Time Immortal

Charles Tysoe writes in with a follow-up to my response to a few of his comments from a while back. I’m going to break up his message a bit and respond to it in a more inter-linear fashion, although the good Reader can rest assured that the entirety of what Charles‘ message will be included in this post. He covers a few different topics, however, which I would prefer to address as they arise.

[7] But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
[8] or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
[9] Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
[10] In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of all mankind.

Thanks for responding.

I thought after I sent that email that I should have looked up “message-incident” again to make sure I had the phrase right; thanks for clarifying and that is indeed the one I did in fact search for.

Would I find it, for instance in the Poetics of Aristotle?

Is not Aristotle essentially a heathen philospher? Was it not Aristotelian methodology that plagued Catholic Middle Ages Scholarship and led in part to the controversy involving Galilei Galileo’s works?

I wish you and/or DOL would make clear the source and rationale for “message incident” since it seems of murky pedigree and since DOL hangs such great weights from this small wire. He claims to be an Evangelical, and is a member of ETS. Can he point to other present or past members of this association and specific examples of this principle in action? Otherwise we have just you and DOL (and perhaps Aristotle) as advocating this system. That’s a very small sample space.

Aristotle was indeed a pagan philosopher, but I don’t think he had as much to do with the Galileo affair as did Ptolemy, all things considered. Also, I feel I should caution both the Reader, in general, and Charles in particular, against the automatic dismissal of non-Christian philosophers. Even in the Bible, God imparts blessings and wisdom to His chosen people through pagans and non-believers. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament give us examples of this. It should also be noted that St. Paul often quotes from non-Jewish and non-Christian poetic or philosophical sources.

In the end, what matters is what is true (Philippians 4:8). Whether we arrive at this by a source from within Christendom or without, what ultimately matters is what is true. And if there is in Aristotelean philosophy something that is true, or which enables us to better understand some aspect of the truth of the Lord, then we ought to pursue that thing.

I mentioned, previously, that the “message-incident” principle draws heavily, I think, upon Aristotle. That was a comment made out of personal opinion rather than out of specific knowledge of the fact on my part; it may well be that there is absolutely no Aristotelean influence in the principle itself. I was remarking on what seemed to be a similarity to me between the Message-Incident Principle and the notion of accidentals that inform the Catholic understanding of Eucharist.

In the Eucharist, we have the host, which at a glance appears to be a thin wafer of unleavened bread. However, this is not the sum total of its nature, nor is this an accurate picture of its nature. A separation needs to take place in our understanding of it, for it is actually the Real Presence of Christ Jesus, and retains only the accidentals (shape, taste, etc.) of the bread which it formerly was. The Message-Incident Principle doesn’t exactly mirror this understanding, but the idea is similar: a separation has to take place in our understanding of the text of the Bible, in that we need to be able to look at the message of faith conveyed by the text separate from the incidental events or details given by the text.

Previously, I gave the example of Ephesians 5, and how when we interpret this passage it is necessary to separate the “incident”al aspects of the text — some of which can seem sexist at first — from the theological “message” that St. Paul is attempting to convey, by illustrating the relationship of Christ to the Church through the imagery of the relationship between husband and wife. The purpose of the passage is not to convey a somewhat sexist message, nor is the purpose of this passage to present an improper model of the relationship between husband and wife; it is to present a model of the way we relate to Christ, and Christ to the community of His faithful. But to understand as much, we need to separate, categorically, the teaching from the imagery used to present it.

I will cover this in greater detail when I get to that part of my review of Denis O. Lamoureux’s Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution. The first part of that review, which looks at Denis’ examination of analytical categories, should be going up later today, provided that I don’t get too bogged down in other tasks.

How would this method, if laid out in parallel, compare to the current evangelical standard, the “Grammatical-Historical” method?

Let’s see if we can establish a comparison here. As I understand it, the Grammatical-Historical Method is structured as follows:

“Interpreting grammatically

• The historical-critical method assumes that words and expressions have a relatively stable meaning during given periods of history. Therefore, we begin by taking what we can determine as the normal, everyday meaning of the words, phrases, and sentences to the extent possible. In other words, our interpretation must correspond to the words and grammar in the text in a reasonable way. Otherwise, the interpreter could assign meaning of his own without objective control. The Bible would become a horoscope of vague sayings we try to plug into our lives however we are able.
  • Most of the Bible can be easily interpreted by simply taking the language (either in the original or translation) in the usual way (Jn. 3:36; Acts 1:11). In other words, if the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense.
  • A plain sense reading should not be confused with a literalistic interpretation. We should allow for figures of speech (Mk. 1:5; Lk. 22:19).
  • If a passage contains symbols or a special literary genre this should be indicated in the text, either by textual cues, or because symbolism is required in order to make sense of the text. Most symbols are explained by the Bible itself (Rev. 1:9-20)

Interpreting historically

• - Historical interpretation means that we take into account the historical background of the author and the recipients as possible. The Bible was written to common people, and is understandable to anyone. However, it was written thousands of years ago to a different culture. Therefore, as modern readers, we have to try to recover a general sense of the meaning of words, phrases and concepts in the ancient cultures.  These phrases are addressed in Scripture primarily to the Hebrew and Greco-Roman culture of the first century.
  • We are not interested at first in the question, “What does it mean to me?” but rather, “what did it mean to those whom it was originally written?”
    • - Rev. 2:12,13 - Pergamum was the center of the worship of Aesclepius.
    • - I Cor. 11:4-6 - Shorn hair was typical of Aphrodite priestess-prostitutes; shaven heads were typical of convicted adulteresses (vs. 5).
  • Use Bible dictionaries or other sources to discover customs, money, geography, etc. Then
    find a corresponding meaning in our culture.
    • - Good Samaritan (Lk. 10); 2 Denarii (Mk. 6:37); 50,000 Drachma (Acts 19:19)
    • - Pharisees’ teaching on the relationship between illness and sin (Mark 2; John 9:1) “

Conversely, the Message-Incident Principle is structured thusly:

Message

• Divine Theology
• Inerrant and Infallible

Incident

• Ancient Science
• Ancient Phenomenonological Perspective

“This approach contends that in order to reveal spiritual truths as effectively as possible to the ancient peoples, the Holy Spirit used their ancient phenomenological perspective of nature. That is, instead of confusing or distracting the biblical writers and their readers with modern scientific concepts, God descended to their level and employed the science-of-the-day. Similar to the central message in the Kenotic Hymn, the Creator humbled Himself through the use of ancient human ideas about nature in the revelatory process. Therefore, passages in the Bible referring to the physical world feature both a Message of Faith and an incidental ancient science. According to this interpretive principle, Biblical inerrancy and infallibility rest in the Divine Theology, and not in statements referring to nature. Wualifying ancient science as “incidental” does not imply that it is unimportant. The science in Scripture is vital for transporting spiritual truths. It acts as a vessel similar to a cup that delivers “living waters” (John 4:10). However, the word “incidental” carries meanings of “that which happens to be alongside” and “happening in connection with something more important.” In other words, the ancient science in Scripture is “alongside” the “more important” Message of Faith.” (Denis O. Lamoureux, Evolutionary Creation, pp. 110-111)

Now, how do these two things compare?

For starters, I want to comment on something tangential. It has always struck me as a point of some curiosity that evangelicals, who profess to be true “Biblical Christians,” tend also to not be Eucharistic Christians. Indeed, evangelicals tend to set themselves very much against Eucharistic Theology. Which is, I content, very odd for an element of Christianity which purports to interpret the Bible according to the maxim: “if the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense.”

With all due respect to my evangelical bretheren, the plain sense of e.g. John 6, Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and 1 Corinthians 11 is that the bread we break in the meal at the altar is meant to be, and become, the literal and true Precious Body and Blood of Christ. He gives us His own flesh to eat, and His own blood to drink, in memory of Him and of His sacrifice for our sins…and we fail to discern Him in the bread and wine at our eternal peril. That is the plain meaning of the text, and yet evangelicals do not seem to interpret it thusly. This suggests to me that perhaps the default hermeneutic that evangelicals employ, the Grammatical-Historical Method, is somewhat subjective and arbitrary.

Thus, the problem with insisting on the use of literal-ish hermeneutics, and with insisting that Scripture be taken at its “plain meaning”, is that nobody really does that with any kind of consistency. Let me put that more plainly: no Christian ever takes Scripture at its plain meaning at every opportunity — indeed, many of us are often guilty of a certain hypocrisy when we insist upon just such an approach. More often than not, what we really mean when we insist on taking things at their plain meaning is: “let us use my interpretation of Scripture; let us take it at what I say its meaning is.” A similar fault exists with the evangelical concept of letting Scripture “self-interpret.” And for this reason, the grammatical aspect of the method actually exists in contradiction of the historical aspect.

There’s really no two ways about it: if our hermeneutic is to always take Scripture at its most obvious meaning, on a passage-by-passage basis, then we should all be Eucharistic Christians in light of John 6. That we are not all Eucharistic Christians means that we do not always take Scripture at its plain meaning; we only do so when it is convenient to the point we are making.

In contrast, the Message-Incident Principle presents us with a better approach. It allows us to respect the historical context of what is written in Scripture, which the Grammatical-Historical Method also purports to do, but lets us do so in a way that prioritizes the message of faith contained within the text, rather than the incidental aspects of the text itself. It allows us to look past the cultural context that is apparent in many passages of Scripture (see again the earlier example of Ephesians 5), and to look to the spiritual lesson that God, through the divine inspiration of the authors of the Biblical texts by the Holy Spirit, is seeking to impart to us.

And — this is the key point, I think — it allows us to do so with greater consistency. The key flaw of the grammatical aspect of the Grammatical-Historical Method is that it assumes that the Spirit necessarily intended for all of Scripture to be taken at its plain meaning. There is little to no support for this conjecture within Scripture itself, and little to no support for it in the writings of the early theologians and Doctors of the Church. Because of this lack of support, the notion of “plain meaning” in evangelical grammatical interpretation tends to take on the form, as previously noted, of subjective personal opinion about the text, even if this opinion is actually contradicted by other parts of the Bible.

In contrast, the Message-Incident Principle proposes that our focus in interpreting the Biblical text should be on the message of faith conveyed in the text. This seems reasonable, since the principal intent of the Bible is to bring to humanity a message of faith, revelation, and salvation. Notably, however, this interpretive method does not attempt to shoehorn the text of Scripture into a literal or “plain meaning” framework that it may not necessarily belong in. The priority is not on the raw text itself, which contains a mixture of divine revelation and ancient human understanding, but on the revelation proper.

Of course, this opens up the question of how we sort out those passages meant to be taken literally from those which are not meant to be taken as such. That’s an interesting discussion in and of itself, though not one I will verge into at this time. After all, I have just gone into the Message-Incident Principle more than I intended to, and I want to retain something unique for my review of Denis’ book’s fourth chapter.

As to other examples of the principle “in action,” I cannot say: it may be a newer thing. But it should also be noted that a newer thing, if it is a correct thing, is a correct thing first and foremost, regardless of its age or lack thereof.

What is the warrant for privelging the scientific method as the hermeneutical sieve for Genesis?

I feel I should correct Charles on one point here: science is not priveleged above Scripture in Evolutionary Creationism. If anything, the “Two Books” — God’s Words and God’s Works — are regarded as equals, at least as far as their capacity for revelation is concerned. Also, what each Book reveals to us is different: the Bible reveals God directly, and Jesus, and the promise and hope of salvation. Creation, and by extension science, reveals the natural works which the Lord has made, which tell and proclaim His glory (Psalm 19:1) and impart, to those who ask it of them, wisdom and truth about the one whose design is reflected in every aspect of the world and all the Universe (Job 12:7-9).

But as it is, there are two principal “warrants” from which we derive a sense of the importance of being able to understand the harmony which must exist between the discoveries of science and the revelations of Scripture.

The first “warrant” is an old teaching indeed, from St. Augustine of Hippo. In his book The City of God (or get it for Kindle!), St. Augustine notes that as Christians confronted with new discoveries in the field of science and “in matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision … we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture.” (Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, pp. 41)

The saint adds additional warnings later in the book. He cautions, for instance, that we should let “no one think that, because the Psalmist says, He established the Earth above the uater, we must use this testimony of Holy Scripture against these people who engage in learned discussions about the weight of the elements. They are not bound by the authority of our Bible; and, ignorant of the sense of these words, they will more readily scorn our sacred books than disavow the knowledge they have acquired by unassailable arguments or proved by the evidence of experience.” (Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, pp. 47-48)

He likewise notes, in what seems almost a prophetic vision of the scientific ignorance of Young Earth Creationsts today, that “someone may ask: ‘Is not Scripture opposed to those who hold that heaven is spherical, when it says, who stretches out heaven like a skin?’ Let it be opposed indeed if their statement is false…. But if they are able to establish their doctrine with proofs that cannot be denied, we must show that this statement of Scripture about the skin is not opposed to the truth of their conclusions.” (Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, p. 59)

Augustine is not attempting here to undermine the validity of Scripture, but is rather attempting to warn would-be evangelists that there is more to know than what is taught within its pages. The Bible does not discuss every aspect of the physical world, nor should it: it is not a book of science, but is instead a book of faith. And it is not a bludgeon to be used to shout down the reasonable discoveries of researchers and scientists either; it is a revelation of truth, but there are other things not contained within its pages which are likewise true, and known to be true either from demonstration or experience.

Which brings us to the second “warrant,” a more modern writing: Truth Cannot Contradict Truth, an address given by Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In a way, the name says it all: the revealed truth of Scripture and the discovered truths that are the fruits of scientific research do not and cannot contradict each other. If both are true, then they must be compatible and even complementary.

Which is what St. Augustine was getting at in The City of God. It is ludicrous to assume that the saint thought, for one minute, that Scripture was diminished, supplanted, or rendered invalid or untruthful by the discoveries of scientists. At the same time, it is obvious that Augustine could see, plainly, that it was obvious that those same researchers could and would discover things about the nature of the world which were truthful. Augustine understood that humanity is constantly learning new things about the world in which it lives, and that Scripture was written by men less learned about such things, who necessarily wrote with within the framework of their own limited understandings.

And he knew that the truth of revelation could not and would not be contradicted by the truths discovered by continuing inquiry into the nature and shape of the world…but he also understood that if Christians who were ignorant about the sciences and too eager to present Scripture as the sole source of truth attempted to evangelize to those who were wiser about nature, two things would happen: souls would be lost, and Christ would be ridiculed.

Let us look at the various things which Augustine warned would happen to “reckless and incompetent [and scientifically ignorant] expounders of Holy Scripture” and see if his predictions came true at all:

1. non-Christians know something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge is held to as being certain from reason and experience?
2. people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn?
3. an ignorant individual is derided?
4. people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men?
5. reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture…are taken to task by these who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books?
6. to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion?

I submit that the answers to these predictions are as follows:

1. Absolutely, without a doubt. One need not be a Christian to be a competent researcher in a scientific field, to conduct good and honest scientific study, or to make accurate and truthful scientific findings.
2. Absolutely. Read any debate on Young Earth Creationism, on any web-forum without serious membership requirements, and you will see this exact phenomenon taking place.
3. Ditto.
4. Ditto.
5. Ditto. Or check out TalkOrigins and the comprehensive list of rebuttals to ludicrous Young Earth Creationist claims archived there.
6. See #2.

So while it is important to not prioritize science above Scripture, it is likewise important to refrain from taking the Answers In Genesis approach of using Scripture as a bludgeon against the legitimate discoveries of science. To do the former is at once heretical and near-blasphemous. To do the latter, I submit, imperils not only the souls of those who hear a foolishly-given message and reject it, but also the souls of the foolish evangelists themselves.

Regarding the Scripture from Job (and also, for instance, the nineteenth Psalm); there is no reference there about the so-called “fossil record” teaching us about the mind or the ways of God; or the “Big Bang” theory about unobserved events in the pat; or about “homology” or any other so-called “proofs” of evolution. Evolution consists primarily of speculations about the unobserved past; morever, death and suffering and disease are the method, by Darwin’s own confession, by which the Creator perfects his creation. This is contrary to the character of God and also to the Bible teaching that God finished from his work of creating, a rest that persists until now, and that his completed creation was “very good”.

Actually — and here we are getting into the topic of another article I was meaning to write — Charles is quite incorrect about evolutionary theory and about the nature of God in relation to death and suffering. A paper I wrote a couple of years ago kind of hints at this, and I’m not inclined to go into too much additional detail here because it would, of course, spoil what is yet to come.

But let us at least consider one quick point. Christ Jesus is the Word (c.f. John 1), and in that understanding we must likewise understand that the entirety of the Word of God — the Bible — points to Christ. From the first word of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, to the last word of the last book of the last chapter, all of Scripture points to Jesus and His salvific promise. Which means, in turn, that all of Scripture points to the sacrifice of Christ, and His death on the cross for our sins. Which in turn means that all of the Bible, even from the very opening of the Book of Genesis, points to the death of Christ on the Cross and His glorious resurrection and ascension into Heaven.

Which means that from the very beginning, death was a part of God’s plan for His Son, who came to Earth and was born of Mary as a human being. Which must mean that from the very beginning, death — the death of the physical body — was a part of God’s plan. Were it not a part of His plan, we could not say that all of Scripture points to Christ; we could only say that almost all of Scripture points to Him. And since He is Scripture — the Word, the Logos — “almost all” just doesn’t cut it.

The fact of the matter is: God did perfect His creations through suffering and death. Or, perhaps more accurately, God assured the eternal perfection of His creation, though we who yet live have not been perfected yet, through the suffering and death of His son, Jesus, whose sacrifice had both a temporal and eternal component to it. And from the very first moments of creation, this was God’s intent for His creation.

As to Charles‘ assertion about how evolutionary theory is mostly just speculation, that is almost a comment which is not worth responding to. Anyone who cares to see it will find that there is actually quite a lot of evidence for evolution (that hyperlink offers but a small and cursory sampling) — but with Christians who promote a false dichotomy between science and Scripture, no evidence is sufficient. It’s rather the same phenomenon as one sees in atheists: evidence is demanded, God obliges with…say…a miraculous healing, and the atheist(s) in question shrug and say that were God truly extant, He would not have healed just one person. Some would call this “moving the goalposts.”

It should also be noted that modern evolutionary science has largely abandoned Darwin’s initial conjectures; Darwin today is little more than a straw-man for Young Earthers to attack in lieu of attempting to contravene solid evidence for sound theories.

I apppreciate you are going to review the book chapter by chapter, but if you answer please don’t repeat the book because I am doing the same thing myself.

What are the illustrations you contributed to the book?

Chuck Tysoe

Well, I did throw in one reference from the book, good Reader, so I do hope that Chuck will forgive me that much. As to which illustrations I contributed, there are three of them (and all of them are attributed in the book). They are on pages 108, 116, and 362.

One was of the “three-tiered universe,” the cosmological model presented in the Bible. Another was a line-art rendering of an ancient Babylonian “map of the world,” which demonstrates what the authors of Scripture are talking about when they refer to the “circle of the Earth.”

The last one was a demonstration of evolutionary mutations in chicken wings caused my augmentations in certain enzymes in the chick embryo. Some augmentations caused rather absurd and unfortunate deformities to the wings, while others resulted in the chickens being hatched with “arms,” complete with wrists and fingers.

Fascinating stuff.

Charles Tysoe writes in with some comments and questions concerning Dr. Denis O. Lamoureux’s new book, Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution, which I had previously urged the good Reader to purchase.

Full disclosure: you’ll be supporting Time Immortal by doing so, as I contributed a few of the illustrations to the book.

It’s an important work, for one simple reason: it demonstrates that faith and reason, science and Religion, can go hand in hand without any kind of conflict.

Depends on how you define the terms; Religion is a very broad field, Biblical Christianity a very narrow one.

DOL privileges scientific method as a hermeneutical sieve for what the Bible says about creation. There is no warrant for this epistemologically.

I would like to know just what is the “method-incident’ principle, where did it originate, who uses it? I looked up the indexes of the major works on hermeneutics cited and couldn’t see it anywhere. On Google I found six hits, next to nothing by Google’s standards; I found an allusion to its use by (some?) Roman Catholic writers on a Catholic blog.

What’s up?

DOL sent me a working draft (much shorter) years ago, I emailed him after listening to tapes of the pilot course he taught at Regent.

I don’t agree with his “science of the day” conclusions, they are very poorly supported.

Anyway, thanks for your time.

I’d really like to know about the method-incident principle. If you give me some references I’ll hunt them down.

I really think DOL has “reconciled” evolution, Christianity and Biblical “inerrancy with a sort of Mad Hatter (Lewis Carroll) method; “a word means precisely what I want it to mean”.

I’ve read most of Dr. Lamoureux’s papers online, including his most recent in PSCF. In another paper, I believe in Christian Scholars’ Review on Darwin’s religious beliefs I think he was very selective in trying to demonstrate that Darwin remained a Christian theist.

DOL seems most anxious on a personal level for evolution to be true. More so that other writers like F. Collins.

regards,

Chuck Tysoe

Who’s anxious? Evolution — the scientific theory, as demonstrated by the evidence — is true! Would that more Christians — even and especially Catholics — could accept this simple fact and get on about the business of understanding that there is nothing fundamentally conflicting or contradictory about accepting that human beings evolved from earlier primates and that all life was created by God (and the attendant belief that human beings occupy a special place in the order of creation because they have been made in the image and likeness of God).

Christians need to step beyond viewing “creation” and “evolution” as being concepts which one must debate between. To believe that God exists and that He created all life in the world is not the antithesis of accepting the extant evidence for evolution; truth cannot contradict truth, and as Christians in search of the truth we must strive to achieve a synthesis in regard to this issue. More simply put, we have to get over ourselves and drop the “debate model” approach to discussions of science and religion; we must understand that Biblically sound Christianity is compatible with the belief that a providential, present, creator God effected the creation of all life, including mankind, “through an ordained and sustained evolutionary process.”

Now, good Reader, what Chuck is referring to when he speaks of the “method-incident” principle is actually the “message-incident” principle. I’m honestly not sure whether it is a principle of Dr. Lamoureux’s own devising, or whether it has roots in other academic sources; the principle itself draws heavily, I think, on Aristotle.

In its broad strokes, the principle is thus: the Bible — all of it taken together, or any portion thereof — must be interpreted with attention given to two separate aspects that may be present in the text: the “message” or divine teaching that the text is attempting to convey to the reader, and the “incident” or phenomenological perspective of the writer. And although Google only reveals a handful of references to this principle in a formal sense, it should be noted that Christian hermeneutics actually make fairly heavy use of it in several respects already.

For example, when we interpret Ephesians 5, it is common to separate the “incident”al aspects of the text — some of which can seem sexist at first — from the theological “message” that Paul is attempting to convey, by illustrating the relationship of Christ to the Church through the imagery of the relationship between husband and wife. The purpose of the passage is not to convey a somewhat sexist message; it is to present a model of the way we relate to Christ, and Christ to the community of His faithful. But to understand as much, we need to separate, categorically, the teaching from the imagery used to present it.

I will go into more detail on this in the coming weeks, as I have obtained permission from Dr. Lamoureux to do a chapter-by-chapter review of his book. The principle under discussion is outlined in the book’s fourth chapter, and so I would instruct Chuck — any any other interested readers — to stay tuned as I work my way through the text.

In the meantime, I would like to address a few other points:

1. Chuck notes the distinction between the broader category of “religion” and the narrower category of “Biblical Christianity.” While this categorical distinction is correct, I find that I nevertheless bristle at the term “Biblical Christianity,” because I am used to seeing it used almost exclusively in a sola scriptura sense — and I reject, categorically, the validity of that particular doctrine of Martin Luther’s.

   The facts are thus: the Bible does indeed contain the inerrant, infallible message of God to His people. But the Bible is not the sole vector by which we can discover truths; indeed, the Bible tells us as much. In the Book of Job, chapter 12, it is said:

   [7] “But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
   the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
   [8] or the plants of the earth, and they will teach you;
   and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
   [9] Who among all these does not know
   that the hand of the LORD has done this?
   [10] In his hand is the life of every living thing
   and the breath of all mankind.

   Is this not true? All things are of God’s making, but can we not look to these things to learn more about that wondrous creation? Will not the very Earth grant us to find answers, if we but seek them out?

   Science is — or should be — a search for truths about the physical world in which we live, and the physical realm with it occupies. That’s a limited category — and then a subset — of truth, but it is still truth in its own right. Logically, one truth cannot contradict another. So if it is true (and it is) that God is the creator of all things, and if it is true (and it is) that humanity evolved from a succession of “lower” life forms, then these truths must be compatible. It must be the case that God effected the creation of humanity in His own image through an ordained, sustained process of evolution. The Lord is creator. The study of the world reveals this to us, in that it reveals the manner by which the Lord effected creation.

   If we adopt the sola scriptura approach and bury our heads in the sand, refusing to acknowledge that there are other sources of truth that exist in addition to Scripture (if, that is, we bald-facedly ignore that “the heavens declare the glory of God,” among other things), then of course we will miss this point. But our missing out does not mean that evolution is incorrect; it means that we are incorrect. Christians would do well to keep in mind that just because we claim the Bible to be on our side in a debate does not mean that it actually is on our side, nor does it mean we are agents of truth.

   So I question what Chuck means by “Biblical Christianity.” If he means sola scriptura, he’s off base. If he means a Christianity whose teachings and tenets are in conformity with the teachings of Scripture, then I whole-heartedly agree with his categorization.

2. Chuck also notes that Dr. Lamoureux “privileges scientific method as a hermeneutical sieve for what the Bible says about creation,” and asserts that there “is no warrant for this epistemologically.”

   The first statement is essentially true, the second essentially false.

   In his book The City of God (or get it for Kindle!), Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine) remarked on a matter about which would-be Christian evangelists should take great care:

   Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men…. Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by these who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.

   What Augustine is driving at here is that there are other modes of learning apart from the theological, and that even those who have not received the Bible can be very wise about many aspects of God’s “very good” creation, including at a scientific level. They may understand many things which are true about the natural world, its operation, and its origins. Augustine warns that it would be folly of the worst order for a Christian evangelist to such people to be seen “talking nonsense on these topics” about which the non-Christians may be wise, and instructs that “we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.”

   What does this mean?

   Well, at a basic level, it means that as Christians, we have to be wise not only about the teachings of Scripture, but also about what is being learned — by Christians and non-Christians alike — about the natural world through processes of inquiry. We have to be able to expand our own understanding accordingly, so that we can present the message of faith to those who have not heard it in a wise manner, so that Christ and His message of salvation are not, by proxy, “taken to task by these who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books.” We must not be “[r]eckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture,” who “understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.” For if we do, we bring no glory to Christ, but are in fact as a stumbling block for those to whom we are trying to bring his message.

   And we know what Christ says about those who cause others to stumble in their journey toward Christ (c.f. Mark 9:42).

   In other words, we have to admit, in our honesty, that what is true cannot contradict what is true. If there appears to be a conflict between the revelation of Scripture and the revelation of science, and if the revelation of science in question is amply justified by evidence and reasoning, then we can only assume that our own preconceived interpretation of Scripture must be incorrect in some manner. In that sense, we should indeed use science — including the scientific method — as a kind of “hermeneutical sieve” for what the Bible says. The alternative is to become “a disgraceful and dangerous thing…talking nonsense on [those] topics” about which others may well be very learned.

   And there is excellent epistemological warrant for this approach. Revising a hypothesis in the face of new evidence is a cornerstone of the scientific method (one kind of epistemic system), and the Bible likewise instructs us to apply wisdom in the interpretation of Scripture.

   For example, consider 2 Thes. 2:

   [13]But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.
   [14] To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
   [15] So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.
   [16] Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace,
   [17] comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.

   We can see here that St. Paul actually places great importance on the Church holding fast to the traditions which the apostles taught to them. The traditions themselves go unspecified here, but the point is nevertheless that tradition forms an integral, necessary part of the practice of the Christian faith, and is itself a mode of teaching which the Church should strive to consider and convey.

   Right here, we see the rejection of all tradition as a mode of Christian practice to be unbiblical. Moreover, we also begin to see the seeds of something else emerging — Scripture is not the only teaching authority which Paul himself recognizes or suggests the use of (which further argues against sola scriptura). Turning, briefly, to Ephesians 3, we can also observe that Paul taught thusly:

   [7] Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace which was given me by the working of his power.
   [8] To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
   [9] and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things;
   [10] that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.
   [11] This was according to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord,
   [12] in whom we have boldness and confidence of access through our faith in him.

   Here we see that Paul further expands the notion of where teaching authority, which would include interpretive authority over Scripture, is found: the Church itself is, in Paul’s desire, the means by which the wisdom of God should be made known to the world. This is confirmed in the first letter to Timothy, chapter 3:

   [14] I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that,
   [15] if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

   The Church — not Scripture — is “the pillar and bulwark of the truth.” That is a Biblical teaching. So let’s tie this all back. We have the Church as the pillar and bulwark of truth, the means by which the wisdom of God (expressed in the Word of God) is to be made known to all nations and peoples. That means that the Church must be possessed of authority to interpret Scripture (the Word of God), and that it should do so while holding fast (and thus considering) the traditions which have been taught to it (which, presumably, could include academic and scientific traditions, as exemplified by the Church’s operation of e.g. the Vatican Observatory in this day and age).

   This does not mean that Christians lack the right of private judgement, of course — each person must work out his or her own salvation with fear and trembling, as Paul noted. But it does begin to suggest that each Christian should establish a relationship to the Church as that of a student to a teacher. Right of private judgement, again, exists, as does the right of each person to interpret out of Scripture for him or herself. But that interpretation must ultimately be in harmony with the teaching and interpretation of that which is the pillar and bulwark of God’s truth, as expressed through God’s Word: the Church. And pace Augustine, it is thus on the Church where the responsibility of preventing its people from speaking the language of folly to the learned, about the workings of the natural world, is placed. And those of us who would seek to speak on such matters should take pains to ensure that what we say is informed by the traditions of the Church on the matter, including the excellent academic traditions thereof.

   Even if that means altering or outright correcting our interpretations of particular Biblical teachings because of scientific discoveries.

Anyhow, good Reader, do stay tuned: the book reviews will commence in the next few days.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!