Time Immortal

Aspentroll writes back, after a lengthy hiatus, with a response to my previous reply to him (which dates back to May of this year). I’m thinking that I will break this one up and answer it piece-by-piece, since he jumps between topics in a manner that might make for a distracting response if approached as a whole. Rest assured, O Reader, that all of the text of Aspentroll’s message will appear below, in un-edited form, and in the same order in which it arrived.

Hi I’m back. I know it’s been awhile, but, all we atheist require would be some acknowledgment from theists.

I’m not completely sure what possible relation could exist between Aspentroll’s 5-month silence and the lack of theistic acknowledgement that atheists (some? all?) apparently perceive. I’m also curious why theists — including myself — owe it to atheists to grant them any kind of acknowledgement, apart from the Christian mandate to acknowledge all people as fallen creations of God in need of salvation from sin and death? No such entitlement, apart from the mentioned caveat, exists…at least, not to my knowledge.

Former President Geo. Bush Sr. once said that he didn’t believe atheists had any place in government and went on to say that he believed they shouldn’t even be considered citizens of the US.

It would be interesting to see a source for this claim, but Aspentroll does not provide one. These days, sorting out urban legend from actual fact is becoming increasingly difficult, especially thanks to the internet. It was reported that George Herbert Walker Bush once said: “No, I don’t know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God,” while still Vice President. Ostensibly, this was uttered at Chicago’s on or about August 27, 1987, at some kind of press conference.

But no video or audio recordings exist which corroborate the quote, nor have other witnesses confirmed it to be a legitimate quotation. Indeed, the only known source for the quote is an atheist activist, one Robert I. Sherman. The Reader will, I trust, forgive me if I find no reason to assume that Mr. Sherman is being wholly, or even partially, truthful in his attribution of the above quote to the then-Vice President.

That very statement is exactly what atheists are angry about.

It would seem, then, that most atheists are angry about a highly dubious statement. Given Aspentroll’s previously stated dismissal of religious people as delusional, I have to wonder how inflamed anger over a potentially imaginary quotation can be equated to reason and rationality?

Or perhaps it is the case that atheists are simply angry people in general, and who prefer to use things like this false quotation as a kind of focal point for their frustration, until a different focal point can be found. If it’s not a 21-year old quotation, it’s Sunday schools (which seem to make Richard Dawkins fairly angry). If it’s not Sunday schools, it’s Sarah Palin (we’ll come to her in a minute or two). If it’s not Sarah Palin, it’s the Church or the Pope, or…something. It’s always something, and (to me, at least, atheists seem to always be angry.

Atheists are constantly being blamed for the actions of Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin.

Well, Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin, yes: both men are excellent examples of what can be expected to transpire when atheism becomes an explicit policy of the state, as well as examples of what happens when strongman leaders apply a “morality” derived from the mere “is”-es of atheistic philosophy to a human population. Vox Day — in his book The Irrational Atheist — goes into great detail on this subject, and his conclusions paint a very bloody picture of atheism’s “Red Hand.”

At any rate, because Stalin and Pol Pot are such excellent examples of the murderous nature of state-endorsed atheism, Aspentroll will ignore them from here on in, and focus on the Godwin-bait instead.

Hitler was historically a Catholic in good standing with the Pope of the day.

Now, one is used to the occasional bit of historical fallacy when one debates atheists, but this particular example takes the cake, given that it manages to encapsulate two distinct historical errors in one convenient sentence.

The issue of Adolf Hitler’s religious beliefs is a complex one, and one that has been explored to great length. But let’s look at the raw facts of history. Hitler was raised by a Catholic mother and a nominally Catholic, “freethinker” father (Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood and Youth, Bradley F. Smith, Stanford/California, 1967 pp. 27 & 42). Hitler himself began to reject Catholicism and the Church in his youth. As an adult, he never attended Mass, nor did he participate in any of the Sacraments. (Hitlers Gott. Vorsehungsglaube und Sendungsbewußtsein des deutschen Diktators, Michael Rissmann, Zürich München: Pendo, 2001, p. 94-96)

As attending Mass on Sundays is generally considered a minimum requirement for being a Catholic, let alone one in “good standing,” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2041-2043), it can safely be said (I think) that Hitler was about as Catholic as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the time.

Which brings us to the second historical inaccuracy, because the Pope of the day — Pope Pius XII — was no friend of Hitler, or of Naziism. Indeed, Pius XII was often openly critical of the Nazi regime, and of the many evils perpetrated by them. In one encyclical that he drafted for his predecessor (Mit brennender Sorge), he denounced anti-Semitism as un-Christian. In that same writing, Hitler was denounced as insane and arrogant (A Concise History of the Catholic Church, Bokenkotter, (2004), pp. 389–92) — this document, then, led to several rather brutal repressions being launched by the Nazi regime against Catholic priests, monks, and congregations. (A History of Christianity (1995), Chadwick, pp. 254–255)

It is true that during the formal duration of the Second World War, the Church — under Pius XII’s guidance — adopted a policy of strict neutrality. That didn’t prevent more than 2500 Catholic priests from being imprisoned at Dachau, nor did it stop Pius XII from turning the Vatican into a sort of aid centre, missing persons agency, and coordination centre for the evacuation of thousands of Jews — many of them children — from German territory during the course of the war. Indeed, at one point, nearly 500 Jews were hidden in the Vatican proper.

So let’s review: not only was Hitler a nominal Catholic at best (it is more likely that even by the time of his ascent to power, neither he nor any Catholic official would have considered him a part of the Church), but his relationship with the Pope of the day was anything but friendly. And, in fact, the Pope of the day, despite guiding the Church to adopt a neutral stance as far as the war was concerned, worked against Hitler’s machinations and policies to a great extent. The concept of “Hitler’s Pope” is a myth.

Indeed, if Hitler had any Religion, it was Positive Christianity, a rather esoteric concoction that attempted to re-cast Christ as an Aryan champion and active opponent of Judaism — it is thus a historically indefensible parody of the Christian faith, and nothing more or less than an utter heresy. Other aspects of Naziism flirted with the occult, or with forms of paganism. And it must be noted, vis a vis my comment above about the Grand Mufti, that various Islamic officials also worked closely with Hitler, the Grand Mufti even going so far as to send troops to assist Hitler in his campaign against the Jews.

It may interest you to know that there are many more atheists and agnostics and other forms of unbelievers alive and well in the US than you have imagined. Some are in the closet because of statements like that of Bush Sr. They all pay their taxes, give to charities, hardly ever trip old ladies with canes and would really like to be recognized as first class citizens just as the theists.

I don’t deny the existence of moral, charitable atheists; good for them. And yet it remains the case that atheists — or, more broadly, secular folk — are about 3.8 times more likely to be incarcerated for crimes. It remains the case that while crime in America tends to be higher in “red” (read: Republican, stereotypically more Christian) states, the hotbeds of crime in those states tend to be “blue” (read: Democratic, stereotypically more secular) counties (see The Irrational Atheist for more and better detail on these figures).

But remember: nobody can take credit for simply abiding by the law. The law is the minimum standard — as Chris Rock might say, “you’re supposed to pay your taxes, motherfrakker! What do you want, a cookie?” And he might also say, “you’re supposed to not trip old ladies, motherfrakker!” Personally, I think Aspentroll is overstating when he bemoans the fact that atheists do not enjoy recognition as “first class citizens”; I know more than a few atheists personally who are models of their communities, and good people besides. But then, it’s not hard to be a model citizen; one need only obey the law, participate a bit in community events, and treat other community members with respect.

If it really is the case that atheists do not enjoy recognition as citizens in good standing in their communities, it is probably the case that many atheists fail on one or more of these metrics. This conclusion seems, at least, somewhat more probable than the alternative conclusion, that the lower standing of atheists is due solely to a massive theistic conspiracy.

Unless, perhaps, one is a paranoiac. But one cannot be a paranoiac and claim the “high ground” of reason, which atheists often do.

The facts on the ground seem persuasive: religious inclination promotes charitable actions, religious conservatives are more likely to donate to charities and to work in charitable organizations than are secular folk and/or progressives, and religious people are less likely to cheat on their spouses. That’s all stuff I’ve commented on in the past, and then just the stuff I found after a two-minute search. I’m sure, were I to comprehensively examine the archives, that I’d find many more such examples…but these will suffice to demonstrate the point being made: it’s great that some (many?) atheists are good folks and decent citizens…but so what? They’re still the exceptions, rather than the rule.

The biggest problem is that fundamentalists are taught in their churches to discount anyone who believes differently than they do.

This is often the case, yes, and I can only assure both Aspentroll, directly, and the good Reader, more generally, that I am just as much on the receiving end of evangelical exclusivity as any atheist. Being Catholic, the things that I say, and the things that I believe, are very often completely (or near-completely) discounted by the likes of fundamentalists.

But then, it should be noted that atheists are not guilty of doing the same thing. Aspentroll himself, in the writing which I responded too previously, specifically attempted to play the “atheism is reason/religion is delusion” card; is this not a form of automatically discounting “anyone who believes differently” than Aspentroll himself does? And can’t people — young and old alike — be taught to be exclusive in just this way?

Methinks the answer is a resounding “yes!”

This may be because Religion in the US is a big business and will do their utmost to hang on to their positions in church and government. Pat Robertson, Huccabee, Palin come to mind.

Actually, most fundamentalists do it for a far simpler reason that that they are all participants in a massive conspiracy to discount, and possibly disenfranchise, the godless. 2 Corinthians 2:14-18 reads thusly: “Do not be mismated with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Be’lial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.’”

So in “discounting” non-Christians, evangelicals are simply living out their interpretation of this teaching from St. Paul. Of course, their interpretation is incorrect in and of itself…but that’s not the point. The question that Aspentroll raised was one of motive, and this Biblical excerpt is at the heart of the motive of fundamentalists if they make any attempt to discount atheists or other non-Christians.

Now, I promised that we’d come to discuss Sarah Palin a bit more.

I just saw the videos of Sarah Palin being prayed over by the black Priest from Kenya who was attempting to protect her from being taken over by “witches”.

Please, if this is “the common sense” that comes from organized religion, then we have stepped back a century or two, wouldn’t you think?

We all have the right to worry if this twit makes it into government.

I fail to see the cause for worry. Yes, it’s damned odd that some priest from Kenya saw fit to pray that she be protected from witches (more on that in a moment), but why does that make her a twit? And why does it impact on her ability to govern, or to fill the office of Vice President of the United States? And why should we worry about it? It’s just the actions of one priest…he can hardly be said to be representative of Christianity as a global religion, nor of Sarah Palin’s faith, nor of her competence (or lack thereof) to govern.

As to the odd prayer for Palin’s preservation from witches, it should be observed that Christianity often absorbs regional customs, and what we’re seeing here is the result of a conflation of Christian religious tradition with some local Kenyan traditions, methinks. A lot of African tribal cultures still have strong beliefs about possession and witchcraft, as did the ancient Hebrews. That’s not a result of their Christian faith, for the most part; it’s a remnant of their pre-Christian cultural traditions, which has been partially grafted onto their Christian worship practices.

No, it’s not the most sensible thing in the world, good Reader…but give it a few centuries, and it also won’t be an issue any longer, methinks.

In all honesty, there are some Christians that make me cringe by what they do, or for the sometimes esoteric beliefs that they hold. Christians are capable of being “less than rational,” as surely as are all human beings. But methinks that Aspentroll is doing something again which I called him on once before: he would hardly be the first atheist to look at, say, oddities particular to one Christian denomination in an isolated region, and declare that all religions are weird and sub-rational as a result. That might come as news to the many educated, wise, rational, reasonable Christians in the world, but not everyone can be counted on to let facts get in the way of good rhetoric, especially if it sells books with provocative titles. And yet, a more reasonable, rational person would notice that there are many critical differences between, say, Christianity with local tribal influences and formal Catholicism.

And at the end of the day, for as weird as some Christians can be, atheists and other secular folk are still more likely to pursue pseudo-science and the paranormal. Indeed, if one wants to tie this back to the presidential race currently underway, one could reflect that while “36% of those belonging to the United Church of Christ, Sen. [Barack Hussein Obama]’s former denomination, expressed strong beliefs in the paranormal, only 14% of those belonging to the Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin’s former denomination, did. In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the respondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the possibility of communicating with people who are dead.”

I respectfully submit to Aspentroll that, if it is honestly his desire that the candidate most closely associated with “common sense” be elected, his vote should not go to the Obama end of the ticket come November.

I know you won’t post this, because it will not be in your best interest.

Sorry to disappoint, Aspentroll.

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.

After being branded as an anti-Semite and a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, former Liberal Party of Canada candidate Lesley Hughes is back in the news (or rather: back on the blogs) in an attempt to deny the claims made against her.

The Canadian Jewish Congress seems to have assumed that I am one of those who subscribe to a bizarre conspiracy theory that the world’s Jews were responsible for 9-11, a ludicrous idea I have never supported. As a result of the Congress’s assumption, I have been slandered as an odious anti-Semite, a claim accepted by the prime minister, by the leader of the opposition, and the nation’s media. I have also been labelled an extremist nutbar who has promoted, rather than investigated, the possibility that 9-11 was an inside job.

It should be noted that it was the Liberal Party itself which was the first to really label Hughes’ claims as anti-Semitic in nature, and who went to the CJC with them. Once that happened, the outcome was pretty much assuredly not going to be in Hughes’ favour.

Jay Currie, who basically broke and ran with this story, has this to add:

That said, it was not just a single article. You appeared with Troothers on a number of public occasions. Given that your name appears in the Troother’s publicity material it is a pretty clear that you have gone beyond the “just asking questions” stage. Something which, frankly, needed to be exposed to the voters of Kildonan-St. Paul.

There is a not-all-that-fine line between “investigating the possibility that 9-11 was an inside job” and bending/distorting extant facts to fit a narrative that assumes, from the get-go, that it was. Hughes’ writings fell, I think, into the latter category.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

Jay Currie has been busy, and deserves a ton of credit for breaking this story. Assists, as I understand it, go to Dr. Dawg and The Black Rod.

Briefly, what has transpired is this. Yesterday, Jay broke the story of Liberal Party of Canada candidate Lesley Hughes, who had for years been publishing Twin Towers conspiracy theories of an anti-Semitic nature on the internet. In one such writing, she asserted that Jewish businesses vacated the World Trade Centre in the days prior to the 2001 attacks.

(The “Jews were Warned!” meme is a fairly common one in the circles of those who insist that the most devastating act of Islamic terror perpetrated yet in North America was, in fact, an inside job or the work of the Israeli Mossad.)

Not twenty-four hours later, after initially defending his candidate and refusing to take action, Stephane Dion asked for, and received, her resignation from the electoral race in the Manitoba riding of Kildonan-St. Paul. This was a story that emerged, and was carried, almost entirely in the blogosphere — the mainstream media has been struggling to play catch-up.

And in a somewhat ironic twist, the Liberal Party’s “Team BC” website yesterday ran a story about an NDP candidate who is also a “troother” (e.g. a 9/11 conspiracy theorist), one Bev Collins by name.

Methinks that Jay has opened himself a rather large can of worms here. If you ever needed to see a quick demonstration of the power of the blogs, O Reader, look no further than this example.

Also: very sweet…I haven’t used the “Conspiracy nonsense” category in a while!

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

As the Reader may recall from last time, what had begun as a conversation about dinosaurs and whether or not they were mentioned in the Bible took a very wrong turn; the Young Earth Creationist with whom I was debating the point shifted gears and began to attack me on the basis of my Catholicism. I wish I could say that I was successful in returning us to the topic at hand, but as the following exchange demonstrates, I was anything but successful.