Neil's Approach To Science Apologetics...

 

This is an attempt to build my personal, hopefully cogent, approach to 'Science vs. The Bible'... or Creation v. Evolution... etc.  [See Worldview Toolkit for our common bin of apologetics thoughts, ideas, links.]

 

While this document is primarily intended for my personal reference and not at all for a debate here, I do welcome your (Bible-believing) inputs here, in the form of adding discussion bullets at the very bottom, or by adding your thoughts directly into my text if you'll color them uniquely.  To do so may sharpen my understanding or ability to concisely enunciate a biblically-reasonable approach to this important field of apologetics (IMHO).  So thanks in advance. *smile*

 

"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle. 

I believe in the latter."   Albert Einstein

 

Belief in miracles mean, first, the freedom of the soul, and, secondly, its control over the tyranny of circumstance.- G. K. Chesterton

 

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Humility, in light of a vast -- no, unlimited -- universe of knowledge... If we might be humble enough to be honest here, we would all readily admit that even COLLECTIVELY we ‘know’ only a fraction of the total information in the universe TODAY, would we not? Much less, the universe of all ages.  [Exception, suppositionally...  What if an all-knowing Creator somehow specially communicated knowledge to us?]

 

Evidence From The Bible... Would That Involve Circular Reasoning?  Some people may challenge you... "Why accept biblical evidence at all, anyway?  The only reason you think it's true is because it declares itself to be true. That's circular reasoning, isn't it?"   Let me say first of all, that there are other proofs for the Bible as well... which I find to be very compelling... such as tons of prophesies come true (read Isaiah 53 for instance)... the martyrdom of authors rather than recant their writings... and personal experience with the teachings therein, for more than 50 years now.  But back to the 'circular reasoning' charge:  Let me quickly point out that the alternative we're examining today... atheism/evolution... foundationally rely on circular reasoning as well.  That is, where did you get your sense of 'logic' anyway?  If you say it's a derivative of millions/billions of years of BigBang & evolution... then I would ask you, "How do you know that's true?"  And you would of course tell me that you have applied critical thinking skills to logically reason things out (based on whatever 'facts' you have available).  So it's logic-derived-from-BigBang, and the BigBang-verified-via-applied-logic.  Circular reasoning.

 

Conjecturing backwards in time has all sorts of foibles... Thus we would at the very least be very careful in our conjecturing backwards from observations today… about things back to the very beginning. Uniformitarianism is a dangerous over-extended assumption which cannot adequately be tested empirically -- it's an assumption taken only 'on faith'.  In fact, II Peter 3 tells us straightforwardly that it's an error made by 'scoffers'.  Conversely, only an omniscient being could have that complete perspective.

 

A fatally flawed objective:  There is no plausible (naturalistic) theory re the original spark... from nothing into something.  Scientists who only accept what they can empirically measure, by definition are pursuing a fatally flawed endeavor regarding 'the Big Bang' or any other explanation of creation... since empiricism is based on cause/effect... yet philosophically they're seeking to explain a first effect without a cause.  If you have no hope of describing the first 'instant' of time and space, how can empiricists be so adamant about what they think they ‘know’ about the rest of an ageless history past?

 

'Nature' is not eternal.  But something must be.  Empiricism is based on observations of cause/effect.  Thus by definition empiricism sees something... eg. the universe... and knows it has a cause... and also knows by definition that it cannot measure its own cause with its own 'rules' of nature.  The universe's cause by definition must be by something outside itself.  Something (or Someone) that has the power of eternal self-existence... ie, something defying our rules... something that created our rules, even.  Something that understands us while we cannot fully understand 'it' (or Him).

 

Naturalists have no 'standing', to bring a 'logical' case for Big Bang/ Evolution.   Within a court of law, before any other evidence can be offered to proceed with a case, the party pursuing the action must have legal 'standing'.  In this case though, those who would seek to present a naturalistic case would have to admit to a judge at the outset that they themselves are only an advanced-stage (and certainly unintelligent) 'spark' -- a product of 'randomness' and thus without ability to 'reason'.  Thus they lack legitimate 'standing'.  Eg., no animal -- much less an inanimate rock -- can bring a case into a court of evidence because it lacks the ability to reason to a legitimate conclusion.  Moreover, without 'meaning' in the universe, why would such a person even want to try to convince anyone of anything?

 

So tell me again why I should believe (most) ’scientists’ somehow know truth?  Surely we must limit our discussion to only include 'scientists' who assert that there IS meaning in the universe, and that they have somehow been 'specially' endowed with capacity to reason meaningful conclusions... ie, those who have been specially endowed with 'intelligence' from an 'intelligent source'... and not 'scientists' randomly grown in a cosmic petri-dish.

 

You can’t have it both ways — either we’re all unintelligent by definition… ie, we're simply products of 'randomness'... or there IS an omniscient intelligence who created us… with a sense of meaning... and who, alone, knows everything including history past. And who may, or may not, specially share that truth with us. And if so, btw, would it be 'intelligent' people who accepted His communication to us, or would it be 'unintelligent' people?  Point is, if you believe everything is 'random' then surely you'd have no basis to consider you're somehow more (or less) 'intelligent' than someone else.

 

'Written evidence left at the scene'… is something that any forensic scientist would take into consideration. Scripture asserts how the universe came into existence. And if we're willing to accept it plainly, it tells us how old it really is. Moreover, it self-validated by foretelling the future. [And it foretells your & my future.]

 

No such thing as 'random' even.  Read... "Take a chance.  Help me understand 'random'.

 

Theistic Evolution -- An Oxymoron.  My theistic evolutionist friends... if you believe in miracles, you cannot have your cake and eat it too.  By definition, miracles break the principle of uniformitarianism (upon which evolution's time measuring assumptions are all based).  Moreover, if you believe Jesus performed miracles, why cringe at the thought that God 'spoke' the world into existence?  Or that He caused a worldwide, cataclysmic flood?  You can’t have it both ways… either God can work miracles you can't explain... or He can't.  Theistic evolution can at best only be poor theism or poor evolution, or both.

 

Ex nihilo creation MUST result in created objects which appear to be older than they truly were.  If trees were 'poofed' into being, how many rings did they have?  How old did the rocks appear to be?  How old did Adam appear to be, scientifically-measured?  Therefore, a professing Christian who agrees God created something from nothing MUST conclude that everything He created is truly 'younger' than it appears to be.

 

So did God 'trick us'? That's a foolish question, given that He told us outright.  Fact is, He told us point-blank that he poofed the trees into existence.  And mankind.  He enumerated the series of begats.  Jesus himself validated that Adam & Eve were 'at the beginning' (thus not having evolved closer historically to Jesus' time than the beginning).  So did He trick us?  Of course not.  Scripture asserts the miraculous cover-to-cover throughout its pages.  Of course He's operating outside 'natural laws' (our understanding) and outside of our logical conclusions.  His ways are much higher than our ways, and his thoughts much higher than our thoughts.  To say otherwise is to reject His Divine Kingship and fly in His face.  According to the Bible, this is exactly the sort of behavior of those who will face eternal wrath following His righteous judgment someday.

 

That being said, I totally believe in a young earth, based on scripture.  Scripture not only is filled with chapters upon chapters of wildly miraculous accounts, scripture itself claims (and I believe it) to be miraculously created, and offers self-validation via prophesies fulfilled, martyrdom and personal testimonies in lives today.  This special revelation from the Almighty is the best 'evidence' we have for history past, present day understandings, and promises about the future -- notably our continued future with the Almighty, eternally.

 

For a believer to try to read evolution into the Bible (eg. days=eons) is to introduce a whole new set of logical issues.  For instance, what will you do with the sequence of creation?  Remember, scripture says that the earth was light was created before light-emitting objects; earth before the stars, plants before the sun & other terrestrial objects.  Point is, what shall we think of God's very careful delineation of sequenced days?  Moreover, death -- according to Jesus -- came via one man (Adam); without death there would have been vast amounts of life present in Adam's day... Yet the Bible says that Adam was lonely in the garden.  And how does one reconcile no-death with a survival-of-the-fittest evolutionary mindset?  Where are all the logically-vast amounts of transitional forms?  How to explain inanimate becoming animate?  Unisex to male/female reproduction?  Moreover, what shall we think of Jesus explicitly telling us Adam & Eve were made male and female 'at the beginning' ?  [Not to mention, now the question of Jesus 'tricking us'... is asked of you.  Was He tricking His listeners, or indeed did He/God create Adam & Eve as scripture tells us?]  Further, if we read Jesus as an historical person... and go backward through the historical 'begats' from Christ back to King David... and continue backwards reading literally, which 'begat' in Genesis shall we then start reading only as 'allegory'?  Doing so opens Pandora's theological box -- any of us can change anything to mean anything -- and plain reading can't be trusted.  I assert the opposite -- God's seemingly-plain writing is all-sufficient. 

 

Hermaneutics... If we lay aside any motivations to make scripture say what WE want it to say, it reads very easily in terms we all understand (if we want to)… evening, morning, day, year, etc. Plain hermaneutics yield a pretty compact conclusion that the earth is less than 10,000 years old.   

 

Genesis is not the only wildly-miraculous portion of the Bible — it’s only the beginning. I also believe Exodus, taken at face-value. Also Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, etc… all the way through a New Testament filled with wildly-miraculous events.

 

The wildest miracle of all... In the final analysis, despite all the weight of evidence logically opposed to it, I believe what scripture says about loving me enough to die to pay the liability for my sins. Go figure.

 

Non-miraculous = Non-theistic... To limit our understanding of reality to ONLY empirical evidences is to limit ourselves to a non-theistic existence.  And trust me, you wouldn't want that -- it's the stuff that hell is made of.

 

Lack of viable alternatives... No one has posited a reasonable theory about sparking nothing into the first something. Nor have they ably explained away Isaiah (and so many others) foretelling of a merciful suffering Messiah… 700 years in advance. Nor why eye-witnesses of Christ (& his miracles & resurrection) would suffer martyrdom rather than recant their stories.  Seems to me the ‘intelligent’ thing to do would have been to roll-over and come clean. Unless of course, they feared God rather than man.

 

And finally... Re the ‘trickster’… Perhaps there is something that needs to be said here that’s not yet been said out loud.

 

[I realize that those of you who haven’t actually read the Bible are at a disadvantage. Otherwise, you’d know there are many more avenues you could pursue, like the following. But I’ll help you for a moment…]

 

Perhaps like a kindly ‘magician’ who’s not REALLY trying to get you to go home and saw your little brother in half; instead, he’s challenging you to perceive truth from him. Similarly people in Jesus’ day asked why He so often spoke in parables instead of just telling them plainly. Here’s his answer from Matthew 13…

He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables:

 

“Though seeing, they do not see;

though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

” ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;

you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.

For this people’s heart has become calloused;

they hardly hear with their ears,

and they have closed their eyes.

Otherwise they might see with their eyes,

hear with their ears,

understand with their hearts

and turn, and I would heal them.

*******

Be a little humble for a moment, for your own sake, and ask yourself… which group are you in? Which group would you like to be in? What’s keeping you out, really? And who are you arguing with, anyway?

 

 

 

'EVOLUTION' tags.

 

 

 

 

Discussion points:

• Note:  The above has been long overdue -- I've thought of doing it a million times, but didn't hit the NEW PAGE button until today, after finding myself commenting yet again at other sites -- in this case, at the lengthy discussion on World Mag Blog re Young Earth Creationism.  [Neil]
• All scientific theory is based on an hypothesis.  An hypothesis as defined by the lead scientist on the Manhatten Project and noble winning phycisist, Richard Feynman, is nothing more than "a guess".  Any assertion made by a scientist setting out to establish a body of evidence leading to the formation of a  theory begins with an hypothesis, a guess.  That guess can be wrong.  [M. Reed]
• The imprecise use of language can alter our perception of scientific discovery and theory, creating its own bias, eliminating scientific impartiality. G. K. Chesterton notes an example of this modern (leading to postmodern) verbal and written transposition by demonstrating the use of the word spiritual for the word good: "The greatest disaster of the 19th century was this: that men began to use the word "spiritual" for the word "good".  They thought that, to grow in refinement and uncorporeality, was to grow in virtue.  When scientific evolution was announced, some feared that it would encourage mere animality.  It did worse: it encouraged mere spirituality.  It taught men to think that, so long as they were passing from the ape, they were going to the angel.  But you can pass from the ape and go to the devil."  What Chesterton means in connection with people favoring the argument for evolution is that this favoritism often is based  on how society has conveyed its approval for evolution over creation through the mis-connotation of words, rather than a decision to accept evolution over creation based on critical thinking.  [M. Reed]
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• Humorous anecdote from Ken Ham... "A man came to me after a seminar and said, ‘Actually, I’m an atheist. Because I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in absolutes, so I recognize that I can’t even be sure of reality.’ I responded, ‘Then how do you know you’re really here making this statement?’ ‘Good point,’ he replied. ‘What point?’ I asked. The man looked at me, smiled, and said, ‘Maybe I should go home.’ I stated, ‘Maybe it won’t be there.’ ‘Good point,’ the man said. ‘What point?’ I replied.   This man certainly got the message. If there is no God, ultimately, philosophically, how can one talk about reality? How can one even rationally believe that there is such a thing as truth, let alone decide what it is?"
• Ken Ham's approach to debates... "We have the same facts -- we just interpret them differently."
• Ken Ham's "New Answers Book"... an online book (as well as 'in print').
• Just for fun... "A One-Bit Theory of the Universe" (by who else?  LOL)

   

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