one decides to approach scripture.

- Carlos

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Answering Charges of Impropriety. Part 1 - Undermining the Bible

Answering Charges of Impropriety. Part 2 - Underminining Inerrancy

Answering Charges of Impropriety. Part 3 - Underminining Tradition